Housecat please. I think I’ve really upped my goodness in this life and can hopefully have a calm, warm, cozy environment to exist in next time.

I feel like I have a lot of every day weird things happen to me, but nothing paranormal or otherwise. Bystander effect is probably the weirdest thing there really is.

But I think the weirdest thing that happened to me was having a seizure. I’d fainted plenty plenty plenty of times in the past, and from my perspective initially, this one was no different. I was exhausted and way overheated after the last leg of a hike, but I was pushing myself because my then-partner had left me on account of being frustrated by my slow speed. He’d gone ahead to finish the remainder of the hike on his own.

So I got to the top and was huffin and puffin and just struggling to breathe. Leaned over a railing to take some effort off of standing and zoop everything went white and then it was all gone.

I woke up on the ground, surrounded by a few different people I didn’t know and sweaty as fuck. I remember talking about how hot I was and apologizing to the others for being so sweaty, but I don’t imagine the words actually came out of my mouth like I thought they might. I was kinda in and out for a little bit, but finally came all the way to and was so sore and so confused.

Turns out it was a full tonic clonic seizure caused by a blood clot getting into my spinal cord because the meat between the ventricals in my heart had burst and ripped open, allowing blood flow to go the wrong way.

Turns out I had a hell of a lot more going on than just being “out of breath” and I’ll always hold a little bit of resentment for my partner just taking off on me. That seizure was the wake up call to bite the financial bullet (yay america) and see a real doctor about the problems I was having. And then lo and behold, I was in the ICU for two months after finally seeing a doctor.

Was it packed? I’m so happy it’s finally open

Oh nice! Was it a good concert?

The perspective in this makes you look like a giant

Legitimately, the biggest thing that helped me was to join an RPG group. For me it was D&D. It made just talking to random people way easier, and I made a ton of friends throughout the years. Granted, I play exclusively online and join random games now and again, so I always have a new batch of people to talk to.

Otherwise, ask questions. Not boring, “how’s the weather” / “how are you” questions. But questions like “do you have any pets” or “do you have a favorite place/restaurant/hike/bookstore in the area”. Personal ish questions. People like to talk about their favorites or their things or their pets.

Also, mirroring questions. If someone asks you about your pets, asking them back is a good way to keep a conversation flowing, so I’ve found.

17 years ago. That is over half my lifetime, good god.

John Williams Acapella

CHEEZITS!!!

I love the idea of 13 months in a year with leap days here and there to make it so days don’t fall on the same days of the week. As much as that could be nice for planning stuff, I agree that people should have the chance for their birthdays and other celebrations to fall on weekends.

My radical thinking is that we keep the first 12 months as close to what they already are and the 13th month is just a big holiday. Kinda how England seems to treat August. And while we’re at it, let’s change working expectations to be no more than 32 hours a week

An electric eel is not an eel.
A mountain goat is not a goat.
A maned wolf is not a wolf.
A mountain chicken is not a chicken.

Also, there is an animal called the Headless Chicken Fish.

As a GIS tech, there’s one missing - the laptop next to an ultrawide. Optional normal monitor to the side :P

But yes, as a former weather forecaster, the 4 in a square is insane and unfortunately it was necessary on bad weather days. At one of my locations, we also had the PC hooked up to a television running behind us and had a separate real time data monitor to the side. So… Yeah.