Our school got an acting principal mid year because our principal got promoted to a district position in December. The temp principal stated that she was merely going to keep the school afloat and change nothing. That was a bold faced lie. First, she demanded the school librarian to inventory any and all books considered LGBTQ for removal, then proceeded to ignore any and every concern I emailed about. This person drove a Jeep with thin blue line stickers and the name of her car in bold was OLD GLORY. It had AR 15 magnets attached. Every red flag sticker you can think of was prominently displayed on her vehicle for the world to see. There was mandatory standing and saying the pledge and it was enforced at every single assembly. It was a fascist nightmare. It made no difference to my union or the district office that put her there in the first place. Just making it through the semester was a feat. Now we have a new principal coming in the fall and I can only hope that things will get better. I have to believe that things will get better.

How anything I’m wanting or trying to do is for me the only way any of it benefits me is the gilt of hurting you and doing what I can to correct the best I can right now that is it well and also to get to spend some time with you but I’m not doing any of this for me and I may have miss understood something here
What I understood was that I hurt you badly and that you felt that I had done so and left you to deal with the aftermath alone so that is in the past I have apologized to you about if and you still bring it up so that tells me that you expect me to somehow fix it or correct it well we know I can’t fix it so the only other thing to do is to do what I can to correct it and would you please tell what ever his name is I don’t need his input you can speak for yourself and if you don’t want to then we can just leave things as they are I’m not being a jerk but I’m at this fucking site and I’m frustrated cause I keep trying to do right by you and some how it gets messed up and you bet up set or disappointed and as do I and I don’t want to pop off at the mouth and I know he has been there for you and so on and so on but me and you had something together that don’t include him right now and I know me that I will say some stupid shit and I may not know where you stay but I know somewhat where and it is a small town Amy way I’m not trying to do all that shit I just want to do what I can so you feel good about everything and me as well that we can look back and say yes we tried I didn’t work and we both know that we both made mistakes but we were mature enough to do our best to leave on good term and no one has to here anyone run the other one down that’s all if you don’t need or want that then we good but I feel that I owe you at lest that much to be able to look back and have great thoughts not about me but about yourself that you do have good taste in people and that you make them want to be better and do better I don’t want what I have done to you with my shortcomings have you thinking or feeling negative about your choices and the chances you gave me I want to honor you and how you see the good in people I hope that all makes sense to you

My wife Shanda is a nurse who has been fired from four hospitals for stealing and consuming patients prescribed narcotics. She has had her nursing license on probation 2 times. Addiction is only one of her flaws. She has been with her husband for 18 years, married for 11. In October of 2022 they went away for the weekend to celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary. After returning from their trip, Shanda wasted little time by starting an affair with a co-worker just 2 days later. She had laid the ground work for this affair before leaving town. This winner she cheated on her husband with, is 7 years older than her (50 years old). He is also married, actually been married 3 times. He is also a nurse. She confided or should I say spread lies to her coworker about her husband to gain sympathy and attention from him. She also told him all of her husbands business and secrets. A little bit abour her husband. They have 3 children 17, 7 and 5 years old. Her husband workes 80 hours a week to ensure that Shanda could buy anything and everything she wanted. He loved her deeply, and tolerated everything she threw at him. Fast forward to 11/29/23. the affair had picked up steam, she spent less and less time at home and taking care of their children. She was 6 weeks in and played her wife role to ensure her husband did not suspect anything. A week prior, her husband was starting to notice weird things like changing passwords, less communication from her on a daily basis and she had become increasing guarded of her phone and spending more time than she ever have had on her social media accounts. Her husband finally had an opportunity on 11/29 when she left her phone upstairs and he grabbed it went straight to recently deleted messages and there they were 490 text messages that chronicled everything, the entire evolution of their affair. By the first week of November they were full blown sexting. She became enraged and assaulted him, saying she didn't love him anymore and didn't want to be with him. He was beyond hurt, he sacrificed his own happiness for years for her. December and January were brutual, she continued to cheat after telling him and the 17 year old daughter that she was sorry, used bad judgement and was going to focus on repairing their marriage. Her treatment of her husband was absolutely disgusting, she would assault him, broke his Imac twice, the 2nd time she hit him over the head with it. She's the one that caused all of this and she felt she had the right to take out her anger on him because he caught her. She had opened up 3 different snapchat accounts because this was her preferred way to communicate with her affair partner. Her husband had been documenting all of her violence and continued to stand by her hoping she would realize how her actions were destroying him and their children. Most of the arguing and fighting took place in front of the 7 and 5 year olds. By January she was openly cheating in the face of her husband. January 23, 2023, her husband had found a way to have her text messages sent to his phone, that evening she gets home from work, he pours his heart out to her, begging her to stop her affair and recommit to her family. While he is doing this she is texting affair guy lies about her husband, he is telling her how much fun the day before with her was and how he is divorcing his wife and wants her to refinance his house with her, she responds with I need to make plans to leave him and spend the rest of my life with you. The whole time her husband is reading this exchange in real time, he puts his phone down but didn't close out the messaging app, Shanda notices this because the last text sent from her was a blowing kiss emoji. I forgot to mention that in the middle of January her husband got into her snapchat account and found a message from her to him where she proclaimed her love for him. In the beginning of January she was busted by her nurse probation case manager for failing a drug test which resulted in an addtional year tacked on to her probation and mandatory outpatient rehab for 30 days. Anyways after she noticed his phone she got pissed and chased him around the house trying to get his phone from him, grabbing his car keys to prevent him from leaving the house. He shouted for her to stop and not in front of the kids, put the kids to bed and i'll give you my phone he said, but she wouldn't stop. Finally, he grabbed her to get his key from her, he leaves she calls the cops, he is arrested and put in jail for domestic assault. She gets him out the next day, he notices that while he was in jail she spent most of her time on the phone with her affair friend. She tells her husband that she will go to court and not press charges, that was a lie, and on Feb. 3, 2023 she files for divorce telling her husband she was going to have the charges dropped, he knew she was lying because he put a gps tracker in her car and new she as at a divorce lawyers office. February she claimed to have ended her affair, but really it was her lawyer telling her to be more careful with her affair till this is over. Her husband, is devasted by this, but vows to get her to change her mind. she at one point tells him she will stop the divorce and another time says she will pause the divorce to attempt reconciliation. Both these times were straight lies. By this time she is telling her husband "why are you here? No one here cares about you". She became very emotionally abusive after filing for divorce. So much so her husband contemplated taking his own life and actually staged an event to make it look like he was trying, that all backfired though. Then came March 29th, this was the anniversary of their first date, her husband comes home for work, he notices she has regular clothes on and not pajamas, she always changes into pajamas. She starts an argument on purpose for an excuse to leave and stay the night at her moms house. She leaves, he can't sleep at around 3:30am, he has a funny feeling, looks a her email and notices a hotel receipt from 12:21am that morning. He jumps in the car and races to the hotel, sure enough their is her car in the parking lot of a neighboring hotel and their is his car in the hotel parking lot that matches the reciept. Her husband calls the hotel and asks to be transferred to her room, no answer, he goes in the hotel and asks the front desk to try again, no answer, tries one more time. This time someone picks up but says nothing, he cries to her on the phone asking why? He returns to his car and now can tell what room they are in, he waits, 30 minutes later the punk ass 50 yr old walks out of the hotel and to his car, her husband just stares at him, he drives off. Hours later, she returns home packs a bunch of clothes and moves out to stay with her mom. 3 weeks later her husband has to appear in court for the charge, her divorce lawyer shows up and has the case prolonged for 2 more months. She appears to feel bad and returns home but says no affection or sex and she will let him know if she feels anything. Back up to her moving out, her affair friend started sending text messages to her husband threatening him and bringing up things only his wife knew about him, he crossed the line when the affair guy brought up his daughter's name. By this time it wasn't enough to for her to fuck another man and tell her how much she loves him, she had to mentally torment him and talk of their children to this low life piece of shit. Now here we are in May, he tries to give her a good mother;s day and she insults him. Four days later, here comes the phone call from CPS. They interview all 3 children and Shanda and her husband, now this has gotten way out of hand, he plans to comply with CPS, Shanda has no plans to comply, that is where we are at right now. She is a cheating whore who never had the balls to tell her husband that she was unhappy before spreading her legs for someone else. She has mentally destroyed her husband and their kids, she never has shown a bit of remorse, she is looking for an apartment because their house will have to be sold because her husband cannot afford it by himself. The kids will have to lose their house and change schools. Her husband is in financial turmoil and he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She never put one ounce of energy into saving their marriage and has never apologized for the things she has done. Mediation is not scheduled till July 22nd, so this is far from over, who knows what the hell will happen next. This is a great example of how one person can destroy another persons life and makes you question if you even know your own wife. I will surely post updates as this seems to be far from over. I apologize for this post being in the 3rd person.

This is going to be one of my more serious, long posts, so strap in, as they say (though I cannot possibly detail out everything you might need to know. That would require at least three posts). To quote -- and set the stage through -- Dostoevsky (from Notes from Underground):
'Is it [history] many-coloured? May be it is many-coloured, too: if one takes the dress uniforms, military and civilian, of all peoples in all ages--that alone is worth something, and if you take the undress uniforms you will never get to the end of it; no historian would be equal to the job. Is it monotonous? May be it's monotonous too: it's fighting and fighting; they are fighting now, they fought first and they fought last--you will admit, that it is almost too monotonous.
In short, one may say anything about the history of the world--anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational. The very word sticks in one's throat. And, indeed, this is the odd thing that is continually happening: there are continually turning up in life moral and rational persons, sages and lovers of humanity who make it their object to live all their lives as morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbours simply in order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally in this world. And yet we all know that those very people sooner or later have been false to themselves, playing some queer trick, often a most unseemly one.
Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself--as though that were so necessary--that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar.'
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I would only add that he was rather harsh on the soldier and his general. Many-coloured, is he! The eternal shine of the ten million blades, the wooden hilt; the forgotten hammer, the ships of our forefathers. Ah! Such a pity to see nought in it but blood and sand -- now, that is monotonous. If man is to mean anything at all, it must be finding some honour in life... and death. War, it must be known, is the great stage-play of time. Surely, then, the warrior is the greatest (male) part to play? Otherwise, it's all for nought!
If you're going to, as the author, gift your setting a military and its honour, you have to actually put yourself inside the mind of the general, the trooper, the law-maker, the wife at home, the child in the street; otherwise, it's going to be a hollowed-out system, a mere mote. It does not matter to me if you believe in war or not, or if all war is just (certainly, it's not): what matters is that you do your setting and peoples justice, regardless of what they may find themselves. After all, this is your job as the writer, as the artist. It's your job to let your characters and their stories free, and follow them, as to see where they may lead.
I'm not even going to dig into the elements at play, such as brotherhood, inter-national conflict resolution, national defence, social structure, and physical fitness. These elements ought to be known to you all: they are some of the clear benefits to warfare and boot camp/training, in general. I have not yet found a defeatist army, for example -- or yet a nation without some kind of guarder force, vast or not. (Note: there are some claims that actual warfare did not exist until around 9,000 BC, but I find this very difficult to believe, and have seen some counter-evidence. For example, Jane Goodall and de Waal find that chimps go to war (raiding parties, sometimes wiping out entire tribes); and there are strong indications that pre-historic human tribes were war-driven, just on smaller scales, and often using wooden weapons (thus, no direct evidence is found). We know that modern hunting (and fire-making, and related matters) existed at least 1.5-2 million years ago, according to the books I own and more recent research. That's the entire history of humanity, ultimately. There is no way these spears and slings were not used against man.)
Well, a big part of space opera is, indeed, warfare (typically in relation to defence of the Good [nation] and psychomachy). Anyway, without further ado, I give to you...
Part One: A Brief History of Battles, Great and Small
Let's begin with Alexander the Great, because why not (though I could have started with Sargon of Akkad many years prior). Alexander's army was a powerful, fast-moving, and relatively small force of 40,000 men (equal to a Napoleonic corps or so). Often credited with inventing genius 'shock' tactics (the so-called hammer and anvil tactic) to overwhelm equally-sized forces. He even managed to break up, and then defeat, the vast Persian army under King Darius III (around 1500,000 strong). Alexander the Great's army is as close to the cinematic glory of 300 (2006) as you're likely to find. Soon after, Alexander was crowned King of Asia in a lavish ceremony.
Moving forward a few hundred years, at its peak, the Roman military possibly had over 500,000 soldiers across its regions (around 0.5% of citizens -- which is a fairly reliable standard across history) by 306 AD during the reign of Constantine I. Compare this to the Roman conquest of Britain under Plautius, with just a 40,000-man force (four legions and 20,000 auxiliary troops, including Thracians) in 43 AD. (It's also worth mentioning, if you're in a long-term space war, individual companies, legions, or otherwise could stay outfitted for as long as 500 years at a time without issue. The Roman Legion, Legio IX Hispana, for example, existed for at least 150 years, and led the conquest of Britain. And, within the Warhammer 40,000 universes, a single Space Marine sees battle for about 400 years before he's KIA (killed in action).)
During the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD, each side only had upwards of 5,000-8,000 men (around 15,000 in total). This was actually a common trend, from what I found: equally common was the notion of 'law of war' and related, which meant that each side wanted to be roughly equal to the other side. This is one of the most profound discoveries of my life (more on this later). (The Japanese invasion of China, for example, taught me that having too much control over your enemy leads to madness -- there must be an innate drive to some sense of honour, fair challenge in war-making. When men are without equals, they become titans, as it were. And, if you know anything about some of the Greek titans: they were not very friendly or sane.)
Around this time (960-1279 AD), the Song Dynasty of China had a remarkable standing army of over two million men, and made use of tank-like carts and newly-invented 'grandes' (known as 'thunder crash bombs'). However, this was financially exhausting, but it was sometimes capable of fighting against invading Khitans, Jurchens, and Mongols, largely thanks to the great iron industry. Individual battles, however, were quite small.
By the time of the First Italian War (1494 AD), Europe was really starting to take its modern shape, and there were hundreds of what are ultimately power struggle wars and rebellions across Europe as we moved out of the Middle Ages. This was the opening phase of the Italian Wars, which existed between 1494 and 1559 AD. The Battle of Marignano was the last major engagement of the War of the League of Cambrai (aka the wars between 1508 and 1516 AD, within the Italian Wars. The main participants were the French, Papal States, and Republic of Venice) and took place in 1515 AD, southeast of Milan. The Battle of Marignano pitted the French army, led by Francis I and the best heavy cavalry and artillery in Europe, against the Old Swiss Confederacy (within the Holy Roman Empire -- this was the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland), whose mercenaries until that point were regarded as the best medieval infantry force in Europe. The French had German landsknechts (mercenaries famed for pike and shot formations) on their side. The French won and suffered just half the losses, and did so with a fairly stronger force -- possibly 35,000 men compared to 22,000 on the Swiss side. This led to the Treaty of Fribourg, which established the 'Perpetual Peace', and ensured good relations between the two nations for nearly 200 years. This event is largely what led to Switzerland's world-famous diplomatic autonomy and militaristic neutrality. Nonetheless, this battle -- and countless others at the time -- saw similar numbers to centuries past: roughly 20,000 on each side.
Part Two: An Introduction to Military Divisions & the Numbering System
Enter Maurice de Saxe circa 1710 AD, whom you can thank, at least in part, for the modern military system, largely due to the major increase in soldiers by the 18th century, and his advanced thinking in response. A major battle felt by a young de Saxe was the Battle of Malplaquet during the War of the Spanish Succession. Battles pressed on in this manner, and at some point, de Saxe began to write about it. He wrote Mes Reveries, a profound work on the art of war, which was published after his death in 1757 AD.
He had the grand idea of reshaping the regiment system into large 'legions' (modern divisions), so that the effective officers were not wasted on smaller, single regiments. These divisions would consist of four regiments and would have a more even mix of veteran soldiers and new recruits, as well. On top of this, he -- along with some other key theorists at the time -- had the idea of simply numbering the divisions and regiments, replacing the traditional system of naming them by their commanders or by locations/regions: because that's a very temporary, rigid system that only works for small, tight-knit groups. The divisional system also allowed soldiers to climb the ranks, and effectively learn from the veterans.
The regimental system shatters command structure and weakens mobility, despite the fact you have smaller, often lighter units. Too many small, separate, disorganised units is highly ineffective when you're dealing with large armies, and quite an advanced enemy (be it the British or Prussians, in this case). What de Saxe noticed was a failing system of rigid tradition. He also hated this sort of grenadier mentality of the 17th and 18th centuries, as it displaced all the strongest and most experienced soldiers. Of course, de Saxe was not against the existence of grenadiers: the strongest soldiers, leading the assaults, such as storming fortifications. He simply wanted to evenly spread them out across all the regiments, and legions, so that every single unit was an effective tool. (This grenadier concept actually survives to this day, as a grenade launcher specialist of a typical four-man fireteam (traditionally, sharing much in common with WWII-era shock troops), and you see it all the time in movies, where he is still typically the biggest, strongest of the team.)
Battles were increasingly crossing the 100,000 mark in terms of soldier count; whereas, not long ago (that is, around 1650 AD), the numbers were more likely in the range of 20,000 for most battles, other than a few outliers.
Then, de Saxe died before he had the opportunity to actually implement his system, though the Duke de Broglie led some successful experiments with it during the Seven Years War, but it took until the French Revolution for the 'division' concept to be enforced, systematically. This ultimately fell at the hands of the French Revolutionary Army.
Enter Lazare Carnot. Like de Saxe, Carnot saw that some regiments were full of veterans, whilst others -- namely, the new revolutionary brigades -- were filled with barely-trained recruits. And, like de Saxe, his solution was to separate out the veterans and embed them within these new brigades. More importantly, he embraced de Saxe's idea of the 'division'. The new demi-brigades (regiments, as the Revolutionary Government hated and removed the term regiment) would be combined into brigades, and brigades would be combined into divisions. Later, under Napoleon, divisions themselves were combined into corps (which is and has always been the highest level of operational units for actual combat, with all units larger than corps being purely administrative, with a clear exception being Napoleon's Armee (i.e. modern field army), and a few other, smaller army groups).
This wonderfully created an intermediate level of control between the general and the brigade commanders. The Revolutionary Army became at once an army of mass and mobility. This allowed the army to move faster and more decisively than their enemies, who were still commanding at regiment or brigade level.
Full implementation of the divisional system was not realised until the French Revolutionary Government, in their centralising and anti-aristocratic ways, when they decided to entirely remove the old system of naming regiments after their commanders. They saw all of this as part of the 'ancien regime' (i.e. 'the System' or 'old system', language also used by Hitler in relation to what he called the 'Weimar Republic'. Not uncommon language from any new system). The second factor at play was that the French Revolutionary Government also didn't like the idea of merely naming regiments after regions of France. The final factor was scale: the Army was larger than ever, which made it very difficult to give specific names.
As a result, the Government began numbering their units by the late-1700s. Although the Roman legions themselves had been numbered, and de Saxe argued for it many years prior, some scholars believe that this was purely an administrative decision. (Obviously, your naming convention can be more on the religious/traditional or seculamodern side, depending on just how the entire system is set up. Warhammer 40,000 is a good example of a more Roman-inspired system, despite its far-future nature, so it's not uncommon to find very traditional, religious naming conventions within Warhammer 40,000, coupled with simple, administrative systems. And, again: Nazi Germany and other 20th-century powers, such as America and England, also shifted towards numbered and/or lettered systems for pretty much everything. Not shockingly, this is heavily featured in sci-fi, as well.)
Part Three: Napoleon & the Birth of Modern War:
Although the concepts of the 'corps' and 'battalion carre' (that is, four corps) existed, they were also not implemented until the time of Napoleon in the early-1800s. He began grouping divisions into corps, making the largest units in history -- equal to entire armies of older periods (three divisions and some cavalry regiments, for upwards of 30,000 men). He commanded dozens of these corps (I think, around 20 of them for his Grande Armee when he invaded Russia in 1812 AD -- or, 500,000-600,000 men, equal to the entire core Roman military at the height of its power).
Napoleon's genius -- despite his supreme failure to invade Russia -- was ensuring that these corps were typically independent fighting units. This meant they were self-sufficient armies unto themselves. This allowed for a vast force, without the whole system becoming sluggish and disorganised. Of course, as with Alexander the Great before him, this ultimately led to major decentralization and failure once the leader is defeated; thus, without a singular ruler, and without endless success, the entire system breaks down (unless there is something else binding them).
Nonetheless, by now, all the European powers had adopted the divisional system. The first British divisions were established by Arthur Wellesley in 1809 AD, for example. The Napoleonic corps system then became standardised, as well.
On the other hand -- and other side of the world -- the U.S. had its own 'legion', wholly separate from the European divisional evolution. They were independent units for the western wilderness, not sub-elements of a larger army. The U.S. finally adopted a more European system by WWI, however. (Mostly because the U.S. was simply not a large enough force yet, though it did have some major battles and unit examples.)
Regardless, the primary building block for all was still the regiment or division. This remained true through WWII and beyond.
Part Four: The Four Spatial Forms of Sci-fi
I shall skip modern history, because it's -- shockingly -- not much different to older history. This further tells me that there are some universal themes and elements to warfare, unless something changes beyond measure. As of 2023 AD, the basic building block of most armies is still the regiment or division, and 'shock' tactics, of smaller units are back in style, and have been since the 1960s or so. (I do have a few things to say about WWI and beyond, but I cannot fit it in this post, and it's not required reading.)
Technically, there is a fifth: space warfare proper (an admixture). But, we shall simply focus on the four primary. I use the term 'spatial forms' because I don't know a better term. See below.

• Space as an ocean (navy propeoceanic)
• Spaceships as submarines (navy/subaquatic)
• Spaceships as tanks (army/ground)
• Space as air with less stuff (air force/air)

You find, and should focus on, one of these as the primary mode (at least). This is true in most combative and non-combative contexts. All are workable and interesting, and have some notable examples, mostly in film/TV and novels. There is much psychology connected to each, and some innate differences to consider; and you have to think about such in relation to your nation/culture, as well, and their pre-spacefaring history.
An interesting, real-world example is America's Space Force. This is fundamentally army-and-naval driven (i.e. Marines), despite its primary air force-like nature in simple terms of the vessels and how it would function in a war. This is evidenced by the fact its ranking system and such is built around the Marine Corps. I guess, that means, going with American Marines (a complex admixture of both soldier and sailor) is not such a bad idea in sci-fi. We all know this is a decent idea, anyway, and it's seen heavily in sci-fi since the 1940s (hence, the term 'space marine'). Other marine forces are fairly in line with this, as well. The typical route here is space as an ocean. The ships are merely carrying the marines to their location (planet or otherwise). You see this with Star Wars' Stormtroopers (though I did not mention such above, I shall now: this stems from late-WWI when Germany created new advanced tactics for storming British trenches. But, most of all, it speaks to Hitler's Stormtroopers, fused with some kind of space marine position; thus, we end up with Lucas' forgetting Stormtrooper force). (Of course, the Rebels of Star Wars and the Empire's TIE Fighters go with the space as air with less stuff trope. And, there is a general sense of both army and navy from the Empire. You rarely get the 'submarine feel', in this case.)
Star Trek (at least, the original) takes the spaceships as submarines trope much of the time (other than the fact, their ships are far too wasteful, volume-wise -- but that's mostly for filming purposes, so I can accept it). I actually love this mode (though I don't care for Star Trek's version so much).
Battlestar Galactica (new series), among others, seems to take a mixed view.
Which form or mode you run with, primarily, really depends upon the exact setting, culture, story, theme, and style you're going with. I suggest figuring out which you want/which fits best, and then trying to stick to that singular vision as much as possible. To get ideas, you can research as much as possible -- both real science/history and fiction.

Affair (A) started on 19th of march and lasted 5 days. The AP (affair partner) was a mutual friend of ours and came to me 1 month later with a guilty conscience but played victim saying that she was drunk and now ex bf told her we had broken up (he did but she continued with him even when sober) we broke up after he had become distant with me due to mental health problems (this was during the affair but i didn't know about it) and then we reconciled because he decided that I'm not worth losing even if he's not in a good place mentally and i agreed because i said we're a team and we'll get through it together and I'll support him in every way i can.
For context, we had been dating for over a year and intended on getting married/having kids and we're very serious and talked about it a lot.
During the break up i went to AP (not knowing she was an AP) for comfort and advice as she had also just gone through a break up. I was very hurt by the break up because i felt like i couldn't trust that he stay with me when things get rough but he promised he'd work on himself and get therapy and have even better communication. We started again and things were great and better than ever, but 1 month later in May, AP came to me about the A but when I asked for details wouldn't give it to me, it was an EA that lasted 5 days and this when when he was distant and we broke up.
He has a habit of monkey branching between relationships and when our relationship started one month after he had an A with another mutual friend who didn't know we were talking at the time because we weren't official at that point, but he broke up with me 1 day after the affair so that he can be with her but after she dumped him, he came back to me 3 hours later and said he missed me and we got back together. I found out about both these A's on the same day.
Apparently he didn't mean to cheat he genuinely thought we had broken up even though we had broken up after the A but he said that he thought there was another conversation before that but he can't find it and he says that looking back it was definitely cheating and he said hell be better and is starting therapy now and it was because of his depression and he didn't tell me about it after we patched up because he was scared to lose me and he'd do anything to have me back because im worth everything to him and he loved me more than anything and he's willing to do anything. I said I'll think about it.
AP came to me because she felt guilty that i was asking for advice from her while she was the AP but she hid the fact that she was talking bad about me to him behind my back and about our other friend so I cut her off, when she said to him that she couldn't continue anymore due to the guild, that was when the A ended and now ex bf came back to me and we reconciled.
Now in the present, i did give him another chance and we tried for a week but i just couldn't trust him anymore and when I asked for his social media passwords, he said that it was with an old email and he can't recover the passwords but he can send screenshots of messages but it's easy for him to hide things like that.
I finally decided that i couldn't live like this and i deserved better and even now sometimes i want to go back to him because our relationship was so good but also had a lot of red flags now that i look back, but when the loneliness gets unbearable i want to go back so bad, but it has now been almost 2 weeks since I've had no contact with him and even though it doesn't seem like much im very proud of myself and will keep working forward and make sure I give myself what i deserve and find my worth again.
TL;DR it has been almost 2 weeks since I have stopped contact with my bf who cheated with me and I'm proud of myself and wanted to mention it and while it's not easy, I'll get there.

A couple days ago I outlined my perfect 2023 Blazers Offseason, and, while the general reception was positive, there were a few valid criticisms that were made. These were focused on 1) Orlando giving up too much in the trade, 2) either Phoenix giving up too much or not liking the Ayton inclusion all together, and 3) some final criticism about how much Toronto was getting back for Siakam and #13.
Outside of what each team was getting, there was also some concern about our lack of wing depth after the trades, and I've addressed some of my own concerns about venturing too far into the luxury tax and avoiding the worst of the new penalties in the CBA.
So, here is the revised trade proposal:
Portland gets: Pascal Siakam Royce O'Neale

11

Orlando gets: Anfernee Simons
Toronto gets: Dorian Finney-Smith Jalen Suggs Nassir Little Keon Johnson

3

Brooklyn gets: Kevin Knox

13

With the #11 pick, Portland selects Derrick Lively, the massive (and mobile) defensive center out of Duke as their eventual Nurk replacement. They also add some cheap depth by taking French wing Rayan Rupert at #23 and Virginia point guard Reece Beekman at #43. All three would likely be out of the rotation on day one, but you'd want to see Lively pushing for backup minutes by at least the All Star break.
In free agency, they re-sign Matisse to a three-year deal starting at $7.5 million, and Eubanks to a two-year deal starting at $2.8. In order to stay under the first luxury tax apron, they don't use their MLE, and consider O'Neale as better than any MLE signing they could have made.
After free agency, our lineup looks like this:
Dame/Mays/Beekman
Matisse/Shaedon
Grant/O'Neale/Rupert
Siakam/Watford/Walker
Nurk/Eubanks/Lively
Yes, our only major upgrade is Siakam, but the jump I think we all expect from Shaedon is roughly the equivalent of adding another high level talent. Don't short change O'Neale, either. He's proven in Utah and last year in Brooklyn that he can be a playoff ready rotation piece, that can make shots, and defend 2-4. He'd be a great wing to have as a 7th man.
Keeping Nurk allows for a few things: 1) we get to see if he can anchor a defense that has legit defensive options on the wings, rather than the sieves he's had to deal with, 2) it keeps his playmaking/screen setting, which are his underrated offensive skills, 3) we see if his three-point shooting continues to be an added weapon, which could really open up our offense, 4) it allows us to audition Nurk the first part of the season, and if he ups his trade value we can decide to either package him with O'Neale or Matisse, along with a couple firsts for an upgrade, or ride out the increased output ourselves, and, finally 5) it, along with the other moves outlined, keeps us under the first luxury tax apron, which is a huge deal with all of the restrictions that are triggered as soon as you're over. We also draft Lively with the lottery pick, with the intention of him eventually taking over and being the rim-running, shot-blocking big that Nurk will never be. He even has some potential upside as a distance shooter, which and should be developed.
While some view Ayton as an upgrade over Nurk, and, therefore, will find this trade as less of a clear cut win for the Blazers, it's not as straightforward as one may think at first glance, especially when you factor in Ayton's salary. Ayton also struggles to finish around the rim at times, is not as great of a shot blocker or rebounder as his size/frame would suggest, can be moody and not give full effort, and isn't nearly the playmaker or shooter that Nurk has shown he can be.
Overall, with the trades, free agent signings, and draft pickups, it's a lineup that gives Dame what he wants, and what we all want, which is a chance to compete. Is it a no doubt Finals contender? No. But, I think with some luck regarding team chemistry and injuries, along with the West not having a true superior team, we'd have a real chance of making a run in the playoffs.
There's also still some long term upside with Sharpe and Lively forming a wing/big building block, plus whatever you could get in return for Dame, Siakam, and Grant, if you decided to go full rebuild.
As for the other sides of the trade, let's start with Orlando. They're no longer giving up Harris in the deal, and keep him as a serviceable veteran rotation piece for their young roster, or someone who could easily be traded at the deadline. So, #11 and Suggs for Anfernee feels about right to me, unless you drastically undervalue Anfernee, which I don't. If Orlando wanted one of our fifty 2nd rounders, then you'd willingly give up one or two to make the deal go through.
On Toronto's side, they gain a valuable wing in Finney-Smith, along with the #3 pick, and take the chance on one of Suggs, Little, or Keon hitting their upside. I'd personally hold the line at that, but if they wanted a future first, outside of the Chicago commitment window, than that could be included to get the deal done.
Brooklyn gets some significant cap savings, a flier on Knox, and a lottery pick to help them continue to rebuild from the mess they got themselves into by betting on the wrong horses.
I just removed the whole Phoenix/Ayton piece, all together. As it seemed to be the bright dividing line for everyone, and I don't think Ayton is a big enough upgrade to be worth trying to find a common ground amongst the opposing factions.
Anyhow, what say you? Is this revised version better than the previous one? I appreciate all the back and forth, if nothing else, it helps to fill the time between now and June 22nd. Clearly I've got to much time on my hands this holiday weekend.

I need advice on this situation: My best friend (Marie) of 8 years cancelled on me and went to the bar with other friends... and my cousin. We had plans to go riding 4-wheelers and camping with my parents this past weekend. It had been planned for about a week and a half. Keep in mind we had been on trips like this with my family before, she's like a sister to me and has no problems going on trips with my family. We live 2 hours away from each other and the distance hasn't been a problem before either. She had planned to come down Friday morning after work, she works overnights. She texted me Friday morning and told me "I'm sorry, I'm not gonna make it down today. I'm exhausted, it was a long night at work." I told her that it was no problem. My parents and I actually changed plans from leaving out Friday to leaving out Saturday morning because my dad had to work Friday. I let her know that she could come down Saturday morning if she still wanted to come, but if not I completely understood. I've worked overnights before and know how exhausting it can be. She said, "Yeah I'll probably stay home, we got next weekend tho." We have a float trip planned for this coming weekend with all our friends. I was bummed that she couldn't make it, but completely understood. I still had fun with my parents on Saturday, I did wish she was there though. On Sunday morning, I woke up and scrolled through Snapchat stories. I came across my cousin, Elizabeth's story from Saturday night. It was a video of Mike, riding a bull at a bar. Mike and Marie are friends, they bar hop often with each other. I thought it was really weird that Mike was on Elizabeth's story because she only hangs out with Mike when he's with Marie. My cousin, Elizabeth and best friend, Marie work at the same factory on the same shift. They are also friends. In this video, I turned up the volume and could hear my best friend, Marie, shouting at Mike while he was riding the bull. I immediately felt like WTF. I feel like Marie cancelled on me to go hang out with my cousin and other friends at a bar. Part of me wanted to just not say anything, but I felt super hurt by the situation. She was too exhausted to follow through on the plans we had, but could go hang out at the bar. I've been thinking about the situation for the past couple of days. I never thought she would do something like this to me. I decided to kind of confront her about it. On Sunday, I texted her, "Have fun at the bar last night?". She replied, "It was good. There wasn't anybody there so we had the place to ourselves. Lots of pool tables and Mike rode the bull riding thing." In which I replied, "Glad you weren't too exhausted to enjoy it." She hasn't replied anything and it's Monday afternoon, meaning it's been 24 hours. I don't know what I should do. I've been looking forward to the float trip that we're all going on this weekend for months now. Part of me still wants to go, but part of me wants to wait until last minute then not show up. At this point, I don't even think I'd have fun because of this situation. I honestly feel like it's just so disrespectful. I would have taken it better if she just told me the truth about wanting to go to the bar instead. I feel stupid for believing her excuse and being so understanding too. Maybe she didn't have that pre-planned. Maybe she got some sleep on Friday then decided to go out on Saturday night. Part of me wants to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I'm hurt over the situation. To my knowledge, this is the first time she's done this to me. She usually follows through on plans. Any advice on what I should do? How should I move forward? Is she the best friend that I thought she was?

I have all kinds of killers, I main survivor but have been trying more killing lately for the queue bonus. Usually run merciless storm, trail of torment, iron grasp and unrelenting on legion. I have games where I kill everyone with ease, but every now and then I get these people who I can’t catch up to and they just taunt me relentlessly. Extremely tired of it and will try anything to fix this issue, thank you in advance.
It just seems like I play survivor and the killer is on me with too much ease but as killer, they’re suddenly so much faster or something.

I hate anybody who’s racist with an amazing passion. And I really don’t trust people that when I tell someone I was targeted cause of my race, they denounces it like “I haven’t seen any racism towards these people here”, or “people are nice maybe your the problem?”.
It seems like all I can do about being racially abused is rant. Yes people call me terrorist cause I’m the problem sitting in the corner drinking my own coffee doing my course work and minding my business.
It hurts knowing that now my happiness/energy levels are taking a hit because some people genuinely don’t want any interaction or whatever to do with me simply because of a stupid colour?
And as of recently when I try to seek comfort or help from others, people throw the situation back at me like there MUST be something wrong with me that’s why someone behaved a certain way and not because they’re racist…
I’ve developed this unhealthy doubt in my head in certain situations that I need to learn how to undo yet I feel like at times, I see it, when their decisions are motivated by race, you can somewhat always tell.
It’s confusing in certain situations because did I do something wrong that I can maybe address next time that was an actual decision I made that was bad or are you just another racist piece of shit that’s moving cause a brown dude sat beside you and the first thing you connect is the stereotypes/negativity?
If your racist and your reading this, I hope you step on Lego while it’s pointing upwards and then lands awkwardly as you step on it. If you denounce racist acts like they didn’t happen or “others have it worse” or try to attack the person and not be supportive then screw you too shitbag.
And for anyone who’s not, I really hope you have a wonderful day :)!! Stay safe!! It’s a very selfish and greedy world. I truly wish you well (non-racist) stranger.

As a middle/high schooler who was first understanding the concept of love, I did something interesting to cause myself to hyperfixate on love for girls I barely knew: I wrote out romantic ideas pertaining to them. In middle school, all I did was I jokingly write out that "I'm going out with girl's name" and my brain suddenly got full of "love chemicals" that convinced me I was in love with her and wanted to go out with her. I told everyone in hopes to get their support, however, I never felt like I truly wanted to ask her out because I was too shy being in middle school and all. Long story short, I told the girl I liked her, but she fell silent and nothing happened. I later found out she had a boyfriend and was okay with it, but continued to pine after her the following year not realizing what caused me to feel that way. Eventually, those feelings went away because nothing came of them and I must have realized the girl never truly liked me.
A similar occurrence happened in high school sophomore year where I texted someone for a girl's number. In order to affirm that I wasn't doing it for romantic reasons, I texted them "I don't have a crush on her". Similar to the middle school crush, writing that activated receptors associated with romantic feelings that caused me to think I DID have a crush on her. Unlike the middle school crush, she got a boyfriend around that time and I thought I had to wait until she was single again to do anything about it. In the meantime, I similarly told everyone about it hoping to receive support advice on how to tell her one day. I would also follow her (sometimes with her boyfriend) around school, dropping huge hints that I wanted her to come to me. Having that crush nearly got me in trouble with someone who texted me claiming to be her dad who told me to stop talking to her -- I never knew who it was, but I assumed it was the boyfriend. Long story short, after they broke up, I apologized for all the pursuing and borderline stalking I did and retired that artificial crush. Although I wanted to be her friend beyond that, she moved away and I never saw her physically again.
I continued to write out romantic ideas pertaining to women I was into a little bit into adulthood, soon realizing what was happening. Until I recognized this, I assumed that writing out things like, "I feel like I wanna marry this girl, but I can't go there yet," were causing me to set my future with the woman in stone. After realizing it was just my brain reacting to the written idea of love with a woman, I decided to quit doing that and just let love come naturally. I since found a relationship that lasted only a few weeks before we broke up. Even so, when I was with her, I could feel the love that just barely got anywhere was mutual and that my thoughts about potentially marrying her came naturally instead of artificially. Although I have not found anyone else since then, I realize now that the male brain reacts to the written idea of love and sex very strongly compared to a woman whether ASD or not. So I have to ask has anyone else ASD or not experienced anything like what I described?

Met this girl on an app last week, we instantly set up a date after a few texts and I got her number.
We planned for a first date tomorrow but she remembered she had an event to go to (The event is real, it's a concert for an artist we mutually like)
So she proposed moving to today when she canceled 2 hours before we were supposed to meet. She was done work at 3 but she was asked to stay longer because some people were missing.
Now we've moved it to Friday after I asked to reschedule it to then.
Should I give up now or see if 3rd time is the charm?
I'm very new to dating, (20m), and my friend (21f) had the same scenario where her date canceled twice but they rescheduled to a 3rd time and now they are the love of each other's lives.
For context we haven't texted much since we assume the date is how we're going to get to know each other. We text a bit and it's a 2 way conversation but she will reply maybe once or twice a day in burst which I assume is her working? Or am I being fooled.
Just again very new to this, looking for some guidance.

In the past few days, I rescued three separate hedgehogs from my dog's nuisance and then relocated them to my fruit and vegetable-filled garden for their well-being. While they are safe from harm in my garden, I've considered the possibility that these hedgehogs may have had babies and are unable to reach them now. I don't want to separate their families, so please let me know if the hedgehogs have babies at this time (we live in the South Caucasus) and whether they can reach their nests if someone relocates them. Thanks.

Hatari Uoka was not having a pleasant time. He had not had one for several years now, as his existence been broken up into periods of boredom, inense work, and utter horror. The young man had been a semi-star economics student and slid comfortably into a fashionable think tank when he launched into his job search—in politics, but apolitical. Moving in the ranks of society that were considered cosmopolitan and especially liberal, he had no particular to connection to much of anything other than people without those connections, and Mr. Uoka considered this to be how things should be. He was free from those concerns, which had not done much for him, and he could attach himself to other things, like nebulous ideas. Since there was little in terms of immediate connection to fill his day to day life with, Mr. Uoka filled his life with such easy to grab things as money, himself, and ideas that he took a shine to. Some would say that he was rather plump, in a few sentences that contained profanity and some comments about his short-cut main and stupid hat. To be frank, whatever charges one could level about his character were secondary to how poor his taste in hats was; it is up to the reader to infer the scope of these defects of person.
Hatari Uoka was offensive in that bland way that he was inoffensive to anyone of strong conviction who needed a useful body to throw into an assignment, and so he was a shoe-in to monitor Chancellor Hay Rekk's modernization efforts. Mr. Uoka had expected to be lecturing, informing people of the importance of the types of accounts used to accumulate investment capital, the training of the right kind of engineers, and the introduction of unsubsidized market rates; he had not expected to see public whippings, dirt roads, unrefined drug use, or child labor. This ensured that he was subjected to an endless train of genuine unpleasantness, paired with isolation and cheap wine. It reflected in his reports back to parliament, who likely had a small chuckle at his objection and injured bleating. And it reflected in his final report.
Mr. Uoka had nothing good to say about Chancellor Hay Rekk. He was an offensive man, who did not care for anything but clone power. He was a racist and a fascist, vile and pernicious, a sadist who delighted in the suffering of lessers and the destruction of beautiful things. He had no value for life, no respect for effort, and no care for anything but his own gluttony. Rekk's persistence was near demonic, his smarts a brute's cunning, his speaking abilities rabble-rousing, his leadership nothing but cunning manipulation, his height the adjustments of hydraulic lifts, his gastronomic prowess wasted on eating fuel station sausages. Hatari's advice fell upon ears determined to do the opposite of what he suggested and shut out the non-clone who only wanted to exercise their inherent right to commercial freedom. Rekk, he concluded, was man opposed to the idea of freedom. All persons must be underneath the clone bootheel.
Their majesties, on the other hand, were much more in line with Mr. Uoka's ideas. They were aware of the abusive practices of the Shining Lords of old, and sought to end them with the power of the market. This had been most beneficial for food supplies, and had eliminated famine according to his analysis; it had also been enormously helpful for giving peasants access to their basic life needs. There were sticking points with clone industry—which Hatari had decried as 'robbing the people of their future' and 'dull, stultifying communism-lite', but he had generally said excellent things about their majesties policies. Encouraging more trade, supporting urbanization, and breaking down the social structures that he didn't like were all very good things in Mr. Uoka's opinion. He found that their majesties were somewhat anemic with their fiscal policy, as well as their need to avoid inflation in order to keep real economic growth doing things that he didn't see as super important—a little financialisation never hurt anything, you know? And so, he prepared to publish a report recommending that Kabria be heavily and thoroughly invested in as a potential developing market. The clones must be bypassed, he said—their friendship-communism would allow them to cripple the entire economic block that the Soverignty was putting together with endless dumping. They must be contained to protect the market.
And then the press conference happened. Epistocide was revealed. Mr. Uoka edited his report. There was no market here. No chance of one emerging for maybe five generations. The Kweens were ripping out thoughts, not customs. Only the clones were here, making everything, putting together nutrient paste for when the societal preserve failed. No wonder they saw the peasants as scum. The serfs, the petty nobility, the others—they were all locked in. How much had he seen those wild eyes, squinting in suspicion, gasping in fear—how much had they been genuinely locked in, stuck in impulse and reflex, blurting words that had been trauma-conditioned into them? He had seen pictures of slaves before, or some of the Shining Lord's thralls—but he hadn't seen it firsthand. Shortly after putting out his report, Hatari went to find himself some gutter ale,something with enough kick that could get him blackout drunk.
But as he hedged Kabria-related investments and watched the market dip on opening two days late, Mr Uoka found that the clones were of the same mind as him. They filed into makeshift canteens, drank horrible brews, cursed, burned the Shining Lords in effigy, snorted pills, talked solutions and damnation. Hatari consumed four glasses from the rop bucket, stumbled outside black out drunk, and then came to calling Hay Rekk 'like a fucking fat ass bitch yo, but he's still dummy thick, ya know what I mean? He got tha-that p-policy thiqqness, yeah!! Thiqq with TWO! Qs! He can...sit...on...those...holy...shit...what am...I saying...oh...balls. Front-nuts. I'm not...blackout. Fuck my ass.'
The front nuts in question vomited in the trashcan, then laughed hysterically and took a stimulant. 'You breeders are so weird! I don't even have those!'
Hatari got a hangover of unusual size, but he ate his way out of it by mid-afternoon. Shortly beforehand, he messaged Chancellor Rekk and asked for a meeting. He was the leading face of clone power, and clone power was now in shambles over the awful things it had uncovered. There was one chance for him to influence the situation to ensure that something good could come out of it. And Mr Uoka wanted to be remembered for influencing it when he could...

Hello all,
A bit of background; Postgrad in Statistics, but looking for some additional oopmh to increase the recall/specificity of some models I'm working on through the conjunction of better feature selection/searching for complex interactions/etc. I've recently moved into the very high dimensional domain
I'm looking for some good resources for feature selection for larger dimensional data (Especially in the context of limited computational resources. Any selection techniques that are robust to model type/is done prior to any fitting would be amazing).
As computation is a huge concern for me, I want to be able to consider interactions and downstream contrasts. I have been trying RELIEF based techniques, primarily as of now, but I'd like something with some robust stats behind it (I have a largish sample, and was thinking about doing something like 'cross validating' chi squared results over some number of k folds with my categorical target, ranking variables by score , then applying something like B-H correction to filter out low-relevance predictors, or bootstrapping some of these statistics, but I do worry about generalization error a bit here). I have also been using some regularization techniques, but with so many noisy variables; some performance is being degraded at the additional cost of more computation that I'd rather use for searching for complex interactions.
Unfortunately, finding these can be hard in google, as many medium/towards data science/etc instruct you how to create models with leakage and overoptimistic fits as they do not incorporate feature selection within the cv process (I.E, select 10 most correlated features with target, split and then train over k=4 folds)
I have been making my way through Variable Selection for Pattern Recognition, and I find myself reading articles and papers on the discussed techniques, as the material is very, very topical within the book (it really doesn't provide a ton of explanation in a lot of places)
Thanks!

My (f, 15) heart feels weird lately. Not all of the time, every few days for just a few seconds after normal activities (no sports or anything exhausting even). Its been like this for some month but I think it’s gotten worse. (And when I lay down still I can feel my heart beating and my arm shakes very slightly along, but I don’t know, this might just be normal.)
I will try to describe it but might not find the perfect words… it’s a bit like my heart is floating in my chest, I can feel it and it’s like it’s jumps up and stays up for a very short time. Just very few seconds. Today however it’s been more than once so that’s why I’m asking. I’m also currently alone at home so I can ask my mom.
About me: I don‘t smoke, drink a little bit occasionally, I weight 106 to 110 pounds (48-50kg) and am 5.2 feet (160cm) tall. Nationality is German. I don’t do much all day long, I go to school, walk, walk stairs up and down and sit a lot. That’s about it. I drink coffee every day and eat semi healthy. Not that I eat a lot unhealthy stuff (i try to avoid eating too much sugar or fast food for the sake of not gaining weight because I know I don’t burn many calories) I should probably eat more nutrient-rich foods. I have already been suspected of having an iron deficiency and I have been lactose intolerant since birth. My father gave me vitamin D tablets which I take (inconsistently), and I occasionally take vitamin C and iron or magnesium supplements. Physically I'm fine, I should exercise a lot more and I know that. From time to time I experience low blood pressure and short dizziness after getting up. For fun I measured my blood pressure with this blood pressure testing thingy that we have at home. No idea if this tells you anything but it said 114 SYS, 62 DIA, 89 PUL/ 110 SYS, 70 DIA, 96 PUL/ 107 SYS, 66 DIA, 98 PUL. Those are three done on 3rd October 2022 and the last two were done 11 days later. I was calm when I did those. It’s not like these things with my heart impacted me anyhow yet, they happen when I stand and when I lean forward slightly. That’s what I noticed today after I took a shower and after I got up from bed.
This might be important: My mother has heart problems and has been having long term ECGs a couple times for the past few weeks. A few years ago she was in the hospital for this, but I was still small, so I don't know anything about her disease. She has been taking daily pills for a few weeks. I think beta blockers.
I also remember that I had similar problems some month ago but my memory is so bad that I can’t recall much of it sadly. It was the same feeling though, I think for a few seconds every few days but more intense and out of the blue, then some time there was nothing or barely anything and I forgot about it, now it’s back. Some other cases but I don’t know if it’s of any significance: Once (over a year ago I think) I was laying in bed and suddenly felt my heart racing and pounding really hard and I hadn’t even done anything. That scared me but it got better after a minute or two and I didn’t tell anyone about it. And sometimes when I lay in bed and make ups things, my heart starts pounding hard too as if I were running or so. It feels scary too sometimes so I just try to calm down a bit.
Now, is it serious? I know you can’t surely say anything but your assessment would be appreciated. I mean I should definitely ask my mom about it but is it very serious? I’ll be going on a 4 days trip that I’ve been looking forward to on Wednesday with my best friends family, should I tell my parents before I go? Or can it wait? Since it’s happened more than once today I got a bit worried.

1. I believe my lactose intolerance started after I started taking Prilosec (generic equivalent is Omeprazole) for acid reflux, but I could just be a coincidence or I’m misremembering which started first. Seems like something must have caused it since no one else in my family is intolerant. Anyone else have this experience after meds?
   
2. My intolerance seems to have suddenly gotten worse recently. Before I was able to have dairy no problems if I took Lactaid. Now I can take quite a few (up to like 6, spread out before and after) and still have issues. I’ve cut out most dairy, but once in a while I still want to have pizza or something with cheese.
   

My tip for stomach cramps: Drink hot water. Helps me within a minute or two. Initially I’d take a hot bath and it would help with the cramps, but then I discovered I could just take the hot water right to the source for quicker relief and a lower water bill.

BABY’S ARM HOLDING AN APPLE
By YippieYiYi
CHAPTER 1
The Bird of Paradise had been on the front steps for a year and wasn’t getting enough sun, it hadn’t produced a single flower. I got the two-wheeler, but couldn’t get the pot on by myself. There’s a young guy on the sidewalk walking towards me. He’s got on one of those yellow visibility vests, no shirt underneath, a pair of black nylon basketball shorts and heavy work boots. He’s carrying a backpack over one shoulder. He must work for the city. He’s tall and thin with a wiry body. It’s hard to see his face, he’s got a baseball cap on with a Florida Gator’s logo, and a pair of dark sunglasses.
“Hola”
“Hola yourself, I was born here.”
“Sorry, can you give me a hand moving this plant?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I hold the dolly and he pushes the plant onto it so I can tip it back. I push it to the backyard, he follows and helps get if off.
“Where do you want it?”
“In the corner, it’ll get a lot more sun there.”
He wiggles it into place and says “How’s that?”
“Perfect! Thanks a lot! Can I offer you a beer?”
“Sure.”
He follows me into the house and I motion to the couch. The soccer game is still on the TV.
I grab a couple of Dos Equis and sit next to him.
“What’s your name?”
“Carlos.”
“Hi, Carlos. I’m Rick. Do you work for the city?”
“Yeah, Public Works.”
“Cool. What do you do?”
“Whatever they tell me. Usually just put out traffic cones, stand with a flag to warn people to slow down, sometimes dig ditches.”
“You live in the neighborhood?”
“Yeah, I just moved back with my mom for summer break, she’s on the next block. I don’t have a car so my boss pics me up and drops me off in front of the church.”
“How old are you?”
“19”
He takes off his hat and sunglasses and puts them on the coffee table. I can see his face now. Beautiful soft features, a wispy mustache, and long straight hair he had tucked under the hat. His skin is cafe-au-lait, probably tanned darker from being in the sun all day. He’s skinny, but his muscles are defined. I try not to stare, but I can’t help it. There’s a large bulge in the front of his shorts, but I’m pretty sure it’s his cell phone.
“I didn’t mean to insult you assuming you spoke Spanish, but you do look Latino, and a lot of the road crews just speak Spanish”
“Nah, I was just playing with you. Both my parents are from Columbia, but I was born here. I speak enough to get by, but I’d probably be lost if I ever went there. We don’t speak Spanish at home. It just took me by surprise, I go to FSU, everyone there assumes I must speak English.”
He’s lying back on the couch, the vest wide open, his arms crossed behind his head, looking completely relaxed. I see a beautiful happy trail leading down his shorts and tufts of dark hair under his arms, but try to distract myself with the soccer game.
“You want another beer?”
“Sure”
I head to the kitchen, grab the beers and a can of mixed nuts.
I put the nuts on the coffee table and he grabs a handful. I don’t think he’s really watching the soccer game, it’s a re-cap of the 2022 World Cup. I see him looking around the room.
“Where’s the head?”
“That door there”
The bathroom opens right onto the living room, one thing I didn’t like about the house when I was house-hunting, but it was in a great neighborhood close to the beach. I can hear him pissing, a really strong stream like young guys have. He didn’t close the door. I hear a piece of toilet paper torn, he must be wiping the tip of his dick. I like when guys do that, I always do. I’m the type that washes my hands before I piss so I don’t get my dick dirty. He flushes then washes his hands.
“I hope you don’t mind I used your towel in there.”
He settles back on the couch, doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere.
“You wanna smoke a joint?” he asks.
“Sure, I’ve got a little time. I don’t have to be at work for a couple hours.”
“Where do you work?”
“I work a couple nights a week at Massage Envy downtown. I’m a critical care nurse but I needed a break after the pandemic, and I had my massage license anyway. That’s how I put myself through nursing school.”
“How’d you end up in this little town?”
“My father passed recently. I ended up inheriting enough money to move out of the state and buy a house. I had vacationed here and loved it, so I decided to move here. I love being able to walk to the beach and downtown.”
“You own the house?”
“Yeah”
“Shit, how old are you?”
“27”
“No way! You’re 27, own your own house, and work just a couple nights a week? Must be nice.”
“Like I said, I inherited some money. I still don’t know where it all came from, my parents never had much. My mother passed away a while ago, then after my dad died, I started getting statements from all these investment accounts in his name. It’s enough to take a break, but I’m going to have to get a job eventually, not sure if I’ll go back to nursing, though, I’m thinking maybe something else, just not sure what.”
Carlos lights the joint and passes it to me. I take a hit and get up to get an ashtray. I take a couple more hits and sit down, passing the joint back to him. As I’m walking back to the couch I can’t help but notice how incredibly handsome he is, in that kinda sweet, kinda rough way that always gets me. We finish the joint and make small talk about the World Cup.
“You dropped a couple.”
Without thinking I reach over and brush the peanuts from his crotch. He grabs my hand, pushing it away, and glares at me. I was embarrassed and stunned (and stoned). Slowly the glare turned into a small smile, and he put my hand back.
I was struck dumb, but started feeling his crotch. It wasn’t his cell phone. I was rubbing up and down through the fabric and felt it swell.
“Here, let me make it easier”
Carlos raised his butt and lowered his shorts and boxers to his knees and sat back down. His boxers were black with yellow smiley faces.
“Jeez! That thing’s as big as a baby’s arm holding an apple!”
Carlos burst out laughing. “What did you say?”
“I said your dick’s as big as a baby’s arm holding an apple. You’ve never heard that expression?”
“No, never. I guess us Spanish speakers don’t use it” he kidded.
“Maybe it’s a regional euphemism, it sounds southern though. Not sure where I first heard it.”
I swear, this guy was packing. Not only thick, but long, and the head was massive. I couldn’t stop staring. He was holding it and asked me to jerk him off. I turned towards him and put both my hands on it and started pumping. He grabbed the back of my head and forced it down. I got the head in my mouth but there was no way I was going to take any more. I kept pumping with my hands and he quickly came. I couldn’t swallow fast enough, my mouth filled and his cum spilled out of my lips onto the couch.
“God, I needed that. I don’t usually fool around with guys, but you seem cool.”
He pulled an elastic from his pocket, tied his hair back and told me to stand up. I stood in front of him and he dropped my shorts and started kissing my thighs. He took his time, licking and sucking my balls till he finally started on my dick. There was a thread of pre-cum he pulled off and wiped on his shorts. I’d never been too concerned with my dick size, it seemed pretty good and I’d never had any complaints, but I felt like a little kid compared to his.
“Sorry I’m not as big as you.” I felt stupid as soon as I said it.
“Shut up, it’s a pain. No one can blow me, and my girlfriend only lets me put it halfway in. Worst part is when I take a dump, I’ve got to hold it up so it doesn’t hang in the toilet water. Yours is the perfect size for blowing and fucking, so don’t get all self-conscious on me.”
“You have a girlfriend?”
“Shut up and let me blow you.”
So I did. He licked it clean and pulled up my shorts and started zipping them.
“No!”
I don’t trust anyone pulling a zipper up anywhere near my dick. I got the foreskin caught in it once when I was a kid and can still feel the pain.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful with this beauty, I’m gonna want to use it again I think.”
“What about this girlfriend?”
“Just a girl I was seeing at school, we went out together a lot, but I think it was more of a FWB deal. She lives in California so I won’t see her till next fall. Why she wanted to go to college in Florida is beyond me.”
“I’ve gotta get ready to go to work, you wanna stop by tomorrow on your way home?”
He smiles. “Sure.”
“So I guess you’ll be massaging a bunch of hot guys tonight, huh?”
“Fat chance. I’ve got three bookings, two women and one man, all over 70. One has sciatica, the other scoliosis, and the guy has weakness in his legs so I stretch and massage them to stimulate the nerves.”
I shower to get the smell of beer and pot off me, and grab a bite to eat before heading over to the massage studio.

TL;DR - Several months ago, apartment mice began in my NYC apartment kitchen but were kept under control by excessive cleaning and food removal, with one or two traps set up. 10 days ago, my roommate and our dog left for a few days and I spotted mice in other rooms of the apartment for the first time. Long story short they got BOLD and kept coming near me. Landlord/Super is not in the building half the time and when he finally came to check it out for the third time in 2 months, he gave me more traps and denied that there are any holes in my apartment (due to the fact he caulked up some a few years ago) even though I 100% have mice (it's not rats I got a VERY good up-close look) and virtually every neighbor in my wall line reported them and my landlord admitted there is an infestation in the basement and 1st floor. Also, the mice have avoided every single type of trap set while still eating the bait from spring traps.
THINGS I'VE TRIED: *NOTE* All traps were cleaned first with no harsh chemicals only sweet-smelling dish soap and traps were exclusively handled with gloves.
Baits used- Rotated and/or combined foods for bait; peanut butter; whole wheat bread; white bread; dog food; dog treats; powdered liver dog food topper; bagels; grease from cooked ground beef.
Traps used- Voltage kill-traps; snap traps; simple no-kill bait traps; poison kill-traps; bucket flip-trap for field mice (dog-proof that's why)
Misc. Measures used - physical barriers and reinforced edges with many layers of duct tape to isolate them to the rooms they enter and exit from. Poison pellets behind appliances, or anywhere the dog cannot reach.
Measures that HELPED a tiny bit (not eradicated) - Poison pellets (reports of dead mice in the basement level, didn't really help my apartment though), the physical barriers I sealed up w duct tape, and my dog simply existing in the living room.
Long story version of the above.
So, I live in a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC with a roommate and a dog. We've been dealing with a mice infestation in the building for months, with a few sightings in the kitchen and some eaten food. Luckily, until about a week ago, we had zero sightings or signs of mice in any other rooms. When this began about 2 months ago, we alerted our landlord and told him where we thought they were coming from to which he responded "Well I closed that off two years ago so they can't be coming from there," *Fun Fact* They are coming from there. And other places in the apartment too. The method we've used to curb mice for the last few months was obsessively cleaning our kitchen with vinegar and peppermint oil each time we cook and wiping surfaces after EVERY possible food contact. They did not leave but they stayed just in the kitchen and since we cut off access to our food, got more explorative in the kitchen, but less spotting altogether. In retrospect, what kept them isolated to the kitchen after the food removal was the fact that my large dog stays out of there usually.
Fast forward to about 10 days ago, my roommate went out of town, and our dog stayed with their friend after the first day or two. Once I was the only person left in the apartment, the horrors started. I saw my first mouse run from the bathroom to my roommate's bedroom (I sleep in the living room) and I then started hearing mice in the living room (my room), behind a large armoire that acts as a fake fireplace. I immediately cleared out the entryway room to become the only truly mouse-proofed room in the entire apartment, double-bagged all food and put it in there, triple-bagged all dog food + treats, and sealed sealed sealed the room up. Not a single piece of accessible food was left in any part of the apartment. The less accessible the food got, the bolder the mice became. Eventually, after grabbing a single cookie and holding it IN MY HAND, the only food in the house outside the mouse-proof room, within 2 minutes of sitting on the couch a mouse climbs on and comes face-to-face with me. I had been sleeping on the couch at this point due to a mouse having run across my bed a few days prior. After this I deep cleaned virtually every single spot in the living room I could reach using a mixture of vinegar, peppermint oil, and anti-bacterial cleaning spray and sealed up any places I could conceive of even a roach being able to fit through. The kitchen is not possible to seal without the help of my landlord since the oven, sink, and refrigerator are immovable (kitchen walkway is about 2 feet wide at most from edge of counter to opposing wall trapping my appliances to their position).
On the 5th day of leaving message after message to my super (who is only in the building about half the time anyways) he finally came back to check it out, and stated the entire wall line of the building and the whole 1st floor + basement was having mice infestations, and promptly told me the same thing he did last time without pulling out any appliances to check behind them or even bothering to offer any alternative possibilities to where they might be coming from. My interpretation of my Super's stance on the problem is "You have mice. The entire building and especially the lower floors also have mice. I mice-proofed your apartment years ago so I needn't check to make sure it's still sealed. I believe you have no entrances or exits for mice although I won't check. Here are some traps and poison pellets just in case you have mice. But you definitely have mice though." He's visited three times in 2 months for this and says this every single time.
Before the landlord arrived, I had several no-kill mouse traps baited with peanut butter that the mice seemed to avoid like the plague. The landlord simply put up a bunch of snap-traps for mice and I went on Amazon to order a few chemical kill traps and a bucket-trap for field mice (it's dog-proof that's why). My super also sprinkled a bunch of mouse poison anywhere my dog can't get to.
It's been about 4 days since my landlord came and I set up every new trap. I made sure to wear gloves, thoroughly clean each trap, and rubbed a lil bread (that they'd already eaten a portion of previously) on the outside of the trap because why not make it smell nicer and more inviting? My dog is back in the house, my roommate is home, and while mice are now back in just the kitchen mainly (likely because of the dog) they are still super active and avoiding every single trap I've set and managing to eat the bait from every snap-trap without setting it off. They avoid altogether the voltage traps, simple bait traps, chemical traps, and bucket-trap. As bait, I've tried using peanut butter, dog food, dog treats, whole wheat + white bread, and even a bagel. I also did the thing where I tried to make them enter the trap by giving them no other alternative and then they suddenly begin finding new ways to climb walls or find another access point to come in and out of.
I'm so tired, my roommate is even more scared of mice than I am, and the dog is helpful, but won't drive them out completely. My super sucks, wtf do I do now? I don't want to have to report the building as having "Unsanitary conditions: Pests: Mice" to the NYC311 (NYC govt-run non-emergency city services) but after months of this and the last few weeks of intense mice-battling I am really struggling.

A bit of past history..
When I was 37 I was living with a man I had been seeing for about 6 months. Well he was living with me. I had teenage kids and so did he. His son was 15 and was really close with my daughter who at the time was 16. I always encouraged them to be close because the boy was a quiet loner who had expressed he was gay. His dad never cared about how he felt. That made my daughter cling to him.
His dad and I had split up for other reasons and they moved out. They got a place of their own and I eventually started seeing his dad again.
My daughter would go over to their place and spend time with the son. No big deal.
She asked if she could go spend the weekend with him and I agreed. That Monday she was supposed to be home at a certain time. Which she was not.
I drove over to the residence and knocked on the door. No one answered. So I twisted the doorknob and the door came open. I walked in and didn't see a soul. I went to the boys room and opened the door and he was sitting alone playing video games. I asked him where my daughter was and he said he hadn't seen her.
I then went to my boyfriends room and turned the knob but it was locked. I knocked on the door and he said just a minute.
By this time I was shaking all over and furious. I could have never prepared myself for what I was about to witness.
He opened the door just enough to stick his head out. I asked where my daughter was and he acted oblivious as to what I was talking about. I pushed the door open only to find her getting dressed behind him.
I went off! I mean the devil himself took control and I was in a rage! I grabbed her up and walked her to the car. I left and have never been back.
My daughter decided she wasn't gonna stay with me anymore and moved out. She literally moved in with him where she still resides today.
I miss my daughter and would love a relationship with her but she hates me. I've apologized over and over about how i reacted that day but she doesn't care. She is 20 years old now.
What should I do to form a relationship with her again? I just don't know what to do..I'm lost.

There was a very large and very loud drone hovering maybe 100ft directly over my backyard at 8am on Saturday morning. And then over and over again throughout the day.
Turns out it was a large crew (about 10 people) doing filming for the movie Little Wing. When I found the operators and asked them about it, the public-facing spokesperson for the filming operation — whose sole responsibility that day seems to have been to answer questions from onlookers — said it was impractical to provide advance notification to the whole neighborhood, and that there was nothing preventing them from doing what they were doing.
I’ll note:

• This was a large, loud commercial drone, not a small consumer-grade one. Not much more than 100ft up. Properly permitted, I’m sure, but the permits don’t address the noise and privacy concerns.
• The Portland Film Office, which I believe serves as a private liaison between film productions and city bureaus, recommends that film productions provide notification to residents in advance of these kinds of disturbances. The Little Wing production chose to ignore common courtesy and not provide notification because there’s no law requiring that they do so.
• If the production has the resources to hire a spokesperson to stand around all day and answer questions, then they surely have the resources to hire someone to put flyers on a few hundred door handles a couple of days in advance of filming.
• I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be allowed to film by drone over residential neighborhoods. But advance notification would have been nice, so that when people look out their bedroom window at 8am and see a mini helicopter with a large camera seemingly pointed at their house, it’s not a total surprise.

PS: I’m very open to ideas for petty revenge, if anyone has a good one. Drones are cool, but also really intrusive, and best behaviopractices were ignored here in a pretty obnoxious (and smug) way.