southsamurai

No worries :)

Oh damn, can of worms opened!

My pockets carry is wallet, keys, two knives, emergency meds, bandana, and edc kit.

Keychain has two mini tools on it, one a knife pick (I can explain later if anyone cares) and a key tool from from niteize.

Edc kit is in a generic edc pouch. Lighter, mini multi tool, workkos aaa flashlight, mini pry bar that was a gift (never would have bought one), and a little whistle that has a storage tube with a sewing kit in it, plus a smaller knife than the two I keep clipped to my pocket.

Yes, that’s three knives, wanna fight about it? ;) hell, it’s four if you count the useless blade on the mini multi tool.

I also carry a smaller flashlight around my neck on a bead chain. It is incredibly useful, and I highly recommend this form of carry. Mine is an olight keychain light, the i3eeos. Single aaa battery, decent output and battery life. But it hangs just right to illuminate things where I would otherwise have to hold a light in my mouth, or have a headlamp. I use it multiple times a day sometimes, what with piddling around the chicken coop and whatnot.

Seriously, it is the second most used item I carry. It would be the first, but my main knife gets used hard in the yard lol. It’s an old benchmade 710.

Now, I also have two carry kits for other supplies. A shoulder bag and a backpack. That’s stuff that isn’t pocket carry possible, and/or would only be useful if I’m away from home and get stuck overnight, or in specific use cases that are annoying enough to merit the carry.

The big bag has all the same stuff as the little, with extras.

Little bag has a “device kit” with power bank, cables, etc. Pens, pencil, better multi tool, bigger flashlight (still hand sized, but there’s throws better light), bigger sewing kit, pill case with my regular meds for two days worth, and a mini 1st aid kit, plus whatever I decide to throw in.

The backpack adds a poncho that can double as a blanket, a usb bank as well as power bank, a bigger knife, some basic emergency food ( granola bars usually, plus some water purification tablets), and has room for various devices, including a laptop and multiple tablets or phones. That’s what I have with me when going more than a half hour from home, always. The smaller bag is for in town carry.

And don’t get me started on my car kits. Seriously, don’t ask, in not typing that much lol.

EDC for me is bare minimum preparedness for an individual. Each “tier” of carry represents having what i need for a given span of time and minor issues that arise often enough to merit the weight.

Furries are the ones that have escaped the matrix via their fursona

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Depends on the kind of salad!

If you mean the leafy greens kind of salad, I’m pretty variable in that I don’t have one specific favorite, and prefer to mix things up (bad pun intended).

Honey mustard, usually homemade if I have time and freedom to make it.

Russian and/or Catalina are pretty nice when used sparingly, particularly if there’s egg in the salad.

Vinaigrettes are great when I have access to antacids lol. Love the taste, but the heartburn can be a barrier.

Caesar salads need caesar dressing.

And, in a pinch, some lemon juice, salt, pepper and a bit of olive oil will get the job done.

For other salads, like potato salad, I do blends as well usually. But it’s going to be blends of Duke’s, Hellman’s and miracle whip. None of them are perfect by themselves for every combination of ingredients, so it comes down to tweaking each batch until it’s right. But usually it’ll start with a 2:1 of one of the two mayo brands to miracle whip. Sometimes it’s all three in equal measures to start. Rarely it’ll be the two mayos only, or miracle whip with either small amounts or none of the others.

That last is typically only going to be a specific egg salad that has no pickle relish, so it needs the bump of sweetness and acidity MW brings to the table that gets muddied with mayo added too.

It’s all about creaminess, flavor balance, and the palates of who will be eating.

Nah, I’m unfailingly polite until I’m not allowed to be.

The asshole reputation comes from being willing to push hard when faced with bullshit where good manners fail. The last time I got called an asshole was about three weeks ago. Dude in front of me at the grocery store was bitching at the cashier for not moving fast enough “I’ve got to get this done, do your job”. I told him to shut the fuck up and leave the kid alone.

Said it loud enough for the manager to hear and come over, and the situation resolved after the guy said his piece at me.

If that’s rude, I’m okay with that.

Yeah, I could have likely chosen other ways to intervene, but I’m too fucking old to beat around the bush. IDGAF what the guy thinks about me, so him calling me names doesn’t bother me. The kid at the register was starting to get a little teary, and I just have this complex about bullies. Seriously, it’s a thing with me that I can’t keep my mouth shut when something like that goes on.

It’s also that I say no in an undebatable way. Most people want to say no, but they try to say it nicely, and get into a dance that is worse than being firm the first time. Like, unannounced sales attempts. I open the door, and as soon as they start their spiel, I stop them and say not to waste their time, or mine, I’m not buying anything, period. I then wish them a good day and close the door. That’s how I say no to anything I’m unwilling or unable to do. I say no, and move on. No need to explain, no need to apologize, just no.

You’d think that would leave me without friends. To the contrary, after someone gets used to it, it ends up being something they like about me. They come to trust that me saying no isn’t anything else. I’m not mad at them, I’m not being pissy, I’m just not wasting their time with all the usual rigamarole.

Like my wife h a s said, “you may be an asshole, but you’re my asshole.” She’s actually picked up the habit with me lol. I ask her for/to do something, she says no, and that’s it. I move on and respect her no, she trusts me to do just that. She also knows that I won’t say no to much with her lol.

Again, it can be taken as rude, but I’m fine with that. I know who I am, the people I care about know I care about them, and that’s all that matters to me.

Jfc, a green text I actually relate to.

My kid has a friend that used to have an unstable situation. No details, but it was rough enough courts got involved.

But when they were part of a d&d group via discord, my kid mentioned me being a forever DM. So, I would end up in voice chats telling old stories to the group when the DM had obligations.

A few weeks into this, my kid asks permission to stay up late for this other kid. I’m not known for bending health related stuff like good sleep without a damn good reason, but I made an exception and let them chat a while.

But, my kid falls asleep, and I hear this other kid crying, and my heart fucking breaks. I pick up the tablet and ask if I can help. The kid asks me to tell them a story like I do when DM can’t play.

So I did. Maybe fifteen minutes in, I hear snoring.

For a while after that, the kid would ping my kid here and there and ask if I could talk. They were alone, and scared, and feeling a lot of hurt, and sometimes a voice over a device was all they could get. Which was fucking brutal on my end. I’m a well known asshole, but some things just get you. Nobody should be that lonely, you know?

Anyway, it isn’t the same thing, but it resonates.

This is gonna piss people off maybe.

But I look at this picture and think that there’s a hell of a lot less police than civilians there. The way we tend to accept authority, even when it is vile, without even considering the possibility of using numbers to just overwhelm and deny the bullshit is depressing.

A quote from my grandmother, married to a career navy officer that was also a competitive shooter in and out of service.

“No, I don’t go shooting. The ear muffs mess up my hair, and I can’t abide the banging.”

Which turned into a family joke for multiple obvious reasons.

I always love telling people about the butt load. The looks I get are gold

I feel that.

Back when I was a caregiver, pain assessment was a bit of a pain lol. I’d have patients with cancer, and they’d just not notice something like a sore forming because it just got drowned out by chemo, or whatever. I’d do the daily thing of asking about their pain levels, and how the hell can they answer? They’re at a constant 8 to 10 range, so it’s kinda pointless to try and rely on pain signals to find new pains that need help.

Mind you, I was doing other checks, so nothing got missed, but it could have.

And, like you said, the usual “script” for checking on pain breaks down with chronic pains. You have to really get detailed, focus on tiny changes in pain with them.

And, even knowing all that, I still have trouble communicating my own pain and issues because it’s just so overwhelming sometimes. I sometimes joke with a new doctor or nurse and tell them it would be faster to list what doesn’t hurt. Except it isn’t really a joke.

So I just keep compartmentalizing everything and try to be a good patient lol.

Thank you :)

As better as it gets, thank you :)

I really thought my life was over. Now I’m married, have a kid, good friends, and find ways to enjoy even the bad days.

I mean, that’s part of pain tolerance. It isn’t just how much pain you feel, it’s how much you can take.

Chronic pain has taught me a lot about what is and isn’t bearable. Things that when they were new would leave me sobbing, I now don’t even show more than a frown and gritted teeth for on a good day.

Part of that is taking the pain, putting it in a little box cake “I will not fucking quit” and throwing that box into the depths of the mind where it can’t bother you for a while. Your body still hurts, you still know it hurts, but you keep going until you can’t, and the pain can just fuck right off.

Now, let me stub my fucking toe while doing all that and it cuts right through all of that and says “nah, dawg, you gonna feel this”. Different pain, and acute.

So, little shit like shocks and needles in muscles, and the like, you know they’re coming, and they go right in the box with the chronic, and into the oubliette of agony.

That kind of pain testing? That’s totally within mental techniques’ ability to ignore. Your pulse will still change, blood pressure too, but it’s still a distant thing that won’t reach you for a while.

But everyone is different. You can take two people with the same injury, and they’ll tolerate it differently, even if they’re siblings of the same gender.

Part of that is indeed built in, but there is always a psychological component to pain perception.

Now, please note that I’m not saying that walling pain off and ignoring it until you’ve injured yourself is a good thing, much less better than letting pain guide your actions so that it isn’t worse later. I’m just saying that the green text is realistic, and the person responding like that may not be bullshitting, they may just have worked on managing pain.

I’ve never needed anything beyond the combination of the whole “I don’t do politics, or religion at work”, and a blank stare until people go away.

And I was a nurse’s assistant, so it was a similar situation, where I was often the only male employee. I didn’t learn how to give good blank face until almost 30, though. It’s harder to do when you’re younger.

Later on, I had to add the bits about sex/romance because, believe it or not, some women will mess with you just to cause trouble. I would add sexual matters to the politics and religion, and just walk away. There’s zero way to engage in those kinds of talks as a man in the workplace. It can not end up in a good place.

Now, I could easily get away with the stone face because I’m typically a very friendly, polite, and affable guy. I’m even downright charming at times. So when I drew firm boundaries, it was rare for anyone to take it personally. Those that did, well, they’re not the sorts that last at any job.

Now, if it’s break time, and we’re swapping recipes or other nice things, I was often at my most affable because as much as I actually hate people in general, and get worn out from group interactions, I can fake being an extrovert very well. That’s mostly about a lot of listening, laughing in the right places, then offering the occasional bit of conversation to let them know you’re paying attention.

Workplace conversation should be casual at all times, no overly personal stuff, no hot button topics ever. If things are that friendly, meet up outside work and get back to the job. Not because of some bullshit protestant work ethic or capitalist bullshit, but because you agreed to do a thing for a period of time, and fucking around while the job is still on is lame.

Man, it depends on how you think fucking up a chance is. Long story ahead, warning.

So, I was raised by hippies. My dad is/was a country as fuck hippie, but still. So I had access to the library of two laissez-faire parents. This meant I was rather precocious about some things.

Which matters a little in the story.

My mom was a stay at home mom until I was in high school. She got a pretty shitty job, but made friends.

This included a lady that was maybe two years older than me (and I was legal in our state), and gorgeous. I’m talking she could have been a pinup model. Curvy, with these soft, gentle blue eyes and non-bottle blonde hair that was like silk.

Needless to say, I was rather happy to have this lady visiting often.

It turned into her sometimes visiting when my mom wasn’t home (which started happening more since there was a rift between my parents) and hanging out with me.

Now, I was not the suave and sophisticated motherfucker I am today, but I did have some game. And I was not an idiot about everything. So as the flirting escalated on both sides, we were both quite aware that it was going to end in something spectacular. I didn’t know if it would be just sex, or something more intense, but we were two trains heading towards each other with no brakes.

Annnd, it didn’t happen.

My mom fucking cock blocked me. No bullshit, she decided to make her friend swear to not date or have sex with me. Since this woman was a good sort, she promised and kept her word. But, since she was a good sort, she told me the truth when she called a stop to things.

Words were had with my mom lol. Which, I’m not getting into her reasoning beyond saying that it was not a reason I consider a good one even more than thirty years later after being a parent myself. That’s a whole different story.

Anyway. Years pass, and there’s always this fire between me and this lady. It’s a small town, so we would run into each other regularly when I’d come into town to visit (I had moved to a nearby city for a while). But it never happens.

And then I moved back home. Moved into the family home in specific. Which is another long story, but not relevant here.

So, my mom was in the process of moving out at that time, and dragged that process out for two years lol. But her friend would still visit, and that fire started burning harder and higher.

There was a kiss on my birthday. I was asleep, and she came to wish me well. I had been sleeping. And I saw her angel face when I woke up, and damn. I just pulled her into me and our lips melted into each other. Other than my wife and when we finally met in person, it is the best kiss I had ever been involved in. Fucking choirs were singing hallelujah.

But she had made a promise. That my mom refused to let go of.

So, some more time passes, my mom moves out, and I’m in the process of buying the family home (another long and boring story). I get a call. It’s her, calling from a bar saying she’s had too much to drink and be able to drive. So I go get her.

She doesn’t want to go to her home, for good reasons. So I bring her to ours. She says ahe wants to get drunk, and would I take care of her while she did. I’m Mr fucking sober buddy (for real, I’m known for it), so I agree.

There’s flirting, there’s some serious conversation about the situation, but there’s mostly just us playing cribbage and bullshitting. Why? Because cribbage was what she wanted to play. No idea why, she couldn’t give one.

She gets to the level of drunk that I would have cut her off for safety’s sake. She passes out on the couch, I get her into a safe position, and set an alarm in the next room to check on her in a half hour. I figured if she was fine then, I could sleep and she’d be fine.

Well, she was fine, and I turned in. Only to be waken up as she’s climbing into bed with me. She’s mumbling something, and kinda pushes her bottom against me before passing back out.

Now, I can not state clearly enough how good she felt next to me. Soft, warm, and even under the bourbon, she smelled divine. Just her personal scent, no perfumes. Maybe a hint of her soap. She was in her underwear. My body reacted. It reacted strongly.

But, even though I have never been perfect, one thing I have never done is take advantage of someone like that. Never have, never will. So I put a pillow between us, cuddled up, and went to sleep.

She was gone when I woke up.

We lost contact. Or, more truthfully, she wouldn’t return calls, and this was before cell phones, so there wasn’t the same immediacy of knowing that someone is deciding not to answer as there is now. She could have been busy and not at home. But after a bit, I gave up and figured that something had happened where she didn’t want contact, and left it at that.

Except. Small town.

We ran into each other maybe a year later. A little awkward, but I just waved and smiled, and left it at that. No pressure, that’s another thing I’ve never liked doing.

But she calls a few days later, wants to talk.

She tells me that she’s sorry. Not for ghosting me (that wasn’t a common term then, I didn’t even hear it for years after that), but for being so horrible that I didn’t want to have sex with her that night!

She had gotten tipsy with the intention of losing enough control to not care about her promise. Once she got home with me, and I’m being Mr fucking sober buddy, she thought I was not into her, so she got more drunk to make a move herself.

And, here’s the kicker. When she climbed into bed with me, she wanted me to have sex with her. That was the entire goal of the evening, and she genuinely thought it was a good idea that she get so drunk that she wouldn’t feel bad for it happening. Then, when I didn’t rape her in her sleep (which is what it would have been, in my mind then, and still is now), she thought I was too disgusted by her drinking to want her at all.

The lady did have some issues, obviously.

I reassured her that I had wanted her from the first time we met, and it had never changed. But I was a little upset, and asked her if she really thought I was the kind of person that would do that to someone. And she said “that’s just how men are”.

Which says it all, doesn’t it? Kinda encapsulates the kind of life some people suffer through, to be left with that as something that they not just accept as part of an ugly world, but think it’s normal and that it’s okay. She really was hurt that I didn’t want to have sex with her while she was unconscious.

It was a long conversation after that. But she was with someone, and as much as I cared about her, and still wanted her, I was fine with that being the end of it. I still can’t wrap my head around the dissonance of her thinking I could do that. Like I said at the beginning of this, I was precocious. So I was not shy about discussion sex casually, and had talked about sexual issues with her. Drunk sex had come up in conversation. I had said I wouldn’t be comfortable with it since it just felt skeevy. So it wasn’t like the matter was new to the both of us.

Hell, I had even clearly stated in one conversation back when I was still in high school that my biggest turn on is being wanted. Not just in a casual sense, but being actively desired. There’s a magic in it for a big, hairy dude, and I was big and hairy even then. Not many of my peers were into dating a damn sasquatch, you dig?

So, I don’t know that I fucked up the chance. I kinda think she did. But I guess it counts.

It does get stuck in there. Just don’t make the mistake of going out in public until it fades lol.

I had an NPC during a table top rpg session that was my excuse to do my foghorn leghorn voice. Spent all afternoon doing that voice, and couldn’t stop when I made a beverage and snack run.

I already have a southern accent (technically a mountain accent, but that’s quibbling), so hamming it up can get absurd lol

You gotta get some foghorn leghorn in there to make it really work :)

I say, I say, you need to seize the means of production, boy.

Hell, that could work fine. At least there’s one big button issue they would agree on for sure.