I am very sorry to tell you that it’s quite likely you came to sentience just so you could eventually be killed by one Arthur Dent.

I was at my wife’s work holiday party last night.

They had a clever icebreaker bingo game with facts about the attendees. One person’s was “survived three school shootings.” I found her and got a bingo. The prize was a $10 doordash gift card.

Lame prize, great game idea. Terrible that this has happened to her but she’s a bright and cheerful woman.

I never put it together it was the same dude. Obvious though.

From my experience, IBS is both about diet and anxiety.

Obviously not eating isn’t going to help. You’ll have to learn what foods set you off and limit or eliminate those from your diet. (For me it’s raw onions and overly starchy foods.)

But I believe your condition is fueled more by your anxiety and depression.

I can’t really help you there other than to say that controlled breathing exercises seem to be helping me. I often take cold showers when in an IBS attack that has verged into being a panic attack, but in that cold shower I realized I focus on my breathing.

My background is that I knew I had IBS but it was getting out of control. It turned out I had a hernia that was causing an occasional intestinal blockage. Once that was fixed, my IBS started to slowly improve.

It should’ve been massively better, but I had been training myself to be anxious each morning, worrying whether I’d be able to function at all.

I had to unlearn that worry… and it took a long time.

I dunno that I can give you advice on making friends. I am lucky to have a very good core support group of friends who have been with me through the last twenty-some years. We are all middle-aged dudes now, with our own complicated lives, but we still get together for board games, d&d, and chat on a discord all the time.

There was a time when we grew apart a bit. (We are stoners and one of our rowdier friends went to jail.)

I called a few together for a board game night, and it stuck. If I had not done that, we would almost certainly not still be in each other’s lives.

So find some friends and keep them close. It is very hard to get through life alone, as you know. It takes hard work to make and maintain these relationships, but they are necessary.

My wife was going under for minor surgery and wanted to ask if any of the staff were watching Game of Thrones. (which hadn’t gotten bad yet)

Apparently she crooked out Game of Thrones! and then passed out.

Whatever you do or say… you do or say. And this is their everyday job, you aren’t going to offend anyone. The worst you can do is give someone a good story.

But more to the point, those drugs remove your filter for a moment. It’s not your fault.

As for the rest, I cannot say. Some things you have to take a deep breath and accept that it’s out of your control. You cannot change the reactions of others. Will your family coddle you? Or are they going to show you that they love and care about you during a rough time? How are those necessarily different?

I hope it all goes well for you. It sounds routine, so there’s that, and then hopefully your symptoms abate.

I am on the spectrum but not diagnosed. I’ve only had anesthesia a few times in my life and have no idea what I said or did when I went under.

I worried more about the after effects and healing, and everything went smoothly. Just for what its worth from one overthinker to another.

If it’s already a crime and you involved a minor in the crime while crossing state lines, you now trafficked that minor and additional charges are added. Add a gun, more charges.

One crime at a time is the rule for a lot of good reasons. Of course zero crimes is preferable, if we are being picky.

That explains the strain names!

I was already not buying their crap.

Now I can do so gleefully.

I’m glad to hear that they’re patient, and I hope you can find your way.

Let’s say for a second that your sister is indeed smarter than you. It’s wonderful for her that she’s bright and still says very little about you.

I agree with another poster that your parents expectations are unfair and damaging to you. It could also be that you’re seeing your parents actions unfairly. Maybe they’re abusive, maybe they’re scared for you and only have your sister to compare to in their experience.

Either way I would urge you to move out when you reasonably and safely can so that you can start to build your own life by your priorities and expectations.

It’s my opinion that people don’t have any clue who they are until they have the independence to discover themselves.

Your parents are supposed to help you get the tools to do that and exist in the world.

Maybe they’re doing that poorly, maybe they did well enough, but you seem to no longer be effectively growing while living there… so what’s next?

Same screenwriters, amazingly.

HBO MAX is full of crap I never wanted to see and is missing swathes of the actual HBO catalog.

It’s not even worth what they’re charging.

It’s saturation, Disney+, and the inflation/recession combo.

All it takes is a few misses and people will wait for streaming.

Me, I’ll watch everything Marvel but I can wait, so when I was ready to go see a movie and it came down to Superman or Fantastic Four, the choice was easy. Superman delivered exactly what I wanted and needed.

I don’t think this is superhero fatigue, or at least that’s a lower issue on the list. It’s Marvel (formula) fatigue especially, and I think they will right that ship soon.

Heh. Autocomplete.

Any attempt at self-improvement is not pathetic. My phone suggested self-forgiveness, which also is key here.

You are trying to be more aware and less impulsive. The key here is mindfulness, not that it’s easy to attain/achieve.

I said self-forgiveness because beating yourself up for your perceived failures will also hold you back.

Failure is key to success.

I’ve made a little progress toward changing my internal monolog, and it has served me well. Be nicer to yourself and laugh off your failures lest the memory of them become baggage.

My dad is a Buddhist. I never got good at meditation, but I recognize its value.

But mainly, be kinder to yourself. Perfection was never an option, so why would you expect it from yourself?

Relax. Breathe. You’ll figure things out, whether or not you achieve these goals.

I mean… they’ve remade The Toxic Avenger with a star-studded cast.

I can’t exactly complain. I’ll watch it.

Yeah, it’s probably a best practice thing rather than strictly necessary.

And they aren’t my baguettes, but I did save this post to try them soon.

Minerals can interfere with the yeast colony, so you want to use filtered water for poolish and sourdough starter.

Learned that off of YouTube earlier this week in a how to make your own sourdough starter video.

And that’s simple enough to share here. 50g flour and 50g water in a jar, left out and capped but not sealed. Remove 50% and replace with even amounts daily until you can tell that yeast has made it’s way in. Done.

Maybe. I’m older and used to decades of insane fandom.

I’m of the opinion that the original Highlander was barely above b-movie schlock, and it became a cult hit for being better than it should’ve been and little else. (ie soundtrack)

As such, I have low expectations for this reboot but will be happy if it’s good.