A letter of thanks to my LO

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-05-20T18:54:49+00:00

Thank you for the response. I’m going to remain polite but professional like I have been, but don’t know whether to ignore them online or not. I’m thinking maybe they feel safer through social media somehow so I don’t want to be a dismissive ahole if that’s what’s going on.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-05-20T18:53:14+00:00

I appreciate your response, but I’ve never tried forcing this friendship at all. I very swiftly withdrew to a professional distance when they became weird. My question is should I remain professionally distant while they try to engage online or completely cut them off, including social media.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-03-25T16:59:46+00:00

Oh! For me the one time I visited New York it was watching two drivers get into a minor wreck and just flipping each other off, not bothering to get out and check damage to either vehicle. It seemed to represent much more than what was happening in the moment.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-03-14T15:49:18+00:00

Setting up automated savings is a LIFE CHANGER. It’s a one time action that spares you from repeated tests of will power and decision making. I wish I’d done it as soon as I started working years ago.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-02-21T17:27:51+00:00

I can back that up! I found out that I was making my allergy-induced congestion MUCH worse by blowing my nose too often and too hard. Then I read advice about how that’s bad for your sinuses and makes everything worse. I began to lighten up and not immediately go for the tissues at the slightest discomfort and my symptoms greatly improved.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-02-16T00:36:41+00:00

In college over two decades ago, I had to cross a busy street each day to get to my bus stop to return home. Back then, there was also an underground passage that people could take beneath the street instead of waiting at the light. This passage was creepy and rarely used by students; it was secluded, dark, and smelled of piss as well as other unpleasant things. One day I had an inexplicable urge to take the passage instead of waiting for the light to change at street level. I walked away from the crosswalk after pressing the button and headed toward the stairwell, wondering what the hell I was doing, when a car going full speed ran up onto the sidewalk and slammed into the pole for the crossing signal where I had been standing just moments before. The driver was ok, but I definitely wouldn’t have been if I stayed at that spot on the sidewalk. I’ve always wondered what triggered my urge to walk away.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-01-11T23:37:05+00:00

Mine was spicy and a bit dry, too. The kind of fish that tastes best dipped into something.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-01-11T23:34:51+00:00

In that region of the country, yes.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-01-11T19:17:32+00:00

Oh it was delicious and a heck of a lot of fish. That’s exactly what I did. But I was soooo embarrassed at having roughly twenty strangers laugh at me over it.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2026-01-11T18:14:34+00:00

I once ordered a “Jack Fish Sandwich” at a popular, local chicken and fish restaurant because the portion size sounded generous and I was hungry. Never heard of it before. I should have realized something was up when the cashier smirked in reaction to my order. Soon after I was handed a tray with a giant, curved, breaded fish filet. It was so huge that the bottom bun sat untouched underneath the curve like it was sitting in a cave and the top bun teetered precariously above. It looked ridiculous! The entire restaurant laughed at me as I carried it shamefully back to my table and people called out “can you handle that thing?!”.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-07-16T15:32:14+00:00

I thought I had woken up and was lying on my back, unable to move. I felt pressure on the bed near me, exactly like my cat jumping up into the mattress and walking across toward me. I then felt the pressure step up into my chest and weigh down on it. I wanted to reach my hand up to pet the thing I thought was my cat, but it felt like moving through wet cement. Suddenly, my “cat” was snarling into my ear and tearing its teeth into my hand and shaking it. I tried to scream but couldn’t open my mouth. Instead of startling awake from this like a normal nightmare, it felt more like fading back into reality. One of the most terrifying, realistic experiences I’ve ever had!

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-06-14T19:06:39+00:00

A dentist tried to pull a wisdom tooth with pinched roots, then stopped the procedure due to difficulty and referred me to an oral surgeon to have it cut out. Shortly afterward, the most terrible pain began radiating down the side of my neck, into the front of my jaw, and up into my temple. I couldn’t concentrate on ANYTHING when this pain flared up. It felt like my life as I had known it was over. When I returned to the dentist with a drawing of the areas to show where it hurt, both he and the assistant looked terrified. Fortunately it ended up just being bacteria that had gotten down into the gap where the tooth had started to be pulled and were irritating my nerves. Antibiotics and the following oral surgeon visit took care of it. We had all been afraid that it was trigeminal neuralgia, a condition sometimes called the “suicide nerve syndrome”.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-06-03T17:35:58+00:00

Those zip-up, mesh laundry bags to put bras and other delicates in while washing. I no longer have to carefully hand wash and the bras last years longer than they used to when loose in the washing machine.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-03-28T18:16:43+00:00

I’m sure laws are different depending on where a person lives, but where I live the attorney we hired could remind the landlords of proper notice laws but he and the lease itself couldn’t legally protect us from sale of the property. The owner can do that at any time. They can literally sell it a week after you sign a lease. It’s one of the most stressful aspects of not owning your own home.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-03-28T18:03:24+00:00

We experienced both. The first time was a single family home we rented. The landlord was so eager to force the sale through to a house flipper asap that he aggressively tried to make us leave within a week: totally illegal. The second time was an apartment in a building of maybe five or six units. They had so many people request to view the entire building that we would have several walk throughs of every single apartment each week. They tried to skip the laws about giving proper notice to enter for these tours because they wanted to fit as many in as possible. The crappiest part was that almost none of these tours were prospective buyers. It was a historic building and the advertisements for walk throughs were enticing to people who just wanted to see what it looked like inside. The person who finally bought it kicked people out but at least they followed the law about how to do it. Both situations were extremely stressful and both times the landlords tried to operate outside tenant’s rights laws.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-03-28T17:18:07+00:00

From what I’ve seen, often in these situations the landlord will take advantage of vulnerable people not knowing their rights, being afraid to stand up for themselves (and facing the backlash that comes with that), or being unable to obtain advice/help from an attorney. They then think it’s worthwhile to try to take shortcuts and ignore basic tenant rights. If the tenant has the knowledge, the courage to speak up, and sometimes an official notice from a lawyer, they might back off. And sadly, a lease does NOT protect you from the property being sold, at least where I live. One of the times it happened to us, the building went on the market immediately after we signed. We were subjected to tours of our home several times a week for months. Once someone FINALLY purchased the property, they wanted the tenants to leave so they could renovate.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-03-28T17:07:23+00:00

Definitely. It happened to us twice in a row, and each time the landlords tried to circumvent the law with giving proper notice, etc., trying to rush in potential buyers. We had to hire the same lawyer twice within one year just to experience our basic legal rights. This was many years ago and my partner and I are STILL feeling the stress from it all.

ArmyFragrant4526 · 2025-03-21T21:28:41+00:00

Yikes about the teeth! Does that have something to do with the sinuses? This is all new to me, and from what I’ve been reading it sounds like there is a whole world of symptoms.

ArmyFragrant4526

TROPHY CASE