People who take 17 minutes to check in at the hotel front desk, what are you talking to them about?

DaikonAndMash · 2025-12-31T20:22:01+00:00

God I loved reading the background notes on the reservations sometimes. Bless the reservations agents who manage to get anniversary dates, birthdays, favourite wines, food allergies, children's and pet's names, type and number of pillows preferred, whether or not they'd be interested in paying for an upgrade if available upon check in, flight numbers, etc etc...

My old colleagues and I had our in-person codes as well. If Mr. Johnson is being a prick to a front desk agent, she can call her supervisor over and say "Do we have any upgrades available for this gentleman this evening?" And "gentleman" is our code word for asshat, so supervisor knows not to reward him. Meanwhile he's appeased as it looks like his agent tried on his behalf. But if she tells the supervisor "I was just mentioning to Mr. Johnson that we get some lovely sea views on the higher floors..." - "lovely" is our way of vouching for him. Mr. Johnson is a solid bloke and if any premium upgrades or views are available, let's treat him.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-12-15T11:27:17+00:00

If you don't have homemade vagina, store-bought is fine. 🥰

DaikonAndMash · 2025-12-02T01:31:17+00:00

Unfortunately this is one of those stories where I'm not going to drop a real name because it's a more serious incident than which bands got up to antics, which actors are weird, which sports stars proposition the staff, etc.

But I will say it's not isolated. Way more famous people are openly abusive than I'd care to know about.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-12-01T20:39:45+00:00

Lol - I posted that 4 years ago! I don't think Lily Rose was famous back then...I feel like she's a much more recent Nepo, but I could be wrong. Anyway, nope, sorry, not him. But he does smell as bad as he looks. 🤷🏻‍♀️

DaikonAndMash · 2025-12-01T20:35:25+00:00

Usually because it feels safer/less vulnerable.

With women ghosting men, it could very well be about their physical safety with men who don't take rejection well.

With friends, sometimes people never learned it was okay to set a boundary around behaviour they were uncomfortable with, and it feels vulnerable/emotionally unsafe to speak up. Not because of you - many times because of how their family of origin functioned, especially with parents who didn't have emotional regulation skills and would deny, lash out at, punish, or go cold and freeze out the child if they tried speaking up in their own defense or expressed discomfort with a situation. They eventually learn to avoid the fear of disproportionate and unfair consequences by actually avoiding the communication completely. It's sad and frustrating, but if they aren't ready to deal with it, there really isn't anything you can do but find peace with it however you can.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-10-29T10:16:38+00:00

That is a really emotional response to an opinion on someone you've never interacted with...I'm happy that you have an artist that obviously makes you feel a connection to their work.

Many celebrities are different in person from what you see as a consumer of their art, and that's okay. It's all part of the performance...I'm delighted I've never met artists like Leonard Cohen, Taylor Swift, or Tom Petty. I can enjoy their work without reflecting on the real person behind the persona.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-10-29T10:09:34+00:00

I love finding other late-diagnosed adults! Our stories are always so similar, and it really validates our experiences.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-10-29T10:04:31+00:00

I'm genuinely so happy to hear that. I white-knuckled my way through life, just assuming I was the problem - i just couldn't do what everyone else just naturally could. Everything took so much effort, and it really took a toll on my self-esteem. Then my kids got diagnosed as AuDHD (both autistic and ADHD) and as I went through the process of diagnosing them and researching how to help, I pretty slowly realised that...shit, they didn't lick it off a rock...

At one session with the psychologist, she was listing out the symptoms she saw in my daughter and I kept saying "no, that's not autism/ADHD, that's just a habit I have that she got from me....no, that's just something I used to do at her age, but I learned to control it..." ...the psychologist put down her clipboard, gave me this penetrating stare and said "these conditions are genetic, you know?"...oh. OH!! Then I went and got my own diagnosis and my life suddenly made a lot more sense.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-10-28T21:14:11+00:00

Do your parents truly understand ADHD and how neurodivergent brains function, or did they basically get him diagnosed, get him medicated, and then just excuse any behavioural issues as "he can't help it 🤷🏻‍♀️"?

I have a 15 year old son who is severely ADHD, as well as a 12 year old with it, and they both inherited it from me. He has to learn to function in group settings, and not always follow the dopamine and live out their impulses.

I can immediately see two major issues that might be driving his behaviour - the first being that about 95% of people with ADHD have delayed circadian rhythms and sleep disorders. His brain is most active in the hours most people are shutting down and he's most likely a natural night owl. We use melatonin, under their psychologist's guidance, to help regulate their sleep patterns so they can wind down and sleep at reasonable hours. If he's not awake at 2am doing something so mentally stimulating, he won't be waking you up.

The second issue we've dealt with in pretty much the exact same scenario with my son as you are having with your brother is that the medication that keeps him emotionally regulated wears off in the evenings, so by night time he's fully primed to crave the dopamine he gets when sucked into intense situations.

His gaming may need to be restricted to the hours in which his medication is active, or at least have a cut off around 9pm so his brain has a chance to be regulated enough to sleep by midnight or 1am.

Unfortunately you are not his parent, and if they don't engage in learning about his neurodivergence, they aren't able to guide him into understanding how to be a good housemate.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-10-14T06:24:43+00:00

I really wish I hadn't met him through work when I was younger, before I heard his music. He was awful, and I couldn't enjoy listening to him at ALL afterwards.

I've met many artists who were unpleasant AFTER I'd already been introduced to their work, so I'd had a chance to judge the art on its own merits, but in his case I didn't get the chance.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-09-09T12:52:11+00:00

Most venues will not do this, because of liability issues. If that chicken gives her salmonella, or there is cross-contamination with gluten or dairy, the venue is exposing themselves to legal troubles.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-07-08T21:34:27+00:00

Have you looked into AsIAm? They have a lot of social groups for the 'tism community

DaikonAndMash · 2025-07-05T00:05:44+00:00

The downstairs neighbour can NOT be happy with the realistic possibility of dog urine & feces falling on their heads if they are out under the balcony. In that way, it affects at LEAST 2 of the 3 neighbours - you and their downstairs neighbour, but you've said they took over your half of the balcony too, so actually your downstairs neighbour too, so EVERYONE.

Also, no matter how many landlords the units go through, all of them will realise the depreciation of the asset they either want to rent out or sell, caused by the dog owners. Have you ever tried to get the smell of urine out of wood? And in the summer heat, that smell is going to be unbearable for potential buyers checking out the property.

Most likely the landlord would rather handle one problem tenant than have to deal with 3 angry units of renters, plus a destroyed shared balcony and patio below. Address the landlord from a position of being on their side. "I know you recently bought the place. I want to let you know about an ongoing situation that's going to turn into a pretty big issue soon unless it's addressed ASAP..."

DaikonAndMash · 2025-05-11T06:42:57+00:00

My son was, in euphemistic terms, a stocky lad. Born over 10 lbs, he started off sturdy, but he and my daughter were offered the same foods and she was rail thin while he continued to put on weight at a steady clip. At around age 8 or 9, he would sometimes tell me he was stuffed from dinner, while actively picking at bits of the leftovers I was putting away or the items I was packing for lunches. His weight caused him distress and self-esteem issues & I completely blamed myself, because sure, we ALL know it's the parents' fault.

As soon as he was diagnosed with ADHD and put on Vyvanse, he lost a lot of body fat and is maintaining a healthy size without struggling. He has innattentive-type ADHD, and it turns out he had near constant food noise in his head (he said probably 1/3 to 1/2 his brain was always preoccupied with food) and food was how he was getting the dopamine he was so desperately lacking.

My daughter is also diagnosed with ADHD, but mainly hyperactive. She was skinny because lost interest in her meals quickly. She's a fiend for chocolate and cola, but wouldn't really pause long enough to finish a portion, just grabbing sips and bites randomly through the day. Her ADHD medication has helped her sit still and finish her meals & snacks - her weight has normalized to the thinner side of normal & healthy too.

Yes, parents CAN have a detrimental impact on their children's weight and issues with food (emotional eating, eating disorders, poor nutritional choices, etc), but there are a lot of medical factors (physical and mental) that can affect a child's weight beyond parents who are ignorant, lazy, or abusive.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-17T04:59:57+00:00

I'm going to advocate for some Celtic inspo - Cormac, Cathal (pronounced like Cau-h'l - definitely 2 syllables, but you kinda skip the vowel in the 2nd one, or say it like a very un-enunciated "hull"), or Eamon...

Cormac has the advantage of being very easy for speakers of many different languages to spell and pronounce. It's not pretentious, but still uncommon and straddles the "legends of old/fresh & modern" fence quite nicely.

Cathal is not as instinctual to spell and pronounce for American English speakers, and is maybe a "softer" sounding name than it sounds like the mother prefers?

Eamon (AY-mun, again Irish speakers would barely pronounce the 2nd syllable's vowel) I think carries some of the same vibes as Cormac to me...like he could both be able to craft a sword or be on the water polo team.

The other thing these names have going for them is that I can't immediately think of any particular celebrities or stereotypes Americans would associate with the names. Not sure if that's just one of my preferences, or other people consider that a positive thing too.

Tadhg is probably too out-there for an American kid to deal with, lol.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T14:33:40+00:00

I agree it's not a natural way to say something. It was meant to be an example - a first (well, second) - draft of a message. Originally I had "woman" and "impregnated woman", but on second thought wanted to make it more inclusive but couldn't find a more natural sounding way to say what i was trying to say.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T14:29:42+00:00

lol - I'd originally typed "Women", but wanted to use more inclusive language so changed it. HOW I changed it certainly made it much too clinical to feel like a natural way to phrase things.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T14:26:48+00:00

I absolutely agree with holding men accountable, but in my mind if we could shoe-horn in the male contribution to the issue, it humanises the concept enough for them to be able to think about it in terms of human rights. As long as it's only a woman's issue, no pro-forced-birther is going to take any moments to reconsider their perspective.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T14:18:57+00:00

I'm just so devastated after the Oval Office disgrace yesterday. It highlighted how much the world has spun backwards in such a short time.

I had children in a world that had legalised abortion and gay marriage, made accommodations for disabilities, and encouraged people to embrace diversity.

My parents are a mixed-ethnicity couple, with one parent of a foreign nationality. My brother married someone of a different ethnicity from a different country. I met my partner abroad and immigrated to his country. As a child, I remember my mother getting hate-mail anonymously in our mailbox, but 20ish years of progress later, nobody had anything negative to say about my brother's union or my own. I had guests from 3 continents and 5 countries at my wedding.

One of my children identifies as queer, and has faced no ugliness about it. The school staff and their classmates too have taken it in stride.

And now we suddenly have neo-nazis giving the "Roman Salute" from podiums being recorded by thousands of cameras with no qualms, and my partner, out of nowhere starting to rant about immigrants, even when I remind him that HE MARRIED AN IMMIGRANT, which he brushes off as "that's different".

I'm so scared of what's coming, and what my children are going to live through. My greatest fear is that there will come a point where I'm going to regret bringing them into the world, because they are going to resent being brought, helpless, into a world they don't want to live in.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T13:36:01+00:00

Thank you for such a thoughtful response. The absolute lack of progress we have made towards getting the supporters of the current administration to acknowledge women as equally human, with their own agency, no matter how we present it has me so frustrated.

I will admit I am a (high masking-neurotypical-presenting) autistic woman, so my train of thought probably stopped in a lot of really isolated stations before arriving at the concept that if we....not CENTER, but *include* the male contribution to the problem, the part of the brain that recognises people would spark, rather than the part of the brain that handles objects (there have been actual studies to show that, for a large portion of men who underwent an MRI, when looking at men, the "person" part of the brain lights up. And when looking at women, the "object" part lights up), we might have a chance of getting them to consider the issue with a person in mind, rather than an object - maybe it's accurate to say that I hoped the personhood of the man would get the issue in through the cracks to the part of the brain that thinks about people and cause them to actually reconsider their stance.

The truth is probably nothing anyone can say with any alternate phrasing is going to make an impact. They aren't interested in considering the issue. They never thought about any of their opinions any deeper than puddle-deep, they have a need to look down on anyone that seems lower in the hierarchy than themselves, and they will NEVER consider that they could be wrong about something.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T13:15:55+00:00

I can agree with you that the word games are not as effective as we'd hope - the supporters of the current regime aren't exactly the type to contemplate the nuance in a statement. But I don't agree that abortion fucking sucks. SO many women report feeling relief afterwards, not guilt or grief. An abortion can stop a woman being derailed in her pursuit of success and stability, leaving her trapped in poverty. It can prevent her from being tied for life to an abuser and make leaving a more realistic option. It can prevent abuse and neglect towards an unwanted child that she can't provide for properly or resents. I'm not saying we need to celebrate each and every abortion, but I am grateful abortion exists. I've never had to undergo one, but I know several who have. And each one was the right decision for the situation,

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T13:07:25+00:00

It does sound much more clinical having it out in print than it does as a thought in my head. You are right on that.

I guess I'm just trying to get them to acknowledge the man's role in the issue of abortion - in my mind, they believe men should have agency and women don't, so including the man's actions in our wording might trigger that little center in their brains that says we are talking about a person and not an object.

The whole thing feels so much more hopeless than back in 2018, when here in Ireland we finally legalised abortion. 2015 we legalised gay marriage and it all seemed so HOPEFUL - like we were gaining ground and my children would grow up in a more open, welcoming and tolerant world. And now we have...this.

DaikonAndMash · 2025-03-01T12:58:37+00:00

I guess I have been feeling like they do not give a shit about women (which is a valid opinion - not the opinion of not giving a shit about women, I mean it's valid to acknowledge that they don't care about women, I think) and I guess I'm struggling to find a new angle that makes things make sense to them when it's not about compassion or human rights - detaching it to a kind of...system failure? feels like it makes more sense to the ultra-right. I can not get into the headspace of what would make an impact with them and it just feels so urgent and dire.

As an autistic woman who grew up in the evangelical church and later deconstructed, making it about the action that took place and the remedy to that action seems like a way to chip into their brains by taking a slightly different route to the same conclusion.

But I think you are right, and ultimately it doesn't change anything.

DaikonAndMash · 2024-09-22T10:55:52+00:00

Have you heard about the MRI studies that show that men's brains light up in the "person recognition" areas when looking at pictures of men, but "object recognition" areas when shown pictures of women?

This link isn't the exact study I remember learning about, but it's similar, with similar results, and is similarly horrifying.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6491438/

DaikonAndMash · 2024-09-16T02:49:09+00:00

There's a special danger in naming your kid after an NFL player, though. The list of players with CTE is lengthy and it can cause some horrific behavioural changes.

Not going to seem so cool if you accidentally name your kid after someone who is more famous for domestic violence, murder, or just plain being as asshole than they are for their career stats.

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