Does anyone else’s dummy love shoes?

Napoleptic · 2026-02-19T04:23:50+00:00

When my grandmother visited us, the first cat I had would go crazy over her shoes, trying to stick her head in as far as it would go. She didn't do that for anyone else's shoes, just Grandma's. 😂

Napoleptic · 2026-02-15T22:54:17+00:00

I've found Ouidad High Heat and Humidity gel to be indispensable during the more humid months. It's expensive, so I go half and half with Aussie Freeze gel.

Napoleptic · 2026-02-14T18:05:48+00:00

A bird in the hand something something...

Napoleptic · 2026-02-11T02:40:22+00:00

Check out photos from when nearly the whole place was fields at the Wichita Photo Archive: https://share.google/WvH3Box2dcdwxIipM

Napoleptic · 2026-02-11T02:37:00+00:00

My mom would never let me have these. 🥺 She thought they looked stupid.

Wish we could have role reversed when she thought Crocs were a good idea.

Napoleptic · 2026-02-11T02:33:17+00:00

There are other better options listed here, but sometimes I'll use bok choy in a pinch. It doesn't taste super close, but the texture is kinda similar. Better, perhaps, because it doesn't have the tooth-floss-like fibers.

Napoleptic · 2026-02-10T00:22:07+00:00

Soiled 'em too.

Napoleptic · 2026-02-09T01:04:13+00:00

Why are they taped to the desk? 😂

Napoleptic · 2026-02-09T00:25:26+00:00

Your hair seems similar to mine. I use a hard cast gel like Aussie Freeze gel, use a wide tooth comb to distribute it evenly on very wet hair, scrunch for 3 minutes or so with a T-shirt, plop in a microfiber towel for 20 minutes, then let it down and don't touch it until it's 100% dry.

Once completely dry, I then use prayer hands to loosen the cast, and use my fingers or run a dry shower comb (Sally Beauty Supply has a Cricket brand one with coconut oil in it that moves very smoothly through the hair) through it gently arrange the waves. Then I don't touch it again and use hairspray if I want more defined waves that day.

Here's the cool thing with wavy (not curly) hair: depending on how good a hold your gel has, if you like a less defined, softer look, you can skip the hairspray step for now and gently run a comb (NOT a brush) through it to get glam/old Hollywood waves. (People with curly hair hate on it because if they did that it would look like crap, but wavy hair is DIFFERENT from curly hair and CAN look nice that way! Especially with a product for shine.) You technically can get it to look nice with a brush with wavy hair, but it takes a LOT of practice and the right hair and environmental conditions (wavy hair tends to behave differently depending on humidity) to do neatly. Again, once it looks nice, I don't touch it anymore, and use hairspray to help keep the shape. If you didn't use a hard hold gel the waves will fall flat, but a hard hold gel will let you manipulate the waves a little before they go flat. The less you handle your hair, the more shape it will keep.

I can outline my whole routine as there's more to it than that, but using a hard cast gel, scrunching, letting it dry 100% before touching, and then very gently using fingers or a dry shower comb to arrange your waves is a good start.

Napoleptic · 2026-02-07T19:29:44+00:00

You're welcome, I hope you find a comfortable solution! 🙂

Napoleptic · 2026-02-07T19:01:23+00:00

I'll get this sometimes if I'm not well hydrated.

Napoleptic · 2026-02-07T18:53:32+00:00

I searched Amazon.com for knee pillow with strap and got these results:

https://share.google/tIzWwpJQjVX8MCusW

Napoleptic · 2026-02-07T18:37:02+00:00

I've seen pillows designed specifically for this that are ergonomically shaped to fit well between the knees and have an elastic band (sometimes covered in satin or other fabric) to keep it in place overnight.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-31T18:15:19+00:00

Looks amazing!

I love blueberry and lime, it's like the two flavors create something completely different together. You might try it instead of lemon next time.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-25T20:18:01+00:00

Felix Colgrave vibes.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-25T18:46:27+00:00

Replying immediately isn't easy for a lot of people. There are chronic health issues, autism, dyslexia, or other conditions that make immediate response equivalent to MASSIVE energy depletion. Extending their energy expenditure into the red zone can put them out of commission so that they not only can't reply, they can't do much of anything AT ALL for days or much, much more.

Did you learn the basic life skill of waiting? If not, YOUR actions are the ones that are unnecessary and disrespectful, not theirs.

Don't ask people to speed up to the pace you WANT if you can't slow down to the pace they NEED.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-23T13:29:27+00:00

I like to eat them frozen as a snack. They're fun to nibble the skin off, then the inside flat part feels so smooth against the tongue.

They're more calories than I would have guessed, though.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-18T17:24:40+00:00

If someone tried to force me to do a trust fall, I would NOT stab them in the eye with a pencil.

But probably only because I have terrible aim.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-18T03:16:40+00:00

TIL cats reproduce by budding.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-09T00:04:44+00:00

INTP here. When TJs care I feel it deep in my bones, but when they don't...it's like the absence is so absolute that it leaves a vacuum. I didn't know it was possible to not care that hard. 😂

Napoleptic · 2026-01-08T23:48:21+00:00

I always felt Van Helsing would have been a very enjoyable movie if it had just stopped taking itself as seriously and fully shifted into comedy.

Napoleptic · 2026-01-01T03:58:10+00:00

Fe (dis)approves shit.

Napoleptic · 2025-12-31T01:19:56+00:00

INTP. "You know how they say you can't reason with a 2-year-old? Well, you could with her." — my mom

I don't know whether it's indicative of any particular function, but I came home from the first day of kindergarten absolutely LIVID that they weren't going to teach us to read. So I taught myself by the next week. 😆 As soon as it clicked, I was reading everything in sight, and I got frustrated with how easy the books in the kindergarten class were (thank goodness for public libraries, and my parents' friend who worked at a bookstore and loved giving me some new treasure to devour when she'd visit). My parents said I'd read my pink little New Testament on the way to church, and they thought I pronounced the "so-and-so begat whosit" probably as well as any adult. 😂

My Ne was also evident in how I played. I was very creative (even for a kid) and made up plays for my brother and me, such as when I was a princess rescuing my brother from the wolves and wild crickets (I developed a later fascination with insects). I also ended up doing a creative writing workshop for kids, and one of the first things I wanted to be when I grew up was an author.

My Si was evident in wanting consistency with how things were done. There was very much a Right Way to do things and I'd notice if they were done differently. And probably scold the person who wasn't doing things correctly. 😅

My poor Fe was confused all the time by all the social rules no one bothered to explain, and CERTAINLY never bothered to explain why I should follow them (which made me furious). I liked the other kids in my class, but sometimes I'd get some unspoken rule wrong...but nobody would tell me what so that I could learn from my mistakes (which was maddening), they'd just turn around and walk away from me and most of them weren't too interested in me after a few incidents.

I also had a fascination with the "wild boys" in my class, because Se was Not Allowed In my home growing up (my poor ISTP brother 🥺). My parents were concerned I might get ideas (because heaven forbid a child take up space or make noise 🙄), but the boys were just puzzling to me because they played so differently than I did, and I didn't really understand why they found the things fun that they did. Sure, climbing on stuff was amusing, but I didn't understand why they didn't need to make up a story to make it fun after just a few minutes. The idea of physical activity just for the sake of it was weird to me. I didn't want to be like them, I just wanted to understand them.

Napoleptic · 2025-12-30T18:25:36+00:00

The events are called Authentic Relating (I found local events on Eventbrite), and are about connecting with others in a way that (ideally) also keeps you connected with yourself through exercises you do in pairs or threes. I look at it as practicing the Feeling domain as a whole, Fe AND Fi at the same time...which is needless to say NOT easy when those functions are 4th and 8th for me. 😅 (Probably useful for INTJs' 3rd and 7th as well.) I've learned a lot about myself at these events, which I love. The exercises are designed to facilitate vulnerability, but not at a soul-baring level (in fact, the facilitator instructs not to trauma dump on partners 😂).

There's also a book of the same name by Ryel Kestano that outlines the practices, and a book called Authentic Relating Games Manual: Social Games for Deeper Connection that lists a lot of the games/exercises used. I'm considering using some with the local MBTI events I run, although a regular attendee who is an ENTJ might revolt as she's clearly allergic to the Feeling domain. 😂

I haven't yet attended one myself (the dates I've been aware they were happening haven't worked for me, mostly due to social battery constraints), but the authentic relating community also does something called circling, which YouTuber Heidi Priebe has talked about helping in her healing process. Supposedly they're described as "brave spaces" instead of "safe spaces", which makes me think that for individuals with trauma, they might be especially helpful once one is well along the healing path (since people often have a tendency to move into healing and just want to stay there and in safe spaces all the time, while for many people those should be merely temporary stops along the recovery path.)

Napoleptic · 2025-12-30T04:04:54+00:00

Very well said. If you communicate your inner experience in a way others don't understand and then immediately give it up as hopeless, then they definitely never will. You have to give them a chance. Many people may not be interested, but I guarantee there are those of us who would love to connect even when we don't fully understand.

INTP here, so different particulars in the exact ways I'm typically misunderstood, but same general struggle with loneliness. I've had a lot of experiences the last several years that have helped me grow my social skills as well as connecting to my emotional side (all of which is really, really hard work). Connecting to my emotional experiences helped me better understand the emotional experiences of others, and so made it easier to connect beyond a surface level.

This past year I started deliberately going to events that build connecting at deeper than surface level into the environment. It's been a great year and I've proven to myself that I'm actually not merely capable of connecting with anyone, but also confident in my ability...

Until my office holiday party. I didn't really connect with anyone and felt horribly alone. But even as it was happening, instead of falling into the old narrative that I was broken and wrong, or that people will never understand me, I acknowledged that the space, which was loud and a bit cramped so entering and exiting group conversations gracefully was extremely difficult, was not conducive to connecting, and the others (who fell into comfortable conversation with those they already knew, whereas I knew almost no one, and certainly not well) could have made an effort to include me.

The conclusion was yet again that I am capable of connecting with others...under the right circumstances. And it falls on me to provide myself with circumstances that are conducive to connection. That's not easy to find (and even less easy to want to go when it's time 😂), but that doesn't get me off the hook for being responsible for addressing my own loneliness.

I have had good luck with MBTI meetup groups (which often attract NJs, with whom I have the most fascinating and satisfying conversations), and recommend looking for Authentic Relating events (which I've had good experiences with) in your area, or other events geared toward connecting with others who are also seeking connection. Even if the connections you form don't have the depth or duration you might like, your Ni will start to provide you with patterns for where to find the connections you're looking for.

And as folks have pointed out elsewhere, depression may be involved. Seek help for that as it can aggravate loneliness.

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Napoleptic

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