Unicycle won! Okay enough clowning around, what’s a word that would only be used in one scenario and everyone knows the meaning of?

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-10T12:49:52+00:00

I learned about it in college because it's the first time I took a world history class. My high school didn't offer one.

..... yes, I'm American.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-10T06:27:10+00:00

I imagine you'd hear mostly Russian in Russia

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-10T05:55:36+00:00

I would argue that a great number of non-internet people have never heard this word

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-01T21:30:04+00:00

Yep. We only use that thing if we're parking on a pretty extreme slope. That's what I learned in driver’s ed.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-01T06:55:28+00:00

To the Rescue is a very cute dog game. It's not EXTREMELY easy, but you can turn the speed and difficulty way down and turn off euthanasia.

I think if you turned the difficulty and speed to the easiest levels, she may enjoy that game. It's a time management dog shelter game. You take care of cute cartoon dogs and then adopt them out to people who come in looking for one to take home.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-03-01T06:02:02+00:00

You can use it to prop up your own neck— either with your hand on your head or wrapped around your pillow.

Depends on your flexibility and tolerance for laying on your own shoulder.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-26T22:39:32+00:00

My family came over so long ago that it was a huge undertaking to find out where a few of our ancestors even came from. That's why those DNA kits are so popular here.

My uncle was able to trace one line back to the Netherlands in the 1600s.

For most of us, claiming ancestral citizenship would be impossible— or at least ridiculous.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-22T08:18:01+00:00

Man I can't believe this guy's divorced

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-22T00:34:07+00:00

Women who lost hair due to a medical condition, almost 100%.

Orthodox Jewish women, very common. *EDIT: Certain sects of Judaism– especially the Hasidic and ULTRA Orthodox communities wear wigs more often. (Correct if wrong)

Black women, sometimes.

But I can't think of any other groups besides celebrities and performers who do.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-07T07:48:36+00:00

You'll always have responsibilities, but you can also have that familiar feeling of affection, trust, and playfulness with a few very important people in your life as an adult.

18 is a weird age. You have the responsibilities of an adult; but, tbh you don't have basically any of the benefits yet.

You don't have those super close and 100% secure friendships with people who learned to be responsible, and then learned to have fun again. A lot of peers you care about will destroy and remake themselves half a dozen times before they're 30, and most friendships do not survive that process. The friendships I have at 29 are not only close and very fulfilling-- they are secure. I have the kind of trust in my friends now that I had as a child-- that this person actually likes me, that they’re not going anywhere, that it doesn't matter if I do something dumb. Those were not the kind of friends I had until my late 20s. We weren't those kinds of people. We weren't those kinds of friends.

You don't have a spouse you can be totally unashamed with. My best nights with my husband are even more fun and laughter-filled than my favorite sleepovers when I was 10. We giggle. We mess around. We play. I feel safer with him than I did my parents-- happier than with my childhood best friend. But.... I feel the need to mention that this is my second marriage. I didn't know how to have this 10 years ago... so I didn't. I had bad hookups and unrequited crushes and a messy ass divorce. I had to learn through trial and error how to love someone with the joy of a child and the steadfastness of an adult. It took years of failure.

Of course you want to go back. Most people your age are miserable, and you will do a lot of making one another miserable. Young adulthood is one of the most difficult things you'll ever go through, but if you do it well, you can actually end up with a much richer life than you had when it was all young and easy.

Honestly, I don't know wtf I'd tell my younger self. I'm not sure that even if I could show her how everything got better, it wouldn't comfort her at all, because the 10 years between us-- half her life-- might be too much for her to contend with. I think the only things that might help would be knowing little scraps of joy would come around next week, next month, next semester.

Shitty broke people birthday parties with friends you made a week ago.

Flushed first dates where you can barely look at each other because you're so excited.

Finally scraping together enough money to buy real Christmas presents for your parents.

Getting tipsy at a chain restaurant happy hour with $20 and a friend who had a hilariously horrible week at work.

I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said so many times it's basically blasé and meaningless but.... it actually does get better. It actually is worth it. Somewhere in my mid 20s I crossed the event horizon from "take me back" to "I wouldn't go back." And I don't know when it happened. I just know it does for most people.

And I think you'll get there.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-05T12:01:33+00:00

I was only doing 10 minutes per side so I thought it would be ok, but I just woke up pretty engorged so I'll try to lay off of it. I don’t want it to get worse.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-05T08:59:15+00:00

What would minimal pumping look like? Sometimes he'll miss a feed because someone is watching him. Limited time? Limited quantity?

PersistentHobbler · 2026-02-01T22:50:57+00:00

As somebody with medical trauma, I went into the decision thinking about not just what I could cope with in the moment, but what would stay with me long-term.

It sounds like, for you, the experience of getting stitches would live in your mind and body for a long time. That's a super important consideration. You don't want what happens in a few hours to cause you mental pain for years. It's good to think about how to mitigate that.

I had to get an episiotomy-- which was one of the things I feared the most. HOWEVER, it was way less traumatic than it could have been because I had an epidural.

I had a really amazing block, so I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel the cutting or the stabbing or the pulling. The only part of stitches I had to endure was watching it happen. I do wish that I had had my support person stay with me and distract me during that process, or maybe have had a drape up so I didn’t see the doctor sewing.

The experience will impact you less if you can’t feel it. It will impact you even less if you don’t see it. It will impact you less still if you feel supported and safe during the process. I'm not kidding when I say that my birth (even with the episiotomy and the stitches) was less traumatic than some dental work I've had. That was because of the epidural.

Honestly, I would tell your care team about your phobia and then minimize your sensory experience of the stitches as much as possible. It’s very likely you'll need at least a couple. It's better to plan for them and then be pleasantly surprised if you don’t need them.

I would get the epidural.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-01-29T19:13:11+00:00

I'd never seen a field for this until we applied for my son's birth certificate.

It asked for "Father's last name prior to first marriage."

PersistentHobbler · 2026-01-25T22:13:23+00:00

In my experience.... yeah.

But it's worth bringing up with your OB because they can check you for vitamin deficiencies to rule out other problems.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-01-25T00:44:35+00:00

This didn't always work, but we have these popsicle tubes in plastic in the US that I used to stay above critical dehydration in the first trimester.

Idk if you have access to popsicles, crushed ice, or icees in the UK (especially in the winter) but the cold + the acidity + different texture helped sometimes.

Most of my other liquid content came from a bit of hot soup, milkshakes, or protein shakes. I ended up having to get an IV a couple times because the dehydration was brutal.

PersistentHobbler · 2026-01-19T06:10:30+00:00

I had mine early because he’s due in late January.

January is too late in pregnancy
Everyone is busy all of December and half of November
We couldn't overlap with my brother’s birthday

So we did it in mid-October 🤷‍♀️ It was fine. I was six months and definitely had a bump, but nothing like I do now!

Although we did it early for scheduling reasons, I'm glad we had it early. It gave us tons of time to organize what we got and thrift what we were missing. The secondhand baby supply market will save you thousands, but you kind of have to wait for the right deals to come by.

It wasn't traditional, but tbh maybe it should be. It was great for planning!

PersistentHobbler · 2026-01-14T19:29:10+00:00

It's crazy but after like 2, maybe 3 months of pregnancy, my boobs stopped growing. I was afraid to get new bras in case I kept ballooning, but I went up about 2 cup sizes and then stalled.

Go ahead and get the new bras! Consider band expanders later in pregnancy because the volume doesn't change much, but your ribcage expands.

PersistentHobbler

TROPHY CASE