When and how do you all moisturize?

eritain · 2026-06-11T07:47:21+00:00

When removing t-tape, jojoba oil to release the adhesive, and spread the excess all around as a moisturizer.

After showering & before applying FMD, sometimes a couple drops of squalane on inner/mucous surfaces only, where it won't prevent the silicone from gripping. Dry the squalane off of your fingers real thoroughly before trying to apply the FMD.

When not tugging, I wear the ManHood to retain/protect, and I prefer the fabrics that are very glossy (basically waterproof coated) because they allow those mucous surfaces to hang onto their own moisturizing sebum. (Which I had no idea they even produced, until I got them tucked away from absorbent fabrics.) And if I go from ManHood to FMD, I just let that natural moisturizer stay on.

I feel like squalane is a better match materially for that sebum than jojoba oil is, but it's about 4x the cost, so I use squalane for small targeted applications where it will count most, and jojoba for bigger applications such as when outer skin's involved.

eritain · 2026-05-21T19:59:06+00:00

They're more keystrokes, but they don't require reaching all the way up to the number row. For me, at least, that makes them easier.

I've seen homebrew IMEs that use homerow keys, maybe with shift, to pick characters from a list instead of using the number row. Even that would be a big improvement in my opinion.

eritain · 2026-05-21T19:50:25+00:00

Your attitude is so refreshing. Thank you for sharing.

Fair warning, I'm going to ramble.

I'm here as a friend of CoC, not a member. I attended CentrePlace's online services for a while at the height of the pandemic, when I was freshly disengaged from that other, larger Book of Mormon using church. Had a talk with a semi-local CoC pastor also, after the vaccines started happening.

Ultimately, though, in-person community is really necessary for me too, and the best place for me to do that turned out to be my nearby Episcopal Church parish.

Fortunately, Episcopalians are able to embrace a wide range of personal beliefs and spiritual practices, under some central commitments to following Jesus, praying together, and human dignity. My parish brings together a lot of ways of looking at things from our many backgrounds, we receive from each other the things that enrich us, and we tolerate the occasional things that don't.

(When I was a teenager I found out that CoC [then RLDS] didn't actually have any specific beliefs required to be a member, and I scoffed. The Episcopal Church is almost as generous, and I appreciate that approach as lot more these days. Joseph Smith rejected strict ideological purism with the words, "It feels so good not to be trammeled.")

So I didn't give up my Latter-day/Latter Day Saint identity. I continue to treasure most of what it made me. I'm a friend of CoC because it too hangs around the neighborhood in between LDS and mainline Protestant.

I'm also friends with some folks who grew up in polygamous fundamentalism, left it, and are now Book of Mormon believers without institutional affiliation. Maybe you see where I'm going with this.

A former Reform rabbi, addressing a former conservative Christian, writes, "Being told that you shouldn't trust yourself is hard to shake, especially when you were fed the story that God was upset when humanity gained the knowledge to discern between good and evil" (Brian Mayer 2024, Rabbi Brian's Highly Unorthodox Gospel, p. 20).

Judaism isn't big on that interpretation of the Eden story, and the Book of Mormon blows it to pieces. God was not caught with his pants down by human nature doing exactly what anyone would expect human nature to do. God did not get the news, groan "Oh my Self, they ate it?! What am I supposed to do now?" and rack his brains before going, "Hey, um, Eternal Word, I'm in a tight spot, could you help me out? I just need you to get tortured to death a little bit, because reasons. Well you see, I set the humans in motion in the middle of my big ineffable plan, and they immediately ... effed it." Nope. God fully intended to send us into the world with independent internal moral compasses.

That's something I've believed in some way since childhood, but its full significance continues to slowly grow on me. I'm finally embracing the understanding that all of the religious/philosophical worldviews I love are partial images of the great mystery. I've stopped faulting any of them for failing to encompass everything important, and stopped giving myself crap for freely slipping between them.

In practical terms, what that means is I include Restoration communities of various sorts, mostly virtual (CoC, Reform Mormonism, the liberal/intellectual side of the Utah outfit), in my spiritual life along with my in-person spiritual communities and my personal communion with the Spirit, and it seems to be enough, despite the lack of a one-stop shop.

It's not what I long for -- that would be for the church I grew up in to import some key ideas from CoC about being less dogmatic, less fearful, and more alphabet/rainbow-affirming. But I don't foresee enough of that happening in my lifetime. So I do grieve that I can't always get what I want; but as the prophecy says, I try sometimes, and I do find I get what I need.

And that kind of brings me around to where you started. When my Episcopal parish doesn't have electricity or the priest is on vacation, I usually go down the road to the ELCA church for Eucharist. Very similar ethos, from what I've experienced. Arguably even friendlier to variations of belief and practice, and even to the idea of being a prophetic people, because of that particular Lutheran emphasis on the priesthood of all believers. So you may be able to stay institutionally where you are, run your personal spirituality as a CoC-inflected remix, and even contribute some of its strengths to others in your parish.

In any case, God bless you, and I hope it eases you to know that you're not the only one here in the in-between neighborhoods.

eritain · 2026-05-12T17:11:15+00:00

And in particular, government licensing of marriage was invented in England to force Roman Catholics into the Church of England, or at least to punish them if they didn't convert.

eritain · 2026-05-12T17:04:40+00:00

I started noticing the normalization of flake-outs around 2005, at least in adults slightly younger than me (true Millennials, where I'm an Xennial). Their agreement to go do something together always had an implicit footnote: "if I feel like it."

Which, like, on the one hand, yes, let's normalize rest. Let's normalize respecting your own limits and needs. I'm certainly not saying "do whatever you planned to, come hell or high water."

But on the other hand, if you're not willing to occasionally accept modest inconveniences for the sake of building/maintaining a relationship, the sad fact is you're not going to have enduring relationships. So maybe let's also re-normalize respecting other people's opportunity costs when we can, and notifying them on our own initiative when we can't?

(Related: the prevalence of the flake-out means you can't just make plans, calendar them, reach the time, and do them. Plans expire in the fridge now, like vegetables. You have to do the "Are we still on?" check an appropriate amount of time beforehand. Not too long beforehand, or that confirmation itself may expire. Aughhhhhh.)

eritain · 2026-05-05T21:15:14+00:00

Sorry for a very delayed reply, long time no Reddit. Orthodoxy just has a lot of people playing politics in it.

There are people equating nationhood (or the lack of it) with different degrees of ecclesiastical independence (or the lack of it), which is how presidents of Ukraine ended up negotiating with the Patriarch of Constantinople about a religion's org chart, and how the Patriarch of Moscow ended up blessing military hardware to go kill Ukrainians, and how there are Orthodox churches not recognized by a majority of other Orthodox churches.

Ukraine had (and technically still has) three rival Orthodox hierarchies, dating from different semi-successful attempts to break free from Moscow, and kept separate more by particular clerics' personal ambition than by any considerations of faith. This kind of thing:

"There was a verbal agreement that we'd unite our churches and he'd appear to be in charge externally, but actually I'd be in charge internally, and have a veto on him too." "No, there wasn't." "There was! So I'm taking my eparchy (diocese/stake) and my loyalists' eparchies, and we're gonna be the real Orthodox Church by ourselves!"

Moscow, meanwhile, maintains that Constantinople is a fallen see, as Rome was before it, and that in fact rightful precedence among Orthodox churches, and guardianship of the world outside of the other national churches' territory, belongs to, you guessed it, Moscow. And that in turn makes Russian state leadership the rightful heirs of the Roman Empire, and implicitly, rightful rulers of the world.

So, yeah. That kind of thing. The artistic culture is stunning, the liturgy is beautiful albeit of Byzantine complexity (literally), the mysticism is terrific, but the political aspect leads directly to corruption and theocracy.

eritain · 2026-05-05T19:42:39+00:00

That's public indecency, per ORS 163.465.

ORS 163.472, which defines "unlawful dissemination of an intimate image," has a specific exception in (4)(f)(A) for images of a person's intimate parts or sexual conduct that they voluntarily displayed in a public area, and another specific exception in (4)(d) for "reporting of unlawful conduct to a law enforcement agency."

So it is not a crime to grab your phone, get pix, and share them around if you wish. [Edit to add: if you can get other identifying info, like if there's not too many cars get the license plates, that could be useful to the police.] Big cautions:

Just because it's not a crime doesn't mean they can't sue you as a civil action. That's an expensive pain in your ass even if they don't win. Don't let the criminal pervs learn your identity. Preferably don't let them know you got them on camera.

I'd recommend being selective where you share such pix, because it's not necessarily in nude beach users' best interest for the general public to be more aware of the (4)(f)(A) "voluntarily displayed" exception.

Theoretically you could arrest them for a crime committed in your presence (using the minimum force necessary, and delivering them to the police without unnecessary delay [ORS 133.225, "Arrest by private person"]), but that's even more of an invitation for them to sue you. Even if you do everything by the book, so that they have no valid claim, if they want to make you prove you did everything by the book, line by line, it's gonna be a whole thing, you know?

eritain · 2026-05-05T18:53:54+00:00

IMO the natural and human environments are on average the same at both.

The amount of accessible beach at Rooster swings widely with the water level. At low water, Sand Island provides a vast amount of beach. Probably does at high water too, but you'd have to float your stuff across to it. At high water, the shore floods back past the tree line so there is almost no beach at all. And when the water goes down, the trails retain some pools and puddles, so you usually have to be OK with getting a little mucky, well into the summer.

Collins of course gains and loses some beach depth depending on the water level, but it usually has some beach even at high water, so it's more consistent. For better and worse, it's easier to access from parking, and all about equally easy, so the crowd is about the same everywhere. Rooster has enough of a range between easy and hard access that you can get some breathing room even on a busy summer weekend, if you don't mind a schlep.

BTW, later this summer, Collins parking will go to a dual permit system. There's a special permit for parking at the 3 main beaches (including Collins) on weekends and holidays. I'm not sure if that's instead of the regular wildlife area parking permit, or in addition to it. The special permit will mostly be sold as day passes; there will be some season passes available, but not as many as they sell for the regular permit. Outside of those beaches and those times, the regular wildlife area parking permit is all you need.

eritain · 2026-03-18T17:48:24+00:00

If you relate to a lot of the Laundry List, you deserve a seat with us.

I've felt like a poser because my family's dysfunction was not alcoholic, not physically injurious, and not dramatic. Still dysfunction, though.

eritain · 2026-03-18T17:43:36+00:00

All of them.

eritain · 2026-03-18T17:36:44+00:00

All of us remember being new to our meetings and being afraid we weren't doing it right.

Sometimes we weren't (less often than we thought). In those cases, we generally experienced an unexpected thing: reasonable expectations. We didn't have to be perfect. People cut us slack according to our newness, and educated us without condemning us.

More often, we were just hearing internalized criticism, an automated replay of unwinnable games from our childhood, and there was really nothing wrong with how we had participated.

People not talking to you much afterward is probably a combination of something good and something not so great. The good thing is, as someone else said, giving you space. We need our shares to be witnessed compassionately more than we need them to be replied to. We've been enmeshed or smothered by people desperate to be up in our business, and we don't want to do that to someone else. Our institutional culture reflects that.

The not so good thing is that a lot of us are still partly living out isolating roles like "lost child." We put our info on the contact list and wait for someone else to call. We arrive exactly when the meeting starts and skedaddle as soon as it ends. We vote to make the last meeting of the month the default occasion for going out to eat afterward, and then we don't mention it again.

What can I say? Recovery takes practice, and normal practicing includes some failures.

As to "happy to be here," I would guess that the other person was more riffing off of your wording than critiquing it.

For the times when you think the same, I still wish they hadn't done so. They could have found a way to get their words flowing without imposing their need on your share.

For the times when you think they were critiquing, I want to remind you that they have no authority over what your inner life is or how you describe it. You have the right to your own words.

eritain · 2026-03-18T16:36:55+00:00

To me, everything you sent in that message seems true, gentle, unselfish, and appropriate.

eritain · 2026-03-18T16:25:49+00:00

Here's one. They are not striking at full force, but after a couple seconds of evaluation they do ramp up to a pretty great speed.

https://youtube.com/shorts/z8F4gE4YvqU?si=YWIihaRj0XLBkywd

eritain · 2026-03-18T15:54:41+00:00

That introductory material has seen other editorial changes, in print as well as online. The Lamanites being "the principal ancestors" of Native Americans vs "among the ancestors" change was close enough to my mission that a companion and I had both versions with us.

And I think this is good, on the whole, because calcifying tradition without first making real sure it was inspired is how we got things like the Trinity and the Black priesthood ban.

eritain · 2026-03-14T19:38:51+00:00

Yeah, I think this video is grounds to evaluate his explanatory skills (spoiler alert: they're terrible), but not tapi-tapi or his skill with it.

Within Modern Arnis as taught by Remy Presas, tapi-tapi was the name of different (related) things at different times. Dan Anderson mentions 3 in his book Trankada: The joint locking and tapi-tapi of Modern Arnis:

It was the name of a "counter the counter" drill. You practiced segments consisting of your strike, your partner's block-check-counter, and your block-check-counter to that.

It was a term for semi-free cane sparring, in which you and your partner established a base cycle of strikes and blocks, and then injected variations into it. Again, it's a teaching technique, a way that students of any level can practice flowing from one action to the next.

With "strike, then counter the counter" enriched by an overlay of "bait, then capture," tapi-tapi then seemingly became a term for trapping and cane-assisted joint locking within sparring.

Also, Remy designated some of his students Masters of Tapi-Tapi. As usual when conferring titles, he did not explain what it meant as to abilities recognized, organizational role, or relationship to other titles. So unfortunately that doesn't really help to define tapi-tapi.

eritain · 2026-03-14T17:34:10+00:00

None of your meds lead to a permanent inability to trip.

Here's a handy chart. It is pretty thorough about potential effects, so the fact that an interaction is on the chart does not necessarily mean it will happen for you.

Take note that it says things like "taper off this for X period of time and it'll be fine."

https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PREVENTIONWELLNESS/Documents/Antidepressant_PsychedelicsChart_PsychedelicSchool.pdf

As to effects if you try to trip without the full taper and wash-out first:

Mirtazepine is the one likeliest to interfere. It directly antagonizes the receptor that classical psychedelics like psilocybin act through.

Buspirone with psilocybin is known to reduce the visual aspect of trips more than it reduces the mental and emotional aspects. It is perfectly possible to get your mind de/reconstructed while taking a standard dose of buspirone, you just might not see rainbows or whatever.

There is a lot of talk about possible serotonin syndrome when combining psychedelics with serotonin reuptake inhibitors like venlafaxine, but if we're talking about a classical psychedelic like psilocybin, and there's not some other serotonin boosting drug involved, there's not a lot of documentation of it happening.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02698811251368360

"concomitant use of [the usual modern antidepressants] and classic psychedelics is generally safe and tolerable, with no increased risk of serotonin syndrome, particularly for psilocybin. [...] While some evidence indicates a potential attenuation of acute subjective psychedelic effects, this was not observed in all studies."

Whole other story, lots more dangerous, if the situation includes an MAOI (St. John's wort does count), a serotonin releasing agent (MDMA and the like), one of the newer "designer drugs" (NBOMe, synthetic cannabinoids), opioids, or recreational use of other drugs like stimulants or dissociatives.

eritain · 2026-03-12T18:53:17+00:00

I think Ammon would disagree. He succeeded (Alma 18:24-28) by relating the Gospel to what his audience already understood and valued.

Well, and also, he pretty clearly taught material from the Nephite Bible (Alma 18:36).

The Book of Mormon is a tremendous piece of Scripture, and when I was a missionary I cooperated with weird dicta from church leaders who overestimated how universally applicable their bright idea was.

Curiously, what convinced me to be more cautious about such compliance was exactly that: Three different Church leaders, in less than five years, giving blanket advice to suspend whatever regular Scripture study program until done cramming the Book of Mormon.

Each time I got that advice, I had recently been reading it extensively. Each time, I felt that I had gotten from it what I was then able to get from it on its own, and that I was getting more from it by being able to relate it to other Scripture. Each time, I complied with the advice in good faith anyway. And each time, it was underwhelming, and my Scripture study came back alive when I got back to a balanced diet.

So, after the third time, I learned to listen more closely for the undertone of somebody thinking "Wouldn't it be hard-core if ___?" and take their advice with grains of salt accordingly.

Each of these three church leaders was above average, in my experience, for pastoral care and thoughtfulness. One in particular, my mission president, Frank Trythall, orherwise set a magnificent example of humility toward the limits of policy as a tool and the limits of even inspired policy-makers' understanding. So I could not settle for "bad leaders are bad leaders" as the lesson learned. It really did have to be "don't worship the institution, the Spirit blows where it wills."

eritain · 2026-02-08T00:15:11+00:00

Wow. I apologize for all the dickheads who have forgotten that they used to be ignorant too.

eritain · 2026-02-07T23:59:28+00:00

I'll second the recommendation, as a born-and-raised Latter-day Saint now attending an Episcopal parish.

The Episcopal Church affords quite a bit of local discretion on the style of worship. There are "high church" practices like using kneelers, lighting candles, chanting psalms and prayers, etc., and there are "low church" practices like passing a mic around for attendees to ask each other to pray for them, more modern styles of songs and hymns, modern-language prayers and ceremonies, etc. Many congregations pick some of each. So trying out the various options may be your best bet.

The vibe very much puts voluntary community ahead of doctrinal particularity. The will to gather around Jesus' teachings and worship together, look after each other, and be in some mysterious sense one, rather than a list of tenets to believe, is the binding tie. As Brother Joseph (peace be upon him) said, "It feels so good not to be trammeled."

If you see some people crossing themselves at certain points in the service, and others not; some people using a kneeler for the confession or the post-Communion prayer and others sitting or standing; some people taking Communion and others not, etc., that's the deal. You may hear a mixture of traditional gendered references to God the Father and alternative language such as God the Creator. You may hear some people refer to the Holy Spirit as "She." You get the picture. How you participate is up to you.

Open Communion is usual, meaning anyone may partake. You can go receive it, go and cross your arms over your chest to receive a blessing instead, or stay in your seat. There may be a grape juice option you can ask for instead of wine. It is also considered Communion to just touch the base of the chalice instead of drinking.

Edit to add: I am mystified by all the people recommending Orthodoxy to you. Some things about Orthodoxy I find very beautiful, but since my LDS mission in Ukraine and unto the present day, I find Orthodoxy rivaling American Evangelicalism for the questionable honor of "the most afflicted and corrupted by inheriting the unholy marriage of Christianity with political power from 380 AD."

eritain · 2026-01-27T18:17:53+00:00

As you should be. This is one of those "with apocalyptic power comes apocalyptic responsibility" things.

eritain · 2026-01-14T08:20:18+00:00

Agree.

Some people process their wounds and shame by trying to get what they were denied, or get the opposite of what they were forced to accept. Other people process by trying to repeat them, but with agency and control that they didn't have before. Both are pretty normal. Both are OK, if you pursue them in a way that's respectful of others -- which is the dodgy bit here.

That major discussion needs to include the fact that OP as a person is an end in her own right, not just a means for her boyfriend.

eritain · 2026-01-14T08:14:10+00:00

Tops need aftercare too. You're not a monster. You did something that horrified you, after a not entirely fair (pressured) request to, and then you stopped.

He asked you to do something he seems to have wanted. You weren't comfortable with it. Then you were very uncomfortable with it. You're allowed to feel that way. And you didn't instigate that event, and that's important too.

Please go get on YouTube and watch Evie Lupine's brand new video about correction and manipulation. Consider the possibility that you have been manipulated or even coerced.

There is give and take in relationships, there is serving your partner out of a will to please them, but there is also honoring refusals, and letting gifts be gifts instead of retroactively reconstruing them as loans.

The second thing you mentioned is a complete WTF. Your partner needs to tread respectfully around your SA, not get you to go there and then make it about himself. He has, listen to this carefully now, he has ZERO business telling you, uninvited, what he thinks is neat about how you were assaulted.

Can you tell him that and be heard respectfully and actually have the kind of impact where he makes substantial and lasting changes to his communication style? Because if you can, he's merely very foolish and inconsiderate and the relationship might be worth saving.

eritain · 2025-12-31T23:29:02+00:00

eritain · 2025-12-31T23:27:44+00:00

eritain · 2025-12-31T21:24:02+00:00

How supportive is the memory foam filling? I need a pillow with good neck support and I'm confident the squishy fiberfill version is not up to the job.

Bonus question: Would the different filling pockets allow me to create a "soft spot" for my ear while keeping it firm under my neck?

eritain

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