My first reaction to this post was based on my own life, a Millennial who grew up in a first-world country, a country in which, even during childhood, there’s a strong emphasis on personal freedom and independence.

If there were an inner-jacket blurb on the novel of my life it would read something like: childhood bike riding out into the suburbs until sunset without a cell phone, driving everywhere on my own at age 16, moving away to college and meeting someone who I loved while living on the other side of the country, and ultimately moving across the country to start a career that I wanted and marry the girl of my dreams.

Above that blurb or below it would be a little American flag :p

Most of the comments here are all going to have experiences closer to mine than yours, in Saudi, as a woman.

Most of the comments here that echo fear and isolation are from people compelled to be on their own suddenly, abruptly, and without a plan. This sounds closer to your situation than those of us who, say, moved ourselves into college dormitories and brought our roommates home to meet our families on weekends so we could do laundry in clean washing machines and for a couple days trade our diets of instant ramen for fully-stocked refrigerators.

For us, waking up next to a strange man in a house where nothing is “ours” is completely and utterly foreign.

How that would feel is scary. How that would feel is permanent. How that would feel is like abduction.

I wonder if your husband feels the same.

Every married couple knows the feeling of keeping a secret from their spouse, and likewise the pressure release of finally telling them and having them not leave, or get mad, but look at you and say “That sucks,” and that they understand.

You’re getting a lot of advice about creating routines, putting up pictures, about making this unfamiliar space and unfamiliar time more like it’s yours.

My advice? Do this as a team. Tell your husband how you’re feeling. Go do something with your husband and take a photo. Put that photo on the wall. Don’t simply decorate your life with evidence of just how foreign all of this is to you.

It’ll be tough for a while but you’re smart enough to be bilingual and navigate the Fediverse, so I think you’ll be all right.

Yes! Placards were up and it was legit. Guys pulling in to park there just didnt expect that not paying would net them a towed vehicle.

Parking lot attendant for a couple of lawyers looking to make money with an unused, vacant lot in the city.

Every weekend, I must have had about a dozen cars towed and about as many times been angrily filmed with (the then new) iPhone cameras stuck in my face.

How receptive his speech patterns have become should concern us all. Clearly the Stephen Millers and Kushners in his life are the non-elected decision makers in the presidency.

I still remember stocking hand sanitizer and black nitrile gloves in my retail stores, late February 2020. That was us getting ready.

Jump to the second week of March and California announcing a stay-at-home order. I had to go secure our stores for being unoccupied. On the way there is was dozens of miles of empty LA freeways, and news radio all about people suffocating on ventilators and sanitizing everything that came into your house. Then, walking alone through empty malls, avoiding anyone else who was there. It felt like we were shutting down the for good.

Sorry my man I replied wrong :/

drown myself in sleep

That is quite literally the goal of so many friends in my life. In between work, kids, holidays, yard work, vacuuming, groceries, and then more hours at work…it’s a treat that makes that long laundry list of a life manageable.

Make plans to sleep regularly. You won’t regret it.

Edit: I can’t reply on the internet

More evidence that there’s a black hole of shit calling itself Donald Trump, and absolutely nobody who has been pulled into his orbit cares about this, or even allegations that he raped little girls.

The thing we’re missing here is that while normal, well-adjusted, educated people who recognize the alarm bells of an elected official publishing gaffs and mistakes like these, the MAGA base frequently makes and overlooks these kinds of mistakes, overlooking them as inconsequential. We all do shit, but none of it matters if it’s done with charisma.

It’s like when a Gen-Z college intern reads an email from a Gen-X, C-Level boss that’s riddled with possessive apostrophes and misspellings and he wonders how someone who never achieved a commensurate literacy is promoted into that role. But it’s not a deal-breaker because his network of peers and competitive, extroverted personality are thought to keep the business thriving.

Jump ahead to a thriving workplace where the hardworking hourly employees show up everyday.

Jump to a Master’s graduate who vibe-authored all of his papers and never had to deal with minutia like punctuation in his resume.

Jump to a charismatic personality.

People can overlook a lot when they want you on their team.

How this fellow sounds is forlorn. How he sounds is angry. How he sounds is like he’s figured out just how easy it is to live backstage and out of costume.

The thing is, he’s not the only one. At some point, with some other person in the world, how you behave stops being an act. A “performance,” as he says. Maybe it’s the friend with whom you grew up tabletop gaming, overeating Cheetos and not caring when the Mountain Dew stayed in your facial hair just otter too long.

Maybe it’s the girl with whom you can share a blanket on the couch, and twist your legs into some sort of hot vine, each of you staring into your phone like a completely normal person.

Whoever it is, they’re with you. Backstage. Out of character. Not chewing on the scenery for the audience.

This guy never found that person.

Every headline aiming to justify Jonathan Ross’ shot into the car obfuscates the fact that deliberately placed himself in front of her vehicle.

Headlines like this get us talking about exactly what they want us to talk about: whether or not Jonathan Ross was struck by a vehicle.

What we’re not supposed to talk about is why Jonathan Ross created the opportunity to be struck, or what led to him being struck and dragged by another vehicle six months ago.

In 2014 DHS published an internal audit report stating that on dozens of occasions their officers would intentionally stand in the path of vehicles to fraudulently justify use of force in shooting the drivers out of “frustration.”

It was such an issue that DHS had to issue an entirely new handbook and guidance explicitly training their agents not to stand in front of cars on purpose.

They have tons of instances of their officers intentionally blocking a vehicle for the sole purpose of then firing at it - and their policy is officially that their agents should never do that.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/05/31/317645125/border-patrol-releases-new-use-of-force-guidelines-critical-report

From the document: "It should be recognized that a 1/2 ounce (200 grain) bullet is unlikely to stop a 4,000 pound moving vehicle, and if the driver of the approaching vehicle is disabled by a bullet, the vehicle will become a totally unguided threat.

Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle can pose a risk to bystanders including other agents."

There is little doubt that the safest course for an agent faced with an oncoming vehicle is to get out of the way of the vehicle."

The actual handbook is available here: https://imlive.s3.amazonaws.com/Federal Government/ID255426897069329047495080324203699905714/2.2.1_Attachment 21 - ICE Firearms and Use of Force Directive and Handbook.pdf

Page 12 includes the following:

4. Deadly force is not authorized solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.

Deadly force against a fleeing subject is only authorized if there is probable cause to believe that the escape of the suspect would pose an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person.

The 2013 report is here: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/PERFReport.pdf

The author questions what Trump means by “slow things down a little bit” while I’m out here wondering how he defines “legal workers.”

I’m imagining how this might look in California: brought back into the country by your employer? For the benefit of your employer? In a HCOL part of the country? Without a working SSN?

Welcome to endentured servitude.

Don’t forget Amazon Pharmacy.

Moving quickly and destabilizing things is exactly the move, because the folks who have to pick up the pieces and hold him accountable will do so by following process, which is a lengthier, arduous, and scheduled series of actions that will be dragged along in his wake as he barrels through the government.

This is awesome, as is the number of people over in the XDA comments all finding a way to get angry at software they’ve never used.

Welcome to web 4.0, where the vocal minority monopolizes all of our feeds

This mirrors what’s happening with men of the same age in the US.