It is massive in my small living room and I feel like I live in it which brings me truly inordinate amounts of joy.

Don’t forget to drip your faucets!

YES. I was thinking about this recently re: Hallmark(y) holiday romcoms, too. I unironically love them… when they’re done well. But now there are so goddamn many without any kind of craft or understanding of how to make them work. Makes it impossible to find the actually enjoyable ones.

here's my simple diagnosis about what's going on: you can't tell interesting stories if you're not curious about people. and these books are just not curious about people.

This whole thread makes me feel like I’m not just being grumpy for feeling like so many I read this year had plot = character. Like the MCs didn’t have personalities and interests and beliefs outside of Things Happened To Me. Characters just blurred into each other b/c they weren’t rounded or real.

The way I still yell “don’t answer it!” at the screen every time like someday it’ll change the outcome…

Airport rules are the best rules. You can be anyone you want to be at the airport.

Sent it to my dad, who travels about 150K miles per year and heartily embraces the concept of airport rules. He said this is genius. Well done, sir.

Yes, it’s such a classic! That and the Charlie Brown Christmas album are the sounds of the holidays from my childhood and I still love them.

Oh, and occasionally the Jimmy Buffett Christmas album, lol.

Okay, I’m solidly not in the floral crowd but I’m okay with it. But Bath and Body Works had a Wild Madagascar Vanilla perfume that I have yet to find a dupe for but is the only scent I have ever consistently gotten compliments on.

I appreciate the way Gerwig’s older Amy+Laurie plot felt more developed and substantiated, but otherwise I am very solidly in camp 1994.

That being said, I also owned the 1949 one with June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor on VHS first, so I have a real soft spot for that one.

...Barth also says that the Virgin Birth had to happen because, among other reasons, men in particular had damaged the world so deeply by doing war and fascism (etc) that men in particular could have no part in the logic of the Incarnation.

I’m familiar with it from consulting in aerospace & defense back in 2012-15 or so, but I guess that’s its own fairly insular context. I honestly didn’t realize people found it strange until this past year.

I also make sure I listen to or watch things that make me laugh. It can be while doing work or getting ready - shows, books, podcasts. But prioritizing low-effort laughter really helps me.

Also I think humming / singing stimulates the vegas nerve and can make you feel better, so that’s good, too.

Committing to doing dishes (as in making sure I’ve loaded or unloaded as necessary) at least every other day has helped me a ton. I don’t really commit to anything else while super stressed, but not letting dishes pile up goes a long way for me.

But now you have even more discovery ahead of you. And it’s a good time.