Panache is the way someone does something. Charisma is whether the person doing it is likable and charming.
cleanandsunny
joined 1 year ago
I really enjoyed “A Day of Fallen Night,” Samantha Shannon’s follow-up to “The Priory of the Orange Tree.” Both are fantasy novels that follow female protagonists on opposite ends of her world, and they are really fun!
I also read some romance novels with zero expectations, and ended up absolutely loving them. “The Kiss Quotient” by Helen Hoang genuinely surprised me in the best way. It’s about an autistic woman who hires an escort to help her understand physical affection (and of course, falls in love along the way).
Another “romance” book that really surprised me in a good way was “You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty” by Akwaeke Emezi. It follows a young, queer Nigerian-American artist from NYC to Jamaica and has some major twists! I really loved reading these multi-dimensional characters in a genre that isn’t known for it’s progressiveness.
Excellent call! Totally agree that Meta does not need to be a part of this. Thank you for all your hard work to keep this a lovely place to be a part of!
I’m so sorry for you both! What a sweetie. She is lucky to have such a great human by her side ❤️
My husband has been slowly replacing stuff with Myles Apparel. He’s a weightlifter, so finding clothes that fit his quads (and allows him to still, you know, move) is a tall order. No ripping, tearing, funky workout stink, or any other issues so far! Also looks like they can ship internationally.
Sometimes keeping a symptom journal or diary can help your medical providers piece things together. They are only seeing you once for 10-30 minutes, but you’re living in your body and experiencing symptoms way more frequently. Don’t log obsessively, but maybe once a day review your pain (rated 1-5) and write down any noteworthy symptoms or episodes. And as someone else mentioned, get good at condensing your medical “story” to date, including your current symptoms.
Doctors will always go for the simplest explanation, even if it’s wrong. This is how they are trained (in the west, anyway). So don’t give up! Continue insisting on a proper diagnosis. Get another opinion. See a different specialist. If you find it difficult to advocate for yourself, imagine if this was your friend. How many mountains would move to get the same answers for a dear friend? And apply that logic and compassion to yourself. Have a bestie come with you to appointments if they are willing to.
A big part of the “suck” in this process is the not knowing. Will you be in pain forever? Will you get better? Will you get worse? Is it really a mystery illness? Will you ever get a diagnosis? With chronic pain you’ll find yourself exhausted often with the effort required to ignore the pain. So feel the pain sometimes. Lean into it. You may find it’s a relief to feel it instead of trying to block it out.
It’s maybe also worth accepting that these issues may never totally resolve. If they do, great. But what if they don’t? How can you live a happy and fulfilling life (which millions of people do with chronic pain/disability) even if it stays the same?
Lastly, I want to say that you have a separate problem, which is the lack of social support you are getting from your family. They are gaslighting you about your illness - of course you know your body best and are experiencing what you say you are. You are young and may depend on them financially, so that’s a needle you have to thread. But I’d encourage you to spend more time with friends who love and believe you.
If you have access, it’s worth working with a therapist on all of this. From what you’ve described, you have been left all alone to grapple with a disability that no one can even explain. That is an awful lot for someone to hold by themselves. Whatever happens with your illness, I hope you are able to get the love and support you deserve - which may never be offered by your family.
I’m reading “Own It” by Tabatha Coffey, who was a breakout star on a hairstyling reality show on Bravo. I think that tells you everything you need to know, lol. My husband got it as a joke to fill out an EBay order years ago. I was cleaning out our bookshelf (to make room for more books, obviously) and was like, okay, I’ll read this and then get rid of it. That’s my normal policy, but IDK if I will finish this one, lol.
Cool map! And that Mandingo map is as confusing IRL, lol. In Mali, most people speak at least 2 native languages plus some French, and the dialects or languages can be completely different even 10km apart! We learned Bambara, which was a lingua franca (the irony, haha), but most people in our community spoke Ganakan and Fulakan as well.
I’m a small business owner, and I notice a lot of online entrepreneur-ish businesspeople recommending that everyone start a podcast for marketing purposes. The idea is that you get people to listen, then you get them onto your email list, then you can sell to them. It’s a low cost (but high effort) marketing funnel for people starting out.
The result is that now, every idiot who wants to “coach” people online, or sell an online class, has a miserable podcast. I’m sure the raw podcast #s reflect a lot of 8-episode abandoned shows because Becky couldn’t sell her online hair styling course and quit.
I get what you’re saying! Never was great at music theory either, but Bach indeed uses a lot of techniques in his composing to create the layers you’re referring to, where there is clarity but complexity. Sometimes it’s a melody mirrored or reversed, sometimes it’s the way themes repeat across and within parts, sometimes it’s a well timed key change, but there’s an often mathematical approach to the composition that you don’t find in other composers (or at least, done as well). I find Bach to be a bit boring to play, but it’s like violin comfort food lol.
Shostakovich, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky…I guess I have a thing for the Eastern Europeans, lol. I’m a violinist and idk how to explain it really, but it’s like the Eastern European composers understand the feel of the instrument better. Or maybe the way I play is just more aligned with that style. Either way, I find their pieces are more fun and dynamic (and sometimes, also challenging) to play.
A vet once called them “princess paws” and we’ve used that term ever since!