Oh how I hate the whole idea of detox and clean as it relates to nutrition. I worked at a health food store when I was young and while there was good nutritious food there, plenty of good people, the whole idea of ‘clean’ comes from a very dark place. I remember the raw foods guys and the idea of breathetarians. Like the less physical and embodied you were, the better person you were, enlightened. The idea of the physical world being unclean and something you should try to be free of, I hate it.

It really is more of a religious idea than anything to do with physical health. I think you have to enjoy being embodied, love the physical plane of existence, to have a healthy body. Not perfect.

I have a garden with vegetables, one with flowers, a few fruit trees and a maple, some elderberry trees. And a mowed space in front and in back. I guess technically it’s a lawn but we don’t water it or put any fertilizer or chemicals, just keep it mowed. We throw clover seeds out on bare patches but weeds mostly take over. It grows, we mow.

It doesn’t last forever though - it breaks down, and gets mold. I cannot understand it at all. What a mess. Like landscape fabric. Something to enjoy for a year and regret for ten years afterwards as it breaks down and you keep finding bits of it.

Even in places that aren’t as humid and alive as our subtropical steam room here, under ideal conditions maybe 10 year life on that plastic carpet of grass. All the time it’s shedding plastic into the world.

My mom always just mowed whatever grew in the yard and called it “grass” and that’s all I have ever done. Mow the weeds, who cares? They get nice flowers, the bees like them. Except bull thistle. We dug that up with prejudice before it could flower. But as far as lawn, that is just a mowed space where I grew up, and I did grow up in a suburb, though not a house farm sort of development, not an HOA situation. And it’s just a mowed space where I live now too. Maybe 1 house in every 10 has the literal Grass Lawn, with the chemicals and monoculture. 9/10 have a mix of whatever.

I don’t believe the UFO phenonena are demons but I do think modern people saying they are aliens is exactly as crazy as people of the past saying they are demons. The people of the future will have some other explanation and consider us idiots too.

Like, the past had a whole system and pantheon of angels and demons but have you ever looked at what the alien conspiracy theorists write about aliens? There’s a whole system and pantheon they believe in too.

I am older, and have not found any of that to be true. As a lady, more makes more; more sex makes sex feel better and it’s easier to get off, and sexual frustration does not make me creative at all, just distracted and frustrated.

There is also physical benefit to sex for older women, I don’t know if it’s the same for younger, but certainly after menopause sex prevents vaginal atrophy and prolapse of internal organs, it’s sort of a use it or lose it situation. Penetration and orgasms are good for muscle tone, apparently. Beyond the obvious benefits of pleasure and relationship building.

It depends on who is coming over, I more usually impress with cocktails & make food to satisfy people not impress them. Gumbo, I have had people say best they ever tasted. Lamb for my mother-in-law, slow cooked 4 hours in the oven with fennel and apricots and harissa. Sourdough baguette one year at Thanksgiving, those were chowed down on. Vegan kid is impressed when I nail a dessert for her. I do grow some of what we eat, feel like that is sort of impressive I guess.

But cocktails is where I get the most compliments - I made the

https://imbibemagazine.com/recipe/friend-zone-a-zero-proof-strawberry-drink/

With some really nice spiced strawberry fermented soda I made, with the goop from the strawberry syrup like she uses in the recipe, but also the tops and leaves. It doesn’t even have alcohol, my heavy drinking ex brother outlaw could not understand how it could be so good. “What’s in this?” “Tepache de fresa” “No, I mean what is the booze?” “None.” “See, THAT is why you are the best. How is this so good?”

You have to know your audience to have it be well received. There’s no one dish that is going to universally be magic.

If you are cooking for me, gumbo or a soup with an amazing broth. Or a really good sandwich. I love a good sandwich.

Are you a lady? I work in an office at a sports company (so sporty casual is common) and there are several women here who wear dresses and skirts not pants, several more who switch back & forth. Not me - pants feel much more secure to me - but it’s nothing anyone really notices.

A man wearing skirts we would notice for awhile, not care but notice; if you are customer facing then you might encounter that surprise over and over, if not, I don’t think it will be a big deal.

Not religious but my mom was Methodist and open-minded. Basically she said the Bible was a document from a different time, and the most important commandments were to love your neighbor and take care of the least of us.

The behavioral rules she just thought relics of an earlier time, said many had been solved with science (ok to eat pork, be gay, whatever).

My grandma was Catholic and she just basically wasn’t evangelical, right? So sure, maybe we were going to hell but that was between us & God, nothing to do with her. On homosexuality she (like others I’ve talked to) said, yeah of course gay people were made that way by God, that was their cross to bear, they had to be celibate. “So do nuns and monks and priests, some people are not supposed to have sex, it’s always been that way.”

I have kids & step kids and kids my husband previously adopted and they are intelligent in different ways. Only one had some developmental delays and is not, she struggles, the rest - 3 academic hyper achievers, quick thinking and quick at learning new things, all ended up scientists of some sort. Two who are hardworking and think they are not as smart but whenever they have to take a test they score in top 10% or so, those two ended up in military intelligence. Youngest kid still in school can see things in different ways - can find solutions or ideas none of us even think of, and though they ALSO don’t think they are as smart as the others, I personally consider that to be very intelligent. One who was smart & frustrated, depressed, and no longer with us - saw too much I think but could not find hope. So different people are smart in different ways, and sometimes in ways that are not helpful to them.

If I had to choose one quality - it’s humor. That ability to say just the right thing in the moment that is so funny. That quick wit is a good sign of intelligence.

Same age, same thoughts. The past was violent & sucky but it really felt like we were making progress, things were getting better. Some things have, there’s a lot less violence where I live, and more to do, the city has progressed.

Honestly I think the slide started after Bush vs Gore, and very often wish I had been in the other timeline, where the votes got counted before he conceded, Gore seemed conceited but smart, geeky and took good ideas seriously.

They are the most adorable little spiders. One time I was at the park with my kids and I had a cold drink that had condensation on the outside. There was a jumping spider on the table I was sitting at. I put down my drink, he comes and drinks the condensation. I pick it up for a drink, he retreats. Rinse and repeat for half an hour. I was so delighted, it was delightful.

Just coffee. I would eat a late breakfast one day, then stop eating, coffee (no calories) the next morning and then nothing until supper, usually around 8pm.

Yes the LDL went back up. I know it was related to the fasting and not weight loss - I am not fat and maintained calories overall to keep my weight stable. I had been sort of stumped, like you are. Obviously if someone is overweight and loses weight that will have benefits, there wasn’t a lot of research on people of normal weight fasting and not reducing. I got the one measurable benefit, but no improvements I could feel in any way, and the headaches were pretty bad.

With migraine, yes I would get hallucinations with the ones that dragged on. Like dreams they were, mostly fantasies about how to stop the pain by walking in the right direction or solving some math problem.

I do often hear music in the fan sound or running water. Those are funny because it sounds like music coming into my ears from outside, but is coming from my mind. Not particularly good music.

I used to do 36 hours a week, as an experiment. Not for weight loss. Maintained my weight.

Results: lower LDL cholesterol. Sharply lower. Blood pressure lower only while fasting.

Side effects: migraines. I tried to arrange it so there was not so much time fasting before sleeping but would usually wake up with a migraine.

Never fasted more than 2 days voluntarily.

Aging begins when you are born IMO, or whatever point a person comes into existence.

I don’t think creatures who reproduce ought to be immortal.

Senescence, I agree with the people who put it around 25, the point where you stop growing at all physically has to be the point you start degrading, but it must happen so much slower than growing does, I felt my absolute physical best around 45 years of age (certainly NOT 25) and still feel really good at near 60. So maybe there was an adjustment period then a steady state for awhile. Or a quick slide then s slower slide?

Wait, even if the baby is raised by a diverse set of people? Or they just prefer what they are exposed to regularly?

I can easily imagine tribalism being easy to fall into - little kids love sorting things into categories - but can’t really see any biological benefits at all to racism, can’t imagine why it would be innate?

Coffee has never been proven harmful, and may be protective for the brain. I quit caffeine a couple times when younger for months and (once past the initial withdrawal headache) all that happened was I got more migraines and gained a couple of pounds, saw no benefits.

So no.

Alcohol I practice moderation, once or twice a week but never, ever, ever an everyday drinker. That I’ve taken years off and didn’t feel better but not worse like when I tried no caffeine.

So usually no on that as well but I do sometimes go a month or two without.

I don’t do any other drugs.

Dogs don’t work like that. A dog gets protective when it’s anxious, and thinks it has to be in charge because you are ineffective. If your dog is relaxed and looks to you to protect it, you are doing a good job of raising your dog.

Dog park, I dunno, but "standing up to other dogs’ just sounds like asking for a dog fight. Playing dogs are not necessarily jockeying for dominance but even if they are it doesn’t mean they can’t all have fun, without being mean.

I agree that even good, happy dogs can have a nose for danger, our awesome shep-akita was pleasant with adults and gentle giant with other dogs but once was so growly snappy with a girl my stepdaughter brought home and she did steal something. The dog picked up on her we did not.