If you can, I’d defer to the mid terms. That will say a lot about the direction the country is going in. America has traditionally been a great place to be, and I can’t help but think we will be again in the post-Trump era. It’s just a question of if there will be a post-Trump era or if we’ve already had our last free election.

But I understand two years is a long period of uncertainty. It feels like a decade to me.

What about models folks run at home?

I’m 99% of the time completely oblivious. There is absolutely no reason anyone would take any interest in me. I’m a completely nondescript guy and I’m almost never in shady areas. I’m either in a parking lot or a suburb or very public walking trails through the city. I always walk like I have a purpose. There’s no reason anyone would even look twice at me and if they did there’s almost always a bright, public place in full view a few steps away.

The only exception is when I’m walking some trails with my daughter. She is a little more independent and confident than I’d like. She is just fucking certain of anyone messed with her she’d fuck them up. Maybe. But I’d prefer a little more caution. So I keep an eye on things for her. It’s not like it would be completely impossible to disappear someone from the city trails. I’m not worth the effort, but she could be.

On the contrary, on the road I’m always hyper aware. I always know who is in front of me, behind me, beside me. I always have an escape plan if there’s a blowout or debris in the road ahead of me. I know who is a cop and who they are looking at.

Not sure why it’s such a night and day difference, I just can’t conceive of being in any personal danger when I’m walking around. Years ago, I took a stroll through downtown Bangkok at 3 in the morning. I probably wasn’t as safe as I felt, but I felt pretty safe. I picked up on some shady shit in a nightclub there, but I’ll never know if that was danger or paranoia. I definitely didn’t leave my drink unattended. Didn’t occur to look behind me after I left, but I wasn’t alone and my attention was focused on her.

She might be okay with negotiating. Maybe she’ll be more comfortable in a place no one is around or if it’s dark. It’s a way to take baby steps and maybe make her more comfortable in the future.

But also it could just be something she doesn’t want to get over, you know? You seem like your heart is in the right place, so I’m sure you’ll respect her and who knows what will happen?

Then let me give you a whole playlist. Iconic guitar riffs, every one:

• Radar Love – Golden Earring
• Twilight Zone – Golden Earring
• Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple
• Highway Star – Deep Purple
• Spirit in the Sky – Norman Greenbaum
• Life in the Fast Lane – Eagles
• Thunderstruck – AC/DC
• Highway to Hell – AC/DC
• Back in Black – AC/DC
• Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – AC/DC
• La Grange – ZZ Top
• Cat Scratch Fever – Ted Nugent
• Born to be Wild – Steppenwolf
• Living After Midnight – Judas Priest
• Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
• Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin
• Black Betty – Ram Jam
• Rocky Mountain Way – Joe Walsh
• American Band – Grand Funk Railroad
• Takin’ Care of Business – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• China Grove – The Doobie Brothers
• The Boys Are Back in Town – Thin Lizzy

Honorable Mention (not as hard driving and relentless, but just as iconic and classic):

• Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Gimme Three Steps – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Sharp Dressed Man – ZZ Top
• Stranglehold – Ted Nugent
• Godzilla – Blue Öyster Cult
• Magic Carpet Ride – Steppenwolf
• Feel Like Makin’ Love – Bad Company
• Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
• Hollywood Nights – Bob Seger
• Freebird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Öyster Cult
• Burnin’ for You – Blue Öyster Cult
• Jessica – The Allman Brothers
• Green Grass and High Tides – Outlaws
• More Than a Feeling – Boston
• Limelight – Rush
• Free Will – Rush
• Layla – Derek and the Dominos
• Money for Nothing – Dire Straits
• Aqualung – Jethro Tull
• Life’s Been Good – Joe Walsh

Those are all great jams to drive to, just watch your foot on the pedal because it’ll get heavy (especially during Radar Love.)

Ted Nugent has some fucking awful politics, but Cat Scratch Fever has to be on the top tier list even if you exclude it for that reason.

Hard driving 70’s and 80’s guitar rock. Radar Love. Smoke on the Water. Sweet Home Alabama. Don’t Fear the Reaper. Life in the Fast Lane. Thunderstruck.

I don’t think you can really control how someone else feels about something. You can complement her, you can ask her to set her feelings aside, you can control your input to her emotional system, but you can’t control that her mom or an ex or an ad or whoever said something negative about it.

This might be something where you can negotiate. In certain places or whatever maybe she’ll agree to go with bare legs (maybe not!) and then in general she will cover them. But there isn’t really anything you can do to control her emotions—even in a positive way.

The great thing about social media is even if you don’t appreciate something, maybe someone else will find it helpful. Which is why I made a public comment instead of a private message.

Everyone makes mistakes, mate. The fact that you’ve been gracious and demonstrated a willingness to try to improve makes you welcome here in my book. We are all learning and (hopefully) bettering ourselves on this journey through life. It would be a shame for you to leave because you think you’re the only one who doesn’t have it all figured out yet—none of us do.

Hey, I also use AI sometimes to help me say things I struggle with. I have some suggestions.

First, don’t ask it to rewrite what you are saying.

Second, ask it to identify things that are poorly worded, insensitive, have bad grammar, or misspellings.

Third, take it’s feedback and edit it yourself in your own words.

ChatGPT will often recommend verbiage that is emotionally disconnected, being either overly effusive or emphasizing irrelevant things.

ChatGPT will always suggest edits even if you write something perfectly. I’ve fed it’s own output back in and it gave itself plenty of critique because it’s not wired to say, “looks fine.” At least not until you’ve done some back and forth editing and then, even if the text is garbage it will decide the edited result is much better than the beginning.

It’s a handy tool to give you another set of eyes to look at something and to help you learn to write better on your own, but it cannot replace your own voice.

That doesn’t work when someone is clinging desperately to you to be their salvation. Their internalized hope and the feel of it slipping through their fingers while they think they can find the right words to say to turn the ship around creates this prolonged agony when it’s far better to just give them a clean break.

Obviously you don’t want to push her into suicide, but you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves or thinks everything will be better if they can just convince someone into a relationship. Contact her friends and family, give her suicide hotline information, recommend therapy, but you can’t be the knight in shining armor of someone your only interested in physically.

There’s someone I talk to off and on here on the other side of things. She is clinging desperately to the hope that she will eventually get back together with this guy (who AFAICT, lives 2 hours away and has met her once or maybe twice). They are broken up but still talking and she is desperate to find a way to glue everything back together. Two things are clear: he is not interested in a relationship (though he’s also too weak for a clean break as they keep talking), and she is not ready for a relationship. I’ve tried to explain all of that, but every time they talk he just makes her so happy and she loves him so much. It’s so much worse for her than if he would just wish her a happy life and block her.

I implore you not to be that guy. A clean break is much better than lingering ambiguity that keeps her from moving on.

I think it’s just different body chemistry. I wish I could still take it because it’s way more effective than Adderall, but my body just doesn’t metabolize it out of my system fast enough.

I tried Vyvanse for a while. It fixes my ADHD really good, but also I only sleep 2-5 hours a night. I did that for too long before moving to Adderall. It doesn’t work as well but my wife was about ready to stab me for keeping her up. Also that little sleep can’t be good for you.

Not just pestering but flat out lying. “Someone has asked you about your experience with <thing>.” I think I answered one or two before giving it some thought and realizing what it was.

There are lots of different meanings. Pick one. Make people happy. Leave something that will help the next generation, whether it’s planting trees or a park bench or curing cancer. Be kind to people along the way to enable them to see the best in humanity. There are lots of ways to make things better. Just pick one and do it.

Leave a better world behind than you entered (to the extent you are able to as an individual).

We already tried making it illegal. Plus we don’t have the health infrastructure for it. We have a shotload of people self-medicating a variety of disorders with alcohol. And lots of people brewing beer just for fun. I don’t know what they do in Finland and Norway but it wouldn’t work here.

Alcohol just isn’t hard to make. It’s also really easy to sneak into places. You could never make it insanely expensive. It would just all go black market.

This is my problem. I don’t really ever do it, but I don’t abstain completely. My son in law thinks it’s the greatest thing in the world. I don’t really care as such, but my kids are surrounded by it and I worry how it will affect them. If it weren’t for kids being around it all the time, I’d be fine with legalization. Hell I signed petitions in support of legalization. But I wasn’t anticipating huge billboards fucking everywhere. Or the sheer ubiquity of vape pens.

Legalization is fine but I do want to see some further laws around public use and display. It has always been that I don’t care what you do within the walls of your own home, but I would very much like to keep that activity there.

Yeah I think the reset might depend on the state or there is a court action they can take. I just know it’s better in Michigan than it was in Virginia.