Same. All it made me think of was that show The Leftovers (I think??) where you just see clumps of people staring at other characters while dressed all in white and chain-smoking.

Not in my wildest dreams.

Anywhere between 28-32. Old enough that people take you mostly seriously but young enough that the world still feels like it’s set up with you specifically in mind.

I’ll just go on living my life in Norway, fielding questions left and right like “is it really that bad/racist/scary in America?”.

Oh, surely there must be another way! No thank you! 🙃

As a former Catholic, I can say at least personally, religion did not make me feel good. It made me feel like many thoughts and feelings I had made me a bad person. It made me smug and judgemental.

A-BAAAY-BAAAYYY!

When I was a kid I could not understand how that line was meant to be peaceful. Even listening to the rest of the song, it was still unsettling. I was raised Catholic so the song just starts with like “imagine the worst case scenario”. As an atheist now, it’s more hopeful to me. Like imagine what the world could be like if we weren’t just biding time until we were dead. If we all just knew this was the one chance one opportunity mom’s spaghetti.

Boobs just stay full and up, despite aging, breastfeeding, etc. if we are going to have periods, at least make them painless. Cells just shut down cancer every single time it starts, making it obsolete. You wouldn’t get out of breath at the top of a staircase/big hill if there’s anyone nearby.

One step ahead of ya

I really liked it, and more than the movie. But I saw them in that order.

But what if you look like, and in fact are, a middle aged person in a traditionally socially closed off foreign land?

Mat Cauthon has entered the chat.

I live in the city center of a small Northern European city. I walk about 6-8 minutes to my job at a bakery. I like that I don’t pollute the air and I can get my body moving. I can get a feel for how busy the day will be based on what types and how many people are out and about, how the weather feels (if it is nice weather!) and such. I dislike when it rains AND is very windy. Or when the rain has frozen overnight and the cobblestones are extremely slippery.

If you move to a rainy city, invest in rain pants, rain resistant or waterproof shoes. and a high quality umbrella as part of your rain gear.

This will be over soon.

May improve Texas

Seems to be working!!

This is so true and so sad. It is like eating disorders really truly clicked for me with this statement.

While I now live outside the US and have curbed my eating habits drastically and I am now no longer obese, just on the cusp of overweight/healthy weight, I struggle every day not to indulge in over-eating, as that has been a stress-response my entire life I’m pretty sure. Living abroad has made it easier to fight it because they don’t have aisles upon aisles of ready made crap. And the boxes/bags they come in are pretty small so you can’t eat say, an entire family size box of cheez-its or little Debbie’s because neither of those are even sold here. There is some junk food but variety is extremely limited, so that definitely helps.

Seriously this. I lived in the US for most of my life until 2020 when I moved to Norway. If Americans paid what we pay here for the portion sizes given, they would absolutely riot. It’s so expensive to eat out here and the portion sizes are like, a third of what you’d get in any US restaurant. And that’s okay because…

I lost like 60lbs the first year we were here by simply eating a sensible portion size and not having a shitload of ready to eat mindless consumption snacks in the house. (also walked everywhere. Everywhere.)

Now I can tell who is a tourist just by size alone like 80% of the time (I live in a very touristy city). Brand new sneakers and look to be over 300lbs? Almost always walk by me speaking American English. It’s honestly quite surprising to see a very obese person here and then hear them speaking fluent Norwegian.

God, how is there not more daily murder there.