Some places do but there’s not much I can do about that. I mean, have you seen the world lately? Cameras are everywhere. I may not like it but it’s a fact of life. But I’d rather have a camera on me in a stairway I’m passing through than have someone mentally assault me with forced small talk while trapped in an elevator with them.

Honestly I stare at most cameras. It’s creepy af to be constantly surveilled so I guess the best I can do is try to creep out the watchers too once in a while. Though AI and facial recognition are slowly stealing this small joy from me as well. :/

After my dad passed away, I was left with my mother and sister who are two peas in a pod. Unfortunately, that kinda left me out in the cold as we have very opposing personalities. My family was all older and most have already passed, the remaining 3 I haven’t spoken to in years thanks to a family fallout when I was a child.

I joined the military and kinda had work friends but usually only one friend I really spoke to. Same went for college- but by then I was a single mom so it was mostly school/work/kid 24/7.

After graduation I started working full time and honestly always kind of avoided making too close of friends at work. That’s just a shit storm waiting to happen. I spent most of my time hanging out with my kid and my dog doing things we enjoyed doing. I gave up on any meaningful relationships outside of my immediate household and instead focused on what made me happy.

I finally hooked up with my partner a few years ago and not much has changed. We have very few friends and really spend most of our time together as a family. We put our effort into making our home somewhere we want to be and it’s paid off a lot. We have very little interest in spending time elsewhere. It makes us fairly reclusive but we’re ok with that. My child spends some time with friends and participates in school, sports, and hobbies to build her soft skills and relationships.

The relationship with my family somewhat recovered over the years, but only to neutral territory. I don’t spend much time interacting with them and that seems to be ok with everyone involved. I spend less than 24 hrs a year with them.

As for “wtf is life?” I think it’s whatever the hell you want it to be. I stopped giving a shit about how other people defined a good life and started defining it for myself when I was too poor for anything I was told would make me happy. I find happiness in the sunshine, a good cup of tea, or being able to have 5 minutes of peace to enjoy a hobby. I don’t need anyone else for that. The world may be burning but unless you have a fire extinguisher for it, you may as well bust out the marshmallows and enjoy it while you can. Life’s too short to be upset about shit you have no control over.

I wonder if Reddit hasn’t already started losing them. The post quality has dropped a bit and some of the comments are so confusing that it’s hard not to think they’re AI generated. They’re just nonsense.

I look around for cameras and if I find one, I stare at it for the whole ride. No one really watches those things unless something is being investigated so on the rare chance someone sees it, I’ll just be an oddity in a much more interesting tale.

Usually I just take the stairs though. I hate surveillance.

Yes, of course haha

So it pretty much boils down to “well the firefighters can’t work from home so nobody else should be able to either” and “won’t anyone think about the diners and coffee shops?!” There was also some rumbling about being more productive by being physically in the office. Bleh.

I feel like this destroys the only thing I enjoyed about Covid: the complete lack of traffic. You know who else probably enjoyed it? The f****ing firefighters, waste management, and emergency service personnel.

We had a lot where I grew up but the area I live in now has been owned by logging and paper companies for 100 years so it’s mostly been wiped out. The only remaining ones I see are beaten up along roadways (rare) or hanging off of cliffs.

Thank you! I have thimbleberry, service berry, and evergreen huckleberry so far, and I added some highbush cranberry to the front yard because it has such stunning foliage.

Personally, I live outside in the nicer months. I absolutely hate being in a box indoors when the temperature is 55F+. It’s dark and gloomy and makes me feel like a trapped rat and makes me very anxious. Of course, I also have a ton of tattoos and my family has a propensity for skin cancer so I have to take a lot of precautions.

I stick to the dense shade provided by conifers or nearby structures, I wear loose-fitting long sleeves, and you will never see me without sunglasses unless it’s night time. I also wear neutrogena sunscreens that don’t leave a residue or scent on my skin because I hate how particles stick to oils and wasps/bees/flies love smelly-good things.

On a side note, I wouldn’t put too much stock in how stores break up products by sex. I don’t wear makeup and only wear men’s clothing and I’m a woman. I’ve never gotten a weird look shopping for boxers. The only people I know that burn scented candles at home are men, and they are predominantly seen as a “woman” thing despite being located in generally sex-neutral areas of stores. The weird boundaries around items make no sense to me.

I guess the original post asked for pictures of plants and I just posted my yard (which tbf has a lot of plants) so here’s a picture of a madrone I adopted. They’re my favorite tree but in serious decline in my area, so I propagate them and have started a colony of them on my property.

Here’s a before and after of my kitchen garden that was started as indoor starts, winter-sown seeds, or cuttings. The pots have now been moved and the raised bed is vegetables. The surrounding borders are a mix of common and native berry plants. It’s only a few months difference in the photo (fall -> early spring) and it’s much fuller already this summer.

I was concerned about entering an echo chamber but then I remembered that I wouldn’t sit and drink in a skin head bar, or hang around a nazi rally. There’s something to be said about looking around the local environment and thinking “this isn’t for me”.

I can’t say that I’ve had many issues on other instances but there’s been a few posts where I’ve wandered in, then promptly noped back to the main feed because it was beyond “dissenting viewpoint” and more akin to walking into a room full of wasps.

If I want dissenting views I can go anywhere on the internet, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to discuss something you care about without being called names and dog-piled on. Kinda like walking out of the religious rally and into a library. It’s just a different environment.