Yes, I refused to step in a Subway for years because that smell was horrid. Now, for some reason, the smell has mellowed or I'm getting older and can't smell it so much anymore. I can now stand being in a Subway, but I still don't like it.

Hey Toaties, I'm currently reading The Rosie Project for book club and it's really rubbing me the wrong way, but I'm having trouble articulating why. I'm only 50 pages in. There's the manic pixie dream girl aspect to Rosie, but it's the Aspie aspects to the narrator that really disturb me. On one hand it's good to have a neuroatypical protagonist, but it also doesn't feel respectful. I'm not sure how to talk about this with my lovely, but often oblivious book club. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

No. This is absolutely, necessarily unkind.

I have more emotional trouble watching JJ due to the subject matter (i have to take breaks between and sometimes in the middle of episodes) which wasn't so much of a problem with Daredevil, but Daredevil was so poorly lit. I'm sure it was some kind of commentary on Murdock's blindness or something, but it's still a visual medium. I need to be able to see!

I don't have a happy ending to give you, I'm sorry. I do have so much sympathy though, because I also lost my third pregnancy this year. It's so, so hard. I don't get pregnant on my own, so every one of those pregnancies was so many drugs and money and medical tests. And I would do all of that happily, if someone would just tell me that it all works out in the end.

I don't know your situation, so I don't want to offer any advice that you're not asking for. So, I'll just offer all good thoughts and my absolute sympathy. I'm so sorry for your losses.

When I went through chemo, I mostly laid on the couch and reread my favorite books. If you want to gift books, I'd give simple and engaging ones. Maybe a specific offer to pick something up from the library, too. An offer of grocery shopping would be so great. I was too tired to move, let alone go shopping. My dad cared for me and I know he would have appreciated a break, a beer and a sympathetic ear. I also second queenmondegreens's suggestions of comfy clothes.

A lot of what I needed was very specific. At one point I got throat sores and couldn't swallow without pain. If someone had offered to bring me smoothies, I would have cried in gratitude. You can offer to grab something when you run errands. Text, if your friend does that, instead of call. Phone calls were exhausting for me and often woke me up.

You're a lovely friend for thinking of something and asking.

I'm a supervisor of hourly employees and I know they're occasionally screwing around on the internet (I can see you liked that Facebook post five minutes ago, I'm not stupid and I accepted your friend request), but I frankly don't care unless it's excessive or their work isn't getting done. As long as they're accomplishing all their tasks, I'm not going to stress out about what they're doing every minute.

Thank you all so much for the kind words. They are so, so helpful.

Oh, Toasties. I don't comment here hardly at all, but I've been reading forever. I had a horrible medical procedure yesterday and I could just use a few hugs and reassurance.

Content Note for infertility, medical procedures and discussion, pain

I had to have a saline infused sonohysterogram which is where they thread a catheter through your cervix into your uterus and pump it full of saline while taking a transvaginal ultrasound, the kind with the wand they stick up your vagina. I've had one about a year ago, as part of my ongoing infertility treatments, but my doc wanted another just to check, I guess, since I start a new frozen embryo transfer cycle soon. It was horrible. There were four people in the room, the doctor, the ultrasound tech and two randos, all women. The doctor was inexperienced and she struggled to even see my cervix, not something anyone has had a problem with before. She had trouble getting the catheter through then threaded like the whole fucking thing into my uterus until it bottomed out and then the fucker kinked so she couldn't push the saline through. They use a little balloon to open your cervix which hurts like a motherfucker and the catheter gives you the worst cramps. So, she had to pull the whole thing out and start over. The second time hurt even worse, though she got the catheter through easier. Then she couldn't get the speculum out without tugging on the catheter and the ultrasound wand also pushed against it. Then she started pushing in the saline and it hurt so much. I'm not a wuss about pain, but I was crying. One of the randos snapped at me not to hold my breath, but I just couldn't breathe for the pain. Then the catheter pulled out and all the saline rushed out. The doctor was going to start again, but thank god the tech said she got enough. They were all nice enough about it, but I just felt so violated and raw. I cried the whole way home. I've had more than my fair share of medical procedures with all this and other health issues and I've been in awful pain before, but something about this was so, so bad. I can't stop thinking about it, but I know here I would have a sympathetic ear. Thank you.

I had to show one of my employees how to make a long distance call on a landline. She'd only used cell phones before or called local numbers. She's not that much younger than me, just over ten years.

I learned how to write checks in 7th grade Home Ec, as well as how to calculate the interest rate on a car loan and other very useful things. I still only write one check a month for the city utilities in a very small town where we own property and every time I do it I curse them for not having their utilities payment be online. My payment would be late a lot less if I could just set up an automatic payment, damnit.