I get offers to buy my house, my neighbors house, and some house out in the suburbs belonging to someone named Daisy.

I have had this phone number for decades.

It is sometimes phishing I think, just to see if you will respond at all.

It doesn't matter because the same guys think sex with women is gay.

Mine always started with my period before, and I almost couldn't get one at any other time. But that time of month is a sharp drop in energy and progesterone, I think the relaxation is the same sort of thing - a sharp drop in stress will trigger a migraine, they come while I am sleeping.

I expect that if it were possible to be relaxed at all times it would not be all migraine, it's the change that is the problem.

Did have to give up fasting, that always did also result in a migraine but again, it only would start while I was asleep.

That is the most unfair thing I have heard today. I remember getting that list of potential migraine trigger and thinking it was every single food or habit anyone could eat or do. I know they are trying to make you feel some control but it always felt so blamey. Mine were mostly hormonal and not something I could fix but now managed with menopause plus a small dose of estrogen & progesterone, the same amount every day so no swings. Which leaves relaxation as my only remaining trigger. A coffee in the evening on Friday usually prevents that.

But onion? That is hard. They are so foundational to cooking.

Elvis Costello Welcome to the Working Week

Pink Floyd Another brick in the wall

Evanescence Bring me to life

A dance version:

Belle and Sebastian The Party Line

Scissor Sisters I don't feel like dancing

Wham! Wake me up before you go go

ETA, if you are desperate, use the song the Feds did to try to drive the cultists out at Waco TX:

Achey Breaky Heart

Achey Breaky Heart

Achey Breaky Heart

My favorite song to gently wake up is Hammock, Ten Thousand Years Won't Save Your Life - but the reason it's so good is because it is good to hear while I am sleeping, so not a good alarm. But so nice to hear while laying in bed.

Love, I feel it in my hands, I can tell by the things I could do with another man.

I was embarrassingly old when I figured out nobody would be singing that in the 1970s and looked up the name of the song.

This is going to sound silly but Kushiel's Dart. I just want to see a world with absolutely no sexually transmitted diseases and a reverence for all sorts of sex.

Star Trek would also be heavenly.

On the horizon, a misanthrope!

I do just always find it odd when people talk about kids as though they never were one, like they are a different thing than a very young person. Can so easily understand not wanting to parent (though it was easily the best work I've ever done, I did enjoy parenting), it does take a lot of attention and is a long haul. I guess my mom's example made me feel like it didn't need to take your whole life though, she traveled alone and worked, kept us fed and schooled and while we weren't close, I am not harmed by her lasseiz-faire approach to parenting.

I guess I find it odd that people who were kids hate kids. It's ageism, lol. Children are literally people just like we are. Just younger. Which is not to say everyone needs to reproduce, live your life however you want of course.

My mom was never very motherly, I asked her about once. She said "I don't like kids ".

"But you had so many! What the heck?"

"Well, I like you all NOW, I knew you would grow up eventually."

Kids are just people.

I make pretty good money and have insurance (sort of) but absolutely have avoided care for financial reasons and I don't actually know anyone who hasn't. Do you know someone who has never considered cost?

That's not accurate - Florida pays in more than we get back by about 11billion, Texas 68 billion. Because we have idiot government that doesn't use matching funds for Medicaid, mostly.

California pays 276B more than it receives because it's an economic engine.

Virginia has the biggest gap in the other direction, receiving 89B more than it pays in.

It's a lot more mixed than just red or blue - some democratic states are better at leveraging the federal money on behalf of their state.

It's not just size and quality though - my house is the same size as my mom's house was, hers was 13,000 in the 1960s. It's the same size as the old one I bought for 36k in the housing crash in the 1990s, and sold for 80k in 2010ish, after an addition and metal roof. It is actually for sale again now by someone else after more renovations, they are asking half a million and will probably get close to that.

The one we have now (same square footage, half built in 1940, addition in 1990s) we had to pay almost 300k and is "worth" (market, not underlying value obviously) like half a million, we did improve it with hurricane windows and metal roof and roof attachments.

I have never bought as an investment, only as housing. Something is broken, I DO think my house is worth maybe 200k as a real value, I think we overpaid. but the prices now are so much worse than that.

Yes Florida building code is serious so new houses do have additional utility. But I have only lived in older houses and they are also out of control price wise.

The big new ones around here go for 1.5 million now - I could have bought every house on my block in the 1990s for less than that.