This was my take as well - liberals are pretty centrist generally, which has its advantages, but having to cooperate with a smaller progressive party keeps them accountable. I liked what the NDP was able to leverage our of the last government, and I’m hopeful that the NDP and Greens (or, well, Green) can continue to punch above their weight as kingmakers here.
I think tariffs are generally applied based on date of customs arrival, not time of order - discussion on wine imports who order months+ in advance as well as some small businesses getting hit unexpectedly on long-ordered goods, plus my own industry that has a several month lead time on orders and some bills we have received. I’m less familiar with that mechanic but I don’t know that placing the order before that time will help you if it has to ship from overseas.
Lost the birth parent lottery hard.
Won the in-law lottery like you can’t believe.
My actual parents are raging mentally-ill disasters who are far too consumed by their own shit to realize they have kids, or that kids aren’t meant to be used as crutches and emotional punching bags. They love me in name but not action, and are generally disintereted in me unless they think they can use me for something. They have no idea who I am as a person, frequently forget where I live (same place for 6 years) and what I do for work (4 years), and couldn’t pick my spouse out of a lineup (7 years). I haven’t given them grandkids, I left a prestigious sounding but financially unwise program to do generic business admin, I live far enough away they can’t “invite” me over to do tens if thousands of dollars in free labor anymore, I won’t let Mom call me out of the blue to scream and insult me when she’s having a bad day, and I won’t “loan” them money, so from their perspective, what’s the point of me?
In my early marriage I used to HOUND them with calls trying and failing to get 5 minutes of their attention - they’d literally answer and then set the phone down and ignore it or just talk to anyone else and ignore me with the phone to their ear - the problem was so bad I could barely get them to commit to meeting my now-husband until we were already engaged, and even then it was a fight (it took multiple months of proposing a time every weekend to even schedule them for a video call - in person was off the table. They have regular jobs and schedules). So I stopped trying around 6 years ago and said I’d answer when they called, but they could call me.
In the 6 years since I believe we’ve had about 7 phone calls or so, and about as many texts - that’s for both parents total, not each. Not Christmas or birthdays, not to actually catch up, just Mom wanting to yell - she used to start the call already angry, THEN start asking questions about my life until she found something to yell about. She used to frequently do this and accuse me of lying if I didn’t report sufficient failures, then have a go at me for lying. Eventually blocked for my own sanity. Dad getting caught by his siblings not even knowing where I lived at a family function and trying to cram all the trivia about my life into a short phone call so he could go back to the party and save face (this actually happened twice). Dad calling and without prompting comparing my mom to a man-eating tiger with a taste for my flesh personally (literally), then asking me to unblock her anyway because now she was treating HIM that way (“I feel for the tiger keeper, but I am not the tiger-keeper’s meat shield.”). 100% promise rate from Dad that he’d call again next week and then not hearing from him for well over a year - just recently got a text because he heard from a different relative that I bought a house and got caught looking bad again - he did not want to talk more.
My MIL frequently accidentally refers to me as her child and then trips up when she tries to refer to my spouse - “auto complete” in her brain says the spouse of a child should be an in-law, but they are also her child and in fact is her ACTUAL child. She also adds me to her Total Kid Count (high) and when she has to walk someone through the timing on That Many Kids, realizes she put one too many in there. When I want to call “my mom”, I call her. We just bought a house, and I prioritized one with a guest room for her frequent visits (every time: “Is it ok if I spend a day seeing my siblings when I’m I’m town?” “Of course?? When has it ever not been??” “Well I did say I was coming to see you two!!”). She calls just to chat multiple times a week and I know I can tell her anything. She’s not perfect, but she literally taught me what unconditional love looked and felt like, and has been there for me through every win and loss I’ve had over the last 7 years. She is the envy of our married friend group.
My FIL is great and we get on well, but I think it’s a standard positive in-law relationship. When I want Dad advice, I call an old family friend who fell out with my folks over them generally being the people described above, to make an extremely long story short. We try to talk once a week on a schedule - but he’s busy with a family of his own and a demanding career in addition to the gaggle of my siblings he volunteered to Dad-up, so it’s more structured. It’s always meant a ton to me that he still prioritizes carving out that time just to be a listening ear and a friend. He’s been a great example to me of what it means to be a self-accountable, good person in every way, what admitting you’re wrong and changing for the better looks like, and how to just generally be a kick-ass community member. He’s the one who gets the Father’s Day call around here.
All this to say, just because your assigned parents are a couple of slouches doesn’t mean you’re cursed to never have that parental support - even if you don’t cut contact with your assigned parents, please give yourself permission and space in your life to find some better ones. I highly recommend joining some hobbies - especially old person hobbies - or volunteering to make those connections. We all know it’s important to have peer friends, but Older Mentor Friends are also so freaking critical - my knitting group ladies got me through SO MUCH before I had that solid support system, and they’re still a huge wealth of knowledge, community, and support.
It gets better, dude.
I meant to reply to you earlier and accidentally replied to the whole thread - I agree with the sentiment below. Honestly, using AI as a coding partner when learning is actually a pretty great use for it, if you’re reviewing it properly, testing, and know its limits. This initiative is much more focused on the same sorts of low quality content farms and c-suite “cost cutting” initiatives that have been making gaming suck since long before AI. If you’re the sort of developer doing game jams, focusing on learning rather than volume, and taking pride in your work the quality will show through regardless.
Hey man, I think you might’ve dropped these
Hang in there.
Hey man, don’t get discouraged. AI isn’t hated on because it doesn’t have valid uses - assistive language-based problems are a great candidate for AI help, and coding is language!
What people are rightfully concerned about is AI being used to replace skilled work - especially artists - or use in establishing facts, not help teach newbies. Someone using AI to help word their resume or provide some help when stuck programming is not the issue - a game dev laying off artists and coders to let AI do the job worse but nearly free is.
What are things people have said or done for you that helped you feel seen and loved?
So I can’t give much on the coping mechanisms - she’ll have to figure her own flavor of ADHD and coping mechanisms out, likely by trial and error.
But things that make me feel seen and loved / things that made me feel small and worthless, I can talk about.
My parents actually knew I had ADHD - turns out I got diagnosed as a kid and they did fuck all about it and never mentioned it - and figured the best thing for me was “tough love”. I was routinely punished for things they made very clear to me as an adult that they knew were symptoms, and I was acutely aware of just how inconvenient and difficult I was for everyone else in my life. They figured if they let me “deal with the consequences of my own actions”, I’d “learn”, but all that did was make me feel miserable, worthless, alone, and anxious.
My husband couldn’t be more different about it. ADHD is insanely frustrating - for no one more acutely than the sufferer. You spend most of your life actively fighting yourself about everything from brushing your teeth to doing your own hobbies. He is incredible about not making it about him, and making it really, REALLY clear that he doesn’t love me less because of the ADHD and he couldn’t possibly love me more without it. He helps me constantly and without fanfare - I joke he can read my mind because often by the time I get “now where did I put my–” out of my mouth he is placing my missing phone/keys/headphones/water bottle into my hand (it turns out phones don’t go on top of the laundry hamper and your wife in the other room will likely want that soon).
While it is clear that my ADHD is our common enemy, it isn’t because he feels like it picks fights with him - it is because he chooses to fight it alongside me because it makes me miserable and therefore has chosen violence. He is willing to sit quietly next to me when I need a little more structure, brain storm strategies and priorities for busy weekends, listen to me talk about things he doesn’t understand while I sort out my thoughts, never makes me the butt of jokes, and has some incredible problem solving skills when all I remember is that I put something “away” and it isn’t actually “AWAY-away” (recent example - I lost my headphones for days, and I could remember I had been sitting at my desk, specifically rolled them up, and put them “away” in that desk, but they weren’t there. Or in any other drawer, or under the desk, or my nightstand drawer, or my backpack, or any pockets, or purse – he walked to my desk, turned 180 degrees and a few feet back to the infrequently used sewing table behind me, opened the “equivalent” drawer, and behold!! Headphones. “I knew it!! It’s the same wood as your desk!!” Besides my ADHD apparently, who thinks like that??).
Some of this is implicit, a lot of it is explicit - he reminds me frequently that he’s not upset with me, asks how he can help, and jumps in immediately. For me, the most important part of all of it is his attitude - he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, he stays positive, he’s reassuring, he’s involved, and he’s never resentful. For me, we are confident that short of some medical breakthrough I will never really be as functional or happy independently as I can be with someone else providing external support, structure, and executive function, but he’s verbally and cheerfully told me he’s ready to be my Tactical Support Husband for the rest of my life.
I make his favorite desserts a lot.
I had a nervous breakdown in university, where I had gotten a huge, highly selective merit scholarship under strict performance conditions. I had thrived - relatively speaking - in a traditional classroom, because it was so structured. I murdered tests because it was quiet, structured, and distraction free. Homework was hit or more frequently miss, I struggled socially, and although clearly not malicious my teachers gently noted that my classroom behavior could be a challenge “to the other students’ learning”, but I was brilliant enough at tests and classwork and highly motivated by my toxic dysfunctional house to get out that I had successfully gotten my golden ticket.
University, where you had to set and enforce your own structure? I couldn’t cope. I got a lot of flack on “you never learned to study”, “you just don’t know how to do really hard things, now that it isn’t easy for you”. I missed deadlines for administrative work, I forgot assignments, I struggled to remember the instructions to follow them.
I remember a day just before I hit that wall - I was in the study cubicles in the library, trying to work on some critical midterms for a challenging course. I only had the cubicle rental for a set amount of time and needed to meet my long-suffering roommate for a ride home at a given time - they were also very busy and I was not helping their life by being late to everything constantly. I checked the time to see how much longer I had and went back to writing, but realized I hadn’t actually internalized the time so I checked again. Within 10 seconds I couldn’t remember how long I had again, so I checked again - tried really hard to remember! Said it out loud, was shushed by my cube neighbor. Looked up at them - forgot time. Checked again, pen to paper to write it down - I had forgotten already.
Frustrated as hell, I got up to get a drink at the water fountain, hoping the walk and the water would “clear my head”. At this point I had forgotten I even needed to check the time. I sat back down at my cubicle, picked up my pen to start writing for this midterm, began brainstorming – I was at the water fountain again, although I didn’t remember choosing to go or any of the not-short walk there. Puzzled but not surprised, I thought “I must have been thirstier than I knew”, and made sure to get a BIG drink this time. Walked back to the cubicle. Pick up pen. “Focus”. Deep breath. Consider the themes of –
I am back at the water fountain. Hand to heaven I did not choose to be here. I do not NEED to be here. I am not thirsty. I return back to my cube without getting a drink because “I am not rewarding myself for wasting time”.
I walk back to the wrong cubicle because I have forgotten the cubicle number I rented.
I end up back at the water fountain trying to remember my cubicle by retracing my steps - it’s not like I haven’t walked that path half a dozen times today already, how did I just now forget??
I get another drink. I finally make it back to my cubicle. I start working on the midterm again, but in the-reading the prompt sheet realize I have not been working on the prompt I actually signed up for this whole time - not that I have written even a paragraph yet. Frustrated to tears after years of this constantly and feeling like a failure, my phone buzzes angrily - somehow during all of this NOTHING, 4 hours came and went, and I am now late to meet my roommate, who is threatening to leave without me.
When I finally finish the paper, it is submitted by my professor for a “best paper of the semester” award and places second.
2 months later, seeing the campus psychiatrist after my mental breakdown due to “overwhelming anxiety”, he listens to me for 45 minutes. He promises we will talk about the anxiety, which is very real and distressing, but also maybe I should consider this other thing. He takes a paper from his filing cabinet, folds over the top so I can’t see what the title is, and presents me with a questionnaire asking me to rate myself from one to five on every moral failing that has ever disappointed and frustrated me and everyone who claims to love me. I am sobbing within 5 questions – there is a name for this?? This is treatable?? I’m not just a lazy failure?? No, I have no idea what the title of this questionnaire would be.
“Adult ADHD Assessment”.
Most people, it turns out, DON’T have a childhood nickname of “space cadet” or “nutty professor”, can finish a sentence in a linear fashion, can sit relatively still, don’t interrupt their psychiatrist 5 times in 20 minutes, and can remember what they have and have not discussed in a 45 minute time window. It also turns out that being a high achiever in a strict scholarship program as a member of the honors college in a challenging major at a prestigious university with “the WORST case of ADHD I have ever seen” is not super easy, although I can’t imagine why.
Within days I am on my first day of Adderall, although I am told not to expect much at this dose. I almost forget to take it, but my roommate forcefully reminds me as we drive, and I never remembered to take the prescription out of my bag so I still have it. I walk the 15 minutes from the lot to the library.
As I pass the student union building next to the library, I realize something absolutely insane - I know where I am right now, and I remember getting here. Not that I remember every leaf or face I passed, but it isn’t like the water fountain where I only know that I went somewhere because I am now there. Despite having the same routine every day of walking to the library to rent my cubicle first thing, I often “overshoot” and accidentally walk past it and head to the buildings for my major without getting my rental and storing my bag, usually only remembering where I am and what I’m doing once I go to open the door of my first class and see that it isn’t my class in there yet - I’m supposed to be studying in the library for a few hours more.
But not on Adderall - on 10 whole mg of Adderall I successfully went right where I was supposed to be on purpose at the right time and I remembered doing it, and it was so unfamiliar an experience that I cried on a bench in the quad about it.
The Quebecois sure are a blasphemous people, I’ll give em that - I’ve never seen such commitment to the art of profaning, and I’m in ex-cult communities!
Genuinely goals
I feel like everyone deserves at least one job related “fuck you” style moral victory in their lives and that qualifies for sure.
For me it was when the WORST manager I have ever had called me back a year after I quit to ask me to come work for her again and got to laugh in her face and tell her I’d have happily accepted half the pay at her place to scrub toilets as long as it wasn’t working with her, but instead I was making double what she paid me to do my dream job.
I’ve never done cocaine, BUT I’m pretty sure I know what it feels like.
From the sound of things, he took the money to help an abuser get his rape victim back ----- eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeshhhh
Fun fact: even “regular style” crutches are not actually supposed to rest in your armpits! You are supposed to hold onto the arm portion and use them similarly to the above crutches. When we adjusted that for the spouse, we had to shorten the crutches by like 2-3 inches and he said it was WAY more comfortable.
There are some videos on YouTube by physiotherapists etc that were supremely helpful - recommend giving them a quick watch and readjusting your crutches.
Source: spouse recently broke the hell out of his foot and also Had Shit To Do™.
In Canada, A&W has cheaper prices for WAY better quality food. It was a few years back we were enjoying some “as a treat” and realized it was not just significantly better than McD’s, but also much cheaper, and we decided we just weren’t going back.
My household is partial to a couple of chicken buddy burgers in a time crunch.
Luckily it is not too hard to make my friend! Whip yourself up a batch tonight.
Noise Complaints Georg
Niche show, but Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Holy shit that was a great show and SO well written, but I can see why it wasn’t well received on a traditional TV format - if you didn’t watch from the beginning and keep watching to the end it wouldn’t make a lick of sense. Definitely meant to be enjoyed with a serious watch of an entire series and not episodically.
I would give my left foot for a Season 3.