Couch 251: The Matrix Recovered

It looks like you’re in a reflective and transitional phase right now, which is often the start of meaningful growth. Perhaps you could you start looking at rental places or house listings.
Being close to family is a huge plus.

I’m personally not a huge fan of vegan diets, but you have to find whatever works for you. I think you should go slow. Very restrictive diets might help you lose weight quickly, but maintaining in the long run will be hardest. There’s also intermittent fasting. Have you thought about working with a personal trainer and a dietitian?

I like to eat vegan every now and then. If you fully do it, you have to monitor your vitamin intake and such.

I found out yesterday one of my student's mom passed. He's a timid guy, kind of slim. I have no info on whether it was expected, he wrote an exam during the hours where she passed with me. He asked about whether he'd get partial points if he has wrong results before (which I obviously grant)...

It's wonderful that you can offer some grace, CNS.

Hope your other student from a few weeks ago managed to get through OK?

I will always be grateful to the lecturer (now friend and colleague) who showed me the utmost compassion when my friend Fred passed away and his funeral was the same day as I was due to hand in my first submission.

'You come first right now...the work can wait.'

He didnt know at the time and I would grant it regardless, but thank you very much lost. I'd let you skip and pass with flying colors if it was something like that coming up right before an exam... I try to look out for everyone, though some students still dont take to it unfortunately.

It's hard when you bend over backwards to make something work, and they can't meet you halfway.

Must be even worse when it's something technical.

Not everyone is an Epicurean like you.

This holiday season is feeling a little different. The husband and I really aren’t speaking much anymore. I know it was wrong but I saw his phone and he was talking to his sister about me-which is fine if he needs to vent but there were comments from him such as “I don’t know what her deal is. She’s mad at the world”. I saw she asked him in the messages if I was on medication and he said yes. But he’s wrong about that. I am not on any mental health medications. I stopped those medications almost a year and half ago. The little that I read in the text messages it seems his sister was not bad mouthing me or anything. So today in the US for those who do not know-it’s Thanksgiving. I went to my moms and he came with but he mostly just sat in the living room watching football with my father while I was in the kitchen with my mother and sister. So minimal conversation between us. Then as I was giving my baby niece a bottle-he got his coat on to leave so he can go to his sisters and I asked my sister to move her car from behind mine so I can get out of the driveway. And we came home and I was in the bathroom and he said he’s going to his sisters. And he left to go without me. I’m sure he is having a nice time over there venting about me. I would have gone with him to his sisters but it seemed like he had no intention on waiting so..I’m home while he is there. I’m sure I’ll be labeled the horrible sister in law who couldn’t go over there after he was with me at my parents house. But he won’t end up telling them that he had no intentions on waiting for me.

I'm sorry, Jersey--that sounds like a really difficult Thanksgiving. Especially weird that he just left to go to his sister's while you were in the bathroom. Hope you can have a relaxing rest of the evening and that things get better between you.

Also weird that he thought you were on meds when you weren't.

And hugs, if wanted.

You make it sound like i eat them!

No, no—it was the Pythagoreans who ate beans.

I thought they just counted them

Penny was just trying to dig something out from under the filing cabinet part of my desk, but she couldn't get it. I looked and it was a dusty old cheez-it haha! I haven't had those since I was in Missouri in September.

....and no, I did not eat it.

No wonder she was cranky yesterday! She had RCF - Resting Cheezit Face.

That's it!!

Dinner tonight was sushi rice with a can of roasted red pepper strips. Soooo yum. And a fiber one cinnamon coffee cake bar for dessert. An Epicure's delight.

i love it!

Hi Couch,

I hope today's being kind to you.
I'm feeling a little fragile at the moment.

Sometimes TV offers an escape, at other times it throws me in deeper.



Thanks for listening,

Lost

I'm sorry, Lost. It sucks when something that should be an escape or good, turns out to be a trigger.

Thanks Scarlet,

I'm sorry you know this pain too.
Hope today's being kind to you.

Take care,

Lost

Exactly…the ancient Epicureans, the only ones I acknowledge, believe in seeking out pleasure but enjoying it in moderation.

And nothing says “moderated pleasure” more than a Fiber One cinnamon coffee cake.

There is always (or was always) Sister Wendy and her exactly 2 potato chips a day

How did she count a broken potato chip? Was that one even broken? Or could one chip only be a full potato chip?

I believe she would collect the pieces, put 2 chips together, and consume them. She might have even broken them herself so as to make them easier to savor. Or her production assistant might have eaten all the broken ones and given the whole ones to SW

Was that production assistant maybe named…ex-hankster?

I was gonna be a nun, but my parents made my brother talk to me at the poker table in the basement and inform me i had to get married and produce grandchildren, so i gave up my vocation. My family never got involved in my life except to force it in a wrong direction.