I liked it, too. You have a right to enjoy what you enjoy. Don't let other people's opinions get in the way of your own enjoyment. The Internet likes to hate on a lot of different things.

I am a 57 yo woman. Trends in birth control come and go. When I was a young woman, barrier methods were much more common. In the decades since, they have fallen out of fashion, as hormonal birth control was found to be more effective. But I have grave reservations about the long-term effects of hormonal birth control and it really bothers me that an entire generation of young women are now using it. There are many things we are still learning about the endocrine system; and I am concerned about what we are going to discover once this generation has been on hormonal BC for two or three decades.

There are good forms of BC that do not involve hormones. The diaphragm. The cervical cap (which used to be available in the US but is no longer. It is still available in Europe. It was my favorite form of BC and I am really pissed that it is no longer available here.) The female condom, which you don't see much at drug stores, but which is available on Amazon. (It should be available everywhere; and the fact that it isn't is another thing that pisses me off.) The Today sponge is another very awesome form of non-hormonal BC. It was on the market; then it was discontinued in the 90s; then it came back on the market (I bought some on Amazon a few years back) and now they are unavailable once again. There are good alternatives to hormonal birth control and THEY ARE BEING KEPT FROM US! This is not okay. We should be protesting about this, along with the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

There's the five college area in Western MA. Smith, UMass, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst and Hampshire. And houses are a lot more affordable in that area as compared to Boston.

A lot of people hate it. I liked it. For the grumps on this thread, I do not have any "Live, laugh, love" signs in my house. And I am not a beginning reader. I have been reading all my life and often read classics.

Is The Alchemist my favorite book? No, but I enjoyed it. It has a whimsical, magical flavor to it that I enjoyed. And I like the way the story comes full circle in the end.

If reading feels like a waste of time to you, then it is hard to imagine you spending much time reading. Either you need to change that underlying belief or you need to go do whatever it is you think you should be doing that is not a waste of time.

In a married couple, who should make the decision to get a vasectomy? The husband alone; the wife alone; or should it be a mutually agreed upon decision?

I knew I was old one day when I walked into Urban Outfitters to shop for my daughter and there was a whole display of turntables and albums and it was supposed to be this hip retro thing and I was like, "Wait a minute, I remember using these things." When there is nostalgia for a time period you clearly remember, you're old.

My thoughts exactly. I just want to float along, not get hit over the head with a hammer.

I save them in my Amazon cart.

For the same reason we have nerves anywhere else in the body: to signal, through pain, when something is wrong (infection, trauma, etc.) It used to be thought that people with leprosy had super human strength. But one day a doctor who lived in a leper colony to care for them asked a patient to get a stuck sink valve unstuck. The patient succeeded but the doctor noticed the patient's hand was bleeding afterwards. He came to understand that the patient did not have superhuman strength. What the patient did have was a reduced ability to perceive pain, because the patient's nerves were damaged by the leprosy. So, a healthy person would have stopped trying to turn that stuck valve because the pressure of the metal on their skin would hurt. But a patient with leprosy would keep going because they couldn't feel the metal damaging the tissues in their hand. Similarly, diabetics with poor blood sugar control eventually lose sensory nerve function in their lower extremities, and can suffer damage to their knee joints and the soft tissues of their feet without even realizing it.

Nerves offer us a feedback mechanism. Touch stove equals hot equals perceive pain equals pull hand away. If we lack this feedback mechanism, we damage ourselves. If we could not sense pressure and pain as we bite down, we would probably end up shattering our own teeth by biting down too hard, because there would be nothing signaling us to stop. Nerves are important! It's no fun when they signal the pain of a bad toothache, but ultimately they help protect us.

Have you looked at Turo? Prices might be less there.

These are great ideas! Thanks!

OP, I think you need to share this entire thread with your girlfriend so she can better understand what happened to you.