Eastern day sayings

Hi all,
My husband works hard and is good at his job. He's one of those people who busts his butt to try to do well, but is often overlooked for promotions and opportunities. He finally has a boss who is trying to work him up through the pipeline.
He works corporate office for a large retailer with a reputation for treating employees well enough. They've done some scummy things I'm not fond of, and I personally don't trust them, but overall it's a good place to work. I do feel he could get a better job elsewhere if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to, so that's fine.
A new position is likely opening soon that would put him into a supervisory role that he's actually pretty likely to get if he wants it. It would be a $20k raise (he currently makes $80k), though he'd lose his ability to collect overtime. Hours would be longer, and he'd unofficially be on call kind of always.
It would involve mandatory travel, and this company has been known to send people to other countries for 2-3 months at a time. For the current project, he'd be traveling about every other week, for up to two weeks each time, though just nationally. The travel schedule also counts your time on the plane as your day "off," so he'd really lose out on weekends.
I'm...not interested in that life. I've had numerous coworkers (granted, all women with kids and busy lives) who have had nothing but bad things to say about life with a traveling husband. We don't have kids, but have a lot of pets. I know they're not the same thing, but it is a lot for one person to manage every day. Plus there's just the household responsibilities, yard work, maintenance, etc. We're looking for our first home, and it will have to be a fixer upper because we can't afford much in our area. The number one thing my coworkers have complained about is how the burden of everything falls on them for the majority of the year, even when their husband is home.
I'm not going to be the person to prevent my husband from doing something he wants to do, but his reasoning so far is solely the money. He doesn't enjoy traveling, and his current position is the first time he's had a job with good work/life balance. He also is not someone who will set boundaries with the company, and will do whatever they tell him to do. If he has to suddenly pack up and leave, he will do that, regardless of what we have going on, holidays, etc.
He is also easily overwhelmed and overworked, and he has allowed it to negatively impact his mental health numerous times in the past. I think this position would contribute to that again.
I suppose I just don't think $20k is worth such a dramatic change in both of our lives. While he'd be making more money, he'd also be devaluing his time with the amount of hours he'd be expected to work.
I don't want to try to manipulate his decision or prevent him from doing it. I'd survive and we'd figure it out if he takes the job. But I also genuinely don't want him to do this.
AITA?

Memory transcription subject: Sare, Yotul Rebuilder Date [standardized human time]: January 31st, 2136
I pulled the hoodie tighter around myself. It had only gotten colder over the past few days; I’d taken multiple chances to thank Gavin for his gift. Every time I passed the human, I saw a grin spread across his face, and I felt something flutter in my stomach. I managed to keep myself composed enough as he joined me in the vegan line once again.
“You actually like this stuff?” I asked. I gestured to the rest of the extraterrestrials in the line. “I don’t think any of us do.”
He shrugged. “It’s different, at least. Two months of ham and cheese sandwiches does something to a man.”
I stared at him for a moment. He looked at me with a soft gaze and a slight smile, and I found myself admiring his eyes and the way his beanie-formed hair draped over them. His expression morphed to confusion, however, and he waved his hand at me.
“Earth to Sare? Are you… looking for something?”
I realized I’d just been standing there staring for a solid twenty seconds and I flushed deep green, pulling my scarf over my face. “I- uh, I’m alright, yeah! I’m just-” I wove my paws around futilely as if I could speak with them. I gestured for Gavin to move ahead of me in the line, and he let out a small laugh as he walked past to pick up his meal. I followed shortly behind him, my face burning.
Today’s meal was some emulation of venlil cuisine. It was… alright, for something made by non-venlil chefs, but I’d had better in Earth’s vegan food. Gavin, however, seemed pretty excited by it.
“As long as I’ve worked here, I haven’t had much alien food.” He took a bite from his meal and continued speaking as he chewed. “Not bad. I think I prefer yotul food, though,” he said, musing as he looked off into the distance.
I piped up excitedly at that. “I could make you something!”
“You can?” he asked, genuine intrigue in his voice. “What could you do?”
Shit.
There really wasn’t a lot of even human food available to cook with, let alone imports from Leirn that I was familiar with, but I felt like I needed to repay Gavin with something, at least.
“Uh-, well, there’s a type of salad back home I might be able to make with stuff here. Um… I don’t think it’d be very good, but-”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. Anything handmade is great if you put your heart into it,” he said, his tone reassuring and a smile on his face. I absentmindedly fiddled with the drawstrings of my hoodie as he took a few more bites from his lunch; a few moments passed before he looked at me and flushed a bit, then quickly finished his meal. I stared off into the distance, nothing in particular on my mind as I ate, but I saw Gavin hurry off to the administrator’s office. I downed my food and followed him with a brisk walk.
“What’s the rush?”
He looked me over for a moment before letting out a breath I couldn’t tell he was holding. “There’s still a lot of work to do today, y’know? It’s going to be cold tonight, and besides, it’s New Year’s Eve. I gotta get my work done quick so I have tonight free.”
We both paused for a moment. “What do humans do for the new year?” I asked.
“Normally, the tradition is to set off a bunch of fireworks- oh, those are like little explosive things-”
“There’s some great firework shows on Leirn,” I explained. “We’ve got ‘em too.” I could show you some hung on the tip of my tongue, something I deeply wanted to say but held myself back on.
“Oh, sweet! Anyway, yeah, that’s the usual thing, plus some typical family gathering and partying, but, uh… I don’t think anybody here could handle fireworks right now,” he continued, his expression trailing into something morose I couldn’t quite read. “But really, first and foremost, it’s about spending time with people you care about.”
“Guess we got that in common, then,” I added. “Where I’m from, it’s summer during the new year, so during the day, we spend time at beaches, usually, sometimes going on trips to somewhere cooler the day before. I’m not religious myself, but followers of Ralchi have a sort of traditional bonfire past sundown for the new year that most people recreate.”
“That’d be nice.”
“Yeah…” I mused. “Haven’t done anything like it in a while, and it’d be nice to spend a night around people I care about again…”
Gavin just looked at me.
“Hm?”
“Nothing,” he said, quickly perking up. “C’mon. We’ve got stuff to do today.”
I nodded, and he led us off down the road to the suburbia we’d been cleaning up the past few weeks. Some other workers from the camp had tagged along; from chats between them, the peacekeepers in charge had directed anyone wanting a lighter day for the new year down this road.
I jogged a bit forward to catch up to Gavin ahead, only slowing my pace as I stepped to his side. He glanced at me for only a moment before offering a hand to hold, which I took. I felt my tail beat against the asphalt below us a few times before I got my heart under control.
“What’re we doing today?” I asked after a comfortable silence.
“Cleanup, mostly. UN wants this place cleared of debris for rebuilding.”
“That sounds… impossible, honestly. There’s just so much wreckage,” I said, a sense of exhaustion already creeping into my voice before we even got to work. I sighed. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
He shrugged. “Even if it’s impossible, why not? Maybe we won’t clean out everything, but we’re still cleaning out something, and that’s better than nothing.”
“I just… I don’t know. How’s it better than nothing if we can barely make a dent in all the garbage?”
“Well, look at it this way. A hundred thousand people used to live here-” he waved his hand in a wide arc over the townscape around us- “-and maybe we’ll never see more than ten grand again. But so what? Even if we only get five thousand people back in these houses, that’s still infinitely better than zero. You know?”
“...Yeah. Yeah, I guess I know.”
Gavin smiled. It was a warm grin, an expression I never wanted to see end, and a smile spread across my own face. “You feeling better?”
“Definitely.”
He put his arm around my shoulder in a quick hug that I reciprocated. “Let’s get going, then.”
Some of the group hung back to direct the debris-moving vehicles down into the deeper wreckage, but most of us, Gavin and myself included, focused on the smaller things; as inconsequential as it was, the light labor and simple repetition of shoveling up garbage felt rather therapeutic.
It didn’t take too long before a sort of pessimism started again. By the time a few hours had passed, my arms ached, my legs felt sore, and while seeing what we’d cleaned was encouraging, it felt dwarfed in the face of the mountains of concrete dust and shattered debris that still coated the town. I sighed, taking a seat on some of the more solid debris, feeling my tail sweep up loose dust. Gavin glanced back at me before setting down his own tools and taking a seat as well.
“This sucks,” he said after a few seconds of odd, semi-comfortable-semi-awkward silence.
“Yeah.”
The human nodded as if we’d just made some as yet unknown revelation, then let out a short laugh. I did, too, my laugh lasting perhaps a bit too long before I felt something crumple and a few tears slipped out of my eyes.
“Still gotta do it, though, y’know?”
I glanced back at him. Afternoon light glinted off the tears forming in his own eyes as he looked at me with a small smile of his own; despite the wetness accumulating on his cheeks, he took the chance to wipe my eyes with warm, gentle hands. I pressed at the tears on his own face and he flinched back, muttering watch the fur under his breath. I snickered a bit at his reaction.
“Still gotta do it,” I said. He nodded in response.
“But you don’t gotta do everything.”
“Yeah. Something’s enough,” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked over the areas we’d cleaned from a tiny portion of the city sprawl. The sound of machinery and the occasional working song echoed off the concrete and asphalt as we watched our comrades work in silence.
Even under the cold of the late day, the something had kept me warm, and before long, we’d reconvened at the headquarters for dinner. Unlike the morning, however, Gavin went for the human food line, and I opted to follow him.
“...Can you even eat this stuff?” he asked, pointing at the (at this point, comedically predictable) ham-and-cheese sandwiches that the cooks were handing out. One of them mirrored his sentiment, cocking their head and looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
“I… think? We weren’t cured, so it won’t kill me. Probably.”
He shrugged. Two sandwiches came, and he rifled through the bag at his side for an anti-allergy injector. “Don’t be stupid,” he said, tucking it into his pocket for quick access.
“This whole idea is pretty stupid,” I commented.
“Be… only a little bit stupid.”
We laughed as we sat down. I set my sandwich down and watched Gavin pick up his and take a bite, staring at him in fascination before realizing that this probably wasn’t something to be particularly fascinated by. Still, it was a pretty novel experience, nonetheless; I didn’t eat meat, and for the majority of my time on Earth, any meal time was separated between those who did and those who didn’t.
I took a tentative bite of the sandwich, which, thinking about it in a vacuum, is a rather strange way to think about one’s dinner, but I was certainly nervous in the moment.
“It’s… interesting,” I said, both meat and dairy decidedly unfamiliar tastes to me. The most familiar part was the saltiness, but this felt less like the mild flavor of roasted root vegetables and more like shoving seawater into my mouth. The texture was perhaps the most familiar part, albeit still strange; it reminded me most of Rinsan fiberfruit, but its taste made it surprisingly hard to swallow.
“‘Interesting’ as in… ‘good’?” Gavin asked. “‘Interesting’ as in ‘you’re not experiencing anaphylactic shock right now’?”
“I wouldn’t say good, but I don’t think I’d say bad or trying to kill me either,” I commented after forcing down another bite.
“You don’t have to finish that, you know.”
“I’m committed," I retorted. It wasn’t inedible, at least, and the newness of the experience alone made it worth it.
After washing the flavor down with a copious amount of water, Gavin and I decided to get some rest a bit early; the winter sun had already crept low to the horizon and the work of the day set in. We could squeeze in a few hours of rest before seeing whatever festivities had been set up for the new year. My quarters weren’t too far from the canteen; if nothing else, the UN at least had the resources for all of us to get individual rooms, albeit small ones. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Some indistinct time passed before a small snore woke me up. This wasn’t uncommon, given the thin walls of the pre-fab shacks we slept in, but I craned my head up to a lump on the floor, rather than a particularly loud sleeper elsewhere waking me. It took me a second to resolve it in the dark, but their large stature and ruffled hair meant they were a human, and the guess came naturally: Gavin.
He’d brought his own blankets and made himself a nest on my floor. My half-asleep head thought it wouldn’t be too bad; I bundled up the pillows and blankets from my own bed and tossed them on the floor in a disorganized heap, even worse than Gavin’s pile, and dropped onto it. He shuffled, grunted a bit, and turned over on his side, putting a reassuring arm over my shoulders. We both fell back asleep in that comfort almost instantly.
What finally woke us was the sound outside. A general din of activity grew loud enough to make it into my room, and Gavin rose before me, shaking my shoulder to wake me up in turn.
“Think it’s almost time,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He stretched, standing on his feet and reaching the ceiling before offering his hand to pick me up. I took it and he led me by that hand forward, out to the people gathered.
The gathering wasn’t too big, but it was a hearty one, nonetheless. It was a mixture of humans, venlil, yotul, and the occasional other species assisting in the city, gathered in circles around campfires dotting the street and camp we lived in. I pointed one of the fires out; it was ringed by predominantly yotul, and I recognized the new year flame structure familiar to Leirn. One of the yotul there noticed us and waved us over to take seats with them.
Gavin sat near the fire, and I laid over him, my head resting in his lap as the small campfire burned in front of us. A quick glance around showed that we weren’t the only ones inching this close to the fire; my mind flashed back to memories of Leirn, of watching ceremonial bonfires burn and singing songs of home and history, even after the Federation arrived, and I felt myself start to tear up.
I don’t know if Gavin saw, or felt, or even knew at all, but I felt a strong hand rub the side of my head, scratch a bit behind my ears. I flinched a bit on instinct.
Gavin stammered a bit. “Uh- you- um, that alright?”
“...Yeah.”
He resumed, and I felt my eyes gradually flutter closed to the sound of the fire crackling and a breeze blowing, his other arm wrapping around me. The night should’ve been freezing, but I felt the warmth of something stronger than cold wind and a dark night.
There was a brief bit of pressure on the top of my head. I picked myself up and planted a kiss in return on his cheek, laying back in his lap, his arm tightening closer around me. Three short words were all that remained.
“I love you.”

All the dash lights were cycling two weeks ago on my 2018 CRV EX with ~157k miles. About a week prior I noticed that upon first start of the day the car seemed to idle rough for a few minutes until warmed up. I took it in to the dealership and they said needed new fuel injectors. $1600 later upon receiving the car back from dealer I noticed the rough idle was still present. I contacted the dealer and before I could get car back in all the lights illuminated on the dash again. I changed all the spark plugs and cleared the codes but a permanent P0302 code is still stored. I am currently back at the dealership and now they say it may be a blown head gasket because the coolant reservoir was low but coolant was blue. I am really questioning the dealership as I would have thought they his would have been noticed when fuel injectors were replaced. They are now doing a compression test but again I am skeptical of the dealerships results as they have misdiagnosed some things prior. My question is would a blown head gasket cause a P0302 error code? What is the likelihood and what steps outside of taking to another shop should I pursue?

I'm a subscriber to LiveOne in Canada (which has been variously called Slacker or Live Live) and can no longer play LiveOne Stations on Sonos. When I attempt to start a station it just says "something went wrong". Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.
A few notes

• I'm on the new sonos app but I have successfully played LiveOne Stations since the first release of the new app. I'm not sure if this problem is coincident with tbr latest release of the app because that occurred several days ago and I only noticed the problem yesterday.
• the LiveOne app itself works fine although there is no capacity to play music on sonos from the actual liveone app
• I have removed and re added the liveone service to sonos to no avail
• all my other services work fine through sonos
• i am using the sonos android app on galaxy z fold 5 and also galaxy tab s8+

If you have any suggestions that would be great or alternatively if anyone else is experiencing the same thing it would be good to know.
Thank you!

I started talking to a random guy online, I gave him my Snapchat because I didn't want him to have my number. It started as one or two messages, then progressed to voice notes and random snaps. No nudes, which shocked me because, well you know. To arranging to meet up and that's where I had to say no for my own benefit.
Right from the get go I felt red flags tickling the back of my neck. He called me a bitch because I said he was too young (28, I'm 40). And I called him out for it straight away and to his credit, he apologised straight away and I thought messages can be misconstrued.
But then there was the disappearing in the middle of a conversation, not replying at weekends, I don't expect him to be at my beck and call but I think it's polite just to say something like "oh I've got to go for a bit, chat later?" Or similar. It take 2 seconds.
The other thing was his name, he told me it was one thing (turned out to be his middle name) but when I asked him about the other name he kept changing the subject. He has since told me that he goes by his middle name with his friends but his family call him his first name. That's fine but what make it weird? And he used his number to set up his FB so he came up as "someone you may know" so of course I had a snoop. It was sparse. Which I was expecting. But he found it so weird when I told him I'd seen it. In fact he didn't talk to me for 3 days
In the 10 months we've been speaking he's not really been forthcoming on many things in until I've asked outrightly. He says it's just the way he is and he likes listening to me talk. But I was concerned he was trying to find things to use against me(yes I was sorta comparing him to my mentally abusive ex).
Anyway we arranged to meet, had a disagreement because I put up a post saying it saddens me none of my friends have posted a out a certain conflict. He literally unadded me from all the socials except Snapchat. And said he was insulted I'd put that up. I said if it don't apply let it fly. But then I started wondering if our political views were too different or was he a bit racist. So I asked him and he said what he said. Then I didn't hear from him for almost a week. That was the final straw for me. I don't like being ignored as a punishment. I'd rather have a stand up row. I took him off my snap and deleted his number (he still didn't have mine, snap suits me)
But I feel like I've purposely sort out these red flags to let them slap me in my face and that I've pushed away someone lovely for no reason.
I've never stuck up for myself like this. Usually I end up getting hurt.
But it feels so wrong and I'm sad about it.

I don't think I've ever experienced sexual attraction. For the longest time, I thought romantic attraction equaled sexual attraction. When people talked about sex I just thought that maybe this is something that you start getting interested in once you fall in love with someone.
I've never looked at someone and thought about wanting to have sex with them. However, I've definitely felt a strong desire to get to know someone, to spend time with them etc. I can say I've experienced romantic attraction, so I don’t think I’m aromantic.
I like the idea of love, romance, kissing and cuddling but I don't think I can say the same for sex. I find sex kinda gross, though I still get aroused by sexual scenes. It's a bit confusing and I'm still trying to understand how it all works. For example, I can watch porn, but the idea of having sex myself is unappealing.
I used to believe that when you're in love with someone, you might want to have sex then. If I find someone I love, I suppose I might be okay with having sex occasionally. Then I discovered that people often want to have sex without any romantic feelings and also want to have it quite frequently, sometimes even more than once a day. That seemed so absurd to me. Why is sex so important to people? Maybe it is fun, I don't know, but multiple times a week sounds excessive to me.
It's such a non-negotiable requirement that some people are ready to divorce if they're in a sexless marriage. I don't get it. Why would someone end their marriage over sex? That sounds so bizarre to me. Sex doesn't seem that important to me at all. Isn't love, affection, trust, and compatibility supposed to be the main pillars of a relationship?

It’s been two weeks since I posted about my wedding situation. I apologize for not answering very many of your comments on the first post. The post was intended to just talk about the situation, but it quickly turned into a mini AITA discussion, which was absolutely the farthest thing that I wanted to happen. Due to the stress and severity of everything, I had to unplug. The comments and private messages were getting to me and the messages from friends and family who caught word of the situation became overwhelming.
That being said, I got around to reading the comments after a week or so, but didn’t have the effort to say anything until now. A lot of you said I was controlling, manipulative, selfish, and racist. I can understand being called the first three, but racist genuinely hurt. I didn’t realize my actions came across as racist, but I see now how that could be assumed of me. I don’t know what to say to prove that I’m not racist, but I know that even if I did it probably wouldn’t change any minds. I’ve begun to research more on the wedding ceremonies, and just Cambodian culture as a whole, something I realize I should have done years ago.
I promise you that the decisions I made and the unfortunately “vetoed” decisions from my boyfriend all came from a place that thought it was going to be best for both of us. But like a lot of you said, it was still wrong of me to completely dismiss him and his ideas. I admit I was being stubborn about a lot of things that would have been easy to compromise on. I guess I was looking at everything through rose tinted glasses and thought that everything would just fall into place in my favor because I wanted it to. I should have heard him out more and taken his words seriously.
Additionally, a few of you called me and my fiancé out for being rage baiters and even being the same person just using different accounts. I can see how that would seem like the case, since I made this account a day after his throwaway was deleted, but I promise it was just a coincidence. I created a throwaway since my main account has content that can be traced to my other socials, and I didn’t want anyone harassing me in my DM’s or other comment sections. I think someone also brought up the fact that this account is linked to another one that has posts about being divorced? I’m not sure what that’s about.
I read the AITA post that he created and, if I can be honest, I thought it was terribly done. He made his initial post about my best friend and how he wasn’t “comfortable” with him being in the wedding, indicating that even on a minuscule level, he was uncomfortable with my friend. In the 6 years they’ve known each other he has never once voiced or shown any discomfort for him. I don’t know if he was using him as a scapegoat or what. His comments started to change the tune of the post and it started to become a “I’m not comfortable with the guy best friend” vs. “Actually, I’m being taken advantage of” type of thing. It was all so weirdly done, and his comments seemed rude and argumentative. People were judging him based on the initial question as the forum intended, but then he started to tell the rest of the story to try and gain favor or something.
But, I digress. Moving onto the actual update, my boyfriend and I had a talk a few days ago. He was home when I came back from work and it looked like he was packing some of his stuff. I asked if this meant that we were officially over, and he said he didn’t know. I asked if we could talk about it, and he said sure. I apologized to him for how I was acting and that I shouldn’t have been so controlling with the planning. I also apologized for rejecting his culture and said that I didn’t do it with malice. He asked why I really rejected the ceremonies and I told him how I wasn’t comfortable with his parents, since there was still tension between us.
He explained that they were trying to be okay with me, but what I did just made it harder. I told him I read his post and asked if he really didn’t feel comfortable around my best friend. He was kind of iffy on that, saying yes and no before saying he didn’t mind him as a person, but he was still someone he didn’t know. He offered to apologize to him since he figured I told him about what he said when I left to my parent’s house, which I did, and I said I would appreciate that. We got quiet and I asked again if he wanted to officially break up. He said he wanted to cancel the wedding, but that he didn’t want to break up permanently yet. I felt the same way, so we talked some more, and eventually agreed to go back to dating.
This may not be the outcome a lot of you wanted, since it seemed like you were all rooting for him to kick me to the curb, but I still love him and he still loves me. We’re cancelling all of the wedding plans and looking into couples counseling. And, as a promise to each other that we’re going to change, he’s going to make an effort in befriending my best friend, and I’m going to be seeing his family more and participating in/observing more cultural events. This is the last post I will make from this account. I just want to move forward and rebuild with him.
TL;DR: We broke off the engagement, but we’re still together.

Just wanted to share my success story with you all as I used to read this sub daily and even filled my phone with screenshots of posted ideas that sounded promising but nothing ever worked for me.
To start with, my BB was never room filling but I would get reactions from a lot of people I was within a couple of meters to and the one that hurt me the most was my own children commenting on it and asking me to brush my teeth literally 5 minutes after I had thoroughly brushed. It was heartbreaking!
Some days were worse than others and I would try and avoid talking to anyone or move my head to the side slightly so they don't get a face full of the odour. Other days it was barely noticeable but it never went away.
I had tried hydrogen peroxide, corsodyl medicated mouthwash, kefir / high fibre low sugar diet, tongue scraping, leaving tongue alone, regular flossing, scraping plaque with a dentist kit I bought and increasing hydration but nothing ever worked long term...
Until...
I went on holiday to Turkey and it was quite a nice hotel so didn't need to take any toiletries or even my old toothbrush as it was all provided and replenished daily.
After the first night, I woke up noticing that my breath wasn't absolutely stinking which it usually was first thing in the morning and after using the Marvis classic strong mint toothpaste and having a shower with their body gel and shampoo, I felt very fresh ready for breakfast.
The food every day was a very high standard. Turkey grows most of its fruit and vegetables rather than importing and you could tell it wasn't the genetically modified crap you get back home. I made sure to get at least 15 portions of fruit and veg every single day and I had zero added sugar.
Usually back home I had 1 sugar in my coffee, always had a sugary sweet dessert after main meal and snacked quite a lot on cakes, chocolate biscuits etc. I know my diet was not amazing but in Turkey I had no excuse and really enjoyed eating as healthily as possible.
This shift is what I mainly attribute my cure to. I had read about the micro biome in the mouth and heard that bacteria thrives on sugar but if it is starved of sugar and instead is given lots of good fibre, it can cause a breakdown of the existing bacteria.
Since returning home in February, I have not gone back to the sugar. My diet is completely changed and I make sure that I get lots of golf sources of organic fruit and vegetables. A treat for me now is a few medjool dates which taste like toffee to my taste buds now!
I no longer have sugar in coffee and very rarely have sweets or chocolate. I am not completely sugar free but it is a substantial change!
The other thing that may have attributed to my cure is changing my toothpaste form colgate to sensodyne which is Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS) free and switching from SLS body washes and shampoos to SLS free ones - I use the Faith in Nature brand.
I cannot say for sure which or what combination of actions has cured me but 3 months after the holiday I am able to talk face to face with my children, my wife has told me the bad breath is finally gone and I feel so much more confident at work now.
It is quite frankly.. Life changing!
I hope this helps someone make the necessary changes to their diet and beauty regime and be able to share a similar success story of their own!

I have a flock of 10. Two cream legbars, two barred rocks, two buff orpingtons, three olive eggers, and Julie, a barnyard mix that looks like a RIR. For the past few weeks the middle of the flock and lowest of the flock have had the last half of the feathers at the base of their tail go missing, like the feathers were cut in half. It started when we had some work done at the house and the repair crew was running saws right next to the coop for a couple of days. I was watching and I saw one of the buffs reach over and clip a feather off of one of the olive eggers rear. After the repair dudes left they settled down and it looked like there wasn’t any more damage happening. This was the only time I saw any of the chickens do that. Fast forward a few weeks and I notice more feathers cut off. So I pick them up and inspect and I don’t see any bugs, bug poop, no red or irritated skin. Feathers keep going missing, I don’t see any birds trimming them off. I keep checking the birds for mites and lice and I don’t see any, no one is itching more than usual, no red skin or bugs/bug poop, I keep checking their roosts at night and haven’t seen a single thing that says bugs, but now the two lowest in the flock have bald patches, and one of them has a bald spot on her neck exactly like a rooster had been on her. Except I don’t have a rooster. The four highest birds in the flock hierarchy have gorgeous plumage, and as they go down in the social scale the rattier they get. I finally decided that they must have some sort of infestation that I simply am not seeing and treated them today with ivermectin and will be cleaning their run out completely this afternoon.
Any ideas what it could be besides bugs? I spend a couple of hours each day just watching the birds because I’m so confused about what’s happening and I have not seen any feather picking except that one time.

She was like do u want headphones and I was no I don’t want headphones then after I heard her talking about getting me headphones then I went and said I DONT want HEADPHONES then she said she’s not getting me headphones then after a while she went to the store and came back and gave me headphones and said it’s for like child’s day or somthing I DONT WANT FUCKING HEADPHONE I DONT WANT FOR FUCK SAKES she just buys me random shit that I say I DONT WANT I literally don’t ever want anything but she just buys me stuff without me wanting and she knows that then she complains that she spends so much money on buying me stuff LIKE I DONT FUCKING WANT ANYTHING HOLY SHIT SHES JUST WASTING MONEY

My Brother in-law (bil) passed away May 26 so let just say that this last week sucked.
Everything started at about 7:00am last Saturday. This was the first weekend after school was out and the dogs bladder didn’t get the message so she woke up my son. My phone rings about that time and it is my MIL, odd enough but I answer. She starts by telling me my BIL had a medical emergency and it doesn’t look good. I wake my wife and tell her to get dressed while asking the normal questions what happened are they taking him to the hospital which hospital ect. She answers Local hospital in the Er don’t know what happened and the Dr says it doesn’t look good. I gave the general ok bye and hang up.
Now this is a side note but my wife and I both work in the hospital she an RN and I am a Biomed. So we both know how a hospital handles pt stable, unstable, or deceased.
Back to the story the in-laws all live roughly 1hr away. I still have 2 kids that are fast asleep 10f and 15f and they are notoriously slow getting up. I look at the 17 year old and tell him to finish getting dressed he needs to take his mom to the hospital in the in-laws home town. My thinking was if she hurries at worst and her brothers dies she will get to see him after he was made presentable by the hospital staff and my boy could be ushered to a waiting room until everything was done.
Do I trust my kids to stay home alone. Yes. Do I trust my kids to stay home alone in an emotionally charged situation explitive no there would be blood. The 15f mood/hormones create such a rollercoaster that I get whiplash just being in the room with her on a normal day.
So I let the girls sleep for a bit and keep in contact with my wife while they drive down. They let me know that she talked to her mom and that instead of the hospital they need to go to BIL house. He is a bachelor so no wife or kids so no good reason to be going to his house. They get there and find out that the BIL was never at the hospital he died in his house at 46. I am still at home with the girls and after finding out ask if my wife wants me to bring the girls down. I was told no so I spend the day comforting them here while my wife and son are with her family.
Arrangements are made obituary comes out and my wife and kids are listed but I am not. Mil and Fil’s in-laws are listed but my wife is not shown to be married. I have been married to her for 18 years. My Mil is pretty petty and would do something like this for spite
So am I the asshole for having my feelings hurt and looking to make this an issue with my wife since it is her parents when she get back home from work next week. I already feel like one for getting my son in the mess to start with.

I’ve been jokingly saying to my family that the company should pay the ransom. I overhead a coworker asking if they did pay it and a doctor chimed in saying they never asked for a ransom. Do you honestly think anyone would admit that?! My charge nurse said we should be able to use the computers again in a few days but then the doctor said they will start fixing them in a few days. Wtf have they been doing all this time?! I can’t do this anymore! I can’t even keep up with which meds I’m giving. It takes 45 minutes to get a prn pain med ffs. Sorry just venting.

I was coming out of a 2 year relationship that just wasn't a good fit for me so I ended it and wanted to move on with life but wasn't in a rush to find "the one" .. so one day I go into the bar with a buddy, where my mom was the kitchen manager. When I started coming in this beautiful woman who was super cool, would flirt, make comments to my mom about how she was going to marry me. She even would put Hubband on my bar tab as my name lol and I just kinda shrugged it off. She asked me to go out after a few months later. I told her no I was kinda dating other women and jokingly (but not really) just said you are too much for me. I tend to watch and observe people for awhile just so I can be sure they are who they say they are and to get a feel their character for red flags. I am a Scorpio lol what can I say. Truth be told I didn't hear good things about her from really anyone, especially my mom. Infact my mom told her to stay away from me and warned me about her. We became friends and she would always explain how everyone just didn't like her, misunderstood her, or was jealous of her. After I got to know her I was falling in love with her, like she was made for me, we had the same values and morals, likes and dislikes. After dating and being together for about a month or so her phone rang while we were in a movie with her daughter and was told her dad passed away from a massive heart attack. I felt so bad for her knowing the rough history with her dad ( just like my story. ) but the last few years were a lot better and became pretty close. I was there for her and held her for weeks when she was sobbing and did everything for her, including driving her places. At this point I knew she had bad anxiety for the last 10 years or so. Slowly her grief started to diminish a little bit and things were trending up, although her rage and arguments started mostly when she was drinking but I thought well its due to her loss and no matter what I will be there for her and do my best to support her although at times it was frustrating and hard to do. We decided to get married the following February, at this point I was head over heals for her and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. So from here her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Let me explain something. My wifes main support person her whole life, her best friend the person that not only could but would set her straight and tell it like it is. Her mother passed away on july 22nd extremely fast and really unexpected due to the good prognosis from the doctors thats what everyone had thought. So now it was back to ok .. get into protection mode and prepare to support my wife. To my surprise, my wife she wasn't as outwardly upset as when her dad passed away. Thats when I knew that this has undoubtedly crushed, devastated her soul. I am sure that's a vast understatement. Our relationship since then hasn't been the same. She will go into rages that are scary to be on the receiving end of. The name calling, being blamed for all her problems in life, telling me I am worthless, not her equal, that all her other relationships the men were better than me, attacking my manhood, any kind of insecurity I have told her about when trying to be vulnerable will get thrown in my face and used as ammo. Along with any and all arguments from 2 years ago, my past relationships mistakes that I have made, and how she is a prized possession and deserves everything she wants from a man, also that I don't love her as good as other men did and how boring I am because I dont like to sit in a bar get drunk everyday so I am a stick in the mud and dragging her life down and she can do better and be with somone who is going to make her happy. Really anything in her rage is fair game and it got to the point when this happens she is unreasonable, you can't calm her down it will make it worse. She has hit me, and spit a mouth full of chewed food in my face. The things being screamed in my face is disgusting. So I leave not willing to be treated that way and go stay with my cousin for a bit to let her cool off, me cool off and let cooler minds prevail and come back. This has now been the cycle for the last year. The day after Christmas this year it happened again and it was over her preception of something... I was cast away for a month. Come to find out she struck up a relationship with an ex and before I came back deleted text and is telling me half truths about it while blaming me for her indiscretion, saying it was my fault, and had began bashing me to anyone who will listen to her. We agreed to work it out because we love and want to be together and get help for the issues we are having, I made some major changes that she asked for and I followed through and delivered for her. She lost her insurance for a few months and couldn't get her colonopin for anxiety so she had been getting some from her sister to get her by, finally her insurance is back and she goes to her primary doctor to get another prescription and her doc asked if I test you will it be in your system? Whatever she said made her primary tell her she wasn't getting it and she thought my wife was at risk for suicide and she was abusing the meds. She was referred to a psychiatrist and diagnosed with BPD and PTSD due to childhood trauma. She spent the last month on different meds and the behavior issues started up again slowly. At this point I can tell when she is on the verge of a rage filled attack I just don't know when it's going to come. Well it did last Tuesday and it was worse yet, and of course she was drinking. I have researched BPD not knowing a lot and boy it don't look good. I love her and don't want to abandoned her. But it doesn't look good. I believe she also has traits of NPD. I want it to work but I can't keep on with someone who treats me like this. My self esteem is down, she accuses me of having a mental illness and when I explained how I feel she says I am always playing a victim. She makes me question reality and I feel I am going crazy. Just slamming me to everyone who will listen .. for no reason I just dont get it. Anytime she drinks I get filled with anxiety wondering is this the day for a rage filled blow out ? I can't have friends, or my family in my life. I do love my wife. Outside of the major blow ups we are great. When the rages happen I don't know who that person is.

In devotion and love
Of Your splendid beauty
Your fearless grace
You give me hope
I feel ever so grateful
For your manifest presence
You give me the pain
Now I accept it
As one of your blessings
It's enough for me to live
My only prayer
To you
My beloved
The search ended that day
I saw you
I was not the strong one
You are the one with courage
And you give me the flame
I do so many things just to forget you
Not anymore
It's all for you now
My beautiful star
This dark love
Ever so painful
Ever so eternal
So real
So dreamy
Want to hold your hand
So I can feel you again
I only live with your visions now
And you visit me and leave me
Never saying anything
I only have this one life
And want this to be the last
My only one
Everything you do is fair
Sorry I got so angry at what you did
Now I know it's selfish of me
We give each other the freedom
And that is so true
Only this freedom is new
And I like to be with you
Stay with me
I was the fool who was still searching
And now I realize
It already happened
My love
I search no more
You are my only prayer
I find my little joys
In everything you do
And I do everything
In joy as I am in you

I asked a question on this sub a few nights ago and people answered a different question than what I asked so imagine this:
Your grandma’s on her death bed. You and your family gather around to say your final goodbyes. After hours of waiting for her to pass, your family starts leaving one by one because it looks like she’ll make it through the night. You stay though, because you love your grandma so SO much. When it’s just the two of you left, she talks to you softly from her weak, dying throat. She tells you a WILD but totally believable story. She says that the reaper came to her to take her, but she refused to leave, so the reaper gave her a choice: either she comes with him willingly or they play a game of Mortal Kombat 1 (cause he’s chill like that) and if she wins, he’ll leave her alone and let her live. Now, the problem is that your grandma who you love so much has never played Mortal Kombat in her life. The reaper gave her 3 days to train, during which she’ll be granted good enough health to practice. However, because the reaper’s a bit of a bitch who’s scared to lose, he says that she can’t practice by playing MK1 or her soul will immediately be claimed.
So now you, her loving grandson, have to help her get good enough in 3 days to beat the reaper, and the only games you can choose for her to practice on are the previous Mortal Kombat games and not MK 1. Which one would you choose to help get her good enough to beat the reaper in Mortal Kombat 1?

I’m 17 years old and I have a herniated disc in L5-S1. It happened in the beginning of November. In November I was 16. I’m really active and play two sports and so I work out all the time. When I was squatting and doing RDL’s one day I started to gradually feel lower back pain. I went to an orthopedist after a 2 weeks of my back still being hurt. They just told me it was a strain. I’ve been going to acupuncture since the beginning of my injury and that helped a little bit. I went to PT but all they did was massage on me because they said I was “fit and strong enough” so they I didn’t have to do exercises. Fast forward end of February I finally get an MRI and I have the herniated disc. I went to a new PT place and they were amazing. They helped me so much and they actually worked with me and gave me exercises to do. I even learned to do my own research and now I have my own mobility and strength training exercises for my hips, ham strings, core, etc. I do them at least 3 times a week. I started going to the chiropractor in march and it has helped me the most. After every adjustment it’s immediately relief. I’ve had bad flare ups, but two weeks ago I had the worst flare up ever. With my injury, it’s never been where I couldn’t walk. I just couldn’t play my sports and it was hard to bend down, but I was always still able to walk, run, somewhat jump, and more. I’ve never had sciatic, but I would get some nerve pain in my front thighs. Sitting hurt and laying down for too long but that was really it. Also, whenever I would look down I would feel a sharp pain in my tailbone. School the first couple of months was horrible, sitting down for 6 hours in those hard chairs. But anyway, I twisted in my sleep and when I woke up I couldn’t even get out of bed. I walked around and fell to the ground the pain was so bad. I had to miss school that day. The next day I woke up though and felt 10x better. Since then every day I’ve been waking up feeling amazing. Currently right now, this is the best I’ve felt since November. I had an MRI yesterday to see if my disc was getting any better, and it turns out the disc is worse. My disc is herniated centrally so it’s right on the nerve. I’m going to a pediatric spine surgeon on Tuesday but my chiro says he’s happy I’m going to see what they say and my parents say I might need surgery. I’ve done everything I could to avoid surgery. I’m not against surgery, but at 17 years old I feel like spine surgery is such a big thing. Especially for someone like me who is very active. This whole thing has not only been hard physically , but also mentally. I miss going to the gym and I miss feeling healthy. I’m confused though, because I feel so great now. I’m of course not healed, I still have some nerve pain and my low back still feels a little tight, but compared to November, it’s way better. Today is the start of 8 months with my injury. Sorry, I know this has been all over the place, but just seeing if there’s anyone in my similar situation or has any advice? Thank you!!

The centuries-old love affair between Italy and its many admirers is coming to a turning point, with the issues caused by overtourism creating a massive rift in the relationship.
Italy has been saying "no" a lot recently: no selfies in Portofino; no large cruise ships in Venice; no free entry for day-trippers; no tourist buses on Amalfi's seafront; no sitting on the Spanish steps in Rome… The list of small measures trying to curb overtourism is long and at times creative – consider for instance the fine of up to €2,500 for wearing flip flops on the Cinque Terre trails.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240529-is-italy-breaking-up-with-you

Hello!
We are an independent organization with one purpose: to make you feel good in your own home and restore the peace and quiet! We deal in all kinds of intruders, from cockroaches to rats to racoons: all sizes and shapes and colors! Safety and comfort is one call away!
We offer a high variety of services, accommodated to your needs and enquiries, and have a flexible schedule. Call us anytime!
That's the job I work at. For privacy reasons, I won't say the name of the company.
The pay is decent, the hours are flexible, and I get uniforms on the house and meals. Yes, I do have to deal with all kinds of infested homes: from termites to roaches to bees, and even 'intruders' like racoons, foxes, once even a snake. It can be dangerous, but I take my precautions.
I can also take phone duty if I'm feeling particularly lazy. Like last week. Don't imagine we're working non-stop: we rarely get any calls. Not a lot of incidents happen around here, in this village.
Last week, however, I had three calls, which was interesting enough by itself, because I rarely get this much activity. Three calls also meant that I had to go do ground duty, because we didn't have enough personal for three interventions in one day.
The first call happened at around 6PM.
"Hello, this is XXX Exterminators, where the safety of your home is our priority. How can I help you today?"
Hi, yeah, my name is Emily and I think there's something in my ceiling.
"Hi, Emily! Could you describe the issue with a bit more details? What kind of noises are you hearing, any signs of anything living up there... anything like that can help a lot."
Okay, um... so I've been hearing these faint scratches, like rats? The scratches started yesterday, around midnight, and at first I thought it was the rain, you know... the way you can hear each individual drop fall on the roof of your house... Then I imagined it must've been the birds, but I ended up realizing it was coming from the attic, because I, uh, I heard the scratches... like... coming from right above me. And I thought something had gotten into the house - I live next to Helene-
"Right, so the gas station. Which one, exactly? The one you pass by going to Kaden or the other one down the road to the bridge?"
No, the one down the road. To the bridge, right next to the creek. My house is the blue one right when the town starts. I don't have any neighbors. It's Pollen Street no. 3. So, you know, I'm afraid something got into the house from the forest. It wouldn't be the first time. I just hope this time, it isn't a snake. But snakes don't scratch like that.
"Are you hearing the scratches now?"
They're really faint, but persistent. Could be rats.
*"*Okay, Emily! We'll be on our way soon."
Thank you.
I sent the team over there, but they couldn't find anything out of place. No insects, no animals. No rats.
The next call came around 10PM.
"Hello, this is XXX Exterminators, where the safety of your home is our priority. How can I help you today?"
Hello. I keep hearing these scratches and thuds coming from the ceiling, and I think it moves to the walls. I'm not sure, though, but there's definitely something in there.
"Could you describe the issue with a bit more details? Anything like that can help a lot."
The noises started like three hours ago. At first, I thought it was the pipes, but they're too... rhythmic. Like footsteps or more like something dragging its limbs through the walls. I don't understand and I can't identify the animal. It sounds big. This is an old house, and it's relatively easy to dig through it. I've never heard anything like it.
"Where is it, right now?"
I can't hear anything right now. I don't know where it went.
"Could you tell us your address?"
Pollen Street no. 7.
My stomach tensed. Could it be a coincidence? Maybe some raccoon was making its way through homes...
"All right, thank you. We'll be on our way!"
I sent the team to the location, and was left alone with Andrew, a coworker. The night had fallen and I hated night interventions, so I hoped the phone wouldn't ring again until they came back. Honestly, I was pretty relaxed. There wasn't such a high chance that I'd get any other calls for the day-
Riiiiiiing.
I lifted my head from the lasagna. Me and Andrew stared at each other.
Riiiiiiing.
It had been... what, like 30 minutes since the last call? The fuck?
Andrew raised his shoulders. I stood up and lifted the receptor.
"This is... um, XXX Exterminators. How can I help you?" I mumbled.
There was a pause on the other line, then heavy breathing.
"Sir? ... Madam? Are you okay? What happened?"
It fucking dragged something into the house.
"What do you mean? Who dragged what? Sir, be more precise."
Andrew's eyes widened. "What?" he whispered.
I shook my head and motioned to him to be quiet.
"Sir, what's going on?"
Something broke into my, my house. But there's two of them. Two... DISTINCT... bodies. Not a raccoon. Not a bird. No, and at first I thought there were two alive things, but as I listened more I realized one of them was... dragging the other. Across my attic. On my fucking ceiling. I don't even know how it got there... I ain't heard anything like climbing on the house... Like it just landed on the roof then dug down to the attic. I don't know.
"... Right."
No, I'm not done. I got scared shitless, because I thought it was a person at first. It sounded big enough to be a person. I was like, shit, it's a murderer, but that was until I heard it... eating.
*"*Eating? What do you mean?"
Andrew frowned. The fuck? he mouthed.
Yeah. I can hear this heavy thing eating right above me, and I hear the floorboard of the attic creaking. I'm afraid it's gonna come down. The thing is dragging something... heavy. Fucking hell... please just come. I wanted to call 911, but I know it's not human.
"All right. I will send someone right away. Address and name, please?"
"Who are you gonna send?" Andrew asked. "There's just us-"
Finnick Gallen. Pollen Street no. 11
Fuck me.
"Okay. Sir, we'll be on our way."
After I hung up, a moment of silence followed, where me and Andrew just stood there, perplexed.
"You know it's us that have to go there, right?" Andrew asked.
"I'd really rather not."
"Then call Walt. Ask him if they're finished there. Are the houses close to each other?"
"All three calls came from the same street. Pollen Street. Near the forest."
"Fuuck. Yeah, call them."
I dialed Walt's number. It took a while for him to pick up.
"Hi! Walt? You done there? Cause I got another call..."
"Liam, there was no one in that house."
My hand was shaking on the receptor. "What do you mean?"
"There was no creature, no person, nothing. However, the scene is rather... interesting. I'm afraid we'll be busy here for a while."
"Why?"
"The windows are broken. Furniture destroyed. The attic is covered in scratches and broken wood. And there's the blood... it's fresh. I don't know what happened here, but we need to find your caller. And the intruder. We're searching the property."
"Right." I responded, my mouth dry.
The third call had mentioned something dragging something else...
We need to find your caller.
I think I knew where he was.
I had never been so afraid. As me and Andrew put on our uniforms, I couldn't help but wonder if I should get the police involved. This was no snake, no fox, no bear. The most frustrating thing was that I didn't know what it was.
We took a deep breath and drove into the night.
Reached our destination pretty fast. I know what you'll say: if the houses' numbers were so close, why couldn't Walt just take a look at number 11 too? Well, the numbers were really far apart. This area wasn't so populated.
I reached this cabin with its lights on. We hesitated, then got out of the car and knocked on the door.
I got an instant response - Finnick opened, pale and shaking. "I am so, so glad you came."
I was used to clients being afraid. Finnick, however, was deeply shaken. His eyes were glossy and his movements irregular - he sensed the same thing I had, that something sinister was going on, but we couldn't quite label it out. I tried to remain calm.
"Sir, you can wait in the car if you want."
He didn't need to be told twice. Me and Andrew made our way upstairs, to the master bedroom.
The house looked pretty normal. Nothing out of place, and nothing broken like on number 7. The bedroom had old, creaking furniture and floors - it was undeniable that something was in the ceiling. I could hear the sound of something being torn apart, and scratching. So much scratching. The ceiling was old too, consisting in some slabs. Andrew and I took out our equipment, gathering our courage to go inside the attic.
Had the slabs always had this... red tint? I raised my hand and felt them - they were humid and smelled like metal.
"Andrew, get your gun."
Pulling the attic stairs down, I tried to be as quiet as possible. I didn't want to make our presence known.
As silent as we tried to be, the stairs creaked obnoxiously and I closed my eyes. Fuck.
The sounds upstairs stopped.
"Okay, you go first." I told Andrew.
"Fuck you", he responded, then disappeared into the darkness.
I heard his footsteps, then a loud, echoing scream that turned into an inhuman wail. My first instinct was to crouch and stay on the ground, with my hands on my ears. Then, I heard two gunshots and Andrew cursing.
More gunshots followed. Then, glass breaking and something batting its wings and wailing. The voice was not human, but had some inflexions of a woman - it made my skin crawl.
The attic window was broken, and the thing had flown away. I don't know why, but I pulled away the curtain to the bedroom and looked outside, for any signs of what it could have been.
When Andrew came back down, he was crying. I had never seen him cry.
"I saw it... I saw it... I saw hell, Liam. I looked right at it. I saw it happen."
The sweet smell from the attic made me gag. I put on my mask and went upstairs, leaving Andrew frozen, staring into a corner.
The light didn't work, so I had to use my flashlight. The floor was humid and darkened in blood, and the smell lingered, putrid and overwhelming. I couldn't understand at first what I was seeing, and at first it had no impact on me. I didn't realize I was staring at what would turn out to be the second caller.
I have never dealt with gore, so my head didn't know how to take it. I guess I knew in some sort of way that that inflated shape was supposed to be the head, and what was above it were the limbs... the stomach lay somewhere farther, and the torso was dug into. I was in shock, and the images just didn't seem real. Above the body, it had carved something on the wooden wall. Some symbol.
My face felt numb. Remaining in the same position, I made a call.
"Hey, Walt?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you guys done there?"
"Are you ok? You sound... weird."
"Yeah, um..." I blinked a few times, then cleared my voice. "Are you done there?"
"We didn't find anything. Did you guys do the other intervention?"
"Oh, yeah. We did."
"And?"
"We found the caller. Not all of him, though. And the thing is gone now. Probably resting."
"What?"
"Yeah. You might want to come."
Since then, I have been giving interviews non-stop. Asked to describe the three calls and our interventions. The creature. I told them everything.
Well, almost everything.
That night, I had looked through the window as an instinct.
I don't know why. You know how the most horrible things have a way of drawing you in.
Pulled the curtain, placed my face close to the window. I hadn't heard it fly away yet. I should have waited for it to leave.
In the darkness, I saw two eyes shimmering a few inches from mine, two eyes that looked so human, I almost thought it was my reflection I was seeing. Except, well, they were upside down, and the other parts of the face had been kind of carved into the flesh, with blood drained skin sort of stretched over them. Behind the head, large wings, made the same way. It turned its head so it wasn't upside down anymore, but the body remained exactly the same. I felt it had wanted to see me better.
Then, it pressed its forehead onto the glass. Fear paralyzed me, but I remained still. I hadn't known it had a mouth until then, when it smiled. It had no teeth, just more skin - not even gums, not even a tongue.
Then, it flew away. The rest of its body was stretched out, the limbs curved and molded from the grey flesh. I watched it disappear into the night, leaving nothing but a bloody stain on the window, where it's forehead had been.
I didn't get a lot of sleep after that. I was hesitant to return to the job, but I had no better option.
It has been exactly a week since then. As I am typing this, it is almost midnight, and I got a call earlier.
"Hello, this is XXX Exterminators, where the safety of your home is our priority. How can I help you today?"
There is something in my ceiling, scratching-
*"*Address?"
You didn't even let me finish! Pollen Street, no. 13-
*"*Ma'am, get out. Just leave. Trust me."
What?
"Yeah, fuck no we ain't helping you with that. It's beyond us. That shit needs a priest."
Are you kidding?
*"*Nope."
As I hang up, I know we can't run from that forever.
And there's this other thing I know.
My address is Hamney Lane no. 34. Right across from Pollen Street.

Before I even filled out an application I asked if it was a smoke-free property. They assured me it was. From the first day I moved in I noticed a bad smell and told the office. I asked them if anybody smokes downstairs. The guy in the office assured me there is no one downstairs smoking and the entire property is smoke-free. They had me wasting maintenance's time because I was convinced there must be something wrong with my HVAC system because it was admitting such a putrid smell all the time.
Then earlier this week I discover WOL (waste of life) sitting on his patio right underneath mine , smoking. It was then that I realized he is smoking inside and outside his apartment. I immediately sent an email to the office. They responded by delivering an addendum to the lease to everyone in my building stating that smoking is not allowed in the apartments or the patios. It is allowed in the parking lot if you are 15 ft away .
WOL responded by standing beside his vehicle smoking which is less than 5 ft from my bedroom window. As soon as I saw him I went out there to confront him. As soon as he saw me he ran into his apartment and hid behind his sliding glass door staring at me, cigarette in hand.
My friends and coworkers started asking me if I had recently taken up smoking because I reek of smoke.
I've been waiting for maintenance to fix my dryer so I've had to take all of my linens and clothing and bedding to a laundromat to wash. After doing this all day I sent the office an email thanking them for the addendum. I told them I still see him smoking by his vehicle. I also offered to move to a different apartment. They responded the next day by telling me WOL complained of noises I was making upstairs. I told them after laundering WOL’s filth out of my belongings all day at the laundromat I came home to vacuum and mop up his filth for him all at no charge. Which was true.
Since WOL doesn’t like noise I’ve started slamming a plastic bin onto the floor by the vent when I still smell him smoking. I know confronting him in person is probably not the best option anyway and since he cowards like a child there is no point. But I'm not going to tolerate this.
WOL has a handicap sign at his parking spot, I suspect just so he can guarantee his spot. He does not appear to be disabled. I'm worried he's going to play up being disabled as a reason why he has to smoke in his apartment and he's already trying to make it sound like he's a victim because me cleaning up his filth for him is inconveniencing him. He's also taken to smoking heavy amounts of weed late at night which is not nearly as bothersome but it does make me sick. This morning he was smoking at 6:00 a.m. which woke me up immediately. I looked out my window and he was working on his vehicle, walking back and forth with a cigarette in hand. I've been trying to get a picture of him with a cigarette.
My furniture is being delivered today and I'm so depressed I feel suicidal. Legally what kind of demand can I make if this continues? I have documentation from my doctor saying I'm extremely allergic to any kind of Ash mix especially cigarettes. If they won't put me in a different apartment can I sue them to get my rent back, make them reimburse my moving costs? I feel like I should start looking for a new apartment.

Starting off by saying I'm in no way trying to get him back. So now that's out of the way... Hello. I hope I'm allowed to post here as a new account. Looking for some insight/advice... lately been learning more about attachment styles and figured out my ex is a FA. So here's the situation: I, F27 was in a partially LDR relationship with a M27 for only 4 months. He started out extremely AP leaning, very clingy and even insecure but also very reassuring and loving. He did love bomb me. As time went on, he became hot and cold - would go through days of extreme neediness and insecurity, playing the victim, followed by days where I was barely acknowledged. This all culminated in him deactivating from me after a heavy argument during one of my visits. Days after the event, he did try to break up with me, to which I reacted with logical arguments as to why we should stay together. He would shut down and be unable to express himself verbally or otherwise, followed by periods of heavy emotional turmoil with crying and panic attacks. At the end of my visit, he told me he wanted to stay together for sure, but during our following LDR period he became increasingly distant. When we facetimed for the first time after my visit, he was extremely dismissive to which I expressed discontent. This was where he asked for space. Meanwhile I saw a therapist, and explained to him everything the therapist said regarding our situation and how we could work to improve it. This was ignored until the next time we facetimed, where I tried to bring it up again, as well as my needs. This was met with crying and leaving. The next days were followed by loving messages, compliments, pet names from his part, until the new facetiming session. He was the most uninterested I ever saw him and even rejected my advances for conversation and intimate connection. Then he broke up with me via text, giving extremely vague reasons and "It's not you it's me" bullcrap. I think it's pretty clear from his behaviour that he's an FA, but now back to the title of my post - I'm wondering if, after a while, I should try to reach out and help him by letting him know about his attachment style and what he could do about it. I would like to, because I know he deserves better than doing this to himself and hurting others in the process, and I have reasons to believe this is a pattern for him that he needs to break. He's genuinely not a bad person and went through loads of childhood trauma so I feel for him and would like him to succeed. But I am unsure as I've had a bad experience, and I know avoidants will avoid... what would you do? Is it worth a shot? Should I even think of breaking no contact? Anyone been through similar experiences? And lastly, would you agree this is FA behaviour? Just seeking some reassurance.
Thank you for reading.
TLDR: I'd like to know if it's a good idea to reach out to my FA ex letting him know about his attachment style and how he could heal it in order to help him grow as a person.

The frigid wind whipped across Marko's face as he trudged through the knee-deep snow. His numb fingers clutching the straps of his backpack. The storm had hit three days ago, and he was no closer to finding shelter than when he'd started. His food supplies were dwindling. The cold was seeping into his bones like a relentless, icy specter.
"Should've listened to the weatherman," Marko muttered, his chapped lips going numb. He squinted against the blinding white landscape, searching for any sign of life. Any glimmer of hope.
As he pushed forward, his mind wandered to the events that had led him here. The hiking trip had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was a chance to escape the suffocating reality of his failing marriage and dead-end job. He'd packed light, assuming he'd be back in a few days. Now, as the storm raged on, he realized the gravity of his mistake.
A dark shape appeared on the horizon, breaking the monotony of the endless white. Marko's heart leaped, and he quickened his pace. He ignored the burning in his lungs and the numbness in his limbs. As he drew closer, the shape resolved into a small, dilapidated cabin. The roof sagging under the weight of the snow.
Marko stumbled to the door, his hands shaking as he fumbled with the latch. To his surprise, it opened, revealing a dusty interior cast in shadow. He stepped inside, grateful for the reprieve from the biting wind.
The cabin was sparse, with a single room containing a rickety table, a chair, and a small fireplace. Marko dropped his backpack and moved to the fireplace. His eyes widened when he saw the pile of dry firewood stacked beside it.
"Hello?" he called out, his voice hoarse from disuse. "Is anyone here?"
Silence answered him, broken only by the howling of the wind outside. Marko shrugged and set to work building a fire, his fingers clumsy and uncooperative. After several attempts, a small flame flickered to life, casting a warm glow across the room.
As the fire grew, Marko's gaze fell on the table, where a piece of paper lay, weighted down by a small, rusted key. He picked up the note, his brow furrowing as he read the words scrawled in a shaky hand: "You'll need this. Trust me."
Marko turned the key over in his palm, a sense of unease growing in the pit of his stomach. He glanced around the cabin, aware of how isolated he was. Miles from civilization in a raging blizzard.
A soft scratching sound drew his attention to the far wall, where a small door was set into the wood. Marko approached it, the key heavy in his hand. He fitted it into the lock, and with a soft click, the door swung open, revealing a narrow passageway.
Marko hesitated, his heart pounding in his chest. The passage was dark, the air heavy with the scent of earth and decay. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to barricade the door and wait out the storm. But something else, a whisper in the back of his mind, urged him forward.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the passage, the darkness enveloping him like a shroud. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning like the gnarled roots of an ancient tree. Marko's breathing echoed in the confined space. It mingled with the soft drip of water and the scurrying of unseen creatures.
As he was about to turn back, the passage opened into a small chamber, lit by a flickering torch set into the wall. In the center of the room stood a stone pedestal, upon which rested a small, ornate box.
Marko approached the pedestal, his hand trembling as he reached for the box. As his fingers brushed the cool metal, a voice spoke from the shadows, making him whirl around in surprise.
"I wondered when you'd arrive," the voice said, low and rasping. A figure stepped into the light, an old man with a long, white beard and piercing blue eyes. "I've been waiting for you, Marko."
Marko stared at the man, his mind reeling. "How do you know my name?" he asked.
The old man smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I know many things," he said, moving to stand beside Marko. "I know why you're here, and I know what you seek."
He gestured to the box, his gnarled fingers brushing the intricate carvings. "This box contains the key to your survival," he said, his voice taking on a grave tone. "The path ahead is treacherous, filled with trials that will test your mind, body, and spirit."
Marko swallowed hard, his mouth dry. "What kind of trials?" he asked, his voice trembling.
The old man shook his head, his eyes filled with a deep sadness. "I cannot say," he replied, his voice soft. "But know this, Marko. The choices you make from this moment on will determine not only your fate but the fate of all those you hold dear."
With that, the old man stepped back, fading into the shadows as if he had never been there at all. Marko stood alone in the chamber, the box heavy in his hands. The weight of the old man's words settling on his shoulders like a burden.
He took a deep breath and opened the box, his heart pounding in his chest. Inside, nestled on a bed of velvet, lay a small, golden compass, its needle spinning. Marko lifted it from the box, feeling a strange warmth emanating from the metal.
As he watched, the needle slowed, coming to rest on a single point. North. The direction of home, of safety, of all the things he had left behind.
Marko closed his eyes, feeling a sense of calm wash over him. He knew the path ahead would be difficult, that the trials the old man spoke of would push him to his limits. But he also knew that he had no choice but to face them head-on. Fight for his survival and for the chance to make things right.
With a determined nod, Marko slipped the compass into his pocket. He turned back to the passage, ready to face whatever lay ahead. The storm outside raged on. Inside, a flicker of hope burned bright, guiding him forward into the unknown.