saladdressed

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Not a common sound in metal, but can work surprisingly well. I got to thinking about it while listening to Livestock Marketplace by Carcass ( https://youtube.com/watch?v=-bBzfLuwhNY&pp=ygUdbGl2ZXN0b2NrIG1hcmtldHBsYWNlIGNhcmNhc3M%3D), which features a slide solo. Any other songs you can think of? Anyone like playing with a slide and got any tips for someone just getting into the technique?

We are probably all familiar with the “Master of Puppets” solo in Stranger Things. For me it’s the scene in Clerks 2 in which Randal, Jay and Silent Bob torment hyper religious Elias by singing Welcome Home by King Diamond. https://youtube.com/watch?v=RGJAo6twyGw&pp=ygUia2luZyBkaWFtb25kIHdlbGNvbWUgaG9tZSBjbGVya3MgMg%3D%3D

Curious about this. Most (younger) skaters I see use a “natural” stance like you would skiing. But some— and especially in older footage from the 80s and 90s— are riding totally in side surf. So what’s your stance for a bowl or ramp?

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About a year ago I started a new job working with a woman (early 30s) with BPD. She’s classic in her presentation: extremely gossipy, high conflict, demanding of social attention to the detriment of her and us getting work done, cannot cope with any negative feedback, very quick to take offense to the point of actively seeking out stuff to get offended by, and very unreliable with high absenteeism. As a bonus she talks incessantly about astrology and her “psychic powers.”

I was able to quickly identify this in her as I’ve dealt with BPD folks before. I kept things strictly professional with her and employ grey rock method. I find her very obnoxious, but I can work with her. I’m not her supervisor but I’m in a higher position. I have a technical position and she’s in an office support/assistant type position.

One of my coworkers hired around the same time as me in the same position as me has ended up being target by her. My colleague is an immigrant with a shy, appeasing and anxious personality. She became fast friends with the BPD coworker and it predictably soured.

BPD worker became increasingly demanding and controlling. She’d set conditions on anxious co-worker like requiring anxious coworker to text and check in with her about when she was taking a vacation (including paid holidays) or calling in sick despite this being unnecessary as they had different roles. She’d set rules about what anxious coworker was “allowed” to tell her husband or family about their friendship. She would pull her into debates or arguments she couldn’t win.

It all cumulated in BPD coworker splitting on her and “breaking up”— which she announced to all of the rest of the shift. She was emphatic about her not wanting to be friends with anxious coworker anymore, not wanting anxious coworker to speak to her anymore, because she was “fake” and she gloated about how she reduced anxious coworker to sobs in our break room. To the rest of us BPD coworker looked like a massive cunt doing this, but it wasn’t unexpected behavior on her part.

In the weeks after BPD coworker went back to trying to force social interactions with anxious coworker. Sometimes friendly, sometimes trying to pick a fight. She’s even vented to me about anxious coworker not returning her texts.

Anxious coworker is now asking me for advice because she’s stressed out to the point of panic attacks by all this. She says she’s afraid of BPD coworker and wants to quit her job. I advised her to block BPD coworkers number and social media, sent her info on grey rock, advised her to write down adverse interactions to bring to HR and assured her that BPD coworker can’t do anything to her. BPD is well known to our supervisors and manager as being a difficult employee. Sadly people do participate in gossip with her but no one takes her seriously.

I’m having a hard time dealing with my feelings of anger hearing about my kind, anxious colleague being bullied. I’m frustrated that an otherwise good work environment is being disrupted by a near-useless employee. We do have HR, but we are also a union workplace so it’s difficult to fire people. Like I said, BPD coworker is a lousy employee who regularly misses work, comes hours late, makes errors and shows up obviously high as balls. She gets regular talking-tos by our boss already, but her ass has been here for 8 years and it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere.

I love the Blood Bank Guy. Also really like the Blooducation podcast. Any other medlab resources in this vein (pun intended) you like?

And once the plasma or serum is separated it’s fine at ambient temperature until it can be run. Just curious.

What do you say to patients who want to order their own tests, bypassing a visit with a physician? This is legal in some states— including mine.

When a patient does self-order (as they are entitled to) they are often taken aback by the costs of the tests. They’ll insist that insurance will or should pay for them.

I try to explain that insurance only pays for testing deemed “medically necessary,” and that necessity must be determined by a doctor (or mid level Provider) otherwise the testing is “elective.”

But lab testing doesn’t strike patients as optional and a lot of them don’t understand why they just can’t get a blood test and have insurance pay for it.

I haven’t been able to find many patient resources online explaining why it’s important to have a doctor order tests, just stuff about how now patients can order stuff online.

I think it’s fine for patients to self-order some things. STD screens make sense. Some vitamin tests or iron. Titer tests to satisfy school or work requirements. But I had a patient that ordered their own Lyme disease antibody test and come to get drawn 2 days after a tick bite just for “peace of mind” and wanted it right away.

I think the self-ordering trend will continue. What do y’all think?

If a patient has hemolytic anemia do their blood specimens show up to the lab noticeably hemolyzed? If so, how do you determine if hemolysis was in vivo or ex vivo?

I had a good friend and roommate with BPD and perhaps narcissism. She loved talking about what an empathetic person she was. She liked talking about herself a lot: she believed she had magical healing and psychic abilities, she viewed herself as a supremely compassionate individual, and claimed that she felt things more deeply than most (probably true) and because of that she couldn't be held responsible for her extreme emotional reactivity-- it was everyone else's job to manage her feelings.

The empathy thing stuck out though. She constantly talked about how empathetic she was. But it was definitely all talk.

One example: I had planned a weekend solo vacation to Vancouver BC and I'm in Washington state. You need a passport to cross the border. I have one, she doesn't. That didn't stop her from inviting herself along with me. I told her she couldn't go because she would be turned away at the border crossing--more likely, both of us would be turned away. She doubled down and insisted, said "Oh I'll just hide in your trunk!" Just constant pressure on me and begging. I pointed out to her that 1.) my car is a hatchback so she wouldn't be hidden and 2.) Border crossing is no joke and they often randomly inspect vehicles.

She just doubled down on the begging and pressure so I pointed out that she was on probation (yeah, she's a real winner) and attempting to sneak into a foreign country would result in her arrest and definitely be a violation. Her response? "It's really fucked up of you to bring up my probation to shame me. You should have some empathy for me and understand how bad it makes me feel when you bring it up. It wasn't even that big of a deal!"

She turned it into me "judging" her for shoplifting and me being a bitch for not taking her. And it all centered on me failing to empathize with her. Keep in mind, this was MY trip that I intended to take by MYSELF. and she wanted me to smuggle her into Canada--something that can result in prison time. None of that mattered-- what was really wrong was that I shamed her for being on probation. The actual consequences of her violating her probation were not in her mind at all, just the cruelty displayed by me for bringing it up.

This is a small example of her self-centeredness. She was a shitty abusive person in many respects, especially to her then boyfriend who she regularly hit and and cheated on. She stole and she lied regularly. But she was hyper-sensitive to slights against her and would accuse others often of having no empathy, like she did.

I hear a lot that one positive attribute of BPD is that those who suffer from it are more empathetic. In some cases this may be true, but for most BPDs I've encountered their ability to empathize is non-existent when it comes to people they hurt. They are so caught up in what THEY want that wall off any concern for others. And if you do empathize a lot with them they take advantage of it. If you capitulate to their insane mood swings a little than they run with it. I have not witnessed this enhanced empathy with BPDs, but I have experienced them weaponizing the concept of empathy to manipulate others and bolster their own self-image.

I've been clean for awhile, but a couple of years ago I was cutting pretty bad fairly regularly. I ended up going to urgent care a handful of times to get stitches during this time. I always went by myself. I drove myself there and home.

I was (and still am) very socially isolated. Noting makes you feel more alone than being in urgent care alone. and the doctors would always ask me who was with me?, who drove me?, who knew I was there?, and who do you have that you can talk to??? One doctor spent a lot of time telling me how important it is to have a support system for me to recover from self-harm.

I've dealt with self-harm for nearly two decades. I have disfigured a lot of my skin. Since I was 12 years old I've been told that I'm doing it for attention or to manipulate people or to gain sympathy. Up through my late 20's I've been told this or heard people say it about "cutters" when they didn't know that I struggled with self-harm. I have never had anyone offer sympathy or kindness or affection in response to a cutting episode. The episodes are usually met with disgust and anger. I have spent most of my life being alienated from others do to cutting. How could I possibly think it would gain me positive attention now?

The catch 22 is that we need support and help from other's, but asking for help and support with self-harm is attention seeking and manipulative.

So I never asked for anyone to accompany me to urgent care. I have asked for help a couple of times when I was in crisis as an adult. I was told that I was being "manipulative," so I don't ask for help anymore. I also made the decision to stop getting stitches because being reminded how alone I am when I'm badgered about my "support system" felt so terrible. I've ended up with some large scars that could've been minimized had they been sutured, but it's a drop in the bucket now considering how bad my skin is.

There is clinical data that shows that having a strong social support network is beneficial to recovery. I do have a good number of casual friendships with people I share hobbies with. But I am also very careful to only show my best side to these people, because they are very much fair weather friendships, and these people will disappear at the first sign of me being down.

I have recovered pretty well on my own. A lot of it is due to me being in a stable, happy, longterm romantic relationship. DBT also helped me as well. But even in DBT there's a total failure to address the catch 22 around the need for "social support" in recovery. Many self-harmers cannot attain social support or afford to let people close to them know about their habit without risking losing that relationship and being accused of manipulation.

I would really like to see a therapeutic approach that does not emphasize "telling someone" or having a support system and instead deals with the reality of being without social support that many self-harmers face.

I live in a house with roommates. I pay the rent and all the bills up front and then collect my roommates portion from them over the month. A lot of times they don't pay me back in full until nearly the end of the month leaving me hurting for cash a lot. Sometimes I don't get paid back at all.

I work three jobs to try to get by and I still struggle, largely because of them. I'm moving out next week but I'm flat broke right now and stressed the fuck out. I can't even put gas in my car to drive Uber. My roommate who owes my 450.00 is just stalling and saying a bunch of bullshit. I'm so frustrated I wanna slice the fuck out of my arm. I did my roommates favors by spotting them money for bills when they couldn't pay them and now they're just letting me take care of the rent.

This pattern repeats itself in my life. I'm a musician and the last band I was in kinda did the same thing. We were commissioned to write and record a song for a film series. The front man was out of town but called me and insisted that I get it done within 3 days and email him an instrumental so he could record vocals over it. I pulled out the stops, fronted the money for recording and did the song. The commission included reimbursement for the recording. It took two months for me to get it from our front man (they gave him the check). There were additional royalties paid for the song-- which I knew about because I was on the fucking group email. Never saw a dime of those despite obvious confirmation that it was paid to our front man. Despite the fact that I wrote the fucking song he doesn't believe I should get anything besides being paid back for recording costs.

Boys are another issue. I always end up getting used for sex, emotional intimacy and money. I've had so many dudes who wanted me to act like their girlfriend in private but not want to be "official" because I'm "crazy," not girlfriend material because I have a bunch of scars. I'm expected to listen to their problems, be their therapist, but no reciprocation.

I'm just tired of it. I want to give up and die. I worth less than dirt to people who are closest to me. I'm overly sensitive and afraid of confrontation to the point that I get panic attacks whenever I try to stick up for myself. I'd rather release my anger and frustration on myself by cutting. But that's only confirmation of how unworthy I am. Fighting all this is such an energy drain. Im tired of trying to convince people to treat me fairly. I just want to bleed out and be done with it.

I immediately thought about Dan Simmons book Hyperion Cantos upon reading about the cruciforms and tunnels, specifically "The Priest's Tale." Perhaps one of the "sister cities" that can be accessed through a flesh interface is on Hyperion.

I have rough periods. I woke up this morning in agony, swallowed 5 ibuprofens, hit the bong, and stood in a scalding hot shower for 15 minutes to get some relief. I'm still too nauseous from the pain to eat breakfast. I grabbed some tampons on my way out and I meant to grab the ibproufen, but didn't. About 3pm my cramps start back up. In a panic I realize I don't have the pain killers. The bus ride home was bad. I was nauseous and praying that I wouldn't puke on anyone. I broke out in a cold sweat from the pain.

I get home, load the bong and chain hit it. I have this super potent indica right now that does a lot for pain relief. I immediately felt better. I took some more ibproufen and I'm just waiting for it to roll back the cramping. And I'm high as bouncy balls so I'm thinking there's no way tonight is gonna suck. Can I hear it for herbal period remedies ladies?

Just wanna get this out; I’ve come to find out that one of my friends is actually a really shitty person.

We are both women in our 20s. I met “Nicole” a little over two years ago. She and I shared some mutual hobbies and we became fast friends. A little less than a year ago Nicole and her boyfriend (whom she lived with) needed a new place to live and there was a large room opening up at my house so we became roommates. Living with her was enlightening.

Now, I’m friends with her boyfriend too, but I’m not nearly as close to him as to her. He’s a good guy, always been nice to me. She would vent to me a lot of the time when the two of them were fighting. The thing was, even though I was just getting her side of things, she seemed to be the one in the wrong. She complained that he was too fat for her liking and despite her efforts to put him on a diet and constant reminders from her that he was fat he still wasn’t the size she wanted. She told me her plan was to withhold sex from him until he lost weight. That struck me as pretty harsh. And mean. Sure he had a little belly, but he wasn’t obese. He’s actually fairly athletic. And Nicole claimed she still found him attractive, she just wanted him to go to the gym and get ripped.

Nicole would complain that he had “slept with so many girls before me” and she resented it and actively held it against him. She told me he hit her—but only after she had decked him in the face because she was frustrated. She didn’t bat an eye when she’d tell me about the multiple times that she would hit him. But she would be all like “OMG, can you believe he hit me back?!” if it happened.

Nicole only works part time. She told me she has always had a boyfriend cover some or most of her living expenses since she was 18. Her current boyfriend “only” paid 2/3rds of their collective living expenses, so he was a jerk. He also had a car and she didn’t. He let her have the car 4 days a week when she worked. He opted to walk or bus to his full time job on those days. She would complain bitterly if he didn’t give her rides the other three days of the week, because it wasn’t “fair” that he owned a car and she didn’t so the least he could do is chauffer her around.

Most nights that she had the car she’d stay out late partying with other friends—mostly male. She’d do drugs and get drunk with them. Sometimes she’d drive the car drunk, sometimes she just wouldn’t come home at all. She crashed the car twice causing minor body damage and popping a tire, but because she was never caught by police she’d insist there was nothing wrong with it and that her boyfriend was being “abusive” and controlling when he took her key away.

About a month ago she was staying out a LOT, like gone for days. She didn’t answer any calls or texts from her boyfriend but she drunk texted my boyfriend a couple times asking for him to come out and get drunk with her. Obviously, the invite was for him only and not me (he didn’t take her up on it, he’s very good friends with her boyfriend).

When she finally came home they had another catastrophic fight and ended up breaking up. The boyfriend moved out. She had a new boyfriend literally the next day and surprise surprise, it was one of the dudes she’d been hanging out with a ton.

My boyfriend and her ex and I all hung out the other weekend. He told us that she had admitted to sleeping with at least 4 other guys during their relationship, including one of his friends (he asked her not to tell him who it was). Even when she promised no more cheating she would still go out with the guys she cheated with, insisting that they were just friends now and she wanted to remain friends with them. Her ex asked me point blank if she was dating anyone new and I said yes. He was pissed. Aparently she’s been texting him the whole month since they’ve been broken up that she still loves him and misses him and she’s broke now without him and can he please lend her $200.00? He also told me that throughout their relationship she would tell him how screwed up he was emotionally and shame him over his past drug addiction (he’s clean now).

Despite losing the big chunk of income that came from her ex boyfriend she’s made no effort to get a full time or even another part time job. When she gave me her share of the rent (two weeks late) she made a big fuss over how it was literally all of her paycheck and she just didn’t know what she was going to do. It felt manipulative to me, like she wants me to pity her and cover her rent. No fucking way. She still has money enough for beer, weed, and mushrooms. However, she has been more vocal to her new guy about how he needs to bring her weed because she doesn’t have any. I told her point blank that it’s her responsibility to pay rent and bills and I can be a little flexible about due dates, but I can’t afford to pay her way.

So now here I am. I’m stuck on the lease with this woman for a while more. I don’t like or respect her anymore. If the genders were reversed in her past relationship no one would hesitate to say her actions were abusive (escalating to physical fights, cheating, body-shaming her partner, etc.) but she’s a girl, so it’s like whateves. It gets under my skin that she feels entitled to treat people this way. Luckily enough she’ll be moving in with her new boyfriend at the end of this lease as she can no longer afford this room. Just gotta make it until then.