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PaperclipPerfector  23d ago (text post)   1626 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for February 18, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Is it wrong to look at girls in the gym?

If it’s wrong then why do the all wear form fitting clothing or even more like a sporty bra? Why do some of their workout moves look a little like sexual movements (though they do have a legit exercise component)?

It is wrong to do this in roughly the same measure, and in the same way, as it is wrong for a trim young woman to stare/giggle contemptuously at a sloppy, unattractive male nerd at the gym.

In both cases, you're taking advantage of an innocent person's body to give yourself a secret little jolt of power and pleasant superiority. They're just trying to get stronger, you're taking this moment to intrude visually into their space and steal yourself a fun lust/schadenfreude break.

In both cases, you could easily rationalize by victim-blaming: well, why did this person come out looking like this if they didn't want other people to note the spectacle? But the fact is, you're disrespecting another person by treating their body as an object, and if you lean into this for long enough it will eat away at your capacity to relate to others as human beings. According to Kipling it will eat away at your "reason and faith," even, and that seems plausible to me.

In both cases, if the other person found out they would likely be sad, and some part of their freedom to use the common space would be taken away from them. (Go ahead, tell yourself that the woman should be flattered to be the object of someone's lust and the man should be proud that the woman is noticing him at all, lol.)

Only one set of these temptations applies to me, but I personally try to avoid yielding to it.

I've been visiting India for a bit, long enough that I was convinced by my mom and brother to join their upscale gym (and to shell out a ridiculous amount for a PT). I also have the luxury of comparing it to the one I nominally subscribe to in Scotland, not that my attendance metrics were great there either.

India has liberalized enough that the Common Gym Thot (Scortum Gymnasium Vulgare) are abundant and IUCN-classified as Least Concern. Alongside them, there exist much more modest specimens: women who actually want to work out, and those from more conservative backgrounds.

It is abundantly obvious to me that the current practice of wearing form-fitting and highly revealing clothing is far from strictly necessary, at least for performance purposes. You don't want to use the elliptical or deadlift in a burqa (not that I've seen that), but you don't need to show off camel-toe either.

(Not that I'm complaining, I don't go to the gym to look at hot women, but it's a perk)

I can only conclude that revealed preference is to be noticed, presumably visually. Attention from attractive, successful men is desirable, being magnetic to all the other straight men is an undesirable but unavoidable side effect. It matters who does the looking.

Look, just look. Don't stare. Don't salivate or click pictures. You'll be fine. Ideally it'll motivate you to lift harder, unless you desperately need about 20ml of blood.

Don't salivate or click pictures.

Reminds me of when my Indian coworkers shared the folder with their ice skating photos with me. Being overly curious, I clicked on a sibling folder... dozens of plausibly deniable creepshots.

You guys have Indians in Russia?

Yeah, that's who you get as contractors when you buy Indian-American software.

I think all of the comments get at the one correct answer: it's not wrong to look at anyone anywhere, because pointing your eyeballs in a specific direction and adjusting the shape of your lens to focus on a specific thing doesn't actually impact anyone else, but it is wrong to be noticed looking at girls in the gym*. So do it without being noticed. If you do, you might begin to notice that this principle applies to many avenues in life.

* Unless you're attractive, in which case, neither of those things is wrong. But if you're posting on TheMotte, you almost definitely don't have to worry about this case.

But if you're posting on TheMotte, you almost definitely don't have to worry about this case.

hey bro not cool

Hey, I said almost.

It's wrong to look in such a way that she would notice, ie staring/leering/etc.

The best point for reference being a hypothetical like "If my very jealous and hormonal wife were standing next to me, would I do this?" Or maybe "If a guy was staring at me like that, would I expect a fight to break out?"

Enjoy the show, but have some class. Your eyes don't make noise, there's no reason anyone should be aware of what you're looking at.

For reference, I've been going to gyms for fifteen years or so and I've never had a confrontation with a woman over staring at her, and I've certainly looked at a lot of women. Every climbing gym seems to have one girl I refer to only as "headlights." I did once have a confrontation with an enormous dude, because I was staring at him doing like 400lb squats and I was impressed. The only time I've ever been confronted by a woman in the gym was when I was dropping snatches from overhead with bumper plates. I calmly explained that this was the correct way to bail on a missed lift, and that I periodically practiced it when working towards a max.

I was considering making a joke that it would be cool if you could set a "locale" in your user settings, and for non-US/UK users, it would automatically convert Freedom Units to metric. Then I thought, it would be cool if there was a Chrome extension that did the same. Then I thought, I'm sure there is. And so it proved.

Here's how it looks. Would be nice if it rounded to the nearest kg, but better than nothing.

Nice. I looked around and found a more comprehensive extension that, sadly, doesn't replace the values inline, but works with other ameritarted units like degrees Fahrenheit and Florida Australias.

My rule of thumb is: am I okay with talking to her if challenged? That is, I am willing to smile if noticed and to give a sincere compliment about her shape, her form or the weight she's moving, or give some honest form advice if asked what I'm looking at, but do I want to engage with her or be seen engaging with her?

For example, there's a woman at the local gym about my age that can hip thrust some serious weight, but she used to wear a bodysuit so tight she could only zip it halfway up her rack. It projected such dangerous levels of thirst that I purposefully avoided looking in her direction during breaks.

Basically, if you cannot follow Isaac Asimov's advice and stare boldly and confidently, don't stare.

It projected such dangerous levels of thirst

Like you thought she was desperate, or that looking at her made your eyes do this

Like I think she was desperate. There's no other reason to wear clothing like hers to a gym.

Judging by his auto-bio, Asimov would be so, so cancelled these days. I am in no way woke and no prude, but some of what he describes make even me think "dude, really?!" Maybe he was so good he could pull it off, but I don't think anybody really could pull it off now, especially in the circles he was in.

Your initial question doesn't make sense in terms of right and wrong. Staring is rude no matter what the circumstance. Ask yourself if you'd want someone looking protractedly at you, for whatever the reason. How uncomfortable would that make you feel? In what box would you then place the person doing the looking?

Gym clothing for women that is considered fashionable tends to be tight, and though many women go to the gym to get stronger and more fit, some just go to post pictures of themselves at the gym for their followers to like.

Generally, same rule at the gym as the beach or anywhere. You're not forbidden from noticing, but when you start ogling, or worse, taking photos clandestinely, yeah you're entering weird territory. Don't do that; if you need someone to tell you, I'm telling you.

Caveat: I am in Japan where looking at anyone for any reason for more than a second or two is considered rude. Except when it isn't.

That said, @Sloot's comment as always is a refreshing splash in the face.

Also why do gymnasts need half their asses hanging out? How did that become the standard?

Yeah, and why do beach volleyball players dress like that? It's disgusting!

I don’t know this reference. Can you link?

You can Google anal prolapse for reference. It's something!

It’s not wrong until they start getting uncomfortable. The point of uncomfortableness depends on a lot of variables such as local/gym culture, your attractiveness, what you mean by looking etc. Assessing this somewhat accurately is a skill we call “not being autistic”.

Women work out their hips as it’s the only muscle group they can keep growing and contributes to their attractiveness. Women moving their hips in tight clothing looks erotic.

It’s not wrong until they start getting uncomfortable.

It’s not wrong if they start getting uncomfortable either. Your gaze, your choice. Look as much as you’d like, kings. It’s not like the modal gym thot would give the slightest of fucks about your comfort.

Men don’t have a duty to read minds, be attractive and not be unattractive, and police themselves lest chicks feel less than maximally comfortable in their forever quest to be sex objects and farm sexual attention. Freedom to wear skimpy outfits is not freedom from discomfort if a man wishes to look where he wants. Chicks can always just wear more clothing if they don't like the sexual attention they're getting.

I only police myself over checking out gym thots in case an opportunity pops up later to chat them up, and I don’t want to preemptively give them the Ick for no good reason. Or I don’t want to self-sabotage future approaches with other chicks in case a given gym thot might gossip about her remembering some time in the past where I gave her the Ick from looking at her. Additionally, I don’t like giving chicks the sexual attention they crave without me getting anything out of it. I’m not running a validation-providing charity for attention whores over here.

What you are describing is just destroying the commons, and not that different than what the women hanging out in the gym semi naked and filming themselves are achieving. “Commons” here being the culture of both sexes doing sports together without the involved women being viewed as whores. The end game of your strategy is rural India or Middle East, where men are infinitely horny and treat any mixed space as a sexual harassment contest, so mixed spaces either disappear or are put behind strict class barriers and women are constantly on guard against any men around them in public. It sucks. Don’t do this.

Of course, in Western countries we simply have the reverse, where women treat any mixed space as a sexual harassment contest, and men are constantly on guard against any women around them in public (re: Pence Rule).

That sucks too, but I'm not the one that has to moderate to fix it.

If the options are "Cooperate with defect bot" or "Defect against defect bot", the latter wins every time. If you don't want that end scenario, start undoing the damage of the ones who turned every male space into a mixed space and destroyed all the checks on their harassment.

Additionally, I don’t like giving chicks the sexual attention they crave without me getting anything out of it. I’m not running a validation-providing charity for attention whores over here.

This is the best reason not to look. I'm happy to provide some validation that addresses their daddy issues, but they have to be offering me more than wearing some skimpy clothing around the gym.

Nah, I'll validate as much as they want. Doesn't cost me anything, and I don't need anything to be offered, really.

Usually when someone goes viral for ick guy was looking at me it’s some tatted up chick who’s not that hot.

Gym bros wear completely different clothing that doesn’t show off so I don’t think tight lulus etc are for comfort. It’s what they are socially allowed to wear to be hot and get attention and I think they like it.

I believe I have seen articles on female only gyms and they always fail and no one goes to them.

I don’t think that’s true about female only gyms. There are many successful ones around me. Clientele skews Muslim but really not that much

Gym bros wear completely different clothing that doesn’t show off so I don’t think tight lulus etc are for comfort. It’s what they are socially allowed to wear to be hot and get attention and I think they like it.

I haven't been to the gym in a while, but I don't think gym bros tend to wear completely different clothing than women; they do tend to wear tights like women do. Because tights allow for less friction and more mobility while doing exercises, especially if sweat is involved. It's just that, due in part to anatomical differences, wearing only tights for the bottom is considered inappropriate for men while it isn't for women, and so the gym bros also usually wear a regular pair of athletic shorts over them. Even then, this isn't universal, and outside the gym, cyclists get an exception, probably because their junk is flush against a bike seat most of the time and so not noticeable regardless.

I certainly do think that the reason many young women are drawn to go to the gym is because of the costume rather than the health and more than the long-term attractiveness benefits. And I think that's a reflection of the reality of how sexy and practical converge in female clothing for gym purposes (and, in general, many/most athletic purposes).

Gym bros wear completely different clothing that doesn’t show off

Speak for yourself. I'm mostly in either a tank top or shirtless when I'm in a public gym.

I believe I have seen articles on female only gyms and they always fail and no one goes to them.

Really? That's interesting. Although consider one possibility why that might be.

Why I thought this was more of a fun thing. Most girls besides online too much feminists want some male glaze. My workout clothes and fairly common for a man is like basketball shorts and a t-shirt. It doesn’t highly body parts. Female gym clothes are often form fitting lululemon stuff, 30-50% of the time the top exposes the stomache and even actually breast material. A few percent you can make out actual vagina lips.

Those outfits provide a small performance gain but greatly stimulate the male attention. Plausible deniability of wanting attention.

And yes female interests in hip exercises and squatting is primarily to develop their body for male interests or their husband. Combined with form fitting closing it’s a lot for the reptilian parts of the male brain.

Most interesting thing is if I ran a poll female only “Should men eye fuck girls at the gym”. It would be 100% no. But actual female fashion trends optimize for that.

Most girls besides online too much feminists want some male glaze.

Hm. Intentional or typo?

Typo. But a funny one for this conversation. To be clear I am not advocating for rape because a girl wore some lululemon and was doing squats.

Just that they likely like the fact guys are noticing them.

Plausible deniability of wanting attention.

lululemon

The company logo features a semi-abstract/plausibly deniable picture of the back side view of a woman bending over. They know what they're doing.

Also, the founder chose their name because he thought it would be funny to hear Japanese tourists try and say it.

Ironically it's rather easy for Japanese to say very comprehensibly. Something like sitting sportswear would be tough.

There is a fast food restaurant called "First Kitchen" here. It is abbreviated by almost all to ファッキン. If you can read that, you get the joke.

There are a lot of restaurants named Pho King...

A joke I tell whenever I walk past a particular restaurant.

What did the Vietnamese guy say about a friend of his who was getting on his nerves?

"Pho Kim."

consults Google Translate

haha

Have you heard of the clothing chain "French Connection United Kingdom"?

I've seen the t-shirts. I actually believe most Japanese naïvely have no idea that their abbreviating First Kitchen sounds like the term fucking. Some younger people might, but even they don't really seem to hear it. It's not intentional adolescent cleverness.

This is a land where an extremely overweight, deep voiced transvestite has his own TV show that has zero to do with being an overweight deep voiced transvestite. There's a willful blindness to irony and/or satire in Japan (and a surprising--to me--amount of cross-dressing.) But then there's a great deal of Japanese comedy that I just don't get.

and a surprising--to me--amount of cross-dressing

it would honestly be more surprising to me if they didn't cross-dress; I'd actually kind of expect a race of people that seem to possess a below-average amount of sexual dimorphism -> they can pull it off more convincingly to be more into it on average

your example is kind of exhibit A there, but in fairness he's not wearing the female battle standard of 'literally all the makeup'

It's not intentional adolescent cleverness.

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of the 'that' emotion in play. I don't have a word for it; I don't have a word for the 'this' emotion that makes you appreciate intentional adolescent cleverness either, though its opposite/suppressant seems to come from prudishness/disgust reflex; maybe if [the thing that suffers disgust] is the group you get more of the 'that' emotion, since the 'this' emotion doesn't really work if [the thing targeted for disgust] is not you.

Considering how many puns Japanese media tends to contain, at least to my eyes, there's very little 'this'.

There's a willful blindness to irony and/or satire in Japan

Do members of more homogenous cultures inherently possess more willing suspension of disbelief?

More comments

Coffee Haters Club

Not many new things happening on my end. Haven't bought any more beans, though I will try to pick out some new ones in the coming days.

I've started mixing one tablespoon of quality beans with one tablespoon of swiss water method decaf beans for many of my cups of coffee. It works pretty well. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the decaf beans definitely lack something, but the other half of the mix somewhat carries it. :) Someone here mentioned this method, cheers to them.

Stirring the pour-over with a wooden pin during extraction may help a tiny bit with getting more flavor out of the grounds. In any case I don't mind doing it. :P

I've never heard of decaf coffee processed using that method, I'll have to look into it next time I buy another bag of beans.

I might've mentioned before but I'm a one to two cups of coffee a week kind of person. Last week I put too many beans into my espresso (mind you, this is around 8 AM) and my mind was still racing when trying to fall asleep at 10 PM. The trouble is that it is hard to scale down normal coffee-making processes, when you're looking for less than a cup, or less than a shot!

I encourage you all to drink less coffee and get more sleep.

The swiss water method for decaf was supposed to be the new gold standard, but I wasn't impressed by this particular bean. Maybe the old methods were even worse, heh.

As for one cup of espresso in the morning interfering with your sleep at night: Although I'm aware that espresso beans are stronger and you used too many of them, I'm not convinced that they were the cause for your racing mind. The belief that you will have trouble sleeping can be much more powerful than the caffeine in keeping the mind hyper-aroused and awake. Check out the book This is Natto (stands for not attached to the outcome) if you have regular sleep issues.

I don't keep a coffee maker in my house because I get plenty of coffee from work as it is, but I was considering maybe getting a french press. My problem is that there's definitely an upper limit to coffee that you don't really notice until you hit it and realize that you're super duper focused on something stupid and it's actually causing you anxiety not being able to pursue it properly because you're at work.

I also do half caf which is nice. Scratches the itch without making me crazed.

@Catholics of the Motte, what do you do during Lent? I having been going to Church properly this year and have been informed that we are supposed to fast today (Ash Wednesday). I have also been told that pre-1917 the structure of fasting looked very different, being required on every Lenten weekday and broadly forbidding meals before sunset. I am in a reasonably privileged position and I don't want to be too easy on myself, equally I don't want to make a fuss and cause trouble for those around me.

I would be interested to hear about real people's practices, and any advice that people have?

I was raised in a lukewarm Catholic household and we always had seafood on Fridays during lent. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that these were supposed to be fast days. No idea how “fasting” became “fish frys and crawfish boils”.

They aren't supposed to be fast days, they're supposed to be abstinence from meat. The only required fast days in Lent are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (and in my experience it's common to see Friday fish fries not run on Good Friday for that reason).

This is a good video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4835tL4srpY?si=eHG--SvWXTwL612h

Basically there are three aspects to a good Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.

Prayer

Your parish might have free devotional books that give you a daily Lenten meditation to read. It's not a bad idea to follow along!

If not, reading a section a day of the Gospel of Mark is common. There are 16 chapters, so if you finish a chapter every 2-3 days you will arrive at the end around Holy Week. Look up Lectio Divina methods of reading.

The Imitation of Christ is a good devotional book as well though it might be too much meat if you're still absorbing milk.

Otherwise, there are a myriad of popular Lent books out every year with forty days of meditations, reflections, etc. Something like https://www.avemariapress.com/products/witness-1. Some people swear by them.

The important thing is to not just read it, but then spend 5-10 minutes thinking about what you just read, asking the Holy Spirit to guide you in prayer.

Fasting

There are two days of fasting, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Abstinence every Friday of Lent.

Some people do more food fasts. Everything from OMAD and vegan diets to giving up candy/coffee/soda. I'm doing the ex150 diet with the occasional fish instead of beef.

Lately there is a stronger push to do a digital fast. Some people log off social media except for Sundays. I uninstall the apps from my phone and keep to the computer. Set a two hour stretch every day where your phone is in another room. Something like that.

There are other kinds of fasts too - only listen to religious music, only watch religious programming, etc.

Almsgiving

If you are fasting from coffee-shop coffee and saving $25/week, give it to the poor. Basically, one of the benefits of certain types of fasting is it might save you some money, but instead of using that money to benefit yourself, use it to benefit others.

If you are not financially supporting your parish yet, prayerfully consider what you can offer going forward. If you cannot give money, consider giving time. For example, your parish might have a library, you can offer to help check in and shelve books for 30 minutes after mass ends.

Good Friday is not part of Lent, but basically finish strong. Whatever you were doing, double it. It's a tradition for my family to turn off all devices and be silent from 12 to 3 PM. If you can attend your parish's Holy Thursday/Good Friday/Easter Vigil services, I highly recommend going to all three at least once in your life.

I'm a relatively new Orthodox convert, so I'm stepping into the fast. This year I'm cutting out meat and alcohol, while also trying to limit portions. Generally going to try and get to sleep on time as well.

I also like to add something during fasts, so I'm considering working in a 10 min meditation before evening prayers.

I’m not catholic and I’ve spent most of my adult life as an atheist but I’ve been going to Catholic Church semi frequently for the last year. I went to early mass today.

I’m doing one meal a day mon - Friday. I’ve dabbled in intermittent fasting before but I’m using this as a good excuse to commit myself. I’ll just be eating dinner so as to maximize family time.

This seems to be a good moderate position for me; I’m overweight but also have a lot of muscle mass that I don’t want to lose. It’s difficult but not overly burdensome; it shouldn’t affect my ability to work at top level or disrupt the most important relationships in my life.

Plus I can do it without calling too much attention to myself which I feel is important. There’s a whole bible verse about it but I fail to recall chapter and verse.

Food is extremely important to me, much more so than the average person as it’s a huge part of my personal and professional identity. Seems a logical choice.

This sounds very sensible, and is what I’m going to try and do too. I believe it’s broadly the old position.

I'm not Catholic and not even a believer, but I avoid online entertainment (including this place) during all four main Orthoxer Orthodox fasts.

The traditional Orthodox practice for Lent is cold vegan dinner (no oil) on Mo/We/Fr, hot vegan dinner (no oil) on Tu/Th, hot vegan lunch and dinner (oil and wine ok) on Sa/Su. The first and the last weeks are a bit different, but you get the idea.

New year's resolutions check-in:

  • Was moving last week, and so didn't manage to get to the gym until Thursday. I went again on Friday, and during my second deadlift set I managed to throw my back out. (It's incredible how quickly you lose the muscle memory for what proper form "feels" like.) I'd mostly recovered by Sunday morning, and decided not to push myself too hard and just did some cardio instead. Went again last night and was sure to do some stretching before deadlifting: the first three sets were absolutely fine, but after the fourth set I started to feel a little twinge in my lower back, so decided to stop there. Can deadlift 1.8x my bodyweight for 4 reps, squat .98x for 8 reps and bench press .77x for 7 reps.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
  • Have completed 7/11 modules in the SQL course.

@thejdizzler, @birb_cromble and @oats_son: you're up.

  1. Work: Been using the fact that flies are still growing up to tackle some long term analysis and presentations that I've been procrastinating. This is going pretty well, and highlighting that I need to wrap up experiments completely before moving on to something new. Have my committee meeting friday, which I generally feel prepared for.

  2. Fitness: 9.5 hours last week. Huge breakthrough the weekend where I ran an 8k at 5:30 pace, and last night, where I did a tempo ladder ending at 4:40! Unlike last week got in this morning's session as well. In a good place with this: just need to make sure I don't start compromising aerobic volume as I build intensity going into Boston. Should be 11-12 hours this week.

  3. Intellectual Stuff: About to finish Marx and enjoying Spinoza! Having trouble balancing Italian and Spanish, but this should get easier as my work calms down slightly.

  4. Finances: Unexpected huge windfall. ZIM, an Israeli shipping company that's about 10% of my portfolio is going to be sold to a German shipping firm for $35/share. I bought at $19 a share, and have been accumulating extra shares through dividends, so will end up making around $3000 from this. Also got some cash back from PT, and spending is looking like it will be under $3k this month.

  5. Dating: Masturbated once to porn this weekend, but removing stimulus has helped a lot. Decided firmly not to date right now.

  6. Tarot: Really good session with my ex-roommate who's started a teaching job that he likes much more.

  7. Socializing: Cooked tempura with my friend nick, and hosted track night Tuesday last night. Going to co-host a Chinese new year party soon.

  8. Screen time: 1.5 hours.

Oh man! Deadlifts are a little scary. Glad to hear you're mostly fine.

  • Diet is still going okay, though I did order a bunch of takeout yesterday to celebrate Chinese New Year. I asked if they knew how to make mapo tofu while I was at it; they did. I weighed 177.6 lbs yesterday, 179.0 lbs today. I would do some cardio or go to the tennis club now that I've got a racket, but now I have a cold. Lame.
  • I have not been very consistent at keeping the Anki reviews down, and I still am pretty bad at doing an article a day. I think an article a day might be a little ambitious... My level is low enough that native news articles' grammar is really confusing without looking anything up, and I have to use my popup dictionary several times every sentence. Part of me wants to go back to Comprehensible Input. There are a lot less words I don't know, and 4 hours a week is usually pretty achievable, and if I do a lot in one day, my brain makes random Japanese sounds, which is kind of cool. Another thing that could help me with the actual stated goal of a news article a day is perhaps some time tracking. I don't have the patience to track sentence comprehensibility, but time tracking could be easier.
  • It's been a week since last time, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. This weekend was a blast for the gun stuff I was doing, but otherwise, I've had a bad habit of making food and then taking a 3 hour nap, and then inevitably having to get up to do stuff like brush my teeth or do Anki and then playing Tarkov while I'm at it. On the other hand, sometimes I'll get in 3-hour calls with Discord friends and not really have any time to do anything else.

There was a trivia night this week, but I should probably skip it. I have a headache and I keep coughing and sneezing.

Spending to date for this year is $1330 lower than last year at this point.

Month over month spending is slightly higher than last month, which is almost entirely due to gas and junk food when driving back and forth to my father's. I'm not sure what to do about that, exactly. The gas is non-negotiable, and on the way back I'm usually not in a kind of mental state that where I can resist the impulse buy on the way out of the building. I think for now I'm just going to focus on the rest of the week as best I can.

Next month is going to involve some expensive dental work that my insurance is trying to avoid covering, so I'm guessing that my progress will likely get wiped out after that.

Month over month spending is slightly higher than last month, which is almost entirely due to gas and junk food when driving back and forth to my father's

Under the circumstances, I wouldn't even count this as an expenditure. You have enough to be dealing with without worrying about small stuff like this. I'm sorry for your troubles.

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