Dhalgren by Samuel Delany

(Close race with House of Leaves, but ultimately House of Leaves was telling a specific story, whereas Dhalgren is a semi-incoherent drug trip. Loved both books, though.)

Exercise helped me, but didn’t work by itself.

Adding therapy helped more, but didn’t work by itself.

Adding meds helped more, but I don’t lean on them alone.

Which is just to say, it’s not either/or. :-)

That said, I started going on long nature hikes, usually 4-5 miles but up to 17 sometimes. Download podcasts and music for offline access. Later, my therapist suggested taking notes after my walks, about how I felt / what was on my mind – now I do it more often than not, and it’s been helpful too.

I think the plural is Margots Robbie.

Tanking Janet Jackson’s career and slut-shaming Britney. Both were accepted behaviors at the time, but IMO that just makes it worse, he never even had to really account for it.

Donnie Darko

28:06:42:12

As an engr manager, I’ve often seen disparity as a result of being hired during good years vs bad years for the company. Or when someone gets a better offer to leave, the company may change their pay but no one else’s. Or hiring externally vs a transfer from another internal team. Or whether the team is coding for frontend web vs dev tools, even if using the same language. Or if female.

It’s always a challenge for one person to fix – with HR, with the department head, with yearly budget. And sometimes fixing one disparity means not having the sway to fix another as well.

Which is to say – pay transparency and unions are good for everyone. And if the company can’t afford to treat the employees equitably, then the company shouldn’t exist. (Or it should reduce its avocado toast budget.)

Unresolved Textual Tension is a great YouTube / podcast for book reviews and/or roasts. Generally a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, largely newer stuff (The Locked Tomb, Murderbot, Kushiel) with some classics thrown in (Dune, Hyperion). The show features 3 people with great chemistry.

The competition is indeed stiff.

Not necessarily. The ones you HEAR about are from big tech companies, but many small tech companies are also tightening their belts to follow suit.

My evidence is inherently anecdotal, but my current (at the time) and previous companies of 100-ish people both also had (multiple) layoffs – more like 5 people each time rather than thousands, sure, and they never hit the news. I reported mine to layoffs.fyi, with the evidence that “company X just laid me off,” and they never posted it.

Mental health is a medical issue. Ergo any vacation is medical.