I cannot do a phone call any more and I genuinely do not know when that happened.

Tipping culture has completely lost the plot and I'm saying that as someone who used to wait tables.

Moving house is the only reliable way to find out what you actually own, and the answer is always "far less than this".

A thing I cannot resolve about giving money to people begging. The argument against is well rehearsed and mostly correct: it may fund an addiction, it does not address the cause, the money would do more good given to an organisation set up to help, and the impulse is partly about how it makes me feel rather than what it does. The argument for is much shorter and I keep finding it harder to dismiss. Someone in front of me has asked for something I can trivially provide, and every framework I use to say no is a framework I constructed after the fact, sitting comfortably somewhere else. What I actually do is inconsistent — sometimes yes, sometimes no, and the variable is mostly my mood and how much of a hurry I am in, which is the worst possible basis. I would rather hold either position honestly than keep operating a policy that is really just weather.

Genuine question: has anyone actually changed their mind because of something they read online? Not softened, not "considered" — changed.

I have started saying no to things eleven months in advance and it turns out absolutely nothing happens.