I am an enthusiast but not a musician. So somewhere in the middle I guess? I try to go to several live shows every year, I’m aware of when someone I like puts out new music, I seek out unknown artists because I do love live performances more than recordings.

I care enough about sound to buy Klipsch Bluetooth speakers on sale for the portable ones, all wired earbuds sound fine to me, as do the Google speakers we have paired to do stereo in the living room. I don’t have the sort of ears that can tell great from good speakers, but can’t listen to music on my phone speaker like my kids & husband can, those are so bad it bothers me.

Music to me is art and entertainment, I don’t think I’d call it content.

I am similar, everyone said Oh just wait till your 30s, oh just wait till you have kids, oh just wait till your 40s but it was my 50s that the weight really did stick, and like you I am not fat by any real standard, smack dab in the middle of healthy by BMI, and probably more conventionally attractive body type with a little bit of T & A but was so attached to being skinny it is disorienting. Logically I know this size is probably healthier for my bones and I feel good and am active, but I feel like I lost part of my identity, and don’t like it.

Cosmetic or elective procedures aren’t covered by insurance though. If you mean resources like doctors, I agree somewhat, but insurance denying/underpaying/jamming access to essential procedures to force profit is a separate issue, and a much bigger one.

I will counter with Martha Stewart, Helena Bonham Carter, Courtney Cox, and I’m sure so many more who really look like they have had face/neck lifts but just look good.

My daughter says she hates it because it means money can make you look better.

I kind of like that though - it is more democratic than “natural beauty” being the standard. If beauty is something you do or buy, maybe people think it’s cheating, but how is that worse than it being luck?

Don’t imagine I’ll ever have enough $ to want to spend it on cosmetic surgery, but I knew a lady with bad skin tone - she had a baby and was overweight, lost the weight but her torso skin stayed stretched out, all saggy. She got a tummy tuck and boob lift and holy cow it looked amazing, she felt so good about her body and said “it cost as much as a car but I will drive my body much longer than my car.”. Nobody is going to convince me that’s a bad thing that she ought not have done. She wasn’t disfigured before, she did it to look good and she sure did.

Every person owns their own body and should modify it however they want. I am not against even creative cosmetic surgery, you want elf ears, go for it. And I do not think ugly people are under any obligation to get modified so that they look “better” either. Whatever the individual wants, it is their call. This is one situation where I really feel it is not my business at all.

I am in my mid-50s and surprised by a few things. I’m not jaded, small things still delight me. I’m not nostalgic, find so much good new music every year, new authors and books, still figure out different ways to approach problems at my work - I thought I’d be more stuck or settled by now, and for sure thought I’d be bored and jaded.

And I am constantly surprised nothing really hurts yet, thought I’d be less together physically than I am. Sometimes surprised I can still cartwheel.

I am unhappily surprised to see society going backwards and hope I live long enough to see it turn back around and progress.

The ability to see what is funny in a situation, quick wit, I think that’s a good sense of humor. Understanding what will be funny to your audience. Not mean-ness. Though I do find snarky sarcasm funny, not the hurtful kind.

And yes, sometimes I am funny, or so I am told.

Oh, a note - in the US I have to use organic ginger for ginger beer, all the rest of it must have been irradiated or had some hotshot anti-everything spray because only organic ferments.

Not for any other ferment I make is this true, only ginger. Tepache, fruit kvass, sourdough, I use conventionally grown stuff. I’m not sure this holds true everywhere but if it doesn’t work, get organic ginger.

The best starter for ginger beer is “ginger bug”

Start with 2 big spoonfuls each of (grated) ginger and sugar in 2 cups of water. Stir it twice daily and feed it once a day, alternating

Day 1, spoonful of sugar

Day 2, spoonful of sugar and spoonful of grated ginger.

Here it gets active in a couple of days but better to keep feeding and stirring for a week. Use a cup of the liquid to ferment a gallon of ginger beer and save another cup tightly covered in a refrigerator to start your next batch, so it will go faster.

You can make it with yeast but it doesn’t taste as good and is fussier.

I don’t know if this link will work or doxx me or something, can’t figure out any other way to share it but this phenomenon happens sometimes here and it’s crazy looking. I was so worried the first time I saw it, it looks like reality is breaking but it’s lightning farther away.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hC3UdbMEBCwbPVG1A

This sounds like one of those Volvo ads about the car keeping your family safe.

I live where there is a lot of lightning (west central FL) so have had near misses where the flash and sound came at the same time but the incident I remember:

I worked at a payroll company. One of our new clients was a landscaping company and in the first week they had an employee hit by lightning, and that one incident was more expensive to the workers’ comp plan than the rest of the year combined, all companies. Poor guy died and not fast, it was heartbreaking. I also learned in that job that seawall building and underwater welding were our most risky clients (highest workers’ comp cost) followed closely by racecar drivers.

If you are willing to make it yourself, kvass or ginger beer, those can be dry and sparkling. Water kefir or kombucha. All very, very low in alcohol, not intoxicating. Chinotto soda is something I buy for dry months too.

As someone else said, tonic water has a bitter edge that really hits the spot, I make a sweet non alcoholic cocktail called the Friend Zone, made with strawberry tepache (strawberry fruit kvass), lime, and tonic water, and I swear everyone thinks it’s a boozy cocktail. Too sweet for what you are looking for here but it’s certainly the tonic pulling most of the weight.

I would be very sad but at least now have heard so much I think it would stick with me, and already get auditory hallucination sometimes, so might be able to imagine it. If you mean deafness.

If you mean some sort of music blindness, like it’s only music I can’t hear, it never sounds like music and I can’t remember any of it? That seems inhuman, and I am not sure at all whether I would miss it, maybe not - the only analogue I have is sex drive, I run hot most of my life, sex is something I enjoy so much and value that ability to enjoy it but when I was nursing kids, it was gone, entirely gone, I had less than no sex drive and while it caused problems in my relationship, I can’t say I missed it exactly? I didn’t care that I didn’t care about sex and couldn’t feel it. So if I became amusical in that way, maybe I would not care. It’s just hard to imagine, just like right now it’s hard to believe I didn’t care about missing out on the sexual pleasure.

That is so cool. I went to barber school when the curriculum was changing - we were not allowed to use reusable razors (height of the AIDS epidemic) but did have to learn how to sharpen them, and it’s helped me in general. Haircutting shears I have only ever allowed an enthusiast sharpener to touch, like y’all, an artisan.

My answer to the original question is probably food. I grow food, bake bread that would sell for $10 a loaf at today’s prices, design fantastic cocktails and cook for big enough parties that I could do it as a side job. I enjoy hospitality, it’s so satisfying, but as a job it is like a baby, relentless, no rest. The only way I would even dare is if we were so wealthy I didn’t need to make money and could hire great staff, pay them so well.

I saw them live twice and they were great shows.

Whole lotta Rosie is on my husband’s workout playlist and it is a jam. So good.

Well in some ways yes, and in some ways no. I never seem to get jaded, silly things still make me laugh. I still can read and shut out the world like when I was a kid.

But I am so competent in some ways? Can cook and hold a job, raised kids, gardens finally grow for me. All those seem adult qualities. And I have made so many mistakes and have been hurt so much, do feel the weight of experience. And while nothing hurts, and I can still cartwheel and do yoga, I have no bounce - can’t run well, can’t jump.

Jacks, and a Lite Brite.

Oh powerlifting, and I wouldn’t be competitive. Just lift whatever I could, and lose the competition, forever. I guess that’s amateur though? Hmm.

I cannot imagine anyone paying me to play any sport at all.