I grew up in the USA and live in Australia. I think of and refer to myself as both ‘expat’ and ‘immigrant’.
Which word I use depends on context. I’m an American expat (context: my relationship with USA), but I’m an immigrant in Australia (context: my relationship with Australia).
I guess I’m really just using “expat” to mean “emigrant”. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
My current cats have Opinions (capital O) about what is or isn’t food. I tried giving them variety, at least in flavour. They don’t want it. The want one specific brand of fish-flavored wet food (in jelly, not gravy). They’ll eat some kinds of fish-flavored kibble if wet food isn’t available. Anything else, they have to be pretty desperate.
At least they both like the same stuff! But the lack of variety is 100% on them, not me.
(My previous cats would eat most things. These two are just weird.)
Hubby is ADHD and I am not. And it’s usually me trying to speak when he is silent but “still talking”.
How did we get this backwards? Lol
I think it depends on how you use them.
I spend a lot of time lurking on Lemmy. I read discussions. I don’t post or comment much. There’s no social element to that experience. (This is an indictment of me, not Lemmy.)
I just recently rejoined Mastodon, and there I find myself replying to people’s posts and having short discussions even though I don’t “know” anyone. It’s not “community” at this stage, but it could become that if I continue using the platform that way. And when I made a post introducing myself, there were several comments offering direction toward finding “my people” (a.k.a. community) on that platform. It’s just up to me to make it happen.
But how, when this is the only comfy one?
Facebook and Instagram.
10 years ago they were very helpful for keeping up with friends I didn’t see very often. Now, Facebook is full of sponsored posts and politics rather than the personal updates I want; and the Instagram feed has more posts from people I don’t follow than from people I do.
I stepped away from both a year ago. In the main, I don’t miss them. The unfortunate part is that Facebook is the only place local community stuff is posted, so I can’t quit entirely. But I no longer have the app on my phone; I just open it in Firefox when I need to look do a specific thing.
We’re on the last day of a heat wave. It’s been affecting my sleep. Tonight the heat should break, and I am really looking forward to nicer temps tomorrow (and hopefully better sleep tonight).
Does pineapple belong on pizza?
Got to know a couple of my husband’s online friends, who turned out to be pretty amazing people as well as being very supportive friends. I really would have struggled without them, these last few months.
Regional Australia (New South Wales).
Petrol prices are the highest I’ve ever seen. I guess that’s true everywhere.
But also, on Weds when we went to Canberra we drove past two petrol stations with their signs turned off (suggesting they were completely out) — one in the city and one in the country. I’ve never seen that before. The country station was back on when we passed again a couple of hours later.