#these are skills I've mostly gathered since leaving a big city

[three--rings]

Also, if you Know a Guy, you can ask the Guy for Other Guys. I have an A/C repair Guy. I asked him if he could recommend local contractors and he gave me a couple names.

We got locked out of our house last week and that's when I found out my husband has a Locksmith Guy. Because my husband is a restaurant manager and apparently has had to call a locksmith a handful of times. We got a discount on the service just cause my husband has used him before and said hey you remember me from That Shitty Restaurant I Used to Work At?

Your friends probably have guys too. They're just waiting for someone to say "hey anyone know a Guy?" I know I was constantly bringing up my hair dresser friend before he passed at the least indication anyone needed a guy. I met him because a coworker mentioned him and I needed a guy.

Networking/Knowing A Guy: A Guide

This is the autism website. Now, as an extension of the power of love and friendship, there are few things more useful than Knowing A Guy. Knowing A Guy means you have a support network. Knowing a plumber, or a tax accountant, or just that one dude that's really fucking good at finding the information you need when you're really overwhelmed, can be the difference between being able to pay rent and having a fun party with friends to fix your shit.

How does one end up Knowing A Guy? It's a skill you can develop called Networking and it is one of the foundations of society. Unfortunately making those connections with people is fucking hard and nobody makes a tutorial for it. So, here you go:

The golden rule is you scratch my back and I scratch yours

It is necessary for survival to seek out useful people

Great news! Everyone is useful in some form or fashion - including you! When given the opportunity to learn about someone, do it! Extroversion does not come naturally to some people and that's okay. Just take whatever falls in your lap.

Types of usefulness: trade skills, connections of their own, personality you jive with, pleasant to talk to, niche interest in shared hobby, security - the list is pretty much endless. I know a guy that lives in the metro area - no job, no major hobbies, inoffensively annoying to me personally, kinda ignorant, not attractive to me, but you know what? He knows how the fuck to get around the city by foot. My rural-raised ass APPRECIATES the guide.

Remember important information: general personality, background, skillset, likes and dislikes. You can find this information by making smalltalk about their life. There is no such thing as pointless conversation. (Yes, even the annoying smalltalk)

The more people you know, the higher the likelihood that one of them will be useful in a given situation - or will know someone who is.

It is overwhelming. In a given clique/community/workspace/whatever, there is A Guy Who Knows The Other Guys. This Guy is a shortcut. Find them. They're often elderly, extroverted, a little bit annoying, a secretary or in some otherwise forward-facing position. Look for people that are gossipy/talk about other people a lot but not in negative ways. If they constantly talk shit, they'll talk shit about you too. They're still useful but be careful with the information you share

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.*

If you have low self esteem, you're going to feel like you're using people. You're not. That's the devil talking. People like feeling valued and the connections you are making are the threads holding community together. Recognize people for their talents. It's only a problem when you're taking advantage of people

So: don't feel scummy about it. You're an animal. You have to claw out your right to survive and people will respect you more for it.

Luckily mutualism is the name of the game in the animal kingdom. Offer something back. The foundation of a Know A Guy relationship is Mutual Benefit

Sometimes that Mutual Benefit is just spreading news of the The Guy far and wide. My plumber friend is my actual friend and I love her to death, but I'm maintaining our backscratch relationship by pimping out her plumbing business to anyone that'll listen

Food is a good Mutual Benefit. People across cultures for all of human history have bonded over food. I have good success asking people for a favor and then offering to buy them lunch in return **

General compensation is also good. Offer a service in return and always do your best to offer financial compensation as appropriate. Having your plumber friend take a look at your drain: doable with a case of beer. Having your plumber friend redo the pipes in your entire house? You need to pay for that.

Being transactional is not necessarily a bad thing. I would advise against keeping an itemized list of things owed, but fish don't seek out cleaner shrimp just because they enjoy their company. Everyone gets something

Unfortunately being extroverted and generally personable is a huge benefit here, but that's the value of the Guy That Knows A Guy. There's someone out there that has consolidated All The Guys so you don't have to be the local expert. Always remember nobody can do everything and you don't need to master every skill

* This is the foundation of a functioning community. I have many acquaintances that I find incredibly annoying. They include doctors, welders, artists, social workers, lawyers, construction crew and random fuckers at the grocery store. I do not hang out with them. I do not have to in order to maintain a civil Know A Guy relationship. I can drop them useful tidbits and fuck right off so I don't have to spend any more time than necessary with them

** People may assume romantic intent. Be prepared for that. I generally denote that it's a friendly/work lunch by calling them bro at some point if they're my age. Otherwise my general demeanor is sufficient to show that I do this with everyone

Source: personal experience, mother's teachings of crime, booth vending and poverty

[meditating-dog-lover]

House cleaning

So I vacuumed and dusted my house this weekend. Very thoroughly and I spent a lot of time. I'm surprised by how dusty my room gets despite the fact that I do vacuum it and I have an air purifier.

I'm not the best at dusting/cleaning, thankfully my mom and sister have been very helpful. I love my vacuum too (lightweight and cleans soo well).

A lot of things also collect dust, like rugs, clothes, and fabrics. So leaving throw pillows, piles of clothes, dog matresses, and dusty rugs can cause a lot of dust collection regardless of how well you vacuum. In our TV room we had a nice rug that would collect a lot of dust and dog fur. I once knelt on it to pet my dog and got up and had a lot of fur on my legs.

I got pretty itchy and red while I was vacuuming and dusting, and all the dust I gathered and threw out did cause some inflammation, which thankfully subsided and disappeared by today. I am going to clean my car at the carwash tomorrow and I know that will help with any irritants that can be lurking in my car. I might even replace my car filter.

I'm allergic to pollen and the pollen count is so high this year. I have a pollen tree right by my bedroom window which is covered in pollen on the outside.

I'm still going to consider allergy shots, but at the very least I can dust and vacuum. This will help so much with my skin inflammation.

I'm always so confused when it comes to cleaning my house because I never know what to do and where to start - dusting, vacuuming and removing clothes, pillows, dog toys and mattresses off the floor is a good place to start.

I'm also meeting with my personal trainer tomorrow morning, yay! I wore a summer dress today and went out with my family to a restaurant. For someone who had bad body dysmorphia this was a big improvement. I do struggle with poor confidence issues still, but mostly surrounding my health and social skills. I do want to exercise to improve my insulin sensitivity, and my strength too but mostly my insulin. And I want to measure my body fat percentage. Because I haven't exercised in a while, my muscle composition may be a bit low and my fat composition may appear higher. I am planning on going back to my own circuit workout routine, but I'm going to take small steps because I want to exercise in a way where I'm promoting positive reinforcement (I'm going to be strong and increase my insulin sensitivity) than negative reinforcement (you need to exercise now otherwise you're going to get sick, fat, and lazy).

I've heard of people who've had their eczema clear up when they moved to a foreign country/area. I saw this video on Youtube where this guy explains how he cleared his skin by moving from Toronto to a beachy town in Mexico. Toronto is a major city that is industrialized and, of course, will have a lot of pollution/environmental irritants compared to a less industrialized/populated area. I'm not planning on relocating, but I can at least minimize irritants and get allergy shots. Relocating is a lot easier said than done, but I've heard of people who had their skin clear up when they did so.

I'm going to get more nice clothes next weekend since I absolutely did not want to leave my house this weekend (it's too hot and I'm exhausted). I wanted to get some nice shoes as well. I'm just so happy I wore the sundress today and I've always been so self-conscious about my body (especially my arms). Well I look fine right now and know I lost a lot of weight with IF and walking. I'm going to get my body fat percentage measured tomorrow, too.

I had a conversation with my mom and sister about my stress and anxiety, which was helpful and did make me feel better. My skin is now less inflamed. I know it's getting a lot better, but exposure to irritants can make it worse. And cleaning and dusting made that irritation even worse temporarily. But this will all be taken care of and I'm going to meet with my PT tomorrow and start exercising too. I'm also meeting with my doctor next week to go over my current skin progress.

I just want to be healthy in life. Living with a narcissistic dad who didn't allow us to lead physically and mentally healthy lives was tough, which is why I'm taking that chance now.

[bitmapdreams]

I think I've heard you say you enjoy turn-based games before, and you've posted bioshock infinite fan art, but I've never seen you talk about games before. What are your favourite games? (Or really just tell us anything about you and gaming!)

TL;DR: Yes I play games!

I haven’t been so active ever since I graduated school and started working, because… 9 to 5 job… raising a kid as a mother… but games and video games have always been a big part of my life!

It was the 90s so my mom was against violence in video games so I watched my elementary school guy friends play things like Street Fighter 2, Sonic, Tomb Raider, KOTOR.. but never picked it up.

I eased into computer games through puzzle games like Myst, and Humongous Entertainment (Pajama Sam, Spyfox, Backyard Baseball), and edutainment games like Oregon Trail 3 and Where in Time is Carmen San Diego. I always played with my sister! My neighbor and I also played this Indiana jones top-down adventure game a lot. I also loved things like petz, sim farm, sim tower, sim city, and roller coaster tycoon, and the sims and sims2, oh and this game called “creatures”?

My family are big card players and board game players, and I grew up playing a version of speed solitaire that only exists in my family. In 4th grade I somehow played online poker via America Online…? And when someone asked my age I lied and said I was in 5th grade lol. My sister and I still love playing board games, especially Serenissima and Clueless (a version of Clue we came up with where you play without a notepad). a few friends in high school played Warhammer so I watched that a bit.

In middle school I got into TCG’s, mainly Pokémon and Magic the Gathering.. I had a solid Armadillo Deck in high school.. I used to play with this education tool called Interactive Physics in the computer lab a lot. Also loved this website called Orisinal, which come to think of it has informed my aesthetic a lot. I got a gameboy color and played Pokémon Blue, Kirby’s Tilt n Tumble, Conker’s Pocket Tales.. I got into DDR for a hot minute, Marvel vs Capcom, King of Fighters, Guilty Gear..

My first console was a translucent orange N64, I loved games like Harvest Moon and Hey You Pikachu, Mario Party 2 (the best), beetle adventure racing, tons of games rented from blockbuster, and I would watch my guy friends play StarFox and Smash Brothers. Before it came out, I ran emulators of Pokémon Gold on my computer and tried playing through it in Japanese haha. I super got into the Japanese emulator for the Pokémon trading card game gameboy game!

When I got in high school I finally got a PlayStation, and I fell hard for Final Fantasy. My first was 9, and I went back from there. It’s hard to go back from 9 to 8 and then to 7. In the end I lost interest in 7 and never finished it. Also followed the squaresoft road and really loved Legend of Mana! I watched G4 and cosplayed as game characters at anime cons and stuff. Got my PS2 to play Final Fantasy X, loved the core Kingdom Hearts games, Katamari Damacy.. odd titles like Magic Pengel.. doubled down with X-2, HM:BTN.. not a lot of ‘violent’ games or shooters. (My family all played our Wii Sports to pieces, etc..) I watched my friends play a ton of GTA, and I loved just listening to the radio!

I spent a ton of time playing Ragnarok! I got to the Monk class, had some pretty rare headgear, which was so fun. In college I got my PS3 and played a mess of stuff, some tekken and Soul Calibur, but really just got busy with uni and then work.. I lived in Tokyo though so I would go to TGS and soak it all in. I saw Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb taping a segment there one year! But my interest was mostly on the peripheral, I checked out of it as a hobby for a good amount of years until I got an iPhone and then started watching let’s plays on YouTube!

I got back into following games as a medium through being interested in the development of Bioshock Infinite. During college, when I went back home for the summer, I spent a night hanging out in a park with my high school friends listening to them talk about how cool this game called bioshock is. Sounded too scary for me, but I plot searched the hell out of it online much like I do when I’m interested in scary movies but don’t want to watch them…?

So when I heard a new one was coming out I casually followed it through its development, then watched lets plays of it when it came out in real time, and just got super into it because I had been studying the history of math and science in college, and so I was studying about the history of quantum theory and stuff right at the time. then because of all that I got into watching gaming related stuff on YouTube, watched a lot of rev3 et all, gamergate happened, yeah..

But I still play games on muh lonesome, and still watch let’s plays of games I don’t have the skill or time to play! I think I’ve watched let’s plays of most of the major games for 2013-2016 in the process! I really liked Firewatch! Watched through Lots of older ones too. I really got into watching videos of the Arkham series, and from that I started watching deep dives on US comics by people on YouTube, etc… also found MBMBaM via games!

So I don’t think my story is unique but I’m sort of more of a spectator of what you may call your classic video games, and the ones I do play are either strategic, or laid back.. usually turn-based. But looking back I certainly have experienced more than someone who doesn’t!

Nowadays I love Civilization 4 with a passion, retroactively played through the Bioshock Series while I was on maternity leave (my first time playing a shooter!) which was an important touchstone for me as a person for many reasons.. separate from my opinion of the game itself, but either than that though, I haven’t picked up a controller since Splatoon. ..well that’s a lie, my toddler *loves* wii-u party. But, still haven’t gotten around to buying a PS4. Or a switch. But ive played through Riven and Exile on my iPhone, recently played Oxenfree, um let’s see, I backed We Happy Few, and it freaks me out to play but I got pretty good at playing one of the earlier versions! I listen to a lot of video game podcasts, too, though I think it’s more from a companionship stance than anything.. I still live in japan and most of my social circle doesn’t speak English, and all these people remind me of my high school friends. Good times. That kinda thing.

Yeah, that’s me and games!