You might mess up! That’s normal. Even experienced professionals do. That might be part of your apprehension? Like, if those experienced professionals can goof up, imagine what an inexperienced person might do?

But, the reality is that you’ll mess up the same when you mess up. It’ll be a little cut here, a little singe there. Your kitchen won’t explode, you won’t catch on fire. All in all, you stop thinking of some things as mess-ups and start thinking of them as just a normal outcome.

Here’s what I would recommend doing if you want to practice in safe ways:

• Practice mixing drinks. Not necessarily cocktails! Like, mix some herbs and juice in with a club soda. Tada, that’s cooking.
• Practice making salads with take-home kits. Add some vinegar or oil and herbs in addition to what you’ve got out of the kit.
• Make hot drinks: teas, coffees, things like that. Eventually start making your own syrups for them: look up simple syrup recipes and infusions.
• Get frozen pizzas or other frozen foods. Buy extra shredded cheese and Italian seasoning. Cook them as normal except add the cheese and seasoning on top before you do.

Here’s what I would recommend if you want to increase your own personal safety:

• Get a fire extinguisher and put it somewhere obvious in your kitchen.
• Look for “cut resistant” gloves. They help protect your hands when you’re working with knives and stuff.
• Get some timers with magnets on them and practice using them. The most likely way something’ll catch fire is if you’re distracted and timers will help you avoid that.
• Get some silicone mitts and handles for the oven. They’re incredibly heat resilient!

I’d also maybe just say familiarize yourself with cooking enough to demystify it? Like, marathon watch Good Eats or Iron Chef or something? Put it on in the background while you do other stuff, and just get used to seeing kitchens and food in action?

Fundamentally though this might be worth talking to a therapist about, because it could be that you’ve got some kind of reason (maybe more rational than you imagine) to have this apprehension. If that’s the case the first step is, honestly, talking it out with someone and not ignoring it and forcing yourself to do something you’re uncomfortable with.

Yup! It took them like 10+ years before they managed to get a presidential candidate too. but they immediately got into the legislative wings, it was already well underway in Bush’s second term. Hell, they were powerful enough to thrust Palin on McCain when he ran.

The people who say this can’t exist because of FPTP are right… but only for the presidency.

In every other part of government, extra parties are very viable. Even more so if they get into legislation and prove an ability to establish coalitions. The whole dynamic of elections can change in the House every 2 years.

I’m sick and tired of this stance because Republicans have done it with Libertarians and “quiet conservative” Independents for the last decade.

It’s not the Greens because they don’t take local or legislative elections seriously. But a pro worker party that backed up the right legislation would be amazing.

This seems to me like a signal that Democrats are formally cementing as a conservative / neoliberal party. Which makes sense. I guess maybe the upside is that maybe it will carve out room for an adjacent political body to the left as well, sort of like what happened with the tea party.

Arkansas?

I’m most excited where it’s most open. Clear training process, legal data sets, fully open code bases, published reports, etc. I think we’re going to see the local models boom in sophistication once that’s more common.

Do you know of any good local models that fit that kind of description?

This is what springs to mind for me as well. OP, you should try to remember this: the people around you are not as concerned with you as they are their own lives. And their own lives are probably pretty intense for them to deal with!

• Understanding other people’s lives might have intensity you don’t know about or understand is empathy. Displaying empathy will help you establish bonds with others and this is a good place to start.
• Say they do ostracize and dislike you. So what? Can they really even do anything about it? Should you even care? Probably not. It probably doesn’t matter at all. So you’ll have to deal with it for now, but they’ll move on and so will you.

It sounds like your wife is in deep grief. MS is torment, and she might be processing that grief for the rest of her life. She may not have space for a romance at all. That may never change. Sometimes, MS doesn’t let you get “back to normal”.

It is deeply crucial that you get everyone to counseling now, and not just individually but in spouse and group sessions. As much as you can afford. You have already started a new dynamic and grieving your old one is natural. But you can still support each other and it’s important to do the work and figure out what that looks like.

Partnerships can be loving and supportive and caring and not romantic. Sometimes it’s a phase that comes back to romance, sometimes not. But you need to be ready to relearn a lot of things and that starts with counseling.

Edit: And oh my gosh, I should have led with this - I’m so sorry y’all are going through this. It’s incredibly hard and I hope you get the help you need.

Losing your sense of self in response to criticism is one mark of a man who’s been failed by his upbringing. Mistakes aren’t flaws if you learn from them, and so an identity can only become fragile if it is too brittle to endure change.

Same! It’s 100% effective for me. Never had it not work

I wanted to dislike this comment but it was shockingly coherent. And correct. Perhaps too coherent and correct, for some.