In Australia, most larger chemist’s sell peri bottles in the antenatal section, near the breast pumps and maternity pads.

They also sometimes sell cheaper, less pink, peri bottles in the OT/home aid section, or in the ailse with the laxatives and enemas.

You can definitely get them on Amazon. I also find them occasionally in the toiletries section of Muslim grocery stores, and occasionally Asian stores, near the buckets, stools, and tabo cups.

I don’t have any fancy suggestions, because much like you, I often went DIY. Because of my skin condition I’ve always needed a bidet, so convenience and utility was my draw, the fact I had to carry it with me everywhere my whole life since adolescence.

Pretty sure when I was first taught to do it by my chronic care nurse I was just using hospital peri-bottles. For a while I just carried a 50ml syringe in my bag and a bottle to draw water from.

But at some point (probably around 12 when I joined Scouts) I found these “bidet bottlecaps” at hiking stores, and I remember a time when I just had these bottle caps everywhere and would have plastic bottles with hair ties on them in random purses (I’d put a hair tie around the bottle to remind me it was not drinking water anymore) the brand name I’m seeing pop up is CuloClean, but I mostly see cheap screw on no-brand ones near the register at camping stores.

Now days I mostly DIY them with a lighter, a q tip and a pin.

Just take any plastic bottle lid, heat it up with the lighter to soften the plastic, use the q-tip to push the soft plastic to make a “nipple”, you’re basically trying to make the bottle lid resemble a baby bottle. Then take the pin and make a ~1-2mm hole in the side of the nipple. It’s a good idea to sit down and hold the bottle and see how you’re planning to aim the stream so you can plan where you want to angle the hole you’re making in the lid.

I’m glad I found this method, because I like the little 250ml bottles of Quench Juice, they squeeze easy, hold just the right amount of water, and fit really neatly in all my purses (and the juice is nice too, lol). But the lid was never compatible with the bidet bottle caps, so now I DIY the existing cap of whatever bottle I prefer.

But in either case, you need to have a second, unaltered bottle cap to swap out after use, so the bottle is water tight for storage again. (though, you can always leave it empty and just refill immediately before use, then empty it completely afterwards)

I think we just need tiny sinks in stalls, or rather, all public stalls should be designed as semi-ambulant stalls.

Growing up as a crutches user (hip deformity) I didn’t fully comprehend that the standard stalls don’t have sinks in them. I kind of knew they didn’t all have sinks, but I didn’t think too hard about it, I sort of assumed the reason most people flushed then came to the main public sink was to use the mirror or dryer.

I got to used to filling my personal bidet at the sink, using it, and washing it at the sink, all behind the privacy of a closed bathroom door.

When I had my hip surgery and no longer needed semi ambulant stalls, or disability access stalls, and it was just so inconvenient to fill and rinse a bidet bottle in a regular public bathroom I stopped using it.

Then a few months later started using the semi ambulant stalls again so I can use my bidet, because it turns out my lichen sclerosis doesn’t like public toilet paper and I was getting really bad infections.

But yeah, personal bidet bottles are great, but they require a tap near the toilet.

Some public sinks are easy to fill a bidet bottle, but a lot aren’t, you physically can’t fit a bottle under the taps and because bidet bottles aren’t common it can feel embarrassing to fill it at the public sinks. Disability stalls almost always have a proper tap and sink for washing toilet aid devices.

Do this with a regular onion, especially if you’ve already got one in the pantry trying to sprout. As it grows you’ll get onion greens that work just like scallions in any recipe. Let it go to seed, now you have infinite onions, but depending on your local climate and luck, leave your original onion bulb to winter, and shoot again, and it has probably split into new bulbs, so you’ll probably get 2 new onions from the plant, plus onion greens, plus seeds. Eat one bulb, and leave the other bulb to grow more onion greens.

I’ve never bothered using the seeds, I just keep a bulb or two in the pot. Been 5 years. I still buy onions if I want something like onion jam or French onion soup, where I need like 1kg of onions. But Ive never had to buy scallions, and I’ve got onion flavour all year long through onion greens (you can dehydrate them, and freeze them really easily too, to store them when you have more than you can use)

I also highly recommend throwing peas into a large tray of soil. Litteraly just grab a bunch of aluminium foil disposable oven pans if you need to, stab some holes in them with a knife, an inch or two of soil, some dried whole peas or fresh garden peas, a sprinkle of more soil or just a wet sheet of kitchen roll/paper towel on top.

You probably won’t get peas, but you’ll have tons of pea tendrils for salads. On my balcony it’s the only “salad green” I’ve had any luck growing. I have a pretty black thumb. I can’t even manage to sprout chia seeds without them moulding, and I’ve never been able to grow mint despite broad casting mint seeds directly into my garden, urging the gardening gods to spite me with weedy mint but no dice.

When I buy peas, 4/5ths go in the fridge to eat, the other 5th gets planted, and I’ll get ~10 dishes from the tendrils vs 1 dish from the peas. Nutritionally the peas have more protein, but lentils are cheap, salad is expensive, so this works for my budget.

I keep having this glitch where I’m stuck in the opening scene with the jojo cubicle. I’m supposed to get a letter telling me I’ve inherited a farm but that hasn’t happened yet, anyone else got this bug?

I remember during Covid lock downs extroverts were loosing their minds and blaming their extrovertism for their cabin fever.

First of all, true isolation is unhealthy and crazy inducing for everyone, that’s why they still use solitary confinement in prisons for further punishment, so no, extroverts, you’re not special for feeling depressed during a global pandemic. (but yes, it did suck extra for them)

But so many extroverts seemed to assume lock downs were an introverts wet dream. There was very little attempt to understand each other. I’d see introverts empathising with extroverts who were struggling, but the reverse rarely happened, extroverts just seemed to assume “you introverts must be loving this solitude” and when myself and others tried to open up about how we were struggling I would hear “yeah but you like being alone, you’re used to it” like that makes it easier.

At no point did I really see any of the extroverts I know, or anyone online posting about how “wow, being pushed this far out of my comfort zone by lockdowns sucks, is this how introverts feel when I force them to actively engage in crowded, highly social parties?”

Not that I expect the middle of a planet wide plague to be the time I’d suddenly expect people to show self reflection and emotional maturity, but it was still worth the observation.

Yes stealing food is unethical. If someone steals your food you should take it right back off them.

That’s why I do all my shoplifting at the duopoly stores that are currently under government investigation for wage theft and price gouging… and not the community grocer who isn’t stealing from the public.

I also can’t fathom how they stayed on the shelves after Vegemite was invented. It’s the superior black toast tar.

And I’m not just saying that because I’m Australian and eat Vegemite off a spoon.

I was raised on Marmite, and promite, and I found them disgusting. Genuinely thought all the black yeast biproducts were the same, mum was of the opinion that “we have Vegemite at home” when what we had was Dick Smith’s Ozemite.

Was introduced to name brand Vegemite in my late teens and finally understood why this product has survived capitalism. It’s so fucking good.

I’ve never tried bovril (was raised vegetarian, and developed an alpha-gal allergy later in life), but I’ve definitely tried every application you can think of for Vegemite - it’s good in gravy, including making a vegetarian “beef tea” and “Vegemite cordial” for hot days.

In Australia we call this “skimpflation” because they aren’t shrinking the final product, they’re skimping on ingredients to lower production costs.

It’s the bane of my existence because brands I know and love will change their ingredients without warning and without changing anything on the packaging (sometimes not even changing the ingredients list! If the ingredients list has always just said “starch” they don’t have to change anything going from arrowroot starch to cheaper potato starch)

I have allergies and I’ve bought two boxes of the same product at the same time, and had an allergic reaction to one, but not the other.

I used to always blame it on my housemates not washing the cooking utensils properly, but I now use separate cooking equipment and I clean down the kitchen before I start and cook at odd times so I’m the only one using the kitchen.

I’ve started emailing companies after my allergic reactions to determine if they have changed an ingredient, and 90% of the time they confirm they have changed the ingredients. Usually they put some PR spin on it about the new ingredient being more allergy friendly or sustainable (they don’t clarify “environmentally” so I assume they mean “financially sustainable for the profits of our company”)

My, at the time unknown degenerative collagen coding defect was also treated as “lose weight fatty”, I lost weight, without even trying, because it turns out collagen is an important tissue structure in a functional digestive system. I lost weight too fast, I lost a lot of lean muscle as well as fat.

Turns out muscle is important for holding your joints together if you don’t have quality collagen to do that job.

Suddenly the real cause of my symptoms was evident, but I never got an apology for years of misdiagnosis and being blamed for my own illness.

Fun fact, one of the many things I was told to do as part of proper treatment was gain weight! (albeit, muscle weight)

Now I’m starting to get cardiopulmonary symptoms, which makes sense, your heart and lungs also have collagen. I don’t have a specialist at the moment, and recently had to find a new GP because my old GP said I need to “exercise more” to prevent my new symptoms… Even though my physical therapist says my level of activity is more than enough and if my lungs aren’t physically structured properly, no amount of cardio workouts will help me breathe properly.

On the point of driving whilst stoned. Confidence comes with experience

I can definitely understand what you mean by this, but I think a certain level of confidence also comes from tolerance.

I don’t drive at all, so can’t weigh in on that, but I cycle everywhere, and in my youth I would have never considered cycling while stoned, too risky, too dangerous, not fair or safe to others using the paths.

When I started smoking, I stuck by that statement, I’d give it a full 12+ hours between my last smoke and getting on the bike.

But just like your example, 12 hours became 8 hours, became 4 hours, and so on, where now I might have an smoke and 40 minutes later get on my bike to go somewhere.

But then I take a T break, and I pick up a new bag, and I have my first hit in a month or two, and I sit with that high for a while and think to myself “fuck no, I absolutely will not be getting on the bike any time soon, this tiny toke is too much to cycle on”

Then I’ll smoke heavily for the next month, and by the end of the month, my tolerance has increased, and I’m back to riding my bike while stoned (or rather, buzzed, because I’m just not capable of getting as high)

Do I feel guilty for these decisions because I know it’s a big risk? Yes. Do I keep doing it? Also yes.

But now that I’m in discussions with my doctor about medical dosing, it has raised a very important question - if I use medical marijuana to manage my chronic illness (the one that renders me medically unfit to drive) is the ethical and legal obligation of that treatment plan that I can never ride my bike again? I must always walk or take the bus? The same does not apply for people who use opiate based pain relief or therapeutic ketamine. They are warned not to drive if the meds make them impaired, but ultimately it’s their judgement to decide what is “impaired”. It will only be externally questioned if there is an accident or a near miss. If I am assessing my level of impairment before I ride stoned, how can I best ensure my capacity to ride in those moments?

Also answering OPs question, I think this applies to a lot of hobbies, but I notice it a lot as someone who likes to sew my own clothes - the pressure from others to constantly get better, try harder, and keep building those skills.

I do my hobby because it’s fun, sometimes it’s fun to learn new things about it, but sometimes I just want to stick with what I know and play in my comfort zone.

My dad will often look at things I’ve made this year and say “you made something almost identical 5 years ago, and your stitches are still skew wiff, haven’t you learned to blah blah yet?” because his expectation is that I will get better and better with every passing moment as I practice my hobby.

Similarly, people will tell me that I have “clearly got the skills to make xyz” and I should “challenge” myself. And sometimes I will, but most of the time I retreat to my hobbies because I don’t have to challenge myself if I don’t want to. I like my hobbies to be no pressure (I go to the gym to push myself, I go to my craft corner to relax)

You are allowed to dabble, fool around, play, and have fun with a hobby. You are allowed to decide that “getting better” isn’t the goal.

But it seems others will always question this, or suggest you somehow aren’t doing the hobby right, or enthusiastic enough about it if you’re only ever doing it on a surface level.

Just today, I managed to get hold of a second hand overlocker, I’m really excited to make things with it, and my co-worker who also sews said “oh that’s awesome, the quality of clothes you’re going to pull off now that you can surge! I can’t wait for the fashion show”. She meant that in the most positive way, and I know what she was trying to say so I thanked her and promised her to show her what I was making, but part of me definitely heard “if the quality of your final product doesn’t improve as a result of this, you’re bad at this hobby, now you have no excuse not to be better than you were before” even though she meant nothing of the sort, and a lot of that was internalised shame because of previous discussions with people who were genuinely questioning my lack of improvement.

I would already be living in a vehicle, but I can’t drive (low vision) so it’s never going to be an option for me.

About 10 years ago I was looking into bike towed campers as a security plan for an unstable housing situation, only to learn they are illegal to tow in my country. You can own one, sleep in one, and tow it on private property, but to move it from one property to another legally I’d need to pay someone with a car to put it in a car trailer, then unload my camper at the destination.

Again, it depends on the purpose of the group you’re creating, does this person in question face discrimination for their perceived race? Then a support group for people who have faced discrimination for their race may be the right place for them, assuming the intersection of having “chosen” to present as a race they’re not doesn’t create an unsafe space for the other group participants.

However if your group is for people who have grown up POC or been raised in a non-dominant cultural group to discuss shared experiences, then obviously someone who identifies as POC later in life would not be served by that group, so would not be eligibile to join that group.

There are circumstances when even if you fit the criteria of the group, you may still be excluded due to the way various identities and experiences intersect, or because your personal actions are not serving the group.

It’s not discrimination to be told you can’t use a private service because the service can’t serve your specific needs, and your personal circumstances reduce the groups ability to serve its other members.

I’m not trying to be rude, I’m trying to understand.

As far as the language is concerned, I’m just trying to understand how a trans woman could be a cis lesbian, when my understanding is that being cis and being trans are mutually exclusive.

Am I missing something?

If you’re a private entity and there is a specific reason that having non-black people in the group would be detrimental to the purpose of the group, yes, in Australia you can make a black only space.

For example, if you want to create a support group for POC to discuss trauma around being subjected to racism, to ensure you create a safe space, making the space POC only is not only legal, but often the more ethical choice for this group.

Want to create a social and dating app for queer women to meet other queer women? What purpose would it serve to let straight people into that group?

There is difference between public spaces, that must allow access and entry to all, and a private organisation that caters to specific demographics, and being freely open would completely defeat the purpose of the private organisations goals.

I’m not an alcoholic, I don’t personally know anyone who has struggled with alcoholism. Why can’t I go to an AA meeting to talk about my feelings on alcoholism? Obviously, Because that’s not helpful, it has the potential to be harmful to the people who attend because they have lived experiences with alcoholism. I could argue I’m being discriminated against because of my medical history, but I’m not being discriminated against, I’m just not being catered to, because I don’t have an unmet need in this specific situation.

How does that even work?

I mean, to be a cis lesbian also implies being a cis woman…

I mean, given what’s happening with the women’s only art exhibit at the MONA right now, this woman definitely has a legal leg to stand on even with this being a private company.

Even if it’s just a matter of false advertising (if the app means cis women they should say cis women, not say “women” and then go out of their to exclude an entire group of women) or compensation for being given access then having access removed.

“body type” has always been a general term to express the entire shape, size and proportions of a person, including excess weight and obesity.

When I was obese I couldn’t pull off crop tops because of my body size, it was incredibly unflattering, and now that I’m a healthy weight I still can’t pull off crop tops because of my body proportions, I have a short torso.

Body type encompasses both scenarios, so it’s often thought of as a polite way to tell someone something is unflattering without singling out specific “flaws” in their body.

cultural differences between rural and urban regions

It’s honestly fascinating how culture, transport infrastructure and public mobility effects our perceptions of urban/rural as well as distances in general.

In Australia we’re more likely to use time as a measurement for distance, because 20km in the country takes 10 minutes because you’re the only car for miles and you can blast 110km/h from end to end, but travelling 20km could easily take 40 minutes in city traffic. So “how far is the restaurant?” “15 minutes” is a perfectly normal conversation, but in some cultures giving someone a time when they asked for a distance would be baffling.

And I notice this doesn’t change based on mode of transport, I don’t drive but it’s the same conversation, you just might clarify the method of transport as if it’s also a unit of measurement.

Telling my cousins in the UK “when I visit in August, I’m going to visit Aunt Julie for breakfast, then take the train to see Uncle Bob, the next day I’ll head up to see Dave” and they get shocked with me “are you crazy, that’s 300km! You’re only here for the weekend”.

But growing up, my house was 70km from my highschool, travelling 140km per day was normal - and I never even left greater Melbourne! so 300km over a long weekend to explore a whole country is not “crazy”.

For the last 8 years I’ve lived in one of the more bikeable and walkable areas I’ve ever encountered, and my perception of distance has completely changed. It now feels “a big trip” to have to have to take motor transport anywhere. I had to grab a huge parcel from the post office for work, my boss just shoved me in an uber for the 2km, a 5 minute journey. we needed another pick up about 2km in the other direction. It was going to fit in a backpack so I jumped on my bike. Both trips took roughly the exact same amount of time and covered almost the same distance and the uber took less physical and mental effort, but the trip to the post office felt like a big planned errand, while zipping out on the bike felt like a fun side quest.

But once I’m in the car with my partner and we’ve already been driving for 10 minutes, suddenly distances in cars don’t exist to me and I revert to my pre-bike country perception of distances. it’s like “oh let’s get fish and chips from the store we like that’s 20km away, then drive 15km to the beach esplanade we prefer” instead of just cycling 8km to the local chippy and espie which is what I’d be doing without a partner who drives.

Because both would take about an hour…

That’s what I’m saying, food deserts are strange places where import costs, supplier contracts and shipping logistics means that lentils are expensive and tuna is comparatively “cheap”. Just 250km away lentils are a pittance and tuna is a reasonable expected price. ($1.50 for 100g of tinned tuna is average almost everywhere across metropolitan areas in Australia from my quick look at swapping my postcode around on woolworths, small town IGA is harder to check because they’re independent, so I’ve only got my local metro IGA and my father’s remote IGA as reference. My local metropolitan IGA price matches Coles and Woolworths pretty closely, but it’s the wild west once you’re out malee)

The idea that food is the price it is and that’s the price to expect everywhere is how small communities in food deserts end up slipping through the cracks when grocery prices shift in either direction in larger population centres.