You could take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

Biting my nails.

I started at about two years old and chewed them to the quick for over 35 years.

Toilet paper over the top

I won't rule out your point. It's good to be pragmatic. But I do know that fear isn't a good leader. I'll continue with my therapy. It does help. I recommend it to everyone.

Hey, hey. This comes from a place of fear and that's okay, but recognize it for what it is. Buying guns in fear is what gets people hurt. If you choose to buy a gun for the first time, take proficiency courses. Learn the legal responsibilities that come with it. If you're genuinely concerned, protect yourself in a responsible way. That may or may not be with a firearm. There are many ways to protect yourself. Take martial arts classes for instance.

This may seem like a wild suggestion, but try therapy. It did wonders for my anxiety. Seriously. I don't worry as much. I don't live in fear. I have friends ALL across the political spectrum. We get along fine. We treat each other with love and respect. The news and media drums up fear and excitement for attention. It's what sells ads.

Me too! That'd be amazing! Forget a root canal. Let's yank it and start over.

Before Barbie came out, I thought your profile was a marketing/PR team promoting the movie. I'm kinda convinced now that this may just be your account. Celebrities are regular people too and frankly, I only know your characters, not you as a person or how you care to spend your time. But we're all just people being humans.

I go to my little local movie theater all the time. Three times just this week. My wife and I LOVE the cinematic experience!

I just want to tell you, I REALLY enjoyed Babylon! It felt like an epic tale of the rise and fall of "empires", whether referring to eras of film making, industry magnates, prolific celebrities of the time, all changing/growing and then devolving through debauchery to depravity and finally, collapse (I imagine the point of the title.) All the characters intertwined through separate, steep trajectories. Reminded me of Casino. I don't read many reviews or critics; I'm not really sure how it was "officially" received, but from an avid movie-goer in a tiny little mountain town in the US, I thoroughly enjoyed your performance!

To remember that we've spent almost 18 years together and that we're best friends. That we've carried each other and comforted each other through so much.

There was that time I had to climb fifty feet up a tree with hardly any limbs with ropes and a harness to get him when the crows goaded him into climbing higher. The rusty antique farm equipment below would have mangled him had he fallen. I had to lift him with one hand, balanced, hoping he would roll out of my grip, and put him in a cinch top bag with a rope attached to lower him to my wife on the ground. Once he reached her hands, I broke down and sobbed while I made my way to them. I was so scared. I woke up the next day and he was curled up around my hand, holding tightly. He didn't want to go outside for months.

He pees on me regularly now. Sometimes when I come home with my hands full and can't give him attention immediately. Sometimes when I've been home all day and he didn't get a snack fast enough. Maybe his kitten baby sister is trying to play with him or he's stuck on the other side of the door while I'm brushing my teeth. He has hyperthyroidism and kidney disease. We give him everything, do the best we can for his health care, but it's getting close to the time we say goodbye and it's breaking my heart.

I just wish he'd remember me the way I remember him.

I lifted him onto my lap yesterday morning, out of the reach of his gentle but playful six month old kitten sister. He peed all down the front of me. I didn't scold; I just held him until he was done, knowing the last time I hold him isn't far away.

What rational argument is there for citizens to lose their right to vote?

Say you lose your right to vote over possession of drugs. Why? You shouldn't you have representation?

While in prison you become slave labor. For profit prisons get money for housing and feeding you. They get money from the contracted work you do. They double and triple dip profits. There's all kinds of under the table deals being done on your back. But why did you lose your right to vote? It all goes back to controlling certain groups of the population. That's where it started, that's where it still is. Sure, restrict gun ownership for felons, that's a constitutional right that has long needed overhaul for so many reasons, but the right to vote, why??

Keep experimenting and refining.

Pine can be stained and finished. Oak, cherry, and maple can sometimes look like crap. It's a matter of preparing the wood properly. Try making sample boards. Sand consistently, don't skip grits, don't apply much pressure to the sander (let it do the work,) experiment with a pre-stain conditioner. It can help minimize splotching and some tooling marks.

Traditional (penetrating) stain needs to be applied evenly and benefits greatly from pre-stain conditioner.

Gel stains (sometimes called wiping stains, but that term gets misused) are wipe on, wipe off excess about five minutes later if you weren't already doing that. They are made to sink in a certain amount and stop.

Urethanes don't typically do well with back brushing, especially fast dry varieties. Spread urethanes thick and consistently and try not to go back over it. Lightly sand at 220 or 320 between coats and remove swarf with tack cloth or lint free cloth lightly dampened with alcohol.

Tung oils are rubbed in. Danish oils are applied thinly. These are relatively similar. Lightly sand between coats like above.

The book "Understanding Wood Finishing" by Bob Flexner is an astoundingly comprehensive book on the subject.

Don't give up on pine just yet. Hemlock, heart pine, many others can all be quite beautiful in the right setting and application. For rough stuff, try the pre-stain conditioner

Let's not get ahead of ourselves

Pun aside, this I've done. I could even hear the worms chewing during especially quiet moments. We put cherry slabs under clear plastic in the sun, then peeled the bark and smashed the larva with mallets. Not sure why my boss didn't want to use borax.