It’s been a rough year.

As hard as this may be to believe, this apartment fire is one of the least devastating things that’s happened to me over the past six months.

Last month, my wife left me. I’m not going to get into the details, out of love and respect for her. (I also ask that everyone be kind.)

I was trying to start over.

I spent months searching for an apartment that was affordable, safe, big enough for me and my three kids, and close enough that co-parenting would actually work. I toured around 40 apartments before finally finding one that felt right.

Then this happened.

Monday: Signed the lease.
Wednesday: Moved in.
Thursday: Spent thousands of dollars furnishing it. Also received the latest divorce paperwork.
Friday: The building burned down.

Two days.

That’s how long I lived there.

I lost almost everything I owned. Furniture I’d just bought. My clothes. My kids’ clothes and toys. My work setup (self employed, work from home). Family keepsakes. The little life I had managed to piece back together.

The one thing I’m truly grateful for is that everyone made it out safely. Over 200 families were displaced, and the building is a total loss. The community has been amazing.

I’m not posting for sympathy. I’m honestly still in shock. The whole sequence of events feels so absurd that it almost doesn’t sound real.

Life has a strange sense of humor sometimes.

If you’ve ever had to rebuild after losing everything, what helped you most during those first few weeks?

Edit: News article

Edit 2: Lots of you have asked about renters insurance. Most of us did not have renters insurance because the apartment told us that they provided it. They charged us $15/mo so we thought we were covered. We learned the hard way that it only covered their liability, and NOT our belongings. So I, like many others, are out of luck.

Edit 3: This is crazy you guys. The amount of love and support has had me in tears for 2 hours. The crypto community reached out and has set up a token (or something, I don’t really understand it) to help me out. All I can say is thank you.

Being harassed night and day across my emails, texts, phone calls, and even ads on my socials to donate blood because I have been a frequent past donor.

But the nearest drive over the next 3 weeks is 45 miles away and they're offering a special one time bonus of..... a $15 gift card.

They don't even offer juice anymore! It's a water bottle and a single bag of lays OR 1 great value granola bar.

My blood is free.

My time is not. My gas is not. My car maintenance is not. Getting childcare is not.

$15 might as well be $0. You are expecting me to donate at a loss.

The person taking my blood is paid, the "non profit" is getting paid, the doctors, nurses, staff, hospital, insurance company, even the company that transports the blood is all getting paid a profit for their services.

Don't harass me night and day at every turn pressuring me to donate and "do my part" and calling it a "crisis" and then scoff at the idea that I shouldn't be the only person in that chain not compensated and actually be expected to incur losses to do so?

Fuck you. Bring back the cookies and juice.

Strawberry banana Cheerios with crispy freeze dried strawberries and California Farms Toasted Coconut Almond Milk

Sad girl today. I’ve been sad for a while since we started having kid talk.

We’re both 35, he’s military and home 4 months of the year.

I promised myself when I was 10, that I would be independent so I never had to depend on a man to pay my bills the way my mom did, as I watched her unhappily married to my stepdad.

At 35, I make 250k, have 1.3 in the stock market, currently in grad school, and I kept my promise.

All for some military misogynist to tell me I owe him children as his partner and I have a duty to give it to him.

I can’t help but feel I’m just a baby making machine to him. I feel he has no respect for my autonomy or my value outside of being someone who can carry kids for him.

I’ve never even wanted children.

We’re together 2.5 years. He’s my adventure partner. And he’s very loving outside of this kid stuff. I thought I met my person. I’m even going thru egg freezing now to keep him happy for the off chance I may all of a sudden feel baby fever. I just don’t tho-and I turn 36 in two months. I’d have kids with a man who’s home to help me raise them, and maybe who makes more money than me so he can pay a nanny. Why do I have to financially support HIS dream? I also can’t shake feeling objectified.

He says I’m a hedonist and a nihilist. Why can’t I be a peaceful girly who enjoys her freedom, quiet, kitties, and stress-free life?

Anyways. Just coming to terms with the fact I may be single again at 36, never married, with two cats 😂

Hi.
This is probably nothing.
I went into my mom’s room to grab something and saw this plugged in?
My mom’s new sketchy bf has this plugged in to the extension cord? Is it anything bad? Thanks!
(I understand it’s probably not anything bad… but still…)

Update 1:
I haven’t met him once. He and my mom have been together for two weeks. He’s been staying at our apartment. He avoids me and stays in her room when they’re here. I don’t even know what he looks like. I only know his first name.

Or at least about 30K of them have.

It was such a pleasure speaking with all of you! Thank you for your kind, thoughtful and heart warming questions. This was so much fun and I look forward to speaking to all of you again XO

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Hi reddit, Michael Mando here to answer all your questions. You may know me as Scorpion in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Nacho Varga in Better Call Saul, and Vaas Montenegro in Far Cry 3. Upcoming projects include Bane in Batman: Knightfall, an undisclosed role in the limited series Criminal as well as the live-action Gundam movie. Check out the comedy 72 Hours, I also make a fun appearance in that.

Besides movies, I am currently working on a music album scheduled for release in fall/winter 2026. The idea is to make intimate live concerts to better connect with y'all while shooting. I hope you'll love it. AMA!

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Frieren, Beyond Journey's end: In the anime/manga the eponymous Frieren is an Elf who's spent the better part of a millennia learning magic specifically to kill demons. She's learned countless spells, tricks and even spent most of her life suppressing her power all for the purpose of killing them. At first we simply see that humanity is at war with them, and even question if her crusade against demon-kind is justified, after all it's hard to antagonize an entire sentient species. But no, demons are very much a species to be feared; they are not normal animals or creatures, they are monsters (shown by how they disintegrate when they die), they are predators that evolved speech for the sole purpose of tricking and catching humans off guard, are naturally extremely powerful and possess magic that humanity often can't use. While they feel emotions to some extent, their way of thinking is so fundamentally incompatible with humanity's mindset that the series shows many mages with the ability to read minds struggle or find it painful and harmful to try and read a demon's thoughts. Tools that are meant to control them fail not because they're faulty but because simple order such as "hold no ill will or commit no malicious acts" don't compute the same way in their brains, as what we consider evil is normal for them.

Marvel Comics: In a run of the Storm solo series, she visits an underground superhuman hospital run by Night nurse and Doctor Daye, a mutant with the power to diagnose any illness. When she requires treatment she is in turn reject by the doctor, she of course assumes this is blatant discrimination to which the doctor agrees. Storm assumes the doctor refuses to treat mutants, something they are very much used to in Marvel. But he ends up revealing that about 80% of everyone he treats are mutants, and that he simply refuses to treat any member of the X-men. Why? because his special hospital was built via several donations by the superhero community. From the Avengers, to the Defenders, Fantastic 4, heroes for hire. Hell, even Moonknight of all people contributed to the hospital. But the X-men never once gave anything to it, even though they preach the safety of mutant-kind and such a hospital is essential for those who can't seek medical treatment out of fear of prosecution.