The single best thing you can do to ensure you're protecting yourself is to do a home fit test. Surgical masks, KN95s, N95s have generally the same kind of filtration layer; the essential difference is the fit. Is it sealing on your face with <10% leakage, even when worn for long periods and while you speak and make facial expressions? You can't really know this for sure unless you do a fit test.

It is pretty cheap and easy to do a DIY fit test.

Here's a video that explains how to do it with a trash bag, some Splenda, and a $7 nebulizer.

Here is a written guide.

There's a source control version of the Eclipse with no exhalation valve. One could also just cover the exhalation valve with either something impermeable or the electrostatic filtration layer scavenged from a medical mask or respirator if needed.

Other elastomerics that are popular these days:

MSA Advantage (speech diaphragm, with source control)

3M Secure Click (speech diaphragm, great feature where it auto-seal checks for you, no source control)

Honeywell RU8500 (speech diaphragm, no source control)

FloMask (low profile, good speech audibility, source control)

EnvoMask (low profile, source control)

Yeah I think the gut dysbiosis from artificial sweeteners is something that happens on a longer timescale of continuous consumption. I second the tea suggestion - tea's got l-theanine in it naturally

The sucralose is probably bad for your gut microbiome. If you want caffeine to feel smoother, you could experiment with taking it with l-theanine, and/or with the taurine that's in that energy drink.

It's got screws so I could technically open it up, but unfortunately I have very little experience with this sort of thing and wouldn't be comfortable replacing a lithium battery without any sort of guide.

My Bluetooth speaker died today. Was faltering for a few months, but now it just won't charge anymore. Shut down last night for the final time. I've used it on a daily basis for seven or eight years. It was present for some really important memories. And now it's just trash, I guess. I know it's odd of me but I do feel sad.

I'm sorry. It sounds like your ex is saying they can't love anyone who isn't numb to being treated cruelly on a routine basis, which is pretty fucked up and pathetic for them. And it's good for you that you were so sensitive because you recognized what wasn't safe love before it became even worse, or before it wore you down to a point you thought you deserved it. I'm glad you got out.

No. Can't contribute at my current level of disability. Housebound mostly bedbound, extremely limited in the time I can spend sitting upright and socializing or doing cognitive work.

It also just isn't true that humans are the only creature that shows empathy. We've observed altruistic and empathetic behaviors in lots of animals, and I think anyone with a pet would argue they can love

I feel the same way, but I think for most of these people it's actually about the social rewards/ego strengthening effects and not the material boons. Like, imagine if the constant drumbeat of capitalist society that tells you "you're disposable, you're subhuman, you're nothing" was actually whispering the opposite in your ear. "You've won. You're better than all those wretched people. You are justified, you are sanctified, you made it, you're gonna live forever." Like that kind of external motivation and validation is not a recipe for true happiness, but I have to imagine it feels damn good to have all of society's messaging and all the people you know pretend that you are some elevated class that actually matters.

Ugh, this gets right to a massive pet peeve of mine regarding mainstream climate change coverage. This relentless fucking fixation on having hope, the absolute strident necessity that we all feel the "correct way" about what approaches us. It's toxic positivity. It's emotional policing.

All of these people are terrified of death and they have no idea what hope even is! Yelling at some teenager grieving the destruction of the biosphere, "Be more optimistic! Look at the cool tech!" - it's not just ineffective, it's the literal opposite of helpful.

Hope isn't optimism! Hope isn't believing that we will win. Hope is when you've gone fully into despair and then find yourself, somehow, still alive there. This facade of positivity they call hope will break at the first sign of stress; that's why they push it so hard, insisting we all perform optimism as well, propping up their fragile feelings for them. I just want to shout it in their faces: You can't have hope without death! You can't have peace without grieving! Fuck you, start weeping!

Possibly there is something about the beer that you're reacting to. Like, beer has gluten in it. If you have a sensitivity to gluten you get an inflammatory reaction, and a hangover is a inflammatory response too, so it might just feel like a worse hangover instead of a more obvious gastrointestinal sensitivity.