Honestly me too.
If anyone wants to try growing the plant whose flowers are redolent of used sweatsocks, it’s Gynura bicolor, a.k.a. Okinawan spinach.
There is a commonly grown relative in the genus Gynura known as purple passion plant, with similar-appearing yellow flowers that have been described as “rather strong-smelling”.
I don’t remember gardenias, but I started a thread earlier this year about peonies, which I think smell like the devil’s ass. (But apparently I am in the minority.)
I wonder if flower smells are like the taste of cilantro; to some people it tastes like soap and makes food inedible, to others it’s delicious. And it’s supposedly tied to a gene.
Note to Alexa: When I say “Alexa, please play Guns 'n Roses on Spotify”, please do not choose tracks from Chinese Democracy, thank you.
When I asked Alexa for Guns 'n Roses, she responded “I’ve found the closest florist. Would you like me to order a dozen roses? And there’s an unofficial gun show after midnight in Englewood, here are the directions…”
I’m not familiar with either the album or the group (or Spotify, particularly), but I’m not sure that you can get Alexa to comply with such a specific request. Although it could be your phrasing. Have you tried not saying “Please?”
Wait, what? Alexa complied with the request, it just chose a shitty song, lol!
Spotify: music app. If I had to get rid of every streaming service that I paid for, excepting one, the one I would keep is Spotify.
I linked my Spotify account to my Alexa account and can request songs, podcasts, groups, etc just by asking. If you don’t specify Spotify (or whatever music app), it selects the free options from Amazon music, which is… well, what you get for free off Amazon.
Oh, and:
If you don’t know the above, you truly don’t know this band. I think it was the biggest rock song of 1988, hitting #1 on the Billboard pop charts.
I have children and often find myself watching children’s movies. But I have a secret. I actually like, unironically, some children’s movies. PIxar has made some great movies, Disney too. However, the most recent movie we’ve watched as a family was My Little Pony: A New Generation by Netflix. It really was not a bad movie. The message is pretty shallow, but still valid. The problem is that the music, while good, is also very very catchy. I have had the soundtrack of this movie stuck in my head for nearly two weeks now. I want it to end now please. Please??
(I would link to the soundtrack but I don’t want to inflict this on you.)
Sorry for my clumsy attempt at communicating. I meant the request to exclude songs from that album.
ETA: Also I tend to eschew harder rock in favor of what might be termed “yacht rock” and straight-ahead jazz.
Anti-rant: I’m watching the local Christmas parade on TV; it’s covered by two stations, 11 and 5. Channel 5 had primary coverage for years, but they lost it in 2019 to Channel 11, so now Channel 5 has to sit at the end of the route where they spend a lot of the morning interviewing the spectators. As in 2019, Channel 11 apparently hired a couple of guys to wear giant “1” costumes and stroll through Channel 5’s live shots. 
Ok, I’m here for a second. It’s November, my annual hell month, but I’m doing all right. In August, some shit went down with my mother. I was doing perfectly fine keeping her at arms length, mostly. Okay maybe it wasn’t great for me, but it was civil.
My Aunt ended their relationship two years ago with no possibility of reconciliation and my Mom can’t stand it. So she tried to drag me into it. I don’t know why she thought putting me in the middle between my abusive mother and my absolute best friend who sacrificed her own mental health so that I would survive said abusive mother is a battle she thought she would win, but… Well, she lost. Shocker, I picked my Aunt.
As I was sorting through all the shit I wanted to say, I was reading this book “Understanding the Borderline Mother” and the Witch archetype fit my mother to a T. The chapter opens with Susan Smith pushing her screaming kids into a lake to please some man, and then while she’s doing time for murdering her children, complains that nobody cares how she feels. When I read that, the floodgates opened. I felt seen. This was my mother. Living through the constant death threats and violence and always thinking this is the time she finally kills me. She sacrificed me for her lovers. Even though she did not kill me, she decided that my bodily autonomy and safety were an acceptable trade off for her relationships. There’s a whole ugly theme there.
I realized how many things I had to not clearly see or downplay in order to remain civil with this person. This is why I would eventually just unleash on her in a fit of rage - because those were my moments of insight before I retreated back into denial. It had taken a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance to buy into her ignorant victim narrative. In August, it all crashed down at once. And I realized she’s not a poor helpless victim, but a bad person who made shitty choices even when I was trying to hold her fucking hand and teach her not to be shitty. She’s had sixty goddamn years to be a better person, and chooses not to.
And then I realized I don’t love her.
And it was scary at first, waiting for her to retaliate, but since I cut off all avenues of communication, she couldn’t do anything. Sure, she’s tried to turn other family members against me, but it’s not working. Last I heard she’s threatening to sue my Aunt over something so idiotic I would almost pay to see a lawyer’s face.
So I’m knee deep in EMDR right now and it’s a fucking lot but for the first time in my life I feel like I have the whole picture. I know what I’m dealing with. I’m no longer fragmented. No more buying into her self-serving narrative of what happened, but trusting my own experience. I feel all right. I feel sane.
And I’m going to visit my Aunt with my husband and son for the entire week of Thanksgiving! So you see, I have all the family I need.
Just to say, I read your post with sympathy, having followed your story over the years. I’m glad you’re doing so well with all of this! It’s more than a mini-rant and more than a mini-epiphany.
Thank you. It felt good to write it. I’ve had this image of taking all that shit and dumping it at her feet and saying, “I’m not going to carry this for you anymore.”
I feel lighter.
Love is earned, nobody is ever obligated to love anyone. Good for you to realize this and I hope you don’t feel guilty. And I’m sorry for what you went through.
My childhood was kind of a nightmare too, I had a quite a bit of abuse (mostly from my dad, including all the physical stuff) but I don’t think my experience holds a candle to yours. I feel for you.
My mini-rant:
I can hardly wait for December 8, for the “medicare enrollment” to be over and the end of all of the annoying commercials, one after another. One company even has a commercial that is shown, then always immediately repeated! Another company has come up with the deliberately annoying spokesperson - the one wearing eyeglasses the size of windowpanes.
It’s getting to the point that I’m talking in my sleep: “Call now, give us your zipcode, we can add cash back every month…” “CALL NOW, GIVE US YOUR ZIPCODE, WE CAN ADD CASH BACK, EVERY MONTH…” "CALL NOW, GIVE US YOUR ZIPCODE, WE CAN ADD CASH BACK EVERY MONTH…"
I used to be one of the people on the other end of that phone call.
My experiences here:
Also, people don’t realize that they are being sold insurance. TV shouldn’t broadcast commercials for insurance sales ( or hypochondria drug sales ) .
My dad died in 2005, but his name is still on a single bill. This is apparently enough for many of these sketchy companies to think that he’s alive, judging from the mountains of Medicare crap that I get in his name this time of year.
I am outraged at this gross Thanksgiving conflict of interest.
“One study noted a very specific genetic link near the olfactory center of DNA in about 10% of those with cilantro aversion.”
A genetic component identified in only 10% of avowed cilantro-haters, in a study dependent on answers to an online questionnaire, isn’t likely to be definitive.
As with reactions to various scents, the keys are much more likely to be family and socially-related, as well as just personal preference.