Amateur Human Diaries

As a teen herself, Reeves has ideas on what that engagement might look like. She argues the city should spend less time telling young people where they cannot go and more time creating places where they can gather safely. “I love St. Louis, but I can't say that there's really a strong place for community and being, especially with young people. … I hope that I can see in the future that St. Louis … can invest more time, effort and even money into creating [third] spaces so that our community can thrive,” Reeves said. Without dedicated spaces, teenagers are often left to their own devices, which can clash with their natural biology.

When people don't take the protective film off their new tech

Mobile data roaming has no reason to be that goddamn expensive. International calls and texts, too. Like all that stuff should be included with your plan, what the fuck

Picking the tiny-ass bones outta fish. I swear to god, it could be the best fish in the universe and I'd still rather eat at Del Taco than pick the bones out

Doing laundry on vacation. Self-explanatory

Minor surcharges at bars on concert nights. Like all I wanna do is watch the damn show, but you're charging me more because I'm not gonna be buying any drinks? What about the adults who don't drink? Sell orange juice or non-alcoholic stuff if you wanna make up for lost profits

Also I lowkey hate when the bouncer writes that huge X on your hands in Sharpie when you're a minor. I mean I get the point but still

The fact that it seems like anything I put on my skin ends up irritating it at some point. Watchband? Rash. Bracelet? Rash. I just can't win

When people blare super loud music on their motorcycle and it's not even good? Like if it's Guns N Roses or Chappell Roan, carry on, but if it's shitty Chinese dance music or a trap beat that's been bass-boosted to hell and back I don't understand you

The fact that saving an Instagram post to Pinterest just saves a really cropped version of the photo. And you know what's even weirder? It doesn't happen on my computer. Like what?

Since our flight from Toronto to Osaka was delayed, we also ended up missing our flight to Hong Kong. Luckily, the airport set us up with a hotel room for the night, so here are some things I noticed from our extremely short stay in Osaka:

People weren't lying about the heated toilet seats! I was put off at first but they're actually really comfortable. They even had a built-in bidet.

The mirror in our hotel bathroom had a section that was heated from the back so it wouldn't fog up after taking a shower! It's only enough to show your face, but it's still cool.

Osaka can definitely be a bit of a concrete jungle at times, but it's still really easy to get around. It's also, like, really clean.

There are a lot of American snacks in the convenience stores, but they all have super interesting flavors that I think are just for Japan? Like the matcha flavored Kit-Kats. Those are great. Each one had its own wrapper though, which was kinda weird.

Pocari Sweat's alright I guess. But there was this soda that was literally just called NOPE which kinda tasted like Coke but better. 10/10 would buy again (if I could actually find it anywhere in Hong Kong)

Everything has a mascot. The airports. The stores. The fucking immigration system. I'm not even kidding about that last one. Anyway, here's Sorayan, the mascot of the Kansai International Airport. I love him.

Anime and manga are EVERYWHERE. I know that sounds insanely obvious in hindsight, like obviously Japanese animation is everywhere in Japan, but even though anime is huge in the West, it's nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is in Japan.

Yes, FamilyMart actually sells socks and nude magazines.