I'm reminded of the icebreaker I was doing at work recently where they asked what decade you would want to live in, and I was in all all-women groups, and we all said the future, still! All of the past is garbage! (Of the US, at least -- one person did make a decent case for some point in ancient Egypt.)

Exactly, Dana!!

And yes, Jesse—maybe there are great eras of other cultures that I would enjoy but western culture of the past couple Millenium? Heck no. Plus I want indoor plumbing.

and antibiotics! The two things I always demand when jumping to another time. I've tent camped a lot. I can deal with inconveniences. But flush toilets and antibiotics are a must.

A friend moved to England and got married and lived in a big house (bought on sale for the taxes) with a nationally registered rose garden which she and her DH maintained themselves. She bought a horse and took up point-to-point for a while, then got intrigued with bell ringing and became competent at it and eventually signed up to be called for any of about four or five churches when they needed bellringers. And sold the horse. All very intriguing.

Except the bell towers were all affiliated with, you know, *churches*, and before you know it she was doing regular Tuesday evenings as a "Street Pastor," I.E. accosting people on the sidewalk to talk about Jesus, and at that point she and I more or less drifted apart. But, you know, bell-ringer adjacent for a while, that was pretty neat.

My office was part of the library for a while, and I’d walk by the new releases shelves twice a day, minimum. Very dangerous for my TBR pile. Plus, as university staff we can keep books through the end of the school year, even if we check them out in July. And with COVID, they suspended all due dates to keep people from coming to the library for anything minor, so I’ve had some books out for a year and a half now. If someone else asks for the book we do have to get it back within a week or pay a hefty fine, but that’s fair. They probably need it for a paper or something, and I just have it because it caught my eye.

I had a friend in high school who talked nostalgically about living in past eras. I pointed out that a) without modern antibiotics I wouldn’t have lived past four years and b) we had about 95% odds of being a peasant or slave in any of the time periods she mentioned, which did not sound great. But if I had to live in the past, Crete before the volcano turned Thera into Santorini could be interesting.

There's a section in Lois McMaster Bujold's ... Komarr, I think it is ... where Ekaterin is talking to her aunt, a history professor, who comments that young girls often romanticize the past. And she points out that they'd be doing "women's work" such as weaving until they went blind or dying from dysentery or childbirth at a young age, which she doesn't find romantic at all.

I had a friend in high school who talked nostalgically about living in past eras. I pointed out that a) without modern antibiotics I wouldn’t have lived past four years and b) we had about 95% odds of being a peasant or slave in any of the time periods she mentioned, which did not sound great.

Yeah, I wouldn't have had to worry about living as a starving peasant because even if I'd been born into royalty I would have been taken out by a kidney infection before I turned 10.

I had a friend in high school who talked nostalgically about living in past eras. I pointed out that a) without modern antibiotics I wouldn’t have lived past four years and b) we had about 95% odds of being a peasant or slave in any of the time periods she mentioned, which did not sound great.

Being born with SB, I likely would have died in the first week without spine surgery.

I had a friend in high school who talked nostalgically about living in past eras. I pointed out that a) without modern antibiotics I wouldn’t have lived past four years and b) we had about 95% odds of being a peasant or slave in any of the time periods she mentioned, which did not sound great.

I think about how both my mother and I would probably have died at my birth and don't romanticize much before the 20th century.

My grandmother had a difficult birth with my mother in 1925 and, in the past, it's quite possible that they both would have died. I'd possibly have died of measles at three ... came close, but a nurse friend of my mother's helped save me. They were worried I'd be either blind or deaf (extremely nearsighted doesn't count, does it?).

I think about how both my mother and I would probably have died at my birth and don't romanticize much before the 20th century.

Epic, same. I have to take long breaks from working on genealogy; the context for a lot of family history is invaluable, but sweet shambling Cthulhu I am grateful to live in the future.

I would read a book's worth of conversations between Professora Vorthys, Lady Alys and Cordelia.