You know, it is almost always offensive and nonsense when parents say “you can’t understand [x] because you are not a parent,” which is why we have Mommyjacking, but, seriously, if you are not a parent, you do not appreciate how pleasant your air travel experience is. Obvious disclaimers for super-tall and very large people. My flight to NYC without a small child was a paradise.
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Ken Layne (of The Awl and Gawker) has launched a brand-new website about environmental issues and activism, and I bet it’s gonna be THOUGHTFUL and GREAT.
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What are you giving up for Lent, Christians and recovering Christians who still think about Lent? I, like Dewey Cox’s younger brother, don’t need to practice all the time; I’m already perfect. My mom gives up Scotch (Sunday is not part of Lent, DISCUSS?) and my cousin gave up Facebook.
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A conversation between James Baldwin and Audre Lorde:
The boot is on both of our necks. Let’s talk about getting it off. My blood will not wash out your horror. That’s what I’m interested in getting across to adolescent Black boys.
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I know, I know, everyone links these American travel tips for French people/Russians, etc., but they’re still kind of hilarious. The Bartender says the Russian ones are spot-on.
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The disappearing art of re-reading.
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UGH, who corrects how you say croissant??
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Oh, wow.
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Oil pulling, like not shampooing your hair, is something I find terrifying and pointless (do not get Mallory started on this topic), but the proponents of oil pulling are SO INTO IT that I always enjoy reading about them!
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The last Radium Girl.
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
WHO THE HELL DOESN’T REREAD BOOKS.
(Just finished a Dune reread yesterday.)
edit: I understand not having time, but not even having the inclination? That article made me sad.
I would like to begin this comment by noting that I completely understand that the following makes me sound insane. That being said, I mostly stopped re-reading when I sat down and did the math on how many books I read a year (about 50-60) and how many more years I can expect to live and compared that to the number of new books published every year (most of which are crap, but there are still a lot I’d like to read that I just don’t get to) and realized that I had to cut re-reading out of my life.
I do re-read a couple of books a year, but I generally limit myself to new stuff, because the numbers are not in my favor.
I love that you did this. I remember sitting down and calculating how much more reading time I gain over the course of my life from reading while I brush my teeth. Ever since, I have felt that this particular combination of activities is a very valuable way to spend time!
*raises hand*
But it’s not a new thing! I’ve never been a rereader! And I don’t rewatch movies or TV series either!
but… how?
I mean, if I didn’t reread I would have more time than books. And… you’ve spent money on them, if you didn’t take them out of the library. Why not re-enjoy them?
I’ve just always been the type to move on to the next one. There have been a handful of things i’ve reread, or want to reread, but also I’m an incredibly slow reader and reading is not always the thing I choose to do with any downtime.
Non-rereaders are people too!
We <3 u Jaya
GUYS I am going to be REREADING the Fables comic series on a plane tomorrow so everyone can breathe now
😀 😀 😀
Comics are different though. I was always one to flip through picture books and atlases for hours on end.
ARE you people? Are you really?
Though, considering my confusion when people say OUT LOUD that they hate to read, my confusion over lack of re-reading makes sense.
Umm, yes, we are people?
I am pretty sure that people Exactly Like Me are the only real people, which really means that I am the Only Real Person.
The Things I Do are the right true things and The Things Others Do are wrong.
(I believe you are real people Jaya, and I like you)
Interesting! I’m also a big rewatcher of TV and movies, so I guess there’s some sort of ingrained rewatcher gene or something like that. Wonder what makes people fall on one side or the other?
it’s also slightly different for TV and Movies, especially if it’s reruns or something. If an episode of Seinfeld or the Simpsons is on TV that I’ve seen five times is on, or a mindless movie I’ve seen before, I’ll totally keep it on. But my fiance has watched Breaking Bad through like three times now and wouldn’t do that.
Ugh, I can’t imagine doing three times through Breaking Bad. I stalled several seasons into my first watch and haven’t been able to pick it back up.
I feel like this taps into (some of) the difference between (some) avid rereaders/rewatchers and (some) non-rereaders/non-rewatchers: I reread & rewatch some light fare, sure, but I’m interested in rereading and rewatching for the ways it sheds new light on the themes and plots of more complex stories.
I would cheerfully rewatch “Breaking Bad” a few times, though it’s nowhere near my favorite show and I’m not expecting to write about it anytime soon. I’ve watched every episode of “Mad Men” roughly one zillion times, which makes it so much easier to write about it, both in detail and in general. It’s just what my brain needs to absorb the information and notice the small details that add up.
(None of this explains the extra copy of Pride & Prejudice that lives next to our bathtub, ready for me to grab it when I step into a warm bath, soak and read, soak and read. That’s not about critical analysis; that’s about comfort.)
It is all about comfort. If I’m sick, or stressed, or tired, or just need to hide from the world for a bit, I grab a classic mystery or an old DVD and read/watch for the umpteenth time.
Same! There are so many things I want to read and watch, I worry that I don’t have time to reread/re-watch!
I always reread – I’m very suspicious about buying books I’m unlikely to reread. First read – get on through and get to the end and find out what happens. Second read – take my time, listen more to the language etc. After that they’re old friends – there are some books that I could practically read without looking at them, I know them so well.
I used to re-read things constantly as a kid (like finish a book and then go back to the beginning immediately) but now I don’t find I have time. There’s just so much to read in the world! I don’t want to miss out on a beautiful new thing.
This is exactly how I feel. I still re-read occasionally, but there are so so so many other things to read out there, how will I ever get to them all!
This probably reflects poorly on me, but I’m almost the opposite – I sometimes have to make myself read something new when I know there’s a re-readable book I love nearby. Of course, I have a tendency to forget the ends of books, so re-reading is often like new book, take two for me.
I’m with you — there’s so little time, why waste it on something you might not love??
Same. There will never be time enough for all the books. ALL THE BOOKS.
Yes, this exactly! I used to reread a ton as a kid but not anymore. I wish I had time to though.
same! Nowadays I only really reread something if I haven’t read it in a long time, or if it’s a childhood favorite that I want to revisit. And even if I tell myself, “I’m going to reread XYZ this year” it takes me ages to actually get around to it because I keep getting sidetracked by new books! Just not enough time to (Re)Read It All, unfortunately.
Will it make you feel better to know that I’m currently re-reading Wideacre? (I’m so stressed at the amount of human interaction I’m being forced to endure right now that I’ve had to set aside bubblebath and Wideacre time so I can at least get a tiny amount of time to shut off completely.)
That sounds like an excellent stress-reliever.
Sidebar: I’m really enjoying seeing the ads for your book here, it brings me much joy.
I reread under two circumstances. First, if I just really like a book. Second, if the material is too dense to catch everything on the first go-round (e.g., Game of Thrones).
I’m very aggravated right now because I am reading Wheel of Time, and I know I’m going to have to do a reread of the whole series eventually. All 14 goddamn books.
Your last sentence is how I feel about re-reading GoT, so I’m impressed you can do that. While I know I’d get more out of it, there’s no way I’m dedicating another 6 months to that re-read. Although I suppose it would take less time the second go-round, as I’d know when it’d be okay to skip passages. (Food. All the food, obviously.)
Yeah, I’m probably going to time my next re-read for right before the next book comes out, because how else am I supposed to remember what happened?
I had to do that right before the last book came out, and luckily I had forgotten most of what happened because I am not usually a rereader. I don’t think I can do the series a third time so the next one better come out before I forget everything again.
I want to do a GoT re-read now that I have the Lands of Ice and Fire companion book–maps! Such maps! Very information! So help! Wow.
I do a reread of GoT (and did it for WoT, too) every time a new book comes out. Then, between books, I’ll also scour the fan sites for new theories, and pick up so much more with every reread. But I’m not really looking for to the next round. GoT books are one of the few it takes me more than a day to read.
Dune is a must re-read. There’s is just entirely too much information to absorb in one pass. And by Dune, I mean the entire original series.
OK, talk to me about Dune–I’ve read the first one several times, and I’ve been instructed to read the second one and then stop because the rest of the series gets weird and the author died and his son took over and things are less than good…?
It does get a bit weird, but worth it, IMO. The original 6 books were written by Frank Herbert, and the prequels by his son, based on his dad’s notes. Only the originals are worthy of a reread.
The scope of universe FH created, and the peoples within is complex, layered and a fascinating look at politics, religion, identity, power, life purpose, civilization…the list goes on. I believe that my ability to think about things more strategically was strongly influenced by the power struggles detailed within.
http://www.dunenovels.com/novels
I’ve been told the same thing! I’ve had multiple friends tell me the first two Dune books are great and then it’s all downhill from there. One even told me I’d hate everything after book 4. :\
I’m a rereader to a fault, sometimes a back-to-back rereader. The books I love are either concentrated enough to stand up to it or dumb enough that my mind instantly dumps most of the details immediately after I’m done.
If I’d had more of an active social life when younger, or more disposable income to buy books/gumption to take advantage of the public library I might have developed different habits.
Rereading is a problem in that it keeps my literary world pretty small, and sometimes too comfortable. It’s hard to gamble on new voices sometimes.
I reread all the time! BUT for me to reread a book I have to have read it long enough ago that I’m forgetting things about it and want to refresh. I don’t like reading a book if the story is clear in my head (with two huge exceptions: Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, both of which I have practically memorized but take great joy in rereading fairly regularly).
I’m actually someone who tends to fall behind the “what’s new and popular” curve real fast because I will often have a “what do I read next?” dilemma and if I can’t sort it out fast enough, I pick up an old favorite instead.
Yessss. This is why I don’t often reread! Even if I read it five years ago, it’s like “oh yeah I remember that story” and then there’s no point.
I’ll only re-read a book if it was something that I had to read in high school, in which case I probably have no memory of the first reading anyway. Otherwise, who the hell has time? I rarely finish a book once!
The only thing I really reread is nonfiction, or classics I realllly love. I also haven’t bought a book in nearly 10 years. Public libraries 4-lyfe.
My Dad didn’t reread (to be fair, he was into mass market crime/ mystery novels and only a few of those really beg to be re-read) and I thik it drove him crazy that I read my favorites until they fell apart. I think part of his reason is that he was kind of a list guy–he just wanted to check off that book and move on to the next. However, he did keep really detaield about what he read (think hand made charts of who the killer was, the evidence, who the victim was, etc).
HANDMADE CHARTS. Love it.
I have heard of these people, and I sort of see why, but I don’t REALLY understand them. It’s just, some days I think man, I have all these new books I want to read, but I am not in the mood for them. I am in the mood for Pride and Prejudice, and nothing else will do.
One reason I love coming back to a book, is that I remember the person I was the last time I read it, and the person I was the time I read it before that, and before that, etc. I remember thinking, at 12, that Elizabeth Bennet was so old (in a cool, mature way) and just wonderful. The last time I read the book (at 22) I was, for the first time, older than her and it was kind of weird. I also found her a bit annoying at first, given that I knew she was making some massive misjudgements; this was at least the third, probably the fourth time I read the book, yet it was the first time I wasn’t in love with Lizzie. It’s an interesting and fun method of self-examination.
I do like to leave at least a year between re-reads though.
I shan’t give up anything for Lent, but I did NOT know that “do what you want on Sunday” is one of the rules. This seems counterintuitive. Aren’t you supposed to be extra pious on Sundays?
Lent is supposed to be 40 days, but from Ash Wednesday to Easter is actually 46 days, so the 6 Sundays of Lent don’t count.
Also, when St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday in Lent, there is special papal dispensation for Irish Catholics to eat corned beef and cabbage. Unless my parents made that up.
I just did some googling and there do seem to be dispensations for when St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday, though they come from local bishops rather than the pope. Your parents didn’t make it up, but I really like the idea that they did.
in my Catholic parents house, Sundays still count as part of Lent, but St. Patrick’s day doesn’t. But my parents don’t do holy days of obligation so there may be some quid pro quo going on there.
Yeah, lent never counted on St. Patrick’s day in my Irish Catholic family, which is probably why they all got shitface hammered that day and fully relished breaking all of their resolutions or whatever.
My understanding is that Sundays are feast days and Lent is all fast days and you can’t have a feast day and a fast day on the same day, so for whatever reason feast wins out.
disclaimer: I am not religious and did not actually learn this from a clergyperson, just a reasonably well informed lay person, so, correct me if I am wrong.
that is also my understanding – it’s not on to fast on a feast day because you are supposed to be celebrating. Or something? IDK.
I don’t know about the Sunday thing, but Fridays are the days to be extra pious, as Jesus died on a Friday.
/cradle Catholic with fond memories of fish-stick weekend meals
Growing up Presbyterian we weren’t super-into giving stuff up (ritutal, darkness, dirges, yes; doing stuff that Catholics do, no) but those that did kept it up for alllll 40 days. Because Calvinism doesn’t take a break when it comes to self-denial…
While the feast/fast thing makes sense, I just figured it was all Relative Piety, and since days of Lent were relatively more pious than general Sundays, then Sundays were for kicking back and being relatively less pious.
WHAT?!? How did I now know this? We used to give up TV for lent when we were kids and now I find out I could have been watching TV on Sundays??
I reread some books and others I donate to charity shops.
There are several books that have regular reread schedules. You get so much MORE from a book when you reread it! You can pay attention to the language and the literary tricks that are used, and it is so fun.
(books with a regular reread schedule include: Misery by Stephen King, Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin, Any Terry Pratchett book)
Habitual re-reading! Love it. I re-read Dandelion Wine in the summer – not every year, but a couple times now.
In college I read Lamb by Christopher Moore every Easter. Because it seemed right.
I’ve just started my nearly-annual rereading of the LOTR trilogy, and I only feel a little bad that I’m ignoring Villette to do it. It just feels so nice to crawl back into a familiar and well-loved book – like crawling into clean flannel sheets on a cold winter night.
It’s these damn millennials they just want someone ELSE to read it for them and reap the fruits of someone elses labor. #benghazi When i was a young i didn’t get handouts i had to read with my OWN TWO HANDS
Sundays – definitely not a part of Lent. Or so I’m told, and I choose to believe it. I’m baking a pie on Sunday and then I’m going to go nuts on it (I’m doing the annual giving-up-of-sweets).
Right? It’s the fast day/feast day thing: celebratory days of religious observance aren’t included in the fast. [disclaimer: all my notions of Christian protocol come from studying medieval foodways.]
So long as the scamathon that is bitcoin remains a circular firing squad of glibertarians, I generally don’t care what they do. But now the Lakota people are collateral damage and that makes me pretty angry. (I assume people saw that a prominent bitcoin entrepreneur turned up dead yesterday, along with the collapse of two major exchanges in the previous couple of weeks.)
I was definitely under the impression that Sundays aren’t part of Lent. This year I am trying to give something (meat) up for the first time (I am an atheist, so not particularly into Lent).
Not rereading books is ridiculous. I have lots that I can practically recite, because I love rereading.
Let me know (@safvn on Twitter) if you need any help finding hearty, protein-filled vegetarian recipes! I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life, largely because I don’t like meat, and in terms of getting nutrition it is way easier than other people think. (I can’t speak to how difficult it is to give up the taste of meat, unfortunately.) The only thing that is really tough is iron.
Thanks! My partner’s vegetarian, so I eat meat-free meals most of the time very happily – this is just to encourage myself to get out of the habit of going for meat-based options when eating out.
Ohh vegetarian recipes! I am not a vegetarian, but I do like to make vegetarian recipes a lot of the time (partially because sometimes I don’t feel like eating meat, sometimes orI don’t feel like cooking meat/haven’t thawed any out)
maybe it’s just because i’m mildly hungover/in a weird place personally but i might go buy some coconut oil and try this oil pulling nonsense. it probably can’t hurt?
You really can’t go wrong with a leftover jar of coconut oil if you give up on the pulling thing.
Seriously. I eat that stuff WITH A SPOON. Forget swishing it around in my mouth for twenty minutes. I doubt I’d make it ten seconds before hoovering in another scoop. Or three.
It probably won’t hurt but it sure as hell won’t actually do anything except coat the inside of your mouth with oil!
STOP. Making a hungover decision to try some outrageous fake health nonsense is always a terrible idea; it’s like decided to go on a juice cleanse after a four-day blackout. RIDICULOUS. Don’t fill your mouth with spit and warm oil. Go back to bed, drink lots of water, and take a walk when your head feels better.
that advice actually applies to like…90% of my problems. <3 u mallory.
My dad saying that it’s life changing, but he also incessantly glorifies the benefits of getting up at 5am and doing yoga for two hours every day, so. It seems pretty unpleasant to me.
my old roommate did oil pulling for like a month and it gave her terrible strep throat, twice. so…
It might hurt your soul?
I tried it. (I knoooooooow. It sounds ridiculous and stupid to me too, but I was just CURIOUS.) I made it it two minutes in before getting gaggy and spitting it out.
Even though I am a lapsed Catholic, I always find it comforting to participate in Lent. I think I just like the tradition and am nostalgic for spending Sunday afternoons with my two Catholic college pals discussing what a struggle it is to give up alcohol when attending a University with a party reputation. This year I am giving up pizza and on day two, it is already a struggle.
This may sound pathetic, but one of my hardest Lents was the year I gave up cranberry juice. It made me realize how much I drank every day. Good luck with the no-pizza!
PLEASE ALLOW ME THIS TANGENT:
Often, when we are at a restaurant, my husband will say to me, “XXXXX looks good, but I don’t want to order it because I don’t know how to pronounce the name.”
And I say to him, “So? The waiter shouldn’t judge you and they certainly shouldn’t correct you; it is literally part of their job to ensure you have a pleasant dining experience instead of shame-eating the dish with the made-up pretend-Italian name they derisively corrected the pronunciation of for you.”
I AM PAYING FOR THIS FOOD, I WILL CALL IT WHATEVER I WANT.
Also, as a former server, no matter what you call it, they’ve heard worse. Chances are if you don’t know how to pronounce it, no one else does, either!
Especially since the waiter probably doesn’t know either. Correcting people’s pronunciation is the worst.
Possibly one of the most irritating times I have tried to order food was on vacation with my parents when I asked for some bruschetta (broo-sketta), being careful to say it an anglicized way to be polite, and the waiter shoots back with a sting in his voice, sounding irritated yet having the patience of martyrs for idiots like me, “it’s BROO-SHETTA.”
I am an Italian-speaker.
The bruschetta (BROOSHETTA!) in question was pretty bad, too, as befits the ending of this story. OVer and out.
WAIT WAIT WAIT I thought that broo-sketta was correct and broo-shetta was anglicized.
I say broo-shetta because it (irrationally) bugs me when people really punch non-English nouns (cwah-sonn; mozarrrrel) HAVE I BEEN ON THE DARK SIDE ALL THIS TIME
Ah, sorry, I wrote that in an unclear way.
Broo-sketta is correct, broo-shetta is wrong. So it was bizarre and annoying to be corrected to “bru-shetta” by the waiter 1) because “bru-shetta” technically is totally wrong, but 2), how am I supposed to guess the random new pronunciation the waiter is going to invent in a new context, and why must he correct me, and especially in such a condescending fashion?
For me the rule is: if the sound exists in English, go ahead and say it; if it doesn’t, then anglicize. So, I wouldn’t use an Italian r in English, but I would go ahead and say brus-ketta. Said in an anglicized accent, but not changing any of the actual phonemes to other phonemes. I mean, do you say spajetti instead of spaghetti? Otherwise it’s just too confusing and too much to remember, especially if you’re actually switching between languages or with non-native English speakers.
Otherwise you have to learn a whole second set of words that are your own language re-pronounced in the new “receiving” language. It’s easy enough to make mistakes or get “blocked” by the wrong language without going nuts making the effort to learn the Midwestern versus English versus New England versions of Italian words — which do tend to be all different. I get tired out.
I guess I think about this a lot because I have to switch languages a lot, and there’s never any best, ideal way to do it.
This is a fantastic explanation, I like it.
I trained for a job once at an Italian restaurant and quit after 1 shift when I said “broo-sketta” and the guy training me told me I was wrong – WRONG! flat out wrong, how don’t you know this? – and that it was “broo-shetta.” byeeeee.
A friend was at a grocery store in Indiana and she pronounced tortilla as tor-tee-ya and the cashier corrected “um, it’s tor-TILL-a.” In that case, I’ll take this croy-sant as well.
Nooo, not over and out! Over means “I am finished transmitting, please respond” and out means “I am finished transmitting, no need to respond”. Over or out, never both. Love, a pedantic former radio operator.
(Where does that fall on the “correcting people is the worst” scale? Above or below correcting pronunciation? I know, I know, I am the worst regardless. *throws self away*)
oh no problem at all– for one thing, you’re right, and for another, you’re totally nice about it! 🙂
(it’s too bad the facts don’t support it, though — “over and out” sounds so nicely emphatic to my ears!)
I am so glad to learn this!
I just don’t like being wrong? I don’t care if the waiter knows what I mean, I can’t bear the thought of being one of those people who says “chi-pol-tay,” or whatever the equivalent is for what I’m eating.
I’m of the pointing at the menu camp. Or I just lampshade it and say “I’m going to butcher this pronunciation but…. [name of the thing]. The one with the [list of ingredients]?”
I vividly remember the evening that I said, “I’ll have the snails, please” and my waiter replied, in a killingly snooty combination of condescension and pity, “You mean the escargots?”
Dude, I can say it; I’ve been ordering them since I was a (weird) little kid. THEY ARE SLIPPERY SNAILS AND LET’S NOT PRETEND OTHERWISE.
One time I asked a bookstore employee where the comics were, and he said condescendingly, “the GRAPHIC NOVELS are over there.” Next time I’ll just say “where do ya keep the funnybooks?”
What is this oil pulling and why am I so intrigued??
stoppppppppppp
but Mallory, if it wasn’t for The-Toast, I would have never heard of this supposed toxin-purifying-all-healing-miracle.
It’s a made-up silly thing that you can try and then be superstitious about because people like being superstitious about things
If someone could explain what “toxins” are and how swishing oil around in your mouth will help remove them from your body…?
(I saw some people on my facebook get heated over oil pulling yesterday so I’m hesitant to open up this can of worms, but.)
that article is not convincing. too many exclamation points.
Exactly. I am suspicious.
Preach. I got irrationally irate at “I know, I know you are freaking out about the 20 minute thing, but TRUST me when I say- it flies by.” YOU DON’T KNOW ME! YOU DON’T KNOW MY PERCEPTION OF TIME!
And I’m sorry, but 20 minutes? IS a long period of time, especially in the morning. I’m a morning person and I purposefully get up super-early so I have plenty of time to dawdle in the morning and even I don’t have twenty minutes to spare, sitting on my ass gargling OIL.
(ALSO the whole, if you can’t get coconut oil or you’re allergic just use sesame oil?? DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE THAT SHIT IS?)
Also PUNGENT? I can’t imagine having a mouthful of sesame oil for 20 minutes without being completely overwhelmed by the smell/taste.
You would smell like it for the rest of your life! I cook with sesame oil on occasion, and I only use like half a teaspoon of it, but I still feel like my clothes, and hands, and hair reek of sesame oil for the rest of the day.
The whole dead-set insistence on MUST BE ORGANIC also rubbed me the wrong way. “IT MUST BE ORGANIC OR IT WILL NOT WORK” blah blah bullshit. Ugh.
A sure sign of a deranged mind… Seriously, her jaw feels better because she’s moving it, not because there’s oil involved.
My favorite part of that article is her update, “Sooo… this post has gotten quite a bit of attention, so much so my site actually crashed for a good deal of time ( #stressmeout ).”
THAT HASHTAG.
Guess we know what happened to Jessica Wakefield after Sweet Valley Confidential and The Sweet Life. That’s so great that she quit her PR job to be a professional blogger–now she can spend more time with Jake!
thank you
With a spot of ridiculous “science”:
“your mouth bacteria gets stuck in the oil & dissolves”
I don’t think that’s how bacteria work.
Yeah, I would like clarification on toxins too, but I’m too lazy to Google That Shit. People at my work are all doing cleanses right now “to rid the body of toxins” and “re-boot” and I’m like… Isn’t that what our kidneys/ liver are for?
HOORAY FOR KIDNEYS.
Cannot like enough.
RIGHT. Kiddos, there are people out there who actually have too many “toxins” in their body. Know how they get rid of them? It’s called HOOKING YOURSELF UP TO A FUCKING DIALYSIS MACHINE AND RUNNING YOUR BLOOD THROUGH IT. ALL OF YOUR BLOOD. SWISHING OIL AROUND IN YOUR MOUTH DOES JACK SQUAT.
(I try not to harp on the whole kidney transplant thing, but.)
My favorite is when people are like, “It’s good to give your kidneys a break by cleansing.” First of all, you will never convince me that drinking a metric fuckton of lemon juice and cayenne pepper isn’t, in any way, putting less strain on your kidneys than eating a salad. And if you have healthy kidneys, they are stoked about doing their job! They don’t want a break! It’s like suggesting we give our hearts a break by not breathing for five minutes a day. UGH.
I am really attached to your characterization of kidneys. Thanks, kidneys!
“No prob! We got this!” – Kidneys
I really want a pin/badge/whatever that says “Ask me about the Kidneys Cleanse!” and it’s just, you know, having functional kidneys.
I always hear “as a secret way to feel self-righteous about crash dieting,” no matter what the mouth-parts say about our old pals the toxins. I work with a lot of people who are constantly starting fitness boot camps, or bringing ziplock bags full of boiled eggs for lunch (they grimly pick out the yolks, duh) and sighing, “that smells sooooo good I wish I could eat pasta (or whatever)” when I heat up leftovers (that tend to be cheap, fairly unremarkable food, not like some crazy indulgent treat). I am deeply skeptical from cleanse and toxin talk from this crew.
“I wish I could eat that.” “Oh, is your jaw wired shut? Are you allergic to pasta? Have you forgotten how to chew? If not, then guess what – YOU CAN EAT THAT!”
I wish my job was to travel the country and be the magic fairy that reminds people they are totally allowed to fucking EAT.
I once responded to a coworker who was doing the whole self-flagellation thing over cupcakes in the office with “Oh, coworker, I’m sure you have better things to feel guilty about than a cupcake”. Not my most professional moment. She laughed awkwardly and changed the subject, so partial victory?
This is making me laugh so much! Best retort ever!
Good for you. If you’re going to eat the cupcake, fucking OWN that you ATE THE CUPCAKE. Food guilt is for losers.
I have been somewhat convinced by this post that cleanses are a modern version of medieval self-flagellation, with unspecified “toxins” filling in for sin.
Man I want to share that on Facebook but I’m scared of all the fights I would get in.
I would like to nominate “toxins” and “clean-eating” as the next words to be excised from our collective vocabulary.
I second this motion with wholehearted enthusiasm.
Thirded!
Although I would like to point out that, if your food has fallen on the ground and has dirt on it, you might want to wash it off. That’s some clean-eating I can get behind.
Eh
Hey, I did say you *might* want to wash it. Or if you’re feeling like you haven’t gotten your pound of dirt yet this year, don’t bother.
Iron enough to make a nail
Dirt enough to grow a crop
That’s how it goes right?
someone probably could have convinced me to do this by calling it “all natural teeth whitening” or “delicious snack that you dont swallow” but this? no.
Yeah, the phrase “oil pulling” weirds me the fuck out.
Whenever I hear “oil pulling” I picture a really delightful deep tissue massage with oil (which can squeeze lactic acid out of your muscles so it kinda makes sense?), and then I am so disappointed.
In the vein of this whole “let’s debunk all the things” thread, lactic acid is muscle fuel, not a waste product!
(I didn’t look for anything on lactic acid and oil, though, this is mostly just an interesting sidebar)
Oh thanks for the link – I’ll admit to being in the ignorant, “I always thought it was a waste product” camp, but I am happy to be informed otherwise.
No problem! I was in that camp until very recently, so I’m happy to spread the word.
Anything that claims to remove toxins through any other means than your kidneys is balderdash!
Amen and amen.
I had a disagreement with a relative over cod-liver-oil POULTICES that were for drawing impurities out of your liver, I think, and we have not recovered. Part of that is on me & my inability to keep looks of judgment off my face, but also if you insist on believing super dumb things why must you be so very prescriptive about it? Poultice your heart out, if you want, but the righteousness of the cleansing-crowd is really just the worst.
Oh my GOD is your relative a 19th century housewife? Are they advocating for a cod-liver-oil-poultice because they ran out of leeches, or what?
Except leeches work. For bleeding, I mean. If you want to bleed they will do the job.
Abe: Ooh! Put some Lister’s Carbolic Unguent on a wad of cotton, and stick it in her ear! That’ll stop them shakes.
Mrs. Bouvier: No, no. What she needs is a balsam specific.
Abe: Balsam specific?! While we’re burning money, why don’t we give her a curative galvanic belt, too?!
YES. That is what’s frustrating me the most. I mean, maybe the oil makes your mouth slippery and the bacteria is easier to remove then, but PULLING TOXINS OUT OF YOUR BODY?? That means nothing!! I think the word “toxins” should be removed from everyone’s vocabulary.
Of course not. No one can explain what “toxins” are or how this would work, because the answers are “bad magic bits” and “magic.”
I couldn’t get past the “your mouth is where all the body toxins live” concept. I can understand – maybe – how this might be good for your teeth, but the rest of it? A mouthful of coconut oil cures hangovers? Perhaps I’m just too full of toxins to get it but when I’m hung over that is literally the last thing I’d want to do.
C#&*#$^NT, the other c-word.
(croissant, that is)
I stopped giving things up for Lent a few years ago. I got tired of giving up the usual sweets/soda/whatever; it felt more like going on a diet than doing a religious thing. Now I try to add something reflective to my life during Lent– in the past I’ve read & ruminated on a poem every day, run at least a mile a day (outside!), or journaled. This year I’m trying to meditate 10 minutes (or more) a day. I guess what I’m giving up is a bit of time sitting on the couch, clicking around on the Internet.
I did meditation last year! It was really pleasant, actually.
Yes! I was taught that during Lent, you should give up something (reminiscent of god sacrificing his son) and add something (usually prayer or reading the bible daily). This year I’m not giving up anything because that is HORSESHIT, and I’m going to do at least 20 minutes of yoga a day.
That re-reading piece is interesting because of the way the author links the impulse to re-read to a child’s blurrier boundaries between fiction and reality. I feel like as I’ve gotten older I’ve had the reverse: I’m taking fiction much more seriously now, particularly the traumatic or upsetting bits – it’s not that I think that they are real, but I’m more viscerally aware of the possibility that they could be real, or of how bad it would be if they were. Which actually leads me to re-read (and especially re-watch) things more because I know what’s coming.
I’m not particularly happy with this development; I wish I could regain some of that distancing that allowed me to read things without becoming quite so emo about them.
Hi I would actually REALLY LIKE to get Mallory started on the no-shampoo thing please.
it
is
the stupidest thing
in the whole wide W O R L D
‘oh putting chemicals on your hair is bad for no reason, put these two different crappier chemicals on your head instead’ BAKING SODA IS A DANG CHEMICAL VINEGAR IS A DAMN CHEMICAL YOU ARE CHEMICALLY BLEACHING YOUR HAIR WITH ACETIC AND CARBONIC ACID OUR GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHERS DIED ON A FREAKING PLAIN AFTER SPENDING THE MAJORITY OF THEIR LIVES WASHING CLOTH DIAPERS AND MENSTRUAL RAGS OUT WITH *LYE* AND GIVING BIRTH ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR AND THEY DID NOT DO IT SO WE COULD GIVE UP SHAMPOO AND PLAY AT PIONEER LIVING
Can we get you started on oil pulling?
Yup! Glad I asked.
Yeah this is pretty much everything I was hoping for.
Mallory, you remain the Greatest.
YES. YES TO EVERYTHING.
I’d like to put this on a business card and hand them out to everyone who spouts off about the poo-free life.
yes, ha!
I was seriously considering it until I saw the before & after pictures posted by that lady on the Hairpin who had been no-pooing for 3 years, and had bleached her hair with all the vinegar from a pretty brown honey color to this straw-like colorless blonde shade that no longer matched her skin tone. But *she* still loved how her hair had changed, so it worked for her, I guess!
YES. I saw that and think about it often. I am glad she’s happy with her new hair but if that’s what would happen with my brown (already very fine and not super thick) hair, I think I’ll stick with the shampoo that my great-great-great-grandmother hoped I would have (see above).
I sometimes imagine our great-great-great grandmothers, looking down on us from the Next World and wondering why the hell some of us aren’t appreciative of the benefits of 21st-century life. You know, shampoo, tampons, vaccinations…
VACCINATIONS
also TAMPONS
also IBUPROFEN
These are a few of my favourite things.
Seriously, every month I think my lucky stars that I live in a time and place where I have access to naproxyn. Modern pharmacy is AMAZING.
I think about that picture every time someone brings up no-poo, and it makes me sad. To me her “before” hair looked much healthier and stronger than her “after” hair, which looked to me to be really brittle. I’m glad she was happy with it, but the whole vinegar and baking soda process seems to me to be a two-step process in which both steps are way too harsh for your hair.
I don’t know why people eschew modern advances in this kind of thing as if the whole process of trial and error hasn’t led to these options over time. If vinegar and baking soda had been the best way to do hair, we’d all be doing it today.
Someone mentioned that bleaching in the comments on that follow-up piece, and her comeback (or, if it wasn’t her, it was someone else on Team Vinegar Hair) was that it only LOOKED lighter because it was just so much cleaner. Because her natural hair color wasn’t actually a rich brown that was just the residue of years of accumulated product/shampoo deposits and what we were seeing in the after photo was what her hair was supposed to look like. :-/
Bless you.
AMEN AND HALLE-FREAKING-LEULAH
Wait, so, like, no-shampoo means washing with shampoo you made yourself out of baking soda and vinegar solutions? That’s not no-shampoo. That’s putting harsh household cleansers on your head. (Made of chemicals.)
Someone should inform these people that their hair is made of chemicals. Ones that they would find difficult to pronounce. (DON’T EAT YOUR HAIR.)
I feel that looking like shit for six weeks was my hair’s way of telling me that if my Lutheren German ancestors sprung for shampoo, maybe I should too. My husbands long hair has never looked better though.
preach
Seconding! I’m also curious to hear her thoughts on quitting shampoo while eating hummus.
I tried it a few years ago and it was disgusting and bullshit and whenever I bring this up people tell me I obviously wasn’t doing it right. UGGHH SOMEONE VALIDATE MY EXPERIENCES
Ugh, I can’t think of anything worse. But then, my hair goes in the sea and chlorine and gets sweaty. So I’m really totally a fan of shampoo. It smells good. Kelp in my hair does not smell good. Neither does vinegar. So.
Let me validate your experiences. I valiantly tried this (that is, the not-washing-at-all, not baking soda and vinegar) after the Hairpin wrote about it because I am lazy, and not having to wash my hair would be great, when I’m in the field (not so much because I care about “chemicals,” as some over-generalized bogeyman.
And I tried it TWICE, by the way (I cannot tell you why) — each time, for over a month.
No. Just, no.
I ruined several hairbrushes with disgusting hair grease, and my scalp got really weird and itchy, and the itching didn’t really stop until a month or so of nice, chemical-filled shampooing. So, fuck that.
God my head was so itchy and greasy. I’m getting itchy just thinking about it. Now I use that intense medicated anti-itch shampoo that you’re supposed to leave in until your scalp gets all tingly, which I guess is the opposite of “not putting chemicals in your hair,” and I LOVE it.
Ah ok because I was trying to explain away my depression induced laziness by pretending to be a hippy I did the no shampoo (water only, washing once a week) thing for like 6 months and OMG WAS IT DISGUSTING. I also developed a horrible scalp reaction to it and was so itchy and sad and then I went to visit my parents and my mom told me that my head smelled like a wet animal and she gave me some shampoo.
So then I went back to normal for a bit until I discovered weird online forums about sulfate free shampoos (never mind that lots of the sulfate free surfactants are pretty alkaline, like cocamidolpropyl betaine and castile soap) and tried basically every brand of “natural” shampoo you can find in any grocery store/health coop/whole foods/wherever. Like it’s very very rare that I see a type that I haven’t tried. So I did that for 4 years and my hair looked gross and I would get weird scalp reactions and buildup and just ugh it was so bad. And earlier this year I bought a bottle of herbal essences and a little klorane dry shampoo for days when I oversleep now my hair looks fantastic and healthy.
Not that there weren’t benefits to my hippie palooza, I learned that grapeseed oil is a good deep conditioner (and if you overdo it silicone free conditioner will take the oil out), but ultimately a lot of it was just gross and itchy. Also, now whenever anyone tells me I just haven’t tried it long enough and I’m still detoxing I can laugh, because almost 5 years is plenty long enough.
Once I tweeted that I was curious about the vinegar/baking soda hair wash and Mallory came at me on GChat and shut that right down.
I am currently a North American in Europe and those travel tips were sort of helpful, in reverse. I have been altogether too polite in line-ups and time and time again have been very casually budged. No more! I shall be the budger!
My sister and I went travelling in Europe last year, and I swear the biggest culture shock was the lineups. Canadians have made line-ups into an art form and it was SO HARD adjusting to pushy Germans! I remember standing in line at the airport on the way back to Canada and watching a guy do the nonverbal “I disapprove of the direction in which you are leading this line and would suggest that you lead itthat way” body language and was so happy.
the mazacoin thing seems awesome and brilliant.
It’s actually really terrible. It will be more inefficient, it will cost them needless money to set it up (for which scamming contractors will gladly gobble up millions of dollars), and it makes them vulnerable to scams, pyramid schemes, and cyber attacks that wipe out the value of the currency.
I thought no-poo sounded batshit until I tried it and then it changed my life, so now I guess I have no try oil pulling too.
I’m going to be 100% strict about veganism during Lent. I have been slipping way too often with butter and yogurt at home, turning a blind eye to eggs in desserts, and succumbing to bacon in diners (not as dirty as it sounds). I’m going to cut all that out for 40 days. Lent is 100% vegan in Greece, and if it’s good enough for the Greeks then it’s good enough for me.
whyyyy does it have to be called no-poo though. It has nothing to do with feces!! I really want to find out who comes up with names for these things (oil pulling? pulling what?) and figure out what their thought proess is.
Not that I ever call it no-poo* (except up above, sorry) or talk about it ever unless someone asks me how my hair got so soft and shiny.
*If for no other reason than because I don’t eschew shampoo entirely, I’ve just gone to using it no more than once a week. If I spent time with people who talk about it, I’d call what I do co(nditioner)-washing, but I don’t so I don’t.
This is pretty much what I do and (maybe I’m a little biased here because of that) I think it’s reasonable and not really what people are talking about when they crow about the miracles of No Poo. I gather that you’re not to be using shampoo OR conditioner at all – just rinse your hair well with water and do the vinegar thing occasionally and that’s it. No conditioning, no product, nothing. Coincidentally, most of the fans I’ve seen have naturally “easy going” hair that doesn’t need much TLC to begin with.
I also do conditioner washing as well and I love it. Not for any chemical reasons, but because it was a recommended as a way to make my curls less crazy which it did and so i stuck with it. I essentially follow the curly girl method which is basically: no hair products with silicones and either washing with conditioner or a sulfate free shampoo. I mostly do just conditioner washing, and occasionally use a sulfate free shampoo if my hairs feels like it needs it or if i have been swimming or whatever.
When I told my mom I was doing this she gave me a somewhat horrified look. Then she grabbed my head and smelled my hair and wa slike “okay your smells/feels fine” I guess it’s fine.
Yeah, but conditioner contains cleansers. it’s basically a kind of shampoo. Otherwise using it immediately after shampooing would be dumb, right?
Mostly shampooing (with Official Shampoo, or conditioner, or household cleansers, or whatever you want) is about cleaning your scalp. It’s nice when it keeps your hair healthy and manageable, though. Bonus.
Re: the Radium Girls:
I want to link to this every time some fedora goes on about how men are always given the most dangerous jobs.
Are non-rereaders also non-leftover-eaters? That’s another one that doesn’t make sense to me.
I will eat all of your leftovers and read all of your books once.
I am an avid re-reader but I hate eating leftovers. I mean, I WILL eat them because I don’t want to waste food, but I’d be super super happy if I never had to ever again.
(Exceptions: Thanksgiving and hangovers. But all exceptions are for one meal only – a thanksgiving sandwich on Friday is great, but that’s it – I don’t wanna eat our leftovers for a week becuase my stepmother thinks we’re a family of 12 when she cooks.)
Some foods definitely don’t work well as leftovers, but many are improved by letting the flavors meld. You just have to find stuff that you like, and work with that. Chili is an excellent example.
But! What if you grew up in a house with 7 people and a tiny fridge and your mom used old butter tubs as tupperware and you never knew if you were opening the Parkay or finding 5 week old taco meat with green fuzz on it and how long has this ketchup been here and did you know ketchup could mold? My fridge is condiments with the date I opened them sharpied on the bottom and a sparse collection of food I plan on cooking tonight or tomorrow. Leftovers make me queasy (except for Thanksgiving, but even then I toss what I can’t give away after 2 days).
Acceptable because of leftovers PTSD.
leftovers PTSD is the best possible way to put it. Bless you.
I never figured this out before, but your experiences totally just summed me up. I am all about leftovers, but I do completely understand your point. I swear there are times when I find a tupperware and if I can’t figure out what it’s going to be before opening it, I’ll just throw the whole thing out because I’m too scared to find out.
Also loving the sharpie date idea… I’m gonna try that. Also finally gonna add freezer tape to my shopping list so I can label the dates on stuff in the freezer too. Thanks for this!
At least my leftovers PTSD made me a very good and strict certified food safety manager for years 🙂
My philosophy toward most cooking is, “Why make one or two servings when I can make 8?” and then just eat the rest of the leftovers all week. Making 8 (or however many) servings doesn’t usually take more time, and it saves a lot of time later.
Also I’m lazy and don’t like cooking much.
I tend to cook like this as well, but enjoy doing so. It’s just more efficient, cost-effective, decision-fatigue-reducing, and leaves me more time for books.
Sometimes I like cooking, but even then I cook this way. I think it probably comes of being from a big family (4 kids), and my mom ALWAYS cooked for an army every meal so there would be leftovers.
I am fine with this if the remaining 6 portions are individually frozen.
Because I have leftovers PTSD.
I read about Radium Girls in The Poisoner’s Handbook (FANTASTIC BOOK about poisons and the development of forensics during the Jazz Age/Prohibition, if that doesn’t make you want to read it I don’t know what to tell you) and that chapter made me the saddest. All these young women had so much fun painting their teeth a glowing green, and it was killing them. 🙁
Radiation scares me more than most anything else in the world, and although I knew about the radium girls before reading Poisoner’s Handbook, every new time reading about it is a brand new horror. |=(
I should really read this
Just got sucked into the vortex that is STFU, Parents. Thank you.
I once had is really long horrible argument with an acquaintance which was all her stubbornly insisting that I was being horrible to other people on planes by taking my kid places with me. I told her the person who suffered the most was me, and she should put her headphones in and just appreciate being able to read a damn magazine, and then we went from being people who might have become friends to sworn enemies. Anyway since then I have flown with my kidlet maybe fourteen times and ruined the lives of countless of innocent child free travellers and I don’t even care. And last time I flew I even watched a movie while the child napped, so that was good.
(I think there is some truth to the idea that you can’t fully understand the experience of being a parent if you aren’t one, but I think that’s also true of big wave surfing and cave diving and heroin addiction and living through a horrible trauma and being adopted and having a cat/dog/lizard and basically I think that even though most of us imagine we are super empathetic and can really put ourselves in the shoes of others, it’s not that simple, and can we ever really know other people and blah blah something something.)
I always try and be extra nice to parents traveling with kiddos. Not only do they have to deal with their kid (babies don’t understand ear popping, etc) and all the related accessories, they have to deal with worrying that they are ruining the lives of everyone else on the plane. (I also don’t recall my non-kid-having life ever being ruined by the presence of a kid on a plane. People need to calm down and have a little empathy.)
I think I learned this from my dad, who really likes sitting near kids on planes because he gets to amuse them by making funny faces at them for most of the flight.
I’m the same as your dad, making funny faces at kids is a lot of fun, especially when they rise to the challenge and start trying to top yours.
Yes! If I am sitting near your baby or small child on any kind of transportation, I will be screwing my face into weird shapes in under five seconds. Guaranteed.
I also try to make friendly “hey, kids can be tough! don’t worry about it!” faces at people with crying babies and children, but then I worry that I am giving them more to worry about by interacting and should just leave them alone to deal with their child.
PARENTS — would you rather be smiled at in a hopefully-not-obnoxious, I-swear-I’m-not-judging-or-condescending way, or left alone?
(Seriously, though, if a stranger on public transportation HANDED me their crying baby I would happily bounce it and pat it and make silly faces. The baby-haters are very vocal, but I think the majority of people do understand and are not jerks.)
A lady left me with her baby on the train for 5 hours once. “Are you gonna git off at Klamath Falls to have a smoke? No? Would you mind holding her for a minute?”
Did not see that lady again until Portland. By that time I had already renamed that kid and was calling my sister to see if I could borrow her Pack N’ Play.
That sentence is basically my understanding of Klamath Falls in twelve words.
I’m that stranger on planes going, “Can I hold your baby? Can I feed crackers to your baby to help your baby’s ears pop? Can I surreptitiously smell your baby’s hair?” because it’s all about that baby hair smell. I don’t want my own children for various reasons, but I will play with a baby on a plane while my significant other looks on in horror.
Explain this cracker trick, I want to be able to do magic on planes with babies.
Kids can’t pop their own ears until they’re seven or something, so if a little kid has uncomfortable pressure in their ears while flying you just get them to eat or drink something, and the swallowing action relieves the pressure. Doesn’t have to be crackers.
I love this and will deploy it with gusto whenever the opportunity presents itself.
As Anti_kate said below, it’s the same principle as when adults yawn really big or chew gum to make their ears pop. Kids panic when their ears hurt because they don’t know what’s happening, but if you give them something to chew on and get their jaw moving before/while the plane takes off, it relieves the pressure gradually. I was taught this by a whip-smart mom on a plane.
I was once on a trip home from Montreal to Chicago. It was a direct flight, which should have been about three hours, but it turned into a seventeen-hour nightmare. There was a mother in front of me with two young girls, maybe 3 & 6. The flight was delayed, then delayed again. We got on the plane, we pulled back from the gate, sat on the tarmac awaiting a slot for takeoff for maybe an hour. In the meantime, the pilots’ window of availability expired, so we had to go back to the gate and get a new crew. When we finally got in the air, we were ~2/3 of the way to Chicago when we had to turn around suddenly and do an emergency landing in Toronto. We had already cleared customs, so were sort of actually in the US, so we had to stay on the plane while they tried to fix it. They eventually decided the plane was unfixable and they escorted us with security to the airport terminal, then through it to another plane.
Those girls were ANGELS throughout and I made a point of remarking to the mother how great they were. They didn’t fight, didn’t cry, didn’t whine, just played and talked quietly with each other. After a sufficiently long and painful time together, bad travel experiences have a way of bonding fellow passengers. You make deadpan jokes with each other, roll eyes at the unending announcements, sigh in unison. As we walked to the next plane, we passed a bar and the mother, exhausted, turned to the girls and said wistfully, “Girls, mommy could really use a beer.” We were in a hurry, so she kept going, but I ran into the bar and asked the bartender if he could put two pints of beer into to-go cups (I don’t think they’re allowed to do this, but I was very nice and he put them in coffee cups). He obliged, I walked up and offered one to her, we clunked cardboard, and I walked away.
We’re flying with our toddler on Saturday to Edmonton and I’m hoping he won’t ruin too many people’s lives along the way.
You, fine person, are a hero.
You’re not allowed to travel until that kid turns 18.
This drives me crazy. Your life shouldn’t be over because you have a kid. Sometimes I get mildly irritated by people making noise, but that’s a thing that happens when you’re around other humans, you know?
Wait, did I just mummyjack the comments? Oh god we mothers _are_ the worst.
Mommyjacking sounds so desperate! I mean, I understand the desperation: being a parent really does suck compared to how life was before kids. That doesn’t excuse tagging every post with “but babies!!!” though.
I guess it’s harder for some people to fall of the face of the cultural map? There is nothing less cool than being a stay at home parent (there is a reason we have the term “mom jeans”), and that can be quite an adjustment if you used to think you were maybe a little interesting to talk to. It might even be severe enough to make people desperate to validate themselves by trying to trump every conversation with their baby raising skills, I guess. People need to stop that!
I don’t think the answer to the problem is STFU Parents, though. That site is a shitshow of spite with just a hint of misogyny. It will poison your mind. Get off of there and go follow someone worthwhile today!
I get the sense it is all insecurity and a dash of narcissism. Those people were probably one-uppers before they had kids, and now kids give them a trump card.
I mean, no doubt it’s hard being a stay-at-home parent, but there’s this weird cultural agreement right now that having kids is unending misery, and I swear it’s driven by like the 5% loudest, whiniest people on the Internet. I agree, checking out of both online parenting content and the backlash to online parenting is the best way to mental health.
Oh, mommyjacking. People mommyjack you, even when you’re just trying to mingle with the civilian population and shoot the shit in the usual way. My offspring is currently a fetus, and people, especially on Facebook, still bring it into unrelated conversations in a weird way.
I get $20 in quarters from the bank every week for laundry, and the teller had the nerve to say to me “You must have children you’re in here so often for laundry quarterS! Hahahahah I do laundry all the time too!” NO I JUST EXERCISE AND SWEAT A LOT AND MY DOG IS SMELLY AND I HAVE TO WASH EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE ONCE A WEEK. THANKS.
Honestly, I have a hard time with people who aren’t practicing Catholics giving up something for Lent. I completely get what one commenter says above, it’s a good time to start a new habit because there’s so many other people doing the same, it’s a huge support system. But especially with facebook et al, there’s this whole underlying current of “Look how *~*~*pious*~*~* I am” – but no one’s getting ashes, you know?
Everyone has their own reasons for giving up something for Lent, and I try not to judge, but it’s hard for me not to give some side eye. I grew up super Catholic and I miss a lot of the rituals, and the gravitas given to the Lenten season, but I don’t believe anymore – so I don’t participate in those rituals/traditions.
I gave up meat for Lent about- holy shit, was it nine years ago? That was my last act as a practicing Catholic, but I’ve been a vegetarian ever since. People ask me why I stopped eating meat all the time and it’s really awkward to tell them, since I’m now an outspoken atheist.
Episcopalians practice Lent full stop, though! Ashes and all.
AHH I’m sorry! I knew when I was writing it I maybe shouldn’t limit myself to Catholics because I had a sneaking suspicion other denominations did too…but of course I did anyway. Pretend I’ve edited my comment!
High-churchy-United-Methodists too!
To your actual point, though, I agree — I’m not a practicing Christian, but I feel very very squicky about participating in other people’s religious practices for non-religious reasons.
(I wrote a much longer response trying to think through all the nuances of that feeling and position, and possible counter-arguments and counter-examples…but I think I’ll just stick with this for now. I agree with you, is the point.)
Lutherans too!
Greek Orthodox too! SUCK IT CATHOLICS
That’s sort of the Lutheran motto. We end every church service with it. “Go in peace, serve the Lord and suck it, Catholics”
Now I’m tempted to tell this to my priest so we can end services this way too.
We need a big Catholic vs. Greek Orthodox fight or sporting event every year.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the vaguely liturgical, liberal Baptist church my husband and I compromised with does it too! Baptists!
Oh, cool! I grew up in the Bible Belt with Southern Baptists who were pretty disdainful of Lent. Which is weird, because their theology seems to just be a list of all the things you can’t do, so you’d think they’d be all over it.
Girl, I am one hour away from Jerry Falwell’s Empire (Lynchburg, VA). I never would have believed I’d be in a Baptist church, because Southern Baptists were all I knew, and I thought they were all like that. Apparently not! This one is part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and is shockingly socially progressive. I grew up Methodist and Catholic, and was a little bewildered when I first moved here and heard all the paranoia against Catholicism–you’d think it was voodoo or something.
Ha, I currently live about 30 minutes from the Southern Baptist Theological seminary, so I feel you.
Giving things up is my favorite thing in the WORLD, which is probably the main thing I took away from my Catholic upbringing, but I also get that vague prickly feeling when people give things up for Lent specifically, when they’re not religious.
Also at my train stop yesterday there was a priest who was providing a sort of one-stop ash-daub to commuters. “Get your ash over here!” was a real thing that was said. He had vestments and alter men (not boys) and everything but I’m still not sure it was real. What kind of ashes are those, sir.
The biggest thing I took away from my Catholic upbringing was probably the overwhelming sense of always doing something wrong/always could be better. I felt like you rarely got effort for trying to be a better human.
But anyway, that priest – smart guy.
You know, I was raised Catholic but don’t ever remember believing – I quit when I was 17, which was the earliest my mom would let me. In spite of that, I still carry all that same feeling of guilt or inadequacy, which confuses me. How did it get past my snotty smart-kid cynicism?
There were priests at both the train stop i got on the train and at the stop I got off the train! I found it comforting somehow. I think maybe because it reminded me of my days of going to school and getting ashes and whatnot and then made me mildly nostalgic.
I’m an atheist who grew up irreligious, and I usually do something for Lent. I find it a good time that’s been set aside in our collective conscious’ calendar to practice self-discipline and self-improvement, which are very important to me. I’ve really enjoyed the experiences and learned interesting things about my habits and practices. True, I’m not dedicating my action to a higher power, but it’s something that’s still meaningful to me.
I’m not offended by your virtual side eye or anything, just explaining what it means to me as a non-and-never-been Catholic. 🙂
Catholic-Jacking
(Why do I feel the need to explain that my family is Catholic? Oh….)
As Mallory said, we Episcopalians (and other denominations) do full-on Lent. But I know what you mean about people giving stuff up and making a big deal about it – especially since the Gospel verse for Lent is all about not making any kind of deal about it!
I had a friend in college who was very Catholic and gave up chocolate for Lent. Because we were in Switzerland, home to some of the best chocolate in the world, this was a big deal. But she talked about it incessantly and made the rest of us feel bad for not giving it up…which seems counter to the whole point.
Mommyjacking is so obnoxious. It’s mildly irritating online, but it’s straight-up unsettling in person. At my high school reunion, I was the only childless one in the group of people I had grown up with, but everyone (except The Mommyjacker) seemed excited to be in the company of adults to talk about adult things. The Mommyjacker would NOT let the conversation stray from children for more than three seconds… someone would bring up a TV show, and she’d make it about how she can’t watch it because of her children. The conversation switched to sports, and it became about what sports she wanted her kids to play. At one point I excused myself to get a beer and she said, “You should enjoy that now because once you have kids, you won’t want to be a bad influence!” Basically my entire memory of that night now is her, going on and on about her kids (at one point she even described her second kid’s birth, it was just way too much).
I’m assuming that because you didn’t talk about setting her on fire, you did not, in fact, set her on fire? Admirable restraint.
I considered it, but refrained. Somehow.
Those traveling tips that describe Americans as super friendly are written by someone who has clearly not spent a lot of time in New England or NYC.
I legitimately love how standoffish everyone in New England is. I’ve carefully cultivated my “don’t you dare even THINK about talking to me, person I don’t know” face over the years, but I’ve got nothing on the people up here, bless them.
A random guy struck up a conversation with a girl standing near me on the metro platform and proceeded to have a loud conversation with her until her destination (which was also my destination). Topics of conversation included: a story about him buying a truck from a local university, why taking the metro is better/cheaper/easier than driving a car, and her Chuck Taylor sneakers. The whole time I had a mixed feeling of “that poor girl” and “thank god that’s not me.”
ETA: This occurred in DC, which, on balance, is still pretty standoffish (at least the people on transit are) but has enough Southerners to be friendlier than New England.
AUGH I will not ride the metro without headphones because there are always some overeager tourists who either want to talk to you or talk very loudly about their destination and that they’re switching trains in five stops. Also, dudes on the metro platform: NO, I never want to talk to you, just let me read my book.
— a standoffish DC native
Not if you’re travelling to New England or NYC from some place where people are even less friendly. The first time I travelled there from the city that I live in, I was taken aback by how friendly people were to me, and was surprised to hear that New England/NYC had a reputation for being an unfriendly place.
Yeah, that’s fair. I guess the thing with New England/NYC is that while the people there don’t seek out conversations with strangers (not like the US South!) or suffer fools gladly, they are generally very polite and helpful if someone asks for assistance. So it’s a difference between being sort of reserved and actively rude/mean/impolite.
Man, I hate this idea that NYers aren’t friendly. Where does it come from?
Like I said to @Angry Panda, i think it’s not so much unfriendliness as sort of a reserve. Being firmly of New England stock, I am always thrown off when someone strikes up a conversation with me, say, on the metro or something, for absolutely no reason, just to chat. That’s a level of friendliness that astounds me.
My earlier comment is in comment purgatory because I was too lazy to sign in, but yes, I love this about New England! I think I said “standoffish” above, but “reserved” is a much better description. No one is hostile but no one tries to chat with you for no reason either, which I really appreciate.
Ah, ok, I get what you mean! Yes, that friendliness also baffles me when I go out West.
Seriously, we’re good people. We’re just busy and not nosy!
“What are you doing? Why are you just standing around chatting with me? Don’t you have someplace to be?”
Exactly! Or they are sitting next to you on a bus or train and they want to tell you about the Last Time They Visited Boston. Ma’am, PLEASE, I am trying to read my book!
This is me, all the time, while my family happily encourages strangers to keep chatting ad infinitum about nonsense because that’s what southerners are supposed to do. Apparently I didn’t get the politeness memo of my culture.
Weirdly, since moving to America I’ve found NYC to be one of the friendliest cities I’ve lived in (if not the friendliest)! I’ve only lived here for 2 years though so maybe it just takes time. I think Newark, DE was least friendly for me (although I’ve developed a weird fondness/appreciation for it now) and most places I’ve visited are in the middle.
Ok I just read your comments above and I think it’s definitely a cultural thing relating to how reserved someone is. I’m pretty extroverted but I definitely find people approaching me out of nowhere to chat to be alarming and rude. I haven’t lived anywhere like that but I’ve encountered that atmosphere occasionally and it is definitely…not for me.
Whereas in NYC, where I live now, no one approaches me (thank god) but tons of random strangers have gone out of their way to help me for no reason. Just recently I was carrying a bunch of heavy boxes and trying to go through a subway turnstile at the same time and a total stranger, came over, offered to help me with them (without me asking!) and then swiped me in using their card so I wouldn’t have to dig in my pocket for mine. And I didn’t even know her!
The best conversation I overheard on the T was between a man and a woman, both tourists, who were loudly complaining about how unfriendly Bostonians are. Not being one to counter such an astute observation, I just glared at them stonily until I had to get off the train.
This just reminded me of a David Sedaris story in which he and his American boyfriend are on the metro in Paris and are taken for rude, dirty French pickpockets. It was a good one (if you like David Sedaris).
My wife and I are having a kid in June and probably flying the baby to meet the grandparents in Japan in November and I am dreading that flight with every fiber of my being.
I was on a flight to Japan with a baby once and it did not make a peep the entire time, so it’s not impossible that it won’t go smoothly!
Me, spouse, 3 month old, flying to meet spouse’s mum in Ireland. Christmas season.
Layover in JFK; runways iced over.
All the returning Irish spending the delay in the airport bar, contributing to the stereotype.
Not enough diapers in the diaper bag; not enough changes of clothes. (Thank goodness I was nursing; I’m sure I’d have underpacked on bottles & formula, too.)
12 hour trip ended up taking 26. We got there with no luggage other than the dirty baby clothes in the diaper bag – no car seat, no changes of clothes for us, just the snuggli thing & a couple of blankets & a passel of drunk co-flyers who kept everyone but the blessed baby awake during the flight.
We were grumpy. Very grumpy.
Anyway: pack a refillable water bottle, hand sanitizer, empty plastic bags, more diapers & wipes & changes of clothes than you think you need in your carry-on, beg for a bulkhead w bassinet thingy, nap as much as possible, and remember: it can’t possibly last forever.
Congrats on the baby!
That right there is my nightmare. Thanks for the tips! That is good to know.
Don’t be afraid – six month olds are generally pretty good to travel with! They’re usually a lot mellower than newborns but they haven’t entered the crawling-toddling-running away stage yet. They’re extremely portable and usually quite happy, they don’t freak out at new people, and they still sleep quite a lot. Provided you are prepared you should be fine.
My tips (as someone who has flown extensively with a baby):
Ergo or baby carrier in the airport, so much easier than a stroller.
Book the bulkhead with a bassinet as far in advance as you can and confirm you have those seats at least once.
Pack a lot of diapers and changes of clothes.
Depends on whether the baby is formula or breastfed, but if it is the latter check out the airline policy on how much you can bring with you.
Most airlines let you bring three baby items for free as checked-in luggage – cot, pram, carseat. Up to you but we always take our own carseat when we travel so we can pop it in taxis etc.
Personally I don’t think all night flights are that great with small children but YMMV. I always line up flights for early in the day, where possible, when my kidlet is in a good mood and well-rested.
Otherwise, don’t freak out, it will be fine.
Thanks so much! This is very helpful (and encouraging!)
Once my friends went to a French bakery in New Hope, PA, and asked for a muffin. “We do not have any muffins,” the native Pennsylvanian baker said. “We only have krwa-sans.”
Shut up. You don’t sound sophisticated. You sound like an asshole.
I worked at a cafe/sandwich shop in college (it was not fancy or French in the slightest), and someone once ordered a kraw-san from me and my eyes nearly rolled out of my head.
I have no use for bakeries without muffins.
They are not even close to the same thing.
Dude, New Hope has been steadily getting worse and worse. It’s like it’s not even worth it to go there and shop at all the Renaissance Faire costume/dagger supply stores anymore!
Totally worth it for Gerenser’s exotic/erotic ice cream, though. And the weird birdcage/Victorian jewelry store.
Who are you people-are you locals? I grew up 10 minutes from New Hope! Totally worth it for the vegan food at Sprig and Vine.
I grew up near Trenton, so we used to drive down there when we were in high school for a change of scenery. Some of my friends nowadays live Yardley or work in New Hope, so we did sometimes go there to drink! I took some of my friends (I live in NYC now) down there last summer for a girls’ day trip.
And my only brush with fame was sitting near Dean Ween outside at John and Peter’s one afternoon.
I reread SO MANY of my books. I have comfort books just like I have comfort food.
Yes! Re-reading a well-loved book is such a pleasure!
Been mommy-jacked many times; those people need to STFU. They also do this with cancer, and other diseases. Bunch of smug Debbie Downers.These people need to Shut UP.
I reread books all the time, but firmly believe that the re-readers and the Only Oncers are two separate breeds. Like in the Butter Battle Book – they will never agree. Re-reading is like visiting old friends I tell my husband, who is a read only once guy. He does not get it.
I once saw some people cancer-jack(?) a discussion about an event where the participants were reading stories/essays/poems about their own deaths. The people commenting may or may not have had cancer/other diseases, but they were basically like “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DEATH BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SICK SO STFU.” But, like…if you’re going to die one day, I think you get to have feelings about death? And if you’re not going to die one day, then I’d like to meet you.
Some people just have to be experts about everything. My mom would say it is just bad manners, and I think she was right.
Oil pulling is revolting.
I read half the article and completely lost my appetite for breakfast.
Wait. I WANT to get Mallory started on the topic of oil pulling. I’m super hung over so it’s not like I’m going to get any work done today.
Also, I found my copy of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM on a bookshelf at my parents house when I was there and stole it and re-read it on the train. And then I gave it to my 7 year old nephew.
Ah, how timely! My nephew is turning 8 next week and one of the books I’m sending him (he’s a big reader, and luckily seems to like most everything I pick out for him) is Mrs. Frisby. I know he’s an advanced enough reader that he should have no problems getting through it, but I do wonder if it’s not a little too scary for him…I remember it scaring the bejesus out of me and I was a pretty morbid kid.
See, everyone tells me that the movie was scary but even re-reading the book I don’t think it’s scary at all? I guess there’s animal death, but I grew up in a small town and was in 4-H and shit so animal death was always just a fact of life for me, and I liked to eat bacon and venison and burgers so sorry pigs and deer and cows *shrug*.
(I have never actually watched the movie, BTW)
The movie was pretty scary, I think – though to be fair it’s been some time since I saw it, or read the book. For what it’s worth, as much as I enjoyed scary things as a wee Jinx, I startled easy and had a very active imagination and led a very sheltered life in the suburbs so I can see how it may’ve impacted me differently than someone who grew up in a more rural place.
I definitely think the movie would be scarier than the book – the scene in the movie where they’re moving the house is all dark and stormy and scary, and even though I didn’t actually see the movie until my late teens, I found it way more stressful than the book. I don’t remember the book being any scarier than any other adventure-type book I was reading at the time.
There’s a lot of more in-depth than it needs to be technical explanation in it, about how things work, etc, for a kids book, which I fucking LOVED as a kid. See: Every Little House book (you can make a balloon out of a pig’s bladder!?!?!), My Side of the Mountain, Hatchet….
Oh god how did I never run away and try to make it as a wild mountain hermit?
SERIOUSLY. I even grew up in the mountains and everything. Now I just content myself with collecting stuff in my apartment that we’ll probably never use. I mean, a hatchet could come in handy if the big tree in our back “yard” ever drops a branch, right? Or if we ever actually use our camping gear to go camping.
People think it’s scary? I watched it approximately 300 times growing up, and I was not scared. And I was scared by most movies.
As a super-lapsed Catholic from a family of never-very-dedicated-to-begin-with Catholics I just find the voluntary Lent thing to be so strange. My parents definitely raised my brother and I Catholic because that’s…just what one did. The family’s Catholic, we’re Catholic, it’s as much a part of our collective identity as being Irish is, but I don’t think they actually believed in it all that much (and let us quit as soon as we were confirmed). Ma would make us pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, we’d (sometimes, if it was convenient) get our ashes on Ash Weds., and then our Palms at Palm Sunday, and bro and I would take a big game of giving stuff up for Lent because our CCD teachers told us to, but it was never enforced and my folks certainly didn’t give up anything. Ma also refused to skip eating meat on Fridays, always said she’d suffered enough privations as a kid to last her a long lifetime, and she’d earned the right to have pepperoni on her slice on Friday pizza night.
As another lapsed Catholic who misses the church but just can’t deal, theologically, I find voluntary Lent to be a nice way of checking in without going back into full-on codependency.
FYI, flying with kids over the age of 9 or 10: so easy. Especially if they’re experienced flyers. (Grandparents in another country will do that to a kid.) They automatically pack their toiletries in baggies & will take charge of the passports in the security lines. They have favorite airport restaurants now, and can be sent off to the restrooms unsupervised. It’s great. They look forward to the headset-screens or playing Uno for hours or whatever, or at least tolerate all that.
(We only play Uno while traveling now, and we can no longer travel without it. There is always going to be an Uno Champion of The Airplane, and an Uno Champion of Europe, and an Uno Champion of Nana’s House, and so forth. It’s quite the point of pride and contention.)
Aww, that sounds fun. The thing that bothers me most about traveling these days is that 9/11 was over a decade ago and people still don’t understand how to go through the security line (and of course many people don’t have the money to fly very often, and some of the rules change, but “jacket & shoes off, toiletries in baggies, laptops out of bags” has been in place for YEARS).
I’m lucky that by the time it happened, my youngest kid was almost 2. Going through security with a baby was hell enough back then, but the relative ease of flying with him in Aug 2001 v. Feb 2002 was notable.
We don’t normally run across people confused by US security rules now, but are constantly looking like stupid Americans while flying w/in Europe. “Wait, we aren’t supposed to take off our shoes? But you do want this baggie of my toothpaste, right?”
I’m giving up wine for Lent, even on Sundays (except for, you know, communion), but that’s mostly because I know I will just drink a week’s worth of wine on Sundays. I have no liturgical justification.
Dear friends who have children: why would you go out of your way to tell me that I can’t possibly understand the richness of life and love without having children? Why would you spontaneously announce things like “OH I had no idea how much I could love!” or “I thought my life had meaning before, but now I know it didn’t.”
Since you know I don’t have children, and that I am not in a position to adopt or foster children – and if we are close enough to talk about it, you know this is a source of unhappiness for me – why would you point out [what you believe to be] a permanent, unresolvable absence in my life? Why do you spout these thoughtless, hurtful, self-satisfied paeans to the irreplaceable life-enriching qualities of parental love? Why would you choose to contribute to my unhappiness?
I know you think you’re sharing your love, but what you are sometimes sharing is your smugness. It is not kind.
Your friends who have children who know these things about you and say such thoughtless things anyway are one of three things: clueless, hopelessly self-involved, or intentionally cruel. Bastards.
I used to be very Catholic and am now….I guess in the process of becoming a lapsed Catholic/”Oh, I was raised Catholic”/possible future Episcopalian so I’ve decided to Not Do Lent this year, but it’s so ingrained that it’s hard not to. I used to hardcore fast (no food, only water) on Ash Wednesday/Good Friday so it felt very weird to eat yesterday, though I didn’t eat meat because that seemed like too much. And then there was even a priest standing on the sidewalk giving ashes to random passersby next to my work! I stopped, considered, then kept walking. So instead I am going to do (this ties in!) my annual-ish reread/rewatch of “Brideshead Revisited” during Lent for lots of complicated feeling/thoughts about Catholicism. (I did go in search of and find a paczki for Paczki Day, though! For $1 from a Polish bakery, too!)
I’m guessing no one is reading this, but…
Help! My co-workers want to go to a fancy speakeasy bar for happy hour tonight. The drinks will be expensive. There won’t be any beer. And the “food” options are olives, pickled eggs, cheetos, and trail mix. This place has no website, as the point is that it’s “secret.” I genuinely do not understand!
Are you looking for permission not to go? If so, consider granting yourself that permission. Drinking + financial anxiety + coworkers – substantial food sounds like a potentially volatile scenario.
Thanks. I technically committed to this approx. a month ago, but before I knew what the whole plan was. Maybe I’ve got a cold…
You definitely look a little peaked. You’d better go home, lie under a blanket, and drink for free.
These weather fluctuations are murder on your sinuses. You are developing a migraine. You should probably go right home (and pick up a burger on your way).
We’ve been to places like this before, but I’m not 100% clear on what you aren’t understanding? You don’t like the food? You’ll only drink beer? You don’t know what to wear or how to order?
I wish I could be of more help.
I understand the concept, and were it a “Big Night Out” or some such thing, I’d be down. However, at the end of the workday I’m not particularly interested in spending $15 on one drink and I’d rather have a beer and some bar food. In general I get really hangry if I don’t eat shortly after work – and as previous work happy hours had been at bars with food, I kind of assumed this one would be too. Mostly I’m just ranting. I’ll probably go to the cafe down the street and have a sandwich beforehand.
I guess what I meant by “I don’t understand” is I don’t understand why some people would prefer this over an actual “happy hour” with cheap drinks and food.
I get how it can be fun to shake it up – secret bar! fancy drinks! an excuse to eat weird bar snacks*! – but if I tried to drink on nothing but Cheetos and olives after a full day of work, it would get rough fast.
*I do not personally need an excuse to eat Cheetos for dinner, but I can imagine it’s fun and liberating for some people; we all have some desired behavior that we need an excuse to engage in.
I mean, different people have different definitions about what constitutes a happy hour. My definition would be an hour in which I am happy, which might involve any manner of drinks or food (but not lite beer; I’ll just have a soft drink in that case, thanks), but which would be heavily dependent on the company. If you feel like you’re not going to enjoy it, I’d just not go.
eta: although we do go to a wide variety of places, we try to choose places that everyone will enjoy. I’d be bummed if we spoiled someone’s time because of the place we chose.
I can definitely see what you’re getting at, and at least as pertains to anything work-related I’d be on the side of the “Easy, cheap, I’ll have one drink and then I can bolt homeward no problem” bar; the speakeasy thing can be fun, but only with friends or a date or something – you know, where you already like the people you’re with and enjoy their company a lot.
“Cut in line and an American will cut you.”
Accurate, except when it comes to getting on the bus/train.
Eh
Except leeches work. For bleeding, I mean. If you want to bleed they will do the job.
Of course not. No one can explain what "toxins" are or how this would work, because the answers are "bad magic bits" and "magic."
Wait, so, like, no-shampoo means washing with shampoo you made yourself out of baking soda and vinegar solutions? That's not no-shampoo. That's putting harsh household cleansers on your head. (Made of chemicals.)
Someone should inform these people that their hair is made of chemicals. Ones that they would find difficult to pronounce. (DON'T EAT YOUR HAIR.)
Yeah, but conditioner contains cleansers. it's basically a kind of shampoo. Otherwise using it immediately after shampooing would be dumb, right?
Mostly shampooing (with Official Shampoo, or conditioner, or household cleansers, or whatever you want) is about cleaning your scalp. It's nice when it keeps your hair healthy and manageable, though. Bonus.
I should really read this
People think it's scary? I watched it approximately 300 times growing up, and I was not scared. And I was scared by most movies.
There is a really lovely play called “These Shining Lives” about the Radium Girls that I devoted approximately 90% of my soul to in the fall of 2010, I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
This pertains to nothing above, but where else can I just note that when life (which at the moment = doing the work I love for insufficient funds while looking for better paying work with entirely disastrous results) is far from enjoyable, it’s of such comfort to come here for a little while and snort-laugh embarrassingly loudly or reconnect with my kinder, better self (who unfortunately also snort-laughs). Thanks be to the Toast trinity, and to the Toasties who make it such a haven.
Comics are different though. I was always one to flip through picture books and atlases for hours on end.
Oh, I spent a week or two there once upon a time! Nice vortex, that.
I have heard of these people, and I sort of see why, but I don't REALLY understand them. It's just, some days I think man, I have all these new books I want to read, but I am not in the mood for them. I am in the mood for Pride and Prejudice, and nothing else will do.
One reason I love coming back to a book, is that I remember the person I was the last time I read it, and the person I was the time I read it before that, and before that, etc. I remember thinking, at 12, that Elizabeth Bennet was so old (in a cool, mature way) and just wonderful. The last time I read the book (at 22) I was, for the first time, older than her and it was kind of weird. I also found her a bit annoying at first, given that I knew she was making some massive misjudgements; this was at least the third, probably the fourth time I read the book, yet it was the first time I wasn't in love with Lizzie. It's an interesting and fun method of self-examination.
I do like to leave at least a year between re-reads though.
Still true.