Toasties. Ciao da Venezia. I only think of you when I devour bresaola pizzas with half a liter of prosecco. Say good things!!
Tags: cocktail hour, DAMN IT THE BARTENDER WHY DO YOU TAUNT US?, meta, open thread, the bartender is in
Toasties. Ciao da Venezia. I only think of you when I devour bresaola pizzas with half a liter of prosecco. Say good things!!
Tags: cocktail hour, DAMN IT THE BARTENDER WHY DO YOU TAUNT US?, meta, open thread, the bartender is in
So my coworker is due to have a baby on Monday. Today is her last day before her 8-week maternity leave begins, during which time I will be taking over all her projects. We talked last week about what she was worried about and she gave an example of what the worst thing to go wrong would be.
TODAY THAT THING WENT WRONG. She was supposed to telecommute today but instead she’s come into the office. I feel pretty awful for her to have this happen ON HER LAST DAY.
Fortunately she is one of those tremendous people who stay calm in emergencies and remain practical and just get.shit.done. But yeah, it would have been nice for this, you know, not to have happened. I mean everything will probably be fine, but this just sucks.
Also I forgot my lunch today.
Oh, no. 🙁 Are she and the baby probably going to be okay?
Yes, I think so! I should clarify that we were talking about the worst WORK thing that could go wrong in her absence. So she and bebe should be a-ok, if just annoyed and kind of stressed out.
Ahhh, ok. That also really sucks, but I’m glad it wasn’t a health issue!
ME TOO! Also, your comment helped me put things into better perspective, so thank you!
To clarify: the worst WORK-RELATED thing happened. Nothing has happened to my coworker/her babe.
“Fortunately she is one of those tremendous people who stay calm in emergencies and remain practical and just get.shit.done.”
This means she will be an awesome parent, if she isn’t already a parent, that is.
Yes! She has one kid already though I suspect she’s always been pretty even-keeled. Either way, she’s a great parent and a terrific coworker.
8 weeks of maternity! Holy bananas!
This is one of those “thanks Yankee parents for immigrating to Canada” days.
One of the hard-working (tenured!!!) professors in my department got SIX.
The little store at work got a new kind of sparkling water this week and I got really excited about it and then realized how boring my life is. That being said, if any DC toasties wanna go out for happy hour/a beer tonight or tomorrow, I’d love to do that!
What kind of sparkling water?
Sparkling water is exciting. Never hide your enthusiasm!
What kind is it? Does it have fruity flavors attached (grapefruit seltzer got me through part of winter).
email me! I’m the one who sends out the polls!
Late to this, but I’m in DC and would be up for grabbing a beer tomorrow!
Even more late to this (which is horrible since I started it) but I just emailed EggyInABasket to see if she’s down for something but I’m definitely up for a beer this evening. Email me at [email protected] if you want!
That strange realization that you don’t like your job while most of your co-workers love it with a near cultish devotion.
Also, everything in that picture looks heavenly and I want to lick my monitor.
Welcome to my life.
I’m trying to expand my social life outside work and feel like an asshole when trying to explain why I don’t want all my friends to be co-workers because they remind me of work. Ironically I’ve become good friends with a co-worker who has the same attitude.
That’s the key. Otherwise you get caught in this weird bubble of people where you talk about work all the time and then when you have a work conflict they freak out about your friendship.
My two best friends I’ve made here have jobs that I barely even know what they are. Because we never talk about it.
Get a job in the federal government. My coworkers get together after work, but *never* mention the job. Because all of our work is classified and cannot be discussed without 1) a need to know, and 2) a secure environment.
I think I just realized that I don’t like my job, either.
So now what? Steep in misery and hope it gets better, try for another workplace in the same field, or head back to school and dig into some debt? I can’t decide which sucks least.
What are you going to do?
There is no downside to applying for other jobs. Just getting an interview does wonders on the misery front. Even if it’s for a job you don’t want.
WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH CELL PHONE COMPANIES? That is all.
What country are you in? In the US, it’s because their lobby has set up a near-monopoly and near-price-fixing.
Yes, the US. The hot, creepy breath of the near-monopoly is upon our necks. I just wanted to change my plan to save money and they’re all like “Ah yes” rubbing palms together “Of course you will be entering into a 2-yr contract. Are you verbally agreeing to enter a 2-yr contract?”
SHOW ME THE CONTRACT YOU FASCISTS!
The deal is they are the worst the end.
i have a cheap cellphone in the us. not awesome, but one of the ones that uses the ATandT network. I recommend using one of them if ATandT is good in your area! (there are a bunch of cheaper than atandt options, is what I mean, that use their signal. also, verizon is the devil, but i digress)
It’s looking like I have not one but TWO trips to the beach planned for the next two weeks. This is a great relief, because I love the beach (and am lucky enough to live 3-4 hours away from a few good ones). I honestly can’t imagine not being that close to the ocean, which is a good thing to consider if I ever get my head into a delusion of moving to the midwest.
What are your ocean-feelings, Toasties?
LOVE IT. Grew up 15 minutes from the beach on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Miss the beach so much now that I’m in DC.
North Shore, oh yeah. I live ~40 min. from there and often wish I lived closer. We get to the Cape a couple times a year, though.
It’s one the reasons I am dying to move to Seattle or somewhere in California. I also love the mountains which is why Seattle is number one on my list.
LOVE. I live in the midwest and pine for ocean-y beaches everyday.
All I want to do is go to the beach right now. I live in MN, and we just got 8 inches of snow dumped on us. The only thing I don’t like about the beach is wet sand on my body. That’s pretty much the most disgusting feeling ever. My favorite beaches are the ones with the outdoor shower things as you leave.
I’m not sure it’s possible to live more than 4 hours from the coast in the UK. Sadly, there is no sun, so visits to the beach are only good for chilly walks, followed by a pub lunch.
This may be weird, but I think I love walking on the beach in cooler weather at least as much as swimming there in the summer. And the pub lunch is critical.
Oh I love it, and being a midwest girl, I miss it all the time. I haven’t had a proper trip to the ocean in over a year! It has been too long!
I loooove the beach, but I grew up going to a lake beach every summer, so I always find the saltiness of the ocean to be an unpleasant surprise/personal affront.
Ha ha I am the opposite, I am a ocean kind of girl and I feel like the saltiness makes it somehow cleaner than lake water even though I know that makes no sense.
I grew up going to DE/MD/VA/NC beaches, but my husband’s family has a ridiculously awesome lake cottage in Ontario and now I’m a lake swimming CONVERT, plus royalist que le roi, etc.
I grew up as far from the ocean as is possible, and now that I live closer to one I spend a not-insignificant amount of time worrying about Deep Impact-type scenarios. Or, in a more realistic vein, rising sea levels. And even when the ocean is not actively attacking us, god only knows how many corpses are floating around in it. I should never have left the midwest.
I grew up almost next to one, and now living just 4 hours away feels too far. Sure, there’s lakes pretty close by, but it’s not the same! I want real waves, and tidepools, and that smell, and the risk of undertow and sharks, and laughing internally at tourists who thought that it’s always sunny in California!
Oh man, funny story about that. I went to Santa Cruz a few weeks ago on a mini vacation. I was expecting chilly March weather and brought mostly warm clothes, but it was so warm once I got there. I ended up wearing the same tank top (good thing I dress in layers) and too warm jeans for my two days there. And got a sun burn which made me go “whoa!”
Always dress in layers. Always. It’s the only way to survive.
I like to go tank top, shirt/tee, hoodie, medium weight jeans, boots, tall socks, flipflops in the bag. If my feet are free, I can deal with jeans a weight too high.
It’s forever since I’ve been 🙁
LOVE. Already trying to figure out how I can convince my friends with cars to make beach trips this summer. I grew up going to the beach and swimming and I am still a little flabbergasted when people say they don’t like or are scared of the ocean. BUT IT’S THE BEST.
I LOVE the ocean. Best memory – swimming around in the ocean just off Baja California, between Ensenada and the little town I was going to, at the end of March, laughing and laughing as I thought about the snow back home.
if you like the beach and water, don’t move to the great american southwest. ask me how i know. <brb crying forever> <oh look, water!>
I did that too. I know those mournful tears!
I love the sea, all seas, even the one closest to me which is cold and often grey and has mostly pebble beaches and a tendency to flood houses and wash away cliffs.
I live in Norfolk, UK, and literally am no more than about a 30 minute drive from a dozen little coastal towns?
I live 30 minutes from several beaches and I absolutely love the beach this time of year and all of the off-season. However, living in the deep south and being wilting freckled reflective being, when summer comes and the sun becomes my enemy, I hate the beach with all the passion I can muster from my sweat-filled, sun-blinded, shade-seeking id.
I live about 2 hours from the ocean but far, far, away from an actual beach, as in, a warm length of sand you can lay on and then take a dip in the cool ocean. It is only recently that I realized how much this bothers me; I grew up a couple hours away from said type of beach and while I love my current city, I really really miss the beach :/
I’m glad I’m near the ocean at least! I don’t think I could deal with living in a landlocked state.
I’ve begun having very vivid dreams about going to the beach. Summer can’t come soon enough. I grew up in the Midwest and moved to NY last year and it was my first time swimming at an ocean beach, not a lake beach, and I loveee it.
Ocean State born and raised! I went to the beach several times a week during the summer when I was little.
Sadly, no one I hang around with seems to like the beach/sand/wearing bathingsuits/ocean so I don’t go as often as I would like. Also, I am super susceptible to sunburn, despite reapplying my sunscreen constantly.
I grew up a 15 minute drive from Bodega Bay, camped there for several months while homeless, and haven’t seen the ocean in nine years now (I live close, but no car/no friends. For NINE YEARS). So–moving on 4/28, and the first thing I want to do is see the sea! It’s like I’ve been operating with only one lung all this time.
I am more or less indifferent to water, except that if it is very hot out I would prefer to be in water rather than not in water.
As a child of the Mountain West, I feel much more strongly that a) there should be mountains and b) there should be parks large enough to get properly lost in. Like, I Shouldn’t Be Alive lost in. Proper states should be at least 30% public land, as is right and correct. Looking at you, Texas, with your pitiful collection of proper public outdoor space.
(Almost) considering getting a one-way ticket to Costa Rica. At least we’re all themed up for the GoT premiere.
Also, what to do when you’re making a decision you’re happy about, but your partner says “I’ll be supportive, but I’m unhappy that I have to be supportive.” I genuinely want him involved in this decision, but ultimately it’s a personal one and I *should* be able to just do what I want.
Also: There will be a Twin Cities Toast meetup on April 17. Join the The-Toast in Minneapolis on fb for more info. 🙂
I guess I’m not totally sure I understand what you’re saying – is your partner supportive but doesn’t want to be supportive or is supportive but isn’t crazy about the decision? Or is that the same thing?
Ugghhhh, I just went through that where I was the partner who was trying to be supportive but /really/ didn’t like one of the possible choices. And I felt so weird trying to walk the line between this is your life and your decision vs. this is our lives and this will really affect me too. Because of the nature of the deciding process, it wasn’t even entirely up to him(/us) so it was mega stressful. : / Sorry you’re going through this though. 🙁 I guess just be as open and communicative as possible throughout the whole thing?
Hm. Does the decision directly affect him/her in any substantial way? If it does, I think “I’m supportive, but unhappy” is reasonable. I feel like plenty of the right decisions for me have hurt my partner, and I think it’s okay to be honest about that.
If it doesn’t affect him, then that response is kinda bullshit, I think.
Will you be posting more info here? I’m not on FB.
For sure! I’ll update the open thread. Right now it looks like Trivia at Zeke’s on the 17th. 🙂
Coooooool. Not sure if I will be able to make it (it’s quite a drive), but I’ll see what I can do!
Yaaay meetup! I wouldn’t blame you for getting the heck out of Dodge before then, though. This is not April, this is a lie.
I agree with safvn on the relationship question.
If it were me, I might hold my judgment until I see what “supportive” actually looks like. If it actually ends up looking supportive, then no harm, no foul. If not… well, then I’d deal with that then.
My own life rule (which I am not super-great at remembering always): people can’t control their feelings and shouldn’t have to try. But people can and are obligated to control our actions.
So I usually try not to ding people too hard for having – or for expressing in a not-cruel way – feelings that aren’t aligned with their rights or their proper behavior, so long as they do behave the way they ought.
I applied for another job yesterday, Toasties! It only took several hours of arguing with an online application form (WHY ARE THEY THE WORST) and multiple obsessive revisions of a cover letter and it’s in! Cross your fingers for me.
I feel for you; going through that same process right now. Cover letters are by far the worst part; I too go over it and over it until I finally have to force myself to let it go. Good luck with your search!
I’m glad I’m not alone here. Good luck to you too!
No, no. The online app forms are the worst. Cover letters are far simpler once you have honed a paragraph for each idea. I have a master document housing about 20 paragraphs. I choose the 3 or 4 most applicable ones to make into a cover letter for any given job.
That is fucking genius
Thanks! Being a trailing spouse AND job-hunting every 2 years AND being an introvert AND hunting where I have no personal contacts suuuuuuuucks, BUT . . . it makes me efficient as fuck.
oh my god that makes so much sense
Oh my god, wow. Game changer.
I’m working on a cover letter for my dream job right this very minute and it is so stressful! I will send you all my good vibes.
Aaah, good luck! If you haven’t consulted Ask A Manager’s excellent cover letter advice archives, here they are! Always helps me. Good vibes to you too!
I’ve got them open in other tabs right now! Someone recommended those on an earlier open thread. <3 The Toast!
I was just about to pop up and recommend Ask a Manager! I work in staffing and recruiting and we adore her.
Good luck and cosign on Ask A Manager!
I’ve been doing a lot of job applications in recent months too, and I feel you on the online applications being THE WORST. Not only are most HR/employment websites badly designed and obnoxious to use and sometimes eat something you had been working on for the last hour, causing much weeping and gnashing of teeth, but also the human-computer interaction (instead of human-human) leaves something to be desired.
i.e. It’s one thing to be rejected when you meet someone in person and they tell you why you are not a good fit for the position, it’s another to send your resume/application/etc. into an electronic void, and not know what has happened to it afterwards (how long should you wait before you give up on getting a response? did anyone human even see my application? what part of it made them reject it? etc.)
I think this is compounded in my case, because I know that I am very capable of being a good employee and a fast learner, and I think I present myself well in person, but my resume has some parts of it which look spurious to employers and I think that is why I don’t hear back from people… but also I never get a chance to really explain myself? (In my case: I took as long to complete my B.S. as most people take to complete both undergrad and graduate degrees (a combo of taking part-time semesters, anxiety disorder/ADHD, and general screwery on the part of my institution re: class scheduling/prerequisites), and recent employment gaps while I tried to focus on buckling down to schoolwork, little in the way of other qualifications (other than lots of volunteer service), etc.) I know it can be very discouraging.
I will be crossing my fingers for you very hard! Good luck!!
Good luck to you too! As with other things in this thread, maybe check out the Ask A Manager archives (or write in) to help with the resume issues? I also feel like I do better in person and it’s tough when you’re relying on written documents to get you in the door. I’m sure you’ll find something excellent soon.
Aw! Thanks for the encouragement! I did click through to that cover letter workshop, and it definitely all sounds really useful! I am going to explore her site more – it sounds like the advice I need. (Before, I was either getting advice from people my parents’ age or googling “how to write a cover letter” or whatever, but this sounds much more relevant/insightful)
Fingers crossed!!
I hate the online applications where you upload your resume and then have to manually re-enter everything, and it asks for lots of absurd details (typing speed. abilities in Microsoft word. Seriously? It is 2014!) and won’t let you complete without them. Anyways good luck!! I will think about a life where we all get our dream jobs.
The sites where it asks you to upload a resume, and it tries to import the relevant details into the correct boxes, but you still have to go through and re-type almost everything, because it mixed up parts of it… ugh!
Yes yes yes all terrible. This one accidentally ate all my painstakingly-typed info because I uploaded my resume in the wrong spot–thankfully I could back out of it and it wasn’t a disaster, but stillll.
This is your Captain America: The Winter Soldier reaction thread. I’ll get us started with some Sebastian Stan.
Have at it, people.
ETA: Please be cool and avoid discussing spoilers until the threads start collapsing, OK? It’s OT Friday, shouldn’t take long.
I was obsessed with him him in gossip girl, but watching him as the mad hatter really killed my lady boner
And for those of you who have no idea what’s going on, thank you for your patience, and please enjoy the above picture of a handsome man being silly.
I saw an advance screening on Tuesday and it was SO GOOD AHHHH I can’t wait to talk about it here in more detail! And damn, I did not realize how into Sebastian Stan I was until I saw him all scruffy and stubbly with his longish hair…phew. Clean cut is good too, for sure, but apparently I’m into the dirtbag look, at least on him.
I know, right?! He is the hottest angsty dirtbag. Keee-rist.
I looked into my mirror after getting a trim recently and realized I kind of have a Winter Soldier haircut now. I am quietly jazzed about this.
UPDATE: Threads are collapsed! Let’s all sob in each other’s arms about the end. Where did Bucky go!? WHERE IS HE. Is he wandering the American highway on Steve’s stolen motorcycle, dreaming of happier times?
AND STEVE IS SEARCHING FOR HIM. BROS FOREVER. I gotta say, the first thought I had during the scene in the helicarrier (or whatever it’s called) when Steve’s trying to save him and then Bucky drags him out of the river was, “There are gonna be so many slashfics written about this.” I don’t know what that says about me, but they would certainly make a gorgeous couple.
But really though, where is he going to go? How is he going to recover? I want a movie that’s just about Bucky finding himself again, because to me he’s now way more interesting than Steve (though I still love Steve).
MAJOR SPOILER DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET:
Also, whoa SHIELD. Does it even exist anymore? Where are they going to go from here? That was a bold move and I loved that the moviemakers were willing to do that. It opens up a lot of storytelling possibilities. I’m gonna go back and see it in the theaters a couple more times.
I swear movie!Cap is just a slash machine. Chris Evans has outlandish amounts of chemistry with every single man they make him interact with, but his scenes with women are always more like… just two people, who do not particularly want to bone each other.
So you know, it’s not just you!
In the case of this movie, that lack of chemistry was delightful, because it meant we got a two-lead opposite-gender semi-roadtrip movie in which the leads did not even slightly fall in love or hook up, but were supportive, affectionately teasing bros.
Yes! Yes yes yes, I would love a Bucky movie (hopefully with a road trip, but that’s just because I like road trip movies). I love Steve too, but I totally agree that Bucky has the more interesting story right now. (and yes, I am already anticipating the angsty slashfic that is going to flood out after this. Give it to me, I’m ready. I’m so partial to Sam, though. Don’t forget awesome Sam!)
I am so interested to see where they go with the SHIELD thing! Particularly with how it plays into Age of Ultron- nobody’s calling them together now. Do they call themselves together? Can the Avengers function as an independent group without that oversight? What happens to the loyal SHIELD employees; how do they rebuild that organization and infrastructure?
I know, there are so many possibilities! I really hope in the next movie they aren’t just like, “oh hey, SHIELD has been rebuilt, all’s well now!” I don’t think they’d go that route, though. I hope they will spend some time (in the TV show or wherever) hunting down the remnants of Hydra. But yeah, how are the Avengers going to work together now? Who’s calling the shots? And are we gonna get to see Agent Hill working at Stark Industries, because I can only imagine the delightfulness of Cobie Smulders and Robert Downey Jr. verbally sparring with each other.
We haven’t seen this yet, but I’m interested to know – are there connections with the SHIELD TV show? We just watched the latest episode, and we were wondering if it would connect with the movie in some way (as it did with the latest Thor a few weeks back).
There are! Without spoiling, I’ll just say that things happen in Winter Soldier that will definitely affect SHIELD and Agents of SHIELD.
Yo, DC-area Toasties! I realized I’ve never made a general announcement about this, but I wanted to let you all know (in case you’ve missed my previous posts) we’ve created a “The Toast DC” Google Group, where we’re discussing book club and meetups (including trivia night and crafting night). If you would like an invite to the group to get in on this, e-mail me at [email protected].
And book club was fabulous! Can’t wait to get together again.
I enjoyed it so, so much – time just flew by with all of you 🙂 Looking forward to the next one – don’t forget to add any book suggestions you might have for the next meeting in the book thread!
It really was! I had a great time.
Do you think one of the threads could be a general bulletin board? Like for less-big-group, less-planned, more spur-of-the-moment stuff? Like “Hey! I had a really great week at work and want to celebrate with a beer – anyone wanna come?” or “it’s gonna be a nice weekend – i’m gonna go on a hike if anyone is interested!” kind of stuff? Because I would like a thing like that but don’t want to spam the board if no one else would be interested in it. Thoughts?
I think that’s a great idea! I’ll go ahead and create a “General Bulletin Board” thread in the group and use your explanation of its purpose (if you don’t mind). I’d definitely love to meet up with people more spontaneously – all the planned events have been fantastic so far but it would be nice to get together without having to plan it out too much as well. I’d love to do hikes in particular 🙂
Me! Me! (I am emailing too, obvs). I was wishing so hard for a DC group!
Toasties, I would love some advice on becoming more assertive and protecting my own interests at work.
I am currently hired to do a two-year project, and there is a good chance it will be extended for a third year. I would love this to happen, mostly for the resume building and opportunity to see the project through to completion. When I was discussing this with my boss, I said something like, “I just want you to know you wouldn’t even have to pay me a lot because I still have funding from my university.” She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “I am going to forget you said that. If we keep you, we’re going to pay you.” Which was awesome of her, but now I feel troubled that my impulse was to give myself a pay cut? it’s like there is no part of my brain that instinctively feels entitled to be paid well for the work that I do, let alone actually to ask for that out loud.
So, my question is, have any of you gone from a place of being naturally self-effacing to being assertive? And how did you do it?
I cannot help, but I can commiserate. I can be assertive in other situations, but anything to do with work and/or asking for things on my own behalf… just nope. So if you ever find the answer, tell me, please!
Basically, it’s hard to go from self-effacing to assertive. I think I’m starting to do that, just by believing the people who tell me I can handle things, if that make sense.
I would say that the troubled part of you (TPOY) should be listened to more than the paycut part of you (PPOY) because the PPOY doesn’t care how bad things get, it is just risk averse, thinks that a bad situation can be worked around (which, not getting paid correctly for the work you’ll do is a bad situation). TPOY should be listened to because it has your long-term best interests in mind. It’s mind-bogglingly difficult to listen to TPOY, but will be better for both your bank account and mental health.
Oh man I have DEFINITELY said the same things before! It basically took a HBIC manager who moved heaven and earth to pay her interns in a city that NEVER paid interns and her general mentorship to change my attitude.
I, somewhat pathetically, repeat mantras to keep myself being assertive. “You are worth [X amount of money]. Ask for it.” “You worked hard for your degree and your knowledge, you deserve to sit at this table and have your ideas taken seriously.” etc. I’m always reminding myself to take out qualifiers – “I might be wrong” “Maybe we could” and just state my opinion too.
I feel like my brain gets a workout every day, but I hope spending all of this mental energy now will turn these thought processes and speech/writing patterns into second nature for me.
Basically, I think, “Would a man say this?” and then I commit to SMASHING PATRIARCHY by asking for shit for my own self and not underselling myself. It’s very motivating for me.
Hell yes! I basically didn’t talk – almost never – when I was a kid. Harsh childhood, etc. One of the methods I used in learning my way out of self-effacing habits was to create a character in my head and then put on an act as if I were playing that character on stage. (Again with the over-long sentence. I still need an editor.) One of the most effective roles for this exercise has been imagining myself a tall, white, man. I know many of them, so it’s easy to pretend to be one of those men. It feels so empowering. It’s become part of who I am now, less and less playacting required as time goes on.
Same here! “I am nervous about asking for this – would a man be? Should I be?” It also helps me to wonder, “If the roles were reversed, how would boss-me react to her staff asking this?” It’s been very encouraging for me to realize that even if I thought someone were asking for something completely out of line, I would address it and move on – either not giving it a second thought, or paying attention to how they reacted, rather than dwelling on the unbelievable raise they requested or whatever.
Also, just plain old practice. The more I’ve asserted myself with positive results, the easier it has become (still not easy but I’m working on it!)
I was just listening to something that said women are as good at negotiating as men WHEN THEY NEGOTIATE AS IF IT WERE FOR A FRIEND. I try and channel this.
Had progress this week on the potentially exciting job situation that I hope will develop but, but that I’m not counting my chickens for until they are well and truly hatched. I also found out that the potentially exciting job situation may be more exciting than I had thought, which would be incredibly awesome.
In other news… SPRING! YAY!
Also, I am really excited for Game of Thrones to come back this weekend. As a book reader, the idea of some of the things that I know will happen actually happening on a screen fills me with incredible amounts of joy. Just cannot wait.
Other TV starting this month: Mad Men, Orphan Black. Also excellent. Tatiana Maslany is amazing, and her altar must be worshipped at.
I”m considering bingeing on Orphan Black this weekend. Only seen the pilot and loved it.
Do it! You will not regret it, it only gets crazy-awesomer from there
TATIANA MASLANY WAS SUPER GOOD IN GINGER SNAPS 2 and I just want to make sure everybody knows that. Maybe not as perfect as Emily Perkins but who is, who is.
I have not seen Ginger Snaps 2! What is this thing? And perhaps blasphemously, who is Emily Perkins?
OH MY GOD
the Ginger Snaps movies – I take it you are not familiar with any of them? There are three, the first is the best, all are good — are the only good werewolf movies made since the great cultural takeover of whenever it was, when mass culture decided to pretend that it made like ANY SENSE AT ALL to make stories about male werewolves. (It doesn’t.) Werewolves are about fear of girls in the way that vampires are about fear of sex and contagion. it is the fundamental underpinning of the metaphor. the whole Underworld-esque revisionist universe where werewolves are boys and vampires are girls is such a profoundly aggressive act of cultural denial that I am sure it means something more terrible than even I can articulate just now.
anyhow. Ginger Snaps, Ginger Snaps 2 (the one with an adolescent Maslany) and Ginger Snaps Back are three Canadian films about high-school-age sisters who are sometimes werewolves. I mean sometime the one is and sometimes the other is. Ginger Snaps Back is actually set in the 19th century and is about characters that look exactly like the ones in the first two although clearly they are different people (OR ARE THEY?) (I think they are.)
They are not unlike Buffy in their use of metaphor although they tend to substitute a yawning, ever-widing pool of dread and existential despair in the pit of the stomach for hopeful endings and snappy dialogue. They are still pretty funny though. They are super homoerotic if you don’t mind doing a sort of double-vision projection of erotic metaphor onto (or beside, not superseding) the textual sisterly relationship, and I sure don’t. They are Canadian like crazy. They are the best teen horror movies ever made.
Okay so this sounds cool and all (not trying to be dismissive – it does), but I’m really interested in the whole “Werewolves are about fear of girls” thing, which is tbh something I’ve never really thought about? But I also don’t do much with werewolves, outside of Oz. And I guess Nina from Angel. And the werewolves from the Dresden Files books, which have their own huge multitude of issues with women, but I still manage to be entertained by.
Does this have to do with the uh… cyclical nature of the affliction? And that I guess historically the way to destroy the beast was by stabbing it, which now that I think about it is like really… penile?
Or am I way off base?
Well the cyclical bit is a little over-literal but sure, that’s a thing. More like, it’s about everything that accompanies menarche — you become a monstrous hairy beast that repulses others even as it feels, internally, like gaining your true natural power, so the letdown follows fast on the initial intoxication. You are betrayed by your friends and relations who only want to contain and corral you and stop you from tearing them to pieces.
I like the way Ginger Snaps plays it about sex, which is, among other things, the confusion of the drive to possess sexually and to devour. I think in related myths about male fears, you get goofy vagina dentata business, which women may laugh at and enjoy but which doesn’t actually have any psychic resonation (here, someone will say, “speak for yourself,” and indeed I am.) but when it’s about what women fear from and in themselves, it’s werewolves – you “want” someone, but that’s not very specific, what do you actually want to do to them? well, you want to rip open his throat and consume his essence and leave him an empty bloody husk. like, obviously. you have to hold yourself back, always, lest you kill him. or lest you kill him and get caught. everything you want most primally makes you an outlaw – that’s the ur-myth of womanhood. You’re a free, violent beast in secret, but you can’t let anyone know ever.
& to grow up normally and acquire a place in society you must murder your beast-self or fight back and be locked up. what is most natural to you is most unnatural to the guardians of civilization. et cetera et cetera. plus also you want to infect the women closest to you so that they can be powerful monsters too.
Very interesting! This is a side of werewolf-ism (is there a fancy name for that? Loup-itis?) that I had never considered. I will definitely have to take a look at those movies, especially if they aren’t too scary for my wife.
I may have to go back and look at some of my earlier exposures to the wolfiness and see if, and in what ways, they handle/ignore this basic underpinning of the myth.
What do you think is the reason, then, that in the Underworld-esque scenario, vampires have been femininized and werewolves masculinized? (And feel free to ignore me or tell me to go away! This type of mythology is just really interesting to me and I’ll probably just keep asking questions if I’m smart enough to think of them.)
no way, I love going on about this stuff.
So let me go back for a second and stipulate that I don’t think depicting something in men takes away from the fundamental thing of it being “about” women, if it’s done right. Like for example, Alien(s) is “about” pregnancy and the fact that it’s mostly men who are shown as the hosts only intensifies that – one of the reasons those movies are great works of art is because they this fundamental female fear and treat it as a fundamental human fear – that is, it takes the female experience of humanity as the standard, not the deviation, and applies that universally to everybody.
So, there are werewolf stories where the werewolves are male but they are specifically about women’s sexual fears/desires (see: The Company of Wolves) or coded female, as people say – I know this is a dumb and “problematic” thing to say, this “coded” business, and people fall back on it because they want to avoid better arguments that can be challenged, but you know what I mean, right? — like, hobbits are coded female, one might say, because they are belittled and not taken seriously for being shorter and weaker than Men and basically being homebodies who don’t usually get to leave home and have exciting violent adventures — just like women. and also they never wear shoes and enjoy strict and paternalistic class structures and a nice mushroom omelet, just like women do.
but I digress. So I think a werewolf story about a man is successful as long as it understands at some level what it is doing. Becoming a woman is frightening to women, so why wouldn’t it be frightening to men as well? I am a werewolf-egalitarian in that regard.
Anyway anyway, so why is Underworld-world popular, when it certainly does not understand this thing I am positing? I suppose I would say because a lie about women is always more appealing than the truth about women, A, and B, because it is symbolically ultra-heteronormative as well as sexist. Oh, werewolves and vampires can’t have their separate dumb societies, noooo, they have to get together and learn to cooperate and, above all, produce offspring. No utopian separatist vampire communes allowed.
So those sorts of movies depict prejudice against werewolves as this sort of curled-lip fastidious disgust with big manly hairy men, rather than as any kind of self-directed fear or hatred or ambivalence or suppressed desires. I know this is glib but I think it is because it is a more socially acceptable message to tell women-vampires to come to terms with men’s beastliness than with their own.
I’m completely on board with dudes being acceptable vehicles for lady-messages, and ladies being acceptable vehicles for dude-messages (this is imprecise wording, but you get the gist). I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have been a fan of Buffy on any level but the very superficial if that wasn’t a thing that I thought could happen.
So obviously a lot of this is at a subtextual level, because to a certain extent (like at a marketing level) the underworld movies are about little more than Kate Beckinsale in vinyl and ripped dudes without their shirts on, possibly in the rain. And also they had a gun that shot sunlight bullets? Or something? And that’s what gets butts in the seats, for some.
What then would be the lie about women that the movies are telling? Is it like the natural, eternal grace of a vampire = women (or should) kind of thing? (I’m sure my deep ignorance of the topic is showing).
When looking at the movies in the light in which you shine them, I can defnitely see the war of the sexes thing which, and it makes me curious about… uh… the hybrid guy? He was blue for some reason? He was like the one dude who could end the war or something (I honestly didn’t really understand what the hell the movies were trying to say even on a textual level, because I think they are shittily made. The two I saw, at least).
I do see what you mean about it being sexist, and like I feel if the MRA’s ever figured something like that out, they would absolutely love the movies.
Also you will find no argument from me that it is easier to tell women to just deal with men’s bullshit. That happens like always.
I’m curious also as to how the werewolf mythos fits (if it does at all) into something like little red riding hood, which is pretty obviously about being scared of big hairy dudes, but then I guess also that that was just a wolf, and not a werewolf. No silver and whatnot.
I think my brain is leaking out of my ears – not from this, just from today. Not sure how much of this was coherent.
(oh yeah and Emily Perkins plays the one sister, Katherine Isabelle plays the other. I don’t know why Perkins isn’t the most famous actress in the world. I would like her to be cast as a second clone set on Orphan Black, is what I would like. She has a fantastic nose.)
(and the Ginger Snaps films are pretty hardcore disgusting violence-wise, by my weakling standards, although I can tolerate them and I usually can’t tolerate that stuff.)
spent last night surrounded by drunk misogynist frat boys! (on a positive note, i am very glad to be moving from this town in a month)
I’m going to have fish and chips tonight. It’s going to make a bad week good again 😀
copious amounts of malt vinegar can solve most of life’s problems
I’m going to have a bottle of wine tonight and possibly an extra large burrito. Food makes me feel feelings again after working all week.
Fish and chips! God I miss fish and chips. It is the best! Especially coated in a thin layer of sand at the beach. Sigh…
Are you making them yourself, or do you have a local you’ll pop down to visit?
I live in scotland – it’s against the law to live more than 100 metres away from a shop with a deep fat fryer.
ohhh do they have mushy peas?
I’m very proud of myself because I spent two hours yesterday at an internship fair trolling for potential grad students to volunteer for my organization. I had to chase down one guy who took materials from our table that were not handouts, but otherwise it went very smoothly. One more step towards competent adulthood and away from terrifying shyness.
Also! I had a funny/terrible incident of mansplaining from a patron. I was helping him with a reference question and he took some extra time out of his day to tell me how to do my job. Because I clearly don’t know what I’m doing, even though he asked me for help.
In non-handsome man related-news, I want to thank everyone who was there to lend support via Twitter when I went into a tailspin Wednesday. You are wonderful people and you help me feel less like a waste of good neurons. Thank you all.
You are a wonderful bundle of fantastic neurons and I’m glad there were people there to support you.
Why don’t I follow you on Twitter, anyway? This makes no sense. brb fixing
Graduate school toasties, are the rest of you having as stressful last month of the semester as I am? I am eating so much food and drinking so much coffee. I can see the light at the end of the semester but trying to motivate myself to write papers is slim.
In good news, I get to take the second half of the summer off of classes! I am going on a quick vacation with friends the minute spring semester ends! I am thinking of traveling to Denver in July to see an old friend! Any must do things while in Denver? I am just so stoked for summer, guys!
Grad school props! I’m finishing my degree and trying to finish the capstone project. What year are you in? BURNOUT IS REAL and diminishing returns and what not. You can do it! Also it is always okay to just give yourself a minute if you just should be doing something else.
Also that sounds awesome. I really wish I’d had some more downtime, so it sounds like you’ve got a good plan! Hooray!
Oh man, capstone projects are such a struggle. I am finishing my first year and only have a year left. I love my program, but this semester just has not been great. I am looking forward to my summer classes though. So hopefully the burnout is only related to these classes. Good luck finishing up your project!
I am writing a master’s thesis with limp wrists and lots of sighing. Oh, and the food. I cannot stop with the food. Maybe I can make money with my degree by selling t-shirts that say, “I went to grad school and all I got was fat”
I have never been to Denver, but hear it’s awesome. Enjoy your break!
THE FOOD. My last semester of grad school I subsisted on only frozen meals. I didn’t even both buying lean cuisines – it was all frozen mac and cheese, all the time.
I think those t-shirts would be very profitable. So, at least you have a back up plan. Good luck with your thesis!
Yes graduate school stress! I’m a month away from sitting qualifying exams, and my attempts to maintain a mellow, professional demeanor have begun to get broken down. (I talk really fast and gesture a lot and probably look like a cartoon animal when I meet with my advisors.) I think the real test might not be “Can you prove competency in your field?” but instead “Can you get through 200+ books in four months and still string together coherent sentences at the end?” And I’m in a seriously dependent relationship with the grad lounge coffee machine, and it’s not even GOOD. Ugh, I can’t wait for this semester to be over. I feel your pain.
Denver sounds awesome! I’m adding my own plea for summer suggestions–Toasties, what kinds of cool things are going on in Houston in July?
Yes! I feel like so much of grad school is just surviving and not being crushed under all the reading. Good luck with your qualifying exams!
I’m about halfway through my 2-year program, so my thesis isn’t on my plate just yet, but all of the exams and papers and other work are definitely starting to get to me. My recommendation is to make sure that you set aside at least 30 minutes or an hour each day for guilt-free not-working time. I use that to go for a run (if I’m feeling healthy) or watch an episode of Star Trek (if I’m not). It’s an incentive for me to work consistently throughout the rest of the day and makes me less likely to just Internet forever.
Oh man, those are good ideas. I am such a sit down and only get up to get more coffee kind of girl. I will have try actually scheduling breaks.
Yes. If I knew how to post pictures I’d show you the chalkboard list of stuff. Which ends with the qualifying exams the week after finals. (This is an exam to skip the masters and move to being a PhD student) I have a lot of presentations to give. which means trying to dress and look nice while being exhausted. On the pulse side I have found a great person at counseling services and am doing much better at 1) doing the things that are the most stressful and hardest first. 2) breathing deeply and slowly to prevent physical stress responses. And, I’ve been making my bed every day. (Jolie Kerr would be very proud) I don’t know, sometimes I think “Things really are not that bad, and other times I think, If things aren’t bad and I’m this unhappy, was this really the right choice?”
Oh man, I am a counseling student, so I regularly tell my kiddos those exact things. Yet, I am so bad at applying them to myself. I have no idea what I would do if I had to be coherent after finals! So, good luck on your presentations and qualifying exam!
Ughhhhhh, I am done on WEDNESDAY (one short paper, one research proposal left) and then we’re going away for 10 days on a much-needed vacation. But before I go I have to apply for a big scholarship for next year (which means a whole new research proposal, YAY) and just…ughhhh.
I’ve been subsisting mostly on beer and junk food and tears and it’s just not helping.
You are so close! I both look forward to and dread the last week of the semester. Enjoy your vacation and good luck on your scholarship application!
Yup. One more paper, one grant proposal, and I start my qualifying exams on Wednesday. And yet, here I am on the toast.
Supportive nodding and mmm hmmmming to all grad student toasties.
Oh man, so close! Good luck on your qualifying exams!
Thanks! They don’t end until June so I’ve got lots of time to complain about them here.
What are your favourite studying snacks?
I’m supposed to be going to a concert tomorrow night in San Francisco, for one of my very favorite groups, who don’t make it to this side of the states that often, and I came down with a really bad cold on Wednesday! BOOOOOOOO!
This shit better clear up so I can drive over the hill and stay up far too late and dance like a fool. I also want a Mission burrito. For whatever reason, they don’t exist in Nevada, and this is a travesty. Both the cold and the food thing.
Go for it! I always get giddy with excitement driving over the Sierras.
Also, today is my dad’s last day at his job–starting Monday, he is going off on his own! Think good positive dad thoughts. Also please tell me of success stories of you or your parents or anyone you know doing well starting their own businesses/business ventures!
Hey! Good luck and best wishes to your dad. My dad, after finishing with a very stressful job, started a tiny consulting company and was hired on permanently at a company owned by his cousin almost immediately because of some freelancing he did for them. They let him work from home and bring all kinds of new ideas to the table. Now he’s looking at starting a life-coaching business on the side of that. DADS DOING STUFF.
That’s fantastic! Sounds like he’s a lot happier now. DADS DOING STUFF indeed.
My dad left his firm to practice on his own somewhat recently and it appears to be going pretty well (although I was convinced it was a catastrophic midlife crisis thing at the time; see also red convertible, new girlfriend, Life Changing vacation). He is thinking of hiring another lawyer even.
YoungLeafedJune’s dad: JOB CREATOR. That’s great to hear about!
My father was let go of his job back in the 1980’s when there were no jobs around. He sold all his company stock and used it for a down payment to buy a business that supported our family for over 30 years, and is still going today. Congrats! It’s hard work but totally worth it!
Soon, he’ll be on the cover of Dad Magazine.
That’s really heartening to hear, and I’m glad your dad’s company is doing so well! Dad Magazine material. 🙂
What I meant to say was we’ll be seeing YOUR DAD on the cover soon! Go Dad!
I know, but your dad also sounds like Dad Magazine material too. Yay for dads!
(I just got back from dinner with him and my mom, and spent a chunk of my afternoon helping him with his new computer. DADS.)
My dad’s last corporate job was as a lobbyist for a large corporation. They went on a cost-cutting spree and wanted to cut his job. He negotiated a deal wherein he got the retain his title/business cards/contacts and the ability to do consulting for both the company and others (and a sweet severance deal). He was a full-time consultant for a few years, then part-time, then fully retired last February. So it can be done!
My dad started his own company when I was a kid, and while as a company it was not successful, he so impressed some of the people he consulted for they still send him work 15 years later! He’s got a full time large-corporation-type job now, but he’s more often than not also working on other side projects these people still send him.
Good luck to your dad!!
My mom was a successful plastic surgeon, but she was feeling really burnt out about 5 years ago. She retired from practice, and now she raises alpaca on a farm in rural Pennsylvania. She spends her days surrounded by wonderful beasties (pigs, chickens, goats, alpaca, and so on), helps to run the local fiber co-op, and is generally a much happier person than she was when she retired. [As a side benefit, I now have access to wholesale prices on alpaca yarn, which makes me a very happy knitter indeed!]
This is also amazing, MOMS DOING STUFF!!!
I love this so much.
Cool, and good luck to him! My mom went back to school a few years ago and got certified as a college admissions counselor, thinking that she would start a business with one of her friends who had also gotten the same certification. That didn’t work out, but now she works with individual clients throughout the college application and admissions process, plus also runs a couple of yearly essay workshops with the friend. She seems very happy.
My dad quit his job to write his own graphics program when I was a kid, turned it into a profitable business, got tired of updating versions to work with new versions of Microsoft operating systems, and then parted out the code and sold it to Corel Draw and some other random company. This paid for most of undergrad for me and my sister. Now he works for some company coding something that I haven’t really understood for the last decade or so.
Mr. Citizen (AKA Scott) is out of town until Tuesday. He just texted me (a rare occurrence) to let me know that one of the men he’s working with in scenic Peoria, Illinois looks and acts a lot like the Sherlock rendition of Moriarty. I’m semi-jealous of this.
While he’s gone, I’m playing a lot of video games, watching a lot of movies, and eating a lot of garbage food, as one does when they’re on their own. Right? This is normal? I never know how to behave when it’s just me and the cats, kicking back, drinking beer (that’s just me, not the cats). Wait, should I have the cats try beer?
Yay garbage food!
My husband is out of town this weekend, too! I just got back from the store with a bottle of wine, a big ol’ brioche, and I’m going to listen a whole week’s worth of Fresh Air and Marc Maron podcasts in a row.
One time Mr. Fringehead went out of town for four days and I interacted with literally four people, three of whom were waitstaff/cashiers and all I did was watch exactly what I wanted and eat exactly what I wanted and it was so great.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/77588885
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/77588774
???
THIS IS HAPPENING
Totally normal! That’s what I did all last weekend when my husband was away, and it was great!
I took myself out to dinner one night, and highly recommend it if that’s your thing. There’s nothing like sitting with a book while other people bring you pizza and beer, which you can then proceed to eat at your own pace.
I am sure my cats would probably try to drink my beer if I put it in front of them. They’ll drink anything out of any receptacle that’s not their water dish.
Video games and cracking open a beer as soon as 12 noon rolls around is the way I roll when I am on my own.
Scott picked up a 6-pack of Founders Centennial IPA for me before he left. (Best guy.) So it’s gonna be all Uncharted and beer, all the time.
My husband is taking the children to see his parents for three weeks this summer, so I will be all alone. Is it bad that I: 1. am looking forward to my alone time and 2. have already started adding all kinds of things to the Netflix queue to watch all by myself?
Alone time rules! Plus I will love them all so much more when they return and I have had time to miss them.
When my husband is out of town I eat a lot food that he hates (like sardines and chicken livers), drink good beer or wine that I don’t have to share with anyone and curl up with my dog on the couch. The dog is not allowed on the couch.
Haha “scenic” Peoria, IL. I grew up in that area, and it is anything but scenic–especially now with all the flooding and brown grass, bare trees, and general grey-ness.
And your time alone sounds awesome, I’m quite jealous.
So I’ve been reading the Toast obsessively since it first began (all those years, wait, months ago) and have been too shy to comment, but I saw the open thread and thought I’ll get off my arse and finally do it.
Anyway… does anyone have experiences with partner visas? We’re just about to send off my partner’s visa application and I’m freaking out, just worried that we’ve missed something out and it’s all going to go wrong and all that jazz. Would love to hear from people who have gone through this and survived
I have a friend who’s dealing with a fiance visa, but I’m not clear if you’re doing that or the one for an already married couple. Good luck!
Sort of the already-married one? We’re applying for a NZ visa, where you don’t need to be married, just be in a ‘proper’ relationship, they don’t distinguish between married and unmarried couples. Which is good for us.
Thanks for the good wishes, and hope all goes well for your friend
No input on partner visas, sorry 🙁 but a hearty welcome!
I’m already freaking out a bit at having commented (!), and gotten a few replies (!) including yours (!)
Thanks! =)
It took us 10 years and $10,000 (F1 student visa, then H1B work visa, then green cards). I still joke that my (Canadian) wife married me (I’m Canadian, too, but since I’m an academic it’s easier for me to immigrate) for a green card. In my experience, the anticipation and angst are terrible. The only thing I would say is that you absolutely must have a lawyer who has worked on this stuff before. In theory you can do it all yourself, but I found the peace of mind to be more than worth it.
I found it stressful and utterly humiliating (paying to be groped by a doc to prove I was a male; being fingerprinted as if I were a criminal, etc.), but it passed.
We ultimately had a green card party and asked all our friends to dress in green. The food was green as well, and it was fantastic.
Ooof, that sounds hard.
We’re moving (hopefully!) to NZ, and I’m hoping that the visa process is easier/nicer there than in the US. You don’t hear much about NZ visas though, as we’re such a small country. I’ve talked to one couple who said that it was fine, it just took aaaages (and the visa itself ain’t cheap!) So fingers crossed.
I’m exactly at the anticipation and angst stage, and given that I overthink things anyway, this is really doing my head in. I hope we get to have our ‘green card’ party as well, that sounds like a fabulous idea.
I emigrated to the UK on a spouse visa, which is not a NZ partner visa, but my experience was that they were primarily interested in knowing that we could support ourselves without recourse to public funds and that we had a place to live and not too worried about whether our relationship was legit enough. I think relationship visas tend to be pretty quick, cut-and-dried affairs as long as you meet the financial requirements and have included all the necessary proof. If you’ve missed one thing but everything else seems perfectly kosher, there’s a good chance your IO might just contact your partner for the missing evidence rather than immediately stamp a big old DENIED on the application.
Of course, we’re two white people from English-speaking countries, so I don’t doubt that our situation was vastly more straightforward than many other people’s. (Which is mind-blowing, because it was still REALLY FUCKING STRESSFUL.) Good luck! <3
I’ve done that here in France (I’m American, and my husband is from NZ but has UK nationality). It was definitely stressful, but it all worked out for me. It’s sort of like a big bureaucratic scavenger hunt with a lot of waiting in very unpleasant offices, and a pretty cool prize at the end. Wishing you luck!
Thanks! It definitely feels like a scavenger hunt, where you only get 3/4 of the clues, and half of those are contradictory, or unclear, or irrelevant. I just have to keep believing that there is an end, and we will reach it at some point.
And yay for Kiwis =)
Good luck! My husband is just now applying to have his 2-year “review” status lifted on his green card (that’s what you get when your green card is through marriage in the US), and you do get through the it. I greatly appreciated having hired a lawyer, esp. since my husband was a conscientious objector to the draft in his country of origin which could have been sticky. But it all went fine.
We had to do separate interviews where we were asked questions to see if our answers matched, just like a dating show. If you have to do that, I do recommend practicing beforehand — make sure you know the name of everybody in any family photos you show them, even pets (I GOT ASKED THIS!! his sister’s dog). Also in the US at least they like to “check” that you really live together by asking questions about who your neighbors are/what they’re like, where your partner keeps his/her toothbrush, etc. It’s different for everybody, but for whatever reason we managed to get a pretty thorough questioner, ugh.
Any good ideas for cheap-ish 3-day weekend trips from NYC? I’ve got plans to go to Maine in June, but I desperately need to get out of the city for a little while sooner than that.
Burlington, VA! It’s lovely there! They have a lake monster!!!
Champ! My roommate had a bong/pipe/whatever shaped vaguely like a dinosaur but she decided it was actually Champ The Lake Monster.
Come out to western Mass! It is thisclose to being real spring here and about to get REAL PRETTY. (You can come sleep in my spare room and hang out with my cat if you want. I’ll have Toasties come live in my house any day.)
SECONDED. It’s beautiful in spring.
Where in western Mass? I should also probably note that I don’t have a car 🙁 City livin’…
I’m in Northampton, which is sorta the cultural center of the area (and location of Smith College, Misandrist Headquarters of Massachusetts). My bff in NYC comes out here all the time on Megabus! You can also get here by Amtrak but that’s probably quite a bit more expensive.
NOHO! If you end up in Western MA and you like pizza, go to Antonio’s in Amherst. I prefer the chicken-bacon-ranch and honey-mustard-chicken pizzas but you really can’t go wrong.
Seconded on Northampton!! It’s such a great place to stroll around and there is a large chance your favorite indie band will be playing a show there in the near future.
Everybody come visit me!!!!!!
Also yeah the band thing is 100% true. PROOF: The Mountain Goats will be here on April 15!
I’ve seen the Hold Steady, Hugh Laurie & The Copper Bottom Band, and Iron & Wine in Northampton. Needless to say, your town holds a special place in my heart! Also you’re getting a Dobra tea (it’s probably open already, actually, since it’s been a while since I was there) and that place is the BEST. There’s one in Burlington VA (which I recc’d earlier, ha!) so my partner and I want to make a pilgrimage back to Northampton just to go there.
I wish Amtrak weren’t so expensive. It’s really annoying. I also hate hate hate buses, but I am also itching for a vacation, so maybe!
Hmmm, apparently it’s possible to do Amtrak for $32 each way if you go into Springfield (about a 25-30 minute drive from Noho). This thread got me talking with my NYC friend and she just booked a train ticket to come see me at the end of April wooooo
You can come stay with me in DC ! 🙂
The Finger Lakes region is gorgeous!
The best part of the weather finally thawing out – ICED COFFEE! I forgot how fucking much I love it. It makes me feel like a GOLDEN GOD.
Beverage of the heavensssss
Every day the last week I have wanted one! But I haven’t for some reason, due to laziness/not wanting to spend money/not wanting to queue up. I am craving one 24/7 though.
Dude, spend the $2 and GO FOR IT. Aside from tasting a billion times better than hot coffee, it provides a much more effective caffeine jolt that makes me feel like life is worth living again! I’m convinced that my self-diagnosed SAD was actually just a lack of iced coffee.
Is this the appropriate place to talk about how excited I am to make and drink shameful amounts of cold brew coffee for the next 8 months????
It is only inappropriate in the sense that no amount of cold brew coffee could be considered shameful.
IT SURE FUCKING IS! Tell me more about your method. I tried it once, but wasn’t terribly pleased with the results. It wasn’t strong enough or something…
http://thehairpin.com/2013/05/summer-dranks-that-…
^ is what I use and it is DELISH
can confirm that this worked excellently for me last summer. (was also embarrassed to discover how easy it is to make simple syrup because i always thought it “just sounded hard”)
I bought a glass bottle to put simple syrup in so that I could make fancy cocktails and I’ve been SO PLEASED with the results!
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO POST THIS, yep, it is also what I use. The only container I own that’s big enough to do a whole pound of coffee (the only appropriate amount, obv) is a giant cooking pot, which works just fine. I strain with a colander lined with a super thin tea towel.
I like this one: about a third a cup of freshly-ground coffee to 1 1/2 cups of water. Grind it, let it sit in the water overnight, then strain and pour over ice.
It’s best after 24 hours, 12 is perfectly good, and even 7 will do.
Will admit I have to check Smitten Kitchen every year to remember how much coffee to add: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/08/cold-brewe…
Happy iced coffee season!
Happy iced coffee season to you! (I don’t celebrate Easter, maybe I will just celebrate iced coffee instead?)
yell “I AM RISEN” after your first sip every morning
Haha YES I am totally going to do this! And plan to scare the crap out of my dog in doing so!
COLD BREW COFFEE SEASON
I tried to make iced coffee earlier this week ONLY TO DISCOVER that my supply of coffee had gone bad. (I guess that’s what happens when you only make tea all fall/winter.) However, I intend to rectify this TERRIBLE ERROR no later than this weekend, so all will be well.
Godspeed to you, my friend!
Anyone have recommendations on a caramel sauce for iced coffee? I’ve tried Torani but it just tastes . . . off. Alcoholey but not in a delicious alcohol way? Not like caramel, definitely. I’m thinking of trying one of those squeezable caramel sauces you use on Ice cream but think it might not mix well with an iced drink.
Google might have some suggestions on how to make your own.
I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway last night WHO WILL TALK ABOUT THIS WITH ME
I AM SO JEALOUS OF YOU!
IT WAS EVERYTHING I HOPED IT WOULD BE AND MORE
wait i am seeing it next week! DID YOU LOVE IT
LOVE IT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Seriously, get ready for an amazing show.
I love love loved the movie and John Cameron Mitchell. Seeing it on Broadway would be killer.
John Cameron Mitchell was actually supposed to bring Hedwig to Broadway a couple years back & star in it, but it never happened. Now it’s finally here and Neil Patrick Harris is Hedwig instead. I just, sigh.
Bummer. Other than having 3 names they are completely different people. I had the hugest, weirdest crush on JCM in drag. My husband, the sport of a lifetime, got me a huge Hedwig poster for my birthday. I always imagine when he bought the poster he was like “Um okay, she’s into transvestites, sure, why not. I love her and she will squeal over this”
I actually really liked Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig. My only reservation was that his singing got a little too Broadway-ish at times. C’mon, dude, you’re in a rock musical! But, it’s still in previews so maybe he’s working on that.
Okay, so I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time a few weeks ago and fell in love with it completely. This week, I finished Anne of Avonlea, and while it was nice enough… I don’t know. I didn’t enjoy it half as much as Green Gables, and then in the comments for Dirtbag Anne, I remember seeing people saying they disliked the later books so much they considered them non-canon. Should I keep going, fellow toasties? If so, how far?
Also, I can’t be the only one who thought Davy was the absolute worst, right? I wanted to grind that kid into paste.
I am the biggest, freakiest LM Montgomery fan ever. OKAY I love the ENTIRE series for different reasons, but you should know they were not written in chronological order!
Anne of the Island is AWESOME, keep going with it, it has amazeballs characters and is great. Anne of Windy Poplars is widely considered not so awesome, and recycles a lot of Montgomery’s shorter stories from elsewhere. House of Dreams is lovely, but Adult–it has a lot of really really depressing sad themes. Ingleside is another book that recycles other stories, and is about her kids. Rainbow Valley is almost solely about the kids. Rilla is PHENOMENAL and about one of her kids and the First World War.
READ THEM ALL OMG.
Also I hated Davy, Dora 4ever.
Dora?!? Dora is boring and sucky, has no personality and never does anything. Davy is the worst, to be sure, but Dora is too. She’s so bloody passive you could tell her to jump off a cliff and she would. (Didn’t she actually go down a well just ’cause Davy told her to?) They are both the worst
No. She went into the neighbour’s shed because Davy told her there was a parrot in there to see, then he locked her in. Then he LIED about it and Anne and Marilla spent a day frantically looking for her, convinced she’d fallen down the well and drowned.
Oh my gosh, you’re right! I guess there was so much mention of the well, that I could only remember the bloody well. Ok, so she’s not as annoying as I remember. I guess it’s time to reread the books then…
*goes looking for her library card*
If you’re into reading on a device, they’re mostly available on Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) for free without library card hassle!
Davy is a liar and a coward and he just fucking expects Anne and Marilla to do shit for him AND THEY DO even though he’s so awful and it INFURIATES ME.
Dora is brave and competent and kind and everyone in the book is just like oh god, what a boring kid, who gives a shit.
what the hell, early 20th century canadians
I DO think there is something to the idea that it’s nice to be needed. BUT. Come on. COME ON. Dora is super competent and awesome and I really wanted to be that as a kid.
In my imagination Dora grows up to be an incredibly responsible, hard-working farm wife with an industrious, hustling husband, and they manage a huge, productive farm, and have a ton of kids who are all raised just like them–to be responsible and industrious and not go gallivating off FUCKING SHIT UP, DAVY.
This comment is correct about everything. Anne of the Island is a favourite of mine as well, particularly when they create their home of college ladies. Ingleside and Rainbow Valley were my other favourites as a kid, but now I would say Green Gables + Island + Rilla are my essential reads.
Do come back here and talk to us about them when you’re done!!!
Coincidentally, I just started rereading Rilla of Ingleside today! Walter OMG my favourite forever.
Also, do the weirdly vague powers of prophecy some people have make the Anne series count as, like, fantasy or magical realism or something?
ANNE OF THE ISLAND AND ANNE’S HOUSE OF DREAMS 4EVA. I can recite those books from memory. Rilla is cramazing.
I didn’t realize they weren’t written in chronological order, though. It’s messing with my entire worldview.
Anne of the Island is my favorite, so I would recommend reading that one at least. College! PHIL GORDON <3 <3 <3
She’s a jewel among women, but she needn’t try to convince us that she can chloroform cats.
AUNT JIMSIE.
I’m not a Davy fan myself. The series on the whole though – so much love. Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Poplars and Rilla of Ingleside particularly.
Well, everyone seems to recommend moving forward, so I will! I’m glad to hear it doesn’t get unilaterally worse, Green Gables brought me to tears SEVERAL times and I want more of that, forever.
I’m also very seriously considering getting this tattooed on me somewhere: https://www.dropbox.com/s/j18siiolci8ntyq/Untitle…
That’s lovely.
Yesss I love that. There are even better lines to come in Anne of the Island!
My copy is from childhood, and at some point in my turbulent adolescence I went through and highlighted all my favorite lines. There is a buttload of highlighting.
I inheireted my grandmother’s full collection of Anne books, all first editions, and made magical by her and my mother’s and aunt’s margin notes and news clippings. It’s like a whole Canadian history course. Also Rilla rocks and Davey sucks. 🙂
I JUST finished reading all the “Anne” ones for the first time and yeah – the quality of books goes up and down. I love Anne of the Island, it had beautiful imagery that (I think) is unmatched in any of the other books, except maybe Green Gables. I also really liked House of Dreams, and was pretty bleh on Ingleside. I’m excited for the one about Rilla and WWI though, it is apparently the only (or the first?) book written by a Canadian woman about women’s experiences during the war. I’ll probably start Rainbow Valley this weekend and leave Rilla for last. Definitely keep going with them though, I think it’s worth it!
I’m the one who said the later books weren’t canon, and I still think Anne of the Island is very good – it’s so good I conflated it into Green Gables, somehow.
House of Dreams is fine. FINE. I mean, Anne never errs once, except if maybe it is erring to WANT TO PROTECT A WOMAN FROM AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP which the book kind of intimates. There are very few amusing bits.
Anne of Windy Poplars and Rainbow Valley never happened. They are fanfic I accidentally read once.
They are fanfic I accidentally read once.
I am truly, sincerely delighted with how scathing and dismissive this burn is.
Joining the chorus in recommending Anne of the Island and Rilla of Ingleside as the best in the series. I wanted to go to college with Anne and Phil so much! I also like House of Dreams even though it goes to some dark and sad places – it felt somehow more real than some of the other books.
I am doing a final listen through my Toastie mix cd before I send it off! It is PRETTY EXCELLENT, not gonna lie.
ohhh I am so on the fence about mine! My week got busy, but I will be sending it off Monday!
I was worried about being behind on that, now I feel better.
This is not the appropriate place, but I can’t find where we were talking about this before! I am moving in two weeks! I would love to meet up, but I think it might be a little too ambitious to try and plan something before I go. Shit is kind of chaotic right now! But maybe sometime when I’m back in the valley for a visit!
Ohhh man, yes, I totally understand! I hope the move goes well, and let me know if you’re ever around town and want to hang out. I assume no one is reading this anymore/interested in internet stalking me, so I’ll just give you my email — it is akhornbeck at gmail. Barring that, you know where to find me around these parts!
got it! thanks! Ill give you a holler if/when im back here. And in the meantime im sure ill be seeing you around these internet parts.
This weekend, I am starting to take (Skype) guitar lessons from my dad! The last time he tried to teach me I was busy being 14 and horrible, so when I asked him about it he was excited about the idea.
He told me to pick out songs I want to learn- any suggestions for a novice (apart from the already-selected gems from the Mountain Goats back catalog)?
who do you listen to? I’m a music therapist, so i play pretty much everything, and a lot of songs are deceptively easy!
I have a solid postpunk pedigree, but I think I’m going to wait to tackle Fugazi for awhile. I also like alt folk and classic country and Laura Mvula and Neko Case…
But I’m open to any/all suggestions.
Also, cool job!
“Wish I Was the Moon” is pretty easy and also fun to waillllllll! But as far as classic country, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams never used more than three or four chords and none of them are fancy. (If you can learn a C, D, E, F, G, and A chord and have a capo you can play almost anything) . In my experience, the most important part of Country music is the strumming- spend some time on your right hand in practice and you’ll be kicking out lights at the opry in no time!
Harvest Moon is at the very top of my list if I ever learn guitar/banjo.
as in Neil Young? Because Aoife O’Donovan’s cover is the MOST
Oooo, you could learn “Folsom Prison” and give it a nice misandrist spin.
Johnny Cash is a GREAT idea!
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is the first song I learned on guitar! It’s only four chords and they are the four easiest chords to finger, so once you get the hang of switching between chord shapes quickly, it’s pretty straightforward (the strumming pattern is pretty simple, so no worries there).
I second this!
Do you like Waxahatchee? All of her songs are fairly simple, but good practice for different strumming patterns (something that always throws me off)
I’m learning guitar as well! Here is a very easy song that is only three chords: Free Falling by Tom Petty. Here is a very easy song that is a hit when you play it at parties: Free Falling by Tom Petty.
(Also the impetus for my buying a guitar was so that I could play Mountain Goats songs, true story.)
Has anyone ever done a yoga teacher training course? I’d love to hear about your experiences and what you’re doing now (are you a yoga instructor, or did the course strengthen your personal practice?)
I’ve been getting back into yoga after a long hiatus, and it’s really been helping my physical body as well as my mental/emotional state. I’m not totally ready to plunge into teacher training, but I’m very curious about the process and outcomes.
My sister in law did it at Yogaville (http://www.yogaville.org/yoga-teacher-training/). IIRC, it was a month long, very intensive, and she became very close to a number of people in the class. She was a yoga instructor for a while and now works for a yoga-related company. She’s always been pretty athletic and had a regular ‘practice’, but after training she was more confident in front of others/leading others and with some of the more difficult positions.
I am also considering a training in the next year or two so I’ll be following this thread!
For me, it would definitely be a side gig — maybe teach two classes a week or something? I would also like to be able to donate time as a volunteer teacher, particularly in treatment centers for mental health/addiction issues? The world’s my oyster, etc.
Ahh, I am also wondering about a course, but cannot afford one in terms of time OR money right now. Hopping in the see if anyone else replies.
Hi all! I am a part-time yoga teacher who did a seven-month-long, 200-hour teacher training through YogaWorks a couple of years ago. There were some things I really liked and others that I didn’t, so apologies if this gets long 🙂
Things I liked: It was fun to spend a long weekend every month hanging out with people who were really interested in yoga, talking about philosophy, practicing. If you’re interested in going deeper in your practice, it would certainly happen through a training (…but, hold that thought 🙂 ) My group was really supportive and we all became friends, especially because lots of emotional things come up through yoga. The practice teaching, starting on the very first weekend, was extremely helpful in giving you more comfort talking in front of a group and making you learn the various alignment cues, so even if you didn’t want to teach, it would aid your technique, etc.
Things I didn’t like: The main problem with these trainings, in my opinion, is that in 200 hours you simply can’t learn and retain enough to be ready to teach, or at least not to teach very well. Certainly it’s a great start, but they really are only the start of your education. Most studios will require you to be an RYT to be employed, so if you want to teach you’d likely need to do one at some point, but these programs are incredibly expensive, and I also learned a lot simply from doing an informal apprenticeship with my regular daily teacher. If you don’t want to teach but just want to deepen your practice, in my opinion that money could be better spent by buying monthly passes to a local studio to go practice more, and to sign up for some weekend workshops with good teachers to supplement your regular practice. Some studios have philosophy discussion groups and things like that, or you can read the Yoga Sutras at home– Satchidananda’s translation/notes are good. Also, I can’t speak for all trainings, but mine seemed to attract people without regular practices, and it focused very little on adjusting/assisting other students. I would do a lot of research before spending the money because a lot of studios just put them on to keep their business afloat.
I see that my list is weighted more heavily toward the cons. I really do think that they’re helpful if you want to teach, have plenty of expendable income, and are realistic about the fact that you’ll still be a beginner in your journey when you finish. They will also deepen your practice. I just think you can deepen your practice for a little less money on your own (I mean, I spent three months studying with my teacher in India this year for only slightly more money than my 200-hour TT cost) so I might wait until I needed the credentials to teach. Just my two cents! Let me know if I can elaborate on anything.
it’s National Poetry Month! anyone else celebrating? writing poetry, reading poetry, building altars to your favorite poet, etc. etc. etc. … 🙂
(I’m posting a poem a day (not my own) to my tumblr/LJ, as usual, and finally reading Christopher Logue’s War Music. also inhaling everything that April Is has ever posted.)
Oooh what’s your tumblr? I was super bummed out that grad school is eating my poeting (obviously not an MFA ha) and then got the bump a couple pieces I’d sent out were being published in an April litmag!
Would build an altar to Anne Carson. Also maybe Frank O’Hara but just cos he’s dreamy.
hooray for being published! that’s exciting. my last foray into writing poetry was in middle school, and for good reason…
I love Anne Carson but I feel like she makes me cry, 9 poems out of 10. I guess that only makes me like her more, haha!
and my tumblr is hepatosaurus – all NPM poems are tagged with “national poetry month”
Ooooh! I want to read more poetry. Can you recommend any experimental or angry political poets?
Have a big Louise Gluck anthology out from the library, am slowly working my way through it.
Louise Gluck is transcendent.
I decorated the library I work (it’s a tiny art school; I’m the only librarian) for it! We’ve got all our poetry books out on display, fun posters, and I put out the magnetic poetry. Last year I printed out a bunch of my favorite poems and left them in a basket on the library desk for everyone to take and they ended up being really popular so I’m doing that again. More poems! Poems for everyone! Take-a-poem-basket is heavy on Sandra Cisneros and Aimee Nezhukumatathil this year.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil! I really, really like everything I’ve read by her so far. nice choice! 😀
Let’s all commiserate about our weddings. GO.
WHY WON’T ANYONE RSVP OMGGGGG OR RESPOND TO MY INQUIRIES TO THEM ABOUT RSVPING
OMG DO IT
DO IT
I SENT THOSE FOR A REASON so much wasted postage
OH THANK GOODNESS WEDDING COMMISERATION
I have tracked down all but 5 RSVPs and when I hear from them there will be an icy politeness in my voice.
All of a sudden though some financial deadlines are coming up mighty quick. Well, ALL THE DEADLINES ARE COMING UP MIGHTY QUICK BECAUSE I AM GETTING MARRIED IN 43 DAYS AND IT MAKES ME SHOUTY ON THE INTERNET.
I have ten days before I absolutely have to know, and a BUNCH of people with NO RESPONSE. Even to my follow-ups. I WANT TO KILL THEM.
I have one that won’t even reply to “Hey, could I get your phone number?” so that I can call and ask her.
I did get a couple funny responses to my polite follow-up inquiries: “Are you coming to my wedding?” “Yes! Was I supposed to RSVP?” -sigh- and “Are you coming to my wedding?” “Yes, sorry, I am bad at letters.” “The RSVP was online.” “Oh. Was that on the invitation?”
I’ll just be over here gnawing on my fingernails.
Save us all from “I’m bad letters” and stuff. My maid of honour said she “couldn’t figure out the response card” so she just returned it with a Post-it note stuck to it saying she was coming and bringing her roommate as her guest.
WHY DO PEOPLE NOT RETURN THEIR STAMPED RSVPS.
Yeah, saints preserve me from “Oh, didn’t I say on Facebook I was excited about your wedding?” I COULD NOT HAVE MADE THIS EASIER FOR YOU, I REALLY COULDN’T HAVE – please just go to the website and type in your name and click attending. Please.
One of Mr. September’s elderly relatives sent us a beautiful card saying she didn’t understand the website but they would come. I accepted that one.
When you have spent all that postage it seems bewildering to me that they can’t just TOSS IT IN THE MAIL. When’s your wedding again?
Sunday 27 April. I’m dying.
IT IS NOT THAT HARD TO JUST MAIL IT BACK OH MY GOD.
Aw, the elderly-relative thing is kind of adorable.
I was the RSVP point person on my friend’s wedding and it was great because I didn’t have any familial connection to anyone I had to call and use my bossypants voice: “SO we sent your invite six weeks ago and we were just HOPING you could LET US KNOW whether you’re COMING and if you’d like PRIME RIB or CHICKEN.”
I can hear this CLEARLY in my head and may have to hire you; do you freelance?
Sure! I have a very nice phone voice.
I sent out my invitations in fucking JANUARY and gave the response date as the end of March (because it involves travel) and STILL. NO. RESPONSE. FROM. SOME. PEOPLE.
I MUST LIGHT THEM ON FIRE NOW.
Well, that would solve the feeding-them quandary.
I got married in August 1996 and never received RSVPs from 3 of my friends. This despite the fact that I went against my very proper mother’s wishes and included easy-to-fill-out response cards with SASEs.
I’m FB friends with all of them now, and periodically have to restrain myself from messaging them and asking why the hell they never responded.
The worst part is thinking “well they must not like me very much if they couldn’t be bothered to rSVP and tell me if they’re coming.”
Is it weird that I think that’d be an awesome job. Where can I submit a resume?
Same here, I would totally be down to be a wedding enforcer.
Probably not appropriate for a wedding, but I found a good gambit for a 40th birthday party I threw. Invitations said “a local restaurant”. I told guests the name and location of the restaurant only after they confirmed their attendance. That way, I had no surprise guests to feed.
That is the brightest idea I have ever heard. Any event I plan from here on out is employing this tactic.
I ADDRESSED THEM AND STAMPED THEM FOR YOU ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS WRITE YOUR NAME AND CHECK THE BOX.
UGH, and every single person expects you to read their mind and know not only whether their utter absence of response means yes or no, but also why. I got a whole lot of “of course we’re coming!” and a whole lot of “but of course I can’t make it!,” all delivered in the same exact incredulous tones. Here is The Self-Link of Righteous Bridal Fury!
For the last handful of stragglers, I finally [left voicemails/sent emails] saying in the sweetest [tone/words] I could muster, roughly, “So, the wedding is in [X] days, and we don’t seem to have your RSVP. GOSH I KNOW WE ARE ALL SO BUSY BLAHBLAHBLAH and maybe you just didn’t have time to respond yet, so if I don’t have your RSVP by [date], I’ll mark you down as a ‘no.'”
That worked like a charm.
Ahahahahahahahaha, my favorite [SPOILER ALERT this is the least favorite actually] was from the single guy who told me he didn’t need or want the pressure of a plus-one, so he didn’t get one. Later, when I sweetly asked if he would be able to join us for the wedding 10 days from now, he answered “Oh, yeeeah. Yeah, we might swing by.”
A. “Swing by”?
B. “We”?
Because I would happily have planned for an extra seat, but y’know, we paid, trucked in, and set up every single chair; we didn’t book a whole lotta extras.
Dude, and everyone is SO CONVINCED that their way is the right way. People are convinced that NOT sending in their RSVPS is obviously either YES DUH SO OBVIOUS I COULDN’T BE BOTHERED or NO DUHHHH IF I WAS COMING I WOULD HAVE RSVPED RIGHT?
Jesus. I absolutely cannot fathom this.
So I have the second bachelor party of my life this weekend. As with the first, I expect it’s gonna be a lot like this:
Though probably with more beer, so that’s a plus.
No joke this is one of my favorite episodes of all time (mostly due to the Salt n Pepa singalong in the car). It sounds like you will maybe have a blast?
I was JUST about to say that this episode is one of the most wonderful. The club they go to with all of the weird alcohol stuff was HILARIOUS! I hope you all go to one like that.
Well, we’re going to Dave & Busters first. I’ll ask if they have aerosol vodka and report back!
Also C is going to the parallel bachelorette party and I have given her instructions to abscond with as much penis-shaped or -logoed memorabilia as possible, for comically inappropriate future use.
Whatever, I won last night with an eleven-segment road, so there.
“Whatever, [that’s not what your mom said when] I won last night with an eleven-segment road, so there.”
This looks much more fun than my husband’s worst bachelor party ever, at which the guys sat in a bar and watched the 1992 presidential debates for 3 hours.
Hey all, just to vent: I got rejected from grad school. The more shameful thing is that it was for a Gender Studies program. Double shame! So I’m dumb and not a good feminist. Just kidding.
I got my B.A. over a decade ago, so maybe that was part of it, when in fact, I think that’s a good thing, since I will be very motivated to get back into academics.
grad school, schmad school
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXvv5sTqNa4
You’re too good to be a graduate student anyhow.
I clicked that link with a thought of what I hoped it would be and IT WAS WHAT I HOPED IT WOULD BE.
😉
Total crapshoot in grad admissions. You’re probably completely qualified, they just didn’t have faculty at that moment who wanted to work on your topic, or they had too many people working in that area, or, or, or…A friend and I applied to grad school at the same time with almost identical resumes. She got into school A and not school B; I got into school B and not school A. I know it must suck and be really frustrating, but it’s probably more a comment on the program than you!
“grad school, schmad school”
Truer words were never spoken.
I’m sorry you got rejected, because that always hurts. JessKTS is right that it’s a crapshoot, but that doesn’t make it feel better.
Positive thoughts for you!
It’s not a reflection on you. They had so many applicants and could not accept all of them. You are awesome and another grad school deserves you more.
Aw, that stinks, I’m sorry.
I’ve been thinking a lot about rejection, and how we frame it, lately. (Freelance writing is all about courting rejection.) More than ever, I’m trying to embrace the idea that when someone or something “rejects” me, what they’re actually saying is “This isn’t a good fit right now.”
Infuriatingly but weirdly reassuring, I can’t always (or even usually) know why it wasn’t a good fit, so I just keep on doing my best work and trying to figure out where it fits best. I used to hear “They think I’m not good enough” or “They think I’m a failure” or even “I am a failure.” But thinking of it as “not a good fit right now” works much better for me, because it lets me get past the moment of NOPE into “Okay, well, what would work better for me?”
I don’t know if that feels right to you, or if it’s just one more damn person burbling reassuringly at you. Either way, I’m sorry that happened, and I know it stinks stinks stinks right now. But it does free you to go on to the next thing.
If you hear the voice of anxious experience here, you’re right. I’m waiting to hear back on an exciting opportunity that I am probbbbbbbably not going to get, and if/when they pass on me because it’s not the best fit, I will cry and cry because it stinks stinks stinks, and then I’ll get right back to figuring out what’s the best fit.
You guys, it finally feels like spring in Boston. I’m so grateful I could cry.
Meanwhile I spent a lot of this week being hella stressed but tonight is WINTER SOLDIER with some Toasties and rl friends and tomorrow I’m going to see an old friend of mine play a show at Club Passim. (If anybody in the area cares to go, it’s the Women Songwriter Collective, and they’re playing at 3:30.)
Yesterday was disappointingly cold, though 🙁 Where are you seeing Winter Soldier? I’ll be in Davis Square tonight and am hoping Somerville Theater will have it.
It’s not at the Somerville Theater yet, unfortunately. (sadface)
The Capitol Theater has it, though, if you’re willing to head out to Arlington.
Capitol Theater! We used to live just down the street from it years ago. Still brings back great memories. 😀
Spring is the most miraculous thing.
Feels like spring in Calgs today. I had almost stopped believing in it.
GAME OF THRONES YOU GUYS. Can we please talk more about Game of Thrones. My roommate has already seen the first episode (lucky bitch got a ticket to the premiere and met Peter Dinklage and everything) and therefore is just not excited enough.
GAAAAAMMEE OF FUCKING GAME OF GAME OF THROOOOOONEEEESS
I can’t wait!
I too am excited.
I have been avoiding spoilers (besides, y’know, the books) but I seriously am going to lose my shit at the Purple Wedding. Can’t wait can’t wait can’t wait.
GAME OF THROOOOOOOOOOOOOONEESSSSSSSSS
GAME OF THROOOOONES !!! I have been binge listening to all of the fan podcasts and do not give a crap about my descent into Nerdom. Guys, I even left a fan theory (wish fulfillment) on Reddit and I got some positive votes! No one was mean! SO EXCITED SO EXCITED.
DORNE.
I finally sat down with Season 3 this week in prep for watching the first episode of Season 4 this weekend. Having read the books it’s super interesting to me to see what they changed, and I admit to trying to figure out which elements are redirection on GRRM’s part. If it doesn’t make it into the show it must not be relevant, right?
Another wedding post because what else am I doing right now!? (Answer: working, working out, choir, then more wedding stuff).
I got my ceremony written today, so that was rad, and I am going to a bridal shower for self in Edmonton this weekend which my two best friends have planned entirely without my knowledge except for the date. I have been permitted to know nothing further, which is super exciting. My bridal party is large and with the exception of my sister spread out across the country, and they have been to a one long-distance darlings. I would have eloped as a stress-monster months ago without them.
Best bridesmaid story you have, either being one or having a good/hilariously bad one? (I loved Sloane Crosley’s essay about being a bridesmaid in I Was Told There’d Be Cake).
I don’t have any, but have you heard anything about Jen Doll’s new book? It’s all about them!
I will have to look that up! Thanks!
I was a bridesmaid in the wedding of one of my best friends last summer, and I also made her cake, and I may have yelled at someone’s aunt because she came up and started asking me questions WHILE I WAS STACKING CAKE LAYERS, IN A BRIDESMAID’S DRESS, WHILE THEY WERE WAITING ON ME TO DO PICTURES.
Had I been the bride, I would have assured you that response was perfectly legitimate. Good Lord.
The bride was totally okay with this. Then again, it wasn’t her aunt (it was the groom’s). WHATEVS.
I also broke into someone’s car at the bride’s father’s funeral visitation earlier that summer, so if me yelling at a relative is the worst thing that happened at the wedding, everyone got off easy.
My best woman and I essentially turned the whole stretch of my engagement into a Be Awesome To Each Other contest: she’d host me for a weekend at her home and offer to make my dress, I’d wave off the offer and go make us pancakes, she threw me a lavish champagne-and-tea party, I rented her a room at a neighborhood fantastic bed-and-breakfast, she smuggled a cooler of food into the get-away car for us, I… well, I thanked her eternally.
One good story from that time: before I’d even had time to consider what I was going to wear, she asked me what she should wear to the wedding. I said “Oh, whatever! You’ve got tons of great dresses, or you could use this as an excuse to buy a new one.”
She insisted that she wanted some guidance, and I insisted that I just didn’t have any advice: as soon as I found a (regular ol’ daywear) dress that I liked, I’d show her, and then she could pick anything she wanted that wasn’t the exact same dress. I asked her “Did you really think I was going to assign you some taffeta ballgown with a bow on the butt*?”
She retorted, “My dear, I will wear a clown suit if that’s what you want.”
And then we looked each other in the eyes, steadily and intently, for the full minute it took before we both accepted that I wasn’t going to say “Well, then, a clown suit it is.”
*Nothin’ against taffeta or ballgowns or butt-bows, I’m just a lot more casual than that.
The first time I was a bridesmaid the dresses were pale pink. Very, very pale. The morning of the wedding we were on a very tight schedule: hair/makeup, dresses, pictures, ceremony, more pictures. Everything went well up until the bridesmaids put their dresses on and discovered that anything other than very, very light underwear could be seen through the dresses. There wasn’t time to get new undies so half the bridesmaids were “free balling” through pictures and the ceremony.
This past summer I planned my best friend’s bridal shower from six hours away (in Boston, from Philly). I came in on the train on Friday afternoon, went to Costco with the wedding coordinator, hauled back 100+lb of food on public transportation, got up early on Saturday, made the food (with help from a few of the other bridesmaids), ran the shower, shook hands with people, then got back on a train and left again that evening.
It was truly a marathon experience.
Another time I inadvertently catered my friend’s wedding. She had a small wedding, and planned on serving soup/sandwiches/salad (and cupcakes instead of cake) in the church hall afterwards, and making everything herself. Fortunately/unfortunately, she started a new job right before the wedding and only got time off for the day before the wedding and day of… so I and another friend of hers took care of making the soup/salad/cupcakes for her (in the midst of all of the other wedding madness). Someone else brought some of the sandwiches and drinks, but we ended up making most of the food.
It wasn’t until the reception when someone else asked us what catering company the couple had used that it occurred to us what had happened, hahaha.
Hi Toast. Today is officially one year without alcohol for me. I’m not telling a lot of people, but I’m telling you, because I like you. I’m celebrating with a ski day complete with hot cocoa, Diet Coke, and lots of reading.
Have a great weekend!
That’s such great news! I hope you have a great celebratory weekend!!!
congrats! I may not know you, but I’m really fucking proud of you.
I am proud of you too! You are awesome!
Congrats!! That’s amazing!!
Congratulations! I hope you have a great weekend too!
Proud of you! So many congratulations. Enjoy the hell out of your ski weekend.
You RULE
Congratulations! (For your one year alcohol-free, and for knowing how to ski, which I always find impressive.)
Congratulations!!!
That sounds so lovely – well done!
WAY TO GO HUGPUNCH! That is awesome.
Congratulations! That sounds like a brilliant way to celebrate, too!
Congrats! What an achievement! Sounds like a suitably awesome day.
Congrats!!
Sister in sobriety! Love to you it only gets better even when it doesn’t.
That sounds like such a great celebration, and so very well-deserved!
That’s a great achievement. Congratulations!
Congratulations!
*super big high five*
That is a fantastic accomplishment! Thanks for sharing it with us, and I hope you enjoyed your awesome-sounding day.
argh I’m late.
I had a BRUISING AND EMOTIONAL session with my therapist on wednesday (though, in new, she is one of only three people who can criticise my behaviour without me immediately going into a depressive shame spiral) and I am supposed to be going out tonight and I SHAVED MY LEGS and PAINTED MY NAILS but I’m worried I’ll cry.
awwwww 🙁 I bet your nails look nice at least!
You’ll be OK. I believe that. You’ll go out tonight and ask questions to draw out other people. You will not cry, or not much. Scope out bathroom location in advance and be ready to claim allergies after wiping eyes surreptitiously. You can focus on making others comfortable. “Bruising and emotional” means you have extra-fine radar for how others may be uncomfortable. You can be there for them.
But I don’t want to look after other people, I do far too much of that at the sacrifice of my own self-care.
Like this whole situation literally started because I ‘didn’t want to bother anyone’ with my increasing depression.
OK. I get it. Don’t look after anyone tonight. I was on the wrong tack.
Self-care: Going out will be good for you, just the getting out part. Not to mention being with other people, even if you remain quiet.
Already accomplished: nails and shaving are great self-care and a boost to your health, even if you aren’t feeling it right now.
Depression sucks. And it lies. I’ve been there. I feel for you. Be kind to yourself.
Can you cry right now and get it out of the way? That’s my usual method. (I maaaaaay have just sung along to Wicked Little Town” four times in a row because it reliably makes me cry, sorry/not sorry, next-door neighbor.)
p.s., this? a BRUISING AND EMOTIONAL session with my therapist on wednesday
IS AWESOME WORK, WAY TO GO. That’s the hard work of therapy right there.
Just heard from my mom that my grandma is fading fast. I went to go see her (that side of the family lives many states away) a couple of weeks ago because we knew this was coming, but my brother is taking it really hard. He hasn’t gotten to see her in about 5 years, and he has since gotten married and had a kid. They were all going to go out in May to see the family, and I’m so sad that he won’t get to see her one more time and that she won’t be able to meet her great-grandson.
Can I just go home and curl up in bed now?
Hugs to you and your family!
That is awful, I’m so sorry! I hope you can do some comforting things this weekend, whether that means lying in bed and having a Netflix marathon, eating all the ice cream, or spending the day in the park. Take care of yourself sweetheart. <3
This is the most appropriate application of ice cream therapy. Choose something high-quality.
I recommend Trader Joe’s peanut butter cup caramel swirl stuff. Had some last weekend and almost lost my friggin’ mind it was so good.
Aw, I’m so sorry, Dancercise. That’s so hard. Curling up in bed sounds like the right course of treatment, yes.
So the thing I posted about several open threads ago, I made my decision and am sort of okay about it. I expect the okayness to gradually increase with time. Thank you so much to the folks who commented to encourage me!
Toasties! I just made an appointment to get Paraguard [installed? inserted?], and I was too embarrassed by the abstention-from-intercourse talk I had with the scheduler [“Wait, no sex or no UNPROTECTED sex?” Scheduler, with a heavy sigh: “If you CAN’T HELP having sex…”] to ask whether I could take a valium beforehand.
Anyone have POSITIVE, HAPPY IUD experiences to share?
Ugh what that is so obnoxious!
I had Mirena put in back in October and got myself all worked up reading about people’s horrifying insertion experiences, but it was not nearly as bad as I expected. It was less painful and more just… really weird? Like, my body’s response was very YOU SHOULDN’T BE TOUCHING THAT WHY IS THIS HAPPENING AHHH for the few seconds it was actually happening, but otherwise it was fine. I had pretty bad cramps for like 12 hours and then went on my merry IUD-having way, WHICH IS THE BEST WAY.
Paragard can supposedly make your periods suck a lot, but of course I can’t speak to that.
Yeah, I’m pretty resigned to bleeding like a stuck pig (but enjoying everyone’s blissed-out hormonal-iud-no-period stories!).
Oh man, I love mine! The first few month and a half sucked, but I’ve had it for over a year now and it is great. I nearly had a panic attack during my insertion appointment. My doctor listed all the things that could go wrong very matter of factly moments before the procedure and it freaked me out. The actual insertion wasn’t that bad. But seriously, it is so great! I don’t have periods anymore, which may be the best thing ever.
Um which do you have where you don’t have periods anymore?? I’m considering having this done this summer but I have heard so many horrifying things…
Mirena! I have one and haven’t had a period in four years. Insertion was super painful, but just for like a second, so not really something to fear. I had spotting for a month or two after insertion, but then nothing ever since. I love it.
Mirena.
(No idea whether you will see this, because I’m new-as-in-15-minutes-new and have to get approved, however I can’t not reply to this. So on the off chance you see this sometime…)
Me! I had an IUD put in… and it was fine. Like, kinda a bit sore during insertion (actually, more than anything it reminded me of eating too cold icecream and your teeth hurting). So sore, but not scream-ey sore or anything. And then for the next couple of days it felt like a particularly-heavy-period day, and then… that was pretty much it.
Now I get almost no bleeding (like not enough to use tampons or pads, sorry, TMI) and only occasionally some very stabby cramps, which last about 3 seconds. It’s not for everyone, of course, but it’s working brilliantly for me =)
I see you! Hello! also, no such thing as TMI: my copper/non-hormonal IUD will probably make me bleed enough to make up for the lost periods of all the mirena-users in the thread.
Hello!
Haha, TMI about periods on the internet is the best!
I love my mirena! I won’t lie, my insertion was pretty painful but I drove home 15 minutes later, curled up with a heating pad, was totally fine in 3 hours, and lived happily ever after!
I just had a consultation to get Mirena and I didn’t get any sort of talk, either because my doctor is less obnoxious or because they’re neglecting to share important medical advice with me?
I really like the idea of having an IUD “installed” btw
Installed is waaayyyy better than inserted!
“hardware upgrade”
You should be able to ask your doc for something to help relax/dilate your cervix. And if it’s stressing you out, and you have the rest of the day off, why not Valium? (I only learned this after I had mine done.)
I took a bunch of advil at the times specified by my doctor….and then her previous patient went over by an hour (meltdown about delivering at a particular hospital, I think? I felt badly for her but was also like WE’RE ON A TIME CRUNCH HERE).
Anyway, it was pretty painless, mostly just uncomfortable – I felt her kind of rooting around in there for maybe five seconds and then that was it. Find out what kind of relaxants/pain meds they recommend? And don’t forget to breathe!
And boo on the scheduler, I mean, really?!?
I know, right? I only asked because the first time she said “no unprotected intercourse for two weeks before insertion,” and then switched it up with “no intercourse for two weeks,” and those are not the same! grumble grumble
I love my IUD! The insertion hurt a bit, but the pain PALED in comparison to the amount of pain I normally experienced re: cramps so it was hardly unmanageable. And since then it’s been smooth sailing! No cramps anymore and few periods (the downside being that they can be unpredictable).
Anyway, I am like one of those ladies on those Yaz commercials who sits around with her ethnically diverse girlfriends with a cocktail and chats about the benefits of IUD. They’re great!
I love my mirena! But go ahead, call back and ask for a Valium! My experience was VERY uncomfortable, but only for a weird brief moment- for me, it was like, “oh, they are definitely inserting something deep inside my body and that is not a feeling I’ve ever had before.” But it was good to feel not only mildly pleasantly drugged, but also to have that meta-awareness: I am mildly pleasantly drugged, and so I will be fine.
It is lovely and wonderful and I’ll never go back to any other method. Insertion was easy and quick, not painful, and now my cycle is pretty regular/light. I’ve had it since Oct ’12. You will not regret it!
Hi! I have a Paragard! So, I remember being told not to use a tampon for the first month (basically, I can wear it during my first period with the Paragard but not during the one I was having when I got it inserted) but I can’t remember what they said about intercourse. But I do remember that I was told to take 800mg ibuprofen beforehand (they specifically said ibuprofen) so I would go with that. If you don’t have ibuprofen I would go for some sort of pain killer + anti inflammatory rather than valium, which may calm your nerves but might not help much with having a copper wire wriggled into your cervix.
As for my insertion, I would recommend either having someone cook you dinner that night or prepare everything you need in advance. When I went in it was fine, the measuring of my cervix was fine, but the actual insertion was what I imagine a reverse contraction to be like. But then afterwards I was fine? Maybe thanks to the ibuprofen? I walked home (about a 20-30 minute walk) and then maybe 30 minutes later it hurt sooooo much. But my boyfriend came over and made me dinner and I just rested the rest of the day. I think by the next day I was fine. I will say that my first few periods were very very crampy but after a year or so of having it in my periods (amount and cramps) were 100% back to the way they were pre-paragard.
Ahhh! Thanks so much for your advice, and pro-Paragard experience!
I loved my Paragard IUD until I got pregnant! 🙁
EDIT: Sorry, that was neither positive nor happy!
AHHHHHHH WHYYYYYYY
(also, I’m so sorry, that sucks, also I’m filing you away as a statistical anomaly, sorry)
Aaaaah, this happened to me too. Worst birthday present ever.
Haha, mine was a Christmas present! Great timing!
(Also, I’m so sorry you had to go through that, I feel your pain)
It really could have been worse, honestly. I live in Canada, so dealing with it wasn’t much of a thing, and my partner was super supportive. Anyway, being a statistical anomaly is great fun!
I’m sorry you had to deal with it, too.
I have loved my Paragard for 3 years almost, but I’m getting it out this summer because I am getting tired of the lengthy periods. I don’t know how to express both of these sentiments together accurately.
Basically, the long long periods are making it not worth the extreme-no-babies level of protection because I don’t want to have any kind of sex for about 1/3 of the month right now. Which is dumb, since having sex is the whole reason for having the IUD.
YMMV, obviously.
Yes!! I got my mirena in last June and it hurt badly for about the 30 seconds it took to insert. Although I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to pain, I think? But my gyn. let me play angry birds to distract myself so, that kind of helped.
Afterwards it felt like really intense period cramps (I’m early 20s, no children), I just curled up with my hot water bottle, and slept it off and went out the next day to a party. Take the day off, I read that some people were able to bike and go back to work after the insertion, buuut I wouldn’t do that. DON’T BE A HERO. I would suggest asking for a cervical softener (it’s a pill you should insert the night before) or even seeing if they do “freezing” of the area (My clinic didn’t).
But I love it- little to no period, no stress, and I am saving money by not buying pills every month! Definitely worth the ~minute of pain.
Good luck, keep us posted!
oh!! I forgot that I took three advil on the way to the clinic (doctors suggestion), and that I didn’t use tampons/have sex for a week (I think it’s in regards to infection?). Honestly it hurt more when she “tested” my cervix at my first consult (she wanted to make sure my cervix would be able to open wide enough since I hadn’t had any children/am on the younger side) than when it actually was inserted.
My insertion was fine. Some pain but I have had worse period cramps. I suggest not making your nurse laugh while she’s measuring your uterus (I turn into a standup comedian when nervous — this is not always as helpful as you might expect). I walked home (five minutes) and waited for the pain… it never really showed up.
I’m still in the spotting forever phase of IUD ownership (I have a Mirena), and I hope my uterus gets over herself soon, because I miss oral sex.
Other than that…every woman is different and I hope your experience is as easy as mine.
I was SO nervous about pain, and it was fine. The nurse practitioner put it in and then said, “You are now the proud owner of a Paragard IUD” and I said “Wait, you already put it in?” Felt like a pinch, not even. I took ibuprofen beforehand, got a McFlurry after, and was great.
Overall, I really like my Paragard. I had mine installed at the local Planned Parenthood garage, and they gave me an 800milligram ibuprofen tablet after it was done. The insertion didn’t hurt tooo much (the way one commenter described it above as the feeling of ‘rooting around’ in there is spot on) but I’ve now had it over a year, and my cramps are a bag of terrible dicks and I can’t wear tampons for very long or I get more cramps. So, while I appreciate not having any hormones messing with my head, I have found that my periods seems to come about every two and a half weeks and are rather painful. It sounds like everyone’s experience varies though, so good luck!
I love my Paraguard. I’m sorry to hear about your scheduler – no one told me not to have sex, unprotected or otherwise. The installation was a breeze – it was slightly painful, but no worse than a cramp and over in just a few seconds. Four years in, I barely remember the whole process. I wouldn’t think twice about it now. My periods are also fine. It took me a while to adjust being off the pill, but now my periods are generally regular and not especially heavy. With the exception of one day, the rest of it (about 4-5 days total) is pretty light. I have one day of cramps that are easily subdued with ibuprofen.
Try not to worry about it – if this doesn’t work for you, you can always try something else. I do recommend giving your body some time to adjust, up to a year, unless you’re having a completely miserable experience of course.
Anyone have recommendations of really funny memoirs? I recently read and liked Katie Heaney, Rachel Shukert, and Julie Klausner’s.
Oooh, I need to check out the Rachel Shukert.
Annie Choi’s autobiographical essays are hilarious. I think she has 2 collections out.
Sloane Crossley and Lori Notaro are great! Theirs are more essays, but they are really personal and paint a pictureof their lives.
Not a woman, but Paul Feig’s “Superstud” was the most hilarious and charming memoir of an awkward childhood that I’ve read.
Love Sloane Crosley, recommend her wholeheartedly if you like essays.
Jeannette Walls wrote The Glass Castle. I strongly recommend it.
I mean, I know it’s often said, but David Sedaris is pretty GD hilarious. As is Amy.
All of David Sedaris, Tina Fey, and Mindy Kaling!
Have you read David Rakoff’s stuff? Half Empty is beautiful and hilarious, but his first two collections of essays are also excellent.
I read Kate Bornstein’s memoir recently, it might not be up everyone’s ally but I enjoyed it.
Haven Kimmel’s A Girl Named Zippy makes me shriek with laughter, is also great for reading aloud.
Strongly second Laurie Notaro, also Jenny (Bloggess) Lawson’s Let’s Just zPretend This Never Happened and Bill Bryson’s Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, which is like the male flip-side of A Girl Named Zippy in it’s nostalgic slant. All good stuff.
Anything by Beth Lisick!
Not funny so much as lighthearted and dishy, but Tennessee Williams has one heck of a memoir.
I recommend Jenny Lawson’s “Let’s Pretend This Never Happened”!
Most recent read was Amateur Night at the Bubblegum Kittikat, by Victoria Fedden – it’s self-published, so the editing’s a little rough, but the story was great.
Not sure if Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half counts fully as memoir? But it is perceptive, moving, and hilarious!
I’M BUYING A HOUSE!! Ok, I’m just under contract and there’s a lot that could go wrong between now and closing but I’m under contract! Switching between excited and scared every 5 minutes is exhausting, y’all. And not good for productivity.
Buying real estate is such an emotional roller coaster. The problem is, when I wanted to complain about it to friends, they’re all, fuck you, you’re buying a house, stop complaining. But I get it! It took nine months to hear back about an offer I put on my current place and if the offer was accepted and I was a crazy maniac the whole time.
Yeah, I don’t have a lot of folks here to complain/gush to, but that’s what the internet is for! I put a 48hr deadline on my offer and that was bad enough. I literally cannot imagine 9 months!
Nine. Months.
What.
It was a short sale, so the offer had to be approved by a bank with red tape. The term “short sale” is anything but.
we’re trying to buy a foreclosure so I totally feel you. everything takes forever with the bank and there’s a lot of stressful drama. (also, why are roofs so g-d expensive? ugh come on roofers, cut me some slack)
Ahh, of course. I have friends who got a short sale, and it was terribly stressful for them too. I don’t think they waited nine months though.
Congratulations!!!!
Woo! That’s so exciting!! I would love to buy a house someday (sooner rather than later) but the real estate prices here in Boston are pretty terrifying. I applaud your bravery!!
I finally got my girlfriend to start watching Trailer Park Boys, and she finished the first two seasons in two days.
perhaps you should pass yr tricks onto my boyfriend so that i will do the same– he adores the show and i will NEVER get it.
Are you Canadian? I feel like certain aspects are best appreciated by Canadians. I will also say that people have been correctly suggesting that she should watch for years now. In Canada, the show has a wide appeal to Canadians, appealing to fucking buddies who fucking smoke a bunch of darts, as well as anybody who likes silly comedy.
She didn’t watch it for the longest time, because people who normally exhibit bad taste were so enthused about it, but ended up finding it to be kind of like a more sympathetic version of It’s Always Sunny. It’s certainly not for everyone though
Hi Toasties! For those of you who do any sort of creative stuff on top/outside of a job that pays you money: how do you organize your time to allow you to do so? If you’ve changed or tried to change your routine to carve out that time, what has and hasn’t worked for you?
Sometimes I do it during slow times AT work. I sketch out ideas on conference calls and stuff where I don’t have to be very engaged.
Don’t do this, though. Don’t do this.
No, this can work. I work in Texas, where even the well-educated are monolingual. So I just notate my ideas in French. No one will know I’m working a hobby. If I need to write a word that is too similar to English, I just leave out the vowels.
This is the billion dollar question. I’ve refused social invitations to spend time writing, because I felt inspired and motivated to write, and I don’t want to waste the creative burst. Which sucks because writing makes me isolated enough, but otherwise I’ll keep making excuses that I am too tired.
I’ve also tried some writing for 45-60 minutes when I wake up, which I like because then I can go into my day feeling like I’m a “writer.”
I’ve also taken “staycations” from work with the intent on spending that whole time writing, like my self-made writers’ residency.
Not sure what your medium is or if this would work for you.
I’ve had to totally change my schedule to work around my creative non-work related stuff (classical music, yo!). Generally I have rehearsals a couple of days a week I go to straight from work (I work bankers hours) and don’t get home until close to 10pm and on concert weeks that happens for 4-5 days in a row. If I plan to do any outside practice outside of that I try to limit that to daylight hours for no more than 45-60 minutes. I tend to give up my workouts when I’m in music-mode but once summer comes and there’s no rehearsals or concerts, I get back into my workouts. I used to try to squeeze workouts inthe morning before work but I simply needed sleep and some downtime to sit on my ass so I have to build it into my schedule during my morning routine. I’m up about 30 minutes before my husband in the mornings so I can just sit and collect myself for the day ahead. Someday, I’ll figure out how to balance full-time employment, music, workouts and volunteering all at the same time but for now, I have to let some things go.
SCARY THINGS my dad is like ‘we need to talk about your relationship bring your boyfriend’ and there is a family dinner and then scary talk ahd agowujga;lkjsdlfkj
PAPA, WHY MUST YOU STRIKE FEAR INTO MY HEART
EDIT: THIS IS HAPPENING TOMORROW
What? Why does your dad need to talk about your relationship with your dude? Is this going to be a Come To Jesus, Stop Living In Sin talk? Because eff that ess.
Lol it’s nothing like this at all, I’m sure! No sin here (:
Speaking from experience, those talks are the worst. Glad your situation is better… good luck tomorrow!
If you agree to your father’s request for your and your boyfriend’s presence, it will be a learning opportunity. Afterward, you will know so much about how well your boyfriend responds to stress and how well he works as a team with you. Good luck.
There IS a silver lining everywhere, I suppose….
Thank you so much for this comment, wow <3
What? How did this happen? Do you have any idea what it’s going to be about? It’s not too late to leave the country!
Haha, I need to get a new passport for that, mine expired :p
Well, when we first started dating we had a really nice positive talk with my dad where he basically gave us his blessing. So hopefully it will be another positive one like that???
AUGH, why, that is awful, good luck.
Thank you!! Hopefully it will be like ‘dude you guys have been dating for a year you must really like each other but please stop coming home after midnight also you guys should get better jobs’ or something :p
Can we have a Steam/PSN/Xbox/whatever ID-sharing thread? Megano! suggested this in the comments for “Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Peach,” but the comments had already died down and it didn’t take off.
Also I didn’t have my Steam ID handy so I didn’t respond, but I have since looked it up.
Me on Steam: absotively (no, I don’t know why I thought I had to look that up)
On Origin: Absotively
On the Wii U Nintendo Network or Miiverse or whatever it’s called: Absotively
dancing_robot on Steam, I believe!
I’m grapefruitandgasoline on Steam!
Also, here is a link to Megano!’s original thread.
Steam: 2700lesbianspoons
PSN: mona b
I have a 3DS too (well technically it’s a 2DS because eff 3D) so let me know if you wanna swap friend IDS. I need people to play Animal Crossing with!
Dr. Handsome on Steam!
edit: This one: http://steamcommunity.com/id/fart-master
I… do not remember choosing that URL, but it seems like something I would do tbh
I’m anninyn on live, but I don’t have gold so I can do fuck all.
XBL: N7Ambrai
Steam: M98Widow but I haven’t done anything with my account because I have a Macbook Air that can’t even run Gone Home properly, so.
3DS: 0619-4509-9955
My XBox live ID is a little sparse in terms of points/games I’ve played but that’s cause I shared an ID with my boyfriend until last year when they pretty much stopped making local co-op a thing. So it appears that the only games I ever play are Halo games, but this is not true. Not that it really matters because Toasties are amazing and nonjudgmental.
I’m Lyzzalicious VonAwesome III or lyzzh13 on Steam.
I’m also hieropants on Steam.
ghostadventuretime on Steam.
MALLORY I need to tell you about a dream I had. NO WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING it was actually amazing.
I dreamt that I was in a museum of history of science, and there was a section called something like “Myths about the history of science,” and someone was explaining that “It is NOT true that in medieval times, people thought that babies were small because they were very far away.”
So, THAT common misconception about medieval thought was debunked for me, but WHAT IF it were true? WHAT IF in medieval times, shortly after art monks figured out how to draw things in perspective, there was a brief period of confusion and upheaval where people struggled with how to use this knowledge in interpreting the sizes of things IRL?
“My cousin had her baby. It’s so small!”
“Wait wait wait. What was that new thing the monks figured out?”
“Oh yeah. Wait, I got this. So, the baby is small…because…it is FAR AWAY.”
“Yeah, I think that’s right! Your cousin’s baby is very far away.”
Guys, my replacement at work is the sweetest girl and SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING TO BEFALL HER
I could use some pointers from you. I will be leaving my ridiculous job in a few months. But no one know that yet. Don’t tell. I will train a replacement. How to answer inevitable questions when the ridiculousness becomes apparent. It doesn’t seem professional to respond with, yeah, they’re just ridiculous like that.
Toast parents– I’m going to start trying to get pregnant this fall. What practical things should I do before then? Like vitamins? Savings? What would you do, knowing what you know now?
I want to know this stuff, too! I tried to start this thread a few weeks back, but it fell a bit flat. Hoping we get more advice here!
Not a parent, but my mother says ‘replace all your clothes with easily washable ones’ if that helps
Already done, thanks to a slobbery hound.
This is relevant to my intersts as I had a prenatal counseling appointment a couple of weeks ago (HIGH FIVE TO ME FOR MAKING IT TO ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE NO REALLY I’M STOKED) and the main take away was a) take folic acid not prenatal vitamins, as I am not yet growing a new skeleton inside me and b) try to be chill about genetic testing stuff. (Waiting to actually try to get pregnant till the test results are back, which should be in the next week or two.) We’ve been saving as much as we can but I am perhaps unreasonably relaxed b/c we can’t possibly do worse than most of the people I’ve witness raise children to adulthood? Ha, the unexpected benefits of having a fairly low bar set for you! I also started charting my basal temperature, ahead of actual impregnation attempts, and it is super fascinating. It’s so interesting to see like, oh, yup, evidence that I am a mammal of a certain species, with specific biological indicators.
I did genetic testing last month and no concerns there, thankfully. I was the girl who got tested for STDs after losing her virginity to a virgin so obviously I fall into the “better know for sure” camp.
Are you using an app for charting or doing it by hand?
I’m using an app – Fertility Friend. It’s fairly easy to use, and I set an alarm in the morning to remind me to take my temp first thing. There’s a free and a paid version, and I was going to just roll with the free until they offered me a discounted year membership – it gives you some more tools for comparing your chart, and best yet, shows you predictions for your next fertile window based on your past cycles. I think your mileage may vary on that – as a pretty irregular cycle-haver, myself, I really like having these comparisons but I imagine it may be less necessary for someone who is more regular.
(I think part of me believes I won’t actually GET pregnant, so I suspect I might be storing up all my anxiety for the moment it does/doesn’t happen, as I’m feeling mostly just really relaxed and interested in the whole process, which is not my general, spreadsheet-making m.o.)
Once you’re pregnant and it’s stuck, start investigating childcare options if you will need it. I know it sounds crazy but in many cities getting either a nanny or getting into a daycare is ridiculously hard and you have to start planning it as early as you can.
Hmm… tough one, because it’s so personal. Other than taking something with folic acid, start checking out your options for prenatal care and delivery, You’ve got time on that though – I ended up switching OBs after my first prenatal visit. Do any big organization/cleaning projects you want to get done before baby clutter moves into your home.
If you’ve got pets, look into trainers and perhaps polish them up on obedience before a baby comes into play.
The term “babymoon” is awful, but I highly recommend a vacation during your second trimester. Help strengthen that couple-bond.
And if you plan to send your kid to daycare in their first year, start researching now! Infant spots often have ridiculous waiting lists – like a year at my local kindercare.
Don’t read the Internet for pregnancy and parenting advice, because those ladies are crrrazy (she says, on the Internet).
I plan on getting all my pregnancy and parenting info from the Toast.
Daycare is so overwhelming. What do you even look for??
Beats the heck out of me! I didn’t have my shit together, ha. At the moment, we’re doing a nanny-share thing found via Care.com, which is a good website for that sort of thing.
This is a super-personal choice and I would be suspicious of anyone who told you that their way was the best way. I would offer four categories: parent(s) at home full-time, nanny, home-based daycare, industrial daycare. All of them have advantages and disadvantages. Our son is in a more industrial, school-like daycare and we love it. That have long hours, they’re licensed, they have certified teachers and if a person leaves we don’t have to take personal leave or spend thousands of dollars while searching for a nanny. But that’s us, and it fits our goals, budget and lifestyle. Many of our friends and family do different things. My wife was raised by her grandmother and both of my parents were home fulltime since I grew up on a farm.
That’s exciting- have fun!
As you are pregnant, it’s nice to hang out with some little kids (2 and younger) if you know other parents, or in playground areas where kids and parents are if you don’t know any. It’s nice to watch some of the dynamics that emerge and learn to associate baby abilities with baby ages.
I thought everything needed to be babyproofed at once but they’re not very mobile at the beginning and you have plenty of time to adjust as they gain ground on you.
You don’t have to buy very much at all that’s brand new- people are delighted to have someone put their old baby stuff to good use.
Don’t worry too much about picking How You Will Do It (whether it’s diapering, child care, or whatever). Staying flexible in your birth plan, fitness plan, sleeping arrangements, etc will save you energy. Your kid will be a major variable in all of your decision making, so waiting to see what works for your family is usually cheaper and less stressful than the reverse.
Look in to getting a doula, they are amazing.
I wrote my daughter letters about my life, her dad, our city, our families, and random musings while gestating. I’ve reread them in the time since she was born and it makes me happy to look back on that time before meeting her. I recommend that, too.
The letter-writing advice is so beautiful; I’m going to keep it in mind for when I get pregnant (hopefully in the distant future)!
The one book I would recommend is “The Happiest Baby on the Block”. It is really short but really useful. It is basically how to soothe a newborn so you and the baby can get enough sleep.
For now I would say take folic acid, eat heathy, be healthy, and try not to freak out as everyone gives you too much advice.
Avoid parenting boards like the plague. They’re like YouTube comments pages but worse, and meaner. When it comes to parenting advice, seek out people who you know who YOU think do a good job. Don’t go by what’s hot. Don’t go by what a celebrity or a popular blogger or commenter says. Trust your own personal instincts.
If you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, this is probably a good sign. It means your care and that you’re normal.
Also: vaccinate your kids because if you don’t, you’re putting your kid(s), your family and friends, and everyone else’s kids, family and friends in danger.
Sleep training was the best decision I’ve made, for me, my husband, and especially the babay. The people who says it’s cruel are being silly.
I would read my actual insurance policy rather than checking the “What’s covered” section on my account within their website and drawing erroneous conclusions.
I would also not “take a break” from charting to the extent that I did not at least note the date of what turned out to be my last menstrual period.
Save all the money, take the vitamins, and have sex all the damn time, until you don’t even like it any more, and then some more after that (ymmv based on how long it takes to catch of course…). I charted and tracked and peed on all sorts of different strips but never got any useable information from any of that. Though what seems to have worked in the end is giving up my healthy diet and exercise and breathing in a lot of lead paint chips while eating pie, so maybe give that a shot.
Also I thought I’d be able to do things while I was pregnant, like make a quilt, rearrange a closet, etc. Even though I had a pretty easy time of it, I was basically unable to do anything except go to work and try to sleep, so if there are any things like renovating a room or something that you want done before the baby arrives, it might be good to get started.
I feel like shit. I recently had to tell a very good friend that I didn’t want to live with him, despite my inadvertent hinting at the opposite and the fact that our leases are ending at the same time. I’ve always complained about how “far away” (in NY terms: a 40 min subway ride) he lived, yet now that a space is (possibly) opening up in my apartment, I felt obligated to tell him that my roommates and I (almost unanimously, as we’re all friends with him) would rather not fill it with him. He took it really hard, as he’s dealing with a lot of other upheaval and instability right now, and I can’t help but feel like I hit him when he’s already down. He’s requested some time apart to cool off, and I can’t help but feel incredibly antsy.
You have undoubtedly done the right thing. I lived with friends knowing that the personality mix was probably going to end badly and now have two friends I no longer speak to. If you can, maybe he’d be appreciative if you helped him with an apartment search or something like that? So you can do the “I care” thing and still do what’s best for you?
I am trying! I offered/was helping beforehand, and am more than willing to continue. Eugh. Just trying to rationalize it to myself by remembering it’s better to have a shitty conversation now than a ruined friendship later. I hope that’s the case. Thanks!
it’s better to have a shitty conversation now than a ruined friendship later.
No matter what happens, you have done the hard but right thing, and with luck it will all work out well for everyone. But no matter what, you’ve prevented one particular and predictable source of friction that would have made home life difficult for everyone.
I went on a trip recently and had three flights IN A ROW where I got put in the fast lane–shoes on, no body scanner or patdown, bag stays zipped. It was amazing, and I will probably pay in airport karma for years to come. But seriously, that’s the first time in years that I’ve escaped official groping.
Next Thursday I am flying to BOSTON for PAX East and also hopefully to meet some Toasties, because apparently there are like 80 gazillion of you in Boston. So I am excited, and flipping out, and wishing that this Friday was already over so I could christen the new liquor cabinet with ill-advised cocktails and fun, and hopefully stop being sad about the fact that I got my new teal jeans caught in my bike gears and they chomped a hole in them yesterday.
Seriously though, who wants to hang out in Boston with meeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I would be down for this as well! I haven’t met any fellow Boston Toasties yet so it would be ab fab to get together!
Yes let’s meet up! Do I follow you on Twitter? I can’t remember who belongs to what screenname no matter how hard I tryyyyyyyyy
I actually don’t have a twitter, so I’d be really impressed if you were following me!! You and me and rat_paws should maybe try to do some sort of email thing?
MAYBE I’M SUCH A GOOD SOFTWARE DEVELOPER THAT I AM FOLLOWING YOU ANYWAY
>_>
<_<
yes emails are good
I’m moving there in August and am visiting this weekend to check it out!
I ate hardly any breakfast this morning because I was out of breakfast-y food (I just want a personal pastry chef to supply me with scones weekly, is that too much to ask?) and because I expected there to be something edible at a big 9:30 meeting I had to attend. But I was mistaken, and there was only coffee. I hope the people sitting next to me didn’t hear my stomach growling from 10:30 on.
But now I have had lunch and acquired one of the nearby French bakery’s utterly delicious pain aux raisins to keep me going through the afternoon, and all is right with the world again.
[ETA: I still wish I could be eating bresaola pizza in Venice…]
It is the WORST when you think there’s going to be breakfast at a meeting and there isn’t! The only time that happened to me I was so scarred that now, even if I know there’s going to be breakfast, I have a pre-breakfast JUST in case, and then I feel over-full after gorging myself on muffins and danish at the meeting.
My husband got into grad school at Columbia! The program was a real reach for him, and he worked so hard on his application, and I am so proud. ALSO, we are moving to New York in August! Exciting!
I work in federal procurement, and while there are gobs and gobs of jobs I could easily transfer to in DC, there are basically none in NYC. So I’ll have to leave the warm bosom of the federal government and fend for myself in the wilds of the state/local/nonprofit/private sector. I’m well-paid and have flexible hours right now, so probably any job I find will involve more hours and/or a pay cut. I don’t LOVE my current job, though, so if I find something that gets me closer to my ideal field (public health/health management), it will be worth it. Probably. Right?!? Please say yes.
Also of great interest: please tell me your favorite places for Ethiopian/Salvadoran food in NYC. Or should I start hoarding recipes and specialty ingredients now?
Wooo!
City jobs in NYC are actually pretty well compensated, if you can land one. Also: Columbia has a pretty big public health department, and there are also a crapload of hospitals. Healthcare IT (my field) in the city is growing like crazy and that would be the easiest way to break in to the healthcare system here, I think. Also because most places are Univeristy-affiliated, if you wanted to then go to grad school for public health you’d be able to do so at a very reduced rate.
Also —
No recs on Ethiopian or Salvadoran food here personally, though I can assure you there is plenty of each! (There’s plenty of everything)
Wow, this is very heartening! Thank you! I actually do IT procurement now, so healthcare IT wouldn’t be too huge of a stretch. Any chance I could chat with you off-thread about your field? Would that be too weird?
Congratulations to him! Try Awash for Ethiopian: http://awashny.com/
Wishing you lots of job luck. NYC is a great place to look. You’ll meet so many interesting people and broaden your network during the transition. Don’t worry!
For Eithiopian food I highly highly highly recommend Queen of Sheba, it’s the best. It’s almost as good as Eyo in Falls Church, VA and better than Meskerem in DC. Salvadoran food isn’t as plentiful as in NYC but you can get all the ingredients easily (same for Ethiopian, there really is no shortage of specialty ingredients here) and there are Salvadoran restaurants here. For Salvadoran food, I haven’t had any here yet but I’m told that La Cabana Salvadorena is great. Serious Eats also did a thing on the best pupusas in Queens: http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2010/06/looking-fo… that I would check out.
Also I would look and see if you can maybe get a job at Columbia, NYU or Barnard. I work at a university here and the benefits and vacation are way better than typical private sector jobs but the salary is higher than at a typical non-profit. Your husband’s grad advisor may be able to give you some tips, or point you in the right direction.
Also, we have an NYC toast meetup + book club monthly, I’ll post the link to the FB group here when I get home tonight. We also do other kinds of fun things (clothing swaps, beach trips, etc) so if you are looking to meet new people that could be fun!
This is super helpful, thanks! I live in Mt. Pleasant right now, aka Pupusa Alley, so that Serious Eats link is VERY relevant to my interests. Hadn’t thought of asking my husband’s grad advisor for advice– that’s a great idea! And I will definitely definitely be looking to meet Toasties.
Ahh, I’m getting so excited for August!
Congrats to your husband. And yay more NY Toasties!
Massawa is a great place for Ethiopian and it’s near Columbia.
I’m thinking it’s new hairstyle time. Choices: 1) back to the bob, or 2) keep the length and do the straight bangs again. Pro on the longer: easier to pull up for summer coolness. Con on length: my hair’s super-fine, so just looks limp for the most part. As to the bob: easier, but hotter (as in warmer). Thoughts? Anyone else contemplating a new ‘do?
I am hoping to get a haircut AND new glasses this weekend. My coworkers are going to think I’m in the witness protection program or something.
I haven’t gotten my hair cut in over a year and it’s really long (middle of my back) but very damaged and takes forever to wash/dry. I’m thinking of going shoulder-length with bangs, a cut that’s worked for me in the past.
To answer your question, I’d go with longer-and-pull-up-able, but I look weird with a bob. You probably would not!
There are a couple of pics of me with bangs and/or a bob over on the Twitters. The bob has been the preferred hairstyle for most of my life, so I’m kind of sick of it. Bangs, though, do take some maintenance.
I have fine thin hair I am determined to wear long. I find that not brushing it a lot helps, and washing only every few days. Straight bangs sound like the could be a fun shake up and let you keep your length! Now I want them.
I only wash maybe every 5 days, and don’t even get it wet 3-4 days a week, makes a HUGE difference. I used to have some volumizing dry shampoo that also did wonders, but it’s no longer being made, and I haven’t found a replacement.
Have you tried the Lush “No Drought”? I find that it doesn’t feel as damaging to my precious few hairs as some more strictly “volume” ones
I am now sporting the very best haircut I have ever had. All because I told the stylist, who did not know me, that I was open to anything. I told her I have had wildly colored hair, have shaved off half of it, have sported spikes, so no fear. Then I refused to give her any guidance about what I wanted this time. I asked what she would do with my head if it were all up to her. She took her time playing with my hair, then described her ideas. I said sounds good, go for it. I love it!!!!!
Got rejected for another job hooraayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy :sob:
Oh, Janie. I’m so sorry. It hurts, I know. And is frustrating in a dozen ways. Cliche, but true: their loss. You would have been better off getting this job then telling them to fuck off after finding a better one in a few months, but it’s not a total loss to miss out on an employer that can’t work out a logical hiring process that will recognize stellar qualities such as yours.
OMG what a sentence. I need an editor.
sometimes it is hard to justify my job, let alone my performance, to my superiors or explain what it really means to be an “editor” in the sense that I am one. however
a contractor returned a long file to me yesterday and right plumb in the middle of it was PENIS
let me explain what I mean by that. It looked like this in unedited form:
~~~~
..40 percent less than what was requested last year
PENIS
In addition, I understand that facilities sustainment, restoration and modernization…
~~~~
needless to say, I plan to continue giving work to this person. whether they were working on two documents at a time and thoughtlessly switched macros, inserting a PENIS in this congressional hearing transcript and inserting an argument about the FY ’15 milcon budget into their erotica, or whether they were just expressing their feelings about their employment, I do not know and only care a little. seldom has a PENIS afforded me so much amusement.
I told my assistant to send her the standard note we send when we find errors, which is, “I don’t think this acronym is correctly spelled. Did you try Googling it?”
but he refused.
omgggg I WISH he sent that note with it! Or like, “I’m sorry, I don’t see this header in the table of contents. What is it referring to?” or some other faux-ignorance. I would have too much fun with that…
oh god, this is hilarious
Oh my stars that’s glorious.
Also, that standard note sounds like such a lifesaver in any number of awkward moments.
I am DYING..
Also, I work as a consultant and this only raises the temptation to insert “PENIS” into my documents. Or maybe the documents that other competing firms create.
I bet I could hide “PENIS” in every one of my spreadsheets somewhere and no one would notice…
Do it! And report back.
I would be so tempted to leave that in. My professionalism and my sense of childish humour are often at war (I’m also an editor) at work.
a contractor returned a long file to me yesterday and right plumb in the middle of it was PENIS
oh god
oh god
oh i laughed so hard i hard to wipe my eyes dry
ahahahahahahahaha
This is AMAZING
I got into one of my top-choice internships!!!! It is really exciting and also pays me. I’m not totally settled yet but I’m pretty sure I’m going to take it. Related, anyone have advice for subletting in NYC other than craigslist and unicorn tears? I know you can get summer housing at universities, but those are $$$.
I’m getting super cranky because I’m working by myself today when I shouldn’t be, and the person coming in to relieve me for my lunch is late, hasn’t called, and won’t answer her cell.
GRRRRRR FEED ME.
I have a kind of crazy question that I’m hoping some Toasties can help with. My husband and I are considering moving from the United States to Australia to live and work for a few years. I’d be following him—he worked for a drilling manufacturer and has some connections in the mining industry. My skills (writing, mostly) are slightly less desirable. Is this crazy? Has anybody moved to a different country at mid-career? Seems like most ex-pats are younger students. Is Australia a nice place to live? I know it has a much higher cost of living than the U.S., but what else should I know?
My parents moved our family to China for a couple years – they were in their 40s at the time. But my mom stayed at home, so there was no duel-career issue. In our case, there was a community of mid-career expats with families … of course, without a language barrier, you’d probably have an easier time getting to know locals. I do think that in industry, most expats are a little older, because most companies don’t send their greenest people overseas.
I’ve only visited Australia, so can’t help with much else, but it was a pretty awesome place to spend a week! I had a friend who went to grad school there and loved the culture. Like most places, I think it’s less workaholic than America.
Another story here about a spring of new (employment) beginnings. My husband is accepting a great, yet temp, job offer that can really open some doors for him. But… it’s temp and about a 40% pay cut from his current position. But his current position is basically temp because they’re in Chapter 11 and not expected to survive the summer. I’m so excited and conflicted – we’re going to Portugal in May and it will be the first vacation in our four years together that he won’t have to work during! And we’ll get to be together on stat holidays! We’ll be fine with the pay cut, just so much change – the woman in the senior position to mine is leaving in three months so it’s time for me to Lean In and go after that. So many changes toasties! Oh and we get to be extras on a major network TV show tomorrow, so maybe we can toss everything and be famous?
Congrats to him and to you guys! Sometimes temp can turn into permanent, so that’s always a good thing to keep in mind. 🙂
Don’t forget your Toastie friends after you become famous!
Toasties,
I need some job advice. Is it better to get fired or to quit your job?
I took a class last year so if I quit, I will have to pay back half of the class which is around 1500 dollars.
If I get fired, will I lose the 96 hours of PTO that I have saved up? Will I qualify for unemployment if I have a job lined up for June? What should I do for health insurance for the month where I will not be employed?
I got an offer from a company, should I ask them if I can start in June so that I can move and take a vacation to visit my parents in India? Is that an okay thing to do?
SO MANY QUESTIONS! Any help or advice would be appreciated!
I would say quit, if only because in the future on employment applications you’ll have to disclosed if you were ever fired. You may not qualify for unemployment if you’ve been fired (for some causes, this is not legal advice, etc.).
I don’t think I understand what’s going on here–did you already get an offer from another company? To start right away?
Also, if you don’t already, start perusing the archives of AskAManager.org.
Thanks! I’m about to be laid off and I just got a job offer from another company. I think they will tell me on Monday that I have two weeks left at my current job.
OK, there’s a big difference between being fired for cause, being laid off, and quitting. Some will prevent you from seeking unemployment.
With regard to the PTO, only your employer can answer that, since that is a policy thing.
For health insurance….I am not the States, but I understand you can get COBRA for the time being?
You have a job offer–so you can negotiate at this point. They may want you to start immediately, so asking for a start date after June may be tricky. You can ask. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Won’t being laid off come with a package from your employer? They should offer you some money and maybe continued benefits. If the news is coming Monday, I’d tell the other company you need to think about it over the weekend, and then wait to hear how your current company will buy you out.
If you want vacation time from the new place, you have two options: negotiate the start date or schedule unpaid time later.
To negotiate the start date, say something like, “Yes, I would be very excited to join your team under the terms we’ve discussed. I know you’re eager to get someone in place as soon as possible, but I have a move planned in coming weeks and want to be able to devote my full attention to the new position–could we agree my start date would be June 1?” If they say no, ask for two or three weeks out. You can say you need to give two weeks’ notice at your current position–they don’t know your job situation is changing anyway.
If they need to you to start before June, but you want to visit your parents in India, say, “I’m excited to join the team, but I want to let you know that I’ve already bought plane tickets to see my family overseas from June X to June Y. Is there any way I could still take this trip?” You should be able to negotiate unpaid leave, or delay your official start date until after the trip. (Though you may not want to delay your start date if it affects your benefits–I’m not sure what your company offers.)
Ask A Manager is the greatest, and she says this comes up all the time: http://www.askamanager.org/2008/06/pre-planned-va…
Definitely resign. See if you can exchange your PTO for the tuition dollars. If not, take two weeks vacation, and send in your resignation letter on the first day of vacation. You will most likely not get unemployment if you get fired – there are only a few reasons that are ok with the unemployment board. COBRA will cover your insurance during the off month, but it’s extremely expensive.
All right. I will try that! Thanks for the advice!
With your next job assured, resign. But first work out your start date for the new job. Ask for the later date, but indicate it’s a request. Once you have formally accepted the next job and it has a start date on paper, take the time off you have been owed. Wait until you have returned before giving notice of leaving current job. Clear as mud, I suppose. No more time to type. Sorry.
Laid off, or fired for cause? I think there’s a difference with regard to whether you would qualify for unemployment.
I’m about to be laid off and I just got a job offer from another company. I think they will tell me on Monday that I have two weeks left at my current job.
I was laid off once (with a about-to-be-official job offer at the time) and with the caveat that this is not legal advice and will vary based on your state, etc, here’s what happened to me:
-My accrued vacation time was paid out to me in cash (well, a check, but you get it). I also believe I was paid for my sick time, since you also “earned” that as well, but that could vary based on your company’s policies.
-I also received two week’s severance pay, and my health insurance was valid until the end of the month in which I worked my last day (my last day was the 14th, so I had insurance until the 1st). Again, the severance pay will vary based on your company, but typically the health insurance will work that way, since you paid for the month in your paycheck already.
-I was eligible for Cobra and unemployment, but a) Cobra is expensive and b) unemployment takes time to apply for, receive, etc, plus I had a job offer the day after my last day, so I never applied for either of them.
If you quit, you would get your vacation time in a check, but not severance, and you may not get your sick time. My colleague at the time was also getting laid off and she had a firm job offer a few days before we got official word. All she did was negotiate the start date to be after our last day, once we found that out, and so she never had to “quit” and was able to get severance, etc. We were a small company so our manager knew she had an offer, but she could have gotten away with never mentioning it.
You can try purchasing short-term health insurance on the private market. I do not have experience with this, it’s just something I’ve heard of and is worth investigating. I can’t help you with the course repayment issue, I’m sorry.
Given that you’re possibly being laid off, not fired for cause, I would wait and see what happens on Monday. Can you have a discussion with your manager about the likelihood of you being laid off, since you have another job offer? They might be able to help you navigate your options, but you also might want to keep your offer under wraps, which is understandable. Ask A Manager also has good advice on dealing with things like this.
Yes, you can ask your new employer about negotiating your start date – other people have great advice about that so I’ll end my mile long comment 😉
It usually depends if your PTO is sick leave or accrued vacation. If sick leave, it generally goes away, if accrued vacation it depends on the state if you are in the US. About half of the states require it to be paid to you, but check your employee handbook if you have one.
oh hi, this is what I do for a living. It depends on what state you’re in. Some states you cannot lose the PTO; some you can. If you get fired, you will still qualify for unemployment generally, but not if you resign voluntarily. For health insurance, a temporary plan through e-healthinsurance is cheaper than COBRA. You also may have up to a month’s “free” insurance if you quit on the right day, because you can only be taken off your health plan on certain days. so wait till you get your COBRA notice to find your temporary plan.
I think I’m going to have sex this weekend with this guy I’ve been out with a few times and I’m so nervous! It’s been MANY MOONS and, like, what if I don’t remember what I’m supposed to do and get all shy and weird? UGH.
Speaking from experience, you won’t forget. My close friends were so excited about the mere speculation of me ending my drought that three of them got together and drafted a professional press release and sent it to me. That drought was many, many, many moons long.
Can we….can we please see this press release.
And lassotabasco, you won’t forget! It’s like riding a bike (but way better)
Hey, so does anybody have any experience being nauseous when starting birth control? I just started the generic form of Yaz, per my doctor’s instructions, and it’s not going so hot, in that I’m super nauseous to the point of vomiting. Thoughts/experience?
Never nauseous (I am on Yaz, not the generic) but I used to be on Ortho-Tri-Cyclen-Lo and that shit gave me periods twice a month, which was horrible.
I would definitely call your doctor and tell them what you are experiencing. Find the right BC for your body can be difficult, and one that is making you sick is probably not the right one for you.
Yes, I started one (not Yaz) in college and immediately had terrible nausea and acid reflux. When I told my doctor about it, she told me I was making it up because those weren’t recognized side effects of the drugs. So since I didn’t need them for anti-reproductive reasons at the time, I decided to stop taking them until the end of the school year when I figured I could focus better on moving past the nausea. Before I started them again, I went to a different doctor (armed with a print-out of yes, they are recognized side effects, damn it), who wasn’t a moron, and she said it was probably a reaction to suddenly being on hormones and put me on a different, super-low hormone pill. That worked really well, and I haven’t had any problems since unless the pharmacy is out of my generic form and gives me something else with higher hormones “because it’s all the same thing.”
Remember that birth control is tricking your body into thinking it is pregnant. Go back to your doctor and talk to them. They will probably have you go on something else until you find the pill with the right hormone balance for you.
When I veeery first started any kind of HBC, it actually did make me vomit. The nausea went away within the first week, though, and I haven’t had any problems since. If it’s been longer than that I’d talk to your doctor, but if you literally JUST started–like you’re on day one or two–maybe give it a few days and see if your body adjusts?
Tonight I’m some friends and I are doing a Terrific Lady Dinner, where we drink all the wine and eat all the food. Tomorrow I’m going to see St. Vincent at The Riv and then Sunday is GAME OF THRONES.
I rarely get a real weekend off so I’m very excited.
this sounds like the greatest
I have naturally kind of dirty blonde hair and I dyed it red last August and I loved it, but I am getting kind of bored of it and want it back to blonde again for summer. I stopped dying it in February and it’s been fading/growing out but any tips on what else to do to make it fade quicker? Cheap tips as I am broke and lazy. I was using semi-permanent box dye. Luckily my hair grows pretty fast and it’s not light enough to make me look bald at the roots.
You need a clarifying shampoo. I like stuff with tea tree oil.
Dandruff shampoo strips red dye out pretty fast. I used it once when I accidentally went far too maroony-red (I’m also naturally dark blonde) and it left my hairs a kind of gross indifferent light brown-copper color that I could dye strawberry blonde without a problem.
Clarifying shampoo. Or (if you are a millionaire) take a week vacation somewhere sunny with a pool. Chlorine + sun = death to hair dye.
thanks everyone!!
What a freaking week. I am seriously considering quitting my job and staying at home with my kid. Is that crazy? I can’t decide – my pros and cons list is like perfectly balanced. How do people make life decisions.
That isn’t crazy if it’s what you want to do. I don’t know how people make life decisions though.
You could try visualizations (so, fancy daydreams) about the ideal day at your job (when it’s not so shitty, if it’s ever not so shitty) or at home and a bad day at work/at home, then add thoughts from there to your pros/cons.
That being said, I usually agonize over life decisions for months before suddenly making the decision based on my gut (the same gut that had been silent for moooooonths), so who knows.
I am going to have to put one of my kitties to sleep soon. Which really sucks. Turns out all that impressive weight loss from the diet we put him on was actually from him being sick. We brought him into the vets on Tuesday and they said it was probably a cancerous mass in his stomach and that we should get an ultrasound to confirm, which we did and it was.
So I was a distraught weepy mess and my boyfriend was super sad. I thought that we would have to put him to sleep on Wednesday once we got the official diagnosis, but the vet sent him home because he’s still in fairly good shape? Now that he has some kitty painkillers his appetite is back and he’s super purry and affectionate and he and my cat are actually getting along for the first time. So I’m super glad that we have more time with him (he’s totally getting some shrimp this weekend). But I also feel weird that we’re just waiting for him to start falling apart. Anyone else go through this? I feel like I started mourning and now I’m just on indefinite hiatus but with wildly ping-ponging emotions when I see him.
This is exactly what happened to my parents’ dog, and it sounds like you’re reacting the exact way we all did. She lived pretty happy for about two weeks after her diagnosis, and we appreciated getting to say goodbye gradually, but when it was time, it was pretty clear. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
That really sucks. It sounds like you’re going to be able to give your kitty a happy end, which is all anyone can hope for, really. I’m sorry you’re having to go through it, though.
Oh no, I’m so sorry. I think that if you can give him a few weks of being spoiled, and being happy and purry and contented while the drugs are working, then do it if you can live with it.
Something similar happened to close friends of mine. They ended up having 6 more months with their cat. She just hung in there and got skinny but stayed happy and alert and mobile so they just took it one day at a time and did their best to enjoy it while it lasted.
I’m so sorry. You’re doing everything so sweetly and kindly to take the best care of your cat, and I hope that’s some comfort to you.
I have a dermatology appointment in a few weeks. My acne isn’t so bad anymore but I have scars to deal with. If this visit can fix my face, I may shave off all my hair to celebrate.
I love your version of celebration. I celebrated getting married by getting a buzz cut and never looking back.
So, I’ve been dating this guy for like, a month and a half? He’s the laziest person dating-wise, ever. I have planned EVERY ONE OF OUR DATES, he has never initiated, at all. I like him, I like spending time with him, he says he likes me and when we’re together he acts like he likes me? But this is ridiculous, I just cannot handle being the only one who does anything. Do I need to actually break up with him? Or just wait until he texts me (which will likely be never).
If he really does like you, he will initiate! He will try to see you again! I think DTMFA- you deserve better than that!
(Also please remember that these problems only get worse as time goes on. End it now!)
Have you talked to him about it? If not I would just say something (or text something) like “I noticed I’ve been planning all of our dates since we got together. It’s really important to me that we take equal amounts of initiative and I’d really love it if you could start coming up with ideas or planning dates” and see what he says. He may not realize he’s doing this, or may not realize that it bothers you and it’s possible he could be happy to correct the behavior. Then you could be like “Great! I’d love to go out next Tuesday, text me this weekend to let me know what our plans are”. If he isn’t cool with that, or if he gets whiny you can just say “thanks for letting me know, but I can’t be in a relationship where I’m making all of the effort, so I think it’s best we go our separate ways”.
Yeah, I’ll just preface this by saying I don’t have much relationship experience and any dating advice I give tends to err on the side of DTMFA, but I think it’s completely fair for you to stop making so much effort to plan dates/text him first/etc. and see how he responds. If he really likes you he’ll miss spending time with you and make the bare fucking minimal effort it takes to just text you already. If not, you’ll know where you stand. Not that you should cut him off completely or anything, but I mean, 6 weeks is more than enough time for him to get his shit together. And honestly, to second what lassotabasco said, if this is an issue now, think how bad it will be once you two are in a relationship and over the honeymoon period.
That being said, if you really do think he’s just being super oblivious about it and doesn’t realize you’re doing all the work, maybe it’s worth it to say something to him – like, “hey, I’ve been the one planning all of our dates, I’d love it if you could come up with some ideas/plans for the next one.” Present it as an opportunity for you to get to know him a little better. But to my mind even the fact that he could be that oblivious and self-involved is a big problem. And the fact that he won’t even bother to text you, the girl he supposedly likes, is to be frank annoying as hell (or it would be to me). Best of luck, whatever you decide to do!
self-involved. You nailed it. Themegnapkin, run!
I am with JocastaCarr: if if feels good to you, there’s no harm in giving him a tiny heads-up that, hey, I’ve been doing all the planning and I’d like you to do some. Either he steps up and does it or he doesn’t, and either way you’ve learned something.
It’s absolutely possible he’s lazy and self-involved enough to lie back and let you lavish attention on him, but it’s possible – not hugely likely, but possible – he’s abdicating all the planning to you because he thinks (consciously or not) that you enjoy planning all the dates. If that’s the case, mentioning it could change the dynamic. And if it doesn’t, SEE YA, GUY.
“I just cannot handle being the only one who does anything.” Yeah that is ridiculous. You should not have to be the cruise director for your relationship!
Yeah – I’m okay with being co-cruise director, and even doing more of the cruise directing, just not all of it!
I agree with those saying you should let him know he’s in charge for the next date. He might be lazy or disinterested or just really afraid of rejection or any number of things, but if you’re clear about what you want then you can judge better by his response.
Update 🙁 : we texted briefly about random stuff on Saturday, and on Sunday I asked him if we were ever going to hang out again, or just text. And he hasn’t responded. So, it’s over.
I’m sorry, that sucks. Dude is clearly wishy-washy and cowardly. Best of luck finding someone who’s more worthy of your time and effort!
I ordered a fancy signed book for my boyfriend’s upcoming 40th birthday, and yesterday, after much waiting and shipping delays, it finally arrived: AN EMPTY PACKAGE. So, so disappointed. The envelope was open on one end, not clear if it was opened intentionally or not, but ugh, this sucks, that book was pricey and even if I could justify spending another couple hundred dollars to find another copy, I probably won’t receive it in time. Hopefully I will get a refund. If there had been an option to get shipping insurance when I bought the damn thing I would have! AARGH.
I have some awful shipping stories (it took me three months to get something replaced!) but that is the worst!
OH NO. Do you have any recourse for recovering your payment, at least? I know it doesn’t help you with the present, but that is appalling.
I wrote a poem about coffee at work today.
Surely there’s no nobler cause
Than that of coffee’s wholesome buzz
Vision clear and troubles nary
When one decants that magic berry
A brew of black or mocha brown
Of darkest roast and finest grounds
A beverage fit for king and queen
To china mug from humble bean
Oh! Alcohol’s a bitter foe
With vomit, slurs and shame in tow
Now clutching yonder porcelain brink
In need of some more healthful drink
So come, imbibe, all ye who rise
Who greet the day with bleary eyes
With humour foul and memory fuzzed
For want of coffee’s wholesome buzz
It was a slow morning. Also, I’m going to Paris in July. With a seven-month-old baby.
Beautiful!!
Moving sale this weekend! I would not wish time in Ukiah on a Toastie but if you’re passing through come look at the ruins of my life, from which I plan to emerge in the fine fettle of a foxy phoenix. If you bring a veggie burrito I will follow you anywhere from this point forward.
“from which I plan to emerge in the fine fettle of a foxy phoenix”
So…. You’re moving out of Ukiah then.
(sorry couldn’t help myself! I hail from the emerald triangle myself)
I just described it to someone as “like all the worst parts of ‘Portlandia’ only with a ton of barfing drunks on top.” I think if you live in the woods and don’t mind having a honey oil lab explode in your ear it might be nicer, but downtown? Wow. No.
Heh, I always described my town as “A delicate balance between drunk rednecks, hardcore hippies, and meth-heads.”
Sent from my iPhone
I just wanted to come on here and give a shout out to Doris Day! She turned 90 yesterday! I grew up watching her movies on TV and still love her to bits. Also I grew up in Carmel and we would see her from time to time at the grocery store so she will always have a place in my heart. <3 <3 <3
Relevant!
I’m finally doing something fun on a weekend! Tomorrow some of my friends and I are going hardcore retro and hitting the town. I plan on beehiving the crap out of my hair and pile on the fake lashes for 60s glam times. Watching the Rich Man’s Frug on repeat as inpiration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrZIK3gqbU
What makes you wish you were a time-traveling hedonist?
18th century fashion. Seriously I want embroidered waistcoats to make a resurgence so bad.
Okay, I just need to vent regarding this terrible no good day.
My husband and I rented a car this morning for our weekend road trip. I stop at a coffee shop across the street from the rental place and a bad driver in a van tbones the car in the parking lot. Four hours of reports and forms later; we finally get out of the city, only to realize that I forgot my phone at home. And to top it off, we’ve been stuck in rain and traffic for hours… not a good start to my weekend.
Oh.
my.
NO.
That’s awful, I’m sorry. I hope your weekend picks up from here!
2 disparate emotions for this wk! (1) I am have been on high-anxiety alert and constantly praying to The Goddess about jobs / new apts/ MOVING BACK TO THE SAME CITY AS MY BF and I’m self soothing w yoga, Mexican food and Game of Thrones blogs; (2) I have seen some absolutely gorg ladies and have been developing girl crushes all over the place. Not sure where on the spectrum it is if I kind of just want to hang out, braid hair and watch Netflix w someone?
I once went out to dinner with my boyfriend and had a major crush on our female waitress. Like, distracting from our date crush. It happens. I also developed a few lady crushes in grad school (when I was, interestingly, long distance with my boyfriend?).
I have no answers for you, just also a hetero lady who sometimes thinks other ladies are gorgeous/witty/smart and then develops crushes.
It has been a looooong week because I agreed to cover for my coworker on Sunday. But even though I am on Day Six, I’ve been feeling pretty good this week because:
1. Starting tonight at 8:00 PST I have a three-day weekend!
2. I’ve been reading this really great Johnlock fanfic!
3. On Sunday I made the craziest impulse buy of my life and bought two tickets to see HUGH LAURIE AND THE COPPER BOTTOM BAND IN MAY. I AM SO EXCITED I CANNOT EVEN.
Also it’s feeling like spring here in Seattle and I think my new antidepressants are kicking in, so that definitely helps too.
Link to fanfic, please. And very glad you’re feeling better.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/582059
I stay away from WIPs as a rule, so that’s a testament to how great it is.
TOASTIE MIX CD SWAPPERS
Has anybody sent out their CDs yet? Has anybody gotten a CD yet? I wanna know how it’s going! (I’ve gotten a couple KICKASS mix CDs lately, and I love all you mix-CD-inclined Toasties, yes I do.)
I got mine today, and I’m sending mine out tomorrow! Hooray!
No I haven’t sent it yet, but I have high hopes for this weekend!
I sent mine & it was received! & I have good reason to believe I’ll be receiving one soon too!
I’ve been insane busy but I will try and work on it this weekend around vacation prep!
I sent mine out Monday! But it’s going to Hong Kong so I doubt it’s arrived yet. (…right? I have no idea how long international shipping takes)
Also I have what is maybe a strange question:
How/should I negotiate with the department at my prospective grad school re: the stipend amount? I’d already accepted admission when I found out that my other option (and their rival school) was going to offer me about $1600 more a year.
I just got a letter from the English graduate director asking me to accept the TA-ship offer, so if I’m gonna try it, this would probably be the time? I’ve just never negotiated for so much as weekend plans, nor do I know if this is an appropriate thing to do (my mom said she “saw something on the news” about how it’s a thing you should do, but idk idk).
(I have no intention of going to the other school, either — the program would just be an awful fit and totally not worth the extra pay.)
Thanks for any tips you might have!
Congratulations on your admission!
In my experience stipend amounts for program slots are set by the graduate school, not the individual departments; bargaining will probably be met with an “I wish we could but our hands are tied.”
What you could try is “I am wondering about other University resources and internal or external fellowships, for which I could apply in the next year. I want to be sure I’m tapping into all opportunities.” That may give an opening for “We could give you $$, you know…”
Also, compare the offers from Not-Fitting program and Chosen program. Does one offer better/any health coverage, payment during the summer months, lower activity fee for grad students, etc?
Ultimately it’s up to you- the selectivity of the program to which you’ve been invited may help you determine how to play this.
I had a very draining week and was looking forward to spending the weekend in my apartment on my couch doing as little as possible, but my roommate reminded me that apparently I agreed to help co-host a dinner party. I like all the people invited but I also am at critical NEED ALONE TIME levels so ugh. On the bright side it gives me an excuse/motivation to clean everything and wear a nice party dress so there’s that.
I know someone basically said the same thing upthread but I AM GETTING AN IUD ON MONDAY and keep forgetting about it and then remembering. Hold my virtual hand at 9:40 AM PT!!! (Mama is driving me to her house after, where there will be heating pads and Trader Joe’s Chocolate Cherry soy ice cream aplenty)
I went and looked at an apartment and it is perfect and I put in an application and I might have a place to liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive (that’s me singing).
Been sofa surfing for 8 months and it’s getting fucking old.
Yaaaay! Is it that one we were talking about before or a different one?
Yep, in LQA. I’ll be able to walk to the Space Needle. Don’t know why I’d want to? Oh, I could go play in the fountain on warm days!
I’ve been going back & forth about what to make for dinner tonight, since we have a ton of leftovers to use up, and then I came upon this recipe for KIMCHI. MOTHERFUCKIN. BOKKEUMBAP. Hell-LO, gorgeous. Yes, I will use up my leftover eggs, rice and kimchi in the service of this deliciousness.
What are you having for dinner??
That. Looks. So. Good.
I found a can of “stir fry vegetables” in the laundry room, which I’m supplementing with a ton of fresh veg and some BBQ seitan I made earlier in the week, and topping it with some kimchi from the farmers market, so, kinda similar yet not.
I made dukkah last night. Heck yeah.
The last week or so all of a sudden Toast posts are being shared all over my FB news feed.
Which on the one hand is awesome, because The Toast is awesome. On the other hand I weirdly selfishly liked having this wonderful site with funny and interesting things that only I knew about.
Can I talk about hair removal? Specifically on my face. Not about whether I should or what shape to make it, but how to do it without every day being full of pain and misery.
I am comfortable with not being comfortable with chin hairs. I do not need that much self-acceptance.
I occasionally wax my eyebrows, but the only time I’ve had it done where the waxer didn’t make me feel like the hairiest person she’d ever seen, I instead ended up with red skin and pimples for 5 days.
Tweezing is okay I guess for small spots, but I do not have the patience or pain tolerance to tweeze lots.
Hair removing cream, even the sensitive kind, makes me look like the victim of chemical burns. And a bright red upper lip is not any less conspicuous than a moustache.
What am I missing? Is anything not terrible? Should I give in and have people shoot expensive lasers at my face?
I shave my chin every day. This doesn’t keep any secrets from, say, people I make out with, as it gets prickly by the end of the day, but it’s cheap and easy and fast…
I also shave my chin every day (and my upper lip.) I’ve tried threading, waxing, hair removal creams, etc. but apparently my chin hair is made of adamantium and shaving is the only thing that reliably gets rid of all the hairs in one go.
As far as eyebrows go, I started going to a threading place a while ago and haven’t looked back. I went once a month for about a year and am now at the point where I can last about two or three months between threadings without rocking a unibrow. I am VERY evangelical about eyebrow threading.
I am all abouttttt the tweezing (so relaxing!), but I’ve heard good things about Epilady (which is a little rechargable epilator that makes a scary noise and yanks your hair out of your tender flesh), and threading. Both are probably as painful as tweezing, but also quicker?
Laser can backfire, the intense heat stimulating previously hairless (or occupied by peach fuzz) pores to begin growing bristles.
Irritation is your problem. All hair removal is irritating. So, I say, opt to irritate only for a permanent solution. I shave daily, like lemonadefish, and spend all my extra cash on electrolysis.
I de-stache myself every couple of weeks with a depilatory cream. To combat the bright red upper lip thing I just usually plan the removal for an evening when I won’t see anyone but my husband, because he is used to my antics and is unfazed. Also I moisturize the heck out of my upper lip after I’ve removed the cream.
I tweeze my chin because it’s the only effective low cost solution. I use wax strips for my upper lip or shave, but I tend to end up nicking myself there and then being even more self conscious. Professional waxing on my chin has worked okay, but I’ve had decent luck with getting nice people.
I’m still pregnant, but the baby is due in 5 days, and I am READY to meet her and stop being pregnant. She’s due next Wednesday, and my OB was planning to induce me if she wasn’t here by then, but my OB was then put on bedrest (she’s pregnant with twins herself), and her partner, my new OB, doesn’t want to induce. Also, he is a terrible doctor and I do not like him at all, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth to change doctor’s a week before my due date. He will at least put me on bedrest if the baby isn’t here by my due date so that I don’t have to go back to work.
On the bright side, my sister has her third interview with a place in town on Monday, so hopefully she will get that job and move back to the DFW area and be an awesome and nearby aunt for our daughter. Yea!
Oh, no. I want you to have the best doctor. Failing that, one that’s better than the terrible partner. Please call a friend to help you find someone better. But I understand being too tired to face a change.
I do have someone in mind, but I don’t know if she would take someone on this close to the delivery date. I am torn between basically hating this guy and wondering if it would be worth it to transfer all of my records and the hassle, etc. associated with it.
Give the new someone a call! Worth a shot, right? (Good luck! I hope everything goes smoothly and you meet your little one soon.)
PS – Why I don’t like him:
On Monday I had my second appt with him, and he was behind schedule. This is totally understandable, because he now has twice as many patients as he’s used to. However, I am at the stage where he has to examine stuff, so I was left sitting on the exam table pantsless for an hour. Eventually I got fed up and uncomfortable and put my clothes back on to go to the restroom. When he finally came in I asked him to give me a 1-2 minute heads up next time so I could wait to undress rather than being miserably pantsless and sitting on paper for an hour. I led with, “I understand that you have more patients, and I don’t mind waiting, but….” The man literally told me to “deal with it.” Twice.
He left the room and came back after I had changed, and then told me that he would have the nurse give me a heads up next time, but he did not apologize for being a total douchebag, and when I called my husband afterward I was crying angry rage tears. I don’t want that guy to touch me again!
Please make a call. I don’t want that guy to touch you again, either. Beg hubby to find you someone else. Can I help? I know I’m just a stranger on the internet, but I’m a take-charge office-manager-type. I get shit done.
Dude. Dude. I am just an Internet stranger, but please try to transfer if you are crying angry rage tears. You really want to feel supported and comfortable during labor. And that guy sounds terrible.
I will give my personal experience as a backup: I had an unmedicated labor. It hurt, sure, but the pain was totally manageable and fleeting. There are, however, two contractions I remember in detail, and both occurred right when my L&D nurse did something to royally piss me off.
Even if you’re planning on an epidural, you’re going to have a better experience if you’re comfortable. If you have someone in mind, at least give her a try!
Argh. I let my husband talk me out of changing doctors, and I don’t feel comfortable with that decision, but the doctor I had planned to transfer to closes at noon on Fridays, so I am going to try to call her on Monday, which will literally be two days before my due date. I am not super hopeful she will take me on, but we’ll see.
You have the right to change your mind. I am certain you are solid on the my-body/my-decision front. Husband can have an opinion, but his role is to support your choice even if it differs from his preference. Labor and childbirth – nothing in a man’s experience trumps it, ever.
NEW DOCTOR TIME. You do not want Dr. Deal With It with you while you’re in labor. Echoing RoseCamelia–have your husband help! It is worth the hassle to get away from this dude.
How does it work when it’s time for you to deliver, if you don’t get induced? Will Dr. Asshole be the one attending, or are there more? (I ended up with a strange doctor I’d never even met, of whom I was not entirely fond, but there are eight doctors in my practice…) Alternately if you switch to the nice doctor, will she be the one attending your birth for sure, or does she have an asshole partner who might be on call?
I hope your sister moves back!! That’ll be so much fun to have her around!
YOU GUYS I HAD A BABY!!!!!
She popped out Tuesday for a good April Fool’s trick. Apart from being seven weeks early, and so rather smallish, everything is fine. She’ll be in the NICU for a couple weeks while she gets the hang of breathing. We go visit everyday, and then try to take advantage of the world’s most expensive babysitters. Holy crap, I’m a parent!
omg omg CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
AHHHH I hope you posted about it on Facebook and confused people, congratulations!
We did get many incredulous responses to texts and posts until we had a picture to share…
Yay congrats!!!
Congratulations! I hope she grows those lungs quickly so you can take her home!
I know a baby coming that early can be a tough thing, but I’m still jealous that your baby is here already and we’re still waiting. But yea parenthood! Woo!
Yeah, I wish she would have baked a little longer, but I must say, I don’t mind being able to breathe and eat again! Good luck, your little girl will be here soon!
Congratulations! Huzzah for babies and being a parent!
Congrats! So happy for you and so happy she’s doing fine!
Oh, congratulations! I’m glad things are going well and that she has such a well developed sense of humor already 🙂
Congratulations! I’m glad to hear that everyone is healthy and well. 😀
That’s so exciting! Hope she gets to come home soon!
Oh, wow! How simultaneously scary and fantastic! Good thoughts for the NICU time and hope she’s home soon!
(Fetus Howlet had better goddamned stay put for the next 10 weeks, please.)
I got my hair cut! I have been wanting short hair for all the reasons listed in the Impossible Hairstyles post, and the sun is shining and I have lost all patience for blowdrying. I showed the hairdresser this picture:
and she nailed it! it looks and feels fantastic!
Oh WOW– that’s an amazing inspiration shot!! If my hair had any texture at all, I’d be printing it out for my own hairdresser.
Anyway, welcome to the Short-Ass Hair Society!
Thank you! 🙂
Yay, that is exactly the hair cut I want! Can you tell me a little more about how she interpreted it? (There’s no way I could have that exact cut, I would look ridiculous as I don’t have Tilda’s bone structure or style.)
She left some of the hair in the front a bit longer, and said that this would help keep it from falling down into my face all the time. And I use a kind of matt, strong wax to style it. By no means do I come close to Tilda’s outerworldly sense of style, but the haircut kind of makes whatever I weak look more stylish!
I want to take this cake, one of the world’s great cakes, and make it a marble cake. My instinct is to add a little more flour (maybe 1/4 cup) to the vanilla half in addition to extra vanilla in order to make up for the lost dry cocoa powder. Thoughts? Also, this is a pretty wet batter — is it even going to marble well? (That is more of a thought to myself, but if you have input, I would appreciate it.)
Your link doesn’t work for me, can you repost it?
http://thepaperseed.com/?p=266 I should stop trying to get fancy.
Ok, that looks AMAZING, although I agree with @alicia’s comment below about using a different recipe for the vanilla part. Let us know how it turns out!
You mention a vanilla half, but there’s an awful lot of coffee in there so were you planning to leave that out too? It might actually be easier to make a different recipe unless you’re doing coffee/chocolate as the swirl and I just misread. Otherwise you’re subbing for both a dry and a wet and it gets complicated.
Seconding this–I’d just do a half recipe of the chocolate batter and a different recipe for the vanilla. I’m a huge fan of Smitten Kitchen’s vanilla buttermilk cake though the batter might be a little heavier than the wet chocolate batter you’re describing. It should marble okay though!
Thanks very much to both of you! I think what I’ll actually do is put a caramel syrup in the vanilla half instead of the coffee.
Trying to squeeze the last few hours of quiet and solitude out of this week before all the students return on Monday. BUT I have Wed-Fri off because I’m going to (my first!) library convention! Any chance there will be Toasties at the Texas Library Association Convention in San Antonio next week?
Meanwhile I have two new student workers. 1 who is great (she loves Welcome to Nightvale) 2 who is good but I’m trying to step on his mansplain-y tendencies right out of the gate and get him to stop interrupting everybody. He must learn to fear my cold misandrist heart quickly.
Toasties! Longtime lurker, just started to comment yesterday. Are there any other Maisie Dobbs fans? I’m halfway through book three and am wanting to know:
*if the quality of the books keep up
*if I need to continue reading them only at home to ensure that I don’t come to a WWI passage and start crying then look up war poetry and find myself sobbing over Wilfred Owen while on the train. (As this has happened, more than once, in my apartment.)
Hey! Fellow Maisie Dobbs fan and longtime lurker here–I’m still not very good at commenting, which is why I’m writing on the open thread on Monday, but thought I’d give it a shot anyway in case you’re still reading. My favorites in the series are the first four books, and also the…seventh, I think? It’s called “The Mapping of Love and Death.” For those, at least, I think the risk of sobbing on the train is still present! I’ve read the other books in the series, too, and found them all reasonably enjoyable, but I do think the quality has gone down as the series has progressed. Still entertaining, just not quite as gripping. Some of that might be because time moves on within the series–she’s up to the 1930s now–and the plots become less concerned with WWI and more with the approaching onset of WWII. Anyway, your mileage may vary, of course, but I’m glad you’re enjoying the early books–I wish I could read them for the first time again, too!
Since I’ve been trying to write things but failing to come up with pitches befitting such esteemed outlets as this, I’ve started a TinyLetter. You can sign up if you want to read my jawing. You should also subscribe to Charlotte Shane’s, every missive she writes is a bomb going off.
https://tinyletter.com/JWThompson
Finally decided to create a proper account for commenting only to find that my favourite username is taken already on both intensedebate and wordpress. Off to reinvent myself 🙁
Good luck! My husband is just now applying to have his 2-year "review" status lifted on his green card (that's what you get when your green card is through marriage in the US), and you do get through the it. I greatly appreciated having hired a lawyer, esp. since my husband was a conscientious objector to the draft in his country of origin which could have been sticky. But it all went fine.
We had to do separate interviews where we were asked questions to see if our answers matched, just like a dating show. If you have to do that, I do recommend practicing beforehand — make sure you know the name of everybody in any family photos you show them, even pets (I GOT ASKED THIS!! his sister's dog). Also in the US at least they like to "check" that you really live together by asking questions about who your neighbors are/what they're like, where your partner keeps his/her toothbrush, etc. It's different for everybody, but for whatever reason we managed to get a pretty thorough questioner, ugh.