Do you do more things on summer weeknights than winter ones? Feel festive all the time? Do you then regret everything in the mornings? NO MATTER. Because it’s Friday and we are gonna open thread like the wind. Who’s doing anything except watching the WC final?
Tags: cocktail hour, open thread, the bartender
Oh man, so I applied for a new job out in western Mass and it’s been two days since the recruiter for it sent my resume over to them and I haven’t been called for an interview yet and I am f r e a k i n g out because I have no patience. It’s making me sad because I really wanted this job.
In other news, I’ve reached the end of my knowledge of dog training and am taking my dog to a professional trainer so we can deal with the last vestiges of this whole “people reactivity” thing. I’m feeling kind of like a failure over this which is ridiculous, but there it is.
good luck!! 2 days is no time at all in Real World Time. I’m sure they’ll be in touch soon!
God I hope so. It’s literally in the perfect area and would let me check off step one of my five year plan and ugh. I’m finding the whole thing so stressful because nothing is immediate so I have all this time to worry about it and build everything up in my head. Thank you for the luck!
You are not a failure. You are a success! It takes a certain kind of person to be able to accept that their are limitations to their knowledge and ask the help of a professional! What would be failing would be to allow your dog to be poorly trained based on the falsehood that you should be able to do everything alone as well as people who train for years to do it.
Thank you <3. That is what I keep telling myself, but man is it good to hear someone else say it.
YES this is so right. People are especially, uniquely terrible at acknowledging their limitations when it comes to dogs, so if you know enough to get a trainer, you’re basically a professional dog owner.
Are you.. what? Seriously? 2 days? There are jobs I’ve applied to that I’ve literally never heard a peep from. My current job called me for an interview a solid 2 months after I had applied. I had no idea what they were referring to when I got the call.
Seconded. This is particularly common with my university, which is huge. It’s not uncommon to hear back two months after you apply; there were three weeks between my first and second interviews for the job I eventually got.
The last job I interviewed for that was desperate to fill the position contacted me a little over a week after I sent my application. Hiring managers be busy.
I know it’s awful. My logical brain is going CALM THE FUCK DOWN TWO DAYS IS NOTHING and the other 90% of my brain is gone full crazy over this. It’s like I was enjoying feeling fairly normal too much and my brain decided it needed to remind me of my place.
Yes this completely – today my boyfriend got invited to an interview for a job he applied for in early May!
Some places just have a really slow process, it’s irritating, but don’t worry about 2 days!
The Fellow applied for a million jobs he heard nothing from – but on the flip side, one ended up calling back after originally turning him down and asking meekly if they could please hire him after all. Job hunting, as mentioned before, is an ENDLESS WASTE (and I say that as a staffing agency employee). Be kind to yourself and keep your chin up – you can do it 🙂 Good luck!!!
I just got a polite form rejection email from a job I applied to two full months ago and had heard nothing from. During that time, I applied for, interviewed for, and began a job. I wanted to reply I DON’T CARE ANYWAY.
Good luck with both of those! Everything always takes longer than I expect; maybe that’s all it is for you, too.
Thank you! I’m 99% certain that it’s just my jerkbrain making me feel like everything is awful, but who knows.
That’s so common! Don’t worry! In my experience it usually takes people about a week or two to get back to me. There were a few times it took 3-4 weeks because of other important things going on in the department. I totally understand how you feel because I have 0 patience but I’m sure they are just taking their time to really look over your cover letter and talk to their team about it.
Here’s hoping! Thank you!
WESTERN MASS \o/ Good luck!
RIGHT?? WESTERN MASS FTW \o/ Thank you!
Don’t feel like a failure! You wouldn’t feel like a failure for sending a kid to school once you’d taught them everything you could possibly teach a preK child, right? Same thing!
idk, I might if they like, didn’t know how to read yet. Which, I mean, is irrational as hell but I learned to read when I was 2 so clearly any spawn of mine will be equally quick to pick up on things, right? Right??
looooooooooool 🙁
Can we talk about our bad dogs? I just called a trainer on mine, because a generous family member offered to pay for training, and I previously had no budget for it at all. My guy is about 1.5 years old, 45 lbs, and loves to cuddle with my husband and me. He can also leap as high as a human face from a standing start, and barks horrible ear-splitting barks if anyone except one of us enters the house. If unrestrained, he also bites. Not with a seeming intent to maim, but nips hard enough to break the skin. The only reason he hasn’t done time in dog jail yet is because everyone he has bitten has been much kinder to us than they’ve had to be.
I feel extreme shame about the badness of my dog, and am terrified that the training won’t work, because I love him so much. But, as part of his training package, we get to take him to a special group class for bad dogs, where they all initially wear muzzles and growl and act up, and then, according to the video, are magically transformed, and that sounds like a blast. Best of luck to you!
Good luck to you and your furry friend!
Oh man, other people paying for your dog training is awesome! I am super jealous. I’m doing training because my dog bites, too. Luckily he gives plenty of warning first so I can tell people “Yo, if you don’t knock that shit out he’s going to bite you” (he haaaaaates people acting violently or horsing around, so it’s pretty easy to identify what’s going to trigger him and either tie him up or tell them to knock it off). He’s only ever bitten three people, and we’ve worked a lot on counter-conditioning and stuff so that he’s more chill about life, but it’s only been successful up to a point. He did a snarl/warning lunge at someone at work the other day, which the dude thought was hilarious and I was like UM NO HE WILL ACTUALLY BITE IF YOU DON’T GO THE FUCK AWAY which was startling and worrisome because he hasn’t done that in… a while.
Good luck with your dog! What kind is he? If you want advice I’ve got a shitload, but you’ve probably heard it all already.
What have I done this week? Oh, not much: got a haircut, finished my second master’s.
And for my next trick, I can make every American reading this cry by telling how much my higher education cost me.
congratulations!
Do tell! I was talking to my neighbors, who have college-age kids, last night, and they said they saved $50,000 for their daughter’s college. It was gone in 2 years — with in-state tuition at a state school. How this situation continues, I just don’t know.
Heh, I actually went and checked: my first year of undergrad at the Sorbonne cost me just under 500 €.
BUT! This included a lot of extras: about 350 € of that amount went to basic health insurance and a complementary plan (which you don’t have to pay if, like most people, you’re on your parents’ plan), then you had library fees, and so on. The barebones tuition amount was… 105 €. By way of comparison, I paid around 250 € for the last year of my master’s.
Daaaaaammn. Congrats on your awesome (and financially savvy) education!
Whaaaaaaat! And I thought my Quebec tuition was cheap. (~$2500 for the year, which is still peanuts in comparison to US tuition)
So many congratulations!
Congratulations!
And then for the trick after that, you can make every American mother cry by telling us how much (paid!) maternity leave you get.
HAHAHAHAH not gonna happen. Everyone else is welcome to my hypothetical leave.
Hahaha, if only there was some sort of program by which childfree people in reasonable countries could transfer their 6 months-to-a-year of paid leave to new American parents who don’t get shit. It could be like donating your unused frequent flier miles!
I would donate my mat-leave (one year! <3 u, Canada) so fast your head would spin.
Finished your second Masters? Congratulations!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Congrats! Luckily, I am on tons of athletic scholarship, so I tend to make people cry too! I have a friend who went to a school in Europe and not only did he immediately get a job here in the US, but he also has zero student debt. Great for you! Best of luck!
Hurray! Congratulations!
Damn, congratulations! That’s a hell of a week!
Congratulations! I’m sure it was an awesome haircut. 🙂
(We are crying very quietly over here. And trying to figure out how to go get our MA in Europe.)
Last night a program that I had planned all by myself went wonderfully! I was overwhelmed with feelings of agency and success which are two things that had been severely lacking of late. I came home and cleaned the bejeezus out of my house and drank many success beers. Tell me your stories of success!!!
kicking my feet in delight below my desk
This GIF is awesome, and now I suddenly get the Bendy Cumberband love.
This reminds me of when a two-story tall billboard directly across from my office window was covered in an ad featuring Idris Elba winking and offering a G&T. YES PLEASE THANK YOU. Productivity was a bit down that month.
Productivity was a bit down? It’s a miracle anyone got anything done at all.
I had to manage an 8 hour long meeting with subject matter specialists in a subject I know nothing about, and felt ridiculous and way over my head. The next morning, one of the meeting attendees called to discuss some concerns she had, which were also things that I picked up on, and she was really lovely and I felt like – hey! maybe I do know some of this!
Plus it’s always nice to know someone else was side-eyeing speakers too 😉
That’s awesome! Always good to realize that you had been underestimating yourself. Also always good to find an side-eye ally! I hope you sufficiently basked.
interviewed for a job two weeks ago that I was underqualified for (and therefore was not really expecting an interview). It was a bilingual position and the interview had a translation exercise. Didn’t get the job but the hiring manager said I had better French than the francophones he interviewed! Patting myself on the back because now I can confidently put “fluent in English and French” on my resume without worrying that I’m over-embellishing 🙂
That is no small feat! Good job 🙂
I’m so glad that you got some extra confidence out of this experience! That’s kickass. I have that same hesitation with Spanish on my resume.
Way to go! Successful planning takes “crazy skillz” as the kids say (and if they don’t, they should). And success beers are the yummiest beers because they taste like VICTORY.
Good on you and your well deserved success beers!
My personal triumph: after several months of iron deficiency and shitty colds that left me feeling like I was trying to breathe vacuum in the pool, I had an epiphany about ribcage positioning and have consequently been Tearing Up The Lanes all week.
Tear it up!!!
Congratulations! You will be my cleaning inspiration this week.
Admitted to an old friend that I needed help with something I was embarrassed to ask for. She–one of the least spontaneous people I know–bought a plane ticket instantly, and will be here next week to lend a hand. The success is hers, not mine, but I feel lucky anyway.
Asking for help is a giant success! Glad you have such a speedy and wonderful support system.
Our success story is that after dangers untold and hardships unnumbered (or at least a HUGE PILE of paperwork and a ton of errands) we have finally gotten our daughter enrolled in kindergarten! So she can start public school in 13 August, and there is much dread and delight both.
Wooo! That’s so exciting. Good work !
Someone brought in a delicious apricot tart to work this morning which has changed my office state of mind from ARGH CONSTANT FRUSTRATION to intermittent frustration interspersed with pleasant bursts of I LOVE YOU ALL
I LOVE when this happens. Baked goods truly can change the entire structure of a day.
I have had a hard time shaking this thing that happened to me last week…
I went to see a dermatologist, who was kind of a dick. I have these unpigmented moles on my face that have been growing hairs and scabbing over and they’re just GROSS and I wanted them off.
When I showed him the third one he said “…you’re really stretching for that, huh” – like I WANT stupid little moles on my face that scab up and make me self-conscious for days.
So anyway, the time comes and I get him to agree to take the problematic moles off, and he’s about to prescribe a spot treatment for my volcanic acne I get from polycystic ovaries. He then asks me if I’m pregnant or intending to get pregnant, to which I respond “I’m not pregnant or trying to, but I’m not on birth contro-“ and he interrupts and says “oh right, PCOS is your birth control”. Which is technically correct, only because it’s caused poor egg quality, and has led me to have 6 miscarriages. I said “wow, thanks for reminding me” and clammed up. When his nurse came in, she could tell something was wrong, and I told her what he said and asked her to please not tell him until I leave because I don’t want to have to deal with it, but SHE TOLD HIM ANYWAY because “he would feel bad ALL WEEKEND if he didn’t get a chance to apologize” and I didn’t have the presence of mind to say “WELL HIS FEELINGS ARE OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE SO LET’S ALL MAKE SURE HE’S FINE OK”. So he apologized, and I let him take a scalpel to my face.
But since then, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it. I’ve wanted to talk to friends about it, because it’s so stupid, but I find that – since I haven’t had any children, and I desperately want to have children, and am hoping to be successful once we start to try in a few months – I don’t want people to perceive of me as “infertile.” Is this some insidious “the Secret” style indoctrination? That if people believe I’ve got fertility issues, it will come true? Can someone internetally slap some sense into me? I’m so frustrated with the difficulties of fertility problems, and what makes it worse is that nobody wants to hear/talk about it, and it shouldn’t be taboo, but it seems like we’re (I am) afraid of some nameless consequence.
Wow, both of those people are giant asswipes and I’m sorry that you had to go through that.
This. Seriously. UGH.
You said it. Just awful, so sorry, too.
God, they sound awful. So sorry.
Ugh that doctor. Yuck. And I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had six miscarriages. That’s awful. What treatment have you tried for PCOS? I’m on Metformin and it’s like a magical fertility cure. Barren without it, but once I start, voila, two kids.
the things is, I’m not BARREN, i can get pregnant lickety split, but I haven’t been able to carry past 7 weeks. most doctors just shrug and say “just gotta keep trying” which is so UGGGHHHH. I’ve got the supplement thing down (inositol, vitamin D, etc) and that has helped regulate my cycles and reduced symptoms, but haven’t tried to have babies since then, and am nervous (understandably) to start.
That’s really hard. I wasn’t able to crack the PCOS code until I saw a women’s reproductive health specialist. No joke, my (MALE, never making that mistake again) gyno had never heard of it. I hadn’t gotten my period for eight months and he kept telling me to take pregnancy tests, as if I wouldn’t know if I was eight months pregnant. Anyway, the point is, I would recommend finding a women’s reproductive health ninja to guide you through it, if you haven’t already. The kind that will give you support beyond a shrug.
Holy shit that is a terrifyingly incompetent gyno. I really wish there was a useful way to track doctor competence. The information asymmetry makes every consultation and decision fraught with issues of consent and just…ugh.
Wait, what? A gyno, regardless of gender, had never heard of PCOS?! Holy incomptent doctor, Batman.
Within the first few lines I was thinking, “this kind of thing is a pretty good evolutionary reason to have developed the ability to shoot lasers from our eyes,” and then by the middle I was just making incoherent monster noises, and now I mostly want to give you a hug. You should have a place where you can talk about it, and maybe that place is here? I hope the nameless fear starts to recede soon. Ironically, whenever I have a half-formed dread of something, naming it and talking about it often helps me feel more in control of my responses, even if I still have little control over the actual outcome.
I have endless hugs for you though (assuming hugs are your thing).
I’m so sorry. I hope you never go back to that practice again! definitely not doing any sense slapping, but I know there’s definitely a community of women who have struggled to conceive for you to reach out to! Maybe that safe space would be the best place to start before you start sharing with friends or family. sending you good thoughts.
and as I read this I realize it sounds like I’m in total denial. I’m not in denial! (haha) – I’ve clearly got fertility issues, but I’m holding out hope that I have the POTENTIAL to be fertile, but am hoping to eradicate this superstitious air around it that makes me want to do any and every magical thing to make that happen.
That doesn’t sound like denial to me, though I can see how someone who doesn’t dig nuance could think that. It looks to me like a pretty healthy emotional balancing act between knowing what challenges you face and carving out a way to accommodate that awareness without letting it take away your sense of choice and agency.
Doesn’t sound like denail to me either — fertility and pregnancy are surrounded by this weird fog of anecdotes and superstition at the best of times, and it makes perfect sense that someone who’s having a hard time with it would want to clear the fog to make the actual, science-based this-might-help stuff stand out.
I don’t think in you’re in total denial, either; just a little fearful of another heartbreak, perhaps? Totally understandable and I would be struggling with “c’mon, good magic happens in the world, right? RIGHT?”, too.
I know you live in my region, so if you need a dermatologist recommendation, I know a good guy out in the suburbs. When I was on Accutane, he didn’t get weird about me having abstinence as my birth control for months on end and figured out how to keep me from having to take the monthly urine pregnancy tests you’re supposed to do.
It sounds like he was just brusque and kind of a dick and spoke without thinking that maybe PCOS/infertility is a sensitive topic. Some doctors are much better at the whole communication/empathy thing than others, and I think your conclusion here should be that he put his foot in his mouth and not that he was saying what everyone thinks. I totally understand why you’d be upset by it, though.
That is horrible. I am really impressed by you telling the nurse what he said and telling her what you needed (even if she didn’t listen). It is really, really easy to be intimidated in that scenario, and I think you should be proud for snapping back at the doctor, too. What an ass.
If people could Secret themselves infertility/fertility, the world would be a very different place. None of this reflects on you at all – it’s just biology. Stupid, heartless biology. I’m sending you lots of good thoughts anyway, though.
not sure why, but this: “If people could Secret themselves infertility/fertility, the world would be a very different place. None of this reflects on you at all – it’s just biology. Stupid, heartless biology. ” made me well up and feel better, kinda. thank you <3
Yes, it is awesome you stood up for yourself and set boundaries, and it SUCKS that they did not listen.
1. Nobody can affect your fertility with their mind, promise.
2. WHAT THE FUCK. He will not be spared. And just in case you were feeling obligated to have been mollified by his apology, remember: you are not.
Seconded, to infinity.
Yes, this, this this.
The fertility problems sound hard, and I am really sorry you are having to go through that. And I understand that you do not want to Name The Thing Wrongly because names are powerful.
I’m so sorry that those two unprofessional turd-people activated these fears with their unprofessional, turd-like behavior.
There is nothing that ANYONE can say about your fertility other than giving you FACTUAL information (not faux-ctual “information” that is in fact thinly veiled and heartless judgment, like that shitbird doctor), that is A) their business or 2) relevant to you in any way. It will not come true because of how they perceive you. (Also, how they perceive you is extra-irrelevant because they are clearly about as perceptive as a couple of doorknobs. But even if they were eagle-eyed near-clairvoyants, their perception of you as infertile or of low fertility can have no effect on anything but how they behave towards you.)
My gyno for many years was a nurse-practitioner of steely practicality and frankness as well as compassion, and she was really wonderful at restoring my sense of proportion about many anatomical and health-related things. Do you have such a person in your health-care world, or do any of your friends know such a person who might take your insurance if you have it?
I realize that being able to choose one’s doctor is (criminally, disgustingly) uncommon and luxurious and may not be possible for you, but it would be so awesome if you had a relationship with such a person BEFORE you guys start trying to conceive, so you could then count on her for accurate, informed clarity (all the time) and reassurance (where applicable).
I have a pretty good choice of doctors (at my Ivy league hospital that I work at), but haven’t found a gem like your NP. My current doctor, however, DOES let me use my evidence-based health knowledge to guide my treatment more than most doctors, which is fantastic. So he’ll be a good team-mate once we’re ready.
I’m glad you’re feeling confident in your current doctor. When my sis was going through her many-miscarriages path to motherhood, switching from the ‘ok’ doctor to the one who listened & applied sense and knowledge to the situation was essential – the medical care was great, but the mental / emotional relief of feeling heard and like she was on a team made the magic thinking parts of her life infinitely better, and that’s not always a factor people consider.
When I had troublesome fertility (well I suppose I still would, except I gave up on that third kid & had a hysterectomy instead) I got almost obsessed about magic thinking. Even after the first boy came around and I knew I could have a baby without magic, getting #2 and trying for #3 involved plenty of magic, verbal and physical and above all, emotional. I would say it’s the most magic-think period of my life, or at least, post-adolecense. It’s somehow essential.
At the same time, Be Not Afear’d about speaking about it, because it’s true that it can grow more powerful if you keep it in your head. Let it out. Not that it’s easy, but pick a term (I went with “we are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by” whenever I could – and the spouse did, too. We liked the ‘we’ of it all.) Talk, write, sing made-up songs in the shower. Force bad out of your head and let it know you’re kicking it to the curb forever, so no need to come back.
(Meanwhile, way to go speaking up at the dr today. Jerks.)
Ugh I am SO SORRY this dude was completely lacking in any type of sensitivity or compassion.
I know you’re smart enough that I don’t have to say don’t go back there, but if he’s part of a clinic or larger dermo group, I would definitely call to express your dissatisfaction. It might not do much, but sometimes it helps to have on record that Patient Called To Say He’s An Ass on someone’s file 😉
Wow, they were AWFUL.
It’s ok to be upset about this.
What grossly unprofessional people! 🙁 I’m sorry you had to deal with them.
You need a better medical team. Docs with compassion. I wish I could wave a Secret wand and make it so for you. I move often, so I am often looking for new docs. I get the best referrals from the local Planned Parenthood. Ask around places like that, where compassion for women is guaranteed. :hugs: if you want them.
Oh my love, if it is at the forefront of your mind then it is important and don’t apologise for it, this was an emotional encounter and has left you bruised. It is always better to share your thoughts and get it all out, anyway I always feel better for sharing and this is a good place for that stuff.
I’m sorry the doctor and nurse were insensitive, I am a nurse so I feel bad about them. You have been through a dreadful time, a friend of mine had repeated miscarriages and heartbreak and was treated successfully with a low dose of aspirin and went on to have a lovely baby. This was in the UK, it would be interesting to read the research on that. I send you my love.
It’s pretty weird how we talk about fertility as if there are only two options–yes or no. There’s a whole range of nuances! Ignoring those doesn’t help us talk about it realistically and it makes me so friggin’ frustrated. (Sorry, I clearly have feelings about this. I’m so sorry that these health professionals didn’t conduct themselves in a professional or trustworthy manner, and I’ll be sending you so many good thoughts.)
That is horrific and that doctor should know better.
I was stunned when trying to conceive unsuccessfully how fraught it is. Fertility is deeply embedded into identity and shame stuff we probably don’t even understand.
I am so sorry they were dicks to you and so sorry that you’re going through this. I hope you are able to find a support system – perhaps message boards where other women are going through/have gone through similar things? It might be a pressure relief if you’re not up to talking about it in real life.
And fyi you are not personally responsible for lifting the taboo on talking about fertility issues 🙂 Take care of yourself first.
I have a friend who had a similar situation, so many miscarriages, but after many years of it, she has three beautiful children. It wasn’t easy and it did take IVF (I don’t understand how but somehow they had to create embryos she wouldn’t reject or something? Very hazy on this) but the kids are here and they are perfect. Wish you luck.
Wow, that practice! Yikes. I really, really hope you don’t ever have to go back.
And I’m crossing ALL my fingers with regards to pregnancy. You know, I wonder if you might be surprised at how many people are affected or know somebody who struggles with fertility.
it takes less than 5 days for me to remember truly & deeply how much job hunting sucks. Staffing agencies are horrible. Application interfaces are trash. There will be no dawn for man.
As an employee of a staffing agency that tries really hard to not be trash, I’m really sorry 🙁 Hope it looks up soon.
Ahhhh I did not know that!!! I am just fighting one particular person who can’t keep an appointment (as you may have noticed on the twitters).
GRRRR to that person!!!! So frustrating for you!
There’s a real mix out there 🙁 I’ve worked with some great people and some sucky disorganized people. Any chance you’re in DC? The Ford Agency here is staffed by awesome people.
Alas, I’m in Boston. :\ So far I’m communicating with one with-it recruiter and one flake.
Yes, job hunting is a terrible wasteland of crushed dreams and despair and utter lack of self esteem. ENDLESS WASTES.
Be kind to yourself.
THIS. Especially the “be kind to yourself” part. That’s so important.
Online application forms make me want to pummel things. Upload your resume. Now fill out all these fields that ARE your resume! Or, the possibly worse option: upload your resume. Now we filled out all these fields for you, automatically from your resume. And they’re wrong! Have fun trying to catch all the mistakes!
The other night I submitted one application where the veteran status question in all the demographic section didn’t have an option for “not a veteran” …. and it was a required field. GRRRR.
I was reading someone talking about a veteran status question which gave options for army/navy/marine corps/coast guard/merchant marine but no option for, you know, NOT A VETERAN. So they picked navy because they looked good in blue. Why not.
OMG the autofilling with your resume is THE ABSOLUTE WORST. IT NEVER WORKS PEOPLE WHY ARE YOU PLAYING. Just let me upload a .doc or a .pdf & have done with it.
Hang in there! And remember to take breaks from job hunting for your sanity!
Last night I finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Those who follow me on Twitter will have seen my multi-part evangelism for this book yesterday, but I wanted to post here too as a public service to anyone interested in things this far up Toast Alley. You guys: it is SO FAR up Toast Alley.
It’s a far-future setting with intense worldbuilding. And I mean intense – it’s one of those stories that doesn’t provide much of a learning curve in the beginning. But if that doesn’t deter you, I would also like to note that the protagonist’s culture doesn’t distinguish gender and uses female pronouns as the default. (They do distinguish sex, but it only comes up rarely, and only in the context of the protagonist trying to avoid misgendering people while speaking in other languages. The characters identified as male are still referred to as “she” in both narration and dialogue.)
As I said on Twitter, some books are raw vegetables and others are hot fudge sundaes, but this book is my dad’s grilled salmon, tender and perfectly seasoned. The plot is compelling, the writing is evocative without being flowery, the characters are complex and interesting, and the themes (the inherent hubris of a colonialist empire, what it means to be human) are thoughtfully explored.
If any of you have read it, DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT?
I can’t wait to read it so WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT. Added it and the sequel to my goodreads to-read.
HI HI I am on Goodreads with the same username and welcome any and all friend requests! I’m obsessed, I’m on it all the time.
I JUST ADDED YOU
YAY YAY I’m so excited! And I’m excited for the sequel! Excitement all around.
I read it! I loved it! A friend recommended it and I ordered it from the London Library Consortium and paid my library the 50p fee and read it and enjoyed it so much. You have said what I think already. I am really into the protagonist.
Oh man, she’s so great. I love her narrative voice and her personality (heh).
I set aside time to read it because I know it would take a bit of concentration. It was just amazing. I loved the little dig about how some societies SAY they don’t distinguish between genders, but if you misgender an individual, they are offended.
Yeah, it took me awhile to get through the beginning because I kept trying to read it at the gym. Lesson learned.
There were so many stealth burns in that book.
My beloved is reading it right now. As soon as he’s done with our copy, I’ll be picking it up. He’s been raving about it from day one.
Sometimes men are right about things, and this is one of those times.
Did anyone else have to concentrate really hard to read it, or am I just dumb? I found it SO confusing, but it stayed with me afterwards.
That’s kind of what I meant about no learning curve. The world was just so alien, and so were some of the protagonist’s actions and thought processes – but somehow it also managed to be very familiar, which I think is what made it resonate so much.
Yes, I had to concentrate. It also helped that I set aside a few hours to read it without interruption; once I got a hundred pages in or so, it was fine.
What I wish I had done was put a tiny post-it on the pages where we meet a new character. A few have similar names and there is some politics where you might get characters mixed up. Plus, a downside of everyone being “she” is that’s one less marker to help me remember who was who!
Yeah, a hundred pages in was where everything started to fall into place for me too.
I kept having to read every conversation containing Important Political Undercurrents two or three times to nail down who held which opinion.
I loved it! It was such a great examination of language both within the book and how readers perceive things based on language – I could not help but picture every character as female even though I knew they weren’t.
I also loved the passage about how they had to change languages to talk about people gaining Radch (?) citizenship because “person” and “citizen” are the same words in Radch.
I KNOW. It’s like, without doing anything at all, the book had me thinking about how I perceive gender in ways I never had – and I’m no novice at thinking about gender. Eventually I started thinking of Seivarden as male, but everyone else stayed female or genderless.
I liked the bit where she argued that some non-Radchaai consider themselves civilized and mentally noted that the sentence was almost impossible to construct in Radchaai. Every part where she casually pointed out tiny structural flaws in the framework of the empire, really.
Same, I got there with Seivarden, but I definitely though of more characters as female by default even if it wasn’t necessarily the case. Really interesting read.
An examination of language, exactly! In addition to Ancillary Justice being a great book, she has a terrific essay on her blog about swearing that crystallized so many things for me about status and respect and PATRIARCHY. Cannot wait for the sequel.
THERE IS A 28 PERSON WAITLIST FOR THIS BOOK at my library. And a 10 (including me!) person waitlist for the ebook version.
Dang.
On the one hand, ugh, and on the other hand, yay! Almost all the copies in my system were available when I went to check it out, so I was worried that it wasn’t getting enough attention.
I loved this book!! Trying to explain it to other people was fun though. “It’s about a space ship that’s trying to kill the president” is my favorite so far.
ahahahaha YES. Going on adventures with her time-displaced sidekick.
We read it earlier this year and oh wow it was good! I liked all of the stuff about language and also about colonialism, what it was like to be part of an empire.
But for us the biggest thing about the book was the experience of being the same intelligence split across multiple bodies, since that’s the opposite of our lives. 🙂 I loved the bit where all the bodies are singing together but it is just one person.
Oh man, that was one of my favorite things too. It got me thinking so much about identity and how I perceive other people and what it would be like to live in a reality with ancillaries. I kept trying to imagine how a movie would portray the shared consciousness.
I also enjoyed that both the protagonist and Anaander Mianaai have been living in multiple bodies for millennia and are still making jokes about it.
Yes I liked that too, and all of the discussion about whether or not the bodies had their own personality that the AI was getting overlaid on (and thus Breq is able to become her own self because in part the body she is in has a self in there somewhere?) or if there is really no self in the body. It was fascinating and I thought Leckie did such a good job of putting the pieces in there but not saying ‘IT IS SO’.
I really enjoyed how it depicted the culture of this conquering empire, lots of details brought it to life from those of the social strata down to the fact that not wearing gloves made a Radch feel uncouth or like a foreigner.
I really liked Ancillary Justice! The use of female pronouns for everybody was a bit confusing at first but I got used to it. What required more concentration for me was following the action when the ship/AI was controlling multiple physical entities at once.
I also liked that it had spaceships and empires and political intrigue but also thought-provoking bits about language and colonialism and gender. I started reading more sci fi in the last year (after finishing Star Trek TNG/DS9 on Netflix and not knowing what to do with myself) and this book is one my favorites so far.
All the best SF is like that, you know? It takes you to a different world, but makes you think about your own.
That is funny cause I was the opposite: I kept tripping over the pronoun use but grasped more intuitively the multi-bodied entities.
I have the world’s most embarrassing question.
So I got out my vibrator this morning, not having used it in maybe 7 years? (It just sat in the charming cozy I made for it while I, like the Dude, got off manually.) And it was…weirdly sticky? Not that kind of sticky. Like, the coating has become tacky and lint-attracting, I washed it with soap & water & a washcloth, and it’s clean enough to use (pls see Medium piece on why I can’t stop looking at Supernatural gifs), but it’s still got a slightly gummy surface.
How do I clean it so it’s smooth again? Is it just old? Do I need a new one?
Yeah I’d get a new one. It’ll be fun! Dress up and make a day of it!
“Dress up and make a day of it!”
Best advice for anything, EVER!
I definitely vote for a new one… I have too many because I can’t stop buying them! haha. :-/
I’m a former peddler of such items (yay college jobs). Toss it. The material covering it is breaking down. If it is silicone, you can’t use a silicone lube with it or it will do that. Materials like cyber skin, etc, also break down and get weird over time.
ETA: buy a nice silicone new one and use only water based lube on it. Lots of newer ones seem water based but still have silicone in them, so check the ingredients.
Silicone only lasts so long, and a new vibe is a lot cheaper than treatment for yeast infections.
This happened to me with my aero press. I hadn’t used it for months, and the rubber plunger was weirdly sticky and tacky. Soap did not clean it, not even when I immersed it in soap and left it all day. What actually worked was setting it out in the sun. it’s good as new.
So… maybe… get a new one.
I… I thought you were talking about a different kind of sex toy, and did a massive double take when I got to the word “plunger.”
yeah I was gonna make a joke about plungers and sex toys, but really couldn’t think of one
plus aero presses aren’t exactly common
especially compared to sex toys (apparently)
http://www.aeropress.com/
Agreeing with the advice to get a new one – besides, the new season of Supernatural will be starting in October, and you’ll want to be sure it’s broken in by then.
Jolie just did a thing on how to clean a fleshlight, which I feel may have similar tips for your vibrator! http://gizmodo.com/how-to-clean-a-fleshlight-yes-…
Bless you all! Now to find a sex toy store in Wichita that’s not the one with the inescapable radio jingle “where fun and fantasy meet!”
WELP, I am apparently pregnant again. Hahahaha… OOOPS.
I do want another kid, but hadn’t planned on having one when my first one was not yet 2. They’ll be 20ish months apart and I am going to simply die sometime in the first 6 months, if not 6 weeks. Any Toasties with siblings close in age want to offer me reassuring stories about how your parents are not gibbering husks and how you are incredibly close friends with your sibs? (Please?)
My sister is 16 months younger than me and my parents are not gibbering husks! And weren’t really gibbering husks during the first six months of her life, either. Or, at least, not any more so than the parents of any difficult preemie are. You’ll be great!
Congratulations, and my sister and I are 25 months apart and my parents are neither gibbering husks nor are my sister and I mortal enemies. <3
My brothers aren’t, like, BFF, but they were born about 14 months apart (I KNOW) and they get along great. They’re very different people but their common interests keep them very friendly with each other. And as BBs they were buddies.
My sister is (does math) 28? months younger than me, and we are the bestest of best friends and in fact often wish we were twins? My parents, as far as I know, are not/were not gibbering husks! We are possibly BFF’s because we shared a room growing up so it was hard to really fight long-term/escape each other in a huff and complain to your friends, so room sharing: recommended!
I am the oldest of four siblings, and the youngest is five and a half years younger than I am. My parents are both fine. The level of closeness between us varies.
Are you my big brother? That’s the spacing in my family.
My sister and I are 22 months apart (she’s younger), we grew up great, my parents are fantastic and my mom in particular is a kick-ass career woman who’s really successful in her chosen field (and also not a gibbering husk!). My sister is lovely and we still tell stories about how when she was first born little not-yet-2-year-old me held her and let her pull my hair. It will be fine! Best wishes to you and your family 🙂
My parents had 2 sets of kids 18 months apart– first me and my sister, then my brothers. I’m old enough to remember my second brother’s birth– they kept it together really well (and even managed a transatlantic move with all of us when he was about a year old). You can do it!
My sister and I have had our moments of closeness/too-closeness/drifting apart during young adulthood, but we’re closer than ever these days. We’re VERY different people, but we relate to each other really well.
My sister and I are 15 months apart! My parents survived and apparently felt good enough about the whole ordeal that they even had a third kid (after a few more years). I was a terrible cranky baby, and my sister was quiet and slept a lot, so that probably helped, but even if you have two screaming kiddos, you WILL get through it. And my sister and I are very close indeed. You can do it!!!
I am 17 months older than my middle sister, who is herself 13 months older than my youngest sister. So we’re three kids within 30 months of each other. <commence screaming>
My sisters were BFFs growing up (I was slightly removed, being the elder and deeply uncool), and while the teenage years were a little sticky, the tensions were mostly worked out by the time we were in college. Now that we live in three different states/time zones, we get along great! (No, but for real, my sisters are good people and all is well.)
My sister and I are 2 years apart (so, 4 months more than yours) and we are the best best of siblings. Most of my friends growing up had siblings 1-2 years apart and they all got along fine! For years I actually assumed that was standard because everyone I knew who got along with their siblings were close in age, and the people I knew who fought a lot or were distant were 3+ years apart. Honestly though I think any age difference is fine your kids will turn out wonderfully!
A friend of mine and her sister are 11 months apart (yes, 11 months), and they are (and always have been) very very close. Anecdata!
My brother and I are (…counting…) 28 months apart and my parents are not gibbering husks! He and I are also very, very close, so it can be done! You’ll be fine!
My parents went from DINKs to twins, and neither of us strangled the other before we hit college. We started preschool really early in a setup that was basically a). books and toys and b). running around a playground like maniacs. We were too physically and mentally exhausted to do anything to each other by the time we got home.
All the siblings I know who are close in age are really close — like, best friends forever kind of close. My grandmother and her sister are 21 months apart, and they’ve done everything together their whole life, and call each other every day (they’re currently in their 80s).
I’m the oldest of six kids and there were four (4!) of us born before I turned 5. My parents are not gibbering husks, but they did space the last 2 out a bit more (3 and then 4 years). My mom always says the worst part was having 3 in diapers at the same time, but I think that’s because she’s blocked the childbirth part from her mind.
That’s what my mother says, too. But I know my mother cannot remember childbirth because she had her babies in the (US) Deep South where modern medicine is was as slow to catch on as the idea that the South did lose the civil war. When her babies were born, women were completely unconscious for birth. The (always male) docs let them experience all of the labor, but not the birth. Fuckers.
I had to reply to your comment because your username startled me a little – is that in fact your name? Because, well, it happens to be mine, too… Pretty sure we’re not the same person, but I had to do a double-take and reread your comment to make sure!
Anyway, sorry for the digression. My more relevant comment is that my older nephew and my niece (aged 7 and 5, respectively) are 20ish months apart, and their parents aren’t gibbering husks – they even had a third child! The kids do squabble some, but I think they also have a lot of fun together. Now that they’re a little older, they’re starting to develop their own interests and find some activities they can enjoy on their own, in addition to all the things they do together, which helps contribute to family harmony.
My sister is just 18 months older. To be honest I think it was a little hard on my mom for awhile, but I think it was actually nice as we got older. We definitely had less of the older sibling/younger sibling dynamics and we’re not super close but it was fun having a sibling just a year ahead of me in school.
I am almost exactly two years older than my middle brother, who is 19 months older than my youngest brother (they are one grade apart in school). They are really close, and I am close to both of them, although not as close as they are with each other.
But what I really wanted to let you know is that my parents seem to be glad that they got all the baby stuff out of the way at roughly the same time. My mom has said it would have been much harder to be completely done with it, and the have to go back to screaming, diapers, bottles, etc., then it was to hunker down for about 5-6 years and deal. She has also mentioned that it made it easier for her to focus on her career after the initial 4 year burst too, because no more taking time off for maternity leave.
If you’d like the mom’s perspective, I’ve got a friend with three kids 5 and under; I”m sure she’d be happy to offer advice.
17 months between my sister and I.
I was precocious and could be trusted to hold her by myself, which seems batshit insane now that I know what 17 month olds are usually like, but there are photos as evidence.
I also decided when she was born that if I had a little sister that meant I was a big kid and stopped taking naps or wanting to ride in a stroller. I think this sounds horrendous of me but my mother insists it mostly meant I went to bed really really early.
You will survive this.
In some ways it’s convenient! Since we were that close my parents didn’t bother having separate rule sets for us, we got privileges and responsibilities at the same rate.
I hated my sister when we were teenagers but now we’re super close.
How about a photo in negative? It would be so easy to avoid my mother’s mistakes. My sister is 16 months younger than I am. And we have never been close.
Mother gave positive attention only to our brother. (She doesn’t like girls. Said so. Out loud. To me. A few years ago.) This situation required my sister and me to compete for mother’s negative attention, the only kind available to us. So, fights every day, all day.
Just touch your children lovingly. Every day. Praise their efforts. Give each one-on-one time with you. When one child is behaving badly, look hard for ways to praise her more in the next few days. You know, love them.
Oof, I am so sorry you had to go through that. I love the advice to look for ways to praise a badly behaving child.
My younger sister and I are 14 months apart and are the best friends anyone could ask for. Seriously, I love my sister more than most earthly creations.
My older sibling and I are 16 months apart, and then there is only 18 months between me and my younger sibling, so my parents had three under three for a short time. My mother frequently waxes nostalgic about how wonderful it was when we were all babies. It was wonderful to grow up with siblings so close in age and we are all still good friends. Privately, we all thought it quite strange when we became aware of other families where children were multiple YEARS apart (ha). I think it made hand-me-downs and matching outfits and other time/money savers more palatable as well. I am going to visit my sister in a month and cannot WAIT to see her and had lunch with my mom and brother just today.
First, deep breaths, and congratulations with acknowledgement of serious mixed feelings!
My partner & his younger sister are about this far apart and they are BFFs. He was actually really disappointed when our daughter was 18 months old and we said ‘No, we are not ready for another baby yet’ because he was worried that with a 3yr split between our kids they would not be close.
And… having done the 3 year split, it was right for our family, but boy do I see the attraction of having them closer. A lot more shared activities, a lot more learning closer together, a lot more shared interest. My kids get along very well but we had just gotten OUT of that intensive little-kid phase and now suddenly we have a manic toddler and it is rough on his older sister, who is ready for settled attention and complicated art projects and help with her (still imaginary) math homework.
Good luck!
My little sister and I are 14 months apart and she is my favorite person in the entire world. She was also premature and in the hospital a bunch, and I don’t know how my mom did it, but she did, so it can happen. Promise.
(Also, congratulations! I loved having a sibling close in age to me growing up.)
I have three brothers and we are all 18-24 months apart. I am tight with all my siblings except my older brother, because older brothers, to this date I am the only girl and a therapist so when people have a hard time they continue to tell me first, and I am also the person who gets to meet my brother’s girlfriends first, and my mom has been and continues to be a funny, smart, weird lady with a strong personality that reinvents herself professionally in lots of interesting ways (became an auctioneer and purchased a variety of plus size formal wear that includes beaded fringe! got into making ladies’ derby hats! was a Weight Watchers coach! lead natural childbirth classes where they watch The Business of Being Born and she led ladies in guided visualizations while squeezing ice!), got divorced when she turned 58, remodeled her house, has had fabulous girlfriends her whole entire life and they go on beach vacation to places like Hawaii and Mazatlan.
You will be fine.
My (half) sister is eight months older than me (eek!) and we’re incredibly close.
My sister and I are 18 months apart (which was entirely on purpose on my parents’ part), and aside from the part where since we were only a year apart in school so she got called by my name all the time in school, it was mostly pretty great. We also grew up in a fairly rural area, so we spent a lot of summers being each other’s main playmate, and it was nice to be on a reasonably even playing field most of the time. I think my parents also enjoyed getting through the traumatic cash outflow that is sending children to college quickly (bonus is that the FASFA takes into account that you’re paying for two children when they’re in school at the same time, if I remember correctly).
My mother refers to the first six months with my little sister as torture, but that was mostly because my mother and I had been on the same sleep schedule, and my sister was born with a diametrically opposite schedule that led to a very worn out mom (and no third sibling as initially planned).
As adults, the close age gap has been awesome- my sister went straight through grad school when I took a few years to work, so she helped me with all my grad school applications, and we’ve been able to share “how to be adults” advice back and forth with similar context to start from. I like our age difference enough that I’m strongly considering planning future children with a similar gap- my husband and his sister are 22 months apart and also close, so he’s on board with a close age gap too.
SO I have some actual data to add to your anecdata:
I don’t remember what the study was called or where I read about it, but some googling might yield results. There was a study done to research the quality of the parents’ relationship in various combinations of their children. Couples with kids of varying ages, genders, and quantity. Overall, the happiest couples and families were the ones that had two daughters, within two years of age. So that bodes well for the age thing!
My parents had 4 kids in 5 years – my sis & I are closest, at 14 months apart.
1) they’re great, my parents. Totally sane.
2) Siblings – sis & I are super close (though we hated, or “hated” anyway, each other during parts of teenagedom) & until last month were in business together for 8 years & it was great. One bro is… well, he’s himself, whatever. Other bro & is great w us & we have a great time together, our kids have great times together.
3) Mom used to make us sit under the dining table facing each other until we made up whenever we had fights, back when we were 8 or so. Worked like a charm. We hated it more than we hated each other, because we’d be face to face & unable to stop the giggles
4) My boys are over 4 years apart (not according to plan – see fertility comments elsewhere on this thread) and they’re fantastic but there are so many phases when they’re just parallel instead of united, you know? Like, 6 & 10 was great, but 8 & 12 were different universes. There’s a lot (a LOT) to be said for the kids being in the same universe, no matter how much they’ll complain (well, I did – the ‘I’m older, how come she gets to X now when I didn’t get to X last year?’ stuff, mainly.)
CONGRATULATIONS, and believe in the love of your unit. It’ll be grand.
Hi! My sister and I are two years apart, but she skipped 2nd grade so we were a year apart in school for some of my childhood and all of my adolescence. There were some rough patches when we were in our teens but my parents were wonderful people who didn’t play favorites and cared that we had a good relationship, so ever since getting out of high school we’ve been super close. I really like having a sibling that’s close in age, especially a sister!
I don’t know about the first six months except what I’ve heard secondhand, which is that my parents were VERY TIRED but lucky enough to have a support system (their parents/close friends/siblings) in place to pick up the slack if my mother, like, hadn’t slept in two days and needed a nap and a shower.
Best of luck, you’ll be great! 🙂
Well, my siblings are MUCH older than I am, but if you want a parent’s perspective, I’ve got four in the space of 5.5 years and so far, they get along great. NGL, it’s kind of hard to be pregnant and have a little one running around, so foist your young one onto any relative or friend who’ll have him/her so you can get a bit of rest, especially in this first trimester.
As for when they’re born, the sleep deprivation is rough, and I was a bit of a zombie for the first few months, but it gets better, and they go through stuff at a similar time because they’re so close in age, which is lovely.
Big hugs. You can do this! Just be kind to yourself, and accept help 🙂
Thanks for this! I am expecting the zombie phase, and definitely need to hear the “it gets better” message. I’m hoping this time around, I’ll be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel a bit more. Anyway, I really appreciate you weighing in.
Guys, I’m not sure how this week could have gotten better.
1) My work nemesis left.
2) My husband got a job (last Friday!)
3) Tomorrow, we are signing the lease on our very first home together, meaning by the first of August we can move out of the sitcom nuthouse that is my parents’ house at the moment (seven adults, a toddler and a terrier is too many people in an 1100 sqft house).
How’s every little thing, guys!?
I forgot to say that my work nemesis leaving means I get a promotion! And we bought some bathroom furniture! I can’t stop using exclamation marks!
JEEPERS. Start touching random things, see if they turn to gold.
Yay! It is the best feeling when the work nemeses leave! And congrats on the promotion, spousal job and new house!
Everything is awesome!!!
yayy! that is all the good things.
1100 SQUARE FEET?
The house, she is wee.
Although now that I have said that, I wonder if that includes the basement (which is where my brother and husband and I are Stored).
EITHER WAY, THE HOUSE IS NOT LARGE.
I read it as where you are stoned, not stored. Which is fine, you live your life, but it was another funny layer to the image of everyone in the wee house.
Congrats on the many positives! May every week just get better and better!
Holy crap! Congratulations on all that great stuff!
Thanks everyone! It’s been a beaut of a week. I notice it’s been pretty good for lots of us, hooray!
Good for you! Enjoy it!
YAY! September may be slow, but July is SMOKIN’!
I wish I were moving but also not. It’s a golden handcuffs-type situation.
The devil you know, etc…
Flee the golden handcuffs! Just quit my job to do contract work. Mallory “quit your job” Ortberg was an inspiration.
CONGRATULATIONS! These are all incredible things!
Hooray for departing sitcom land! (We spent nine months in my parents’ basement; our combined households were only four adults, but five cats, two dogs, a rabbit, and six chickens. o_O)
CAT THREAD!
No kitty pics from me, just a story.
So, we all know by now that Bonny is the stupidest, sweetest cat ever born. She is very fortunate she has us to care for her, because she would have died in a week living in the wild.
Anyway, yesterday Bonny forgot how rooms work. She’s done this before, but this time was especially impressive. She was sleeping next to me, got up to do cat things, then wandered into another room. After a while, she realised I wasn’t in that room. So she mewed for me. I called back to her. Normally we only need to do this four or five times before she comes downstairs and settles back down on me, but this time we were doing it for ten minutes. She never did come downstairs. She gave up on finding me and went to sleep outside the bathroom.
Anne is a sneaky little shit who hid from me all day so that I’d panic and use the ‘treats!’ call to tempt her out. The smugness was palpable.
Here’s Salsa, my latest foster:
She doesn’t really meow, but she can produce sort of a creaky warble? It’s really cute, if kind of strange.
AWWWWW!
Anne can’t meow properly either! She still has her kitten squeak and the rest of the time she chirps.
omg omg GIVE ME THAT LITTLE KITTEN I NEED HER NOW
My own tortie doesn’t know how to meow. She can chirp once in a while, and once she meowed properly, but scared herself and hasn’t done it since. She sounds more like a bird than a cat.
My boy sounds like a squeaky seabird too, which is pretty funny coming from a giant orange bruiser, and the quietest wuffling purr. You actually have to feel his throat to tell he’s purring (as opposed to my last cat, who was half his size and had a purr like a jet engine).
I have acquired a big orange boy who mostly chirruped when we first got him but now my Siamese has taught him to yell. So much yelling.
hee feline consciousness raising maybe?
OH MY GOD WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CAT
She’s beautiful. Both mine *can* meow, but mostly don’t – Captain quacks like a duck and Saffron mainly just brrps. If you sneak up behind her and touch her she does a lovely squeak of surprise.
I love the squeak of surprise. Anne does it if you touch her when she’s dozing. Adorable.
Oskar does the brrrp almost every time you touch him. If he’s laying down, he’ll stand up and rub against your hand while brrpping. He sounds like a computer booting up.
Vegas has a soft burble. When he actually tries to meow, it ends up sounding like a hiss.
The two of them are maine coon mixes, and are very chatty. Lots of burbling and brrping when you touch, or look at or talk to them. Or when you aren’t touching, talking to or looking at them enough.
Mine made a hideous screeching sound at 4:00 am and then launched into the bed with her massive feather-on-a-stick toy, smacking me in the face with the stick part. Apparently she dug it out of the drawer where it lives, which was only cracked open one inch! I’m worried she’s got retractable thumbs or something because I have no idea how she got it out of there,
Awww, she wanted to plaaaaay.
Cats are dextrous! Ours steal sponges and then shred them all over the house.
My cat interrupted our game night this week by climbing up on the chair nearest the DM, gently putting her paw on his leg, and meowing. It was very cute, but we have got to teach her about timing, she interrupted a very dramatic monologue.
Kismet has all the floof. All of it.
Also she would like it if instead of coming home and falling asleep after work I would get home earlier to play with her
So. Much. Fluff! <3
Flufftastic!
I’m loving Friday Cat Thread! That is all, carry on with more adorable cat stories and photos.
My shelter kitty of the week was five-month-old Rosco here, whose enthusiasm could not be confined to his kennel. I only nommed his ear a little, swear.
OH MY GOD
LOOK AT THAT FACE
Adorable!
Followers of Cat Open Thread may remember that I have one existing cat, Nico, but took in a pregnant stray a couple of months ago.
Well, tomorrow mama Chell goes home with her new family, kitten Atlas went home with his on Monday, Nova has been home for a couple of weeks, and we’ve made the decision to keep the last two, Easy and Luna, so we are ALL! DONE!
I am so happy. I miss/will miss all of my dudes but having six cats was straight crazy once the kittens were out and about. Three will be more than enough. I’m delighted by how well the whole process went. I will never badmouth Facebook again, because mama’s going home with my sister’s ex boyfriend who I haven’t seen in at least 8, maybe 10 years, and his girlfriend. We never had to have the “um, should we actually give this person a cat” conversation, and we never had to choose between more than one person interested in the same kitty.
No room for me on the sofa. 🙁
ha ha! Those are so faces of ‘move along human, nothing to see here, no room for sitting for you.’
With a side of ‘where’s your point, bitch?’
“Why are you even LOOKING at the sofa. It’s occupied.”
This is the monstrosity that is Nyancat, who came with my boyfriend’s place. He is enormous and floofy and friendly and LOVES my boyfriend more than I do. Of the meowing endlessly outside the bedroom door at three in the morning because he wants to be in bed with him type. I like him lots.
Tomorrow is my 30th birthday and my parents are throwing me a huge keg party (<3 you, you crazy old hippies) and today my husband is spending his flex day fixing me burrata salad and pina coladas while I am at work (where it is pizza and ice cream day). Not to brag, but my thirties are starting awesomely.
This is beautiful. Happy birthday! Enjoy all the seconds.
That sounds pretty amazing, by which I mean TOTALLY AMAZING. Happy birthday!
Hey, a birthday that great is worth bragging about! Happy birthday!
What a great family! Yay! Happy Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday!
Yay! Happy birthday!
Brag all you’d like! Your thirties are AWESOME. Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday! The 30s are *really great* everyone says. 🙂
Happiest decade birthday wishes to you!
Toast! So much to celebrate: passed my EMT test, finally moved into new, purchased house, 15 months sober, ladyfriend and I almost at eight years together, and excellent new hats.
Here is said ladyfriend (tall drink of water on the left) and I in our excellent new hats, in front of our new back porch with its pergola and grapevines. You are all welcome to visit Montana; we’ll show you a hell of a time.
A+ hat game. I wish to look good in hats.
This is a new evolution in hats for us; we’d previously mastered the winter hat (necessary for about 8 months of the year here) and now summer hats.
I love summer hats! You guys look awesome.
I like everything about this! Congrats on all the things you’re celebrating.
Thanks, pal! You and yer man should visit!
I would LOVE that.
this is goddamn adorable.
You took the words out of my keyboard!
YOU’RE goddamn adorable.
IT’S TRUE
I’m picturing a hunky Jesus on a Ritz cracker.
accurate, my child.
I was struggling with how to respond to this post, because everything about it is perfect and wonderful, but THIS. This encapsulates my feelings perfectly. Goddamn adorable indeed.
You are a delight, thanks!
Seconded! So much to celebrate – congrats!
We should have a Montana meet-up! I wonder how many Montana Toasties are out there!
I’ve only been trying to do this FOREVER. I think it’s just you and me. So far.
Congratulations on all fronts!
Thanks. After the shitstorm of moving, it feels good to just relax.
Congratulations on everything, including your faces.
Thanks, we grew them ourselves!
LIVIN THE LIFE
Absolutely.
Woo! Congratulations on all that happy! If I ever roadtrip up to Montana, I’ll certainly let you know.
Yes, please do. Be sure to bring your muscles and eyebrows and you can flex and eyebrow at all the Montanans.
I would gladly visit Montana!
Bring some sandwiches and you can stay with us!
This I can do!
Congratulations to all of these things! The back porch looks PRETTY INCREDIBLE.
It is a delight, and now there’s a kiddie pool for the dogs, so it’s heaven.
All this is wonderful! And to live in Montana…swoon!
It’s pretty lovely; bring your pony along and you’ll fit right in! (See what I did there?)
Aw! Such a nice invitation (curls toes in total delight)! And I totally see what you did there! HEE!
Sent from my iPad
you are adorable! I love montana!
I love it too! Where have you been?
Y’all look great & I covet your pergola.
This post makes me so happy! Congrats on ALL that! Montana is one of my favorite places in the universe….if only it weren’t so full of Montanans..;)
Yay, this is great! <3
So much to congratulate! Good on you, and don’t you both look lovely in your hats!
I started riding my bicycle to work and I am still kind of terrified even though I live in a very small city. Every day I see jackasses on bikes riding against traffic, blazing through traffic signals, while texting (and sometimes simultaneously smoking). How is it they have all the confidence and I have none?
Wait wait wait. Surely you meant, “how is it that I have all the damn sense and they have none?”
(I am sorry you are terrified, though. Maybe that lessens in time?)
Well, I do have all the sense, it’s true. Possibly too much, since my job grants me access to traffic accident data for my area. I just wish having sense wasn’t inversely proportionate to confidence, in my case. Hopefully more practice will help.
Practice is basically the only thing that’s ever worked for me, there. Weird that it doesn’t seem to get easier, though. You’d think after 30+ years it would be like, ok, you know how this works, it’ll be fine, but NOPE.
I would be driving myself up a wall with that accident data. I feel like it would be like looking at crime maps for a neighborhood after I’d signed a lease. NEVER AGAIN.
Bikes are the best! You do what works for you and your bike – if that’s sticking to bike lanes and trails and going muppet speed, that’s great. If that’s gearing up in spandex and seeing if you can make the 5 miles to work in 20 minutes – also great.
I bike most places, including commuting to work everyday. I don’t cut traffic signals during rush hour – but I will often roll through residential stop signs if there are no other cars at the intersection. For me, it’s frustrating to constantly be on roads that cater only to cars, and still have to deal with the nonsense that is “vehicular cycling.”
Phones though – ugh. No-one should ever have them out if they’re steering something – whether that’s a car or a bike or whatever.
Seriously with the phones. Baffling.
Our city has no bike lanes, womp womp. We have a trail which is wonderful, but it doesn’t really take me where I need to go. So my commute thus far is: side street side street side street OH GOD MAIN ROAD FOR A BLOCK side street side street ANOTHER ROAD HOLY CRAP I NEED TO MAKE A LEFT, etc. etc. It takes me about twice as long as if I just went the direct route, but for now that is all I can handle.
(I totally roll through the residential stop signs when no cars are and feel no guilt in doing so. I heard some communities are making this legal for cyclists? Maybe that was just my transportation planner’s dream, though.)
Rolling stops is most notably legal in Idaho. It’s known everywhere else as an ‘Idaho stop’. Their rules let cyclists roll stop signs and cross on a red light if it’s safe. The theory is that this helps keep cyclists and cars separate on streets.
BEST THEORY IS BEST. Not even Canada is that smart, daaaaag.
Don’t forget that you can use the crosswalks to make that left! I only make left turns in the middle of the intersection about half the time.
Muppet speed! I am buying a bike TODAY for the purposes of both riding around trails and also my city, and you just made it like 150% less terrifying. All I have to do is think of muppets and everything will be fine. (life motto.)
I bike in some terrifying traffic (I live directly off several main drags in a major city and sometimes need to commute during rush hour) and used to be scared too. It truly is practice, as someone else commented, and finding others who also have sense and taking cues from them. If you don’t know any I highly, highly recommend Bikeyface for funny first-person comics from another woman who bikes in the city. http://bikeyface.com/
Welp, I know where I’ll be in the internet for the rest of the day. I MEAN ASIDE FROM HERE.
Those bike riders don’t have confidence, they have Asshole Syndrome.
For me, I don’t have confidence per se as much as I have ownership of my space. If you’re on the main road, don’t be afraid to make your presence felt – take the middle of the lane if you want, don’t try to hide in the gutter area, you know? Don’t ride in parking spaces on the side of the road – would a car?? I basically behave as if I’m a car, but with a little bit more stop sign rolling 😉 Don’t let the cars (or Asshole Syndrome bikers) scare you!
(easier said than done, I realize)
Asshole syndrome! I love it!
Oh man, I just bought a bike last weekend, and was immediately reminded that a) I hadn’t actually ridden a bike in about 7 years, b) the last time I rode regularly, I weighed probably 100 pounds less than I do now, and c) I learned to ride in the mountains, where the hazards are entirely different.
She’s a beautiful machine (named Hazel) and I’ve been going out every day after work, but after just about 15 minutes, my legs are too tired to even keep going, so it’s been hard to build up any stamina. (also my neighborhood is on a gentle but unrelenting slope, so there aren’t any flat streets to just get used to moving around on a bike again). I did manage to make a test run to the grocery store without dying, though, so there’s hope.
Yeah, it’s been a good 15 years and about 70 lbs since I rode regularly, too. The first time I made it over the tiny hill on my bike trail I felt like Rocky at the top of the steps.
Given that drivers out here will straight up jump the curb to hit you I just always figured those guys have just grown hardened to safety being illusory, they’re like those veteran Syrian rebels smoking as they handload rockets in their garage munitions factory.
The thing I always tell terrified wannabe cyclists is to get away from the curb when riding in traffic. The VERY VERY LARGE MAJORITY of drivers will not hit you because you’re in their way. They will hit you by accident because they don’t see you or think there’s room to pass you without a lane change.
Drivers are not actually terrible. Neither are cyclists. We just aren’t that great at getting along.
Do not confuse stupidity for confidence. Riders taking stupid risks are more likely to have little experience. Experience will teach them to stop that risky shit. in the form of collisions, broken bones, etc. Riders with the most experience are the ones riding carefully.
It’s like my favorite motorcyclist says: if the biker has gray hair/beard, he’s a safety-first biker. Bikers who take risks are … dead. Only the very young or otherwise inexperienced ones are seen doing stupid shit.
cheers from a granny-biker! I mean, I am not actually granny-aged, but I just go the speed I feel like despite being surrounded by people on racing bikes, men in way-too-tight biker shorts, seventy billion college students.
As everyone has said, these people sound like assholes and not like good bikers! But if you want to gain confidence, the thing that really worked for me was to go biking a few times with a really experienced biker who went first, made hand signals to cars for us both at all our turns, made comments to me about the best way to do my particular route. It was invaluable for boosting my confidence and skill. That, and I totally walk my bike across the crosswalk on certain busy streets if I feel like it — why not.
I totally advocate making hand signals and in general treating car drivers like sensible people with whom you are sharing the road. Most drivers really appreciate it, because they don’t want to be caught by surprise by bikers, but don’t have any particular animus, at least not in my region. (They do really HATE the people who ride bikes the wrong way on one-way roads, as is understandable – that shit is scary when you’re driving a car the opposite way past the biker). Good luck!
Everyone who is interested in the apocalypse should read my site Incaseofsurvival.com NOW.
NOW.
Phew, done. ANYWAY, I thought it might be nice to have a writer thread this week! What are we all writing? I am writing a melodramatic ghost story with queer ladies in.
I am trying to bring myself to edit a submission that was initially focused on me musing on how I would continue on a Vietnamese tradition. However, when I wrote the first draft I started including all of these tangents about culture and passing it on to generations and how my love of certain foods is tied into apparently deeply emotional memories with my sister and my mom so it’s getting really emotional and overwrought. I am trying to resolve myself to go back through and edit it carefully and perhaps cut parts of it to use in future essays, but I feel like it is an emotional effort for me to do so.
And they’re not even negative emotions! They’re just surprisingly powerful and overwhelming for me.
I’m also trying to hustle people to send me stuff for a crowdsourced piece, and it’s unsurprisingly difficult. This is probably what I deserve for pitching things and then taking forever to write/edit them.
Yeah, that is a Thing that can happen. I don’t really do essays, precisely because I find it so hard to sort out my emotions!
Thanks for this reassurance, I thought I was just.. weird. I know that may seem kind of glib, but I’ve been trying to force myself to edit this sucker for two weeks now. ugh.
I’m doing the 30 poems in 30 days challenge. It is really hard and so far I hate everything I’ve written – but I did WRITE them.
(Ever since an angry, near-illegible screed in what I’ve now termed my ‘mental illness journal’, I’ve had a very hard time writing, so I’m proud of myself for starting again).
I hope to one day read your story! It sounds v. interesting.
Everything and nothing at once: an angry queer sestina, a robot lesbian play, several *cough* derivative works, and a Gender Studies 101 paragraph to carry around on business cards every time I get tired of explaining what genderfluidity and pansexuality mean.
A robot lesbian play sounds cool!
Yeah, I’m debating a similar business card re bisexuality. It’ll start with DOES EXIST.
For me, can you add a codicil that bisexuality is desire and not practice? (I.e. just cause I’ve never had sex with a woman doesn’t mean I’m not Queer Enough.)
Gladly, and I’m fitting in sexual/romantic orientations too.
I am writing an introductory chapter for my PhD and it is NOT going well. Deadline for the draft is Monday. Send unicorns and sparkles please! :/
<3
I would like to see this melodramatic ghost story with queer ladies.
I’m writing weird, short stories about how nature is so much cooler and better than humans.
Well, I’m only 5k words in, so it’ll be a while, but if you want you can be a beta reader pre submission.
Just mail me on anninyn (at) gmail (dot) com
I am sorting through ideas to pick six to draft into first-ever pitches.
I am trying to motivate myself to get back on the horse with the epistolary novel a friend and I are working on. It should be easy because my next letter will be full of crazysauce fun, but it is summer here (and drizzly autumn in 1814 Edinburgh in the story) and I just…. am not writing.
It’s frustrating because I KNOW that when I write everyday everything gets good and flows and the zone is the best thing ever, and I just can’t bring myself to start typing. Maybe whining here will be the magic kick in the pants I needed.
WRITE
Thank you!!!
Ancient family wisdom: Writing = ass + chair.
I’m working on my longest-ever continuous piece, a fic AU in five parts, and I left off the last bit on a CLIFFHANGER and my readers are doing wild flailing and I feel really bad for doing this to them! So I’m working on a hurt-assuaging plotless postcoital shower makeouts story. (Makeouts, not sex, because it’s set post-coitally and even though this is fic, I’m not going to write two thirty-something dudes getting it up twice within half an hour. VERSIMILITUDE ALWAYS.)
*whispers* bottom!dean, I love you!
I am writing the introduction to a totally ridiculous etiquette book, and a dissertation proposal. The etiquette book intro letter is done, although the Cthulhu jokes didn’t make it to the final version. (Probably for the best.) The dissertation proposal is not done yet. It does not have any Cthulhu jokes at present.
I am writing a story but I’m not sure whether it’s a fantasy epic or an m/m romance. It’s about a modern (though not from our world) anthropologist who discovers a lost civilization of elves and gets kidnapped and discovers many fascinating things about their culture! Right now he’s bonding with an elven arcanist whose sister believes he should probably be killed for the good of all. She is probably right buuuuut that would make this a very short book.
I’m especially proud because I have a hard time writing consistently but I’ve written 500 words a day for more than a week now! It’s not much but it’s a lot for me.
I am not writing anything except comments on The Toast! but our writer person wants to write furious articles about the history of child exploitation and also she is working on her novellish-thingy.
I am writing a thesis. And, I think, two articles for (blog-)publication. Then in August I’ll rework an essay (or two) for (academic) publication.
I would like someone to pay for me for any of this, but oh well.
I read your site! I will go back and take a proper look later.
I wrote a blog post which is not really news because I usually write one every week, but this week, I wrote it BEFORE IT WAS DUE and scheduled it! I astonish even myself.
Today I mostly spent writing an application for a job plus a sample piece for said job, and I’m happy with both. I had a good time writing the cover letter, and the sample piece, if I don’t get the job (haha, it’s so unlikely), I can definitely expand it as something I can either put on my blog or pitch somewhere.
And then I’m working on the novel because I’m entering a competition with it, and I need to submit it by 3rd October. I don’t honestly know if I’m going to make it, but I’m very motivated.
My birthday is next week, and on Saturday I’m celebrating with karaoke! Suggestions welcome. 🙂
Snowpiercer: Who has seen it and wants to discuss?
I’m seeing Snowpiercer tonight! Super late showing for me (10:10) but I’ve been wanting to see it for agesssss.
i saw it, i liked it a lot!
i thought it kind of straddled the line between goofy and serious sometimes, which could be confusing for someone expecting one or the other? like some characters were really over the top (tilda swinton’s character, the school teacher) and some seemed more grounded in reality.
my friend called it “charlie and the chocolate factory without any candy” which i thought was pretty on-the-nose.
i also really liked the ending and i don’t understand why some people were so pissed off by it. it made total sense and was actually…the kind of ending i was hoping for?
A lot of it was definitely over-the-top, but I did enjoy the ending. It wasn’t really a “surprise” ending to me by any means. Knew the kids were going to be treated horribly, figured everything was probably orchestrated.
My logic brain had a bit of trouble with the train concept afterwards. If they have a self-sustaining train with an aquarium and greenhouse and clothing production, etc, surely they can make new train parts, yes?
yeah, i wasn’t surprised by it, and i was glad that the survivors were two kids who had never been off the train. and that curtis got his redemption (losing his hand) but didn’t end up surviving.
some of the train logic was definitely a little weird. like, they can only eat sushi twice a year, but they’re willing to take a fish to dip axes into its blood for intimidation?
i only realized a few hours after i saw the movie that when jamie bell’s character was talking about remembering the taste of steak in the beginning of the movie, he was probably talking about someone’s arm or leg. which is what makes it so shivery creepy ahhh when curtis says it’s probably best not to remember.
OH SHIT I DIDN’T EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT LAST PART. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
if i have to suffer the lingering “nooooooooo” effects of this movie, y’all are coming down with me.
oh SHIT. I literally just got back from the movie and I totally didn’t make that connection (the steak bit). ahhhhh.
Let’s talk about the REAL question: Why isn’t first class rioting for the right to make Curtis their personal toy? I MEAN. (I thought Evans was maybe a little too sweet for the really dark part of his story, but it was a tiny quibble, like when the Romanian judge would ding a Midwestern gymnast for not popping her arms after a vault.)
one friend asked, “did anyone else feel really awful about seeing him distraught and just thinking, ‘a blowjob will cheer you right up’?” and another replied, “what can i say, all that dirt and despair really made his eyes pop.” also the beard. ughhhh he looks so good with a beard.
I suppose that the smell of clothes that hadn’t been washed in years would be an effective deterrent to sexytimes, especially with that fougere of fish guts, blood, and cordite, but still and yet.
I loved the movie while fully acknowledging that it didn’t stand up to certain types of questions, and hurrah to Bong Joon Ho for holding out for a full-length VO-less release.
“but still and yet”: WORD
“VO-less release”: DOUBLE WORD. afterwards, my friends and i couldn’t figure out what 20-minutes would have been cut, or what the hell weinstein thought we wouldn’t understand about it.
If by “discuss” you mean “huddle in a corner and whimper softly” then yes, I am here.
I loved the movie, but it was a lot for me to handle. (I mean, I have been known to lay awake at night worrying about climate change, so.) I thought the ending was great; it felt like a relief (of sorts).
I always like to pull out my Jarvis Cocker or Courtney Love at karaoke. Or duet “Islands in the Stream.” 🙂 (HAPPY BDAY!)
~*~*~*~*~*we found an apartment in NYC*~*~*~*~*~
It costs an obscene amount of money and, as previously mentioned, the landlords may or may not try to screw us over (the number of riders written in all caps is making my head spin, and I write contracts based on abstruse regulations for a living). But we will be on the 6th floor of an elevator building in a fucking beautiful apartment.
Get ready, South Harlem wizards, I’m coming for youuuuu
YAY! Congratulations!
Good for you! And South Harlem is pretty sweet.
Congratulations!! Signing for an apartment is insane. Hope your new home is good to you!
fun! time to go to the monthly toastie/hairpin meetups!
this week has been slow and crappy. i’ve just been feeling groggy and my body hurts and i’ve been having a lot of confusing feelings. this all makes sense: i’m on my period.
however, i did win a zucchini in a bar game night, so. and i’m gonna go see my parents this weekend cause my brother’s in town.
i’m just gonna go listen to my playlist of soothing yo la tengo songs featuring georgia’s voice.
all about her tom courtenay all the time! also take care. (the song, and what you should do!!)
yesss, take care, and her cover of you’ve got a friend, and tears are in your eyes, and all of those super soothing beautiful warm blanket yo la tengo songs.
her version of tom courtenay is so good, i always wondered why it was featured as an alternate rather than the real deal.
I know! I love Ira but her version blows his out of the water. I saw them perform it live for the first time during the Freewheeling tour where shows were seated and the audience got to choose the set (best thing ever). She told a typically adorable Georgia story about being moved to tears when a big crowd sang along with her at the end of the song.
this sounds…perfect.
i also love ira (and he has his own soothing songs…”crying of lot g,” here comes my weeepingggg) but georgia’s voice (and drumming. and crowd banter.) is just perfect.
i did win a zucchini in a bar game night
cackling, thank you for this gem.
my friend who brought the prizes has quite the vegetable garden. there was much brandishing, wiggling, victorious thrusting of the zucchinis, trust me.
If you like soothing Yo La Tengo songs featuring Georgia’s voice, may I also suggest Glo-Worm (Pam Berry has the voice of a legitimate angel) and The Cat’s Miaow? They’re my favorite curl-up-in-bed-on-a-rainy-day groups.
oooh, thank you for the recommendations. i’ve never heard of these, but they sound right up my alley!
I spent the week taking care of various Grown Up correspondence, including a volley of emails to/from our landlords about our dead oven.
The good news: we are getting a new stove! The bad news: this requires the repeated intrusion of another human into our home, since the landlord will need to come over, double-check my measurements, take out the old stove, go buy a new one, bring it back, and install it. UGH HUMAN VISITATION. (Our landlords are responsible, pleasant, and fair. I’m delighted to have a new stove coming instead of a long series of repairs. I just hate having people in the house except as guests. Something always goes wrong, it always takes too long, and I can never get any work done.)
My lovely laptop died this week, too. Well, it died last week when I spilled perhaps a scant teaspoon of water on it; I didn’t know until this week because I assumed I was overreacting by giving it several days to dry out. But no. That laptop, which was a lavish surprise from my husband who knew I needed more time and freedom to write, meant a lot to me, more than can be measured in money and convenience. I wrote about that here. I have a replacement on the way, thanks to the surplus and generosity of someone who will remain nameless, but I sure will miss my little MacBook Air.
Oh man, how awful is having people in your home? I don’t know about you, but it makes me terribly neurotic.
If it makes you feel any better about your laptop, once I cried on mine and the tears broke the trackpad. (I have gotten far enough away from this incident that I now find it hilarious instead of really embarrassing and pathetic.)
I really did think “This was enough to short everything out? I could cry more than this onto the keyboard without noticing.” It was maybe as little as a few drops, definitely not as much as a teaspoon. I guess I’d better invest in a keyboard skin for the new (old, but new to me) laptop if that little is enough to destroy the innards.
That is one of the problems with Airs! They’re all one piece, so if any of it breaks you have to chuck the whole thing.
I spilt drippings of tea onto my Macbook Pro and it shorted out a few keys and the power button, so I had to replace that with a new keyboard to make it workable. It was cheap (I bought the keyboard off e-bay and it was replaced by my very talented IT guy for the cost of a bottle of rum) and he warned me against getting an Air for this very reason.
Though I do long for one; they’re so light and fantastic and I loathe having to lug my computer around. But I have a track record of being rather indelicate with electronics and so I’m too nervous to get one.
I know! I did love that it was so light and small, especially since I have a back injury and every extra pound I habitually carry around makes it more likely to spasm. What a treat to have had a laptop that I can pop into my bag and carry as easily as a decent-sized book!
The replacement is a 15-incher, so it’s be much more of a lug to use it outside the house, but it’ll be safer and also have an optical drive, which my Air didn’t. When you write about film as much as I do, that turns out to be a big deal. (A tiny little bright spot: I had chosen the external DVD drive I wanted to buy but hadn’t actually spent the money yet the day I killed my laptop.) Life is full of trade-offs, and when we’re very, very lucky, the good news and bad news balance out.
Did you know that physical therapists are (sometimes? always?) considered “specialists” by insurance companies? I had NO IDEA! I’m in PT for knee trouble, and my insurances charges co-pays of $50/visit, and I’m supposed to go 3x/week.
I’m finding PT to be wonderful and helpful and the physical therapists’ work is super valuable, I just don’t get why my insurance isn’t covering more of it!!!!!
ugh, this happened to me a few years ago. Don’t quit early like I did because of the cost. It took me so long to recover because I left PT before I should have. It is worth it to be able to be active without pain.
Can you get a doctor or the physical therapist to send something to your insurance saying, “If the megnapkin doesn’t get her PT, her knee will POSSIBLY become a horrible mess and you will POSSIBLY have to cover even more extensive medical care”? (Like my god, insurance companies, what is so hard to grasp about preventative care)
Because insurance is EVIL.
You should talk to your doctor about this! I had to do PT for plantar fasciitis for a while and my copays were $30/visit. The podiatrist told me we’d go on an “honor system,” meaning I would pay the copay on days that I felt like I could afford it, but the receptionist would never ask for it. I ended up paying for about 1 session/week instead of 3, and was super grateful to my doctor.
Can some of the Toasties reassure me that I won’t fail my CISSP exam tomorrow? I could use all the luck that I can get.
you’re going to do great!!!!!!!
Beaming luck your way. You’re going to give it your all, right? That’s what’s important. I believe in you!
Very best of luck! I will cross fingers for you.
Good luck! You will stomp all over the CISSP exam and emerge covered in glory!
You’re going to do brilliantly, I can feel it!
Good luck! Though I have a feeling you won’t need it because you are awesome!
Take that exam down!
You’ll do great!
It is taking everything within me to hold back Vacation Brain from happening until next week. On the plus side, starting next Wednesday I get to go to Portland (Maine) and hang out with all my awesome puzzle-solving friends for 5 days at the annual NPL (National Puzzlers League) convention!
Also yesterday I saw what I thought was a cat on the way home from seeing Rifftrax mock Sharknado and started to say “Hi Kitty” when my brain quickly realized it was NOT A KITTY and was instead a raccoon.
Photo proof: https://twitter.com/BenMSmith/status/487439399181…
I once tried to pet a tuxedo kitty while walking home drunk from a bar and at five feet away I realized it was a SKUNK. To be fair, it was San Francisco, and who the fuck expects a skunk to be strolling along on the sidewalk there.
I was flabbergasted when I learned we have skunks here. Just seems wrong some how (not just because we’ve already got plenty of bad smells).
I know! I was similarly confused about that otter who ended up in Sutro baths. What animal looks at San Francisco and is like “YEP, WHAT A GRAND HABITAT”
I dunno, plenty of humans think it’s a great place to live. I can’t blame Sam the Otter for seeing the charms, too 😀
Portland Maine is my wonderful beautiful hometown! I hope you have a perfectly gorgeous time.
I’ve always thought raccoons look like kitties in Halloween costumes.
One evening long ago when my grandmother was spending the winter with my family, I was watching TV while she was in the kitchen, and she stuck her head through the door and said crossly to me, “This stupid cat won’t get out of here!” (We had an outdoor cat, and my grandmother did not approve of pets and was always trying to shove Kitty out the backdoor whenever she saw her.)
I dutifully went to the kitchen to retrieve the offending cat, and was met with the sight of my grandmother – who didn’t have the best eyesight – chasing a raccoon around the room with a broomstick. I can still hear her panicked “What do you mean it’s not a cat? Then what is it?” ringing in my ears.
The raccoon escaped, and the cat is now an elderly lady herself, and lives with me in my tiny apartment.
I had to Wikipedia “National Puzzlers League” because I love jigsaw puzzles and was really hoping that I could nerd out about jigsaw puzzles with someone; alas, it is a WORD Puzzler’s League.
HOWEVER, I did get to read this gem of a sentence: The Enigma [NPL journal] specializes in the types of puzzles that flourished in the 19th century; the crossword, invented as late as 1913, is spurned by the journal, which relegates it to the category of “extras”.
SPURNED.
Yeah, the older puzzle types are interesting. There’s a lot of puzzles in verse, which can be fun. This year’s competition was to take the starting line of an existing well-known poem and then go off in whatever direction you wanted. I mashed up Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” with Xanadu.
My other NPL story is that one time I had breakfast with another NPL member during the Con and afterwards found out the nice person I had been chatting with was Will Shortz.
Are you named for the late, lamented B-Side Lounge? If so, LET’S BE BEST FRIENDS.
unfortunately, no. Named for my college radio DJ handle and NPL nom.
Oh! I love the NPL! I was a member for a year, but I didn’t do anything other than solve puzzles from the Enigma: I never actually mailed in any of my solutions or puzzles of my own, and I never even settled on a nom for myself. So I guess I was the non-internet equivalent of a lurker.
Assuming your nom is “B-Side,” I’ve definitely heard of you! Probably I’ve seen some puzzles you wrote, or something.
I should really rejoin and actually do things. My very minimal involvement was really fun, so logically it must follow that lots of involvement would be extremely fun, right?
I’m a bit worried that I’m not hardcore enough, though. Like, my attitude towards the Enigma, when I got it, was just “Let’s see if I can solve a handful of the flats!” I never got good at cryptics or anything. And that was fine by me, but it might be embarrassing if I ever went to a convention.
You should totally come to Con! There are so many awesome things to do and people (who will help you with the flats and cryptics – I’ve found those are sort of like an appenticeship. The more you co-solve them, the better you get at solving them on your own. It’s basically an awesome nerdy adult summer camp where instead of making friendship bracelets you solve cryptic clues and walkaround puzzles. Plus, we’re going to Vancouver next year – that should be fun (AND requires I finally get around to re-applying for a passport!)
I’m not super prolific (at least compared to my local network of NPLers), but I like the stuff I’ve written.
Toasties with babies (or soon-to-be babies)! A very dear friend is recruiting for a research project and needs more dads/dads-to-be. If you know anyone who fits the criteria, can you direct them this way?
Are you going to be a father for the first time? Or was your first baby born in the past 6 months? Researchers at Williams College are studying men’s experiences as they become fathers for the first time. The study can be completed online, takes about 20 minutes, and participants are eligible for a raffle for a $100 Amazon gift card.
Interested? Visit http://dads.WilliamsMAPLab.com for more information and to access the study!
(sorry to the international folks…I am 99% certain it’s US-only)
I am not a new parent, but I sure have a lot of friends who are! Consider the word spread.
Thank you thank you thank you! 🙂
Feelings on Toronto, Canadians & (especially American) ex-pats? Jobswise, housingwise, friendlinesswise.
Are you moving there? Jobs: depends on the field, but they’re pretty easy to find for most cases — there’s a lot of creative, non-profit positions available (pay varies).
Housing: is the worst. Good apartments are hard to find, and you have to do a lot of searching to find the right one. Prices that you should be paying: $900-$1200 for a 1-bedroom — higher is usually a rip off, lower is usually s scam (totally depends on the neighbourhood, though).
Friendliness — mixed. Depends on the neighbourhood (heavily), depends on the activity, depends on the community. It can be easy to make friends, if you go out, and join groups, and a lot of neighbourhoods have a number of activities going on. And there’s also a lovely Toronto Toasties group that meets every two months or so, and we’d be happy for you to join us, if you’re up for it!
Thanks, that job tip is good to hear! There’s a chance my partner might head to Toronto soon, and if so, I would follow about a year later. But it would mean putting aside a national job search for my career & becoming less competitive, which I’m not happy about. If there were things for me to do in the meantime (as a library/information sci grad with a lot of tech knowledge), that would be better.
Oh, yes, that’s a hard decision to make — I’m not sure about library/information sciences jobs in Toronto (as I am not a librarian). I know there are some Toronto Toastie librarians — they would have a better idea than me.
Toronto library science people — if you’re around today, what’s the job market like in Toronto for people with your degree?
Not Toronto, but I know a librarian just outside of Toronto who’s been looking at jobs recently — I’ll ask her and report back.
Toronto can be a tough market for LibSci (they have a giant iSchool, and Ottawa has a lib school, as does London, and it seems like 80% of the people in our profession are starry eyed for TO), but if you have experience you should be able to parlay it into a part time position. Public in Toronto is a nightmare to break into, basically, but Academic and Specials are doable, especially if you’re open to part time or contract work.
Personally, I dislike Toronto as anything but a temporary situation. I love love love visiting, because I have great friends there and they have so. much. vegan. food., but it is crowded and unfriendly and strangely still insular if you’re into any specific “scene”, so it’s the worst of all worlds for me.
BUT I also love Winnipeg so I may just be a lunatic.
Well, next to Winnipeg, any city would seem unfriendly. What is in the water there that always puts out such a welcoming vibe?
In my experience, the crowds and unfriendliness of Toronto vary drastically from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Downtown is incredibly isolating, but if you live east (or some places west), life can be much easier.
I’m from New England, famously unfriendly. Sounds fine to me! & the housing prices seem in line with what I’d expect from American cities, really, unless salaries tend to be lower? (Which might make sense with healthcare.) Like, is a job in the $30k-$40k reasonable for entry level-ish non-programming work?
Yes — depending on the organization. $30 – $40k is normal for entry level full-time positions in many organization (but it honestly depends on what you’re doing — a full-time job on minimum wage is about $21K a year).
This is so good to know. Thank you.
Thanks! It sounds like even if I can only find a part-time or lower-paying job, combined with my partner’s (smallish) salary it sounds like we are less likely to starve to death and/or be crushed by medical bills than in a similar situation in the USA.
(And I’m in that intersection of academic & special, so that’s good.)
If you have a lot of tech knowledge and are open to both Academic and Special, you should be able to find something part time or contract within four months (especially if you’re open to tech positions, which come up more often at places like OCAD or Sheridan), possibly less if you have notable experience.
Entry level full-time lib gigs in our field (in Canada) should be about 45 000 a year to 50 000. Unfortunately Toronto doesn’t really adjust for cost of living like other places do, because there’s an overabundance of professionals that are keen on staying in the city. With tech knowledge (especially systems) you might get a little pay bump, though. If you end up in Academic the union is usually great, so you end up with good benefits.
Word. I’m about to take my systems class this fall, but by graduation should have a few years of metadata & repository work experience + classwork and research. I imagine being a temporary foreign worker vs. permanent/citizen probably doesn’t help, but it might be worth a shot anyway. Thanks.
I grew up in the suburbs, and I think it’s pretty great! Jobs anywhere depends on the field (obviously) but it’s as good a market as any in general. The fact that it’s huge certainly helps, and there’s increasingly usable transit if you wind up finding a job in say Mississauga. Housingwise it’s pricey as Canadian cities go (not as bad as Vancouver, though), though I’ve never looked for housing there myself.
Friendliness: much more so than Montreal, I find, but that may be my language barrier talking. Generally pretty friendly, though.
I find Montreal to be much friendlier than Toronto, but I grew up there and speak French, so that’s definitely a factor.
Yay open thread!
I have a question for you toasties: How do you avoid unwanted physical contact in a non-awkward way?
Backstory: I don’t really hug people, or kiss on the cheek, or…well most things more than a handshake. The only people I hug are basically my parents and my boyfriend, and maybe a friend if I haven’t seen them in…a year. I don’t really know why, I just wasn’t brought up in a very huggy family, and honestly I find hugging random people I don’t know well kind of weird. But I work in an environment where everyone hugs all the time – is it the weekend? *HUGS* “see you on monday, byyeee!’, you have three days of holiday? Hugs all round! Haven’t seen each other since yesterday evening? Huuuuuggsss! And not between best friends, just any random work colleague. Anyway, I find hugging people I’ve spoken with twice quite uncomfortable, but I have no idea how to refuse without having a mega awkward moment.
At Christmas a work colleague I’d spoken to a couple of times came to say goodbye as he was going away for a whole two weeks (that doesn’t seem that long to me?) , and it went:
Colleague: Bye see you after Christmas! *goes in for hug*
Me: Oh yeah bye have a great time, oh I’m not really a huggy person.
Colleague: Oh come on, it’s totally fine
Me: Nah, I just don’t really hug people
Colleague: It’s just one hug!
Me: Nope
Colleague: Oh ok, bye then I guess.
Plus lots of awkward laughter from my end…any less awkward ways of rebuffing people’s friendly advances?
ETA: all my colleagues thought I was being weird, what’s the big deal with hugging etc.? So now I’ve resigned myself and just awkwardly hug when it’s my cue, but you know, I’d rather not.
I think you’re pretty much committed to awkwardness from the moment a basically-stranger starts getting insistent on LET ME TOUCH YOU; your choice in the matter is simply which kind of awkwardness to go forward with.
What your colleagues think here is immaterial, hugging vague acquaintances on demand is not part of the social contract.
This. I am somewhat baffled as to what kind of cheerful tyrant insists on showering you with affection that will make you uncomfortable. It…it defeats the purpose of affection, no? Do they need hugs for sustenance? Are they some sort of werehugbeast?
Unless they are a werehugbeast I am going to vote mild to moderate asshole who should be made aware of their assholeness.
How about you become a handshake person? You just have to be really fast, when you see the body language going in for a hug, stick out your hand! Then THEY are the awkward one if they don’t shake it.
That’s worked pretty well for me, anyways.
You do have to be prepared for “BROTHERS GOTTA HUG” reactions, but that can be done.
Seconded. Stick out your hand, and put your other hand on their shoulder if you want – it fools them into thinking you’re giving out a more intimate handshake but in actuality it’s a good way to keep them at arm’s length, literally. Otherwise you might end up with the handshake-hug hybrid.
Exactly what I do. Fast draw with my right hand out. As soon as my attacker/attempted-hugger can be observed to make the mental switch to handshake mode, I put my left on their shoulder. But I am a big woman and have confidence in putting body mass behind my left arm to prevent any narrowing of the gap between us. What do smaller women do, please? I really want to know.
.any less awkward ways of rebuffing people’s friendly advances?
I wrote a pretty detailed description of how I tacitly maneuver someone from hug to handshake here. [I used “he” in that discussion because the person asking specified a “he” as the hugger.]
As he approaches or as you approach him, stand still and lean back ever so slightly, as if you’re surprised/delighted to be seeing him. (I know you’re not surprised, but no one will overthink this — it’s just a moment, after all.) Thrust out your hand and greet him energetically. Any fool should sense that this greeting is moving toward a handshake, not a hug.
If he moves in for the hug despite your body language, you can try the shoulder maneuver. To break it down in detail: as he moves in, put your left hand firmly on his right shoulder, the heel of your hand at the front of his shoulder. If he’s shaking your hand as he moves in for the hug, you continue to clasp his hand, keeping your clasped hands between the two of you. If he’s brushed your right hand aside, place it on his left shoulder, heel firmly in front.
This ridiculously detailed breakdown makes it sound a little awkward, but it happens in a moment, really, and it’s pretty easy and surprisingly effective. All you’re doing, really, is defining the limits of an unwanted embrace. Why should you have to hug someone you dislike, especially a professional acquaintance? He ain’t Great-Uncle Bertie.
I’m a big hugger, but only of people I want to hug and who want to hug me. (If I don’t know someone super-well, I try to remember to ask “hug or handshake?”) There’s no reason you should have to force yourself to hug colleagues if you don’t want to.
This sounds like a Judo move I love it
It’s social judo, the kind I’m best at. I let my challenger’s strength and vigor become their downfall.
I feel like “oh I’m not a hugger” is TOTALLY FINE. Your coworker was being a bit obtuse and rude for continuing to push you 🙁 I’m sorry I don’t have any real ideas for you. But saying you don’t like to hug isn’t awkward – it’s the folks who ignore your requests who make it awkward!!
Yeah, that was a totally acceptable, non-awkward way to handle it, and THAT GUY made it weird, and then your other colleagues made it weirder.
Captain Awkward has a great thread on this somewhere in the archives. The basic idea is that THEY are making it awkward by ignoring your request. You are asking for something reasonable (respect for your personal boundaries); they are being unreasonable by demanding that you make an exception for them.
When they start to lean, step FAR back, say firmly, “Have a great weekend! / Congrats on your engagement! / Hope the cruise is awesome!”, turn and walk away (best if you can also walk toward something, like your desk or a water fountain or something).
I don’t really have meaningful advice (I just grin and bear it) but I can share a story I find funny. A really good friend of mine moved away across the country a few months ago. When we were done loading her car, we looked at each other uncomfortably for a few seconds before I said, “You know, we’re not hugging people so let’s avoid the awkwardness.” She looked so relieved and we both waved goodbye.
I think your colleague was being weird, and I say that as a person who normally hugs as a greeting (I actually hugged a new acquaintance in a hot tub last night, no lie). It’s the responsibility of the hugger to make sure the huggee is cool with it, and that’s usually pretty easy to tell just from body language alone.
I am a huge hugger with my friends, but WORK HUGGING OH GOD.
I have no advice, because I love hugs, but I do have sympathy that work hugs are completely cringe-inducing and jasdlfharwh
Fuck avoiding being awkward. That asshat deserved to feel awkward. You should not. Also, your co-workers need to get a clue because what. I have never hugged a colleague that I didn’t know outside of work–and often, not even then. In fact, now that I think about it, the only co-worker I have ever hugged is someone I knew before I took the job there.
So, no. If you’d rather not hug, don’t hug. To be honest, that sort of work environment where people would expect physical contact from co-workers sounds downright creepy.
I agree. I was an office manager at a place where one of the owners liked to hug–employees, patients, other doctors, whoever. There was a Very Terrible Event where she publicly shamed one employee at a meeting, and then tried to hug the employee at the end of said meeting. When the employee wouldn’t hug the owner back, the owner actually took the employee’s arms and placed them around her. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there at the time to lay into the owner about how ten appalling ways of wrong she was; but eventually, flurries of sternly worded emails, face to face talks with her, etc got her to realize that you cannot ever force hugs in the workplace. Especially not as someone in power. In fact, there really shouldn’t be hugs in the workplace. It opens up all sorts of liability to harassment suits (not to mention the lesser consequences that affect a work environment like awkwardness, uncomfortableness, misinterpretations).
I think everyone else has given the more constructive responses, so I will provide a link to Tim Howard denying a random stranger fan’s hug.
I’m of the opinion that if you do not want a hug you have every right to just stop that hug from happening, whether it be with words or with your body parts (stopping that person with a stiff arm, stepping away, etc). They’re being presumptuous by trying to touch you and if you don’t want to be touched you are allowed to stop them. If people give you crap for it, then that’s their problem, not yours.
Thank you for bringing that link into my life. I don’t think I could like a random soccer-dude more.
That link is perfect.
Yeah, your coworker was definitely being weird/rude for pushing the issue after you’d politely said “don’t touch me”…
Ugh, work hugging. Once at an old dude who was retiring was saying goodbye to everyone and he was doing handshakes for all the men, so I went in for one but he wanted to hug. He only wanted to hug the women, I was so uncomfortable but I just did it. Boo.
Ugh, they are the impolite ones. Nice people would ask “Do we hug?” or “Would you like a hug?” before putting their impudent self all over your self. Jerks.
Wait, WORK HUGGING? What fresh hell is this?
I mean, I like friend-hugs and have enough trouble awkwardly feeling out (not literally) when, in a friendship, you have reached the hug-hello-and-goodbye stage and when you deploy it: in the restaurant? after you have all walked outside post-dinner? what if you hugged in the bar and then stand around outside talking for another 10-15 minutes, do you re-hug??
The idea of adding in WORK dynamics to this hug equations is enough for me to just get a leper bell and warn everyone off forever.
Maybe you could try “I’m not much of a hugger, but how about a high-five?” It could be a way to reciprocate some casual work-buddy affection without having to go for a hug, if people are really insistent on the whole work hugging thing.
SO! Toast Anniversary convening for the Mid-Atlantic will be at Policy on Wed July 23rd, at 5pm. Info/FB event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/609746259140293/
I’ll edit this to include a FB event for any Bmore area folks this weekend. The game plan is to ride a MARC train down and meet up with the DC Toastrons.
That sounds great! Is there a Facebook group that I need to join to be able to see the Facebook event? I’m a recent DC transplant, and so I am not wise in the ways of mid-Atlantic Toasties.
There is! I would try to FB search “DC Hairpinners” to bring it up, but someone else had better luck googling it.
I’m in! I’m not on the Facebook but I’ll be there for sure!
There is a DC Toast google group which I run, everyone! I’ve been really terrible about checking in lately b/c I changed jobs and have been crazy busy/overwhelmed but if you want an invite send me an e-mail and I will definitely get back on it – jocasta.carr at gmail dot com.
I’m in the process of an exhausting and drawn-out move from New Haven, Connecticut to Sharon, Massachusetts by way of 10 days in Baltimore in between houses. This has so far included paying more than $1000 to the 1-800-GOT-JUNK people, being fucked over by U-Haul, packing up a truck in a torrential downpour, and getting our house broken into and robbed on our last night in CT. In short, fuck you, New Haven.
Also my facebook and life have been rife with debate and vitriol for the past week regarding the Israel-Palestine war. I’m stuck between virulently left and rightwing friends, as a peacenik Israeli citizen, and I’m just really sad about the war and the endless death, violence, and hatred.
Oh jeez, what a murphy’s law of a moving experience. I hope you are okay and can recoup in Baltimore.
I will freely admit that I know little of Isreali and Palestinian relations (except they are often violent) and I am not Jewish nor Palestinian, but hearing about it has been really heartbreaking, and it’s especially heartbreaking to see it tear people apart in the States as well. Isn’t there enough vitriol already?
Oh hey, I used to live in New Haven and now commute through Sharon every day on my way to Boston!
Words of encouragement: you will now no longer live in New Haven! Because seriously fuck New Haven. (Though god damn I miss the pizza.) Many sympathies on the absolutely shit-sounding move! Sharon is much nicer.
Weekend plans: I’m choreographing some more of my pole dance piece that I want to compete with in September… I was going to set it to Chandelier, but that song has gotten SO HUGE and it’s intimidating me (and doing stuff to popular music has never been my thing) so I’ve decided to change it to La Foule by Edith Piaf, which will be PERFECT and lends itself to more interesting makeup and costume choices. YAY CREATIVE OUTLETS!!!
AND I ALMOST FORGOT!!! I PUT A DOWNPAYMENT ON A MOTORBIKE SO I’LL BE STUDYING MY MOTORCYCLE LICENSE MATERIALS AAAHHHHH CAN’T WAIT!!!
Oh my god you sound fucking awesome.
when i read this, i actually raised my coffee mug in salute to my screen and thought “now that’s a righteous babe.”
EEP! thanks Toasties! maybe I’m trying to convince myself I’m still cool even though my life is otherwise consumed by work and school 😉
“I’m choreographing some more of my pole dance piece that I want to compete with in September.”
You are ALL the awesome! That sounds like so much fun!
Oh my goodness have an amazing time on the motorcycle!! THEY ARE THE BEST!
Dear lord, are you a real person? 2 COOL 2 B REAL
I just finished Into Thin Air and even before shit started going sideways, I easily had NOOOO desire to climb Mount Everest. All that effort for a good view and bragging rights! No thanks.
I am pup sitting this weekend which will be fun! I am also skyping with one of my best friends because we have A LOT to discuss, hopefully finishing Orphan Black, and, as mentioned on twitter, spending the next 4 months stress-making friendship bracelets while my sister is in Afghanistan (a belated thank you to everyone who replied to my post about her deployment a few Fridays ago). Want one?
Did you know hurdy_burdy made a Toast spotify playlist?? And it’s great?? And you can add to it yourself?!? http://open.spotify.com/user/humming_frog/playlis…
Is there a way to use questionably legal methods to hear that playlist? *grumble grumble Spotify, grumble grumble Canada*
Ohhh nooooo 🙁 🙁 🙁
You could try the Hola browser add-on to fool Spotify into thinking you’re in the States!
Ah! I have that at home!
Try downloading tunnel bear. Its the simplest VPN solution I’ve ever seen and it comes with 500 MB a month free which is enough for a spotify playlist (although the internet says once you’ve connected with spotify you can turn tunnel bear off and it’ll keep working for infinity data)
Thanks!
At a former job, we had this consultant who always had these intense stories about his travel adventures. I started to realize that maaaaybe he was actually full of crap when he told me that he and his wife had climbed Mount Everest and immediately taken a selfie and emailed it to all their friends. I was like “Mount Everest has wifi?” and he said of course it does, and climbing it is totally easy, all you need is a healthy donkey to carry your stuff up for you.
OH REALLY, let’s get a donkey from the state fair, see how it goes.
Ugh men.
I am loving the blatant, blatant lying here. It’s like, it would take 2 seconds for anyone to check that there are no donkeys going up Mount Everest, but don’t let that stop you!
It was kind of fascinating. Like he just walked around thinking, “I am an Authoritative Male! I wear SUITS! I own my own consulting business! Nobody could ever doubt me or question my stories.” I would listen to him and wonder if he had actually come to believe his own ludicrous lies, because he told us these stories so naturally and guilelessly.
I am also pup/house sitting and I am sooo not a dog person. I’ve already had to clean dog barf out of the carpet, and on a short walk, one of the dogs peed on three mailboxes and shit in two people’s yards. They’re smelly, needy, and annoying. And these are well-trained! I just do not get dogs. Thankfully there are kitties here too.
Oh man I hope we don’t have to deal with that! This is an experiment of sorts to see how well a dog fits into our lives right now – I argue Not At All, Mr. argues Maybe. We’ll see on Sunday how it went!
Does anyone who’s worked in a male-dominated workplace have stories/tips to share? I recently started my job (all the pre-hiring weirdness seems to have blown over, luckily), and it is great, and I love everyone here, but I am good at worrying. Most of the staff are young, straight guys (though many are married/in serious relationships). They’re all wonderful and only occasionally say dumb things, but being one of very few women in the office (and the youngest) makes me more concerned than usual about how I come across. For example, I don’t want my clothes/makeup to seem like I’m trying to get attention, but I also don’t want to start dressing super modestly to hide. I’m also thinking I should start actually making more of an effort to date to keep my brain distracted from potential awkward crushes.
I don’t know how helpful my tips would be because, while I’m the only woman in my department, we’re all developers so it’s a more casual environment than what yours sounds like.
I’ve found that my most powerful weapon is a harsh “Dude” when people cross the line. It usually stops the behavior and gets an “Oh, whoops, sorry” which is really all I care about. I’m not in it to educate people, I’m in it to make a comfortable work environment for myself.
i have no advice to share but i am in the same boat. i recently (like, 4 weeks ago) switched from a female-owned, female-dominated workplace to a situation where…i am the only woman in the entirety of the creative department. i’m also the youngest and in the most “junior” position.
everyone has been welcoming and i don’t think anything even vaguely iffy has been said, but my unique circumstances have been commented on in passing. and i totally feel you on wardrobe. my workplace is pretty casual, but as it is, the other women in the office (not in my department) dress up more than the men. if i follow their lead, i feel ESPECIALLY overdressed in a room full of men all wearing jeans. i don’t know what to do!
Jeans with a blazer? I think blazers make everything fancy.
yeah, i’ve been going the jeans + blazer, pencil skirt + tshirt route.
ugh this whole job should just be called “new adventures in disguising my boobs in a professional setting: part II (surprise, you’re also the only lady)”
Uggggh is your life my life? My workplace is 95% men, and now that my one work friend got a better job and moved, there’s a huge generational and more importantly, ideological/political gap between me and the other 8 women who work here.
Also, the majority of the men here are older and married, which is good in some ways because most of them aren’t weird toward me, but also bad because we basically can’t talk or be friends–partly because of societal bullshit and partly because again, huge ideological gaps between most of them and me, and we basically have nothing to talk about. Bonus points: as soon as I got engaged everyone formerly awkward was 75% nicer to me or, if they were formerly friendly single men, stopped talking to me completely. AUGH
It’s definitely been a huge adjustment after coming directly out of a vibrant, all-women’s graduate program. The environment has totally changed the way I dress (I dress much more modestly, but even more casually than I’d like to), which I hate, but also made me solidify the way I respond to certain things. Because of the way people are here (and I hope this isn’t true of your workplace), I’ve developed a reputation as a highly efficient ice queen, because my personal strategy is to be 100% professional (as in, never personal, always focused on work), and if sexist bullshit arises, I give a cold look and, if possible, walk away.
That’s just my personal way of dealing with my particular workplace. I understand that might not be effective or desirable for other people. I hope it works out better for you than it has for me.
Addendum: polka_stripes’s advice below is so much better than mine. I would like to clarify that I do enjoy a lot of door-holding and things like that, and that my cold looks are only employed in cases of truly horrible behavior, which unfortunately I encounter a good deal. I keep my mouth shut on a lot of things that bother me–for example, every other woman in the office helps set up meals when there are company lunches, and I avoid that like the plague because that is not part of my job description. I am making a concerted effort to dress more professionally and feminine because I want to. I just have to ignore my (female, wtf) co-worker’s comments.
Ha! I was just thinking your advice was better! I wish I was more of an ice queen at work, but we’re a friendly office and travel together ~4X a year and sit through days-long meetings every month so…a certain amount of congeniality makes it much nicer.
To the OP: One of the things I like about business or business formal dress codes is there’s less room for error…business casual can be such a minefield! I’m also a little dressier than everyone in my office, but it’s the only way I’m comfortable at work so, they can deal with my pencil skirts.
I know what you mean about not wanting to dress super modestly, but it might help to have a self-defined uniform just for work. Think about your image and the way other people dress there, and wear some version of the same thing every day. For example, I wear sheath dresses and flats because I want to come across as feminine and professional. Maybe having something like that will help ease your mind about your image at work.
Yes, this!
Oooo hi!! Male-dominated workspace in a “macho” field, you rang???
Being young and being a lady, I am conscious of how I dress. HOWEVER, I don’t dress to -hide- that I am young and a lady (YAAL), because being YAAL gives me lots of great clothes options and it’s who I am! I do lots of stress-tests in outfits – sitting, standing, bending over, reaching sideways, etc – to make sure something that looks good doesn’t suddenly show 7 inches of thigh when I sit down. I also try to not have too many ultra-feminine accessories/clothing items on at once. I don’t really wear heels a lot, but when I do, it’s with more subdued outfits; I try to avoid jewelry that makes a lot of noise, etc.
Moreso than dress that affects if I come across as YAAL is how I speak. Maybe you don’t have to worry about this as much if your other coworkers are younger, but just watching for any verabl tics (I needed to stop saying “Cool” after everything!) helps a lot.
Most of my coworkers are older men, so there’s a lot of door-holding, “no you get on the elevator first” type of benevolent sexism…I pretty much go with it (not rocking the boat is my specialty) but I DO try to find times to say “Really, it’s okay, I can get the door” on occasion. It’s a fine line to walk between making your point and being the harpy shrew who doesn’t need a man, you know?
I try to open doors for men when I can, to subtly show that I can do it myself? It’s annoying that we bear the burden of walking the fine line though.
Yeah, if it would be some type of ridiculous dance for a guy to open the door first, I definitely just reach for it and go. The other day a couple guys I know and get along with did a dance to make sure I got on the elevator first, and I said something along the lines of “Really, guys, I’m okay if I get on last” – but whether I say something or not is very situational. It’s frustrating to try to call them out on something that’s seen as polite but isn’t actually?? UGH catering to men’s feelings, I am so over it (but I do it because I like/want to keep my job, don’t we all, ugh ugh ugh)
The only times I’ve felt like coworkers don’t treat me differently based on gender are the times when I was out and dressed the way they thought butch lesbians looked. If that’s not an option, acting and dressing as you please will project a lot more confidence than constantly working to maintain the perfect prude/slut and sissy/bitch balances.
This will be me very soon. I like what everyone else has said so far, particularly about having your own self-imposed uniform.
I don’t know about awkward crushes. I think they can be fun if you are one of the few people that can keep it internal and not be awkward about it? So I guess not a real crush then… I also find that these situations tend to attract at least one man that flirts with everyone…as long as it’s not insidious, I ignore it.
Thank you for all the great responses (and please keep them coming!)
It’s definitely a casual workplace–the most formally dressed person here wore shorts the other day. I think it’ll be easier when it gets cooler and I don’t have to figure out which of my sundresses show too much leg/shoulder/boob. I tend to be dressier than the average person anyway, so while I’m used to being the fanciest person in the room, I’m not used to it being a room of guys in t-shirts. I like the idea of a uniform, though that might require more new clothes than I can afford right now.
I think I need to also let go of the idea that I can/should completely control everyone’s perceptions of me. If someone doesn’t like me wearing heels, or one of the married guys someday decides that I’m in love with him and gets weird, I can’t stop them.
I definitely feel more comfortable there than in my last office, where there was greater gender parity but the women were mostly young, pretty support staff and the men were mostly old higher-ups who sometimes commented on my clothes in a slightly squicky way (even though I didn’t show skin). I had never experienced the first-on-the-elevator thing till then. But on the other hand, we were teasing my temp coworker about his date worries the other day, and I started getting (justifiably?) paranoid that people would either think I had a personal stake in it or start getting ideas about setting us up.
It is REALLY HARD to let go of the control that’s hiding inside of obessing over being in charge of how other people perceive you, but yes I think that is a great insight. If people are going to be horrible, they are going to be horrible, you cannot do anything except react to what happens and be in the present moment. But that is not an easy thing to really live with!
Letting go of the idea of controlling others’ perceptions. That’s the basis of the personal uniform. *You* decide how you want to look.
There is more than one correct answer. Here’s one of many: Every day at work I want to wear skirts that reach my knee and tops that show no cleavage nor strain over my breasts. I want to keep my feet covered and my heels to less than 2.5 inches. I want to wear earrings every day but nothing that descends more than half an inch below my ear and nothing bigger than my thumb. I want to wear only one additional piece of jewelry, if my outfit calls for one. I want to look in the mirror and see a quiet look with only one attention-grabbing aspect, such as a big gorgeous bangle or a bright color in my fabric, but not both.
The correct answer is whatever pleases *you*. Only you.
There is an advantage for your budget as well. Once decided on your work look, you will not be tempted to buy wardrobe items unless they fit your criteria. Budget enough to buy one complete new outfit per season, if you can. It’s a great way to build a wardrobe slowly and keep up with fashion (where it serves your chosen look). If there is extra money, you can consult a list you update as ideas occur to you such as, I love this dress and I wish I had a fabulous necklace in gold or navy to wear with it. Or, I could wear this lovely skirt more often if I had a darker blouse to go with it.
I work in a fairly gender balanced office in a pretty male dominated field, so my day-to-day is about 50% women, but every meeting I go to is me and half a dozen white dudes.
On the office front, people will usually (if they’re not the sort to be totally obsessed about what other people are doing) get used to your day to day look, even if it is dressier/ different from the office norm. I spend a fair amount of time meeting with clients/ contractors/ consultants in a city that is pretty casual for the state that it’s in, so I’m always playing “so and so is from here, so they expect this level of dressiness, but this meeting is here, which means this” algebra with my wardrobe, but generally it’s not really that big of a deal.
Guys seem to notice shoes more than anything (particularly shoes that are keeping you from doing something functional), so the one thing I would suggest outside of “wear what makes you comfortable” is shoes that make sense for what you do, and maybe a spare pair of flats for functional emergencies.
In highly specific advice, the thing that’s made the biggest difference in my confidence is practicing martial arts (mainly judo)- my dojos have all been very male dominated, and knowing that I can handle physical conflict in that kind of (very supportive) setting makes me feel a lot better about verbal conflict with big contractor dudes in meetings. Plus I use dude/gorilla confrontational body language more instinctively.
British Columbia Toasties! Do you want to get together for drinks on the Toast’s anniversary night, since we can’t go en masse to Oakland? If so, where would you like to meet up? I work downtown but live a bazillion miles out in a suburb. I’m off work at 4, and could stick around downtown, or we could go somewhere in Burnaby, or…? Ideas? Thoughts? So far it’s just me and PonyAlong, but I know there are more of you out there!
Not on the mainland! tragic :(:(
I wish! Anyone else in the Interior?
Hey kids! Where all the BC’ers at? Burnaby will totally work, would love to meet up!
Good idea! I work at UBC but live on the edge of Burnaby/Coquitlam… so…. anywhere in between those two places are good hah.
Keeping my eye on this thread!
I will be out of town, but will attend in spirit.
OH also: I’ve been in a get drunk and get weepy stage, so for the time being I am on an alcohol hiatus. I love my (hot) tea and seltzer, but any suggestions for non-alc beverages that are fun and tasty (and preferably low sugar, for Late Night Indulgence?)? I’ll probably make some decaf iced tea to have in the fridge, but any other suggestions?
I love combining fruit juice with sparkling water. It feels fancy and it isn’t too sweet.
Yes! My favorite combination is apple juice and lime sparkling water, with slightly more water than juice and plenty of ice. So delicious.
Nectarine-basil lemonade is delicious and summery, and you can make it with relatively little added sugar if your nectarines are sweet. It’s also super delicious if you make it into a granita and top it with some barely sweetened whipped cream, if non-ice-cream frozen desserts are your jam.
I’m a huge fan of Diet Hansen’s ginger ale. It tastes a lot like ginger beer which is really refreshing at the end of the day.
I’ve been brewing a huge pot of ginger-lemon tea when I get home from work and drinking it throughout the night as iced tea.
Seltzer with a lot of fresh lemon juice and a little rosewater, and mint if you can get it, all over ice, has been my summer cooler.
This is more a brunch thing than evening (and it’s not exactly low sugar), but 1/4 c each orange juice and cream in a pint glass, poured over ice, and filled to the top with seltzer or even just cold water–it’s like a creamsicle drink. If you’re dairy-intolerant (I am), coconut milk works (and tastes even better, IMO).
Mhmmmmmmmm that is amazing sounding.
I love a good cold-brewed hibiscus tea! That way it’s like fruit juice without the sugar, and it’s great for sipping because the taste isn’t overpowering.
And hibiscus is excellent for cholesterol! I might try that…
This Honey Rosemary Lemonade isn’t low sugar, but it IS delicious and pretty perfect for summer:
As a recently sober person, this is something I’ve focused on for a while. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
– SodaStream allll daaaay
– Seltzer (or club soda) with ice and lime
– Seltzer (or club soda) with iced tea mix
– Really spicy ginger beer
– Dry sodas (it’s a brand of delish sodas, low cal)
– Diet Coke (my first love)
– Xyience (energy drink, no calories, if you’re feeling like being pumped up)
– I had a bartender in Portland mix me a fun non-alc drink, and all it was was pineapple juice and club soda but it was so. good.
Good luck, and well done on the alcohol hiatus. Sometimes it’s a good idea.
Thank you! And thanks for your reminder at the end, I don’t always have to get seltzer at a bar either, I forget that a lot…
cranberry juice and soda water with a lime when I’m out at a bar.
Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice is decaf, spicy and sweet without sugar and wonderful hot or iced
Thanks to everyone so far; these all sound awesome! Definitely keep them coming!
Have you tried the Dry sodas? They are interesting flavours and low in sugar without having awful artificial stuff in them.
I also second fruit juice with fizzy water, or hot herbal teas. Celestial Seasonings makes a ‘Bengal Spice’ tisane which is awfully good for bagged stuff, cinnamon and the other spices that go into chai but no actual tea. It is wonderful hot with soy creamer (or real cream) and some honey.
You can make homemade ginger tea by chopping up fresh ginger and putting it into a glass and adding hot water. Plus honey if you want honey.
Do you like yogurt? Look for kefir. Or look up recipes for making your own lassis! Rosewater lassi!
I just made this and it was life-changing http://www.anediblemosaic.com/?p=14734
Seltzer with bitters (black walnut bitters are delicious). I know it’s summer most places, but I also totally make hot chocolate some evenings- if you do it on the stove old-school with cocoa powder you can control how much sugar you put in. Agua fresca (aka take one melon, blend) and horchata (the almond/rice version, none of this tiger nut nonsense) are also delicious.
Ugh, guys, I broke up with my boyfriend and it’s terrible. It’s the right decision, but it’s FUCKING terrible. It was a good relationship, but something was missing, and it was time to let it go. Soothing words? Coping strategies? Tiny horse pics?
You can hang in there with this baby sloth!
During my last hideous breakup (HIDEOUS), I found it pleasing to act out every stereotype of a breakup from 80’s and early 90’s movies. Like literally listening to Rod Stewart, dramatic haircut, workout montage, drinking at the bar alone, etc, I don’t know why but it just put the whole thing in perspective, like yeah, this is a passing sensation, it will get better, and by the end of the movie I’ll have found whatever it is I need to move on.
You did something hard that was right for you, and it will feel right once the sting wears off. Time is the thing. Take good care of yourself in the short term; the long term will feel better.
Sorry that things are fucking terrible 🙁 breaking up never seems to be easy, even when it’s the right decision. Here is a link to a miniature horse making a friend. http://www.horsebreedsinfo.com/images/miniature_h…
Having just experienced three months of awful post breakup fallout, I have only this:
Hold on to the knowledge that it is the right thing, and just wait for it to get less shit.
Also ice cream.
What helped me during the deepest of my depression (ex-dude decided to leave me while I was still grieving for recently passed relatives) was watching all manner of silly comedies and cartoons. If I ever meet the MST3K guys, I will tell them they helped through a rough patch.
Thanks for this. Part of the terribleness is that I am feeling massive guilt in addition to breakup sadness–my now-ex also sustained major losses in his family, 8 and 5 months ago. He *seems* fine in many ways, has been to a therapist, etc, but I know he is still grieving and also that he relied on me a lot, and it’s making the decision feel even more confused and difficult than it already would.
oh no, this is a completely reasonable amount of time (5-8 months) to allow to go by. it wouldn’t be fair to him to stay in the relationship much longer for this reason — it would be sort of like you “felt sorry” for him and stayed for that reason, and that would be pretty awful/gross for him as an experience too.
i say this also as somebody who got dumped 2 months after my mother died, and thought it was too soon/handled very poorly. Of course I can’t know your boyfriend or the situation, and even if I did, everybody is different, but am definitely speaking from personal experience on the other end and think the timing is completely reasonable, please don’t feel guilty.
Thank you, I really needed to hear this. I’m so sorry for your loss, and also for your douchenozzle of an ex–I saw an earlier version of your comment with some of the things that that person said to you, and fuck, I’m sorry. As a society and often as individuals, we have so much trouble with giving people permission to grieve, and it’s the worst. I hope you are healing, and hugs.
Thanks to everyone else for kind words and adorable pictures 🙂
I’m sorry, bb. Here is a tiny horse.
Here is a whole bunch of them.
Already discussed this song on this open thread, but I think it is pertinent and very comforting and actually about a mutually beneficial but still sad break up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPK1jiiZXkQ
Take care of yourself and know that you will mend.
My coping mechanism during my last breakup was alcohol (not necessarily recommended) and lots of Golden Girls marathons (highly recommended), so maybe give that a shot? Also helpful were British period-piece detective shows (Poirot, especially). Basically, I limited my entertainment consumption to things that were pleasant, formulaic, a little bland, and didn’t focus on romance.
I’m sending you good thoughts and hopes that your heart recovers soon!
With me it was Agatha Christie, the early Sayers (no Harriet!), and Bones and CSI by the ton.
It will be OK, it just takes time. Meanwhile, here is a tiny pony dancing, just for you.
She’s on.y tiny because she’s a month old, but she would hug you if she had arms and you wanted a hug.
I am sorry for the bad feelings, it is really hard.
I do not have personal experience with this but I think that it would help me if I made more change, like moved all my furniture around or got rid of a lot of books I didn’t want anyway or otherwise changed my everyday environment? Because things for me hurt so much more when everything else is the same and there is that One Thing that is still the same. Call up your friends and have a space-redecorating party with lots of pizza and soda or beer?
Tiny cow?
CALLING LONDON TOASTIES! scared_vagina and I (I do not know if it is possible to tag another commenter?) were chatting on here a couple of days ago on the 1st birthday thread and decided to meet up in London on Friday 25 July at the Montpelier pub in Peckham in the evening. We have not met before and all we know about each other is that we are Toasties and fans of Patrick Keiller’s film ‘London’. That is enough. Another friend who is also a Toast reader may come. There will be two or three of us there. I will get there at 6.30pm and put a yellow handbag on the table. If you want to come, come!
I wish I could, but I don’t think I can afford train tickets to london/maybe even a hotel/ at this notice..
Have fun, though, and know that the ONLY toastie in Norfolk is thinking of you.
Delurking to say there is at least one Norfolk-adjacent toastie – I live in Suffolk. Maybe Norwich or Cambridge would be good places for East Anglian readers to meet if the desire arose? It seems like there have to be more of us around…
I asked before, but no-one came up! Next open thread I’ll try again for the East Anglian toasties. There might only be us, though.
Ah East Anglian / Cambridge meet ups would be great! I will also be a keen attendee of London based toast events but I’m not in England until October 🙂
This fills me with great joy 😀 if work is not eating my life I will come.
Come, come!
I can’t but have fun!
Je suis une London Toastie! I will come if I can, though I am pretty poor this month (THANKS FOR NOTHING, THREE WEDDINGS THIS SUMMER). If I can scare up some pennies I may join you.
I’ll only be drinking lime and soda so we can not spend money together.
Ooooooh, this sounds fun. Are you on a Twitter?
Yes! dearoldsmee is my name, Rachel is the other Toastie who I chatted to, and you’ll see our chats, follow and come along!
Are you going to post about it again next week? I just moved to London in February and I actually LIVE in Peckham, so I feel like I have no excuse not to come, but I am incapable of making plans two weeks in advance.
Yep, that was our plan – post next Friday and the Friday that is actually is happening on to, to confirm we’re still going.
Do you do more things on summer weeknights than winter ones?
Well, I do different things, that’s for sure. Pretty sure I have sex more in the winter.
Tonight I’m seeing a friend sing and play guitar at a local bar. He’s retiring his famous crowd-pleaser “Bring Some Spare Panties” and goodness knows I’m not gonna miss out on that.
Thanks everyone who advised me on the makeover stuff for my author photo – it went great! (Or if I’m gonna pull a false modesty thing: as well as can be expected, given the canvas!)
Here’s me pre-hair & makeup:
Here’s my Official I Am An Author You Can Buy My Book Go Buy My Book photo:
And here’s me today, pretending that I learned something about makeup application that can be recreated at home:
All three of these are lovely!! And your author photo turned out great. You look SO happy 🙂
I’m insanely happy. People are beginning to look sidelong at me and edge away.
(Which is just how I like it!)
SO GREAT! You have glorious eyes, btw.
awwww, thanks! They are, I was told during the makeup session, ‘hazel-brown-gold.’ I just think of them as ‘not quite brown enough to count as anything.’
I love all these photos, and your Official Photo looks stunning.
Even my sister complimented me, so I knew it must be good. Thanks
You did good! (I once taught high school English. Scary, huh?)
We who know the rules are all the freer when it comes to breaking them.
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I don’t think there’s a rule against buying a book because of a totally fiiiine author photo (and great writing, I’m sure), right? I didn’t think so.
Judge it by it’s cover. I mean, I paid good money for it so people would judge it, after all:
(and thanks!!)
Aw, you look lovely! X
Gracias!
You look really great both in the fancy photo and also today!
I managed to pull off a pinker lip & that, in addition to launching my book, is my biggest accomplishment of the day.
Your official I Am An Author picture looks VERY official. And professional!
I am in Palm Springs with 399 of my soon-to-be closest friends. I will spend all day in the pool eating sno-cones and all night in the hut tub and/or patio bar. There will be dancing and I will jump in the pool in my fancy dress and my new friends will join me and laugh and squeal. I love everyone.
Snow cones! Pool bar! Have an amazing time
what
how did this happen
does it happen regularly
can i go?
1. Whut
2. Five awesome women with a lot of friends who were tired of the scene at SXSWi but wanted to hang out with all their nerdy friends.
3. Second year in a row!
4. YES search for “YxYY”
Also, here is a picture of me in a fancy dress in the pool with my friends after dancing last year.
Yay Palm Springs! I went there in April with a friend and I was surprised at how much I loved it.
Good things this week:
– went to a pool party on sunday that had bloody marys
– planned an excellent greek themed picnic for free music at a park with friends
– going to host dinner for friends on sunday and make my famed tikka masala and naan
– i booked a trip to see my mom for (technically after) her birthday next month!
Bad things:
– We have a leak in our roof and we can’t find it and it’s MONSOON season and roofs are very expensive
– I now hate when it rains, which used to be my favorite thing
– my husband’s friend at work found a dog that would technically be a perfect 2nd dog for us but I don’t think I can handle 2 dogs right now and I feel very guilty
– I don’t own that Sherlock brass door knocker yet
how bout you, Toasties?
Home repairs= the most stressful, not being able to adopt dogs guilt= similar level of stress. Get through it with all of those good things! (and maybe rectify by getting the final item on that list)
My adorable canine monsters are small, so YMMV. But I found two dogs are soooo much easier than one. All bad behaviors were from loneliness or boredom. Second dog removed both.
And then there’s the ease of training. Only one dog has to understand the new command. He gets a treat. His companion observes the obedience and resulting treat and says Hey, I can do that too! Look at my obedience. Where’s my treat?
Can I come over for some tikka masala and naan?? That sounds amazingggggg
Can we talk about the absolutely horrifying oversights in the Emmy nominations? No The Americans. Only one nom for Brooklyn Nine-Nine – and a deserved one at that, for Andre Braugher, but still, only one. No Chris Messina. But the most glaring oversight of them all – still no Tatiana Maslany, no Orphan Black at all. I know the awards are more for show than real awards for real achievement but come on. How can Breaking Bad still be nominated? Didn’t it end a million years ago?
I am very to fairly upset about both Chris Messina and Tatiana Maslany. I keep telling myself award shows are dumb, but I keep getting angry again.
The Tatiana Maslany thing KILLS me. She’s performing actual miracles of acting—the way you can tell which clone it is just by body language! Come on!—and I don’t understand how people aren’t literally lining up to give her awards.
I’m almost done with season 2 and in the episode I just watched, she was playing Sarah, playing Alyson, playing Donnie!!!! (at the rehab role play thing). And she was flawless, of course. SERIOUSLY?????
She is so good that whenever she gives interviews, I’m thinking “Great, could we also talk to the actress who plays Alis- Oh. Right.”
I once got confused about why there weren’t more female names in the credits. I just completely forgot for a second that they were all one actress.
despite my continual marvel at her acting abilities, this still happens to me pretty often. just a split second of, “huh where’s the actress that plays cosi—AHH TATMAS YOU GOT ME AGAIN”
once i saw an interview with her and my first reaction was, “woah, a new clone!”
seriously, how about her face alone in the season 2 scene where she’s strung up in the shower and she sees helena? even if she wasn’t playing all of the characters, i feel like her work on any one of the clones alone still stands as pretty damn amazing.
how is she NOT winning all the prizes?
Yes! She should get ALL THE AWARDS for Oprhan Black. She’s incredible.
you just listed…the exact three oversights i was upset by. i was really surprised that the mindy project didn’t get a writing nom. that finale was such a good weave of romcom threads! also, SERIOUSLY TATIANA MASLANY.
i’m also sad that “top of the lake” can’t just continue being nominated every year, regardless of when it was released/aired.
“The Mindy Project”, right? I think it’s one of the better comedies and it really hits TV romcom highs which should be absolutely unachievable, so I was expecting Mindy Kaling to get a writing nom. But I really wanted a nom for Chris Messina because that man is flawless.
for his dancing to aaliyah alone, right? but really, the things he does with his face are really quite remarkable. he brought gravitas to a totally goofy TV romcom, which is something worth recognizing, i think.
The Aaliyah dance was divine. I’m still not quite sure it happened. I love him so much because he manages a rare feat – while Danny is at times this very stereotypical guy’s guy, I love how Messina counterbalances that with Danny’s love for Mindy, the way he absolutely adores her. And yes, his face. His face. Gah.
I’m being robbed of Chris Messina in a tuxedo opportunities.
and can someone please explain how Downton consistently gets noms, year in, year out? I mean, I enjoy the show buuuuuuuut…
Remember a couple of months ago when Nicole gave away some copies of Middlemarch and My Life in Middlemarch? I won a set, and I just finished Middlemarch this week, and I loved it. I wasn’t sure I would during the first chapters, but of course it turned out to be wonderful, and I’m so happy to have read it.
Off to the book club archives I go!
Oh, that’s such a good idea. I’m _just_ getting around to re-reading Middlemarch, and I thought it would be weird to join the archives at such a late date.
Isn’t it the best book? I want to get a tattoo that says “Destiny stands by sarcastic, her dramatis personae folded in her hands”
There are SO many quotes and phrases in there that I just adore. I have never been one to write in books, but I kept finding myself underlining things to reference later. I’d never be able to pick just one for a tattoo!
My copy is so marked up. I lent it to my sister this winter (she read it for a class) and she complained that it was too hard to read.
Ooh.. I just had an idea for house decor — an elaborate collage made entirely out of Middlemarch quotations. New project!
I won a set as well and haven’t gotten around to them yet, eeeee whoops. I’ve been avoiding because I sense that Middlemarch will take a level of dedication that I don’t have at the moment. T/F?
True! I have a 30-minute train commute twice a day, so I always had that guaranteed reading time, which helped me go steadily through. Unless you are a lightning-speed reader, it’s definitely a commitment, because of both the length and the time necessary to get used to the language.
Middlemarch is one of those books you have to work for, but it’s so, so worth it. Dorothea is fascinating and lovable AND has hecka strong character growth. that is a rare animal in “The Classics”.
Totally. At first I found her totally bizarre and unrelatable– girl doesn’t even like puppies??– but you’re right about the character growth, etc., and she’s amazing.
For no good reason that I can see, my douchiest ex-boyfriend re-added me on Facebook this week. (I have a feeling this is because he wanted to see my wedding pictures.) No message or anything. He just periodically sticks his head back in my life every six months or so–and this is the guy who dumped me by ignoring my texts/calls/fb messages, defriending me, and MOVING TO ANOTHER PROVINCE.
Fine, look at my pictures! I look awesome, my husband looks boss and is way more awesome than you, we are very happy, and you are horrible and haven’t dated anyone since breaking up with me and your hairline is receding so far up your head you have an eighthead or ninehead. So please, look at my pictures and rejoice, and stop goddamn emailing me every year to say “Hey how are you?”
Would blocking him do any good, or do you get visceral satisfaction from watching his life fall apart? No judgement if you do, I run that way too.
I enjoy the schadenfreude. It’s terrible of me but I DO enjoy it.
It’s okay. Whenever I am at my most depressed or unmotivated, I am cheered up or motivated by spite. “So you thought I was holding you back? Ha! You still live in a city you hate and I’m making plans to move to the city of dreams! Plus I will be successful in a way you’ve never imagined!”
Isn’t it lovely?
My ex-boyfriend’s mother just added me on Facebook (which is fine, she’s a wonderful person). And I got such a smug satisfaction about hearing about his life going nowhere, and knowing that she’ll tell him how (comparatively) awesome mine is right now (and that I married a guy he hated).
No, it’s fine. As long as you’re still getting SOMETHING from this interaction.
What….a…..loooozer. And living well IS the best revenge!
Is it the time of year for that? Because I just this week got a Facebook friend request from the shady drug-dealing IT dude I dated for a few months EIGHT YEARS AGO. I denied the request because I’m curious but not THAT curious…but then I went and looked up my most recent Ex-Manfriend (though I did NOT friend-him). I can’t say I’m proud of going snooping and I did learn that he seems to be dating someone but based on the photos I saw a) they have no chemistry, b) I’m way prettier, and c) Ex has been hitting the beer a little too hard and it’s showing in his face and d) I am a horrible person for having all of those thoughts, so I shut down my computer and read some of Patricia Lockwood’s new book after snooping.
Long story short, Facebook is the woooooooooooorst.
I won’t be watching the game, I’ll be doing imaginary combat in a video game. There’s this dude in my GW2 clan who spends Fridays getting drunk and commanding us all to KILL THAT NEWB OVER THERE
It’s such great fun!
The post about most hated books got me thinking about websites that I hate read. So, what do you guys hate read?
I hate read comments anywhere other than on the Toast. I know I shouldn’t because they never fail to induce rage but I can’t stop either.
ME TOO. OMG.
Sometimes XOJane, but even hate-reading that gets old pretty fast.
I also hate-read XOJane, but I have to limit myself strictly, because their page design includes SO MANY links to other articles I could hate-read that once I’m on there I am stuck there for ages.
TERF sites. All the TERF sites.
I hate-read HuffPo… I judge myself for it but I just CAN’T STOP. It’s a sickness 🙁
Dear Prudence.
I greatly enjoy reading Dear Prudence aloud to my husband and then cackling over what’s worse: the people writing the letters (or the imaginations thereof), or the advice. It’s always a toss-up.
I go to Slate to love/hate-read Dear Prudence, and then end up hate-reading 375234 more Slate articles on how I’m doing various personal aspects of my life wrong. There needs to be a widget that blocks all Slate content except Dear Prudence.
YES I am so glad this is not just me
Yeah, Prudence is the wooorst, but I still get sucked in sometimes. Other than that, some blogs for rival baseball teams (but only when things are going badly for them) and the Volokh Conspiracy, which is actually a cross between hate reading the stupid ones (Bernstein, Baker) and thoughtfully considering and sometimes agreeing with the smart ones (Volokh, Kerr).
I don’t know if it’s a full on hate read, but The Billfold. I am genuinely interested in how people do money, but everything on that site is always so radically unrelatable to everything in my life.
Oh god, yes. I read that and want to go “Oh, you financed your start-up by spending a year traveling around working on organic farms while living off sales from your Etsy store where you sell tiny knitted cats made out of your own cat’s sheddings? That’s nice.”
Either that or “YOU KNOW THERE’S AN ENTIRE WORLD OUTSIDE THE CITIES, BILLFOLD.”
Right?! That’s how I feel about a lot of stuff like that on the internet, though. Every time some we have to have the fight about biking to work and how cars are nearly extinct, I just wanna go “You realize that the rest of this country is very real, yes?”
There are occasionally some good points. There’s one I need to read about a young man who aged out the foster care system. But mostly the Billfold seems smug and self-congratulatory.
Every time I see someone argue “well you can just bike to work or take mass transit” I want to laugh until I cry. No. Not everyone can. It’s awesome if you can, but you know that there are vast parts of the country not well served by public transit AND impassable by bike? TRUTH. Who knew?
I dream of a magical overhaul to the US rail ways, where urban, suburban, and rural areas alike are served by affordable, efficient, regular trains.
MAYBE ONE DAY (maybe never, thanks car and oil industries for having a chokehold on our government hahaha *crying*)
I love trains. I used to daydream your exact magical overhaul. Then I did my research. All trains the world over cost so much to build and maintain that they can never break even, much less make a profit, on ridership alone. Even if every human on earth were a paying passenger. The entire current model requires investment by some collective such as a government. The US government (I am also a US citizen) has long existed to serve the needs of the profit-makers. Investment in rail seems doomed to remain a magical daydream. Please find stats to prove me wrong. I hate this state of affairs.
Too bad! You’ll get self-driving cars and you’ll like it!
I had to unsub from every money-related feed/podcast b/c pretty much this.
My BIL and SIL’s travel blog. They’re aiming to visit all the places in one of those “1000 places to see before you die” books, except a lot of those places don’t even interest them, they just want to check them off the list. Like, they visited half a dozen Civil War sites, and the final entry said, “Neither of us is particularly interested in the Civil War.” THEN WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR LIFE IN THIS EMPTY PURSUIT. And every single entry includes a rant about having to pay for parking or parking 1000000 miles away from their destination so as to avoid having to pay for parking.
An Authors Blog, or the writing of Nickolaus Pacione.
Go on, google him. I’ll wait.
Oh my goodness.
ISN’T IT GLORIOUS?
Because I hate to click on his actual blog (I have an inkling this guy rubs his hands raw over every pageview), I only looked at his Goodreads page, which is brief and to the point, especially his one and only quote.
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD: this is so amazing
I have a couple of in-laws who are newly obsessed with this particular “health and fitness” corporation that produces lines of workout videos and shake powders. They are coaches for this company and post 10+ times a day about how wonderful it is, how meaningful their formerly miserable lives are now,* how much weight they’re losing, etc. And what makes me angry about this company is that they’re *pretending* to be all about health– like, “Let us end the terrible trend of obesity!!” (which, what?), but it’s really all about looks, as evidenced by the team names, which are things like The Bikini Babes.
Anyway, I hate read their Facebook pages because I am terrible.
*I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m begrudging anyone their healthiness/happiness or whatever– that’s not the case at all. I am, however, rather alarmed at this cult-like company and the manic, borderline-dangerous diet and workout activities that it seems to result in.
Caitlin Moran, Dan Savage, Tina Fey, and basically any supposed activists who actively malign (brown, polysexual, ace, nonbinary, female, disabled) minorities in the groups they’re supposed to be advocating for.
In theory I do not like Tina Fey, but in practice she is damn near my absolute favorite. I feel bad about it because she says some shit that is truly not-awesome but then she talks about food and I have hearts in my dumb ol’ eyes again.
Jezebel.
(just kidding, I don’t read Jezebel anymore.)
It’s not even interesting enough to hate-read anymore. 🙁
XOJane and the comments on video game articles.
I’ve finally trained myself to not read the comments on videogame articles, but man, yeah. I’m not sure what kind of compulsion made me read them. Half the time it was “Oh boy! This videogame looks great! I am going to read the comments and see if others are excited!…. 🙁 🙁 🙁 ” The other half of the time it was “Let’s see just how terrible the comments on this article about feminism are.” Then I realized it was wearing me down psychologically and installed a comment blocker. Still fall off the wagon periodically, though.
I have a complicated relationship with dlisted.com. On one hand, the writing is HILARIOUS and celebrity trash is easy to get sucked into. On the other hand, there is all the sexism and prejudice that comes from judging the lives of others, and I’m not thrilled when people write nasty things about other people that they don’t know.
Southern Weddings!! Which admittedly is like 75% hate, 25% “ooh pretty dress.”
But I remember a wedding where the groom’s name was MASON DIXON. For reals.
Mail Online. Every. damn. day.
I forgot to say the editorials and letters in my local paper.
I quit XOJane–and so can you!
The mothering.com forums. “I planned an unassisted home birth and then I went to the hospital after all after getting no prenatal care, and everyone was SO RUDE!!!”
“I have six children and I kind of think I might not want any more, but my doctor only does natural family planning, because he is Catholic.” “(Activity) sounds fun, but I would personally be afraid it would kill my unborn baby. But that’s just me.”
Forbes.
PUA blogs like Chateau Heartiste.
Penelope Trunk.
Ugggghhhhh, I have to make up an invoice for a freelance job I did, and I don’t know what to charge. I know what we would charge students for similar work, and I have more experience than a student, so I know it should be more than that.
(I know I should’ve confirmed my fee before the job, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get paid whatever I ask unless I put down something absolutely outrageous, but where is that line and how can I fly just the right amount under it?)
In other news I have many weekend plans starting this evening and continuing until late tomorrow evening, and although they are all individually wonderful plans with lovely people, I am resenting them all right now because it means I won’t get to just chill out with my books until Sunday morning.
I use this exercise. First I do as you have done: I research what others are paid in my field and geographic region. Then I pick 3 numbers. One is an average within the range of the research. Second is the lowest price I can imagine accepting, something ridiculously low. Third is a very high number I cannot imagine I have earned for this work. Then I let these numbers simmer on a mental back burner for 24 hours. I avoid thinking about them at all.
Returning to the question a day later, a pretty good number pops into my head without much effort. Higher than the regional average. Higher than my first instinct the day before, since the patriarchy taught me young to devalue myself and my work. A number my client finds only slightly higher than they expected. So close that they gladly pay it and value my work a bit more.
I don’t aim for that outcome. It just seems to happen. Good luck.
This is SO HELPFUL, thank you so much! I am going to do just this.
How specialized is what you’re doing, and who did you do it for? If it’s really ‘get paid whatever you ask’ and not ‘let’s not spoil this wonderful relationship by asking to get paid’ then name something totally outrageous and they’ll probably be more willing to roll with it than you think.
Either way good god I would never work without getting a negotiated fee on paper and possibly half down first, once all the work’s already done the client’s gotta be a saint straight from heaven to put up with much negotiating.
I’ve been spending a lot of time cleaning up at my grandparents’ old house, and Jesus, Abram, and Mohammed, there are SO MANY BOOKS that have just been foisted on me because there’s nowhere to put them. What are your tips for making room on bookshelves when there’s none available?
What I’ve done is (1) divide books into fiction and non-fiction, (2) sort the non-fiction books by general subject, (3) alphabetize by author within the categories, (4) shelve books in single layer, (5) if needed, double back and put a second layer of books in front of the first. The sorting and alphabetizing helps me find books that are hidden behind other books. An alternate system might be to shelve books that you’ve already read and aren’t likely to re-read any time soon in the row of books closest to the back and then put new/unread/favorite books in the row you can see.
I love organizing things, though, so this might be a bit more over-the-top than you’re looking for.
Organisers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose and all the lost things to find!
Organizers of the world unite … at my house. Depression and frequent moves mean I am surrounded by boxes … for years now. I am overwhelmed and will pay for help. Seriously. Anyone wanna come to central Texas and help me get organized. Hell, just keep my on-task and I could get something done myself.
I sort my books by size for maximum space efficiency. (the soon-to-be-ex-Mr. Fringehead once suggested getting rid of some books, and I was like, I understand the individual words you’re saying, but together they make no sense at all).
In increasing level of severity:
The Horizontal Stack – stack the books horizontally up to the top of the shelf instead of vertically, which leaves space at the top. Works best with groups of books of uniform(ish) size
Horizontal + Vertical: 1 row of normal vertical books (pick the tall ones), with a second row in front of horizontal ones, ideally so you can still see at least SOME of the spines of the back ones (deep shelves or narrow books only)
Double Horizontal: same caveat as above, squishes the most amount of books on the shelf but now you can’t see any of the ones in the back. Too bad.
Stacks o’ books everywhere: lol shelves what are shelves your house is made of books now.
But I already have horizontal bookshelves and free-standing stacks everywhere HELP.
Cardboard boxes stacked as shelves and braced with heavy books at the sides and corners.
Mostly I just buy more bookshelves. They are my interior decor trademark.
P.S. May I steal “Jesus, Abram, and Mohammed”? I tend to say “Merciful Zeus!” in such situations, but it’s always nice to have a backup oath.
Go ahead!
The Louvre is a great example. They own so much artwork that there is never enough room to display it all. Not all at once. They rotate their collection, with the exception of a core list of perennials. Start boxing up books that have no home. Small boxes, please, out of respect for your back. Shove those small boxes under beds, under stairs, in the attic, etc. Make sturdy stacks of boxes, throw on a pretty blanket, and make side tables of them.
Personal finance thread! How is everyone doing as we roll int summer? I’ve had two very expensive weekends and am looking forward to putting the brakes on and getting back to a more low-key and low-spend life.
High spendy, high on credit – Moving Expenses. But Fellow starts new job in two weeks, so then we will be much, much better.
i live in a nightmare of my own creation right now. trying to get back on the horse in order to pay off credit cards before my student loans come due again in August, but considering i have to go to seattle for a work conference in three weeks, that may be a pipe dream.
does anybody else have family student loan debt that costs about as much as a (kind of crappy) house? i know people are out there but i’m canadian, so everyone i know is like “oh i have soooo much debt, it’s like, $20 000” and it just makes you feel broken down
I know some people with high Canadian student loan debt, but a crappy house where I live is about $400K, so I wouldn’t quite describe it like that.
Do you want to talk it off your chest to the thread? That sounds like its a tough situation made tougher by feeling alone.
ah yeah, this is more that we owe (my dude and I) $80 000 to banks for student lines of credit, and about $80 000 to national student loans. which is a crappy house in london, ontario.
i got a great job recently (thankfully), but it’s impossible to break into teaching right now, so my partner is unemployed and stressed out about it all the time. i try not to bring it up at home, to avoid making him feel guilty about things out of his control, but being the breadwinner is freaking me out a lot, especially when i can’t make all our loan payments and keep us fed and housed. parental help has kept us afloat so far, but our parents aren’t even middle-class (see: the massive loans) so that adds a layer of stress and guilt.
I have so much sympathy with you on the teaching – I know so many smart, talented, passionate people who went into teaching, only to find that there are no jobs. If we weren’t on opposite ends of the country I would bring you a wine.
I wish I could offer you some concrete help, but do know that that I’m happy to chat it out on the toast if you ever want to. Although our situations are very different, I’m currently the half of my partnership on the career upswing, and it does have its own thing, you know?
I am doing pretty well, but that is less due to my own merits than to the fact that Mr Winterbymorning earns enough to keep our small household afloat, which enables me to put the majority of my income into savings. That sweet, sweet DINK life!
I really, really want to live abroad, if only for a brief period, and I’m trying to save up enough for us to take a year off and go live in a small town in Catalonia or something.
DINK 4 LYFE. (hopefully)
Trying to rein in spending also! its harder in the summer because fun stuff + relaxed vibes increase, leading to me being blissfully negligent.
I find that summer is generally easier for me to be low spend, because I’m happy just to sit on the beach with a beer , but this year we did a couple of weekend trips that were unexpected.
gon’ quit my job in a couple weeks and blow all my savings on more or less randomly wandering around the country until I find somewhere I don’t hate
feels good man
AMAZE
details plz
that’s pretty much as far as I’ve considered it really. this shit is goin’ nowhere and I could get an equally bad job pretty easily if I wind up coming crawling back so fuck it. the $5000 I’ve managed to scrape together over eight years of desperately fleeing indigence are not going to be much use for anything else.
I guess I should probably do some reading about cars since I’ll need to get one first???
Look no further than Nicole’s guide on buying a car!
I love this thread! I look forward to it every week. Big news is that I turned off my cable!! Comcast raised my rates again, and I sat down and looked at how much I actually use cable (not a lot, actually) and long story short, I dropped cable totally. I picked up a HuluPlus subscription to go with my existing Netflix streaming, plus a digital antenna for local channels. So now I’m saving $45 more a month that can go into credit card repayments/general shenanigans. Been feeling pretty smug about that.
Amazing. I dream of the day I can call my ISP and tell them to fuck right off with their high fees and shitty service. Unfortunately, there’s no options for me other then them right now.
We have just gotten the free trial of You Need A Budget because we really DO need a budget, we want to go visit our long-distance SO sometime this fall and it would be good to know how much money we can reasonably spend to do it without condemning our kids to a life of lentils and rice. (Not that there’s anything wrong with lentils or rice!)
So today we set it up! And it is awesome so far because knowledge is power!
I have been ignoring my budget for weeks at a time and also not paying enough attention to when my bills are due. Then I try to fix this by resolving to do better but I don’t actually follow through on doing better.
I have enough room to manoeuvre in my budget that none of these things is going to cause serious problems, but I’m annoyed with myself.
Yesterday, I finally set up autopay on all of my bills, so that at least fixes one thing.
Oooh, also! Is anyone doing the Reblog Book Club on tumblr: http://reblogbookclub.tumblr.com/
We are reading California by Edan Lepucki and I am excited. I can’t be in a regular book club because life and face to face interaction, but a tumblr book club is definitely my speed. I indicated interest early so I got a review copy in the mail yesterday and started reading last night.
this is a really cool idea! thanks for posting the link, I might check it out.
I went to visit my sister in Oakland over the weekend and it was great! We went to Home Depot four times, and I learned to hang drywall and trim trees with a chainsaw and all sorts of other things. The whole time no one asked me if I was “sure I got that” or over-explained things, or used the little lady voice at all. Sister, her gender-queer partner, even Home Depot employees just told me what I needed to know and let me get on with it. The weekend presented a strong argument for lesbian separatism.
Except for I have a date with a dude tomorrow I’m kind of excited about, even though he keeps texting me about how excited he is to see me and not about what time he will actually show up.
I got me a personal trainer, I cannot believe I did this. thanks, Nicole! thanks, Toast! It is my early birthday present to me. I had a first session yesterday morning to see if it would be a terrible idea or not. I did not know what a personal trainer would be like but he is exactly like you would think. the whole time he would say “All right!” and “We’re really doin’ it now!” and “Yes!” and all I had to do was just get on the machines he pointed to and do things when he said to do them. I did not really have to be awake at all and indeed I was not.
When he asked me my goals I said, to have big muscley shoulders. like just crazy giant shoulders, like as big as the moon. like, people should say Chicago is the city of Me. and also to do pull ups. and he said ok. so I think it will go well.
then he made me high-five him three times. toast, I have entered a new world
That sounds spectacular. When I get my credit cards paid off (or sooner, if I get a raise), I’m going to check out a boxing gym in my area & see if they’ll train me to punch stuff, because I get that urge a lot when I’m stressed but I don’t want to hurt myself/other people.
oh my god i wish i could afford a man to help me get shoulders as big as the moon
can i…
can i live through your shoulders?
yay for setting personal goals and having giant shoulders!
Lol @ “We’re really doin’ it now!” That’s kind’ve cute, I would much prefer that to the “C’mon! Harder! More! I know you can do better” (shutup shutup shutup you don’t know me, you can’t tell me what to do) faux encouragement I sometimes get from fitness class instructors.
My mom has these work out tapes she always wanted me to try but I resisted sooo hard for so long, and then when I finally did, the woman was the cheeriest most encouraging soul. “Go get someone to come in and exercise with you! Or if you like to work out alone, if this is your ‘me time’ then you go, you are great!” “Work hard, I know you can give it your all! Whatever your best is, I want you to give it to me!” It was very endearing because I felt like I was being yelled at in the most supportive way imaginable.
‘Whatever your best is, i want you to give it to me’ is just about the most adorable thing I have read all week. I want to do that tape!
You are awesome! Getting a trainer is one of the best things I’ve done for my body (and body image), so I’m happy you found one that you like!
Hey! Hey. Heyyyyyyy. So.
Who wants to talk about social anxiety disorders, and how you might tell if you have one (versus normal ol’ crippling shyness), and how the heck you’re supposed to talk yourself into going to see A Professional about it when you hate phones, strangers, and talking about your weaknesses?
I’ve been doing this dance of “I’m just awkward, that’s why I over-think all of my interactions with people to the point where I’ll cross the street so I don’t have to negotiate eye contact with a stranger” and “I’m just shy, that’s why the idea of asking someone on a date makes me want to curl up into a ball and writhe with agony on the floor” but it’s not sounding very convincing these days. Any advice or experiences with diagnosing social anxiety and/or coping with it?
Well… when I finally decided to do something about my depression, I went to the doctor and she wanted to put me on meds right away. I was not into that because lady, you met me 3 minutes ago and you already think I should start taking addicting brain drugs? How about I talk to a therapist first?
But before I could do that, I had to call my insurance provider and EXPLAIN TO THEM WHY THEY SHOULD COVER MY THERAPY. “Why do you want to see a therapist?” Um, the doctor told me I was depressed? What exactly do you think I am trying to get away with here??
I’m telling you this, OP, because I think you should be forewarned– when you finally drag yourself into a professional’s office, it is not going to be easy. Be prepared and be determined. Do you have someone that can be your advocate, help you make appointments, drive you there, or just sit with you when you make that call?
The therapy was very good, by the way. It was worth the trouble.
I appreciate the forewarning about negotiating insurance coverage, that’s a good thing to be prepared for. Thanks!
i’ve had a social anxiety disorder since childhood. you should absolutely seek out professionals, because they will help you. your life can be 800 times better than it currently is, trust me.
i’ve seen a lot of professionals, and i didn’t meet my 100% life-changer until i was 21ish. but i think that was partially because once i got my fear of phones/public/friends/leaving the house under control, i didn’t realize that i had lingering issues with close relationships. even my earlier therapists helped me dramatically – to the point that when i returned to therapy in my twenties, many newer friends had a hard time believing i had an anxiety disorder.
if it’s negatively impacting your life, it’s worth working with a therapist. they have the expertise to help you flex your social muscles and gradually build up better coping mechanisms, which is something people like us have an almost impossible time doing on our own.
good luck! you can grow so much, seriously, there is a lot of strength in you that you just need to find
Thank you! This is very encouraging. 🙂
I hate phones. Don’t care much for people, in general. I was too disordered to get myself to a professional. But damn, can I do research. I read. And read. And read. The bibliographies of those books kept me on track to find the books best suited to answer my questions. And the books kept me on-task focusing and sharpening my questions. If you’re a Toastie, you’re a reader. Get cracking.
Oooh, ooh, I know this thing! I have done (am working with, whatever) this thing! It took me years to work up the nerve to seek a therapist for my particular flavor of social anxiety, and even after that, I spent a very, very long time being afraid of my therapist telling me I was doing well or making improvement at something, because that might mean I was not poorly off enough to need/”deserve” her help anymore, even as I still felt like a walking disaster on the inside. It took a while, but eventually I started to believe her when she said that if I felt bad about a thing, if that thing was interfering with the way I wanted to be living my life, then it was okay to seek help for that thing, that she wouldn’t cut me loose until we were both okay with that. Diagnosable anxiety disorder or not, if it’s making you unhappy, then it is okay to try and make that better. The only tickybox you need to check in order to seek help is “I want things to be better than they are now.”
If you are in the US or Canada, I recommend the Psychology Today therapist finder, as it is what I used to find my lady without ever speaking to a human being on the phone! You can sort/filter by location, insurance accepted, issues addressed, specialities, etc., as well as a little paragraph written by the doctor to give you a feel for them. All this AND the ability to contact them by email. WAY less intimidating than cold-calling, plus the ability to screen out at least some total mismatches up front.
Best of luck!
This is so useful, thank you! I will bookmark the therapist finder you linked to and come back to it if/when I’m trying to find someone.
open path collective is a thing, search on there, you can see folks for $30-50/session, and lots of folks will let you schedule a thing over the email. getting insurance to pay for therapy is a drag.
and, most folks have a hard time getting to therapy. speaking as somebody who does mental health ish professionally, your experiences don’t need a diagnosis to be real or legitimate. so, go get some support if you feel like you need it or want to talk about stuff.
Thank you, that’s a good resource to know about!
I hate phones, strangers, and admitting I have weaknesses (ugh, especially the last one). When that started getting particularly bad I went to a regular old doctor because I’d suddenly lost a bunch of weight, and although she asked me a couple of times about anxiety I told her it was nothing out of the ordinary. That was not the best decision.
My anxiety got better, and then it got worse, and that time I found a therapist because I was afraid otherwise I would once again be constantly anxious for months. I found someone I could make an appointment with over email, which was super helpful. My insurance only covers 20% of the cost of my sessions, which sucks, but the money is worth it to me and my therapist is okay with payment plans and sliding scale fees. And even if you don’t have social anxiety disorder per se, if people and phones make you nervous that’s definitely something a therapist can help you work on.
I found my now-former therapist (I moved cross-country) because I could make initial contact electronically (and she continued to be really great about non-phone communication). She was great because 1) she helped me see that the lies that anxiety (and my parents) have told me about myself and my abilities (“I am terrible and incapable and unworthy of love and do not deserve to be around other people”) are, in fact, lies and 2) she helped me get started on meds which I’m still sorting out with a GP but it’s starting to cut through some of the stuff and I can make eye contact now as long as I’m not really hungry (bodily needs skyrocket my anxiety and part of coping is being kind to myself and really prioritizing those needs even when it feels selfish/unproductive).
Whatever you decide to do will be really great and you can do it!
This is super encouraging, thank you. Eye contact gets harder if I’m hungry, tired, or stressed, too. I’m glad you found something that’s working for you!
The week is over and I am in my pyjamas and I didn’t kill anyone. Phew!
Anyone watch Wimbledon last week? Huge win for Petra Kvitova, who demonstrated absolute tennis mastery. Then a lackluster final for the men, tennis-wise, but it was full of drama, so it was entertaining. I reaaaallly dislike Novak Djokovic on the court (I tend to like him alright off the court) and I love Federer so I was quite sad when he couldn’t pull it off.
I kind of hate Federer but absolutely hate Djokovic more. I’m sure my neighbors were wondering why I kept on shouting, “C’mon Roger!” Also I hate how sports announcers always fuck up Eastern European/Russian names of women in tennis. “Djokovic” rolls right off their tongues, but they always say “Sharapova” with the wrong syllable accented and “Kvitova” with an extra vowel between the k and the v.
Happy Friday! Happy Open Thread! Hello!
We’re getting new windows put in our house this weekend so I’m going to spend the next two years living ultra-frugally and staying in, but it had to be done. It was one of those things we sort of anticipated when we bought the house. Like, “Oh, this is great otherwise, but these windows obviously have to get replaced, because wood rot and single-paned and just overall terrible maintenance THANKS FORMER OWNER!” so it’s a thing I knew was coming, but I am still all :\ :\ :\ about it, because large cost.
Anyway, to offset my :\ feelings, do you guys have delicious recipes you have recently discovered or that are old standbys? I will eat literally anything put in front of me, my only restrictions are that I hate bananas, coconuts, and peanut butter.
Are you in the northern hemisphere? I’ve been Pinning recipes I’ve successfully tried and liked for vegetables and fruits that are in season in the Northeast U.S. Just finished Spring, working on Summer as the produce starts coming in.
I am! I’m in Georgia! Lovely!! Thank you for the links 🙂
I was visiting the folks in ATL last week and Ma Jinx made some lovely handpies with GA peaches, which are especially good this year (which made me especially sad that my local CA peaches have been total crap) so you should make a peach pie or cobbler or something.
Mmm, pie.
Easy side dish to prep beforehand and forget about while you make burgers: Get some smallish yellow summer squash, zucchini, and fairytale eggplant at your farmer’s market or CSA. Cut them lengthwise into 1/8-1/4″ strips; don’t worry about the precision of your zucchini, it’s summer. Cover the eggplants in kosher salt to make sure they aren’t bitter, and let them drain for 30 min or so. Then rinse them off and marinade all the vegetables in balsamic vinegar, basil, and minced garlic. Wait an hour to let the flavors marry, then grill them on low until they’re just browned and tender.
You guys, let me tell you the secret about Seattle. Sure, the winters can get a bit damp & dreary, but the summers. Oh, the summers. This past week & a bit, it’s been sunny every day, with highs in the low-to-mid 70s and lows in the high 50s/low 60s. The humidity is noticeable but not oppressive. Everything is still green and gorgeous and it’s just about as perfect as anything could be. (which is good because this is like the worst summer of my life so far, and I’m pretty sure the weather is literally keeping me sane).
I live in the desert, and I was just telling my partners that I am sick of this shit and saving up so I can retire in San Francisco.
Seattle is also an option.
My goal is to move to Seattle in less than a year and hearing this makes me happy.
And I looove gray, rainy weather.
I love NW summers so hard, but here in Portland, it’s been closer to 90 for the last two weeks and might hit 100 on Tuesday and why God why do only 15% of the houses have air conditioning and my abode is not one of that 15%. And naturally my car chose to die just as the heat started, so I’ve been traipsing around out in it all day or on muggy buses.
(sorry for being a downer, I actually really love NW weather in general even the winters, and never ever complain about the rain or grey clouds, but it’s the heat that kills me. Anything above about 75 degrees and I’m just done. I mean, that’s why I moved up here in the first place to escape it.)
It has almost been too warm here the past few days! But yeah, this is the season that everyone should be jealous of Seattle.
The weather makes all the difference, it’s like, in the winter I’m always giving myself little pep talks, doing little things to keep myself cheerful and telling myself to keep going. Then the spring comes and I feel much better about everything. I love summer. Trees and skies and being out in my garden as much as possible. Feeling good mentally is much less effort. Is it just because of the contrast in the seasons? Or should I move to LA?
One of my bunnies has come down with a mysterious case of head-tilt. I noticed it last night and initially just thought he was looking quizzically at something, but his head was in the same position this morning. It’s not terribly tilted, and he isn’t having trouble eating, but he’s been sticking to the bottom level of the hutch and normally he’s hopping all over the place. The vet can’t see him before Monday evening :/ I really hope it’s just a muscle spasm that’ll resolve itself over the weekend, as opposed to a nasty ear infection or a brain tumour or something (I think it’s a good example of the injustice of the universe that tiny, adorable, relatively harmless creatures like rabbits can even get cancer).
These are my bunnies, Poppy and Gaius Buntar:
Gaius, in white, is the one with head-tilt. Poppy is the ridiculous spherical pile of floof.
Is it possible he’s just listening to a super-hot invisible rabbit? Have you checked your planetary defenses recently?
hahahaha
Aww, Gaius! Feel better, lil buddy!
Gaius Buntar oh my god
I met James Callis at a comic con once and told him about Gaius Buntar and he buried his face in his hands and sighed deeply. (BUT half an hour later during the photo op he actually remembered me and greeted me by name when I arrived for my picture.)
AW. I hope Gaius is okay!
I thought this thread couldn’t get any cuter after the picture of the rabbits and “Gaius Buntar” but it just did.
Hope the bunny gets well soon!
This is kind of a strange response, but my grandmother has also starting tilting lately? But hers was a little stroke, we think. Maybe your rabbit had a little rabbit stroke?
I don’t know if bunnies and dogs are the same, but my (old) dog has vestibular disorder which makes her head tilt. She had a couple of bad episodes – she was super dizzy and vomiting everywhere – and when she recovered the head tilt remained. I usually assume if my dog is eating that she’s basically fine, and I hope it’s the same for your bunny!
My company has a program where if you do something good, they throw some dollars your way that can be used to buy stuff from a (severely limited) online shop or to purchase gift cards that can be used at certain (similarly limited) retailers. I received one of these awards and when I went to cash it in a saw that I had a few others to my name that I had never bothered to cash in. Turns out that one of the places the gift cards can be used is GameStop, so between that and a general Visa gift card I had kicking about, I now have 2/3 of the price of a WII U in free money. I’m totally going to get one once the gift cards arrive, which may be weeks from now, because of course they are mailed at the lowest possible priority.
Also, a clothing question. I am short and mostly small all over but I have large thighs. When I wear jeans (particularly skinny jeans) that knot-y part in the crotch where all the seams come together makes a snapping noise with every step. Does this happen to everyone else? I don’t notice it most of the time but I am extremely self conscious about it at the office on Fridays when we can wear jeans.
Jeans can go suck a duck. Skirts are the best.
Also grats on the free money! I got a car stereo with a CD player via one of those programs!
makes a snapping noise with every step
I know this isn’t what you were going for but I made the 😀 of delight when I read that. Of all the places that sentence was going to go, that was not what I expected.
… maybe it’s a clapping sound. Maybe the world is applauding you.
Your jeans are obviously applauding because it is Friday and you are fantastic.
I have never noticed it bu I am also small with mighty thighs, so it probably does and I’m oblivious. I will try to pay attention next time I am wearing jeans in a quiet place!
I put on some weight recently and I’ve noticed some of my jeans making weird noises! They didn’t used to, so maybe we need a slightly looser fit? Or we can just get used to our marvelously loud crotches.
I’ve been waiting all week to talk about this in a safe space. I’ll try to keep it brief and factual. I could use everybody’s insight here.
Boyfriend and I are very good friends with three people: Drummer, Violinist, and Guitarist. Violinist is Drummer’s daughter. Violinist also used to date Guitarist. We are in a band with Drummer. Boyfriend and Guitarist are best friends.
Guitarist has been using a lot of psychedelic drugs and has been exhibiting increasingly erratic, paranoid, angry behavior. Last week, he got Violinist to come see him under false pretenses, said a bunch of weird paranoid stuff to her, pinned her to the ground several times, and blocked the door so she couldn’t leave. She was eventually able to get away by calming him down. She was not injured.
First question: This is assault, right?
Violinist told Drummer (her mother) about what happened, who passed it on to Boyfriend and I. Drummer was like, “Oh, she’s fine now,” but Boyfriend and I ignored that and immediately went into support mode. Violinist was NOT fine: she was scared and angry and confused. Over the next few days, we spent extra time with Violinist, talking with her about her options (TPO, etc), repeating that the thing that happened wasn’t her fault, calling her to check in, and letting her sleep at our house when she didn’t want to be alone. (She seems to have had the unfortunate and typical experience of no one believing her or taking the incident seriously.)
Second question: Are we being over-protective or “too” supportive?
Our band was scheduled to play a show with Guitarist’s band. Boyfriend and I were in telepathic agreement that we should not play the show (we don’t play shows with people who assault our friends, duh). Drummer agreed but was not insistent on it, and voiced her disappointment with the thought of canceling. I emailed Guitarist and briefly stated that we wouldn’t be playing the show because what he did to Violinist was not ok. Guitarist spent the next few days emailing, texting, and calling all three of us, asking to have his side of the story heard. I did not respond. Boyfriend answered the phone with a very stern “You did a bad thing. You need help. Stop trying to contact us. We don’t want to talk to you right now.” Drummer talked to Guitarist for 45 minutes and then texted us to say Guitarist was sorry and that they “talked about creativity and such and how he thinks it was a mistake to have broken up with Violinist.”
Third question(s): Are we nuts to think that it is strange that Drummer would choose to engage with the person who attacked her daughter? How do we navigate our friendship with her when her actions are hurting Violinist?
Violinist has not had any contact with Guitarist since the attack. Drummer has not talked to either Boyfriend or I since she updated us on her conversation with Guitarist. I have not had any contact with Guitarist. Boyfriend spoke to him a second time (during a particularly frenetic round of Guitarist sending messages and freaking out) to repeat, “You did a bad thing. You need help. Calm down and I will come have lunch with you in a few days and we can talk about your options.” They haven’t spoken since.
Fourth question: What do we do about Guitarist, who is obviously having mental health issues or a drug problem or both? We love him, and he seems to be in need of psychiatric help. Plus, we know that patterns of abuse suggest he will escalate without some kind of intervention. How do we help him without betraying Violinist or condoning Guitarist’s violence against her?
There is so much more backstory and additional interconnection between the five people in this scenario. The most important thing to us right now is that Violinist feel safe and supported, but we also have these other relationships to navigate. It’s hard.
Thanks for listening. And offering whatever insight you have.
1. Yes. That is assault, and it is terrifying.
As for why….people don’t like to think that people they know well can do terrible things, and block them out of their mind. This is how abuse goes unseen a lot of time–people never want to believe that their friend or loved one did something awful. I would find it very, very difficult to continue being friendly with someone like that who was unable to see the pain it was causing her daughter.
But you cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, with mental health or drug problems or both. (Or other issues.) You cannot force help onto someone. If I were you, I would (along with your boyfriend, as a united front) reach out ONCE–to say “We are not going to be able to continue playing or socializing with you until you get help. This is not acceptable behaviour” and then stick to it.
As for the Drummer….that is also tricky. I don’t know what to do there.
Keep supporting the Violinist–it sounds like you are doing great. Please don’t let this fall into the dustbin of “oh something happened but we all just eventually forgot about it,” if it is bothering her that much. It is a big deal. It should be a big deal.
Good luck.
Thank you, and you nailed the struggle I’m having exactly: the initial shock and anger and crisis-mode reaction has passed, and Violinist feels weird but no longer scared or in danger, and so our attention shifts to “What do we do now?” It would be so easy to think “Well, what if we did nothing?” We want to be better than that, for the people we love and for ourselves. Neither of us could live with ourselves if we didn’t keep saying that it IS a big deal. Thank you for validating that.
That can be the worst thing–something terrible happens to you and everyone just…ignores it….and it sort of…goes away? It goes away for everyone ELSE, but for YOU it is there and constant and terrible every time you socialize with these people.
Don’t let that happen.
It’s assault.
The best judge of whether the support you’re giving is the right amount or too much is Violinist. You said she took you up on your offer to let her stay over, and that suggests (to me anyway) that it was welcome. Keep paying attention to how she responds to what you offer her, I think?
Drummer’s behavior is weird and not uncommon. (See, if you’re willing to read about rape, this recent article: https://medium.com/@ktrex_/when-youre-friends-wit… I think, in talking to her, a unified front / party line would be good to have: “Guitarist’s attack on Violinist really shocked and angered us, and he seems to be in bad emotional and mental shape. We really want him to get some help.”
That said, you may not be able to help Guitarist much. You are certainly not responsible for anything he does, though trying to keep him out of spaces that you’re in charge of where he could do it more is probably a good move. Your boyfriend’s move is a really good one but you can’t make someone do the things that would protect other people from him, or him from himself.
That’s a great article: thank you. I especially appreciate it because that’s how I felt too: “Wait, there must be some misunderstanding…” No, this doesn’t work like that.
I feel like being a part of this community (even in a small way) over the past few months really prepared me to handle the situation in a positive way. As soon as I dismissed that “misunderstanding” thought, my immediate reaction was to wrap Violinist in as much support as she wanted/needed. I’m so grateful for the dialog here that helped me go in that direction.
WHOAH. that is some heavy stuff… It sounds like you and your boyfriend are taking it in stride – it is really a Good Thing that you are continuing to support Violinist.
1.) yes, no doubt this is assault.
2.) I don’t believe you are being over protective… my advice would be to maintain support, without actually blocking her choices (even if you feel her choices are harmful to herself – they’re her choices)
3.) I also think it is strange for Drummer to continue to hang with Guitarist, but they’re her choices. She may hurt Violinist, but again – that’s they’re dynamic to figure out. I feel like your ongoing role – being supportive and caring – is the best place for you to be.
As far as Guitarist – trying to convince someone with mental health problems is extremely challenging. If there are concerns that he will hurt himself or others (through actual statements or actions) then police can get involved so he may get committed (involuntarily, although the mental health professionals will try to convince to to voluntarily commit himself, since it has much better long-term consequences).
Best of luck! thanks for being such a good advocate!
Thank you for mentioning not blocking Violinist’s choices! She opted not to file a police report or apply for a TPO because she doesn’t want to give Guitarist any more attention, and we were completely supportive of that, too. I haven’t talked to too many people here (because our social group is large and very close, and it’s not my business to share this information all over our town), but when I do, I feel like there is some disappointment and blame that we didn’t insist she get the TPO.
Also, Boyfriend, in his anger and confusion, said, “If he doesn’t hospitalize himself, I’m gonna 5150 his ass,” so some kind of involuntary commitment is obviously still on the table.
Right now, we’re documenting facts (another (male) friend who lives and works very near to Guitarist has also been the victim of his erratic behavior and is keeping an eye on any additional weirdness) in case we ever have to talk to law enforcement.
1) Yes
2) No such thing (in this type of situation)
3) Yes
In terms of actual advice in navigating these relationships, I don’t really know what to do, but I do want to say thank you for taking this girl seriously and being there for her.
Thank YOU for taking my questions seriously and being here for me.
Reiterating the yes, no, yes responses here. You are doing the right thing and it sounds as though all involved can benefit from the two of you being level-headed and caring. That being said, you have your priorities straight- however this goes forward the most important thing is making sure that violinist feels safe.
Thank you thank you thank you.
My stars, you are all amazing. Thank you.
Aside from everything everyone’s already said I’m sorta also alarmed at Drummer who thinks WELL if the guy who gets hopped up and abducts people feels like he shoulda stayed in a relationship with his hostages THAT MAKES IT ALL OKAY THEN. Getting wasted out of your mind and doing messed up shit you regret later is at least a flavor of nutjob I can understand, if not endorse.
And yeah obvs holding someone hostage in a room, pinning them down and ranting at them etc. is crazy-person out-of-control behavior, and whatever drugs he’s taking are how he gives himself license to do that. He can maybe clean his shit up if he’s not too far gone, but someone who has “his side of the story” doesn’t sound especially remorseful or bent on preventing it from happening again.
Exactly!
Though, some of the backstory goes like this: Drummer may not recognize this as domestic abuse due to her own experiences with it. Drummer’s ex-husband / Violinist’s father (who is also a good friend) is an emotionally manipulative dude with a temper. I’ve been friends with the family for almost 20 years (Violinist is 20 — I’ve known them since she was in diapers) and the truth about the family dynamic has only really started to surface in the last few years. (They divorced two years ago after 4 or 5 increasingly unhappy years.)
I wonder if Drummer a) doesn’t recognize this for what it is and b) resents the speed at which Boyfriend and I reacted to this situation vs her own. I see all sorts of weird there, and I don’t know how to talk to Drummer about it without sounding like I’m judging her for being a terrible mother.
I think unless they’re specifically looking out for it people tend to just kinda reflexively latch onto any excuse for how what they’re experiencing is normal and everything is fine and nobody they know did anything that’s a big deal.
Hell, while it never quite got to ‘oh he’s just stalking and kidnapping her because he’s in loooooove!’ levels I’ve done it in the past, including shit that was done to me. When one of my childhood doctors went down as a kiddy fiddler I spent years telling folks ‘nothing ever happened to me, I don’t know anything about it’ until by pure chance I ran across a specific independent account of exactly what he was accused of doing and hahaha welp. Guess I coulda reconsidered those ‘hernia exams’ sooner!
Maybe drop a bunch of news articles about abusive relationship that played out the same way this did on her? There isn’t exactly a shortage.
Denial is so powerful, isn’t it? Those are terrible things that happened to you, and I wish that doctor hadn’t done them.
I get the impression you have dealt / are dealing with it in a positive way, though? I appreciate your contribution to this conversation.
For Drummer, her situation was so much less clear. I was close with the family and nothing ever seemed weird. They had normal married people problems (jealousy, miscommunication, shouting) that got worse during the bad years of the recession. Then I watched Drummer and her husband stop existing in the same reality: they had a strange dynamic where she was very suspicious of everything he said and did, and he reacted to it with anger and hostility. I don’t think he ever hit her, but he would do things like punch walls. They tried counseling, and it didn’t work. I was supportive when they separated. I was absent during the most intense part of their divorce because that was right when my mom was diagnosed with lymphoma, so I sometimes wonder if she holds that against me (kinda the way I was hurt that she wasn’t there for me when my mom was dying).
Since the divorce, she has started using words like “abuse” and referring to him as an “abuser,” but it’s not clear what she means and it’s so much harder to know what to do with that. He isn’t in her life anymore, and I still have a friendship with him (though not as close as we were many years ago). It’s clear he was emotionally abusive, but it’s equally clear that she was too. It’s so hard. How do you support someone after the fact, when it’s not clear what the offenses were?
And I wonder if she’s, I don’t know what the word is: jealous? Violinist has said that whenever she tries to talk to her mom about stuff that Guitarist has said or done, Drummer goes to a place of “Well you have it so much better than I do” and goes to a kind of competitive place with it.
And if I failed Drummer in supporting her while she was being abused, how do I make that right?
I don’t know what I’m even saying. Thanks for holding space for me to babble about it.
Hey, hold the phone here, you don’t have a time machine. You can think about the past of this family (which sounds like an atomic shitshow, frankly) in a “this helps me understand the present” way and you can think about it in a “what kind of friend and advocate can I be in the future” way, and both of those are really good ways and it sounds like you’re doing them. But I think be careful of the “make it right” narrative — I know you’re just feeling your way into these thoughts, but that narrative puts more on you than belongs there.
Asking Drummer some gentle questions when she says something that seems off to you / doesn’t jibe with your version of events could be a good way to support her in the present and help her, and you, get a look at what she’s thinking and feeling. It MIGHT also help you get to a point of either “Okay, I get it” or “This person is making some sort of effort, conscious or unconscious, to not look honestly at what’s happening and I can’t make her.” But it might not. Everything might stay murky.
You are only one of many people in this situation. It sounds like you’re making careful and diligent choices, and that may enable other people to do the same, but it won’t ensure that, so I hope you won’t put it on yourself.
Hot damn. Thank you for that. It’s the same thing I would have said to anyone else in my situation, and I failed to see it myself (of course). And if she is feeling any of those things — no idea if she is; theories abound — then it is up to her to verbalize them to me.
The facts are that she isn’t supporting my other friend, her daughter, through a really weird and scary time, and that makes me uncomfortable. And that is ultimately on me to bring up with her directly, since I’m the one who feels weird. Yeah?
Yeah, I think you’ve sorted that out well.
I guess one other thing to think about is that when you — okay, I, so maybe I’m projecting here — have a realization of this sort (“This thing this person is doing is making me uncomfortable because it is wrong / harmful / unkind”), it can kind of swell to fill your thoughts, which can sometimes spur you to hasten a confrontation so that you can like … complete the trajectory of this really hard conversation, if that makes any sense. Also, it feels genuinely urgent because it’s a safety thing.
BUT if it’s at all possible for you to wait till you and Drummer are in the same place and wait for HER to say something that offers you an opportunity to say, “Hey, you don’t seem to take it seriously that Violinist is really scared and shaken and trying to figure out what to do to be safe, and that bugs me, what’s up?” I think that might work better, given what you’ve said about her and the stance she seems to be taking.
That makes lots of sense. Thank you for that. I don’t tolerate strong emotions very well (it’s why I play music, really: to have an outlet for The Feels). I have a hard time with confrontation (makes me feel so icky!) and when something feels bad I like to deal with it Like Right This Second. One of my goals for this year is to practice holding things loosely, to let things be what they are without my stranglehold on them. So hard to tell if this was one of those opportunities to practice that, or a time when I needed to buckle down and get all Big Sister on everyone.
Now I can see that, for Violinist, the Big Sister reaction was appropriate and loving and hopefully ultimately helpful, and my reactions to everyone else can go in the Held Loosely pile.
(FWIW, my reaction to Boyfriend has been “Holy shit, what a champ.” I also suspected he’d be great in this kind of crisis, god forbid we ever had to deal with it, and he turned out to be really good at it.
What an awful thing to have to be good at, though.)
You are very wise. Thank you for your advice, which I will totally take.
Yeah IDK from this account I really wouldn’t expect her to be like going into denial out of revenge for percieved wrongs so much as just having maybe internalized a certain degree of terror as normal in a relationship, which I don’t think just goes away when you finally identify one abusive relationship as abnormal, but you know her and I don’t.
You are right. I think I got caught up in a “how is this my fault?” narrative, which isn’t helpful to anyone.
The last texts we exchanged were along the lines of her saying “Oh, I talked to Guitarist and he’s sorry” and me replying “This is domestic abuse, it is dangerous, and it will escalate, so I will not engage with him.”
Her silence sent me down the theory rabbit hole, but the idea that she isn’t taking it seriously because she has “internalized a certain degree of terror as normal in a relationship” is sad and frightening and probably very very true. Thank you thank you thank you.
Also, do you want to talk about your experience? I did not mean to be like “Oh that’s terrible now let’s talk about me some more.” I’m here to listen as well, if you want to talk.
Nah fucker’s dead and I’m doin’ fine and even at the time my reaction was less trauma and more ugh one more unpleasant arbitrary thing adults make me do. I’m kinda pissed that my denial served to help dismiss the claims of the people who did get really fucked up by it and glad I don’t gotta feel so awkward about my next yearly physical and that’s about the end of it. Your thing’s still goin’ on and there’s something to do about it.
I am very fond of you.
Ditto to everyone above: Yes, this is assault. No, you are not over-supporting (are you worried about making this a bigger deal than it would have been without your intervention, maybe? It can be hard to call a duck a duck when everyone else says the wind just quacks sometimes. You’re creating a safe space for Violinist. That’s absolutely the right thing to do).
I’ll deviate on the third question, though: No, it’s not weird. It’s not unusual for folks–parents, friends, lovers–to ignore assault that doesn’t involve blood. I mean, if he had like, REALLY hurt her, there’d be marks, right???? She may be acting our of ignorance. I don’t know if there’s anything you can/should do to change that, but yeah, her thinking about assault is lazy and probably damaging to Violinist.
No advice on how to handle this, though. I’m sorry you have such a mess on your hands.
Thanks! You are correct. A day or two after the attack, Boyfriend and I were talking alone and I said, “Are we blowing this out of proportion? We seem to be the only people who are really alarmed. No one else is calling this assault?”
There is also a concern that our involvement might make things worse, either by inflaming Guitarist’s already fractured moods or by getting in between Drummer and her daughter, or by scaring Violinist more than she already is. (Man, I was so tender/awkward with the TPO talk, “I’ve got some info about TPO if you want to talk about that? I’m not advocating one way or the other, just know it’s there if you want it? I don’t want to scare you, but do you think this could happen again?”)
Which I guess is the other thing I didn’t mention: Violinist told us that Guitarist had PARKED OUTSIDE HER HOUSE FOR A WEEK when he first broke up with her. (HE broke up with HER, to sleep with other girls, and still thinks they are going to be together forever? This is not rational thought.) That was the point when I was comfortable saying, “This is domestic abuse, and it will escalate, and it is not ok, and we have to do something.”
Dealing with stress and lots of Money Stuff that is overshadowing everything. Trying to make the best decisions for myself and hold things together. Things could be worse! But they aren’t great and it isn’t pleasant.
Meanwhile this weekend I will (hopefully) be building more bookshelves and taking care of the last few piles/boxes I have left from the move.
New quarter begins Monday! Which I am kind of glad about because this was a weirdly long break and I’m ready to have students back in my library.
Is there a way to search Toast comments? Either through Intense Debate or through the the site itself or some other way? B/c I know there’ve been many threads on SF books and I’m looking for some new reads, and being able to re-find those discussions would be amazing.
There was definitely another long one when you posted yours a few weeks ago that seemed like it was collecting a different set of stuff. I’ve probably left some sort of book recommendation on an awful lot of those sorts of threads, so you’re welcome to dig through my comment history and see if you can track old threads down that way- I bet the same would be true for other commenters that have recommended books recently. Otherwise I really have no idea if there’s any way at all to search for that sort of thing.
I spent all yesterday checking for the Open Thread (really slow/mind-numbing day at work) … only to realize it was Thursday at about 3:00 PM.
So, now it’s FRIDAY AND YAY IT’S HERE!
My job is terrible and boring right now (and stressful most days), but I’ve made new friends this month, and I’m hanging out with them tonight — and it’s the best feeling ever. It’s like a new romance without over-analyzing and potential heartbreak. Also — I’m so happy to meet people in the summer with patios, beach days, outdoor movies and park picnics — so many lovely ways to spend time!
How is everyone’s summer going? What are your favourite things to do in the summer?
I spent all yesterday checking for the Open Thread (really slow/mind-numbing day at work) … only to realize it was Thursday at about 3:00 PM.
Oh my god, I did the EXACT SAME THING. WHAT.
It’s the week after a short week! It means that your brain doesn’t believe it can be five days long…
I LOVE new friends. And summer is the best time to meet them! The way you describe it – perfect. So happy that you are having this experience.
I am at the beach right now, which is pretty great. About to make homemade pretzels. Drank prosecco by the water. Things are good.
Oh, that sounds lovely! Especially the homemade pretzels. I’m still at work but am about to go “work-at-home” (i.e. from a patio sipping an italian soda).
OH! Sorry for the second post, but I forgot to mention I’m having a sale in my Etsy store to try to get a little more money to pay for my trip to Comic-Con. Twenty percent off all bloomers with coupon code SUMMER20 through July 20.
so I am also going through a breakup right now, and for some reason reading ALLLL about other people’s breakup experiences (current or past; best or worst) is helping me a lot. please post your breakup stories here, if you feel like it!
also welcome are stories about how you(/your partner) were abysmal at communicating but then got better at it. I am feeling at a loss for how to ever develop that skill 🙁
I am really, really sorry you’re having a tough time. All the love.
When I was in tenth grade, my boyfriend of three months took the following tack to break up with me:
1. Stop talking to me entirely at school, online, and over the phone.
2. When confronted about it (over AIM, trolololol), tell me we should cut back to just being friends with benefits. (This was particularly ironic because we had kissed, once, and that’s it, so there were no “benefits” to speak of.)
3. Continue to say the minimum possible number of words to me while remaining in my circle of friends for the rest of the year.
He actually really came through for me as a friend in my last few years in high school, and we are still kind of close. But man, never shoulda dated.
Husband used to be terrible at communicating because in his family, “communicating” meant his alcoholic mother screaming at everyone in her drunken rages, so he had learned to bottle (wow that seems like a terrible pun in this context) up his emotions to avoid provoking her. It took a while to make him understand that he could talk to me about what was bothering him and we could talk about it like rational, sober adults, and that just because we had a fight didn’t mean I was going to leave him.
I don’t know if I really have any helpful advice here – it just took a lot of time and patience. And some wheedling to talk to me whenever I saw that he was starting to withdraw in his little shell.
just knowing that it is possible yet difficult is helpful, so thank you for sharing!
My worst story is still my first, luckily its not fresh but I still get roiling feelings remembering it. Simple facts, we had grown apart, I tried to break up with him, he utilized loads of emotional manipulation to keep me from doing that, then proceeded to cheat and break up with me. Then continued to contact me with concerns about his new relationship, because that was his idea of maintaining a friendship. My heartbroken esteem shattered self continued to take his calls, until the day he called to let me know that he was going through a pregnancy scare with new girlfriend, at which point I threw my phone against the wall and it broke into many cathartic pieces!! (it was a pink razr cause I had mad style in college).
SO yeah worst. BUT COMMUNICATION IS GREAT and I just had a very serious conversation with s/o on the eve of our anniversary, about how we really struggled to establish communication in the early stages of our relationship, and that it took massive amounts of getting over our respective stubborn natures in order to get to the happy goofy collaborative place we’re at now (with obvious caveats of constantly working on it together/ checking in).
<3<3 to you, you will get through this, things will be clear again.
Yay for hearing about other partners with rocky starts!
thank you! yes, communication is great. one day I will know this feeling! haha.
My last ex never actually took me places–we just hung out at one of our places. We dated for way longer than we should have, and he broke up with me by ignoring my calls, texts, vm, fb messages, defriending me, then giving me the “I’m awful, I am a terrible person, I just know it, I feel so awful” treatment. (This is the same dude who friended me again this week! WHY. He is, delightfully, still single and worse-looking.)
Another one broke up with me to date another girl in our undergrad class, but told me not to tell anyone because it might “get weird” as we were in the same program. It did NOT get weird, because he dropped out of school the next year, and I graduated with honours and went to get my Master’s.
Another mistaken ex I broke up with the morning after an insanely drunken party at 6am. He was probably still drunk. I WOKE HIM UP to say “You know, this isn’t working for me” and he clung to my arm going “But why??? Why????? Whyyyy???? I wanted to take you on a cruise!” for like, ten minutes. I RAN, literally, from that house, and got a bagel and took the bus home and spent the rest of the weekend in blissful solitude.
your last story haha! go you.
I feel like decisions made at 6am are usually questionable at best BUT you clearly made the right move.
WORST BREAK-UP was the guy I’d been sleeping with for a few months who followed up the “this isn’t working, isn’t every going to work” talk I had with him with a string of abusive messages via text and facebook informing me in increasing detail what a terrible person I was and what violent sorts of things I deserved. Predictably, the messages came full circle to begging for forgiveness and asking if he could take me out for an “I’m sorry” meal. Uh, no.
High school: My BF told me he was gay, but we continued to have (surprisingly good) make-out sessions. Then I started to freak out about how long we’d been together (I have commitment issues) and broke up with him a week before prom. I was such an asshole. We still went to prom together but didn’t talk for the rest of the school year. To this day, I don’t know if he ever figured out if he was gay or not. He was a good guy and didn’t deserve me.
College: I fell in love/lust at first site with a dude who was seeing someone else. We hung out as lust-addled friends for years before finally shacking up. We were together for a year when I found out he’d been cheating on me. Which, to be fair, should not have been a surprise since we’d been cheating with each other on our respective partners for the three years leading up to that. We were such assholes, god. We totally deserved each other.
Adult: Should have been a fling, but no, I stuck it out with this guy for seven years even though he was emotionally abusive and a total man-child. I was trying to apply the lessons I’d learned from other relationships and not freak out about commitment, be understanding about his different background, etc. A year after we bought a house together, I found out he was cheating on me. God, he was an asshole and I seriously did not deserve him.
And now! The happy ending (with communication lesson)! My beloved and I went through a rough beginning for sure. We had tons of baggage and had to learn to discuss how emotional and physical abuse from previous relationships affected us and how the other was not the partner from the previous abusive relationship and how much it hurt when the other person treated us like we were. We had to learn how to navigate around incredibly different love languages (he is optimistic, and emotional–I am pessimist and a Vulcan). We talked a lot. I mean a lot. Hours of talk, every day. It’s crucial to not just want to be understood by your partner, but actively want to understand them, as well. And when understanding isn’t possible, you still have to respect them and their feelings.
Good luck and best wishes. Communication is, I think, something that just needs to be practiced. Constantly and with enthusiasm. The only way to develop it is to just keep doing it.
hmmm, hours of talk every day huh? I know deep down that this is what is required, but I can’t seem to get myself to do it. I’m like, “ehhh, I can go without talking for one day. …and another. …and forever.” I don’t know when I will learn my lesson (or when my ex will learn his). but these success stories are giving me hope.
Well, okay, maybe not every day every day, but…probably five out of seven days we talk for at least an hour. On the weekends, we’ll talk for hours.
And you know, it’s totally okay if you never get there. I mean, to be honest, my relationship with the beloved is the second most important thing in my life (the first is my health). So yeah, I spend a lot of time on it. That’s not everyone’s thing, though, and that’s completely cool. You just gotta be honest with yourself about your priorities and not feel bad or let anyone else give you shit about something that’s just not Super Incredibly Important to you. You know? It’s fine.
We all make our own priorities. Don’t let anyone shame you for yours. And don’t kid yourself about what’s really important to you, either. If deep emotional intimacy with a partner isn’t a crucial, necessary thing in your life, own that truth and find other amazing and brilliant ways to invest your time and energy.
I’m really hoping that doesn’t sound snarky because I don’t mean it to be at all. Despite how it sounds above, I’ve had great relationships where I did not have the level of communication I share with the beloved. It took me about two or three years in this relationship before I realized that I wanted to make it such a high priority.
Yes, yes, this!
baby_crow, I do not know anything about you, but you know, it is not everyone whose romantic relationship is the centre of their life, and that is JUST FINE. Yes, you can definitely learn to communicate more if you want to, it is hard work but it is incredibly doable and there are lots of resources out there. But also maybe the person who is going to be right for you is someone who is also fairly quiet? and doesn’t need to talk much? and the two of you are going to find some kind of balanced relationship where you do things together but are not living in each other’s pockets?
I mean, really, I do not know what you want in the world, but I am wanting to second and third what CleverManka said, because there are SO MANY ways to do relationships in this world. Your own way is going to be yours, and you get to do it how you want and find someone who wants to do it LIKE THAT, not however it looks in the latest popular RomCom or whatever.
One of the very interesting things about sharing a body with people is that I get to not just watch but feel a little from the inside how differently people (male and female, different ages) do their intimate relationships. It is SO much more different than the outside world would like to admit.
this is a very useful perspective, thank you! I definitely do want to communicate more in some ways — I feel like I stifle myself about things that need to be said — but it’s good to remember that there is no one right way to relationship. something I will be reflecting upon.
didn’t sound snarky to me! I see your point that it’s not for everyone. personally, though, I really WANT to get to the level of intimacy that you describe. like you, my relationship was a really high priority for me, and I loved the time that we spent doing nothing but talking. I had problems making that communication happen when it came to a topic that felt even mildly confrontational, which is when I would start to justify not talking and avoiding it for as long as possible – probably at the times we should have been talking the most. I think part of me is still wondering if that problem was fixable, so that’s where my curiosity about others’ challenges/methods is coming from.
Ohhhhhhhh yes. That problem is fixable. Definitely. It is a long road but it is a walkable one, to go from being so afraid of confrontation that you silence yourself to not.
thank you, again. stay tuned for next open thread, when I ask about how this is possible 🙂
Oh, hon, I’m sorry you’re going through this and feeling sad. But I will share a short version of my most-recent, and also worst (and funniest, in retrospect) breakup:
Last year my boyfriend of nearly two years dumped me, clear out of the blue.
Via email.
On Valentines Day.
All the “love stuff” in the air made him realize he didn’t love me and maybe had never loved me! “Sorry about the timing, but I figured it was better to get it over with.”
geez! that is comically awful indeed.
sorry to hear about your breakup 🙁 not sure if i’ve had a “best” break up experience but here are some worsts:
high school: tried to be friends with an ex but it turned into an on-again-off-again thing that culminated in him breaking up with me via telling his best friend who was dating my best friend that he was just dating me for sex (not true), so that I would break up with him. A year later found out he was still in love with me via his ex. #dramaqueen.
college: broke up with bf who implied he would harm himself if I stopped “being there for him.” tried to be friends with him for ~2 months during which he would call me from an unknown number (sometimes in the middle of the night) almost daily and not say anything. seriously thought something was wrong with my phone. “friendship” ended when he told me it was he who had been calling me.
lesson: don’t try to be friends with an ex (before either of you are ready/maybe ever?)
oh boy. I am also anti-friendships with exes, it never turns out well [for me]!
My “high school sweetheart” (together 2 years) broke up with me two days before Thanksgiving my freshman year of college and then the next day asked me to get back together. Turns out he only did that because his mom wanted me at Thanksgiving dinner. He then broke up with me again the day after Thanksgiving but only AFTER getting laid one last time. Then a week later I met his new girlfriend and found out they’d been dating six months by then. Woo.
In grad school a friend of mine had set me up at DragonCon with a guy thinking we had similar interests. Turns out we had nothing in common because all the things she thought we had in common were lies he’d told her because he thought I was cute and wanted an “in.” After a few months of long-distance faffing around, I broke up with him over gchat. He then grilled me about WHY and tried to argue his way out of it, and when I didn’t put up with that, he started an ineffectual online smear campaign that only resulted in all our mutual friends going “Yeesh, wow, he’s a real dick.” So, that was fun.
I dated a guy for a few weeks in high school before we realized we had barely ANYTHING in common at all. One day he found me in the hall and said “we’re not really good at this dating thing, are we?” I agreed and we parted ways. Six months later one of my best friends comes to me and asks if I would care if she dated him. Of course I had no issues there! 15 years later, they’ve been married 8 years and have two gorgeous kids, it’s great.
oh man! that last one – life is crazy.
so I accidentally dated someone who I generally wouldn’t even talk to and when that relationship ran its ugly and short course, things were fine for a while. then I moved to the same town he did with my new (and also old; we dated twice) boyfriend and got a job. then exbf started sending me ‘anonymous’ letters AT WORK with custom stamps of dachshunds (my favorite breed) about how he regrets how he treated me and pleas to start again. when those went ignored and I mentioned on fb that i was thinking of moving away, he rented out the marquee of the theater DIRECTLY across from my office and had it say “(NAME) PLEASE DON’T GO”.
when that didn’t work, he got a dog that looked exactly like mine– same breed and coloring– and named him after a character in my favorite movie.
he still emails me (as of last week) and I still ignore his emails.
holy shit a marquee!?!?!?!
and a DOG?!?!
I’m frightened.
¯\(°_o)/¯
he lives far away now and is basically harmless.
:-/
that is good to hear.
I have some horrible breakups, but the *funniest* one has to be the dude I’d been seeing/doing it with for about a month, who stopped contacting me for about a week and finally responded to my ‘wtf?’ email with a heartfelt message about how he was sorry but he just didn’t feel a ‘grand passion’ for me, which was a shame because I was lovely and charming and ‘relatively bright’.
Given that this was the week before I aced my PhD thesis defence, I had one short cry then rolled around laughing.
omg. that is golden.
lol! I briefly dated someone once who broke up with me because I didn’t “make his heart sing.” Men. Ugh.
wow guys, so this time last Friday, I was getting shitfaced with work mates at a pub, post-drinking a bunch of beer at home for our afternoon 4th of July bbq. And wow, did I get massively drunk. Apparently I was encouraged to sing a song about America so I just did one monotone made-up song that apparently sounded like a Gregorian chant (so I’m told anyway because I have no recollection). I made faces at a colleague’s pug for about 30 minutes (its tongue stuck out of its closed mouth. How could I not?). While what I remember was deliriously fun, I don’t love getting so wasted that I can’t remember things the next day and feel profoundly hungover AT WORK 🙁 . So.
Anyway, here’s to a (mostly) sober weekend!
I am at the beach with my family, and it is the most relaxing place in the world. I feel very lucky to have my life right now.
ALSO, I started watching Chopped with my cousin last night, and now I am very much Into It.
Chopped is the best.
I just finished a season of Chopped Canada, and it was just like American Chopped, but it had this thing going on where, when there was a female contestant, she’d win like 75% of the time. (As opposed to American Chopped where the women never seem to win). Misandry!
Chopped! I haven’t seen it yet but I think I need to replace Hell’s Kitchen with a better, less verbally abusive reality food show. I’ve heard so many good things about Chopped that it’s next on my list.
Chopped is oddly addictive; I don’t usually care about cooking shows and suddenly I’ll find that I just watched 4 episodes back to back. The judging comments can sometimes be harsh, but fair and they’re not insulting/abusive like Hell’s Kitchen.
I’m paralyzed by career indecision lately: I don’t know if I should switch my focus or if I should just keep doing what I’m doing. Also, I feel old and tired.
::FLAILS::
I wish you clarity and fortitude for the first thing, and a REST, if you can get one, for the second. What would a rest feel like? What would be restorative?
Thanks!
My mind could stand to be quieter. It tends to run around in circles of worry. Maybe I should take up meditation. Ugh.
Healthy distraction. Do you have a sport you enjoy? Jogging used to serve as meditation for me. Or a long walk. If you like dogs and kitties, volunteer at the nearest shelter. Furry affection is good for what ails you.
tl;dr: Take care of yourself.
Thank you! Yes, I like jogging and it does make me feel better. Maybe more sleep would help (I have a young’un who doesn’t understand the concept).
I think that I probably have to stop measuring myself against others’ successes, too. Many things to contemplate.
Put that child in a stroller and go for a walk. At the mall, if the weather is not cooperative.
And gods, yes, let go of what you perceive in others. No one is as good or as bad as they appear to others.
Suggested measurement: Did my child smile today? Does my child feel safe? These are goals not to be taken lightly. Please measure yourself with kindness. You deserve more.
~Formerly an unsmiling, always frightened child
Aw, dang, I meant to try to get this up before it went all on to page two, BUT! The play that I talked about before that I was working on:
Empress of the Moon: The Lives of Aphra Behn
about Aphra Behn, famous playwright and also SPY, is opening on TUESDAY in Washington DC!
Do you live in DC? Do you like plays about women and also swordfights? This is a play like that! It is six women who play a variety of different roles, male and female, and sometimes they are in disguise as well, oh man, it’s complex.
Plus, swords.
Here is the show page!
https://www.capitalfringe.org/festival-2014/shows…
Spies and sword fights and a description of the protagonist that includes “how many men did she kill?” My love of subterfuge, swashbuckling, and misandry are all there! Definitely adding this to my Capital Fringe Festival list.
We deifnitely have some A+ swashing of bucklers in this one.
(metaphorically; no one has an actual buckler to swash, it’s just the swords)
I am going to this!! My partner got me tickets for… I’m not sure why. But there was an adorably horrible hand drawn card of him being an owl and me being a bee accompanying the tickets so I mostly focused on that. I’M REALLY EXCITED FOR IT!!
If I were in DC I would be at this show IN A HEARTBEAT.
I would totally go see that if I were in DC! Any chance it’ll ever come to New York?
There is a CHANCE that it will come to New York, but I don’t know if you’re familiar with how the process of getting a new play produced in places works, but…well, it’s fucking terrible. I had a writing professor in college who, when I asked him what I should do if I wanted to make a career as a playwright, he kind of shrugged and was like, “I dunno, write a bunch of world premieres, I guess?”
Fingers crossed though! Life is mysterious! The theater is mysteriouser!
Oh, ALSO, haven’t posted this in a while: Any Toasties in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area interested in meeting up sometime? I’m @safvn on Twitter, you can follow and DM me there if you don’t feel like posting here!
UNHHHHH I (not that recently but it still feels recent plus that’s just where my heart is) just moved away from Chapel Hill. I miss it so much. I would totally have met up. There was a Hairpin meet up a few years ago in Durham so I’ll look around and see if I can find something for you.
YES! Hi.
Toasties, you’re all functional adults, right? I graduated from college in May, and went to an internship in a faraway land for the summer. I’m in a place right now where I’m planning on making a move (NC to Boston) in about a month. I have a temporary place to live (with my grandmother), but I very much need to find a job there as soon as possible. I have qualifications, I interview well, I know all the logical steps to take, but I’m sort of paralyzed by fear? Like I can’t bring myself to actually send out any applications?
Does anyone have any advice for convincing oneself that one is a capable adult who can do things and have a life and career?
Things that help me:
– Low quotas. The non-survival adult thing that I hate most is calling people to do things for me that I can’t do for myself (example: installing gutters). I tell myself that ALL I have to do is make that phone call, that barring the unforeseen, that will be my hard thing for today, and all the other things I have to do today can be easy or at least familiar-if-annoying.
– Relatedly: someone to brag to who will recognize small triumphs as triumphs, and will respond to “I got two applications in today,” with, “I’m so glad to hear it, you rule.”
– Making a shadow resume that lists ALL my skills and accomplishments that I’m particularly proud of, not just the professional ones (example: “good at turning the weird contents of an end-of-week fridge into tasty food”). This sounds sooooo cheesy and motivational-speaker-y but it is good to see everything I have going for me laid out in front of me.
Speaking of the lat thing–I have a master record resume with EVERYTHING on it. All the jobs, all the skills, everything. That way I can just pick and drop the things I want and curate my resume to the job itself, rather than constantly altering stuff.
You must conquer the fear. It is terrible and awful, I know, but you MUST.
Read askamanager.org to learn the ways of resumes and cover letters and follow her advice. And then you just have to bite the bullet and do it. It sucks, I know. I found it easiest to start applying for jobs I didn’t care whether I got, just to sort of take the edge off and warm up?
Also I would promise myself treats if I got through a certain number of applications or whatever per day.
Sometimes it helps me to picture myself sending the applications off into the aether, rather than to a real live person. Sadly, most of the time, this is basically what’s happening. But! That’s kinda comforting, in a way. So just start sending ’em out and rinse and repeat. Somewhere, someone will actually look at it and then good things will follow!
Just remember it is totally possible to have your heart in your throat and still do things. Waiting till you’re not scared never works, b/c change is inherently scary, even if it’s change we want.
I recommend making sure to have a good mix of people you share with about your job hunt. Have a few people who will be your cheerleaders and celebrate the small steps and have a few people who will check in and give you some tough love when needed.
Look at job postings and track your emotional reaction. Be gentle with yourself when you feel nervous. Notice when you get excited about something.
Something I found useful was to ask friends to send me copies of the cover letters and resumes that got them their current positions. Maybe you already have that stuff down, but it was good to see how people present themselves and different style options.
And yeah you kind of just have to do it. But you can because I bet you’re awesome!!
I did an internship in a faraway land before my last semester! I remember talking to a friend I met during my internship, who was very good at the career stuff, and I think I literally asked him “how does one… get… jobs?” Instead of giving me practical advice he just told me that job hunting is like fishing – you have to just put in a bunch of hooks and see what bites. (I have no clue if fishing is actually like this, lol). How I roughly translated this during my post-grad job hunt was to try hard to apply for many things at once and keep the momentum going. I found that helped alleviate fear/anxiety because at least I wasn’t fixated on getting that ONE perfect job that hadn’t called me back yet. The idea is that by the time you’re starting to feel sad about a job you hadn’t heard from, you’ve already applied for like, 5 other things that could be potential leads.
oh and try to set up job hunting as though it were your job, schedule-wise. I would try to get up early, leave the house, go somewhere (cafe/library) to send out applications for x amount of hours, then go home. That way I found I could actually relax and feel some sense of accomplishment. It forces you to take real breaks which alleviates some of the stress/anxiety as well. Good luck!
Take it one day at a time. Just a little forward progress is great: apply to two jobs a day. Set aside an hour a day to research apartment prices nearby, but stop when you’re feeling overwhelmed and give yourself time to think about something else and have a cup of tea. (On overwhelming mornings, I make myself coffee and climb back in bed to watch Beyonce music videos. Find one or two things that can get you out of bed.)
Figure out treats you can give yourself for each small success: finishing your resume, submitting one job application, and so on. Even if it’s just an episode of a TV show or ice cream instead of dinner.
If you can, travel to see friends from school and stay on their couches. They are feeling lonely, overwhelmed, and underemployed, too. It’s very comforting to talk with other people in the same boat. (In a few years you guys might not want to sleep on the couch anymore, and might not have as much time to travel, so go see each other this year.) It can change your frame of mind to get out of town, even for a weekend.
It can take weeks or months to hear back from jobs. You don’t have to decide whether you’d take the job before you apply for it: you just want to make new connections in as many places as you can. Your first priority right now is to put yourself out there to open as many doors as possible. You could do informational interviews; you could go to local “young professionals” nights if they exist and give out a couple of cards with your email address. You can do informational interviews with alumni from your college. You will sort out what you want to do after you have an offer, but all you have to do right now is initiate some connection to the places you want to work and the people you want to work for.
You do not have to figure out your whole life. You just need a place to get started.
Temping gets you shit jobs from a butt but recruiters take all the pressure off sending your resume everywhere and tailoring it to a hundred companies you’ve never heard of which is absolutely a godsend if you need a job right away and can’t just latch onto your rich uncle’s company.
It also gets you work experience that’s real valid work experience that is guaranteed to improve your employment prospects, unlike unpaid college internships.
I went through this the may before last (and then again this past may, switching jobs) and had the same paralyzing fear. I think I have still not convinced myself that I am a capable adult, but I have been employed since college! the only thing that worked for me in terms of Just Doing It was to take tiiiiny steps at a time. “apply to a job today” sounded too scary, but on any given day I could tweak my resume, make a list of available positions, write just one draft of one cover letter, etc. that gave me some momentum so that I did eventually apply to a job. which snowballed into “hey I can just do that again! and again!”
You guys these are all so helpful I’m overcome with Toast love aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh
I feel like a lot of people I know had a rough week, and I spent a lot of time being super mad about people’s gross and dickish behavior, and then IT WASN’T EVEN THE WEEKEND YET when I got up this morning.
But! I had a job interview yesterday for a position that seems awesome and really well tailored to my skill set, and I liked the people I interviewed with, AND it’s right by a really good bakery, and I think the interview itself went really well. So: everybody keep your fingers crossed, please?
Also I’m going to the beach tomorrow and I am going shopping for a hat after work today. Life could be a lot worse.
Fingers crossed!
Yay beach! Yay hats!
crossing my fingers for you! bakery-proximity is important.
enjoy the beach and your fancy new hat!
Fingers crossed about the job interview!!!
Also, if you find a nice hat, can we get a hat-wearing selfie? Yeah? Maybe?
The weather outside today is absolute perfection. I would like to bask in it and drink rose.
Anyone studying for the bar? I am wishing good luck to all the Toasties who have chosen this fate.
me! for the 2nd time! the beauty and freedom of summer is a mockery of my liiiiiiiiife
Today I got my hair cut. Got about 4″ chopped off so now it just hits my shoulders. Tonight we are going to see the local soccer team the Aztex play here is Austin. Good times.
Today is also my younger daughter’s 6th birthday. My baby is no longer a baby. *sniff sniff*
She’ll always be your baby.
Any suggestions for selling a wedding dress? I’ve got a very simple J. Crew gown, minimally altered & professionally cleaned, that none of the consignment shops in my area seem to want. (Also, I’d be thrilled to sell it to a Toast reader if anyone’s in the market! Photos here.) You can email me at [the first name in that link].[Dirty Harry’s last name]@gmail.com.
I have absolutely no need for a wedding dress and you are much smaller than I am, anyway but OH MY GOD LOOKIT YOUR GUNS! Rawr!
I was just coming here to say, DANG girl where are the tickets to that gun show?? (Also the dress is lovely.)
Haha, thanks! That’s actually more of a “before” photo; these days my arms are even more beastly! I’ll have to take a more current photo to share later 🙂
I have no dress-selling advice, but your wedding looks like it was THE BEST!!!!! 🙂
Hoooooly shit your wedding looks incredible! So much happiness! I do not need a dress but I do need a circle of high fives.
What an incredibly beautiful wedding! And your DAD. Dad dance moves are always the best.
I’ve heard decent things about preownedweddingdresses.com and oncewed.com if you want to sell it online? Also you could try the Craigslist thing in your area?
You can also donate to Brides Against Breast Cancer if they’re in your area.
OMG I am not in the market but I love your dress! And I had friends get married at the Carnegie Institute! So awesome!
Your wedding looks beautiful and everyone is so happy! Yay! PS: Who was your photographer? was on it that blog and I missed it?
The photos are on our photographer’s blog! Her name is Amber Wilkie and she is awesome. Aside from taking beautiful photos, I’m pretty sure she’s the kind of person who would love The Toast.
Toasties! I need new shoes. I work in a lab doing research so they need to be close-toed and mostly cover my feet and be sorta comfy. I’ve been wearing Chuck Taylors of various age the past few years and I think it’s time to upgrade. Thoughts?!?!?!?!?!
Dansko clogs are the comfiest! I wore them when I worked pushing a dessert cart at a ball park one summer. They’ve got fantastic arch support and can come with non-slip soles, if that’s important to you. They’re also really well-made and will last you for years and years. Plus, they’re at a nice mid-point between dressy and not, so I can wear them to my office job and to run errands without looking weird.
Seconded!
I wear knockoff Danskos (Sanitas–the Marcelle style) to work almost every day. They are the only shoes I took with me to Italy several years ago. I walked all over Milan, Venice, and several islands. My feet got tired, but never sore. THEY ARE AMAZING.
Be aware: they kinda make your feet look like Minnie Mouse feet. Especially if you’re on the larger-footed-size. Worth it, though.
Clarks and/or Hush Puppies have more stylish comfy options that you might expect. Mary Janes are a good compromise too for lab work.
Do people think Danskos look weird with jeans? In the summer? Does it matter what people think? I have the Dansko original clogs in black but yeah, they’re sort of clunky and yes, I do have bigger feet and I just haven’t gotten into them yet. Maybe if I just start wearing them all the time, I’ll start to love them? Maybe get the Mary Jane version?
I’ll also check out Clarks and Hush Puppies!
I wear mine almost exclusively with jeans and think they look awesome (they are more of a brown/burgundy color).
I am spending literally all of tomorrow in silent meditation at the Zen center and I am going to really struggle with it. My teacher recommended trying to sit with “nothing to say, no one to say it” which is literally the exact opposite of my life, SO WE’LL SEE? The carrot in this process is that I will be four blocks away from the poutine food truck that is way too far away for me to justify visiting ever, but now I can stop by on my way home.
A pal of mine did a silent retreat, 16 hours of zazen for four straight days or something absurd. On day three, he swears he tasted sunlight.
ENJOY
16 hours of zazen for four straight days
Just thinking about that made my heart race in terror.
Oh, man, I have been doing Zen for a while, and when I first started, my number 1 problem is that everything I did, I immediately, instinctively tried to figure out how to encapsulate the experience so that I could explain it to my friends. And not even because I thought they wouldn’t understand — it just made me realize that I almost never have experiences that I don’t automatically try to mediate with language.
Good luck!
could you explain this a bit more? Is it like meditation in yoga with a mantra or something different? Im into anything that makes free headspace.
I don’t know if Nicole Cliffe is going to come back to this one — I don’t know about the particular retreat that she’s describing, but traditionally Zen meditation doesn’t use mantras. It’s similar in many respects to other forms of meditation (the meditative part of yoga practice included) but the goal is to sit still and have a completely empty mind.
Yep, no mantras, this is a traditional Zen center, but it is a thought I have been using to quiet myself.
I did a one-day silent retreat once–and left at lunch never to return. If you do stay, have someone (ideally who has also, at some point, been on a silent retreat) you can call and talk about it with right afterward. A lot of people I know were surprised at how *not at peace* they felt after a silent retreat, so it’s good to have someone to talk to.
I have to say I love silent meditation (and silent retreats) — the *silence* ahh… (which is the opposite of usual me). But my tomorrow includes teaching a children’s Buddhism class at the Centre I go to, which is the opposite of silent meditation…
I got engaged! My dude is fantastic and we’re so excited and also a little terrified?
Also, how do you plan a wedding? We can’t even plan a regular party.
Congrats!
Congratulations! Also, you can do it!
We spent a month or so thinking about what we wanted our wedding to feel like and let that guide our other decisions. We wanted our wedding to be a celebration of & for our people, so we chose to pay extra for an accessible venue (location-wise as well as ADA-compliant), found a caterer who could accommodate our guests’ diets deliciously, and had my grandmother read from 1 Corinthians, even though we’re not religious.
Also, feel free to say fuck it to anything you don’t like doing. The closest we got to DIY was “designing” our programs and seating chart in Microsoft Word. We even outsourced the printing.
The budget spreadsheet, though… I spent many long hours lovingly caressing the budget spreadsheet.
Congratulations! Also, cuminafterall has a very good plan of attack. My husband figured out our priorities (good food, no dancing, good drinks) and there really is nothing you don’t have to do if you don’t want to. We didn’t do centerpieces because we saw no point to them.
Congratulations. Start with the guest list. Which starts with a budget. Who and How Many are what determine your location, date, timing, and everything else.
Congratulations! The best money we spent on our wedding was hiring a coordinator – ours was wonderful with recommending vendors and making sure we thought of all the little details (like, you know, something to serve the cake on) that we would most definitely have forgotten. The wedding itself ran so smoothly and it was pretty much all because of her.
Congratulations, how wonderful! 😀
Congratulations!
Go to the person in your life who plans the best parties and ask them to do it for you in exchange for love or money?
My planning: “Mom, we’re getting married. In four months. In your house. Tell big bro to get licensed to perform the ceremony, and then go do everything else. Flowers, cake, catering, chair rentals, sure, yeah, whatever you think is best. That dress? Love that dress, buy me that dress. Make me a veil. Make the guy a vest. Okay, we ready? I WAS SUPPOSED TO WRITE MY VOWS? WHY DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING?”
Went off without a hitch. Except for when I forgot my vows.
CONGRATULATIONS.
I swear to GOD, if ONE MORE loud man talks over me on the phone while I am presenting something, I will start shooting LASERS out of my EYES. I will GET to your issues, I will TALK about that, I will ANSWER your question, if you just stop REPEATING it and let me present uninterrupted for FIVE GODDAMNED MINUTES.
(yes, I love being the only woman on these calls, how could you tell?)
#notallmen
A forum I am on did a bracket challenge for the World Cup, and like 15 dudes and I filled out our brackets and I am CRUSHING all of them. Misandristic sports fan 4 life
I predicted Germany/Argentina months ago to my work husband but that’s mostly because they’re my favorite teams and I was hoping for this outcome all along. I win either way!
Also, why didn’t my dang company do brackets for this because they do for every other major sporting event…boo.
Toasties I don’t suppose anyone wants to talk about Sailormoon Crystal and how great it was??? PLEASE SOMEONE HUMOR ME
HELLO YES I’M HERE LET’S DISCUSS, although honestly I don’t have anything coherent to say about it because as soon as it started I was transported back through time and became my 13-year-old self again. What was your favorite part? How do you feel about the new transformation sequence? (I am against it.)
I watched it with my sister and bff who I met over Sailor Moon and I just cried like a little girl. My favorite part was probably when Ikuko-mama makes Usagi stand outside for her poor grade and then Shingo walks up and starts teasing her and she retaliates with a Sailor V Kick that promptly goes nowhere. I have reenacted that scene with the office printer at least four times this week.
I’m mostly okay with the new transformation sequence, but I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY SHE DOESN’T GET HER SKIRT SOONER AND IT MAKES ME FEEL WEIRD
I felt weird about the late skirt arrival too! If I have to start thinking about why there isn’t a skirt, it’s TOO MUCH TIME skirtless.
The thing that struck me was, I had forgotten how YOUNG everybody was — I think when I read/watched it originally I was 12 or 13, so it seemed fairly plausible to me that 14-year-olds would be, like, shopping for expensive jewelry and sneaking out at night to fight crime and having swoony moments of romance with their fated true love from a past life and whatnot. I’m having a harder time accepting that now, as an adult who has taught a roomful of eighth-graders and would not trust any of them to save me from space monsters.
Oh I am giggling about that because yes. I would not want to have to save anyone from space monsters!
Oh man, yeah. And then I got my hopes up when my teenage adventures were not nearly as cool.
I am not sure what I think about the new transformation sequence; it was pretty but it was not exciting and it is not as beautiful as a lot of the rest of it.
I have imprinted so strongly on the original voice actresses that I am having a hard time getting used to Luna. I can’t wait for the rest of the Inner Senshi, but I am nervous I will spend too much time going, ‘Wait, that’s the wrong voice!’ I mean I am totally in favour of new actresses getting to do these characters, but my BRAIN might argue.
I am hoping from the little shots we have seen of Sailor V that we are going to get more-mature sensible tough Minako rather than giggly even-more-airheaded-than-Usagi Minako. *fingers crossed*
I could geek about Sailor Moon for MONTHS without running out of things to say.
When I saw that they included Minako’s Love-Me Chain, I got REALLY REALLY excited. They’re so close to the materials collection designs!!
I could forgive the other voices because Usagi’s is still the same, and when she went into her spiel I just started BAWLING and BAWLING.
YES
I was honestly not expecting to have that reaction to Luna, it is not like she was a favourite or anything. And hmmmn you know I didn’t notice it with Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen at all, I guess he never made any impression on me the first time around. But that shot in the OP with him in the glasses, yum.
i fell in love with it super hard. it felt all dreamy and teenage-girl-style romantic and that is basically what i wanted from new sailor moon.
also ami is coming up in the second episode? be still my heart.
I was SO afraid that they were going to go really grimdark with the reboot because, well, that’s always my fear but they were entirely assuaged by what I saw.
And yep! I think they’re getting the inner senshi even sooner because it’s supposed to more closely parallel the manga. And apparently in the pre-order box set, Chibi Moon is included so I’m thinking we will have more than just a remake of the original series??? (please please please?)
it was pretty great! I am still a little iffy on some of the art, but I’m hoping I get used to it. I just wish the expressions were a bit more… expressive? That said, I love how ~dreamy~ it is.
This is also my first experience watching non-dubbed Sailor Moon, which is fun!
WHY YES thank you!
Sailor Moon was our first real anime in the 90s, we had seen others but it was all sort of enh enh enh whatever and then WHAM Sailor Moon S, Haruka and Michiru forever!
Crystal is so beautiful, I love the character designs, how they made it look like Takeuchi’s art, all long legs and dreamy eyes and actually /beautiful/ rather than cute or pretty or sexy. I love hearing Mitsuishi Kotono do Usagi again, when she said, “Atashi Tsukino Usagi, juu-yon sai, chu ni!” which I have heard her say 230948209348 times because we have like every Sailor Moon music/drama/etc CD ever released — ohhhh when she said that I got cold chills because it has been over twenty years! And she said it just the same but also just a little differently because this Usagi is a little different from the Usagi from 1993!
And the rest was gorgeous too; somehow they actually made the Mamoru/Usagi meet cute have some chemistry to it! I could actually sort of believe that there is some reason for this college-aged guy to stop and look at this 14-yr-old girl! And just the overall feel was so epic and romantic (in both senses), like it really is going to be this enormous story about friendship and betrayal and love and tragedy and redemption.
I know it’ll be a while (assuming that Crystal gets to that point at all, which, oh God please I hope they do), but I am so excited and anxious and overwhelmed thinking about Haruka and Michiru showing up in Crystal. When I read the manga I was a tiny baby teenager just sort of vaguely getting the idea that… maybe… liking girls??? Was a thing? That maybe I did???? And of course this was around the same time that the English dub was airing in the U.S., and I was watching it, too, and felt so betrayed at the censorship of their relationship to “cousins”… holy shit, I had actually largely forgotten how big this loomed in my teenaged psyche, and now I have to shut up about it or I’ll start crying at work. Anyway. YES, HARUKA AND MICHIRU PLS.
HARUKA AND MICHIRU 5EVER
I was obsessed with them, I am still a little obsessed with them, and man do I feel on you on that outrage engendered by that cousins bullshit, THEY WERE/ARE/WILL FOREVER BE IN LOVE
sorry, wow, just a lot of feelings about those two ladies
So many feelings here, too!
We watched Sailor Moon fansubbed (all 200 episodes) back in the late 90s so we never had to put up with the dub, we just went and ranted about it on Usenet a lot. I was so pleased when the old series got rereleased for free in the ramp-up to Crystal, of course I am just blithely assuming that they will go all the way through the series and not do anything horrible.
One of the things I’ve seen is that in the special edition blu-ray set or whatever includes a Time Key and Chibi-Usa, so I’m hoping that this season will go at least through the Black Moon Clan – but man, that’s moving quickly, considering the 26 episodes we’re getting this season.
Also, GIVE ME SHADOW GALACTICA OR GIVE ME DEATH
Hmmmn well you know, if they do about 1 episode per manga chapter (which might be impossible, I have not read the manga in so long I don’t remember how dense the chapters were), 26 episodes would get us through the old Sailor Moon R! So maybe we will get Chibi-Usa this season!
I mean… are they going to bother to do filler episodes? With the entire world watching and this much budget? I am hoping not.
Ohhh you know, that makes heaps sense! I didn’t even put two and two together.
I hope this will fix the pacing of S if they get there that fast – I feel like they put such an emphasis on Eudial and Mimete that they left the other three (four?? how do you count Cyprine and Ptilol?) kind of in the dust. One episode each, bah.
I am also expecting a looooot more death this time around.
If we’re still talking about this…
I liked it a lot! Although I feel like I still need to reserve judgment a little bit–the first episode was very similar to the first episode of the old anime, which of course was very similar to the beginning of the manga. Interested to see how they diverge from the old version.
The only thing that’s really bugging me is that the rendering of facial expressions is a little sloppy, IMHO. Like, all the eyes seem kind of flat/dead in a way that even most big cartoon anime eyes aren’t.
Yes, I noticed that too. I can’t quite decide if it makes it seem more dream-like or if I dislike it.
They have kind of toned down the anime faces, and I do miss that a lot. Sometimes you just need heart eyes or big goofy mouths, you know?
I know they’re hoping to stay closer to the manga, which did diverge quite a lot from the anime – so I’m thinking a lot more people are going to die this time around.
This is probably too late for anyone to read, but I just had a conversation with my boss that I’d been dreading where I was basically like “I can’t be just like you, I gotta be me.” And she seemed to understand. Though she wants me to move into her office so we can coordinate our work better, which yeah, okay that would be easier, but she is an extrovert and I need time to read The Toast! Anyway, I’m feeling hugely relieved about that.
I’m also very excited because next Friday I’ll be on the way to Maine with my husband and two of our friends! And the day after we get there I’m going to have a massage and I don’t want to think or talk about work for the whole week! Because I’ve turned into my mother and it seems like all I ever do is talk about work! Any other Toasties with this problem? Any idea how to just give fewer fucks?
Oh boy having to sit in my boss’s office would drive me BONKERS so I hope you don’t wind up having to do that.
And next week, whenever you find yourself wanting to talk about work, stop and go find a lobster roll, some fried clams, or an ice cream cone to eat. Or if you’re already super full, at least go in search of the NEXT lobster roll or seafood meal you’ll eat. Basically, obsess over food for a few days.
Oh I can definitely do that! I’ve already got a list of all the lobster and ice cream places I want to go to 😀 😀 😀
I got a stand-up desk at work and it is AMAZING.
Also, I had the immense pleasure of looking at “200 squat” and “200 lunges” programs online, thinking oh yeah that would be awesome to get to, I will do these programs, and then doing the initial “how many squats/lunges can you do?” tests and BLOWING THROUGH 200 right away. I feel like the strongest bureaucrat in the world and it is joyous.
I finally convinced my work to give me a keyboard that will roll up and down so I can make my desk into a standing desk-ish, and it is THE BEST. It has helped me general antsyness so, so much. Yay for you and your desk!
Yay for you and your desk too!!! It makes work so much better!
YOU ARE A ROCK STAR.
Thank you!!!
Congratulations on being the strongest bureaucrat in the world! That is awesome!
Thank you! I feel like a dork for bragging but being able to trumpet my victory to the toast keeps me motivated!
You are not at all a dork, it is TOTALLY worth bragging about. (And I say this as one who knows, I was bragging about my 10 wall pushups a few weeks back!)
I have been seriously thinking about pursuing this (at least at work, if not at home as well). Everyone who does it seems to like it so much. This is so encouraging!
i have an unexpected afternoon off and I am sitting in a tea shop thinking about chuck hughes and his tats. little luxuries
Chuuuuuuuck <3
Thanks to that show he had on Cooking Channel I’m now obsessed with the thought of seeing Montreal and also maybe stalking him a little at his restaurant. He’s just so, so cute.
do see montreal! it is a lovely city! I was there a few weeks ago actually but didn’t get a chance to check out Garde Manger (my friends do not love food the way I love food)
Self pity thread: Just had my very first ovarian cyst rupture on Monday, went to ER on Tuesday when pain became unbearable and I didn’t know why. Doc informed me what had happened, and warned me that another was ready to go. 2nd one went yesterday. Got one single Percoset from ER and a prescription for some super-Advil crap (ketoprofen?), which has not made the slightest dent in the pain. Cannot sleep, eat, breathe or get comfortable in any way. Impossible to make the pain stop and it isn’t getting any better. Shite insurance makes ER visits a bankrupting venture, so I can’t afford to go again. Any suggestions to help/alleviate/stop the pain?
There are drugs that will stop the pain. Your docs just haven’t found the right ones for you yet. Be persistent. As persistent as that pain. I hate to think of you in pain. I hate that I cannot help you. I’ll be thinking of you.
Can you try a walk-in clinic instead of the ER? Those are generally cheaper.
That sounds completely awful and I’m really sorry.
Yes! Depending on where you live, the largest hospital might have its own walk-in clinic (I live in Boston and used to go the one at MGH). For some of them you still need insurance but it’s not the same as a visit to the ER.
How awful! I hope you feel way better very soon.
So sorry. I don’t have any real suggestions. I was always too cheap to go the doctor for mine, so would just spend 2-3 days curled in fetal position because I couldn’t stand up straight and scream into a pillow until the pain finally subsided. Sometimes heating pads/warm baths could help ease the pain a little.
Agh, I’m so sorry. Maybe if it gets worse, go to an urgent-care place if there’s one in your area? They can still be a little pricey, but not as pricey as an ER visit.
I tried urgent care first on Tuesday, and they sent me to the ER. Can’t afford any more visits. I have someone en route that can help.
I hope you feel better soon! 🙁
My only experience of managing pain medication comes from my grandma’s hospice care, so might not be helpful/relevant, I don’t know.
But can you call the doctor’s office, explain that the Percoset didn’t do anything, and ask for please 1 of something else? Don’t list anything by name because they might get suspicious that you are a pain pill addict. But there are a lot more drugs they can try, and they might not have to see you & charge office visit for that. Worth a try.
Also, that is crazy, my ex got bottles and bottles of percoset after he broke his femur. You only got one!?
Here is something for the period before you get more drugs.
1) Sit in “butterfly position” (where you put the soles of your feet together so they touch — looks sort of like sitting cross-legged), and place pillows beneath your knees and a bigger, long below right behind you. Lie backwards on that pillow so that you’re at rest. (This is a yoga pose for relieving uterine pain of all kinds).
2) try to breathe slowly as well as deeply
3) Make your out-breaths longer than your in-breaths. That is, count when you breath in, hold the breath for one or two counts, and then breathe out slowly taking more time than when you breathed in. Repeat as much as you like!
The breathing is what really helps, pretty much immediately. I hope you get your pills soon too — good luck!
I am on vacation for a week starting in…three hours. WHOOOOO!!!! Not traveling anywhere too fancy, but I’m headed to DC for a few days to wander through the National Zoo and probably parts of the Smithsonian, and maybe go hiking near Great Falls for a little bit. And a friend invited me to go tubing along Harper’s Ferry next Saturday! YAY, SUMMER.
Colorado toasties! You must exist. Or Wyoming, Nebraska, anyone within a couple hours of northern Colorado. Anyone interested in meeting up?
I’ve already complained about this on Twitter, but it’s still bugging me so I’m going to share it with y’all here:
Yesterday morning, I drug myself out of bed at 5am so I could go to this class I love at my gym. Yay for me! Instead of our usual teacher, we had a sub. I had an unpleasant interaction with this woman once before (she started a class by talking shit about a fellow instructor who’d just quit) but figured I should be kind and give her another chance. This, it turns out, was a terrible idea. We’re all there, our little workout stations set up with our weights and towels and whatnot, Sub goes to front of class and says something like, “I’ve never seen most of you before since I usually teach at night, but it looks like you know what you’re doing so I assume no one is new.”
Then she looks at me – definitely right at me, as the only people around me were dudes and she clearly wasn’t addressing them, “And I assume you know what adjustments to make for your condition!” A moment of stunned silence (on my part) follows then I blurt out, “Oh, uh, no condition HERE.” I assumed she didn’t hear me since she didn’t have any sort of reaction. Honestly, if not for the fact that I would’ve had a lot of equipment to put away first, I would’ve slunk out of the room. I’m not pregnant. Not even a little bit. I got my ass out of bed at 5 o’clock in the damn morning, I got up BEFORE SUNRISE to go to the gym and I do this on a regular basis and it’s STILL not enough to keep assholes from assuming I’m pregnant. People say this shit to me all the damn time and I hate it, it makes me so, so self-conscious. Yes, sure, maybe they mean well but if they really meant well they’d keep their mouths shut. And then I hate that I’m so bothered by it. I wish I didn’t care – and I am normally able to just laugh it off, partly because those guys are always so mortified when I correct them that I have to laugh, but yesterday really got to me. She should’ve known better! I got up after 5 hours sleep because I’m committed to getting fitter and stronger but all this instructor noticed was my gut.
I stewed on it during the whole class and decided I’d say something to her after – I barely got to her in time because she was booking it out the door. She must’ve either heard my retort or just saw the look on my face, because as soon as I started so say, “Look we all have moments where we speak without thinking but” she started apologizing. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I said that, I feel terrible…” And for the first time, I didn’t accept the apology. Just couldn’t. I let her ramble for a bit, mumbled something about, “well, I’m here trying to lose weight” and then just…gave up. I gave her a “Mmhm whatever” face, shrugged, then just turned around and walked out. Honestly, I don’t care if she feels bad. She SHOULD feel bad. She thought she was looking out for a student, I guess, but….even if I WERE in a “condition” she should’ve trusted that I, as a regular, knew what the hell I was doing. (Also she was a terrible teacher and no one seemed to enjoy the class yesterday.)
Anyway, that happened, I’m still kind of mad about it and still feeling gross and squishy and unattractive, though I know I’ll get over that. I’m going to a baseball game with friends tonight, and the New Dude is coming with even though he hates baseball, because he is excited to meet my friends. (Then after we will have great sex and he will lavish praise upon my squishy body.) Also my coworker brought in donuts this morning.
Asshat instructor get a swift kick in the head.
You get a devastatingly gorgeous photo of Tom Hiddleston to help get you in the mood for tonight’s sexytiems.
Agreed and THANK YOU for the Hiddles. Mmmmm.
Still trying to decide if I should complain to management or just let it go. She did apologize to me and it wasn’t a comment said maliciously…
Management wants to know about this. You deserve better. And it wasn’t her first unprofessional slip up.
jesus christ
i have to be at work for three more hours how could you do that
never stop
Go you for being brave enough to go say something to her directly. That takes a lot of courage!
Riiiiight? At first, I was just angry and upset on msjinxie’s behalf, but then she mentions catching the instructor who’s booking out the door (I BET SHE WAS) and being so calm and direct and I melted into admiration.
Honestly, I don’t care if she feels bad. She SHOULD feel bad.
APPLAUSE! That’s exactly right. She feels bad because she made improper assumptions and delivered them rudely. You don’t have to give a good goddamn how she feels; how she speaks to people is what matters to her position.
I am SO PROUD of you for saying something to her face, and you’re absolutely right, she deserves to feel bad and think about what she did and hopefully learn from it.
You are awesome for getting up at 5am! I can barely haul myself out of bed at 6:15 and that’s just to get to work, much less to do extra effort on top of that. Have a great time tonight!!
YEAH! Go YOU for saying something and getting up at 5 frickin’ am.
At my last retail job, one evening a customer pointed to my stomach and asked me, “Is there a little baby in there?” It was in this ridiculous childish sing-song voice too, which set my teeth on edge. I said no much more coldly than I would usually speak to a customer. Instead of apologizing she said, “Oh, okay. I thought there was a little baby in there because you had your hands on your stomach.”
The reason I had my hands on my stomach was because I had terrible gas and I was struggling not to crop-dust the entire store. I should have just turned around and farted on her.
Oh man, you absolutely should have. “Well, you were SO curious about what was in there that I had to share!”
I just have to add to the chorus of people telling you how super brave and awesome you are for saying something to her. Go you!!
Pixie-Growing-Out Progress Report: Uggghhhhhh
So I am pretty introverted and require a lot of alone down-time on weekends, since my job requires me to be “on” much of the time. I really hate being asked to make last-minute plans, except for maybe 8% of the time. Today I got a text from a (very outgoing, extroverted, lovable but exhausting) high school friend of mine that said, “HEY, I’M IN TOWN! ARE YOU FREE TONIGHT OR TOMORROW??”
NO I AM NOT. I’m just not. Maybe if you had asked me three days ago I would be, but you didn’t, so now I am going home and having a drink and watching movies in my pajamas with my dog. That’s the plan, which I’m emotionally incapable of changing at this point. I was filled with what I guess is irrational anger at the text, and haven’t even responded yet.
Guys, this is one of my best friends! But like, please just everyone leave me alone??
AM I A WEIRD WRONG PERSON? Validate me, Toasties.
Nope! She is not weird for wanting to hang, and you are not weird for deciding you’re not up for it! These things happen.
This is one of a couple of friendships that have remained strong since high school, and in my mind it’s BECAUSE we haven’t lived in the same state since then… but lately I’ve realized that they might feel it’s in spite of the fact that we haven’t lived near each other. D’oh!
You are neither weird nor wrong. Your response can be a brief “Sorry, I’m not available. I hope you have fun visiting [city], though!” No need to elaborate or make up excuses. Since this is one of your best friends, you could at most tack on some sort of plan to meet up later, if that would make you feel a bit better.
Taking the weekend to yourself to recharge from an emotionally draining job is absolutely reason enough to decline a last-minute invitation.
I do usually make plans for later when I turn down the last-minute invitations, though that’s with in-town friends. I think I’ve just internalized a lot of guilt and defensiveness about saying no. My baggage, let me show you it!
I’ve learned a lot about saying no since I suffered an injury that requires a certain amount of rest. Once I had to take better care of my own physical needs, I allowed myself to be more vigilant about my emotional needs as well.
When my physical well-being requires me to stay in and be kind to myself, I rarely feel real guilt about doing what I need. But in the past, when my emotional well-being required the same, I often felt like it wasn’t a real need, wasn’t a real excuse, wasn’t a valid reason.
But it is! Taking care of yourself, of your whole self, is plenty reason to say no if that’s what’s best for you.
You’re not weird OR wrong!
You are allowed to take the time you need to recharge. That’s as good an excuse for not being able to get together with your friends as if you had a prior commitment. And actually, you DO have a prior commitment – with yourself. Try to take a step away from the anger, if you can, only because your friend isn’t wrong for wanting to see you, but it is totally ok to just be “unavailable”.
Yeah, like, he didn’t do anything wrong except fail to read my mind. I should work out some kind of code with my friends, where if I text back, “Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” they understand that that’s a hard no and they shouldn’t take it personally.
If you’re weird, I’m weird.
Because of various Life Changes, I’ve tried to be more open about going out last minute, but generally – once I’ve made plans to stay in, I’m staying in.
Not weird. Not wrong. Your first responsibility to the rest of society is to take care of yourself. For you (and me), taking care of yourself means no last-minute plans and a minimum of recovery time from your job.
Say it out loud: I deserve to have what I need.
I have a cousin like the friend you describe. I have, over the years, trained her to ask for my time a few days in advance. I decline a last minute request without excuse, but add that I wish I had known her availability a few days ago when I could have included her in my schedule. I never include details of my schedule. She does not need to know my schedule is full just taking care of myself. That’s my business. And my first responsibility to the rest of society, remember?
You’re not wrong! I am pretty introverted and NewJob requires me to be social and upbeat (plus I have very chatty coworkers, which is great, but means lots of social interaction), and I’m so looking forward to spending half my weekend lying in bed in glorious silence. I’ve felt that irrational anger before with more bouncy friends. It’s fine to feel it and to reject making plans, but try to hide the anger in your reply.
You are not a weird wrong person at all!
We have had days when someone even asking us if we want to do something feels like a huge space violation and makes someone’s head explode. (Not mine, I am much more of an extrovert… but some people really, really are not.)
Do you use twitter or gchat or something where you could set a status like ‘Not in the mood for human contact today?’ and then people check that before they text you? Maybe?
I’m going to be a bridesmaid in my lovely friend’s lovely upcoming wedding, and just got an email with the subject “Important Bridesmaid Duty.” She’s been an incredibly chill planner so far, so I was totally ready for some “Hey Ladies” action, since she is wonderful and deserves some if it’d help. But nope, she just wanted me to rank my order of preference for haunted rooms, since the bridal party will be staying in a famously haunted hotel and she wanted to make sure I got the ghosts I wanted.
🙂 YAY FRIENDSHIPS 🙂
“Hey Ladies: Haunted Edition”
I am so jealous of your haunted bridal party! Your bride sounds awesome.
I like this bride.
Well this is just delightful.
That is the BEST. May everyone get the ghosts they want!
LOVE it.
1. Any Toasties in the DFW area? I know of myself (of course) and one other, but I want more!
2. This has been a rough week, because of shitty behavior by a lot of prominent people in comics fandom (context here, on a Tumblr post of mine – http://needsmorekittens.tumblr.com/post/912150395…. After that post, one of the dudes I mention in it tangentially somehow found my Twitter and took it upon himself to post a huge screed at me about how wrong I was and how horrible all us fans are. This whole thing has caused me to stop buying books from several creators I really enjoyed, and made me even more certain that I cannot ever buy ones from several others. I’m mostly over the sadness and disappointment, but ugh. Be better, people.
3. Someone was really rude to me for no reason at work, and a co-worker saw it and is spreading the word about how much of a jerk this person is. I didn’t ask for that, but it’s sort of making me happy.
I like your word-spreading coworker. I’m sorry you’re being mistreated in your comics community. You deserve more mature peers.
Quick food question! How do I store an opened jar of tahini? Is it okay to keep it in the cupboard like peanut butter? Google is giving me conflicting answers and I need to know before I open my new jar to make a batch of hummus. (Yes, I waited all day to ask this on the open thread.)
Anyway! My town’s summer festival started today and I’m off work for enough time to actually go to some of the events. I probably won’t (except maybe for the fireworks next weekend), but just knowing I could if I wanted makes me happy.
It’s generally stable on the shelf, but I don’t think it lasts quite as long as peanut butter would. I think my aunts who use it frequently leave it in the cupboard because they go through it faster, but my mom doesn’t use it as much so hers is in the fridge. It’ll last practically forever if it’s refrigerated, you just might want to take it out ahead of time to let it soften up next time.
I think it would be okay in the cupboard, although we always keep it in the fridge. Somehow, we always seem to end up with these huge things of tahini and, even though we use it frequently, it takes forever to finish.
I have been shortlisted for an amazing job, in a city I don’t want to live in.
There’s nothing actually wrong with the city, but I don’t want to leave the (huge, international, historical, cultural, slightly crime-ridden and horrendously expensive but totally amazing) city I live in now.
What is this I can’t even.
Start thinking about taking an extended trip away from your beloved city. Just for two years while you give this job a chance. Just a thought experiment. Your city will still be there when you come back. And maybe you will better afford your beloved city when you have this new job on your resume.
That is some very good advice. Thank you.
Summer polar vortex in Chicago?! THANK YOU from the bottom of my pregnant, overheated heart!
honestly I cry tears of joy every time I see 70 degrees on the forecast
*overheated, obviously
RELATED: If you are in Chicago and pregnant or a mom or want to hang out with mamas and mamas to be who may or may not be in a constant state of feminist misandrist rage (speaking only for myself) and can laugh about toast-related content…. Join us at Metropolis at 6 pm next Wednesday!!
So topical! I’m just over halfway through my first trimester and am feeling very incapable of hauling myself anywhere besides work and bed but I hope you keep doing this and I would love to join in, eventually, when the smell of coffee no longer makes me cry. My whole parenting plan is centered around misandrist rage!
(When are you due, if I may ask?! Is this your first?)
ugh, yes, coffee aversion so gross. I was happy for that to be over, and I try to limit myself to not very much caffeine, but got the green light from my midwife who said a little caffeine is better than most painkillers and if it works to keep my migraines at bay, then do it. Plus I am a sucker for iced coffee beverages. It is my first, and I am due around Thanksgiving! Real talk: I thought I would be so happy and glowy and no one prepared me for being Pissed Off all the time. Recent supreme court decisions and general male asshat dickery do not help matters.
Man, I can’t wait until I can drink coffee again. I went into this with a firm “of course a little caffeine is fine – why would I stop drinking it?” viewpoint but really, really underestimated how strong the aversions would be.
I like to think the Rage is some sort of primal mammalian impulse to protect the youth in one’s charge from asshat dickery. Though I was pretty pissed off pre-conception, I’ve been shaking my fist at Rahm Emmanuel a lot more frequently lately, which is really saying something.
Congratulations on your Thanksgiving baby! So SOON and so exciting!
If you feel like coming tonight and getting a non-coffee drink feel free to join us!
Creeping in to say that I am in Chicago, but not pregnant or a mom, but I do have a soul-fire of feminist misandrist rage and I love the-toast. Maybe I can crash the Misandrist Mama Meetings at some point?
PLEASE COME – the last thing I wanted was for this to be “moms only” but I also noticed on open thread that I was not the only pregnant lady in the city and want to meet more pregnant women, preferably vetted through toast standards. So that was my impetus, but I want to meet other people too. Just maybe be patient if there is some baby talk. I can try to keep it to a minimum….
Yes, come have coffee with us! I have a few thoughts about babies (i’m due in october and just realized I don’t know how to make a baby registry because I know zero things about what babies need, or how to keep them alive?) but I have MANY thoughts about misandry and would like to hear everyone else’s!
Just a reminder we are meeting tonight and would love if you joined us!
I posted this already in the anniversary thread but … I am so excited about the Toast anniversary party in Oakland that I am light-headed. I have never in my entire life been to a party where I was actually going as MYSELF. I mean, people will call me by name! My own name! Wow!
I am terrified and excited. There was a lot of debate when I made this account and started commenting here and decided to just be myself and not pretend to be the legal-body-persona — we had never done that before anywhere. But people here are awesome, and it has made me really aware of how few people in our physical life are interested in seeing us-as-us and knowing who they are talking to and hearing about what life is actually really like. People here on The Toast have been awesome and made me (and by extension everyone else who pays attention) feel very comfortable, and I am super-excited to have the chance to go meet people in person and see what it is like. I *think* I am not very shy, but well now I will get to find out!
You can do it, all y’all! I live too far away, but I wish I could attend. I would guarantee you a huge grin and a hug if you want one. Ask another Toastie to give you a grin on my behalf. I can think of a few who would do that for us.
sup
not much, sup wich you?
scarred for life http://firstwefeast.com/eat/guy-unearths-a-5-foot… probably going to hide for a few weeks until it goes away how are norcal donuts treating you
If you think I’m clicking that link you got another thing coming, buddy. Luckily the Krispy Kreme I ate this morning was, near as I can tell, critter-free.
smarter person than i – speaking of critters i did play with some goats yesterday and that will probably be the highlight of my week
Hi Toasties! Please suggest your favorite books of letters by women! I am reading As Always, Julia right now and it is GREAT. Julia Child and Avis DeVoto struck up an epistolary friendship in 1952 when Julia sent a friendly letter and an extremely sharp knife to Avis’s husband Bernard. Avis and Julia wrote back and forth planning the publication of Julia and her colleagues’ first book, while chatting about politics and food and throwing incredible shade on newfangled 50s food technology. My other books of letters are all from men: Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Feynman. What books of women’s letters should I read?
Here in my tiny state, a school district has removed a really amazing-sounding book from its recommended summer reading list. In the past, they simply used the nominees for the past two years’ Blue Hen Book Award, Teen category. The nominations are made by Delaware librarians, and they are pretty great, IMO. The Miseducation of Cameron Post was ostensibly removed because of its profanity, but many (me included) suspect that they really objected to the portrayal of a lesbian teenager who won’t be made straight, despite the best efforts of her zealous aunt.
If you want to help, consider writing to Cape Henlopen school board president Spencer Brittingham, tweeting #leavethebluehenlistalone TODAY for a chance to win all ten books on the list, or giving money to Browse About Books in Rehoboth Beach, who will then give the copy to a teenager in the area who wants to read it. I bought a copy for my sister’s 16th birthday.
ooh! that is exciting! I like Julia Child’s writing, and once talked in a literary-type interview about her use of tintinnabulating as a verb. (it is a verb, just a poorly underutilized one) I will read that book next! I am excited!
I was told that Patricia Highsmith wrote really good letters, though I could not tell you any specific titles, and Wikipedia just informed she was wildly anti-Semitic. ymmv.
Truth and Beauty is about the friendship between Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett, who I think had a romantic friendship (they don’t call it that) and it contains lots of letters and is sad and wonderful.
Jane Austen’s letters (edited by Deirdre le Faye) are amazing. So very very sarcastic and snarky.
Although she’s corresponding with a man, Helene Hanff’s 84 Charring Cross Road is delightful and all about her search for rare books
For fictional ladies & letters:
Evelina by Frances Burney
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Sorcery and Cecilia (and sequels) by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
We collect books of letters like mad but do not read them very quickly. However we would definitely suggest the letters of the Mitford sisters to one another, available as _The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters_.
Oh, and _Selected letters of Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain, 1920-1935_. I do not even own that one but I am convinced it is awesome!
The Habit of Being by Flannery O’Connor!
Read Ursula Nordstrom’s letters. She was the children’s editor at Harper who first published Sendak, Russell Hoban’s Frances books (did you know Frances was supposed to be a vole in the first draft?) and Louise Fitzhugh of Harriet the Spy fame.
Also Abigail Adams.
Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf’s letters.
I’ve been dithering on posting this, but I learned last night that a high school friend of mine suddenly passed away this week. I am stunned by this – she was one of the first girls I became friends with at school and was always in my core group of friends. So many of my memories have her in them. We haven’t even hit our 30th birthdays yet and I keep waiting to hear that it’s an elaborate rumor or mistake. I also now feel terribly sad and guilty that we’d grown apart over the years and really only spoke or saw each other when she was home for Christmas and we had ‘mini-reunions.’ I also feel like this somehow invalidates my grief because I’m not – wasn’t – as close to her anymore as some of our mutual friends. Which a part of me knows isn’t right, but…
Also, tomorrow there is a birthday party with many of these mutual friends that I now feel weird about attending. Frankly, I don’t even want to attend the concert I’m going to tonight because it seems insensitive to her memory and the tragedy of her death, but part of me knows that’s being melodramatic.
Bottom line, I feel guilty for grieving too much and guilty for not grieving enough. Maybe that’s normal? Sorry for the sad content, I just needed to get that out into some supportive space.
Sorry about the loss of your friend.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re being melodramatic. I hope you’re able to have some fun at your concert tonight.
It’s ok that you weren’t close! That’s just the path that your lives took. You should grieve for the person you knew and loved at one time, and let go of any of those “how it should have been” ideas.
I am sorry for your loss. It’s OK to hurt in any way that hurt happens. About the concert: Decline only if you don’t want to go. You can stay home if that’s what feels right. If you do want to go, what would your dead friend say if you could ask her right now whether to go? Would she want you to go and enjoy?
Grief is such a weird and personal emotion that I don’t believe there is a wrong way to grieve. I had a similar experience and I feel you on the guilt factor. The guilty feelings didn’t last too long, though. My friend and I grew apart because our lives took such different paths after high school, not because of any bad feeling. I’m glad she was my friend once and is still present in many good memories.
I’m sorry for your loss. Internet hugs, if you want them.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Whatever you’re feeling is okay to feel; it seems like you know that but I thought it might be worth saying just in case. Grief affects us each in different ways at different times.
I understand the grief of wishing things had been different, of wishing for that time back to make different choices. But the choices you (and she!) made over the time stretching out between you are okay, too. Blaming yourself for a lost connection won’t help her and it won’t help you. You can grieve what you’ve lost without castigating yourself.
And the same is true for celebrating with your friends this weekend: if you cancel your plans to take better care of your own needs, that’s sensible and kind to yourself. But presumably your friend wouldn’t have wanted you to cancel plans — to eschew the joy of this life that is so fleeting — just as a token of respect.
Again, I’m so sorry. Take good care of yourself in the aftermath of this hard news.
Thank you to everyone who commented, I really needed to hear your sound advice. I did end up going to the concert and enjoying it and on Saturday many of us were able to grieve and remember my friend at the party. It was a much better way of dealing with the loss than hiding myself at home, so thank you again for your kind words and sympathy. It really did help a lot.
Any helpful tips on how to tactfully tell my boyfriend that his pointed narratives about veganism/vegetarianism/animal rights/environmentalism are BOR-ring?
(By that, I mean eat what you want but we don’t share a mouth. I’m a grown-ass person and I understand the choices I’ve made. Not that he shouldn’t care about the things that matter to him and make choices accordingly. Just that he could spare me the details of how and why he’s made every choice leading up to this moment right here.)
Eat what you want but we don’t share a mouth. I’m a grown-ass person and I understand the choices I’ve made.
That seems like a good place to start! Next time he starts preachin’ at you, I would gently touch his arm and say the above. Then change the subject!
I just can’t get my head around how much time vegans et al spend talking about their food. Not even this meal that we’re eating right now! Remembered meals! Imagined meals! Childhood meals!
my favorite vegan joke:
Q: how do you know someone’s vegan?
A: THEY TELL YOU
Have you been dating long? Also, has he been a vegan for a while or is he filled with the zeal of the newly converted? Is he passing judgment on your choices or just trying to explain his own?
You could always be like, “Look, even if I agreed with you, this conversation would bore me out of my skull. Can we talk about something else, please?”
“I don’t remember asking you about veganism/vegetarianism/animal rights/environmentalism. I know you are a good source of information and you can trust me to ask you when I want details.”
But you’re probably a nicer person than I am. Maybe work up more kindness in the wording?
You’re already ahead of me because I would have stopped,mid-bite of meat, and gone “Seriously? SERIOUSLY?” the first time that happened.
So, uh, be more polite than I am, I guess, and say something like “You know, I know you are pretty informed, but you don’t need to tell me all about every meal I eat. Thanks though.”
I’m someone who’s been mostly vegan for twenty five years and my first instinct is to say, “Run!” But maybe he has other good qualities.
So far it’s been ok because we both have pretty robust and separate social circles so I can go eat whatever I want wherever I want a lot of the time. And he tries to refrain from commenting on it. But for his friends, veganism/vegetarianism is clearly one of their shared hobbies and I just think it’s so tedious and dull.
(Especially those ones for whom veganism appears to be their outlet for deeper obsessive or controlling tendencies. Unbearable!)
Haha, yeah, as a vegan I just want to grab the preachy ones by the shoulders and shout YOU ARE NOT HELPING!! I’m sure it felt really good to flip out on that fur-wearing lady in the coffee shop but now she is probably going to kill cute fuzzy creatures and wear them just to spite you. I have FEELINGS about this if you couldn’t tell.
Toasties! It is my last day at my community mental health job! I have been here two and a half years! I am leaving to get licensed! I am so excited! I have so many books to read and my dog and I will wander for hours unbidden and I will pitch my hammock in trees in nearby parks and wile away the hours! My house will no longer be the disaster it is of no-dishwasher + two grownups who cook a lot! And once I am licensed, finally, we will have a pig roast. But tonight we are going to my favorite Puerto Rican restaurant to eat pulled pork and drink beer and say goodbye to the gritty business of community mental health.
Ahhhh congratulations on your licensure! And your hammock and your pulled pork!
thank youuuuuuu!
Congratulations!!
Hey hey everybody, I’m at happy hour! Eating fries with massive amounts of sriracha and drinking this really refreshing beer that was brewed with cucumbers (?!). Yay weekend!
Tell me more of this cucumber beer.
It was by Great South Bay, which I guess is a Long Island based brewery? It’s not on their website but if you’re in NY(I’m in brooklyn) maybe you could find it at a bar? I wish I could distribute it virtually to you guys, it was so summery and delicious.
I am also in Brooklyn! Never heard of the brewery, but I’ll keep an eye out, it sounds amazing.
Oh, cool! Well if you happen to be in the South Slope/Windsor Terrace area, I found it at the Double Windsor. It’s the Niko Weisse by Great South Bay.
The Double Windsor is SO CLOSE to me. (Also, A+ choice of snack, their fries are pretty good.) Hi, neighbor!
HOWDY! Now you know where the beer is, haha! Those fries are the beeeeeest.
Oooh. I’ll have to look for that. Cucumber beer sounds fantastic!
Soooo, I’m alone for the weekend because my boyfriend is on a trip. The “being alone” part is not really an issue–gearing up for an X-Files marathon in my underwear with my cats, and I do have some work to do. But I get really irrationally nervous about my boyfriend’s safety whenever he travels anywhere; it’s the last vestige of a really deep-seated anxiety issue that I’ve (mostly) otherwise laid to rest. It’s like my brain automatically goes into full disaster preparation mode for no reason (“But what if something terrible happens and I’m not there? How will I even KNOW about it??”).
Ugh. Brain, why you do this to me?
In other, less pressing issues, my summer CSA keeps giving me cabbages and I don’t know what to do with them. How much cabbage can any reasonable person be expected to eat?
Yay for X-Files/underwear/cats/etc., boo to anxiety brain. I have one of those too. It can be frustrating!
CABBAGE. I have had delicious success with a recipe from Nigel Slater’s Real Fast Food called “Savoy Cabbage with Bacon.” I didn’t have Savoy so I used regular.
Basically:
garlic, minced
2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
4 oz bacon, cut into dice or strips
1 lb cabbage, shredded finely
1 t caraway seeds (optional, I find)
s&p to taste
Fry bacon until it browns, then add the other veg and cook it until it’s done. Carrots should still have some crunch. Add the caraway and s&p.
My CSA is full of dandelion greens, with which I am at a loss.
Oooh, that looks great. (Also, I eat meat but my boyfriend doesn’t, so now would be a good time to make it, I guess!) Thank you!
There’s a red lentils with cabbage recipe on Smitten Kitchen that I absolutely adore, if that sounds like your jam! No meat, though, but delicious and makes a ton.
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/02/confession…
I share your cabbage pain, not due to CSA but our partner is crazy about cabbage and will buy it when he sees it. We had ravioli with cabbage sauce the other day, which was actually not bad, but… enough cabbage is enough!
This has been quite a good week, all told — I went on a date with a woman I met online, and we’re likely to go out on a second date. And then last night I went to a social thing and ended up talking with another interesting woman for a big part of the evening, and it looks like there’s date potential there, too. For someone whose usual number of dates per week is “great big zero,” this is all a bit startling, but awesome.
Also some friends and I got together and did crafty stuff all afternoon on Sunday, and there were kittens present. And I’m starting a two-week vacation as we speak. So, all in all: yay.
Every time I read the phrase ‘and there were kittens present’ I get a nice warm glow. Kittens!
Still no explanation for Mallory’s “hahaha minorities” comment? I’ll see myself out.
All week I’ve been thinking about the anniversary post in which Nicole and Mallory said they are thinking about a new hire. It beats in my brain with a thunderous roar. YOU ARE A PROLIFIC WRITER, it shouts. YOU WRITE ALL DAY. IT IS YOUR ACTUAL JOB. YOU COULD DO THIS.
But I am an Australian and therefore never awake at convenient times. Also I don’t know if I could I return to reading and writing about other things after four years of almost nothing but non-stop video games day after day after day.
But just imagine if 95% of my entire reading and writing mental budget were not sucked up by “is there a new Halo coming or what”! What words I could write! What jokes I could make! How many times I could talk about repulsive animals and my long, disastrous love history!
Alas, I remain an Australian. I will remain quietly in the south, and diminish.
There’s nothing to stop you pitching! And then you could send your work at any time 🙂 Don’t diminish!
It is hard being in a completely different time zone, isn’t it? I never manage to make it to the cocktail hour because it’s just so late for us here. Such is the life of those of us who live in the Future 😀
Hey if anyone sees this here on page 3 of the comments, I would really appreciate some books recs. I’ve got the desire to read, but am having trouble actually finding something. I feel that I’ve gotten older it’s been harder for me to just grab a book and start reading, and I don’t know why. I’m particularly looking for good mysteries. I’ve read pretty much all Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, and Dorothy L. Sayers, as well as a couple Wilkie Collins. They don’t have to be older, but I like a good atmosphere and/or funny prose.
I’m starting a project of branching out in reading female authors from the British golden age of detective fiction. I just read “The Beckoning Lady” by Margery Allingham which was pretty good for a long flight home but not amazing. It did make me want to try at least one other by her.
Ahhh this is very helpful and relevant. I haven't tried to think much about what I would actually want from professional help, I've been fixating on should-I-or-shouldn't-I. Thanks for your advice!