In a week of awful, a bowl of cream covering a few rum-soaked lady fingers along with limoncello remind one of goodness and joy. Let’s all do something nice for someone else this weekend. Like make them toast. Open thread, lovely Toasties!
Tags: cocktail hour, open thread, the bartender
A SERIES OF QUESTIONS
1. How many of you get the “Have You Ever Pet A Penguin?” ad?
2. How many of that subset of Toasties are angry that they’ve never pet a penguin?
3. How many people want to plan a field trip to Mystic Aquiarium sometime after August 19th to pet some motherfucking penguins?
Details: General admission is $29.95, petting a penguin looks like it is part of the Encounter Program and is an additional $65. They show mostly children in their photos on the website but A) fuck that noise, B) I am a child at heart so that totally counts, and C) there is nothing on the site that says it’s limited to youngsters. This would have to be on a weekend as I, at least, am gainfully employed. I can provide a limited number of carpool spots (specifically three, four if you want to squish in the backseat) to anyone in the Boston area. Who’s in?
http://www.mysticaquarium.org/animals-and-exhibit…
I get that ad all the time! I live in Massachusetts! This is an A+ idea!
1. No
2. Yes, but also no? I have heard that penguins are kind of dicks. But that mostly comes from someone way back in college who’s only encounter with them was after tripping balls at the Boston Aquarium and then, apparently, perceiving his only means of escape to be through the penguin tank. I mean…I believed him at the time, but I was also young and full of wonder, so. (Also, pre-9/11. I bet now you’d find the penguin tank weaponized in some way. Some way other than the usual penguins.)
Oh fuck it, yes.
Not all penguins 🙁
Would it be $65 per person per penguin, or do we all chip in for $65 and can then share the penguin’s time?
I think it’s $65 per person, because they use it to fund their ill-fated attempts to save the African penguin from extinction. SUPER EXPENSIVE but on the other hand, you get to pet a penguin???? I am torn on whether or not it is worth it!
I mean we don’t necessarily HAVE to pet a penguin either, just a general Toast aquarium field trip sounds amazing too!
I will be in Boston in September, so I don’t know if I’ll make a Toastie meet-up for Penguin Petting, but this is something I feel I MUST DO.
Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium has a similar program. Two of my friends did it and a) it’s pretty expensive and b) they got to just barely touch a flipper for a second and have their picture taken next to one, but with their hands pinned to their sides. I’m sure it’s better for the birds to minimize the contact, but just a heads up in case you’re envisioning a chance to cuddle it or hold it on your lap or anything.
Bonus detail: I was very lucky to have a chance to swim within arm’s reach of two penguins once, but I didn’t touch them. Not reaching out to touch them was one of the hardest things I’ve ever, ever done.
I never get the “have you ever fed a penguin” ad, but I have fed a penguin before. The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle lets you feed their penguins in the off season (October-April). If you hold the fish the penguins will actually jump up and take it from your fingers. I don’t remember the cost but it was definitely less than $65. And totally worth it.
Have fun petting penguins!
Happy weekend, all!
I mentioned this earlier this week, but exciting: my husband and I bought a house! Very exciting! We are lucky that the house is in great shape, and all we’ll really have to do is repainting some rooms.
HOWEVER: I am figuring out that I know less than nothing about decorating and my husband is even worse. If it were up to him he would live in a white-walled prison cell. I, obviously, prefer to have some decor, but my “decor sense” is basically “hang things on the wall.” I’m so overwhelmed even LOOKING at decor stuff that I have no idea where to even begin. I mean, I don’t know what my “decor style” is, I don’t know anything other than “I like that” or “I don’t like that.” Where do I begin? Is there a website that breaks this down for extreme decorating simpletons like myself? I had a look at like, Apartment Therapy for ideas, and went “wow that’s a lot of information,” and looked at Young House Love and went “wow, none of these places look like places I’d want to live.” I’m lost and confused and mostly I just want my house to be a nice-looking, decently decorated, clean place for my husband and I to live for a couple years. Where do I START?
Oh, man – if you find out, let me know. I’ve been purposefully avoiding even thinking about it, but my new house has mint green carpets, and Something will Need To Be Done.
Congrats again on your new house, Aravis!
If you find anything useful, hit me on Twitter or email me at sdqsdq at the Gmail and we can commiserate!
Fantastic! Will do. (DO I follow you on Twitter??)
Apartment Therapy is soul-sucking and makes me want to eat the rich. Not endorsing the styles here 100% by any means, but you might find something useful at Design Sponge or IKEA Hackers (which features many terrible decisions, but is generally put together by real people rather than stylists.)
Looking over Apartment Therapy right now makes me want to die. I am going to hunt up those other websites in an effort to find something for normal people.
Buy pretty things that appeal to you. But only a few at a time.
Each room gets one focus item. For example, decorating the living room means every choice refers to that gorgeous red sofa you love. It also means no loud, busy rug to compete with the gorgeous red sofa.
That black and brown rug you could not resist, the one with the cubist looking patches, will become the focus of the room you choose for it.
Etc. Good luck.
Love this. Thank you
I do, too! We have the exact same problem as aravisthequeen; even if we can agree on stuff we all like (or at least tolerate) figuring out how to turn ‘Yes, blue and white are pretty’ into a room that anyone actually wants to BE in is somehow impossible. My brain also shuts down every time I look at a decorating site/blog/magazine.
But this, this I could do! If I did not already have a house full of 230948209 things.
Paint it in colours that make you feel safe and calm. Buy nice furniture as you can afford it, and nice little things when you can afford them. Put up shelves.
And read offbeathome.com
I like Houzz. It’s got a lot of information, but it’s well-organized information, and I don’t feel that it prioritizes one decorating style over others, the way AT does. If you want, you can just look at pictures of, say, contemporary bathrooms for hours, and save the ones you like to ideabooks (which are like Pinterest boards), then look at your ideabooks later to see what common threads run through the things you like.
Find something you like in a magazine and then just copy the hell out of it. Then slow personal changes will come over time without having to think too much about it, and it will be less like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.
I mean, theoretically. I always poop out around the time I’m supposed to be removing sheets from everything or whatever, and then I just live in a place covered in sheets for like 6 months, which isn’t creepy at all.
I do that too. But yeah, it is a little creepy. But we are who we are, right?
i like sweethomestyle for inspiration. i don’t find it as intimidating as blogs where people are clearly working with a lot of money.
“style” is totally not as important as “i like that”/”i don’t like that”—think about places you’ve been that made you feel good—were they brightly colored and busy? or more sleek and minimal? were there lots of plants? knick knacks? did they hang things from the ceiling? go from there!
Yay! New houses are fun, congratulations!
Okay, so I have OPINIONS about this because my mom is an interiour designer and also frequently bored, so we have fond family memories of wielding the heat gun to strip off 14 layers of wallpaper. As one does.
1. Start with proportion! You have furniture, yes? Arrange it in the room so that it is pleasing to you. If it is a large room, feel free to put so that you have different activity areas (this is the TV-watching area, this is the reading nook, etc). Do not feel compelled to arrange all the furniture in the room around the walls; you can put a couch in the middle of the room and it’ll be fine.
2. Next, colour! I bet even your white-wall loving mate has a favourite colour (give him a withering look if he demurs and then look at his closet: there is his favourite colour). You can use Big Colour (furniture, walls, drapes, etc) or you can use Small Colour (pillows, area rugs, etc). Small rooms like bathrooms will be fine if you want to paint them navy blue; larger rooms often benefit from a lighter colour. Keep your ceilings and trim white. Also, DEFINITELY think about wallpaper: it can be so awesome.
3. Texture. Texture is where things get interesting! Get smooshy rugs and nubby blankets; get drapes in an interesting print; put different finishes beside each other (metal next to wood next to glass next to something cozy). This principle can apply to lots of different things: lights and lamps in different corners will make the room’s texture different from just an overhead light; curtains “feel” different from drapes and blinds, etc
4. Art. Get some. Frame it like an adult. Hang it on the wall.
5. Plants. Try for a green living thing in each room. Big floor plants in big spaces, and smaller table plants in the kitchen and bathroom. It will make your place feel awesome, and will help fill in some of the bigger spaces.
Also: trust yourself, never skimp on storage, and don’t be afraid to try different things! Happy decorating!
Oh, about plants: decide early whether you want to grow happy big houseplants, or have cute decorative plants in novelty planters. It is very (very, very, actually impossibly) hard to have both in the same container, since plants want room and drainage and light and those are typically hard to come by in a hollowed-out dinosaur toy planter or what have you. Either way you go is fine, just know the plant’s limits first.
Regarding plants: what is/isn’t safe for cats, some of whom may be Bad Cats with a penchant for chewing on things they shouldn’t?
Somehow my comment published as a complete blank! Anyway, the ASPCA has a pretty good searchable list online. You’ll find other lists elsewhere, but basically all plants will make cats barf and that itself doesn’t make them dangerous. The ASPCA pays attention to the bad stuff and ignores the stuff like spider plants that are probably not great for your cat, but they will eat anyway and be fine.
Yes to proportion and scale! Imo, this is how you can tell a picture from a pro-produced magazine from a blog.
Congrats! (I know nothing too, Jon Snow)
Congratulations on your new house! I am very jealous but also happy for a toastie who’s found a lovely house :).
I think Pinterest would be great for inspiration – the truth is, out of 10 pins you’ll probably only end up liking 1, but that 1 is important! Usually I spend ages on Pinterest pretty much pinning anything that makes me go ‘oooh that looks nice’, then I look at the board I’ve made and I can kind of get a sense of my style – e.g. it will just so happen that all those rooms I pinned have lots of geometric prints and unfinished wood furniture or something.
The most important thing, I think, is to remember that you’re decorating your house for you and your husband, not anyone else. I think Apartment Therapy has some good posts sometimes, but sometimes it will feature things that are just ‘things for things sake’, or kind of ‘props’ that are currently in fashion. If you get a bit overwhelmed by the design blogs, there is a blog called http://fuckyournoguchicoffeetable.tumblr.com/ that is kind of a funny look at design trends (if you don’t mind the f word). There are lots of things I like on there that the author hates, but it’s a nice reminder that stuff is stuff and the best thing you can do is please yourself.
ETA: there is a lot of stuff I pinned about 3 years ago, that I now hate. Your tastes will change and you will probably end up repainting and redecorating at some point, so don’t pressure yourself too much!
THAT BLOG IS HILARIOUS. Because every time I look at a blog or whatever I’m just overwhelmed by “who LIVES like this?!??” because in my house, bookshelves are for books, not artful displays of knickknacks from around the globe; and closets are for clothes and storage, not carefully-wallpapered little escapist nooks of delight; and kitchens are for COOKING, not for displaying a delicate little display of cut glass bowls and wallpapering in a fancy white paper. (Curry stains, is what I’m saying.) So mostly all of my feelings are “wow, I must suck at house design because none of these places look like real homes,” which is my biggest problem.
I have poked around Pinterest a bit but get overwhelmed there too–I think what I really need is a guide to “decorating terms” so I can put a label on what I like and search more effectively.
I have the exact same reaction – I was just looking at it now and all those rooms seem so…staged? I think people do live there and enjoy it of course, but I think I prefer some mess…and fewer pictures hung over bookshelves.
Do you mean like decorating styles? Shabby chic, Mid-century modern, Nordic type stuff?
Yes, exactly! I would love a basic primer on what those terms mean, and pictures. I wonder if there is a place I can hunt that up?
I don’t want to recommend pinterest again but it might be good, otherwise a simple google image search may be good – I can’t think of any sites that kind of split everything up like that. I can have a look later though – I’m about to get on a train home and usually by the time I get back the open thread has died, but I’ll post anything I find to this comment thread!
These are not a real solution and probably pretty pointless, but http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/search/label/q… here are a bunch of quizzes that claim to help you figure out your design style. If nothing else, you’ll feel like you’re making progress on stuff for a few minutes, and you’ll get used to saying no and yes to things, I guess? Scroll on past the first three though, those are garbage or non-applicable.
I love this. Thank you.
This isn’t really the most expedient solution, but a book I found insanely helpful was House Thinking by Winifred Gallagher. It is sort of a social history of home design and the balance of function/style. I felt like it really helped me to think more carefully about how I wanted to actually live in and use the rooms in our house, and what design/decor elements would be conducive to that.
You’ll also want to start paying attention to how your surroundings make you feel when you go to other peoples’ homes; what parts of their style do and don’t make you feel at home / comfortable? I have friends who have distinctive styles that they love and that I would not want to live with, and that is fine! Our homes should not all look alike.
Probably the most important advice I’d give, though, is to take your time, especially with a house that you now own. You have PLENTY of time to get it looking like you want, and rushing to make it live up to someone’s standards of “decorated” is going to lead to buying a bunch of shit you’ll later regret. Live with it for a while. See how you use the rooms. Figure out what works for you.
You might see if the Design*Sponge book is available at your local library. I think it has great ideas, and it might help you visualize one room at a time. Congratulations on your new place!
Some more suggestions I haven’t seen yet.
Acquire some books and magazines unless you truly believe in your ability to pin/file all the bookmarks you like and pull them up when you need them. I love the Domino book, and the Design Sponge book is pretty good too. But that’s just my style.
Have you ever seen anything you loved at Target that was a designer collaboration like Thomas O’Brien? Even outside the “home” section like the Missoni line? Go find their books and magazine spreads featuring their work.
If you’re having trouble figuring out how to hang things in groups on the wall or something you might want to look to the blog/book of a stylist like Emily Henderson or Orlando Bloom who can explain things like ‘the rule of three’ and how big of a rug you need.
Doing good painting prep (protecting your floors, dusting first) and using high quality paint will pay dividends.
Offbeat Home!
Well, I have bipolar disorder and a white-walled-12-foot-ceiling apartment: because of the bipolar disorder I have to surround myself with things that have meaning to me in *all* of my moods, and with the abundance of white walls, I need to bring in color.
So, I have to buy and display things that have meaning to me. For instance, I have a set of vases that look like kids-blowing-bubbles in the summer, and in fact, that was the artists inspiration. They speak to my sense of whimsy. I have a Matisse print of his blue paper nudes: even though Matisse was going blind, he found a way to express himself: When I’m coming out of a depression, the color that most speaks to me is blue, and I’m inspired by Matisse’s ability to find good in going-blind. I also have a lot of artwork by artists with bipolar disorder; in just some weird coincidence, I got most of the prints before I knew I had bipolar disorder. (Prints by Georgia O’Keeffe, Dante Rossetti, Jackson Pollack). I also like art glass very much, and I don’t usually worry if the colors are in a specific color palate, you know, that “goes” with my decor. Somehow, ecleticism (is that a word) works. It has to: while my depressive brain loves blue, my manic brain loves red and yellow. Uff dah, although I’ve avoided my apartment looking like an exploded color wheel.
So, you can look through art magazines, Houzz, home and garden magazines, an artists site like “artfulhome” or etsy … but in my opinion, you have to first choose things that speak to you. You have to look around your home and say “this is me”, or “this reminds me” or “I love the joyousness of this piece”. My apartment is full of eclectic things that somehow form a whole.
Start from your gut.
Toastfolk! (Stealing that term from perianwen.) Please help me plan a trip to California. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a big state, but I did that on purpose. I have a wedding to attend in San Diego on 20 September. And I am considering driving to San Francisco afterward. OK, so that’s only half the state.
It will be just me. Spouse and little dogs have other plans.
Driving up the coast appeals to me. I want to do that over two days, right?
More appealing than San Francisco and an ocean: I’d skip both to meet Toastfolk! Who has time and inclination?
Ideas, please!
Taking Hwy 1 all the way up the coast from SD to SFran will take a very very very long time. You’ll want to take the inland 101 for at least part of the trip. I’d suggest the 101 until, like, Paso Robles at the earliest, then up the 1 from there. Still, it’s a long-ass drive on which you have to pay a lot of attention (two lane hwy, lots of curves–don’t do it tired or in the dark unless you’re a kick-ass driver). It is spectacular, though.
Thanks for the tip. I was wondering how to best to get out of SD/LA. I love to drive and have been doing days-long road trips for decades. Love the curvy roads the best. I do not plan to do any driving in the dark. The scenery is my goal.
Do not do not do not drive on Highway 5, then. It gets you north to south a lot faster than the more coastal roads, but it’s the most soul-sucking highway I’ve ever driven on. It’s got miles and miles of fields that were probably lovely at one point but are now no longer being irrigated. It’s brown and dead, and not in a beautiful desert sort of way.
Will avoid. Thanks muchly.
I-5 between Buttonwillow and Stockton is a barren wasteland of complete and utter crap and no radio stations and miles and miles of cows, from which the smell will seep into the most hermetically sealed and air conditioned car. I used to take the 99 just to avoid it and so I’d at least go through a town every half hour or so, and then cut over to 1-5 at Lodi, or just wait until Sacramento to get back on the 5. Always got really excited about Sacramento, only 4 hours left! God I cannot believe how often I drove home from San Diego. Get a fucking airport, NorCal. (I mean, one that does not cost $600 to fly in and out of).
Ewww. Cows. Thanks for the heads-up.
Not even just cows. It’s cow farms. The bad kind.
co-signed. If you only have a couple of days, I’d just stick to southern california so you’re not stuck in the car the whole time.
I have all week. Whee!
oh, yay! Well, holler if you will be in SF!
Sunset Magazine’s website has lots of ideas on driving up PCH (highway one, or the Coast Highway)
I have driven up the entire length of PCH from Baja to Washington, and it is one of the prettier drives on the planet, no lie. Hearst Castle is on the way, as are several missions, wineries, and many excellent restaurants. Have a great trip!
Thanks!
You can do that drive in a day, easily, but it is a full day’s job. If you want to stop halfway, I’d recommend Morro Bay or Santa Barbara, both of which are gorgeous and full of beaches and fun things to do. The 101 will take you pretty much all the way up to the Bay, but WATCH OUT FOR COPS. It’s tempting to speed because it’s a gorgeous, flat drive with lots of space on the highway after you leave LA, but they are EVERYWHERE on the 101.
Driving the 101 will give you tons of opportunities to stop and have a picnic by the sea or buy street food or whatever you’re into. There’s also a scenic route that hugs the ocean if you take the 1 over toward Lompoc, which is very pretty.
I’m leaning toward getting a motel halfway. Thanks.
If you are taking the 101 up and stopping halfway, you could stop at the Madonna Inn!
http://www.madonnainn.com/
I have never stayed there but someday, someday I will. Because I cannot resist bizarre themed rooms with fireplaces!
Oooo. Sounds intriguing. Thanks.
It might be pricey just for the kitsch value, but oh boy does it have kitsch value. 🙂
We have done that drive MANY many times, and yes, the drive from Sandy Eggo to north of LA is pretty ugh, you just have to grit your teeth and go through endless suburban sprawl and urban sprawl. Although going over the grapevine is fun — but if you’re taking the 101 rather than the 5 (yes, recommended unless you’re rushing), you miss the grapevine. I have not done the 101 from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara, but I’ve done it from Santa Barbara to the Bay Area, and it is quite pretty up through Paso Robles. I’ve also done the 1 from Santa Barbara to Monterey, and it is slow but gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, and you could stop in Monterey and sleep and then drive up to Santa Cruz and over highway 17 (windy, gorgeous).
Yes. This is the kind of detailed advice I was hoping for. Thanks.
Re: 101 from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara: It was some pretty parts, but also lots of driving through suburb parts.
I agree with everyone else’s advice too. Some other ideas: Ojai is cute and I think has wineries (??), there is a emu/ostrich farm in Buellton, Solvang is fun to walk around and has lots of yummy bakeries
I will look into Ojai. Thanks.
Actually Buellton/Solvang is a much bigger wine area (it’s the area featured in Sideways), if that’s what you were hoping for. I used to work at a winery there, here’s the local association site: http://www.sbcountywines.com/
Not this trip. Avoiding alcohol for now. Thanks, though.
Speaking of Solvang, which is just a few minutes east of the 101, there’s a MINI HORSE ranch there. If you share The Toasts obsession with these little weirdos you can pull of the road and look at them.
Thanks. I just had a look at their website. They do look adorable. I’m more likely to squee over dogs, though.
You could skip most of the driving and just go to Disneyland.
I mean, it’s basically the opposite of driving up the coast to San Francisco, so I guess it’s unlikely to appeal to you. But if you’ve never been then it might be worth considering.
I performed at Disneyland with my college instrumental music groups annually for four years. I’ve had enough. But thanks.
Oh, yeah, that certainly sounds like enough Disneyland for anyone. Enjoy the other parts of California!
We should schedule a Toast gathering for when you’re in SF. Let us know when your plans have firmed up!
Yes, please! Oh, that would make me so happy! And anxious. But mostly happyhappyhappy.
Yes yes! We will do this.
yes! I am a fan of this idea.
My in-laws took us to the Hearst Castle last weekend (we did the bedrooms tour, which was great), then to San Simeon, where we watched a bunch of comic-looking elephant seals fight it out. We took curvy Hwy 1 back to the East Bay and it was wonderful.
Elephant seals and a castle. Sounds lovely. Thanks.
I recommend that we do a SoCal meetup. I’m in Orange County.
Yes, please! I would love to meet you.
If you’re a fan of the beach & wine DEF make your stop Paso Robles! Morro Bay has nice affordable 2-stars (and nice Air bnb options) and the vineyards are picturesque and SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than wine tasting in Napa. Generally <$20 for 4- 6 tastings and $20 bottles. Also, I think its almost exactly between LA and SF, and about 1.5 hrs north of Santa Barbara (which has incredible outlets and great little mexican places for lunch). ENJOY! That drive is breathtakingly gorgeous!
Little Mexican places for lunch is what I hope to find. Thanks.
If you’re in SD heading north on the coast highway, stop off in Leucadia (cute beach town) and get a good cup of coffee at Revolution Roasters:
http://revoroasters.com/
and if you’re going PCH all the way north, Big Sur is a good place to stop and hike and stretch your legs.
Oh, yes, short hikes, leg stretching are on the to-do list. Thanks.
We would love to meet you. Come visit!
I would love to meet all y’all, Bryn (Plus Others). Or only the one(s) interested in being met at the moment.
And I love small children, if you feel they are ready for exposure to Toastfolk. (Former day care director, high school teacher.)
Email me with my username @ gmail if you would like to talk about this more! We are all in favour of having small children meet people!
If you drive like I do (please don’t), know that in CA it is a terrible, terrible idea to go over 99 MPH. For a lot of reasons. One of which being that 100+ is a different law with much steeper penalties. I speak from very costly experience.
Ha! I used to drive like you do. I have learned to get my thrills from quick acceleration and a really good clutch and gear shift combo. But I top out at no more than 5 over the speed limit. I will be in a rental car, though, so I’ll be stuck with a boring automatic transmission. Which is not driving. Only steering.
HELLO TOAST! I’ve been traveling so much, I haven’t made an open thread in aaaaaages. I miss you all! Super excited to hear what’s new with everybody.
I am going to the BEACH this weekend, super excited for reading and swimming and campfires and BEACH.
What will you be READING!?
Well naturally I have given this a lot of thought as is proper for planning a beach vacation — it’ll either be The Likeness by Tana French, because I just read In the Woods and it was the best and The Likeness is about the secondary lady character from In the Woods who was like a million times more interesting than the actual protagonist, OR that biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay that was mentioned on here a few weeks (months? WHAT IS TIME) ago, depending on whether I feel okay bringing my Kindle to the beach or not.
My dad always puts his in a Ziploc!
Me too!
The Likeness is practically an AU of The Secret History. I LOVE IT. Have a lovely weekend of beaching and reading!
I liked The Likeness a lot! Better than her others, I think. Creepy and delightful! I second the kindle in a ziploc, it works great.
YES THE LIKENESS. Tana French’s mysteries are my official beach books (I go so rarely it’s taken me 4 years to get caught up). But I still think THE LIKENESS is the best one.
Please explain how the ziploc works with a touchscreen? Can it respond to me…through the ziploc?
Hmmm.
I just saran wrap my phone when I want to take it in the bath…(Won’t be fine if I drop it but protects it from splashes!)
Shall we celebrate some good?
The article Nicole posted yesterday about the new face of hunger made me so grateful that I have never in my life gone hungry. Never! There has always been food for me to eat. I am so lucky.
What are you grateful for, toasties? Let’s have Thanksgiving in July!
For the first time in my life I can pick what food I want to eat. I mean, yeah, I can’t rampage willy nilly through the grocery store buying just anything, but I don’t have to buy the bag of potatoes and some rice and hope the butter will last another week. I can think about where things come from and whether I should buy this or buy that.
Also, air conditioning. A few years ago, due to heat stress on an elderly cat, I scrounged an asthmatic window air conditioner that ate up tons of money, but kept the temps in my house below the triple digits. Last year, with the magic of 0% financing I bought a modern window AC, and it cost me less to run it all summer than it did to run the old one for a month. I think of this often this summer, as I sleep in comfort and rest instead of thrashing around in sweaty puddles as in the olden days (of my childhood and much of my adult life). (The AC was paid off before the 0% clock ran out, also a blessing!)
Rad! Here’s to the good life!
I have the place where I’m renting a room to myself until Monday, which means time to write and to sleep a looooooooot, as having no privacy is completely exhausting. I’m going to buy good food to eat tomorrow and then come home and listen to Wait Wait Don’t tell me and then sleep until Sunday night probably. Then back to looking for a real place to live!
I lost my wallet on a bus in Portland yesterday evening, and flew back home to SF this morning.
*~gratitude time~*
1) I’m grateful that a nice Angeleno who was also visiting Portland found it today, and was clever enough to find a way to contact me, so I should be getting it back;
2) mixed feelings on this, because fuck TSA in general, and I’m sure this would have been different if I weren’t a small white lady with an Anglo name, but I’m grateful that the TSA agent I got was very nice about the steps that had to be taken to get me through security with no ID. I was pretty stressed about how that was going to go down, and ultimately it wasn’t a problem (they called up a government database and asked me stuff like where I was born and the name of a relative/their relationship to me to validate my identity, and then patted-down/bomb-swabbed the shit out of me and my stuff, but there was no yelling or shaming);
3) I’m grateful that it actually wouldn’t have been a disaster for me to lose the ~$40 that was in the wallet and pay the fee to get a new driver’s license, buy a new Clipper card, etc. There have definitely been times in my life when that would have messed with my monthly budget in a big way.
*i* am grateful you got back just fine, and also thank you for writing about this! it is one of my nightmares, as someone who travels a lot and can be absent-minded. so good to know what happens next and that a person can still fly without an ID after all the TSA precautions are taken.
my own minor contribution to worst-case-scenario demystifying: you can also enter a US embassy overseas without identification if your passport is stolen. it was sort of thrilling for me to walk into an embassy just on my own say-so as a US citizen (after metal detectors and pat-downs of course). the orwellian side to this story is that they have enough past information about you & your family and also fingerprints that they can easily check who you are once you’re inside and issue a new passport in a few days if you are in a country with major US interests & connections (I’m sure it would have taken longer somewhere more remote).
An update on the Elevator Incident from yesterday (you may have seen me rage on Twitter; and if you were there, thank you so much for your kind words + validation of my feelings – it meant a lot).
Elevator incident rundown – I got in an elevator with three men yesterday, and as soon as the doors closed and the elevator was moving, one turned to me and said “It’s three against one. Do you trust us?”
I’ve been catcalled and that before by strangers, but this was the first time I felt directly and absolutely threatened by a stranger. Thank God my ride was only two floors, so before I even really had time to react, I was on my floor and could nope my way back to my desk. I now have an absolutely livid boss and extremely supportive coworkers who are willing to bathroom-buddy with me, but I was so shaken up it was hard to come in to work today, even though it was nobody from my actual workplace who would ever do such a thing.
Cherry on top of a really hard week.
BARF! What a horrible thing to say to a woman who has just been shut inside a giant steel box with no escape! That is a straight up threat! And how much do you want to bet this asshole just thought he was being funny and most likely would have (very very falsely) accused you of overreacting if he saw how shaken up you were. Fuck that guy, here’s a ticket to the sun. Bye.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, how awful. I’m so glad your boss and coworkers are reasonable human beings and supported you.
My boss and I have had a few conversations about exactly what steps he’s taking and the results we want to see, which has been really helpful. His exact words were “Rae, these guys are most likely just douchebags who weren’t thinking – but the consequence of them not thinking is NOT OKAY.”
He’s going to the building for me and wants an apology from them to me right away, and then is going to press them to try and figure out who it was. If they can find them and have them apologise, he wants to do that – but if we find them and they won’t, ‘We’ll deal with this in a different manner.’ For the meantime, I’m lucky enough that everyone in the office is aware and very supportive. I don’t have to go anywhere by myself elsewhere in the building if I don’t want to, which is very relieving to me at the moment. I’ve had to go to the washroom twice today and I thought I was gonna need an Ativan the second time when I went alone.
Grr.
but the consequence of them not thinking is NOT OKAY.”
<3 <3 <3 CORRECT ANSWER YES
I KNOW!! Awesome boss continues to be awesome. He also went and bought me a Coke Zero in a glass bottle today.
AWWW. Soda in glass bottles is the best! I’m so glad he’s being supportive. I felt a little creeped out getting into the elevator at work today after reading your post so I can only imagine how freaked out you must be. Massive hugs if you would like them. If you were at happy hour with me right now I would buy you all the beers!
I always like hugs, so THANK YOU! Have some cider or vodka for me?
Ok, so, still sending you a bunch of hugs, but I’d like to send one to your boss, too. More bosses like this please.
He is a top-drawer boss.
I think a lot of generally nice and kind and well-meaning dudes would nevertheless stop after the first part of that sentence, and that is depressing. I’m so pleased for you that your boss really gets it and is stepping up to defend you. As it should be, every time. <3
Have you thought about also filing a police report? There’s not much the police can do right now, but if you see any of them around again it could be very helpful to have a prior incident on record.
I guess I kinda thought it wasn’t ‘bad enough’ or I didn’t have enough to go on. Maybe I’ll call the non-emergency line tonight and ask their advice. Or tweet one of our officers – there’s a few really good ones on Twitter.
I think if you just tell them that you know there isn’t much there for an investigation but that you’d like to file a report anyway – just in case – they’ll usually be pretty considerate (especially if you make clear that you’re trying to be respectful of their limited resources). And it could make a big difference in the way they respond if you see these donkeys again.
(I’m a lawyer, if it matters.)
I really appreciate it! Thank you.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT MAN.
I’m so happy you have a supportive boss and coworkers because that experience sounds the most terrifying.
Thank you. At first I was wondering if I was overreacting, so I’ve really appreciated the support.
No no no not overreacting! That is fucking terrifying. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
Definitely NOT overreacting. That is some messed-up something right there.
Glad you’re ok and I’m sorry that happened to you.
Pardon me while I rage on your behalf now.
Thank you.
NOT overreacting. What the everloving fuck.
[ETA: that last bit directed at the assholes, not at you, in case that was at all unclear!]
Oh, jesus christ. That is so fucking wrong to say. I’m so sorry.
At least work are being supportive.
They have been really great, yeah. They are doing all the following up and detective work and trying to figure out who this guy is.
I’m glad about that. God, I’m just so angry on your behalf right now.
I still cannot believe those fucking men. Jesus Goddamn Christ. I’m so sorry you had to experience that bullshit. I hope you recover some peace of mind and I hope those guys fall down an empty elevator shaft.
I liked the ’roundhouse kick and emergency alarm noping’ idea on Twitter yesterday 😛
Oh god oh god oh god I’m so sorry that happened to you. That is beyond terrible. Is there any way to find out who that guy was? Thank the heavens for the supportive boss and coworkers, you also have lots of supportive Toasties who are very angry and wigged out on your behalf.
You guys are the best.
I thought one of the guys had a shirt with the logo of our property management company, so my boss is getting in touch with them, but it’s likely they may have just been contractors. Probably will never find out.
oh my god darling, how horrifying! I’m so sorry that happened to you.I just cannot even.
<3 thanks Bergie. You guys are great. I really appreciate you.
I am so angry on your behalf! I’m so glad you told your supervisor. I’d be shaken up, too. And I’m a big scary bitch. Holy shit. Wish I could make this better somehow.
Honestly, replying to my comment made me feel better – as I said above, I was actually wondering if I was overreacting when I got back to my desk yesterday, so knowing that other people are just as mad as I am validates me in a strange sort of way (but in a way I really needed).
Wait this happened AT WORK?? Holy crap. That’s terrifying. I’m glad your coworkers are supportive. I send as many Internet hugs as you need.
Yes, at work – I work on the first floor, and we don’t have a washroom in our suite. Our choices are a basement bathroom which smells funny and the third-floor bathroom which I normally use. I take the elevator because I wear four-inch heels at work. So it was definitely not anyone at all associated with my actual workplace – I think they were contractors or some such.
Jesus H. Christ, I am so sorry that happened to you. If this elevator was at your workplace, is it possible to find out who they were and pursue some kind of disciplinary action? (Of course, it’s completely understandable if you don’t want to do that, for any one of a number of reasons. Man, that is super terrible.)
I still can’t believe that asshole.
Am now picturing rounding up as many Toasties as possible to surround this guy’s desk/office. “It’s 25 against one. You definitely shouldn’t trust us.”
(So sorry this happened to you. I hope he gets fired so hard his dad feels it.)
I love your firing description and the idea of the Toast Posse.
I am definitely up for being part of that posse. Will bring a chainsaw.
holy fucking shit
Just…what…I mean, aside from the dead-eyed shitlord fuckwit who actually said this, what about the other two guys? just silent? chuckling softly to themselves? otherwise being horrible fucking human beings?
I am so, so sorry. How does the building work? Is there anyway to…fuck I don’t know, alert security? I am confrontational and vengeful by nature, so my first instinct might be to put up flyers about this in the elevators, but I don’t know if that would outweigh my discomfort / fear. But I can imagine myself wanting to inflict a metric shit ton of public shaming on the shitlords fuckwit three.
Bargle. So much vicarious rage. I’m really glad you have some supportive coworkers.
Thanks Genevieve.
We don’t have any building security (which is pretty terrifying now that I think about it) and I’m pretty sure these guys didn’t work in any of the companies in our building. I THOUGHT one of them had the logo of our property management company on his shirt, but I couldn’t swear to that, and the guy who made the comment didn’t. They may have been contractors and will never even be here again.
I really appreciated your inventive profanity. 🙂
Profanity is my jam. 🙂
I’m glad your boss is supportive, because ultimately it’s your company’s responsibility to provide a safe working environment. I mean, “safe” is really kind of a bare minimum, but there is just no way in hell you can be expected to come to work and be a normal person when you’re frightened for your safety. This seems like it should be a legitimate liability concern for both your boss and the property management company, but “should” is often a long way from “is.”
Man. Do whatever you need to do. I hope your boss can come up with a plan that works.
jesus christ. i’m so sorry. talk about unacceptable behavior. i’m glad you have your boss and coworkers rallying against you.
Thank you. I’m glad for them and for the Toasties and their excellent posse-forming. I’m glad to have a space to vent through it a bit.
I’m so sorry that happened. I’m glad you have those around you who are supportive. Just shows how terribly scary the male/female power dynamic is…what base, selfish men.
Thank you.
UGHHHHHHHHHH HOW TERRIBLE. I’m glad your coworkers are being supportive. I volunteer to join the Toast Posse and set this guy on fire — AND the other guys who didn’t do shit!!
Toast Posse – flag should bear the image of burning toast, yeah? Carrying a flamethrower? Or a fork in a toaster?
House Toast.
Sigil: A flaming fork in a toaster, upon a field of red.
Words: All men must die.
YES.
VALAR FUCKING MORGHULIS, y’all. Argh I’m still raging about this on your behalf hours later.
I envision something invoking “taking to the sea,” say a burning slice of toast in a Viking ship.
I just thought about this AGAIN when I was walking back from lunch — a construction worker passed me the other way and said hello how are you, and I responded, but then I had a flash back to this and what would have happened if there had been more of them and we were in an enclosed space and I just got so ANGRY that you had to be in that situation. 🙁
I really appreciate – well, I mean, I don’t LIKE that you’re feeling badly, I don’t like that anyone is feeling badly, including me – so I guess what I’m trying to say is I really appreciate the support and knowing you guys are thinking of me.
I am so sorry this happened to you, and I am SO glad your boss is angry on your behalf and hopefully willing to do something about it. I hope you never see this person again.
Thanks, Linette. I hope I don’t either. Maybe he’ll fall down a convenient elevator shaft.
No one will miss him.
Whaaat the fuuuuck D:
That’s completely horrifying on so many levels. I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m glad your coworkers are supporting you.
Thank you.
Jesus, I am so sorry. That’s horrifying. I second what everyone else is saying, obviously, in that we are so glad you’re okay and that your colleagues are being supportive. But oh my God, that’s so scary.
Thank you. It was really scary. I am really lucky to work with the people I work with, though – who all “got it” immediately. I feel really supported here even though I’ve got a pit in my stomach every time I have to go to the washroom now.
I am trying to keep up with thank yous on this thread, because I don’t think I can stress enough how unbelievably grateful I am for the support. If I miss you – I thank you too – you guys are so often my rocks here. I appreciate the safe space.
Thank you for sharing with us. I’m going to tell this story to all the men in my life.
Oh my gosh I missed this on twitter. I am so sorry that happened – that’s terrifying! I’m glad your coworkers and boss are supportive but completely understand why it’s rough for you to be at work!
What the actual fuck. Do you know who they are? Normal workers in your building?
They appeared to be contractors or workmen. One was wearing a shirt I thought had our property management logo on it, but I couldn’t swear to it. The majority of other companies in our building are quite ‘professional’ in attire, so it’s very unlikely they work in our building -there are renovations starting though and our elevators are near-constantly broken, so I assume they were there for something like that and may never be back again.
Also offering you these photos of the Siberian sinkhole – this is my new meditation – imagining all horrible men (not all men!!) dropping off into this abyss http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/…
Very soothing mental image. Thank you 😛
Add me to the chorus of voices expressing FIERY RAGE on your behalf. Like, my corporeal form has passed away and I am consumed, and am become a flame of rage and righteous indignation.
Also, huzzah for supportive bosses and coworkers.
Please let me also affirm you by saying: what you did in that situation was absolutely right, because you did whatever you felt you could do to be safe and survive. That is the most important.
Thank you so much.
I saw this yesterday and was honestly too dumbfounded to reply. Men have lost their fucking minds. And don’t for one second devalue your reaction in the moment. When I complained to my neighbors after my landlord pinned me from behind in a “hug,” the response was, “You should have kicked his ass!” Which is so easy to do when someone’s holding your arms down and squeezing you. It frightens me how I’ve gone from taking KILL ALL MEN with a humorous grain of salt to thinking it’s a sane reaction to an insane world. Take time to process this, lean on your coworkers and take care of yourself. And kill all men.
Thank you very much. So easy to jump to what I “should” have done.
JESUS CHRIST that is terrifying — even if it though it was probably intended as a joke (and of course that makes it easy for him to dismiss, ahahahahaha the repressive threatening patriarchal structure is so funny) because a threat of non-specific harm masquerading as a joke just shows how pervasive this poison is.
Do you know who the speaker was, or whether he has regular business/employment in the building? If so and if you’re comfortable doing you, you’d be completely justified in reporting this to his own office. That’s creepy as hell.
[eta: I just saw your update about the boss going in to demand an apology: GOOD.]
I am going on vacation to Colorado in a week and I cannot waaaaaaaaaiiiit. 8 days of playing on a mountain and also seeing Breaking Bad stuff in Albuquerque. (HOW did I spell that right on the first try?)
In worse news, no new job 🙁 I am so tired of being at my job, and I just want to move on. I’ve been here for 6 years and feel totally stagnant. Definitely had one of those “I’m going to be in this dead-end job and alone forever” moments last week.
Ohhhhhhh do I feel that feeling. (The terrible job feeling, not the vacation feeling. For that I am just tremendously jealous.) You have all my commiseration, and best wishes for something new soon.
FRIDAY CAT THREAD
let’s cat it up in here.
So, my cats are indoor-outdoor. They get locked in when we go to bed and can come and go as they please during the day. A few days ago, we closed up the balcony as normal (fetching in a struggling Bonny) and locked the cat flap and went to bed. In the morning, Jos heard plaintive mews.
Little stumpy Anne had somehow got out and hidden on the garage roof, and ended up locked out there all noght. Unlike Bonny, she is not athletic enough to jump down from the garage to the bins outside and come in through the cat flap.
Well, lesson learned, I guess! Tell me a story about your cats. (And from next week TONS more pics because I have a new camera!!)
I have no story for this week but I do have pictures. Kismet has been extra cute lately.
Here’s us together:
And her adorable face:
I like that second pic because it looks like she’s monitoring her human on a laptop cam while she’s at her very important, high-paying job 🙂 Plus her face is the sweetest!
She has a lovely kissable nose!
She wiggles it like a bunny. It’s adorable. She has to smell everythinggggg
So, I recently took the cats’ litter box room, removed all the litter boxes and everything in it, cleaned it hardcore (like, mopping the floor multiple times and walls and everything), and then closed it off. For a variety of reasons, but mostly because I want to eventually move my bedroom in there from where it is now.
IN ANY CASE. The cats are Not Pleased about this, and whenever I go into the master bedroom (aka craft room) that this room branches off of, my heart cat RUNS in there like his tail is on fire and sits by the door, waiting. Just waiting. For me to open it again.
Like, there’s not even anything interesting in there beyond a fleece that’s in the closet waiting for me to have the equipment to wash and card it. Cats are so fucking weird.
If we close a door in our house the cats sit outside it and wail until its opened again. At which point they walk away.
Mine periodically decide that they NEEEEED to get into the cupboard in the hall where the hoover lives. No idea why.
Mine will sit outside the bathroom door piteously waiting for someone to come back out. Or they’ll flop down in front of a closet door and cry like their hearts are breaking for the towels or winter boots. Why.
Mine cry when I’m in the shower. Cats.
YAWN.
LONG CAT. (that is a king sized bed)
My aunt is staying with us for ten days and my cat PEED ON HER PILLOWS.
Jesus Christ.
Guys, the cat situation will just not stop being CRAY up in here.
Last week I was so excited because our last foster cat (1 mama, 4 kittens–got homes for 2, kept 2 with our OG cat Nico) went home with her new family. The husband and I talked a BIG GAME about how excited we were to just settle in with our 3 cats and relieved that the other 3 have such awesome new homes and this was going to be our permanent family until such a time as we have kids and blah blah blah. We seriously could not stop talking about this like in the car and stuff, I cannot emphasize this enough.
CUT TO–Saturday night at about 9pm we’re driving to my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday party. It’s a lovely night and the windows are open, and we stop at a red light at the first major intersection leaving our neighborhood and hear BABY KITTY MEWS. Well, my husband did–I thought it might be a bird or something. Sure enough, right before the light we spot a tiny little kitten on the sidewalk next to the post that has that button you press when you want to cross. So we park at the convenience store and go try to grab the kitten. She gives us a pretty good chase, into the road a little and then up a tree and finally into some decorative grasses in front of the synagogue on that corner. So we’re in there with our phone lights looking for this cat. My husband finally found it and scooped it up and put it in my purse and brought it home.
It’s a girl, she’s about 5 weeks old, we took her to the vet and she’s free of any serious issues, and we’ve named her Kona. She is SO FRIENDLY, it’s insane. She also looks like a weird old man: http://instagram.com/p/qzAxPWvQdk/?modal=true
We joke about the God of Cats, but my husband almost literally believes in the God of Cats right now.
I don’t know what we’re going to do–I feel like 4 cats is too many, but we’ve pretty much tapped our network in terms of people who want cats and she is SO awesome. Easy, our boy kitten, is in love with her, they play all of the time. Nico is less enthralled so if he doesn’t warm up that’ll probably be a dealbreaker.
We had our “permanent cat family” for A WEEK.
She is adorable and so cuddly!
My cat got a hair cut! Here’s a pic:
ETA: I forgot how to post pictures. 🙁
My neighbour and I are jointly taking care of the sweetest little muffin cat in the whole world who unfortunately seems to have been abandoned 🙁 I have a cat already who is a grumpy mean little shit (who I do love dearly) who doesn’t play nice with other cats so we try to keep them in separate rooms (or one inside, one outside) and who is mostly over playing. It’s nice to have another cat that loves playing! She’s like a puppy, it’s awesome. Yesterday she climbed a small tree on my lawn fully for my benefit, as when I wasn’t looking she stopped climbing and would look back in my direction until I paid attention to her again. So great.
Chloe freaked out a visiting friend, because said friend was changing when Chloe opened the door. Chloe opens the door by standing up and batting separately with each front paw at the door, so it sounds like she’s knocking. PA-DA-DUP.
Aaaaa, it is the last night of my play about Aphra Behn in DC TONIGHT aaaauuggggh.
I made the mistake of reading the reviews about it, and while everyone says that it is a good time and everyone in it does a good job (so you should go see it if you live in DC, and if you don’t live in DC you should arrange to move there some time in the next seven hours and then go see it), I now have a sense of raging insecurity about it because that is what happens when I encounter even a small amount of criticsm.
(The other thing that I do is concoct elaborate justiications for how the reviewers actually just didn’t understand what I was trying to do, but this also fill me with anxiety — DO they realy just not get it, or am I fooling myself, and I’m just trying and not-quite-succeeding at doing something regular?)
This was too much information but I guess i had to say something about it. The play is good; there are swordfights, the feminism is brazen. What is not to love?
Is it part of DC Fringe? Congrats and break some legs tonight! People can find a little thing to criticize in just about ANYTHING. Swordfights and brazen feminism > a little nitpicky criticism!
As every writer knows, the critics are wrong and idiots and what the hell do they know!
You had a play produced! A real play! That is awesome
I AM GOING TONIGHT!! SO EXCITED!
I love Aphra Behn and I wish I were in DC (or anywhere approximating the east coast) so I could go see this! Wishing you all broken legs and some amazing feminist swashbuckling. xx
how cool – the play sounds fantastic!
just a personal experience with reviews — i find i can’t really hear the criticisms in the moment when the thing has just been published, or when i’ve just received and read them for the first time, but i see them differently and even find useful things in places if a re-read them a couple of months (at least) later. also, then, i can have perspective to see how the criticisms usually just affect details and sub-pieces of the work and are not a judgment on The Entire Thing and Its Worth.
antonia fraser has some interesting bits on harold pinter, tom stoppard, and others receiving reviews in her memoir “Must You Go?” that might be useful to browse through, too.
So, I mentioned in the midweek open thread that I attended USA Powerlifting Raw Nationals this past weekend, and that I saw some damn strong women. Here are a few highlights; if you want more, the vids I linked are mostly from George Marts’ YT feed, and he has a ton up from this and other comps.
Sioux-Z Hartwig-Gary, Women’s 57Kg Open and Masters 1a Champion
Jennifer Thompson, the best powerlifter alive today man or woman*, Women’s 62 Kg Open and Masters 1a Champion
Regina Hackney, Women’s 84 Kg Masters 4b (75-79) Champion (this vid is from a different competition this year, but you get the idea – she’s badass)
BeBe Burns, Women’s 52Kg M4a (70-74) Champion
The AMAZING Bonica Lough, who broke the American record in squat (534 lbs.), bench (308 lbs.), deadlift (501 lbs.), and total (the sum of the best of each lift; in this case 610 Kg/1343 lbs.). She unofficially set the world records as well. (PS: she’s stronger than me by a mile – squats a lot more, and I’m a 105 Kg dude)
*JT, as she is known, has the best Wilks coefficient (body-weight-to-strength ratio) of any lifter affiliated with the International Powerlifting Federation (the IPF, and the USAPL Federation – which is part of the IPF – do drug testing). She is for sure the best living “clean” (drug free) powerlifter, and possibly the best of all time. Also, she seems REALLY nice, from the 5 seconds of starstruck interaction I had with her. In fact, ALL of the powerlifters I’ve met, at this and other USAPL meets, were super-duper nice and friendly and encouraging. I cannot say as much for untested strength sports I’ve done.
Dang
AWESOME! Thanks for sharing these.
Sioux-Z is crazy strong.. I met her once because her gym was hosting a strongman competition and she is like a tiny ball of strength. She and others like her are the reason why I’m also generally like “welp, probably not going to medal anytime soon” when competing in MD in the 60s and 53s.
How did you do at the meet? Also, btw, did you meet a guy who goes by Cheese? I think he is in your weight class or the one below.. we used to go to the same gym in Bmore but then he moved out to San Diego. I think he is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met in person. It’s tied between him and a grad school friend’s husband who is a professional Strongman and who competes at the Arnolds.
I wish I had met a guy named Cheese! Sadly, I did not. I did OK. Came in 4th in my Masters 1b (45-49, prime dad territory) 105 kg group. Tied my squat and bench PRs from a higher BW (110 Kg; nats uses the international classes, so I had to drop to 105), but I gassed HARD on the DL. Ended up going 490/330/485 (lbs.). Saw some cray strong dudes. Gregory Johnson walked out on his first deadlift and pulled 350 Kg (772 lbs!) like it was an empty bar. Humbling.
Sioux-Z was super nice. Her husband was in my flight, and she came up to me at one point and let me know that they had misloaded the bar (on my second bench – heavier than we’d called). It turned out to not matter, but it was VERY nice of her to look out for another lifter.
Ahhh that’s really good! Also, i think the shift in the intl classes (or the decision for Nationals to use that when everyone else in the US uses a different set of weight classes) throws a lot of people off. :/
That is a ridiculous squat you have! Also that dude pulling 750+ lbs? Incredible. I’m going to have to look him up and find video.
Thanks. My squat isn’t where I want it yet, but it is moving. In 2015, ALL USAPL comps will move to the international classes. So you may have a chance to gain a bit of weight, or lose it, depending on where you fall.
I just looked them up! So weird.. they look like they almost want to be like the weightlifting classes, but nooooot quite.
I’m at the level where I don’t feel like I’m competitive enough to worry about making weight classes yet though, but that’s good information to know! I weighed in at 57kgs at my last meet for the 60 kg weight class, just missing the 56kg mark for the next weight class.
Has anyone successfully tried rag curls (or any non-heat styled curling technique) on a short pixie cut, as in the second tutorial here? What is your secret to getting the dang hair wrapped around the fabric without slipping away?! I tried last night but aargh, my fingers aren’t small and nimble enough to hold the hair in place while also rolling.
(For what it’s worth, my hair is two and a half inches at its longest, but I should still be able to get one twist in there. Or do anything at all interesting for this fancy event.)
My hair is longer, but I pincurl it, which might be easier on short hair since you do it with just fingers? I know Lisa Freemont Street uses a little curling tool when she curls short hairs in her bangs or at the back of her neck. That might help, too.
Oh, that’s really helpful. It looks like I can use her bang technique everywhere, since that’s almost as short as my hair (and luckily the sides and back are shaved.) Though I think I’ll still be cursing tonight, trying to get it wrapped around my finger. Thanks!
At that length, pin curls, not rag curls. Use styling gel, twist into a tiny coil, pin to your head.
ETA: maybe 2 pins per curl, in an X.
Adding to the chorus of pincurl fangirls. I do really like the two-pronged clips designed to hold curls. I had trouble with bobby pins leaving dents in the curl and/or falling out while I slept.
Thanks to everyone for your OK Cupid advice on Wednesday — I got one very nice message back and I’m going to meet up with her! Yaaaaay!
Good luck! And report back!
She’s out of town for a few weeks but don’t worry, I will! (Joining OKC is also my impetus for coming out as into ladies as well as men, so lots of things are happening at once!)
Hey, that’s really exciting! Yay!
I have a new camera! I have outpaced digital compacts, but DSLRs cost about the same as our monthly mortgage payments and all the lenses confuse and frighten me, so I went for a bridge. I haven’t played with it yet, but I’m excited to. Hopefully in time I’ll learn how the various things work and be able to get close to the pictures I want to achieve.
I don’t really talk about this at all, because it seems so silly, but I do actually take pretty nice pictures, and while I don’t want to be a *photographer* I would like to get better at it and do good pictures, and maybe I should take a class? Has anyone ever taken any class? Was it useful?
Just hopping on this thread with the exact same question, should anyone have answers. Twitter told me a class was a good idea, but I would love to hear more people’s experiences of them.
I don’t have helpful advice, but thank you for saying this, because I have been idly thinking “Hmm, I would like to be better at photography, especially if I keep up making stuff out of clay” lately and it literally had not occurred to me that “So… maybe take a class?” was an option.
I am/was a *photographer* and taught a few classes on the cheap pretty successfully so here’s a bunch of words.
A good class can expand what you can do with a camera far beyond what you could ever learn on your own in a hundred years, and a bad one is slightly less useful than just googling “camera pretty picture how”. I’d look into what local programs the pros and wannabe-pros are taking – pretty much any major population center’s gonna have an ASMP or APA who might be useful there, and you don’t actually have to be a member to get their updates on what’s going on in town. Stay away from the hobbyist community-college stuff until you know it’s not just teaching 60-year-olds how to connect a USB cable.
Three things to start with:
Can you camera shoot in a raw format? Shoot in raw. You can fix any number of sins in a DNG that are just flat-out irreparable in a jpeg
Get this book, it is a phenomenal resource on composition theory with a bunch of handy illustrations
Try taking a class on studio lighting, even if you’re probably never going to shoot in a studio again. Lighting is the biggest difference between a good photo and a boring one no matter what kind of thing you’re shooting, the same principles apply whether you’re slinging around $6000 in German monolights or just using the sun, and it seems like it’s completely unintuitive for most people. It’s also a good way to meet people who are really cool and knowledgeable and do all kinds of crazy shit with their cameras, or alternately a good way to meet people who really like getting naked in front of strangers.
Thank you! This is all really useful.
I will see if there is a photography association around here (I’m sure there is). Books on image composition and lighting are a great idea, too, I would never have thought of it. I know what good lighting looks like, but don’t really know how best to capture it.
Another resource for learning that is often cheap or completely free is photography Meet-Up or Flickr groups. Not only can you meet other people who love photography in your area and learn lots of tips and tricks from them, but being in a group can make you braver to go out shooting in places where there are a lot of good subjects, but you feel too self-conscious to shoot alone, like city streets or festivals. I’ve done this a few times, and my dad is WAY into it and has made several friends through Flickr meet-ups.
Party people! My bro and sis in law moved to a new place recently, and they have an extra queen bed that they’ve very generously offered to me. And they’re throwing in extra sheets, and all kinds of stuff! I’ve wanted a bigger bed for years (it’s top on my list of things to buy once I’ve paid off loans) so this is HUGE and I am very grateful and happy. I’m going to make fancy muffins and bring them over when we meet, but I want to get them a nice thank-you gift as well. Any suggestions for someone on a limited budget?
Write them a nice note about how much they/this gift mean to you! Notes are at the perfect point on the meaningful/cheap optimization curve.
If you’re making fancy muffins, would it be possible to deliver them in a pretty reusable tray/carrier/some-such that could also serve as a housewarming gift? If you feel like the one item isn’t enough, you could maybe even do a little basket filled with useful kitchen tools. I’m not sure how limited your budget is, or what kind of move this is, but when I moved into my current apartment I was *so grateful* for the assortment of cleaning supplies and kitchen stuff (measuring spoons! a vegetable peeler! things one does not realize one needs until there isn’t one at hand) that my sister brought me, and most of the items in the assortment were super inexpensive but very useful. Of course, that was my first-ever Adult Move, so possibly they won’t need as much of that stuff if they have already been adults for some time. :p
And if they already have that sort of thing, or you’re concerned about not getting the style or type of thing they like, a nice housewarming gift that I’ve done in the past is to make up your own gift set of semi-high-end olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, and pepper. People can always use those!
you can get this stuff cheaply at home goods/tjmaxx/(maybe also ross?)
Guest soap for their new place? (Corny, I know)
pot some $1 succulents from home depot in a vintage dish or random container from the thrift store. I did one in a rusty birdbath recently that looked great.
love this idea
AND it doesn’t take any skills. Throw dirt in, pat down, hooray!
My partner’s mother has some mental illness issues. She raised him alone, they love each other very much, he has always contended that he has no hard feelings about having to be basically her husband at a very young age, because he knows she did the best she could.
She moved to Washington state a few years ago. They used to talk every few weeks on the phone. Calls got fewer and farther between and finally stopped altogether. He wrote letters, never heard back. She would occasionally send word through her ex-boyfriend, who arranged for food to be sent to the tiny island where she had retreated. She didn’t see anyone, didn’t go anywhere. My partner started to worry she was deteriorating into full-scale mental breakdown.
He received one voicemail, last year, telling him she was all right and just needed some space and that she loved him and wanted to see him. She bailed out of wanting to see him, but he felt better.
Yesterday, he got a call from his father, who divorced his mother when he was still in utero. She moved back to our town. Without telling him. Three weeks ago.
I . . . just . . . what.
I’ve got my own mom issues, but he seems to take this more or less in stride. He’s not happy about it, but she’s his mother, he loves her, and she has a lot of mental problems that sometimes make her logic unwittingly cruel. I like his mother. I’ve met her. She’s pretty lovely. But I can’t even fathom how he’s upright right now.
I come from a long line of crazies and like. When you grow up with it, Fucked Up Things become NBD (comparatively) because you’re so used to being hurt by that person that it doesn’t seem like a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Like, if my dad had done the whole island thing and then moved back and not told me, I would be 100% unsurprised and not actually all that hurt by it because lol Dad’s being Dad again.
So, I mean, I don’t know your partner and I don’t know how he’s actually feeling, but if he is taking things in stride it’s a totally normal coping mechanism, if that makes you feel better!
He basically shut down entirely for about eight hours and then was okay once he worked it through his internal processing center. He’s definitely not pleased that she did this and will probably speak sternly with her about it, but I imagine after that she’s going to become a pretty big part of our lives.
From a distance, that sounds like a pretty healthy way to process one in a series of difficult parent moments: giving himself time to absorb it, letting himself be calm if that’s how he feels best, telling her that it was upsetting. I hope he can maintain such a good emotional buffer now that she’s closer.
Now that she’s closer, I imagine we’re going to be seeing a lot of her – or at least, he will be, but she doesn’t socialize very much with others and we’ll have to see if I get to be one of the sacred few she can stand to have around for longer than an hour or so. She has high social anxiety and some people are more “work” to her and some are more neutral energy-wise, which I think is true for us all. He missed her a great deal, though, and I am hoping they’ll get to rekindle their close relationship.
This is really the best way to describe it. You just get used to it.
This is coming from someone who hasn’t heard from her dad in over a year.
🙁 I am sorry you’re having to get used to that.
Wow. I am amazed by people like your partner who grow up with parents like that and come out well-balanced and strong.
Both of my partner’s parents are difficult, and when people ask how he turned out so level-headed and stable, he says it is because he had a really good demonstration of how not to live your life when he was growing up :/
Yeah, my mom is difficult and I don’t deal well. Maybe your partner is more like my sister who takes the good and lets the rest run off her back like the proverbial duck.
His mom has a lot of good qualities, and she has always had his back in everything he does, so I think that goes a long way toward him feeling like he can handle it when she pulls something like this. He tries to be as generous toward her feelings as she was toward his growing up, but hers are . . . not exactly typical, which makes it much harder.
I don’t have anything super useful to contribute, but I feel like I’ve been in a somewhat similar situation. My fiance’s background is a lot like this, and I am often super confused by the way he handles his reactions to unfortunate things happening in his family. The things that I would expect to trigger his emotions usually are not the things that do, and sometimes he doesn’t really *deal* with things in a way that I can identify at all.
Just the same, whatever he does seems to work for him? So I mostly just try to be patient and supportive, and to ask him what he needs when the things that would help me in the same situation are definitely not it. I am also trying to learn to stop guessing how he will feel, which is strange for me, because I often try to anticipate other people’s emotions. If you are a person who is used to understanding your own feelings, and who thinks it is important to spend time identifying them or processing them or whatever, it can be a little disconcerting to be so close to someone who doesn’t operate that way, but I guess everyone needs to do what works for them. (Also, I apologize if I have made assumptions about how you do things based on how you feel about his response. Totally possible that this is not really relevant to your situation.)
No, you’re right. I tend to want to talk out my emotions and think he’s reacting unhealthily when he doesn’t want to talk, but he DOES want to talk, just after he’s thought about it for a while and has figured out how he feels. I talk in order to figure out how I feel; he talks once he’s finished that process. And he’s patient with my method of processing, so I try to be patient with his, but it is very hard because it is an invisible process and I can’t tell how long it will take for him to be done, so I just feel kind of tense wondering when I get tagged in to be supportive vocally.
I completely understand. I also talk (or write) to figure out my emotions, and my dude feels pressured and anxious if he’s asked to talk about his feelings before he’s had time to deal with them. In my case, I also sort of have to learn how to express my affection differently, because in my family/upbringing, talking about feelings is a way that we communicate love and support, but that is the opposite of what Dude needs. I also come from a family that expresses love by Being Helpful, and it can be hard to figure out how to do that for him. Not sure if this would work for you, but sometimes it helps to channel my inclination to Be Helpful into just taking care of some other little things so that he has more space to process, like picking up a little more of the shared cooking/cleaning/whatever, or planning for more of our free time to be spent doing low-key/quiet things when I know he’s going through something difficult. That all sounds a little obvious, but sometimes it’s something I have to consciously do so that I don’t ask him what he’s thinking every five minutes. :p
i’m so glad it’s the weekend. omelets, dancing, lazing in the park, trying to ramp up my gym schedule—all these things await!
i got verbally (or…digitally? via email) disciplined by a superior at work yesterday in a way that was totally fucking demoralizing, so…bring on the omelets, is what i’m saying.
Professional feedback should not be demoralizing. Your superior did it wrong. Pick me up at my house and I will treat you to omelettes at a great diner in my neighborhood.
yayyy comfort omelets!
the silver lining is that my more direct superior called me into his office to let me know that he thought his superior (who did the chastising) was out of line, and that he left him a message saying as much.
My sleepy brain read this as “omlets dancing lazily in the park”. This mental image pleases me. I thank you.
pleases me too
Omelettes! WHAT AN EXCELLENT IDEA *adds eggs to shopping list for weekend*
while honest folk were all out celebrating the birthday of the Toast on Wednesday, I was busy going to a Nick Cave concert. “so what,” you say. well, this one was extra special because listen: listen:
I TOUCHED HIM.
what did it feel like? oh, nothing much, just Nick’s hand was wet like rain, pale as a fish, hard as a bone, cold as truth. that’s all.
I wasn’t quite at the very front, but he walked out on us just a little like Jesus on the water and we bore him up like the Sea of Galilee and for the same reason, which is not that it was afraid not to or any nonsense like that, but because we loved him, like that sea did, too well to let him fall. I did not personally bear him up because I am a coward when it comes to grasping my idols about the loins, but I scrabbled at the hem of his jacket a wee bit. I did not cop a feel as such because I am too decent a woman for that. It was on his way back to the stage that he brushed my hand with his hand
WHILE SINGING TUPELO he did this. is this real life, et cetera.
then he did From Her to Eternity just because I asked him to, with my heart, which was when the stars rained down on the earth and all the blood in my body turned to sand. then he did The Weeping Song and I fell into a vast and deep black lake of time. then he did The Mercy Seat and my eardrums turned to honey so I can’t really say what happened after that. some business from the new album I reckon.
oh! and he did his signature swoopy move a whole lot. I don’t know what he calls it but I call it ‘the bolt of Tash falls from above’ cause that is what it looks like to me. Please understand I am not making fun, I would flay the skin from my back to make into a cloak to lay over a puddle for him to walk over so as not to sully his boots, if I could. In a second. In a heartbeat! oh, Nick. If I had not been turned to a pillar of salt after West Country Girl I might have cried human tears.
That man is amazing. He stepped on my hands several times when I saw him last year, and I didn’t even mind. (pics!)
In PARIS you saw him? I will die of jealousy because I am never satisfied.
(Would it be foolish to skip work to go up to New York the day after my birthday just to see that silly documentary he had made about himself? They didn’t do a D.C. screening so in theory it might be my only chance.)
It would be foolish not to.
I did! Well, I live in Paris, so it kinda made sense. It was a gorgeous small venue, too: 19th century theater, only 1000 seats…
!!!!
That’s all I can say, really. I’d love to see Nick Cave.
OH GOD I meant to get tickets to that show and forgot, and now I want to throw my self on the floor of my office and have a kicking screaming tantrum.
AHHH I AM GOING TO SEE NICK CAVE IN A WEEK SO EXCITED
About 3 weeks short of my first trimester, and I DO NOT LIKE BEING PREGNANT SO FAR. All day sickness since week 4, and the max dose of Zofran just turns it down to a dull constant nausea. And the fatigue! I keep telling myself I just need to get through the first trimester and it’ll all get better but dang! Side-eyeing all my friends who keep talking about how medicalized pregnancy and childbirth are b/c this sure as heck feels like an illness. Keep trying to remind myself that before I got sick, I was very excited, and will be excited again, and that I’m only going to do this once, and I’m really fortunate that thus far it is a strong and health pregnancy for my jerk embryo. (I know I know but what are you dooooooing in there, embryo.) Does anyone have any it-gets-better stories because I would love to hear them!
I’m where you are, in my second pregnancy. As I wrote below, I am languishing pitifully. It SUCKS.
But it does get better, it really does. The nausea will go away eventually, you’ll stop feeling so tired, and the jerk embryo will start kicking and elbowing you and seeming less like a parasite and more like a proto-baby. And then you’ll have him/her and be amazed at this tiny person, and they will get cooler and cooler as they grow. My first little parasite is now a joyful little 13-month-old with chubby cheeks who yells “GOG” every time she sees our dog.
This one had better be like twice as cute though, because I’m easily twice as sick this time around. GRR.
Aww ok so THIS + hormones made me cry a little. I can’t want for proto-baby and I REALLY can’t wait for a talking little person and that is why I decided to do this in the first place so ok.
So much sympathy for your sickness! The other day I was trying to imagine doing this with a toddler (many of my friends are on round 2 or 3 of babies at this point) and you have all my respect! If I never eat ginger again as long as I live, I will be completely ok with that.
I was so sick from week 5 until week 13. I couldn’t have solid food before noon, so I drank a lot of Ovaltine (which, honestly, silver lining. that stuff is tasty.). Relatively speaking, it was pretty easy after that. I got more (minor) headaches than normal and had more asthma attacks during my second trimester, but it wasn’t bad. I went to yoga every week until week 37. I felt good! I got laid a lot! I didn’t hit totally-miserable-can’t-move until week 39, and my daughter was born during week 41, so it was really nbd.
But it definitely did feel like an illness to me a lot of the time. You are not wrong there. I’m only doing it once, too. I look back on pregnancy as an interesting thing I’m glad I did, but that I’m glad I’m not going to do again.
I don’t have any getting-better stories, but I will offer you my best empathy and sympathy. Being sick sucks. I really, truly hope you hit the magic wall many women seem to hit and the nausea disappears. 100%.
So many hugs if you’d like them! If it makes you feel better, it really does get better for most people after the first trimester. My sister had HORRIBLE morning sickness and it tapered off hugely in her second and third trimesters.
Congratulations on the pregnancy!
This is entirely anecdotal, but my friend swore by having something tiny (like, three saltines) at her bedside to eat immediately when she woke up. Having a little bit of food in her belly before she actually started moving helped her immensely. Maybe try it? Maybe it will work for you?
Yes! That is what worked for me. Honey nut Cheerios the instant I woke up. And lots of cinnamon gum and altoids.
Yes, for us it was Kashi crackers. It did not erase the nausea but it helped a lot.
I cannot promise you that it will get better because everyone’s pregnancy is different every time, but we were really sick through about week 17 the first time, and then it DID get better and we could start enjoying food and got more energy back and things just got better and better until there was a baby!
It is hard to be excited when you feel horrible. Do not police your emotions, and for goodness sake, do whatever it is you need to do to get some relief, taking the Zofran and finding the right foods and everything. I glare at your medicalised pregnancy friends.
Here’re my week’s Up/Downs:
Downs: I feel like I might be getting close to slipping back into depression and anxiety. I don’t know, I can’t really tell, but it seems like there have been a couple days in the past few weeks when I just felt so down and like my relationship was ending and like I should high-tail it to a burrow somewhere in California. I’m keeping an eye on things though and after a rough evening feeling rejected by spouse, I feel much better now. I don’t like these swings.
UPS can’t seem to get my fucking address right for a delivery that was supposed to arrive LAST FRIDAY and it was supposed to come today after being corrected over the phone three times, but here it is 5 o’clock and no bitchin leather jacket that I ordered three weeks ago.
As for UPs (not to be confused to with the inefficient delivery service), I will be going to a craft beer festival tomorrow in Birmingham! Weeee! The best part is, I will finally get to meet my brewing mentor and try her beers there AND stay the night in her brewery! I’m so excited and ready to drink a lot of nice beers.
I made my first eBay sale this week and got positive feedback! Huzzah! I want to sell everything, including spouse who can work like a homing pigeon and come home and I can sell him again!
Any ups or downs you’d like to share?
A craft beer festival sounds like a wonderful way to spend the weekend. How cool you get to stay overnight in a *brewery* too.
Hope UPS pulls their thumbs out and gets you your jacket!
There are some downs, but I think they’re brought on by a hormone surge, so I’m trying to step back and not let them overrun my brain. Though I am sad because I messaged a bunch of people about going for a drink after work and only got 2 declines/unavailable and no one else has responded. :/ They’re folks I consider friends who I don’t see much of these days and it’s a shame. But I’ll probably go to the pub with Mr TN and a neighbor or 2 later, so it’s not the end of the world.
That’s sucky about people not responding/declining. Did you manage to at least go out anyway?
Same here with the hormones and feeling sad. I had my worst when I had the birth control arm implant, and since I had it removed over a year ago, things have mostly been ok, but these recent negative thoughts have been increasingly familiar. Utter pants. How do manage to “step back”? I am trying to do that too, but I still wind up crying in the bathroom at 1am over my brain inventions, so I think I could use some new ideas in that department.
AND FUCKING DAMN DAMN UPS.
I’ve been the same way lately; everything just feels off even when it’s objectively fine. I got up this morning feeling completely ridiculous and after an hour or so of working decided to call it a day. Officially, it’s sick time; unofficially, it’s a mental health break. So, solidarity, I guess.
The craft beer festival sounds so exciting; I’d be so excited.
UGH yes! The objectively fine part is so difficult to deal with because, for lack of a better way of putting it,it feels like it’s gaslighting my whole scope of the world. I feel sad and distressed but everything is fine-why am I sad and distressed?-I am wrong for being sad and distressed, because everything is fine, and so it goes. I really hope it gets better for you.
No, it’s a great way of putting it, considering that the entire concept of depression is based on your brain chemistry gaslighting you, either by making you sad when you “shouldn’t” be sad or just by warping your reality so that the messages you get from the world conflict, which in turn makes you sad.
And thanks, I hope things get better for you as well!
Your ups sound super fun! Hope you get more ups than downs next week.
Thank you! I am trying to keep the Ups on the front burner so I can report without any downs next week 🙂
UGHHH UPS! I have had a terrible time with them not delivering/ losing a package, and now apparently my house is blacklisted, and they will only deliver to us if someone is around to sign for it. Because I have leisure time to sit at home and wait for packages all day. And they still have not given me a refund for the lost package.
The UPS guy who delivers to my office downtown is lovely, but otherwise they are all monsters.
My awful this week is morning sickness. I am so freaking sick of throwing up. My rum-soaked ladyfingers, though, are my in-laws, who are visiting and basically doing everything for me and taking care of my one-year-old while I languish on the couch and try anti-nausea remedies that don’t work.
Any recommendations on how to thank them? And who else has awesome in their lives to even out the sucky stuff?
honestly, if you’re the kind of person that desperately wants them to know how grateful you are, I’m sure they already know. I have no doubt you’ve thanked them profusely, and I bet they are just delighted to be included. Wait until you’re feeling better to try and work out something nice for them. For now, just eat some ginger and let them take care of you. Hoping you feel much better much soon. Nothing is worse than nausea, ugh.
Ahhhh! My plan is to try for number two when our first (who is now 3 months old) is one year old, and I am not looking forward to that experience for just this very reason! All my empathy! Your in-laws are super heroes. I will say that I bet a new grandbaby to love (and the current one they can love on now) will be all the thank you they want.
LONDON TOASTIES! Tonight, scared_vagina, a friend who reads the Toast and I are meeting at The Montpelier pub in Peckham. I have put this up here the last two Friday open threads and some people expressed interest so do come! I am @dearoldsmee on Twitter and I will tweet the location of our table if we can grab one. I am leaving work in 15 minutes to go get the train to Peckham Rye and will be there c.6.30pm. I am wearing a dress that is a beige background with very bright geometric shapes all over it, and Rachel tells me (we have not met) that she is in a bright yellow t-shirt, so look out for the table of brightly coloured rain-sodden (I do not have a brolly on me today) ladies. I will put a yellow handbag on the table, as well as the book ‘Crampton Hodnet’ by Barbara Pym.
I’ll be there! I’m just eating dinner, so I’ll aim to get there around 6:40-6.45ish. I’m a short-haired brunette lady with a black leather jacket.
I’m here with scared_vagina first booth from the entrance opposite the bar!
Finished reading NK Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. It was super! It’s got some matriarchy, some raging against the patriarchy, some backstabbing and intrigue and romance, some hot sex with brooding gods of darkness, and…well, what else do you want? Well, how about a non-medieval-Europe fantasy setting with lots of non-white and female characters? And a hefty bit of female gaze? Have I sold it to you yet, Toast reader? Time for me to get the rest of her books. Next, Summer of Female SF/F Writers 2014 continues with Paladin of Souls, along with some short stories from Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction! issue. Best book summer evaaar.
In other sexy, inclusive fantasy news (but in games!), Dragon Age: Inquisition got delayed a month to November. BOOO. I gueeeeess it’ll make the game better, and it’s more convenient to play right before Thanksgiving. Hmph. Ironically, via a stray retweet, I learned at the same time that the aforementioned NK Jemisin is a big Dragon Age / BioWare fan? Lady, you’ve made a new fan and twitter follower.
Also I had a $14 glass of sherry and it was delish.
I loved that book and the only reason why I haven’t gone on to the second book yet is.. I’m too lazy to go to a physical library. -_-; but admitting that in writing has now shamed me to go about doing it again..
I mean, I heard about it and how awesome it was like two years ago and have only just now gotten around to reading it on my Kindle, so I’m not one to judge.
I lurrrrrved that series and am sad no one pointed me to it earlier. Now I evangelize about it to anyone who will listen.
I shall help spread the word!
YES Paladin of Souls YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Utterly adored Curse of Chalion, and the first few chapters so far have been equally great. “Fuck y’all! I’m going on the ROAD.” *Runs away!*
This summer reading plan was a very good idea.
Curse of Chalion is GOOD. Paladin of Souls is GREAT.
Agree! Paladin of Souls is one of my favorite Bujold books. I periodically relisten to the audiobook whenever I’m feeling blah about most other sources of entertainment.
I am so excited to be a giant babely Qunari and date every single cutie
every
cutie
Fuck. Yes. Qunari lady main character.
There is quite literally no one in the companions/advisors that I do not want to romance. (Well, except Cole, because he’s basically an underage demon and it would be inappropriate!)
In reality, I will almost certainly date the Iron Bull, because come on. He’s seven-foot talk giant-horned pansexual Freddie Prinze Jr. I MEAN COME ON.
i am probably going to have a moment of intense indecision between iron bull and sera, but let’s get real, sera is the only choice. have you seen that self-cut hair?
i am hopeful she will be the butch bioware romance lady all my bioware heroines have dreamed of
And now, a moment of respectful silence for those folks who hoped for a non-straight Cassandra.
I just read the Inheritance trilogy as well! And quite enjoyed it! I also read The Killing Moon by Jemisin this week, which I didn’t like quite as much but still enjoyed.
I have just started Dragon Age II so I am hoping to work on that a bit this weekend… but I also downloaded the Destiny beta last night and I’m working on a Mass Effect 2 game while I use the treadmill AND I just got a Wii U and am playing Wind Waker AND I have family in town so… I may not get as much traction on DA2 as I would like.
“I’m working on a Mass Effect 2 game while I use the treadmill.” This is the best thing. Man, I wish I didn’t game mostly on PC so I could do the same. I would exercise so much more.
Also, word of warning on DA2: your character is often remarkably ineffectual, in terms of changing the plot. I love the game dearly, but it’s definitely a lot about being a witness to catastrophic events, rather than changing the universe. Also, you’ll see the same cave over and over again. Also, Anders is a jerk. <3 Fenris (or Isabela!).
but Anders is the best possible love interest for a Disaster Hawke playthrough! Or am I the only one who tries to make things as bad as possible for her characters? 😀 😀 😀
Oh for sure! I paired him with my aggressive rogue dude Hawke as a rival. They spent most of the game alternately bitterly arguing about mages and kissing, before impulsively running off to join the mage resistance together. It was a gloriously unhealthy relationship. Anders is bad news and the Worst Boyfriend, and I love him for it.
I paired him with my self loathing templar-siding mage whose entire family died. It was a rivalmance and then she had to stab him to death and was left to rule Kirkwall ALL ALONE. 😀 😀 😀
Oooooooh nooooooooo!
😀
I kind of… agreed with Anders. :O So my Hawke went with him cause I was also pretty into blowing up the Chantry.
OK, I seriously need to start a google doc or SOMETHING to keep track of all the 8 million female-centric sci-fi/fantasy book recommendations I’ve seen in Toast threads. Surely technology can help me with this problem.
Goodreads.com
It is everything I could have hoped for in a book-tracking website.
THTK is really good! I remember finding it funny, too. Was that just me?
I definitely snorted or laughed out loud more than a few times while reading it.
Curse of Chalion was WONDERFUL so I too can’t wait to get around to Paladin of Souls (and I’m reading Cetaganda right now!)
I really wanted to like Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but I thought the writing was bad, so bad that I returned the book the next day. What did I miss? Should I have kept reading?
The beginning was a little rocky, with the pacing slightly off, which made me a little dubious at first. So if that’s what you didn’t like, it might be worth continuing. Otherwise, if the prose style in general was offputting, then there’s no need to go back.
I would second this. I am very glad many people loved the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but it did not work for me.
I’m so excited for Inquisition and I feel like I should be disappointed by the delay, but honestly I’m looking forward to an extra month in which I can agonize over every single decision in the other games and whether or not I should make the same ones going into the new game. It’s possible I need a new hobby.
I just can’t wait for them to release the Keep, so I can painstakingly recreate my previous two games and make several (hundred) alternate worldstates. Maybe I’ll play DAO and 2 through again as well, to finally make my “evil” worldstate, heeeeh. (Or maybe I’ll finally play Dark Souls?)
I’m not even super sad about the dragon age delay because I desperately need to upgrade my aging graphics card and….uggghhhh I really don’t want to. Figuring out which graphics card is ‘good’ is the worst. (WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE SUCH STUPID NAAAAAMESS???)
You going AMD or Nvidia? I ended up getting an AMD Radeon 270x, which is roughly equivalent to a Radeon HD7870, the recommended card for Battlefield 4 (which I assume will be the closest in system requirements). I also refused to spend more than $250 on a new card, though. Graphics cards are way too complicated and waaaay too expensive.
Not sure – I’m not at all sure what the benefits of each company are. I have an AMD card at the moment buuuut IDK. I may actually get the 270x! – I did look at the reviews for that one, but there will probably be about 10000000 new ones released between now and whenever I get round to buying one so…we will see.
As far as I can tell, the best way to do it is to research, buy, and then NEVER LOOK BACK. Because no matter what you buy, you will regret it one month later. Aaaah, the fun of PC gaming.
She’s a little more sporadic in updating lately, but Jemisin’s blog is so good, if you aren’t already reading it. She writes a lot about race, feminism, making scifi a safe place for women and POC, etc. http://nkjemisin.com/
You can also follow her FB page! And she’s on twitter!
I actually mostly heard about her work because of the many excellent essays she has posted online. So I really should just go and finally add that blog to my RSS. Thanks!
Oh man I *cried* at the end of that series, I haven’t done that in ages. You will undoubtedly also love her Dreamblood duology, and her new series has been delayed until 2015 and life is all emptiness and sorrow.
OK Toasties who menstruate, lay it on me – should I try a menstrual cup? I’m skeeved out by the idea of carrying one around, especially since I can’t exactly rinse that sucker out in the bathroom at work, but what about for days when I’m just lounging around the house? I am a tampon user, but feel guilty about the environmental impact so I’d like to cut down. My main worry is the insertion and removal, and what to do if the seal you’ve created is way too tight and the damn thing won’t come out. What are your experiences? Pros and cons? Thank you in advance, friends!
You should! It doesn’t work for everyone, but definitely give it a go and see if you like it.
There is definitely a learning curve. I actually had mine for over a year and only used it now and then before I really got the hang of it, but most people figure it out faster. There are normally some helpful suction noises to let you know that the seal is broken. Never heard of it being too tight before?
I mostly use it after day 2, when my cramps have subsided because weirdly, my Diva Cup makes my cramps worse.
I use them, and washable pads.
Re work: I only have to empty my cup twice a day – in teh morning and just before bed, and I’m really heavy, so that might not be an issue. You can also clean it with those ‘intimate wipes’ if you’re in a place you can’t rinse. I’ve never had a problem with it not coming out, though in its last year of life my last one leaked a lot.
Insertion is easy once you’ve got the trick of it, but it can take a couple of goes. Buy some lube and practice before your period.
Note, last time I used a Mooncup, this time I’m using a MeLuna cup, which is softer and easier to insert than the mooncup.
This is a good tip! I’m thinking, based on these replies, that I may want to try one of the softer ones rather than the full-blown Luna.
The MeLuna comes in four sizes and three softnesses. It also has a choice of ‘stems’ – I chose the ring stem. It has a variety of colours, too. I went for black, ring-stem, medium size, medium softness. I’d say small for teenagers and large for people who have given birth vaginally or who have a naturally wider vagina.
I use the Instead cup! I really like it: it’s a disposable menstrual cup that has a hard plastic ring and then, like, a baggie dangling from it (how ridiculous is that explanation?). I generally use it like a menstrual cup (dumping, rinsing, reinserting) and then just throw it away at the end of my period. I would totally recommend this a middle ground between tampons and The Full Diva Cup Experience, and as a way of getting use to reaching inside yourself the way you have to with a cup.
Yup, this is what I do too, and it’s great.
I do this too. It took me a few tries to get it situated right, but reading the instructions helped. The other bonus of using this instead of a Diva cup is that since it sits in basically the same place as a diaphragm you can have sex with it in.
That sounds suspiciously like a remarketed condom.
How interesting! I didn’t know these even existed! When you say a “hard plastic” ring, do you mean, like, actually hard plastic that doesn’t even bend?
Used a Diva cup for years. Never had trouble getting it out. Great grip from the grooves all over it and the little stem is always in reach.
I always used super tampons on the first day of my always-heavy period. Then the cup for the rest of the week. Empty morning and night, in the comfort of my own home.
However, I have emptied a cup and reinserted in a public toilet stall. Yeah, you’re reinserting a dirty-looking cup with remnants of blood on it. But it’s just going back where it came from. Your vagina is perfectly fine without washing, right?
Yeah, I empty mine at work. I just wipe it out with toilet paper and re-insert, then clean it more fully when I get home. I used to take damp paper towels in with me but that was too much work.
I LOVE using non-disposable products. I haven’t had to think about buying pads or tampons in 10+ years and it is so liberating.
THE DREAM. I hate buying huge boxes of tampons, plus I never really know what to do with used tampons either.
Woo! this sounds great! It’s not so much the re-insertion that I’m worried about, it’s that my bathroom at work is two sinks and then a bunch of stalls, so I don’t want to have to worry about going and washing everything in full view of other bathroomers. Based on the feedback here, I think I might give this thing a shot! Thanks for your description, too – I didn’t know the cup had grooves.
I got my cup and pads from this place. They have a lot of different cup styles to choose from and friendly people to talk to, plus really good FAQs. http://www.femininewear.co.uk/
So many things are out of stock 🙁
Go for it! Insertion takes a little practice but becomes second nature, and the seal thing is no big problem – you can kind of reach up and poke the side of it to break the seal. They’re pretty soft and flexible.
They can be a bit of a hassle in public restrooms, but very doable if you empty them a bit earlier than necessary, and use wet wipes or wet paper towels to clean them in the stall.
The best part about them is not getting that awful pulling-out-a-too-dry-tampon feeling toward the end of your period.
I have heard they are great! I personally don’t use them, because despite all the positive stuff I’ve heard I am just not comfortable with the idea, but I have friends who love them.
Although, a note – apparently directions say you can have penetrative sex while wearing them? I would recommend not doing that. A friend tried it and said she ended up really hurting the next day.
If you can afford it, I would just buy one or two (there are a lot of different brands and models and flexibility levels available) and test it out and then if it doesn’t work no problem! I really wanted to use one but I found it incredibly difficult to get in and out, incredibly intensely painful once it was in, and almost impossible to get it to open up all the way so it was kind of a disaster. BUT while waiting for mine to come in the mail I evangelized about it so hard that I got both my mom and sister hooked on them and they love it!
Also somewhere there is a livejournal page with info about all the different seals and how to’s and tonsss of info that might be super useful to you.
They are a tad pricey, but perhaps I will pop into my local naturals store and pick one or two different kinds up so I can compare. I’m afraid though that if I don’t like them I won’t be able to return them!
Sorry you had such a difficult time with it! The idea of a cup is indeed wonderful, but I guess sometimes things just don’t work out vagina-wise.
No returning. Hand-me-down to a verrrrry laid back friend?
The livejournal community used to allow sales posts. Last time I checked it, they had moved them to their own second-hand cup sales community.
I really really love my sea sponge tampons, and for me they are MUCH more comfortable than any of the cups I tried. YMMV!
Woah! More details please!!! Do you have, like, one applicator and then you just wash the sponge? I have a sea sponge sponge, and it’s great, but I didn’t know they made tampons out of them!!
http://jadeandpearl.com/sea-pearls/#.U9KqPfldVjQ
These are sponges specifically trimmed to be of comfortable, insertable size. They are not for everyone! Insert by hand (not too much worse than OB style tampons, or a cup). The take-out, rinse is a little tricky in non-home environments, but I have made it work. I have several that I rotate through during a period and let the others soak in hydrogen peroxide with a few drops of tea tree oil. I switched over maybe 4 years ago and never looked back. Take to the sea (pearls)!
This site is awesome! I think I might go for some sea sponge tampons and then get a cup from them, as well.
I have a Divacup. I was skeptical, but I liked the idea of not handling tampon removal and storage while camping in the bush so I got one and I love it. It took me two days to figure out how to insert it properly, and I’ve never had it get stuck.
I’ve heard about people having trouble removing the Divacup, possibly because it’s hard silicone (so it’s hard to squeeze the base to break the seal) and the little vent holes around the top are super tiny. It might not be a problem at all with a softer cup like the Fleurcup.
I had some trouble with mine when I first got it, but I learned the right squeeze-and-twist to break the seal pretty easily, and also breaking the seal with a finger is always an option.
I’m not sure whether softer silicone would help. The Divacup isn’t very hard to squeeze, it’s just that squeezing the bottom a lot only changes the shape of the top a little. With softer silicone, it seems like the shape of the top wouldn’t need as much force to change it, but also like the extra flexibility might allow more difference between the shape at the top and the shape at the bottom.
Ah, squeeze and twist! This may be the key.
And pull to the side!
It’s really hard to describe, but if you keep trying, you will eventually stumble on the squeeze/twist/pull combination that works for you. You can feel when it’s gone right, so there’s immediate positive feedback, and that speeds up the learning process a lot.
Until you get it, just remember that you can break the seal with your finger if you’re frustrated with trying to squeeze it.
I have a Diva Cup and love it. I don’t need to empty it in public places generally – just once in the morning and once before bed and I have never really come close to it being full. Insertion takes a bit of practice – there are two recommended methods for insertion, one where you squeeze the opening flat and fold it in half and another where you sort of use your middle finger to form a… sea shell? I am explaining this terribly, but go with that option.
I will warn you that sometimes the feeling of it making a seal is a bit odd.
I’m brand new to my Diva cup and I don’t know how I feel so far, haven’t used it during my period yet. I’m definitely not opposed to it, though I’ve spent more time digging around in my vagina than I’m accustomed to. I’m strongly reminded of the first time I tried to figure out tampons when I first started my ~menstruation journey~.
I strongly recommend getting one, staring at it for several weeks, watching 100 videos about insertion/removal, and then trying it out yourself, like I did! It’s not scary, promise.
Mine gave me horrible, constant yeast infections, despite frequent thorough cleanings. I also found it to be painful to get out–the seal breaking process always left me feeling bruised. That said, while it was in, it was miraculous and wonderful and despite a very heavy flow I could empty it out 2x a day and be fine. BUT–when it’s full, it’s full, and the summons for a change brook no delay.
I’m sorry it had that effect on you! I’ve never had a yeast infection, so hopefully that means I’m just not prone? I can’t imagine the feeling of breaking the seal would be great, but I guess that’s something I’d have to decide for myself.
Maybe I can surf the wake of this thread and ask a question as well. I tried (I think) a DivaCup and could not for the life of me get that thing inside me. Like, “Yackety Sax” should have been playing over a high-speed reel of me thinking I finally had it, only, boing! Nope! So I gave it away. Wouldn’t mind riding out the vagaries of perimenopause with something similar, but is it possible to roll them up into a tampon applicator and just hope it goes where you want it? At my heaviest even military grade tampons are a joke, so maybe I should just swath myself in rags and roam the forest.
Someone upthread recommended watching videos for insertion – maybe you should give it another try with some Internet help! Or possibly there are just some vaginal canals that don’t take kindly to an invader such as this.
Either way, you should def. roam the forest. I’ll meetcha there!
#NotEveryVag for sure. Cups aren’t for everyone. And some cannot get tampons to fit without leaking. My sister used pads exclusively for that reason. We’re all special snowflakes. Or our vags are.
I filled that DivaCup twice a day. My periods were heavy. On the first day of my period, so heavy I just changed tampons every 2 hours, switch to cup on Day 2.
However, I did use a Diva Cup on Day 1 a few times. I just set an alarm on my phone to send me into the bathroom every 90 minutes or so. It worked fine. Just more annoying than tampons at that frequency.
Happy side-effect of having Uterine Hulk removal: no more periods! I am so happy about that.
I hate to hijack your thread, but I am also considering using a menstrual cup but my issue is since I’ve been on the pill I barely bleed, I have maybe three days of a super light period? I’d rather use a cup than washable pads because it somehow feels more hygienic to me, I dunno. Am I SOL here?
You would love using a cup. You’d just empty-clean-reinsert once a day. Easier on your delicate ladyparts than any other solution. Tampons mess with your inner pH and pads have dyes and perfumes that irritate genital skin.
Am I okay to use them on lighter days, or should I just go for the washable pads instead? I’m just worried a cup will be like a tampon in that it’ll be super hard/uncomfortable to insert/remove on light days.
In my experience, it’s waaaay better than a tampon for light days; the difference in material (smoother, not … fluffy) and less frequent changing (since I feel less concerned about TSS/general grossness with silicon) makes the whole situation much more comfortable.
You do not need lubrication to insert a cup. Tampons need lubrication from menstrual blood to avoid discomfort. A smooth, soft silicone cup goes in like a dildo. No lube required (blood or other).
Sorry to be on the disgusting side of the vocabulary. Your comfort with a silicone cup does not vary.
Wear a skirt and no underpants. Go with it. The world is your absorptive surface.
I have recently suffered through men, of all skill levels from none to D1 college level, challenge me to a tennis match because I am a division 1 player. It kills me. Partly because the guys who don’t even play tennis think that just because they are male, they can beat me. Wrong. You can’t. am number one on my D1 team, singles and doubles. It’s not slight to your manhood…you just can’t. But it’s the mid-level guys that kill me. The guys who didn’t quite reach their potential. They want to beat me because AT LEAST THEY CAN BEAT A GIRL. Most of them couldn’t beat me, but I don’t accept their challenges because I am not there to prove your manhood. I am there because I am a person who happens to be good at something. For the record, most the the D1 guys who I play with are guys I grew up with, know that I could/couldn’t beat them on any day (and a lot of them I can’t ever beat which is FINE because you have to strive for something) and just want to practice with someone who can play.
Goddddd everything about men and sports is terrible.
I play co-ed soccer (for fun! not even at any kind of level!) and the amount of bullshit surrounding female players is ridiculous, even more so because the skill range within our group is so large and many of the girls are a lot better than many of the guys. Even so, there’s definitely a prevailing belief that the men (no matter how untalented) have a place there by default and the girls have to prove over and over again that they belong, and if you make a single mistake it’s proof that all women are terrible at sports forever. It’s super satisfying in the moment to bruise their garbage baby egos, but the attitude still sends me into a rage spiral most days.
Anyway, men suck and you are clearly awesome. D1! I am in awe!
I also play co-ed soccer, and am not particularly good, but at the very least am a good passer. But even if I am wide open, many people on the team just will not pass to me. I am just standing unmarked on the wings, with yards of space, but a guy will try to dribble past two people and drive into goal without any success.
I also play softball, and always gets comments like “WOW I didn’t think you’d catch that!!” From people on the other team (my team is great). And I just side eye them and think, “serves you right for deliberately sending your line drive my way after eyeing me up.”
I hear that! I play in a more formal indoor league in the winter, and it’s amazing how much “men on the team are okay with passing to girls” equates to “team does very well and wins a lot of games,” and how many dudes seem not to realize AT ALL how those two things are related.
That league has a rule that two of your six players on the field must be women at all times, and one time we were really short on men and all the dudes started getting super tired and we ended up having all four of our women on the field at once. We scored four goals in the span of about ten minutes. The other team was not amused, but now some of the dudes on my team actively push to have more than two women playing at a time because DUH WE ARE GREAT.
I would start charging these assholes money, or making bets with them. Then use that money to join a fancy club with legit tennis pros to play? Or hire a skilled trainer?
I started casually playing tennis in college bc it seemed like a sport with a good nexus of cool outfits and cardio. I suck. But at least I admit that!
If this were me I think I would get sooooo condescending about it. “Tell you what, dear, why don’t you just tell yourself I’m afraid to play you because you’d win. Trust me, you’ll feel a lot better just thinking that than you will if we actually play a game.”
He insists angrily.
“Afraid not. It’s for your own good. I know how sensitive you men get.”
Ugh this sounds SO ANNOYING. I swam competitively for years and men would always challenge me to races. Like, you will not win, dude. I am faster than you. I used to race them, though, because I actually would always win and it was very satisfying to coolly slip out of the pool and squeeze the water out of my hair and be like “my consolations, honey.”
This is wonderful.
You sound badass. Keep up your ruling of the courts!!
A classmate of my ex once told him that he could beat any woman at any sport. LOL WUT. Like, buddy, you actually think you could beat Venus Williams at any athletic endeavour ever? You are so stupid that any woman could beat you at anything, full stop, go away.
you have to strive for something
In your shoes, I’d be tempted to tell them exactly this: that you understand their desire to challenge you because you have to strive for something, but that you also want to strive, so it’s not worth competing with someone you’ll beat easily. IF they persist and IF you feel like it, you could them crisply that they’re welcome to arrange a competition among themselves and IF it looks worth your time, you’ll play the victor of their play-off.
Welp, I told Mr. Noodgeforlyfe that I needed a more permanent separation in our therapy session last night (backstory: he’s a dude with substance abuse issues who has become increasingly, scarily, verbally and emotionally abusive over the last year and a half). He reacted to it by babbling for about 10 minutes straight, saying my control issues were the real crux of the issue, and calling me a liar about his behavior. It fucking sucked. I went home and ate chocolate with my lovely, amazing, phenomenal sister and brother in law, and woke up this morning realizing that it is pretty much over. I’ve taken the first hard step. He’s agreed to let me stay in our rented house (hooray!) and I just hope that the rest of it can go relatively smoothly. He laughed at me when I told him that if we were to have any future, it would be after he gave up alcohol and marijuana (both using and selling), so I feel like this is likely to be fully permanent.
Relief/sadness. Thanks so much for everyone’s kind words over the last few months. On a side note, anyone else know someone who is 37, twice divorced, and not a total loser?
Oh man, that is a lot of suck. Good luck getting through it.
I think the only person I know personally who was divorced twice at that age is my uncle, and he is 100% not a loser and has also been married to his current wife for ~25 years now.
yeah, I think the reason this has happened is some really bad self esteem issues on my part, so when I’ve seen glaring red flags in my boyfriends, I sort of gloss over them because I don’t think I’m worth more. But, perhaps not surprisingly, getting my degree (graduating in 4 months! yay!) has had a really big impact on my self esteem, and I think I’m on the road to recovery 🙂 Thanks for the support.
My closest friend who is divorced definitely had a self-esteem breakthrough finally (with the right therapist!) and how has an awesome second husband, so they are still out there!
Best of luck to you – it sounds like you are very much doing the best thing for yourself.
Hugs if you’d like ’em.
LOVE ‘EM!!! <3 thank you
It sounds like you’ve been trying VERY hard with this for so long and it just hasn’t worked out. You’re doing what you need to do for yourself and you deserve such a better life. Best of luck heading forward from all this <3
<3 <3 <3
I know someone who is 37, twice divorced, and not a total loser! YOU. You are doing what you need to do even though it is sad. That is so, so difficult and requires massive strength and integrity. Ergo, you are not a loser. Hang in there!
oh jesus, now i’m crying in the cafe i’m sitting in. Thank you! <3
Yeah, you seem like a pretty great person. (and I would much rather meet a person who’d been divorced twice at 37 and got through it with strength and aplomb, as you are, than a person who refuses to confront and deal with the hard shit life throws at everybody)
thanks so much, for the support and for using the word “aplomb” <3
“Aplomb” is one of those words that’s not technically an onomatopoeia, but it feels like one, you know? It just feels like what it means.
I know a NUMBER of people in their late 30s/early 40s who are wonderful human beings and have multiple divorces under their belts. I think anyone who is not a complete wank-stain will see you as someone who can leave when something becomes untenable, rather than focusing on how many divorces you have.
thanks – it does become a good litmus test to week out wank-stains, doesn’t it?
Thanks, you two – I will now be calling total shits total wank-stains, because it sounds even better.
Oh, I’ve been thinking about you all week, I’m so glad to hear from you. (Also glad you had a therapist present for that conversation — backup/third party observer is good!)
Not to freak you out, but are you safe? Can you change the locks after he moves out?
I am at my sister’s now, so yes… safe. the house has a combination lock, so I’ll change the combo when I move back in. thanks for thinking of me <3
Don’t combo locks usually also have keys that can open them, in case the battery dies?
good point… I’ll look into it
I’m so glad you are taking care of yourself, and congratulations on your degree!
thank you!!!
Hey, congratulations on all those things! It is sad when even a shitty relationship ends, but I am so proud of you for taking care of yourself, for getting your degree, for doing the hard work in therapy, and for making a decision and then acting on it. You are awesome, and definitely not a loser of any kind. High five!
it is sad, because the Mr. Noodgeforlyfe I fell in love with is still in there, I just can’t find him anymore. but it’s necessary. Thanks!
That is a mouthful right there, mamma. I was reading your post and thinking, “Is this my friend C___, time traveling from 2012?” You described her situation almost exactly. She, too, struggled with loving and missing the person her husband had been, but toward the end, she realized she was just living with a monster who made her feel terrible all the time and wasn’t ever going to change.
Ugh. It’s like mourning someone who died, except their corpse is walking around town, talking to her friends and parenting her kids.
Still, knowing how hard that dynamic is… you are strong and awesome and it’s ok to feel sad and strong at the same time. Frankly, that kind of strength and knowledge is rare and desirable and far from loser-dom. Your kind of people are my favorite kind of people!
I’m so glad you are taking care of yourself! You are not even remotely a loser; it takes so much strength to extricate yourself from an abusive relationship. Please keep us updated and know we’re sending good thoughts your way. You are doing the right thing.
thanks, RK! hundreds of thanks.
Getting away from hurtful, toxic people is so so hard, especially when they were once a cornerstone in your life. You’re doing a brave and wholly correct thing, and you have one more Internet stranger in your support army.
thanks for joining the support army! I really appreciate the kind words <3
You know what – I DO know someone who is 37 (maybe 38?), twice divorced, and definitely not a total loser. She is a dear and amazing friend. On the surface, at least, her story is very similar to yours. It was a tough situation, but she got out and is now doing great. And you will too. Hang in there!
thank you so much 🙂
Ugh, I am sorry you had to do it, but I am really glad you ARE doing it.
And you are in no way a total loser. You are taking care of yourself and doing what is best for your life, and accepting the hard parts of it, which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of being a loser.
true story. it’s hard to remember when you’ve been negged for so long, especially when you’re being told you’re crazy for seeing things the way they are. Thank you.
Relief indicates a good decision. Please don’t even tangentially refer to yourself as a loser. Extracting oneself from hurtful relationships is the work of warriors and heroes. You are capable. Even if you don’t feel strong just now. You can do this. I believe in you.
Everyone attracts people who are not good for them. Everyone. Yes, you are a special snowflake, but loving an abuser is not what makes you unique.
“Everyone attracts people who are not good for them. Everyone. Yes, you are a special snowflake, but loving an abuser is not what makes you unique. ”
That’s so powerful… thank you.
Sorrow and congratulations in equal parts to you, noodge4lyfe. You’ve done something hard to take better care of yourself, and you’ve done it without violating your respect for yourself or for your partner’s autonomy.
He reacted to it by babbling for about 10 minutes straight, saying my control issues were the real crux of the issue
Well, sure, that’s how he sees it; based on your accounts (WHICH I TRUST, btw; I’m just acknowledging that we’re hearing this at a remove and don’t know the situation as you do), you have consistently tried to keep him from controlling and manipulating your understanding of events, so it’s hardly surprising if in his mind, “wants control over her own choices and narrative” = “is controlling.”
I’m so glad someone else brought up changing the locks; it was the first thing that sprang to my mind after “give noodge4lyfe unconditional hugs if they’re welcome.” May I make a similar suggestion about any shared bank or credit card accounts? If you have money in common, think about how to equitable and quickly extract what you’re entitled to and separate your accounts, just in case he cleans out the accounts or runs up bills — and also because it’s a strong statement to yourself and to him that this is real.
“you have consistently tried to keep him from controlling and manipulating your understanding of events, so it’s hardly surprising if in his mind, “wants control over her own choices and narrative” = “is controlling.” ”
This rolled around in my head quite a bit last night, Elsa. It’s true, and it’s addict behavior. I’ve got a date with my lady friends to go to alanon tomorrow evening, so hopefully I can learn from others’ experiences with this. Thank you.
Yes! Alanon is excellent. Good for you! So proud to internet-know you.
I know it might seem very far away, but sometime soon you will, whether you are still single or not, feel the true happiness of no longer be married to an asshole You’ll be amazed at how much better your life is. Also I don’t know if she was 37, but *Nora Ephron* was divorced twice before she married her third husband, to whom she stayed married for the rest of her life.
I read this earlier today, and immediately did this…
I will gladly hold Nora Ephron up as a model of awesomeness despite multiple divorces.
Came back late to add my congratulations and condolences, and to thank you for sharing and updating. This community is more emotionally porous than most online spaces, and it didn’t hit me until last night how long this process has been for you and how generous you’ve been to open up about it since we all surf one another’s learning curves to some degree. I hope your healing is as gentle as possible, and know life is holding treats as yet undiscovered in your future.
What a warm, honest, caring reply. Thank you, it’s responses like this that make me want to open up, because it’s difficult to talk about, even with friends. The emotional maturity/porousness here has been such a well of support.
Thanks to all who gave me advice re: feeling my relationship had run its course in the mid-week thread. I took everyone’s advice to not silently wait it out and we had an honest conversation about it. Turns out we are more on the same page than I thought and we’re discussing what to do next.
That was really forthright and thoughtful of you. It sounds like a positive, productive conversation, which is about the best you can hope for.
Thanks Emily. It is a really crushing situation (we don’t want to break up because we don’t love each other; we both have depression and have been trying to make it work for years now but haven’t found a way) but at least I feel like we’re on the same team again.
I’m so glad you were able to have a productive conversation. It sounds immensely hard and my thoughts are with you.
This week has indeed been a suckfest. I’m having TERRIBLE luck job searching. My current job ends soonish (now under the two month mark, ahhhhhh god) and I haven’t even had an interview for anything I’ve applied for. I know some of the positions have been stretches in terms of my qualifications, but most have been things I am definitely qualified for or – in some cases – am basically already doing at my current job! It is really demoralizing and I feel super super hopeless and am now getting scared that I won’t find anything. I’ve been reading Ask a Manager and have reworked my materials over and over… I don’t know what I’m doing wrong! Any commiserating or job search happy endings or secret job hunting tips would make this miserable Friday a little brighter.
what’s up! where are you looking? I am in the same boat (though my job ends in about a week ahahaha ahhhh).
Ahhhh sending you ALL THE LUCK. I’m looking in DC and a little bit in Baltimore and Philly too. What about you?
I’m moving from DC to Chicago! Depending upon what you’re looking for, is going to events an option? This is like the most DC thing ever, but I think it’s good to talk to people, and follow up with them- most people in DC (though god not all) are pretty receptive to people looking for jobs and wanting to do informational interviews because tbh informational interviews are probably how they got THEIR jobs. IDK if you look at Jobs that Are Left (or are yourself particularly left, but like, it’s The Toast) or the New Organizing Institute, but I get both of those lists sent to my inbox everyday and they’ve got a lot of DC specific stuff. Something I’m gonna miss about DC also is the number of part time/temp jobs that are around here- you can make lots of money dog walking (my roommate last summer was in an anarchist dog walking collective :p) while you wait for something that feels like a good fit!
I have been slooowly starting to reach out and try to talk to people, but I am so horrid at it (seriously, what is networking?) and it makes me feel really awkward. Still, I’m attempting! And I hadn’t heard of Jobs that Are Left but I just joined the google group so thank you! An anarchist dog walking collective sounds pretty sweet…
Best of luck in Chicago!!
What is your industry? I’m in Philly and occasionally here about openings here in a couple fields.
Environment/sustainability and I’m interested in food/agriculture/health as well. Thank you for the help-giving comment 🙂
That’s my industry! I don’t know what your experience is, but if you have an email you’re willing to give, I can give you the openings I know of. (I only got a job recently, so friends in my field still send me stuff.)
My heart literally just SWELLED. Thank you so much, that is really kind of you. For the sake of internet anonymity, my old semi-embarassing username of an email account from high school is inconsistentme at gmail.com
Thank you again!
I’m in the same boat too (job ends in 2 months)! Let’s all hyperventilate together … ahhhhhhh….
I’m just trying to keep myself to a steady schedule of sending out resumes, which is tough when you’re panicking and demoralized and feeling hopeless.
Yes, the schedule is key! I was overwhelming myself before with a million tabs open for different listings, and I would know where to start. Now my goal is one application a day, which I’m still not hitting 100%, but it’s SO much more manageable.
Sending you luck and calm thoughts to get you through it!
Definitely don’t be afraid of the stretch-y ones! I almost didn’t apply to my current job because it was such a stretch in terms of qualifications, and I once mentioned that to my boss and he was basically like “lol I don’t even remember what I wrote in that ad.” So.
Maybe this is obvious but when I was looking I had infinitely better luck with any posting that gave an actual email address vs. making you use a faceless automated application “portal.” At least with an email you have a shot at an actual human seeing your resume.
Doubtful, I know, but are you in publishing? I interned at a wonderful publishing company in DC before I took my current job and I could check if they’re hiring.
That is such an encouraging story – I’m not applying to like, jobs that require masters degrees that I don’t have, but definitely am not at the “years of experience” level (just a year out of school) and haven’t always done all the things listed. But it’s nice to hear that it doesn’t always matter!
And I’m not in publishing but thank you for the offer to check in 🙂
Hah, you’re basically me two years ago (I graduated in 2011). I spent a lot of time agonizing over my resume like “how do I make my three months as a whitewater rafting guide sound relevant to ANYTHING?” Ugh. It really is the worst.
I saw your post above re: environment/sustainability — my old company (Island Press) might actually be something to keep an eye on. They publish exclusively environmental stuff and are a non-profit, so they have a whole development department separate from the publishing side that is focused on like outreach and grants and whatever.
In any case, good luck!
AH! Wow! I was actually a double major in English lit and environmental studies so I will definitely add this place to my list of organizations to check on. Thank you for passing that along!!
I don’t know if, as an English lit grad, you’re looking for communications-related jobs, but I’m a fellow English grad in DC (WHO ALSO INTERNED AT ISLAND PRESS, hello, smallest world ever) and I highly recommend the DC Public Affairs + Communications Jobs blog: publicaffairsjobs.blogspot.com. I’m looking for a comm/writing job at a nonprofit or trade association in any field, but there tend to be a good number of positions in the environmental field. May your job hunt be as un-soul-sucking as possible!
Here, please have some of my job-hunting luck, it’s good stuff since I got a new job just this week (after 15 months of unemployment). I spent a lot of those many months stressed beyond belief, and did a little too much tinkering with my resumé and cover letters. I prepped for the few interviews I got, zealously, and ended up babbling my way through them. I switched back to my original resumé (pre-tinkering) and got an interview right away. For that interview, I did zero prep and everything flowed. I guess what I’m saying is don’t overthink things, be as natural as you can, and it will have an effect. I know that’s probably contrary to everything you’re reading (it was contrary to the advice of the fancy-pants employment consultant my former employer paid for) but it’s all I have. That and a sincere hope you’re successful far far more quickly than me!
Hi, friends. Interstate moves without a car SUCK HOT SMELLY BALLS. Tonight I’m riding the bus up to NYC with a heavy-as-fuck suitcase and a backpack full of liquors, oils and vinegars. Tomorrow the movers are delivering all our furniture as well as my husband, who is staying the night in DC to finish packing. On Sunday we’re riding the bus back down to DC again. And next Thursday we’re riding the bus up to NYC, AGAIN, this time for good.
One week till I’m done dragging ridiculously heavy luggage through the Times Square subway station. I CANNOT WAIT.
Dumb question, but would it be worth it to rent a car for a few days?
If I could go back in time, yes. Part of the problem of never driving a car is that you just adapt to your life being harder than it has to be at times, and not even realizing “hey, a car could solve this problem” until it’s too late! At this point, we’ve sunk so much $$ in bus tickets (we’ve done the DC-to-NYC round trip 2 of the past 3 weekends) that it’s not worth it!
I have been using the dollars-flying-away emoji a LOT lately.
You have my sympathies — I once moved from Kitchener ON to Montreal QC via train (~9 hrs and a transfer), and it was predictably dreadful. But! You can do this! And NYC is exciting! Good luck 🙂
Moving is the worst, but welcome to NYC! I’ve lived here for nearly two years now, and I still sometimes get a little starry-eyed about living here.
Thank you everyone for your advice last week! You guys are the best. I am making progress towards making changes and living better and whatnot–even with the setbacks and stress of this week. Current goal: letting things go so I can get stuff done.
All that said, here are random good things:
*My student workers (who are wonderful and one of the graduated ones came back! And brought me a present! And I love them all)
*The barn swallow who nests in my apartment building just had another set of babies and they are adorable!
*I wore a lot of bright purple this week including purple lipstick and it was awesome
*I rose to the challenge of 3 last minute information literacy sessions this week.
Purple lipstick makes everything better.
Seconded. I like YSL Glossy Stain Pourpre Preview for being just purple enough for me to feel awesome but not too purple that my coworkers to double takes.
Thirded. I love love love my Barney the Dinosaur purple lipstick.
Hello friends! Long time no Toast! This has been a sadface week for me. I backed out of buying the house I was supposed to close on next week. I’d been under contract for 4 months so I had plenty of time to imagine actually living there so I’m mourning that a bit. I was the right decision but it still kind of sucks. And now I’m completely bored/frustrated with my apartment. I’ll hopefully be for real buying a place in the next few months so I don’t want to sink a ton of time/money into but I need to do something! Toasties, what changes can I make to my apartment to make it happier for me in the short-term??
Can you do some sort of repainting/refurnishing/other pretty-making project on furniture you already own? Repaint a stained old table a pretty color? Buy/make a new comforter cover for your bed? It could make a big difference to your current space, but you could also take it with you when you find your fabulous new place.
I’m in a place I don’t love too, kind of waiting out the housing bubble here. My plan for making my place more welcoming involves a few changes to the soft furnishings: curtains, bedspread, throw pillows. Lots more color basically, without having to paint.
Ugh, I’m so sorry, that sounds hard.
Have you thought about moving your furniture around your existing home? I rearrange a room once or twice a year to freshen things up. It makes everything feel new and gives me a good chance to sweep/dust all the little nooks and corners. If the new furniture positions spur you to move artwork and lighting, too, the place looks completely revamped. Even in our weird little apartment that severely limits how many places I can put large pieces of furniture, there are lots of changes I can make.
Or maybe new curtains? Buying curtains/hardware can be expensive, but last time I made curtains, I didn’t even haul out the sewing machine: I just bought several lengths of colorful burlap (which is cheeeeap), ironed a folded hem into the top edge to clip with curtain rings, and frayed the bottom edge instead of hemming. They look great.
Sometimes I browse old magazines or sheet music for prints to mat as artwork. A few new (cheeeeep) pieces of wall art can make the place feel new.
Personal finance time – how are we handling our dough toasties?
My husband and I cancelled our November trip to San Diego to better save for a wedding we’ll be attending on Maui in February. Hypothetically we could have done both, but I’m a bit aghast at how much Hawaii costs. I’d never contemplated going before, and really had no idea that everything was so pricey. Our typical holidays are more “backpacking through Mexico and eating street tacos” or “sleeping at a Super 8 at the base of the ski hill and microwaving burritos” so we are both working at getting in the headspace to spend some cash for this.
Hawaii! Omg EXCITING. I would definitely have to talk myself into spending the money too, though.
I had a weird thinking-about-money week: MAJOR upheaval at work that looked, for a bit, like it was going to end in layoffs. I did a lot of deep breathing and ran a lot of numbers–and I realized that my wife and I could totally live on her pay alone. I make 75% of our income, so it’d be an adjustment, but our frugality skills are sharp enough that we could trim the fat without much hassle. Our savings are more than adequate to cover big expenses that would pop up.
So I’m feeling SUPER empowered knowing that we could easily survive long-term unemployment, if we had to. What an absurd privilege!
I’ve started to track all my expenses, food-diary style, as sort of a beginning step to being aware of when and how I spend my money. It’s what I feel comfortable doing. I’m scared of money and would like to be less so, and this not-budgeting, just writing everything down, seems to help.
This was my first step! I literally wrote everything down on a piece of paper for like four months. I eventually transitioned into full-blown budgeting (because it seemed easier, after a while?), but the pen-and-paper thing was the only way to get myself started.
Is there anything in particular about money that you are scared of and want to talk through?
You are very sweet to ask. Mostly it just feels like this force outside of me that bears little to no relation to what I am actually doing? Like, I randomly get bills that terrify me and that must be paid, but for some reason they always surprise me, as if I am completely disconnected from the idea that spending money on a credit card means that in a month I will need to pay that amount. I understand it logically, I just don’t seem to really understand the process or how money works.
It’s as if . . . I don’t know, if I left food out on the counter that over time went bad and rotted, and I kept walking into the kitchen and feeling assaulted by this rotting food in my house. Why is it here? Why does it keep hounding me? And I can easily understand that I should not leave food out to rot, so I put it in the fridge, but I apparently do not have the ability to understand money in the same way: if I do this, then eventually this other thing will happen.
Which means that on a larger scale, REALLY BIG THINGS happen. If I put off my taxes this year, then next year I have to make up two years worth of taxes, which seems too immense and I can’t possibly make all those back taxes and so I put it off for ANOTHER year, and on and on.
What’s weird is that I’m actually great at tackling projects like this when they are physical, tangible projects. Like, I have a bunch of stuff in my storage unit to go through and this seems like a pleasant way to while away a couple afternoons, sorting everything out. But money has never felt tangible or understandable to me, and so I avoid dealing with it because I am afraid the result will be something completely unexpected.
If I go through my storage unit, I can expect at the end that I will have less stuff and more cash.
If I go through my finances, I can expect . . . I DON’T FUCKING KNOW. I owe the sun and the stars? I’m in crippling debt? Things are not that bad if I budget? I need to change my job process to make more money? I HAVE NO IDEA BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW HOW MONEY WORKS.
Dude, I will help you with your money numbers if you come over to my house and sort through my storage-or-garbage stuff.
I’m not even kidding I would do this in a heartbeat WHERE DO YOU LIVE
Hahahaha. I’m in Nevada. You?
I AM IN COLORADO THIS IS ACTUALLY FEASIBLE HOLY SHIT.
No seriously do you handle accounting type shit? If I can hand you a couple banker’s boxes I will GO TO TOWN on your garage and never look back.
(I realize Nevada to Colorado is not everyone’s idea of feasible but I travel a lot by car so for me this was like ‘I can do that in a DAY, easy.’)
I am also the kind of person to be like, “Sure, I’ll drive half a day for a not-completely sane reason.”
I would not say I do accounting type shit, but I’m handy with a spreadsheet, and have automated my own finances enough that bills mostly pay themselves, and I’m happy to help.
My next three-four weeks are stupid busy (I am accidentally doing a musical…no really, than can happen), but after that I’d be happy to help you out, spare room cleaning not even really actually necessary. (Though if you need a tour of Nevada’s capital city or an excuse to drive west, I’ll put you to work for reals.)
Email me at my handle at gmail and I’ll set a reminder to email you when my schedule frees up?
I think your idea of tracking your expenses in a book is brilliant. Just getting baby steps, right? maybe if you can start by tackling the actual cash you have in your wallet, in time you’ll gain the understanding and confidence to start to expand to your chequing account, or your pay stub, and go up from there.
I’ll second this method – more than anything, it made me feel proactive. Feeling proactive made me stop feeling so scared and out of control.
Spending $5 on some nice graph paper also made me feel happy and proactive.
Awfully. Just awfully. I can’t wait for two Fridays from now when the Fellow gets his first paycheque because I HATE putting so much on credit.
Aw, it sucks that you couldn’t do both, but it sounds like you made a good call. This way you can spend what you need to make the Maui trip absolutely incredible. (Maui! WOW. That sounds so great!)
In my neck of the woods, I paid the second (and hopefully last) major bill for my April medical expenses earlier this week, so hopefully I can spend the next few months holding my ground and putting money towards paying off some of my credit card. And I did my local inexpensive vacation last week, which was a lot of fun- went to DC and hit a lot of great museums, went tubing with friends at the end of the week.
Have you been to Hawaii at all? I know a big zero about it.
You’re destroying those bills, huh? Congrats!
I haven’t been to Hawaii, but I’ve always wanted to go. Someday!
Well yes, I am destroying those bills, if by “destroying” you mean “putting them on my already overloaded credit card”. Ugh. But it’s really the only option at this point. The silver lining here is that I think I may have crossed my out of pocket maximum this year for insurance, which means I can get the rest of this year’s necessary doctor visits and lab testing done without having to provide my copay. Which would be a help.
ETA: Oh, question for you all. If you have a high balance on your credit card, should you make utility payments from your checking account instead? I’ve almost always put utilities (phone, electric, cable) on my card, but that’s I think mostly a holdover from (a) trying to build up credit right out of school and (b) me not keeping close track of my money.
If you have the money, absolutely.
I put all my monthly bills on my card just to track them, but I usually pay the balance in full every month.
If you aren’t paying the balance (or at least most of it) every month AND the interest is high (anywhere over 11% is where I draw the line), pay your bills in cash.
Can’t agree with this more. Credit card interest rates are usually ridiculous.
oooh I have been to Maui and it is wonderful, although yes very expensive (I wasn’t paying). There are a lot of tours and such which cost a pretty penny, but if you rent a car, there is also plenty of opportunity for driving to trail heads or different beaches. I also snorkled just off the shore of our hotel instead of paying to be taken on a boat.
Although since you are going in February, that is humpback whale season and it may be worth splurging on a whale watching trip if that interests you at all.
For my personal finances, I sold the “free” tablet that came with my new laptop for $110 on Ebay, so that is good!
Oh wow, whales could be cool! I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of it – we are so, so lucky that we can beach vacation a lot, but it has always been hanging out on some rural Mexican beach, without the tourist infrastructure (and expense!) of Hawaii. Do you think it’s the sort of place you can just chill on the beach with a six pack for a few days?
You can absolutely hack this trip to suit your frugal-minded ways. It will be expensive, for sure, but you can make it less so.
Can you get a room with a kitchenette? If you can prepare most of your own meals there, you can save a bunch. I like to prepare two meals and splurge on one dining out experience each day. Also, I prefer to seek out the good local places (sounds like you do too), which are usually cheaper and less crowded. Bonus!
Also, pick the sightseeing/adventuring things you want to do ahead of time. Zip-lining? Would be totally worth it for me. Bus tour full of strangers? No thanks. Big hike up to come volcano-y thing? Cheap, beautiful, AND good for your glutes. (Ok, I’ve never been to Hawaii, but people who have always seem to be talking about the volcano-y hikes.)
And if chilling on the beach with a six-pack is your pleasure, do THAT. It sounds heavenly. Just because you’re in a touristy place does not mean you have to act like a tourist.
Things are going better for me. I feel much more on top of my money in the past few weeks. I haven’t been in the open thread because I’ve been traveling for work and for vacation. I managed to not spend myself into the poor house on vacation and I think I’m well positioned to go on vacation in August and to an out of town wedding in September. Brought my lunch to work all week!
My early summer “say yes to everything” enthusiasm for going out seems to have waned. Probably because DC is a stupid swamp town and I’m reading many good books.
Though my cheap rented room is really helpful on the budget front I am super annoyed with roommate life so I’m going through mortgage pre-approval. Because I just HAVE TO KNOW if it would be possible on my income to get a one bedroom so I can stop obsessing about it every time my roommate steals my beer.
That’s so exciting!
Congrats on bringing your lunch to work all week. I’ve convinced myself that everything within a reasonable walk of my office is horrible, so I bring mine everyday. I’ve been running out of ideas hard though.
I’ll second this method – more than anything, it made me feel proactive. Feeling proactive made me stop feeling so scared and out of control.
I injured myself earlier this month & had to pay lots of money for urgent care visit + xrays, which ate through the money I had budgeted for my trip to CA and then some (yes, even WITH health insurance. ugh).
I had to borrow money from my parents, which I have not done since college and was kind of humiliating. My mother was AMAZING about it so the humiliation came all from me, but it still feels awful. My parents don’t have a ton of extra money to throw around so I know that they probably had to move some stuff around to help me out and I feel so guilty. :/
I’ve been spending too much recently. Not beyond my means but I try to keep a fairly brutal budget and I’ve been 30-40 dollars a week past where I want to be for the last couple weeks.
I’m aiming for 15500 in savings by the end of August though and I think that’s still with in reason. Might need a.few.more bean and tortilla nights than July though.
Bean tacos forever!
Almost too hot refried pinto beans shoveled haphazardly into my face with a folded up tortilla is conveniently both cheap and one of my favorite comfort foods.
I do not know if this works for everyone, but what works for me and us is pockets of money. Like, we have 1 joint checking account with a small savings account (approx $300 at any given time) attached for emergencies. Then, we both have our own online checking accounts. Mine is for school, and his is for whatever. We also have a larger long-term account that we never touch, which is for moving. We have figured out percentages, and every paycheck gets divided accordingly.
Maybe if you had a special savings account attached to your other accounts (something like CapitalOne 360, with no minimum) and you just do an auto-deposit into your account every week/twice a month/monthly? Whatever you feel you can spare. Even if it’s as low as $25 a month, it will accumulate slowly and then you will have that money for travelling. That account will be FOR travelling, so the moneys will not be spent on anything else. Then, keep it open and when you feel like you have enough, go somewhere else? Kind of like the grown-up version of rolling your change (which I still do, much to my bank’s chagrin).
This is almost exactly what we do – we have car, emergency, going out for dinner, cross-border grocery shopping, traveling, and personal savings accounts, on top of our RRSPs. The Hawaii thing caught us off guard, and accounting for the foretasted growth of our traveling account, we weren’t sure if we’d be in a good place, if we did both San Diego and Hawaii, for the trip we REALLY want to do, which is over Christmas 2015. We are maybe a bit over the top with budgeting 🙂
Yay personal finance day! This month’s student loan payment posted this week and I am excited to report that the balance is now under $4000. The finish line is within sight!
The bad news (moneywise, not fun-wise) is that I’m going on a family trip next week (any Toasties in Flanders, NY?) and I have not really budgeted any spending cash, so I’ll be putting any trip expenses on a card. I probably won’t be able to pay the balance this month or next, and this is the first time I’ll be paying interest on anything other than the student loan in…years. So it feels kind of icky.
On the plus side, I have been doing some side jobs (managing a recording studio, helping a friend start his record label) and a tiny amount of extra cash is starting to trickle in from those pursuits.
Still, I could use a heaping handful more. I’m not anywhere near problematic spending levels, but it feels so strange to carry a balance that I feel like I have to pay it RIGHT NOW.
Maybe Flanders, NY can be really low spend for you? Hit some thrift stores, go for lots of nice walks?
Amazing about your student loan!
Thanks!
We are going for a party (free), and then several days of hanging out with my godmother and going to the beach (also free). We’ll do one day in NYC (pricey), but other than that, I should be able to keep the expenses down. I hope!
I successfully moved to Boston and the world is my lobster! What should I do before my job starts? What are the best bars? What are the best foods?
Definitely check out one of the Flour bakeries, whichever is closest to you!
http://www.flourbakery.com/
YES I went to one of those last time I was here I like them
Have you tried the cookbooks? Also good.
Do you really want to eat lobster I will eat lobster w/ youuuu
yesssssss although Dungeness crab is better
How do you feel about hipstery pub-like places with lots of meat?
Decidedly PRO
In which case I recommend the Washington Square Tavern in Brookline and the Russell House Tavern in Harvard Square. Neither is particularly cheap, but both are delicious. For cheaper eats, I’m a huge fan of Tasca in Brighton, which is tasty tasty tapas and nicely-priced sangria. And seconding any recs for Flour bakery (OMG their cakes) and just the Harvard-Somerville side of things in general.
Russell House is also great just for a drink – tasty cocktails, good beer/wine selection, and they have decent glasses of white and rose wine on tap for $6!
Publick House (in Brookline) is full of Belgian beer & yummy meat things.
Come hang out with me in Western Mass!!!! That is the entirety of my Boston-related recommendations.
okay sure woooooo
yes the best boston food is up in portland maine come to portland and lets go out for tapas
so thats settled
Go to Union Square in Somerville! Get donuts at Union Square Donuts and then go to backbar and drink delicious cocktails!
(I may be slightly biased because that is where I live.)
Also, if you like walking around at all, I recommend going for long-ass walks around Boston/Cambridge/Somerville, especially if you plan them so that you cross over the Charles.
YES UNION SQUARE REPRESENT. Union Square donuts will change your life. And the India Palace there is amazing and yummy. On Saturday mornings, come with me to the farmer’s market!!!
Lots of yummy food trucks – there is a schedule online although I am not sure how accurate it is. Bon Me has yummy Banh Mi and noodle bowls, and Biryani Park has a ton of delicious looking Indian/Sri Lankan food (although I usually get the vegetable Biryani). I have also eaten at Siam Bistro on Pearl street, which had a yummy larb salad although I realize how pungent it smelled when I carried it onto the elevator at work.
If you like Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food, Boston Kebab House on Kilby Street (near the financial district and aquarium) has a huuuuuuge selection. The line out the door is just for salads – you don’t have to wait in it if you are getting meze or ordering a sandwich or platter. They have a meze bar, soups, an incredible number of kebabs/falafel/sandwiches, and desserts. Also, their logo is the crescent and star dressed up like a hot pepper. Next door to them is Pita Thyme, who also have kebabs and platters and falafel – I love their Kofta wrap. (Bonus – there is a shop a few doors down from them, which I think is either a rug shop or a men’s formal wear shop that often has a gorgeous golden retriever lounging on the floor inside.)
Central/Inman/Union Squares area all the way — The Druid, Atwood’s Tavern, Plough and Stars for bars, Punjabi Dhaba and Ole (for Indian and Mexican takeout, respectively), Neighborhood restaurant in Union for brunch, Christina’s or Toscanini’s for ice cream…
(Shit, now I really want to go get ice cream and a drink, and I have to stay at work. Crap.)
Once the weather gets cooler, make sure to go have hot chocolate at Burdick’s in Harvard Square. It is the best hot chocolate you will ever have. I promise.
I can confirm this to be true (but get the smallest size; you will think it is too small, but it is so rich that anything more than that is excessive)
Relatedly glomming on – Toasties, I’m moving to boston in like two and a half weeks! And thereafter hopefully looking for a place to live that isn’t with my family. Where should I look? Somerville? I think Cambridge is maybe too pricey. How do we feel about JP?????
Boston is looking like the place to be with all of you moving there! I long to hear about alllll the wonderful meetups from now on.
Somerville 4-LYFE. I hear good things about JP but I wouldn’t know because it is as hard to reach by public transit as New York City. Harder, maybe. When people I know move to JP I cry because I know I’ll never see them again.
Right around where you’re living right now, I highly recommend the following: Pho Pasteur in Chinatown: crowded but quick and great Vietnamese food. If you feel like checking out a great vegetarian place go to Buddha’s Delight, which has a skeezy entrance (up some stairs) but once you’re inside is a pleasant, quiet space with wonderful food. You’re right about Flour: there’s one at Fort Point which is just across the bridge. Also coffee at Great Barrington (around the corner from that location of Flour, so get your baked good there) is awesome. Ming’s is a good place to get cheap produce and any Asian food thing you might want for groceries. The Institute for Contemporary Art is also over the bridge (and an excellent bike ride, especially if you go via the boardwalk by the harbor) and they have good events (Peaches was there last night I believe) and some free entertainment along the boardwalk on Thursdays. Also I live not terribly far from where you are, so feel free to get in touch.
Also it’s New England in the summertime: go to the beach! Nice car-free options are Singing Beach (Manchester-by-the-Sea stop on the Rockport line from North Station) which charges a “walk on” fee but is totally worth it (season passes are a bargain if you plan on going more than twice): walk from the train past the local ice cream shop (which is pretty decent) along a shady street and you’re there. Go as far right as possible from the bathhouse and you will find it’s not crowded at all. Provincetown is a longer trek and more expensive, but also worth it: take the fast ferry by the aquarium (make reservations and include your bike in them) and see whales and ocean on the way instead of traffic and pavement. Once you’re there ride your bike to Herring Cove (the good beach) and go left from the bathhouse for the women’s beach (which has optional toplessness). The water at that beach is so clean (it’s protected seashore) and Europe is on the other side! Also there are plenty of good places to eat in Provincetown. I don’t eat seafood, but if you do, Provincetown is the place.
Heartily second Pho Pasteur. It’s where I go every time I go to Chinatown. Did not realize there’s a Flour in Fort Point, which is close to my office – will plan an excursion there soon!
I went to my 20th high school reunion last week and it did not suck! I had such a nice time and ghosted early before it got rowdy – jello shots were involved. I’m so, so glad I went though.
Also, it has become known to me, in the depths of my soul, that it is time. Time to move. Which means putting my house on the market. This will be the first time I’ve moved purely because I want to, and not for jobs or such. Which means I have plenty of time to find a place I really like (yay!) but also that it is completely on me to set up a saving plan for a down payment, paint everything under the sun, deal with the falling-down barn, and massively declutter. I’m bad with self-imposed deadlines, so I’ve given myself until next spring.
Which Toasticles have made a non-mandatory move? Any tips on getting my ass in gear? I’m kind of overwhelmed and stuck in the list-making phase of things.
Take your time! Start paring things down slowly. Follow the “can I afford to replace it/would it cost $$$ to transport a long distance” rule. Live minimally for a while whilst you figure out where and how you want to go. I have moved just for me twice, and stuff was the hardest thing.
Now, it’s “how to get 2 cats across the country without everyone hating everyone else,” which may be an intractable situation, but we shall see.
That’s good advice for me – I tend to jump into doing everything all at once and then give up when I can’t, you know, do everything all at once. Luckily this move is within the same town – I just had the realization that the traffic noise at my house is legit stressing me out. It’s not how I want to live my life. And the market is finally at a place where I can reasonably hope to sell!
Does anyone know what Edith Zimmerman is up to these days, and if she’s writing anywhere? I miss her voice on the Pin.
She commented on Logan’s Billfold piece the other day and it made me so sad. I miss both of them a lot.
I don’t know, but I would very much like to. I still enjoy the Hairpin, but Edith is a great writer.
Feeling overwhelmed and scared this week.
https://twitter.com/DoctorPug is my life coach and i hope will make you giggle. I think the fact that you are scared probably means you’re fixin to do some kickass things 🙂
What a lovely thing to say. Thank you. And thanks for the Dr. Pug.
Doctor Pug has just brought some major joy into my life. Thank you for sharing.
<3<3
You got this. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth a few times. Think about some awesome things you done did, then eat a chocolate cake.
Remember, God never closes a door without also nailing all the windows shut too, BUT that’s why we have panic rooms. Full of Chex Mix and 30 Rock reruns. (Your panic room contents may vary). Hope it gets easier soon.
Are there any Toasties in Cambridge (UK not MA)? I know about the belated Toast anniversary meetup in London, but I can’t even with getting on a train after a long week.
In other news, I got a raise! Only a teeny one, but apparently I get a cost of living one next month! 😀 I love working for an employer that doesn’t suck!
Not in Cambridge, but I’m not far. Norwich, here! My husband and I drive to Cambridge sometimes, so if anyone else responds, maybe we can come.
Cool, I haven’t been to Norwich yet, so I will let you know when I finally make it. How often do you come to Cambridge? Maybe we could meet up in August.
It’s pretty random when we decide, but probably once a month or so? August might be good.
Email me on anninyn at gmail dot com
I’m a Cambridge (UK) Toastie too! Hiya and yay for raises!
*waves back* Hello! If you would like to meet up and there is a convenient time/place, let me know!
I will be at a conference in Las Vegas most of next week! Are there Toasties in or around Vegas? I do not know. But I will have several evenings free, so I have to figure out what to do with myself!
Las Vegas is a PREPOSTEROUS, surreal place, but I actually really enjoy it. It’s great people-watching.
If you can make it, I highly recommend brunch at Bouchon Bistro in the Venetian. It’s not cheap, but also not too expensive – if you’re not getting the fanciest things, the price of a mid-tier dinner (where I’m from). And it is SO GOOD. The bread. The treats. Fantastic.
If you have time and a car, I would highly recommend taking a trip to Red Rock canyon. There’s a loop you can drive around and it is breath-taking (if you like rocks and nature that is).
Get dinner at China Poblano in the Cosmopolitan! It’s so delicious.
I was just there (for a NKOTB concert. In your face!) and I strongly second the China Poblano recommendation. Are you perhaps going to the Big Bang conference? I’m not, but my mister is presenting!
No, I’ll be there for a research conference! Big Bang sounds really neat, though. Good luck to him!
Dating and/or older Toasties! I am wondering where I should be looking for dates, should I want to do so. Usually I’ve used OK Cupid, but am wondering about Tinder. Are there 40 year olds on there? (I guess I could just try it and see…?) Should I avoid it for political reasons anyway?? Is there anything else new out there?? NB: I am a woman, looking to date men.
um, so, in my area there was no one on okc, more people on match. My current dates though are going to be set ups. So far the one guy has been better than many okcs.
I don’t know anyone who can set me up! And the last time I tried Match literally not one person wrote me back, and I emailed the shit out of people. And then screwed up my opportunity to get free time on the site or whatever the story was, so now I’m mad at them. The end.
But thank you!
Job hunting is bullshit and I am never going to be gainfully employed ever again.
On the plus side, the Hercules movie was a boundless delight.
IT SURE IS BULLSHIT.
Job hunting is the worst. THE WORST.
UUURRRGGG JOB HUNTING.
I am going to see Hercules tonight. I am so, so excited because I absolutely cannot continue to live such a The Rock-less existence.
I’m going to see Hercules tonight and I’m so excited!
I once got called in for an interview more than 8 months after I had applied for the job… by which point I had fortunately found another one. Don’t give up hope!
JOBHUNTING IS TERRIBLE
MISTER THE ROCK IS THE GREATEST
YOU ARE MIGHTY GREAT YOURSELF
It is. It is all the bullshit. But you will be gainfully employed again. If I can find a new job at 42 (apparently that’s like, old or something?) and after more than a year of not-very-fun-unemployment (I want to do violence over the internet to whoever came up with “funemployment” as a concept) then so too can you. More power to your search, and all luck to you.
Toastie Teachers, Parents, Adults Who Were Once Children! I’m starting my first post-college job in a few weeks (elementary school general music, preK-5th grade)- and I am psyched but also a little bit terrified. Any words of wisdom/encouragement would be greatly appreciated <3
Your second year will be a lot easier than the first, at least that is how it is going for my partner who teaches elementary strings. Basically I think your first year you just have to keep your head above water and charge ahead. Look to other teachers as mentors, that can make a world of difference.
And remember, music is important!
Thanks! My best asset for sure is the long list of experienced and talented teachers I’ve got on call for various emergencies. Music IS important!
Partners of String Teachers, represent! (My husband is orchestra director at our local high school.)
Banjolene, my husband’s first year teaching (as an elementary strings teacher) was tough, and a lot of work, but the time he invested that year really paid off in subsequent years, when he didn’t have quite as much prep work.
Good luck, and thanks for bringing music to kids! It is so critical.
that sounds fantastic! you are going to be wonderful/ it will be hard sometimes and that’s okay.
Congrats! Don’t get too caught up in the negativity in the teacher’s lounge is the best advice I can offer about working in a school.
Thank you! My student-teaching supervisor was quite possibly the most negative human I’ve ever met, so I’ve been making a concerted effort to keep things optimistic. (Then again, I’m teaching tiny persons how to sing, dance, and play all day every day so there’s not much to be sour about!)
I felt so much better as a new teacher when I decided I would visit the teacher lounge no more than once a week. It made a huge difference.
Congratulations on your new job! I have so very many fond memories of my elementary school music teacher. It was obvious that she loved doing what she did. We would have jam sessions where we played whatever little instruments they let elementary students have, including those weird string instruments that sit on your lap where you push a button for the right chord and just strum? And she would pluck away at her upright bass and we would always sing “This Land Is Your Land”. And when she taught us about musical terms she would also yell “DYYYYYYYNAMICS!” And we learned recorders in 5th grade, and we always did musical performances and wow I just have so many happy memories. We also had identical twin student teachers who became the co-directors of our high school choir 5-ish years later.
Sorry for just scurrying away down memory lane. I guess my point is this: if you are able to enjoy what you’re doing and pass along some of that joy to your students, I’m sure you’ll do just fine! 🙂
never apologize for a trip down memory lane! Your vivid memories are exactly the joyful associations I hope my students will have with music for the rest of their varied lives 🙂
More memory lane. One of my music mentors died a few years ago and scores of his former students gathered to mourn together. We had a ball shouting PRACTICE! at each other, trying to mimic him perfectly. It’s how he ended every session, in an impossibly loud, impossibly deep bass voice. We laughed and cried.
Congrats! Musics teachings jobs are crazy tough to get right now (at least in my neck of the woods) so you are already winning. If you get to cycle through classrooms remember that however bad that particular class is you only have to survive x amount of time with them before you don’t have to see them for an entire week or whatever. Also remember that music class is the highlight of a lot of kids days, if not weeks so they will love you by default!
Music classes was all that kept me from being a young suicide.
Congratulations! My very first job out of college was as a kindergarten ESL teacher. It was a wonderful experience!
Beyond ignoring teachers’ lounge negativity, keep your eyes peeled for opportunities to sit in on other teachers’ classrooms, even those teaching outside of your topic area. I learned so much just from observing the veterans.
Yesyesyes to observing other teachers. A most valuable learning tool.
hooray! I’m an assistant on track to becoming a head teacher, so I’m also new at this! it is such a humbling job because it takes years to really feel comfortable and confident at it, and there’s generally no skipping past the hard part. it is so so okay/necessary to ask for help and feedback, and to try things that don’t work — still trying to learn this myself.
VANCOUVER PEOPLE!
I saw some little sparks of interest and sadness that we did not get more of you out on Wednesday. Would you like us to create a google group for future planning purposes? Or have each other on email? Twitter? Or __some other thing I don’t know about because I’m an old lady___? I would suggest FB but I know one of us isn’t on there, I am all ears for whatever you would like.
Yay! I’ll happily email or (gasp!) set up a Twitter account (Twitter appeals to my ADD). Let’s go for it! I’ll start off with this: partner and I are heading down to the PNE August 21-24 to check out the team cow penning and draft team competitions. We can totally meet up ANYWHERE and ANYTIME (after said horsey time, of course!).
I’m a Victoria/interior person but I would like to be part of this group! Commenting to keep track of whatever is decided.
VICTORIA!! I never go to the mainland because I am curmudgeonly, but maybe you can all come to the island?
Do you want us to have whatever-it-is as BC in general, rather than localized to cities? We could do that. Because we could still organize smaller things within a larger BC umbrella.
Hey BC gang! I suspect (hope?) I am the FB-phobe to whom perianwen refers… if yes, I wouldn’t want to let my aversions/preferences inhibit the rest of you from organizing, so go ahead with the FB if that’s easiest for the majority — perianwen, you’ve got my email, maybe you’ll be kind enough to tip me a note when there’s something fun in the works?
Alternatively, I am on Twitter @604Sheila, so — whatever happens, I’m in!
It’s possible you’re not the only FB-averse person! There may be more! I am genuinely fine with whatever the majority would like.
I’m a FB-phobe! Twitter it is, then!
Favorite interior design blogs? I would prefer something that real people can do, not aspirational all glass/shower is also a rock garden kinda things.
Yes this is also relevant to my interests! Also “where normal people actually live” and not “look at my beautiful living room which houses 1 mid-century sofa and 1 crystal globe on an antique Louis XIV end table, and a white plush rug, also I have three children who play solely in their rooms with antique wooden toys sourced from an estate sale in Martha’s Vineyard” or whatever.
Manhattan Nest! He’s an inconsistent poster but he is super funny and his DIYs are impressive but doable. He is also willing to admit defeat and hire things out. He and his fiance just bought a house in upstate New York last year that they’re doing an amazing job restoring but if you go back in his archives you can see his apartments and posts on refinishing furniture and attaching different legs to desks and things like that.
He’s hilarious, too. I also love that he discusses how much things cost, how they financed their projects, and that kind of thing.
Seconded on Manhattan Nest! Also in the same genre: doorsixteen is another one that has DIYs that are mostly doable by regular humans, and that is more transparent about the process — like how freaking long it takes to do things (and how sometimes, your great design idea doesn’t really work in your space and you have abandon or vastly rejigger plans).
I recently stumbled on Freunde von Freunden, which is like a hybrid design/interview blog of creative people. It doesn’t really list sources, which can be frustrating when you see something and go “That! That is the thing I want to do in my kitchen!”, and can be a little too…”impossibly cool europeans” at times, buuuut, it is great for pictures of people’s homes that are well decorated but also show how that decorating style looks in real life (with stacks of books and papers, actual ingredients for cooking things in kitchens, lamps with cords, etc).
Your phrase “shower is also a rock garden” delights me so, so much.
Apartment Therapy, I think, is a good mix of “LOLOL RIGHT because we all have Parisian terraces that need DIY topiary” and “So Your Rented Apartment Has Shitty Bathroom Tile: How To Cope”. And they often link out to other design blogs so it’s a good resource for that.
I’ve been enjoying Aunt Peaches lately for her bursts of color and kinda wacky thrift-store/craft-store design slant. Her home is EXTREMELY colorful, more colorful than I’d want, but there’s something delightful about it to me.
Thank you for this! I now want to cover my fridge in removable wallpaper.
My summer of free concerts (sort of) continued this week! Hung out outside the Neutral Milk Hotel show in Prospect Park with some friends. Couldn’t see them but they sounded AMAZING. And there was a gorgeous lightning storm and it was just wonderful until it started pouring but I didn’t even care. Someday I hope to have money so I can actually pay to see them!
I went to that show on Tuesday, it was awesome!
Neutral Milk! I’m still heartbroken at having to miss their show here back in April due to food poisoning. 🙁
I hope everyone’s week is going well.
I have a weird therapy question.
I went to go see a therapist in the middle of June and we talked and it was nice and I was happy. I went to schedule an appointment and she said that she couldn’t see me again for three weeks since she was on vacation for the next two. She asked about my availability and I told her that I would get back to her. I sent her my availability the next day and she scheduled me for an appointment in the first week of August.
I travel a lot for work and I messaged her and asked if I could possibly see her before our August appointment if she had any cancellations. Or if I could make arrangements while I am traveling to see her over Skype. I emailed her last week and I haven’t gotten a response yet.
Am I being completely unreasonable or is that a lot of time to wait to see and or hear from a therapist? We have this online appointment scheduling tool, so I can see that some of the other therapists in the same practice have availabilities and I’m not sure at what point I should just try and see someone else.
You seem reasonable, and a person in any kind of business should reply to their clients promptly. Much less someone who people are potentially going to in crisis!!
Not unreasonable, in my experience with therapists. Nor is it unreasonable for you to begin interviewing second-string therapists. It is not wrong to need more frequent visits. Get what you need, even if that means changing therapists or having more than one.
I do not think there is any unreasonable going on; she might just not be the right fit for you, and that is fine, you can let it go and go see someone else.
Worried about time with family this coming weekend. What’s your best trick for surviving a family vacation? For deflecting questions about your personal life? For responding to in-laws with All The Opinions? (I can’t take a walk every hour, it will get suspicious.)
Personal questions: “Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. Tell me about your latest scrapbooking project.”
Response to opinion: “You’ve given me something to think about. There is more than one way to look at it. Tell me about your latest scrapbooking project.”
Your survival relies on low expectations. Expect the worst. Prepare for it. Plan half-days away from the group. Tell Aunt Betty you are running an errand for Aunt Jenny. Tell Aunt Jenny you are running an errand for Aunt Betty.
Yes, feel free to invent errands. I also like to invent “just a little bit of work that can’t wait until Monday” or a migraine.
Excellent, excellent. We are just dipping our toes into wedding planning and every hour seems to be a family-wide planning committee rather than an afternoon on the porch. Trying to find the right balance of making my almost-MIL and her siblings feel heard, and gently begging everyone to talk about anything else (scrapbooking it is!).
Can you make up some blanket reason that you can’t talk about it right now? Such as “We’re so stressed out that Partner and I decided this family vacation would also be a vacation from wedding planning!” or “We can’t make any of these decisions until we know about the venue/caterer/cake-frosting-color, sorry y’all. Let’s reopen the topic in a week/month/year/never.”
I have never gotten married but this is pretty much how I handle all family prying.
I love a good, noncomittal “Hm.” for dealing with opinions I don’t share.
I have successfully set the expectation with all branches of the family that we will spend morning through lunch together, possibly with an early afternoon activity, and then I will retire to my quarters for siesta by 3 or 4pm, and we will reconvene at dinnertime. This little break/nap/glass of wine time helps IMMENSELY with my patience level. If I don’t do it I am super snappy by dinnertime.
(I actually call it siesta, which seems to help folks grasp that it’s an actual thing)
You are so wise.
Perfect. Will establish this on day one!
Personal questions, I might say, if I ever were to change my mind about that (and laugh, as in, sure when pigs fly), I’ll be sure to let you know. Or just say thank you for asking and change the conversation–thanks for asking about if I’m ever getting married, did you hear about my 3 month backpacking trip in Argentina/awesome thing that I did?
And I love love love my family, but both my immediate and extended family are massive in numbers. I’m introverted and get overwhelmed quickly by all the people. So I make sure that every day I find a quiet corner to read/internet/think for a little while before heading back to the fray. My immediate family knows I’m always going to disappear for a little while (helps that most of them are introverts too) so they’re pretty good about letting me have it. But if pushed, I remain firm, “I would love to do that activity or chat with you, but I need a few quiet minutes to myself right now. I’ll catch up with you later.” And walk away and find a new secluded spot if necessary.
Taking them to do things that either a) don’t require/ allow talking or b) generate different conversation topics has worked well. Did a trip to the state fair once- between taking separate routes through the exhibits and sharing opinions about show roosters it worked like a dream. “Let’s go see this movie” can give everyone a break, too.
Because there is a time in everyone’s life when this gif is appropriate, and mine is this week:
Thank you for this gift of gif.
Perfect.
I’m so stealing that move!
holy shit. this. forever.
I am in the process of breaking up with my boyfriend of 3.5 years, which a) is going okay, actually, for the most part, and b) I have already cried about on multiple open threads. It’s weird, but getting increasingly okay, and we will (probably) still be friends (after a mandatory 4-month break).
The thing that is weird is that a lot of people in my immediate circle of friends met their current spouses in, like, freshman year of college, and stayed together, and got married when they were 26 or 27. I don’t even necessarily want that lifestyle, but the fact that they all have this certainty in their lives that I don’t have is in some ways freaking me out even more badly than the actual breakup I am actually going through right now. What the heck.
Anyway — do you have a plant in your office? How do you keep it from dying when you inhabit a small, sunless cube? My poor aloe vera plant doesn’t seem to be doing too well, which is extra galling because I was told they’re hardy little bastards that survive even ineptitude and neglect.
I’m a giant fan of my philodendron, which lives in my home, not my office. But it has survived literally a decade of neglect, infrequent waterings, and awkward moves. I’ve actually tried killing it – it just made it stronger. So my advice is…maybe get a philodendron?
My roommate was slowly killing her philodendron until I started watering it. I marveled to my mom (a constant gardener) that it was still alive at all, and she scoffed, “It’s a philodendron. They’re impossible to kill.”
I have a philodendron too. It’s the only plant that seems happy in my office, which doesn’t get much natural light. I had two others, a jade plant and a coffee plant, and they both looked miserable until I took them home and put them in a sunnier window, but the philodendron’s going strong.
CUBE PLANTS I just got a standing desk right next to a window so it is TIME
Lots of people in my office have bromeliads, snake plants, cast iron, and peace lilies. These people are gardener-types, but I have never seen anyone do anything to their plants except water them and let them sit in sunless rooms? So I feel like those might be good.
I was going to suggest bromeliads. They are rain forest plants, so they don’t want or require much light, and they’re pretty tolerant of forgetful watering.
my aloe plant nearly didn’t survive my ineptitude– turns out that it is indeed possible to under-water an aloe plant. who knew!
I have killed many an aloe plant. Those who say they will survive are gardeners, green-thumbs, and other plant-people. They do not understand the world from our perspective.
I can offer no advice on either subject, but I can offer sympathy on the plant – I have the blackest of black thumbs and have managed to kill pretty much any plant I so much CONSIDER trying to keep alive.
I had a Pothos plant in my sunless cube and it managed to survive. (However, when I left that job and brought it home and put it in a sunny place, it basically exploded and is now 5 feet long.)
I have an ivy plant in my current cubicle, which is by a window, and the bigger leaves have started to turn yellowish-brown. It’s still putting out new leaves, so it’s not dying, but is this cause for concern?
I am ridiculously terrible at keeping plants alive.
If it makes you feel better, I met my husband our freshmen year of college and we got married when we were 25, and so I can assure you, your friends are probably no more certain than you are. We survived three years of long-distance in between college and marriage, and it was horrible and terrifying and incredibly uncertain. We didn’t go into that period expecting to come out of it together…we just agreed that when the time was right, we would know if we should stay together or let go. What I’m saying is: that’s every relationship, and it sounds like you’ve got a pretty good internal compass. Nobody knows what they’re doing, and you’re going to be okay!
the fact that they all have this certainty in their lives that I don’t have is in some ways freaking me out
The thing is, you can’t ever really know, unless you’ve had extremely in-depth conversations with them about this (and sometimes not even then), how certain they were. Maybe they were certain. Maybe one of them was certain and the other was willing to take a chance, or felt exhilarated by the romance of it, or felt pressured into pretending certainty. Maybe neither was certain. Maybe they’re more comfortable with uncertainty, or valued the certainty of a commitment at the time more than the certainty that the commitment could be lasting.
There are so many different ways to decide to be permanent, and so many different definitions of permanence, that it’s not often valuable to compare your own insides — your own intimate knowledge of how your relationship and life are constructed — to someone else’s outsides, which is mostly what we see of all but our very most intimate loved ones.
Plants! The only thing I can consistently keep alive in my shaded apartment is pothos, recommended above by another commenter. I don’t even plant them, just let them root in pretty glass or pottery bottles, refreshing the water every so often. (Until recently, our apartment suffered extreme shifts in temperature during the winter, which meant that plants could get dried out with alarming speed. Now that we have our own thermostat, I might start potting our plants.)
I don’t have advice nor work in an office but I feel the same way about people with those kind of relationships. it’s hard not to compare.
also my aloe vera isn’t doing too well in my not-so-sunny apartment — the internet told me they need regular direct sunlight, similar to cacti.
Toast Postcard Update!
I’ve begun sending out your postcard matches! I will probably finishing sending them out this afternoon, so if you haven’t got them yet don’t despair. In a couple weeks I will be back with another form for people who either missed sign ups the first time around and want to join in, or people who want more matches. Thanks to everyone who signed up, we have a nice diverse group of addresses and levels of interest and I think this will be really fun! Happy mailing!
Thanks for the second chance! I procrastinated first time around (got shy at the last minute) so again, thanks!
PS. I totally dig old postcards; I got a charming “couple in love” 1908 postcard hanging on the fridge.
PPS. This is NOT “gimme old postcards”, honest.
I have a local thrift store that has TONS of old postcards, both new and previously-mailed, so make a note when you fill out the form about who you are and I’ll send some your way!
Aw, thanks! That thrift store sounds amazing for paper goods!
Sent from my iPad
I feel like it may be a missed opportunity not calling them Toastcards.
Also, totally bummed that I missed out on this, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the next signup!
I call them Toastcards or Toast Post when chatting about it, but yes, maybe next time around I’ll rename it officially!
Thanks for the email, I’m going to send out my first postcard next week!
:)!
I just got the email with my postcard matches — thank you so much for setting this up! Now to choose some postcards from my Weird Random Museum Postcards collection…
Man Toasties have the most awesome postcard collections, I wish I could have given my address to everyone but I think my postman might kill me!
Do want! I was a terrible pin pal, but I think postcards/toastcards will be do-able.
I await the next wave of sign ups.
Yes, that’s the goal – still getting mail, but without the pressure of having to write full letters back and forth! I’ll post the next sign up for a couple weeks in a row, now that I’ve mastered matching people in excel.
:):):)
I’m moving this weekend and have been SUPER ANXIOUS about it, for… no reason? We’re moving literally like 2 miles, a million of our friends are coming to help, we don’t actually have to be out of the apartment we’re vacating for another month, so there is absolutely nothing to be stressed about. Perhaps more accurate: I have been SUPER ANXIOUS for like 3 weeks, partly for actual reasons (busy period at work, helping a friend with a minor crisis, recent unexpected and confusing gender-identity feels, etc.) and partly for no reason (well, I guess “brain chemistry” is still a reason, it’s just not one I can do much about), and have settled on the move as the Thing To Focus Anxiety On.
On the bright side, maybe I can successfully put my anxiety to work and the move will be really really meticulously planned and go very smoothly? Probably not. Ugh.
For what it’s worth – and I know this will not help put your anxiety to rest – my recent move was really meticulously planned and it went very smoothly and was great. Two things that helped me were 1. Sort of resigning myself to the fact that it was going to be an awful day, and 2. Having pizza delivered (with paper plates, naps, and cups) at the end of the day. Coming to the new home with something hot and delicious and easily disposable to eat felt great.
Best of luck, and I hope you start feeling better! But even if you don’t, it is okay, and it will be okay.
Moving makes me anxious too! Even when I am totally excited about it. I think part of it is the loss of the place I am most comfortable in – after you move, even if your new place is super amazing, it just feels off for a little while! Anyway, I don’t have any real advice on how to deal with it, although throwing a lot of that energy into packing/cleaning/organizing did help. And the organizing helped it feel more like home faster. And the unsettled feeling only lasted a few weeks and now my place feels like home again!
I was almost totally organized for my recent move (which was from one apartment to another a quarter mile away) and I was STILL an unreasonable, stressing pile of bile and nerves. I think it’s just part of the thing. Once I actually moved in and made my bed, voila, adios stress. I think living around boxes is bad for me on an emotional level. You might be the same.
Remember, it will be over soon! And your new place will be great! And so clean and organized!
… you know, actually, I did suddenly become less chill the second my husband started stacking boxes in the living room. BOXES: THEY’RE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH.
THEY TOTALLY ARE. I would find myself wandering amongst them fretting like a Regency spinster. I know some people are cool with it, but I found having my belongings unsettled like that disturbing. Ugh. Skin crawl.
My husband feels the same way about boxes, because they signal impending change that ISN”T HAPPENING YET. I like to pack about a month ahead of time so that things are all nice and prepared and get anxious if I feel like I’m behind. Our best (and most expensive) compromise is paying other people to pack our stuff. Less expensive compromises include stacking boxes in closets rather than out in the open and waiting to pack the stuff that keeps the place from looking like a barren wasteland.
This has nothing to do with moving, but if you ever need to talk about gender identity feels I’m available at ocwutthetoast at gmail dot com. 🙂
I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna post a rant on my tumblr about specifically how Christianity has hurt me and suffocated me. And also about how I’ve come to understand this through fanfiction I’ve written.
Then if I’m feeling brave enough I’m gonna edit out any swear words and put it on Facebook. Well, I’ll genericize the references to my fanfiction too.
For those of you following the roller coaster saga of WallofIllusion with the red hat in her icon and how she feels about Christianity, none of this changes how awesome the church I’ve been going to is and how it actually gives me some hope for Christianity. But part of this hope is discovering some rage at how long I’ve been told to hope in something that just contributed to being miserable.
(“If his eyes were rueful when he told her that he was happy–if happiness was tainted by the suffocating thought of how long he had been unhappy–she still believed him, and squeezed his hand a little tighter before sending him on his way.” No, really, I’m not kidding about the fanfiction thing.)
sorry, this is a pretty self-indulgent post.
Christianity has hurt me, too. Mostly via patriarchy and enabling my parents’ sexism, neglect, and abuse.
I studied the bible for 20 years, in 2 languages and my conclusion is that it is a fully human product. And I am now gently atheist. After being a strong Christian for decades. I had never known happiness as a Christian, but I do now. The truth has set me free.
Though I maintain respect for all faiths when they practice kindness.
Good for you for writing about your experience with the church. You have my support.
Oof. I relate to this (and I read your rant on tumblr and thanks for posting it!). I grew up Southern Baptist, and it was a run-of-the-mill but really not THAT bad evangelical church and it still fucked with me in ways I’m still trying to process. I empathize hard with growing up in a tradition that had a lot of gender crap in it. I think about it all the time and at times I get really angry about it, too. I think the anger’s good–it’s good to be angry at such injustice, but anger can be so exhausting, too.
I’m so happy you’ve found an awesome church. I joined an Episcopal church so I can add to the general Episcopal love. They’re great, and I love not feeling like a freak of nature for being a single woman. Hugs if you want them.
Someone tell me there is a job listing out there that will get back to me. I would settle for a response! I don’t even need to get the job! (Ok I need to get a better job, but it’s fucking radio silence.)
I would LOVE a response. Even a rejection! But I wish Alison at askamanager.org was still doing her “Email Your Bad Interviewer” thing where she would send an anonymous email to your interviewer saying how rude and unhelpful it was to never get back to applicants, ever. And also extend it to just ordinary applications that vanish into ether.
Toasties! I hope you are all feeling beautiful and lovely, because I think you are all delightful, and you make my world a better place by existing in it. <3
I am taking Indy to get bathed by the people at PetSmart tomorrow mostly because I have a coupon to get him bathed for free one time and also because he has decided that bathtime is the Very Worst Time In The World and he cries heartbreakingly the whole time we bathe him no matter how gently and kindly we try to do it and I keep ending up on the verge of tears, so bathtime for the dog is way harder than it needs to be. So this weekend I decided I have a coupon and I don’t want to be sad first thing Saturday morning and he’s gonna be so fluffy and pretty and they’re going to give him a bandanna and everything! He will be SO CUTE! I will be sure to instagram/tweet (I’m tekkah on both platforms, feel free to follow for maximum dog exposure if you haven’t already).
In other news I watched all of OITNB season 1 and am starting season 2 and WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!?
Paying the pros to bathe your dog is definitely the best way to go. You and your dog have a vicious cycle. He gets anxious, you get anxious in response to his anxiety, he senses your unhappiness and gets more anxious, etc. Plus the pros are far faster and more thorough than we can be at home. The ordeal will be quickly over for your dog.
I mention “thorough” because my dogs have heavy coats and it takes skill to get all the shampoo out. If any remains, they get itchy armpits and general skin trouble. Knowing it was avoidable an all my fault breaks my heart.
And you are limiting baths to once a quarter, right? Unless your dog rolls in half of a rotting fish (thanks, Rocket) or tangles with a skunk, that’s all that’s needed. Frequent baths irritate a dog’s skin. Again, avoidable and all my fault = heartbreaking.
Yeah, he’s only gotten a few baths since we got him (and two of them were a week apart ’cause he rolled around in poop the second time), but he’s just not a happy camper about it. I figure the pros will have a better time! Thankfully my family has had dogs forever and we’re pretty well-versed in how to handle dogs, it’s just he’s the first dog I’ve had experience with who hated bathtime. My family’s dogs have always been AWWW YEAH GIANT DRINKING TUB!!!! types, and suddenly I own a “noooo you are slowly killing me with water” dog. 🙁
How do you get all the luck? Every dog I’ve ever had hated the bath. So you’re telling me there’s hope I will one day get one who will be excited about water? (No retrievers, small dogs only.)
Even the retired show dogs complain. Show dogs have been bathed often. They have had fingers in their mouths and have been held upside down since they were a few weeks old. But even the old show dogs act like I am abusing them by putting them in a tub with a little warm water and gentle suds. Maybe I just need to find little dogs who are not drama queens.
Hahaha this might actually be the thing — my family has always, always gone for the gentle giant types. We have a half-lab, half-mastiff mix named Togo who is basically content to just lie there all day no matter WHAT you do near him so long as you gave him ear skritches or belly rubs every time you walk past him and a carrot if you walk past the fridge… and then a half-lab, half-bernese-mountain-dog who is BASICALLY the animal embodiment of all good feelings in the world. Like his entire reason for existence is to be excited and happy. Nothing affects these dogs negatively (except my mom leaving town for business, then they get somewhat quiet for a day) and they are pretty much enormous joybuggies who just spread happiness and relaxation around the house. Bathtubs are like big water bowls and nail clippers are just “hey someone’s holding my paw! AWW YEAH!”
Then my husband and I adopted Indy because I was having a very hard time living in a house on my own without a dog in it and he’s OKAY with nailclippers so long as I hug him with my arms AND my legs while my husband does the clipping but DEAR GOD THE BATH. IT’S THE DEVIL’S TUB.
SEASON 2 IS SO SO GREAT. It’s definitely my favourite media thing I’ve watched all year and so great because it really focuses on all the other inmates besides Piper, who has a relatively small role comparatively this season. I like Piper fine, but it’s not her story that keeps me watching.
I may be a stranger, but I’m a stranger with a healthy appreciation for dogs, so I followed you on twitter! (rubeseatsinfo)
Knitting toasties! A friend of mine (a close friend’s boyfriend, actually) was recently diagnosed with cancer. He’s starting chemo and seems to have a fair collection of interesting hats to get him through the warmer months. I’d like to knit him something warm and cozy (but still interesting and kind of unique but not too unique?) for the not actually that far off colder months. I’m kind of overwhelmed by the whole idea because I’m not much of a hat knitter and I’m not typically one for giving gifts to heterosexual men so I feel a bit out of my depths. I’d like to find something technically interesting (I keep saying “interesting” and that’s sort of the key word among this group of friends I guess) but not threatening to his masculinity (which is not super easily threatened but still threatenable, he’s kind of a Dad-type but self-aware about it). If anyone has any patterns in mind, I would be super appreciative because ravelry basically has 800 billion search results for “hat” and yikes.
Forgive me for asking for gift ideas for a white heterosexual dude but he is one who should be spared.
Personally, I’d go with socks. Feet have to stay warm and cozy too, and I think that’s more likely to go over with a masculine fellow than a hat.
if you DO decide to go with a hat – I am knitting this right now out of a SUPER soft yarn (road to china light) and I think it’s pretty masculine-dude-friendly. http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2014/2/2/laur…
Brooklyn Tweed hat patterns. They’re beautiful and the unisex/men’s ones are appropriately butch. I made this one for my husband for Christmas and he wore to the exclusion of all other hats all winter – http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/eno
If you feel like splurging, the suggested yarn isn’t cheap, but it’s very light but also very warm. I’m sensitive to wool and I can wear Brooklyn Tweed yarns without any itching.
Yes! I love Brooklyn Tweed, thank you!
Another hat alternative – a blanket? Or would that take too long?
Are you on Ravelry? If not, you should be! Their advanced search is pretty great and useful- you can search for a free pattern for a knit hat for an adult man and get tons of ideas. Or socks or blankets or whatever else you decide to do.
Thanks for the suggestions (including/especially the suggestions to Not) so far. This has been super helpful in getting my brain to work on the problem and I feel like I have some reasonable options now instead of the overwhelming amount of stuff I started with.
I’d be happy to send you a men’s hat pattern, should you decide that you do want to knit a hat – my Horatio pattern has typically gone over well with men I know. ([email protected] – just mention that I told you to email me in the Toast comments) I’ve had good luck in the past with Lion Brand Microspun for chemo caps. It’s horribly splitty to knit with, but the end result is very soft on the scalp and washable to boot.
I gave a friend a crocheted lap afghan. It was small enough for her to take to her chemo sessions if she wanted to.
Okay who wants to talk about The Returned/Les Revenants with me, because I watched all of it while on vacation earlier this month and I can’t stop thinking about it!
IT’S SO GOOD. I love the music and the creepy little boy and it made me want to move to a small town in the Alps even though clearly a lot of Terrible Things would happen if I did.
Ahh Victor I was so torn between wanting to cuddle him and wanting to run away screaming lest he get upset and make me have murder visions.
I was unaware that there was going to be a second season, so I got to the end and was like WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING. I really hope it’s good! I’m a little worried about how things will go now that they’ve gotten past everyone’s initial reactions, which were probably the most interesting part.
I know, I’m afraid it will just devolve into some kind of zombie war situation, which is of little interest to me. I’m also afraid it will never happen, since I can’t find any confirmation that it’s even filming. How are they going to explain the characters aging that much?
I read something recently about how it should be released in the US later this year! I hope that was current information and not an outdated LIE.
Oh, hi, we share a brain apparently because all of these things have been worrying me too!
I’ve been trying to use my remedial French skills to google whether it’s even in production, but I can’t find anything. I still have so many questions I need answered!
I found this on deadline.com, which I have never heard of, from this January:
“Now Sundance Channel, which had acquired the first eight-episode season of the series, launching it this past Halloween, has picked up The Returned‘s upcoming second season, which is about to go into production, in a deal with Zodiak Rights. It will debut in the US in late 2014.”
Yeeeeeeeeeessssss
This is the first I’ve heard of this show but it looks AWESOME – where’s the best place to watch it internet-wise?
It’s streaming on Netflix if you’re in the US! (or at least it was when I watched it a few months ago)
It was still as of like two weeks ago!
All I know about it is that Mogwai did the soundtrack for it because they were talking about it on their AMA thread and I know nothing about the movie but now I am intrigued just for that reason??
edit: to further prove how little I know it looks like it may be a TV show? Bad Elyse, no cookie!!
It’s a series, so it’s a bit of a commitment but they did such a good job with the soundtrack. So creepy, so perfect. They released a soundtrack album, too, if you just want to make whatever situation you’re in while listening to it foreboding and freaky.
I am all about foreboding and freaky, so onto the wishlist it goes!
Last weekend, I taught myself to change the oil in my car. I know that this is car maintenance 101 stuff, but it made me feel very accomplished. It was great to feel like I was taking care of my car with my own two hands and paying it back for getting me safely through tens of thousands of miles of road trips.
I also loved the rush of power I felt in explaining to the (male) clerk that yes, he did need to answer my questions about the things he was recommending that differed from what the manual recommended; no, a mechanic did not assemble my parts list for me; and no, my husband (?!?) was not going to be changing the oil for me. A small blow to gender norms, but I like to think that maybe the next time a femme lady comes into his shop, he won’t talk down to her quite so hard.
Cool! I have no idea how to change my oil. Every time I have to get something done to my car I’m scared that I will be overcharged/not taken seriously because I’m a woman, but also I don’t really care how it works and I don’t have a lot of interest in learning about my car. I think I’ve finally found a mechanic who’s nice and fair, but also, I don’t have a way to tell!
YESSS rock on
Jealous! I keep meaning to learn how to do this and keep waiting until the last-minute and panicking and taking it to the oil change place.
That said, for other maintenance things, I love going to the auto-parts store and saying, “Nah, I don’t need a funnel for all this oil I just bought.”
maybe the next time a femme lady comes into his shop, he won’t talk down to her quite so hard.
awwwwww yessssssss high five!
Can I just vent for a second about how YEARS ago I came out of church service to find a bunch of church deacons changing my tire because it was flat. They completely ignored me the whole time they worked on it! EXCEPT when they asked me where my husband was!! They were all strangers doing me a favor but it was so. wierd. I just stood there awkwardly and then they all wandered off, not even acknowledging my thanks.
It is perhaps needless to say that I can change a tire now.
Toasties! I get my wisdom teeth out later today. What did you eat afterward (that was good)?
PUDDING OF ALL KINDS. My wisdoms were impacted though, so I didn’t have any sockets. I just couldn’t eat solid foods because my jaw was sore and puffy.
Percoset
well, apropos to your user name, I ate a lot of mashed up avocado with a little salt and lime juice. However, i was really allergic to my pain meds which gave me terrible nausea, so I got (psychomatically?) turned off from avocados for a while.
applesauce!
My mom made me black raspberry milkshakes and that is the fondest memory I have of wisdom tooth removal.
Avoid, at all costs, even though you REALLY want them, the baked potato chips. They will just cut open your sockets and you will taste blood for days. 🙁
I had “smoothies” from my local cheap thai place which are really milkshakes. HOWEVER I used a straw which you’re not supposed to do and then I got dry socket. Which was the worst pain I have every experienced (like crying through T-3s pain). So no straws! Spoon that shit!
NO STRAWS EVER. Dry sockets are really terrible.
Besides drugs I enjoyed soft serve ice cream and scrambled eggs for protein.
THIRDED. AVOID STRAWS.
As for food suggestions: ice cream, yogurt, mashed potatoes, avocadoes, pasta with cream sauce.
Nachos.
I uh had a really easy removal so I was basically back to normal by that night.
Mostly pudding.
They told me to avoid anything with even a tiny bit of texture, such as applesauce, for the first two days. I think the exact recommendations depend on your surgeon and/or how the removal goes.
Oh, also, the painkillers left me with not much energy. So the other advantage of pudding was that it didn’t require any preparation.
I survived on eggs and ice cream blended in milk, thin enough to sip easily. When my blood sugar got crazy, my beloved added protein powder, which tastes awful and calls for more ice cream. Any excuse for more ice cream.
Fancy chicken broth got me through the first day or two, and after that I ate a ton of scrambled eggs topped with grated cheese. And hummus straight out of the container. No shame!
vanilla ice cream with peanut butter on top.
mmmmmmm.
OH MAN, I had such a great assortment of soft foods when I had my wisdom tooth out. I documented some of them in the comments here. In addition to the standards of pudding, yogurt, and applesauce, I found myself craving savory foods, protein, and vegetables. If you’re taking opiates, you may find they block you up; after the first day, I was conscientious about getting some fiber as well as all those sweets. Some of the more delicious things I ate:
– palak paneer, though I skipped the rice and bread the first day. That’s right, I used this as an excuse to have palak paneer three times in a week.
– mashed potatoes: plain, with cheese, with a poached or soft-cooked egg, with
sauteed spinach
– spinach souffle
– overcooked microwave Trader Joe’s mac & cheese (which I mixed with frozen spinach, both to get some vegetables and to cool it quickly; I was advised to avoid piping hot foods for the first few days)
– refried beans with cheese, ripe smashed avocado, frozen spinach
– pea soup, black bean soup
– overcooked lasagne
– roasted smashed squash or sweet potatoes, also often w/ripe avocado
I also ate a whole box of popsicles BUT DO NOT SUCK ON THEM. Sucking (on straws, cigarettes, popsicles) can cause problems leading to dry socket. (One encouraging word: I was sure I had sucked out the healing clot over the weekend; when I went in for my post-surgical check-up, I was shocked when the surgeon said “Gold star!” Lots of the stories you’ll hear will be worst-case scenarios. The advice to caution is generally good, but don’t get too, too worried.)
mashed potatoes with a lot of butter.
peanut-butter-almond-milk smoothies.
vegetable/fruit nutribullet smoothies.
super-creamy polenta with cheese and an egg on top.
tried to eat oatmeal, that was BAD (for my mouth).
My stepmom decided that me having my wisdom teeth out was the perfect opportunity to break out the cold soup recipes, so borsche and cold leek & potato soup were both on offer (and delicious).
Freezing paper towels in ziplock bags to make face ice packs was the key feature to my recovery, though.
Nothing but plain chocolate ice cream from the university creamery. For three days straight. Then guacamole, Jello, pudding, mashed potatoes, yogurt, soups without big meaty chunks, oatmeal, and heated-up applesauce. It’s surprising how many nutritional bases can be covered with creative mush.
To whomever recommended Ingress in last week’s Open Thread: I hate you (well, my feet do, anyway). I’ve had to charge my phone 3-4 times a day ever since. Luckily, I live in a pretty dense neighborhood, so I can hit about 20-30 portals per hour. And there’s a portal I can access from my bed.
For another app obsession: anyone playing QuizUp? I can destroy you in QI (or get destroyed in another topic of your choosing): just follow Inpiun on Twitter.
Sorry.
Knowledge can be a dangerous thing, fellow Enlightened.
It can indeed.
I finally ordered a giant backup battery for my phone this morning. My neighbourhood isn’t that dense, and I keep draining the battery on my way to the denser neighbourhoods, so I’m still level three. But I’m getting close to level four.
I told myself that the battery will also be useful for travel, which is true, but it’s mostly for Ingress.
As you should be. The Enlightened are severely underrepresented in my hood, and I haven’t had a portal stay up longer than 2 days. I’m only at L3, and L8-10 fuckers keep burning me down. Also, just realized links can’t cross each other AND discovered the Ingress Intel map, so I’m starting to think more strategically about all of it. Also also, have now joined 2 G+ groups to support this addiction. The beau just laughs and shakes his head when I get in a tizzy about my entities getting knocked out. HE JUST DOESN’T UNDERSTAND!
I play QuizUp and absolutely destroy everyone in Simpsons trivia
Has anyone else been (perhaps too) obsessed with the Eden Foods boycott? I’m not sure why that particular combination of things has pissed me off so badly, but I live in Austin and some of my friends and I have been trying to get enough signatures on a petition to convince our local co-op to boycott Eden. Anyway, if you live in Austin, are a member of Wheatsville Co-op, and are interested, more info is here: http://www.facebook.com/ExileEdenWV. If you don’t live in Austin, but have been trying to convince people/businesses to boycott Eden, how has that been going?
Wow, I didn’t know about this. I’m kind of in the clear since their food is all too expensive for me to even consider buying, but ugh. So hard to find businesses that don’t have a hand in evildoing.
I will probably finally get around to joining the Wheatsville co-op expressly to sign the petition (we live within walking distance, it’s pretty much ridiculous we haven’t joined already). Because seriously, fuck that noise.
I work at a grocery co-op and yeah. It is honestly a hard situation for the grocery stores because no one else has the range of products that Eden does and they are in every other way a pretty exemplary company (apparently the CEO answers the phone if you call them… probably not true after this blowup). BUT. In this one way they are HORRIBLE. I’m personally boycotting them but I don’t know that I need the grocery co-ops to boycott them, since extensive boycotts (based on very important and legitimate causes!) leading to reduced products available is one of the things that led to the death and decline of many grocery co-ops in the 70s.
But also. Fuck Eden Foods.
In 10 days I’ll have to move out of my place and I don’t have a place to stay because the 2000£ that I transferred via online banking have magically disappeared. Also, my girlfriend is far away from me and I miss her.
What a week.
That’s the fucking worst.
That sucks. I’m sorry.
Disappeared? That’s horrifying bullshit. Is your bank looking into it?
For once, I don’t think it’s my bank’s fault. For all they know the transfer went through and the money left my account, except my landlord says he hasn’t received the money. Which leaves out two options: either his bank fucked up, or he’s lying to me, and that would be such a silly thing to do considering that it’s reelatively easy to trace the payment and see if he’s full or shit or not. The problem is that tracing a payment takes up to 10 businesse days and I don’t have that much time 🙁
Also, I’d like to add that I am in this fucked up situation because the National Landord Association made me pay the whole 6 months rent in advance because I’m a foreigner student. So fuck them too.
Good luck 🙁 Not a lawyer, but it seems really unfair and possible illegal; he has to give you more than 10 days notice before eviction, right? I don’t know, I hope at least you get your money back. Good luck!
I have plans to go to an outdoor food festival today, but it’s RAINING. Oh, the injustice. It needs to stop doing that 🙁
At least I don’t think my plans to see Hercules (with the Rock) tonight will be disrupted, but I’m really mad because I’ve never been to this festival before and I obviously don’t want to wander around in the rain eating food…
The weather people say the rain is “ending early this afternoon.” Perhaps they will be right!
I hope so! /crosses fingers
And now it’s fucking coming through the floor of my bedroom. Argh. This is going to look great in the open house our realtor is doing tomorrow!
Not that I actually care about that very much, but I’m not wasting my time and effort mopping it up, it’s pointless and frustrating and makes me hate everything about my life and the universe that has decided that I should be blessed with an impossibly leaky floor.
Okay Toasties, this is the day I find out if my artwork has been accepted by The Craft Connection in Nelson, BC. My sense of self really fucking needs this because I’ve flopped at everything else in life. I’d post a sample but I’m An Old and pooter challenged.
Keep your collective fingers crossed!
Good luck!!!
Thanks!
Sent from my iPad
You made art! That’s far from a flop. Please feel some pride in that. I know lots of people who have never made anything expressive. But you did!
Thank you!
Toasties are wonderful folk!
Awaiting update! Report back.
Maybe the BC Toasties can come to Nelson to buy up all your art.
Quick update before bedtime…The Craft Connection NEVER CALLED! Sob! But maybe no news is good news? Sigh.
Sent from my iPad
I have perhaps the silliest question that has ever been made on an open thread, but let’s go for it anyway: How do I make friends with the women in my Zumba class?
It’s generally a class of 30-40 people, and while everyone is together in this room, there’s not a lot of partner work or anything like that. The women who come are mostly regulars but a few new people every time. All of them are such good dancers and a lot of them seem close to my age, and since I don’t have a lot of female friends in the area (I’m one year out of college and all my female friends ended up moving away) I feel like this is a great way to meet people. Except I’ve been going twice a week for 6 months now and have not really managed to make any real connections. I’m an introvert, and when I do summon up the nerve to talk to someone (ie “I like your shoes” or “I cannot do body rolls”), I don’t know how to continue that conversation.
This is the dumbest thing, I know, but does anyone have any ideas? Even advice not on making friends, but just being a sociable human, would be great.
Not dumb at all! I had a similar experience with my Pilates class. One of the girls asked me to grab a drink afterwards and we became quick friends after that. So, I know being an introvert makes it a lot harder, but just ask someone who seems nice to grab drinks one night after class. I feel most of the people, especially young professionals, are there to work on their fitness and also make friends.
Hmm, okay. I feel like that’s true too – most people are not unfriendly, just keep to themselves. Maybe I will summon up the nerve to speak to someone. Good to hear an encouraging story!
Asking questions sounds dumb but it really works! I was just attempting to make a friend of my own last night, and when I said “how long have you lived in Boston?” I thought I sounded really dumb and fake. But then my friend-target told me that she just finished her doctorate at Harvard, that got a really great conversation started!
Oh hey, congratulations! And thank you for the advice. I definitely will try that.
Asking questions is key, it lets people know you are interested, and if they are interested too they will start asking back. If they are not interested (or if they are really cripplingly shy) they will not ask back and then you can let it go and try again with someone else. 🙂
I second GreenGrasses- ask questions. If that seems too hard, try to make yourself approachable. Get there a little early and take your time leaving so that potential friends can approach you, beware super vigilant about resting bitchface, and/or wear something that indicates your interests that other people can easily comment on. (toast shirt??)
Thank you! Oh my goodness I SHOULD wear my Toast shirt.
For the just being a sociable human stuff, I kind of rely on what I learned from this comment on Captain Awkward about how to talk to people. (Large parts of the comment are about dating, scroll down to thing number 4 for instructions on talking to people.)
There was also some stuff on Captain Awkward recently about making friends, I will maybe see if I can find it later and post the link.
My method of making friends at Zumba has two parts, which might not work for you. 1) Bring little sister to class. 2) Spazz out with little sister.
I don’t know why, but strangers find our antics HYSTERICAL, and will often crowd around us after class to hear us say really dumb things.
Sometimes I go alone and spazz out by myself, and this also seems to work. So, if dancing extra flaily is a thing you can do…
This comment is not helpful. I realize that now.
Spazzing out with my little sister at Zumba is the best. She likes to stand behind me so she can make faces at me in the mirror and crack me up. Everyone there probably thinks we are very silly people but belly laughing is a good workout all on its own!
This is definitely not the dumbest question! A few weeks ago I asked about how to shave my legs properly, which was at least sillier than this. 🙂
I second the other advice — ask questions! Do you live/work around here? Where’d you get your shoes/shirt/etc? Want to go get a snack/drink after class?
I have had really good luck acknowledging that it is weird and awkward as an adult trying to make friends. My script goes something like this,
“Hey, I think you’re funny and I always enjoy chatting with you and I’m glad when you’re in class, but it’s SO WEIRD asking someone if they’ll be your friend when you’re a grown-ass adult, you know?” (usually, yes, they know, and they will laugh and agree) “Anyway. I think you’re great and I was wondering if we could maybe hang out some time and be friendlike.” (usually yes!)
And if you go out for coffee and you don’t hit it off, it’s just like dating: you both probably know it didn’t go great, but all you need to do is be nice to one another when you see each other at class and there are no hard feelings that you didn’t become besties.
I got a sweet bonus this week which is like a godsend because I have seriously been considering throwing over tables and leaving my workplace burning to the ground. So to really feel appreciated means a LOT right now. I am also 22 weeks pregnant and FINALLY feeling good. Like, so good that I am realizing just how horrible the past 4+ months have been. Oh, this is what it’s like to have energy again! Enjoying it while it lasts….
In other news, no one prepared me for what a misandrist rage I would be in during pregnancy. Maybe it’s not normal? But it seems to make sense. I am pissed off MOST of the time and seem to have a visceral, heightened awareness of all male asshattery. I am so grateful for this site and the toastariat for validation and support in the reality of this world. Love to you all!
ALSO I am loving these photos of the Siberian sinkhole. This is my new meditation – imagining all horrible men being dropped one by one into the abyss to the icy lake below. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/…
(I posted this deep in another thread but thought I would share here for all to see)
The sinkhole is a lady, and she is pissed.
The earth’s angry vagina! FINALLY
(Sorrynotsorry)
You are my fucking favorite.
Two questions, Toasties! How do you find ways to love where you live, especially if it is a place you did not ever envision yourself. Second, I am working toward learning to love myself better. Give me your tips and tricks, please.
I have been in Chicago for 7 years when I thought I would only be here for 2, and now I am having a baby and it seems like we will be here indefinitely! I have been working really hard trying to build a community of people who I really connect with, and that is hard and takes a lot of work. I also try to be very conscious about really enjoying the things I can do here that would be difficult in other places (for me this means eating a lot of great different foods and enjoying cultural things like museums etc.)
Self care: for a while I had some really nice rose oil and every morning after washing my face I would take the rose oil on my fingers and pat it onto a face the way babies pat cheeks and say, outloud, to myself “I love you! I love you! I love you!” Sounds silly but it made a HUGE difference.
that is lovely (about the rose oil).
My love-myself-better rule is to be careful with the media I’m consuming. I feel so so much better when I’m not hate-reading the entire internet or watching trashy tv.
I agree with SmrtCookie – careful of the media! I love to load up on my favorite body-positive fashion blogs on the weekends, and they always put me in a good mood. When I’m feeling particularly averse to myself, I also like to take a second to repeat some TRUE FACTS. Examples include: this is the way I look/am, and I’ll never be anything else because that is not how life works; I have such a great (insert person here) in my life who loves me; the person I want to be is happy and doesn’t care what everyone else thinks.
An important thing to remember is that you’ve got to be kind to yourself, because you are not guaranteed kindness from anyone else.
I had to move to another town to be with my boyfriend (who’s now my husband, so I guess it was worth it) because his boss wouldn’t let him transfer to their office in my city – even though he can do his job anywhere as long as he has a secure internet connection, but that’s a rant for another day.
I’ve been here for just over 3 years and I hated it at first. I scoured job postings to see if either of us could get a good enough job in my former city that would pay enough to justify moving back there. But I slowly discovered that I put down roots in spite of myself. I think it’s a psychological/emotional self-defence mechanism, because you just can’t go through life consumed by resentment because you hate the place where you live. I found things to like and even love about this town, and though I still take a look at job postings in my hometown, I think, Well, it would be great if we could move back, but I would really miss getting coffee at (favourite café), or walking along the canal, or seeing obscure movies at (indie cinema).
On the other hand, I still haven’t really made any friends here, although I am friendly with coworkers/former coworkers/former classmates. Anyone have advice on making friends as an adult when you are an awkward homebody?
Are you familiar with Captain Awkward? Because that is my basic starter advice for friend-making but if you are familiar with it & it does not work for you, more specific advice could be forthcoming!
For (1), I walk and drive around a lot and try to find cool places, especially parks/woodlands and allll the speciality groceries and tiny restaurants. Plus, I like driving, so learning my way around the backroads is fun as well as educational. I try to get outside a lot, so I can pay attention to my surroundings and find what’s interesting about them (to me that is usually nature-y things). I have a good idea of what I need for mental composure, and I seek those things out, or else try to find ways to compensate. Vice versa, too–knowing what about a place makes me agitated and trying my best to avoid that stuff. And ultimately, knowing my limits. There are some things I know I can’t tolerate long term. If they’re present in a living situation, I know I have a limited amount of time to get out of there, so I make sure I do.
For (2), one of the things I’ve done for years now is carry some index cards with me at all times. I write phrases or reminders on them and go through them like flashcards. What they say changes. I have a whole deck sorted into categories like “self-care” and “existential angst” and the ones I have with me any given day are chosen for whatever I’m dealing with emotionally at the moment plus whatever my goals for the day are likely to trigger. The whole set has evolved over time, too, as I’ve gotten to value myself more and get to a point where I can read, “You’re an okay person,” and believe it. That’s an important point, actually–don’t shoot too high at first. If you don’t actually believe on some level that you’re an okay person, no card is going to make you believe it. Start where you are, even if that means your card reads, “Yo, you’re not actually a shithead.”
This reminds me of a piece by Aleksandr Hemon in the New Yorker a few years ago, about his exile in Chicago and learning how to care for the city by walking it: available free!) here.
Thanks, I will check it out!
I have found just really consciously shutting down “you’re an idiot” thoughts helped. Last night at yoga I had a really nice moment where my face was cuddled by my calves and it was dark and warm and I started CRYING about what a nice hug I was giving myself and how I wasted so many years hating my body. Be as nice to yourself as you would be to someone else that you love.
When you have the dueling voices in your head, make the one that says good things more shouty and the one that says bad things more finger-quotey.
I don’t know if that is a thing for anyone else, but having the nice things shouted authoritatively and the bad things clearly coming from a teenager helps me to pay more attention to the good things and ignore the petulant bad things.
I like that idea. Must try that.
My therapist is helping me work on finding times when my inner narrative gets really judgmental and letting that judgment go. For example, we discovered that often when I am feeling sad, I shame myself for feeling sad, which only makes the situation worse because then I’m sad *and* I feel like a failure. Learning to observe what I’m feeling and just feel it has really helped with loving myself. There’s probably some place on the internet with clearer explanation of this technique, but I hope it helps!
My partner just pointed out some of my inner narrative to me last week in a really gentle phrase that I’ll be asking myself from now on. I was talking — idly, I thought — about the kitchen-sink curtain which is just a white linen towel on curtain rings. I said something about changing it to a pretty colored towel instead of “a grey dingy cloth that I spatter with dirty water every time I do dishes*.”
He waited a beat, then said “Do you have some negative feelings about that?” and I stopped and realized how very judgmental I was being of my own standards and choices without even recognizing it.
I’m going to be stopping periodically to ask myself that: “Do I have negative feelings about this that I haven’t really examined? If so, why? Are they fair to me? Are they kind to me?”
*yeah, yeah, he does dishes too, but apparently I only criticize myself for unavoidable incidental spatters.
We are trying to figure out both of those things for ourselves, so this is not so much tips/tricks as ideas in progress.
For the place, we are trying to connect up with the history of it more, so that instead of feeling like a temporary not-very-cool spot we are stuck in due to money and partner-job, it feels like a real place that has been here for a long time. There are so many amazing little hidden things, parks and statues and stories and stuff, and also a lot of events we could go to, and we are slowly slowly starting to do more of those things.
Cassandra says: For ourselves, well, I think Olgasrevenge said it very well, about the emotions. It is so easy to end up policing my emotional state, and to shame/punish myself for feeling any particular way instead of some other way. I do not have to feel happy to have a good time, I do not have to feel loving to engage with my daughter in a loving way, and so forth. So I try (and it is difficult, sometimes impossible) to treat my emotions as the weather, something that happens and is valuable because it is there, and then passes through. For me, this becomes more about the love; just as I love my children even when they are very difficult to be with, I may love myself even when I am difficult to be with.
I have never been a religious person, or a ‘spiritual’ one in popular sense, but I am finding Pema Chodron’s books very helpful in this, just as she focuses upon being in the moment with what is there, and valuing the full range of self, rather than naming some parts of my thoughts/feelings/responses as garbage and trying to throw it away.
My friend does something that she calls “Old Turkish lady yoga” which basically involves sitting on the floor and then just moving your body wherever and however it feels good to move your body, including rolling over and over aimlessly, or rubbing your feet, or playing with your fingers, or whatever you want. It is one of my favorite methods of self-care, and it is also really good for your body image because you start to be curious and playful about what your body can do and how it feels to do it.
Who wants to go see Lucy with me in San Francisco on Sunday?
I would if I lived in San Francisco 🙁 I was initially not interested at all in seeing that movie until I read the AV Club review that said that it was bananas in the funnest way possible, which I am so down for seeing as The Fifth Element is one of my favourite movies of all time and I love wacky Luc Besson
So is there a EDM 101 type site that anyone knows of? My friends are really into DJ shows and I never thought I’d be into it but I am enjoying the hell out of my Deadmau5e pandora station.
However I know little to nothing about that particular genre.
I’ve been listening to Diplo’s BBC show every week – it might not be exactly what you’re looking for, but he has people on with all kinds of different styles and there are track lists so you can check them out.
I’ll check that out. Thanks!
Sure! And super_novice reminded me – he also has a Soundcloud page, and a lot of what he’s done in the past is available for free download, including the BBC shows he dj’d himself and episodes of the show he did (does?) for Sirius XM. Those don’t have track lists so it’s harder to follow up on stuff you like, but I just like listening to them (and playing Google Those Lyrics! if there’s something I absolutely have to find)
I agree with SarcasticFringehead – following everything Diplo does is my MO as he seems to be basically in charge of the EDM scene.
A lot of good electronic music is also based out of SoundCloud (vaguely like a music twitter, I guess, if you don’t know it). I signed up a few years ago and just started clicking follow on any producers I liked or labels that I really enjoyed. It kind of mushrooms from there as people you follow post songs by people THEY like and then you can follow THAT person and so on and so forth.
Sweet! I already found a few artists I like from Pandora so Soundcloud is next on my list then.
Last week I saw a job announcement at a university in United Arab Emirates. I have been thinking about it ever since (somewhat to my surprise)… I’ve heard of people moving there for jobs, saving up for a few years, then coming back. Bad idea/good idea? Do you know anyone who’s done it? Have YOU done it? CALL ME
I have done this! In my case, it did not work out super well, and I left after 1.5 years of a 3-year contract. I had lived and worked overseas before happily, but the live/work situation in the Gulf was much more corporatized, and the class system in the Gulf is very hard to deal with, and the whole situation just didn’t work for us. There were multiple other reasons we left, too, that I don’t feel comfortable discussing on an open forum, but there were also some positives, so if you want to take this to private messages or email, I’d be glad to answer any questions you may have! (I don’t know how to do that, exactly, though? This is my first post here–is there even a way to send private messages?)
I forgot to reply to you! I composed it in my brain and everything. Then i read something about a recent tax law about Americans working abroad and it was pretty demoralizing 🙁
There’s no PMs here, but if you’re up for it feel free to email me dangerflakes at hotmail; I am still interested in your experience 🙂
I just found out EA is giving away the sims 2 plus all its expansion packs for FREEEE. I wasted so much of my life on that game, but I have no idea where the discs are, and haven’t played in years, but now it’s just sitting in my computer waiting for me. I will do nothing productive for years now.
WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS.
That game was like, my entire life in high school. I still play the Sims Tapped Out on my iPad all the time. There goes my entire weekend!
whaaaaaat
it’s trruuuuueee!
http://help.ea.com/en/article/how-to-get-the-sims…
In June, I told a friend in DC pretty non-commitally that I might visit DC the last weekend of July and then we never really talked about it again. A couple of weeks later I had to cancel my (nebulous) plans and I forgot to tell her. this Wednesday I got an email from her saying ‘can’t wait to see you this weekend!’ um….now I feel like a piece of shit.
Assuming that you’re coming when you mentioned it once, noncommittally, seems… not great? TBH I think you feel like shit because she’s being a little passive aggressive, not because you did something shitty.
Just my $0.02.
I have been in that EXACT situation before. Don’t feel bad, you didn’t actually make plans or commit for sure! Your friend shouldn’t be upset.. if she is, she will quickly get over it.
Apologise, explain, move on! Your friend will have her own reaction, which is not your problem. You are not responsible for her emotions!
I have noticed that lately, when I unexpectedly catch a glimpse of myself (like, a reflection in a shop window, or an elevator with mirrored walls) my reaction is hey, I look great *flips hair* whereas a few months ago it would have been eww, that’s what I look like from that angle? Gross.
I don’t know if my vague and not terribly hardcore plan of “eat healthier food and walk home from work every day” has led to any weight loss or if this is the result of a slow change in mentality and self-image, but either way, I am enjoying it.
Yes! YOU LOOK GREAT! I love this!
hey, I look great *flips hair*
awww yeeeeah you do
The husband is off to Croatia today and I am feeling a bit sad. Please help cheer me up and give me your favorite puns. I am such a sucker for a good pun.
My favorite at the moment is from Bob’s Burgers. “Burger of the Day: Beets of the Southern Wild Burger”.
I feel like the burger puns are the only puns in Bob’s Burgers that aren’t actually dick jokes, but this is ok because I love the burgers and dick jokes both. (Mr. Fishoeder’s name isn’t technically a dick joke, but…)
Consider:
A cruise captain walks into the restaurant. “Is this place seaman-friendly?
OR the gravy boat song!
The writing staff’s full of women. I love it.
This is an audio post that almost made me burst out laughing in a silent computer lab: http://toushindai.tumblr.com/post/82002890950/sup…
Tarragon in Sixty Seconds Burger! I saw that the other night and it had to travel through my entire body before my brain picked up the phone and got it.
Your body travel and brain phone got me. ::snort::
Not exactly a pun, but I assume you know the Bob’s Burgers Experiment, which creates actual burgers to go with all the punny specials?
I had not seen that. Thank you, so much. Day made better!
THANK YOU
I love Bob’s Burgers so much.
Toasties! On Wednesday one of my lovely friends have birth to a baby and although I have not meet said baby yet, just the photos and her telling me about him is giving me crazy baby fever. It is sadly not the right time for babies for me, how do I focus that energy into something else?
How far away is the friend? If they’re close, I find that going to their house and doing their laundry and dishes while they walk around, oxytocin-high and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep is a good damper on baby-craziness.
Oh that’s brilliant! She’s not too far and I actually have some time off in a few weeks so maybe I will offer myself as a free mother’s helper and see if it traumatizes me out of this!
What is your creative outlet? Making music, making a painting, making a dress, etc., and all the planning involved are somewhat parallel to making a baby. At least to that part of your brain.
New favorite lipstick shade:
“Ma’am, could you attempt to describe the toast?”
“It was just….it was constant.”
This is excellent but WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Constantly the toast of every party!
TOAST INTENSIFIES
That sounds like the title of a 17th-century play. “Let’s go to the theatre, the King’s Men are doing The Constant Toast!”
Yes, yes it does. Maybe something by Aphra Behn?
THE BEST KIND OF TOAST
OMG what a weird fun weird week. This is gonna be buried but I needed to let it all out.
HIGHS: –I got promoted to Receiving Manager!!! Bang bang! A hike in pay, a word in my job title I did not expect to hear for at least another five years, and the power to boss around coworkers twice my age in one narrow aspect of our job!
–The Toast party was also a high, obviously.
–My dad is teaching me how to drive (only like, seven years late…) and it was going really well until some Dirtbag Teens showed up in the empty parking lot to do tricks on their dirtbag skateboards. A perfectly dirtbaggy situation.
LOW: –This fucker I used to be friends with benefits with who totally failed at the friend part (like, even if we were not boning, there would have been a Come to Jesus about what a shitty friend he was being) decided to text me saying he felt things had ended badly and because he didn’t want that we should talk. (this was after midnight, keep in mind, I was tired and cranky already) and when I politely but firmly disagreed with that he got SO FRAGILE MALE EGO and kept going on about how i “hated” him and how I needed to “relax” and so I asked him to please stop texting and guess what? He did not!!! Uggghhh.
he felt things had ended badly and because he didn’t want that we should talk
UGH SO ANNOYING. Sure, he’s entitled to feel and want certain things; he isn’t entitled to impose them on you unilaterally.
Congratulations on the promotion! How will you celebrate, besides learning to drive despite dirtbag interference?
Thanks for understanding that point! Such a weird tricky line to walk and he DEFINITELY did not get it. I celebrated by buying an amazingly-packaged book and 4-cd set of 78 RPM recordings from Southeast Asia, and will soon treat myself to some Fancy Cocktails.
Congratulations on learning to drive and on the promotion! And you need more mature friends. So glad you dumped that MOFO.
Toasties I have been stressing out about this one report I have to write for work. It has been bounced back to me on five separate occasions and I just…I need this to be done. AGH.
That being said, are any Toasties going to the Asbury Park Tattoo Convention this weekend? Or for that matter, are there any Jersey Shore Toasties out there? I may stop by on Sunday, but I have an appointment with my artist on Tuesday that I just remembered now!
EDIT: 4:03 EST and it is OFF MY DESK HECK YEAH
Has anyone else read this book: jilliantamaki.com/books/this-one-summer? I read it yesterday and I loved it. I never read graphic novels for whatever dumb reason, but this one is so ridiculously beautifully illustrated and written.
It’s the best
It’s the best
Jillian Tamaki is the best
I’m on record here as saying she’s the best
because she’s the best
and she and Mariko are the best writing-drawing team (check out their first collab, Skim)
p.s. check out Gabrielle Bell’s Lucky and David B.’s Epileptic if you’re looking for more graphic novels to like!
Based on this alone, I am going to check all of these things out.
I hope you’ll love at least some of them! There are a LOT of good comics / graphic novels and short stories out there once you start poking around. One more if you can stand it: my current comics idol Eleanor Davis just put out a new collection (with Fantagraphics) called How to Be Happy.
Thank you! I live fairly close to a comic book shop that has a good selection of graphic novels, so I’d love to buy some of these and support the business!
Thanks for the suggestions!
My mentor sent me a job posting and said “wouldn’t you be perfect for this job?” and I wrote the job people and they said “you’d be like, legit perfect, do INFINITE PAPERWORK IMMEDIATELY.” So I did, and when I got to the “we’re going to check that you’re telling the truth” bit, I wrote my current boss to say I liked him very much, he was the best, but this job was full time and always in the same place, soooo. The boss wrote back saying “Noooo, I had full time but not in the same place plans for you after you finished grad school, staaaay.”
This is all GREAT, OBJECTIVELY, but I hate paperwork and have been nearly constantly freaking out for about a week, a week exactly.
Also I’m working in the hottest place on Earth and trying to finish my thesis (and I talked to my collaborator and now I have twenty extra specimens, twenty, great, wonderful, the paper will be so much better when I get all the data in 2020.) and also I signed up to co-teach a three day workshop which is an all new experience and to be on a board for a society and to adopt a feral kitten. Clearly I need to stop – not even saying yes, I need to stop yelling “ME! I WANT THAT THING!” for like a month.
“ME! I WANT THAT THING” I really really relate to this! That was me all of June which was really fun but expensive and draining.
It’s something that I fluctuate between doing too much and not doing at all; I need to learn moderation.
After not doing it at all for a little while, obviously.
What is this “moderation” you mention? Foreign concept.
I’d just like to brag about my mister, is that ok? He came over the other day and told me he was feeling really upset and embarrassed about something: he’d called Christopher Columbus a “cocksucker.” He said that on reflection he realized what an offensive thing that is to say (not the Christopher Columbus part, the cocksucker part) and that he’s not going to use that word anymore. I’m so proud of him! Have you seen someone grow this week? Brag here!
Dear denizens of the Toast,
My baby boy turned 4 months old this week, and is cute like it’s his job. He is perfectly healthy, and has recently started to suck on his big toes, in lieu of thumbs. However, he is still eating every 2-3 hours all night long. If this goes on much longer, Toasties, I will not have two brain cells to bang together, and that’s a fact.
Congratulations on the cute baby boy!
Unasked Advice: At 4 months old you can start to do sleep training if you want to; see Mark Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) for details IF and ONLY IF you are interested. Weissbluth has scientific data to back up his stuff about sleep cycles and timing the kids bedtimes and stuff and it worked like MAGIC for both our kids.
Thank you. I will take a look at the book. I guess I was asking for advice. the Toast seems like the place for sane parenting opinions, even though Nicole denies us our own sister site (NICOLE!). Actually, thinking it through (slowly of course) probably the reason Toast parenting advice is sane is because it’s not on a parent forum.
Haaa oddly reading this has helped with my (ill-timed) baby fever that I asked for help with a few comments up!
Dp you ever listen to the Longest Shortest Time podcast? They had an episode about a woman whose baby was SO HUNGRY that she started feeding her solid foods early because nothing else worked! I’m not necessarily suggesting that, but it’s maybe good to know that it happens to other people?
How much is your sanity worth? Enough to pay someone to take over 2 middle-of-the-night feedings so you can sleep? It’s not forever, just for a few weeks. Think about it.
I need to be good this weekend and do some job applications because work is sucking my soul out one pore at a time.
And I also need to calm the eff down that I haven’t heard from Favourite FWB in a week. Maybe I need to make my mantra ‘I will not obsess’ ‘I will not obsess’ ‘I will not obsess’…
I’m driving down to Atlanta with my sister and niece to pick up my nephew from the airport! I’d really like to know why there are so Michigan license plates down in Georgia, I really would.
Also I’ve been listening to a lot of country music stations at work lately and something about the sheer dudebro-ness of all the songs is really starting to piss me off. Does anyone have any suggestions for female country musicians for me to listen to?
What, you don’t want to put on your daisy dukes and ride around in some good old boy’s truck? 😉
You can always go with the classics, Dolly (her new album has some wonderful stuff) and Loretta and Emmylou and…
Among younger performers, Miranda Lambert (and her side-project, the Pistol Annies) is pretty wonderful. Check out Kacey Musgraves!
If only the songs were about pickup trucks. If. Only. I’ve been ranting about sexy tractor songs since February.
I have a cousin who met her husband while working at John Deere. Their first dance at the reception was “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.”
perpetual suggestion of Brandy Clark!
allison krauss!
Tomorrow, I’m going to be wearing a bikini in public for the first time in 20 years (I’m 26 years old). I am a size 14/16 190 lb. lady who recently stopped removing my body hair. I’m in Southern California.
Hell yes, I’m afraid.
You are going to rock that bikini. I know it.
You gon’ look so good!
yessss ROCK IT!!!
I’m very proud of you! You get that body to the beach and enjoy the sun on your skin!
I’m a size 16/18, around 250 and I love my fatkini. Rock on!!
YEAHHHHHHHHHH !! You are going to look awesome
Yes! I’ve organized a bikini beach day with friends this weekend. We’ll be exposing our pale Canadian stomachs because we are cultivating an attitude of IDGAF.
I’m not small, but I think I look better in a bikini than a one piece. Part of that is just it visually breaks up my torso, and part is what I have semi-jokingly referred to as “the fact of the flesh”: mostly naked people seems sexier because our lizard brains see NAKED and think HOT.
I’m proud of you. Enjoy the sun, enjoy yourself.
May I point you to my girl GabiFresh for some last-minute bikini awesomeness? She’s a blogger I recently started reading and her style is crazy on-point, especially for swimwear: http://www.gabifresh.com/.
Have fun, and don’t get sunburn!!!
On-point recommendation. I’ve been following her and other “fatshion”-type bloggers for a while; they’re the only reason I considered a bikini in the first place.
That said? I don’t know if looking at her will help right now. She has even skin tone, a lovely shape, hairless-looking skin, and no large visible scars. I…. well, I don’t have all those things.
YOU WILL BE FABULOUS
Dirtbag Teens in Real Time: Two 14-ish teen couples, sitting on a wall at the beach, visually ecstatic to be outside and away from authority figures. Girl #1 is wearing a JV Tennis t shirt and has her hair in 2 braids. Her bf is super excited to have an arm around her shoulders. Overheard as I jog past: “do you think I should get a bucket hat?” Toasties, it was fantastic.
oh god, bucket hats! I definitely used to have some and they look terrible on everyone. You should’ve set him straight!
I’ve been seeing a SHIT TON of bucket hats recently. I saw three in one day on public transit last week. This week I saw a guy wearing one with dangling ties, as in, he could have tied it up under his chin, but wasn’t, for *style*, as if he was a Refined Wearer of Bucket Hats.
SHUT IT DOWN.
Refined Wearer of Bucket Hats
New username
Going on a date with my husband at 5p. We’ll take a picnic and eat it in the garden by the Freer, then go to their Friday night Museum Night (it’s free)
Toast Friends! I keep meaning to participate in an open thread again but they always seem to go up when I’m not at my desk and I miss all the commenting. I got a new job and am no longer employed! It’s been two weeks and it’s great so far, I’m doing marketing for a tech startup. Exact opposite of my old job – no passive aggressiveness, no pretensions, no culture of overwork and stress, just a really great and seriously creative atmosphere. It’s just so refreshing to be treated like an adult instead of like an overgrown fetch-and-carry intern who needs constant hand-holding.
AWESOME!!!
Ugh, y’all. I’ve been rejected from like 3 jobs this week and I just need a nap and some hint of lime tostitos. i am still incredulous that my job search has been going on for A YEAR. sending good vibes to all the other toasties job searching now, something’s going to turn up soon for us.
I job hunted for over a year and a half before I got my current gig. Continuing the good vibes!
Stay strong! I got one as well. Sending vibes/hope/care
You have not been rejected. You’ve been wait-listed. By short-sighted employers. Or downright blind ones.
I love true crime stories via Longform.org. But I crave more. True crime book recommendations?
My favorite ever was Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz. True crime told by the author who investigates her own attempted murder by a stranger. Freaky and very powerful.
I liked Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule, about Diane Downs, who attempted to murder her 3 children and unfortunately succeeded in killing one of them. Also Are You There Alone? by Suzanne O’Malley, which is about Andrea Yates.
Devil in the White City! It’s about one of America’s first serial killers and his murder castle.
I love that one! So unsettling, so well written.
yesyesyes. Also about the best ever world’s fair!
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit! It has has MEGA fraud, buckets of white male privilege AND muuuuuuurder! Plus incredibly written.
Oh man, now I’m sad I took this long to get caught up on the open thread, because this is my JAM.
If you like emotional/comforting stories about bad people doing bad things and then getting caught and being put away forever, Ann Rule is pretty good. She gets a little formulaic if you read a lot of them. Stranger Beside Me is slightly out of the mold, because it turns out she was friends with Ted Bundy, so she wrote a book about it. Get the latest edition you can and read all the afterwards/follow-ups; it’s fascinating watching her come to grips with this.
If you like criminal psychology, John Douglas is the way to go. (He’s the guy Clarice Starling was based on; an FBI profiler and writer.) My favorite of his is The Anatomy of Motive. He’s always very hardcore on “victims should not be blamed for the horrible shit that happened to them,” which is tragically often rare in true crime.
If you like history, I passionately recommend The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale and Murder in the First-Class Carriage by Kate Colquhoun. Both are Victorian and discuss not only the crimes themselves but the changing society around them.
Finally, if you like trashy, trashy nonsense and have a high tolerance for pregnancy horror and gender-essentialist bullshit from the writer, I read Murder in the Heartland by William Phelps almost eight years ago and cannot stop thinking about it. Unusually high squick factors, though.
Also, if you like true crime, may I recommend Criminal Minds seasons 1-5? The current show has lost all its original writers and suffered terribly, but in its first incarnation it was a show very much about coping with trauma and about siding with the victims in every possible permutation. (The primary victim in the pilot kicks her way out of the cage the killer put her in and knees him in the balls before the FBI gets a chance to rescue her.) Plus 40% female characters in the main cast, hyperawareness of race/class issues, lots of good generalized geekiness, and a Batman episode.
Good people of the Toast, I am planning a trip to NYC in September. What would you recommend a midwestern Canadian 30ish woman see? I love good food and good coffee and BAGELS and ART and a bit of shopping (fyi I make 34k a year so adjust for that) and all the stuff that is featured on the Toast. Staying in a reasonably central spot. Is it worth it to go out to like, Jersey and the Statue of Liberty? I need to look at a map.
Aiee I am so excited to go somewhere with actual public transport, last place was Montreal and that was too long ago. Is there a meetup happening? You guys can laugh at my Canadian accent.
edit: I should add, I already have a list of like, Guggenheim and the MOMA and Top of the Rock and the Air and Space Museum etc. I get tired out by touristy stuff though so it would be nice to have some local recommendations to balance out the trip.
I don’t live in NYC, but I will say it is NOT worth it to go out to the statue of liberty. It will basically take the entire day and mostly involve waiting in line.
I didn’t realize how …far it was from everything until I looked it up. My NYC geography is based on multiple accidental viewings of Independence Day.
take the staten island ferry instead! free, large, orange, gives you a decent view of the statue.
yay, this is what I was thinking. Besides, when you’re on the statue, you can’t take pictures of the statue, just everything that is not-statue.
How long are you in town for? I have lots of recommendations!
Five-ish days!
Is the Air and Space the one on the Intrepid? In that case, absolutely go because SPACE SHUTTLE. Also, I tell everyone to go to Coney Island because I am a freak show at heart.
Though I am from Jersey and love it to bits, if you are here for a trip and know nobody it is probably not worth your time to come over here unless there is something you REALLY want to see. I love Ellis Island/the Statue of Liberty as it is really historic and important to me (had relatives that came through there) but if you just want to see the Statue of Liberty you’re better off taking the ferry like mentioned below.
edit: err, above. And I just thought of something – sales tax in Jersey is cheaper (7%, but we have no sales tax on clothing) so if you are looking to do a bit of budget-friendly shopping, you may want to come over here after all! I promise we don’t bite. Anyone that says it smells has probably only ever been on the Turnpike, anyway.
I know, how could you not go look at the Space Shuttle?? It’s been in SPACE. Well, space-adjacent.
Things like Ellis Island and Ground Zero are lower down on my to-see list – I don’t have any personal ties to either, and I’d feel like a fraud who was just going there to say that they were there, if you know what I mean. I guess this is the definition of “tourist”.
I live in the Canadian equivalent of New Jersey so I can empathise!
Sadly we only have the Enterprise, which never saw ACTUAL space, but it’s still a shuttle and if I close my eyes real hard I can pretend. 🙁 One of my former work sites was across the river from the Intrepid, and before they built the cover over the shuttle we could actually see it from the gas station. I always loved going up there!
And yeah, I totally feel you on that one. (I’ve never been to Ground Zero, and probably won’t ever, even though I ‘live here’.) If you like not super touristy museums, though, I would definitely consider the American Museum of Natural History (and it’s across Central Park from the Met, so the two museums in one day makes a great trip if you account for a walk across the park in between!) There is also a NYC Transit museum up in Brooklyn Heights that is really nifty too, in a Dad Magazine kind of sense.
I would also look at smaller museums, like the Whitney. The Met is amazing but overwhelming. If you want to do an outdoorsy tourist thing, there’s the High Line park and there’s also a new park dedicated to FDR on the tip of Roosevelt Island (disclaimer: I have not been there but my mom is making me go the next time I’m home).
I will also be in the NY area in September! I have a wedding taking up much of my time, but when will you be there??
The Frick has a lovely garden.
If you want to see the Statue of Liberty from a distance without taking the trip out to see it, it’s visible from one point on the High Line! Which is a really lovely walk in early fall, by the way.
Greenwich Village is lovely and small and full of good food and cute shops and coffee. My family’s hangout for at least 30 years, especially Caffe Reggio.
What is the appropriate amount of time MIA after which one can worry that one’s motorcycle-riding partner is a smear on the highway?
(I say no time at all, but I know that’s probably not rational.)
I start to get worried around an hour late (husband used to drive a truck full of cigarettes). Once he was 5 hours late. Full panic mode. Like imagining life as a widow. Turned out he’d picked up extra routes and his cell phone died so he couldn’t tell me. Basically, what I’m saying is, accept you’ll worry but try to temper it with an expectation all weird absences will turn out OK.
Ok, here’s question that has been asked a million times, at least of Dan Savage: anyone out there have advice for mis-matched sex drives? My (male) beloved wants to have sex a lot less than I (female) do. I hate feeling rejected and I also don’t want him to feel pressured, so I don’t initiate that much, although I do initiate basically 100% of the time we have sex. I usually initiate with words. Making a plan to have sex on X date works well for us, but even that doesn’t always. Sex when we have it is super great, although I have to push to do new things, especially new things that I want to do.
My problems are that 1) I want sex to be a part of our lives, actively, forever and 2) I want to feel desirable. Issue #1 is really the long-term issue, but Issue #2 is what is making me want to burst into tears right now.
We talk about it, and he says the right things generally, but the whole cycle just repeats itself. I know he takes care of himself every day, sometimes twice, and I’m so desperate for him to take some of that energy and put it into us. I just want to connect more in that way. Sometimes he just retreats into himself, and closes off to me, not emotionally, but sexually. But the sexual closing off feels like a huge emotional closing off and makes me feel so lonely when it happens.
What sucks so much is I kind of get it. He needs that space for just himself – we live together, with roommates, and he’s kind of introverted, and sometimes he just doesn’t have more to give. I GET it, it just makes me feel terrible sometimes. But I feel terrible about making him feel bad about it. But my sexual self is probably my favourite self, and I want to be able to express that.
Ugggggghhhh.
Ohman I know how you feel. I also live in a room with my manfriend/ in an apartment with two other people and an annoying cat [mine]- and I know that his sex drive does not match mine. I hope other people have thoughts on this thread that are useful- mine are mostly *throws up hands* and also *is very happy when things align, however rarely that may be*.
I used to be very jealous and questioning of his masturbation habits- though I have come to realize that he views those as entirely separate spheres. Once I was able to express to him that same idea you mentioned about wanting him to reserve sexual energy for when we are together- things did start to improve. Hopefully you can communicate these things to him without feeling shame or too much self doubt. Sending good thoughts! (I almost said “take care of yourself”.. that too! in both senses of the phrase).
This is not advice, just empathy but I ended a relationship under the same circumstances. It’s a really difficult dynamic.
I think Dan Savage gives good advice about this a lot of the time, so maybe listen to and/or read a few of the times when he’s answered this? I also have a dude with a lower sex drive, and here is what works for us: He buys me sex toys for me to use on myself or with him! I can have some fun time on my own or if he’s feeling uppity that night we can use them together.
The thing that concerns me about what you said is that he still jerks off once (or twice!) a day. My dude never masturbates. Ever. Take a dude with a low sex drive plus a lady with a high sex drive and you get a man who never needs to spank it alone! Since your guy is still jackin’ it without you, I’d be concerned. It’s not like he can’t ever masturbate, but c’mon. Once a day and it’s never with you? If you two can’t sort it out and he’s being closed off, then sadly it may be a DTMFA situation 🙁
Yeah, this struck me too. Your situation in general seems really similar to my life, but I had some serious talks with my man person about masturbatory habits, and we eventually got on the same page, of not shaming masturbation, but understanding it’s effect on OUR sexual relationship. It seems common for some people to compartmentalize those things, but the reality is it IS sexual energy output. And if you are really unhappy with the ammount of sexual input, and it is getting outputted elsewhere…. that’s a problem. GOOD LUCK and hope you can work it out.
“Since your guy is still jackin’ it without you, I’d be concerned. It’s not like he can’t ever masturbate, but c’mon. Once a day and it’s never with you?”
Nope nope nope. Masturbating is not even REMOTELY like sex with another person. Having a relationship with one’s own body is totally sacred and none of your business.
Or, if you want to be practical about it, let’s pretend dude’s masturbation is rough, quick, and mechanical. Let’s say he digs it because it helps him relieve stress. Substituting partner for hand is not going to meet anyone’s need very well, is it? (god this is so grossly gendered IT GOES FOR ALL GENDERS I PROMISE)
There is an issue, for sure, but the issue is not with his masturbatory habits.
ETA: Totes agree that it may be a DTMF situation, though. Any time your needs aren’t being met in a big way, you’re looking at a potential DTMF situation, I think.
Yes, this.
We are actually the people with the higher sex drive in our relationship right now, and it is very clear that masturbation is one thing and sex with another person is another thing, and one does not feed the other.
robotneedslove, I am sorry about the situation, that is very, very hard. But I do wonder if you are conflating 2 different things, one of them is ‘sex drive’ (like a battery that is charged up and gets discharged) and one of them is your partners ability to be intimately connected to you. Instead of focusing on the battery, could you focus on how to get him some more introvert time so that he has more interest/energy/space inside himself to be intimate with you sexually?
Hey, thanks for your reply. You are totally right that someone’s relationship with their body is sacred – in fact, my boyfriend and I have had that conversation quite a few times.
The only thing that I think is not quite fair about your comment is that, at least for men, there is a refractory period after orgasm. My boyfriend is pretty not into sexual activity for a certain period of time after he comes. If he is constantly in refractory period of his own making, he is taking partnered sexual activity off the table. I think that, sometimes, it’s even a bit of a shield when he’s feeling overwhelmed by the thought of sexual intimacy with another person. So, in that way, his masturbatory habit actually kind of are my business. The ISSUE is not with masturbation, but it’s part of the equation, and a part I think we have to talk about.
You’re totally right. I responded in broad strokes because there’s such a big cultural push to find any way possible to demonize masturbation, but you’re clearly not doing that. Sorry if I sounded dismissive!
I have zero advice for you but all the commiseration. I’m a little teary right now because you articulated all the things I’ve been trying not to think about and the whole situation sucks. Seconding the request for advice.
It seems like this isn’t so much a problem with your sex drives not matching as your . . . intimacy drives? If he is feeling itchy enough that he wants to masturbate daily, but does not want the intimacy of sex with a partner, that seems more concerning to me. I would feel quite rejected by that, and I think it’s a pretty big problem, to be honest, because it’s probably not something that’s going to go away.
I wish I could be more encouraging here, because it sounds like you care about him a lot, but it also sounds like you’re trying very hard to understand his perspective and he is not trying very hard to understand yours. You may need more connection (sexually, otherwise, all the ways) than he is able/willing to give.
I do not, specifically, have particularly useful advice (although we have a standing “sex on this day at this time” appointment that works well for us, particularly because it is set up at the time with the least possible number of excuses or impediments), but Emily Nagoski at The Dirty Normal has written tons about this (because it is a normal problem that tons of people have), and she actually studies this stuff with science and stuff, and writes about it in a clear and compassionate way. I’d highly recommend her writing on “lemonade sex” as a starting point, and maybe this one on “sex is not a drive” : http://www.thedirtynormal.com/blog/2010/05/24/bee…
Edited to add this link too: http://www.goodinbed.com/sex_nerd/2012/06/lemonad…
Hey thanks this actually was really helpful. I’ve seen the blog before, but I spent some solid time reading your links and other stuff, and there was some really helpful things to think about there.
I’m glad it helped! She had fallen off my feed reader with the last domain change, so your post reminded me to find her and add her back- so thanks to you too!
I’m the one on the way low drive end in my marriage 🙁 I’m reading this thread with interest and hope.
I never get to these open threads before seventy billion comments go up, but in case anyone in the know happens to read this one: Why do I get an automatic “+1” on every comment I post? Does this happen to other people? I know I’ve seen comments with 0 upvotes so it doesn’t happen to everyone. I feel as though I am receiving an unfair upvote advantage, which makes me a bad potential baby Marxist-theory shouter. (Also sorry if this has already been asked before, seventy billion comments to read through etc.)
I think it’s related to whether or not you have a WordPress or ID account!
Ah, I see. DIRTY ELITISM! (Thanks for the reply. In return I offer you one legitimate upvote.)
I feel bad about this too! Sometimes when I see comments with 0 upvotes I give them one by default so that they can be on a more even footing with the others.
I totally do that too!
Me too!!
THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS.
I have been wondering forever and never thought to ask.
I’ve always wondered if Mallory and Nicole set it so that when you looked at your OWN comment, it would automatically have 1 upvote to make you feel happy, but other people wouldn’t see it. I guess that’s not true.
And I always worried that I was like, deceiving my fellow Toasties by making it seem as though my comments are liked by one more person than they really are. (It’s like the rule 34 of my weird brain: if it exists, I can get neurotic about it.)
I think Nicole said once that everyone got one upvote automatically because the Toast likes you. I thought you could remove it – say if you’re relaying terrible news, or if you’re just very modest – but I can no longer figure out how.
After all the exhaustion and awfulness the past few weeks, I want to concentrate on something positive and fun and happy, and also give something back to everyone here who has been so great to me with the advice and the laughs and the general awesomeness. So, I’m going to share a little bit of the new musical project that Boyfriend and I are launching. Would any Toasties be interested in hearing the not-yet-final mix of our first track?
I’ve got a secret SoundCloud link for anyone who does. Email me at my handle at gmail or leave your email here in the comments.
And if that’s not your jam, please know I appreciate the crap out of all of you, and hope you all have fantastic weekends full of people being nice to you, and free snacks, and hugs from only the people you want to hug you.
I will listen! What kind of music is it! [email protected]
It’s probably safe to say it’s safely somewhere in the “indie rock” genre, but as a sub-genre, I’m not really sure what to call it! Link is on its way to your email…now! (And thanks!)
I am always so late to Cocktail Hour, but I wanted to say: I only have 1 week left at my job!!!!! I am so excited. Then two months of free time to enjoy before I start grad school at the end of September. I plan to take great advantage of this time: visiting family, weekends away, baking cinnamon rolls, and reading and reading and reading.
Sounds lovely! Enjoy. I am planning this for next year and can’t wait!
me too! but first, there’s the like, applying to grad school and getting in and making life plans before I can plan the fun 2-3 months of gallivanting around the world and/or rolling around at home after I quit my job…
in any case, enjoy the well-deserved time off! 🙂
Thank you! And good luck with your plan next year!
Online dating update: still grim. I did get a response from a gentleman saying that he “doesn’t date in [my] weight bracket”. Thanks, bro.
Also, in an attempt to deal with being lonely I am fostering a dog for a few weeks. Turns out the answer to my general loneliness….was not getting a dog. Don’t get me wrong, the dog is a bunch of fun, and she likes to snuggle in my arms while I sing Carter Family songs to her, but she wasn’t the “instant solution” to my feeling sad and/or lonely that my dog-having friends always have told me it would be. But, there’s a lot of upside to having her around – she needs to be in a home to be properly evaluated for adoption, and I can spend lots of time on that.
Speaking of, do you live in the Greater Austin/San Antonio area and are interested in a purebred cocker spaniel under 1 year of age? You are? GREAT. Let’s talk, because I got an awesome one for you.
That “gentleman” is wretched. Why even say anything at all? Jesus.
What a tool. Lucky for women everywhere, he’s probably going to find that most people don’t date in his douche-bracket.
ZA-ZING!
I was going to say “rude-and-entitled bracket” but you’re much pithier.
aaaah you guys my husband moved out in May and I haven’t talked to him since except to deal with, like, bills & stuff, and now he texted me that he wants to “get together to talk” on Tuesday aaaaaah
Deep breath. Another. Another.
When you are calm, consider your options. It’s OK to tell him No, or Next Week, or I’ll Get Back To You. If that’s what feels right. Make a list of possible responses. All of them. Try them out, one at a time. The one that feels best is the right one.
Thanks. I always forget how much breathing helps. There’s some stuff that we need to resolve (like the little issue of whether he wants to get a divorce or move back in), so this conversation needs to happen. I just want to skip to the part where it already happened, and not actually have to participate in it.
As always, RoseCamelia has great advice. Listen to your body. Listen to your heart. Listen to your mind. Know that it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to say yes, it’s okay to negotiate how you’d like to handle this.
What RoseCamelia said!
You get to decide WHEN you respond and HOW.
Yes, yes, yes. He is not entitled to your attention! You can say ‘No’ if you want to!
Just for another option– Do you have a neutral party who can meet with you? I mean the both of you.
I’ll give it some thought. My knee-jerk reaction is that we don’t need one, but there’s a lot of other stuff in this situation that I was wrong about, so who knows.
If you have a neutral party join you, the two of you can always decide that you don’t need their help after all and send them off with thanks. But if you don’t arrange a neutral party ahead of time, that’s not an option if you decide you need it.
aaaaaaah I would be freaking out too! Let me know if you need anything! Like to stand in the background with my bat during your chat.
Ooh, maybe. He’s never met you, so you could just be a mysterious menacing stranger.
I’ll wear a hockey mask to hide my identity.
Consider meeting in a public place. It keeps tempers in check. Keeps voices down. Allows you to escape at will.
This was in many ways an excellent week, for I went to Oakland (myself! using my own name!) and met Toasties!
In the aftermath of that, though, boy am I feeling the constriction of having a body that is so much older than I am, and how sharing that body might make it really difficult to date (and do I actually want to date or do I just want friends? and how do you make actual friends with someone in person anyway?), and also just the reality of having two kids and managing all of the life things involved in that. That little taste of being outside our normal box was fascinating and addictive and also uncomfortable in that growing way, but there has been an awful lot of growing in the last two years.
In other news, the baby took a minimal nap so I must bolt down some food and go get him out of his crib.
Wow. You did so much. And you wrote about it so well. Descriptive enough that I could feel some of what you felt. And you’re a mommy on top of all that going out and doing stuff. I feel tired now.
Well, thank you!
One of the advantages of being multiple though is a lot of things get done which I do not have to do myself. I mean, I *say* I am going to go get the baby from the crib, but really someone else usually does. 🙂
There seems to be a stray kitten in my garage right now! Maybe this is my lucky day after all!
I put out a little tuna and a dish of water (it’s v. hot today) and I assume she’ll be knocking on my door any moment now.
I talked to a couple of Toasties at the party this week in Oakland who said they’d never commented! If any of them are you, consider this your official commenting welcome and I encourage you to jump in with your own questions or stories, or start replying to others! You can start with this one if you like. 🙂 How was your week?
YOU GUYS Kickstarter has become a weird, weird place (NSFW, kind of)
Pff, his won’t be visible in satellite photos. #allmen
This is my first time posting in a Toast open thread but I want to talk to more cool online people so yeah.
I had a pretty good week! It was my first week back home from the five week long geology field camp, so I’ve just been playing the Sims all day. More importantly though, I came out to my dad yesterday! And he was super cool about it (which is what I expected, but it was still nerve-wracking). That means all of my important family members know (parents, a cousin, plus awesome lesbian aunts of course) and my close friends as well! Everyone I told face to face has been cool about it too!
Idk, I’m just really super excited now because I can talk about having crushes on girls whenever I want! 😀
Coming out and first Toast comment WHAT A GOOD WEEK. I’m so glad to hear your dad took it well!
Welcome!
Welcome! That is all very awesome!
And what do you do at geology field camp??
Mostly its a fields method sort of thing. We practiced field mapping stuff and making stratigraphic columns (a recording of rock beds and formations with lots of detailed descriptions) and using a Brunton compass. We went out into the field every Monday through Thursday which was a lot of fun, because it was over in southern Utah which has the most AMAZING ROCKS EVER. I learned a whole lot and met some really cool people!
Geology field camp is pretty much your right of passage if you want to be a geologist. I’m pretty sure that most, if not all geology majors in the US have to do one at some point in their undergrad careers. You don’t have to go to your home university’s though, which is nice if your home university’s camp is literally seven weeks of camping at really high elevation somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Rockies with no facilities.
Yay!! What a huge week! Good job, and welcome!
I also want to hear about geology field camp. I am hosting a geology-theme farm walk at my farm tomorrow. A good friend is doing the lecture, and we are going to learn about Mt. Rainier and its effect on the soils etc. and also, probably, how likely I am to die in a lahar. FUN TIMES but I’m also a little terrified about the lahar predictions part.
I’m nearly at the end of two weeks of vacation time, and it’s been lovely — I spent the first week in Newport, doing some research for an article I’m revising but also just walking around being a tourist and looking at old houses. And then I went to Providence and caught up with friends I hadn’t seen in way too long, and went on a ghost tour where we learned all about which buildings were supposedly haunted and by whom. (I am so jealous of the guy who saw Edgar Allan Poe’s ghost on the steps of the Providence Athenaeum, I can’t even.) And this week I’ve been back in New York doing nothing in particular, except I went to a lecture at the Morbid Anatomy Museum and ate at a nearby pickle restaurant. (I don’t care if artisanal pickles are a hipster stereotype; Brooklyn is awesome.)
Aritsanal pickles? Wow. I would so do that. I had no idea pickle restaurants were a thing!
Was it the Pickle Shack OMG I love the Pickle Shack more than life itself it is the very very best did you have the fried pickles they are so goooood *explodes*
It WAS the Pickle Shack! I’d never been there before, but I had a very tasty vegan banh mi thing with kimchi, and a Dogfish Head Aprihop beer, which was also very tasty. (Fruit beer! But hoppy and bitter!) Next time I’ll get the fried pickles too.
You didn’t get fried pickles? How could you? And here I was thinking I could really admire you. OK, maybe I can admire your restraint. Just the possibility of fried pickles turns my will power to innocent puddles.
I am…not terribly excited about the archery outing I was volunteered into organizing for tomorrow? I love archery and I don’t get to do enough of it, but teaching other people to shoot will not fill that need. Also, the range we have to go to to get rental equipment is very Dude Oriented, which always makes me uncomfortable. (There will be dudes in our group as well, so not super uncomfortable, but not 100% okay with it either.)
Also, this has been annoying me since last time we went a year ago, and this seems like the place to get some sympathy: last time we went the owner was very impressed at my handmade arrows. “You never see people making their own arrows any more!” he said. Then he spent twenty minutes explaining to me how to make arrows. … Just like the ones I’d been shooting with all day. … *sigh*
But! After that the weekend is mine own. And honestly I should probably start packing, I think I’m gonna move in six weeks.
Mansplaining. Uggggg. If I can gather my thoughts through the black cloud of rage, I like to label their behavior with questions:
“You’re telling me how to do what I’ve obviously done before? Why would you do that?”
“You’re assuming I don’t know that? Are you usually this disrespectful?”
“You just spoke for how many minutes without a pause? How many of your friends tolerate that rudeness?”
I have purchased a sunhat for the first time in my adult life, and I am very excited. It makes me feel like a total BAMF. Also, this shade of lipstick makes me feel like I could cut a man’s heart out with my high heels and then eat it.
Fuck YES you are not wrong
The lipstick is just as Khaleesi recommends.
If anyone’s wondering, it’s Diva by MAC!
that is one INTENSE get up
A+
It makes me feel like a young widow whose much older millionaire husband just died a mysterious death. “I’m sailing down the Adriatic to console myself after my terrible loss (wipes away tear with $100 bill)“
…and if your boy toy gives you any grief on that trip down the Adriatic, you can have your crew members set him adrift in a lifeboat, and light a cigarette and smile as his shouts fade into the distance.
yes, yes you could. maybe you should
I’m glad it makes you feel like a BAMF because you LOOK like a BAMF!
Sunhats are THE best, and yours is particularly glorious. Excellent taste.
Thanks, you two – I will now be calling total shits total wank-stains, because it sounds even better.
Yes! In my experience, saying something like "can my hair do that?" signals to the person that you are willing to negotiate/discuss/be realistic, which is helpful.
If by chance you (any curly people reading this!) are in Seattle, I love my curly stylist Carinn Boe at Red X in Capitol Hill. I'm more or less like oldsampeabody re: my hair (wash, comb, air dry, ponytail) and Carinn 1) never shames me for not paying more attention to it 2) gets my parameters and works within them 3) within my previously-expressed boundaries, pushes so so gently like "what if we did this?" but 4) never complains when I say "hmm, that's a nice idea, but let's just do the same thing as you've done the last 5+ years."
*i* am grateful you got back just fine, and also thank you for writing about this! it is one of my nightmares, as someone who travels a lot and can be absent-minded. so good to know what happens next and that a person can still fly without an ID after all the TSA precautions are taken.
my own minor contribution to worst-case-scenario demystifying: you can also enter a US embassy overseas without identification if your passport is stolen. it was sort of thrilling for me to walk into an embassy just on my own say-so as a US citizen (after metal detectors and pat-downs of course). the orwellian side to this story is that they have enough past information about you & your family and also fingerprints that they can easily check who you are once you're inside and issue a new passport in a few days if you are in a country with major US interests & connections (I'm sure it would have taken longer somewhere more remote).
That's a good idea – I'll look into it. Thanks, Noodge! (And I hope you're doing okay!)
Thank you for this! I now want to cover my fridge in removable wallpaper.
There might be! I have been thinking about how to answer for a few days because I was overwhelmed in a really nice way that you & other people would be interested in us writing one.
Cassandra & I have been trying to work on something for a bit, but we are having a really hard time figuring out what needs to go into it. (Cass says that is the challenge doing all writing ever, figuring out what to put in and what to leave out.) It is kind of hard for me to figure out what needs to be explained, and also it seems like it is a different piece of writing depending on how we approach it. But we are going to keep working at it because it is an interesting thing to do whatever happens with the finished writing.
Thank you so much!
We've been trying to put something together for a few weeks now but keep getting stuck in new and interesting ways. 🙂
Thank you very much! It is lovely when people are interested, I understand that people do not want to be rude or ask too many questions, but it is a thing that is not really known about or understood (I think) and so it is hard to know what to say to explain it to people. If you do have specific questions and want to ask them here or in email (brynpluplus at gmail) that would actually be a big help to us in figuring out what to put into a piece of writing. It is hard to know which parts of the water we swim in aren't normal to everyone. 🙂
I was the one on the low desire end for a few years in my relationship, but the last six months or so have been a turning point and I feel really good about our sex life now. I know this comment is a few days late but I wanted to offer this experience because I actually didn't see too much that was hopeful in this thread.
I don't want to suggest that the only solution is for you to change your sex drive or experience of desire, and I would encourage you to read The Dirty Normal linked above for the science of low desire. You might find her discussion of responsive vs. spontaneous desire particularly useful: http://www.thedirtynormal.com/blog/2014/06/16/i-d…. Her blog was really important to me when I felt "broken" for not wanting sex. It helped me feel normal and gave me some strategies to think about. At the same time, though, it didn't lead to huge changes in the quality of our sex life. Strategies such as planning ahead for sexytimes never worked for me; they made me feel pressured to perform, and I'd usually end up saying I was too tired (and I was!) when the time came. We never seriously considered ending the relationship because of our sad sex life, but my husband did feel the loneliness and rejection that robotneedslove describes and it was awful.
For me, there were a lot of things wrapped up in my low desire: inhibition, anxiety, stress, body image, deeply ingrained guilt about sex. I don't know how much of it was "me" and how much was my environment, but I would say there have been key changes both around me and within me that have made a huge difference. My stress and anxiety come and go; I got some cognitive behavioral therapy that helped me through depression a couple years ago, and I'm sure that helped. But the thing that felt, to me, like the real breakthrough was allowing myself to start thinking about sex as an activity I can decide I want to do, rather than a mysterious force that catches you in the heat of the moment and can't be summoned. In other words: My desire could be spontaneous; it didn't have to be responsive. I think I was caught up in the idea that men want sex more than women, and that women tend to experience responsive desire more often than men, who tend to experience spontaneous desire. I was on vacation with my husband and we started changing the way we talked about sex: we began treating it like a fun activity we could decide to do together, like playing a game or cooking something new. It used to be that one of us, usually him, would initiate physical intimacy and then we'd see if our bodies wanted to take it farther. Now one of us can just say, "hey, want to have sex now?" and if the other one wants to, we do! Sometimes I've asked him and he's said no, and sometimes he asks and I say no. Somehow, turning it into a fun thing we can decide to do like any other activity has taken away the mystery and shame and fear of rejection. I'm still not totally over my inhibitions, and I'm sure he still sometimes feels frustrated when we go through dry spells, but we have so much more fun with sex now. I've also started to embrace sex-positive feminism in a way I never have before, which has given me a new perspective on so many policy issues!
Again, I don't want to make you feel that it's your responsibility to change or pretend that it's easy to change if you do want to. What I said above makes it sound like I just snapped my fingers and changed, but of course I don't really understand how this shift came about. I just want to share with you that my marriage survived several years of my very low desire and yours can too.
Finally, on blogs to read, I think The Dirty Normal is great for helping women feel normal, because I think women's low desire is often categorized as sexual dysfunction, and that's bullshit. However, I think Emily Nagoski presents research on gender differentials in sexual desire and motivation without adequately considering the ways that men and women are differently socialized, and I think that this research can actually reinforce the social norm that women don't want sex as much as men do, that men are the initiators and women are the gatekeepers. I think she rejects very valid concerns that the search for accurate statistics on gender differentials in desire is deeply complicated by how men and women are "supposed" to experience sex according to American or Western cultural norms. This can lead to women underreporting desire, but I believe it also led to me under-experiencing desire. On my newfound sex-positiveity, I really enjoyed the "feminism" tag at the Pervocracy blog: http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/femin… (It's a kink blog, and I'm not into kink at all, but I love the writing on communication and consent and taking the mystery and magic out of sex, heh).