I don’t care what you want to talk about, I want to talk about JIAN GHOMESHI, the newest master of the dubious Facebook outpouring. By the time I wake up, I hope that Jesse Brown’s promised months-in-the-making investigative piece has dropped, so please link if it does! I personally do not think the CBC would be dumb enough to actually axe him for having Weird Sex, so I’m interested to see how this all shakes out. OH, there it is!
Look at all these brainy people coming on-board at The Guardian!
What Canadian artist Robert Genn did with the last year of his life.
On the experience of going to smoking rehab, and addiction in general:
A decade ago, I realized I was drinking too much—more than a bottle of wine a night—and tottered off to Alcoholics Anonymous. There, we called them drunkalogs—tales of humiliating things done while under the influence of booze. At the exotic end of the spectrum were exploits like attempting to steal a plane or losing a rental car; more common were heartbreaking accounts of domestic upheaval, workplace flame-outs, sordid affairs. In smokers’ rehab, our versions are more quotidian. Illicit puffs in airport washrooms figure prominently, with a couple of the guys trading stories about their favourite spots at Chicago O’Hare. An entertainment entrepreneur spins a hilarious story about smoking up a hotel room and simply leaving the several-hundred-dollar fine in cash when he checked out. The parents of younger children describe John le Carré–level diversionary tactics to prevent their kids from learning their secret. I recount having missed a plane in Dublin a few years ago because I was indulging my addiction rather than lining up for the security check, a dumb-ass move that cost me $500 in rebooking fees; it’s too painful to confess to the group that I missed the moment of my mother’s death because I’d nipped out for a hit. None of these anecdotes addresses the matter of compromised health, but they don’t really have to, since one of us, a fellow in his late fifties, has barely finished chemo for lung cancer.
I have been laughing hysterically and in DISBELIEF at Deadspin’s collection of stories about getting caught masturbating, which is, as Jaya pointed out on Twitter, inextricably linked with the fact that dudes seem really reliant on Visual Stimulation in order to reach orgasm, which seems super inconvenient to me! Just think sexy thoughts, jeez. ANYWAY, please enjoy, and if you have your own stories, let’s hear them:
I was beating off in my in-laws’ bathroom late at night. Just as I’m reaching climax, my wife flies through the door like Seal Team Six, demanding, “What are you doing!?!?” At the first sound of the door I jumped up, somehow kicking off my shorts to completely cover up the iPad as she gets past that wall. I then turn away from my intruder as I ejaculate into the now-convenient toilet paper, looking back over my shoulder to proclaim an angry, bewildered, and guilt-stricken “I’M TRYING TO TAKE A SHIT!!!” while expelling my soiled toilet paper into the bowl.
As fast as she came, she went, scurrying back to bed, seemingly embarrassed and sorry for the intrusion. I regain my composure and confidence. I clean up, and head back to bed. Instead of the typical slither back into the room, I’m walking tall, proud of my quick thinking and quicker reactions. My adrenaline is racing like I just out ran the cops. As I laid my head on my pillow, heart racing from adrenaline, my wife quietly but sternly says, “Please don’t jerk off in my parents’ house.” In the saddest, most pathetic voice, I quivered, “OK.”
This is so interesting and complex and HOPEFUL:
We began oral immunotherapy when Kieran was 2. The first doses — made from the protein of the allergens — are so small they look like sprinkles of cinnamon. Kieran, for example, began at 1.2 milligrams of each of his allergens: 1/7000 of an egg; 1/200 of a peanut, 1/200 of a hazelnut, 1/250 of an almond and 1/300 of a cashew. Every two weeks or so, he would return to the hospital for an “updose” in which he would try to eat a slightly larger amount. Every day at the same time, he would eat a dose at home and then we would anxiously monitor him for reactions for two hours. Like almost all the patients, he had reactions: He got hives on his face, his eyes became itchy, his tongue became swollen or he vomited. If he reacted, we would stay on that dose an extra few weeks until his body adjusted to it. (Reactions severe enough to use an EpiPen are rare; out of 309 patients, only 15 had a reaction in which an EpiPen was used.)
“Does Modern Photography Incite Women to Brutality?” (Winifred Sweet Black Bonfils, 1897.) pic.twitter.com/I9PLt1RK6A
— Choire (@Choire) October 25, 2014
Do not, I repeat DO NOT read the comments in Jian Ghomeshi’s facebook post if you value your sanity. The number of “Jealous bitches be crazy” posts are not safe for consumption.
I read his FB post and all I could think was “Of course Jian Ghomeshi would name-drop an award-winning Canadian novel in the middle of a pre-emptive defence against rape accusations.”
“there it is” links to a real estate website…
Works for me! I think you had an accidental ad-trigger thing.
In September, Ghomeshi told the Star that he did not understand why the newspaper was continuing to pursue allegations when “my lawyers have already told you it is untrue.”
Uh. I mean, I am not an investigative journalist or anything, and I am sure Jian Ghomeshi is a pretty smart guy, but it doesn’t seem to me to require a degree in rocket surgery to figure out why a newspaper might not take the word of a cabal of lawyers employed specifically for the purpose of denying actionable criminal charges at face value.
My naivete must be growing back, because I’m genuinely shocked by the number of people in my Facebook and Twitter feeds who are totally taking Ghomeshi’s letter at face value and trying to shame the CBC. It just completely defies logic.
ALSO I can’t believe The Star article actually went to the pains to assure us that his accusers were “intelligent and educated” as though it would matter less if they weren’t? AUGH. NO ONE IS HANDLING THIS APPROPRIATELY.
That made me cringe too. 🙁 The whole thing so far has been an unpleasant reminder that rape culture is thriving, and the immediate reaction is still “aww, poor accused man and his career”. His Facebook post made me want to vomit.
also aren’t they employed? Since clearly unemployed women be lying. ugh
You’re right, it was “employed” that got me as well. I guess the subtext is that they aren’t necessarily lying for the money, except oh hey, not a single one of them is pursuing any kind of criminal or civil case against him so this windfall would come from… where? Barf.
And EMPLOYED. My eyebrows about shot up off my forehead at that.
Also, I mean. Am I the only kinkster who is sick unto death of men trying to get out of allegations of abuse and violence by claiming it was “just kinky, consensual sex”?
Nope. No, you are definitely not. SO BORED OF THIS EXACT THING.
I got into a fight on twitter last night with a woman who decided that this situation marked the best time to ask questions like “doms, do you worry that a former consensual play partner could accuse you of abuse? How do you protect yourself?” There is a time and a place to discuss how BDSM is seen by the media, and a man using “but KINKY SEX!” to deflect from rape accusations is NOT IT.
(for the record: her name is Jillian Keenan, and she is an asshole.)
Oh shit, is she an asshole? Someone I like retweeted something of her’s yesterday and I quoted it in a positive light, now I’m wondering if I ought to read up some more and retract that. Dang.
I’ve been so disappointed in so many people. So many people on facebook saying shit like, “well I’ve always really liked his show/I met him once and he was so nice and charming/there’s no proof that these women aren’t lying” etc etc and it just makes me feel so sad and hopeless. Every time I think I’ve weeded out the worst people from my facebook, more come out of the woodwork.
My favourite (and by favourite I mean “most vomit-worthy”) bit so far was this conversation I accidentally got involved in on a friend’s facebook wall: https://twitter.com/annieleeroth/status/526586705…
This is the conversation I had with her: https://twitter.com/laura_mcvey/status/5265602950… Some of her quotes that aren’t showing up in the tweet chain include “male doms face potential criticisms and judgments that female doms and subs just don’t.” and “do you worry that a former consensual play partner could accuse you of abuse? How do you protect yourselves?” To say I’m not impressed with her is putting it mildly.
seconded/nine-millinoth-ed
Okay, everyone should read THIS because it’s the only thing that has made me feel sane all day, and also it’s written by a BDSM educator so: seriously. http://sexgeek.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/poor-pers…
I was gonna post this if you didn’t. Andrea’s always so smart, and her post on it said everything I was screaming in my brain, only with calm rationality instead of screaminess. I love the CBC, including Q, so it’s not like I want this to be true, but there have been rumours for years. And, as a sub, it’s terrifying to think that anyone is equating BDSM with the allegations, which are clearly non-consensual violence. Also, how likely is it that his “crazy ex” found two other women he had dated and a co-worker and convinced them all to lie?
Yeah, like there’s this vast conspiracy with some bitter ex-girlfriend, two other exes, a co-worker, and the entire CBC, to take down a popular and well liked dude who has a successful show. Really? C’mon now.
Andrea Zanin is one of the most sensible BDSM people on the internet. I love her and quote her and she is the best.
SERIOUSLY! How many times in the past couple of years alone have we discovered that a beloved public figure was a pedophile or an abuser all along? There were, what, at least 3 cases at the BBC alone? But people actually seem to think a bunch of women got together and said “Hey, you know what would be fun? If we all lied about being sexually assaulted by this guy who’s such a powerful figure in the Canadian media!”
The number of people I’ve seen who just jump right over the alleged assault and go right to “SHAME ON THE CBC FOR EXPOSING SOMEONE’S PRIVATE SEX LIFE” is just – the mind. It boggles.
Yeah, especially considering the CBC *didn’t* expose his sex life, they were apparently very happy to leave the reasons for his dimissal a secret. Ghomeshi exposed his sex life himself in order to control the narrative around it when the allegations finally came out.
Not to mention that the CBC has been enduring crippling budget cuts in the past few months, they’ve had big layoffs, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether or not they can adapt to the current media landscape, etc. In the middle of all this uncertainty, they’re going to fire one of the most popular hosts in CBC history – the host of one of the most successful shows in CBC history – just because he’s into safe, sane, consensual S&M? THAT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
The moment someone in the comments quoted “the state does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation” is when my head popped off from rage.
UGH. I KNEW someone would, but I still can’t believe someone did. NOT THE SAME. NOT. THE. SAME.
More than three. It’s awful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yewtree
Yep. I had to take a breather from Facebook because what I was seeing on my feed actively disgusted me.
I’ve been seeing a lot of “innocent until proven guilty” comments about Jian Ghomeshi. Do people think that means that you can’t possibly have an opinion that differs from Jian’s statement until it’s ‘proven’?
People weirdly do seem to think that. Came up recently in a discussion (elsewhere) about Bill Cosby. And then people think they’re being somehow neutral and objective if their standard for criticizing a public figure for sex crimes is a legal adjudication of guilt. That only works for crimes that the legal system isn’t structured to ignore, minimize, and justify!
I love that argument! Innocent until proven guilty! Unless you are a woman making an allegation of sexual violence or predation against a man, then you definitely are already guilty of being probably a crack whore or a compulsive liar or or or
More to the point, my good opinion is not awarded in a court of law. I can bestow or retract it whenever I want! For whatever reasons I deem fit! I don’t have to have proof if I don’t want! I can just… choose to not like the guy. Whoa.
It is a derailment tactic. Of course he’s innocent until proven guilty. The dude has plenty of legal protections. This is a derail, just like all of the folks who accuse Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, et al of “overreacting to trolls” or “fabricating threats.”
The time it takes to walk back the narrative works against the victims by propagating the victim-blaming 🙁
Only if the accused is a man. If it’s a woman, by all means, speculate away.
Yeah, that drives me a little crazy too. Or a lot of, “we need to wait for all sides of the story.” Like, what kind of incontrovertible evidence are these people going to accept? ugh
Holy wow I hate that Brown’s article points out that the women he interviewed were “all educated and employed.” I’m sorry, are uneducated or unemployed(!?) women not to be believed when they accuse a public figure of attacking them?
Well, obviously unemployed women would just be doing it for all that sweet Canadian radio-host money they’re trying to squeeze out of him.
Because as we all know, if you really want to make money in Canada, you go into the arts!
unless you REALLY want to make money; then you go into lawsuits against people who are in the arts. Canada is kind of messed up that way, IMO
That struck me just now too! But then again, I noticed that when I first got into OHIP (Ontario’s health system), I blithely told my then-family doctor that I was unemployed when she asked, because I was (new immigrant and all). I then noticed a marked lack of respect when any subsequent doctor or nurse would get to that part of my records and go, “so, you’re…UNEMPLOYED.” Their demeanor would change and they would generally talk to me like they saw me as stupid and lazy. It only ended when I started insisting that I was a freelance artist (true, but I haven’t sold anything in years) and that they should change my records. It’s strange to me that in a place with so few available jobs that unemployment should carry such stigma, but it does. I told this to an older, long-time unemployed Canadian friend and she said, “NEVER tell anyone in the system that you’re unemployed. Say you’re a freelancer, otherwise you can kiss respect goodbye.”
ETA: So I guess the article was saying, “these women were even *worthy* accusers,” in a way. Ugh. Intersection of classism and rape culture.
CANADA: we really liked being part of England and kept the classism for-eeeeever.
On twitter, he said “People flagging “educated and employed” in our Star investigation are making a totally valid and important point.” So… that’s more than I expected?
This lady is my brutal Patronus:
Also, if anyone is looking for a new Gravatar…
The hand-on-cheek glaring woman has a better hat, and is therefore superior. #sorrynotsorry
But mine is obviously rejoincing at the idea of photography-induced brutality!
You know she’s hoping they’ll be selling prints at the door on the way out so she can relive the sweet, sweet brutality at home.
I think the lady with the biggest hat is a time-traveling Charles Xavier – she’s doing the “fingertips to the temple” mind-reading thing that McAvoy does in the movies. It’s a pretty sweet racket if you think about it: travel back in time, use your telepathic powers to win massive amounts of money betting on the matches, then travel back to the present, when the miracle of compound interest will have turned your winnings into an even MORE massive amount of money!
“Just like 50 Shades of Gray!”
That’s… that’s not a good thing, bro…
Yeah — plus it kind of totally makes sense that someone would think nonconsensual abusive violence is the same thing as kinky sex after reading that book?
And tooooooooootally legit, right? Because people who are actually into BDSM have historically loved 50 Shades and found it totally representative, right?
LET ME TELL YOU ALL THE WAYS I HATE THIS BOOK for the next 4,312 years.
Literally everyone I know who is into kink is like, “NO.” right now.
50 Shades of Hate, even?
Someone on a panel about kink stuff I was at said that he likes 50 Shades because bringing it up is a great way to stealthily find kinksters. They’re the ones who get really angry about it.
oh man that allergy article is so cool, serious allergies are super scary.
Definitely! My niece has a slight peanut allergy and though her parents seem to have it pretty under control, there’s still so much unknown (will it get better/go away? will it get worse? what if something is unexpectedly cross-contaminated?) that the therapies they outline in the article could be incredible.
I’m only partway through the article, but do they say anything about it being viable for adults, or is it just for children?
It doesn’t go into whether it worked for adults or not, but it said that the trial accepted adults, so I think it is viable? Which is also very cool.
Viable for adults: I know an elderly lady whose doc used this technique. She can now eat dairy and chocolate after a lifetime of avoiding both. She keeps the quantities small, and only on a full stomach. Her doc said it’s not a sure thing for anyone, but worth a try in some cases.
“For everyone who has stayed in the study, the treatment has been 100 percent successful,” says Nadeau. “It turns out that everyone’s immune system is capable of adapting — and surprisingly, it is as true of adults as children.”
Sound like it!
Jazmine Hughes everybody:
“Hi, it’s [tenuous friend]!” I know we were supposed to go to [horrible activity] at [terrible bar] in [Queens], but I’ve been reading between your tweets, and . . . I just think you deserve an evening eating Popeyes in your underwear. Do you want my HBO GO password?”
That whole piece was beautiful, thank you.
love you Jazmine but do you have something to say about Queens?!?
as a former resident of Queens,]my problem was with New York City’s absurd inability to have practically any public transit from Queens to Brooklyn. They border each other! I should not have to go all the way into Manhattan and then out again! Used to annoy me so much.
It’s so true. For these reasons and others, Queens residents hate going to Brooklyn as much as Brooklynites hate going to Queens. Alas, we are a house divided.
I really think that if there were a way to easily get between the boroughs, I would not hate Brooklyn NEARLY as much.
Surely you are forgetting that most magnificent and reliable of trains, the G!
uggghhh the G train
You may enjoy this article about the death of streetcars in NYC.
I have read this piece! While it is interesting, I can’t say I enjoy it since it’s so annoying no bus lines have replaced those trolleys.
I agree! But I make up for it by hibernating in Astoria. Why leave?
Fellow Astorian here, offering up some intra-borough hibernating! (Come to my Halloween party!)
THERE WILL BE MISANDRIST JACK O LANTERNS
Ha, re: “Being Hospitalized for Exhaustion” — I’ve wondered multiple times in the past couple of weeks just how one gets diagnosed with chronic fatigue, because I am so incredibly tired on a daily basis. I even started taking iron regularly because I thought it might be my anemia acting up, but no dice. Other (totally scientific) hypotheses: Second puberty? Psychic vampires? REAL vampires? Incubi? Succubi? Is my roommate stealing my soul so she doesn’t have to go back to her hell dimension and can instead get an undergrad degree here? (Probably not, but only because my roomie is my brother.)
If it’s not iron, could it be vitamin B or something? That’s a distressingly common deficiency.
Oh, thanks! I’ll look into that. I’m long long long overdue for a physical, so probably I should do that as well.
Check your thyroid too!
Mono?
I’ve wondered multiple times in the past couple of weeks just how one gets diagnosed with chronic fatigue
Go to your PCP on a regular basis for five (or more) years, complaining of exhaustion regardless of diet, exercise, drugs, and anything else the doctor and numerous specialists throw at you. After five (or more) years, your hapless PCP will throw their hands in the air and say “I don’t know. Maybe you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?” Unless you have an old, cranky PCP who doesn’t believe in such liberal-sounding diseases in which case you need to find a more progressive PCP and begin the process all over again.
Good luck.
Lost it at “Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups Go on Sale.” My dearest fantasy.
On the bright side, I’m pleasantly surprised that the first Ghomeshi article goes to such pains to emphasise that the lack of consent is the problem, not the acts themselves.
So many comments about the Jian Ghomeshi thing are making me want to tear all my hair out! How many women have to accuse him before people stop giving him the benefit of the doubt? One certainly isn’t enough, and it appears four isn’t enough either. UGH.
How is it POSSIBLE that people think “secret conspiracy of hysterical, vindictive, jilted women” is a more plausible scenario than “man in power abuses power”??? I am for serious losing my mind over here.
Right!?! How can what appears to be the majority of internet commenters believe that a woman has anything to gain from accusing a famous person of attacking her? Like, look at that one woman who wrote an article on xojane simply accusing Ghomeshi of being a creep! She was harassed for that; I can’t even imagine what’ll happen if the names of his accusers are revealed. This is so fucked up.
And she deliberately DIDN’T name him!
The Financial Post says he can’t sue the CBC because he’s in a union, that’s how the law works, it would go to arbitration. Not that it’s a surprise that the lawsuit wasn’t seriously meant. $50 million??
It’s making me ridiculously upset how many people I know are slavishly defending him just because they’re a fan of his radio show. I like Rosemary’s Baby, but I’m not going to say Roman Polanski isn’t an asshole. I will say though that I am proud of many of my male friends, who are posting thoughtful and articulate responses to the situation that basically sum up to “we shouldn’t automatically defend him and if this is true he’s a creep”, instead of “I LIKE THIS GUY, CRAZY BITCHES BE CRAZY”
My Facebook homepage is making me sick to my stomach right now. So many people (men) sharing his “side of the story” and saying “wow, we’re with you Jian!” Remind me never to go to these guys for support if I get sexually assaulted.
And a bunch from women too! At least two of the people who angrily responded to a Facebook comment I left on a BlogTO article about the amount of victim blaming and white knighting just because he’s a “celebrity” were from women. So disappointing. I kind of just want to hide under a blanket and come out when it’s all over.
Let’s all give a round of applause for the asshole who suggested that Ghomeshi go into politics after reading his Facebook post.
I mean, if Rob Ford could be mayor of the country’s biggest city while actually doing crack…
I think we may have found a candidate that would cause me to vote for Rob Ford.
If I lived in Canada. Which I’m fantasizing about after the piece on the Family Leave Act.
Haven’t there been allegations about Rob Ford abusing his wife? There’s been police calls from their house, I know that much.
He actually hired a PR firm immediately upon getting fired, so…well actually I guess that’s how politics usually works, too.
All of those masturbating stories are amazing, especially the first one.
I think all of those stories involve porn not because dudes need it, but that it makes the chance of somebody catching you go way up. If someone’s busting through the door, anyone who can mute a laptop and get all tucked away before being noticed deserves to be recruited into SHIELD or something.
Also I think that the consequences are maybe a little higher, too — not only is your jerking off subject to approbation, but your use of porn and whatever kind of porn you were using IS also subject to judgment.
“Please don’t jerk off in my parents’ house. And if you ARE going to jerk off, please don’t do it while reading Jugs.”
Yes!
The judgment in the wife really weirded me out, I must say. Even if you want to ask your husband not to masturbate (in the middle of the night, during bathroom activities, obviously trying to hide it) at your parents’ house, who makes it all worse by whipping into the bathroom to interrupt and shame him mid-act?
Man, I am glad I am not in that marriage!
Oh thank goodness I’m not alone in thinking I am SO GLAD I’m not in that relationship. Because UGH.
I occasionally babysit a little girl with severe food allergies. We are really far from stanford so I don’t know if I should even share the article with her mom. i guess it might give her hope there is something coming
The Deadspin article was hilarious and while I’ve never been “caught” (by anyone who hadn’t already seen the show) I did once take care of business in the bathroom of the small congressional office I once worked in, mere steps away from my asshole congressman boss. About .5 seconds after I was done, asshole congressman knocked on the door to use said bathroom. I don’t even know if I locked it, so that could have been interesting. This guy had been pissing me off all goddamn day, and I needed to de-stress (and because I thought it was funny). When I went to pick up his stupid taco lunch a few minutes later, I was hella late getting back because I decided to have a beer and a smoke at the restaurant downstairs, because fuck that guys lunch.
You’ve just become my personal heroine.
I’m honored.
I’m always really jealous of women who can do that.
can i retroactively award a gold star to that day for you?
Retroactive gold stars are always allowed. Thank you.
Can I also talk about a podcast with Mary Beard on it? Hopefully not just available in the UK, very silly and very rude with lots of swearing.
http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/richard_herring_…
The more I re-listen to RHLSTP, the more grating I find Richard Herring’s shouty/mumbly interviewing style.
I am not sure they’re anything I’ll be downloading and keeping, but it’s been interesting going through the people I’m interested in this week. I recently found the dirtybritcom confessions tumblr he keeps going on about and found these linked from that.
It’s available in the States, too. Looking forward to listening to it after work!
Winnifred Sweet Black Bonfils
so many names and all of them good!
That allergy article is so cool!
Did any of you develop allergies when you were an adult? I’ve read it’s fairly common but I don’t know anyone who did.
I developed a really severe allergy last year, to a very common preservative (Kathon CG) that is in the majority of laundry detergents, body lotions, shampoos, moisturisers, etc. I didn’t figure out what it was for the longest time and it was pretty afwul – for the worst few weeks, I basically looked like an open sore. I wore only clothes that completely covered me basically to my chin to work, and still my coworkers gave me a wide berth and wouldn’t shake my hand, haha. Still don’t know how or why I developed this but I was SO relieved when my dermatologist finally figured out what it was that I should be avoiding.
I developed a minor carrot allergy around the age of 13- apparently it’s connected to the pollen allergies I’ve had as long as I can remember. Not really as an adult, though, but also not a childhood one because I definitely could eat carrots fine as a kid.
Kind of? I never had any kind of food allergy as a child, but when I was 18 or so I found out that I’m severely allergic to passion fruit. Which of course happened in a ten-person seminar my freshman year.
I haven’t developed any new allergies, but an existing one got WAY more severe when I hit my 20s. Now when I get bitten by a mosquito it turns into hives + swelling + fever.
ME TOO – happened when I was about 27. Not the hives as much, but giant swollen bite + itching + pain for more than a week, and if I get a few bites at once, it turns into full-blown fever, dizziness, swelling, etc. Super fun when traveling to tropical locations, let me tell you.
Oh, yeah, this too. Always reacted more than most to mosquito bites, now it’s full on allergic reactions.
I developed pretty bad dustmite allergies around age eighteen. It’s not as scary as food allergies because I usually have more control over my environment than people do over what a manufacturing company decided to put on the same conveyor belt with their food, but I spent years 18-25 with sinus infections that were unresponsive to antibiotics and lasted for up to ten months at a time until we finally hit on the right combination of allergy meds / lifestyle changes to keep the dustmite allergies under control. It also makes travel a little nerve-wracking; sleeping in a room with carpet and drapes often means that I wake up wheezing and having trouble breathing, so there’s been more than a few nights where I end up sleeping in a bathtub or on an air mattress on a bathroom floor. Less than optimal.
Feel free to ignore this unsolicited advice, but: I often stay in private rooms in hostels when I travel, and in my experience they often have no carpet and thin curtains, so perhaps they might suit you better than hotels? The main downsides are that you have to book them well in advance, and often the bathroom is shared.
That is very useful advice, thank you! I’m definitely going to look for that next time I’m travelling.
I’m glad it’s useful!
You might want to phone the hostel before you book and ask about the flooring, because it’s certainly not impossible for them to have carpet.
Yeah, I developed lactose intolerance when I was 20 or so. I drank a lot of milk when I was growing up, but I kind of stopped in college (dining hall milk was somehow less appealing?), and after that, my body was not interested. I stopped really eating dairy when I was 22 and I’ve noticed that now when I have a little, my reaction is worse than it was when I was eating dairy sometimes/halfheartedly. That seems to go along with the idea of being able to tolerate something if you have a little bit every day. As of now, I actually find a lot of dairy products unappealing, though I would strongly consider killing someone for a good pizza. 😀
I’ve also been allergic to latex for…forever, but that’s actually gotten a little better as I’ve gotten older, or maybe it’s just that I’m better at managing it now then when I was a kid. 🙂
Sorry to hear about your sudden allergy, it sounds really unpleasant and worrying! I’m glad you figured it out! Bodies are so funny.
I’m not entirely sure I have lactose intolerance (I’m currently working to figure that out), but I also lost interest in drinking milk in college… and have generally found my health is better when avoiding dairy. I, too, would strongly consider killing someone for a good, cheesy pizza sans cheese.
I realize this is a week later, but try Amy’s Vegan Margherita pizza. They use Daiya instead of cheese, but it tastes nearly like the real thing. They sell them at the Stop and Shop near me in the “Natural Foods” aisle.
I also developed lactose intolerance at 20-ish (practically overnight, which meant it took ages to figure out – “I am suddenly intolerant to this stuff I have been happily mainlining for years” is not high on the list of possible reasons for stomachache). I was sad to give up real cheesecake, but this is mostly compensated for by living within delivery distance of my city’s only (amazing) vegan pizza place.
I developed the family sweetcorn allergy around the same time. My mum and her father also have it, and they both also developed it in their early twenties.
I developed a skin allergy in my early twenties: it seemed to be an allergy to mint and possibly cheap makeup, and it appeared as an ugly rash concentrated around my mouth like a reverse Phantom of the Opera. I had it for a year and a half before I finally went to a dermatologist, and she cleared it up in two weeks. For awhile I couldn’t eat or use things with mint oil in them–which is everything, by the way, gum and toothpaste and lip balm–but this sensitivity simply ebbed away in my late twenties.
Not exactly the same, but I became reactive to poison ivy as an adult, after being non-reactive for my entire childhood. Apparently this is actually pretty common. I do not recommend it.
Yes! I just went to an allergist for the first time last month at the ripe age of 34 because my lips suddenly started swelling up after eating some foods. They initially did not believe me to be allergic to food instead of having an environmental allergy that got in food (apparently cucumbers and melons are bad for this) but it turns out I’m allergic to eggs and goat milk on top of my normal lactose intolerance. Also allergic to a bunch of other environment stuff (cats, dogs, cockroaches, dust mites, trees, weeds, grass, etc) too but most of that I already knew from experience.
I did go a little “Streetcar Named Desire” in the allergists office after they told me about the goat milk allergy — “Feta! Feettaaaaa!!”
I did not have any real seasonal allergies as a child, but I do now. I also had an allergy to amoxicillin show up around age 23, and the first spring after that was particularly brutal. I don’t think the medication allergy was necessarily adult-onset, so much as that I was a pretty healthy kid, and even at the age of 32 I can still count the number of times I’ve been on antibiotics on my fingers, so I had probably not been exposed to it.
When I was around 20 I developed an allegy to antihistamines. It took forever to figure out what the problem was.
Also kind of – I have had intolerances develop, which are apparently not the same as a real allergy in some weird way. I become allergic/intolerant to things after having too much of them – so far every painkiller I’ve ever tried has started giving me awful reactions. I was fine with the normal ones until I had a knee injury as a teenager and took ibuprofen for a couple of months – the next time I took it I came out in massive lumpy bruises. Then paracetamol went, I had flu and took it every four hours or so for a week and now i can take one pill at a time about once a month, but two pills at a time or more often than that, and I throw up. Went on amitriptyline for my recent back injury and it started giving me heart palpitations after two months…
And fake cherry flavouring gives me a banging headache since I developed a serious cherry drop habit when I was 17.
Hay fever also came on as an adult.
I developed a mild allergy to black pepper when I was 26. It’s so annoying–there is hidden black pepper in so many things, and so I often get a suprise numb tongue.
However, around the same time I developed the allergy, I was stung by a bee for the first time in 15 years or so, and instead of swelling up like the michelin man, nothing happned. I consider this an even trade-off.
My grandmother had a lifetime allergy to shellfish. When she died, my grandfather, despite having happily eaten shellfish for the first 80 years of his life, found that he couldn’t eat it anymore–his lips would swell up. I swear it’s sympathetic.
I am 31 and have never been stung by a bee, which makes me a bit fearless around them, but then I think- what if I’m insanely allergic? *shrug*
My sister and I both had our allergies (tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, apples) manifest in our early twenties.
My boss had a severe immune system failure last year (basically he stayed sick for too long, so his body started freaking out and attacking itself) … and now he’s suddenly allergic to a lot of things, including nuts, olive oil, and most fruit. Very strange. I’ve also heard that, even under normal circumstances, your body tends to tweak its immune system every 7-8 years or so, and so developing adult allergies is pretty common.
I’ve been very blessed my entire life to not have allergies to anything, but at 28 I’m starting to worry that I might develop some soon.
Aside from the mosquito thing mentioned already, I developed allergies to shellfish and green bell peppers when I was in college. Super weird. I think both of those have either faded or disappeared 10 years later, but I remain careful about them.
I developed a kiwi allergy as an adult. (I did not have this allergy until then and ate kiwi with joy.) I miss it.
(Since people get weird about allergies vs intolerances, I have allergy-like responses, but it’s kiwi, I haven’t had it verified by a doctor because kiwi doesn’t show up unexpectedly in anything but fruit salad, smoothies and juice, and I cannot imagine it being worth anyone’s time to test this.)
A friend of mine (age 32) just found out he’s, like, EpiPen-level allergic to peanuts, after eating them with reckless abandon his entire life. It was like three hours after eating a bunch of peanuts, his throat closed up, went to the ER, etc. Which you’d think means it’s not peanuts! But then they did one of those scratch tests, and peanuts was like a CRAZY reaction.
Did any of you develop allergies when you were an adult?
When I was 22, I started developing seasonal allergies (fall is the worst). Since I was 25, I have developed allergies to: Wheat, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Coffee, Blueberries, Cranberries, Sesame Seeds, and Mushrooms. I’m waiting for the day they tell me I’m basically allergic to Food.
I developed a mild allergy to stone fruit in my late 20’s. It was mostly just a super itchy mouth if I ate them, and hives if I was in contact with the juices for a while (like, cutting up a bunch of peaches). I stopped eating them for two years and it seems to have cleared up. I’m still very selective of when I eat them, though. I don’t want to bring it back.
I developed seasonal allergies at about age 26. It is very annoying and I really miss my allergy free life.
I developed a mild allergy to sulfites a few years ago, which means, amongst other things, I can no longer enjoy most kinds of wine. BOOOO. I also recently became aware that I have a sensitivity to the saponin in quinoa, but I never ate that as a kid so it’s hard to say if it’s a recent development.
Apparently for seasonal and pet allergies, it’s way more common to start developing them around or after adolescence (compared to food allergies which usually start in childhood).
My mom recently developed an allergy to formaldehyde, which is found in most health and beauty products and any synthetic fibers. Her allergist gave her a 68 PAGE list of items that contain formaldehyde. It caused a mild rash and unbearable all-over body itch. She started doing phototherapy (basically tanning but in a doctor’s office) and it has reduced her symptoms by about 80%.
Obviously I am horrified at what Jian Ghomeshi has done to these women, but reading that Facebook letter I was also kind of shocked at how … not-smart he sounds, even (especially?) when he is trying. I mean, the Facebook message is not a platform to inspire the most intellectual discourse, but damn. Dude must be seriously well-edited on his show.
But he mentioned two whole books in his post, isn’t that enough proof of his superior intellect?
A PR Firm also HELPED him write that.
So he’s also either bad at hiring PR firms, or incapable of taking expert advice that he sought and paid for?
I think the tone may have been a deliberate attempt to seem “folksy” and just like a regular guy. “See, I’m just like you, I just want to keep my private life private.” Either way, it hits all the high points of victim-blaming right on cue.
Yeah, it’s supposed to appear all “I’m being so forthright and personal” when it’s clearly just a PR-crafted statement
Yeah. I totally, 110% believe those women, and I feel pretty dumb for thinking he was such an empathetic and thoughtful person based on his interview style.
I have a bunch of friends who are all fans and posting things like “This is just like being fired for being gay!” and “No one should pry into anyone’s private life!” and I haven’t been able to say anything because….you know what? Shit happens! It isn’t like being gay because it’s not about sexual proclivities, it’s about potentially being an abuser!
That’s why the whole post was so (diabolically) brilliant, because he tapped in to the whole right to privacy / what you do in your bedroom isn’t your employers business that has been a part of the gay rights movement. Which is so NOT the case here. Also, like, he’s accused of sexually harassing someone AT WORK.
Okay really though, lots of men I’ve talked to said that using porn every single time is the complete accepted norm, and you’re “weird” or whatever for not using porn. I know there’s that whole physically getting hard thing that clit-havers don’t have to worry about, but you really can’t just think of a naked person? That’s so exhausting to have to find a magazine or a porn site every time you want to do this! Just discretely rub one out under the covers while thinking about that hot guy on the subway like everyone else jeeez.
I don’t get it either – to me, getting off to images in your head is just as visual as getting off to images that someone else created.
Pretty sure people used to be able to jack it, even before porn was accessible any time you wanted it. It’s not like a biological necessity. Man, the internet is even making us too dumb and lazy to beat off effectively. Is this rock bottom? Have we hit that yet?
Yeah, and don’t these guys have a well-cultivated mental spank bank? Are we better at this, too? (yes)
a dude who needs (as opposed to likes) porn to get off is a dude who has a howling frigid wasteland where his seething erotic urges ought to be. you grow up being told that men think about sex at least SOME of the time and it sounds so plausible, it’s hard to learn that a lot of them don’t know how.
also when a man says something is the “complete accepted norm” I automatically translate that to “men all lie about it to each other out of terror of seeming different.” that isn’t fair of me, but what is fair, in this world.
I am a straight dude, I can confirm this is 200.6% accurate and therefore fair.
I am with you on that, because I can definitely just use my imagination, but I have some sympathy, since I can’t get myself off with just my hand. Which means I’m a lot less likely to masturbate somewhere other than a bedroom, since that’s where the vibrator is plugged in, but also means that I have endured more than one business (or other) trip where I had a hotel room to myself, lots of time on my hands, a fertile imagination, and no way to reach the promised land.
This might be obvious, but have you considered investing in a small, “fits easily in your purse” vibe?
Not powerful enough. Even the one I bought for work trips, which takes C batteries, does not get the job done. Alas.
(the flip side is that while I may need power tools to get there when I am alone, I orgasm pretty easily from PIV with a partner, which is convenient)
Gotcha, I figured. Yeah, that second part is pretty convenient!
The glory of the hotel room is found in the bathroom and, more to the point, in the bathtub’s faucet. Turn that baby on, get the water a comfortable tempature, lay back, get those legs in the air and let that gushing water bring you happiness & joy.
So a friend tells me (coughs discreetly).
Oh my god, so much yes to hotel bathtubs!!! (I prefer to tie a washcloth around the faucet, to tone down the water force and direct the stream. Not that I absolutely make a habit of doing this in every hotel I ever stay at or anything. *ahem*)
This is why I’m so glad women are more or less expected to go the erotic novel route rather than the visual porn route. I mean, visual porn can be fun (I guess, if you a) have the funds for good, non-scarily misogynistic garbage [I don’t] or b) have the patience to sort through heaps and heaps of horrible stuff at worst, or at best the eternally frustrating lesbian videos where the women have terrifyingly long nails and are constantly making eye contact with the camera while the director insists on giving his in-put; fuck you, dudeguy, get out of my lesbian porn).
But romance novels! Or quick-and-dirty PWP fan fiction, or just fan fiction in general, which is way more porny than romance novels! It basically teaches you how to fantasize! You get a sexy narrative in your head that can be tweaked as necessary! At least this has been my experience, possibly this has been TMI but
My friend and I also spent a lot of time writing RPF porn for each other, “to learn how to write erotica” (ha) but mostly just ’cause I guess we liked supplying each other with 100k words of wank material?
I have a (female) friend who’s been getting into feminist porn and the like and was wondering why other women weren’t pushing the industry to be better and I had to explain fanfiction to her. Why try and force the porn industry when there’s fanfiction there, for free, involving people you already know are attractive and with much better attention to plot and characterization?
What is the age range of “lots of men” you’ve talked to? The men in my life are all past 40 and it is *not* the norm to need porn. They prefer it, certainly, but would scoff at any suggestion that it is necessary for solo good times.
I’m a lady so I don’t know how it is for guys but I’m not capable of creating and sustaining visual images in my head, they just disappear. It doesn’t necessarily have to be porn (although that’s way easier) but if it’s just my imagination it’s going to take a million years and be sort of disappointing in the end. I can’t just think about the hot guy on the subway because by the time I get home I don’t really remember what he looks like. But yeah if I lived in the pre-internet porn era I’d be the girl jilling off to sexy cave paintings or whatever.
Interestingly, my boyfriend rarely watches porn and is baffled by the fact that I can’t just create elaborate sexy scenarios in my head like he can. *~*bodies are different*~*
Does Modern Photography Incite Women to Brutality?
YES. Next question?
“This is all a plot by my bitch ex-girlfriend” kind of stops working as a defence when four different women are claiming you abused them, JIAN. Not that it’s a very good defence in the first place.
Maybe I’ve got a case of Monday-brain but I find myself very confused by the layout of the bathroom in that excerpt from the Deadspin article. His wife came through the door, he had to look back over his shoulder to see her/yell at her, and from that angle she couldn’t see what he was doing? So the toilet has its back to the door? I’ve never seen a bathroom like that, and I like to think I am a worldly person who has experienced her fair share of bathrooms. What is going on?
While we’re on the subject of being totally confused by masturbation stories, what is this? “For some reason back then, when I beat off, I would only lift my shirt and pull my head under the neck hole, leaving my arms in my sleeves like a god damn T-Rex.” And then the editor’s note that he had done this shirt thing too? What? I say this in the nicest way possible, but men, you are such weirdos.
Literally snorted just now, so thank you for a nice start to my morning! 🙂
That seems uncomfortable, and voluntarily obstructing your vision while masturbating in a semi-public place seems like the height of foolishness.
I had a bathroom like that. The room was wider than it was deep. The sinks to the left, the toilet to the right, behind the door, the shower across from the door. Once inside the bathroom, facing the closed door, one could see the half-wall next to the toilet, separating it from the rest of the room.
I’m so disappointed with everyone on my Facebook feed right now. No, this isn’t “Harper’s neocon plot to gut the CBC”. This is a corporation doing a good job of cutting ties with an abuser.
Also, I’ve heard rumours from friends in the Toronto media scene for ages that Jian was a creep and a bad date. This is so unsurprising to me.
Oh God, the rumours about him go back to the Moxy Fruxous days. 🙁
CBC deserves huge props for doing the right thing when so many other organizations would’ve done The Tapdance Of Denial to preserve their bottom line. (Ghomeshi’s show is huge, and he’s their most famous personality.) Not to mention standing up to the predictable whining from poopy-diaper babymen, who are numerous enough and have the political pull to harm CBC’s already precarious financial situation.
When the story first broke, before his Facebook post, I saw all these comments blaming Harper. It was ridiculous and I say that as someone who hates Harper.
I had no idea that he had a reputation as a creep. As you say, they did the right thing and it could have been easy given his popularity.
I would just like to announce some personal good news, and that is that I took my dog to that novice field test day on Saturday, and not only was she reasonably well behaved, but there were two HUMONGOUS male Weimaraners whose teenage owners clearly had not trained them well, if at all, and they YOWLED and BARKED and CRIED and PULLED the whole time. Like, I feel bad for those kids, but I am always happy when there is at least one other dog somewhere that’s way worse-behaved than mine.
Navigator PR: For when you did something truly awful. Seriously, they’re the dudes got Michael Bryant off after video footage of him dragging a cyclist to death came out. They’re unpleasant people for unpleasant people, and hiring them is an admission that something is so terribly wrong that being associated with them is less bad.
It is also worth noting that the CBC is A Union Shoppe, and that it is nigh-impossible to fire anyone from a union shop without grievance, and that grievance then needs to be confirmed.
I have so many feels about this one, but the main feels I have is Anita Sarkeesian, another Canadian lady:
The most revolutionary thing you can do is believe the lady when she says something.
That’s a really good point about the CBC being union – I hadn’t even thought of that, but of course they must have had to go through a long and involved process to actually fire him.
Oh yeah, and it also means his $50 million lawsuit is not possible, because it’s going to be grieved through the union anyways. Just another publicity scheme
Ah, I have loathed and railed at the Guardian over the years but it was probably among the first adult reading material I came across and it makes me a tiny bit proud when they do good stuff like win a Pulitzer or publish Roxane Gay.
Awww I love that stupid boy who took two years to work out he could use his hand to wank.
I’ve been pretty surprised by this whole Ghomeshi thing, because like, I am only tangentially part of the Toronto media, and it is an OPEN SECRET that if you are a Bright Young (Woman) Thing you do not go in a room alone with him everevereverever. I knew this before the XOJane story last year. So the reaction of the majority of the people I know are like, “Fucking FINALLY he did something that could actually get him fired.”
Plus the CBC’s lawyers would have to be IDIOTS if the reason they fired him was because he told them about his BDSM activities. Even a non-lawyer could tell you you’d be making yourself vulnerable for a lawsuit. Also I am not sure that he could get $50 million (even if the CBC had it, which they don’t) because we have very strict caps on amounts of lawsuits here. (That’s why we’re not as litigious up here.)
Yeah I have a bunch of filmmaker/musician friends and they’re like “Yeah, not surprised, heard rumours about this for years”
god-fucking-dammit I hate the whispernet. Not in itself – I think it’s great that people look out for each other – but that it has to exist in the first place. Whyyyyyy did people know about this for years and he is just now getting fired?
Society is so fucked.
The thing about the whispernet in my field is that when something bad happened, women said “Oh, didn’t you know? Everyone knows that about him.”
TO THE VICTIMS.
I am fucking sorry I didn’t go to the hair-braiding parties that would have made me worthy of knowing who was a predator, how can she say that to anyone without simultaneously punching herself in the face for failing to dispense vital information?
Sorry, projecting here. A little. Sorry.
No I totally get this. My friend went to a party with a group of girls in college and was sexually assaulted. When she told her friends later what happened the girl said, “Oh everyone know he does that”. But did not inform my friend of this when she was talking to him at the party. Like WTF, really?!
Somebody said that about the guy currently accused of abducting and murdering UVA student Hannah Graham: “If she’d known him, she wouldn’t have let him put his arm around her like that.”
Fucking fuck you, guy who never stopped his friend/acquaintance from being a creeper in public, and fuck your expectation that everybody learn for themselves who the missing stairs are and how to avoid them. FUCKING SAY SOMETHING YOUR OWN DAMN SELF.
Yeah, I don’t think the CBC is that uptight. They used to run Bleu Nuit late at night (where I am anyway). They’re not all about Heartland!
Great article on Salon regarding the reaction to the Ghomeshi thing vs. reaction to the Honey Boo-Boo abuse allegations and the class issues in the coverage.
Oh, THANK GOODNESS no one here is defending Jian — my supposedly liberal, feminist, Canadian Facebook feed is full of people rushing to his defense.
The CBC is not going to fire one of their biggest personalities for *consensual* BDSM activities.
Yes, exactly. How do we deal with that? Unfriend everyone?
One of my friends reposted his Facebook letter with the comment “I am so sad for him!” Why? Because he is suffering the repercussions of his own horrible actions?
Pretty much, unfortunately.
Same, and it’s really disappointing 🙁
On the other hand, I’m pretty pleased that I’ve seen only about one and a half responses in defense/support of him in my social media form people I follow, and a *ton* of condemnation, thoughtful criticism, and “we knew he was a creep for ages and quietly warned everyone we could.”
And no, the CBC is not going to fire him for consensual sex. I’m glad the turfed him and have, to the best of my knowledge, not backtracked one step on it.
I don’t want to defend your feed! It’s gross! But it speaks to the relative sophistication of the PR moves he made. He and his PR team are not dumb, and they deliberately engineered that response. So your FB friends need an education in media literacy and more astute feminism. But they aren’t the first nor the last to be manipulated by a bunch of media-savvy creeps.
Yeah, today it’s a lot of people editing and toning down their original responses. That was a really really astute PR move that he made.
Especially on the Sunday before the Star article ran.
But, it speaks to how overwhelming the initial support of him was in the feeds of people I like & respect, that I was worried to open The Toast today, thinking that people here might be supporting him.
OH MY GOD TOAST THANK YOU FOR BEING A SAFE CORNER OF THE INTERNET WHERE NO ONE IS ON JIAN GHOMESHI’S SIDE
I engaged in a Facebook fight on a BlogTO article where 90% of the comments were like “boycott the CBC how dare they” and holy shit you guys why did I bother commenting
JUST BECAUSE THIS GUY SAYS SOME NICE THINGS TO PEOPLE ON THE RADIO DOESN’T MEAN HE’S A GOOD GUY
OH MY GOD OF COURSE THEY WERE BLOGTO COMMENTERS.
I bet they started railing about hipsters at the same time.
UGH.
and the sheer number of women I know who responded to his firing with ‘well, of course. He’s a creep.’ and have stories of people they know who had bad experiences with him
A friend of mine had to stop him from talking her TWELVE YEAR OLD SISTER backstage after a show. She said no, she’s a child, and he kept trying.
Everything is terrible this morning. Here is a video of catzilla trampling a tiny cityscape. I’m just going to watch this for awhile now.
http://happyplace.someecards.com/cats/a-terrifyin…
So I am not sure if you guys have already talked to death the whole Kathleen Hale mess, but I need to vent about it. I am seriously annoyed at Haley Mltoek (the new editor of The Hairpin). She wrote this: http://www.haleymlotek.com/lately/2014/10/20/agen… in which is she tries to defend Hale’s actions which is not okay. NOT OKAY AT ALL. I understand that Hale is her friend, but her defending her right to write about this really shitty thing that she did is just enabling her. She stalked someone- like legit stalked them. I don’t care what they did- you do not engage with someone who is apparently “harassing” you. I am just really annoyed and embarrassed.
This whole mess has been an education in how awful and nepotistic the publishing industry is. Even JOHN MULANEY defended her, and I was absolutely heartbroken . . . and then I discovered that he used to work with her fiance. It seems like connections trump criminal behaviour, even with people I thought would know better.
Ugh, that post is so gross. Parse it however you want, she got someone’s physical address and went there to confront her. That’s way over the line.
I liked Alex Hurst’s take on this a lot. (Found here.
Haley Mltoek’s makes me alternately sad and angry. I wish she weren’t defending Hale’s actions by claiming that she is defending women’s rights to tell stories. To claim that this is what the response towards Hale has been about – storytelling, rather than stalking – is wrong-headed.
I’m going to take this opportunity to announce that I got dumped by the guy I’d been seeing for 2 months. But lately my little misandrist heart has been growing thanks in large part to the Toast, so I felt completely confident in saying, oh, poor baby, you’re confused and you don’t know what you want? That sounds like a you problem, not a me problem, so go away and I shall find another. Who wants to take to the sea with me??
Yay good for you! I will take +1 seat on your boat.
Oh my god, that is totally a him problem. “I’m confused and I’m not sure what I want!” “Ooh, seems tough, good luck to you! You gonna finish those fries?”
Amen! I am super-duper over the life confusion of men. Great of you not to try and keep him. In my experience if you do that you, prop them up until you have both sucked each other completely dry and then they leave anyway and repeat the cycle with someone else.
I’m taking to the metaphorical sea. The other part of that advice reads: ” be gloriously, perfectly alone…wrap yourself in a splendid cocoon of solitude and grew stronger and more vibrant by the day and buy yourself elaborate headwraps and conquer the world of business and laugh a throaty laugh to yourself every night in your cool, dark room. You could wake violently every morning and thrust a sword into the air, just to remind the air who’s in charge, before taking your toast and tea.”
I’m doing that these days. It feels pretty nice. I’m not falling in love again unless the person is in it to win me and has room for my air stabbing sword and headwraps collection.
yeah I’ve been alone for a while now though and not super sold on lifetime sea-witch solitude. But I’d certainly rather be on my own than with an indecisive yahoo. Cut ’em all loose!
Coven life, perhaps. Or a Toast Commune life.
I fully support a Toast Coven. Samhain is coming up, guys.
Am I alone in wondering why someone would care that their partner was masturbating in the parent’s house, at night, in the bathroom, quietly, privately? Especially (if it’s a guy) if he’s conscientious about cleaning up. I just…don’t get it? Isn’t that better than having said partner being (possibly) irritable and fidgety during the visit?
You are not alone, it is super weird. It is especially weird to imagine the sort of person that would prefer to barge into the bathroom (!!! just in the first place! Don’t do that! Never do that!!!!!) to embarass their partner or spouse for masturbating, rather than just pretending they don’t know about it, which it seems to me is how every decent human being handles the situation.
I wonder if he was too noisy. Or if the ventilation system allowed for overhearing to an embarrassing degree.
I have so many questions about that one. For instance, how did she even know? Was he being ridiculously loud? Or does she just pop into the bathroom every so often to perform random masturbation checks? I was a little put off by his reaction too, though — telling his wife “OK” and then gloating about doing it anyway. Not the world’s most charming couple, for sure.
I’ve been away from the Toast link round up for a while, has anyone been keeping up on the Creepy-tings / NPS grafitti …. BS? Modern Hiker has broken the story http://www.modernhiker.com/2014/10/23/why-the-cre…
is there anyone out there with whom I can just sputter in rage?
Yes…I sent it around to some curator/artist/built heritage friends and co-workers and we were all sputtering. Seriously, you can make public art without, you know, de-facing wilderness landscapes that belong to EVERYONE. You are not Banksy…just no… You are a self-important, vandalizing, idiot whose social media ways have earned you international scorn AND an excellent chance of hefty fines, if not jail time!
When I saw the first images, I thought they were chalk and I thought ‘that’s not too harmful.’ But acrylics! The more I read about it, the more upset I get. Then I look up the definition of ‘hubris.’
From what I’ve read about Banksy and his ilk, I got the impression their motives were more about reclaiming municipal space for public art. But this, what is it: reclaiming Nature for people?
Love the Robert Genn article and his work! I took a vacation to just paint and make art and see if it’s something I could do every day and it was so satisfying, in many ways much more so than travel, which I also love.
Oooookay Toasties I have a question that cannot wait until the Friday open thread. I am not a particularly outspoken activist type at work, because I do work in a conservative suburb and I am just not a fan of stirring up arguments, but I am also the editor for our book-review blog and I have just pulled up a post where the first line refers to the “young Oriental women” who are the main characters.
Not a huge deal! A minor vocabulary issue! It makes me feel squiffy to post it on an official library blog! As editor, can I just…change it? Should I bring this up with my coworker and risk being told it’s just Not A Big Deal and she shouldn’t have to change and continue to hate my job just a little bit more?
I see two options. I’m sure there are others.
Option One requires confidence and avoids confrontation: Just change it. *If* anyone asks about it (likely no one will), you respond with something like, “Oh, no need to thank me. I knew you didn’t want to use a stereotype so I fixed it for you.”
Option Two requires confidence AND a confrontation: Ask the author the reason for her word choice. Try to sound neutral. Try to look like you care about her response. Shen she’s done, ask why not use other words, something less associated with stereotype.
You’re fighting the good fight. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. You have Toast support.
The spouse always says “That word is going out of fashion.” about stereotyped word choices. It might work because he is a dude.
But you could say “I do a quick google check to see if any words are termed offensive because I like to be careful, and this one was flagged.” or appeal to authority “Oriental is for objects. She is a person.”
I think RoseCamelia and LeastBittern have given excellent advice; the only thing I would add is, if you have an existing policy for how you would handle, like, an obvious typo in a post for this blog, I’d treat this the same. Because, although the issue of authorial intent is different, the result on your end essentially is the same — “This is not the right word, but it is obvious to me what the right word is, so I can change it with confidence that I am not altering your intended meaning.”
What’s the AP Style Guide say? Use that as your shield.
Did anyone read the Guardian piece on artist Margaret Keane? (Found here.)
::fans the flames of misandry::
Seriously, go check it out.
This should probably not be my takeaway but I had no idea that’s how you spelled Jian’s name. I’d only ever heard it spoken on the radio and in my mind it was Gionn Gomeshi.
Seriously, I can’t say how much it means to me to find a safe haven from the Jian-related ridiculousness happening absolutely everywhere else.
My feminist desk mate came into the office this morning and immediately wanted to talk about how we couldn’t really take any of the claims against JG seriously unless they went through the “proper channels.”
My mom texted me last night to ask if she should read 50 Shades of Grey and/or the Lyn Coady book referenced so that she could better understand where Jian is coming from (SERIOUSLY THIS HAPPENED).
Meanwhile, a few years out of an abusive relationship myself, I’m finding the entire thing incredibly draining, and just can. not. muster the emotional strength to go over the minutiae of this story repeatedly with people who aren’t getting it.
So thanks for being here, Toasties! Your comments have improved my day (and faith in humanity) immeasurably.
You could tell her that yes, reading 50 Shades is an excellent way to understand the mindset of someone who wants to cloak his bullying and violence in the language of consensual BDSM.
Apparently Lyn Coady tweeted “I knew Jesus would punish me for writing that story”, which is kind of awesome.
Not allergies per se, but I now have a truly terrible (all-over hives) reaction to amoxicillin after years of taking it for every little thing as a kid. Post-second pregnancy, I seem to be completely intolerant of apples, the greatest fruit ever, and it’s HONEYCRISP SEASON but if I eat one, I am up at 2am with crippling gas cramps. So I’m doing an elimination diet right now and then next week trying a low-FODMAP to see if that makes a difference. I used to love milk and then became lactose-intolerant in my late 20s, but during the last trimester of the first pregnancy, I could drink a gallon of milk a day (and did), and haven’t had lactose problems since.
ETA: DAMN YOU REPLY FUNCTION.
The whole rape thing certainly casts my rose-tinted memories of my 90’s Moxy Fruvous obsession in a much harsher light. 😮 🙁