I suspect I am not the only woman to become involved with men who profess to value her for her ability to be emotionally present, curious and passionate only to reveal, down the road, an expectation that this sort of generosity of time and energy be restricted solely to interests and activities that include them. I hate the idea that there is a type of person whose impulse when witnessing a partner’s clearly rewarding, other-directed engagement is to react with contempt, not celebration; to expect the prioritizing of one’s own needs far above hers. In my experience, daring to honor my interior life — not to mention my professional commitments — has proved, in the context of coupling, to be a controversial, radical act.
Seriously, fuck macarons. Fiddly little bullshit cookies.
I will NOT be taken unawares by the chimps when they come for us. Not me. They’re evil and they’re biding their time.
Respectability politics: not new, not interesting.
You can talk about all the Marvel announcements RIGHT HERE.
psssssst wanna go to a thing?
Roxane on The Feminist Novel:
6
A feminist novel, then, is one that not only deals explicitly with the stories and thereby the lives of women; it is also a novel that illuminates some aspect of the female condition and/or offers some kind of imperative for change and/or makes a bold or unapologetic political statement in the best interests of women.
7
If there is a quintessential feminist novel, it might be Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. At the beginning of part two of Walker’s novel, Tashi, the novel’s protagonist, screams, “Can you bear to know what I have lost?” Hers is a difficult question because by the end of the novel, when we do know as much as we can know of what Tashi has lost, the truth is nearly impossible to bear. We cannot bear to know what she has lost.
This pairs really well with Marissa’s piece from Monday:
Instead of losing myself in sleepless, nauseated despair this time, however, I returned to a small dose of sertraline, swam back to the surface, and resumed life as a mother of normal fears, capable of smiling and laughter.
My goal now, as a writer, editor and friend, is to acknowledge, in a practical, proactive way, the tectonic hormonal and emotional shift that comes with bringing a person into this world, and the importance of preparing for it.
*
On “the Emily Dickinson of photography”:
Though born in the Bronx and raised mostly in France, Maier spent much of her adult life as a nanny in Chicago. Photography was never her profession, but rather a largely secret passion. At her first nannying job in Chicago, she developed her photographs in a bathroom. Over the years, Maier took to hoarding her negatives, amassing tens of thousands of undeveloped snapshots, which she kept in storage lockers.
Maier died in Chicago in 2009, essentially anonymous as an artist and photographer. But in recent years, her work has experienced a rapid renaissance—largely due to the efforts of a former real estate agent, John Maloof, who bought thousands of her unlabeled negatives at an auction in 2007. (Maloof also co-directed a recent documentary about her life.)
My first time watching Pretty Woman.
Oh, hey, lookit someone not being a total human disaster on social media about Jian Ghomeshi.
YES. ALL MY FELLOW MARVEL FANS PLEASE GATHER IN THIS SPACE TO DISCUSS.
So. Katee Sackhoff as Carol Danvers- best idea or BEST IDEA????
May she reign in glory, singing flerkens surrounding her. And may the post-credits scene involve a young girl in a hijab looking up at the New Jersey sky.
I s2g, if the post-credits scene doesn’t involve Kamala in some way, I will burn the Internet to the ground. TO. THE. GROUND.
What if Kamala is just kind of… in the Inhumans?
What if “Inhumans” is just Kamala writing Avengers fanfic for two and a half hours and everyone acting it out.
WHAT IF.
That would be amazing.
I’m just going to assume this is happening until proven otherwise.
I would pay dollars for that. DOLLARS.
WHAT IF SHE GETS A TV SHOW
Totally with you there!!
I know what you mean here, but the Marvel pedant in me needs to point out that Kamala doesn’t wear hijab, her friend Nakia does. A lightning bolt t-shirt or something would be more iconic.
I realized it too late, and yes, you’re right. Maybe at some point she gets pressured into it by her parents? Or it’s Nakia looking up and Kamala’s next to her. ::frantic retconning::
Considering that when Nakia is introduced, there’s a joke about white people being super concerned about whether or not anyone is ~pressuring~ her to wear it (rather than it being her own religious choice), I doubt anyone is going to pressure Kamala into anything. I like the idea of having Kamala looking up, either with Nakia or the rest of her family beside her.
Fair point. I used to get leaned on to wear scarves to church, lest stray tresses inflame the lusts of other congregants (…or whatever the logic was), but you’re right that it’s too easy and far too common an assumption to make in this context.
KATHERYN WINNICK FOR CAROL DANVERS 2014
YES THIS ALWAYS
I’ve also seen Anna Torv as an acceptable suggestion, but Katee Sackhoff is clearly the best idea.
Some of my Tumblr friends have been clamouring for Natalie Dormer as Carol Danvers and I just want to shake them like misbehaving kittens. Part of it is that (unpopular opinion time!) I am beyond tired of Natalie Dormer right now (yeah that’s right, FIGHT ME) but mostly that nobody would be as amazing as Katee Sackhoff. KATEE 4 LYFE.
I adore Natalie Dormer, but she is Not Right for Carol. Katee has the right amount of swagger and vulnerability to pull it off.
Natalie Dormer is a vamp, Carol Danvers is a bro, and never the twain shall meet.
THANK YOU FOR THIS. So tired of Natalie Dormer.
YES. There is no other option. In a charisma-off, Downey Jr. would be ON THE FLOOR. And then Sackhoff would mop it with him.
(Plus like, good actress, right look, etc. but really, these films are 75% charm let’s be real)
Toasties, can we also discuss the fact that Natasha has gotten rid of that dead mop that was on her head in Cap 2 and is back to rocking some great hair??
(that wig was SO BAD)
I like to imagine that was because someone suggested Scarlett keep her Cap 2 hair and she gave them a look and they got so scared they let her choose her own damn hairstyle.
Her hair in Cap2 was still better than the mess of ringlets she had in Iron Man, which also made her look about 13 years old.
Amazing idea – but personally I would also be pretty thrilled with Jessica Chastain or Emily Blunt…
SO EXCITED
I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD!!
Katee Sackhoff: yes. Kamala Khan: 10,000 times yes. Also I’m SO glad that it sounds like Black Panther is going to get a fairly sizable role leading up to his solo movie. Chadwick Boseman is going to be awesome.
where is our Black Widow movie though? (will also settle for a Red Room prequel)
My hope at this point is we’ll get some Red Room stuff in Age of Ultron, from what we’ve seen from the teasers. Something tells me that’s the closest we’re going to get to Natasha back-story.
I’m going to admit straight up to really REALLY wanting a Hawkeye miniseries. Because it’s my favorite comic and I NEED KATE BISHOP IN ALL FORMS IMMEDIATELY
yeah, I have that feeling too re: AoU buuuuuuuuuuuut I still wish for a BW movie and there’s so much you can do with the Red Room stuff.
a Hawkeye miniseries would be AMAZING. it should also star America Chavez though, just sayin’
I am very happy about Captain Marvel, but for a wild moment I thought it was MS. Marvel and that was a magical moment.
I saw the words “Captain Marvel movie” on my twitter feed and started crying. While sitting on a bench at my daughter’s school playground. It was awesome.
I saw “Captain Marvel movie” on my RSS reader and I was almost afraid to click on it because I was SO NERVOUS it wouldn’t be Carol Danvers. And then I breathed a big happy sigh of relief once I read the article.
There is nothing I hate more than someone who wants to interrogate you about your reading preferences. “So, what are you reading? Oh? You LIKE that? Why do you like it? Don’t you find it boring/banal/juvenile/snobby/overwrought/whatever?” No, you fool, if I found it any of those things I wouldn’t BE READING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. (Also, maybe I just read fast, but I would never go on a trip with just ONE book. What if you finish it???)
Everyone should read what they want to read (except, you know, Mein Kampf, no one read that unless you are actively studying the interwar period in Germany, and even then it’s garbage) and just stop harassing other people about it. I solved this problem by marrying a man who doesn’t particularly like to read, but enjoys hearing about the books I read and retelling the plots. Once we passed an hour-long traffic jam while I related to him, in detail, a Stephen King short story.
equally annoying is the person who won’t accept that your tastes in authors differ. “Oh, you’ve read and didn’t appreciate work by X author? You must not have read it correctly. I mean, I know it’s better than Y author you like, or Z author I haven’t even read, but Y/Z aren’t X and therefore your literary tastes are inferior”
harrumph.
Did you know my ex??
Mine too.
I GET it, I just don’t LIKE it. Sheesh dudes.
“I get it, I just don’t like it,” has become my sole contribution to the conversation whenever A Man tries to explain Quentin Tarantino to me. NO STOP FUCK OFF FOREVER (also why does this happen so much, what is it about fucking Tarantino)
It’s the same for jokes: “I got it, it’s just not funny.”
Do you know my sister?
I seem to routinely get interrogated by people who apparently have never read a book before. They like to interrupt me while I’m eating lunch to ask me what I’m reading. Then I tell them and they’ve never heard of it. I tell them who the author is and they’ve never heard of them. I explain what else the author has done, emphasizing any movies they might’ve been involved in and somehow they’ve never heard of any of the movies. I explain what genre it is and they stare at me blankly. Then I return to my sandwich. (I’ve stopped eating lunch in the breakroom just to stop having this conversation.)
People asking me what I’m eating for lunch is one of my biggest pet peeves–which I realize is super unreasonable, but I’m eating lunch leave me alone with my beautiful food.
these are the same people who seem to believe that one must never be alone, ever. like, if you’re in the breakroom reading, it’s because you’re sad and lonely and you need someone to talk to, not because you actually want to ENJOY YOUR BOOK on your break!
I experience excruciating embarrassment every time someone asks me what I’m reading. I find it nearly impossible to give neat summaries in the middle of the book, because I’m still amongst the details. I usually just awkwardly flip to show them the cover, and then stammer something about the genre. It’s terrible. Please never ask what I’m reading, just ask if it’s good or not. I’ll probably say yes.
Me too! It’s especially bad when I’m reading on my Kindle and can’t just flash the cover.
I think it’s pretty rude to ask a stranger what they’re reading, honestly. Even if you’re not doing it as a gross pickup tactic (which you probably are, let’s be real), they’re reading! They don’t want to talk to you!
I have such a fear of ending up running out of reading material on a trip that I once took five books on a four-day beach trip and yet forgot to pack even one pair of underwear. Priorities.
I love giving detailed blow by blow accounts of books and films, it’s why people pretend they can’t see me if I run into them in the street.
There is a particular kind of dude who will tell you all about how he’s read Mein Kampf ‘because he just finds evil fascinating.’ This dude will be the least fascinating person you’ve ever met.
Macaroons > macarons. THE END.
TRUTH
Like do you want a tiny, pointless, technicolour sandwich, or do you want a textured, irregularly-shaped hunk of coconut that came by its deliciousness HONESTLY?
YES TEXTURE AND COCONUT AND LITERAL MOUNDS OF IT MMMMMMMMM > waxy neon colored pretentious cookie nonsense
It’s funny you should say macarons are waxy because I generally find that to be true of macaroons – they mostly seem to be piles of over-sweetened coconut shavings held together with wax.
Although, my fave cafe used to have these amazing, really moist coconut chili lime macaroons, but they don’t seem to make them anymore 🙁
You’re correct, that is a flaw of most pre-packaged macaroons. But in a nice bakery they should be chewy fall apart goodness.
Macaroons should never be waxy: its coconut held together with sugar and egg maybe flavored w a little vanilla essence. They should be like the toasted insides of bounty bars but better and they disappear in seconds if you bring them for a morning tea
MACAROONS: The Honest Person’s Dessert!
I think Macarons wouldn’t be so exasperating if they weren’t like 3 dollars each.
if you buy them 10 at a time you never have to think about how much they are individually
NOTHING WILL MAKE ME LOVE COCONUT
I LOVE ALMONDS AND MACARONS
*creed arms*
I cant’ be doing with coconut at all, I want macaroons with almond flavour!
There’s a stall at the sort-of-farmer’s-market here that sells big macaroons in various flavors. They’re making them at the market so everything around it smells nice. They rule.
Yes, 1000 times yes! Have you seen these cute confetti ones?
God I love coconut so much. And I’ve still never eaten a macaron because every time I see them I’m like “wait, I thought you said you had macaroons.”
And people who say “Do you want a macaroon?” and then have the gall to look at me strangely when I try to clarify “macaROON or macaROHN?” … those people are the worst. Two cookies. Completely different. How are you in your late 20s/early 30s/beyond and don’t know that they’re different and pronounced differently and arrrgggghhhhh.
I found out just now on this comment thread, and I’ve been eating both (and calling them both “macaroons”) for years. I just figured they had the same name and context would make clear which one you were eating.
That, and the word “macaroon” is just an older Anglicized version of “macaron” anyway and was traditionally also made with almonds, although in the U.S. coconut is more common.
And actually, doing research for this comment I discovered that macarons weren’t served two-by-two with filling between them until the 1800s, meaning that a roughly circular dollop of almond meringue baked into a cookie would have described both desserts for hundreds of years before the advent of the sandwich variety. In fact, other than the popular globe shape of the American coconut macaroon, a macaron IS just two macaroons squished together as a sandwich. Some of the pictures of international almond-based macaroons on the Wikipedia article look just like the pictures of the pre-sandwich macarons on *that* Wikipedia article.
Americans are just weird to be calling coconut balls “macaroons” at all. Maybe we could start calling the spherical coconut cookies “congolais” to avoid confusion.
The best cookie is the Persian macaroon/macaron. They combine the best parts of macarons (made from almonds, light and fluffy) with the best parts of macaroons (not horrfying colors, taste like what they’re made of). They also often have the virtue of being studded with pistachios, which are the best nut.
If you’re in the bay area, I urge you to seek out Tara’s mediterranean almond cookies. They are life changing. Tara is a real person, and she is delightful as well. http://blog.sigonas.com/2010/01/12/local-vendor-s…
This is where I will put my shout out to my favorite version of the all-nut, no-flour cookie: Zimtsterne. Think of a base like a French macaron but with more coarsely ground nuts so it comes out denser and chewier. Add a touch of cinnamon and rose water, and top with a very thin veneer of royal icing. Let dry overnight to let the icing harden some it’s crackly in your mouth and bake on low heat, taking them out before the icing colors.
ooh i love Zimsterne, especially with strong, unsweetened tea.
I never think of them as a cookie, though, because the best ones in Germany are always sold in the candy shops!
Both macaroons and macarons are GARBAGE!
I’ll take Unpopular Opinions for 400, Alex.
I realize that Marvel didn’t actually announce anyone for Doctor Strange, and that the current rumor is Bandersnatch Cummerbund, but I really, really want it to be Pedro Pascal. I really really want that. Like a LOT.
That would be amazing! I’ve always visualized Oded Fehr but yours is even better, and I would watch Pascal in just about anything.
ME TOO. Oh god the charm, the wry grin, the weirdness. HE WOULD BE SO GOOD AAAAAAAAHHHHHH
Pallettown Snagglesnatch needs to just SIT THE FUCK DOWN. I’m a pretty die-hard Sherlock fan and even I’m getting sick of him.
Seconded.
Doc Strange seems ready for a genderswap. Janeane Garofalo plz.
i didn’t know how much i wanted this until right now. i would pay so much to see that.
rinkydink curdlesnoot would be the MOST BORING CHOICE aside from patrick dempsy who was also rumored.
Pedro Pascal A+++++
So the newest Toast game is getting Rinkadink Fandywipe’s name wrong.
I’m ready!
to be fair it’s an old game … but a joyous one.
http://benedictcumberbatchgenerator.tumblr.com/
rinkydink curdlesnoot is from here (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/archie-bland-youre-a-posho-benedict-just-shut-up-about-it-8049673.html) which includes the wonderful line “This isn’t about denying the rights of the famous to have feelings; I don’t mean for a second that if someone shouts “FETCH THE CAVIAR, IT’S RINKYDINK CURDLESNOOT, THE GREAT PONCE” at Cumberbatch in the street, he isn’t entitled to feel aggrieved.”
And now there is soda everywhere.
Don’t drink and read, friends. “Ponce” is a word that needs to get more play in the US.
The Extra Hot Great (v1.0) podcast did a solid 4minutes of just variations on his name. Eggybread Wonderlatch is one of my go tos. At least the Eggybread part, I feel it describes his face well.
If y’all don’t see me here for the next couple of months, it’s because I’m rereading everything Alice Walker ever wrote. Thanks, Roxane.
This is unrelated, but I just saw a facebook post of a guy I did a school tour with a while ago re: that street harassment video, pretty much saying “I’m not saying this is good but EBOLA guys get your priority straight.” When I worked with him, he was generally an inconsiderate asshat and on more than one occasion made creepy comments to me and the other ladies in the tour. UGH. Nothing to be done, just venting.
Yeah, that video’s doing the rounds in my facebook feed as well, and the number of men going “They’re just complimenting you! That’s not harrassment!” makes me want to set everyone on fire.
I’ve seen it, too on a friend’s page and a woman commented that she appreciates being “recognized” on the street and the lady in the video should shut up and take the compliments. And then I cried.
A friend of mine posted that video and someone commented “Respectable people don’t “holla.” I’d like to see her walking on the Upper East Side.”
1. SHUT UP YOU ENORMOUS ASSHOLE
2. You have lived in Chicago your whole fucking life as has the person who posted the video!
3. Just say you mean “white people,” please. Fucking hell.
My friend deleted it before I had the chance to yell any more.
New York neighborhoods I’ve been catcalled in:
Midtown East
LES
Chelsea
Flatiron
Elmhurst
Jackson Heights
This happens literally everywhere, regardless of demographics in the neighborhood.
I recently got my boobs groped by a passing stranger on Lexington Avenue in the 60s. You’re not safe anywhere.
uhhhhh I work on the UES and not only have I been catcalled on a pretty much weekly basis, I’ve also had supposedly “respectable” people (read: men) in freaking lab coats with M.D. embroidered next to their name sit down next to me at cafes, invade my personal space to read my laptop over my shoulder, and then be all, “Oh, what are you writing? Are you a writer? That’s neat, wanna tell me about it?” NO MOTHERFUCKER MY LUNCHTIME IS MY I-DON’T-HAVE-TO-INTERACT-WITH-PEOPLE TIME.
Also ew, man, don’t read my vampire erotica over my shoulder and then try top lay 20 questions about it, srsly piss off.
Also, wasn’t the whole point of the video that she walked around literally the entire city? And at the end of the video there was even a little blurb that explicitly fucking stated that?
The director on the video went on Reddit and said that the people who catcalled her were pretty much representative of the population as a whole. But a lot of the non-minority catcallers/harassers were off camera or did things that were more subtle (just leering or winking) and so didn’t make the cut for the very condensed video.
I live in a wealthy, idyllic small town in New England that is FULL UP with white people, and I get harassed almost daily (BY WHITE DUDES) come onnnnn
My mom, who is Latina but has some pretty heavily entrenched patterns of internalized racism, insists on being like, “Whenever street harassment happens to me, it’s always blacks and hispanics, always,” and every freaking time I have to be like “but confirmation bias, Mom, and also that’s you being racist so knock it off.”
It’s…upsetting.
Ah, yeah. One of my friends called me all upset recently because she was talking about street harassment with her mom (a white lady) and her mom casually said that young black men were scarier and more likely to catcall than anyone else. With some prodding, it became clear that this opinion was based on how one time some black teenagers surrounded her car while she was driving in a city and banged on the windows. Apparently she was insisting that it couldn’t possibly be racist because it was based on her real life experience or whatever. My friend couldn’t get her to back down or see the many, many problems with that view and left the conversation feeling very rattled to learn that her mom was capable of being so transparently racist.
Do better, moms!
Wait, should we be harassing Ebola? Or giving Ebola to harassers? See if you can get him to clear that up.
I vote for both!
I’m picturing white blood cells just trailing after Ebola virions going ‘hey… heyyyy’
I just do not understand why dudebros say that women are attention-seekers when that whole video is endless men going “Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. Why aren’t you paying attention to meeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
Someone in my friend’s facebook feed said, “She should chill out, she wont get that much attention pretty soon”.
$@*(&%@&*(#%&*GARBAGE.
noooooooooooooooooope
A work friend and I (both 25) once got this from an older female coworker who wandered into an animated conversation we were having about street harassment (“you’ll miss it when you’re my age”). It was extremely disappointing.
keep it classy humans, keeping it classy. I looked at his comment and thought. Fuck, not even worth responding to.
“I’m not saying this is good I’m just completely derailing the conversation because I don’t understand how anything works”
YEP. Because why talk about a pervasive issue with a simple fix that doesn’t cost anything (DON’T YELL THINGS AT WOMEN AND DON’T LET YOUR FRIENDS GET AWAY WITH THAT SHIT) when we, the medically-qualified facebook masses, could be out solving a global health crisis? That’s probably with street harassers were doing, anyhow! Let the men do their job. Loudly objectifying women is an important step in the scientific method.
but you guyz srsly, EBOLAS! ICEBUCKET CHALLENGEZ!!! Won’t someone think of the things that matter? No? Just me, ok fine, stay shallow, see if I care.
It’s interesting that that’s what he picked as his derailment topic though since it’s DRAMATICALLY more likely that a woman in the United States will be affected by sexual harassment and/or assault than fucking ebola.
It’s always the biggest, most horrifying crisis of the moment, though. Usually with a side of White Man’s Burden, to boot (“how dare you lament your trifling concerns when the poor unfortunate souls in [country full of non-white people] are suffering so terrible”). Because women can either care about themselves, or care about other people. There’s no balance of interests or concerns in the female psyche.
Oatmeal Cookies, maaaaaan. Oatmeal cookies w walnuts and dark chocolate chips. This is all the world needs. This is my primary policy platform.
Yes to all cookies oatmeal. I’ve never understand the opposition on this point. The oatmeal means you can further up the butter:flour ratio while also adding a texture to wrap your butter around.
It’s because people put raisins in them. Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are fantastic.
I have never to this day finished eating an oatmeal cookie with chocolate chips in it. Raisins or bust. Chocolate chips are for *chocolate chip cookies*, dammit!
You have my vote! I tend to just stick to the oatmeal and raisin, not sure how I overlooked chocolate walnut based oatmeal cookies!
I do not begrudge raisins! Dried cranberries or cherries (I did this once OMG) are also a welcome addition.
Best cookies: oatmeal with cherries and hazelnuts. Now to dry the drool off my keyboard.
i LOVE to add hazelnuts. Grrrrrrrl
Dried cherries! The only fruit acceptable in an oatmeal cookie.
Dried cherries and either walnuts or pecans. Sorry chocolate, this is not your rodeo.
Ooh, I’ve done raisins and cranberries but really any dried fruit would work, wouldn’t it? Maybe a mixture of cherries and blueberries?
I add cinnamon and butterscotch chips to my oatmeal cookies and they taste like autumn.
you have my vote.
Oatmeal…and dates.
(Dates! If brown sugar was fruit, it would dates.)
Yes! As a kid I was obsessed with Archway’s (anyone remember them?) date-filled oatmeal cookies. I’d nibble around the out edges and save the sweet sweet gooey center for last. aaahhhhhh.
#mindblown
The only acceptable oatmeal cookie is the Rubies & Pearls cookies my former boss would make around the holidays, which were oatmeal cookies with cranberries and white chocolate chips. No walnuts, no raisins, pure deliciousness.
white chocolate is a lie, but I respect your allegiance
…well, I know what I’m baking this weekend!
i am literally eating an oatmeal cookie right now. My student worker made them for us and they are fat and delicious and my minions are the best minions.
I have never had a macaron. Is there something I’m missing? I am so hesitant to jump off of #teamcupcake because, well, they’re fucking delicious.
Also, BLACK PANTHER AND CAPTAIN MARVEL FUCK YEAH
I actually really like them! Only have eaten them a handful of times but they were always tasty to me. And they come in flavors like ROSE.
I’m kind of meh about them (too sugary, kind of messy, texture often isn’t quite right), but I had one in Paris that was quince/rose and amazing. Like a lot of desserts, they’re easy to make mediocre and hard to do really well.
(However, my coworker occasionally buys them for me in exchange for editing his writing or him eating all my snacks, and I always eat them. Not gonna turn down free fancy baked goods!)
I love macarons and cannot stand cupcakes. (Cupcakes *can* be great, but I feel like they’re usually just not that good. TINY DRY CAKE IS SO SAD.) When macarons are done well, they’re MAGICAL
What everyone else said, but you do not have to decide. The bakery who made my wedding mini-cupcakes also made a lovely selection of fall-themed macarons. It was delicious.
Yes, just eat all the desserts!
Good macarons are delicious. Unfortunately, they’re hard to distinguish visibly from bad macarons, and they cost way too much to hope for the best. A friend makes them occasionally and says they aren’t hard, and hers turn out delicious so I usually just wait for her to bake them.
I love macarons and I don’t care what people say. I’m hesitant to make them because they look fiddly as hell, but they are crisp little delights and they come in exotic and lovely flavors. My boss’s daughter is a pastry chef and once she brought in pistachio-passionfruit AND chocolate-lavender macarons. I ate a disproportionate number of them because dammit, I am willing to be that person.
Ugh they are SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE. I love macarons, I think they’re so pretty and I feel so fancy if I eat them with tea. They’re second only to gelato in terms of delightful variations of flavors. But I tried to make macarons last year, and they all crumbled and were…well I guess they kind of reminded me of every time Hagrid’s treacle fudge was described in the books, except they came in pastel.
I made them once and good god never again. Cupcakes on the other hand, are made about twice a week. I liked eating the macarons, but not enough to faff about with them again.
What I really like about the Toast is that we are not allowed to criticise each other’s book and movie opinions, but are encouraged to say things like what I am about to say, which is:
FUCK CUPCAKES THEY ARE DISGUSTING.
A really good macaron is amazing. A bad one is garbage. Macaroons are pretty good.
See, if cupcakes were actually like cakes baked into small cups, I would love them. But they’re not. They’re flavorless sugar pellets topped with a mound of sweetened food coloring, and that is NOT OKAY.
The best cupcakes are actually muffins.
Consider, for instance, the doughnut muffin: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/doughnut-m…
(These are basically, well, cake, but they are awesome and everyone I have fed them to loves them)
Can anybody recommend a recipe for a cookie that’s sort of like a macaron, but without the fiddly bullshit? I make killer pie crusts and scones, but I’m not really interested in tackling tiny difficult cookies. But I still want a delicious crunchy almond-based thing that I can make into a jam or frosting sandwich.
I’ll be watching this space to also be informed on this important issue.
I’ve never made these, just eaten them (in massive quantities) but – Ricciarelli cookies! They are Italian almond flour/almond paste cookies. From Googling a few recipes, they don’t look too hard to make. Definitely easier than macarons!
These recipes looks decent: http://www.italymagazine.com/recipe/precious-chri… and http://www.divinacucina.com/ricciarelli.html
I’ve never heard of those, which is a shame, because they look just about perfect for what I want. Thanks!
Ricciarelli cookies! Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes!
Meringues can work with almond flavoring or ground almonds worked into them, and the only fiddly bits are beating the eggs stiff and then leaving the cookies to dry completely. They don’t need nearly as much coddling and don’t get demerits for BS appearance issues.
I’ll give that a try one of these days.
I love it when a cookie or something comes out lopsided. Means I have to eat it right away 🙂
Your wish is my command: Smitten Kitchen’s almond amaretti cookies.
(I’ve never made macaron, but I’ve made these, and from what I’ve gathered, they’re much less fussy to make and equally delicious.)
I love Smitten Kitchen! The almond amaretti recipe is probably bookmarked in my ‘to try’ folder, in fact. I’ll move it to the top of the heap now.
I think macarons have a reputation for being harder than they are. If you did want to try them I use this recipe (and vary the flavor) and it’s pretty forgiving. Everyone who I’ve recommended it to has been pretty successful. http://www.anediblemosaic.com/?p=4223
I think also that people have CRAZY ABSURD standards for their macarons being perfect on like the first try. My experience has been with the exception of one dramatic baking failure, even when they haven’t been perfect they have been delicious!
Not only are imperfect macarons still delicious, people will still be impressed that you made macarons at all!
The only thing people have been more impressed by my attempting is croissants, and those can take literal DAYS. Macarons are much more sensible than croissants.
Good point. I should probably try at least once before dismissing macarons as beyond my skill level. After all, as long I avoid carbonizing them, they’ll still be edible. I might have to crumble them on top of ice cream, but that’s no hardship.
They are great with ice cream! DO IT
A lot of macaroons (not macarons) have almond as an ingredient: either flaked, ground, or in a paste. (I once used half coconut and half ground almonds to make macaroons because I ran out of coconut…). If you make them flatter, instead of in a ball shape, they could easily make a yummy frosting sandwich. And macaroons are way easier to make than macarons.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=coconut+almond+…
Coconut and almond sounds like an excellent combination. My mom has my all-time favorite coconut macaroon recipe, so I’ll probably start there and do some experimenting.
This recipe is simple and like magic, especially when just out of the oven. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Almo… I use slivered almonds because I have them, and don’t bother with confectioners sugar. One day, with way too many egg whites, I also substituted the almond with walnuts and maple syrup (less sugar) and vanilla, and hazelnut with chocolate chips. It all disappeared very quickly. They are not pretty, though. Like a coconut macaroon, but with almonds.
Linzer cookies? http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all…
Almond-based and amazing (though not GF, if that’s what you were trying for)- -http://allrecipes.com/recipe/vanille-kipferl-ii/
My Oma used to make them, and they are so so so good!
I am so conflicted about the Captain Marvel announcement. On one hand YAY FEMALE SUPERHERO SOLO MOVIE OMG. On the other… wow, aren’t we so excited for this crumb of acknowledgement. :-/
and even with a female lead – will it pass the bechdel test??
Yeah. Exactly.
Basically, I’m holding off being super excited until I see the costume, and then I will hold off until actually seeing it to be happy. Yeah, yeah, I know, super cynical blah blah blah.
I’m optimistic that it will-I mean, Thor & Thor 2 both pass and they are the bro-iest movies in the best possible sense of the word.
IMO, gotta be excited about our victories when we get ’em.
Also it’s three and a half years away, because apparently we first need Doctor Strange and two more sequels to movies which already have one sequel each.
(I won’t complain about Black Panther, obviously the list of Marvel movie protagonists was also short on black people so that’s fine.)
I hope they follow DC’s lead and get more women involved behind the scenes—DC is rumored to be looking for a female director for Wonder Woman, which is rare.
also please keep joss whedon FAR away from this, k thx.
http://glamaphonic.tumblr.com/post/87636925209/to… http://glamaphonic.tumblr.com/post/46941704962/ms…
Ooof, Pretty Woman is so my Bad Feminist Shame (and OVERBOARD oh dear god, I love me some Overboard). It was my favourite movie for all of my adolescence; I am powerless against the charms of shopping! and big smiles! and sliver foxes! and snapping jewellery boxes! and putting your feet on grass! So much so that I haven’t watched it in years out of fear of how much I will probably still enjoy it, but I can easily remember the dialogue and delivery in each of those screen grabs.
Excuse me while I go blast some “King of Wishful Thinking.”
OVERBOARD! It’s so wrong, but it’s soooo right.
I have barely even followed the shitshow that is Jian Ghomeshi coverage, but that post by Owen Pallett just brought me to tears.
I have loved Owen Pallett for many years, and doesn’t it just make you so happy when an artist whose work you admire also proves that they’re a stand-up human? Too often it goes the other way around.
So true! I especially loved the “just because they’re anonymous doesn’t mean they don’t exist” line.
I’d been waiting for him to say something about it, because I knew it would be exactly as thoughtful and lovely and sad as it was. And I was not disappointed. Owen has always been a stand-up person.
Guys, the book thing. Does this…does this happen often, with men? I don’t know if I have been particularly lucky with the women I’ve been involved with or if this is yet another Male Horror of which I’ve remained blissfully ignorant or what, but Jesus Bugfuck Christ it is infantile.
It definitely was a contributing factor in the dissolution of my first engagement. I’d honestly have been happy if he read at all. As it was, the closest he came was Maxim, and um, yeah. He didn’t really appreciate that every time I moved, half of what needed to get packed up was books. He just simply didn’t get it when I wanted to sit and read rather than get high or play hacky-sack or watch TV or drive until I’d burned through my gas budget for the week or play Tiger Woods video games. It didn’t make sense to him. So we’d end up fighting constantly about how to spend leisure time.
Also contributed to another long-term relationship ending–he actively didn’t understand what I found appealing in certain authors and books and would be extremely dismissive toward them. Made me wonder what else he felt that way about. (eta: turned out, a lot!)
Hahaha my boyfriend doesn’t really read, but it happy to let me read, so I can avoid the whole thing. He’s just like “good book? ok cool! I hate Jian Ghomeshi too I love you!”
Good. Good partner. Good job. Congratulations on your good taste and fortune. Yes.
I definitely had a Prolonged Thing with a girl in college even though she had multiple Ayn Rand books, so…
yes, it happens. oddly enough, if i wanted to read it was BAD, but i was fully expected to be okay with coming over and watching him play video games…
if i wanted to read while he played? i wasn’t admiring/appreciating him doing what he enjoyed.
i am quick to cut the cord and this dude got no special treatment.
Ohh man… big fat NOPE to dudes who expect you to sit around and watch them play video games.
uuuuuggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
and the worst is when they make a fake-ass ploy toward involving you, like “here, you play for a while!” but this is, like, an MMORPG or some bullshit that takes a month to become proficient at, not an old-school fighting or racing game that you could learn the moves to in 5 seconds. So you suck because you’re playing a character you didn’t design and don’t know any of the “theory” and it’s no fun at all.
so you have to VOLUNTARILY hand the controller back and say “no, you play, it’s fine” because the only thing worse than watching THEM play is them watching YOU play, *badly*.
Afterwards I’d console myself by going home and popping a cartridge into the N64 and playing REAL games that required REFLEXES and TIMING until I felt better.
I actually enjoy watching my husband play xbox. I have the hand-eye coordination of a newborn fawn, so have never gotten into playing, myself. The nice thing is that we are really playing as a team—he just manages the controls. I’m am helping solve puzzles and choose quests. It helps that he is into more narrative-based games (Red Dead, Bioshock, Skyrim) and not sports games or first-person shooters.
Also, I am free to Do Other Things at any time.
Anyway, You Do You and It Takes All Kinds.
I’ve never had this happen in a relationship before… although I think if a partner tried to read while we were supposed to be hanging out I might also whine and paw at them a little! I think it’s great when people have relationships where they can sit in a room together and read independently if that’s what they’re into, but if we’re going to hang out I want to actually spend time together. I don’t know, maybe I’m weird.
I completely understand this. Mr. Wren considers “hanging out together” to be sitting in the same room, usually while he’s playing a video game and I’m doing whatever. I…have a hard time with that. Sometimes I love it! But sometimes, I need to have some quality time where we interact and don’t just exist in the same space. Needless to say, it’s something we’re continually working on.
No, no, I’m with you there. I think context and degree are important. Like, if you set aside time to spend together, doing something *together*, withdrawing from that without any kind of communication is gonna be hurtful. But if you live together or almost live together and *every time* you try to engage in an activity that doesn’t directly involve your partner that partner paws at you like a puppy? That is…no. No. That is a child. Do not date children.
It was described as…I dunno, as almost an entitlement? To your attention, and to being the center of…attention, *at all times*? Which is what struck me as childish, and is also what made my patriarchy sense go all tingly.
Some of my happiest times with my husband are sitting on the sofa together, my feet in his lap, while I read and he watches something, and all we say to each other is ‘I love you’ when we make eye contact.
If we want to, you know, do stuff together we go out. In my own house I don’t want to feel like I have to perform as a non-internal person. I like to read, play games, write. Most of these things involve living inside my own head.
Yes, yes to this sentiment. Yes. You are lucky to have someone who understands this.
I absolutely agree and have now resolved to keep my house a Quiet, Personal Activities Only space and explain to anyone I date in future that if we are going to “hang out,” it will be somewhere else, with a definite start and end time, because home is where we rest, not where we perform. Perfect.
Like a mom taking naps when her infant is sleeping, I have to schedule my reading time around my boyfriend’s busy-doing-something-else time. Reading does not equal Busy to him. If I am on the computer reading, this also counts as A Good Time To Chat. Now if I am playing video games, he leaves me alone.
So my leisure time has been gradually changing from reading to video games over the years.
My mother does this when I visit (or when she visits me).
It’s especially maddening because when I was a kid, she used to get annoyed if I interrupted her reading time.
Totally happens. My ex used to *lie on top of my book* whenever I opened one, to prevent me from reading. I guess he thought he was a cat. Unfortunately for him, cats are cuter.
Wow that Nat Geo article was fantastic, in case people didn’t click through. Very interesting bits about being a woman and a scientist and being a chimp.
“On top of that, Pruetz’s post-doc adviser, Cambridge University primatologist William McGrew, made a passing reference to the Fongoli hunting behaviors but did not credit her with the work. He credited her co-author and former student Paco Bertolani, now a student of McGrew’s.” !!
Or
” Pruetz and others argue that female chimps are not only more skilled than males at crafting and using tools, but also more diligent. Craig Stanford agrees that it might well have been our female ancestors who first steered the culture toward tool use. “
“I asked Pruetz if perhaps she’s been the victim of an alpha male primatologist conspiracy. She laughed it off. “Yeah, maybe I’m not pant-grunting enough.””
Heh, last time I was at a primatology conference, one of the “alpha males” in the field asked my male colleague a few questions about his research and then complimented me on my earrings. <3
It really was! And the bit about how far it is acceptable to anthropomorphise creatures which share behaviours with humans -the spitting! The playing at flying!
I loved the article but it also enraged me with how shitty and sexist some of those primatologist dudes are. Being sexist is making you a worse scientist, both by how you’re ignoring the work of female scientists and by how you refuse to believe that female chimps could be smart enough to develop tools and hunt.
YES! I had never thought about how sexism would translate into interference with research of other species.
Yes yes! Like that post about archaeologists dismissing representative sculpture as “porn” and that article about how anthropomorphic biases lead us to talk about such nonsensical things as adulterous fish. (If anyone can find a link to that article, I’d be grateful, can’t find it anywhere :/)
I read “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” by Carl Sagan (it’s old, I’m a little off topic, sorry, sorry) All chimp behaviors were male behaviors unless they were about raising offspring. It was disappointing.
If you are interested in chimps, you have got to read “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by Karen Joy Fowler. It is definitely one of the WEIRDER books I’ve read in a long time, but in a delightful and great way.
yes, it was so good! And then maybe read The Woman and the Ape by Peter Høeg which is even WEIRDER .
Yes! What a wonderful, lovely, bittersweet book. It actually made me like chimps a lot more.
I HATE macarons.
Also, gotta hand it to the article writer for subtly squeezing in that “consciously coupled” joke. I’m ready to consciously uncouple from this macaron-fad-thing.
Yes. Fuck raisins.
Uh, that was in reply to plspassthePinot’s oatmeal cookie stance.
Oatmeal raisin cookies are a big reason why I have trust issues. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT ISN’T A CHOCOLATE CHIP, YOU FIEND.
HA!
The macaron think piece seems at least two years too late.
that ship has sailed.
Yes. That is what I was thinking as well.
Roxane Gay writing about Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy??? This day just got 1000x better.
It’s a wonderful, terrifying novel and, now that I think of it, you can perhaps see echoes of Walker’s writing in the way RG writes about embodiment and disembodiment in the face of violence in An Untamed State. That idea that “the truth is nearly impossible to bear,” but that the whole narrative takes place within that “nearly.”
Owen Pallett!!!! Hopefully his words will put some things in perspective for Gomeshi defenders; it was very simply put, but powerful.
On a more trivial thought: it’s so strange when your music world collides with your reading/current events world.
Owen Pallett is a good writer, yeah
I did not think it was possible for me to respect Owen Pallett more.
That was an amazing post.
I actually really like macarons, but I just can’t get behind paying $5 for a single-bite cookie. Worst dessert value in town if you ask me!
Hell yeah new Mary Roach piece about chimps
I hope this means we’ll get a Mary Roach book about the study of apes.
LUV HUH! I think Bonk is pretty much tied with Jane Eyre as my favorite book ever.
This reminds me that I need to get on that plan to read more of her! I loved Packing for Mars, and have been meaning to pick up Gulp (the digestive system was my favourite system when I did that unit on bodily systems when I was 10).
I clicked on this link roundupfrom facebook and my first thought when I saw the icon was “fuck macarons”. Glad to see the consensus is mutual.
can’t lie, I had a moment of horror at that. “but they’re so fluffy and sea-shell shaped and if you make them with cardamom, they’re delish~~~”
then i realized i was thinking of madeleines and yup, fuck macarons.
That post about Jion is wonderful. It’s also bringing up some serious issues that I have come up against recently. One of my good friends found some blog posts online by someone he had slept with a year ago saying she isn’t sure if the sex they had was consensual (without naming him). I have no idea what to feel about this because he had no idea that she felt that way either at the time or in reflection. She wrote and he also said that not only did she never say no, she said yes and was not pressured before and during each time they had sex. In the interest of full disclosure I have also had sex with this friend and I have never been with someone more fastidious about asking consent at every stage and stopping if he had even an inkling that I might not be into it to talk about it and make sure. Other people he’s been with have told me the same thing. He had also told me before he even knew about this (they have not been together for about a year and the accusations are recent) that she had sometimes pressured him into having sex when he wasn’t sure but he didn’t consider it abuse.
I am not trying to minimize her emotions and I have always taken the side of the person saying they were abused but I just don’t know what to think. I believe absolutely in affirmative consent but if a “yes” was given freely and without pressure multiple times during the act what more could he have done? I would like to believe that I can see facts above subjectivity and I know even people who seem like good people can do bad things. But the facts as they were given on both sides don’t add up to abuse to me and I do not want to turn against a good friend who I don’t know if I believe has done anything wrong.
Is it clear that the posts are actually about him? Since she didn’t name him, might she be talking about someone else she slept with around the same time?
It was confirmed by mutual friends that it is about him. She just doesn’t name him online. And I don’t think any charges are going to be pressed. It’s just a lot for me to deal with, surprisingly.
If all outward signs showed consent, your friend didn’t exert pressure, but your friend’s partner in her own mind didn’t actually want to have sex, your friend did nothing wrong. That doesn’t mean his partner wasn’t hurt, it’s just not a hurt that was his fault. (It’s also not his partner’s fault.)
That’s how I’ve been thinking about it so thank you for saying it. I don’t know her own experience but I know I have said yes (aloud and of my own volition) to sex that I wasn’t totally interested in and felt gross about it after so I understand how sex can be a negative thing without being either person’s fault. I don’t know this girl and I wish her no ill will. I have been so afraid to talk to anyone about this, though (obviously I’m even posting anon here). I am trying to honor the feelings and lives of everyone involved and I am hoping that the two of them just leave each other alone and go on their own ways.
In Japan, Laduree (the macaron people) has its own makeup brand.
This is a blush:
This is silly and wonderful. I want the one on the right.
OMG, I bet that blush costs $300. I wonder how dewey my cheeks would look decked out in it?
$160. Good lord. It’s BLUSH.
Maybe it comes with gently tweeting bluebirds to apply it to you, Snow White style.
It’d better come with a flock of egrets for that price.
Screw you haters, more macarons for me.
Friends, I don’t want to be a wet blanket at the Marvel party, but I got to admit that my enthusiasm for all these things has dimmed pretty substantially. I am happy about the idea of Black Panther and Captain Marvel in principle (also about the Inhumans, because the leader of the Inhumans is Black Bolt, whose real name is Blackagar Boltagon [!!!!])..
but you know, these Marvel movies have become increasingly bound to a House Style — Edgar Wright getting fired from Ant-Man for being too much like Edgar Wright (as though there might be any other imaginable reason to watch an Ant-Man movie) is a pretty inauspicious example — and by the time 2018 rolls around, “Blockbuster Superhero Movies” will have been the norm for almost twenty years.
I want Captain Marvel and Black Panther movies, and for them to be good, but I’m real worried that by the time they come out, every last ounce of genuine creativity will have been squeezed out by a monumental engine for the production of vapid bullshit.
For real, though, the Inhumans are great. In addition to Blackagar Boltagon, who has both the power of electricity AND a voice so powerful that a single word will cause an earthquake ON THE MOON WHERE THERE IS NO AIR, his wife has the power of “hair so awesome it can strangle people,” and his best friend has the power to karate-chop literally anything so that it explodes.
AND they have a magic dog the size of a rhinoceros that can teleport them through space.
And Black Bolt and his magic dog wear matching tuning forks on their heads. Because they’re BUDDIES.
They sure are.
I actually hope that they make the Inhumans like a wacky Judd Apatow rom-com. Steve Carrell could be Blackagar Boltagon. Seth Rogan could be Karnak the Karate-Chopper.
I’m real worried that by the time they come out, every last ounce of genuine creativity will have been squeezed out by a monumental engine for the production of vapid bullshit.
My mouth and stomach are open to both macaroons and macarons. Just get in there, ok
Divorced my ex bc he got all judgey about me reading Kant and Musil. GODDAMN.
HEY GUYS WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT HOW TORONTO ELECTED ANOTHER OLD WHITE DUDE FOR MAYOR WHO THINKS WOMEN SHOULD GOLF TO GET AHEAD IN THEIR CAREERS AND THAT WHITE PRIVILEGE ISN’T REAL
Also RE: macarons – I will take that shit over the cupcake craze of the 2000s any day tbh
Ugh, Tory is terrrrible. I am so baffled by how Chow ran her campaign — she was miles ahead of anyone before the campaign started! And then once it started it seemed like she just fizzled :/
Yes! I mean, on one hand I appreciated her lack of grandstanding and showing off and making ridiculously optimistic and infeasible promises, but by the end it seemed like she was lacking so much conviction. Ugh Tory. I mean, at least it’s not Doug Ford, but ugh.
It’s like she was the John Tory of a campaign that John Tory ran in 🙁 Tory is at least maaaarginally competent (unlike the Fords) so yay for that at least? Maybe? I hope?
John Tory is so ridiculous. Was it not him who was responsible for Kim Campbell’s attack ads on Jean Chretien’s speech impediment and the bizarre “Dalton McGuinty eats kittens” messaging?
I sort of think one of the joys of fall is sending your husband to the other room to watch his sports games so you can put on a podcast and while away the afternoon making delicious fiddly little baked goods. It’s one of the reasons I don’t have an open plan house.
Yes! Having different media tastes is, for us, also tied into spending time in our own separate physical spaces, which is important.
OK So I read Ibsen’s A Doll’s House in class a long time ago, and the one takeaway I got from it was that Macaroons were a symbol of the main character’s thwarted sexuality or something like that. She wanted to let her hair down and dance and eat macaroons and her husband wouldn’t let her. I had no idea what a macaroon was, but I totally wanted one. So when I actually found macaroons, I loved them OF COURSE. Take that, oppressive fictional husband! Much later, a friend explained to me that Ibsen probably was talking about macarons and I’d been eating the wrong thing this whole time.
The only thing that matters is, that you were eating them to spite him. Spite dessert! mmm…
Either way, it’s a dessert that fights the patriarchy.
The trendy ones are called “French Macarons” in Norwegian. From a cursory googling I’d say what I know from childhood as a macaron is pretty close to an American macaroon. So you have been eating the RIGHT thing this whole time!
Re: Jian –
I went to college in the northeast in the 90s, and so I went to a lot of Moxy Früvous shows. They were a fun, happy, sweet band, and Jian always seemed like the sweetest one of them. I feel very sad now, and like no one should be trusted. And probably everything should be burnt down just as a precaution.
I know, they just seemed like a group of awkward choir boys who found their groove. So easy to be charmed by.
Also, I feel kind of ashamed that I have had King of Spain stuck in my head since this whole thing started?
oh good I’m not the only one. >_<
Owen Pallett’s response was perfect. Someone on my Facebook feed commented that it’s very telling that it’s the people closest to Ghomeshi, like Pallett, are the ones who are unequivocally condemning his behaviour and siding with women (except for Lights, but fuck her anyway).
Toasters, I have been in a slump all this week. I am tired all the time and everything seems stupid and pointless and not worth the time or effort required. I think when my current job wraps up I will take to bed and just sleep for an entire week.
Please send me all your unwanted macarons or macaroons, it might cheer me up.
I feel you on that entirely. It has been very slumpy for a week or two here and everything is pointless. Let’s take to the sea (where we won’t have to do any sailing or anything substantial) where we can watch television and internet endlessly with snacks and enormous blankets for ever.
Are your coworkers still giving you grief?
Mine aren’t nearly as bad as yours sound, but they tend to be LOUD. Yesterday a bunch of them clustered together in the hall loudly debating where our division should have the yearly Christmas lunch. Someone would yell out a suggestion and then someone else would yell “WHAT KIND OF FOOD DO THEY HAVE” and then yet another person would go “SANDWICHES AND PASTA AND BURGERS AND SOUP” while a fourth would loudly comment on the quality of that restaurant. And so on. Two of the people involved in this have offices with doors that close, why do they feel the need to have these discussions in the middle of the cubicle farm? And then today someone decided it was the day to guess what a coworker’s middle initial stands for, and this turned into 3 or 4 people yelling out names that start with that letter. DON’T YOU PEOPLE HAVE ANY WORK TO DO OR CAN’T YOU AT LEAST SIT QUIETLY AT YOUR DESK AS YOU KILL TIME ON THE INTERNET?
ALL THE TIME. Even better my office has devolved into almost open mutiny where we all hate my boss.
Then I sit and look at the applications I’ve sent in and cry and cry.
I am having the exact same week. =( everything is slumpy and pointless.
His insecurity, which he communicated via whining and pawing at me while I was reading,
These are the acts of a man who does not value his continued existence on this planet.
I picture a Golden Retriever while reading this, and I like that better.
These are the acts of a man? I haven’t read that piece yet and I for real thought your quote referred to a puppy.
I have Feelings about that Owen Pallet piece. I had never heard of him, but I was really impressed with his willingness to say “look, this dude is my friend, but if three different women are accusing him of assault, I’m gonna take their side”. More men should be willing to do that, and to recognize that “he’s my friend” doesn’t mean he can’t possibly have done what he is accused of. Abusers are often charming, likeable people, and they are often very good at hiding the way they treat their victims from their friends and family.
But then (and I realize that this is Not the Point) he goes and says things like “The beauty of BDSM relationships is that the power is always in the hands of the sub.” And I know that’s one of the things that we tell people, I know it helps make BDSM okay to a lot of people who bristle at the idea of consensual SM, I know where it comes from. But seeing it and hearing it makes me feel like a historian hearing people state things they learned in Kindergarten as history. Like, it’s not not true, but it’s also not correct; it lacks a nuanced understanding of how power dynamics work, and how desires related to power dynamics work, and also of the vast diversity of ways in which people engage in BDSM. And I know that isn’t the point. The point is that Jian Ghomeshi probably abused women, and then he tried to claim that it was consensual BDSM. And I don’t want abusers hiding behind that, because there IS a difference between the two, and I really don’t want my sexuality being used as a shield by people who don’t care about consent or respect. But I also bristle when people who are calling out abusers get their information wrong.
So I’m very happy about Black Panther and Captain Marvel (Who should ABSOLUTELY be Katee Sackhoff and she and Captain America should argue about who gets to be referred to as Captain) but I’m so mystified by the fact that they’re still not doing a Black Widow movie. I heard the official reason – “we want to bring new characters to the screen!” – but even if I believed they cared about that, then they shouldn’t have so many sequels on the roster. I just . . . it seems like a home run to me! The character is a known quantity! Scarlett Johannson in black leather would get the studio points in the media for having a female lead and those sweet male-gaze box-office dollars at the same time! Whenever they hint at her backstory in other Marvel movies, it’s the perfect setup for a “her dark past comes back to haunt her” plot. I simply fail to see how it wouldn’t be awesome and also make a billion dollars. Maybe something in Scarlett’s contract? Some legal snafu? I’m so curious as to why the studio wouldn’t take what seems like extremely low-hanging fruit.
Yeah, I’m surprised at the lack of a solo Black Widow movie, especially since SJ is such a bankable name/star, but what do I know about the sausage-making of showbiz…
She’s way more famous now than when she signed the original contract and they’d have to pay her more.
She’d still be cheaper than paying Robert Downey Jr. for another Iron Avengers Universe sequel.
owen pallett owen pallett owen pallett 4 ever i <3 him so much
I don’t mind designated “let’s exist in the same space and do our own thing” time, but I also need dedicated “we are spending quality time together and interacting” time. And if one crosses over into the other I get cranky.
(This was a reply to pjwren)
I HATED the John Maloof documentary about Vivian Maier. Found him so awful that it was difficult to focus on Vivian’s story. I agree with him that her work should be taken seriously, but by the end of the film I didn’t think he cares for her or her story at all. He’s interested in controlling her image, yes. And he wants people to take her seriously because it means he’ll profit. He did purchase her work, so sure, all the more power to him. But there’s no questioning of his motives in the movie because he directed it. So one-sided.
My overall takeaway from that movie was that if you are a troubled, talented artist, you should make real, human connections with people while you are alive or a self-serving capitalist will come along after you and profit completely from your work. Would love to see a documentary about her that’s removed from his framing.
AGREED SO MUCH! I went to the Chicago screening of the documentary, which included a Q&A with Maloof afterward. Not once, in either the movie itself or in the Q&A, did Maloof or anyone else acknowledge the huge conflict of interest Maloof has in promoting her work and trying to get art and photography experts to acknowledge her as one of the great street photographers. I admire her work greatly and I’m glad that she’s getting the attention she deserves (and I actually think it’s a good thing it’s coming about after her passing–as her friend in the documentary said, she most likely would’ve LOATHED the attention she and her work are getting). But it saddens me that there’s no one who was close to her personally, neither close friends nor family, who can now legally fight to have a say in how her work is disseminated and who should profit by it.
When my marriage exploded in a spectacular way whilst visiting a friend in NYC in the spring, I ended up at my pregnant friend’s apartment at 6am, exhausted, devastated, and under the influence of too many xanax. She mothered me perfectly, putting me to sleep in her cave-like bedroom, and reassuring me that nothing I could ever do would deserve what had been done to me. I fell asleep holding her hand.
When I woke up 6 hours later, disoriented and numb, I sat in her kitchen trying to figure out my next step. I couldn’t eat to save my life. She was trying to push food on me over and over, and finally succeeded when she offered me macarons, simply because I had never eaten them. She leapt on that fact and made it her mission to make me experience these, one of her favorite foods.
They were delicious. And will forever remind me of her precious friendship in my most difficult hour. Whenever I splurge on one (really, they are too expensive) I send her a picture via text, like a communion of sorts.
Ugh, macarons are so gross (I have probably only had the mediocre kind, but they were so bad I have no interest in not finding the good kind). if I’m gonna have something pretty that tastes like flowers I’ll have mochi, thanks.
mmmm, mochi!
I may once have scheduled a vacation around a trip to Two Ladies Kitchen in Hilo Hawaii for strawberry mochi. It was delicious.
*Triggers for Abelism* Can someone please commiserate with me? I’m a huge fan of Ask A Manager, love reading it, and usually enjoy reading the comments. Yesterday, though, someone with Borderline Personality Disorder wrote in asking for advice on how to cope in the workplace. The comments were AWFUL and have been upsetting me since – multiple commenter basically suggesting that the letter writer remove herself from society because as “a BPD” (sic), she was obviously a vile and vicious person. And the writer of the blog wasn’t moderating until late in the day (not that I fault her for that – the blog is just part of what she does and I’ve seen her step in before so I just assumed she was busy with something else). So things really got out of hand.
Did anyone else see that? I feel silly that it really brought me down, but I have a different mental illness and all I’ve been able to think about is how awful that must have been for the LW – to ask for help coping with a difficult situation (Something EVERYONE needs sometimes!) and then just be attacked for something she can’t change.
Link: http://www.askamanager.org/2014/10/my-boss-monito…
I really like AAM but only occasionally wade into the comments. It is very far from the types of safe spaces I prefer to inhabit online, and have more than once had extremely bad experiences in comments there. I’m so sorry you were so triggered by that. It was, indeed, really bad and harmful. I really hope the LW doesn’t read it 🙁
This is exactly how I feel about Ask Polly. Why do advice columns bring out the worst commenters?
Everybody likes giving advice!
I love AAM, and the comments there were horrid. But I think there’s something to be said for the number of people who were telling the rude people that they were out-of-line and screwing up. Alison herself is usually very good about keeping a lid on stuff like that (and not picking letter-writers to death, too), so as saddened as I am that people are jerks (so many people are jerks!), I’m pleased to see that there were a goodly number of people who were not shy about saying that was Not Okay.
I’m so sorry you were triggered. And I’m sorry people are terrible. I don’t know why ableism is such a hard idea for people to grasp. People who are generally good people and who would never spout anything racist/homophobic/sexist/etc who still use words like lame and crazy and hold views like those commentors. I’ve been dealing with some ableism as well as a physically disabled person and it sucks. The response from these people (irl at least) is always “Well I don’t think of you like that!” Which excuses nothing. Grrr……
I like reading AAM but I find that the ableism there sometimes slips under the radar (frequent uses of “lame” etc.) Sometimes the comments are pretty good but I do not go into them when my brain is at low ebb. Please try not to focus too much on the horrible comments and take care of yourself. There are lots of us here who support you and do not agree at all with those views.
I choose to believe that there was a cut third post credits scene in which Sam stages an intervention for both Steve and Natasha about their terrible hair choices.
I now firmly believe that as well.
Can we talk about Sam Wilson? Let’s talk about how awesome Sam Wilson is! He better be in the next movies or I am leading a revolt.
sam is AMAZING. i really wanted ultron to end with bucky being found, so that cap 2 could be about steve and bucky, about bucky’s recovery and their friendship, and sam being the AMAZING GENTLE BADASS and guiding them through it.
…but now it looks like it’s going to be the tony stark show ughhh.
are you secretly me?? that is exactly what I wanted to happen but apparently we can’t have nice things. I just want Steve and Bucky to be reunited and there’s hugging and Sam is his awesome self and everything turns out okay!!
tony go away you have your own movies.
i would think that after winter soldier, everyone would want that plot line! the whole steve-and-sam-and-bucky-take-down-hydra-while-working-through-their-issues plot would be so ripe for 1) badass action 2) subtle, complex character building 3) fish out of water comedy 4) interesting villains that are not out to DESTROY THE WORLD.
i just don’t have faith that tony can be present in a movie without it being a showboating, spotlight-stealing mess. another hero having a substantial role can be done well (see: black widow in cap 2!) but i just don’t see that happening with tony.
AND i feel like once tony is in a movie, the other characters’ storylines suffer by comparison so he can get his redemption. i’m still mad about what they did to maya hansen in IM3.
i guess i just have tony fatigue and i’m being a grump about ultron looking tony-focused and then jumping in on cap 3 too.
that plot line would be SO GOOD. SO GOOD!
and yeah, I like RDJ/tony stark but directors tend to focus on him which is fine when he’s in his own movies (well, kind of. I totally hear you about maya hansen) but the avengers is a group movie! captain america is about steve (it’s right in the title, god)!
I’m so glad that I’ve found my people.
I think I remember hearing he was going to be in Age of Ultron, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
We need more Sam Wilson in every part of our lives
Sam Wilson in The Avengers! Sam Wilson in Thor 3! Sam Wilson in Batman vs. Superman! Sam Wilson in everything!
(Sam Wilson in my bed! hey-o!)
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him in Ultron promo photos? So yes, I think he will be around. PLEASEOHPLEASE. Sam Wilson for president! Sam Wilson for Captain America! Sam Wilson for everything!
Pretty Woman is a terrible movie, but when I catch it on TBS at the gym I will happily watch through to the end.
It’s no The Wedding Date, but sometimes one must accept what TBS offers.
The Wedding Date!
That’s all I really had to say. I love that horrible little movie.
Top night, ladies! Top night!
Oh my, how I love the Wedding Date. It’s spectacular to me to see a rom-com where they don’t have to make the main female character clumsy as her one flaw, because she’s already such a horrible horrible person.
Toasties, I am going for an IUD in 5 hours. Keep me in your thoughts!
YESSSS IUDs FOR ALL
You’re going to do great. Order a pizza for later and curl up on the couch and drink wine and eat pizza.
Thanks! I have all that, and the first season of the OC.
Couch, wine, pizza was EXACTLY how I handled my achey post-IUD-insertion hours and it was the perfect combination. And I luuuurve my IUD, so yay! IUDs FOR ALL!
Thanks! I am in with hot water bottle,, snoozing to TAL while my husband chills the wine and prepares the chicken wing prelude to pizza and downloads the OC. Insertion was easy! Hurt wasn’t bad, and the nurses aid was a charming thing who helped me yoga breath though the whole thing (after she found out we both did yoga)
Yay!
Congrats! Hope it goes well!
thanks! it did!
Best wishes for an easy insertion and a quick recovery!
It was easy! Thanks for the well wishes
Yay! I got the Mirena about a year ago and it SUCKED for about two days but was totally worth it. I love having brief, light periods and not having to worry about birth control. Hope you like it as much as me!
i was never that interested in macarons. but then, when i visited new york over the summer, i wandered past the la duree store on my way to the frick and there is something to be said about eating really high quality fluff clouds that taste like flowers before going to cry in front of a vermeer.
i can see how they could go terribly, terribly wrong, though.
Also about Marvel, I was annoyed by the scene where Captain American fails to lift Thor’s hammer. It has been clearly established in the comics that he IS worthy to pick up the hammer. (But of course Stark is not, no argument there!!)
in my head, when he realizes that he can move it a smidgin and he sees thor’s face fall, he instead pretends to fail, just to make thor laugh.
that is something that steve would totally do, right? RIGHT?
Yes, that is totally Steve. Like, if it were TONY’S hammer, he would pick it up and spin it around and do rhythmic gymnastics with it. But Thor has done nothing to wrong Steve, so Steve has no reason to humiliate him or put him in his place.
I…I would like to see Steve do rhythmic gymnastics with Thor’s hammer, plz.
i mean, chris evans did do gymnastics in prepping for the latest cap movie…
I would also like to see Steve do rhythmic gymnastics with ‘Thor’s hammer.’
It totally is! Your version should be canon.
When I first saw the clip (at Comic-Con), it was longer. In that clip, Steve was able to move the hammer a little and Thor had an “oh SHIT” look on his face. It made me think that Steve could move it, but stopped trying after he saw Thor wigging out.
awesome!! I couldn’t find the whole clip 🙁
I just wanted to share the hugely impressive fact that one of the patients at the hospital where I work has stage 4 breast cancer but nonetheless is going to be RUNNING THE NEW YORK MARATHON ON SUNDAY because she is literally the most amazing Wonder Woman on the planet. I am so incredibly happy and excited for her, ahhh!
Toasties! I have neighbor anxiety! Our fence is going in today and we didn’t notify one of our neighbors (this is apparently A Thing You’re Supposed To Do in the world outside Brooklyn. Who knew?), and they are a little bit crazy. She came out and I showed her the line and she wasn’t like, raving at me or anything, but she said she was annoyed we didn’t tell them and that she thought we’d be putting a gate in. I guess so they can come into our yard? I dunno. So, I’m not anxious about her now, but I am worried about her crazy-eyed husband coming home from work and flipping his shit.
We should be around 3″ inside our property line, which doesn’t leave them any room to get to their garbage pile without removing layers of it (it’s not technically garbage, but their 3 car garage is full to the brim of stuff she’s “collected” and this is the overflow), and I feel bad about that and I can’t shake the anxiety. The fence guys measured and measured and showed me the line and everything, but I’m so scared that they mismeasured or things shifted after the line was approved and I don’t know what I’m scared of. Crazy man ranting on my porch? I’m a very anxious person in general, and whoops I made a mistake not notifying them (I am NEVER allowed to make mistakes without a day of upset stomach and anxiety insomnia and physical shakiness), so now I’m waiting out the day on my couch, getting progressively more hunched over and worried.
Yikes, I need a new prescription for something apparently. Yoga and meditation are a joke!
Please tell me I’m way overthinking it and it’s not my problem that they piled stuff over the property lines and got used to the previous owner granting them access. I feel super libertarian being all, “It’s MY property and I can fence it if I want!” even if it is true, I don’t like feeling like a libertarian. But I also don’t want to look at their piles of junk and plastic playhouses and dodge their dog’s and cat’s poop in my own damn yard.
Stupid heightened emotional responses to mundane shit.
You will be OK. I totally feel you on being super anxious about everything all the time, BUT. It is your property and you are ALLOWED to put a fence there. Try not to fret about your neighbour, but think about how lovely it will be to have a nice closed-in yard without dog poop and cat poop (fuck I would be SO ANGRY if that was me) and ugly piles of shit overflowing into your yard. Man, that sounds nice even to me.
It is not your problem. It is OK. TRUTH.
You are amazing, thank you for being so fast. My equally anxious friends are not responding to my texts! I cannot imagine why? 😉
What cracks me up is the “Private Property – No Trespassing” signs she put on her junk pile a couple of weeks ago, as Mr Kat and I are the only two people on the planet they could possibly be for (they only face our yard). Are we in need of a salvaged bathroom sink? Or a rotted wood column? Have we been secretly thieving from her stick pile? I offered to help her move stuff when I spoke to her earlier, but she didn’t take me up on it.
My old therapist used to say it’s as though my nervous system is always in fight or flight (ALWAYS FLIGHT) mode, for even the tiniest thing. Nothing but pharmaceuticals have ever helped, but I haven’t connected with a good doctor out here yet. Also with the adult ADHD. Ok, my life is just a hot mess right now, clearly. Thank goodness for the toast!
Thanks again aravisthequeen. You are great!
I super needed to read all of this. We have a super-wacky neighbor and are going to be doing the privacy fence thing next spring and I am already stressing out about it. THANK YOU, TOASTIES, FOR PRESUMPTIVE REASSURANCE.
Just give them a heads-up! That’s my only advice. Someone is always going to be butthurt about something.
I would be anxious too, in your shoes. But her problem is a Her problem, not a you problem. You ARE allowed to put a fence there, and it is not crazy libertarian of you to do it (it’s not like you’re trying to fence off public property or something). You are allowed to have boundaries, you are allowed to not want other people or their stuff in your space, you are allowed to not want their animals to affect your yard work, etc. Deep breaths, and then maybe tomorrow do some research on psychiatrists in your new city to talk to about meds (because meds are great, and everyone who benefits from them should have access to them)
“You are allowed to have boundaries, you are allowed to not want other people or their stuff in your space, you are allowed to not want their animals to affect your yard work, etc.”
This this this. I would be anxious too and this is 100% the mantra I would need.
This is fantastic, thank you! And yes, I need a new doctor. Childhood depression (and adulthood chronic conditions, some of which are thanks to the stress wee Kat’s brain and body went through as a child; hi IBS!) messes stuff up in so many ways, and being exhausted with taking medications and seeing doctors, and also, let’s be honest, general laziness, wreaks havoc on a doctor routine. Especially after a move.
When I was out there talking to her about the property lines and how far inside it we’d be she said something along the lines of, “Do you need every inch?” in response to my pointing out that we’re at least 4″ in from the line (and the completed fence is actually 7″ onto our property, and her junk pile is STILL touching it). What am I supposed to say to that? “Oh, I’m sorry, exactly how much of my yard would you prefer I give to you?” Granted, our lot is around 3x the size of theirs, but I am trying to refuse to feel bad about that. I want to embrace being the cold-hearted, unfriendly neighbor if it means I don’t have to fend off their really transparent attempts at emotional manipulation.
When I was a little kid, my parents put a fence up and the neighbors were not happy. But, like the other lovely Toasties have said – who gives a flying fig. You are totally entitled to fence in your own yard!! (As a peace treaty, my mom paid to plant some bushes along the fence in our neighbors yard… which she did not need to do, like, at all, but if it would make you feel better, perhaps you could give them a nice plant or something.)
Thanks! I thought about flowers or something, but after thinking more about it, I’m okay with our relationship being a bit cold. There’s just an intangible weirdness vibe I get from these two and I think I’m going to trust that feeling over all my overcompensating, doormat-esque tendencies. It feels weird, but I think it will be good for me.
Thank you for replying!
It will be okay! I was witness to a hilarious scene today at work where the story was essentially: small town, some guy has fenced of part of the city’s right of way as his own property, he’s been maintaining it so the city has been, essentially “whatevs,” but now the city needs to use the right of way as an actual road to get to a new development. The city employees were all “I don’t want to tell him- will you guys tell him?” to the developer. So basically, an entire damn city is at least as worried about taking back their own property as you are about your fence. Unfortunately, you can’t take the path they did, which was to get the developer to do their dirty work…unless there is someone else you can make deal with any potential yelling? Letting other people deal with butthurt people is always a good plan in my book.
Oh, man. That is hilarious. Sometimes I miss my small hometown and it’s because of ridiculous stuff like this. My dad reminded me today that when he was working with Rails-to-Trails to turn an abandoned track in our town into a hiking trail (gorgeous spot with several creek crosses and places to go right down into the water), some of the people whose land abutted the tracks threw massive grown-up temper tantrums when the organization purchased the tracks, despite not taking the railroad company up on their offer to sell them the parcels of the track at a discount. The mayor was threatening to have cops out there arresting anyone using the trail. (Cops? Plural? We had like, three. Who would answer the phone if they had to be out arresting those nefarious hikers?)
(Sauerkraut Capital of the World, anyone?)
ughhh Feige’s response to a similar question at the Q&A after the event proper totally bummed me out!
“Here’s a crumb of diversity, but obviouslyyyy we can only trust white men to actually make it happen.”
(HOPEFULLY this was just to throw off the “bu- bu- bu- affirmative action” whiners and they’ll actually commit to some diversity BEHIND the camera as well.)
watching the comments emerge is so frustrating. You get that feeling that they watched about a minute went, “whatever, no big deal” and then decided to complain, It’s impossible to translate your experience to someone who does not want to care at all. And we keep trying to find gateways- like that article by the guy who said he made a profile on OKCupid as a woman just to see how horrible it was, and he shut it down after 2 hours.
Yeah, some men will never get it, is my takeaway from this. I’m just making a mental list of men to stay away from, because why would you want to be around someone who’d think this was okay. One guy did a statistical analysis of that video and concluded that street harassment is not actually a threat to women at all. Whew, now I just have to repeat that to myself every time I’m outside and worried about my safety. Assholes.
Yes, I agree with this totally. My dude loves a lot of stuff that I'm not so keen on, but it's a part of him as much as anything else. Having stuff in common is easy, it's how you negotiate the stuff that you don't agree on which matters. Having said that, I'd find it very hard to deal with someone if they really really liked stuff which I find really gross.
Yeah, if it's stuff that you find offensive as opposed to just not enjoyable, it's a whole different issue. There is a difference between liking different things and being offended by the stuff your partner likes. And by offended I don't mean in a snobbish "how can you think Kenny G is good?!" kind of way, but if they think that racist, sexist jokes are funny and totally fine.
Venn diagrams solve everything.