Toasties! Happy 2015! May this year be more peaceful, healthful, and joyous than expected. Wishing you a clean slate and many good times ahead. The bartender is resolved though has not made resolutions. Have you? Do you have any January traditions? Starting new books? Ending fights? Holding on ever more tightly to old grudges? Open thread, the possibilities are ENDLESS!
Tags: open thread, possibilities may be endless but options are limited, the bartender
Hey, this is a place saver that I am going to edit because I want to be first.
FINALLY someone has ended aravisthequeen’s monopoly on the first comment. I salute you, comrade!
Ah man, now I can’t edit it! Oh well. ๐
Intense Debate is annoying in that way, once you get a reply no more editing for you ๐
OH SHIT I RUINED IT FOR YOU
YOU’RE REALLY A MINION OF ARAVISTHEQUEEN AREN’T YOU
yes
Aren’t we all?
yes
She, however, is MsScribe.
Only because our work internet here is fucked up AND I didn’t have anything planned so I had to type out something new. I’m on for next week, though!
So shall we do our own Link Roundup this morning? Go!
RL-wise: there is a “chance of snow” in Houston tomorrow! And of course my commitments are all in the a.m. But then I’m going to see Big Hero 6.
They’re predicting ice in San Antonio overnight with slight chance of wintery precip. I too have stuff to do in the morning so if the snow/ice/Princess Elsa-ness wants to wait until Sunday night so we get Monday off, that’d be fine with me.
My smart friend Serene wrote this piece about wanting ways to mourn and stand in solidarity with the victims and their families without getting all wrapped up in “Je suis Charlie” because the publication is … problematic:
http://www.secondshiftblog.com/2015/01/wont-see-p…
Thank you! I’ve also been feeling weird about people getting all tearful and patriotic about a publication that’s pretty horrible.
Seconded! And surprised at how many of my friends seem to have gotten really uncritically into the tearful patriotism. (But I knew I’d find my people here.)
Honestly, I think most people see the horror inflicted upon this newspaper and type or Tweet Je suis Charlie in the immediate aftermath out of solidarity. Now that we have time to reflect and analyze, we can adjust our attitudes as such and bring a critical eye where it is needed, but I didn’t write “Je suis Charlie” because I agree with everything the rag has ever published.
Serene’s piece is exactly what we need to be reading, to give us context and help shape our opinions now about Charlie Hebdo, but it’s also true that everyone expressing immediate solidarity with those who have been murdered shouldn’t be immediately considered racists or anti-Muslim.
Does this make sense? I’m trying to marry both sentiments, because it works in my head, but it’s hard to write out.
I hear you. And I definitely don’t think everyone who said “je suis Charlie” should be considered racist or anti-Muslim, for sure. I think most people who said it aren’t or weren’t familiar with the nature of the publication. I just feel like the nature of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in France doesn’t have an analog in the US and can’t really be fully grasped by those who haven’t paid close attention to it. I lived in Belgium for a year in high school and in France for a summer in college, and follow the news there probably more closely than the average American but not that closely, so of cousre I can’t say that I really understand what it’s like there. I really appreciated Serene’s piece in particular because she *has* lived there and *is* brown with a read-as-Muslim name, and that perspective is one I haven’t heard yet (almost certainly because I hadn’t sought it out yet, which is my fault).
Anyway, yeah, it’s complicated, and sad, and disappointing.
Is this where all the Texas Toast chats? I’m going to be in Austin in mid-February (visiting a pal, enjoying non-frozen weather); any Austin and surrounding area Toasters wanna grab a drink?
I’ll have a drink with you. Email me at rmcd1974 at hot mail dot com.
Yeeesssssss!
I didn’t know there were any other Texas Toasties! I’m in DFW though, so I won’t be able to drink grab. ๐
Texas is like Montana in that we can’t just pop over to cities because there are hundreds of miles between them. I will salute your teacher face with my fancy mocktail.
I’m in College Station and I swing past DFW periodically. I’ll buy you a drink or bring you a meal if you’re up for that.
Sure! My sister also lives in College Station. I’m noxmunk @ gmail
I adooooored Big Hero 6, so enjoy!
Seconded!
Ugh I am in the middle of apartment searching, and making the NYC market even more miserable is this weather. At this point I’m not sure which is more important – not being homeless or not freezing to death. (Although I guess they are related, at the end stages.)
Why is it so hard to find a one-bedroom for under $1550 in Astoria? I mean, it’s QUEENS! And I love Queens, but it’s QUEENS. Ugh.
Come live with me! My roommate is moving out in March.
That would be so lovely! But I am so done with roommates … technically it will be devastating to my budget even to pay $1500 for an apartment, but the scrimping and lean times will be worth it.
I don’t think they exist anymore ๐ my old roommate is still living in our $1800 two-bed but the only reason they haven’t raised the rent is because the landlord is a bajillion years old and doesn’t really understand how the rental market works. Gotta go out to Jackson Heights at least to get a one-bed that cheap. Which sucks! But I don’t think Queens is really QUEENS anymore.
Does it have to be Astoria? I have friends who live in Inwood and have found a number of options under that price point. It’s probably doable in various parts of upper Manhattan, actually. (But I also understand being attached to one’s neighborhood.)
I’m not opposed to my NEXT move being to upper Manhattan, but right now I work in Grand Central and I’m a little wary of the commute (and also safety).
Oh plus all my friends live in Queens haha.
Ah too bad about the commute and the friends. I get a little evangelical about upper Manhattan since moving here 2.5 years ago – it’s so cheap and convenient and spacious compared to Brooklyn where I was before! (I don’t live in a one-bedroom so I can’t vouch for the price range in my particular neighborhood.)
What about Brooklyn?
This is not as helpful as I’d like but I know 2 years ago I looked at a few one bedrooms for $1500 within a few blocks of the M,R steinway stop. Sadly I cannot remember the landlords name (it was an acquaintance who’s landlord told me about them). I would honestly just walk around near buildings that you like and knock and ask who the landlord is. It sounds creepy but it might get you a better lead (I find looking online always gives you stuff that’s way cheaper than you can find by being creepy in person).
I understand completely. I’m starting a job in NYC in less than 2 weeks and still don’t have a place. I’ve basically just been staring at Craigslist and hitting the refresh button on my search for a week. It’s at the point where my standards have been lowered enough that I’m even considering the really creepy/ridiculous ones. “Well, who said I needed a window? I can see the sun on my lunch break,” or “I’m sure he would be fine as a roommate — maybe he’s just misunderstood!”
Are you comfortable with going a bit further out in Queens? I used to live in Astoria, but when I moved in with the fiancee (she works on Long Island) we moved to Forest Hills to split our commute. My new place is bigger and cheaper than my old one, it’s not super-much longer to get into Manhattan, and I live near an R so I can still get to Astoria to see my friends in that neighborhood pretty easily.
I used to live in FH and I can vouch for its convenience! It only took me about 15-20 minutes to get to Midtown and the neighborhood itself is pretty and picturesque with a few very good restaurants!
Yeah I live in Jackson Heights, there are one bedrooms (often with dishwashers) for 1500 especially if you go look in person. My commute tends to be shorter than a lot of my Astoria friends (both ones by the M and R and the N and Q parts of Astoria), in part because I have more transit options (E/F/M/R/7) and because the E and F run express through Queens. It’s like 15-20 minutes to Midtown.
For fellow Dad Magazine enthusiasts, may I present to youโฆ FASHIONDADS!! Sick pics of Dad fashion with blogger-style captions (and plenty of white velcro sneakers).
I absolutely love a denim on denim look for casual comfort and high style. I paired these relaxed fit#LeeJeans with a light denim button-down and navy mock turtleneck underneath and I’m ready to take on the day. Well after I have my #coffee first of course!!
“#vintage white leather Velcro sneakers”
ADORABLE
Can we post Dads being dads here?
My dog just died (on my birthday because of course, why not?) and my dad’s response was to make the hour long drive to my place to bring me five dozen eggs, a paper bag full of other paper bags and a “perfectly good toaster somebody was just throwing out”.
He then told me the price of gas at each station between his town and mine, gave me a side hug and the vanished into the afternoon snow…
This honest-to-God made me tear up.
Five dozen eggs. Five dozen.
If you eat all of those eggs, you’ll be roughly the size of a barge.
Also @GreenGrasses, I think the link is wrong… It’s just taking me to the open thread.
Eeeek! It was working this morning… Well unfortunately I can’t edit the original comment now since there are replies, but the address is:
http://instagram.com/fashiondads_/
Happy Friday Toasties!
I went to New Orleans between Christmas and New Year’s and now I’m back in the frigid northeast and it’s miserable.
Also, one week done with Drynuary! Is anyone else abstaining this month?
ETA – My roommate is moving out in March, so if you or someone you know wants a bedroom in a 2-bedroom apartment with me and my cat, let me know!
I offered on Toastie Twitter a little while ago, but if anyone is doing Drynuary and would like some encouragement from a teetotaler please let me know! I know it can be tricky but if you think that my words might be helpful, I will gladly help!
Thanks! Fortunately quite a few of my friends are doing it as well (or are teetotalers themselves), so it makes things a bit easier! Last year we started the tradition of sober terrible movie nights, and it continues this year with The Ice Pirates tonight.
Oh that is going to be awesome, please report back with how awful/wonderful it is!
I went to NOLA for New Year’s once, and had to stay an extra three days because of bad weather and canceled flights back home. I returned to a car that I literally could not get into for like, half an hour because of an inch-thick layer of ice. So I feel your pain, bb. I feel it.
I’m doing Drynuary too! Even started on the 1st instead of drinking all day and starting on the 2nd like I had originally planned.
Nice! I pretty much always start on the 2nd, and this year is no different because I was still in NOLA on the 1st and there was no way I was going to not drink.
I’m doing Drynuary, though somewhat poorly — I had a pre-scheduled work happy hour yesterday and totally forgot to not have a beer, plus I have to go see family next weekend and I have requested and received an exemption for the weekend (from my husband who is also participating but not coming with me) because my family is difficult to deal with.
Anyway I’m finding that it’s a routine that’s hard to change! Get home, have a glass of wine while cooking dinner, have a glass of wine while eating dinner — not having that feels very weird.
I think exceptions and a cheat day (or two) are perfectly reasonable depending on the circumstance!
I’ve been missing wine after work, too. Mostly, though, I want all the hot toddies to warm me up in this weather.
The routine is the hardest part for me! I don’t consider myself a heavy drinker, but it’s amazing how much of a habit the beer after work or wine with dinner becomes.
Totally.
I have a few planned exemptions too. Thinking of tacking on a February weekend to make up for it?
That routine is hard to change! Do you find you are sleeping better? I feel like I am sleeping like a baby and my skin is fantastic.
Surprisingly, not really.
I am finding it somewhat harder to *get* to sleep. I’m using a sleep tracker app called “Sleep Cycle” — you can set a window in which you need to wake up, like “up by 7 with a 30 minute window” and it will (supposedly) track how deeply you’re sleeping, and wake you up at the point in that window 6:30-7 where you are sleeping the lightest. Supposedly this makes it easier to get up because you’re already closer to awake. Anyway it also tracks your sleep throughout the night and shows you a little graph.
I still have a lot of peaks and valleys but my valleys are lower than they were when I was drinking, so that’s something? Also my dog often sleeps on the bed next to me and next to my phone, which I’m sure affects it.
My guy and I do Dryuary (ahem) every year and it’s the longest month but also the cheapest. Plus, I’m the most hydrated person in the world right now.
I am looking forward to saving some money this month. I’m also trying to make a concerted effort to make more meals at home. (Total failure this week because I didn’t want to go to the grocery store in this weather, but I’ll shop for the week tomorrow.)
SO much water and seltzer. I pee every 15 minutes.
I’ve never heard of Drynuary until just now, but seeing as I a) didn’t drink in December b) just bought some rum to celebrate not drinking in December, I will leave it to you professionals.
I’m doing a no-sugar January thing (I already don’t drink) and it’s going! I’m doing it! These are factual statements! I’ve been pretty tired lately and maybe it’s because of the total lack of sugar in my body?
I am doing Drynuary! Also No Shopping January. The horrifying thing is that my head is clearer, my sleep is sounder, and I’m getting more stuff done.
Anyone want to talk perfumes/colognes/scents applied to the body? I have three that I wear on a regular basis: A Scent by Issey Miyake for the summer, Kept by MCMC (in roller ball oil form) for the fall/winter, and Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf for winter/anytime. I am missing a spring scent right now.
What do you wear? How do you find new scents to try out? Talk to me about the most ancient of cosmetics.
i love perfume! but i am picky. i really dislike musk and vanilla bases, which is an awful lot of perfumes.
for years, my go-to has been guerlain aqua allegoria herba frescaโgreen green green, with lemon and mint and clover.
but this year, i started wearing a men’s perfume during winter (i am a lady): terre d’hermes. it’s woodsy and a little citrusy. it basically smells like if you took a citrus peel and rolled it around in pine needles and pencil shavings. i smell like a foxy dude!
Foxy dude smells, yes plz. I wear Demeter’s Gin & Tonic which rolls androgynous-neutral juniper and citrus – Terre D’Hermes sounds fantastic!
ooh, that gin & tonic one sounds amazing!
as a teenager i really liked their “ginger ale” one. it started off really sweet but calmed down into that kind of spicy/fizzy smell.
last fall I fell in love with Hermes Eau Claire des Merveilles. To me it smells slightly citrusy, with lots of lovely pencil shavings, and salty sea air. I like the sound of terre d’hermes, I’ll have to try and smell it whenever I’m next at Sephora.
i would love eau claire des merveilles if it didn’t have that darn vanilla note. it smells so good and then after 10 minutes it just smells like vanilla to me. but terre is like the ultra-masculine version of the same theme. the woodsy notes are the same, but where eau claire des merveilles has a few sweeter floral-y/vanilla-y notes to it, terre has spicier vetiver and pepper notes.
All, I am really not a fan of perfume but think that I might like to apply a few dabs of jasmine oil as scent — does anyone have recommendations for that, or maybe an affordable jasmine scent? I tested some jasmine absolute in oil (i forget what kind) a few weeks ago and it didn’t stick around for more than 15 minutes.
i would check out some solid perfumes if you’re looking for a simple jasmine scent. etsy might be a good bet. or if there’s an aromatherapy/soap-makin’ store anywhere nearby, i’d drop in. they’d definitely know how to help you!
I know a lot of people put essential oils into beeswax or other balmy vectors to wear– I’ve never done it myself, but I think making a solid perfume wouldn’t be too arduous a project, and might make the scent last longer. I’ll see if I can dig up a DIY tutorial.
ETA: This tutorial looks pretty good http://www.abeautifulmess.com/2014/12/make-your-o…
You can simply use a jasmine essential oil in small quantities. You should be able to find some at natural food stores, Whole Foods, or even on Amazon. (Aura cacia is one brand). It sounds like you will probably like that better than a commercially made jasmine perfume.
I want to smell like all the wonderful smells but mr.imogen is ALLERGIC to everything and his misery steals all my pleasure. If anyone has recommendations for amazing smelling things that are less likely to make him turn into a giant ball of snot and sinus pressure, please share!
I wish! I am also allergic to many perfumes and it’s just trial and error to figure out which ones won’t set me off. I suppose (mr. imogen and) I could get allergy tested to figure out which specific components to avoid…
Very relevant to my interests! I wear Calvin Klein’s Contradiction usually (it is not that expensive, and smells good but unobtrusive enough not to be distracting at work), but I just started wearing Tocca’s Stella, too (not together), and I’ve been trying out new samples – today I’m wearing Bvlgari Jasmin Noir (which turns out to be a little heavy for daytime). Nordstrom has little empty perfume sample capsules in its cosmetic/scent section, so you can fill up as many perfume samples as you want without asking a salesperson! This has opened up a whole new world for me. Yesterday I wore Gucci’s Flora Gorgeous Gardenia, the day before I wore Chloe (. . . something?), and I have Hermes Jardin sur le toit for next week.
Good to know about Nordstrom! I’ll have to try that out.
I’ve used Aveda’s Beautifying Composition, which is an oil … it has a delicate scent and … men seem to love it as well as women. I mention men because when I put the beautifying on they literally come up to me and ask what I’m wearing … which can be a little startling. Anyway, I use it as a moisturing thing, all over my body, my face; sometimes I use it on my hair if it’s dry. It’s wonderful and addictive– I’ve used it since 1985, I believe.
Hahahaha don;t even get me started I am one of those fragrance freaks who has forum accounts and read blogs n shit and I already have more perfume than I know what to do with in my life but keep buying mooooooooooore (and honestly, compared to some people, I am barely a collector at all, there are people out there with MANY HUNDREDS of full bottles!)
But right now my faves are:
–the vintage Shalimar pure parfum I bought myself for christmas
–Bvlgari Black
–Agent Provocateur L’Agent
Wait do you have fragrance blog recs? I want some good reading!
My top favorite is Perfume Shrine. If you scroll down the right side you’ll see she has tons and tons of posts explaining perfume houses, types of fragrances, notes, etc etc along with reviews that are generously peppered to hyperlinks to her own site–I have sometimes realized I have like, 7 tabs open all of stuff linked to in her articles. The Non Blonde and Bois de Jasmine are also very good.
boisdejasmin.com
I’m 26 years old and I wear Aerie “Aerie” perfume. It’s meant for teenagers, but I don’t care. I love it and I love the way it smells on me.
Although my mom gave me a few vials of Something Blue by Oscar de la Renta (I think), which I also really enjoy. It’s very floral, though, while Aerie has a few fruity/musky notes.
I have 3 Gap perfume oils that I absolutely love but use very sparingly because they were discontinued about 10 years ago (which I am very bitter about).
I have two Skeem perfumes that are great too – Lilac Dandelion and Flower Market. Flower Market is my favourite – it actually does smell exactly like freshly-cut flowers. The only downside is that they fade quickly.
I love every variation on Marc Jacobs’ Daisy collection that I have ever smelled, and Imperatrice by D&G.
When I’m feeling ~saucy~ I like to wear Maitresse by Agent Provocateur; it consoles me from the sad reality of never being able to afford any of their lingerie.
I used to love Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel but when I went back to it after a few years of not wearing it, it struck me as much too heavy and now it gives me headaches ๐
My favorite perfume is Lemon Verbena from L’Occitane. I wear it all the time (because I don’t like the heavier scents) but it’s a great spring scent. It basically smells like lemon and oregano, and it’s almost impossible to overdo.
I’m allergic to lots of perfumes, but my aunt gave me a sampler of four two-note fragrances from L’Occitane that I really like and that don’t bother me. (From the Collection de Grasse, jasmine & bergamote, magnolia & mรปre, vanille & narcisse and thรฉ vert & bigarade.)
I feel I would be remiss if I did not mention For Strange Women. I have sample vials of Moss & Ivy, November in the Temperate Deciduous Forest, and Winter Kitty. I like them, but they are definitely strange. She also has a lot of one-note perfumes, in oils and solids.
Daisy by Marc Jacobs is my go-to everyday scent. I also keep Stella by Stella McCartney as a slightly heavier, warmer tone for special occasions and the winter (it’s definitely too much for me in the summer, but I adore the scent so in the winter I tend to use it more frequently). I also have some Burberry Brit left over from when I adored it a few years ago, but around when I turned 27 I started disliking the way it smelled after a few hours of wear. I guess my tastes changed.
EDIT: ALSO good to know, and I did not know this until a year or so ago, but if you go into Sephora and tell them you’re looking for a new scent they will give you really good-sized samples of basically as many perfumes as you like, because the whole deal with perfumes is that you want to wear them a few times to really get to know them. They’ll also help you narrow down, so if you like light floral scents, they’ll aim you toward those.
I love perfume! luckyscent.com and theperfumedcourt.com are sites where they decant fragrances, so you can order samples for $4 – $8! That’s how I shop for scents. You can search luckyscent by note, keyword, or brand. They have hundreds of brands, and a lot are small batch or indie. Right now I’m wearing Forest by Library of Flowers, which was developed by Margot Elena, the woman behind TokyoMilk. Its notes are oak bark, arctic moss, and white sage. It’s very fresh and sharp at first, has great sillage and lasting power. What I like – woody (esp. cedar and oud), incense-y, herbal, fougere, chypre, unisex or masculine. What I don’t – POWDER, gourmand, vanilla, heavy white florals, anything that smells sweet or sugary. I ordered a sample of a Borges inspired perfume by Fueguia 1833 that features oud called Otro Poemas de Los Dones. Its notes are agar oud, misiones cedar, and buddha wood, which is my dream combo. I’m going to buy the full size as soon as I can save a little more!
Forest sounds fantastic! I am a sucker for foresty scents.
It has a certain je ne sais quoi about it, not quite a fougere, not really a chypre, but reminiscent of both. It’s bright, green, and a little astringent at first – the top note of oak bark hits right up the nose. Sometimes I swear I can detect a whiff of bergamot, even though there isn’t any. Once the top note dissipates, the middle and base notes mellow together nicely as the day wears on. The white sage’s softer herbal quality provides a solid base that allows the sharper top and middle notes to shine without competing. (Does that description give you an idea of how it smells? I’ve been trying to work on describing scents and it is HARD so feedback would be appreciated though not necessary!) Anyway, hello fellow oud lover! Do you have any suggestions for afordable-ish oud perfumes?
That’s actually a fantastic description! I think I now have a pretty good idea of how it smells (and now I want it more!). I really appreciate descriptions that actually describe the smell, vs. the Black Phoenix Alchemy forum style of “it smells like you’re running through an old mansion being chased by a figure that may be a man or may be a ghost, and a part of you wants him to catch you but when he gets close you faint dead away. Also there’s a vase of roses covered in honey.” where you read it and think “I have no idea how that smells but I now seem to know a disconcerting amount about you.”
I’m actually usually not an Oud person, Amber and Spices notwithstanding. I like to smell animalic notes, but I don’t like to wear them most of the time unless they’re fairly tamed and oud is a bit too animalic for me usually. That being said, L’Artisan’s Al Ouhd smells really fascinating to me even if I wouldn’t wear it and their small bottles tend to be fairly affordable. I can’t remember where Tom Ford’s stuff falls on the price scale, but I remember liking one of his ouds too although I don’t remember which one (this is a vague and fairly useless suggestion, I know).
My current perfume (Christmas gift) is Dead Sexy by TokyoMilk — it is the best. I smell my wrists allllll day.
Lurk perfume oils! Which I tried and do not give me a headache, unlike every other perfume.
FLOWERBOMB. I love that scent. I also wear L’Eau de Issey and am loving Atelier Cologne’s Orange Sanguine (I have the little travel spray).
I’m somewhat sensitive to perfumes – lots of them make me sneeze – but I really love a bunch of scents from Christopher Brosius (also his store is called I Hate Perfume, so A+). His Crushed Fig Leaf absolute is my spring/summer go-to, and I also like Russian Caravan on days when I want to smell like I’ve rolled in Earl Grey (which is most days October-March). Annnnd he has a collab with Alan Cumming called 2nd Cumming: notes include rubber, highland mud, and peat fire. It’s amazing.
Right now I alternate between Montale’s Amber and Spice, L’Artisan’s Jaisalmer, with the occasional day of Histoires de Parfum’s Patchouli Noir. I am getting the itch to get a new perfume and am thinking something a bit more feminine or at least less offensive-to-some-people. Usually I don’t care, but sometimes all the patchouli and oud can be a bit much.
One of the main ways I get new perfumes is to stop by The Perfume Shoppe in Vancouver when I’m there, which is a FANTASTIC store. The owner hand-sells every customer, you just tell her what you like and she’ll start bringing you things to try. She is great and I love her. I used to read perfume blogs and then order samples from The Perfumed Court to try, but I stopped because the number of new scents was getting overwhelming.
Currently English Rose by Royal Apothic, but I don’t think there’s any stores in my new city (Kelowna) that sell it soooo cue perfume panic. I need to find something similar to replace it with when I run out. Is it bad that I’m 27 and really like Aerie’s perfumes?
Am I the only BPAL nerd here? My go-to has traditionally been Aglaea, but with whole Chicago winter thing I’ve been wanting something summery, so I’ve mostly been wearing Tenochtitlan for the past few weeks.
I’m a BPAL nerd! I like almost anything they’ve got with rose or incense or apples. Today I’m wearing Kubla Khan, yesterday I was wearing Ossa Arida which is a resin-y Limited Edition (I think from the Symphony Macabre series? Something like that). My favourite is probably Bilquis, but I have a LOT and a lot of favourites.
I want to order BPAL, but they just have so many perfumes, it’s overwhelming for a newbie! The last time I looked at their website there were over a dozen appealing-sounding perfumes in the Ars Amatoria collection alone – and I’ve bene burned before by perfumes that sounded appealing but smelled awful in reality.
I LOVE Flowerbomb! Wearing it right now actually… mmmm
Ombre Rose has been my scent since I was 17. http://yesterdaysperfume.typepad.com/yesterdays_p…
“The rose in Ombre Rose is, in fact, shadowed by peach, orris, coumarin, musk, heliotrope, vanilla, and sandalwood, turning it into something at once powdery, gourmand, spicy, and woody. (Itโs characterized as an aldehydic floral, but it seems more like a Floriental to me.) You can smell its influence on Loulou โ minus the incense โ but Ombre Rose has some crackle in addition to its sweet, soft, and confectionary simplicity. Its spicy, musky, and woody drydown is near-intoxicating.
Head: Rosewood, honey, ylang, peach
Heart: Rose, lily, iris
Base: Musk, coumarin, vanilla, sandalwood (From Michael Edwards’ French Feminine Fragrances, a book which also provided me with Ombre Rose’s historical information.)
Top notes: Aldehydes, rosewood, geranium
Heart notes: Rose, sandalwood, orris, lily of the valley, cedarwood, vetiver
Base notes: Vanilla, musk, tonka, cinnamon, heliotrope (From Haarmann & Reimer’s Duftatlas)”
yes this is what i do!! I’m super into killian’s love (which you would hate – super sweet/vanilla/gourmand-y) and city of sin but I will never be able to afford 300 dollar perfume so I buy it a few ounces at a time from enterprising people one ebay. Maybe you can try ebay?
edit: also I have like a million samples that I wasn’t into. If anyone wants to trade let me know!
I wear Geurlain’s Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune every day. It’s usually touted as a spring fragrance, but I like it because it’s light for work and I like smelling like a grapefruit every damn day.
Sometimes on dates I wear Gucci Flora which I have in rollerball. In the summer I’ll wear See by Chloe, but only on weekends because I find that it is a little strong. Also, sometimes when I’m at home alone I’ll put on my grandma’s Chanel No. 5 just to read in my pajamas and feel fancy.
I love Burberry scents. Body is my favorite, and I love that I can get it at Costco. I also love Si by armani, but don’t currently have room in my budget to purchase it.
Fans of the FRIDAY CAT THREAD I present to you this picture without further comment
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MrChouffe took some photos of Diesel all tucked in last night.
Fantasia giving me a high five(?):
I “trained” my mom’s cat to give high fives! (The trick is to have a cat that’s an asshole and will slap anything entering her personal space with her paw.)
This is Mandy–I spent New Year’s Eve with her and her family. She has a soft tummy and a wonky eye and I love her.
We have a new cat tree.
And in solidarity with Diesel:
I love your cats. They’re shaped like fat little pears.
1) they claim it’s fluff, but not all of it is…
2) Given your Gormenghast sleeve, I am sure you know the nonsense poems, and hopefully the illustration of the fairy like a William Pear for oh here it is and there it is, which I can’t find anywhere online to put in. Saffron reminds me of her.
Someone greeted me downstairs and want lots attention yesterday (before the dogs could be loosed)
Augh! Your knife block! I love it!
Here’s my cat, looking entirely nonplussed after I dumped some laundry into the basket he was sleeping in.
I just got it, cause I got some new knives for xmas. It is pretty nice! I got mine off chefdepot.com
It is always a challenge to get a photo of Moxie where he’s not going after the camera or making a silly face but sometimes it happens!
omgggg those eyebrow whiskers!!!
I knowww and he likes it when I pet them. They are adorable and ridiculous.
Jack and Rose, hanging out.
That is a GREAT pose.
I have a screened in porch that the cats are allowed to hang out on. They’re pretty good down to about freezing (they puff up their fur and it’s adorable) but now it’s well below that. They still DESPERATELY want to be out there, but about 30 seconds after they are let out they are DESPERATE to get back in and I am a cruel, cruel person.
Repeat approximately 6 times a day.
Ours are the same with the balcony. They’ve got a catflap, so they can go outside if they want, but they REALLY REALLY WANT me to open up the balcony door because they LOVE IT OUT THERE SO MUCH HUMAN WHY DON’T YOU LOVE US ANY MOOOOOORE so I open the balcony and let the freezing cold in, and in five minutes they’re back inside, all plaintive and sulking.
Mine is fine with the cold (he is all fluff, I don’t think he feels it) but he HATES the snow. Every time I shovel the driveway he comes out with me and sits sadly in the carport and will only walk the sections of the driveway I’ve shoveled. At one point this week he wouldn’t even leave the doorway, he just stood there looking at the snow, occasionally shaking his paws like they had snow on them even though he hadn’t left the house yet.
Here is my girl
enjoying her heated cat bed and giving no fucks.
That is a brilliant no-fucks-giving face.
Here are Asa and Oliver in shockingly close proximity. The cold weather takes a slight edge off of their tendency to wrestle.
Works for the craft thread too
My cat is snoring. Sometimes, I wonder why I haven’t seen her in awhile, and then she starts snoring from under the bed.
HI BARTENDER, HI!
Toasties, if you could commission any book or article on the Toast or other piece of material, what would you want?
I would want a Kate Beaton History of Canada. Also I want to read Toast interviews on people with interesting, out of the ordinary jobs! (A TTY relay operator! A person who designs calendars!) Also I want to read in-depth Toast articles on more creepy objects and beloved children’s toys and sea animals!
Oh man there are so many things I’d love to see, but in order to bring some focus to this comment, I’ll say… I’d love more profiles of historical or contemporary women who are doing Cool Things!
We need 100% more BD Wong-related programming in my opinion.
I mean, if we could somehow convince Edith to come back and write more Chris Evans-esque celebrite profiles, I would pay quite a bit of money for that.
I re-read that profile after seeing the GIF (as one does) and now I will never be happy until I am Edith… and have a time machine.
I love that profile. Help me California! I just want to know Edith.
I used to work in a call center and get a lot of TTY calls that were always, 100% of the time, scams. It really made me think about how hard that job must be – the operators were always SO professional and so careful, but if I got a lot of scam calls, what were THEY dealing with? (Aside from the many completely legitimate calls, of course!)
But yes. I hadn’t thought of it, and you are entirely correct: Toast-flavored interviews about work would be amazing.
My aunt is deaf and I work next to a huuuuuge deaf school, but weirdly there’s no local TTY relay operator. And I wonder if it’s declining in popularity because of texting and the internet, etc., but….what an interesting job, seriously.
My friend had newborn twins with breastfeeding issues, and I got a middle of the night panicked-mom call via TTY. THAT was an uncomfortable conversation…it was hard to ignore the third person on the phone while discussing aereolas and the letdown reflex. We totally giggled about it later, thinking of the poor woman who had to be included, whether or not she really wanted to know that much about us.
My husband used to work for a company that did sign language to english or spanish translation via video phones, I think that’s taken a lot of the TTY market. He overheard some interesting calls.
I have heard that skype has pretty much taken over.
I worked for a while for a company that makes a telephone that live-captions the call. That is, a human in a call center writes live captions as you talk. More for elderly people with only some hearing, but we did have some clients who were culturally deaf with some hearing, or who had implants, etc.
About 40% of calls during holidays were kids playing with grandma’s phone to see if it would write out the swears. (Yes, it wrote out the swears.)
I love everything to do with the weird, especially that Mallory posts, but I would definitely second a Kate Beaton post (about any history really).
I would like a continuing series on Shondaland, mostly because I really want to talk about How to Get Away With Murder and Grey’s with someone.
Also, more read-alongs.
Anything about really odd pieces of fiction in history! Weird facts about fiction, oddities that slipped between the cracks, the weirdass tradition that is binding books in human skin…
I would LOVE a series about interesting jobs! It’s nuts to think about how many different types of jobs it takes to keep civilization moving.
It’s true, I think all the time about all the weird jobs people do that we don’t even realize ARE jobs.
I had no idea my job was a job basically until I started doing it. Well, interning to do it. At any rate, I was a college grad with half a professional degree before I knew my job was a thing. There are probably lots more jobs I still don’t know about and this would be an awesome series.
I adored the article on how Anne Boleyn was a total badass who played the fucking game. I would like one on all of Henry’s wives. And maybe all British royal women ever, period. I like history and royals and profanity-laced rants.
I would love to hold out hope that a podcast might be in our future, near or distant. No specific designs on the material, but I love listening to podcasts on my way to and from work, and there is no content I love more than this.
It could truly be anything, and I would subscribe seven ways to Sunday.
I also miss Gabbin’ About God, weirdly enough.
True crime
Little-known badass women in history
Movie recommendations/reviews
Ghost stories/ Unsolved Mysteries
Things about horses
A weekly thread where were were only allowed to speak in lines from the Simpsons and Futurama
Toasties I know in real life have suggested that I write something about a) my prior career as a private investigator working on death penalty cases, and b) my handful of adventures at a swingers club. So…. if anyone has similar stories, maybe we could interview each other or somesuch?
This is probably a book request, but I want a proper history of women in judo- I keep digging up really great bits and pieces of stories, and there’s so much there (figurative and literal fighting for one’s place, for starters)- but niche subject in niche sport = not much of a chance. Although I do have the Mrs. Judo documentary about the Keiko Fukuda, and there are rumors of a documentary about Rusty Kanokogi, so there’s that!
Netflix has the first 50 episodes of Roseanne available. I wish they had more. Not necessarily all of them, because it does decline in quality, but at least the next 50. Youtube had them all but then they all got deleted, literally as I was watching one night. I just love that show, especially the early years, so much. Especially when you think about how few shows today show families actually struggling to get by. In the first 20 episodes alone they talk about things like mandatory overtime when you work at a factory and deciding whether to allow yourself one $50 splurge out of a $500 paycheck when you know it should all go to overdue bills. Then you compare it to shows like Modern Family (which I do generally find enjoyable in its own way) where the worry is whether or not your new white work-of-art couch will get destroyed and there are family trips to Las Vegas and Australia and Hawaii all the time. One show is 20+ years old and one is still airing, but it’s pretty clear which one is a better representation of most modern Americans.
Plus Roseanne and Dan have one of my favorite TV marriages. They fight and disagree about how to raise their children and spend their money but it’s so clear that they love each other, are attracted to each other, and just really have fun together. And not just once in a while, but in every single episode. That’s the kind of marriage I want: one where we’re still making each other laugh 20 years later.
I so agree about Roseanne! I hated it when I was little because it too closely mirrored my own life. But as an adult I have such an appreciation for it. TV show families these days generally seem way too polished and privileged. I was watching Friends yesterday and I realized that show seemed to signal the beginning of something. Everyone on that show always has a hairstyle, even the characters who make very little money. Before Friends, it was enough to just have hair, but post-Friends, all TV people have perfectly highlighted, blown out hair. HAIR.
completely agree, thought i’d throw in that there is a current sitcom that I find pretty realistic about depicting the economic reality of most modern americans that reminds me of Roseanne in that respect – The Middle
I’ve tried to watch The Middle for that reason. I’ve seen some episodes and it’s not bad, but I just couldn’t get into it.
Also, Patricia Heaton has some terrible views in real life that make me not like her, which doesn’t help.
i hear ya, and it’s completely different than roseanne in a lot of ways. i hadn’t ever seen it for several seasons it was on and then kinda accidentally caught an episode and just found it refreshing, like ‘oh yeah, that is actually more like i remember growing up & now that i’m thinking about it i can’t remember actually seeing a sitcom that seemed this real, economically-speaking, since roseanne’. patricia heaton – and her character on the show for that matter – can be annoying, but i find Sue Heck rather awesome which helps balance that out for me.
I was too young to appreciate Roseanne when it first aired, but I started watching it on Netflix last weekend and I absolutely love it. It’s genuinely funny (complete with some great misandrist humor) and the things you pointed out make it truly great. More Roseanne, please, Netflix!
I watched all of Roseanne recently and I just loved the realness of the first few seasons. I wish more TV could be like that.
My boyfriend has been bingeing that (I think he watched about 20 episodes of those 50 last Sunday, partly while playing Civilization V), and you’re right: it’s so weird in a way to see their money concerns, because so few other sitcoms get into that. I mean, HIMYM had a thread about Lily’s fashion debt… which promptly disappeared once it was no longer necessary for the plot. On Roseanne, you can feel it behind almost every decision. Plus, it’s really funny.
I have, over the past, say, year, had occasion to narrate the events of the final episode of Roseanne to multiple people, and in each instance had to go to YouTube to prove that the totally unreasonable things I was saying had actually made it into what started out as a quality television program. Sad to hear that my Exhibit A has been deleted. Because now I’ll just sound like I’ve lost it.
The finale (and final season, really) is insane and I pretend it’s non-canon.
Two things:
Toasties, does The Toast’s website make your laptop or phone deeply unhappy? I love this place, but it causes lag and freezing on all my devices. Help?
I wrote a novel last year, and it was perfectly fine and a valuable experience and I enjoyed it very much! But I don’t think it was the thing I want to send out into the world. Now I’m ready to try again–but I’m afraid to start!
I don’t want to fail, but even thinking I might succeed seems very pride goeth. ๐
So, have you written a novel that you didn’t try to sell? Why not? Did you try again? Tell me about your feelings on the topic of try-again novels!
I haven’t written a novel (“yet,” she thinks to herself, and crosses her fingers) but major props to you for having written one already! I think–if I’m remembering correctly from reading different authors talking about stuff–that a lot of people don’t try to publish their first novel. You could always think of it as practice, or also proof that you CAN do it!
I don’t know what kind of novel you’ve written or are planning to start, but I’m all for try-again novels! Go you!
Oh yeah, I thought of it from the start as like, trying to see if I could. And apparently I can, which…makes trying again scary? idk, BRAINS.
It’s one of those things where I wonder if the men think like this, you know? It might have been Mallory who retweeted something I keep thinking about: something like, if you’re thinking about pitching a piece, and you don’t, know that men just do. How much self-doubt is natural?
Thanks!! Encouragement for second tries is MUCH appreciated. ๐
yes, it causes major issues on my computer
Another Toastie recommended blocking Flash, which I’ve done, and it seems to have helped. If you think Flash might be your problem, maybe give that a try?
On question one: YES. Chrome on my work computer hates The Toast. My iPad hates it less (on Safari) but commenting is not a joy on an iPad.
Oh dear. I just switched over to Chrome, hoping it would be better than Firefox. This is not good news.
It works fine for me on Chrome if I go to chrome://plugins and disable the Adobe Flash Player plug-in. [And hat tip to some smart Toastie whose name I’ve forgotten for that tip!]
Thank you!
Ah, good tip! My work computer hates this sight and is also running way obsolete technology, so I was worried it might just be some kind of malware I had downloaded (I spent most of October trying to delete plug-ins and extensions I didn’t want and was not able to get rid of all of them).
Yes, same here. I have to reboot Chrome basically every day, which is frustrating when I have a million tabs open for work.
there’s a chrome extension called OneTab that compiles all your tabs for you into a list of links, which might come in handy ๐
I haven’t figured out how to make my phone happy with The Toast, but your laptop might be happier if you block Flash on The Toast. There’s probably a button just to the left of the browser’s address bar that will let you do that.
I agree with this advice. Turning off Flash made browsing the Toast 100% more awesome on my home laptop.
Trying this right now and I’m hoping it will work – thanks for the tip!
I downloaded a chrome extension to block Flash and it’s ALREADY BETTER. Thank you!
Somehow I just assumed that either my Flash was broken, or I’d have to use AdBlock – I didn’t even consider that there might be a middle ground. ๐
You are wonderful. This just made everything better!
Oh this is amazing! Thank you so much!
I’ve taken to blocking Flash on all websites and it’s made my browsing experience much better in general. My computer is creaky and old and desperately in need of more memory, but after I noticed that it was still more capable of running fairly complex computer games than a browser with a couple of tabs open, I just started blocking everything to see what helped.
There’s a LOT of websites that want me to turn Flash back on for no discernible reason, so no wonder the poor computer was getting bogged down.
You are the best. I just did this and it is already faster/not lagging.
Thanks for this tip! I thought I was the only one who had problems running the site, especially at work.
Yes, lag and freezing, all the time. I often can’t reply to people who replied to me.
If you’re on Chrome, I just downloaded a Chrome extension called FlashControl that already seems to be helping? I usually have to wait forever for pages to load, sometimes they flat-out freeze or crash Chrome, and commenting is a pain, but–better now!
YES. I finally gave up trying to read the site in Firefox and am now trying it out in Chrome. Today’s Day One of the experiment and so far it’s going better. But UGH. I hope you find a solution that works for you.
I’ve tried Chrome and Firefox and found Chrome more likely to freeze my computer. ๐ BUT another Toastie reminded me that you can just block Flash, so that’s what I’ve done in Chrome. It already seems better, so if you have trouble, might be an option? Good luck!
Trying it now, thanks!
Phone issues – Every time I try to follow a link from an author’s page or from the featured section, I get led to another website. It’s like I’ve tapped on an invisible ad. Only ever happens on my phone.
Chrome issues – yep, freezes my other tabs.
Oh gosh, yeah. I’ve actually quit trying to access the Toast from my phone so I’d forgotten about that, but it happened to me too. idk what the fix is, BUT. Another Toastie said to block Flash, so I just did. It made a difference, which is great. More, easier Toast – yesss. ๐
Hi Toast Friend!
I’ve written a bunch of novels, some of which I’ve tried to sell and failed, two of which I’ve tried to and managed to sell to small presses, and some of which are gathering digital dust in the deep recesses of my computer’s Dropbox file. Ok, so you didn’t ask for advice, but for feelings, so here are my feelings:
Some of the dust-gatherers are dust-gatherers because I LOVED writing them but they are kind of shitty and I had to write five or six more novels (and short stories and novellas) before I got better enough to know that. I still go back and read them, because I love them. But they are like diaries or personal fan fiction. They are just mine, and that’s ok if that’s all they’ll ever be. They are not well-written, and they are not even really salvageable.
Some of the dust-gatherers are totally salvageable! They just need tinkering! (Maybe this is false hope, I don’t know, but that’s how I feel about it now). A rewrite, some hard thinking and hard manuscript-ish decisions, and maybe it’s worth sending it out there. Same goes for most of the rejectees. And there’s always self-publishing. The publishing world is changing.
What I feel though? I like writing a whole shit ton more than publishing. Like so, so much more. publlishing is not even the icing on the cake (that’s the cover); publishing is the plate the cake sits on. My feeling about the whole this is keep writing. If you wrote AN ENTIRE NOVEL (that is so many words and so much time!!) and ENJOYED IT then keep doing it! Publish or don’t, that part matters way less than the part about doing the thing you enjoyed very much, no?
>>Publish or don’t, that part matters way less than the part about doing the thing you enjoyed very much, no?
I did enjoy the thing very much–I actually had no idea, going into it, how much I would enjoy it. I’ve been writing fan fiction for the better part of two decades, and was always like, I don’t think I’ve got the brain for original fiction? I’ll leave that to other brains! But I think that was self-sabotage. Now that I’ve done it, I just want to keep trying. But I do have to be practical about how much spare time I’ve got. Between work and family and hobbies, it seems like hobbies are always the thing to cut.
I totally hear you on the different types of dust-gatherers. I think that if you’ve got the judgment to decide between what’s worth tinkering with and what’s just for yourself, you’re ahead of the game. And I’ve heard that publishing takes up a huge amount of time, often more time than you want or feel like it’s worth. The writing process does seem much more satisfying than any other part. Good reminder, thank you!
My first finished novel is still in the drawer and probably never coming out. It was so hard but rewarding and the end result is just terrible!
But think of this: you have already conquered writing a novel! Starting a second is like playing Legend of Zelda again from the beginning. Sure, you might still run out of hearts before you find the fairy pond (???) but you know how to beat all the big bosses now and presumably how to get out of the endless screen maze without having to find some thirty year old walkthrough. THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME. I say go for it! There’s no rule that says the first thing you finish has to be the first thing you shop.
lolllll I love your Legend of Zelda digression–it makes plenty of sense. That is very much how I feel about first novels in general, learning process, figuring out the big stumbling blocks, etc. I’m definitely proud of myself for getting through it, learning from it, but still hesitant to commit myself to a second. Would you try it again, do you think?
Definitely going to try again! It felt like every frustration was such a great teacher, so I can pretend to know what to avoid in the next one. Plus, just knowing that I already did it is SUCH an ego-boost. I strung all those words together in something like a coherent story!
The toast website makes my laptop lag horribly. I suffer through it.
I am now on novel 3 and will probably actually try shopping this one when it’s done. Novel 2 is percolating while I decide if it can be edited.
Someone told me to block Flash, which I have done, and it did seem to make a big difference! I used a Chrome extension. Worth checking into?
Good job!! Was it hard to make yourself start the 2nd and 3rd times? Or does it get easier as you go?
Each time is hard because you kind of… forget? How to write? It’s weird. But I did it each time, mainly by starting with the plainest, clearest details.
It seems very tricky to me about novels, and I sympathise a lot. Because for us it is hard to try if we do not think we are going to succeed brilliantly, and yet the chances of that are so slim!
There is some writing book from the late 80s we were given by Lawrence Block (who writes mysteries or something, I have no idea) and one of the really interesting parts of it is that he talks about how culturally it is perfectly fine to be an amateur musician and play for your own pleasure, or to paint watercolours on the weekends, or do wood-working and make a birdhouse, and in all these cases nobody expects you to be trying to do it for money. But for some reason writing is not like that, there is this sense that if you Write Things you must be trying really hard to get published and if you don’t get published then you’re not a REAL WRITER and shame on you. I do not think this is as true as it used to be (because yay fanfic and all!) but it is still out there and we at least are at the right body-age that it feels very true.
Anyway, I am bringing all of that up because for us it really helps to look at it and think about what it means to ‘succeed’ and why in the case of writing success is measured by the market rather than by enjoyment of the work or pleasure in sharing the work with others. I don’t know if it will help, but there it is!
I definitely think you should try again. Maybe we should make a Toastie writer/critique/sharing group somewhere, since at least for us having supportive people who wanted to read what we produce and take it seriously and stuff would be really, really nice.
The Block book–Telling Lies for Fun and Profit? I’ve got it sitting on my shelf but only read random bits of it. Maybe I’ll pick it up again! I do think that’s right, that there’s an assumption that writing must lead to publishing, which isn’t true or fair. (Yes, hello fan fiction! In fact, the fanfic might make this tougher, because I am trained to share my writing? Something I hadn’t considered!)
Also, it’s so easy to show someone the birdhouse or painting that you made, or put the painting on a wall and the birdhouse in the yard. Hobbies that are, hmm, more solitary? harder to share? can be tough to sustain, even when you love them.
And I think that’s entirely true about things being hard if you’re not assured of being brilliant at them. “A thing worth doing is a thing worth doing well” and all that. It’s interesting how much we’re all trained to think of trying and not succeeding (however you measure success) as both good for your character AND a personal failure.
A Toastie writer/critique/sharing group is a brilliant idea. I feel like so so many people in this community are writers and readers (and talkers :), that seems like a natural fit!
There are two by Block actually, and I don’t remember if it is that one or Spider Spin Me a Web, we have both and have read parts of both. But they were both interesting. I should find them again and make someone read them since when we were given them like 10 years ago we were not really ready to write seriously and now we are.
What do you think would be the best format for some sort of writer/critique group? We ought to just start it and then we can invite everyone to join!
1. The Toast hates my laptop SO bad. So bad.
2. I wrote a novel for NaNo one year in university and never even thought about trying to sell it. I just wanted to see if I could. And I could! It was probably deeply awful and it was about an incestuous cousin relationship in Nazi Germany but I had fun writing it. One day I will try to write another novel! But really, I just did it to see if I could do it. And I could! Now I know I can do it again!
Someone upthread said to block Flash, and I did, and it made an IMMEDIATE difference. Highly recommended. There’s so much less lag and freezing.
NaNo, omg. Good for you! That’s so much in such an abbreviated chunk of time, and I’m always impressed when people win. That feeling–can I do this?–is exactly why I tried to do it. I wish I could figure out why I feel like I shouldn’t try again, because it WAS fun, even if the results were, uh, okay.
Judging by other Toasties who didn’t seem to have the same hangups as me about trying again, I expect that when you do, it’ll go just fine. Good luck when you need it! ๐
I also have a finished first-draft novel from NaNo! Mine is from high school and really just unsalvageably bad. But I still have the file kicking around, because 1) it does have some good moments, which I am proud of, and 2) LOOK AT THIS BIG THING I MADE.
It IS awesome to have made that thing! I feel that way about my first, too–very Look What I Can Do!–but NaNo impresses me. Congrats and high-fives for the good moments and being proud of your hard work. ๐
Our Editors might not like this but I use a plugin to block Javascript, there is a LOT of weird tracking/ad/social media crap embedded in The Toast.
can you elaborate? i’m curious about the tracking.
I’ve done Nanowrimo a number of times, so I ended up with 6 or 7 first draft novels ๐ I am actively working on one, which I think has real potential. I have put another aside for the time being, although I still intend to return to it.
I go back and forth between working on novels and short stories (which are more immediately satisfying — I’ve had several published this year). Not everything I write is going to be publishable (even with serious editing), but I am (now) okay with that. I don’t really see it as a success/failure thing anymore. Success is having written something, not having it published (that is some other thing).
I was saying to another person that I am super impressed when people manage NaNo–congratulations! 6 or 7 times over. ๐
Yes, re: everything not being publishable and that’s okay! I think what I’m feeling is more that I fail if, once I start again, I don’t finish or it’s not measurably better than the first one. Except the only measurement I can think of is whether or not it gets published, so maybe I do need to adjust that part of my thought process after all.
Good luck and have fun with the ones you’re editing/considering!
The Toast became ultra-laggy for me as soon as I turned off adblock, but I just disabled plugins (which would be Flash) and it’s loading much quicker! I still see ads this way, so I don’t feel as bad about denying income to The Toast Overlords.
Yes, good strategy! Income for the Toast is exactly why I didn’t want to use AdBlock. Disabling Flash made things much better, instantly. I’m glad, because there were so many times where I just couldn’t get a page to open/load/scroll, and I need to open all the pages. ๐
I’ve written three novels with the help of NaNoWriMo. One of them I think is salvageable, but I don’t have the energy to do it; one of them I’m editing right now; and one of them is…well, I learned what not to do, let’s leave it at that.
I’ve found NaNo super helpful for actually finishing things, because you’re so focused on the deadline you stop worrying about things like “good” and “failure” in anything other than wordcount. Maybe a self-imposed strict but doable deadline would help?
Also, every novel I’ve written so far has been completely different from the previous one, both in content and in how I went about writing it. Most of that was accidental, but I think it helps, in that I don’t spend so much time comparing this one to the previous one. Try writing longhand instead of typing, or vice-versa? Write out of order instead of in order? Pick the most implausible POV character? Stupid writing tricks are good for getting started, even if you change your mind later and go back to doing something else.
This weekend is the FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF TOASTIE TWITTER!!!
Have you just recently discovered The Toast and feel as though you’ve found your people? Do you have a Twitter account (or are you willing to make one)? Do your interests include some combination of BUTTS and PET PICTURES and HILARIOUS PEOPLE and BEING A TREMENDOUS GOOFY DORK and PEOPLE TELLING YOU HOW AMAZING YOU LOOK TODAY (even when you don’t agree although I must humbly submit that YOU ARE MISTAKEN) and FRIENDSHIP??? Because if so, I am intrigued and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, by which I mean you! I am @logicbutton and others can be found here: https://twitter.com/embryoconcepts/lists/toasties… .
THINGS TOASTIE TWITTER TOASTIES DO TOGETHER, BASED ON THE PAST YEAR:
-Discover new apps to more effectively show off their pets and themselves
-Travel to see each other
-Exchange Christmas cards
-Exchange gifts and care packages
-Dream about each other
-Investigate potential real estate in which to establish the future Toast Commune
-AND SO MUCH MORE
I love you guys. <3 <3 <3
Toastie Twitter was one of my favorite discoveries of 2014, alongside pimiento cheese. This is HIGH HONORS.
edit: I am slowly going through and following everyone that is listing their twitter names, so if @elyseexplosion follows you, that’s me!
I’m @noxmunk if you would like to follow me!
This seems awesome!!! I need more awesome people to hang out with on Twitter!!! I’m @ppyajunebug and 50% of the time I’m tweeting about whatever I’m marathoning on Netflix.
I’m private on Twitter, so it won’t alert you to the fact that I’m now following you, but if you add @noxmunk, that is me!
i want toastie twitter, following many people now at @sarahsayssoo
Subscribed!
ETA: and am already following a few people, I am @LiterarySara and I mostly tweet about food and books.
Oooh, Toast Commune.
De-lurking just to comment here that I want in on this! I’m @hey_librarygirl and am embarrassingly excited about this whole endeavor.
Oh, you’re in Minneapolis! I live in West St. Paul! I don’t recall – have you been to any of our Mpls Toast meetups?
Not yet. I’d like to, though.
Can I piggyback on your post for Instagram feeds as well? I don’t use Twitter overly much but use instagram a lot. I know we all shared usernames a while back, but I thought I’d provide another chance for more people to share again ๐
I am teuthida on instagram.
So, have you read Kraken? I can lend it to you if not.
By Mieville? I have :). Thank you for the offer though!
I also currently have a masive reading list, and the Tournament of Books publishing their shortlist isn’t helping any.
Yep, that’s the one. Given your usernames here and on Twitter, I figured you might like it. ๐
Yessss! I am terrible at Twitter and deeply sad about it, but I love posting cat pics and history shit on instagram. I’m @rallisaurus pretty much everywhere.
How can one get added to this list?
The person whose list it is adds you – in this case, @embryoconcepts. But you can also just start following people on that list and likely most if not all of them will follow you back.
OK! My twitter name is my real name, which is not hard to find but I don’t want to publish it here because.
Same here! I’m not worried about Toasties knowing who I am in meatspace, but I don’t want, say, prospective employers to read through my comment history…
Exactly.
I want to play Twitters with you guys! I’m both funny and lonely. @FrenzLo
I am @safvn and I love Toastie Twitter and I got some very cool postcards for Christmas, so if anyone wants a postcard, I would love to send them!
That reminds me, I need to follow you.
Ohhh, this might actually get me to use my Twitter more often! I’m @MilesofMountain there, too.
This is almost tempting me to start doing twitter…
do it dooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttttttttt
I follow oodles of you already and I think I’m on the list, but I’m rianne_marie because underscores are cool.
Toastie Twitter has been so awesome. My only complaint is that it’s taken some of my limited surfing time away from The Toast itself. But how can I complain about the amazing people I’ve met there? I can’t. xoxo
me too, me too, please!! @boruden
toastie twitter, I’ll follow you anywhere!
Subscribed! Turns out I was already following half a dozen toasties at least (I didn’t scroll down all the way). If anyone want to follow me, I’m hedinthecloud on there.
Toast Twitter is indeed great! It is such a caring corner of the Twitterverse; sometimes I go outside of my own follow list and I’m like “what are these people talking about? What is happening?!”. But then I go back to my feed and it is silly puns and people sharing that they had a bad day and other people helping bolster them back up and just lovely things. <3
(I am @blushingflwr, by the way)
Oh, I need to follow you too!
I’m in it for the pics of Toasties’ lunches/cocktails/cats, and also the unflagging support and dirty jokes. I’m @emilyorelse.
Hooray for Toastie Twitter! I am @gripyfish on there as well as here, which makes things easy? Something.
I did not realise that toastie twitter was an actual list! What a time to be alive! Mine is @dontbestuckup off to follow everyone now!
Oh I definitely want in on this! Even though I never post. Maybe this will be my impetus to start! I’m @prismmirrorlens.
@gyip! I’m getting way into Twitter ๐
It is truly lovely, and you in particular are great! It’s just so pleasant to have someone around to chat with whatever time of day.
(I’m locked, but you can ask to follow no prob.)
I follow people on twitter but am too scared to post anything.
I subscribed to the list – a first step I guess!
I was wondering about my influx of Toastie followers! I’m @__heck, nice to meet you!
Hi! I am a very creative individual: @in_a_partydress
Pick me, pick me! I’m @cbdavidson
Yes hi I am late to this but I am @combledore! Toastie Twitter is among my favorite things in the history of ever.
OK, I just followed pretty much everyone I think. I bet you can figure out who I am. Now time for me to learn how to twitter.
Slightly embarrassed to say I googled “Toastie twitter” to find out what it is! I mostly lurk in the comments section, but I am here and reading and have a Twitter account and like butts, pets, and hilarity. I’m @k_files; off to start following Toasties. Hello!
Yay, I’m glad you found us even though the Google search results were not that great if they were anything like what I got when I checked just now (will have to do something about that)!
HELLO TOASTRONS. We had a blizzard last night, my car got stuck both coming and going this morning (and the ever-lovely MrChouffe dug it out), and my annual review is in two hours, so I anticipate a higher-than-average chance of boozing this evening.
Related: I am getting ready for my annual review and in so doing, going over my job description, and I’ve been falling prey to pretty serious impostor syndrome (manager-level position is not something that someone with zero industry experience usually walks into, and yet here I am) but it turns out that I’m doing exactly what the job description says to do. And THAT is a hell of a thing to realize.
Un-related: my wedding dress is arriving on Monday and OH MY GOD YOU GUYS. GETTING MARRIED IN NINE MONTHS. WHAT.
How’s your New Year been so far?
Number one: CONGRATS ON THE FUTURE WEDDING, I love other people’s weddings! Post a dress pic next open thread if you feel like it ๐
Number two: annual reviews, whoof. I am also preparing for my first ever, and I’m hoping it does what you’re saying about alleviating some impostor-syndrome suckiness (hello, being a young woman in tech). I’m really glad it worked for you! On the other hand, ours also has a peer review component that I’m very… unsure about. Both for reviews of me and the reviews I’m supposed to write for my peers. Anyone have any experience with peer reviews?
I have found that peer reviews are often far, far more helpful than management reviews. Your peers should (theoretically) have a much better idea of how you handle on-the-ground, day-to-day work things than a supervisor or manager does, especially if you have similar job descriptions. They are more likely to notice what you’re struggling with or acing. I guess I’d go in with that kind of mindset–given what you know, what could they teach you or what could you teach them?
WEDDING DRESS! WEDDING DRESS! We’d love to see it, if you’re in a sharing mood!! If not, hooray! I hope you can put it on and twirl around and be happy (maybe before/during/after boozing??)!
It can be viewed online at this location! And I promise to take photos of it once it arrives ๐
eeeeeeeeeee!
gorgeous dress!
Dang, that dress is so pretty! I love the V-neckline. When I got married everything was strapless, strapless, strapless and I’m so jealous of the v-neck comeback.
Oh you poor thing. Strapless is really, really hard to wear :/
I know that feel when it comes to an annual review. Prior to my last one I was pretty sure I was going to walk in and be told to pack my shit and get out. Instead I got high marks on almost anything and was told by one of my two managers that I “could do no wrong.” That was a huge relief!
Also, my fiancee’s dress just came in this week and I am having similar WOW GETTING MARRIED SO SOON feels. 4 months from today, in fact. If you want to commiserate about impending wedding stuff (good, bad, and in between), I’m in!
Deffo. We are in the very-nascent planning stages, determining budgets and all that, but made a strong start this week.
The snow. The SNOW! I can’t see the house behind mine because the snow. Keeps. Falling. I’m working from home as there was no way I was driving across the mitten to answer angry phone calls all day.
Your dress is lovely. Are you getting married in TC or elsewhere?
Thank you! I am v v in love with the dress. ๐
The snow, however. My G-d. I can’t see to the end of the block right now.
We are getting married kind of all over? Basically wine-tasting the Leelanau side with 20 or so friends and doing bits of ceremony all over the place, guerrilla-style. Our photog is ECSTATIC.
That sounds amazing and beautiful and fun. Leelanau is one of the most beautiful places in the world…what a great place for a such a wonderful event!
Definitely. It helps that we both work weekends in one of the better-known tasting rooms up here and are regulars at several others, who will definitely not mind if we bring a group by and have a minute of Clandestine Wedding on their grounds.
At any rate we have found a minibus that has a minibar and a dance floor.
The bus sounds like perfection. Everyone can just ride around, swigging from bottles from Mawby, then jump out for strategic photo ops.
Mr Mawby is a really good boss. He suggested the whole idea!
That is my absolute favorite place to go. Summer isn’t officially summer until I spend an afternoon on the patio up there.
While I have a great boss, I am totally jealous of the place you work!
hi toasties!
2015 started off…terribly. i don’t know, i hit a major roadbump, and fell apart like i haven’t in five, six years. for no reason that i can put my finger on, which is all the more distressing because i don’t know how to avoid it in the future, either. thank the lord for moms and for kind doctors who’ll prescribe you xanax.
I’m sorry. ๐ I’m glad you have a support structure. We’re here, too.
thank you! toasties are the best.
I don’t mean this flippantly, and I’m not into-into astrology, but this year’s horoscopes mentioned that the full moon this week was gonna f#$% a lot of people up. But it’s something to tell yourself as a small consolation, because apparently things get easier from here.
i’m not really into astrology either, but this is kind of comforting, so thanks!
Big toasty hugs, if they’d be welcome. Here’s hoping things only get better from here!
thank you, they are super welcome!
That totally sucks. I’ve been struggling with the first few weeks of 2015 too, but I know exactly why (overextended myself during the holidays, reorganization at work, job interview to potentially escape the reorganization). Not that that necessarily helps. Glad you’re doing better already, though. <3
oof, that sounds rough. i hope you’re feeling better soon and i wish you all the best in your work aspirations!
are you a virgo? i know this sounds really weird, but i read susan miller’s horoscopes at astrology zone after the fact (like, to see if she was right) and she pretty much always is. and she said virgos would have a really bumpy start to the new year because of the full moon on jan 4, but from here on out it’s going to get better! let’s hope so!
ETA: totally missed MissAndrie’s above comment. astrology isnt for everyone but i’m into it! good luck in any case!
thank you! i’m barely over the virgo-libra cusp, on the libra side at september 25th. i don’t really buy into astrology but there for sure is some stuff i can’t explainโeven if it’s just funky brain chemistry or the moon!
see? the fact that i kindof guessed you were a virgo means it’s all true! ๐
this is susan miller’s forecast for libra, in case you’re curious. You have leisure fun coming up! “I do see that leisure fun will come in the second half of January, but first you will have to get through the difficult full moon in Cancer, 15 degrees, on January 4, ” http://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/monthly/li…
You guys, things are going SO WELL. My energy levels are up, I’m sleeping better, my appetite is normal, I am able to devote time nearly every day to intentional movement without suffering fatigue, and I think I might be ready to start lifting heavy again soon–possibly around April! The Burgomaster and I love each other more all the time (we hit our ten-year mark this fall) and I have a really good feeling about 2015 on the personal front.
I hope this year brings beautiful and terrific things for each and every one of you.
I forgot to bring with me today the beautiful card from my Toast Secret Santa so I don’t remember your name (ARGH!) but the rubber stamp is adorable and I love that you designed it yourself! THANK YOU!
that gif is some kind of magic. i keep watching it and it’s lifting my spirits… THANK YOU.
๐
I realized yesterday that I am desperately missing my college linguistics classes. Does anybody have any good linguistic/language book recs to help fill the void in my soul (and you know, educate/entertain me)?
What kind of thing do you want? I haven’t found much that has taught me anything new, but there are a few good ‘history of the language’ books about. I like Melvyn Bragg’s ‘the Adventure of English’ and a lot of people like David Crystal, although I can’t personally get on with his writing.
I am looking for anything language related at all, as I just have no idea where to start! I am definitely super into the history of language(s), and will put The Adventure of English on my list and take any other history recs you have!
Trying now to remember the name of the David Crystal/Ben Crystal book about doing Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation…
We only had one college linguistics class (history of the english language) but it was fantastic, so I would like to hear about these books too!
You won’t go far wrong with Steven Pinker, for a more ‘this is how language works’ kind of thing rather than history. The Language Instinct is the most famous.
Not a book, but I really enjoyed this: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of…. It’s crazy expensive right now, but every course goes on sale 75% off at least once a year.
Check your local library! Libraries love Great Courses, we buy that shit all the time.
I have not read it myself, but Stephen Fry recommends Guy Deutscher’s The Unfolding of Language.
That’s my favorite linguistics book! It made me understand Semitic languages for about ten minutes.
I also love Guy Deutscher’s Through the Language Class. I’ve never taken a real linguistics class so maybe it’s pop linguistics but I loved it and thought it was so interesting!
I LOVE Through the Language Glass, and I agree with Deutscher on pretty much his entire thesis. I think he’s miles ahead of other researchers in the field, for what it’s worth. I quoted him about a billion times in my thesis.
The Unfolding of Language is good academically (IMHO), but quite hard to read, whereas Through the Language Glass is very easy to understand, so if you don’t like one, it’s worth trying the other.
Linguistics isn’t really my thing but I loved Wisdom Sits In Places, which is about how the Western Apache use places and place names to communicate cultural values and morals. I suppose it’s slightly more cultural geography than linguistics, but a lot of the book revolves around how place names are used in conversation and given meaning and it’s FASCINATING
Robin Lakoff and George Lakoff (formerly married to each other) are both great linguistics writers. I wrote a number of papers on Robin’s “The Language War” in college, and she also has a book called “Language and Women’s Place,” which sounds right up Toast alley. She’s more sociolinguistics while George is cognitive linguistics. He gave a lecture at my college about metaphors and neural paths that blew my tiny freshman mind. My favorite of his books is “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” though it’s a little more pop and less academic than others.
Basically anything by either of them is probably a good bet. Now I miss my college linguistics classes too!
Don;t forget women, fire and dangerous things! That’s Lakoff, isn’t it?
It is! It’s just been too long since I read it, whoops.
That has just made me think how long it is since I’ve read it, and realise I started university in 1996. JESUS POLEDANCING CHRIST that is nearly 20 years ago.
Yeah, the Lakoffs are great. Also Deborah Tannen has a bunch of interesting stuff about gender and language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Tannen#Bibli…
And now I will tell you about the time I took a Language, Gender, and Power class with a guy I’m sure you’ll all recognize. The class was a high-100s level because it was the first time it was offered and they wanted to see how it would be received. It seems to be a 400/500 level class now. I was a linguistics major in my junior or senior year but because it was a 100-level class there were all kinds of folks in the class.
We read a paper by Robin Lakoff and George Lakoff* about, well, language and gender. When the class met to discuss it, this guy in a floppy hippie hat and a crocheted necklace (it was Eugene, I think this was the equivalent of the puka shell necklace for hippies) started talking before anyone else could. He ranted at length about I don’t even remember what, disagreeing with the paper, and then said “so George and Robin, I guess they’re brothers –” the professor and I were horrified — like, your bias is showing, asshole — but nobody else seemed to be. But she didn’t correct him. I never listened to a thing he said after that.
The class was pretty good other than that guy, though.
* George Lakoff’s official website has quite a long list of his papers and books, but does not list anything he wrote with Robin Lakoff. I feel like that’s weird.
Metaphors We Live By by him is also great!
I don’t know if you’ve read it yet, but Bill Bryson’s “The Mother Tongue” is a GREAT book. I’ve read it at least 6 times, plus it’s vastly entertaining.
Not to be a downer but Bryson’s nonfiction is, while extremely fun, notoriously poorly fact-checked.
I found I couldn’t make my way through the book, there were so many assertions (such as” X is true”, instead of “X is a good/popular/etc. theory”) that I think are utterly false. It could be a product of it’s time – that the field has come a long way since the book was published – but there were too many false claims and/or misrepresentations for me.
I miss them too! If you’ll take your language through a veil of archaeology, I quite enjoyed “In search of the Indo-Europeans” and “The Horse the Wheel and Language” — and then you can wade through the sea of academic debates between those guys and Renfrew, such larks! The Kurgan hypothesis, the Anatolian hypothesis, Gray and Atkinson’s hybrid theory, etc.
Oh, those sound just up my street, thankyou.
Spoken Here by Mark Abley, which is a tour of endangered and dying languages, is really, really excellent. Abley is a journalist, not a linguist, so it’s actually comprehensible.
Not a book, but Language Log is an educational/entertaining linguistics blog.
Fiction rec: If you like SF at all, try Suzette Haden Elgin’s _Native Tongue_. It’s feminist SF where the science is linguistics!
Goodness, I had totally forgotten that book even existed, but now you’ve reminded me I am vigorously seconding the recommendation!
Oh, yes, if you can stomach China Miรฉville (I love him but understand why not everyone does), try Embassytown.
That sounds immediately up my alley but the quotations on the Wikipedia page make it sound desperately close to painful reality. It might be harder to read than that description makes it sound.
It is very Handmaids Tale-esque.
This isn’t a book, but you might enjoy Dialect Blog: http://dialectblog.com/ — I find it fascinating and it often leads me down 1 zillion wikipedia rabbit trails.
oh god I need this thread.
This morning I got catcalled on my way to work so i’m fully prepared to dropkick all men into a volcano, except I have a date tonight with a man who I know for a fact wants to get naked with me but is being super coy about it and it is Just Not Cute Anymore. We planned to go to a museum but I relocated the date to my apt last night because I was just plain done with waiting around. Good idea/bad idea? This is our fourth date, and our last date was at my apt too (but nudity did not happen for Shark Week reasons).
Good idea! I don’t believe in coyness.
GET ON IT. If you trust the guy, then get out there. I’m sure you can turn “alright man let’s just do this – your coyness is turning me off” into some sort of sexy whisper-phrase.
Yeah he should already have known better to take the cues and run with them, but maybe he needs an extra blunt shove. Maybe in a playfully teasing way, like, “Hey, so, are you gonna step up and go for what you want or are you going the meek route? Nobody likes a dud.” Or something curt like that. That should flip a switch in him and it’d be like “haha okay, i get it, green light”
You’re right, I think that’s my only option. I’ve done smaller versions of this already with him re: kissing and other physical stuff, and every time he’s “what no, what are you talking about, um” so…I don’t really know how to get through that.
I mean, it is also possible that he does not want to do any of these things. That sounds like some real reluctance, rather than intentional coyness. And if I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have sex with someone, them calling me a dud and assuming they knew what I wanted would be way way way creepy. Like, leave the apartment and not come back every creepy. Why not just ask him where he’s at? Preferably before you’re in the heat of the moment with him?
yeah, he has verbally said that he wants to get with this though.
People sometimes change their mindsย about things. Consent is an ongoing process! What people feel like doing with their junk changes with the tides and the seasons and the mercies of Dirtbag Dionysus. Just asking–without judgement and with theย understanding that he gets to say no–seems like it would lead to just as much sex if the answer is yes, and much less creep if the answer is no.
yeah, i get how consent works
“…I know for a fact (he) wants to get naked with me” was the crux of the whole bluntly nudge him thing. If he’s still timid or get’s defensive/offended: not worth the time/effort, I’d say. Unless you are fine dealing with the insecurities or whatever other issues this dude has. Wait, is he a never-nude?! Seriously, has he been naked with another person before?
THERE ARE DOZENS OF US! DOZENS!!!
It took me way longer than it should have to decode “shark week reasons.”
[Bill Nye voice] now you knowwwwwww
Yeah, my reaction was “oh, I guess they’re really into watching Shark Week and couldn’t be bothered to do anything else until it was super late and they fell asleep? ….oh, no, not that at all. Heh.”
FALLEN LONDON thread!
I have gained the key to a Zee-Znail Retreat. I know that moving there will eliminate the City Vices cards from my deck but are there any other consequences? Can I move back when I want? I was thinking of getting a room at the Brass Embassy because I love me some devils.
Also, I find myself in need of a large number of Magnificent Diamonds. I’ve been doing expeditions to uncover a thieves’ cache but so far I haven’t gotten any among my loot. Is there a reliable way to get them?
(I will surely return to this thread with more questions but it’s lunchtime and I am STARVING so I will see you later once I have food!)
I got the Zee-Znail retreat also! It removes a tiny bit of your scandal when you move in – and the cost of moving is now 5 actions, but it’s worth it to be rid of that artist and his model for a while. Based on that logic, the New Newgate Cellars might remove some suspicion? I completely miscalculated my taste of lacre though and can’t bag the temple to see what it does.
In other news, Walter the Greater One-Horned Rhinocerous cracks my shit up, I could wrestle with him all day. Also – The Gift was a super creepy fantastic story, A+ would go instantly mad again.
Ooh this is interesting. I was so excited to see that I could get a Suite at the Royal Bethlehem (I already live there, the Suite gives you *5* cards) but I have only 1 Notability! So sad. Will have to save that for next January…
Interesting to hear the Gift is A+ โ I had other stuff to do so I’ve ignored it so far, but I may hop on that. I saw there was some stuff about the Royal Family, and I’ve always been interested in the real Victorian royal family, so that might be fun.
FALLEN LONDON THREAD!!
oh man Hemlock Cantarella is so bad at becoming a Person of Some Importance. I have died about a dozen times–that got complicated when Death learned all my fabulous chess tricks.. And gone mad at least once NOT while pursuing watchful endeavors. And been abolished to the Tomb Colonies twice. Pretty sure I’m about to be throne in jail any second now.
Ooh, I just moved there too. Just unlocked the University so doing some tasks in there, but my nightmares are getting dangeroulsy high again (I am always suffering from high nightmares).
I got a damp room in a temple! And finally became a person of some importance, and acquired a basalt gymnasium from a rat army, and bought a beat up old steamer that I have not yet taken to sea, and joined the Dilmun Club. So many things!
I moved to a Zee Znail Retreat too!!
Question for experienced players – I feel like the game has slowed down for me a bit. Most of my stats are in the low 70s (except Shadowy, guhhh, so I changed my profession to get the points boost) and I don’t really know what stories I’m doing or why or how or etc. I was going along pretty nicely in my ambition (Heart’s Desire) but now I’m stalled until I can get all the kinds of nightmares or a key or something else… And I was very excited to get the Cave of Nadir thing with the secular missionary and the revolutionary, but there’s no card for it anywhere so I think I might not have my stats high enough yet. Any ideas??
The 70s were a bit of a grind without as many engaging storylines for me also, but once you get past that tons of things open up. Do you have stat-boosting gear that can help out?
Also the Cave of the Nadir doesn’t show up as an opportunity card, it becomes one of the expeditions you can do in the Forgotten Quarter. Have you started digging things up yet?
Yeah, you have to get your Archeologist stat to 5 and pack pleeeenty of surprises before you can find the Cave of the Nadir.
Speaking of which, what are your stances on selling the location of the Cave of the Nadir? Are there negative repercussions?
I still need two more Eyeless Skulls to even get into the Nadir so I haven’t reached a point where I can sell its location so no info on repercussions. From what I gather, however, there are a couple of super-profitable choices of buyer if you’re in it for the lucre?
Ooo both of those things are good to know! I’ve done a couple expeditions. It’s fulfilling my childhood dream of being an archaeologist.
Still working on becoming a person of some importance. I’ve gotten all my stats above 100 except Shadowy, which is still at 84, and I’m getting frustrated, because the only thing I seem to able to do at this level is the same low-level heist, which I’ve already done 3 times. Also, I find dying, going insane, and being sent to the Tomb-Colonies fun, but going to prison is just a drag, and I’m running out of rats I can use to lower my ambition. I did move to a dripstone-snared temple, though.
Can you do things with the couriers in the Flit? If you shadow them or learn tricks of the trade repeatedly you can open up the War of Illusion which involves adventures with cat and bat minions and that ups your Shadowy nicely. Also, minions!
I seem to have leveled out of that. The couriers aren’t there any more, and I didn’t do much with them when they were. Damn.
Buy a Talkative Rattus Faber at the Bazaar! He’s cheap and he decreases your stats by 25 while you have him equipped.
Thanks! Now my Shadowy is too low for the couriers, but I think I’ll have more fun building it up again.
Yeah, I had to go the Raddus Faber route for my Shadowy. I actually did a bunch of grinding with the Waylay a Weasel Seller thing in Spite. When you fail it increases your wounds, which I find infinitely more managable than suspicion. And then you’ll have a bunch of weasels which you can feed to your plant (if you’re cultivating that strange plant) or use for performing tricks for the Topsy King.
Resolutions: this year, I have as my goal persistance. I have both bipolar disorder and a traumatic brain injury, and the combination of these two makes it very difficult for me to be consistent at just about anything I take on. Depressions, from the bp, and lack of executive function, from the TBI are the culprits. After a depression, my mind seems to do a reset, and I forget everything I was working on before. The execution function means, practically, that I forget how to do something. So, if I make a goal to exercise, I do good until the depression hits, and then I’m lost.
Anyone out there with either bp or a TBI who has any hints or tricks to get consistency and persistance in their lives? How do you set goals? How do you keep your resolutions? How do you keep from being frustrated and judgmental with yourself regarding on-again, off-again stick-to-it-tiveness?
I can’t help with much of that, but the on-again, off-again business is something I struggle with. Mostly I just try to be kind to myself, and figure that any time I can spend on (exercising, resisting third helpings of cake, actually putting away laundry, etc.) is better than nothing. I also try to focus on benefits (I will sleep better, my back will feel better, my mornings will go more smoothly) rather than “shoulds” (I should do this or be such and such a way).
I have unipolar depression and my executive function is just shot to hell, I’ve been awful at planning and following through since I was like….ten.
It’s something I’m still working on and I do get frustrated and judgmental with myself. This maybe isn’t ideal, but I find that external motivation/validation helps a lot. Rather than just telling myself I’m going to do something, I tell someone else or announce it on social media. It’s my way of tricking my brain into thinking “Now I can’t back out or someone else will know I gave up.” Er, again, it’s using guilt as a motivator, so maybe it’s not super healthy….but it’s kind of the only thing that works for me.
I haven’t tried this yet. I may publish on Facebook, and maybe I will ask my friends to support me after the depression, maybe say something like “after my depression, please remind me of my goals for which I will be very grateful. It’s not nagging it is just a *reminder!*”
I have unipolar depression and terrible follow-through, and the thing I’ve found most helpful is setting the goals when I’m feeling stable and then just divorcing my actual desire to do anything from the action of doing it. Like, it doesn’t matter if I don’t want to write today, that is not the point of this exercise, the point is to write anyway. (The actual advice I saw in a book once was just “Do It Anyway,” and I’m currently literally embroidering it on a sampler, it has done me so much good.)
Of course, the side effect is that it becomes difficult to tell when you actually want to do something, and nearly impossible to find something you want to do when you have actual free time, so there’s that trade-off.
Do you happen to remember the book? My household needs this technique described in more detail.
There’s a book called something like ‘Getting Things Done’ which sounds very similar although I say that not having actually read much of it. ๐
Speaking very personally, for me one of the things that seems to make someone actually an adult is that ability to do things even if they don’t want to do them. I am terrible at this, but then, I am not an adult yet!
Cassandra says it is also for her about doing the thing to /do it/ rather than to /get it done/ but I think that is an advanced technique.
Thanks! We’ve tried the GTD thing but it had too much ~stuff~ like list-making and rules to follow. He hates rules to follow. (It is hard to run a business with someone who hates complying with rules and making lists.)
But yeah, we are both working on “do it even though you don’t want to.” It’s hard, especially with mental health issues in the mix. Adulthood! Hmph.
I have an ASD which manifests in periods of happy productiveness followed by periods of blerg and misery, and I’ve found that it helps if I write down what I’m planning to do, when I’m planning to do it, and especially if I leave more time than I think I need for the inevitable fucks-up that happen during blerginess.
Since you mentioned exercise – when I’m in a bout of depression, the only way I can get myself to be active is with teeny tiny SHORT workouts. Knowing that it’s just 10 minutes (or less) makes it feel more manageable by a lot. The NY Times has a 7 minute workout app (web and for phones) that I’ve used, and I also have done the super cheesy 8 min abs/buns/etc videos on Youtube. Certainly doesn’t work every time I’m depressed and thinking about exercise, but it is pretty much the only way I can. For following through on other goals, I find that listing what I’ve done is really helpful. I hope you find something that works for you! And don’t forget to be gentle with yourself when sticking to it comes harder.
I mostly want Hey Ladies to become a daily or at LEAST weekly feature.
Oh god, I’d get horrible secondhand tension if it were a weekly feature. Besides, how many excellent stories could they offhandedly refer to if it were a weekly thing?
I have to apply for a fellowship this weekend and it’s freaking me out because last time I didn’t get it and now I’m convinced that it’s not even worth it since I’ll end up as a double failure so why even try.
My brain is my worst fucking enemy.
There are some fellowships that barely consider people who haven’t applied before [been rejected before] – whether cos familiarity breeds fondness, or wanting proof of grit, or whatever. Do it! Good luck but really, the applying is an important habit to develop.
Good luck! You can do it!
Once I applied for some amazing fellowship and got rejected, and wrote to the lady asking for feedback on my application. She was like “We got 16 other people with your exact qualifications (BFA, MLIS) and 7 people with better (BFA, MFA, and MLIS, or a PhD of some kind). But you’re cool and you’ll probably have a good career and stuff.”
So, yeah. You should always ask to find out what exactly you were up against — it’s probably not you, it’s probably a depressingly wacky job market and ridiculous competition.
Now that I have written that I am not sure if that is helpful or discouraging. I think you should apply the heck out of everything, all the time.
I have been having a tough week. My mom is in the hospital and I am stuck half way across the country from her and can do nothing but talk to my dad twice a day. She is getting better, and the crisis is over, but I am left with the realization that someday, and it may be soon, I will lose my mom.
Other than that our foster dog, Roxy, is at the vet getting spayed today. She will be ready to put on the adoption page as soon as we can get some good pictures of her. Hopefully I can link to that next week.
I’m sorry. That sounds like a stressful, scary week. But your mom is getting better! And now you have stared into the face of the reality that life is limited, and you can make an effort to make the most of that uncertainty, which sounds like a good thing, ultimately. I hope it is!
Thanks to you and everyone else who commented. All the support is so nice.
I think the hardest thing aboutall this is hearing my dad realize that he will most likely be the one left behind. I think the tragedy of a happy marriage is that at one point someone is left alone.
My mom is doing great right now, so happy thoughts.
Thanks! I need to see this movie.
*hugs* if you want them. Glad your mom is getting better
You and your parents are in my thoughts. Hoping next week is better for each of you. ::hugs::
I am in need of suggestions for vacation destinations. My husband and I are planning our first real vacation in a few years for this March. It will be a week-long and while we don’t want to completely break the bank, we have some funds to play with. I prefer beachy, super relaxing vacations while he prefers adventurous vacations. We are open to traveling anywhere, really. The top of my list so far is a Northern California roadtrip to see Big Sur, San Fran, and the Redwoods, but he is complaining that he’s spent lots of time in Northern CA already. The top of his list is the Ice Hotel in Sweden (just fucking kill me now). Any ideas for something in between?
I went to Maine for my honeymoon–it’s not beachy, exactly, but there’s lots of lovely nature to walk around in or sit around in.
I’m dying to check out Maine! I live in NY, so it isn’t far. Do you know what the weather will be like in March? Pretty cold I’m guessing, but I don’t know…
I’m from Maine originally! You could get any kind of weather in March, really, from snow to 65 and sunshine. Either way, it will be completely lovely and gorgeous and the beaches are wonderful and the food is fantastic and it is charming. Some nice hikes, surfing, and kayaking too! If you want more details I would be happy to oblige.
Maine in March would only be good if you’re into mountain sports, then it’s fantastic. Not tit freezing cold like February, but not snowless and mud like April. Although, from NY- not too different weatherwise. Come here in the fall instead!
Could be a nice mix of fireside drinking by night and snowshoe trails by day, but it’s far from beachy. It’s jus’ barely beach in the summer.
That was going to be my vote. We went in July and the ocean was still awfully cold though….
We went to Belize for our honeymoon and had an awesome time. There’s beach on the coast and jungle inland (win-win!) and once you get there, you can find some great deals. Oh man, I loved Belize. If you want more info, let me know.
I would love more info! I am a Terrible American and only speak English (I have studied Spanish, but would not want to rely on my skills in case of emergency). Would there be a major language barrier there?
Belize is English-speaking ๐
But I would second vacations to any Central American location, like Costa Rica, Panama, etc. You’ll always have that mix of beach/jungle that will satisfy both of you.
Haha! I did not know Belize was English-speaking! Terrible American status: confirmed. ๐
100% English speaking. The Belezian dollar is 2:1 with USA’s, which helps a lot.
We stayed for about 2 weeks. Flew into Belize City, took a small plane to Caye Caulker, stayed there for 2-3 days, then took a 3 day 2 night catamaran tour with Raggamuffin Tours. Awesome, awesome. Camped on a private island (amazing stars), ate well (food and drink included, mostly seafood including lobsters on the last night), and great company (about 15 other travelers)– fishing, snorkeling, sunbathing, etc. Docked in Placencia where we stayed for a few days and enjoyed the beach before taking a series of buses (~$8) inland to San Ignacio where we saw Maya ruins at Cahal Pech and stayed at Blackrock Lodge, which is extremely fancy and we got for a steal (~$60/night?). We splurged a bit and took their day trip to Tikal National Park in Guatamala, which was incredible. If it hadn’t been the rainy season, we’d have gone to Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) (google it).
Everyone was extremely friendly and the food was amazing. As a bonus, you get to say your trip was “unbelizeable”.
WOW! That sounds truly amazing! And the 2:1 currency conversion is definitely a selling point! This is now on my list – thank you! (See, I would have NEVER thought of Belize! Toasties are the best resource!)
I’ve been wanting to go to Belize! I hear it’s gorgeous and fun while relatively cheap and easy (how I like my dates (sorry)).
That is how I like my dates AND how I would describe myself as a date, so Belize seems to fit the bill ๐
I hear Costa Rica has beach and adventure type options!
I have heard Costa Rica is awesome! Though it has gained so much popularity, I wonder if it is super expensive and crowded now? I will check into it. Thanks!
Iceland, perhaps? We took a trip around the Ring Road last May, and it was amazing. Lots of hot springs to soak in, wonderful sweaters, gorgeous landscapes (but I think I am more on your husband’s side of the travel spectrum).
If you want warm weather, Costa Rica is a pretty awesome combination of relaxation (beaches! hotsprings! beaches! tropical forests!) and adventure (volcanoes! ziplines! jungle hikes! surfing!).
I love Iceland very much, and you can do not-too-arduous adventuring. Might be too dark in March (though perhaps the aurora would make up for it).
I went to Iceland in September (the shoulder season) and have seriously been considering trying to convince the boyfriend to go back in the winter for snowmobiling under the aurora. Also, hot springing under the aurora.
We live in Alaska, so get plenty of aurora viewing at home, but if it’s not something you’d normally get to experience I would 100000% recommend a winter trip to aurora-prone places.
Where do you live in Alaska? I want to take an aurora-based trip in winter 15/16 and don’t know where to go. Iceland is appealing for not really any particular reason, but there are lots of other places!
In Fairbanks, in the middle of the state. It’s about 60 miles due south of the Arctic Circle. Iceland was brilliant, and I think their hot springs are far better than ours!
Sent from my iPhone
Iceland and Costa Rica are solid contenders! Adding to my list. Thanks, ladyimogen!
We went to Barcelona for our honeymoon and it was fantastic. Lots to do in the city, great food. Now apperently the beaches in Barcelona itself kind of suck, but Costa Brava is very close by and has great beaches apparently (we didn’t go to any beaches when we were there, just stayed in the city).
Also seconding the Keys, they are very nice.
I second Barcelona with my entire being, it is my favourite city in the world. I didn’t think the beaches in town were BAD, but then we weren’t very picky, we just wanted to spend an afternoon sprawled on the sand.
To be fair, that is just what we heard from our hotel concierge, and have no personal experience with it. Looking online the beaches seem fine to me. And everything else about the city is amazing.
Now I am yearning for Barcelona again. Such a delightful city. Do get an apartment though and not a hotel, and buy yourself some groceries and eat in once in a while, otherwise you’ll never get any green vegetables.
I went to Barcelona many years ago with my sister on a whirlwind tour of Europe, and it was the one city I would want to go back and explore. It is quite amazing… I will definitely check into it more. Thank you!
Mexico? I really like Sayulita, which is just outside Puerto Vallarta. It’s a very small and very touristy town, popular with Canadian and Europeans especially. You mentioned that you’re not super comfortable in Spanish, and I don’t think that would be an issue here. It’s reaaaaaly laid back, but there is a great beach break if you want to learn to surf in nice warm, comfortable waves. The food is killer. Even though it’s a popular tourist destination, there are no chains or big resorts. I’ve been a few times if you want more info!
seconding Mexico. though I’ve never been there. I’m determined to make it to Tulum this summer (Mayan ruins plus beaches! what more could you ask for).
How about the Azores? I went there last March, and it was super fun. Not high tourist season, so not too crowded and v. relaxing. Plenty of hiking options, and although there isn’t a *ton* of beachy stuff per se, the entire island is full of hot springs that you can just go and sit in. That’s basically how I organized my tour of Sao Miguel: hiking was justified when the thing at the end was a hot spring to sit in. My favorite was the one that’s basically in the ocean, with the thermal pool fed by a hot waterfall a close second.
That’s my ancestral homeland! Can I ask how affordable it was to visit there?
Mine, too, on one side!
It wasn’t bad, though I’m coming from Boston and the cheapo flights from here to Portugal (SATA airlines) stop over in the Azores, which helps a ton. I spent somewhere in the range of a grand for a little over a week there, including flights, but I was paying for a portion of my mom’s expenses as a bday gift.We got an AirBnB in Ponta Delgada, cooked most breakfasts and lunches on our own rather than eating out, and rented a car for about 4 days to get around the island. We also didn’t do a ton of organized activities, and opted to be our own tour guides, which required a lot more advance planning but was cheaper and worked out really well.
Same! My dad’s family is from Corvo.
Hmmmm. I imagine it would be more difficult to get there from the West Coast. But it’s good to know that it’s possible to do on a reasonable budget once you’re there!
before I even read ANY of the replies – the US Virgin Islands! You don’t need a passport, it’s BEAUTIFUL, and there are tons of adventury-things to do (hiking, exploring sugar cane plantations, snorkeling/SCUBA, fishing…) as well as beautiful secluded beaches. The weather is always perfect. Flights are on the pricey side, but you can find an AirB&B apartment for pennies. I’ve only been to St. Croix, but it’s easy to take day trips to the other islands (St. Thomas is pretty big and tourist-y, St. john is more secluded/woodsy/hike-y).
I’m a little late but just chiming in to say I also went to Caye Caulker and stayed at Black Rock Lodge when I was in Belize last year! I also highly recommend Belize (it’s actually a Commonwealth country which is why everyone speaks English) and Black Rock is really great. It’s also a super easy flight from most anywhere in the US (just under 3 hours from Atlanta).
YOU GUYS. I went on a Tinder date last night with a dude who:
a) went to my alma mater and lived around the corner from the best bagel shop in the universe,
b) loves Murder She Wrote,
c) split nachos with me,
d) would let me win at Mario Kart,
e) hates scary movies,
f) asked me out again.
THIS IS A GOOD YEAR.
tinder success stories are so random and unexpected and fantastic! congrats!
this sounds excellent all around!
i’ve been waffling around the idea of maybe trying tinder and this is encouraging, too.
You do have to wade through some juiceboxes, especially since a lot of people (dudes) use it exclusively to hook up. I was really inspired by this great blog about a year of first dates from Tinder! http://walkinsauce.tumblr.com/
Oh man, because that girl is blogging from Toronto I read partially for the hilarity and partially to learn where the best nachos in Toronto are.
SERIOUSLY, NACHOS.
I’ve been dating a Tinder boy for almost 2 months now! It is going scarily well. Like I keep waiting to find out something horrible about him because there must be a catch.
YES this is the kind of success story I like to hear.
I’ve been with my tinder boyfriend for almost 5 months, and we’ve cohabitated already! we’re a bit older, have been around the block, and went through a pretty thorough “this is what I want, what do you want, do they fit?” series of discussions before making the commitment, but we’re super happy and things are shaping up quite well!
(ETA: one of the reasons I decided to meet up with him is because it turns out he is a very old, good friend of a very good friend of mine – they went to college together and then were in a touring hardcore band for years together – and this friend of mine does not abide any shitty people, so he was fairly well vetted beforehand haha)
When I lived in Glasgow I would download Tinder every two or three months, use it for a day or two, then delete it because it’s just so weird. The last time I downloaded it I decided to take action and message every guy I matched with who I thought was cute and an actual viable option. I sent them all variations on a stupid joke poem. I talked to a few who responded and one of them ended up being my first Tinder date ever. We dated for the 3 months I had left in Glasgow and now that I’ve left we still text pretty much every day and sext/sexy Skype every couple of weeks. We aren’t exclusive or boyfriend/girlfriend and it’s not a defined relationship because I’m not Scottish and he’s not American and we will probably never live in the same country. But it is still very nice for the time being.
So I’m sometimes hesitant to advise people to download Tinder because seriously, it’s so fucking weird and hard to start a conversation when all you’ve got is a few pictures to go on. But at the same time, it’s worked out better for me than match.com or Okcupid ever did.
๐ Yay!
Tinder links to FB, is that right? How much ‘info’ can someone see, if anything? Is it just whatever is set to public?
it shows the likes you have in common and up to 5 photos, which you can choose.
Also if you have mutual friends!
weirdly though, it does not necessarily show all of your mutual friends–and sometimes Tinder even shows you your own facebook friends as possible matches! One time I matched with a guy with whom, according to Tinder, I had one mutual facebook friend–and the mutual friend was a cat.
Date material, obvi.
True story: One time I saw a profile that was just five dick pics. Five pictures of this man’s totally average penis, from five different angles. Your Tinder pictures have to come from Facebook. This was last year and I still wonder exactly what this man’s Facebook profile looked like.
I…yeah. I wonder what his fb friends think about that (unless he put the dick pics in a somehow-private photo album?). O.o
<whispering jealously> Murder She Wrote… swoon
That sounds like an A+ dude! ๐
I don’t think one-bedrooms exist in Astoria for under $1550 anymore. I moved to a $1495 one bedroom three years ago, and that’s the last I’ve heard of that price point. It’s only going to get worse, I think.
So, my first 7 days of 2015 involved being ill, my period starting, and oh, in case I forget, some shitstain breaking into my paypal account and putting me ยฃ120 in the red in less than an hour. Fucknugget.
It felt oddly invasive – because I’ve had money stolen before, but it’s been pickpocketed, you know? For this the nasty little shitrag had to break into my private financial places. You could find out a lot about me there, if you wanted (mostly that I’m willing to spend ยฃ30 on beef jerky)
I said this upthread and I know it’s weird, but apparently this week’s full moon was supposed to mess us all up! But now it’s gone, we are going to do better. (Or so Susan Miller says.)
omg i just totally commented the same thing on someone else’s post, i don’t know how i missed your comment! so the full moon was a doozy for everyone, not just virgos? (i only read my own sign)
I got my pyramid in the very first few hours of 2015 (in the UK). It felt very ominous, for whatever reason
Pyramid: autocorrect, or household dialect? Either way, I like it.
UUUGGGGGHHHHHH
I hope you have better luck with Paypal’s fraud department than I did when my account got hacked several years ago. Fortunately my bank was awesome about it, but Paypal suspended my account forever and refused to let me open a new one. I try not to use them anymore.
Sorry your year is off to a rough start!
they’re ‘investigating’ apparently.
My mum sent me some money to cover the shortfall in my account.
Yeah, 2015 is already pretty suck. Lost a filling from my wisdom tooth over the holidays, so I had to hunt down a dentist who wasn’t on vacation. He basically ground my tooth down to nothing and covered it in plaster on Monday.
Then today my period started, my first period post IUD insertion, and it’s all OW MY OVARIES.
At least I’m okay money-wise. That definitely sucks about your account, but I’m glad it was just your paypal and not, like, your RRSP and your driver’s license.
Oh phew open thread just in time before I go home for the day! Racism complaining alert.
On my lunchbreak today, was looking for baking soda in Morrisons (UK supermarket) and went and stood next to a woman, who said to me, “Don’t stand near me, you dirty, yellow-skinned woman.” Then she walked off and said, “Just cos you’re a little white doesn’t mean you’re better than yellow.” Morrisons management said they couldn’t do anything as they didn’t hear it. The Morrisons man who I spoke to was very nice though and gave me some tissues, as I teared up telling him what happened, and my work chums made me a tea when I got back to the office. So you understand the racism, I am half-Chinese half-white.
Oh no, I’m so sorry she said that to you.
What an awful woman. I hope she one day realises how awful she is and lives in constant, cringing horror at herself.
How revolting, I am so sorry that happened to you.
Holy shit, that is terrible. I’m sorry that happened to you.
WHAT how horrible! That woman is entirely terrible and I’m so sorry you were exposed to that.
woah. what a garbage excuse for a human. i’m so sorry that happened.
That is really horrible, and I am so sorry it happened.
UUGGGGH it really sucks to be reminded that awful people like her still exist in this world. Hugs hugs hugs!!
What the actual fuck? I can’t believe she said that (not that I don’t believe you, just that it’s SO FAR out of the realm of things that are OK to say!). What a horrible person. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
My jaw literally dropped reading this. I’m sorry, and baffled by the things people feel comfortable polluting the air the rest of us breathe with. People are the actual worst.
Very sorry to hear this happened to you ๐
Thanks! Am on the train home now but can see you have sent me some fun fallen London stuff! Thank you!!
No problem :). Let me know if you need any help with Menaces too.
That’s disgusting! I am so sorry! Lots of hugs :c
Oh, I am so sorry! That is horrible.
That’s messed up! That little…
If you see her again, let me know and I’ll push her down the stairs or make her read office HR policies till she cries.
What a horrid, horrid person. You should never have had to experience that, and I’m sorry none of us were nearby to tear a strip out of her.
Dear god, how vile. I am SO SO SO SO sorry this wretched woman invaded your day.
OH MY GOSH
I’m so sorry someone could be so awful, and that you had to hear it. How repulsive and grotesque.
How horrible. Why would you even say (or think) that? I’m very sorry it happened to you.
I’ve contacted about 20 restaurants for a book I’m working on and it’s the first week I’m working on it and I think that’s pretty good TELL ME I’M GOOD
You’re good! Jeez, if I had to contact 20 people cold it would take me 20 weeks.
VERY GOOD!
That is HEROIC.
SMASHING IT
I went to the gym THREE TIMES this week (I would have gone yesterday too, but my sister is visiting) and I am very proud of myself for that. I think I am substituting my chronic loneliness for actual activity again and that makes me super happy.
Also, for those of you keeping track at home, the guy from OKC I’d been seeing didn’t respond to my last text messages (after we’d been seeing each other for like, three, four months? You decide to ghost THEN?) so I am attempting to not wallow.
Hooray for happy intentional movement!
“When life gets hard, work hard. Fight back, kick your own ass before anyone else has the chance โ you’ll steal their power and build armor.” Be your own valkyrie, basically. It doesn’t remove the hurt, but the distraction helps you recover a little faster. I’ve become a huge proponent of lifting out my feelings, and the side effect is that my arms look pretty fantastic.
I really love that – that is incredibly motivating and surprisingly uplifting. Thank you so much for sharing!
I’m hoping to get to the point where I can crush a man’s head between my thighs, and I think I might be well on the way.
Hey congrats!
Anxiety Sagas, cont…
So I saw my therapist this week, and we talked out my pervasive anxiety. I know that it is a “fog” and mainly biochemical without any direct relation to my life, yet when it occurs my immediate reaction is to try to find the source of it in my life. I’ve noticed this and have tried to prove it wrong by saying “nothing wrong here! nothing wrong here either!” which was kind of ok? But it kept me obsessing over the anxiety a bit much. Therapist suggested keeping my thoughts about the fog very general, like fog: nothing too concrete, just recognize it’s there and try to be gentle with myself when it’s around. It’s very difficult to do though… I have a 30 some year habit of attributing my anxiety to the life around me, and it’s only now when I recognize that life is fabulous and healthy, and my people surrounding me are supportive and wonderful, that I have had the wherewithal to know that yep, it’s time to make a new habit.
Side note: fully immersive activities, like my dancing, are the best for keeping me out of that head space and clearing the fog a little bit. Anyone else have immersive activities that they use as anxiety derailleurs? Anyone else wanna join the hot-cocoa anxiety commiseration gang?
Yes, I crochet constantly when I’m feeling anxious. It just sort of wipes out whatever else is taking up space in my mind. And at the end of it I get a scarf!
Yes, I knit when I need that feeling! Even just endless squares is enough to take my mind off things temporarily.
commiseration! sending virtual hugs, if you want them.
last weekend i suddenly descended into panic-attack-y hell after a few years of just working around the low-level fog. there’s no reason that i can point to, and i’m definitely obsessing over potential reasons instead of focusing on being kind and gentle with myself, which is…not helpful. your therapist is right.
i also enjoy dancing as a derailing activity. swimming, too, has helped in the past. but sometimes i feel like my anxiety affects me physically too much to do anything like that. so i watch tv or movies and do something simple to keep my hands busy (folding paper, doodling, etc). and sleeping. and taking hot showers, haha.
commiseration!
I am going to see a psychiatrist for the first time ever next week and I am terrified. Things in my life NEED to be better and this is hard but necessary. I am secretly scared that I will be told there’s nothing wrong with me except that I’m lazy and what are you doing with your life? Which is kind of crazy because NO that is not the problem, but brains. What can you do.
Giving you a big internet hug. Going for the first time is scary but awesome that you are doing it for yourself. No way they’ll say you’re just lazy, but if you don’t like the suggestions they DO give you, it’s ok to go talk to someone else until you get the help/words/etc that you like and need.
I literally study brains and am super well versed in the mechanisms underlying disease, and when it came to my own anxiety I was STILL convinced that nothing was wrong with me I was just lazy. Good on you for going for the first time! I went to see a psychiatrist through my university earlier this year and all the nurses I had to see for consults beforehand were super encouraging about being willing to take the first step, because that’s often a really, really hard part.
I feel this way too! I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I think I can relate to this although I had never thought about it in such a clear and cohesive way before, so thank you.
Anyway, my thing is doing jigsaw puzzles. It is the ONE THING i can do for hours at a time and not get distracted by anything and has really helped my stress levels.
I LOVE puzzles. And I never before thought about how it helps my anxiety brain. I actually have two different puzzle apps for my iPad and I play them before I go to sleep.
Commiserating here! I got hit by a really bad spell in December and have been trying to claw my way out ever since. Yeah dancing is a good one for me, also boxing, and reading a not-difficult-but-engaging book.
I know I don’t comment much but you are one of my favorite commenters and I think you are awesome and I hope the anxiety issue eases off for you soon!
I played an instrument in high school and have kind of fallen off the bandwagon, but locking myself in a small room and practicing until my head is clear works as well as ever.
A couple of weeks ago on a particularly bad day, I picked up some coloring pencils and an interesting non-kid-themed coloring book, and it was a great way to distract my brain. Highly recommended.
I’m a big fan of audiobooks to kind of distract me from my anxiety. Keeping busy isn’t always enough, but a little Jeeves and a walk or other busy activity helps a lot. I do listen to lots of books (on overdrive or audible), but I have a few that I always go back to, especially when the anxiety is keeping me awake.
Downhill mountain biking. Regular mountain biking works too but it’s even better when the options are “concentrate mightily on your physical body in the here and now” or “fall and hurt yourself.” Road biking is much more contemplative and thoughtful.
I go out and work in the garden. The physical activity takes care of the adrenaline/shaky hands, and I can see the results when I’m finished, which is nice. I also really enjoy turning over the compost pile and seeing how enormous the earthworms have grown ๐
Can we have a Winter Is Terrible thread? Both for coping strategies that are working for people and for general bitching. There is so much winter left, ugh.
I was feeling more confident about driving in the snow this morning, like, “hey this isn’t so bad,” but then there was a fatal accident on the nearby interstate involving ~100 vehicles, including, notably, a truck full of fireworks, which started to go off. So, I’m back to feeling ๐
I saw about that accident on the trending thingy on Facebook! How horrible ๐
Holy crap! That is scary.
My strategy is to take it as slow as I feel like I need to, no matter who is behind me, and leave plenty of following room ahead of me. But I don’t have to drive on interstates!
I used to work right off the Galesburg exit and drove that road daily. It has always been horrible in the winter but that accident sounds insane. They had video of the fireworks online…my step-kids (home from school) were amazed.
That accident was covered by my local TV news. The anchor read, “Police opted to let the fire burn out on its own.” No shit! There’s not much anyone can do to stop a truckload of fireworks once they ignite. I was reminded why I should remember to leave the room when the Beloved turns to TV news. Lowest common denominator.
Has anyone had a good experience with a SAD lamp? I’m considering getting one.
YES I am in love with my SAD lamp. Without the lamp in the winter I can’t stay awake during the day or stay asleep at night, I become randomly disoriented about time and space, and hate life. With my lamp and vitamin D supplements, I’m a completely functional person all winter. I have this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Lightphoria-000LUX-Energy-L…
and I can never shut up about how great it is.
YES. I got that exact one for Christmas and so far it seems to be helping decrease the percentage of my waking hours I spend feeling like an utter waste of carbon. Get it get it get it.
I have that one too! Got it last winter and had some encouraging results but didn’t use it all that consistently, have been using it consistently this year and it definitely makes a difference (even though I do a lot of shift work now).
I finally got one last week! I also stopped drinking (temporarily – have an exam next Monday and planning to be drunk, oh, 3 hours after it?), so that may also be playing a part, but I’m feeling much more energetic so far.
I don’t have a SAD lamp per se, but I do have a full-spectrum “Happy Light” in my office that I use instead of the overhead flourescents (my office mate and I both hate the overhead lights, thank goodness) and I think it helps compensate for the lack of windows in my office.
What I DO have that makes a huge difference in the winter is a daylight alarm clock. It starts to get gradually brighter about 30 minutes before you have set the alarm for, so that it is at full brightness when it is time to wake up, and I find that I wake up much more naturally and am actually awake when the alarm starts to beep. Of course, getting out of bed when it is warm and snuggly in the bed is a whole different challenge, but at least my body agrees that it is time to be awake.
The daylight alarm clock sounds awesome! Do you have a link to the one you have?
This is the one I have. There are other, fancier models with more features, but I went for the least expensive model to start with to see if it made a difference.
I LOVE my lightbox. I use it for maybe 45 minutes in the morning, then maybe for a little while later (before lunch). The best benefit is the wake-me-up boost, and I think I’m sleeping better. Plus, people come from all over my (huge) office building to ask me about it!
Yes, get one. It helps make the darkness bearable.
I love mine! It keeps me sane through the winter. I sit by it at breakfast (which usually takes me around half an hour), and further into the morning if I get to be home.
FYI, if you’re wincing at the cost of SAD lamps (they are crazy expensive), some people have had good experiences with blue LED lights as well.
Winter IS horrible.
One of my coping strategies for being A Cold Person is making a big production out of my showering time. I take hot hot showers and then toast myself in front of the space heater while applying copious amounts of lotion. Then I read my book and bask in the warmth like a lizard. I know it’s not good for my skin (hence all the lotion) but it’s SO WARM.
GENERAL BITCHING my car got towed this morning because THE SNOW/ICE COVERED THE GROUND ON THE SPOT WHERE IT SAID RESERVED. I have a tag to be able to park in my development, which doesn’t have enough parking spots as it is so I had to park way out by the dumpster and BOOM no car this morning. I was very late to work by the time I fetched it from the towing company. Meh.
I feel like you should contest that!
Yeah, definitely :\
My coping strategies have pretty much been:
– getting an alarm clock that gradually lights the room the half hour before I wake up so that rather than waking in darkness I’m waking up to a warm glow
– plants! I just potted an amaryllis and then washed all the leaves to my houseplants and have spent hours this week doing garden planning. It’s nice to remember than spring will come eventually and things will grow
– making a concerted effort to find winter things I enjoy. I try and get out cross-country skiing and snowmobiling, and earlier this week when it was puking snow I made a point of going for a walk with my camera to remind myself that oh yeah, it actually is beautiful when everything is white and glittering in the streetlights.
Ooh, can you post a link to that alarm clock?? It sounds lovely.
It’s this one. It’s not a SAD light, since it isn’t full spectrum, but I find it makes it easier to get up.
I have a light box but it says it’s “wide spectrum.” I wonder if it’s less effective than full spectrum?
Yesterday I realized that I could resurrect my favorite super soft, but tragically moth damaged cashmere sweater by wearing it as long underwear and spent the entire subfreezing day feeling like I was being hugged by a WARM CLOUD.
I also got a hot water bottle recently and put it at the foot of my bed while I get ready for bed so that when I get in my feet are toasty instead of staying frigid icicles pretty much all night.
I just imagine that my moth damaged cashmere adds to my on-the-verge-of-Havisham aura.
Also, depending on location of damage:
1) wear like colors underneath.
2) position vintage brooch–or cluster of brooches–over moth bites. Bonus points if this makes you look at a distance as if you are wearing rhinestone pasties.
3) push the sleeves up and bunch them strategically
4) wear a ginormous shawl/scarf/pashmina and strategically arrange the ends.
I have been repairing the elbow-holes in all my cashmere sweaters by filling them in with a Woolfiller kit, which is basically just needlefelting supplies. WORKS LIKE A CHARM, and is much better than trying to sew on ugly elbow patches.
I am cold, cold, cold, and the cold is making my knee hurt. ๐
Me too ๐
Luckily, Mr H. finds my Mary Green silk long underwear sexy even though I feel like a candy apple red off brand superhero (not in a good way).
seriously, eff winter. We moved to a new office this year and it’s so Goddamned cold in here, I have to close my door and crank the heat all the way to max to keep my fingers from being too cold to type. I just bought more long underwear to be snug in though, including a Captain America-themed top that was on clearance (!) so at least I will freeze fashionably.
ALSO. My parents, may they be blessed forever, gave me my requested heated mattress pad for Christmas this year. Come bedtime I am the snuggest motherfucker imaginable. Buy a heated mattress pad everyone, it will enrich your life beyond all measure.
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2015/01/09/friday-open-threa…
I go to my local gardening shop, walk into the greenhouse area, and just stand and breathe deeply for a couple of minutes. Then I buy tiny plants and moss from the terrarium side of the store. It’s not only retail therapy, but actual physical brain therapy. I’m not sure how much of it is emotional, how much of it is the oxygen from the plants/the warm, moist air, and how much of it is just the groovy atmosphere, but I’ll take it.
Hey all you other writer types! Here’s the big thing I’m struggling with: how do you go about deciding where to submit short stories and poetry? I’ve been sending things out but it feels like I’m cooking spaghetti in a sitcom. Just chucking things at the nearest wall seems like maybe not the best strategy*? But maybe it’s the only strategy. Everything is so intimidating everywhere always. Getting past my “this is terrible no one will want it” is hard enough already!
(I have not once typed that as anything but strategery on the first try, so sad.)
Honestly, I always use the throwing-spaghetti theory myself if submitting to literary magazines. There are so many of them. But I always read whatever material they have on their site, whether it’s only an “about” section or that plus samples of what’s in the magazine, to see if my work might be a good fit.
For entirely online stuff, I usually spend more time reading the content because there’s more of it available. Obviously with more of it there, it’s easier to tell whether your work would fit there.
Also, I feel like you have to set your own boundaries with these things. Are you willing to pay a submission fee or no? To send in physical copies of work or no? Will you only submit to places that pay, or are you willing to not be paid for this piece? I don’t think there are any wrong answers, but it does help narrow it down.
GOOD LUCK WE AR EALL ROOTING FOR YOU
(also, not sure if it’s worthwhile, but a working poet once gave me this advice about submitting work: think of it like a game, where you send an email and you get a rejection letter in several months. The rejection letter is completing that phase of the game. I’m not sure why this worked for me, but it helped me feel like rejection letters were a confirmation of success rather than failure.)
Start with publications you both like and think your work fits well with. That shows the editor that you actually read it (in fact, mention in your cover letter if there’s a recent piece you saw that peripherally relates to your own submission). Then make a list (or a few 3 x 5 cards) with publications you really want a byline in, but are maybe intimidated at this point. Riffle through that periodically and see if anything you have can either work right out of the box or be tweaked to fit one of your dream pubs’ needs. And if you’re at total loose ends, paw through Writers Market and find some new places that look good, send for copies, read, lather, rinse, repeat! And good luck! Making it a system takes a lot of the fear out of it, like, “Well, it’s Monday and I said I was going to pitch/query three new markets by the end of the week, better get crackin’!”
If you’re having trouble identifying outlets and you have access to a university library, it’ll usually subscribe to a bunch of lit journals, and that can be a good way to get a feel for whether your work is right for print journals (that may not have enough content online to give you a good idea). Some public libraries will subscribe to them too.
This is maybe a little spaghetti-y, but I snoop through Toast writers’ bylines, because Toasties are awesome, and then poke around in the places that other Toasties have published, then pick from there. Helps cut out some of the overwhelming because I figure places where Toast writers have published is probably a pretty good cross section of the internet.
http://whopays.scratchmag.net/ is how you decide where to submit. (Because You’re Worth It.)
(This comment is all about publishing in literary magazines.) I didn’t really start submitting until the first time I’d been to the AWP convention and wandered the bookfair floor picking up more lit mags than I could carry, let alone read. It made a huge difference to me to hold the publication in my hand, and sometimes to have talked to someone who worked on it. I find out about other journals through places like thereviewreview.net, which publishes reviews of magazine issues so you get a sense of what they’re like. The ads in Poets & Writers are also a source for more spaghetti-style submissions.
I think it takes a mix. I keep submitting to the magazines that I find beautiful and interesting, and trying to select the work to send them that is the best fit, but I also want to be submitting enough that I have some statistical chance of getting accepted sometime, so I answer ads too. I agree that everything is super intimidating always. I’m just glad I don’t have to experience the rejections in person, only in writing.
Toasties, I am terrible and forgot to check my notifications until now but THANK YOU GREAT PEOPLE for your advice and encouragement! I am spending tomorrow putting some of these strategies for id’ing markets to work.
I’d recommend going to duotrope.com. It’s a database of online lit magazines categorized by genre, word count, pay, and any other factor you could think of. It also has tools to make the submission process easier on you. You need to subscribe to use it, but no harm in checking out the free trial to see if it’d be useful to you.
Apologies to Canadians, but Canadian healthcare makes me want to lie down and not get up, possibly ever. No doctors that I’ve seen care that I haven’t had a period in six months, and I just found out one other fairly obvious potential reason that was never even suggested, and it’s going to take up to six more months to get it addressed, and I’m no spring chicken and want to be pregnant again NOW, or at least have the option. I hate them.
I’m sorry to hear that! I do find that I really need to advocate for myself a lot. I’m not sure if it’s different in other countries ad I’ve only ever lived in Canada, but I do a lot of side research and double check things that doctor tells me. I was having problems a few years ago with constant exhaustion and two different doctors both dismissed it as, “Oh, that’s just being an adult, everyone’s tired all the time.” Except I had anemia, which they would have found out had they just ordered a basic blood test. Sigh.
There are so many bad doctors out there ๐ My family is trying to get my mom to switch doctors because her GP is TERRIBLE. She has a bad hip to the point where sometimes she has trouble walking even with her cane, and finally, after months of pain and cortisol shots and surgical waiting list, she went to see a surgeon who said “you do know your one leg is shorter than the other, right? That’s putting huge amounts of strain on your bad hip, and if you got a lift on that shoe that would probably fix half the issue.” This is far from the first time something like this has happened, too.
Toasties, some delightful misandry popped up in my reading, and I wanted to share it with you. I’m reading this Napoleonic-era historical naval novel, which, true to the genre, is a sausage fest and features much more misogyny than misandry. But in The Far Side of the World, the two main characters fall out of their frigate and are floating in the sea somewhere between the Galapagos and the Marquesas. Just before they drown, they’re rescued by an all-women crew of fishers in a drua and put to work as menial laborers. Then the captain of the drua decides to CASTRATE one of the British officers, and eventually compromises by instead marooning them on a desert island. When the British frigate encounters the drua and boards it, seeking information about their lost comrades, the fishers repel them with such force that one guy gets a SHARK TOOTH (from a spear) lodged so deep in his buttock that it has to be surgically removed. And the misandrists scoot away before the British warship can stop them.
I doubt it has any real historical basis, but it made me grin because it perfectly combined two of the Toast’s favorite activities: misandry and taking to the sea.
I love love love the Aubrey-Maturin series, although you are sadly right about it being a sausage fest. I haven’t gotten to The Far Side of the World yet but I’m looking forward to it even more now!
Me too! They’re great genre fiction, in that they let you spend time with fun characters and almost always hit the expected story beats fans crave.
Regarding the sausage fest aspect, Diana is actually a pretty great female character if you ignore Stephen’s ManFeels about her. But other than her, it’s pretty thin.
I’ve always enjoyed Clarissa Oakes, too.
As an antidote, may I suggest David Cordingly’s Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women? Many inspiring stories of ladies taking to the sea.
Hail and well met, fellow Toasty PoB-lovers! The Far Side of the World might be my favorite of all. Itโs true that the books are heavy with men, but the non-men minor characters are some of the best. Like Dil in HMS Surprise and Sarah and Emily in The Nutmeg of Consolation.
I love Hornblower much more than Aubrey-Maturin, though they have much in common. Again โ no women! I have a (male) friend who also loves Hornblower, and when we were chatting about it I found it strange that he could imagine *being* Hornblower or one of the crew, and I just couldn’t. Being inside Hornblower’s neurotic self-doubting head is a lot of fun though.
I audibly gasp-laughed @ the drua decides to castrate one of the Britist officers and compromises by marooning. Thats the best.
Hahahaha I specifically love that episode out of the entire series. I think part of the reason I’m so attached to it is that it feels like this cute little stand-alone fanfic, but no, Mr O’Brian Himself wrote it. And then published it. In his own books. And it has nothing to do with anything else ever again.
Also Stephen pig-sitting is pretty funny.
I always think it’s like he sat down to write after a few drinks, hammered out that chapter, then the next morning forgot he had done so and just continued with the (more sensible) story.
Oh, I’ve been wanting to read these books lately, but it seems like a weird first thing to read in 2015 after reading all women in 2014. But if there are misandrist fisherwomen to look forward to then I think I will go for it.
I am currently working on my New Year’s Resolution of Not Giving a Fuck. Getting into an argument with an internet commenter who is a rude bigot? Don’t give a fuck. Coworker being all pissy about my request for a fairly basic feature in our database system? Don’t give a fuck. Ironically, this has made me a more productive, happier person.
Also, I set my yearly Goodreads goal to 25 books, up from 20 this past year. Mr. BourneApprox then casually pointed out that he’d read 50 books in 2014, because he is superhuman and a monster.
Also, I am currently making my way through the second seasons of both Scandal and Spartacus, and both are sooo goood. Though I’m not sure which is more salacious. Spartacus may win by default, for the sheer amount of boobs and butts and penises (gender equality!). I love you, you dumb, surprisingly well-crafted gladiator show. I heart u Crixus. 2015 is also the year that I finally accept my love for over-the-top drama.
Not giving a fuck is the GREATEST. I applaud you!
Spartacus! Such a great show.
It is! So much more compelling than it has any right to be.
Also, I found this Feminist Crixus tumblr at some point and feel the need to share it: http://feminist-crixus-says.tumblr.com
1 book = 1 book? I don’t think so. Some books are longer. Some books require thoughtfulness and merit slower consumption. Tell your mister I said so.
Well, this is true, but unfortunately Goodreads also saved the number of pages he read in 2014, and it’s 2.5 times as many as me, heh. He’s just a weird fast-reading machine with 20/20 vision. But I’m more *thoughtful!*
I think it’s because, like so many other men, he takes inexplicably long bathroom breaks, and reads during those.
what are they doing in there?
Seriously, why do they take so long? Has science looked into this? I feel like it should be looked into and then an ignobel award should be given to said research.
Seriously, right? These are my leading theories:
– They go there to think deep manly thoughts about manly things.
– It’s some kind of reverse vampire conspiracy, involving the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people.
– They really enjoy pooping.
I am much worse than my boyfriend in this regard, and spend much longer in the toilet than him. He makes up for it by taking really long baths (sometimes he likes to finish the book he’s reading before getting out), so we’re even.
Going to a fancy shmancy French restaurant for my anniversary this weekend. It’s only been two years but I already regret getting married in January. I never to get to wear cute clothes because I have to not get frostbite!
Also, movies! I’ve been super bad about watching movies until about the last month and I feel like I’ve zoomed through a ton. Obvious Child was wonderful! Jenny Slate, right? What If was surprisingly good! And The Imitation Game! I know I was supposed to be focusing on the Cumberbatch, but all I could do was stare at Matthew Goode. Unfortunately, I think the terribleness of Birdman messed with my movie mojo and now I don’t know what else to watch. Toasties, help! What movies have you loved recently?
The Babadook! (rented on Amazon streaming cause it is in like 0 theaters). It was a pretty great horror tale, but not particualrily gorey or with jump scares. Lots of building of psychological tension.
Essie Davis is so brilliant in that film. Loved it!
I caaaaaaan’t do anything remotely scary. And it’s sad because it seems like there’s a lot of great stuff out there that’s just sliiiightly too scary for me. But I can’t even watch Sleepy Hollow because I’m basically a 5 year old.
Fellow January anniversary this weekend! It seemed like a good idea at the time, right?
We had to get married right away so I could get healthcare! I didn’t know it was always going to be the coldest day of the year! And we don’t even have the only wedding anniversary this time of year, because both of our parents anniversaries are within two weeks of us.
But since our anniversary is mid-January we almost always get a three day weekend to celebrate, so that’s nice.
Choose a different date to celebrate. The half-anniversaryin July, maybe. Or the anniversary of your first date or first sexy times.
Our first date was to a May baseball game, so we always try to commemorate that. But maybe we just need to do a full switch and never look back. One day, when we’re long gone, our children will pull out our marriage certificate and be totally shocked that we weren’t actually married in May.
My parents celebrate their wedding anniversary and their dating anniversary, which are in April and October, and it works out fine! Two celebrations!
Whiplash – Dude whose dream it is to become a famous jazz drummer gets schooled by an emotionally abusive teacher. A bit problematic at times and there are a few scenes that made me roll my eyes, but JK Simmons (who is one of my favorites) who plays the teacher should get the Oscar and Miles Tefler is excellent. The ending scene is probably the best thing I saw in theaters all year.
Coherence – Twisty crazy low-budget movie. That’s all I want to say don’t feel like spoiling anything.
Blue Ruin – Independent revenge movie. The lead character and the actor that plays him are fantastic. Came out way too early in 2014. I hope it gets some awards recognition.
The Boxtrolls – Didn’t know what to expect as I’d only seen one preview a long long time ago. Amazing stop-motion. Great flick.
I was expecting to like the acting in The Imitation Game but to be kind of “meh” on the actual movie, but I was very pleasantly surprised! Hmmmm, as for other movies… haven’t seen a lot of great ones lately, honestly, but I really liked Ida (available on netflix). Beautifully shot movie from earlier this year about a young nun (well, novice) trying to find her roots in early-1960s Poland. It is compact and gooooorgeous.
Could you do a halfiversary, six months offset from your January anniversary so you can wear warm-weather clothing? I think I’m doing that for my birthday, which I missed last year for medical reasons. HALFIVERSARY.
I’m terrible at movies, but I realllllllly enjoyed “The To-Do List”. It was sex positive, as the antithesis of most teen sex romps. It made my husband very uncomfortable and made me roll on the ground laughing. Also, Rachel Bilson!
Oooh! I definitely want to see that! Thanks for reminding me!
have you seen Big Hero 6??? IT IS SO GREAT
YES! It is delightful! And I am not a cartoon person, generally. Also, the short at the beginning made me cry like a baby.
Saw both Wild and Boyhood this week and I enjoyed each very much.
Good morning Toasties! For the first time in appropximately forever we are not parenting on a Friday morning, so here I am! I have missed you all a lot.
We had a good winter holiday, with lots of fun with our kids despite colds that kept us from going to the zoo or aquarium or some other Big Deal place like we hoped. But there was baking and cooking and eating and trips to the park and reading books and watching silly videos and playing with new toys — all of it spread out across many days because we do 12 Days of Christmas, not 12 exactly but we spread out the opening presents over more-or-less 12 days so that there is not 30m of excitement and then a huge let down. It works very well to keep every day a little special and different. Also we had some quality adult time with our partner which does not happen very often so that was nice. ๐
I am not at all resolved for the new year and that is actually something I do not like. I (and some other people here) are really not good at wanting things; it is just too scary and painful. So what I would like to figure out at least for myself this year is how to want things with my whole heart because then I could go after them whole-heartedly. I’m not sure where to start, though!
Missed you!
Thank you!
Oh yay so glad to see you!
Thanks! It is a nice feeling to be have been missed. ๐
So what I would like to figure out at least for myself this year is how to want things with my whole heart because then I could go after them whole-heartedly.
Oh, I only recently realised that I also have this problem of being too scared to want things, really, but constant self-denial is making me a bitter person. I am not sure where to start either, except with tiny baby steps, like asking people I like to join me in doing things I want to do. (Small things, like the cinema – not eg marriage!) So I feel you! I hope you can figure out the right baby steps for you.
Thank you!
I seem to run into the problem of either not really wanting to do anything, or wanting to do things that are entirely dependent on other people. Like, I ‘want’ to have conversations on The Toast — like we are doing right now! — because I am pretty lonely in my body life. Whereas stuff I could do all by myself I just don’t have any feelings about. And then when I try to write about it, I just end up feeling confused about whether or not I’m actually describing anything real. ๐ I will definitely look for baby steps though, thank you.
“I also have this problem of being too scared to want things, really, but constant self-denial is making me a bitter person.
So so so relatable. This year I want to (hahaha ahum) investigate what *I* want, apart from pleasing people/avoiding conflict, which is getting really old and quite counter-productive really.
I’m quite the black-or-white person, with no proper grey-area skills. Once I realised that reality/life/circumstances prevented me from having many of the things other people had, things that I might have wanted too, I simply banned ‘wanting’ from my life.
All that has been left for the last few years/decades is: friends, peace and quiet, chocolate, book/internet reading. Or is that maybe enough? But proper Things or Ambitions have all been forcecefully oppressed/banned, so much so that I don’t even know if they’re still there, or what they are.
But the intense disgust I sometimes feel at people who have more things than the bare necessities (and then the cheap/secondhand/dumpsterdived variety OF COURSE), might be a sign of some underlying issues….
Hello Bryn plus others.
I just read your blog. It’s touching, interesting, and insightful. I do have a very specific question for you all. How/where could I reach you all?
Our email is brynplusplus at gmail and you are welcome to email us now or whenever.
I went ant recycled my Christmas tree at the weekend. Goat (left) and Yvonne are enjoying eating it.
this is…amazing. this is incredible. my friday just got 300% better.
I know you people will talk IUDs with me, so. QUESTION. Does anyone have experience with the Paraguard and is it weird to just sort of..have that in your uterus? How much of an issue are the strings? The bleeding/spotting?
I’m realizing I’m not going to be pregnant anymore in about 7 weeks, and not having a reliable plan for birth control after Baby #1 is exactly why I’m pregnant now. I’m not worried about the pain of IUD insertion, because I’ve done the childbirth thing, but I did use the NuvaRing for awhile in the past and it just weirded me out so much to have that in my vagina constantly. (The hormones also made me wacky, which is why I’m not looking at any hormonal options.) So mostly I’m wondering if people are similarly aware/freaked out by their IUDs?
I am always the devil’s advocate on IUD threads, but I had Paragard for almost a year and hated it. I had intensely painful and heavy periods, I always felt super-aware of it (I didn’t technically FEEL it I just… knew it was there, and it seemed weird and invasive), and the best part, I got pregnant on it!
On the flip side, I didn’t spot at all between periods and it made my cycles a little more regular (I’m normally not at all), and the strings were never an issue once they were trimmed – my doc initially left them too long, but after they were cut and allowed to soften for a few days so the ends weren’t pokey they were fine.
So, yeah. I know the vast majority of people love their IUDs, and you will probably be totally fine, but I just have to put my experience out there.
Thanks! The hard part is not knowing whether you’ll be in the evangelical majority or the minority. Was the removal part bad?
Removal was actually super-easy for me – I felt a split-second of sensation, I wouldn’t even call it pain, then it was out. It may have helped that I was bleeding at the time, so my cervix was probably more open? Not sure at all!
I use Mirena rather than Paraguard, but it is completely unnoticeable. I can find the strings if I go looking, but can’t feel it at all. Nuva Ring was way more noticeable (in a good way personally, but YMMV)
Interesting! So it bothers you more to not be able to know it’s there?
oh no, not at all. I love my IUD to bits. Love that I can’t feel it at all.
What I meant by the Nuva Ring comment was that it sat in just the right place that G-spot orgasms entered my life in a big way. It was glorious.
HA! Awesome.
Woah, I never got that. Sigh.
I got a Paraguard recently, and love it. Insertion sucked, but I’ve never had a baby. Some cramping, and my period is heavier now than it was on the pill, but not heavier than when I was 15. The first month was just weird (switching from 10 years of the pill) but now my body seems to have sorted it out and I love it. I have more energy and a happier sex drive. I don’t notice the strings or anything- mrimogen felt them once and not since.
I had a Mirena, which I could sometimes kind of feel, like a slightly cold sort of vague pang? It didn’t freak me out after the first couple days though. The strings kind of bugged Mr. LF in certain positions, but not enough for anyone to really get worked up about it. I hear some Drs will tie them in a cute little knot around your cervix so that’s not an issue.
I have a Paragard! I feel little weird about mine because apparently in some cases (of which I am one) it just like…settles downward? And you can feel it pressing on the walls because it decided to settle in the narrow bit rather in the top? My doctor swears this is not a problem because I can still feel the strings. But since I do pilates and do a lot of lower ab exercises I’m pretty aware of it being there, so that’s a little annoying.
There were also a lot of annoyances that I can’t tell if were due to starting Paragard or stopping Nuvaring, since I went right from one to the other. My cycle’s a little weird and shorter now, with occasional spotting and the cramps are definitely worse (probably about 150% of previous Nuva periods, but I had a pretty easy cycle on the ring, so), my hair was falling out for a while (has thankfully stopped!), and my skin got really bad.
tl;dr I really like not having artificial hormones but the side effects are annoying enough that I’m not rhapsodizing about it. My kingdom for reliable male birth control.
I have a paragard. It has increased my cramps (which used to be pretty much non-existent), but Advil takes care of them. My period has also changed a bit, though I don’t know 100% that that is entirely the IUD. My flow isn’t any heavier than it used to be, necessarily, but rather I now have 1-2 days of spotting/light flow followed by 1-2 days of heavy flow that then tapers off again, whereas I used to start off at full force and gradually decrease. I actually appreciate the spotting/light flow as a warning.
I do not feel it at all; sometimes if I stop and ponder it it’s sort a weird thing, but it is also cool, and I like to pretend it means I have a bionic uterus. The strings are not an issue; my boyfriend spends a lot more time poking around in my vagina than I do and he has no problem with them.
I have had a paraguard for about a year and a half. I always had light periods and very little cramps and now my periods are heavier, but not much longer and I get more cramping but not too bad.
Also, I can feel it during sex sometimes, during the last week or 10 days before my period starts. My doctor said it’s because your cervix shifts through the month.
Also also, I am having recurring minor bacterial vaginosus which I suspect is partly because of the IUD changing my pH level, but I can’t prove that it is the cause. All in all, it isn’t the best, but I really don’t do well with hormonal birth control so I’m gonna keep it a while longer and see how things go.
I hate to be that girl, but this made my uterus put on suglasses and go “nope nope nope.” http://jezebel.com/what-do-you-mean-it-jammed-a-h…
I was aware for a a while (Mirena) but that faded as time went on. My sister can still feel hers (also Mirena) during cramps, occasionally. A friend with Paraguard had a (very unusual) systemic reaction, and had to have it out. But her immune system is on perpetual high alert, so not a common problem.
I have had a Paragard for 4 years now and I never even think about it anymore. physically, it’s totally unnoticeable, which is one of my favorite things about it. (I can feel the strings if I look for them, but they’re never like, in the way or anything.)
really the only thing that makes me slightly aware of my IUD is my cramps, which have mostly gone back to normal but are still worse than pre-IUD.
i loooove my IUD. i know what you mean about feeling weird that it’s there, though. mostly i felt the weirdest about it when showing diagrams to my boyfriend, in order to explain to him what it was. and i always have this ridiculous fear that it’ll set off metal detectors. but my boyfriend doesn’t care and can’t feel it, and after the first couple months i couldn’t feel it either. i am so incredibly grateful for my IUD that any small weirdness gets cancelled out anyway.
I’ve had both the Paragard and the Mirena. I didn’t/don’t feel either and the strings aren’t a problem. I had my Paragard for about four years before switching. I had really heavy periods with it, but nothing that I couldn’t deal with. A doctor recommended the switch when I had an MRI for something unrelated in my pelvic area and my uterus looked weird/thick. I’ve had my Mirena for 7 years now (time to get it switched , ugh) and I loooove it. I haven’t had my period since I had it inserted. I never get cramps. I never feel it. I highly recommend. (I don’t notice any issues with hormones. I haaaated being on the pill because it made me cranky, pimply, and boob-sore all the time.)
Toasties, I am feeling sad today. I had a first-round interview last week for a job I desperately wanted. They said that candidates would hear by early this week if they were going to be finalists, and I have not heard.
This almost certainly means that I will now be changing careers, after a long PhD and three years on the academic market. I know I will probably find other good things, and possibly better things. But right now my heart hurts.
ETA: Any words of support or advice, esp. from others who have transitioned from a humanities PhD to a different path, would be very very welcome.
Oh, I am so sorry. I went through the same thing–got my PhD, starved on some teaching gigs a while to go on some terrible job searches with pretty thin opportunities. It’s been a year or two since I quit academia officially. There really are good things and better things out there, as you say–for me, more sleep, less stress, more time for friends, reliable job money, etc. etc. And I really love having them! But even so, it’s like a breakup with my true love, except I feel like I’m not allowed to be sad because my life is actually pretty good. I probably need to figure out what to do with these now little-used brainparts. Even though I accepted going into the job market that it was becoming very unlikely to pan out and had a decent plan B for job-having, I somehow did not realize I needed to make a plan B for some kind of satisfactory intellectual life… And I somehow didn’t realize how sad I was going to be that I didn’t get to be a professor when I grew up.
I hope I’m not further ensaddening you with my tale of woe. But you have my absolute sympathy on the heart hurting.
Not at all further ensaddening! I really appreciate the sympathy and understanding. And while I’m very glad to hear that things are good in your new career, you are totally, 100% allowed to mourn that which was not to be.
And yeah, I feel like being a historian is so central to my sense of self…I’ve had friends tell me that “you’ll always be a historian, no matter what you do” and I think that’s true, at least in terms of how I think about the world. But it’s weird to think that that won’t be how the world will see me anymore.
Not much advice but plenty of support and sympathy here. I went through the same process a few years ago, and “process” is really the right word. It takes time, but the amazing thing is that there ARE smart people doing interesting work outside of academia. (How sad is it, and how indicative of academia’s insularity, that I actually had to realize that?)
I would not say that my work now is my life’s passion, but it’s remunerative and it’s interesting enough for now, and life is long–too long, you might say, to be stuck teaching endless Intro to English classes to a bunch of undergrads! Plus, it’s a relief not to have to go to academic parties.
Big hugs. It’s tough to let go of a dream. It’s okay to grieve.
Thank you for the sympathy and support – I appreciate it!!!
I will say, on leaving academia, I was pretty floored by how many brilliant people are doing interesting things with their lives in the wide world, and how much room there is for intellectual expansion and focus without that institutional support.
In my [unpleasant] department there had been such disdain for everyone outside, especially those who ‘didn’t make it’ – now I am filled with gentle compassion for those who are still in academic jobs. It isn’t even true that you’ll never be paid to think hard about things! You’ll find there are more opportunities than you know of. And you may not have the four-hour teaching week and three-month vacations but you also don’t have to be on committees and live in a random place and deal with spoilt teenagers for the rest of your life, so remember that when you look back in years to come.
That said, I’m sorry, because it sucks to let go of something you worked for so long.
Thank you. I really appreciate it. Luckily, I do have some friends who have jumped ship in one way or another (including my husband, who left while ABD), so I have gotten to see that this is clearly true.
I think you’re right that it’s extremely painful to let go of something I’ve worked toward for over a decade. I think it’s also that I lack a specific vision of what I, personally, might be able to do. I have some vague ideas, but at this point that’s it. So it’s scary and daunting – I don’t even know how one goes about finding other kinds of things, except through talking to other people.
Absolutely no worries if you’d prefer not to share, but I’d be interested in how you figured out your career path post-academe.
I had zero idea how to get a job that didn’t have a seasonal hiring festival! Also it was quite hard to get an entry level job at anything, because people want to feel they’re taking advantage of a 21-y-o BA, not someone with an advanced degree, even if she’s never had a job. (Pro-tip: random HR people who get your resume are less likely to appreciate you, high-ranking overeducated executives are more likely to hire you despite utter lack of experience because they know you’ll catch up.)
Honestly I did a lot of talking to people I went to college with, some family friends introduced me to people in random professions, I did some temp gigs and was so relieved to find out I could actually pay my bills doing stupid things – it bought me some time. I was really bewildered by choices; publishing takes a lot of people like me, and there’s a whole genteel overeducated world of museums and nonprofit admin, grantwriting but also other divisions; then I realized I could go into banking after all (Never Too Late), but also it turns out the most random companies (almost all companies) can find a use for people who are articulate and can learn things. It took me a few years to figure out what kind of work situation I really wanted (less team-based please; project-based not steady/longterm, etc) — but I wouldn’t have known those were even categories without some of the work I did at first.
Thank you SO much. This is so helpful to read.
Literature ABD, still trying to finish, but I’ve been working out in the world for several years now and I have no desire to return to the ivory tower. I still think of myself as an academic–it’s my training!–and I have often drawn from the research and analysis from my dissertation in my writing for other publications, sometimes for money! (I posted earlier in today’s thread, I just got a copy of an anthology for course use which which includes one of my freelance essays!)
In the last four years I’ve been: an editor at a puzzle publishing company; a visitor services agent at an art museum; a marketing manager at a university press (this for the longest), and soon I will start a job as a marketing manager for another nonprofit. It hasn’t always been easy, and I haven’t found, like a One True Love in careers, but I’m pretty satisfied with the experiences I’ve had, the compensation I’ve gotten for them, and the ways I continue to learn and write.
There are many paths open to you, you highly intelligent and well-read person! You are jobhunting in what has been a difficult time for jobhunters everywhere, but you have not been rarified beyond hireability by your degree.
Thank you so much for the reassurance – it is very much appreciated!
Guys I am so bored at work and on an elimination diet and feel like I can’t eat ANYTHING, not even alcohol, please tell me I will be ok plzthx. I will also accept recipe ideas.
Restrictions: No soy, dairy, cheese, citrus/strawberries, caffeine, wheat, basically everything. (Here is roughly what I’m following: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/97801…
Uggghhhh. I did an elimination diet in October that was very similar– it cut out everything you mentioned plus added sugars, corn and nightshades. (Also I’m a vegetarian, so no meat.) I worked pretty hard to find meals I could still enjoy, and although it was difficult, I never felt super-deprived. My strategies for success were: 1) find a delicious go-to breakfast. Mine was gluten-free oatmeal with cocoa powder, unsweetened shredded coconut, and almond butter. 2) Make lunch a no-brainer. I usually went for brown rice, roasted vegetables and legumes. 3) Cook something really good for dinner at least twice a week. I made a lot of dals, some chickpea-based things like falafel, lots of spiced things. If you eat meat, this will be easier. 4) Snacks. Apples and nuts and raisins. Also some flavors of Larabar (be careful with the chocolate ones).
Good luck and I hope you figure out what’s bothering you!
I did the Clean program a couple of years ago. Hardest dietary-change thing I’ve ever done, especially those first few weeks. Anyway, if you look up Clean + Dr. Alejandro Junger you will find a bunch of the original recipes, as well as ones other people have created to fit the parameters. There are some terrible things in there I would never eat (because I don’t like the veggies involved), but a few that I actually still make from time to time. Here’s a starter: http://www.cleanprogram.com/media/files/clean-pro…
I did this! It was incredibly helpful for me. You can do it!!
frozen blueberries were a go-to treat for me, I put a little cinnamon on them (some people also cut cinnamon though)
I ate a ton of fruit. And salmon is really good, I put ginger on it, and olive oil, and salt and pepper, and baked it.
Also cauliflower, with a little oil, salt and pepper, is really nice if you cook it in a skillet over medium heat, and let it almost carmelize, it has a nice nutty flavor. I’m not that into cauliflower in general, but I like it this way, and especially while I was on this diet.
oh and avocado! I ate it with rice cakes.
these are more ingredient ideas than meal ideas…sorry.
Just realized that that reads like I’m saying “you can do it because I did!” and what I meant was, I really hope it goes well and is helpful for you, and I encourage you to stick with it, and from my perspective it was worth the effort and inconvenience. ๐
I was told “all vegetables improve when roasted” a couple years ago, and I’ve been rigorously testing that ever since. Roasted cauliflower! woo!!! roasted green beans, roasted broccoli, roasted onions, roasted ALL THE THINGS!! Olive oil and salt and oven at whatever feels like medium heat, and GO.
Which at least helps the flavors of what you CAN eat, and strength to you and confusion to the diet.
Elimination diets are usually temporary, right? So while it sucks right now, it isn’t forever! And presumably you are doing it to find a food trigger for something in your life, so once you find that, you will also have an improved quality of life! In the meantime, it is an opportunity to find new foods and recipes and cooking techniques. There are a LOT of websites and cookbooks out there for people with various food allergies; I don’t have any specific recommendations, but I think if you poked around for a gluten-free website you might also find other recipes that were useful to you.
The link you gave takes me to a non-page (“We are sorry, but we are not able to find the webpage you have requested.”) so I can’t look at all your restrictions, but on the surface, this sounds similar to how I eat pretty much every day. Check out my buddy Melissa Joulwan’s recipes on her blog The Clothes Make the Girl. She just put up a new recipe today, in fact!
Apologies if her stuff doesn’t fit your requirements. Here’s hoping it does, though, because she is a seriously amazing cook.
Today I was browsing through the Billfold, which I do not do nearly as often as I should, and I saw an author mentioning Jonathan Coulter’s cruise coming up soon, which sounds like SO FUN but my vacation is already set for this year.
But for next year… does anyone know of any cool cruises? I really wanted to do the Mark McGrath & Friends cruise before it was cancelled, so I am a nerd and I love 90s alt-pop music and also a lot of other things. Please tell me about all the weird/fun cruises you have heard of!
I went on the Barenaked Ladies cruise Ships and Dip twice, which was awesome. It was run by Sixthman who do a bunch of music cruises including a Sister Hazel one named The Rock Boat (they’ve now rolled Barenaked Ladies into this one, it seems). I do believe JoCoCruise happens every year; maybe set it up for next year?
Family tragedy means that my spousal unit and I have started a private library of 100% AWFUL jokes that no one else can ever, ever hear. Real dark stuff, friends, but I’m also weirdly proud of us because these are really good jokes! Made the mistake of sharing one of ’em with my brother and he looked like I’d channeled lightening right down through the top of his skull. So I will keep all the dark coping humor to myself, and write them down in my book of terrors with appropriate terrible illustrations and maybe someday I too will not find them to be amusing and that is the day I’ll be healed? Maybe? In the meantime, I’ve retreated to a circuit of home ->work -> home and am ok with that, for now. Life is hard.
I am very sorry for the family tragedy, but I am very glad for the jokes because however you cope is how you cope. We have some jokes here about things in the past that are not for public consumption either. But at least for us, they are still funny, it is just they are not as necessary? Something like that.
I’m really, really looking forward to them becoming less necessary. What a good goalpost to have.
For us it is very gradual and there are always moments like a wave coming in when suddenly it is really bad again, but they are less and less and now even when the waves come we are starting to have a lot more confidence that we’ll find our footing again. I am so glad you have your husband with you in this and that you can be a team, and I hope it does keep shifting for you.
I have made many awful jokes about awful things I’ve experienced. It’s the way I coped.
(Comparitively benign example: When waiting for the results of the tests on the irregular cells they cut out of my cervix, I referred to the potential cancer as ‘cunthulu’. It was not cancer.)
Never feel bad about it. The only thing to worry about is if that dark humour starts getting in the way of healing.
Cunthulu is a masterwork! So glad it wasn’t cancer! I wonder how to tell if the humor gets in the way of healing? Though I am lucky enough to have a therapist who I’m relying on to wave any red flags.
It’s a tough line to tread. My clue that that was what was happening was the ‘severe depressive episode’ that involved bursting into hysterical tears in my place of employment and then not being able to get out of bed for three weeks.
So, maybe don’t let it get that far?
Hahah ok so this made me laugh out loud at my desk – I will certainly do my best! Right now my therapist seems to think I’m in a pretty reasonable place, given the situation, and we continue to discuss what an unreasonable place would look like. It’s been years since my last depressive episode but I do remember what it felt like and can use that memory, I think.
How are you now? Do you have everything you need?
I’m getting there. I’m in therapy, have found a medication that works for me, and am seeking out work. I think I can cope, now, if not function at entirely full ability.
Mr. Plans and I tell each other horrible, horrible jokes in private that we can never, ever repeat in front of anyone else. I was hoping we weren’t the only ones.
My mom has always told my dad that there are things he can say inside the house only (usually super offensive comments in his case, glory be) but we have adopted it as sort of a call out. Someone says something horrible, the other one laughs and then says “INSIDE THE HOUSE.” It’s a tidy acknowledgment of how terrible the joke actually is. Though I have been out-gallowing the gentleman a bit, lately.
I’m so sorry life is hard for you right now.
My spouse and I do this too!
Ohhh, me and my immediate family have been there. When my grandmother passed recently, we were all extremely upset (especially due to the drawn out circumstances), which did not stop my Dad trying to get me to take a selfie with the coffin and tag it #YOLO. (I do NOT think my Aunt would have appreciated that, so I refused.)
I’m glad you’ve got the coping mechanism; it does help. And it might well not go away, just become less painfully necessary. But then, my whole family is morbid, so…
My first and very formative experience with dark humour happened about 4 month’s after a friend’s suicide when I was 15. The catharsis of making a really dark joke and laughing really hard about it with a friend who understood was really powerful. Good for you and your spousal unit. I’m so sorry for your family tragedy.
How do people feel about setting New Year’s resolutions more than a week late? I have one therapist-set thing that I’m doing okay at, but that’s a therapy thing and I still kind of want to do some other goal setting. Except the reason I see my therapist is because I’m vaguely overwhelmed and anxious about doing too much already.
Do you have a specific goal you want to set? Or just a feeling that you wish you were doing more goal-setting?
The later – I just feel like I’m kind of drifting through and like I should have some Overarching Goals!
Even though I’m probably doing just fine and DO have goals, they just aren’t articulated in clear New Years Resolution formats.
I have two, mutually contradictory impulses, then:
A) Maybe it would help to put your existing goals into NYR format? In which case, you can certainly do so whenever you want!
Or maybe that would just contribute to your anxiety, in which case
B) Maybe it would help to let go of the idea that goals should take that form at all? There is absolutely no reason that they need to. Esp. since most people kind of stop thinking about their NYR after a couple of weeks to a month…
I think you can set a New Year’s resolution whenever you want! It is YOUR resolution after all!
I set my all-time favorite resolution in July one year, so I’m a proponent of making them whenever you can articulate them.
Two years ago I didn’t make my new year’s resolution until March. You can do it whenever you want.
I do mine on my birthday! Much easier that way, and then I don’t have to worry about the gym being full up when I finally decide to go, etc.
Set your goals whenever you want, however it best motivates you. Just a heads-up: did you know that lauren ipsum started a Toastie team over at Health Month?
Lots of the goals are traditionally diet-or-exercise-oriented, but there are also mental wellness goals and free-form goals you create yourself. It’s free to play up to 3 rules, and the team support has been a boon for me. (I’ve been playing with another team for a couple of years now, and now I’m on both teams.) If you decide to play, I’ll see you over there!
I’m not a fan of New Year resolutions, the timing is arbitrary and might not be when you need or are ready to change. I think an more realistic approach is to self-evaluate (or with a therapist) on a regular basis and make small and achievable adjustments to lifestyle. I tend to make a mistake and “give-up” on big goals, which really turns into a cycle of self-destructive behavior.
I don’t make any resolutions until half past February because then I can look back and see if managed to modify anything and take full credit for it if I did.
I was all excited yesterday, because the customer I was at this week let us head out early (at 3) due to the weather, but the commute in the snow and ice took FIVE AND A HALF HOURS (usually takes 2.5), and I was travelling with a co-worker who is mostly silent, and also doesn’t like the radio on while driving, so it was 5.5 hours in awkward silence and terrible weather, just to return to a car that was dead due to -30 temps.
What I’m saying is, I’m really ready for the weekend. T-5hr.
Update from last week’s “omg I am pregnant and spotting” thread:
It got worst before it got better… but it’s better! My hcg looks good but my progesterone is low, which explains the spotting. I’m on a progesterone supplement now. I did an ultrasound and there is a baby in there! With a heartbeat!
It’s still early, but I think I might actually have a little baby seal…(!!!!!!!!!)
Congratulations, and fingers crossed!
Glad to hear it! I was thinking of you all week.
Yay! It’s a baby!!!! I’m glad you’re okay ๐
Glad to hear it! And congrats ๐
Neither do I. It’s really irritating. Especially the way he does it like “oh you want to KISS ME well IF YOU SAY SO” like, dude. This plausible deniability thing is not a flattering look.
I think he’s not taking the initiative in order to protect himself from rejection/embarrassment, but then that just puts all the risk/responsibility on me! But also, there is no risk of rejection because we have both verbally identified our desire to take our clothes off!
Ugh I hate coyness! Very common in my city/country (Canada, what what.) These guys are pretty…lazy?
I got one a few weeks ago! So it’s kind of too early for me to know if it’s helping. Everyone says they’re great though, and I think overall I’m doing better than I was last year at this time, though there could be a few explanations for that? One thing I will say is the light is a little. . .overwhelming first thing in the morning, which I don’t love because I’m overwhelmed by flourescent lights all day at work. I did get the cheapest ones and I think there are nicer ones that do a gradual sunrise kind of effect, so that might be worth looking into.
People who work out in the morning, how early do you find you have to get up in the morning and how early do you go to bed at night?! And is it horrible?
I have been having the hardest time getting to the gym since I switched jobs because I used to go on my lunch break at the old job and I can’t with the new one. I’ve been trying to go after work, but when I get home after work getting changed and going out is just not happening. It makes me sad because I like the gym when I’m there and I feel better when I get regular exercise so I think maybe I’ll try going in the morning. I leave for work at 8, so I figure I’ll have to get up at 5:30 at the latest and that just seems really, really early.
I have a long commute (Providence to Boston) so I have to get up at 5 in order to squeeze in a half hour on the treadmill before getting ready for work. I go to bed very early, usually between 9 and 10, but I have always done that regardless of what time I get up in the morning. It’s not too bad usually, and I don’t beat myself up if I miss a day and decid to sleep in (even though I almost never get back to sleep.)
I am a morning person, though, so if you are a night person it may be even more difficult. I don’t have any coffee before I get to work, so I am usually able to nap on the train.
For me, it’s all about group classes. I don’t have a problem waking up at 6:45 (after going to bed at 11:45 or midnight) to go to my Pilates class because I know that people will be there to greet me and I know the teacher will gently mock me if I miss a class. Also, I know exactly what’s going to happen. Do you like group classes, and/or could you create that routine for yourself?
I get up at 6, which is my early morning limit. But I also work out at home instead of going to the gym, which helps cut out that drive time. Would it be worth investing in some equipment so you can work out at home? Or could you shift your work schedule back a bit? Some places are more flexible about this than others.
Barring that, I’ve had success with going to the gym straight from the office after work. You get to avoid that whole not wanting to go back out slump (boy do I know that one), plus you may be able to avoid the worst of rush hour. Good luck
I actually do have a bit of equipment, the problem is that my house is too small to actually set the weight bench up. We’re hoping to move in the spring, though, and I’m really looking forward to getting my weights set up!
I carpool home from work, and I don’t really feel like telling my coworker on the days when I’m too lazy to go to the gym, so I have to go home but I’m toying with the idea of keeping my gym stuff in my car and just not going inside. I’m hoping that will help at least!
My partner and I work out at home in the mornings, and it’s great. I do just like 20 minutes, mostly body-weight stuff, and while it’s not enough exercise in total, 3 times a week means that we’re at least a LITTLE active, and can supplement with other things. I do lots of squats and squat jumps and mountain climbers and things.
But we recently have started saying “if we have sex we don’t have to exercise” which is great for our sex lives but not great for our workout routine! But whatevs! I’ll take the sex!
Can you get changed after work and jog there? Or take your gear to the gym or wherever?
Can you bring your gym stuff with you, so you go directly to the gym after work, and not home to change? (I have the same problem, once I get home I’m not going back out to the gym. But this works for me.)
This is what I do too, although I have it easy because my workplace is right beside my gym so I do not have to go out of my way after work.
I drive to the gym at 4 a.m. on the days I work out in the morning. Maybe once or twice a week. That gives me an hour or so to work out before getting ready and going to work, where I start at 7 a.m. I go to bed stupid-early, though. 9:00 p.m. usually. To be fair, I’d go to bed at 9 even if I was waking up at 5 or 6 a.m., just because it is so dark and winter and stuff.
I have to leave for work at 8 as well. I’ve managed to do it by spreading out the times I go to the gym in the morning (MWF) and sleeping in on the other days. I get up at 5:50, get to the gym by 6:10, then head home to shower around 6:50-7. If I shower at the gym I can get up later but, ugh. Coffee in a to-go cup that keeps it hot while I work out is great, since you can sip some on the way there and then it’s waiting for you on the way home. Good luck!
I’m a morning person and I usually wake up before 6am without an alarm. I also love going to bed before 10am. Body clocks are tricksy things and difficult to reset. Humans are not meant to work a rigid 8-5 schedule and it sucks that your job switch is interfering with your desire to exercise. Maybe try waking up earlier and earlier in stages? Like, ten minutes early for two weeks, then ten minutes earlier for two more weeks, etc. Don’t try to make a big change all at once, and in the interim, just do body weight exercise stuff at home?
I do 5:30, when I do it, and that means being in bed at 9pm. But then the day feels awesome!
I’m a morning gym goer and I can’t lie – even as a bonafide morning person, it is HARD sometimes. Especially when I’m doing a 6:30am class – I have to get up at 5 to make sure I can get out the door, on a train (they’re less frequent at that hour so I basically have to make this one train or I’m screwed) and to the gym in time to sign up for a spot and get my equipment together. In theory I should be going to bed at 9pm the night before class mornings, in practice I…don’t. The only way this works is that I can get by on less sleep than some. Practical tips: I get everything ready the night before. Lay out gym clothes, pack gym back with work clothes and any toiletries I need, prepare something caffeinated and a proteiny snack I can consume on the way (I learned the hard way that I HAVE to eat something before class even if I have no appetite that early in the day), so when I get up I don’t have to think about anything. I make these homemade energy bar things that are perfect for eating on the train and have enough in them to keep me going through a workout. It DOES get easier with practice and it is definitely easier when the sun starts coming up earlier in the day.
I LOVE MORNING WORKOUTS. I get up at 5:30 when I go to the gym and I try to be in bed by 10. It’s early but being able to go straight home and stay there after work – or agree to some last-minute after-work plans and not feel bad about missing my workout – is SO worth it.
My tricks are sleeping in my gym clothes (I catch a bus at 5:40 so there is not much time to spend dressing) and showering and getting ready at the gym. My gym is in between my house and my work so my commute once I’m ready is shorter, too.
I just got up at 5:30 every day for 3 weeks and it was miserable but then it got better and now whenever I want to get up for an early class or a run my body lets me with little complaining!
Is it worth looking fora new gym to go with the new job? Something that is on the way to or from work, or next to work so you can do the lunch thing again would make the planning part easier. But gyms are personal and important and I can totally understand how that could not work well.
I just got Texts From Jane Eyre in the mail!
Also Station Eleven.
And two more showing up in a couple days.
Who else set reading goals this year? I want to read 100 books, which is totally doable if I don’t spend my life distracted by computer games, and I’m also doing Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge, which is all about diversifying your reading life. Should be fun!
I’m hoping to read at least 45 books by women, people of color, and queer/trans folks. So far I am 1.5 books in. (finished The Keep by Jennifer Egan, and started We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo.)
We Need New Names is very good! It’s actually better in the second half of the book. Enjoy!
I just want to read for at least 20 minutes a day, that’s my only goal. And I want to get better at only reading one book at a time! Right now I have a huge stack by my bed and I’m “in the middle” of all of them which means I’ll only finish maybe half of them.
I set a goal for 50 books again. I’m not really putting any restrictions on it because last year my interest in reading just evaporated there for a while and I only just really got it back recently with a sudden need to inhale all the fantasy comics in the local libraries. I’m a little afraid that putting limits on will just lead me to start feeling like I’m doing homework, even with books I would otherwise enjoy.
But I’m starting to feel the push to branch back out into nonfiction, so I’m hopeful that my interest will come back full force soon.
I’m mixing shorts and longs (with 100 as a goal) and I just read this amazing collection called Retold: Six Fairytales Reimagined, that takes a “diverse, feminist, subversive” approach to the retellings. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24068351-reto…
The very first story features a middle-aged Red Riding Hood in a committed partnership with a bisexual Beauty, and Beauty’s daughter having to navigate her mother’s traumatic history in a world with monsters.
My goal is 50 this year, not counting graphic novels (not because I don’t count them as real books, but because for some reason goodreads doesn’t count them in your stats and that’s what I use to track). Last year I did 47 without having a goal, so it should be doable. I also have a content goal of at least 50% authors of colour, because that was where my diversity has been lacking. I am excited about this, because there are many authors who have been on my list for awhile that I will now be prioritizing.
I am a crazy speed-reading fanatic (306 last year) so I’ve set my goal at 100 books from the pile I own and have not read yet. Which is…less than a third of that pile.
My reading goal is to actually keep track of the books I read this year. Last year I read a TON of good books, and if you ask me about specific books I can say “yes, I read that one,” but I have no idea how many I actually read, what % I enjoyed, whether I read more fiction or nonfiction, etc.
I logged back into my old Goodreads account for the first time in 3 years(!), and I put the app on my phone. So far I’ve read 2 books in 2015 and I’m working on #3. Hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll have a nice long list!
Ugh, that is really scary, I’m sorry ๐ I don’t have to drive but am terrified when I have to do it even on a good day, so I can imagine how scary that is!
Can we talk about this week’s Person of Interest, or did I already miss that discussion? I didn’t see it until last night and now I need to talk! SPOILERS AHOY.
Shoot is canon! For all of five seconds until horrible, bloody death. (Maybe.) Going by the producers, this wasn’t just fan service (link) so I’m being cautiously optimistic that Shaw is not dead and that after Sarah’s pregnancy leave things could get interesting?
Oh man that episode.. that episode! How great was the music, and the multiple scenarios?
I heard Shahi wants to come back after 2 years? Which would be great but I wonder if that is feasible for the show. Hope it happens though!
I can’t talk about it because all I can do is make high pitched noises and flail my arms. I am emotionally compromised, go on without me.
Also, I don’t know if you watch The Good Wife, but that last episode was also intense. Whats with these awesome shows on CBS?
around the holidays, a Toastie had mentioned that she wanted to put more witchiness into her life. i have apparently taken this idea to heart and come to you seeking book recommendations. specifically: recipes for the use of herbs in teas and tonics.
back when i was a wee neopagan in the 90s, i was drawn towards kitchen witchery. i wanted to be the wise old lazy with long silver hair who knew all about making teas and balms; things to sooth your aches and pains and troubles. i have not cracked open my witchy books in yeeeeeears but i *AM* finally old enough to have legit aches and pains in need of soothing. i would very much like to begin dabbling in brews and potions for things like headaches and trouble sleeping and a mutinous uterus. alas, all of my old books are of the goddess worshipping variety and don’t provide much practical information.
more broadly: is anyone else upping their witchiness levels in 2015? how so???
Ferment some shit! I am not CONSCIOUSLY witchy but also my house is full of weird smelling concoctions and fermented tonics and crocks are great. Plus you can get a lot of really great beneficial bacteria in your joint this way, which is perhaps not traditionally witchy but definitely makes me feel pretty magical. Sandor Katz is a great resource, as is Nourishing Traditions.
Fermentation is great!! The Wild Fermentation group on Facebook has some weirdos but also tons of inspiration.
Re: witchy credentials, the other day my partner and I were considering which Fraggles we were most like and he started laughing and said “Mokey. 100% Mokey.” So take that for what it’s worth.
It’s not consciously witchy, but I have found Cold Spring Apothecary’s book The Home Apothecary to be a really great resource for whipping up balms and creams!
this is pretty much *exactly* what i want. thank you ๐
That was me! I’m also attracted to kitchen witchery, so far I’ve just bought some herbs at the natural foods store to make some teas and tonics. What I would love to do is to take some classes on herbalism, both to learn and meet people with similar interests. I’m interested to see what others say here too!
I thought it was me! become witches together?
Yessssss (she said, witchily).
a class! what a fabulous idea ๐ i need new/more friends but i’m always at a loss for new/more things to do.
Every summer here there is a herb class that involves going out on hikes and finding the medicinal herbs. I always want to take it and I’m always busy that weekend. I should look into this summer and see if I can block that weekend out sooner.
I’m in.
I was thinking about wanting to learn more herbalist medicine after watching an episode of Sopranos where a recovered junkie’s relapse into crack was triggered by really, really strong Valerian tea when she was sick.
Which might not be the best inspiration, but still…
i came across an article on poppy tea (totes illegal!). but bad inspiration is worse than none. right???
I am upping the witchiness! Not so much with herbalism – focusing more on my Tarot skillzzz. After floundering around for a bit with the ol’ Rider-Waite, I found a great deck that I love working with; I just want to explore it more and more!
That was goal last summer…I was pulling a card each day and then filling pages and pages in a notebook with information on it from my mother’s massive collection of tarot books. My goal was to eventually be able to form all the notes into my own cohesive interpretations and put those together with some pretty illustrations in my own reference book. I got about halfway through and fizzled out. I should really pick that back up.
If you don’t mind my asking, what deck are you working with?
I’ve been using the Wildwood Tarot. Let me see if I can link: Wildwood Tarot
I have not yet decided how I’m upping my witchiness levels this year, but it’s definitely something that’s going to happen. Possibly it’s time to read all that Crowley I have piled up on my bookshelf.
I haven’t done this yet myself, but I like the idea of being a Cocktail Witch and making my own bitters.
I bought my husband a ton of bitters-making supplies for Christmas, and it’s been really cool so far! Buying the weirder ingredients wasn’t too expensive, and you can mix everything in mason jars. It’s like making fancy alcoholic tea.
Always.
For starters, get some magnesium oil, here’s one brand http://www.ancient-minerals.com/products/magnesiu…
It’s actually a brine, not an oil. Don’t mix it with anything. Just rub it on your sore legs before bed for relaxed muscles and a good night’s sleep. You can transfer it to a glass bottle labeled Magic Crystal Elixir, if you wish. Don’t rub it on raw skin, because it really IS made of crystal (chloride) and will burn!
I have a few other recipes and witchy things I’ve recently done. I’ll link them when I find them!
Ooh, thanks, that looks great! I’m trying to get back into running and have mega sore legs right now.
Here’s a decoupauge project, because I wanted pretty bottles for my potions: http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/yy345/letterad…
In one of them: A tincture made with witch hazel and thyme, an astringent that works better than anything you can buy over the counter.
Here’s my tea tin project – -because I had several empty tea tins from different brands. It took a lot of elbow grease to get the labels off, then I added chalkboard labels. http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/yy345/letterad…
This is my photo-frame chalkboard project. Beneath it are two (decoupaged) jars where I keep my eyedrop vials – the labels are from a Halloween craft kit. But I also have my home-brew eyedrops (you can see the bottle in my other photo), made from colloidal silver.
http://s806.photobucket.com/user/letteradicorsa/m…
I’m upping my witchiness by actively giving less of a shit about men.
As a followup to yesterday’s discussion about not physically giving way to men, I present to you yesterday’s train ride home. I sat in one of the two person seats, and pretty much took up my whole half without going over into the other seat. A Man sat down next to me, without actually looking, and was Very Surprised when he managed to bang his butt on both the aisle armrest and on my thigh, because I did not make any move to scoot over, because I had nowhere to go without folding space-time. He hovered uncertainly for a few moments with his butt in the air, and finally managed to wedge himself in between my thigh and the armrest. I also did not bother to move my elbow, which was on my side of the seat and not sticking out in any way, but thanks to his insistence on squeezing in ended up in his ribs for forty minutes. Sorry not sorry dude, I can’t make myself any smaller, especially when it is 0 degrees out and I am wearing about five layers.
Good for you!! Always make dudes uncomfortable, it’s the best feeling.
I explained the whole “gender politics of space and taking up space and moving out of the way for men” thing to my mom the other day. Just trying to spread the gospel of making dudes uncomfortable.
Is this one of the 2×3 seater trains? At least for the ones here in Boston, I swear those two-person seats are too small for any pair of human butts. Good on you for guarding your already small half! *Medal of Misandry!*
Yep. Usually I sit in the 3 seaters, but took a change on a 2 yesterday and regretted it.
Not that the 3 seaters are much better, since the people who sit on the outside usually make the 3rd person to arrive sit in the middle no matter how much bigger they are than the aisle person is.
Yarggh, it’s a gamble every single time. I can either suffer in a two-seater, or I can take the window of a three-seater, and hope that it’s not too crowded that night, so that there’s a nice space in the middle seat. However, I feel like 9 times out of 10, my seat is the first (or only) one where some dude takes the middle, and then I am doubly squeezed against the window. Probably because I look too non-threatening, now matter how much I scowl. I *have* on more than one occasion taken to loudly coughing and wiping my nose as people enter at the second and third stops, just to prevent this, but it only sometimes works. *Is a jerk and a misanthrope.*
At least in the morning it’s a 2×2 train, where my butt is guaranteed some modicum of space.
A few months ago, I was in a posh bar with a friend, telling her about my campaign to cease yielding space to men.
She was fascinated, and after I described, for example, the man who’d walked smack into me on the sidewalk on the way to meet her and the guy who tried to compress me into a third of our shared bus seat, I got to add (sotto voce but not super dupersotto voce), “And this fellow right here,” barely gesticulating to the seats next to me at the reasonably spacious bar, where a well-heeled couple sat, him next to me and trying valiantly to claim more than his share of bar and under-bar area. I sat there with my elbow planted firmly on the bar, aligned properly with the edge of my chair and protecting my tapas plate and glass from his intruding gestures, and he had to be satisfied with smacking me lightly with his elbow* as he quested for space**.
*Another time, I might have pointed out to him OH SO CIVILLY that he was whacking into me, but sometimes it’s most satisfying to pretend I am completely unaware of their pathetic flailings. It’s a case-by-case judgment call.
**QUEST FOR SPACE: the affecting tale of a dude looking for latitude in which to spread his arms, splay his legs, air out his undercarriage in a repressive society that only allows him leeway in EVERY SINGLE MATTER.
You are my hero.
“The possibilities are endless but the options are limited” is SO my attitude towards dating right now.
I know in my head that I’ve already learned this sentiment can change week to week, but for the last 1-2 weeks, I’ve been more down about it … rather promising conversations that slowly turn, getting lacklustre messages to my clever, bright responses (I am indeed full of myself), feeling too much obligation to parties I can’t muster much interest for (so full!), etc. I am striving to stay upbeat and open as I’ve benefited from some good conversation overall.
I’m signing up for a spoon carving course tomorrow BECAUSE WHITTLING.
I also finished “Leave Alone and Like It” last night and LOVED IT. I’d love to read a more contemporary supplement too, with practical advice on the rigours of modern living — dealing with landlords, repairs, deflecting silly questions, etc.
Spoon carving course sounds AWESOME. Post pictures of your spoon!
YES, I am psyched! There’s a carver in Brooklyn who makes amazing stuff, and I’ve been inspired to try it myself. It’s not until March as classes are tiny and full, but I will try to remember to do so!
My attitude towards dating right now is “just the sight of a cute guy makes me angry because I assume he’s either taken or an asshole” so, um, I think you’re in a much healthier place than me at least!
(Hiding on page 2 because I’m kind of nervous)
Anyone want a crystal reading done for fun? I brought a bunch of my old rock/crystal collection home from my parents’ and wanted to do something with it. I do a tarot-type 3-crystal draw, so ask a question and I’ll post answers & graphics for the first 3 people when I get home from work and do the draw! Maybe next week I’ll do more than 3 people, just wanted to do a trial run first.
whaaat I don’t really know what a crystal reading is but it sounds fun? sign me up.
Hi Hipster Rasputin! Here’s your reading, hope it’s nice:
The Self: Pyrite is the crystal of caretakers. This mineral, once used as a firestarter, reflects the warmth you have, and the generosity with which you provide it to others. You are, in your current state, the โmotherlyโ one, whether this is to an actual child, a friend, a coworker, or just the people who pass through your life day-to-day.
The Path Forward: Amazonite demands cleanliness. It means: you need to take out the trash and allow yourself to focus. This implies that perhaps one for whom you are caring is perhaps not fully deserving of your care; they might be holding you back. Amazonite also defends against sexism: any sexist trash you need to take to the curb? Trim undue hangers-on from your life.
The Potential: Lapis is opposed to pyrite in some ways, as it is the stone of night, pyrite of day. But here, it represents an enhancement of your current selfโ lapis inspires trust and loyalty, signifying your evolution from a โmotherlyโ figure to a โmatriarchalโ one. You may continue to be a caretaker, but those in your care will not take advantage of your largesse; rather, youโll be respected and elevated.
If you can’t see the graphic, let me know. I’m posting the reading results (without names attached) on a tumblr, found here, so you can find them again: myfavoritedoorscoverband.tumblr.com
(edited: sorry sorry sorry the formatting got wild and crazy. fixed now I think)
Oooh, sounds fun! I’d like one.
Hi leaping_rabbit! Here’s your reading, hope you enjoy:
The Self: Tigerโs Eye is a stone of balance and introspection. It implies that you live your life carefully, weighing options, doing cost-benefit analysis, and learning from your past mistakes. You are good at resisting temptation.
The Path Forward: Rhodonite says: let go of the past! Perhaps you have been dwelling too much on past missteps, thereby holding yourself back. Maybe youโve been burned, but at a certain point, the lesson learned wasnโt worth much if all it does is keep you from ever trying again.
The Potential: Pyrite is a crystal of fire, electricity, and warmth. It is a stone that draws forth creativityโ once you drive out the demons of whatโs happened before, and build up the courage to approach the fire once more, you will find inspiration and ability this time rather than hurt.
If you can’t see the graphic, let me know. I’m posting the reading results (without names attached) on a tumblr, found here, so you can find them again: myfavoritedoorscoverband.tumblr.com/
(edited: sorry, was not expecting gmail + intensedebate to screw up the formatting quite so bad. Should be fixed!)
Me, please!
Hi ladyimogen! Here’s your reading, I hope it is helpful:
The Self: Spectrolite is a playful and creative stone, but it can also represent the agitation that playful and creative people often experience when they are stuck in a rut. You have great capacity for creation, which means when you are not actively creating, you can sometimes feel a great void.
The Path Forward: Rhodonite is focused on the future. It means letting go of the past, disregarding the opinions of others, and focusing on self care. In terms of your creative rut, this might mean you (or others) have been putting a lot of pressure on yourself to improve, to get bigger and better, but maybe what you need to do right now is work within your comfort zone for a while.
The Potential: Chrysoprase signifies that a new beginning is comingโ but only after something has ended and some adversity has been overcome. But this is good news! It means your rut (the adversity) will eventually end. The chalcedony inclusion in this stone indicates that your innate playfulness will be rewarded, and this new page in your creative life will be even better than what came before it.
If you can’t see the graphic, let me know. I’m posting the reading results (without names attached) on a tumblr, found here, so you can find them again: myfavoritedoorscoverband.tumblr.com
(wow intensedebate + gmail = formatting gone wild, sorry for the edits)
I am interested!
Seconding the “no idea what that is, but YES!”
I want one I want one.
My question is “How badly will this asking-for-a-raise thing go, on a scale from awfully-awkward to fired-on-the-spot?”
Boston Toasters! Shall we grumble about that one lobbyist group who made the decision for everyone in the state to foot the bill for a 2024 Olympic bid?
I’m nahhhht thrilled (and I love the Olympics), but at least we now have a deadline for the Green Line expansion, and possibly an adorable baked-bean themed mascot?
I grew up outside Boston, and a lifetime in Massachusetts has taught me that there is no way this can’t go wrong. So, so wrong. And I literally love the Olympics more than any other sporting event.
The one thing that is really bugging me is I currently go to school in Boston and all of these people NOT FROM MASSACHUSETTS keep posting on fb about how excited they are, how great Boston is, etc. YOU DON’T REMEMBER THE BIG DIG AND YOUR PARENTS WON’T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT AND ALSO YOU’VE NEVER HAD TO DRIVE AROUND BOSTON GAH.
So many tourists will be run over, beeped at, yelled at. They will get lost, drive the wrong way down poorly marked or inexplicable one-ways. It is a terrible idea.
I am really, really hoping this doesn’t happen. I can’t imagine how terrible it will be. But, I lived in Chicago during the 2016 bid, and we lost in the very first round, and it was hilariously sudden how quickly we were dropped, so maybe my luck will hold again?
Green Line Expansion is the bane of my morning commute (update your goddamn construction schedules MBTA!!!) so I am pro-getting-it-done-as-soon-as-possible. Not so much pro-Olympics in a practical sense, it’s a waste of money, but I do sort of love the concrete behemoth ghost towns that the Olympics leave behind in a purely aesthetic way.
Yeah I read this last night. Nooooooooooot in favor. I guess the Green Line expansion getting done will be cool, but would hosting the Olympics mean I couldn’t take the T for two weeks straight? Also, I feel like… ok let’s just say it – the Big Dig was on a far smaller scale and that was a disaster!!
EDIT: FFS. This was supposed to go in the perfume thread up top.
I love jasmine. My “signature” scent is from Soular Therapy – they create perfumes/candles/body wash that are “tailored” to the Zodiac signs. I don’t believe in astrology but hell, the Cancer scent is white rose and jasmine and I adore it.
You might also try Lush – I think they have a roll-on scent that’s primarily jasmine.
i had something by soular therapy like…over a decade ago, and then i couldn’t find it anymore, but i really liked it! i’m a libra and the scent was something i would have bought anyway: it was all juniper and cypress and pine-y, which is definitely what i like. mmm green planty smells.
Their Lust perfume is mostly jasmine and I like it a lot. It’s available as a solid perfume now too. They’ve got another jasmine-y scent called Sikkim Girls that I want to try, but since I only wear perfume about once a month, I haven’t gotten around to it.
Toastasaurii, what is your favorite underwear-dancing, making-chores-fun song of the moment? Old, new, any genre, give all your jams to me!
Here’s one of my current grooves, just to start: TOPS – Is That the Way
How To Be A Heartbreaker by Marina and the Diamonds.
2NE1! Falling In Love and Do You Love Me
the party line by good ol’ belle & sebastian!
Ooh I didn’t know they had a new album coming out! I’m a Cuckoo is one of my standby jams for suuure
Patrick Wolf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBJIbSScBM The City
Vintage 1950’s Doo Wop Pitbull / Ke$ha Cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZQJrM09jbU (It’s a terrible song but this rendition is just…I can’t describe it. Just trust me.)
UPTOWN FUNK
best pop release of 2014 by a lightyear
YES I WAS COMING HERE TO SAY THIS
AGREED
I just heard this for the first time yesterday!
I am not hip with the musics anymore.
Evacuate the Dance Floor by Cascada (and really any other crazy dance techno)
Work This Body, by Walk the Moon
The entire Strongbad v Daft Punk “Random Access Fhqwhgads” album.
Hey guys! I have a slightly weird question: does anyone listen to any particularly delightful radio plays/audio dramas? See, I love them because I have enormous problems with insomnia and my brain tends to go into hyperdrive when left without stimulus in the dark. So I listen to them before bed, but up until now my options have been kind of limited. I listen to Welcome to Night Vale, SAYER, and some Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes ones like the terrible nerd I am. I want to branch out a bit.
In case it wasn’t obvious I ESPECIALLY LOVE genre stuff. Not so much interested in kitchen-sink dramas. I also like stuff that plays with format and is generally weird or has a ‘hook’ concept. But honestly, I am struggling so much to find stuff I’m interested in I mostly just want to know if anyone has ANY recs.
How about audiobooks? I’ve got an audible account and get one book a month – I also leave them on overnight so I’m not in deathly silence when I wake up in the middle of the night.
Most of myradio plays are BBC though, so probably only available in the UK. I’ve loved good omens, the once and future king and the exorcist lately.
I actually don’t like audio books; only full-cast things. Listening to narration irritates me beyond belief.
I am in the UK however, so that’s great! I didn’t realise there was a Good Omens play already out. Definitely going to check those out, thank you!
There is a fair bit of full-cast stuff on audible; a lot of it is from radio 4. There’s a good Dracula which is kind of narrated as it’s unabridged, but they have different people for all the characters reading their own letters, so it’s a bit of both. I’ve also got the first (because it’s too sad to listen to while driving so I didn’t get the others) Northern Lights one which is full cast.
Audible has a really great full-cast recording of Neverwhere that the BCC did!
Oh yes, that is super! I listened to it on the radio so haven’t bought it yet but it’s in my wishlist.
Well, it’s only one thing, but it’s a long one: there is an excellent BBC full-cast recording of Lord of the Rings that you might enjoy, if you haven’t already listened to it.
Get on Good Omens quick though, it’s only online for another week or so!
Night Vale is great! There is also the Thrilling Adventure Hour podcast which I’ve heard good things about, but haven’t listened to yet. I think they may have had a crossover episode with Night Vale too.
How do you feel about older stuff? The entire run of Suspense, a mystery/thriller/horror anthology series from the Golden Age of radio, is available on the Internet Archive. (See here for recommendations of individual episodes.)
If you want something newer (and gorier), here’s Nightfall, a Canadian horror show from the 80s. It goes back to the it-was-all-a-car-crash-victim’s-dying-dream well a few too many times, but the show aired quite a few good scripts and employed some very enthusiastic Foley artists.
Seconding the old radio dramas! For a while I was obsessed with Gunsmoke – a Western (duh) but unlike a lot of the other series from that time, it’s surprisingly dark and sort of modern? Here’s what wikipedia says: “Meston relished the upending of cherished Western fiction clichรฉs and felt that few Westerns gave any inkling of how brutal the Old West was in reality. Many episodes were based on man’s cruelty to man and woman… As originally pitched to CBS executives, this was to be an adult Western.”
Also for people who like free audiobooks, LibraVox.org has a ton. They’re read by volunteers so quality varies, but you can’t beat the price.
if you like full-cast things I highly recommend Full Cast Audio’s productions of Tamora Pierce’s books (YA fantasy).
Based on your current list, you probably already know this, but the BBC is doing a radio adaptation of Good Omens!
I, however, did not know this. That is awesome.
It was on over Christmas and was fabulous.
I haven’t listened to it in ages, but Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was originally a radio play/drama/series/thing.
Definitely check out Thrilling Adventure Hour, which is in the style of old-time radio plays but also very very funny.
Decoder Ring Theatre does several different radio plays, all in the Silver Age radio style. They have two regular series (sarcastic noir detective one and sarcastic The Shadow homage), plus some one-offs and “here’s a new writer” kind of things. It’s good times.
I freaking love Big Finish’s radio dramas – I got hooked on their Doctor Who, but everything they do is lovely. (Even if you’re not a Doctor Who fan, if you like science fiction and scheming you’ll like Gallifrey.) (Annnd I just re-read your post and you’re probably already listening to BIg Finish Doctor Who. I stand by my rec for Gallifrey, though. Mmm, Gallifrey.)
I have just started Gallifrey and I LOVE IT. What a marvellous thing. Whoever decided to pair Romana and Leela deserves every award available.
The thing with BF is, of course, that it’s utterly labyrinthine. I could lose every penny I have to this lot off just their main range of Who audios…
I’ve been doing that too! I got all of the good-smelling hippie shampoos and washes and take FOREVER in the shower.
I just had a phone interview! I am not a fan of phones; they make me anxious and inarticulate, but I think I did okay. I think I offered some suggestions for the position that impressed the interviewer. I should know by next week whether I got the job or not. Sigh…fingers crossed. I’ve been out of work for ~2 months now which is like, not long in the grand scheme of things, and I have savings/unemployment/wonderful parents who keep buying me food so I don’t have to, but not working is making me very unhappy.
So here’s a topic: Most awkward experience of asking someone out or being asked out? Last night in Krav Maga we were practicing bear-hug defenses – there was lots of groin-kicking, choking, and general maximum contact with each other’s sweaty bodies. I was paired with a guy my age with whom I get along pretty well, and we were chatting while we practiced. One of the other students was sitting out because of an injury and was watching us talk, and she told us we would make a good couple and that one of us should ask the other out.
It didn’t seem like the time or place to scream “I AM NOT HETEROSEXUAL ENOUGH FOR THIS CONVERSATION” and run away, so we just stood there awkwardly and then went back to kicking each other in the groin (holy hell it hurts, even if you have a vagina). I hoped that would be the end of it, but nope, he asked me out for coffee this weekend. We do get along, so I figure I’ll go, we’ll talk, and I’ll try to find a way to say “I’m not exactly gay, but I have strong (unrequited) feelings for a girl and just don’t want to date a dude right now.”
“we just stood there awkwardly and then went back to kicking each other in the groin”
This is the best sentence!
I’m sure if this guy is cool, he’ll understand. It’s nice to get along with someone too, regardless of romantic stuff. Good luck!
TOASTIES! I have gone from a picky “half the things make me want to turn my nose up” first trimester pregnant lady to a “ME WANT COOKIE OM NOM NOM” second trimester pregnant lady. I am now fighting a constant battle against clownish gluttony. Being pregnant is weird.
Oh boy, I’m there now. I track my food most of the time (gained way too much weight with pregnancy #1, could not lose it, do not want to repeat) and have been STUNNED by how much food I’m eating. Just massive amounts. And I’m still hungry all the time.
This is late, but totally feeling the pregnancy weirds! I’m almost 12 weeks, so just emerging from the horrid sickness, and I want ALL THE PASTA! I find the whole thing super odd, and I expect it’ll be even more weird once I can feel the baby kick!
We’re currently trying for a baby, only three more days until we can take the pregnancy test I’ve squirrelled away! I’m not looking forward to the storm of hormones and associated sickness/ravenousness/weirdness… but at the same time, I am, because that means babby. Hope you are successful in your battle against the cookies. Send any babby vibes my way!
Thanks to all the nice Toasties who said really sweet things to me last week when I was feeling super depressed and bad. This week, I still feel depressed (haha/obviously and unfortunately I still have depression/brains suck) but much clearer headed and a little better than last week.
I started knitting recently and am almost done with my second project!!! The next thing I want to make is this beautiful geometric pattern scarf. What are you making? VULVA MITTENS!?!?
I’m working on a geometric scarf too, in crochet: http://www.annettepetavy.com/boutique/shop/en/cro…
It’s turning out wonderfully but I find that a lot of scarf patterns just aren’t as long as I’d like. I’m going to try and repeat some rows to get a big-ass scarf that I can drape around myself a bunch of times.
Ohh that’s very pretty!
Did you just learn? CONGRATS!
I need to wind yarn so I can start making a wee sweater with owls ๐
Yeah just in December! Thanks ๐
OWLS! Do you have a link to the pattern? That sounds really cute/aspirational knitting ideas haha.
I made this owl sweater and always get rave reviews: http://katedaviesdesigns.com/designs/o-w-l-s/ There’s also a children’s pattern, I believe.
YES!
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/owls-2
Or if you’re not on Ravelry <a href=”http://:http://katedaviesdesigns.com/designs/o-w-l-s/
:http://katedaviesdesigns.com/designs/o-w-l-s/<br />
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: apples and oranges replied to your comment on Friday Open Thread
That scarf is gorgeous!
I may try making a lace skirt (I messed up the first one, and it’s cool, but not what I was going for), but I’m focusing on woodwork and succulent care right now. I’ve found that diversifying my hobby set seems to help with the brain suck, either because variety is the spice of life, or because conquering a new skill set makes me feel empowered.
Lace skirts… did not know they even existed, but now I want one. Woodwork was actually one of the other things I thought about getting into (along with knitting and ballet). And my boyfriend gave me some cacti for Christmas! Do you have any resources or good places for basic care tips? I’ve just been not watering them a lot. Which is good because past plants have died from underwatering.
How did you get into woodwork?
I finally got a cacti soil blend, which the guy at my local gardening shop said will work for all succulents. I just make sure they have excellent drainage, water them infrequently, and mist them with water every so often. I haven’t had a lot of cacti (although I’ve been gifted some, so I’m going to see how that goes), but misting has, so far, been more useful than soil-watering. I’ve also been getting a lot of air plants, which means I can just mist the whole collection at one time. TL;DR, water them when the leaves look tired.
It was actually more a matter of getting back into woodwork. My dad does a lot of woodwork, as did his father before him (my mom’s dad also did a lot of woodwork, but mom didn’t get bitten by that bug). Since I started working for a hearth shop, I’ve been buying more firewood and gathering more kindling, so I find lots of interesting tree limbs and stuff. I decided to make my dad a…plant holder thing out of one of the interestingly-patterned bits, and that got me back into the whole thing. Protip: if you’re making a burned-wood dugout bowl, make sure you have plenty of water on hand to keep dabbing on the sides, so you can avoid having the coals eat through and dry/crack your bowl.
As soon as you said “geometric scarf” my brain was like “I NEED A HEXAGON SCARF RIGHT NOW.”
But of course I looked it up and the only way to do it is with patchwork – knitting individual hexagons and stitchin’ em all together.
Nevertheless I am hunting through my yarn supply to see if I have three colours that will do it nicely.
This one isn’t too bad: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/penelope-…
Sad thing/serious question: Eight months in my hunt for a place to live is in the toilet, and I feel like flushing myself down there along with it. Might have a chance to go look for places in person next week, so if you were me (poor, stressed beyond belief, afraid of being homeless a second time) what would you bring with you to show your best professional self (a self I am actually still trying to grow in a petri dish, with mixed results)? Social Security Card? Resume? Sock Monkey?
Two better things, new to me but not you smarties: Reading all the Harry Potters and watching Broad City. Without both I’d have taken to the sea before breakfast today.
Ugh I’ve been looking for a new place for over a year and there’s nothing that’s worked out so far. It sucks! But, like you, I have been watching Broad City and temporarily forgetting the shittyness of the world.
I’m not sure of your exact situation, but usually on apartment viewings I just take my checkbook and a pen in case I need to fill out forms and for if I see my dream place and want to pay the deposit right away.
Yep, my checkbook with its balance that is hiding under an invisibility cloak. Where are you looking? Northern California is so heinous I’m honestly reconsidering Arkansas. But I still need an interim place to sleep for three months and recover from this garbage-ass year. Thanks, and I hope something turns up for you, or that we meet in the Toastie old folks home.
Hmm. I would say, look at your wardrobe and try to find at outfit that isn’t quite job interview-level professional, but is also not “painting the house” informal. Try to look reasonably put-together. A lot of the professional leasing places I’ve been to (as opposed to renting rooms from people) want a photo ID when you look at a place. A Social Security card might come in handy if you are signing a lease, but you probably don’t need it. If you are employed, pay stubs or something else that shows your income (they may ask for this to prove you can afford the place, or to prove that you are eligible for reduced rent in some places). Your checkbook if you want to put down a deposit, as GreenGrasses said, and a pen, so you look prepared.
These are great ideas and make me sad, because I ASPIRE to a painting the house informal wardrobe. I basically look like the devil’s rectum rt. now, and my clothes match perfectly. But I do have a pen! And I’m glad to have a list to work from that’s better than my first draft, which was just “a vial of poison.”
I wish I could let you borrow some clothes, wherever you are! Do you have friends who you could glean an outfit or two from? Maybe you would even feel more competent in some nice clothes.
Thanks for this! I’ll try to cobble something together (actually, I’d like a vest made of knit penis cosies and broccoli florets, but learning to knit just isn’t in the cards for this week). No friends in meatspace here, which is why I hang out at The Toast like a ghost, but I’ll get as together as I can before facing the real estate firing squad.
I just made it to the open thread today, but in case it’s not too late to be helpful: I’ve had disproportionate success with apartment managers, the DMV, etc. by showing up with a folder/slim notebook containing all conceivable documents and information. In this case, in addition to a checkbook, I’d bring a social security card, photo ID, list of previous addresses/landlord’s contact info/rent paid/dates at that address for the past seven years (that’s what they ask for in Southern California, at least), pay stubs and/or contact info for someone to verify employment, contact info for personal references. It’s my one trick for looking super responsible and on top of things, even when everything is a mess. It’s the having all the documents/info already together + having a thing (folder) to contain them that does the trick, I think.
Super-helpful and not too late at all, thank you! I was making a little pile of stuff, and now I have an appointment to go look at a place that needs to see my credit report, so I’m reminding myself that binders and folders are fun and relaxing! Not stressful! And I printed out a copy of the “rental resume” I made over the summer, which is just a one-page summary of how awesome I am and does in fact go back seven years into the archives of awesomeness. Got some mints, too, so I smell like a good prospect. Thanks again!
Looking for commiseration. My job is in PR/Marketing and right now I am having to stick up for some shitty (but absolutely legal) behavior by our organization.
On the upside, my name isn’t attached to any of it, I’m just the one writing the responses that defend the shitty-ness.
Tell me of the times you have done the same for your employer!
Same, although I obviously don’t want to get into details. I just think about it this way– very, very few people work for an organization that makes them feel warm and fuzzy 100% of the time. I’m pretty lucky in that I feel good about my job like 80% of the time. PR can feel more morally troublesome than working in accounting or IT or whatever, but when it comes down to it we’re all just doing our jobs.
Yep. My organization had an incident that went SO BAD for us, and was in large part due to a bad call by one staff member and what can you do about that? And the response also sucked. It was just terrible.
Yeah, I’ve had to do exactly this–write stuff about “we are so sorry” and “we are always looking for ways to improve our service” and “we appreciate your concerns and feedback” when I know that it’s just words and I don’t have the power to make things really truly better.
In my line of work I just wish we could be more forthright about stuff. It would be so much nicer, I think, to be able to say hey, yeah, we screwed up real bad. That was shitty, the thing that we did! Instead, it has to be all fluffed up and we end up saying nothing real at all.
This is so, so exactly the kind of junk I am saying. We can never go into detail in a public forum (or really even in a private one since I never know the details of what happened), so it just sounds like we are saying “Yep, I can see that you are sad. Sorry about that.” over and over.
Sometimes I want to come back and write to them personally after I write to them in my employee voice.
agent carter, guys. is anyone watching it? i love hayley atwell so much.
I really enjoyed it. So much good TV these days.
there really is a lot! i wish this was longer than a mini-series, sadly.
I have PLANS to watch it this weekend while I’m hibernating away from the cold.
enjoy! it’s a good, fun pick for hibernation watching.
I can’t tell if I want to BE her or marry her but YES TO HAYLEY ATWELL.
i’m in the same boat. what a lady!
I am in LURV
yep, i’m pretty much all heart-eyes while watching.
I loved it! It’s not exactly subtle, but who cares. She kicks (specifically sexist dude) ass. “oh, you mean the alphabet? Shall we start with words that begin with the letter A?”
Atwell really carries the show. I like her chemistry with Jarvis, too, and I love that they’ve immediately taken him out of the running as a love interest. In fact, there’s no clear love interest yet, and I adore that. Also, the fight scene intercut with the radio play with “Betty Carver” was both hilarious and very well done.
yep! it’s definitely not subtle, but it’s fun! the espionage and disguises! the throwing heavy objects at bad men! the plot isn’t subtle but most of the acting so far (for the characters who get the chance development, at least) is nicely nuanced. atwell has amazing chemistry with everyoneeee.
I’m guessing maybe Enver Gjokaj’s character? Which is all good cause Enver Gjokaj is awesome. But yes, it is cool that she is just there to kick ass and take names (and outwit pretty much everyone else).
Yes. I love the music. I love the spunkiness. I love her fighting style. I LOVE HAYLEY ATWELL. Her Twitter is fabulous.
“I’m sorry I keep beating everyone up. I love you guys.”
I really enjoyed it! And I’m crazy about Peggy’s relationship with Jarvis. (I am not sure what you call this feel. It’s… not shipping, exactly? It is how I feel about Brienne and Jaime on Game of Thrones, too. “PLEASE CONTINUE BEING BUDDIES AND ARGUING ABOUT THINGS, PROBABLY DON’T MAKE OUT THOUGH THAT WOULD BE A BAD DECISION.” Surely fandom has a name for this emotion.)
Friendshipping.
yes! I watched it last night with the Boyfriend and it was great. I love her and I love Peggy and I love all of her ultra-femme spy gadgets and her general badassery and how she uses her coworkers misogyny against them.
Hey, late to the bar, but I’m bellying up anyways! For you horse lovers out there, Red, the little horse that could, is doing really well! This past week we went on three winter rides and had only one minor hiccup (crossing the SMALLEST of creeks, like I could literally jump over it myself or walk through it, it’s that shallow) but he even took that in stride, so yay for him!
So with that said, my resolution this year is to challenge ourselves more with his bigger phobias (facing/encountering other horses when on the trail) and GASP! riding solo. Especially riding solo, that is super scary to me!
Have we had pictures of Red? We need them.
I TOTALLY want to post a pic of my wee Indian pony, but I’m computer challenged! Maybe I’ll get my teenage niece to do it, she’s pooter savvy.
For a quick visual, he’s a stout, small bay with a bit of an oversized head.
OH…forgot to add, he pulled out our Christmas tree this year and I got the video to prove it! If you like, email me at laurie dot merlo at g-mail dot com and I’ll happily forward his grand debut!
Riding solo is a tough one! I’ve definitely met many horses for whom it just won’t ever work. Good luck!!!
You said it! Lucky for me, Red isn’t herd-y so it’s just my “OMG, we’re gonna die out here” mentality. GAH! I hate being such a wuss, especially when I’m surrounded by well seasoned, experienced “gonna get my ride on” horsewomen. Who are awesome, I should add, always encouraging and super helpful!
If you don’t have to do roads and it’s safe to, try riding with headphones on? I get really bored riding alone so when I do, I have an audiobook on the ipod. Might take your mind off any thoughts of imminent wilderness death!
Ooooooh….that’s a HELLAVA good idea!
Sent from my iPad
If you have a trailer and are able to haul out, you might try riding alone somewhere where there are likely to be at least a few other people scattered about. We have a nearby state park with about 8 miles of trail. In the course of that, you might see half a dozen other people either riding or walking. I like that because I feel like someone would probably find my unconscious body and call 911 within a reasonable amount of time but there isn’t, like, “traffic” on the trails.
Don’t have a trailer (yet!) but we board at a facility that sits on approx. 160 acres with a good selection of forest trails that are usually being used by someone, so it’s just me being wussy! No worries, though, I’ll make it happen sooooooomedaaaaaaaaay…!
Sent from my iPad
Today marks 4 months until I get married! We received our first registry gift by mail and people are beginning to RSVP already. Also, we may be able to have a right after the wedding tropical honeymoon, which we had pretty much written off as a possibility, so we are totally stoked. Lots of little details to work out yet, but things are on track and moving along nicely!
I had to stop my half marathon training run yesterday because of a weird pain in my lower left leg, and now I’m super nervous about getting back on the treadmill. I think I’m just going to take a week off and then repeat what this week was supposed to be in the training plan. It’s not so bad that I can’t walk or anything, but it’s noticeable with every step. I’m 8 weeks into my 12 week training program, and I’m really hoping this isn’t anything major.
I just had a pretty exciting moment I’d like to share! I work at a university press, so I was not very surprised to find a package from Oxford University Press in my mailbox. I figured they were sending me the latest issue of American Historical Review or whatever, since my job has been to buy advertising in those journals.
But I opened it up and it was in fact a copy of Culture: A Reader for Writers, and there is my name in print in the Table of Contents, directing you to page 45 for my essay about mint toothpaste and marketing!
As a former TA, it’s super fun to see my writing in the kind of book I might have used to teach college comp, with discussion questions and all. But more poignantly, I had forgotten that I’d given OUP my work address and I am very glad the book arrived this week–since next week is my last at this job!
Congratulations!
Also, I am amused by the notion that there are textbooks that are pretty much just my tabs on a Thursday.
Congratulations!! That’s really exciting ๐
Congratulations! That is amazing.
It’s mah burfday! I’ve been feeling kind of shitty all week (winter is terrible, holidays are over, friends are out of town, soon-to-be ex is not responding to texts or emails, editing a book chapter on divorce doesn’t help keep your mind of your own divorce WHO KNEW) so I didn’t plan anything because all of my energy is basically going toward getting to work and then not turning around and going right back home, but my coworkers are taking me to lunch AND drinks because they’re nice people, so it’s not all bad.
Happy birthday! Are coworker drinks happening AT lunch? That would be extra-fantastic, I would think.
It would, but alas no. Which is really probably for the best because the way I’m feeling I would just fall asleep immediately.
Happy birthday! Birthdays are just days, but this one is special because it is your day for reflecting on how far you have come and where you would like to go. The pangs and annoyances of dealing with the ex are the last vestiges of a past that will have less and less hold on you as time goes on. The lunch and drinks with nice company is a taste of what other pleasures the coming year may hold for you, especially if you seek them out.
I hope you have a good day!
Happy birthday! I hope 2015 improves soon!
Happy birthday! Enjoy the lunchdrinks!
Happy Birthday! I hope it’s a lovely day, because you are lovely.
Awww. Thank you.
Happy birthday! Winter IS terrible, but hopefully it will end at some point and then you can experience spring which is much more pleasant.
Previous experience suggests that it will, in fact, end eventually, but I don’t know…
Happy Birthday!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday! I hope your work outing is exactly the combination of fun and relaxing that it should be.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
You guys are all delightful and I love every single one of you.
Strong physical sensations can be good for taking you out of the fog. It’s why a lot of people turn to self-injury; the pain clears their heads temporarily. But something like holding ice cubes can be a good short-term way of clearing the fog without damaging yourself.
As cliche as it is, yoga and other exercise helps me more than anything.
I took my first beginner’s hockey class last night (where I was pretty clearly the worst), and sweet lady Christ I am so sore today. It hurts to raise coffee to my mouth, which is particularly cruel because HOW ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE?
Hockey class sounds SO COOL
Yay hockey! The being able to not move gets better. Mostly.
Started 2015 with a mammoth chest cold. Still hacking like… I dunno… something that coughs a lot? Sickness has cut into my ability to make analogies.
On Wednesday I read House of Leaves, which I thought would be a nice relaxing break from watching TV and coughing. No dice; it scared me so much that I had to sleep with the light on, alternating between coughing fits and nightmares.
Scary books, guys!! AAAAH!! What was the last surprisingly scary thing you read?
House of Leaves is probably the scariest thing I have ever read. I recommend it to everyone.
Ursula Le Guin’s story “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow”
AAAAAAAAA
Hacking like a shitty reporter?? Eh???? I too cannot stop coughing, and it’s very unpleasant. Good health to you!
Seattle Toasties! There is a Facebook group! We failed to get together this Tuesday but I’m proposing next Tuesday somewhere downtown. Join us! (If you don’t have facebook, email me at lauren at myusername dot com or message me here.)
Yay! I have been waiting for this!
Yay!
If I’m not too late, let’s have a cat thread!
I forget (AGAIN) (if someone wants to remind me I’d be eternally grateful) how to post images here, but here’s a link to a picture of my cat sleeping with his mouth open like a total dweeb: http://i.imgur.com/fMjJPQw.jpg
He likes it when I scoot down in my chair and put my feet up so I’m as horizontal as possible. Then he kneads my boobs for a while and finally falls asleep sprawled on my chest.
That is one happy and relaxed looking cat! Love it when they sleep with their mouths open or their tongues sticking out.
Oh gosh he is CUTE!!
He is adorable! (There’s a cat thread on the first page too, put him there as well!)
Any Toasties have experience with gestational diabetes? I got diagnosed a week ago and have been diligently counting carbs and spacing out meals and snacks since then. My blood sugar numbers are still kind of out of whack, though, so there might be meds in my future. Oddly, even though I’ve always had a sweet tooth, giving up cookies and candy hasn’t been that hard so far. I’m only a week in, though!
I wish that I had something useful to respond for you, I hate it when I see things posted that have no responses. Blood sugar number out of wack? How are you feeling?
Thanks for the support! I feel fine, baby seems fine, and in fact all my numbers were in line for the first time yesterday. So maybe my body just needed time to adjust to the new diet! I’m definitely feeling more positive now than a few days ago.
Sorry to hear that you have GD but I am glad they caught it! We did not have it but one of our good friends had it with all three of her kids, and it looked like a huge pain. Best of luck!
yesterday I figured out that a theory I’d been working on about when and why you should create secondary narrators within the framework of a play actually illuminates a part in Brecht’s “Short Organum On the Theater” about the Brechtian mode of acting, and I thought really hard for a minute about writing a long essay with some footnotes and sources and things (not many sources; it’s interesting to me, but I’m not a PhD guy, I get bored with research).
Then I remembered 1) I’m not in graduate school, and 2) what would I even do with this thing if I wrote it? Leave it on my computer?
Bah.
write it and print out one really nice copy for yourself. i have a few “informational compilations” on my bookshelf that no one else will ever see but whatevs. it made me feel good to do the project and now it’s out of my head.
A hundred years from now, people will find my secret library of Very Important Theories, and then they’ll be sorry they didn’t appreciate me when I was around.ย THEY’LL ALL BE SORRY THEN.
I have exactly this problem, and then I think exactly what you’re thinking, and then– and then– I still haven’t figured out what to do about it, actually. Just know you’re not the only one.
Publish a monograph, or at least write a monograph and keep a copy in your personal library for reference.
Ahhhh! I get that. It’s deflating. I just try to think, “Well, I’m pretty cool and not an asshole and not taken, so there must be guys like that!” Plus, I was “taken” just a few months ago, and now not. Things can be fluid ๐
Anyone else been following the situation in Paris all day? I barely got anything done. It’s not everyday that when someone talks about “the hostage taking location”, you have to ask “which one?”.
On the one hand, I’m happy it’s over now; on the other, it would’ve been good if the terrorists had been brought to justice, instead of getting to go out as martyrs.
Yeeah… I was at work, and we’re a couple of stations away from the secondary hostage-taking location (the B-list one, if you will): obviously, everyone was glued to their computers. While still chirpily taking calls. Weird mood.
And I live like ten minutes on foot from the Charlie Hebdo offices (and was out shopping in the neighborhood when the shooting happened), so great way to start the year right there.
I SUPPOSE ;). I am working with my therapist on this too because clearly it is not helpful or healthy to feel straight up angry at the sight of an attractive guy and it has to do with a lot of anger at several men that I never expressed properly. It’s been a long time since I was taken, and I’m in no doubt of the existence of awesome single ladies, just men, so the “I’m cool and not taken!” thing doesn’t work so hot for me. God I am just a barrel of joy, aren’t I?
Sigh. My job hunting is not going all that well. If any Vancouver-ish Toastfolk know of a place that’s hiring, I am a pretty decent assistant with tons of experience…
Ugh commiseration fist bumps. BC job hunting, especially Vancouver, can be the worst! I could maybe get you an in at Whole Foods?
My catch is that I have to be up over $45k/yr (I’m actually making more than that now, but I can drop a bit for a new job) and that pushes me into executive assistant territory, which I don’t really want to do because that is So. Much. Babysitting. Of. A. Grown. Adult.
Every week, I wait for the open thread, and then I have so little to share. My baby is teething and clingy, and I have been watching too much Netflix.
Watch anything good, or entertainingly not-good?
Toasties! It is so early in the day and I’m already so late to the thread. Mr. Seamoney and I play a game called questions where we ask each other Question or Story like “What is your favorite kind of cookie?” “What is one instrument you wish you could play but you can’t?” “What is the next thing you want to learn to cook?” lots of them can be asked over and over, but I’ve been running low on ideas! I really would like some new good questions to keep our game going. Usually we do two or three and then spiral in to one topic for a while (the or story element). I’d like to stay away from “would you rathers” but I thought I would see if you have any ideas.
I thought of one just by posting this! What is the piece of clothing you don’t have any more that you miss the most?
It’s a weird question but gets funny answers from people – If you had to swim in a food substance, what food would you pick?
I like “if you had a time machine, what three events would you go to?”
Also, “what would your perfect lunch be?” and (if you’re both into cooking) “when you’re reading a recipe, what’s makes you say ‘nope!’ and turn the page?”
Might not be quite the kind of thing you’re looking for but questions I love to ask people are:
1. What other names did your parents consider naming you?
2. What toy did your childhood bff have that you coveted?
Did this on a road trip with 3 people I didn’t know very well, it’s fun.
Some favorites:
– What is the best work of art you have ever seen?
– If you could, penalty free, eat one piece of food that is forbidden to you (because Kosher, vegan, Celiac, etc.) what would you eat?
– What songs have really strong geographic or temporal ties for you? What are the ties?
I have so many songs that have temporal or geographic ties! That is a great question!
There are these little things called Chat Packs and they are fantastic. The Burgomaster and I use them all the time.
I have been thinking about getting some of these! Like clock work a friend posted this article on Facebook. I think I will pull some from these questions. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/modern-… It is funny because by playing question or story for about a year before we actually started dating I think we essentially did this already. Something to think about for sure.
(If you’re on Tumblr), you know those posts that say “I think I’ve read that fic?” I have actually read that fic. =D
I ask friends to “tell me a story” incessantly. I’ve always had success with “tell me a story about you in third (or whatever) grade?” You learn ask sorts of neat things about people, like their scrapes, friends, family, and little kid hobbies. (My fiance was inordinately proud to tell me about his spelling bee win in second grade).
My message got a little bit garbled the name of the game Is question or story and you can either be asked a question or tell a story, but the story part usually does not work out as well as the question part. We were doing stories with a topic for a while “tell me a story about your sister” kind of stuff. I have also done “What was a time when you were really proud of yourself?” SPELLING BEE PRIDE!! That is great!
Without going into the details of an ongoing mostly-really-good-friends situation, I will say that unconventional relationships can be very rewarding although they likely take more work/upkeep/continued honest dialog than the normal dating arc. I was really fed up with the typical momentum of the first few months of dating people that something different had to be done, and she just happened/happens to be in a similar place. We’ll see what happens, it’s not easy, but it’s structured on a foundation of long-term friendship, so that’s good. Excuse the rambling vagueness.
Impulse bought a sexy lacy black dress off Modcloth just now. Because I haven’t had a new dress in at least a year and my anniversary is coming up. (this one – http://www.modcloth.com/shop/dresses/long-awaited… I’m nervous about it because the pic of the dress isn’t totally great, but the submitted pictures are gorgeous and the reviews are good, leaning towards ‘too sexy’. Which, I am A okay with.
That dress is lovely! I’ve never ordered anything from Modcloth but I’ve had my eye on this dress for a long time. Wine-coloured velvet! *swoons*
I didn’t know I needed that dress, BUT I NEED THAT DRESS.
I’ve always wanted to buy one of the Lady Love Song dresses! Either the red or the green velvet. You should share a picture if you get it!
Oh I love it! I agree, it seems to look better on than in the product pictures.
My favorite holiday carol is “Unnecessary Impulse Buy” because that’s all I do when I have days off around Christmas and New Year’s. (It goes, “Self control…Self control…I’ll never get to retire.”)
I bought this because I liked the color and the wrap details, who cares if it won’t stay up over my boobs, $20 SKIRT.
http://bit.ly/1ACbFsZ
And who can resist at 70% off? Living abroad means I can’t indulge in my Modcloth addiction like I used to, but I’m going home for a visit in a few weeks and I’ve already ordered a skirt and a shirt which are waiting for me there now. I will probably place one more order before I go back.
I have to suck it up and pay shipping, but I bought the dress and a pair of pants I’ve been eyeing for a while that dropped to 50% off. The total order cost is still way less than the original price of the dress so I am okay with it.
I work for a start-up non-profit organization that is very new and is unintentionally hitting a lot of culture-war buttons. We just got featured in a major article that pitted our position (not quite inadvertently) against the main lobbyist group in the field. In the course of the article, the reporter mentioned how much money that the other group received in donations per year, but didn’t mention how much money we receive — probably because our total income is below the minimum that the IRS requires disclosure for.
This, of course, has started conspiracy theories about why the reporter would single out THEIR money but not OUR money, because obviously we are being funded by Barack Obama personally, hurr hurr. And we’re starting to get requests for financial statements. Which we are legally obligated to respond to — and have no problem with doing so! — but our disclosure isn’t going to stop any conspiracy theories, because we can’t disclose our list of donors and the public disclosures we’ve made really doesn’t have details. We are absolutely stuck in the “we can’t prove a negative” box. And even if we could prove the negative, they’d just assume we’re lying, because conspiracy theory.
UGH I HATE PEOPLE.
Hey, would anyone be willing to invite me to LearnedLeague? I’m a trivia buff and I would be oh so grateful if I could get an invite.
RABBIT THREAD
Because the poopers were so darn cute yesterday:
Zoom in on them because omg
Yesterday was my birthday. Because it was announced on facebook, no less than three men contacted me and hit me up for whatever they thought I wanted to hear in order for them to get laid. Needless to say, this was not received well on my end.
1) Do not tell me you want to fuck me and then claim you need to find a wife.
2) Do not tell me we never fought when we were together. Nor will I ever move to North Dakota to be with you. I am _so_ glad I am the only non-psycho woman in your life. Apparently, I am the only one that had the sense to run after 18 months.
3) You haven’t contacted me in over 3 years (in fact I forgot you were on my friends list) and today you think it’s a good idea to contact me. At least you were upfront and didn’t saturate my IM box with bullshit.
I have never had a high tolerance for men’s bullshit. As I grow older, it seems my bullshit-o-meter is even more sensitive. Or perhaps the men in my life are just getting more bullshitty.
Happy yesterbirthday! (I promise I’m not trying to sleep with you)
Happy yesterbirthday! (I am trying to sleep with you [just kidding! {although I’m sure you’re lovely}])
My parents are having a really, really intense year. They’ve had to provide lots of emotional and financial support for all of us kids at once, traveling to care for one of us, working extra hours to help with medical care expenses, etc. as one of my siblings has been wrestling with a major, life-changing health issue and two of us are getting married. (I have pitched in for travel and medical care, but it’s different when you’re the parent, obviously. They won’t hear of postponing or scaling back the weddings.)
I don’t have the budget to send them on a vacation (and none of my siblings is in a position to throw in), but there must be some way to make them feel appreciated. Throw them a party? They’re kind of private people, so that kind of attention might not be right for them. Buy them a gift certificate to a nice restaurant and tell them to take a night off? Have you ever gotten your folks a big thank you gift or made some sort of gesture? Suggestions?
It depends on what they like and what they would appreciate, obviously. Flowers are a classic, and they make people feel appreciated, which is the important thing. A gift certificate to their favorite restaurant is a great idea. A Netflix subscription if they are the kind of folks who would enjoy it. Gift certificates for massages (either separately or as a couple). A nice, heart-felt letter telling them how much you appreciate them and all they have done for you and your siblings. If they live close enough that it is feasible, go over to their house and do some chores or things (go grocery shopping, cook dinner, clean, mow the lawn, whatever).
I think you can’t go wrong with a nice card! Take some time to sit down and tell them how much you appreciate them! The gift certificate idea is great, but it’ll probably really go the extra mile if it’s accompanied by some of your loving thoughts.
We had a huge anniversary party for my parents (56 years and going strong!), but it sounds like your parents are a bit more shy. Maybe you and your siblings could make a very fussy dinner for them at their house, and while you cook, let them read a nice letter you each write to them?
It sounds a bit cheesy, but a handwritten letter thanking them for the things they have done will actually go a long, long way to make them feel cherished. I know from my own experience in both sending and receiving such letters that they are a something that most people will value long after any tangible gifts have faded into the past. Both the setting down of feelings/gratitude in words and the rarity of a nice handwritten, actual letter combine to make a very cool gift.
I’ve used good heavy paper and commercial greeting cards (only nice blank ones, none of those sloppy sentiment ones) and handmade greeting cards, and it has often been only years later that I found out how much it had meant to the recipient.
Several years ago for Christmas my siblings and I make a book (on shutterfly or something) of family photos with our favorite memories. The photos and memories didn’t match, I didn’t have pictures of Saturday library trips and the small things that meant the most to me as a kid. My mom still has the book on her coffee table, even though my parents have since divorced. It’s pretty much a love letter from the six of us kids (mostly my sisters and myself, it was harder to get my brothers to participate) to my parents.
I need some help from design-inclined people! My room is finally set up (save the things that need to be screwed in to the wall, hence the no wall art / window dressing vibe I’ve got going on), but I am just not pleased with my bed:
(sorry for the awful quality picture!)
I really just don’t know what to do to make it cozy and nice instead of flat and sad looking! My queen-size duvet is just not large enough for my queen-size bed (you can’t see, but I pulled it mostly to the near side before taking the picture — it barely hangs off the edge when centered), but it was expensive and it’s the most comfortable blanket I’ve owned (plus, I adore the duvet cover). I am thinking of getting a cheap / thin king size duvet a neutral but interesting duvet cover to put over it, so the floral comforter is just peeking out of the top. Maybe? (If I do this, I’m getting rid of the two throws, which are now just there for extra warmth) (Also, I’m having issues with the mattress being exactly the same size as the bedframe, so that when making the bed, it’s a pain in the ass to tuck the comforter into the footboard area because there’s just not a centimeter of extra room. It looks silly untucked, though.)
I also know that I need new pillowcases, but do I need new pillows? I definitely would like a few nice throw pillows for visual effect, but would a set of larger bed pillows shams rather than pillowcases help?
I’m overall delighted with my room — my bed is the only thing that is making me somewhat dissatisfied, and figuring it out seems like a worthwhile new year project!
Have you considered one of those DIY-ish canopies? Just like a little ring that you screw into the ceiling or high on the wall behind your bed, attach gauzy curtains, voila. I feel like canopies add instant coziness.
Or a bedskirt! A bedskirt might help!
I was gonna suggest a canopy or some other means of hanging curtains, too. I have curtains around my bed, along with lots of tassels and a couple strings of fairy lights and it’s just magical. I love my bed. I like to keep the rest of my living environment a bit spartan, but my bedroom is a place for decadence and luxury. Tea light wall sconces! Rugs! Hanging lanterns! Basically anything you imagine in the background of those (horribly racist but still so alluring) paintings of odalisques.
That’s a great idea! I was thinking of installing a pendant light over my bed, and the canopy might be a lovely addition to that.
I think that hanging a large picture or wall hanging above the bed would help too– it would draw the eye up so the bed itself isn’t the focal point.
I think that would be lovely! The room does seem very tall and ill-utilized right now — I’ll be looking for something to fix that.
I have this bed! I also have a weakness for interior design. My suggestions:
Fancier pillows for the head of the bed – not necessarily frilly or excessive, if that’s not your thing, but more decorative shams. Either to just go over your sleeping pillows, or have a couple of permanent pillows for them if you don’t want to bother with taking shams off and putting them on all the time (which is what I do, and bonus, it means I have extra pillows if I ever have guests).
A couple of decorative throw pillows, but not too many or making the bed will be a hassle and you’ll never do it.
Go for your idea of a larger thin quilt/coverlet/what have you in a solid color you like, and either put it over the duvet or fold your duvet at the foot of the bed (if you really love the duvet cover, that might be better since you’ll see more of it). This is what I have, and I love the look, and additionally it’s a better weight for sleeping in warmer weather.
Feather bed. Incredibly cozy and comfy, and makes the bed look fluffier.
Good luck! Your room is lovely.
Yay cheap Ikea beds! It’s fulfilling all the princess-room fantasies I never had as a child but have developed as an adult.
I think fancier pillows are an excellent idea, and will help a lot with the “vast expanse of bed” problem that seems to be happening right now. And I’m thinking I’ll try to get the Ikea Ofelia duvet — it’s textured white, which is the amount of simplicity + interest that I want. Plus, with a thin comforter, I might be able to actually tuck it in, unlike my very fluffy one now.
I have nothing to say except โ I have the Ofelia duvet cover and it is lovely! Do not buy the Ofelia throw ($30) b/c it gets sad-looking quite quickly. I also have the Indira blanket (in white and navy) and like those very much.
if you’re sewing-inclined, add a ruffle of coordinating fabric all along the edge of your duvet cover that will hang at least as far down as the bottom of your mattress. ideally, you would go all the way to the floor as Under-Bed is where monsters live and they are best contained by fabric of some sort. if you are not sewing inclined, get a thinner blanket in a solid coordinating color that will be large enough to hang to the floor. put that under your duvet.
more pillows!!! a couple of fancy-schmansy shams that coordinate with your new duvet ruffle would be ideal.
any extra blankets or throws can be draped over the foot-board to hide whatever’s happening there where you duvet gets all squished up in the mattress.
fabric on the wall behind your bed, from ceiling to floor. i just did black satin on my wall and it is the stuff of princessy dreams
Are you committed to the bed frame being white?
I would either paint the bed frame a bright color like turquoise, or I would put a colorful hanging just above the bed to draw the eye up, as someone else said. White is really restful, but it’s hard to appreciate if there is no contrast (and the brown, while pretty, doesn’t feel like a contrast because it’s the default color of wood). A bright, blue, red, or orange somewhere in the room would do wonders!
(and I am admiring, too, because I wish my own bedroom was orderly like yours and had its own typewriter table for sitting on the floor and typing! how perfect!)
Or, you can paint the wall to make the white “pop.” Are you allowed to paint?
I’m late to this, but I have the same bed, too! So do a pair of male friends (who sit on it to watch horror movies…) and it was in Drinking Buddies! I love seeing where it pops up.
Anyway, I kind of like my bedroom being on the spartan side (I have a tiny bedroom and a separate room for my desk/wardrobe), but one thing I did to make that bedframe less invisible/flat was get paper flower garlands (these) and twine them around the headboard. I also hung a battery-powered lantern from the headboard to use as a reading light. The color/visual interest helped a lot. It definitely pushed it more in the twee direction, but my duvet covers are more adult and balance it out. I’m also hanging some art over the headboard once I get the right hooks.
Have you guys read this interview with Tommy Wiseau? It’s hilarious, especially if you read it in his “accent”.
http://www.avclub.com/article/tommy-wiseau-ends-l…
Wait, someone gave him a SITCOM? This I need to read.
I don’t think it’s “someone gave him a sitcom” so much as “he funded a sitcom-like simulacrum from his mysteriously replenishing resources.”
Whether I’m reading the interview or watching the trailer, I keep thinking “It’s like a Michael Scott production, but with Michael Scott as a vampiric count from an indeterminate Elsewhere.”
Tommy Wiseau does more than any single person, event, or evidence to tempt me to believe that extraterrestrials are visiting our world, and they’re making TV and movies.
Ah, okay. I thought it might have been Adult Swim being their typical devious selves, but nope, just Tommy Wiseau being
an alienTommy Wiseau.I did some cursory Googling to see if I was mistaken and some network had actually signed/funded the show, but Wiseau’s claims about its origin and future are unsurprisingly muddy. But it was well worth clicking through to see that Wiki describes it as “an ostensible sitcom.”
My friend and I theorize that he’s actually D.B. Cooper – no one knows his birth date but it’s sometime around the year Cooper disappeared and he seems to be much older than that date would suggest; he took his alias from Belgian comics that were printed in French; and he has a ton of inexplicable money. Funnily enough, the writer of XKCD published a cartoon with this exact theory a few months after my friend and I discussed it, and that guy’s a genius, so it’s canon, as far as I’m concerned. http://xkcd.com/1400/
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2015/01/09/friday-open-threa…
Argh, I was counting on taking the work van home this weekend, because I need to pick up my grocery order tonight, then drive to PP and pick up my birth control tomorrow morning. But oh hey, it’s not working! I can get my groceries home on the bus, but then I’m not sure how I’m going to get all the way out to PP tomorrow; it’s 3 bus rides away, and I have to be at work at 9:45. Maybe my neighbors will let me borrow their car at stupid o’clock in the morning (by which I mean 8:30).
And I have to pick up my pills because PP can’t mail them to me in town anymore, and I have to actually go in and sign for them every month. Now that I have insurance again, though, I’m going to see if I can get them at CVS for a not-terrible price. Without a car of my own, the 6 miles to get to PP might as well be 50 miles.
it sounds like a total nightmare to get your BC! the IUD thread above makes me want to lightly and gently suggest thinking about getting one! ๐
Yeah, I’m strongly considering switching to either an IUD or Implanon. My SIL has that, and loves it.
Can you get a cab or an Uber there and/or then to work? 6 miles shouldn’t be too too expensive and probably better than taking 3 buses.
My neighbor said she’ll drive me, then drive me to work (she also gives me a ride when I miss the bus, because she’s the best). I wouldn’t be taking all those buses anyway, as there’s no way I’d be able to do the round trip and be at work by 9:45 on a Saturday.
She also gave me some shepherd’s pie to bring to work for lunch tomorrow. THE BEST.
Are you in the US? Because although I had never been on the pill for more than 2 months in my life before, I totally went on it while in grad school and during a still-going 5 year no-date period, because perimenopause sucks and so does trying to change a tampon in the middle of an archaeological site behind a pickup truck with your advisor standing lookout. ANYway,most of them are now free. and if you get a cooperative Pharmacist, they’ll game the system so you can get them early if you have to because of transportation or whatnot.
There’s actually one CVS near my church, and one near the bus stop I use after work, so as long as they cost less than the $40/month CVS wanted to charge me pre-insurance (which is why I went to PP in the first place), I should have reliable access to contraception.
Also, my insurance will only cover one month at a time, rather than the three months at a time I was getting before. So that’s annoying. Insurance companies: still raging assfaces.
Or we could just celebrate both! We could be the hobbits of anniversaries!
Oh, yeah, for sure! I deeply regret that I wasn’t clearer in expressing my own plan: to celebrate the fuck out of the halfiversary, then celebrate the fuck out of the actual day.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get my violin-playing back into shape. I broke my right elbow last April, and even after I got my range of motion back I never got back into practicing. It was a vicious circle, in that I sounded so horrible that I didn’t want to play, but the only way not to sound horrible is to practice. However, I’m getting my bow back from the shop tomorrow, with new hair, and I got a new set of strings, a new Bรคrenreiter edition of Corelli violin sonatas that I got for a ridiculous deal, and I’m ready. Other musical Toasties: tips on getting back in shape after an absence?
Schedule practice times with a beginning and an end. Do it even if it’s awful and you don’t feel like it, and stop when you’re supposed to even if it’s wonderful. (The latter limits stress injuries from overenthusiasm, the former just gets you to keep at it.)
That silly little ditty you play easily that delights you is your reward. Work on some difficult section of a more serious piece, then break out the fun ditty. Then get back to work. That works for me, anyway. And hearing one of my now-deceased mentors in my head: “Practice!” He would bellow in his impossibly deep voice at the end of every session.
I’m already following a bunch of yous guys, but the list is handy! I’m @brunhaha
I have also seen some people pointing out that, while obviously these attacks were horrendous and completely evil and nobody should ever be murdered for anything they write, some people might want to rethinking writing #JeSuisCharlie because the newspaper actually does publish some horribly racist stuff. Which I think makes sense– it might be better to express support in ways other than “I am this racist newspaper”.
Yep. That sentiment is pretty much all over my Tumblr dash.
Yeah, I posted this elsewhere in the open thread, but my smart friend wrote a piece expressing exactly that: http://www.secondshiftblog.com/2015/01/wont-see-posting-...
Thank you – that was an excellent article. My husband is French, and while he finds Charlie Hebdo crass and unfunny, it’s been difficult explaining to him why it might also be racist to many.
For another good link, Joe Sacco ran an excellent comic earlier today, talking about the responsibilities of satire, and his own reaction as a cartoonist who writes/draws about politics: http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2…
Um…I’ve gotten a ton of new Twitter followers in the past three hours. I’m guessing you’re all Toasties? Big kisses to all of ya, but I warn you my tweets are super sporadic and are generally just drive-by comments. I’m pretty terrible at Twitter, honestly.
One of those is me I’m pretty sure, duly noted!
I appreciate the follow, don’t get me wrong, I just feel like people should be warned how very, very bad I am at Twitter.
I figure everyone uses it however it works for them, and while I enthusiastically follow people (and hey, I’m one of your new followers, drawn by the Toastie Twitter comment earlier), I also unfollow silent accounts (and anything else that isn’t a great fit for my stream) every few months, using the same logic: it’s nothing personal, it’s just a question of how it works for me.
Toasties, I am interested in your favourite recipes for homemade sugar scrubs! I’ve almost used up the scrub I got a couple months ago and I want to try making my own instead of buying a new jar. I like floral or citrusy scents best for cosmetics (I’m all about that lemongrass) but I’m not opposed to smelling like baked goods either.
I homemade-scrub by adding corn meal to my cleanser. Corn meal is always perfectly round, due to physics, so it can never tear at my skin. And it’s cheap. And it never changes the pH of the cleanser or my skin.
Ooh, good idea! And no problems with it clogging drains or anything?
Miraculously, for me, I lived in the same Massachusetts house for 11 years at the turn of this century. I used Cetaphil’s gentle version mixed with corn meal at the same sink every evening of those 11 years to remove makeup. Additionally, I used that mixture in the shower every morning for the first several years to remove benzoyl peroxide. The corn meal and cleanser mixture went to my septic field accompanied by plenty of warm water and there was never any trouble in all those 11 years.
I understand you want to be careful in your RV. It is my belief that corn meal will not clump or accumulate in your pipes or traps. It never seems to make a paste, in my imagination. Even when making corn bread, it’s the egg that provides stickiness.
I’d love to know the results if you try corn meal as a scrub. Even if you don’t like it as much as I do.
Thanks for the thorough answer! I will give it a try! Right now I usually just use almond oil as a facial cleanser when I remember, but I’d like to try to get into the habit of being more proactive about skin care.
I usually just do sugar and olive oil with a couple drops of lavender oil. Easy, scrubby, and moisturizing.
What do you do when you see typos on Toast articles? I end up just not doing anything because it feels rude to comment directly on the article (when I don’t really have anything else to say about the article) and I’m too lazy to email whoever it is you’re supposed to email.
I believe I pitched the idea previously, but let’s have a running thread!
I am currently in the wretched conditioning portion of things – I want to train for a marathon in the fall, but first, I have to get back into the swing of things and get maybe 10-15 pounds off my body. I am sleeping 10 hours a night, but I know it’ll even out soon enough. How are you all doing?
Week 3, Day 2 of Couch to 5K. Again. For the millionth time. I haven’t made it up past week 5 since the very first time I did it, when I completely the program. But still, progress!
I’m going to sign up for my first 10k in May. I just did a 4-miler on New Year’s Eve in the cold, cold, coldness and felt pretty good about the results. This week has been hard, though, because of the weather and I haven’t gotten to train as much as I’d like. Despite the heavy snow, I’m going to get up early and head out to the gym in the morning. No excuses!
Ugh, I’ve had to stop running for a couple of weeks for various reasons and I’m so ready to get back to it. Not that the frozen snowy outside is very inviting at the moment.
Runners: what’s your policy on running when you have a cold? I’ve seen some guidelines that say you’re ok as long as the symptoms are above the neck, but it’s the coughing that always lingers for me for weeks and weeks, so I don’t like that rule.
One of my favorite running bloggers posted about cold-weather running and/or running with a cold: http://doctormama.blogspot.com/2006/12/cold-weath…
Personally, I’m kind of a baby about this. My colds tend to not linger longer than a couple days, though, so I can afford to take it off. Does running with a cough make your cough worse?
I think it depends on how cold the air is, but mostly it doesn’t affect the cough one way or another. The other time I feel indecisive is at the beginning of a cold, when you can tell you’re about to get sick but don’t have too many symptoms yet: will it help or hinder things to run? or not make a difference?
In terms of cold weather running, I recently learned that arm warmers made by cutting up old fleece-lined leggings are great – very warm, but easy to take off mid-run if necessary.
Oh that’s a BRILLIANT idea! Luckily, I shred leggings with my fat thighs, AND I’m a mild hoarder, so I have plenty of raw materials to make arm warmers.
I tried running in the cold, with a cold, and it gave me this weird lung-emptying cough for the rest of the day. I then took about a week and a half off from running, and have since run only on the treadmill. Tomorrow I’m running outside again (in about 500 layers since it’ll be 23 degrees). I will have many tissues on my person.
When I am healthy, I fucking love running in the cold. I love the silver-brown color of bare trees in the distance. I love how empty the running paths are. I will take a 30-degree run over a 70-degree run every single time.
Plus you get to feel all badass for being a cold-weather runner, and there aren’t any other runners to bogart the friendly dogs you may run into.
I got really into running last spring but I don’t know how to run in the winter. What do I wear? Won’t the ice and snow mess me up?
What really kept me going was joining a local hashing group (a running chase game thing to get to beer and a party) and the fact that I didn’t want to be DFL (Dead F*cking Last) every single trail. They still go in the winter but I haven’t tried yet since most of the trails are while I’m at work.
I haven’t been running a lot the past couple of months because it gets dark so early and work got really busy before the holidays. I’m currently trying to increase mileage again but it’s the super fun phase where I’m out of shape and everything feels like a huge effort.
I’m contemplating running my first marathon this summer and am vacillating wildly between being really excited and thinking it’s a terrible idea.
FUCK THE ASSHOLE DUDE THAT I WORK WITH WHO INTERRUPTED ME DURING BOOK CLUB WHEN I’M TRYING TO POINT OUT THAT MAYBE YOU DON’T THINK RACISM EXISTS BECAUSE YOU’RE A PRIVILEGED WHITE DUDE.
Just needed to get that off my chest in a supportive environment.
FUCK THAT DUDE. (Or rather, nobody fuck him, ever again, he doesn’t deserve it.)
I’m like 99.9% he’s not getting any so YEAH, LET’S KEEP IT THAT WAY.
I am relentless about saying to this type of person, “Well, that may be true, but since you’re a white and male, maybe you don’t have the perspective that others may have?” This has proven remarkably argument-proof. Not totally, but since I’m not asking them to admit that they’re a white devil or anything, they tend to give me that point.
I’ve been coughing for two weeks and finally got diagnosed with bronchitis yesterday. Now I’m taking antibiotics which make my mouth taste HORRIBLE and make me queasy every time I eat, but I’m feeling better otherwise. I only had to miss one day of my job search assistance program, and I’m really proud of that. Usually I’d take at least two days off.
My favourite thing to do lately is watch TV with my internet friends. We coordinate our viewing as much as possible and then chat to each other the whole time. I’m watching White Collar and Justified with one friend (she’s seen White Collar and I’ve seen Justified so we laugh at each other about upcoming spoilers a lot) and a bunch of those war miniseries with another friend.
Mmm, Justified. (by which I mean, mmm, Timothy Olyphant in jeans.)
He does look good in them. I like Tim a little better, but I enjoy the snarky ones.
I spent a significant amount of my evening last night running search queries like “miss fisher kimono” and “vintage lingerie” and “caftan morocco”. It was an evening well spent. The most impressive and (unsurprisingly) expensive item I found was this beauty which I have no doubt I will be pining over until it disappears from inventory.
That is amazing! There is a group in my area that does historical costuming and I got asked to help out with a Christmas program they were doing. I got to wear a 1920s era dress with an amazing cut velvet lounge coat with so much amazing fringe. I would have stolen it in a heartbeat if I thought I could have gotten away with it.
I just this very morning discovered that there is an official Miss Fisher pinterest account, with details on the clothes and sets etc etc it is wonderful.
I did that recently. It was both fun and torturous.
Oh man, I was so excited about that until I saw “our factory in the Phillipines.” ๐
I admit that this might possibly be a knee-jerk reaction on my part.
Does it help to know that the CEO, Josie Natori, is Filipina and that they own and operate their own factory rather than contracting out the work?
Yes, that makes it much better. Awesome, in fact.
I have also been lusting after a Natori robe/caftan/slip but I live in Canada and have no firsthand experience of how they fit or anything (esp on a size 14-16 US lady) so I am interested if anyone has one and can tell me how clearly amazing it is so I will suck up the horrid exchange rate (and no returns) and buy one?
Well, at least one Toast founder can offer some first-person perspective on general fit/amazingness of Natori caftans: Mallory.
oh right! I saw that on Gabi Fresh’s blog and was like “I MUST HAVE IT” and then Mallory pops up IN IT and then I needed to go lie down for awhile.
This is so late in this Open Thread but I’ve got to tell somebody (besides the other crazies on the grad school forum I torture myself with): I got into grad school!! It’s my second choice, but my first choice won’t let me know for another two months so this is pretty awesome. And it’s in Atlanta where I have friends and it’s WARM!!
Congratulations! That’s a tremendous accomplishment!
Hooray! Congrats!
NICE! Congrats!
Congratulations!
Ahaha…just got my first true creeper okc message. He wants to know if I am in need of a foot boy.
He means a foot rest for your throne that is large enough to block the view of all men, right?
The most utilizable male! Who couldn’t use a foot rub every night?
I guess my anti-depressant dosage is finally right, because I want to drink and smoke and get tattoos.
Wait, what?
YAY! YAY! YAY!
Kinda TMI question …. I think I might have a UTI? I’ve never had one before, but I’ve had some discomfort when I pee for the last few days. It’s not really a pain, just like a weird pressure/discomfort at the end of peeing. I guess my question is, *how* urgently should I go to the doctor and can I still see my new sex friend this weekend and then see the doc next week??
I once made it through an entire week visiting my then-long-distance boyfriend (like, it was the only week I would see him for two months) before going to the doctor to take care of a similar-sounding UTI. If you’re not in unbearable pain, peeing blood, etc., Amphora’s suggestions should be a good stopgap!
Thank you for the reassurance!!
The one time I had a UTI it was like fire to pee, and I had to go like every 5 mins, so I had to go to the doctor right away, but if you’re not having too much trouble, I’m sure treating it with OTC stuff will be fine for now!
I’m late, but if you see this – it sounds like if it is a UTI, it’s fairly mild at this point. If you catch them early they can generally be treated with natural remedies (like other people said; cranberry juice/pills and tons of water).
If it gets worse and you end up going to the doc for antibiotics, be aware that they can give you a yeast infection ๐ In college I had a delightful month where I had a week of a UTI, a week of a yeast infection, and then my period.
I really hope it gets better! I’m exceptionally prone to UTIs and they are AGONY if they get bad.
I just called the doc expecting to make an appt for tomorrow, but they said since my symptoms are so textbook they’re just calling in a scrip for antibiotics and I don’t have to go in! I should’ve just called on Friday, haha. And my new sex friend has been MIA so that’s moot too. Anyway I will make sure to eat lots of yogurt with the antibiotics!
Glad for the easy rx but ?? about the MIA sex friend. Hope you feel better soon.
No such things as TMI! And remember pee post sex every time! It seems easy, and it is some time. Nothing worse than a new sex friend and a UTI!
I probably have mentioned this before, but my commenting here has dropped of dramatically because my work computer can’t handle this page. So with that being said, let me just say that I don’t think I would’ve have enjoyed Twitter so much, or been so patient with it, if it wasn’t for the fine folks on Toastie Twitter. I <3 you all!
Toasties, I am terrible and forgot to check my notifications until now but THANK YOU GREAT PEOPLE for your advice and encouragement! I am spending tomorrow putting some of these strategies for id'ing markets to work.
We just started listening to it and were definitely also wondering if it was going to get into the legitimate criticisms of Whedon, who I love, but also don't love. The first half of the first episode (which is as far as we got) was entertaining though, so I'll probably keep going.
I had the weirdest argument yesterday with my spouse, wherein the GPS and my eyeballs both told me that getting on the highway at the visible exit would be a bad plan and also slow, and the person in the backseat was agreeing with me, and he KEPT GOING because I had not yet convinced him… It was weirdly like mansplaining, only in reverse? Like – if you cannot convince me using small words and declarative sentences then I shall persist because I am clearly correct?
I dunno – it has left me deeply rattled because I cannot figure out what the fck was going on.
Hmmm. I use the same part of my brain to process speech and to navigate. Sometimes I can’t both put the car in safe places AND track instructions; when there are too many stimuli, I shut out everything but the things required to not have the car smash other cars. Then I find a place to park, spend a moment sitting quietly, and find a new way to get where I’m going.
Maybe your spouse is another person who uses the same part of their brain to listen and to navigate?
thank you for a kind and reasonable interpretation to that scenario – i think you have a point, and I was in a bad space to begin with. Life is more peaceful after a snowday and all the knitting I could hold!
Excellent good.
Someone had a post here and deleted it – I just wanted to say that your problems sound _terrible_, your insurance and your ex are both massive jerks, and I think your lacrosse coaching plots are brilliant. I hope things continue to improve!
Thank you. Once I typed that out, I couldn’t bear to read it all in one place! Nobody died today. I made dinner. My first lacrosse meeting is tomorrow. Slowly but surely.
thank you for a kind and reasonable interpretation to that scenario – i think you have a point, and I was in a bad space to begin with. Life is more peaceful after a snowday and all the knitting I could hold!
Licking them with a clean tongue is probably still out, though?
Just checking for a friend.
Is it worth looking fora new gym to go with the new job? Something that is on the way to or from work, or next to work so you can do the lunch thing again would make the planning part easier. But gyms are personal and important and I can totally understand how that could not work well.
Super-helpful and not too late at all, thank you! I was making a little pile of stuff, and now I have an appointment to go look at a place that needs to see my credit report, so I'm reminding myself that binders and folders are fun and relaxing! Not stressful! And I printed out a copy of the "rental resume" I made over the summer, which is just a one-page summary of how awesome I am and does in fact go back seven years into the archives of awesomeness. Got some mints, too, so I smell like a good prospect. Thanks again!