We’re running a bit light today for Martin Luther King Day; please enjoy this open thread in the meantime.
Julia Wong is covering most of this weekend’s protests in the Bay Area if you’re not already following her. And here’s a piece on #BlackBrunch over at Very Smart Brothas that’s worth a read. See you back here tomorrow!
Tags: open thread
Hello, Toasties! My mother decided to take a photo of me in ~*~the dress*~*~ last night. It is… not so great. But I am blaming PMS and a terrible camera angle and also, oh yeah, hating to get my photo taken. Photo in the comments.
baaarf
I like that dress! I love lacy flowy things but they just do not work on me somehow.
Dang girl if that’s your “not so great” then you’re going to look STUNNING on the big day!
What are your accessorizing plans??
Guh. I have no idea, at this point. I had a very very different mental picture of this dress prior to seeing this, and I’d had ideas, but they all involve a more statuesque version of self so I am now actually just totally lost.
So I’m totally the wrong person to give advice on styling (my idea of accessorizing is usually “my glasses, which are necessary for driving”) but I feel like this would look really pretty with hair up, no necklaces, and some kind of jeweled/beaded headpiece. Like a woodland princess vibe. I’m sure you’ll figure out something gorgeous!
I am contemplating and envying houblonchouffe her future as a woodland princess. I want to be a woodland princess toooooooooo!
Come to TC, MI! We are all of the Woodland Princess ilk up here, or the Water Nymph, one of the two.
I’m Scandinavian. I might aim for looking like the princess, but I would still look like the troll: http://runeberg.org/jbauer/01.jpg
ooooh oooh ooooh yes but with a really “soft” updo! I say this because for my prom I had an updo but it was hairsprayed to within an inch of its life and the look was….severe. Soft updo! Maybe turquoise-y accents?
oooooor long string of pearls, off-white lace gloves that only go up to your wrists that match the lacy trim on the dress
YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL BY THE WAY
But you look just right if that’s what you’re aiming for! I agree with the others in that underwear and accessories and hair-do etc will improve the whole thing (it’s the biggest part of the dressing-up-thing) but I really thought “shit, she’s tall” while scrolling. It’s a brilliant starting point, the dress does what I imagine you really want it to do if you’re going for statuesque.
I’m only 5-6-ish. What i mean is… this, kind of. (I have basically the same dress, but Betsey Johnson-ized, and wore it for Posh Things a few years and 50 lbs ago:
hiiiiiiii gorgeous
oh and the dress is nice too
oh my gosh you are so lacy and awesome this is going to look extra fantastic when all components are together!!
not barf! That is a really lovely dress. You will probably feel better in it with your styling all figured out.
I think different underwear will be your friend there – hoik the chest up a bit and I think there will be a very different picture. I on’t think t’s awful by any means but somethinfg lifty and maybe corsetty will provie a but more statuesqueness.
Lifty yes, corsetty tricky (I have no waist so… tricky). I think you’re probably right.
Also, hoisting up the boobs and maybe padding them out a bit could help give the illusion of waistedness.
Corsets are entirely for faking waist-having! Agree with the others, go to the poshest lingerie store you can find, with frock, show the pic to someone who looks like they know what they’re doing and see what they recommend.
I was thinking the same thing. This may call for a visit to a proper brick and mortar lingerie store.
Yep! A longline bra will hoist up any boobage from underneath so it won’t interfere with any laciness at the top, and it will create a smoother line as well if you’re looking for that.
aravisthequeen, formal bridal saleswoman
I loved selling wedding dresses and prom dresses. I just wish more people would listen when I told them cap sleeves are the devil’s tools.
I did too! It was hot, heavy work, but surprisingly fun. My own wedding dress had slightly-longer cap sleeves that were somewhat fluttery, so not true cap sleeves, but I still wish they had been longer because cap sleeves are SATAN.
Although if I never see another strapless sweetheart A-line with ruching it will be TOO SOON.
Wait why are they the devil’s tools?
People WANT to love cap sleeves because they’re uncomfortable with their shoulder/upper arms and think cap sleeves will hide them. But cap sleeves are tricky to fit, uncomfortable to wear, and draw attention to the shoulder and upper arm instead of away from them, as is intended. They’re also mostly unflattering unless you can really pull them off and also are a model.
Better options for those uncomfortable with their upper arms are strapless (yes, really! The focus is all about the bust and shoulders and nobody gives a damn about your arms), halters (va va VOOM BOOBS) or a real short sleeve that comes at least halfway down the upper arm, properly, and is fitted properly/not too tight.
Good to know! I guess I kind of instinctively knew that – I wore a lace shrug over my (strapless, sweetheart a-line – no ruching, though, lots of pintucks) wedding dress, and I had the shrug made elbow length because I thought it looked more graceful. But also because I have those weird red dots on the backs of my upper arms.
Those dots are called keratosis pilaris and they are heaps common! Exfoliation (Lush Buffy body bar) & moisturiser really works for me to help get rid of them, I’ve also heard Amlactin lotion is awesome for it.
almost word for word what I was going to say, haha!
I kind of wish I had taken a part-time casual job helping in a bridal store here when it was posted last year–at the time I didn’t want to spend the extra time, but I really think it’s such an enjoyable job. (Sometimes. Sometimes it’s more like therapy.)
(Ethylbenzene, would you email me at s d q s d q at gmail without any spaces? I have a question for you)
You got it!
Totally agree (and it’s not you, it’s the underwear. Please to remember that in the past, women’s shapes were very much created through foundation garments, and celebrities continue to wear foundation garments, so no body-hating yourself).
I also think this dress is beautiful! And you already look quite waist-y, so a bit of specialized underwear and you’ll be va-va-va-voom.
I would take the dress to a very good lingerie store and try things on until you are happy. I also think you *may* want to consider slight alterations in the bust, but only after you get your lingerie sorted out.
Anway, gorgeous. Do you plan to wear a veil? I feel like this dress would be gorgeous with a veil.
Thinking about it. Or a flower crown thingy, going back to the woodland-princess/vineyard fairy vibe.
Flower crown! That would look so fairy woodland princess, and could add some really pretty colour as well.
You might like what I did for my hair. I used a portion of my mom’s wedding veil to make a headpiece but I in no way wanted anything covering my face/neck so we went with something more akin to a flower crown. You can check out the photos at my photog’s website.
I was definitely thinking the same – the dress is doing a weird wrinkly thing around the armpits that would probably go away with good chest support and then the whole thing would just flow.
love the lace!
Beautiful! If you were in NYC you would take that dress to Orchard Corset, which is like Ollivander’s for bras, and that lady who reminds you of your great-aunt Muriel would give you the undergarment you want. Surely every region has some kind of equivalent, a real underwear shop. You will be statuesque and gorgeous.
I know this is a bit late, but maybe it will still be helpful anyway! I can’t tell if you are wearing heels or not, but if you are not in this picture and you are planning to wear them, the hem should be fine. If not, I would bring it up like an inch so the lace just skims the top of the floor rather than setting on it. Also, it looks like the top has too long of an upper torso. Definitely agree with the bra comments said earlier, but I would also say that if you can take the tops of the shoulders in about an inch or a bit less, and then open up the underarm about half an inch lower, that will really really help. A lot of times these super long column-style dresses are made with the expectation that the person in them is also a super long column, which is of course not the case for us ordinary humans who are not mannequins.
I always say that clothes should be made to fit a person, because it is absurd to expect a human body to change to fit a bit of cloth. (This is why those “wedding workout/diets” make me extremely angry.) Find a decent tailor, and they will be able to make just a couple simple alterations for you that will completely change the way the dress looks on you. Also, remember that most wedding dress makers expect the dress to be altered! It’s totally normal and even assumed that you will make changes for it to fit you perfectly.
The dress can definitely still be lovely, it just needs some help to do its job. 🙂 Also, unrelated, but you have super pretty thick hair. Totally seconding the woodland princess hair thingy suggestions!
[waves feebly] I’ve had the flu for just over a week. It’s finally backing off, but I am so tired. It’s taken everything I have just to keep up with my deadlines and keep pouring myself juice and water; I have zero energy left for any, like, human interaction. Even Twitter is too much for me.
Accordingly, I’m going to crawl back into my pile of blankets and mewl softly between coughs.
Can I fax you some tea and toast?
[nods weakly, starts to cry in gratitude]
My husband had the flu as well, but he recovered a little faster, which is a blessing. He’s been an uncomplaining source of fruit juice, Kleenex, and comfort, and he made an emergency tampon run when my uterus decided to join in the fun with an early surprise. I literally could not have walked the five minutes to the drugstore, so he’s been a real lifesaver.
[edited to add: It’s entirely possible he isn’t recovering faster, but is just being INCREDIBLY STRONG AND KIND and pushing through his own misery to take care of me because he knows I need it. That sounds like him, actually.]
Sympathy sympathy! I feel a small fraction of your pain – I woke up on Saturday thinking I had a cold, upgraded my opinion by lunchtime to flu when the temperature rocketed, went to bed at 4 on Saturday and didn’t get up until midday today. I am so relieved that it on;y stuck with me two days and was some pitiful wimpy flu and not the real thing (which I’ve had before). It has subsided into the original cold and sinus pain and asthma flareup…
Hope you are better soon!
Ick, I’m so sorry! I hope you feel better soon.
I’m going on day 8 of bone-wracking coughing and general flu yuck. I feel your pain. Going to see if I can get in at my doctor’s after-hours clinic tonight so that I can get some new asthma meds (my inhaler expired, ah, six years ago. Bad).
Hope you’re feeling better soon!
Oh no oh no! A whole week! I hope you feel much better very soon.
I don’t know if this will make you feel better or if it’s just weird, but: I recently had a Toast-themed dream in which you and I were swimming an open-water race together. I mean, obviously it’s weird because I am not sure we’ve ever specifically interacted, but clearly my subconscious has read enough Toast comments to want you on its team.
Anyway, feel better soon! Sleep as much as possible!
Re-re-re-watching Miss Fisher today and also having lunch with a most amazing lady and her new beau. The rest of this week is going to be terrible and I don’t want to talk about it.
I finally watched Miss Fisher over the holidays and am COMPLETELY HOOKED – watched series 1 and part of series 2, then started in on the books. Am really enjoying both the similarities and the differences between the show and the books, and oh my goodness, Essie Davis. And Nathan Page’s VOICE.
His hands omg also yes his voice I can’t even
I called my mom last night to give her my Netflix log in and demand that she watch Miss Fisher.
A surprise open thread! This is so exciting!
Is anyone else here kind of obsessed with Inside Gaming? I had been avoiding all gaming-related things, for obvious reasons, but my husband was watching one of their podcasts and they’re actually quite funny and mock gamergate, as they should. And they HILARIOUSLY played I Am Bread, which was discussed recently here!
Hmm, I should check that one out. I need less dry gaming podcasts, since the only one I really listen to is “Crate and Crowbar” – aka, British chaps sit around drinking whiskey and discussing PC gaming for two hours. Last week they argued about the details of the ship economy in Elite: Dangerous for a good 30 minutes. I gotta find something new to listen to / watch… (Though, blessedly, they also hate gamergate!)
I’ll check it out! I also like the Indoor Kids podcast with Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily V Gordon + guests.
Did anyone else just scarf down every episode of season 2 The Fall now that it’s on Netflix?
…
…
… Oh, yeah, I didn’t sit on the couch for six hours straight to mainline it either…
So, I love Gillian Anderson with a love that is more than love, but I know nothing about The Fall. (Except that it comes up when I search Netflix to see if the movie The Fall is available.) What’s it about? Why should I watch it?
Oh man. OK. So Gillian plays a detective superintendent called in to Northern Ireland to help with a perplexing murder case. From the get-go, we know who the murderer is, but she doesn’t. The six, hourlong episodes follow their parallels, of him continuing to be murdery and her trying to find him. It’s honestly the best crime procedural I’ve watched in years.
Seconding hugpunch’s opinion. Also, Gillian Anderson looks like a glowing goddamn angel throughout. Seriously, whoever lit her during her scenes deserves an award. Not only does it highlight her looks, but it makes sure you don’t miss a single nuance of her performance. She does so much with so little. I can’t recommend the series enough!
she is a glowing angel always, even when she is exacting vengeance *swoons*
i got so into the show watching episodes back to back i almost started a fire because i forgot i had something on the stove.
We are going too soon.. I think we need to rewatch the first season to remember what happened as well.
I’m limiting myself to 1 episode per day. SO GOOD! And I want to find out how to age like Gillian Anderson — somehow she’s doing it in reverse.
I tried to limit myself to one episode a day. That didn’t happen. Gillian Anderson, MARRY ME.
Ugh, she’s so fierce and glorious.
Toastfriends that aren’t on Twitter! The Dress Form Saga is nearing its end!
Backstory: I ordered a dress form on Amazon on 12/29. I have prime, so two day shipping would have delivered it on 12/31. I signed up for text notifications from the USPS so I would see when it was delivered. It did not show up. I checked the tracking and it was delivered to…Staten Island, a place I have never lived, instead of NJ where I am. So I contacted both the post office and Amazon. They told me to wait two weeks because parcel post whatever, so I waited. Still no sign. Amazon apologized and sent a replacement with one day shipping, which arrived. Post office apologized profusely, could not understand why my ticket had been closed, but re-opened it to see what had happened because theoretically the package had been located. I was contacted to say that if it was going to arrive, it’d be there in a week or so. I didn’t see anything, so I wrote it off since I got a replacement.
Fast-forward to Sunday morning, stupid o’clock. My phone goes off – post office notification! It’s in the processing facility that it should be at! I freak out. This morning, my phone goes off at 6am – post office again, it is IN TOWN. Of course, we have no mail delivery today, so it looks like the original package is going to arrive tomorrow. I am stunned. I take back everything negative I’ve ever said about the post office OR Amazon. Y’all are the best.
What dress form did you get? I’ve been trying to decide if I want to buy one or go DIY (and probably eventually get one after the one I make fails spectacularly).
ETA: Also… YAY!
I got this one! We assembled it Saturday night and it’s excellent – sturdy, adjustable (helpful for weight fluctuations to which I am prone), and pretty customizable too. Prior to this I’d been using a decorative one my friend picked up at the Christmas Tree Shop that is about 1/3 of my actual measurements, so it’s nice to have something more accurate to use!
We debated going DIY, but the thought of being mummified in duct tape freaked me out, haha.
That looks awesome! Thanks!
I almost bought that one myself, but the Internet Sewing Witches have MUCH to say about how well it takes pins (not very) and stays upright (again, not very, probably worse if one lives with two 13-lb projectiles/excitable cats), so I’ve let the entire dress form issue take a back seat until I’m capable of making a decision.
Really? I’ve had no issues with pins thus far, and I’m working with some pretty hefty fabric (gabardine). Time will tell with the latter as there are two cats and a toddler in the house we do our sewing projects in. I dunno!
Keep us posted on how it holds up in the longer term, I guess! I’ve been unable to ascertain whether the poor reviews I’d been hearing were “not worth the money, not better than nothing” or just a touch of snobbishness.
Gabardine of the wool kind? I sure would like to roll in that!
I’m already at the end of my fuse for white people telling g black people that MLK would want them to shut up, and its still morning.
I dunno how to collect my people and today i aggravating the fuck out of me.
I am 21 weeks preggo with twins and whoa, I have been almost falling down everywhere recently. Googling tells me feeling faint is common now, but won’t tell me when it will go away. Anyone?
Also I’ve been a lifelong ice cream hater until this week, when the babies decided it was time to buy tons of snickers ice cream bars.
Eep, fainting spells are the worst! I’m 28 weeks pregnant )(with just one), and I’ve had lots of fainting issues my whole pregnancy. Fortunately, they’ve been much less frequent in the last few weeks, so hopefully the same will happen for you? I recommend eating lots of snacks and drinking water constantly.
When pregnant with my daughter I craved frozen yogurt. I’d stop everyday and get some, with all the toppings. After she was born I never ate it again.
If the babies want snickers ice cream bars you have no choice but to eat them.
Ohh, smart babies! I’m taking their advice & getting one for myself next time I’m out.
Hope the swooning stops soon.
Separately I want everyone to know that there are mixed corgi-dalmation puppies in the world: http://lh3.ggpht.com/-U7dpQHDjnIg/TxV6np8XWII/AAA…
I cannot accept this. My brain can’t compute the cuteness.
In a couple weeks I am teaching 7th graders about genetics by showing them pictures of mixed breed dogs. This is going into the potential rotation.
That is an inspired teaching idea! We just had a lot of videos about peas(I think?).
Thanks! I definitely watched a lot of pea videos in 7th grade genetics. Maybe everyone just gets the same Mendel film? I’m a grad student volunteering in a classroom, so the goal is definitely to err on the side of making science fun and engaging. Obvious solution: cute dogs.
OHMYGOD SHUT UP
SHUT
UP
AAAAA
I initially read this as “corgi-damnation” and thought, “that’s about right for the level of mayhem that’s going to ensue”.
Over the weekend I turned 31!!! And tonight I’m going to see Tig Notaro!
It’s a slow day at work, which would be good, except my boss told me they might not be able to keep me on for much longer because there isn’t enough work for me??? I cannot even begin to mentally prepare for another round of unemployment… And having a lot of regrets about being really late to the game in getting my degree and having almost no decent work history for my resume.
I’m going to take some basic law classes at the community college and maybe get a paralegal certificate? Any paralegals here?
Happy birthday! I saw Tig on Friday!
Actually, yes. I’ve been a paralegal for about 3 years & I love it. Interesting/mentally satisfying without the pressure of being an actual laywer.
I took night classes for a year while working FT. It wasn’t great, but wasn’t too bad with a supportive partner and no kids at the time.
IMO, the specialty makes a major difference – find one that fits your personality. Real Estate is objectively the best (v goal oriented and more amicable), but there are pro & cons to litigation & corporate work, too.
Yay, happy birthday! I saw Tig last week and it was my EVERYTHING. I got really into her comedy when I was unemployed last fall and she honestly helped me see the bright side in all of that. I hope she’ll work her magic on you too, tonight. Sending positive vibes about your job!!
I did three negative pull ups on Saturday, which is definitive proof that I’m getting stronger, and I am very proud of my (tiny) achievement. I also signed up for a fitness assessment at my gym, so hopefully I will gain some insight about continuing to get beastlier.
In less confident news, I am taking the LSAT in three weeks and kind of freaking out. My practice test scores are about 4 points short of where I want them to be, but I consistently get the same score. Anyone have advice or stories about the LSAT or the law school application process in general?
I took the LSAT twice, and definitely improved my score the second time. Try to relax and sleep the night before. The best thing I did was get a test 3 blocks from my house, and have a glass of wine with a friend the night before (the first time I took it, I took it in a strange city and stayed in a hostel… not my brightest move).
Applying to law school way stressed me out, but it’s pretty far in the past for me now. Are you in the US? I’m in Canada.
Yeah, I actually opted to take it at my alma mater in a different state instead of in my current city. Taking it here would mean 45 minute public transit commute before 8 AM on a Saturday; taking it at alma mater means crashing at my boyfriend’s and taking a leisurely 10 minute walk to the testing site. Plus, you know, built in emotional support for before and after.
I’m in the US, I don’t know how different applications are.
I’m a law professor. One thing to keep in mind is that law schools are desperate for students, given the massive drop in applicants. So no matter how you do, some school will cheerfully admit you.
Good luck!
I think applications are pretty different depending on where you live. We have way fewer programs in Canada.
Listen, my advice is this: do everything you can to keep your debt load as low as possible. That’s basically it.
I misread that as “negative three pull ups” and wondered how on earth this was possible
For the LSAT, I’m assuming you have found top-law-schools.com but if not you should go there. It’s not a nice place like the toast but they do know how to do well on the LSAT/preach truth about law school. I’m thisiswater there and am happy to talk by pm. I did really well on the LSAT and if you give me more info about your scores I might be able to help
Good luck on the LSAT! I studied exclusively by taking practice exams and ended up doing very well on the real thing. Obviously that probably doesn’t work the same way for everyone, but if you’re feeling maxed out on other study methods, maybe just plow through as many practice tests as you can tolerate? At the very least it will give you a good feel for timing.
Toasties who are around, let’s talk about blogs. I keep thinking about/kicking around the idea of starting a blog where I read and review children’s and YA historical fiction from the 80s and 90s, which I love and am passionate about, but I don’t know where to begin! The writing part I have down–it’s the OTHER stuff–where do I put it, how tech-savvy do I have to be, blah blah blahhh. Who else has blogs and wants to talk???
I would read the heck out of that blog! I’m not blogging actively lately, but I’ve had success using tumblr and wordpress in the past. Tumblr is my fave, mostly because of the easy of following other blogs, but both are very easy to use and customize.
You don’t have to be very tech savvy at all! I use WordPress and they cover a great range of “dude, I don’t know, just set it up for me” to “completely customized from the ground up.” They have a ton of pre-built themes and as long as you’re not doing anything fancy with your formatting, you don’t even really need to know HTML (though a basic understanding will help). You can set it up as a free site on wordpress.com, then if you ever want to have your own hosted site (like, AravisYAlit.com or whatever), it’s pretty easy to transfer that over. That part can be a little tricky to set up, although my hosting service (Dreamhost) literally just had a button that was Make WordPress Website and it was pretty automatic!
I have been dwelling on the idea of a microblog/Tumblr something to the effect of “things my office smells like” because it is CONSTANTLY smelling weird/different. Right now it smells like tomato-based microwave meals; previously today it smelled like boiled hot dogs.
WordPress has been my go-to blogging platform for my public blogs my entire life – Livejournal’s where my personal thoughts rest.
I’m on wordpress too, and it’s a piece of cake (gratuitous plug, though it’s mostly in Dutch nowadays). No tech-savviness required at all, especially if you stick to words and pictures.
Also: please link if you do start it, because that sounds right up my alley!
I’m annoyed by Blogger and its Google logins. Do not want to link to my main Gmail accounts! Do not want to create a special account!
I also have WordPress. Mostly pleased with it so far, especially if you don’t care too much about layouts. Just pick one that is relatively close to your tastes and go!
SquareSpace! Eight dollars/month, it’s responsive design (automatically adjusts to iPhone, iPad, laptop viewing platforms), very easy and beautiful to use, and they have 24/7 tech help available. There’s also a thirty-day trial that does NOT require you to enter in any credit-card information. I fooled around with it and was suitably impressed, but didn’t go through with it because I had no real blog ideas.
The BookRiot podcast also has some kind of promo code with them, but I’d have to re-listen to a podcast to remember what it is!
Also think wordpress is the best. It’s flexible enough that if you wanted to switch it to a magazine review style rather than a blog style, it’s easy enough to do.
Toasties who wear makeup, can I pick your brain for drugstore mascara recommendations? For the past year or so I’ve been using various ~fancy~ samples that I got from Sephora, and some of them were great, but at the end of the day I can’t justify spending $25+ on a mascara unless it’s a special occasion. (Or… should I? It’s really not that difficult to convince me to drop a bunch of money on makeup.) I just can’t for the life of me remember which drugstore mascara I was using before that I really liked, beyond “I think the tube was green… maybe…”
I’ve tried the following:
1. CoverGirl Full Lash Bloom – way too clumpy, despite my efforts to wipe as much product as possible off the brush before applying
2. Maybelline VolumExpress Colossal Smoky Eye – also clumpy and has a stupid name
3. Maybelline VolumExpress The Rocket – THE CLUMPIEST OF ALL
4. Maybelline Colossal Cat Eyes – this one wasn’t bad and I could deal with it if I had to, but I know there are better products out there.
And yes, I realize that if I had just paid $25 for the full size of one of the Sephora samples I really liked in the first place, I would actually have saved money, but… such is life.
L’oreal voluminous carbon black- my makeup artist friend told me to buy this and she was right.
L’oreal voluminous is my favorite drugstore mascara. Benefit’s They’re Real is my *oNE TrUe MaScARa LoVe~*, so I’ll plug that until I die.
Another vote for L’Oreal Voluminous. The Original Volume Building and the Carbon Black are both terrific.
Most of the rest of my makeup stuff is non-drugstore, but why spend more when a drugstore product is as good or better?
Noooo I am so disappointed to hear that Full Lash Bloom is gross. It looks so appealing!
Another vote for L’oreal Voluminous. Also right now I have Covergirl Lashblast Fusion, and it’s great. It’s the kind that is both volume and lengthening, and it’s great for everyday. Not as EXTREEEME as Benefit’s Badgal, which I used to swear by, but good for everyday mascara needs.
I’ve been using CoverGirl Lash Blast (purple tube) (it looks purply to me, but I believe it’s the Lash Blast Fusion and all the pictures look blue. it’s one with the wider-in-the-middle shape) and it hasn’t been clumpy for me (after using Maybelline Great Lash and Almay One Coat for years which were both quite clumpy unfortunately).
I also use that one! I am not super knowledgeable about make-up, but I have been using this kind for awhile and I like it.
Yeah, I’m not super knowledgeable either. I saw a rec for the Lash Blast and decided I would try it out. So far so good with it, but next time, I’m trying the Double Extend that Faintly_Macabre was talking about. I really want to try a tubing mascara!
I am not much of a makeup-wearer, but L’Oreal Double Extend has been my BFF for life in the mascara department.
Ugh, you know what? I bought a $25 or $30 mascara, that I had tried in a sample and like, and the brush was bigger or something in the real version, and I ended up hating it because it got all over my face by the end of the day (I’m looking at you, They’re Real!).
What are your mascara goals? I’ve been using CG clump crusher, which isn’t as lengthening or thickening as, eg, They’re Real, but is not, in fact, clumpy at all, and lasts all day and is just great. It’s a workhorse, you know? Not a show pony. Which frankly is what I need.
They’re Real is one of the samples I really liked! (The other is Buxom Vanity Lash, the one where the top of the tube comes in various patterns? I have the leopard print one and it’s great.) I hadn’t considered that the brush size would be different in the full version. Hmmm.
Re: mascara goals, my lashes are already pretty long but fair, so I want something to darken them and add volume. A bit more length would be nice but not absolutely necessary because it doesn’t take much for mine to start to look like false lashes, which is a cute look but not office-appropriate.
I have super, super sensitive eyes that get infected at the drop of any one of several hats, and Almay makes a fabulous waterproof that doesn’t bother me or my contact lenses at all. And it’s super effective and non-clumpy and not a billion dollars.
Maybelline Falsies was my go to for a long time. I use Benefit they’re real/dior diorshow these days and love both but they are both ridiculously expensive. I’ve realized thought that it doesn’t matter whether I buy drugstore or sephora makeup, I always end up spending too much over time so trying to save on any one product doesn’t really help.
Also, if you have an Ulta near you they will let you buy and try out drugstore makeup and then return anything that doesn’t work.
Diorshow is amazing but it makes me look like I’m wearing false lashes, which is just Too Much Look for everyday life.
I use L’oreal Butterfly Whatever. I love the applicator, the formula is pretty good as well.
I can’t make many recommendations because US drugstore is quite different from UK – but one thing I’d advise is working out if it’s the formula you don’t like, or the brush (or both!).
In my billion years of testing mascaras (seriously I went through a very obsessive phase with a spreadsheet and everything) I’ve realised the mascaras that I liked usually had a very similar brush type. I now do a weird mixed thing where I’ve cleaned the old mascara wands that I liked a lot, and now I use them with other mascara formulas.
So were there any samples that you liked particularly, that you still have the wands from (or could get again?). If you don’t have the wands from them still, maybe try to keep an eye out for similarly shaped ones in your drugstore search, it may help!
Yes to brush importance! I have been using Lancôme for a while now — the Hypnose Star for everyday and the Hypnose Drama for anything after sundown. I wound up with two tubes of Drama once after a free gift thing, and just swapped in the brush from the Star and it is basically exactly the same.
I recently went on a similar quest (I love the way that Benefit They’re Real! makes my lashes look but it is IMPOSSIBLE TO GET OFF and also $24) and I’ve landed on Maybelline Full’n’Soft which is like $6 (or $4 on Amazon as an add-on) and can be found everywhere. It’s a more natural look but it’s buildable and definitely doesn’t clump. Also comes in waterproof, but haven’t tried it.
Cover Girl Clump Crusher–in the green tube, no less! That one or the one I always go back to, Maybelline Full ‘N Soft. Neither one is super “volumizing” (i.e. dramatic i.e. clumpy) but that is why I like them.
Seconded! Maybe I’m just Doing It Wrong, but Clump Crusher is the only mascara I’m able to use without being a total clumpy mess.
I’ve been using L’Oreal’s tubing mascara (DoubleExtend) because a lot of regular mascara stings/flakes (I also have a tendency to rub my eyes) and I hate using eye makeup remover. It works as advertised–I could work out/get rained on in it without it flaking, and then it comes off easily in warm water. It’s more dramatic than the CoverGirl Professional I’d been using and definitely feels a little crispier when I touch my eyelashes, but it still looks pretty natural unless I use the primer and doesn’t clump. Though I have pretty long/dark eyelashes already, so what’s dramatic on me might be normal for someone else.
OK, so typically I am a total sucker for fancy mascara. Dior forever. But then a makeup artist friend of mine (who does like HBO and movies and shit) suggested Prestige… umm, the one in the pink tube? And it’s great! It’s a litttttttttle flaky, but not bad. And it’s like the cheapest thing at the drugstore. While I definitely bust out the Dior for parties and stuff, on a day to day basis Prestige all the way.
I wore Cover Girl Lash Blast for quite a few years before I switched to expensive Sephora mascara.
I was happy with it until I experience the fancy stuff. So… not sure if that’s a recommendation?
I love mascara and try a lot of different drug store ones but Maybelline Great Lash is still my favorite – it’s the classic one with the pink tube and green lid (maybe that’s the drugstore one you remember?). There’s also a few Rimmel ones that I like. I recently splurged on my first expensive mascara (Make Up For Ever Smoky Extravagant) after really liking the Sephora sample and so far I’m not regretting it!
Personally I have been using Sephora mascara samples to meet all my mascara needs for the last 2-3 years! It’s not a bad way to keep on going, if you want. Granted, it means you have to not care about what brand you’re using, and it means you have to be buying something else at Sephora fairly regularly, but they pretty much always have free mascara samples– sometimes in freebie sets, sometimes alone. Also, the small sizes make it easier to throw them out as often as the eye doctors recommend — so it is win-win!
But if you’d really rather not, I remember both Loreal and Buxom (which I think is in drugstores now?) as good.
Yep, me too. Been relying on small amounts of Make Up For Ever mascara from Sephora. I’m hoping this sample will last awhile since I use so little of it at a time.
This is my strategy and reasoning too. Go team freebies!
I’ve been using NYC mascara for a couple of years now, and it’s great. The skinny orange tube, which I think is one of the basic ones (i.e., not “explosive lashes for days! etc.!” but still makes a huge difference to my lashes). It goes on well, is easy to take off, and costs like $6.
I haaaaated The Rocket too! AND I accidentally bought it in water proof instead of regular formula so it was even more awful getting off. I’ve been wearing Maybelline VolumExpress One by One for about two years now and I like it. I actually liked it better than a few of the Sephora samples I got (Tarte Amazonian Clay Smart Mascara+ Benefit’s They’re Real).
Drugstore mascara is actually the best option to go for, because cosmetic giants have the most cash and they’re more likely to develop interesting and innovative brush shapes (mascara is more or less the same formula regardless of brand; the patents and novelty are all in the wand. Some companies have a legal team who have to sit there, like, counting bristles.) Also you should get rid of mascara every 3 months because that shit’s going RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR EYE and you don’t want to feed the lash mites because they look like tiny crocodiles and no-one needs that.
My favourite drugstore mascara of all time is Max Factor masterpiece, but I also like L’oreal Million, Maybelline Lash Sensational and the original Maybelline Great Lash (I’m assuming all of these are available in the States, apologies if not).
wow, i’m happy there’s an open thread today!
i just started taking an SSRI. it’s been three days and i don’t feel different, and i’m just nervous it won’t work. any SSRI success stories out there? or even just pictures of your pets. i could really use them today.
::internet hugs::
I took zoloft at various doses for four years, and it, combined with talk therapy and a little cognitive behavioral therapy, stopped my panic attacks and helped me get my anxiety under control. It’s been 3 and a half years since I stopped taking it, and I still feel like my anxiety is under control most of the time. It helps, but it’s not a miracle drug (in my experience most people need both it and therapy) and sometimes it takes a while to start working. Other times it takes a while to find a drug that works.
Here’s my desert dog dealing with a Northern California cold snap. The bed was fully made, he did this himself.
love those ears!!!
thanks for writing. it’s great to hear that the meds were able to help your anxiety long-term even after you stopped taking them. that’s exactly what i wanted to hear! 🙂
Which SSRI, if you don’t mind my asking? I’ve heard they can take up to a month to take full effect, so I wouldn’t worry if you aren’t feeling it in three days. It might be helpful to check in with someone with whom you interact on a regular basis (best friend, parent, s/o, whatever fits your situation) and ask them to keep an eye on your moods and such. The change can be so gradual that you might not notice it yourself.
Thank you! It’s Lexapro. I’ve just felt so awful and waited way too long to ask for help, that now I’m really impatient for it to start working! Good idea about checking in with friends.
I also started taking Lexapro in the fall. I didn’t notice a change in my day to day immediately and the changes that I noticed were so subtle, like I function so much better now, but I don’t know when that changed or that I took notice of it. I just sort of realized one day that I was able to deal with things so much easier.
Hi! I take Zoloft and it seems to be doing good things for me. I also didn’t feel anything different for the first few days, and then I felt like crap for a few weeks (dizzy, nauseous, tired, etc) before it started being a mostly positive experience. But I haven’t seriously considered killing myself in quite some time now, so it seems to be doing the trick! I hope your SSRI works for you too. 🙂 If you don’t feel anything major for a few weeks I wouldn’t be concerned, but if after a couple of month you still aren’t getting anything out of it I would recommend talking to your doctor about increasing your dosage or trying a different medication. Some people don’t do well on SSRIs and are happier with alternatives like Wellbutrin.
And here are cute pups as requested! http://i.imgur.com/CmxgYCO.jpg http://i.imgur.com/NuQtScE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/osWBzgv.jpg
I loooove your doggies! I love the hot pink leash!
Thanks for your input! Suicidality is tough to deal with and was a big reason I finally went to the doctor. I’m so glad to hear Zoloft helped you!
SSRIs take a while to kick in, so don’t worry about not seeing any change yet. For me, it wasn’t so much that there was a dramatic change, it’s that a month or so in, I started looking at the world differently, and realizing “oh, I have more energy now.”
That being said, not all SSRIs work the same way for all people. So if this one doesn’t work, it just means it’s not a perfect match for your brain chemistry: it’s not you, it’s the SSRI.
Yeah, this is a lot what my experience has been like. I started SSRIs not too long ago, and it definitely took a while before I noticed any changes. When I started noticing changes it was definitely more of a shift of the balance between good & bad days, or I started noticing that things still caused my acute stress didn’t end up destroying my whole day/week/etc.
Good luck! They can definitely take a little while to work and it could totally take fiddling to get the dosage (or drug itself) right. I have found SSRIs very helpful though, so I hope it works out for you.
Thanks to both of you! I know this is going to be a gradual process, but oooh, I wish it would start already! I’m glad you have more energy now.
Coming from the point of view of not actually taking them myself, but being in close proximity to one who does, definitely agree on the balance thing–the ability to “come back” from a tipping point has been a huge life quality bonus. When previously a sad thing or stressful thing would completely wreck a night, now it can be processed and dealt with and things move on much more smoothly. It’s probably the single greatest benefit of the process IMO.
I started taking a very low dose of Citalopram pretty much this time last year, for anxiety and depression. I didn’t notice much at first. Maybe a slight boost in energy, and I suddenly felt really engaged watching the first season of Sleepy Hollow (but that may have just been Sleepy Hollow being amazing). A year later, though, it’s really obvious how much it’s helped. I don’t recheck my front door lock five times and then spend the entire day at work wondering if I left out some cleaning supplies which will accidentally kill my cats. I don’t cry face down on the couch every few days any more, making my husband hug me helplessly. I don’t feel like my life is slowly spinning out of control. I’m not super-duper happy (mostly because I’m still in the crap job situation which triggered the depression), but life feels *manageable* now.
Side effects have been mostly very benign. I did get hit by the libido slowdown, but we’ve (um) worked around that. The only other two really obvious ones have been weird. My alcohol tolerance is way down (which is expected, I think). But also, I sometimes get really intense night sweats, and wake up totally soaked after an intense dream. Small price to pay for getting control of my life back.
Also, cat!
What a beautiful cat! I love how he looks so curious and alert! I think having pets would go a long way toward helping my depression and anxiety but I won’t be in a place to have an animal for at least another few years.
Sorry to hear about your crappy job, but I’m glad the meds have helped make your life manageable. Over the last few months I’ve spiraled into not being able to make phone calls or leave my apartment and I really am crossing my fingers this little pill will help me get up in the mornings and put my life back together!
Ooh, if you’re in the US and have been diagnosed with depression or anxiety, you’re covered by the ADA and can actually get a ‘companion animal’. Basically you just ask your therapist or doctor to write a note that says, in general terms, that you’re covered by the ADA and that they believe having an animal would be beneficial for you. Pass the note along to your landlord and they’re required to allow you to keep a critter (they also can’t ask you for a deposit, to my knowledge).
Er, unless you meant that you’re not metaphorically in a place to have an animal. Then my advice is useless. But if the only thing keeping you from having an animal is your apartment’s code, that’s a really good workaround.
Whoa. You’re saying I can get a doctor’s note to get more kittens? Mhmmm, *makes some notes.*
Wow! This is a great tip. Unfortunately, I move a lot, and never have enough money to cover my own expenses, let alone pet food/vet care! It’s one of the (pretty significant) costs of travelling a lot. Hopefully stability is in my future a couple years down the road, but first I need the SSRIs to help me get back on track…. oh, how I look forward to a future filled with puppies and kittens!
Thank you! The reason for the super-curious expression: there was a squirrel outside the window on the bird feeder. :3 Pets are great, though they can also bring their own sources of anxiety – this one managed to turn on the gas burner on the stove once, ahahahaha.
Crappy job should be over soon, hopefully – just gotta wait until we hear back (positive or negative) about my husband’s tenure track professorship applications, and then it’s time to apply for something new! I really hope SSRIs (or another similar form of treatment) works for you – I remember that feeling of paralysis, and it’s awful. I also remember how difficult it was to actually work up the courage and energy to make the call to get treatment, so really nice job for taking the initiative to get help!
Hey bit late here but noticed you mentioned citalopram- I started on that about 5 weeks ago now for depression, and am still waiting for the clouds to part really. My Doctor is aware of that and we have agreed to slowly increase the dose until I feel the positive effects (as I had very scary side effects when he started me on a higher dose at first, lots of shaking and eyeball rolling, so we can’t just bump it up). Luckily no real side effects at the moment, since I’ve switched to drops from pills.
ANYWAY my main question would be how long did you wait to feel a positive change? Was it gradual? Thanks.
Super-late reply here too! I feel like the changes were fairly slow for me? Like, I can’t point to a day where I suddenly stopped sitting at the train station wondering if I’d turned off the stove and obsessively feeling the need to drive home so that I’d miss the train. And some of the early days of “whee, I feel nice!” may have been the placebo effect. I think in the ned, for me, it was less a parting of the clouds for me and more of the medication gradually “taking the edge off”.
Ugh, I’m sorry to hear about the scary side effects from the drops! That sounds awful! I hope you find a dosage/med that works for you!
also great cat!
Thankee! 😀
When I started taking Zoloft, I noticed side effects right away – like, the first day I took it, BAM, no more libido.
That was a big deal for me at the time because I was in a new relationship, and my very cool and understanding therapist switched me to Lexapro. SSRIs (especially Prozac) are notorious for taking a while to take significant effect, and, like others have said, the change is gradual so you may not even notice when things start to feel different!
Unless you’re experiencing beastly side effects, stick with it for 4-6 weeks. Try to keep some kind of written log of how you’re feeling day-to-day, and when a few weeks have passed, compare older and more recent logs to see if your writing reveals a significant change.
My depression is very melancholic; i.e, left unmedicated, I will start sleeping 18 hours a day. SSRIs tend to make me feel sluggish, so a few years ago a doctor put me on Wellbutrin. It’s pretty speedy (I can’t sleep if I take it at night), which is exactly what I needed. Now I take Wellbutrin in the mornings and Lexapro (which I started to help with my anxiety) at night, and it’s a good balance. Wellbutrin is a good med to keep in mind if you also experience that kind of sleepy, melancholic depression.
Thank you so much for this post. I guess I have to just be patient! I’m also a sleeper, so I’ll keep your tip in mind. I just started on Lexapro and I’m definitely yawning all the time! Hopefully I can be patient enough to make it through the next several weeks!
Hang in there! As others have said, it takes a few weeks for them to really get in your system. I’ve been on Lexapro for depression and anxiety–mostly anxiety–on and off for about 8 years (tried to go off it a couple of times but the anxiety came roaring back both times). Mine has been an overwhelmingly positive experience; the first time I started it was like a revelation when it kicked in. I was shocked because I just felt like MYSELF, because I hadn’t realized how far gone from myself I really was.
If you don’t see a difference, or start to have lasting negative side effects, talk to your doctor. A lot of people have to try multiple SSRIs to get one that works. I got lucky that the first one I tried worked well for me.
Thank you! I’m so glad you had a positive experience!
I’ve been on my SSRI (fluoxetine) for four or five months and I’m SO happy with it. I started at 10mg a day and it didn’t have much effect, but once my doctor kicked it up to 20mg I noticed a big difference. Even if your dosage is right, you might have to wait a couple of weeks to feel the effects, but don’t be scared to check in with your doctor if you think you want to try upping the dosage.
ETA: My measurement of how well my drugs are working is how I feel about loading the dishwasher. If it’s a big deal that I have to work myself up to and then have to rest afterwards, something ain’t right. If it’s just something I can wander out of my room and do and go back to business as usual, things are better.
Hah, oh man. During the worst of my depression, loading the dishwasher was a source of multi-hour procrastination and deep deep existential dread.
Right? It really felt like THE WORST POSSIBLE THING at the point where I was supposed to be doing it. It was often superceded by other WORST POSSIBLE THINGS but that didn’t stop it from being a really big issue.
I’ve been on Prozac for about 15 years and it’s worked so well for me. SSRIs work very well for a lot of people!
Like everyone else said, it takes time for SSRIs to build up in your system (when I first started Prozac I mostly just felt nauseated for the first few weeks). Also, if this one doesn’t work for you, a different medication might. Good luck!
SSRIs changed my life. I’ve been on them consistently for about three years now, and before that sporadically for about seven. They take a while to kick in, but for me, the change was so gradual I almost didn’t notice it, but certain things were just….easier. Driving on the highway didn’t freak me out, small problems didn’t morph into monsters, and anxiety spirals were fewer and easier to pull out of.
Three days is a great start. Just keep with it, and if you don’t like what’s happening for you, chat with your doc and change things up. Best of luck to you, and congrats for taking a big step in self care. I wish you the best!
I’ve been taking citalopram for like 2.5ish years for anxiety, and even at low doses (5 mg/day) it is glorious. When I finally realized I needed to see a Dr. and probably be on something for this anxiety thing, I was having 2-4 panic attacks per week, and now I can’t even remember the last time I had one. Stick with it for another week or so-it might just take a bit to start working. (That was my experience anyway.)
I took this just now to start a cat thread and to say ‘she’s going to fall off there in a second’ but she pre-empted me and fell off before I could. She’s now sulking on a pile of saddlecloths in the corner behind the TV.
hahaha this made me laugh so much. thank you for that! also, your cat looks so snuggly and soft!
Cat pic with bonus corgi pic below:
Ginger and white solidarity!
Here is my cat actively falling off of the sofa due entirely to his own inability to… not fall off of shit.
This is so reassuring. Diesel is notorious, and famous among my friends (rouxfully has seen him in action) for falling off EVERYTHING or grotesquely over/underestimating his jumping needs and therefore missing/overshooting his objective flat place, with predictably hilarious results. He has also been known to fall from stationary flat places (the dining room table, for instance) without evidence of having actually moved.
tl;dr I am really glad that other silly and clumsy goofball cats exist in the world.
Haha, does he have any Ragdoll in him, perchance? Orlando is some kind of Ragdoll mix and is thus appropriately boneless and just not really aware of things like “if I roll over this way where there is no table/sofa/lap, I will fall down”.
Also he is just sort of a doofus. A lovable cuddly doofus.
Nope! He’s actually a pedigreed Bengal, though he’s melanistic so he doesn’t have the super-striking markings that your average Bengal has. I think along with that particular double-recessive, he also got a bit of derp.
He’s really, really smart–he knows lots of words, and also how to manipulate MrChouffe for treats (which we now have to refer to to as “apples” because he knows “treat,” “snack,” and “crunchy tooth duck” all refer to the same thing)–but he is just monumentally clumsy.
Mine are both really good at falling asleep on the edge of something and then streeeeetching and going splat.
I had a cat when I was a teen who was rather spacey. After a few years of living with us, he got a Very Bad Ear Infection that messed with his balance. We got the ear infection to go away, but his balance never fully recovered, so he’s walk with his head tipped to the side more often than not.
One day I had some friends over and we were all watching a movie in the living room, with the cat loafing on the arm of the couch
when
suddenly
he sneezed! and toppled from the arm to the seat!
He sat there, looking around indignantly for Who ON EARTH Would DARE Knock Me Over I Am A MAJESTIC REGAL BEING
while we all laughed at him
He was a treasure of a clumsy goon.
Ooooh Ragdoll Love! I once stroked my ragdoll cat while he was perched on the back of the sofa and he sort of purred and melted the way they do and fell off because he got too floppy for balance. He was mortified and wouldn’t emerge from the back of the sofa for ages.
Mine is super good at rolling/melting off of your lap and belatedly realizing that he is falling, so of course he claws into your legs to try to stop it. It is a joy, really.
(He is the best, though. The first time a friend of mine met him she was just enthralled: “your cat HAS NO BONES!” Which is totally true, he is made entirely of fluff, especially where his brain should be.)
I don’t understand what open threads are…
Mini Siniichulok just had his 18-month checkup today, and his doctor thinks he’s linguistically and socially developmentally delayed, primarily because he wouldn’t look up when either of us said his name during the visit. He may very well be, but he does do it about 30% of the time, and after having babysat many, many kids as a teenager, I can say that mine is easily the most willful and stubborn toddler I have ever encountered. If he thinks you want him to do something, and he’s less than happy with you, he will. Not. Do. It. Primarily if it’s of what we call the performing-monkey variety. Like many doctor’s offices in Canada, they have a rule that you can’t bring strollers in, and he melts down when he’s not at home and can’t see his stroller. Which he’d already done by the time she saw him. She also pronounces his name wrong, and while I know he was ignoring me because he was mad at me, I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize what she said as his name. She was also concerned because none of his words were words SHE recognizes, and she totally pooh-poohed the fact that we often speak languages other than English to him. She also looked fairly disgusted and said “what IS that?” when I called him by a non-English nickname. Then, of course he ran beaming to me at home when I called him by his name….I’ll follow up with the evaluators, but I’m still annoyed. I have enough healthcare-system-induced unnecessary medical anxiety on my OWN behalf.
That sounds awful! Your kiddo sounds amazing – a handful, but amazing.
I remember a couple weeks ago you posted about hitting blocks with the raising your kid as multilingual thing. You’re on the right track! You know your baby better than your doctor does. It’s good that you’re planning to follow up, but keep an open mind…. and remember that the doctor has her own liabilities in mind – you know, it’s better to suggest early intervention for a toddler that might not need it than miss an opportunity to help a kid live his best life. Good luck!
gross, that doctor sounds like a dummy and you have official stranger on the internet approval to ignore her!!! Sounds like a you are a great parent and maybe that doctor can learn to pronounce people’s (plot twist, toddlers are people) names right.
CHANGE DOCTORS NOW
This one’s a jerk and she doesn’t deserve to measure your son’s head circumference.
This!
Might be time to look for a new doctor? It can’t hurt to follow up with the evaluators, but it sounds like she was being pretty disrespectful to you and the kiddo. I don’t know from experience, but my understanding is that multilingual kids often take longer to speak than unilingual kids, but they do catch up. I don’t think there’s any need for you to be anxious yet.
My spouse’s mom took him to the doctor when he was, oh, 8 or 9 convinced he had a hearing problem because he would so rarely answer her or respond to his name. Turns out he was just ignoring her.
Wow, what the hell. It is totally normal for multi-lingual kids to start to speak later because they have to sort out which words are part of which language, and apply the correct set of rules to each… My fiancé’s cousin’s older daughter was about 18 months when I saw her in July, and said very few things that were recognizable as words in either French or English – she is French, but lives in the UK with her parents and her nanny speaks to her in English while her family speaks to her in French. She’s totally on target developmentally, as far as I know, and seemed that way when I interacted with her, just behind a monolingual kid in terms of speaking.
You know your kid best–can you switch pediatricians? This one sounds a bit misguided (at best.) I read that up until fairly recently (20 years ago? a bit more?) it was considered deeply damaging to raise multilingual kids, and that multilingual kids would be permanently delayed etc. If your kid’s doctor was trained by someone like this, it could be affecting her judgment.
I might get a second opinion and then forget about her–it’s not good medicine to scare the sh!t out of responsible parents.
You should be annoyed! You and your family deserve a doctor who listens to you and respects your (non-abusive) choices. I don’t know if you can change doctors, but it really seems in order here.
ugh, that doctor sounds like a small-minded jerk.
We don’t have kids yet, but several of our friends are raising children in bi- or tri-lingual homes… talking takes longer, and that is totally normal, but it will come!
Also, if your son is used to hearing other languages (i.e. words that don’t make a ton of sense to him) and the doc was mispronouncing his name he was probably just like “strange lady speaking language I don’t know”. Maybe you can find a doc who is more supportive of multilingual parenting?
Thank you all for your replies! I would love to change pediatricians, but pediatricians in Toronto who have spots for new patients are rarer than unicorn tears–it took me four years to find a real, borderline-competent family doctor for myself, emphasis on the “borderline.” Family doctors here seem to be so ignorant of (and often reluctant to make pronouncements on, or else you wish they were) any even remotely specialized topics that I don’t want an experience like that of my friend, who took her baby to her own doctor, who said, “she’s in the 95th percentile for weight and height–you don’t want to feed her that much, because that’s not good.” Sadly, I’m not likely to get anything better than this, so we just have to ride it out–poor listening skills, anti-ethnic sentiment, and all.
Well, get yourself on a wait list, if such a thing exists & meanwhile get yourself a mantra for the entirety of every visit ever. Like “Dr Toast Knows Best” – we promise you are doing a truly splendid job of raising your truly splendid son, who will be able to call his pediatrician a jerk in many languages.
Also, it’s been a while since mine were little but I still remember feeling all kinds of invalid ‘everyone’s judging me I’m a terrible mom!’ crap whenever they’d pitch fits at the doctor. Yet every time we went & it was someone else’s kid freaking out, all I felt was sympathy for the poor kid for having to be somewhere stressful. And for the parent who wanted so badly for her kid to be calm and for the doctor’s office not to turn into a trauma association forever. It’s not something you mentioned, but I just want to say in case the frustration of ‘but he’s actually the most wonderful kid in the universe when he has his stroller, don’t judge!’ is adding to your stress of Jerk Doctor visits, that everyone in the office deals with freaked out mad kids all throughout the day, they’re not bothered by it, and the other visitors are just glad if no one else’s kid is vomiting or coughing in their kids’ vicinity.
Sorry for the problematic med system rigamarole – stay strong, your boy is great.
You would think that in Canada they would be more understanding of bi/multi lingual kids, given that all of their signs are bilingual! Do the evaluators do their evaluation at your home, or in their offices? Either way (and you probably know this), consider sharing with them what you shared with us about his stroller issue and see if they can accommodate that in some way.
Ugh, sorry you’re dealing with this. Learning how to pronounce the patient’s name correctly seems to me like it should be the absolute bare minimum when it comes to basic competence.
Morning all!
I finally got a new job!
When I left my old job (the contract ended), the company was sorry to see me go and asked if I would be interested in applying for this other position that was opening up. It’s taken two months, but they finally chose me!
I’m really, really nervous – I know a big part of the reason they chose me was because they know I’m a hard worker, my clients at my last job liked me a lot, etc. But this job is very different and it’s a field that I don’t honestly have a lot of experience with, and I’m scared I won’t be able to handle it. Also the commute is gonna suck.
But OVERALL, I’m excited!
Congratulations! You will do awesome.
Congrats!!
Congratulations! Starting a new job can definitely be scary, but you will do great.
Anybody else listening to the Invisibilia podcast? Thoughts? Feelings?
I for one am struggling to conceptualize being physically unable to feel fear (most recent episode). Like, aren’t you ever started by anything? Are you always surprised when something causes you pain? I have so many questions for subject S.M.!
I listened to the first two, but not the most recent, and have been really enjoying it!
I kind of wish they would slow down on some of the cheesier production tricks (an “aptly timed” laugh track stands out), but I find the subject matter fascinating and the way they deal with it really incredible.
I did think, with the thoughts episode, that they reaaaaallllly should have engaged more with Buddhism, because mindfulness is basically Buddhist practice, and is a really old practice.
I agree on some of the production tricks. One of the reasons I have tapered off listening to the newer Radiolabs is the relentless barrage of sound effects and asides and music and, and, and… just get to the science already. 🙂
Yes! I’m really liking it so far — it’s like Radiolab with a swirl of TAL. (Which makes sense, given the hosts.)
I also am having a hard time wrapping my brain around how someone navigates life without fear, and I hadn’t even considered how that would mesh with pain! I’m really curious how she experienced the transition from feeling ear at a young age to not experiencing it as she aged — I wonder how abrupt that transition was. And does she startle? Like when I hear a sharp noise I’m not necessarily afraid, but depending on the noise, maybe I am? So many questions!
I am sort of surprised that they put S.M. on the air, given that she has a *really* distinctive voice (though maybe they altered it for the radio?) I wonder how they convinced the scientists to let them talk to her….
I wondered about the startle response, too. The whole thing got me wondering how you define fear in a scientific sense. Because it seems like the lines between fear and worry and logic/planning are very, very, blurry.
For example, I am not afraid of cars, but I am watchful and careful when I drive because I don’t want to get into an accident. And the reasons I don’t want to get into an accident are fear-based: Fear of getting hurt, fear of hurting someone else, fear of going bankrupt on repairs and not being able to pay my bills. So… are those “fears” what a scientist would call “fear” or is that something else?
Well, as someone on anxiety meds who would have normally had a panic attack when I discovered this morning that there was a spider in the leg of my jeans when I put them on, let me tell you it is a weird thing. I was standing there objectively going “huh. That spider touched my leg. It is big. It looks so evil and gross. I would probably cry if I got any closer to it. Oh look, now it is moving towards me” with no emotion attached to that at all. WEIRD. Mr. Floridagal killed the spider, verified that there were no more spiders in my clothes, and then I put them all on. Prior to meds, I would probably have washed those clothes and then not touched them for a couple months just to be sure they had completely decontaminated before wearing them.
I don’t like it. Too… hmm. Too something. Too much ‘here is an extreme example of this one thing and we will proceed to take it in whatever context we like and extrapolate all kinds of stuff from there even though there’s no science behind our methods of thinking.’
I may revisit after they hit a stride and see if I’ve changed my mind, but for now I unsubscribed.
a) I’m really sad that The Librarians is over for the season and praying for a renewal. It was honestly my favourite show since The Middleman, which… says a lot about my taste in TV.
b) Being a Canadian, I did not get an official day off so I hauled my butt in to my job seeking program today only to find out that the workshop coordinator is sick and still has possession of my USB drive I left with her over the weekend, meaning I can’t do a damn thing on the job search front (it has my resume and cover letters and all that). So, unofficial day off and a fair amount of wasted effort.
Oh man. I miss the Middleman. Every time I see Natalie Morales on my tv I get both happy (Dub-dub!) and sad (Dub-dub…) at the same time. And she’s on tv quite a bit lately – just this past week she was in Girls and in Parks and Rec.
I realized yesterday that the only thing that would improve the Librarians was Natalie Morales deadpanning her way through it as a back-up Guardian or something. I just love her so much.
I don’t watch the show, but I know they got permission to reference OTS2K, so it’s not entirely impossible . . .
The Librarians is so adorable! I love how silly it is and enjoy its special brand of humour and adventure and magic and fighting almost too much. While I like that they ended in a way that could be accepted as a series finale, I really hope they renew it for a second season.
It was so much fun! I can’t think of a single episode I didn’t enjoy the hell out of, even the haunted house one (which did occasionally scare me because I am a tiny baby). I think my favourites are the Fables of Doom and the Rule of Three, what about you?
Tough one…I would have to say “The Apple of Discord” for the excellent character studies and “The Fables of Doom” because it was a lot of un. Also, I just realized I had missed one episode, the haunted house one, so it feels like a gift from heavens after the finale, to have one more episode!
The Apple of Discord WAS really great. I like how Jake’s worst self was just really mad about art. And lucky you! I’m just going to drag one of my friends into watching it in the originally-planned viewing order (once we’re done watching a couple of other seasons of shows). I’ll stare at her until she loves it if I have to.
It is quite obvious that the haunted house one is airing out of order because the team dynamic is all messed up. I hate when this happens.
NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR LOVING THE MIDDLEMAN. IT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SHOWS/COMIC BOOKS EVER MADE.
Seriously, everyone involved with that show is a Great Human Being. I went to the live reading of the IndieGoGo graphic novel and met everyone and they are all delightful and kind and the best people on Earth.
ART CRAWL!!!!
I WASN’T I WAS JUST SAYING I REALLY LIKE FUN PULPY SHOWS WITH LOTS OF GADGETS
I am super jealous of you! That would have been so cool but sadly I’m stranded in the frozen north forever.
ART CRAWL!!!!
It says that you have amazing taste!
I have the finale to watch when I get home from work (we get it a day late here in Oz) but I am intending to deal with withdrawls by rewatching Leverage over at markwatches.net. The first episode post went up this morning and I am so so excited because it is my number one favourite ever show and I love to introduce people to it.
I got my first (temp, but still) job back in America since I had to leave the UK because of visa screw ups. I’m hoping to get back to Britain by either this summer or next summer, but the more visa restrictions that come in, the harder it gets.
The new job is a research job doing some post-colonial readings of Western novels about an Indian princess, which I am barely, tangentially qualified to do– 1/5th of my undergraduate dissertation was on A Passage to India, and a piece of that was some post-colonial research. So now, I’m getting paid to read novels, along with the volunteer work that starts this week, and I am so happy to at least be doing something.
That job sounds amazing!! How did you find such a thing?? That’s awesome.
I passed my PhD viva! I got it!!! I’m a Doctor!!! 😀 😀 😀
If anyone’s looking for me I’ll be over here in a chocolate pudding and prosecco coma.
Oh shit!!!! Congratulations!!!!! 😀
Passed viva = best feeling in the world? Best feeling in the world.
A close second to smelling puppy breath. But very almost the best. 😀
Congratulations Doctor!!! 😀
Congratulations!!!!
Congratulations!
YOU ARE AWESOME
NICE.
Congratulations!
Congratulations, Doctor Grace!
HURRAH!
(Advice: In about a month everyone you meet will ask you ‘So, what are you doing now you’ve got your PhD?’ If you don’t want to get into discussing this, then just say ‘Sneering. I’ve been working really hard on perfecting my sneer against all those inferior beings without a doctorate.’ This always seems to lead to everyone practising sneering and forgetting about any trivialities like my future.)
Congratulations! Do you get a Tardis now?
CONGRATULATIONS Dr. AliasGrace!
So I ordered a big box of polenta from Amazon earlier this month, but the package arrived a week late and contained six bags of rolled oats. What the shit, Amazon. Toastrons: I’ve already eaten too much oatmeal and made oatmeal cookies. What else can I do with several pounds of rolled outs? Various apple and/or rhubarb crumbles have been considered. Anything savory I can do with them?
Otherwise, I’m spending my MLK Day doing work and tending to a tiny village of virtual peasants in Banished. They keep refusing to have children and dying of starvation. D:
Can you tell Amazon to refund you/send polenta instead?! that is a TON of oats. Do you have access to a horse you can spoil?
Yes, this. Amazon has been doing some Weird Things lately so I would recommend shooting their customer service line an email and they will most likely fix the error. Because let’s be real, polenta >>>>>> rolled oats.
Luckily, a new grocery store literally opened a day later which carried delicious, delicious polenta, so I am now set!
Well, they were small bags, at least. Not, like horse-sized bags. It only cost $10 in total, and I just got a shit-ton of oats for free, so I’d rather just use the oats instead of dealing the whole returns process.
I do like the idea of driving around the countryside commuting random acts of kindness for horses, though!
When Amazon has messed up our food purchases (which it does with substantially more regularity than any other product), they’ve told us to keep the food they sent us and then have re-sent whatever we were supposed to get in the first place. Something about food safety laws or something, apparently, keeps them from accepting food as returns. (So we got an entire case of sardines in mustard, which is about a case more of sardines in mustard than I really had any intention of eating…)
If you’re a meat-eating type, oats can go really well into homemade sausage.
Iiiinteresting! I shall have to investigate this!
Also meatballs, meatloaf, hamburger. Basically things where some recipes have breadcrumbs as filler can be made with oatmeal as filler instead.
That is some fucked up shit, Amazon. The maple-oatmeal scones from Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook are insanely easy and delicious – recipe here:
http://www.onceuponachef.com/2013/08/glazed-oatme…
Holy crap, that looks good – thanks!
1. Make these blueberry bars
2. Distribute to your peeps/family/co-workers/cute person you want to impress.
3. Receive love and adoration
http://delightfulemade.com/2014/08/20/blueberry-o…
Oh dang, this ALSO looks amazing. Clearly it is time to spend my entire winter baking. Thank you!
Oats freeze really well!
Oo, good to know! I should toss a few bags in there before I forget about them at the back of the pantry, heh.
Flapjacks? Optionally top them with chocolate for extra yum. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/flapjacks_86993
Honey oatmeal bread or molasses oatmeal bread. The honey-oatmeal recipe in Secrets of a Jewish Baker is very good and very fast, but there are lots of others on the Internet. You can use it in every streusel topping forever, too. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dutch-apple-pie-with…
Oatmeal will last a couple of years in your cupboard so no hurry.
1 cup oats + 1/2 cup peanut butter + 1/4 cup honey + 1 cup whatever the heck you want (like almonds and cranberries!!) = the peanut butter balls that I’ve been obsessively eating for breakfast/snacks all year. Put dried apricots and coconut in there! Put flax and sunflower seeds in there! ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES.
You’ll want to refrigerate them or they get a little too soft.
This weekend, I got to enjoy my birthday present of Wicked tickets with my boyfriend. I love that musical with an undying passion, but Boyfriend had never seen it before. He’s not a huge musical person, so I didn’t know how much he’d like it, but I appreciated that he would go see it for me.
So we watched it, and I was enraptured as always. Towards the end, during For Good, I could hear snuffly noises coming from Boyfriend’s seat, sort of like he was falling asleep. I was mildly disappointed, but thought hey, that’s fine, we do have different interests, and as I associate “For Good” with graduation ceremonies these days, it’s not one of my favorite songs.
The musical ends, and as we talk about it, I learn he was crying! He thought the song was heartbreaking! He really liked the musical! And then we spent ages talking about the philosophy of it and our thoughts on the ending.
I am so happy.
Hi team, I’m looking for some advice. My husband has had some pretty sudden onset anxiety issues lately, mainly presenting by feelings of panic when in somewhat stressful but normal situations (the border line up for example), disturbingly vivid weird dreams, and a chronically upset stomach. He’s going to be making a dr appointment, but is really resistant to talk therapy (he has family of origin problems he doesn’t think he wants to explore that much). Does anyone have any suggestions for starting to move forward? He’s going to start joining me in yoga, and is making an appointment to talk to the acupuncturist that I find helpful, but after that I’m at a loss. Thanks guys, this community is the best.
Going to the doctor is a great starting point, since they’ll be able to rule out anything physical. I can understand his hesitance to start talk therapy, I avoided it for…2 years, until it became clear to me that I had to dive right into it before it was going to get better.
One thing I’d note is that if he saw a therapist, he wouldn’t necessarily have to talk about his family background. A therapist could help him develop very concrete methods to deal with anxiety, stuff like mindfulness, metacognition, grounding exercises. Like one exercise I’ll do when I feel panic coming on is to just start counting objects, describing the weather and my location, anything physical I feel… “I’m in the south side of the city, I see 6 trees, the bench is cold, there are 4 power lines…” etc. It feels really stupid at first but it helps keep me from getting caught in that anxiety feedback loop.
Mindfulness exercises like that could really help. He could certainly look into them on his own, but personally I found having a therapist who specialized in that kind of stuff really helpful.
Tell him he can go to talk therapy for like a year and still not talk about his family of origin – it’s not a torture chamber wherein they dig in for the hardest stuff and beat the crap out of you with it. He can ask them for help focusing on the current panic / anxiety situation and that’s what’ll happen.
Yes, rule out medical issues (or discover then deal with them) and finding good physical outlets like yoga is great, but if he needs better coping tools, therapy may be the way to go. If nothing else, encourage him to journal, which can help get at the sources of the stress and work through them.
Hey that’s a good point. I don’t think either of us know much about it, outside of what we saw on “Frasier”.
The thing I found that helped my physical symptoms of anxiety (upset stomach, lack of appetite, difficulty sleeping) was swimming. There’s something incredibly calming about being totally immersed in water, and the exercise works your whole body without stressing it. I really recommend that people with anxiety try taking a swimming class.
Huh, that’s interesting. I go through periods of intense swimming myself, maybe I could get him to join me.
Would he possible be open to cognitive behavioural therapy? I know it’s still ‘talking’; but it is very effective for anxiety and has a fair amount of homework and ‘doing’, which might be more appealing than just talk sessions.
Ugh, that sounds really hard. My husband has chronic anxiety issues too. It can feel really isolating for the spouse so if you want to talk or vent anytime you can email me at Lauren at myusername dot com.
Glad he’s going to the doctor. My understanding is that food allergies/sensitivities can sometimes have an effect on mental health, so ruling out the likely candidates (gluten, dairy, ??) might be something to try …
Thanks 🙂 This is just so sudden, I’m not sure how to get a read on it. He’s always been a bit cautious, but this level of anxiety is really new.
This sounds a bit glib, but one of the episodes of Invisibilia was on, in part, the history of therapy, and it might make him/you feel a bit better. Old-school talk therapy is not the only way to go. CBT and mindfulness are going to get him to think LESS about his hard stuff, not more. Sounds like if he found the right therapist who would focus on helping him change his thoughts and anxiety patterns without wading through old crap, he might really benefit.
ETA: The Depression Handbook is a great CBT resource. CBT and mindfulness, mostly done through self-work, have really changed my life. Also, Buddhist meditation as mindfulness practice.
This book, Full Catastrophe Living, is really really helpful if something terrible has happened to you — and I think it would be good for a person with anxiety even without the terrible trigger event. It’s a psychologist writing about using mindfulness to cope with grief and anxiety and suffering, with some writing also by Thich Nat Hanh (also a great person to read books by). http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe-Living-Rev…
I just want to echo everybody else also that you don’t have to talk about your family of origin in therapy if you don’t want to. I get where the myth comes from, but that’s a myth.
hey friends I have been seeing this Dude for longer than I have seen any other Dude but I think it’s time to not see him anymore and not for any terrible reason I am just feeling like it’s run its course but how do you say that to someone without seeming like you’re insulting them/their being/their attractiveness? I think he is wonderful just not the wonderful one for me and I’m really feeling bad/scared… blleeehhh.
It is totally OK to just not want to be with someone anymore! Even though it sucks and is miserable. I know, I’ve been there. But you can say that “I really like you, but I just don’t want to be in a relationship–it’s nothing you’ve done and nothing about you, I just don’t feel like I’m in that place anymore.” And it sucks because It’s Not You is such a common thing to say in breakups even when it’s NOT true, so when it is true it totally sucks rocks. If I were you I would be taking the little-white-lie approach of “I just don’t want to be together with anyone right now” aspect. Whether or not it’s true, it’s tactful.
Thanks for the advice….I am struggling with YOU MONSTER feelings and every bit of reassurance helps.
I really support the “be clear and simple” route. You say it’s run its course, and I think that’s a really good reason! Not everything has to keep going on. Some people you do see more than others, but they can end too. You’ve enjoyed your time together, but you’re no longer feeling the inclination to keep going. Thank him for the lovely times you have had, and him investing time and affection with you, as applicable, and wish him the best.
I think it’s more useful to focus on emotional honesty — will the things you say be a reflection of this blob of emotion you feel now? — instead of the type of honesty where you lay out all the little details in the most blunt, overwhelming language possible.
It may be asking the saintlier parts of us, but I think most people are a little hurt by being declined this way — it’s normal! — but will accept that togetherness is about … being together — all parties. If you are not feeling it, then it’s better to end it sooner rather than later. I sincerely believe that whether your ending it comes off as “insulting” or being about their attractiveness is up to the person receiving the news.
Being told “no thank you” is always a little personal; there’s not much way around that, because it really is about how you feel attracted to them or not. It IS about what they do and who they are. That’s the nature of attraction. They of course can still be wonderful people, just like we are when people say no to us. I think that’s always implicit, and you don’t have to feel it’s your responsibility to remind people. Focus on saying it’s your feelings. “I feel.”
I may have to respectfully disagree with aravisthequeen — I don’t think saying something blanket like “I don’t want to be together with anyone” when it’s really about how you feel about this particular person isn’t super helpful. For me, I feel better just being honest with it — it doesn’t keep a door open. For example, it could possibly let him think: When will you want to be together with someone again? Can he call you? Etc.
Good luck 🙂
Thanks, this is super helpful <3
Well, if it helps, breaking up with someone directly and honestly is a good and a kindness. You are being brave, on your behalf and on theirs. It’s so normal to feel bad/scared, but if you let those feelings stop you from just saying “look, I think you are wonderful, good, kind and attractive, but I have realized that you are not the person for me. I don’t think we should see each other any more. I’m really sorry if this is hurting your feelings, that was never my wish. I wish you all the best.”
And he gets to be hurt! You don’t get to stop him from being hurt. That’s his prerogative.
Thanks for this advice, everyone is so lucid and levelheaded, I really appreciate it.
Well, to be fair to you, we are not actually having to break up with someone imminently. It sucks, and is hard. We have your back!
I just wanted to pop in and say THANK YOU to everyone who commented on Friday’s open thread. I’m still in the “this shit sucks” phase of accepting the whole celiac thing, but hearing from all of you has made it a lot better. And luckily, my sister came down from LA to go grocery shopping with me, so at least now I have more food that I can eat other than rice and corn chips.
I’m enjoying my annual watch of the MLK celebration from Ebeneezer Baptist Church that the local Fox in Atlanta broadcasts. Alternating between hope and righteous indignation. And I’m thrilled that I think I saw one of my students in the audience!
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/story/27882722/47th-a…
I’m gonna turn to you all for relationship/crush advice because my friends have all shrugged and gone “uhhh, idk?” when I’ve consulted them about this. (I also think I’ve posted about this situation before, but there’s been a new development.
About 4 months ago, I met this really cool girl on OkCupid. I fell for her just about instantly. We spent a month going out to museums, shows, meals, drinks, etc., with no explicitly romantic activity but I thought there was a spark there. After a month, I told her how I felt. She said she liked me a lot as well but wasn’t sure “in what capacity” yet – she just knew she wanted to keep hanging out. I said that was totally fine, no pressure, and left the ball in her court. We kept going out once a week or so. No change, no discussion of feelings.
Fast forward to last week, as we’re discussing our dissatisfaction with our living situations. She asks me if I’d consider living together when our leases are up, mentions a few two-bedroom places she’s been looking at. I was totally thrown. She’s mentioned it a few times since then. We would make good housemates, for sure, we have compatible levels of cleanliness/introversion and we both want a cat. But I’m just….confused? Did she forget I liked her? Did she assume that since I hadn’t said anything more, I had stopped liking her? What do I do? This is a pretty clear “I don’t want to be romantically involved” signal, right?
This is a pretty clear “I don’t want to be romantically involved” signal from anyone unless they have horrible boundaries or no capacity for forethought, yes.
Also, do not move in with her unless/until you’re over her. There is no actual credit available for Advanced Masochism.
Also this situation sounds frustrating and I’m sorry it’s happening to you.
Thank you 😡 It is quite frustrating. Before this, I had an unrequited crush on a friend for ~3 years and I was afraid I’d never get over him. Finally I meet someone who takes my mind off him and it goes unrequited as well!
I’m disappointed to hear that all the effort I’ve put into my Advanced Masochism degree was for nothing.
It actually duplicates a lot of the exams from the Handling Your Shit Like An Adult degree, so it’s pretty helpful if you want to switch streams. (Says the voice of painful, expensive experience.)
Whoa. That’d throw me too. I really don’t know if it’s a clear signal for anything at all!
I feel like I would really need to ask her to lay this out clearly … besides the fact I don’t know if I can live with someone I’ve only known a few months (I’m picky), the romantic feelings thing sounds like a wacky but potentially heartbreaking sitcom waiting to happen. I don’t think you lose anything by requesting some serious clarification. Where is she with her feelings about you? Is she okay with rooming with someone with feelings for her? What’s her mindset for asking you? Ask yourself, are YOU okay with her being ambiguous about you?
If she doesn’t want to communicate, I don’t think it’ll improve if you room together.
I think I will address it at some point in the very near future. We’ve got a few months til our respective leases are up, so that gives me a little time to figure out if I can get over her and live together. And if I can’t, that’s ok. But I’m definitely not ok with the ambiguity at this point, ya know? I want to figure everything out before potentially taking steps towards getting a place together.
I do feel a little silly seeing the other comments saying it’s a clear signal. To me, I really can’t fathom asking someone to be my roommate while not directly addressing what they’ve told me about their feelings before. I wouldn’t forget, you know? And asking someone to live with me as a “signal” just kind of makes me super anxious. I would not ask someone to room with me as a way to tell them I’m NOT interested. I would not be interested in inviting difficulties for us both, and would be pretty concerned about causing awkwardness and potentially pain.
So please take my advice with a grain of salt (as you very likely were going to do anyway). I do think you can find other roommates. It’ll be hard to go on a search when you feel there’s a perfectly viable and willing candidate in front of you, but it may be worth it to start with someone you don’t have to kill feelings for 🙂 Who needs that plus the stress of moving?
Just a word of caution (feel free to ignore, obviously): I developed a major crush on one of my college roommates/best friends basically the second we signed up to room together (in a three room triple, so at least we had our own actual room). I knew nothing would ever happen–she is a heteroromantic asexual–so all I could do was agonize and hope she never figured it out. Even if you feel like your crush is fading, living together (and potentially feeling like you’re perfect together, except for her not being romantic with you) could really fan the flames, and then it will be so hard to move on (and/or out).
Unfortunately my solution of dating someone who could have been her sister who is truly wonderful in her own right, and into me, is not always immediately replicable, haha. (NB: The number of superficial similarities to roommate-crush were pretty embarrassing at the time). I really hope you find an excellent requited romance and a happier housing situation soon!
Clear signal, yes. Also, do the whole “imagine her bringing home a date and you having to overhear said date’s bedstuff” thing and if that’s gutting, don’t move in with her.
Lots of clean introverts who want cats out there!! Lots and lots and lots of them! Pick one of them, instead.
It’s a pretty clear signal for “I will not take good care of your feelings, no matter what our relationship is.” As is her other behaviour.
I would steer pretty clear. I would NOT move in with her – she’s got some boundary issues, and is not being very kind. Please take care of yourself!
I don’t have much to add as far as advice goes, but just wanted to say I FEEL YOU with the hanging out with an okc date (?) for a while semi-non-romantically and being confused about that whole deal.
Hey, you’ve inspired me to use my words with my own okc girl. You’ve put yourself out there and made it clear as can that you’re interested. No regrets, I hope!
Being queer is so complicated! When I go out with dudes from OKC it’s understood that it’s A Date. But with women, maybe we both just want more queer lady friends! I know I do!
Good luck with your situation. I hope it goes well!
Oh, god, thank you for continuing to validate my experience! It has seemed like a frustratingly weird coincidence that my previous OKC dude dates were really forward and all of my lady dates are shy.
Maybe we both need to start being more explicit about messaging/texting “great, it’s a date!”. But who actually does that??!
Ahh I have the same problem! No insight to add, unfortunately, just wanted to say you two are not alone in this.
I also relate pretty strongly to number 11 here (though “sexy, flirtatious goddess” is a huge overstatement, but still): http://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/16-things-all-bis…
I’m making a quick cowl with some undyed alpaca handspun I got for xmas. What decorative buttons should I sew on the ‘end’, sock monkey, or gnome?
Also, I got the cat a new catnip ball. Stoned feline hilarity is ensuing.
+1 for sock monkeys, because I love sock monkeys.
Gnome! oh man, totally gnome.
gnome!
no, wait – sock monkey!
no, wait – make two, so you can use both sets!
Sock monkey!
Definitely gnome.
Went to a conference over the weekend; the closing speakers talked about the “Future of California Flora” – a bleak, bleak topic. Three of the speakers said the key to stopping catastrophe from global warming was improving the rights of women around the world to lower birth rates – which is fine and dandy, but everyone who pushed rights for woman was white and male, and the only reason to push for them was to prevent global catastrophe.
Paul Ehrlich also called out a lady with a very quietly fussing baby as “the problem”. It was a joke, but just… just… way to punch down.
Oh jesus what a scummy thing to say to a woman (who probably felt a lot of internal conflict over even bringing a baby to the conference, before bravely deciding to do so, thanks)
Grosssss. We are not fucking pawns and I’m sick of it.
Ughh this is so gross. I’m in an environmental job also and feel 100% pro women around the world having better access to reproductive health care – but not to STOP GLOBAL WARMING. Instead, do it so women can make choices about their lives and children and health! But you can’t just go in and throw the pill around. There are a lot of cultural things to be navigated and in the end, it’s so shitty and disgusting to push that as part of another agenda.
Is anyone else still slowly making their way through Gilmore Girls? I finished Season 5 and started Season 6 this weekend – the yacht-stealing episodes and aftermath!! Lorelai is annoying me more than Rory at this point and I surprisingly do not hate Logan?? He’s definitely much better than Dean.
My mom and I are on season 6. I have always hated every boy that Rory dates, and Logan starts out charming but…but……he’s just AWFUL in season 6. A whiny, immature, gaslighting man-child. IDK if you will feel the same way as the show progresses, but seasons 6 and 7 are just so distressing in many ways.
Rory+Paris 4Ever
Ugh probably. I don’t love Logan but I HATED Dean and was love/hate about Jess, so I was surprised to mildly like Logan. But I liked Dean at first, too…
I’m making my way through even more slowly than you! We’re on season 3, about to find out where Rory gets into college (I already know). I hated Jess a lot at first – now I hate him less as Rory seems to be starting to be able to draw boundaries re: his bullshit. I also like Dean more now that he’s not Rory’s boyfriend.
Also I’m impressed that it’s taken you until season 6 to be annoyed with Lorelai. I think she’s really obnoxious about 60-80% of the time.
I’ve found her mildly annoying before but she recently hit peak awfulness! Ugh Lorelai.
Something to look forward to!
I just finished the series moments ago. Logan is definitely my favorite of Rory’s boyfriends — he’s a bit of a jackass but also a very supportive partner and a pretty complex character overall.
So, um, I did this thing where I graduated in May (took me ten years because anxiety + ADD + depression) and then realized I had spent no time really preparing to apply to grad school, so I was not planning to apply to Fall 2015 programs but try to work in a lab because literally everyone told me I would need the experience to get the kind of recommendations that get you into programs. So I took a Parasitology course as a post-bacc and was an informal TA for the prof who teaches the general Microbiology course (did grading and held homework-help session based on having done nearly identical homework sets the previous semester). Anyway the Micro prof sent an apparently VERY flattering email to the PI of a lab on campus I was interested in and when I met with her in November I had to explain that I was not actually a grad candidates but just wanted to volunteer in her lab, to which her response was basically “…so our application deadline is February 1st”.
So now I am in the lab and have keys and everything, though I’ve only been to one lab meeting and haven’t done any work yet, and our first field outing is tomorrow and I am *terrified* that I will fuck this up somehow. Everyone will hate me and I will suck at everything and so on and so forth.
I also asked the guest lecturer (literally she was a replacement for the replacement for the guy who normally teaches the course, who is on sabbatical) for a letter of rec, and since I don’t have a relevant resume she asked me to send her my statement of purpose to help her write the letter. I noted, when I sent it to her, that it was a draft, and she emailed me yesterday saying she’d be available next week to go over it over the phone to improve it, which on the one hand, yay! I need the help of someone actually in my field, and not just my fiancé (who has advanced degrees but in computer science), on the other hand ABSOLUTELY CRIPPLING ANXIETY. The one thing I have *not* really managed to learn to do since learning to better manage my ADD/academics is actually write proper drafts of things and go back and re-write them (re-reading my writing literally makes me feel ill), and even the editing that my fiancé helped me do before I sent it to her involved some, uh, drama and Serious Emotions. (I feel very much like I have to defend myself for not taking the traditional four years, and for my overall GPA being only a bit over 2.0, though my last few semesters have been stellar and in theory they only really care about my last 60 units, and there is also a clear upward trajectory. The first thing my fiancé said when he read my initial draft was “holy hell, this is depressing”. I am not very good about talking myself up or being articulate about what I want to do going forward – I know the field interests me (ecology and evolution of disease, coevolution of diseases and the populations they affect, that general area), I know I have at least some skill, and I know I want to work in research, which means that grad school is the next step, and that is about as far as I get.)
So um yes. TERROR TERROR TERROR but if I don’t fuck it up I get to go to grad school? Maybe? I also took the GRE with very little prep (remember I had not planned on applying this cycle) and my scores fall under “not good enough *for me*” but potentially acceptable? It’s really difficult to find programs that will actually tell you what kind of scores they are looking for, but also, because my grades were always shit in high school because of the whole “never turning assignments in” thing, standardized test scores were basically how I was able to remain “gifted”, and so 78th percentile in Quantitative and 80th percentile in Analytical Writing is basically failure to me. (98th percentile in Verbal is great, I suppose, but I got an 800 on my (old-school) Verbal SAT, so it still feels like I’ve screwed up. Yes, I have some issues here.)
I totally understand the fear of somehow fucking up and having everyone in the lab hate you, but you’re going to be fine. I promise, you will be okay. I have worked in a lot of labs and frankly, I have on occasion fucked things up. Experiments didn’t work because of reasons that are totally my fault, really expensive equipment went on the fritz, and so on. I’m a grad student now and I was alone in lab this morning and out of nowhere I was thinking about the fact that I was being left alone in the lab and what if I burn it down??? So I cannot promise you that those feelings will go away, but no one will hate you. You will not get kicked out of lab. Things happen, science is hard, and everyone is making it up as they go along. You’ll be great.
Also it is terrifying to have people read your statement of purpose but it is so incredibly worth it. I didn’t want to show my application to anyone because I thought they would judge my writing or think it was cheesy or come back and ask if I really thought I could get into school. But having professors and current grad students read it was really helpful and made the essay so much better than it was previously. And don’t be afraid to talk myself up! I am not very good at that either but my undergrad PI basically sat me down at some point and said “listen, there are so many people who are playing up every tiny little thing they ever did, so you cannot sell yourself short”. Show off and write about your best self!
I sort of don’t even know who/what my best self is (though I have to say, a semester of grading/tutoring has made me feel IMMENSELY BETTER about my own grasp of… basically everything, really, because WOW).
Yeah, I know I’ll be fine, on some level – everything we’ve talked about me doing initially falls pretty much into the realm of “things I can already do but need to kick the skills up a notch”.
I also constantly terrorize myself with the thought that I must have totally misunderstood my PI and she does not actually want me as her student, which is pretty ridiculous as an interpretation of “I should have a spot opening up in the fall” and “our deadline is pretty late, let me look it up for you” and “so I think this lab/work would fall under the “Ecology and Conservation Biology” program”. I mean, there is really no other way to interpret that other than as an invitation to join the lab as a grad student, is there? AAAAH BRAIN WHY DO YOU MAKE MY LIFE SO DIFFICULT?
Yeah, it’s hard. Whenever I write personal statements I want to qualify everything (like yeah I did this thing, but I got so much help on it, so it’s not really important). I think the most useful thing for me was to stop thinking of it as positive spin, because I’m not good at that, but just cutting myself off before I could make self-deprecating comments on my otherwise true accomplishments.
Every time I have a meeting with my PI and I have to tell him less than stellar news I enter this little spiral of “oh my god what if he kicks me out of the lab?????” My PI is the nicest guy in the world. He’s not kicking me out of the lab because my experiments didn’t work one day.
Brains are the worst, coming from a neuroscience grad student. Why are they so hard to understand and why do they sabotage us?
So I wanted to update people who replied to this with – I have settled into the lab really well, I have a couple of sub-projects I am effectively in charge of, and I’ve been accepted by my PI as a grad student for the fall (just waiting on the official department offer). I fucking love it there. We’re already talking about potential thesis projects. I’m also learning a whole lot about next-gen sequencing and as it turns out I have fucked up very few things! The time I thought I had screwed up the worst, it turned out everyone else was having the same problems and while we kind of lost a week to troubleshooting, we have fixed the issue and whee! Yay! We’re getting a lot of good work done and people seem to appreciate my work and my fairly quick learning curve.
Also I tweaked my Statement of Purpose based on that lecturer’s advice and managed to make it much more positive and about my goals and my skills and what I would get out of the program/what the program would get out of me and how yes, I had these issues, and yes, I do still have them but I have a much better arsenal of tools for dealing with them and, as my record shows, I am doing much better. My PI even read my statement and is still taking me, we just had a brief talk about “you are good, you can handle this, yes?” (There was an issue where we though my GPA was coming in under threshold and she was going to have to write a letter of support but it seems to have been a computer glitch because she came back to me and said “so, your GPA seems just fine now…” It seems like for some reason it was showing my overall GPA and not my last 60 units, which is what the program is supposed to look at. But even then it was only a small worry because calculating my all-Biology GPA from that school gave me like a 3.36, and the upward trajectory and As in upper-division classes are clear from my transcript.)
So I’m a biology graduate student who had a pretty shitty undergrad GPA and GRE scores that are roughly similar to yours (I think I did worse on quant than you though actually). I got into 2/4 graduate schools that I applied to so I’m here to say that it’s possible. The things that helped me the most I think were my lab experience, my letters of recommendation, and my personal statement. I had some different shit than you going on during my undergrad but shit nonetheless- my strategy for writing my personal statement was to get kind of tipsy (I really hate talking about my shit), be really upfront about it, but overall be upbeat in the “look a lot of things have gotten in my way but here I am now, I graduated, I’ve stuck with science, I’ve stuck with my commitment to do science, I’m ready to move forward with this.”
Also about starting in a lab- I have been terrified every time I’ve started in a new lab. My tips are: be as nice as possible to everyone, be very open and upfront about any mistake you make if it’s something that’s going to affect other peoples work at all, if someone wants to show you how to do something listen to them and show you appreciate their effort- even if it’s something you already know how to do every lab does things differently.
Let me know if you want to talk more over email or something.
So I wanted to update people who replied to this with – I have settled into the lab really well, I have a couple of sub-projects I am effectively in charge of, and I’ve been accepted by my PI as a grad student for the fall (just waiting on the official department offer). I fucking love it there. We’re already talking about potential thesis projects. I’m also learning a whole lot about next-gen sequencing and as it turns out I have fucked up very few things! The time I thought I had screwed up the worst, it turned out everyone else was having the same problems and while we kind of lost a week to troubleshooting, we have fixed the issue and whee! Yay! We’re getting a lot of good work done and people seem to appreciate my work and my fairly quick learning curve.
And yeah, I definitely have taken the “look a lot of things have gotten in my way but here I am now, I graduated, I’ve stuck with science, I’ve stuck with my commitment to do science, I’m ready to move forward with this” approach and it’s worked out every well. I don’t think I’ve ever settled into a work environment as quickly as I have this one, either.
Hey, that is a REALLY COOL area of interest; I’m glad you’re studying it! We need everyone we can to fight the zoonotic plagues, and it cast so much cool light on how evolution and ecology works!
At my school the lack of solid GRE requirements was so professors could squeeze in the sort of students who were not great at standardized tests, but were already doing great lab work. Human cognition is a rich tapestry, and professors are REALLY GOOD at understanding that when it comes to people who do free research.
It is OK to sidestep a lot of explaining a history of anxiety and depression by saying “I have a disability, that disability made school really difficult for a while, but I got new treatments and now I’m doing much better, as my record shows.” One on one, it’s great to connect by sharing your history, but the university kind of sees you as a cog, and it’s sometimes safer for your sense of self to act like a cog.
I don’t work in disease or microbiology, but a lot of biology labwork now is culturing bacteria, DNA extraction, PCR, and freaking next-gen sequencing – it’s not expensive if you screw an experiment up, and intuitive machine design means it’s a lot harder to break expensive equipment.
So I wanted to update people who replied to this with – I have settled into the lab really well, I have a couple of sub-projects I am effectively in charge of, and I’ve been accepted by my PI as a grad student for the fall (just waiting on the official department offer). I fucking love it there. We’re already talking about potential thesis projects. I’m also learning a whole lot about next-gen sequencing and as it turns out I have fucked up very few things! The time I thought I had screwed up the worst, it turned out everyone else was having the same problems and while we kind of lost a week to troubleshooting, we have fixed the issue and whee! Yay! We’re getting a lot of good work done and people seem to appreciate my work and my fairly quick learning curve.
Oh wonderful! Good for you! You played your cards really well!
Troubleshooting. Troubleshooting can eat up a week like wildfire. Troubleshooting is the worst.
Yeah, it was super fun because almost literally everything we do eventually relies on PCR in some way, and the problem was that DNA bands were fading from our gels (I have a series of pictures of one gel taken over about 2 minutes that show a band completely disappearing), so we couldn’t confirm the success of a PCR run or see any results for PCRs meant to confirm the presence of a pathogen. The extra weird part is that we basically solved the problem by upping the agarose percentage in our gels, but everyone had been using the same percentage since…forever, and had mostly not had any issues until suddenly we all did. SCIENCE WHAT THE HELL.
Ennui. Self-sabotage. Laziness. Fear of failure. A bad head cold. The need to play a lot of games on my phone. The need to read a lot of books. The need to compare the two new crepe restaurants within walking distance of my house. Brain fuzz.
…I am so replete with reasons my next book won’t be out this month after all. Kicking myself then moving on. I hope.
Crepes, though. Yum.
I, too, am pro-crepe.
Are you a sweet or savory crepe person?
I used to be strictly a sweet crepe person, but now with the plethora of crepe options in my life, I’ve become both. Yesterday I had a ‘Nordic’ crepe which was all smoked salmon & pickled onions & capers & stuff & it was blissful.
That sounds pretty amazing.
I got an electric crepe maker for Christmas and I would use it more but I need to figure out easy savory fillings. Otherwise, I will spend my days making mushroom cream sauces and never get anything else accomplished!
Inspiration for you – the nordic place’s savory options:
CHICKEN CARBONARA
grilled chicken, mozzarella,bacon, parmesan, & carbonara sauce
LE CALIFORNIAN
turkey, shredded pepper jack cheese, bacon, truffle oil, cherry tomatoes, avocado, and spring mix
HAM & GRUYERE
smoked ham, aged gruyere, dijon mustard, fresh oregano, & bechamel sauce
PROSCIUTTO
prosciutto, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, & fresh basil
TURKEY, GRAPES & BRIE
roasted turkey, french brie, green grapes, & walnuts
THE VEGAN
portobello mushrooms, black bean puree, corn salsa, and chipotle sauce
CHICKEN ENCHILADA
grilled chicken, refried beans, topped with crema, queso fresco, cilantro, & chipotle sauce
TRUFFLED CAPRESE (WFP)
mozzarella, basil infused cherry tomatoes, & truffle oil
CHICKEN ALFREDO
grilled chicken, mushrooms, mozzarella, parmesan, & alfredo
NORDIC
smoked salmon, pickled red onions, fresh dill, sour cream, capers, scallions, & lemon
& their breakfast menu:
THE HOUSTONIAN
mozzarella cheese, bacon, sausage, potatoes, two scrambled eggs & fresh jalapeños
ALASKAN
scottish smoked salmon, pickled red onions, capers, fresh dill, and two scrambled eggs, topped with dill sour cream
CROQUE MADAME
two scrambled eggs, gruyere cheese, smoked ham & béchamel sauce
ALLISON’S PARFAIT (WFP)
vanilla low fat yogurt, bananas, strawberries, toasted almonds and a drizzle of honey
LA CANADIENNE
poutine cheese, scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon and maple syrup
THE FEAST
two scrambled eggs, feta, ricotta, mozzarella, tomatoes, spinach, & mushrooms
LE MEXICAIN
two scrambled eggs, queso fresco, refried beans, cumin and cinnamon spiced carnitas, topped with chipotle salsa, avocado, & cilantro
Holy crap. That Truffled Caprese sounds fantastic. Also, the turkey, grapes, and brie.
I’ll be hitting the store on the way home.
thank you yes this is relevant to my interests
Also the classic Breton savory crepe is cheese + egg (+ tomatoes + ham if you want). Bam, simple, delicious.
Jesus, are you me!? Everything but the crepes applies right now.
Advice: get crepes.
I will say griping about it helped. I was temporarily energized. Hopefully that’s a snowball rolling downhill start, but we shall see! Look at me being positive and exclamation-mark-y! Whee!
Thanks dakimel. Crepes are delicious!
I’ve spent all of this month waiting for a visa invitation to arrive because I’m studying in Russia next semester, and I’m going in two and a half weeks but it has STILL NOT ARRIVED so my sense of panic is slowly increasing. Also getting a certificate to prove that I don’t have HIV is so much more effort/expense than it should be considering that there are plenty of clinics around. Stressssss.
Russian visas are THE WORST. My brother-in-law’s entire summer was effed up once because they didn’t get his passport back to him in time for him to go do the job he was supposed to do in Russia & then they also didn’t get it back in time for him to go on vacation with his family.
Every time I hear of someone wanting to go to Russia it’s a really drawn out horrible stress waiting game story, although, to be fair, all of them end with “and they just barely got it back to me in time! whew!” instead of BIL’s woes.
They suck. You will likely be just fine. They suck a LOT.
*Sigh*. This is like the ONE area where I could muster up enough clout to have one done in a few minutes, but Russia is being dickish again, so no one I know wants to go.
Thanks for the mostly encouraging story! 😉 I think it will all turn out fine but wow, they are cutting it fine this time.
Where are you going to study? And *what*?
In Kazan 🙂 I was in Yaroslavl last semester which was really great on the whole. I do a languages degree and Russian ab initio so I’m basically studying Russian as a foreign language, but I’m hoping to be able to sit in on some other lectures as well.
Can you email them and pressure them until they send you a perfectly legitimate scanned copy of the visa invitation? Is that a thing? that’s what I did for teaching in France, because the invitations took two months to arrive. I don’t know if the Russian consulate will accept a scan, but it might be worth a try.
Good luck! My Russian work visa felt easier than my UK study visa was, but I might just be lucky. It took a while for my letter of invitation to arrive, but if you’ve got everything else ready to go then hopefully you can go and get it done as soon as the letter comes. Mine only took the week they tell you it will take after I dropped it off, but again, I might just have been lucky. Anyway, I hope you get it soon!
Thanks! I was in Russia last semester as well and the visa process worked out fine, but because I’m studying in a different city I have to get a new one now. But if it’s super last minute there is the option to pay extra and get it the next day so reckon it will be okay.
Guys, we got a new puppy this weekend and it’s so hard. He’s adorable, but it’s like 24/7 attention required. (He’s not trained to be comfortable locked in his crate yet, and we have two cats to supervise him around, so basically he’s always with us.) I’m super tired and also stressed about what happens tomorrow when my semester starts and I *have* to leave him alone to go to class. We just got a playpen thing that attaches to his crate this morning, and he’s doing okay with that so far as long as we’re in sight, so… progress I guess.
(Also the cats are stressed and keep barfing.)
That sounds hard! I have never had a puppy, only adult dogs. My dog was ~1 year when I got her and even that was hard enough!
What kind of puppy did you get? Is he adorable? Pics?? 🙂
YES, he’s SUPER adorable! He’s very handsome and also 100% psyched to love every person and dog he meets, which doubles the cuteness. I don’t know where to upload pics to so I can embed them here, so here’s an Instagram link.
I’ve also never really had a puppy – my parents got a puppy when I was about 14, but I have almost no memory of his puppyhood, which I guess tells you how involved I was in raising him (plus I was busy with school and extracurriculars). Anyway, he’s 3 months old and we adopted him from a rescue that rescued him from a local shelter. No one knows what he is – they are guessing that both of his parents were mutts. I think he has a bit of a boxer face, and he’s probably got some pit bull because almost every mutt around here (Oakland/Berkeley) does. But generally just dog.
OH NO HIS LITTLE FACE
AND you named him Banjo! I have always thought that is an excellent dog name.
HE’S LOVELY! I adore him. He does look very Boxer-y, and our shelter mostly-Boxer was the best dog in the universe. She was amazing. (We lost her almost a year ago; she was 13 so a ripe old age for her size.) She settled into the crate fairly quickly once adopted, and she kept that crate CLEAN. She was all, “dude, could you not wash this blanket, it has a smutz in the corner, thanks” about her living space, and was terribly sweet to the entire universe, and just loved to be a people-person dog. Loved to hang out, to lean comfortably against us, to wag her giant tail everywhere, to take walks, to chaw giant rawhides until the ends were soft and the other dog came to take them away from her. Tummy scratches. Posing for photos. Lazing in the sun.
(Sniff. I miss her.)
Anyway, I’m betting your Banjo will be the most stellar of pals, and that his new-puppy phase will be adorable and fairly easy, if he has the temperament of my Ali and other Boxer-mutts I know.
Here’s Ali at 12 or so – so much gray hair! Cracks me up.
What an old cutie! Thanks for sharing! I hope Banjo grows into as sweet a dog as she was. 🙂
Puppies are hard! We got our labrador puppy just over a year ago and it was really full-on at first! We didn’t do crate-training (it’s less of a thing in Australia), we just let him sleep in the laundry for the first few nights, and then put him outside in his kennel (we have a fully fenced backyard which is where he stays during the day).
I was super anxious his first day home alone, but he did so well! Even now, when he’s over a year old, I get a bit sad to leave him to go to work, but I know he’s just fine. I was home sick yesterday and he just went to sleep as usual, and even went outside to snooze in the sun by himself for an hour, so I know that he doesn’t get really anxious to be alone.
Dogs are super adaptable, so I’m sure yours will adjust really quickly! It got much more relaxing once we had the toilet training sorted, and that really only took a couple of weeks before he mostly understood what to do. Good luck with it all, Banjo is so adorable!
1) he is adorable! Thanks for the link!
2) he will adjust to being alone in the crate – eventually it will be a comfort place for him (my parent’s dog, who they got as a puppy, still goes to her crate whenever there’s a thunderstorm and no one is home). So give him toys and make sure he has what he needs and start leaving him alone in there – you can work up from shorter to longer periods of time. It might also be a bit less anxiety-inducing for him at first if you sometimes do this when you’re home too, (although I realize this means giving up precious puppy playtime, which is hard!)
Yay, puppy! It can be really stressful at first, especially when they aren’t sleeping through the night yet. Just like a human baby, except this should only last a few weeks, and you won’t have to send the puppy to college later, which is nice.
The ASPCA has this really nice guide to weekend crate training. I don’t know anyone who’s actually gotten the job done in a weekend, but there is a lot of guidance here about how long to leave a dog in a crate, based on their age, and there’s a troubleshooting section at the bottom. I referred to this a bit with my last puppy, who is about 15 months now. Good luck!
ETA: OMG I just saw the picture, SO CUTE.
Thanks for the link – we’re going to try the weekend crate training thing this weekend! Also today the vet was like, um, you don’t need to get up with him in the night, at 3 months he should be able to make it through if you aren’t giving him water after dinner. So hopefully (?) our days of not sleeping through the night are at an end already.
Note: have not listened to this podcast, but spent a while learning about amygdala lesion patients in college.
In at least one human patient, amygdala lesions actually do impair startle responses: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9010003
One of the big impacts of amygdala lesions in animal studies is delayed fear-based learning. Rats with amygdala lesions take ten times as much conditioning to show a fear response (freezing) to an audio tone that preceded electric shocks in the past (http://www.jneurosci.org/content/19/19/8696.short). There are similar results with rhesus monkeys (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22642884). I’m not sure whether fear-based learning before a lesion would remain after the injury though.
The nice thing about working remotely is that no one can tell when I’m having an anxiety attack! Unfortunately, the mechanic’s waiting room is not a nice place to have an anxiety attack. Or to realize that I forgot my meds who-knows-how-many-days in a row because the room is suddenly tilting under my chair.
So, Toasties–how do you remember to take your fucking medication?
*hugs* Breathe deeply,you can make it.
I’m not great about remembering, but putting the pill bottle right next the coffee pot has helped some.
I try to keep my pills in approximately the same place, and a place where I will see them in the morning (on the table, or near the kettle, or actually lately they’ve been on the bookshelf near the kitchen). I have still forgotten them on occasion, but not too often (which is impressive because 2/3 of them are for ADD, or “the forgetting shit disease” as some friends call it).
I have to tie mine to a meal. I take them with lunch. If I miss lunch or eat early or late, I forget the meds 🙁
I usually try to make medication part of an existing routine. Until it’s solidly part of the routine, it has to be hard to avoid. Like, when I was on the pill I made taking it part of my bedtime routine, and I stored my pills directly in front of my toothbrush until I had the hang of it. For my vitamins, I’ve made them part of my morning routine, so I get out the day’s vitamins while my oatmeal is cooking. This has downsides, though, because I almost always forget my vitamins if I eat anything but oatmeal for breakfast.
The other option is to set an alarm on your phone or your watch or something, I guess.
Old lady pill box with days of the week! Especially helpful if you take more than one medication / vitamin / etc. (only have to open all the bottles once a week instead of every morning). But even if you only take one pill, it is super helpful to be able to see if you have already had your Tuesday pill.
Almost nothing has made me remember to take it on a consistent basis because I’m an inconsistent person. I feel like I never do the same things at the same times, I have no routine into which I can incorporate taking my meds.
The only thing I’ve had a modicum of success with is taking them at bedtime. Nothing else in my life happens consistently, but hey, 99% of the time I do go to sleep at some point!
I have my phone set to remind me at the same time every day. Means I have to remember to have my phone with me/ not on silent, but I’m personally much more likely to remember that than to remember the meds themselves, since I use my phone for so many other things.
I put one lot in my bag and the other by my bed so that if I don’t remember when I’m at home, I have some if I remember while I’m out. That helped me a bit.
I’m a Type A personality weighed down primarily by depression and anxiety and I start to go bonkers if I don’t have goals to work toward, so I’ve started a 101 in 1001 list to help me with productivity and goal-orientation on those days where my job feels monotonous and like it’s going nowhere. I tried this before but never really stuck to it. Anyone done this before? Having this many goals can be really stressful (like a to-do list that’s too long), but it’s been really soothing for me so far.
Don’t have any additional advice, but fellow Type A with hella anxiety issues checking in. Today I imagined taking on a few projects that I think would please my boss but would also spice up my work life a bit. It needs spicing. (Not in a “more projects” way, just in a “more challenging projects” way.)
Lists are soothing.
I assume all fellow MSTies are already aware of the existence of this, yes?
Full, free, annotated episodes! To catch all those references going *whoosh* over your head! I’ve spent yesterday evening getting reacquainted with ToRgO and the Master.
Question for Toasties who lift! I’ve been lifting weights for about two and a half years now. My goal is functional strength (and if I look super ripped, I’m fine with that) and my key lifts are squat, bench, and deadlift (more powerlift style than Olympic lift). I’ve been doing 5×5, but now I’ve plateaued. I did a ton of internet research over the weekend about the Texas Method versus 5/3/1 versus whatever else, but it’s hard to find good advice geared for women. Can you recommend any good websites with powerlifting advice for women? What programs have you tried and which gave you the best results? I’m not a competitive powerlifter at all, I don’t have a trainer or coach, and I just want to be able to fling bags of cat food or whatever around like it’s no big deal. Thanks in advance!
I haven’t really shopped around much, but when I was doing Core Performance, it was awesome. Totally adjustable for whatever weight you are lifting, and focused on power and flexibility. I just worked form the book, though there is also a website you can pay to join if you’re into something more intense.
It’s reddit, (but usually pretty nice)- the r/xxfitness/ sub has a ton of women lifters and therefore advice/ resources for women lifters.
Also important: http://whatanimaldoyoulift.herokuapp.com/
look into sandbag training for functional strength. at my gym also known as the “pre-moving”/”pre-snow-shoveling” routine!
It definitely works for getting one pet, although I don’t know if it’ll cover more than one. But yeah when I did it, I walked around for like a week telling all my friends about my ‘kitten prescription’. It’s the greatest thing ever.
I have been visiting family in Reno this weekend, which needs to happen, but which is exhausting and got Drynuary off the rails completely. Oops. AND I *just* remembered I was going to maybe meet up with Reno toastie blunderbusst but I was so tired each night that I forgot to message her 🙁
But now I am at the airport waiting to board and go home and see my puppies and eat at home and sleep in my bed and I can’t wait.
I just came closer than is really ideal to putting blue hair dye in the bath instead of the bubbles out of the similarly sized bottle… That would have been annoying.
Hello friends I am moving to the UK in like two months and nothing is done, nothing is ready and I keep crying at the airmen who are supposed to be dealing with the paperwork because I AM A GIANT BALL OF STRESS
I have to get a no-fee passport, passport agent says “probably 8 weeks, your partner can do an expedite letter but the signatures have to be wet ink so it’d be a week to get it back from Korea and it’ll only expedite by a couple of weeks in the first place”
and once that comes in I have to get a visa, passport agent says that’ll take another month, although my own research says this should all go much faster
and I have to start packing
and sell my partner’s motorcycle
and figure out what to do with my gigantic loom
and book travel to see our families on the east coast
and find a place to live, at some point
and the cats need new microchips with longer ID numbers and then to be revaxxed for rabies and some other paperwork
ALSO the personnel office at Osan AB told my partner that my visa (which I found out I needed, uh, a few days before christmas, thanks USAF, now everyone involved with the paperwork is telling me off because it’s totally definitely never going to be enough time) would cost $50-100, and then the passport agent at Beale told me on the phone that it’d be $400 up front, but the air force would reimburse it, and then on Friday he told me in person that it’d be nearly $500 which is a HUGE range of different answers to the same question (and to be clear, that’s a lot of money and it’s stressful to drop that much money but, like, we can handle it–the big stressor is that it’s a prime example of asking the same question three times and getting three different answers, which does not make the problem of a huge overseas move seem likely to resolve at any point ever).
Has anyone done the thing? Any advice? If I hide in a cave will all of my problems disappear?
Oh bless your heart. I have no advice, despite having moved to the UK from America- only good thoughts and lots of hugs. You can do this! It will all work out!
Where are you moving to?
This is a 3-year assignment to RAF Molesworth, in Cambridgeshire. I so want to be excited, but I so very much do not have my shit together, nor trust the air force to have their part of my shit together, given their frankly Vogon-esque bureaucratic practices.
It’ll be okay, I promise. Just take it one step at a time. Try and get things accomplished one at a time. I know how you feel about the anxiety and it’s a big move.
If you need a fellow American who’s a train ride away to complain to, then I’m here. 😉
Oh jeez, wish I could give you advice but I can’t so just have some sympathy instead. Good luck! The UK is honoured to welcome more Toasties! (And we will welcome you soon despite all this. It will get worked out!! And in 6 months, your stress now will be just a horrid memory.)
Aw, thanks. I’m sure I’ll love it when I get there, it’s the getting there that’s awful!
Yay, I can finally participate in an open thread again! I think my first open thread post was about coming out “late in life” (aka in my 20s), and you all were wonderful. But Ugh, guys, I don’t know how to date! I’m trying the whole okc thing again (now with lesbians! V. exciting). I think I’m probably what the kids call a “demisexual” and I’m not pleased about that. I thought things might be different because I’m actually interested in women, but I’m still the same not-very-touchy-feely person I’ve always been, just with a new and improved queer identity. How do you fellow shy baby birds make it in the treacherous world of online dating?
Ugh, yes, my boyfriend taught me that technique when I had a unexected panic attack halfway up a mountain.
I was busy losing it and he sat me down and started saying ‘okay, tell me three useless facts. right now name three colours you can see.’ He did the same thing when I had a compound fracture in my ankle and was waiting for the ambulance convinced I’d snapped my foot off. I’ve since started using it myself when I get into an mind spiral and it really helps settle things down.
Dammit, this was supposed to go in the anxiety thread up there. Intensedebate strikes again!
Oh so I am finally stepping out of the lurker-y shadows and commenting on a post. I started watching Jane the Virgin earlier tonight and I cannot stop. I am physically incapable of stopping until I catch up (or I need to start getting ready for college). Has anyone else had this problem?
Isn’t it great? I am oddly fond of Rogelio (so far – only up to ep 5 here). And pretty much all of them are knocking it out of the park acting-wise.
He’s like the Bertie Wooster of absent fathers – so earnest and well-meaning and totally clueless.
Feeling a bit odd since I had a horrible prolonged argument with my boyfriend which ended really abruptly with him suddenly apologising without any warning.
“Err what?”
“I’m sorry.”
“…what are you sorry about exactly?”
“I’m sorry that I acted like it was really unreasonable for you to react to what I said and also for undermining your experience of the issue.”
“Oh. Okay. Right, sorry it’s just…your tone of voice hasn’t changed at all so it’s a bit weird.”
“That’s not deliberate.”
“No I know…but it makes it hard to adapt suddenly. Well erm thank you for apologising and I’m sure I’ll get over it in a bit. Just give me a minute to adjust to this new situation.”
I think this was one of those situations that happen because my boyfriend’s actions are extremely governed by logic in a pretty unusual way so once he’d decided that he was wrong after all, he switched seamlessly into being sorry rather than doing what I’d do, which is get stubborn, argue more, get really worked up, then give a profuse and teary apology. This is a good feature of his I think, but it’s really quite hard to let go of all that anger without defusing it slowly in all the proper stages between ‘middle of argument’ and ‘teary reconciliation’. I end up with all this excess emotion that I suddenly no longer need. I still feel a bit weird.
Hi everyone! I’m writing a short adventure game about a woman and her life. I hope it’ll be fun to play.
Aw man, I got all excited about this open thread until I remembered it’s actually Tuesday 🙁 But maybe it’s still happening?
Anyways, I’m wondering if any of you have health-related anxiety/hypochondria and have good coping mechanisms for it. I get it really bad in winter when I have colds because it makes me worry about breathing. All weekend I’ve been getting into this weird spiral of thinking I’m going to develop asthma because I have a cold and heard a wheezing sound like twice that immediately went away, and I know that I feel fine and am fine but I just have so much trouble breaking the cycle and not like, waiting for it to happen again. Thoughts?
Totally missed this yesterday, but still taking a moment to shout into the void and tell everyone that I, a non-comic book reader burned through Vols 1, 2, and half of 3 of Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, and have absolutely loved it. It has been a somewhat weird experience watching the series go through different artists (and, therefore, styles), but all in all, it has been great.
Anyone have any follow-up recommendations for when I finish these?
are you looking for more superhero-y stuff? you might like the new Black Widow – the volume name is “A Finely-Woven Thread”. Art is by Phil Noto and the author is… Nathan Edmondson, I think.
Also a fan of Gillon and McKelvie’s recent Young Avengers run – the 3rd, final volume will be out this year or was out last year, I think.
Saga is pretty great, if you’re into sci-fi
Thanks for the recommendations! I suppose the things I liked about it could be summed up as – looking at Hawkeye’s life separate from the Avengers/superhero stuff, David Aja’s illustration style, and not needing to know a ton of superhero/universe backstory to enjoy it. I’ll probably never be a bigtime comic book reader who knows or is invested in all the backstory, but I enjoyed having something engaging, fun, and visually beautiful to read.
I’ll definitely check out those recommendations, though. Sci-fi’s not usually my thing, but I’ll see if I can check out a preview of Saga.
Thanks again!
are you looking for more superhero-y stuff? you might like the new Black Widow – the volume name is “A Finely-Woven Thread”. Art is by Phil Noto and the author is… Nathan Edmondson, I think.
Also a fan of Gillon and McKelvie’s recent Young Avengers run – the 3rd, final volume will be out this year or was out last year, I think.
Saga is pretty great, if you’re into sci-fi
are you looking for more superhero-y stuff? you might like the new Black Widow – the volume name is “A Finely-Woven Thread”. Art is by Phil Noto and the author is… Nathan Edmondson, I think.
Also a fan of Gillon and McKelvie’s recent Young Avengers run – the 3rd, final volume will be out this year or was out last year, I think.
Saga is pretty great, if you’re into sci-fi
are you looking for more superhero-y stuff? you might like the new Black Widow – the volume name is “A Finely-Woven Thread”. Art is by Phil Noto and the author is… Nathan Edmondson, I think.
Also a fan of Gillon and McKelvie’s recent Young Avengers run – the 3rd, final volume will be out this year or was out last year, I think.
Saga is pretty great, if you’re into sci-fi
The best in hot new comics misandry seems to be Bitch Planet; only the first issue has come out so far, but the searing rage in it promises great things. Sex Criminals (fantastic art and story; even better letters column) and the Wicked + the Divine (cross-dressed girl as David Bowie as Lucifer; Kanye West as Baal) join the lineup of Image Comics must-reads alongside Saga. Ms. Marvel is a very new superhero who’s getting a lot of buzz; at first it was because she was a Muslim girl in a book written by a Muslim woman, but now it’s because the story and the art are extremely well done–fizzy and delightful. I’ve heard good things about Rat Queens and Pretty Deadly, neither of which builds on previous Marvel or DC heroes. And, of course, Sandman was one of the classics of the genre; the first book is too horror-inflected for me, but the rest is about story and redemption and tricksters and dreams, and Gaiman deserved the good press he got for it.
This just reminded me that I received a Sandman collection as a White Elephant gift at a Christmas party years ago, which I never read. I’ll have to see if I can dig it out of a box somewhere and give it a shot. Thanks for the other recs as well! I’d heard about Ms. Marvel, but forgot what her story was. I will definitely look into her run.
Turns out Sex Criminals and Saga were in a Humble Bundle (still open for another 4 hours at https://www.humblebundle.com/books), so I picked up Sex Criminals 1-5 and Saga 1-18, plus a ton of other comics for $20. Not bad. Excited to check them out.
This just reminded me that I received a Sandman collection as a White Elephant gift at a Christmas party years ago, which I never read. I'll have to see if I can dig it out of a box somewhere and give it a shot. Thanks for the other recs as well! I'd heard about Ms. Marvel, but forgot what her story was. I will definitely look into her run.
I am an extremely boring human and I grew up very close to inside state-owned forest in New York–cold and lack of excitement are no trouble to me. Personally, I would not mind if everything were a lot quieter, softer, and less often. It'll be good for my woolly handmade a to get some proper use!The important questions are, “how many sheepies are there and will I be able to pet their precious faces?” and “how can I get a job or jobs in order to stop being a useless heap of terrible?”
Keep us posted on how it holds up in the longer term, I guess! I've been unable to ascertain whether the poor reviews I'd been hearing were “not worth the money, not better than nothing” or just a touch of snobbishness.Gabardine of the wool kind? I sure would like to roll in that!
Don't worry about the boring then – remember I was a teenager when I lived there, so boring was the worst possible thing! I wanted to be in a city where I could walk to cool places, not tied to a network of rural buses. Though now the buses are better than they used to be: there's a 'guided' bus (http://www.thebusway.info) that goes between Cambridge/St Ives/Huntingdon.
But sorry, there is a distinct lack of sheepies. The Fens are wonderful for growing things (vegetables, flowers, salad) so farming is *big business*, and no-one would waste such good land on animals. There are lots of knitting groups though I think, if you're into making sheeps into clothes. I have no idea about jobs – it depends what your skills are, and your visa status – but not having a job doesn't make you a useless heap! The Cambridge area is economically dynamic, so there are lots of jobs around, especially in engineering/science. If you like a quieter/softer/less often life, rural Cambridgeshire would be pretty good I'd think.
Well, that's okay then, I like to eat vegetables about as much as I like to pet sheep on their wonderful faces! And I do like to knit (and spin, and weave, and I'm even learning to like to sew).I guess I will have to wait to find out about whether my visa will let me work. Maybe someday I'll get to turn in my no-fee passport application! Someday! When the passport agent is actually THERE doing passport things instead of wandering off to Security Forces and not telling anyone whether he'll even be back! MAYBE it will happen before my partner's report date if I'm very lucky!If I *am* permitted, it still remains to be seen whether I'll be able to find anything–I have an undergraduate degree in writing with a concentration in poetry, so it's not like I'm bursting with marketable skills. (Philosophically, I'm happy with that. I'm not a product or service, I'm a person. Practically, well, there are student loans that need paying.)This is some good information! Thank you. Now if I can just defeat my nemesis (passport agent), things might start being a little less stressful.
Thank you! And I know they’re checking for autism, and that there’s nothing wrong with having it whatsoever, but I don’t think the pediatrician is at all interested in the evidence that he might NOT have it. We’re planning to move back to the United States as soon after this summer as we possibly can, but I’ll try to find a new pediatrician (or else his or her waitlist) as soon as I can. And you are so right that they are used to howling kiddos (they must be!), but I think they are also judging, since the doctor has mentioned it every time. (He actually often starts crying when we get to the building’s elevators because I think he knows where we’re going.) Also, unfortunately, as a doubtfully-white-for-here person with an even-less-white-than-me kid, I’ve noticed in this and other public health kid-related venues that they tend to be *extremely* concerned about nonwhite children’s behavior when it’s anything other than compliant. So there could be that too. And I absolutely feel that frustration that you mentioned, which he undoubtedly picks up on, being the sensitive little dude that he is.
Good – once it's out of your hands you just have to hope. And no more trips to base – everything is getting better! Soon you will *have moved* & all this will be over!
What an old cutie! Thanks for sharing! I hope Banjo grows into as sweet a dog as she was. 🙂
Thanks for the link – we're going to try the weekend crate training thing this weekend! Also today the vet was like, um, you don't need to get up with him in the night, at 3 months he should be able to make it through if you aren't giving him water after dinner. So hopefully (?) our days of not sleeping through the night are at an end already.