HI, today is Tuesday and I am supposed to do link roundups on Tuesdays and Thursdays while Nicole is gone. I forgot to do it this morning because yesterday was a holiday, so here it is now. Sorry!!!
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I feel like I have to link to the old lady who lives without men, even though you’ve all probably read about her at this point.
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The old lady I REALLY want to talk about, though, is the old lady who lives on a dang cruise ship and sails around the world with her bags of money and her perfect life:
“When my children were all young, I took them on cruises many times. Now they have families of their own and do what’s right for them.
“The day before my husband died of cancer in 1997, he told me, ‘Don’t stop cruising.’ So here I am today living a stress-free, fairy-tale life.”
She estimates living the good life on the Serenity this year will cost her $164,000. That’ll cover costs of her single-occupancy seventh deck stateroom, regular and specialty restaurant meals with available lunch and dinner beverages, gratuities, nightly ballroom dancing with dance hosts and Broadway-caliber entertainment — as well as the captain’s frequent cocktail parties, movies, lectures, plus other scheduled daily activities.
NEVER STOP CRUISING, CRUISE INTO THE AFTERLIFE YOU WONDERFUL OLD LADY
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How To Leave Your Job Gracefully: A Step-By-Step Guide
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From Afrolicious:
Would you rather your story be mistold or untold? Now that is a difficult question when you are western facing, when you approach foreign-to-you struggles with the same language, lens, power, with which you approach domestic struggles. They are the same and they are different and it is the difference that will trip us up every time.
When we ask for western media to cover Baga, what we’re really asking them to do is to send their journalists, and the backing of their empire to a volatile region that has been disenfranchised by its local governances. We’re asking a force that doesn’t recognize Black humanity to please, please, please, see Blackness because we’re incapable of doing it ourselves. We’re not asking for resilient communities, secure families, or restored lands. We’re removing agency from local organizers because we simply can’t see them. We’re moving with the force of an empire that demands to know even if knowing may not be its right.
If we truly want justice for the innumerable Black human lives wasted at the hands of terror, we must question our right to exact said justice, and entrust the work of justice to those who are closest to it.
For my Nigerians in diaspora and at home, we do not need anti-black western media to shame us into fighting for justice. Nigeria’s responsibility for its citizens cannot be emphasized enough. Not one Nigerian outlet reported the Baga deaths as breaking news, a testament to the Nigerian democracy. From my personal experience, numbers from these tragedies are always off, tending towards the greater. 2000 dead. 250 abducted. Convenient numbers for context-less coverage. Unfortunately, even my Nigerian-based sources are too far south to give verifiable reports, so I have no way of discerning what to consider as truth or almost-truth.
Whichever part of the world we find ourselves, we have to keep organizing, keep pressuring our aging governments to change, to at least see its Black citizens as humans worthy of being defended, of being grieved, of being protected. We have to map our power across time, space, and borders, and prepare our machetes to do the work. We’ll find power is volatile just as it is predictable. When we recognize the imperative for a just and free Nigeria lies with us, we have no excuse but to move accordingly.
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well this was just straight up heartwarming
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Inkoo Kang reviewed The Nightly Show and I’m pretty jazzed to see it.
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Everything’s real bad, sounds like
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sorry dudes
I’ve said some outrageously misandrist things in my day but nothing has driven Men crazy like my hating Black Mirror pic.twitter.com/fxVQHFGrfC
— Mallory Ortberg (@mallelis) January 20, 2015
Tags: link roundup, sorry sorry sorry, the internet
Cruise Lady isn’t even going on to the afterlife. She’s just gonna invite Charon onto her eternal party boat on the river Styx.
“why don’t they ever STOP” Hades mutters, stuffing his head under a pillow and willing the party boat to quiet down.
Monster High has a Grim Reaper character, River Styxx (oh that name) whose gimmick is that she loves parties and candy and pastels – the one clip of her we’ve seen has been the fact that she has installed confetti cannons onto the ferry boat. I feel like she would be more than happy to help this lady out.
My friend and I are placing odds on whether the norovirus (him) or pneumonia (me) will eventually take her out. Yes, we are evil.
If she’s been on that many cruises, she’s probably immune to norovirus. Someone should check her blood for a vaccine starter kit.
Ha!
The lady dies, only to discover that Charon was already driving the cruise ship. He is actually a computer intelligence, collecting the dead and putting them in robot bodies to cruise for eternity in a cynical, joyless, and malicious world alienated from humanity by technology.
BLACK MIRROR SEASON THREE.
Re the transitioning post link: “a humbled swolemaiden” Yeah brah, she’s gonna be aweswolem.
The quality and frequency of their puns is outstanding. Praise Broden. Wheymen.
May the All Spotter watch over you!
But cardio is, apparently, the work of evil Broki!
Cardio is useless except for giving you a way to prance out your calves of steel.
Can someone explain to me why some people who are super into strength training hate cardio like the plague?
I used to lift weights and I like it, now I do lots of cardio (well, lots by my standards) and I also like that. Whatever gets the endorphins flowing!
I think (and this is coming from someone who neither “walks the Iron Path” nor does straight-up cardio) that the idea is that cardio makes your muscles leaner whereas these people are going for a bulkier look?
The fear is that cardio, when you’re already eating no fat and tons of protein, will make you burn muscle. So yeah.
We walk the Iron path for truth and have come together as a family under Brodin in the quest for swoleacceptance.
I love this subreddit a hell of a lot more than I expected to
Right?! That made me tear up. What a nice place.
I lost it at “you look upon the face of Brathena” (which now I can’t find but I’m not up enough on my pun game to have made that one up myself). Bless them all.
…but what if I don’t want to leave gracefully, what if I want to leave burning rubble in my wake? Does that mean I do the opposite of what this lady did?
Cruising around the world seems like it would maximize your opportunity to leave burning rubble in your wake. Set fire to every port of call your cruise ship stops at!
“Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life”
Soon to be added to the top of the tsundoku pile on my nightstand…
Reddit frequently lives up to its reputation as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but those rare occasions on which it surprises are all the more charming for being unexpected.
(Anyone remember that one thread with the dude complaining that he’d talked his girlfriend into “opening up” their relationship because he thought he deserved hotter girls to have sex with, and it turned out that she went out on dozens of dates with attractive men and he couldn’t find anyone to go out with him? The memory of that thread keeps me warm at night.)
I feel like it’s very easy to tell when reddit is going to be totally super-awesome and when it’s going to be truly terrible, and mostly I have faith that the downvoters of the world will fall on the side of justice (at least on threads that get any sort of major attention). But on questions of sex and gender politics, I do have to heave an internal sigh of relief when they come through. The internet: mostly progressive until you wake the haters!
I know this isn’t Open Thread, but did you guys read this yet? The sooner you read it, the sooner we can talk about it, dammit. http://www.believermag.com/issues/200802/?read=ar…
These are the murders we find most compelling, of course, because these are the murders that allow us to be afraid of the people we want to be afraid of.
I’m not even done reading this yet but YES.
One of the paradoxes of our time is that the War on Terror has served mainly to reinforce a collective belief that maintaining the right amount of fear and suspicion will earn one safety.
thanks for sharing, that was an excellent read. I’m not sure what I have to say about it besides I want to reread Little House now with that perspective in mind.
I’ve never read any of them, but this essay made me want to. When I was a kid I thought they were too popular and girly for a weirdo tomboy like me. Now I think I might have missed out.
I have only vague memories of reading them as a kid (Laura definitely had some satisfyingly weirdo-tomboy moments!), but I feel like I’ve been seeing references to them more and more often lately that make me realize how much more there is to them than “books for kids about pioneer life.” Like, it didn’t even occur to me until reading this essay that she must have done a ton of research, rather than just relying on her & her family’s memories.
You should read them! It’s a very different experience as an adult than as a kid, and also there’s a lot of history in there–not necessarily Laura’s experiences, but the books reflect very strongly on the time period she was writing them in, which coloured them greatly.
If you like audiobooks the audiobooks of the series are great and have the music that’s mentioned in them.
A lovely essay. Thank you!
beautiful, thanks for sharing!
That is a brilliant essay. I never read the Little House books when I was a kid, but not that long ago I lived in a town where people talked, in that exact same kind of code, about which neighborhoods were “less desirable” and how terrifyingly “unsafe” it was for me to walk or take the bus to work. You’d have thought I was venturing through a war zone full of land mines. All that well-intentioned fearmongering about the Awful Things That Might Befall Me was exhausting to listen to. I’d never thought about it as a form of violence in and of itself, but it really kind of was, now that I think of it.
I love Cruise Lady and I agree with her assessment of the Grand Bazaar: “You can find gorgeously regal or glitzy outfits there, perfect for formal or casual wear.” When I retire I’m going to wear glitzy-casual every damn day.
I love how ridiculous her lifestyle is and I hope she never runs out of money. This is one rich lady I want to STAY rich.
Guys, let’s just all agree that when we age, we shall all book staterooms on the same cruise so we can sail together for eternity and cackle at the other passengers who attempt to board the SS Toast.
Only if we can be glitzy casual.
I expect us to wear glitzy casual, formal, nightwear, etc. One of the major benefits of being an old lady is being able to wear sparkles and sequins whenever the fuck you want.
As long as I can wear black velvet trousers at any hour of the day or night, I’m in.
I would totally join that cruise, but I get seasick very quickly. What I’m saying is – I am more than willing to bring along a (rest-of-) lifetime supply of seasickness patches for any Toasties who share this malady.
I call the stateroom next to yours!
SS Toast is an even more delightful concept (to me, anyway) than Coterie, State TBD (the NYC group is planning a secession, I guess, which, sign me up for either one really).
Mallory, can you always forget and post them late because this is the first time I’ve been on time to the link roundup in like six months.
In other news, I had JUST decided to cross the Atlantic by cruise instead of plane when I do the pilgrimage again in 2016 and now this little old lady has made me infinitely happier about that decision.
New goals: get on a transAtlantic cruise with Mama Lee. Sit at her table every night; ask her to teach me needlepoint by day. Get her to tell me which are the best dance hosts. Yes. This will work.
Which company were you thinking of? I’ve never done the cruise ship thing, and I’m now Working Professional enough that I wouldn’t have to go with only the bargain-bin Carnival spins, but I don’t know which ships I would trust to be enjoyable for all that long on open sea (or even a few days around the Caribbean).
Well, okay, here’s my logic (People With Cruise Experience, please chime in and tell me if I am horribly mistaken):
It’s going to cost us about $1,000 for a plane fare for one person, New York to London. On the Queen Mary 2 (Cunard), for an inside cabin, it’s exactly the same price to take a cruise, for which we’d get:
* 7 nights in what amounts to a hotel room, instead of 1 night miserably sleeping upright in a coach seat
* 23 meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, included in the fare, instead of 2 disgusting plane meals
* 7 days’ worth of being able to exercise or attend seminars or go to the theatre or just fuck around in big lounge chairs, vs. sitting and watching bad movies for 16 hours straight while breathing other people’s air
Just, overall, for the same price, seems like a much more enjoyable way to pass the travel time. It takes longer, but you’re sleeping properly that whole time, you can adjust to the shifting time zone more easily because you’re only transitioning by like an hour a day, and hey, you’re on a cruise. Worst-case scenario, you’re basically staying in a hotel for a week with meals included and at the end of that time, you’ve arrived at your destination. Best case scenario, the activities on board are really fun and you meet cool people. Plus for a couple hundred more we can upgrade to a cabin with a balcony and feel fancy. Seems pretty legit, right?
TOTALLY AGREE. I’ve been dreaming about this for a while, and I’m lucky enough to afford it, especially if it’s $1000 (I would have to go from NYC though, which adds money….). I just need time, more like.
There are cruises that leave from everywhere! And that price is just for a one-way crossing, transAtlantic, so if you wanted to do a Caribbean cruise or a round-the-world dealie, it might be out of range. But I have a good friend who LOVES cruises and she’s always found them an incredibly good value for what you get.
If the timing of your vacation is at all flexible, I would check out cruise-deal websites for stuff that’s happening a few months in advance–sometimes there are fares that are ABSURDLY cheap, especially if you’re willing to take your trip at an off-peak time of year.
This is all very very very true. It is SO pleasant and SO fun and there’s no jet lag and you get to do really interesting stuff (lectures from submarine captains! drama classes and performances with RADA! choir that performs with the London Philharmonic! ballroom dancing! fancy clothes! Veuve Clicquot lounge!) and yeah, it cost us LESS to get an obstructed-view balcony room for an early-October crossing and fly back with an overnight stay in Dublin than it would’ve to go round-trip air in December, so.
ETA–that photo I posted in yesterday’s OT of self in purple dress? That was in the Veuve lounge.
You look AMAZING. That lounge looks swanky as all shit. And riddle me this, because no one has information on it: I am 31, and I will be 32 by the time this goes off. Am I going to be able to dance with a gent who is reasonably nearish my age? I get the impression that all the dance hosts are specifically chosen for ladies in their 50s and upward, but I would LOVE to spend the whole damn time learning to ballroom dance. Not that I won’t learn from a gent in his 60s, because I will.
Mmmmaaaaybe, but odds are you’ll be the youngest person on board. Which has its own advantages.
Oh, if you want to look at some photos of the crossing, check out MrChouffe’s Flickr account if you want to see some of the other things we did on board 🙂
“lectures from submarine captains”
UM WHAT *fans self*
Yeeeah, or other interesting types! Recently: George Takei; forthcoming: Crosby Stills & Nash.
Sent from my iPhone
Just came back from a cruise (although not as long as a transatlantic one) and I would just say check up on what miscellaneous additional costs are likely to be tacked onto your cruise bill. For example, the cruise I just went on automatically added $12 per person per day as a built-in gratuity, plus there is usually some expectation of tipping your stateroom attendant, dinner servers, etc. extra at the end. The other main thing is, if you drink alcohol at all, that’s usually not included in the otherwise all-inclusive food service, and that can add up FAST, especially when you are stuck at sea for days on end with not an awful lot to do.
On the other hand, cruising is fun! Although a bit surreal after awhile.
Yeah. Our bar bill was… considerable. But worthwhile!
Also, something to bear in mind re: boozing, is that at least when we went, there’s no bags limit–your things just have to fit in your stateroom. Bringing along some alcohol is totally kosher and can help alleviate said bar bill.
I think that’s another thing that’s worth checking up on beforehand–some cruise lines are cool with it and some have a limit of how much booze you can bring on per stateroom.
DO IT DO IT DO IT BUT THERE IS A CATCH:
The only, and I mean ONLY way to cross Transatlantic is on the Cunard ocean liner Queen Mary 2. It’s the only ship sailing that’s designed for transatlantic travel, and it’s designed to deal with some pretty harsh weather that most cruise ships, including the other Cunard boats, are not. Trust me on this; Cunard has had some problems with Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth lately.)
MrChouffe and I did this several years ago and it is LIFE. CHANGING.
(I have many helpful tips if you’d care to hear them.)
That is the one I’m taking! But please do give me all the helpful tips, I would be delighted to hear them. Knowing that I am allowed to bring my own booze is a great start!
1. Treat yourself to Todd English
2. Utilize the gym–it’s gorgeous, if you’re into that sort of thing
3. There is always too much to do. Schedule accordingly. Ballroom dancing was always scheduled during lunch, which was annoying as hell.
4. Don’t bring books; the shipboard library is well-stocked and very, very relaxing
5. You really, really only need one pair of dress shoes
6. Take the kitchen tour
7. The customs schedule is really only a suggestion. They set up by the main dining room and are there between meals for the majority of the trip. Keep your passport close by so if you see there isn’t a line, you can get it done quickly
8. Request to sit at a six-person table. We made some incredible friends at ours–one of them is a retiree who used to own one of the first gay bookstores in San Francisco and was good friends with Harvey Milk
9. Expect ridiculous service. Our dinner waiter knew, by the third night, that MrChouffe and I would get a bottle of red, our SanFran tablemate would order a glass of white, and the three ladies we shared with drank water
10. You will be the youngest person aboard. Revel in it.
Okay, I have been browsing around cruise-related sites for the last week and the ONLY things on your list that I knew already were #1 and #8. This is invaluable, you are the best.
Anytime! Transatlantic on the QM2 is seriously the experience of a lifetime. Let me know if you have any questions at all. I love reliving it 🙂
Oh and the Chart Room has the best pre-dinner cocktails and canapes. I still dream about them.
People love to hate cruises and I never really understood why. (I’ve always been pretty pro-cruise and for many of the reasons you mentioned: knowing where you’ll sleep at night, free ice cream always, generally amusing people, etc.).
I endorse you upgrading to a balcony because 1. promotes charade of grandeur, 2. helps me battle seasickness (when it occasionally arises).
QM2? You will be happy.
I really, really hope to have use for “leaving your job” advice soon. Went on two interviews last week, and had been kinda numb to how much this gig is killing me until I glimpsed, even slightly, freedom.
LET’S COMMISERATE
OKAY.
My problem is not the worst, just a stagnant job with no hope for advancement and really no new skill-building or personal growth for a few years now. And, not coincidentally, a major brain drain of all of the interesting/enthusiastic peers. Would be the perfect gig in which to start with the babies or an advanced degree, but I really don’t have much interest in either at the moment.
So instead, it’s my soul falling away one drop after another into the abyss of time. So easy to treat it as “fine” until, say, an interviewer who is talking about actually building something new and exciting into this world comes along.
I commiserate a lot with this. I don’t hate my job — I actually have a lot of appreciation for my bosses, and unending gratitude for my job security, considering the layoffs going on around the industry these days — but yeah, I am SO FRUSTRATED that I’ve been a tech writer for four years and STILL don’t have a writing portfolio. I tend to get stationed long-term with clients, doing the same work by myself, so I have no chance to learn from mentors or editors. And I barely have anything to show for new skills, let alone the critical software programs that would make me appealing to other companies.
Oh my god the photo caption on the psmag story, amazing. A perfect caption for all photos.
Doomed?
Doomed???
DOOMED???
helloooo babiiieeeeeesss
Don’t get too excited, those kittens may or may not be doomed.
Wow — she really managed to leave her job gracefully. That’s impressive. And very good advice.
(Yay! Reading Link Roundup over my lunch, rather than over my morning coffee).
Yeah — I’m impressed too. It doesn’t seem feasible to make such a comprehensive departure on good terms, in most places I’ve seen.
I love that old lady and the fact that she literally took to the sea. You do you, Cruise Grandma.
We have to map our power across time, space, and borders, and prepare our machetes to do the work.
It’s probably a good idea for the citizens of Nigeria to avoid relying on Western media, because I tend to doubt that “Power Through Machetes” would translate favorably as a slogan.
“Live on an ocean liner” was one of my childhood dreams (along with “Go to boarding school” and “Be a historical reenactor”–I was a strange child), so I am filled with awe, wonder, and no small amount of envy that Cruise Lady is living my dream already.
Oh my GOD. Historical boarding school on an ocean liner.
Let’s Kickstart this.
It kind of exists already, though it might be nice to have less historical accuracy and more swimming pools.
Going to boarding school was a childhood dream of mine. I never wound up going, although college was a bit like it, but I have a friend now whose family ran a girls’ boarding school until the 1990s, when they shut it and turned it into a family home. So now at least I get to go there sometimes and pretend.
Men HATE IT when you don’t like things they like, why do you think I do it so much?
I already mostly avoid men and I DO hear a LOT that I don’t look 29, so I think that old lady is ONTO SOMETHING.
They hate it even more when you like something which they’ve told you explicitly not to.
My question for her would be, "But how long do you keep the thing attached to the cock around afterwards bc I bet it's not long."
Going to boarding school was a childhood dream of mine. I never wound up going, although college was a bit like it, but I have a friend now whose family ran a girls' boarding school until the 1990s, when they shut it and turned it into a family home. So now at least I get to go there sometimes and pretend.
I wouldn’t go on a cruise forever, because I would get seasick!!