I shattered my iPhone screen and it UNRELATEDLY ceased being willing to email attachments or links from itself (they’ll send, but then they do not arrive at their destination), so instead of The Bartender’s charming work, let us all (or at least some of us) mourn the loss of Lois Lilienstein of Sharon, Lois & Bram. My daughter and I sing “Skinnamarink” to each other every day.
Toasties, you are all so lovely, and I must thank you continuously for the many lovely and supportive things you all say when, like for the past few weeks for me, things are a cavalcade of horrible.
Here’s a request for you all: Rec me things to read online! My job is sinfully dull, and I pass the time by reading longreads and books, etc., (look, I know I am probably a terrible employee building terrible habits, but I have to keep my sanity) and I am looking for websites with deep archives and hilarious things for me to read. I’m working my way through the entire Longreads archive, I’ve gone through all the Ask A Manager archives, all of Captain Awkward, all of Ye Olde Hairpin’s Ask A Lady/Dude/Queer Chick/Married Dude/Married Lady/Spider/Bowl of Hummus, the entire collected works of Anne Helen Peterson, all of Behind Closed Ovens, Thatz Not Okay, and I’m sure other stuff I’m missing.
What are your favourite websites to get lost in the deep archives of?
i was going to recommend longform, but i’m not sure if that’s the same as longread. if it’s not, it’ll probably have a lot of the same content…but the archives are great!
I was also coming here to recommend Longform.
Thirding longform! There’s definitely a lot of overlap between longform and longreads (I usually check both), but I really like longform’s archives – there’s lots of organization by topic so you can peruse the back catalog with a little more direction. They also tend to have really good year end lists, also including lots of organization by topic.
All of the Pissing Contests, if we’re staying on Jezebel. And How May We Hate You (true hotel concierge tales).
How May We Hate You is GOLD.
http://asongoficeandlolz.tumblr.com/
http://harkavagrant.com/
http://dlisted.com/
Miss Manners (which I catch up on like every three months).
The Straight Dope.
The AV Club’s Random Roles and Expert Witness features.
Oh, oh, oh, the AV club’s “Then that’s what they called music” is a DELICIOUS recap of the NOW cds.
Great question!
Yesterday, I went through Rachel Monroe’s online works— she gets a lot of link love from the Toast.
If Gawker sites are cool for you to access at work, I highly suggest Millihelen’s Make Her Open The Box, which is reviews of monthly beauty subscription boxes. I’m also caught up on Defamer’s 500 Days of Kristen, which is weirdly fascinating and surreal.
And if you have a few hours to spare, are ok with laughing out loud at work, and have at least a passing interest in NFL football… The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles.
Millihelen has so many fun features! Make Her Open The Box, Mall Makeovers and the daily routine overviews are my favourite to binge-read.
When I was sick recently I plowed through a whole lot of Lucky Peach and Roads & Kingdoms. Not sure why I enjoyed food & travel writing so much when I was barely eating & couchbound, but ok.
I work as a receptionist/paralegal and when it’s our slow season I spend a lot of time reading books on overdrive on my computer. It looks less like I’m reading a book when its on the screen. OverdriveREAD allows you to check out books from your local library and read them in your browser.
The Gutenberg Project – books that are out of copyright! Some books are only in ebook form but most are also HTML I believe, so you can read them in your browser.
Read ALL the Victorian sensation novels!
If you’re okay with morbid things (ie 19th century murders) is really cool.
has some good long articles about a range of subjects
is written by two romance authors and has lots of cool info and links, mostly about Georgian/Regency England, but some other stuff as well.
I am apparently not as good at html from memory as I though. The second link is to “Damn Interesting” and the final bit should be a link to a website called “Two Nerdy History Girls” http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/
It’s not updating anymore, but there’s a blog run by Krista from Rookie called “Effing Dykes,” and it. is. HILARIOUS. Some of the jokes are dependent on familiarity with the queer community, but I’ve rarely laughed so hard and there’s a ton of material.
I just started my Criminal Minds recap blog, if that’s something you might be interested in! I’m planning to update Tuesdays and Thursdays. Come join me for gawking at Reid, hating on Morgan, and envying Garcia’s wardrobe! https://unsubmary.wordpress.com/
How can you hate on Morgan? Morgan is proof that in the Criminal Minds universe there is a kind and loving god.
Well he really isn’t my type (Dr Spencer Reid 4-evah), plus he’s a total shit bag to Reid and Garcia. Reid’s cheekbones, OTOH, are definitely proof that god loves me and wants me to be happy.
!!!
Oh, my secret love for the first 3 seasons of Criminal Minds (which I own on DVD just in case I desperately need serial killers on my tv) is leading me to also love your blog. Just from the description.
Webcomics, mostly!
Dicebox (itinerant workers in space, at least at the start)
Family Man (eighteenth century German academia and werewolves)
Galaxion (space exploration, including first contact with an alien species)
Girl Genius (a world ruled by mad science. Badly.)
Magellan Academy (superhero cadets)
Narbonic and Skin Horse (Narbonic is adorable mad science. Skin Horse is the black ops social workers who mainly help the products of adorable mad science.)
2D Goggles (Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage fight crime with the help of Babbage’s difference engine)
Of course, webcomics don’t look quite as much like work, so I guess that might be a problem.
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/
Specifically the rabbit hole of the passenger lists and individual biographies.
Everyone is Gay!
I’ll probably think of a ton more later, but these two popped right into mind: The Agony Booth has funny write-ups of TV shows and movies – They used to do really bad stuff a la MST3K, but I think now it’s a smattering of everything. And this is a browser game, so maybe it’s not what you’re looking for, but at a past boring job, I played a ton of Kingdom of Loathing. It’s a goofy RPG with stick figures.
Oh! And a friend has been posting his fantasy novel online for free: The Chosen.
Oh MAN Kingdom of Loathing. I didn’t even know that site was still running (I guess I assumed it went the way of HomestarRunner, which of course is also still running although mostly defunct).
Oh also Vela Mag! Articles written by women vaguely about travel (some more literal than others).
You already said BCO, but really the entirety of Kitchenette is worth reading. I have a major internet crush on its writer.
Have you gone through the Tomato Nation archives? http://tomatonation.com/ that one’s got archives going back to October 1997. Advice column, culture and criticism, and stories.
More highbrow/geeky maybe, but Arts and Letters Daily, and LanguageLog.
I used to read popular Victorian fiction from a Gutenberg text file at my old job. Charlotte Yonge, Mrs. Humphry Ward, stuff like that.
Literary things: Hazlitt! Start with Two-Man Luge: A Love Story. Also the blogs on New York Review of Books- I love Tim Parks and Charles Simic. At London Review of Books, Jenny Diski’s cancer diaries. And of course whatever you can find on Project Gutenberg– I read Elizabeth Gaskell’s entire oeuvre at one temp job, as well as a couple of E.M. Forster novels.
If you are at all a computer-y type, The Daily WTF is pretty hilarious and has deep archives. (Even if you’re not, their Tales From the Interview feature is always comedy gold.)
My favorite (really, really) deep cuts: Stammtisch Beau Fleuve and the Scifi.com (pre-SyFy, so you know it’s legit) fiction archives.
Mimismartypants! It isn’t long-form stuff, but she has _years_ of archives, and if you’ve never read anything on her site before, you can just start from way back in the beginning and spend months going through it all. (It’s mimismartypants.com.)
The Feature has near-daily updates — they basically just post links to various long-form essays and articles on all imaginable topics from all over the internet, and I’ve definitely gotten lost down some reading holes thanks to a link from their site.
And Fussy.org — Eden Kennedy is a treasure, and though she only posts once a month these days, she also has years of archives and combing through them is always a delight.
if no one has suggested this yet, i like “playing spotify” with one headphone in while deep in the bowels of invoice recording, etc.
since it’s fairly mindless, what i’m actually listing to while updating excel etc are poems and standup comedy, both of which exist in good variety on spotify. it’s how i finally got around to listening to Tig Notaro and Lois C.K.
and don’t feel terrible! from the boring chunks of my job to yours i give a wish of goodluck and a knowing salute.
This is so late! But I wanted to thank you for posting this question, because I’m in the same boat.
I love the Dear Sugar archives on The Rumpus. Vela (which someone else suggested) has weekly summaries of articles by women and that’s a great rabbithole to fall into.
My grandma is having a garage sale this weekend, and I went over to her house last night to claim things I wanted before they got sold. I came away with some antique inkwells and a wooden butter stamp and a dish for deviled eggs, so I’m feeling pretty pleased with my haul.
What are your best garage sale or estate sale buys?
We have a deviled egg plate. We only make them once a year for Easter but the plate is the best!
The best thing I ever got at a garage sale was a set of bowls for french onion soup. The woman selling them got them for her wedding and never used them. I use them all the time. French onion soup!
I’m really excited about my deviled egg plate. Like you, I probably won’t end up using it more than once a year, but it’s pretty and it will be useful to have for that one time a year and I didn’t have to spend money on it!
(Mmm now I want to make some deviled eggs.)
They’re also useful if you’re doing cookie-decorating with a variety of colored sugars and sprinkles and such, as you can keep all your colors separate and have reasonable quantities to work with on the table/counter while you decorate. So if you ever do that, then you’ll have a second annual occasion to put it to use!
The one thing I miss about living in the Midwestern suburbs were the truly incredible garage sales I could find all summer. I got some really great wall art– I’d post photos, but I haven’t moved it from storage at my parents’ house yet–and a small menagerie of mid-century brass animals. Just a few months ago, my mother sent me a gorgeous little sterling silver ring she got at a church rummage sale for $0.25.
Super jealous of your deviled egg plate!
Does my ABSOLUTELY BANGIN’ NEW VANITY count? I bought it off Kijiji but I’m sure the guy who was selling it found it at a garage sale.
That is SO bangin’!
I love your whole setup here! Might I ask how you have affixed your makeup to the wall hanging? Also, will you come to my house and make everything pretty and organized?
I bought a cookbook for 75 cents at a garage sale that was the put together by the women’s guild at an Episcopal church in a small town near me in 1921. Not only was that fascinating, but it was stuffed full of hand written recipes on cards and a few pictures as well. It was amazing.
I don’t do a lot of garage sale-ing but I do a lot of thrifting. My favorite is my industrial Singer sewing machine. It doesnt work but it’s gorgeous heavy iron and I was able to date it to the 1890’s!
There is an awesome thrift store in town (supports the local crisis center too, so win win) that has a silent auction every year for higher end stuff. I’ve gotten a pair of vintage opera glasses and two pairs of Fluevog high heels from it. So awesome.
I also got a 1920s Singer machine that also doesn’t work, but I haven’t found a good place to display it yet.
So many things, but I’m proudest of my loom. I bought a wonderful 8-shaft loom at a yard sale for like $500 and I love it dearly and have made so many wonderful things on it. I’ve also bought a fabulous cast iron pan from an estate sale that was clearly lovingly cared for for decades.
Do trash picks count? I was taking a walk with my sister and her dog when I saw a cabinet on someone’s trash pile. I went home and casually mentioned it while making a cup of tea, saying I’d go get it later, and my mom said, “NO NO WE HAVE TO GO GET IT NOW!” So we loaded it into my dad’s truck, and the woman across the street said, “Oh! You’re so lucky, I JUST called my sister to tell her about that.” So now thanks to my expert thrifter/antiquer/trash-picker mother, I have a beautiful china hutch from the ’30s – white with a bunch or drawers and cabinets on the bottom, glass doors and shelves with jade-green backing on top.
Last year (conveniently, just as my ex-husband was moving out), a couple of my neighbors also moved and left a TON of stuff by the dumpsters. Which kind of annoys me, because we are literally 8 blocks from Goodwill, don’t make other people clean up after you, but on the other hand, I picked up three dining chairs, two side tables, and a super-cute mahogany table with a wicker top. The year before that, somebody left a couple of lamps, including the same kind of Ikea lamp that my friend had broken the shade of, so I scavenged that too. Yay dumpster furniture!
My husband’s best find, which I enjoy greatly: a mug of Prince Charles’s face. The handle is his ear. On the back is a bit of doggerel about his marriage to Princess Diana. It’s very crazed, sadly, but then, I suppose the British public was, too.
mola textiles from a neighbors trip to Panama! I’ve been meaning to make them into pillow covers.
I once got a sari at a garage sale. I bought it thinking it was just a section of sari fabric, got home and realized it’s a full 10 yard cotton sari. Sadly I am the whitest person ever so I’ll never be able to wear it, but it makes me happy to have just because it’s so lovely.
oh… excellent 70s vegetarian cookbooks? (and i am not even vegetarian anymore… but i love them)
and clothing. once i picked up a fantastic yellow-and-white zipped short-sleeve cardigan, paid my $2 for it, and then the seller blurted out: that was my favorite thing for so long — i bought it in israel when i was 10 years old!
the travails of being petite.
Hello, fellow Toasties!
I run Con or Bust, which helps fans of color/non-white fans go to SFF conventions, under the umbrella of the Carl Brandon Society, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit. Bidding is currently happening in its annual online auction; if you like books, hand-woven scarves, prints of art from cool games and books, jewelry, and other neat things, please check it out at the link above! Or if you have something you’d like to offer, please do–it’s absolutely not too late, and you don’t have to be a published author or publishing company to offer something (here’s a little bit more information).
And, of course, if you are a fan of color/non-white fan, Con or Bust has free con memberships available right this moment, and will be taking requests for monetary assistance to attend cons in mid-May. I’m not sure if too many links would put me in moderation, so just check out “Request Assistance” at the top of the page. Thank you, Toasties, and if you have questions after you check out the links, please let me know!
What a wonderful organization! I would be happy to donate a pair of my bloomers, if you think that’s something that would get any bids. Bloomers don’t really fit in with any of the other items listed, so I’m not sure if that’s an appropriate donation…
Aww, they’re adorable! Please do!
Okay! I have more stock at home that isn’t in the shop (I’m letting the store go dormant until fall) so I’ll look for a particularly cheery pair and list them this weekend.
That would be super, thanks so much!
This seems like a good time to say that I’m auctioning off an amulet poem for Con or Bust! I will write you an amulet to draw something toward you, push something away from you, or accomplish a task. http://con-or-bust.org/2015/04/amulet-poem/
I was thinking that I have too much stuff, so I wouldn’t bid but might send you a donation, but then I saw the Awn Elming memorial pins from Ann Leckie, and now I might have to rearrange my budget to bid on something after all.
I don’t have anything to donate this year, but I am planning to do some decluttering soon, so I’ll try to keep you in mind for next year if I come across anything geeky and cool that I don’t want any more. I’ll also set a calendar reminder to tell myself to think about making a geeky cross-stitch or something for you next year.
(I should warn you that my local con’s charity auction is likely to get first dibs, but we’re considering not holding it this year, so that might not matter.)
My email reply seems not to have posted!
To be scrupulously fair, Ms. Leckie is also posting small batches of the pins every so often on Etsy–watch her Twitter account for notifications–but they won’t come with the tea, and also the Etsy ones go super, super fast.
And thank you for your kind thoughts!
One of these days I am going to frame my Centauri alphabet sampler and donate it to Con or Bust. One of these days.
That sounds like an amazing thing and if and when you’re able to do that, I would be very excited and grateful!
This is great — thanks for bringing it to my attention! I have a posted it to my facebook!
Thank you!
toasties! i didn’t post about it last week because i was on vacation in new orleans (which was great) but:
i got to dance on stage with belle & sebastian!!! like, for an entire show. about 50 of us got to listen to their soundcheck (and practice the dances on stage with them) and then for the whole show we were on risers behind them, dancing and listening, and it was incredible.
the next day, i got to see the replacements, and then i got to go on vacation (clearly i like to pack all my good things for the year into a 14 day period) but really, in contrast to the belle & sebastian thing, the rest of my days have felt pretty bland, i have to say.
Lucky you!
i feel very very lucky indeed!
That’s awesome! I saw them a few weeks ago but Stuart Murdoch had a cold and his voice wasn’t great :/. Hope he was recovered for your show!
oh, that’s so disappointing! he was recovered, but sarah was ill and sat out the soundcheck. she sounded okay during her one song during the show, but i noticed that they chose mostly songs where she didn’t have to sing a lot of backup.
holy crap, i saw them live in LA about five years ago and they were fantastic but getting on stage?!? to dance with them!?!?!?!
new orleans is on my want to visit list, glad it was a good trip 🙂
the last time i saw them was way back in 2006, but they always put a fabulous show. 🙂 dancing on stage was honestly like a dream come true–after years of busting a move alone in my apartment to those songs, it was incredible to dance to the real thing. for a few of the songs they had simple choreography for us but for a few of the others, we just got to do our own thing.
new orleans was perhaps more of a party atmosphere than i was expecting (and more than i find comfortable/enjoyable really) but i’m still glad i went!
Open thread by Nicole? Where is the Bartender?
In other news… earlier this week we relinquished one of our 2 cats to the local humane society. (It was my husband’s decision, and his cat, but I didn’t exactly fight him on it.) My main emotions about it are: 1) feeling bad that I don’t feel even guiltier and 2) feeling bad that the real reason I feel bad is that this flies in the face of my image of myself as a super-compassionate bleeding-heart animal lover who would never give up on a pet, no matter how frustrating their behavior was.
I mean, it’s not like we stuffed him in a burlap sack and threw him in the river like they would have done in ye good olde days. He’s in a spacious enclosure with plenty of natural light and he’ll find a new home soon that will hopefully work out better for him. We tried hard for 4 and a half years to fix his behavioural issues and despite all our efforts, nothing worked. It has been really nice being able to sleep through the night for the first time in months instead of being woken up every few hours by loud, inexplicable yowling, and our other, elderly cat is visibly happier not being bullied by him at every turn.
Q_Q I’m not a heartless monster, I swear.
(Speaking of cats, here is my obligatory Gertrude update of the week: she and sketchy-ass fiancé want to move in together but are having trouble finding a place because she has 4 cats and he has 3 cats and a dog. That’s definitely a bylaw violation and in Quebec landlords can refuse to rent to tenants with pets, so… good luck with that one.)
You are not a heartless monster. I understand–so much!–and love my own cats dearly, but ultimately they are pets, not kids. It is okay and you have made a great effort and sometimes things don’t work out.
Wait, I misspoke. Sketchy-ass fiancé has 3 cats and 2 dogs. So a grand total of 7 cats and 2 dogs.
The Gertrude update rings close to home! My husband lived with his mum and step dad in MTL for a few years as a teen, in a duplex where his mother kept FAR too many cats, and they had to constantly hide them from the landlord.
SEVEN cats? Nope.
You’re not a heartless monster. You were miserable, the cat was miserable, the other cat was miserable. *big hugs*
My mom was in the same situation recently. We took a cat in when an elderly family friend could no longer care for him and had him for six years and could never successfully address his behavioral issues. In the long run we realized that he REALLY REALLY needed to be the only cat in his home and we could not provide that. I am sure you did your best and sometimes the best thing is to say “This is not working for any of us” Still, I am sorry.
Absolutely not a heartless monster. There are situations that are just not tenable long term – you’ve done your best and found him a good alternative.
You are not a heartless monster and have, in fact, done a kind thing.
It is very likely that for reasons beyond your control, the living situation for your cat was utterly miserable, which contributed to their behaviour. By giving them up, you have given them a chance to find one that will make them feel calmer and more at peace. You have also removed a stressor from the life of your other cat, who needs consideration too.
Agreed that you are not a heartless monster and probably have more patience than most people. I think the current’ “pets are fur babies” mentality a lot of people have can make it hard to remember that, well, pets are just pets. You can love them to death, but they’re still pets and not children. He might have a hard time adjusting at first, but he’s a cat and he will forget you and everyone will be happier in the long run.
And now a story about why it’s sometimes best to give a pet away: My friend and her boyfriend moved in together and they each had a cat. Both cats were already loveable-ish jerks, but together they became super jerks. Their lives became a constant worry about peeing and spraying and cat fights. They took the girl cat to live on an ex-roommate’s parents’ farm in upstate New York where she could be an outside cat and be happy. My friend was so sad when talking to the ex-roommate about it that he said she could always take the cat back if she wanted to, and THEY DID. The cats got along even worse after that and their studio apartment was constantly covered in plastic sheets with furniture in bizarre placements to try to keep the cats from ruining everything. She told me later that she really regretted not leaving her cat at the farm (which was my advice, because I’m brilliant at advice-giving).
Did they give it back to the farm again at any point? Or is their apartment just the Cat War of the Roses now?
They broke up about a year later and she and her cat moved out. Then she went to grad school in London and had to find a new home for the cat anyway.
I’ve relinquished a pet (to a good situation and after much agonizing and failed solutions, blah blah blah). I know the ‘I’m a monster’ feeling and just wanted to sympathize. Be kind to yourself – you know you did everything you could.
Nicole, I dropped my brand new Galaxy S5 on Saturday and the screen shattered and I am SO EMBARRASSED. I know that feel.
Also, toastfriends, I know a few weeks ago we had talked about having a friending meme for Livejournal, for us relics that still use it – stay tuned to this space! My friend Jenn is writing one, but she is probably asleep as she’s on the west coast, but once it’s up I will share it!!
Can there be a mirror on DW?
Dropping new things is the WORST.
I just want the generous ice cream parlour treatment. For someone to take pity on my and give me another triple scoop cone because the first one fell. I know it’s entitled and unreasonable, but still. 🙁
We started talking about this on one of Mallory’s articles this week–what advice would you give your younger self? I’d tell my high school self to learn to braid her damn hair already.
I’d tell myself to lighten up and make more mistakes, but knowing my younger self, I wouldn’t listen to me. I was stubborn as hell.
I wouldn’t give my younger self any advice at all, because I’m the product of all my prior experience and by saying things to past me that weren’t said to this me I’d then cease to exist as I am now.
…I probably give things like this too much thought.
yyyyep. it’s hard to stay in the realm of actual advice and not “maybe do this differently, but in the process, fuck up the entire space-time continuum and then you’ll lose everything you have now which you are actually pretty pleased with.”
No, yeah, that’s exactly how I feel too. Although I think at a few points in my younger self it would be good to hear that everything was going to get easier and be okay.
I feel that way about most of my experiences, but there are two things in particular that I could have happily done without.
Objective confirmation that time totally operates on Back to the Future rules could be pretty handy, though
I feel like I should tell my high school self, “So many of the things that you get so worked up and upset and anxious about now will not matter to you in the slightest in a few years, so try to chill out” but I’m afraid she would take it poorly and be all, “Oh, so my feelings don’t matter?!”
I would also advise her not to save her dubious Harry Potter fanfiction on the family computer and to wash her hair more often.
I’d tell myself that it’s not my job to manage the emotions of everyone around me. Something I am still working on, to be sure.
Do your fucking homework, take the fucking dance lessons, and learn to fucking chill.
“Do your fucking homework” is top of the list, followed closely by “ask Jon/Gina/Cathy for study tips because OMG YOU NEED TO LEARN HOW TO STUDY.”
Precocious youngster me found college….challenging.
Don’t accept that hypothyroidism diagnosis. You don’t have hypothyroidism. You have an autoimmune disease. Start taking better care of yourself BEFORE you get sick and it’ll be so much easier to manage. Also, take some of that money (just some, not all) that you’re spending on booze and drugs and hire a trainer who’ll show you how to lift weights while you’re still in your 20s.
And oh, yeah, that cute guy at work with the floppy hair and crooked-toothed smile? That’s seven years of hell, girl. DON’T DO IT.
Also, take some of that money (just some, not all) that you’re spending on booze and drugs and hire a trainer who’ll show you how to lift weights while you’re still in your 20s.
AMEN.
Also, stop basing all of your decisions on other people’s feelings. You are single, this is the time to do whatever blueblazes wants!
no amount of advice could have fixed my middle school self, especially since the only response would have been some sulking and something incoherent about how I’m a fascist
I guess I coulda saved a lot of grief by pointing out to high school me how goddamned useless going to college for literature is, you’re a huge nerd that likes books fine you can just read the books and talk about them with other people who read books without being in debt till you’re 50 dammit, and if you’re going to that college you’re just going to be reading the same books you did in middle school anyway
GIVE FEWER FUCKS.
(Yeah, the amount of time and energy that younger me spent worry about things that didn’t need to be worried about is ridiculous.)
Don’t start smoking! And stop lying to your parents about how you’re failing out of college, you won’t get help until they find out.
Oh man, definitely to forget long hair and just get an A-line bob forever and ever amen. We (younger self and I) have super fine hair and lots of it and it doesn’t stay in pony tails or braids properly AND we look quite nice with bobbed hair. Also, I’d tell her to try harder in gym because while it doesn’t count toward your GPA in Illinois it does in Kansas where she’ll move junior year and that stupid C in gym will cost her being valedictorian. Also also, running isn’t hard, but lots of fun and you should really give it a try because you’ll actually LOVE It.
I’d tell my undergraduate self to maybe just think about taking a few computer science courses, maybe do a minor in it, and not to worry about all the dudes who sound like they all know what they’re talking about, they’re all just too afraid to admit it when they don’t know something. You don’t have to prove yourself to them, and you’ll be way better at everything when you learn that it’s not a big deal to ask questions when you don’t know something.
Would I listen? Maybe not.
i had an absolute ball as a teenager and I REGRET NOTHING. Teenage me would be totally impressed that I have tattoos and silly hair and am still going to see the same bands as I was 20 years ago. I was lucky I admit, but I managed to get to adulthood without being arrested, assaulted or murdered, so she can carry on and have all the good stories to tell when she’s my age.
I’m impressed! May we all leave such a magnificent trail of No Regrets behind us.
Just fucking move to Scotland. You won’t regret it and it’ll get almost impossible to find a job there if you don’t go now.
Learn to do your goddamn hair.
Don’t listen to the doctors that tell you NOT to exercise. It’ll be literally the only thing that keeps your heart condition in check.
Stop letting boys influence major life decisions. 10+ years later you still won’t have met the right one, so just give up on them the first time you’re inclined to and have a lot of fun.
You aren’t fat*. Even if you won’t believe it yourself, stop talking about it to everyone all the time like you’re going to finally bend the space-time continuum and then they’ll finally be convinced that you are fat. Eat a sandwich, you self-centered anorexic teen-self f*ck and stop letting fat dominate every thought, every conversation, every decision. At the very least you’ll save yourself an absolutely enormous amount of time, and potentially not self-destruct every single relationship and undermine every single decision for the next 25 years because you cannot acknowledge the simple reality that you aren’t fat.
*Not that it would matter in any meaningful way if you were, but since you are my teen self, you aren’t going to listen to that logic.
Either quit dithering and ask that girl to prom, or continue dithering but at least quit posting on your LiveJournal about it, SHE READS IT.
Your parents are wrong. Not always, but mostly. The evidence is right under your nose. They have no/few friends. They are unkind to you. Welcome new perspectives. Learn from people who practice kindness. There is more than one correct answer.
Oh, and sex is good. Virginity is fucked up. Go all the way with those sweet, kind boys who were smitten with you.
No matter what Dad says, you are allowed to do things that don’t involve school or college scholarship applications senior year. You should, because the therapist he grudgingly agrees to let you see after you have a nervous breakdown is kind of useless. Also, therapy is not a crutch; don’t let him convince you of that either.
That scary kid with the wallet chain and spiky choker in your freshman English class (and your math class) is going to be your best friend. He also raises baby goats and they are adorable. And yes, he did read all of the books he said he did over the summer, stop being a snob.
P.S. You’re really, really gay. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.
I would tell my high school self to stop sulking so much – having a boyfriend is not that important, and NOT having one is not the end of the world.
I would tell my college self to break up with the cheating asshole, and never speak to him again instead of hooking up with him and getting back together again over and over, breaking my stupid, bad-decision making heart over and over again.
I would also tell my college self to date some women. I waited until after college, and then met my now-husband almost immediately after dating two. Although if I did that, maybe I wouldn’t have met and married my husband and wouldn’t have my super awesome daughter, so maybe not,.
HS Me: Don’t flake out on joining the cross-country team, just go and do it, you’ll be shocked at how much you like running. Also, do your damn homework no matter how inane it feels. Also, most of the boys you LIKE-like are gay. Also, when your friend tells you she used to think you were a little gay, be OK with that, and go with it, because it will make your life a whole lot less self-loathe-y.
College Me: Stick out the last two semesters. It’ll be worth it and you won’t end up engaged to a racist dipshit for three years and then have to extricate yourself from his racist dipshit family. Still move up north after school, still bartend and wait tables until you can’t bear it anymore. Take a lot more deep breaths. Possibly don’t start smoking, because 32-year-old you will be really pissed off about quitting.
Don’t give up on math when you start feeling the pressure to (and the lack of attention from teachers on it).
I would say “For fuck sake you are not just lazy. Being totally incapable of doing homework a lot of the time is probably a bigger problem than that. Talk to someone. Then if necessary talk to someone else until you get a diagnosis and probably also meds.”
1. No, don’t listen to them. DON’T. You have great judgement. You are right. You are right about pretty much everything important to your life, and you actually do know how to read people, and you actually are able to make yourself understood. I’m not kidding. Start acting on your knowledge. Talk openly about the truth.
2. The problem is real. The reason you feel like something terrible is going to happen, is because it’s going to happen. Not gonna lie, it will suck. But guess what? This is where you’ll learn how to fight. In ten years, you’ll win.
3. The diagnosis is a misdiagnosis. They’re staring the right answer in the face but not paying attention to it. Solve this now, save yourself years of misery. Don’t let people act like it’s all doom and gloom. It’s a simple problem. I’ll tell you the correct diagnosis and medication.
4. You don’t have to wear those horrible clothes. Stop dungeon-crawling terrible secondhand shops, stop resigning to wearing oversize men’s clothes. Wear outdoorsy, sporty stuff – you’ll like it.
5. The restlessness is partly physical. You’re surrounded by sedentary people, so that’s why you don’t understand that you need to move. You actually don’t enjoy being sedentary. Bike more.
6. Eat more, goddammit.
7. INSIST ON BRACES. JUST DO IT. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THINKING ABOUT IT AND JUST SAY IT. People are actually supposed to be able to close their lips and relax their face at the same time. You don’t just naturally look stupid, you have a real physical overbite. Fix it while your face bones are still malleable.
8. Don’t go to that school, it sucks.
9. Read these books – you’ll need them.
10. In a few years, everyone will migrate from your favourite web community with a diary function to Facebook. You’ll lose your diary habit. Don’t let that happen. You had a good thing going, keep writing on the old site. Later, you’ll wish that you’d written everything down.
Open thread! My parents are visiting this weekend — what are your favorite fun things to do with your parents? The Minneapolis weather doesn’t look great this weekend, although it should be nice on Sunday, so indoor ideas are welcome.
Also, what is a good gift for a friend who is starting her first professional (sit down office rather than service) job?
Gift card to the mall? (versus an individual store, if you don’t know her preferences in that direction) Something cute from See Jane Work or something else for her desk (Tervis tumbler? Calendar? Cute office supplies generally?)
Cute, I hadn’t heard of See Jane Work before! Thanks for the tip!
I’ve given office-appropriate jewelry to friends starting their first “professional” jobs. I like Kate Spade bangles, the idiom ones, because I can choose a little “good luck” message for them to wear against their skin– especially nice for long-distance friends, who I can’t be around to support or celebrate. They go on sale fairly often if you aren’t picky about which color/message you want.
That’s a great idea! She’s pretty butch in her style so I don’t think that’s the right fit for this specific person, but I like the idea.
Gift card to restaurant near office? Fancy tea/coffee/cocoa & mug? A plant that could live on her desk?
Tea + mug is a great idea! I love that.
i am going home to visit my own parents this weekend! we stick to:
– short walks in nice parks
– cafe outings (rather than meals, which are weirdly more stress-inducing)
– “tea time,” which is when my mom and i bake cookies and then we gather in the living room to listen to classical music and drink tea and eat said cookies
– “murder chocolate,” which is when we watch an old mystery (morse, lewis, poirot, etc) and have chocolate on hand to eat…but only once someone has been murdered
as for the gift…i started my first office job recently and my mom gave me a gift certificate to help buy office-appropriate clothes, which was really nice, but that’s definitely a mom gift. from a friend…treat her to a congratulatory happy hour at a bar near her new office? or find out what a nice lunch spot nearby is and buy her a gift certificate? is it the kind of job where she’ll have business cards, in which case, a nice card case?
Those are great parent visit ideas! I love “murder chocolate.”
I think a card case is a winner of an idea! She lives across the country so I can’t do any of the local things.
a good gift for a friend who is starting her first professional (sit down office rather than service) job
A little timer to remind her to stand up/stretch/walk around every hour.
Ha! So real.
Hey, I live in Minneapolis too! One of my favorite things to do when people visit is to take them to the Guthrie–not to see a show, but just to check out the building, go out on the “Endless Bridge” or whatever it is called, look at the river, and there’s a cool room up higher with more views and lots of yellow glass–very cool spot in general, with the river right there, Mill City Museum (which I STILL haven’t gone to), the Stone Arch bridge, the locks. And then drive them around Nicollet Island and look at all the gorgeous painted ladies (Victorian houses).
Great thought! I went to the Guthrie for the first time this winter and I was very impressed with what a cool building it is. Very fun!
I loved the Minneapolis Art Institute, but if your family are not Museum People I admit it’s not ideal.
Ha, they are but I’m not. I do hear the MIA is awesome.
CAT THREAD
cats
catscatscats
Soooo, Anne fell in the toilet butt first.
That is all.
I was typing away on my computer, then I turned around to see Monster Truck looking at me like this:
He’s trying to seduce you, he is.
He has many seduction faces:
Oh my… <giggles and fans self> I… Mr. Monster Truck… You…
I bet they all work. He is lovely.
Adele (photoless I fear) just started throwing herself against my chest and purring. It’s not the most understated way of getting attention, but it works.
Tia wants everyone here to know she is far and away superior to them.
“Well, actually…”
those lil fangs!!
Impersonating a possum!
My foster cat Sylver is getting a visit in an hour: a young couple may be interested in adopting him!
Who could resist that face?
Good luck, Sylver! May you find the home that deserves you, for you are a grand and handsome specimen that deserves only the best.
Harry got some hand-me-downs this weekend. He’s not much of a fan of them, though.
(Here’s hoping I can do this.)
That is brilliant!
My cats have no legs. it’s very sad.
tragic. My cats spent most of the winter with no legs. Now that sumer y acumin in, their legs have regrown and are being used for games like ‘chase each other around the house’ ‘knock things into the bath tub’ and ‘jump onto human from great height’.
*delighted shriek* Kitty loafs!
Cats.
Here is my handsome girl, showing me her good side.
She’s so very handsome that I doubt she has a bad side.
The morning light in my room is very flattering for cat portraits.
Not just mine who insists on inserting themselves between human and book then!
Her favorite hobby is parking herself in front of anything I’m reading. Obviously full attention must be paid to her at all times.
“Oh were you reading that? I’m going to take a nap in front of your book instead. You couldn’t possible wake me, right?”
“Were you trying to get work done? Isn’t staring at the back of my head better than reading papers? I’ll make sure to sit on the keyboard so you really can’t even try”
New kitten, Noodles.
Oh my goodness!
AHHHH KEETTON!
OMG BABBBBYYYYYYY
SO TINY AND FUZZZZYYYYYYYYY
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!!
OH HELLO!
i am working *very hard* to keep a straight face at my desk right now and it feels like i’m suffocating…
i own a cat now, friends! i just got my first ever cat! bf and i realized the fuzzbutt is the first pet we have not co-owned with our relativee families.
he is so mellow and so pretty and climbs on everything but gently and carefully and knocks over nothing.
Share with me books you loved as a kid and then discovered were problematic at best as an adult! I know I had terrible taste as a kid: my first foray into fantasy novels was Piers frickin’ Anthony.
What brings this up is that I’m rereading the very first romance novel I ever read. I’d read it at a ridiculously young age (seriously, I’m thinking I was ten or eleven) and Amazon reviews inform me that it’s horrifically rape-y. So now with adult eyes I’m giving it a go again and blogging about the experience. So far: genuinely enjoying it, shockingly. I fear what’ll happen when I get to the bodice ripping, though.
The name is A Pirate’s Love and it’s the second book that Johanna Lindsey published. The first she published was one of those “a sheik who is acceptably half English and probably secretly a duke kidnaps and rapes a stunningly pale white woman” books. This one is your classic “stunningly pale white woman is so beautiful a pirate who’s acceptably rich and probably secretly a duke must kidnap and rape her” books. I guess the ’70s are the source of so many cliches in the genre?
Ugh. Anne McCaffrey’s dragon books. I loved those books until I read them again as an adult. Whoops. SO MUCH rape and SO MUCH questionable gender shit.
The Suck Fairy!
McCaffrey was one of the first things I purged from our book collection when we did a massive weeding/reorganization in preparation for SteelyKid’s birth. Not just the Pern books–those psychic ones also had really really weird ideas about sex and romance.
Oh that’s right! Didn’t one the kids “turn” someone straight? Ugh.
Yeah, and not in any discovering-bisexuality/pansexuality kind of way, and there also was the family friend/mentor who was in love with the daughter since she was like a toddler. Those were the worst two that stuck in my head.
Wait I think I remember which one the family friend/mentor one is? I bought it at the library when I was a kid because I knew her name from the dragonriders, and got really creeped out. Dude was like… green or something?
Yes, and his name was Afra and I can’t believe I only had to Google that to confirm not to find it in the first place!
Yeah. Yes. It really is unfortunate. I just want a dragon that can read my mind though.
Yes please. Also I really want to eat a bubbly pie. (But without the rape.)
MY KINGDOM FOR A FIRE LIZARD.
After I read All the Weyrs of Pern when I was like 10 or 12 I had a dream that I met F’lar (?) at the beach (?) and I asked him where Mnementh was and he said that all the dragons had died since they no longer had a purpose and I was depressed about that for YEARS until The Skies of Pern came out and gave the dragons new jobs.
Read Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series instead! Vlad has a snarky telepathic shoulder-lizard! He learns not to be an asshole to people! (Vlad, not the lizard. Loiosh is always an asshole.) There are amazing heist plots!
yeah same. I haven’t even reread them, but a number of scenes made a huge impression on me when I didn’t have the language or experience to articulate what was wrong with them, but they are so vividly imprinted in my mind that I think of them whenever Pern is mentioned.
SAME. I reread Dragonflight recently and the male protagonist/luuuuurve interest is straight up abusive. The female protagonist spends a huge chunk of the book worrying about being violently shaken/having her whole life controlled/confined to her quarters/raped.
Pern has such a weirdly regressive social structure that I started hoping the Threads would wipe them out.
Ugh is right. I fear going back and rereading those, too. I heard about McCaffrey’s…troubling thoughts on tent pegs.
So, so creepy and that stuff was going into our heads as kids.
Huh. I read those books as a teenager and liked but did not love them. I have never gone back. Good to know that I should not do that.
Also Anne McCaffrey’s Acorna books. Granted, I only made it through the first couple when younger, but then going back to starting the series again? Not so great.
OMG I READ THAT BOOK. And was horrified at it!!
We can trade stories. My blog has a fair amount of this http://yahistoricalvault.wordpress.com including something horrifying called Miranda and the Warrior.
YAY. Bookmarked to go through at length.
I DEFINITELY READ THAT BOOK, and I’m pretty sure the entire Avon True Romance series. Partly because I accidentally met one of the authors (although that is a different story). In fact, I am 99% sure that book is still in a closet somewhere in my parents’ house. It was, um, yeah. Totally checking out your blog commentary on it now.
ME TOO. I plan on doing all of them as they’re delightfully or horribly insane.
YESSSSS I am 100% here for that.
Miranda and the Warrior! I definitely read that, and all the other books in that series. Probably thankfully I have little memory of any of them except one called, I believe, Anna and the Duke, which I read like 10 times. I look forward to learning how that one was also actually awful.
David Eddings entire catalogue of work.
Aw, now I’m sad, because I too loved David Eddings when I was a wee teen fantasy lover, and every once in a while I think about going back to reread and I haven’t done it yet.
I reread them recently and they still have a little more than nostalgia value to recommend them. But ONLY if you can ignore:
-Egregious racism
-Gender Essentialism
-Weird obsession with female purity
-The way that the Edding’s can only write 6 characters and 3 plots over and over again
Look, you know what you’re getting with Eddings. I still love Redemption of Althalus, which is kind of Ur-Eddings. But they are not the books I remember them being.
A lot of the fantasy books I read when I was young in the 80s were written in the 60s and 70s and were super progressive for the time but pretty shockingly regressive now. The Anne McCaffrey dragon books? So much slapping of women in the first couple. Super progressive in that they had gay characters but super regressive in that ol’ Anne was apparently under the impression that receiving anal sex makes you gay.
I never read the Xanth books but I did read the Incarnations of Immortality books and am pretty sure I would be horrified to reread them. I also remember getting the first book of another series by his out of the library, which involved guy from another world feeling up a teenager and I just couldn’t deal. And I read VC Andrews books constantly!
I read Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase when I was first getting into romance and liked it. I tried it again this year and wanted both of the protagonists to end up stranded on deserted islands, far away from each other and the rest of humanity. They were just so manipulative and awful to each other and to everyone else in their lives.
Oh no I actually still love that one! They’re very damaged individuals, true, but I just love Jessica and her grandmother so much, and also how she totally flips the “reputation” game on Trent. I have found Loretta Chase’s other books not so good on re-reading though, I must say.
I think I knew Poul Anderson was a libertarian goofball and his disgusting greasy robber baron protagonist who always has a harem of hot girls fawning over him because he’s just so clever was him writing a creepy self-insert but I was, and remain, a sucker for ‘well here’s how a society that developed in conditions completely unlike ours, from critters completely unlike people, might pan out’ type stuff. I hadn’t quite realized how, um, 70s they were until I went back and reread some a couple years back though.
This is about how I feel about The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
oh man Heinlein made this into a whole fucken genre
Stranger in a Strange Land, a retelling of the story of Christ with harems, and a super smart bitterly cynical old dude (with a harem) who teaches Jesus a thing or two about politics
I owned the entire Eragon series for a while, and then dumped it forever in my late teens. Ugh. Uggggggggggggh. So much white boy fantasy wanking.
I was JUST coming in here to post Eragon. I really enjoyed the first book, but then the other books got worse and worse and it was just a mess. I’m afraid to go back and re-read the first one, though. I want to keep the good memories I had of it and I just know that if I go back and read it, I’ll hate it.
I deliberately haven’t read Xanth again for just this reason!
Same here. I loved it growing up (the puns were the best) and I don’t want to have that happy memory ruined.
I am sad that the Edward Eager books are kind of gender/race problematic, because I loved them as a kid but probably won’t share them with my (hypothetical future) kids.
Same with me & Eager. Also, E. Nesbit, who I greatly looked forward to sharing with my niece, and now I will be hyperaware of racism and antisemitism. And while we’re at it, the Little House Books and the Narnia books.
All the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, which are pretty racist and glorify colonialism. I loved them so much though.
Yeah. Pig bladders! And food porn! And…blackface??…and…oh no, the “squaw” part….:/
That was the book I was thinking. It’s the first time I remember realizing something was funny (peculiar funny, not haha funny) with the way people talk about Indians. I remember thinking “why is Ma so afraid, he’s just borrowing tobacco, she should have offered.”
I devoured all the hand-me-down Bobbsey Twins books I could get my grubby mitts on as a kid. Then I came home from college one break, cracked one open for old time’s sake and HOLY FUCK THAT SHIT IS RACIST.
The Bobbsey Twins are by far the worst of those older children’s mystery series for racism. Oh my god. The one where they visit Japan? ACK
I just re-read Little Women (I am taking part in an erotic fan fiction contest about it, ha) and while I’m not totally ready to throw it under the bus, I was definitely unhappy about the didacticism and pushing of gender roles. I had a revelation that I had learned a lot of not-so-great things from that book that I definitely carried with me for many years, including but not limited to: 1) my shame about not being a good housekeeper/naturally clean/tidy person and how that must mean I was immoral in some way, and 2) my inability or unwillingness to express anger. Now I am not sure if I would give that book to my daughters or other young women to read, even though when I was a child I loved it and read it many times, and I still think it’s well-written and has lots of lovely things in it… argh! So hard to know what to do!
Louisa May Alcott is such a fascinating contradiction. On the one hand, her women characters are delightfully autonomous, Nan is a doctor, Louisa May described herself as “a man’s soul…in a woman’s body”, and yet…
Bhaer.
After reading “Marmee and Louisa” (a delightful biography of LMA and her awesome mother) to get the bad taste out of my mouth, I felt a tiny bit better about the Bhaer situation, if only because: 1) Louisa was like “I know everyone wants Jo to marry Laurie and IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN” and then she stuck to her guns, which though the result was and has been very upsetting to me my whole life, I love it when women decide to just not give people what they fucking want, so go her, and 2) Louisa herself never married and basically got stuck at home taking care of her parents while May (Amy) went off and gallivanted around Europe (actually so much cooler than in the book — she became a real, working painter, and did not get married until the age of 39 when she married a 25 year old European dude and lived in Paris) and she wasn’t all that happy with it, which makes the decision to marry whomever turns up just so she can get out and run her own household, surrounding herself with little boys who never grow up into terrible men, seem to be sort of reasonable and smart.
Basically I think if you read the end of Little Women not as triumphant and happy but as an attempt to find accommodation for the problem of being stuck in a woman’s body when you probably are really a man (Jo also constantly talks about how she’s really a man deep down) in a time period when women get totally screwed by either getting married or not getting married — then it kind of makes sense/is okay.
Gone with the Wind–although that one I knew it was super problematic at the time, but was willing to overlook it because I loved it so much (I even loved the sequel by Alexandra Ripley and reread GwtW repeatedly which I rarely do with books). I haven’t reread it as an adult because I know it’s horrible and I’ll be disappointed in my younger self, so I finally got rid of the book last year.
The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri Tepper–an ecofeminist post-apocalyptic matriarchy? Sign me up. But several years after reading it, I realized I was asexual. And remembering there’s a throw-away paragraph in the book about how anything other than heterosexuality was due to gene mutations and hormonal disorders, and how they were able to genetically breed those mutations out of people to fix them. And feeling sick to my stomach. And then remembering about how incredibly gender essentialist it is (men are all warlike, savage, brutish; women are all nurturing, harmonious, peaceful…), I just can’t.
ooohhh gone with the wind…. reread that sucker when I was in graduate school and yikes.
I REMEMBER THAT JOHANNA LINDSEY BOOK
god I read those things when I was like 12-13 too.
I recently re-read “No Flying in the House,” and it is horrifying! The little girl has to sacrifice her joyful gift of flying or she’ll never have love, and to teach the girl this her beloved guardian turns herself into a toy. I remember *none* of this from when I read it as a kid.
Also, I loove the Swallows and Amazons series, but the colonialist bigotry is problematic, and poor Susan has to do all the housework while John is off having adventures.
OK, is it really stupid and wanky and crunchy and hippy drippy to knit a trauma shawl? It’s for myself. I’m hoping that knitting it helps bring me a little peace and calm.
Not one bit. Doing something with your hands like that anyway is great for dealing with tough and unpleasant brain space. Making yourself something nice while you’re at it? A perfect example of self-compassion, which is exactly what you need.
NO not stupid or wanky (maybe a little crunchy etc., but whatevs). I love the idea of repetitive creative acts as therapy.
Thanks all.
I’m making this because it feels… right. In reds. I’m hoping it helps a little. Making something beautiful and useful out of the bad things that have happened.
Well, goodness, so what if it is? I went to a kirtan chanting session with a bunch of Krishna devotees this week and had a blast. Sometimes that hippy dippy shit is really awesome and good for us.
I learned how to knit out of nerves during my first year of university exams. It really is a good way to focus.
It is a proven fact that crafts like knitting and crochet and weaving, etc, all help you relax and are pretty much a sort of meditation. Knit away and create something beautiful from the pain.
I have knit trauma shawls for friends and they’ve been really appreciative. One friend says that she even still wraps herself in it from time to time when she’s feeling down. So even if it’s hippy dippy, it’s not a bad thing if it works.
Not too long ago, I created many artworks in 2D & 3D formats in response to some personal upheavals and honestly, it saved my emotional and spiritual bacon. At the time, I wasn’t even aware I was doing it…all I knew was I HAD to make “art” for art’s sake (this process lasted 3-4 months).
I still have a long ways to go to find peace, but yeah…it is NOT stupid to knit a trauma shawl, it is awesome, would love to see it when it’s finished (if that’s ok by you!).
I find the repetition of knitting really meditative and calming. Having something to do with my hands can really help with my excess nervous energy, and making something beautiful yourself is wonderful on many levels.
Sounds like a wonderful idea! You’re putting the investment in yourself in while you make it, then reminded of that self-care when you use it. Genius, really.
No. I like the idea of a trauma shawl. Is it a special design or something?
I just lost a long explanatory reply and don’t have the energy to retype it right now. But no, it’s not a special design, just… making myself something beautiful as a recovery technique.
I think that’s a wonderful way to heal your soul. I am an internet stranger, but I support your creation and your recovery. 🙂
not at all. actually, knitting shawls and similar was one of the proscribed methods for soldiers coming out of WWI to deal with ptsd.*
i remember and believe this. but i couldnt find any sources just now. but meditative work that results in good things is a good thing to do, i think.
I had many a Sharon, Lois and Bram casette when I was small. Glad to know they’ve endured!
Toasties, I have gone home sick from work, and am now bundled up on the couch with some mango sorbette for lunch. (Lemon sorbet is my preferred sick food but Target did not have it, so mango it had to be.) I hope you are all feeling better than I am.
So let’s have… a travel thread! Where will you be traveling in the upcoming months? Come here to source Toast-approved suggestions.
I will be going to DC in a month to visit family. I’ve been several times before, but the Smithsonian museums (esp. the hall of gems) never lose their shine. I’m hoping to get some good Ethiopian food, and maybe stop by a bakery in Georgetown that my dad liked while he was in school– assuming it’s still around.
Das and Dukem are like the two redeeming characteristics of DC
also the natural history museum I guess but I haven’t been there in ages, why did I stop going there
Travel thread! Just what I was looking for! I am on the cusp of purchasing tickets to the Balkans for my 30th birthday this summer, even though it is incredibly irresponsible and will go on my credit card to be paid off chunk by tedious chunk. I have a few hours left to pull the trigger before the held reservation disappears, and there are only a few seats left.
I’m doing this, right?
You only turn 30 once! I’ve never been to the Balkans, but some family members have and they speak very highly of the trip.
You got this! If nothing else– frequent flyer miles!
Thanks, friend! Toast-sourced encouragement preavailed and I just bought the tickets!
DO IT IT WILL BE SO GREAT AND YOU CAN WRITE ME LETTERS ABOUT IT.
Where in the Balkans are you planning to go?
DONE! Wooooo! We’re flying in and out of Zagreb but priorities are Dubrovnik, Mostar, and Sarajevo plus quiet small places.
I loved Zagreb and Dubrovnik! (We went to Croatia last summer.)
In Zagreb we stayed here (we had the purple room). It was great – the owner was very friendly, it’s super close to the bus station (which is where the bus from the airport will drop you off, don’t bother with a cab) and it’s a pleasant 15/20-minute walk from downtown. There’s also a delicious pizza place not too far off. Go to the Museum of Broken Relationships, it’s fascinating.
Dubrovnik was more expensive (but still on par with what we’d pay for the same goods and services here in Ottawa) and had a lot more tourists, but it’s really gorgeous and definitely worth it. Take the ferry to Lokrum, it is inhabited by wild peacocks and there are small little beaches.
I would also suggest going to Split because it is absolutely amazing. It’s right on the sea, but it has the mountains behind it as a super dramatic backdrop, and the Palace of Diocletian is A+++.
I might be going to Hawaii in September to visit my sister and her family. Everyone else is going next month, but it will be quite a crowd with both sets of parents (all three? not sure if my dad and his wife are going) so I decided to go in Sept. My mom offered to pay half the plane ticket, but then when I talked about the trip again a few weeks ago made it sound like she would be coming with me? I’d rather go alone, which is the point of not going when everyone else is. How can I tell her I’d rather go by myself? I for sure can’t afford to go without help.
I really want to go to Detroit for a weekend to see the Kahlo/Rivera exhibit. My friend has expressed interest and she has a car, so this might be a great road trip!
I also want to plan something for my birthday … in August, when it is, or in September/October. London or Amsterdam? Something relatively big!
I am glad you are pronouncing it “sorbette,” as Don Lemon intended.
Travel thread! I have so much upcoming travel.
I’m currently in Montreal for a neverending business trip – seriously, I was supposed to go home today and found out I wasn’t at 1am last night. I’ve been here for 3 weeks. Today I found a cat cafe, though, so all is well. Would love any food/drink recs!
In a couple weeks I’m going to San Jose for my best friend’s wedding. Looking forward to California weather after this non-spring that Canada is having.
Then I’ll be BACK in Montreal in June, and in Quebec City after that. This is a random and specific request, but if anyone knows of good long-term furnished housing places in Quebec City, please pass them along.
I’ve never been to Montreal, but I’ve been planning a trip in the back of my head ever since I saw this article on the best croissants in the city.
Husband and I will be going back to Switzerland to visit my parents and then to the Czech Republic for 2 weeks! I spent a single day in Prague when I was 17 and I remember how beautiful the old town is. I am really psyched to go back.
So rad!
In June, my boyfriend and I will be flying to India. His family lives there, so I’ll be meeting all of them for the first time. I’m excited and terrified.
I’m currently in Russia and maybe going to be taking a job in Slovakia in the fall. If I take the new job, I probably won’t travel during the summer to try to save money for unexpected moving expenses. But if I don’t take it, I’m hoping to go to Scotland to see the guy I dated while I was there (which maybe I’ll do regardless of the job), Budapest to visit friends, and whatever other countries I can most cheaply take the train to from Budapest.
Houses! I’m looking at houses (well condos, but here that seems to mean a small house). I’ve already decided that I would sell a kidney for a gas hookup in the kitchen. And that somehow grading on a downward slope is really important. And most importantly that anyone who designs a galley kitchen should be set adrift on an ice floe. What are your dealmakers/breakers?Or good home design finds?
Is this what adulting feels like? Cause, it’s weird.
My “must have” list has gotten shorter and shorter the longer I’ve looked. My current list is within my price range, within my town’s public school system, and not smaller than my current apartment. I’ve been looking for a long time!
Ugh I HATE galley kitchens. I spend a lot of time in there; I don’t want to feel like I’m working on a ship, goddamit.
Right? And if I cook something strong smelling, I don’t need everything to smell like it forever.
Galley kitchens and otherwise tiny kitchens were invented for people like me. A kitchen is where I make tea and toast and plate restaurant takeout. One burner for the tea kettle, one cabinet for the wine glasses, one drawer for the spoons, and a microwave. Nothing else gets used.
A woman helping me move said, “I went to clean your oven for the next tenant, but you had already done it. When did you have time?” Um. It hadn’t been used in the year I lived there. No cleaning required.
If you fall in love with a house that doesn’t have a gas hookup, most plumbers will run a line from a gas furnace to your oven space. It’s not cheap, but it’s possible.
I really want to buy a house. I live in an older neighborhood with cute, small, craftsman homes that are reasonably priced. I might need to get a new job though, since saving money isn’t happening with my current (just above min.) salary.
Yes gas always forever. I used to hate galley kitchens, too, but then I moved to the UK, where they put washer/dryers in the kitchen and apparently build them using like, 1980s technology, because they’re all LOUD AS HELL. So now I feel pretty strongly about having a kitchen with a bunch of walls around it so I can shut the damn door when I’m trying to watch TV and clean my clothes at the same time.
This is such a weird thing to care about, but my first apartment out of college had ONE electricity outlet. And that was it. It looked like there were more, but it turns out that every other outlet in the apartment was part of a specially-designed extension cord that had been painted over so many times it felt like part of the wall. Whenever I used my hairdryer, the lights flickered. Now, the first thing I do in any place is scan the walls.
That’s not a weird thing to care about, it sounds like a sign of terrible, unsafe electrical problems!
We have two bedrooms and 2.5 baths. Meaning there is ALWAYS a toilet available somewhere in our condo. I can not over-emphasize how great this is.
BUT, we don’t have central heat. We have baseboards in the bedrooms and no heat sources at all in the bathrooms. I guess the theory is that they don’t need to be heated since the condo is fairly small and an interior unit, but still. The next house will have central heat. Baseboards are stupid and restrict how you can use your floor space.
I am the exact opposite. You can pry my regular old coil electric stove from my cold dead hands.
There’s a lid for every pot. Even if you are putting those pots on the subpar stove
Ours is electric, glass top. Which I am sure is horrifying to the “real cooks” here, but takes literally 15 seconds to clean.
So. Gas hookups in the kitchen were actually a 100% Must-Have for us, and then we bought a house with electric. It turns out, though, that since there was natural gas to the house for heating, it was a VERY easy and VERY inexpensive visit from a competent plumber to get a gas line run to the kitchen–seriously, our guy came out to look at it, mentally measured, estimated $180, and charged us $120. I think it took him 15 minutes to do the work.
Good to know. Most places here have oil heat, but if I snag a gas one then cooking wiht fire it will be.
We might finally have someone who wants to adopt Roxanne, our foster dog. Fingers crossed they decide to take her. They sound perfect for her. She is so sweet, and I wish we could keep her, but we can’t. I hope she finally gets her forever home.
I have dropped and broken TWO touchscreen devices in a month. 1) My work laptop, which is being repaired 2) My brand fucking new tablet, which is broken, unrepairable and not covered for physical damage under it’s warranty. It was 2 weeks old.
ALSO, we are renovating my bathroom. Plaster! Surprising metal lath! Bath surrounds! New fixtures and things! I’m exited, but also OMG, it’s kinda stressful and I just want a shower again.
Lastly, parenting teenagers. Ugh. Top of my wishlist: that he would stop skipping school.
as a teenager who skipped school so much she was nearly booted: oops.
probably nothing would have stopped me, honestly. i was skipping so much (and not doing homework) that i was failing my classes. the only thing that got my ass into gear was when i realized i wasn’t going to graduate, and then i spent my senior year taking a bunch of online courses alongside my regular course material.
it worked out, i went to community college to repair my academic record, and then i ended up graduating from the dean’s list at the top public university in the country, and somewhere along the line, my relationship with my parents vastly improved, so…there’s hope?
Thank you. Hope is always welcome. 🙂
I was also a teenager who skipped so much high school I was nearly booted. I had a fine relationship to my self/parents/friends, but just hated school! I also went to CC to repair my record, ended up at a great uni, and was the top funded graduate student the year I entered grad school. I also was awarded a SSHRC grant, which is a big deal Canadian scholarship. I have a great (yet unrelated career) and can function totally normally! I’m Canadian, so some of the discourse around community college/university is different here, but like yeah_elle says, HS isn’t the end of the world! Can you look at distance/alternative HS options? I wish I had done that, but am overall happy with how things turned out. When I tell people now about my teenage flail, no one even believes me.
Ah, thank you! We’re in Ontario, and definitely looking into trades and college rather than the assumed course of university. Lots of examining my unexamined biases around ‘success’ and academics, oh my.
Our alt school options are a little limited, but we’ve been looking at them too. Hell, I’d homeschool him if I thought it would work.
Oh good! There are so many people who the fast track from high school to any post-sec don’t work for, and I wish that was better understood! I took almost three years off after HS to travel and work internationally, and that experience has been so valuable. I think it let me enter uni with a host of real world experience that gave me an edge. On the other side, my brother went into the bush, with zero post-sec, and has a really interesting career he loves, a bunch of property, and the ability to have been on surfing safari for the last four months. The world takes all kinds!
Another skipper here! I was impossible to keep in school, right until I got to college and found subjects that I loved and took classes from people I thought were fascinating. For me the mandatory attendance policies and all the rules were what was stifling, and as soon as I got out of that environment, it cleared right up.
Also, it took me a lot of years to figure out, but one of the reasons I was skipping so much was undiagnosed social anxiety stuff. I wish I’d gone to a counselor sooner, because that might’ve helped. Or I would have been a hardheaded teenager about it, which is probably more likely.
If you can afford it, there are some private online ‘schools’ that offer Ontario credits, if that would work for him. (This one — https://canadaeschool.ca/ — is the one my daughter’s guidance counsellor suggested. She wanted to take an extra class next year online and her principal is very obstructive towards students who want to do anything outside of the norm, so she won’t approve things that only she can okay.)
Talk to me about the bathroom reno? Dragging my feet is very much a lifestyle for me, but the bathroom in my house is gross and needs to go and I can’t trust myself to actually be thorough and correct with the work, but the money to have it done is terrifying. Are you DIYing it? There is black…gunk falling out of the seams of the weird acrylic surround, and there isn’t a single tile on the floor that is actually square with the one next to it. I started looking it at one day, sort of disbelievingly, like “Ha, that tile is way out of whack. Yikes, that one too…and that one. Oh, for god’s sake.” Despite washing the walls there is still nicotine seeping out of them, and it’s just gross. And I’m pretty sure there’s still cat pee under the floor in the downstairs powder room, and that is also gross. We had to take up large sections of floor and sand joists and paint odor-killing primer in the adjacent room, and the subfloor and floor that was cut out against the wall also go under the powder room, and there is definitely a smell. This is an old house, so the powder room was at some recent point shoe-horned into a corner of the tiny kitchen, and the odor sometimes wafts into the kitchen.
Yikes, just writing that out makes me realize it’s time to call the contractor.
So…. I wanted to replace the bathroom vanity, because it is too big and close to the door, and I can barely get in and out of the room. So the boyfriend says: Well, if we do that, there will be an ugly footprint left on the already ugly vinyl floor, so we should replace that, and if we are replacing the floor that means pulling out the toilet and if it’s out, let’s put a new one in now rather than later and hey, if we’re pulling all that out, let’s paint before putting the new floor in and if everything else is new the old, cracked, shabby salvaged tub surround should be replaced as well.
ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT WARNING KLAXON
So, okay, it still feels do-able, in terms of skill levels and cost and time (it is the ONLY bathroom in my house, but bf lives nearby in his own apartment).
And then when I peeled back the old surround, part of the plaster wall crumbled into the tub. 🙁 🙁
My dad (hooray for dads!!) came yesterday and repaired the plaster walls, and I’m hoping to paint and install the new tub surround this weekend. Floor, toilet and vanity next weekend.
I’m a little worried about the subfloor, but if we have to replace it, we will.
You are so much braver than I am! I am envious of your attitude and energy. Although I kind of want to smash up the floor myself, I’m pretty sure I’ll need professionals because I noticed the other day that there is at least a two inch layer of cement or concrete that the tiles were tiled atop, and who knows what else beneath it. I just keep reminding myself we got the house cheaper BECAUSE there was work to do, so just freaking do it already. I was not raised with this attitude of, “Fix this now because we are worth living in a decent place!” Rather, with two undiagnosed-ADD parents, it was more, “Yikes, this needs doing. Maybe ten years from now we’ll get to it.” It’s a hard mindset to shift.
Best of luck and post pictures when you’re done!
I just have vinyl on top of plywood. IDK if there in tile hiding somewhere underneath, or it was previously ripped out? Most of the house has hardwood (built in 1925).
I so empathize with the default mode of just living with things rather than fixing them. And of getting partway through. I repainted half my kitchen cupboards last summer. And, uh. The other half? Well. Just don’t look up.
So, amongst all the actual physical renovation work, this is a pretty big relationship learning curve, between someone who is set to: Do All The Things Correctly and Meh, Good Enough.
LOL, like trips to IKEA and Home Depot, home renovations really test the strength of a relationship. We always fight at Home Depot, because he is buying too much shit that he won’t keep organized (BECAUSE I MARRIED A MAN WITH ADD AS WELL WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??) and I have to be the bad guy about it.
Did you…. marry me? There’s just so many good things to buy at Home Depot? I mean, I know I went for an extra tub of Big Hole Repair Stipple, but look, there’s a garden sprinkler on sale, and I could use an extra thing of CLR and oh, pansies!
Also, yesterday involved many trips into the basement digging through my utterly disorganized tools and home repair stuff. My mom: “I can’t believe you had all that stuff hidden away.” Me: “Well, I am my father’s daughter”
You should check on ifixit.com, you might be able to repair your tablet yourself.
Thank you! I will look into that.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad an idea would it be to snip off a couple of skin tags and moles with cuticle scissors? My necklaces and shirt collars rub against them and it hurts. They are hanging on by a mere thread. I don’t think it would be worth it to make a doctor’s appointment and take time off work for this, especially since the one time I did have skin tags removed by a doctor, all he did was snip them off with cuticle scissors after jabbing me in the neck with a needle “for the pain.” Can snipping off a tiny bit of skin really hurt more than a needle to the neck when you are someone with a phobia of needles?
I have done this, and it hurt WAY more than I would have thought (I’m not a wuss! I promise!). And it bled a lot. I did feel pretty tough afterwards, however, and it healed just fine.
My mother-in-law also reports a lot of bleeding! I’m not a big anatomy person or anything, but wouldn’t there have to be fairly large vessels to feed them? Otherwise they couldn’t grow and live in that pokey-out way? But yeah, I’ve never heard of anyone being permanently injured.
I suppose there would also be burning them! O_O
I once accidentally removed a skin tag – I was prodding at it and pinched it with my sharp thumbnail and it just came off. Past the initial sting of pain, it didn’t really hurt, and I got this weird endorphin rush where I was like YEAHHHHH! I HAD THIS THING GROWING OUT OF MY BODY THAT I DIDN’T WANT AND I JUST RIPPED IT THE HELL OFF! I CAN DO ANYTHING IN THE WORLD! So maybe it would work out okay if I actually did it deliberately?
I’ve done it with fingernail clippers.
I am physically writhing at my desk just reading this.
it’s turning you on, huh?
I mean, I come from a farm family, and we have always been horribly fond of home surgery (clipping stuff, lancing stuff, etc.). Just be careful and sanitize stuff first, and be prepared for some bleeding. You’ll be fine. (disclaimer: not a doctor, not medical advice, etc.)
IF you end up doing it, disinfect the shit out of the scissors.
Yes! I hosed myself, the scissors, and the bathroom down with rubbing alcohol.
My mother does this all the time with her skin tags, it’s practically part of her morning routine. Be prepared with some tissues to staunch bleeding but otherwise for go it!
Probably fine, I once tore off a wart with my fingernails? I also am terrified of needles.
I thought you could tie them off with sewing thread or something and they would wither and die? I don’t know, though, I’ve never gotten one (and thank god, as I have a terrible love of picking at things).
the thread thing totally works. i would recommend having someone else to do the tying for you. it needs to be tied off tightly and that part does hurt a bit more than i could actually do to myself. tie it off, slap a band-aid over it, and try to forget about it. mine took about a week to give up and die. YMMV.
You can remove them with apple cider vinegar! I promise you I’m not a hippie lunatic and I have successfully done this myself. You just rub it with something rough (like a nail file), cover the surrounding skin with vaseline and then put an ACV-soaked cotton pad on it, secured with a bandage or tape. Do this like once a day (I did it overnight) for a 3-4 days, until it dries up like a scab, and then just treat it like a scab until it shrivels up and falls off. I have teeny scars and it barely hurt.
I dunno about the skin tags but I would def see a doctor for the moles. They can go kind of deep (moles have “roots”) and removing them requires either shaving them off with a sharp blade or excising them with a scalpel, both of which need skill to do and result in a ton of bleeding. Plus, it’s always good to have removed moles biopsied to make sure they’re not dangerous!
I cut mine off with fingernail clippers and it barely hurt (though did bleed a lot as others said). I was so glad afterwards that I did it! I had tried the vinegar method and tying floss around it to starve it of air, etc. and none of that worked/it was way more painful and annoying than just cutting it off. I say go for it.
http://www1.shoppersdrugmart.ca/en/health-and-pha…
This is probably a better idea. I think it numbs the area too.
FANFIC THREAD
What are you reading, what are you writing, what recs are you looking for?
I’m back on the Steve/Darcy train…it’s where I always relapse to…
i have been reading an assorted amount of musketeers fic, basically. my favourite is about grace – http://archiveofourown.org/works/1453363 – which is set pre-series, and it’s just. perfect.
i haven’t been writing anything, which is frustrating, as i have a lot of ideas. i kind of want to write something about aramis after s2 of the musketeers… and something about daredevil and violence (probably matt/claire)… and also something about sirius/remus that i’ve been planning out in my head for a while. i’m finding it very difficult to get started.
any recs for anything that i’ve mentioned (or marvel in general) would be gratefully received!!
Here for Olicity recs
My fave new writer in the due South fandom put up part of a new story this week. It’s so nice when someone discovers an old-but-not-dead fandom and the die-hards who’re still around dance with joy!
The Burgomaster and I are finishing up a re-watch of the Harry Potter movies tonight, so I think I’m gonna re-read resonant’s Transfigurations as a palate-cleanser (better than the actual books, folks, no kidding).
I am, somewhat embarrassingly, re-re-re-re-reading The Least of All Possible Mistakes. I can’t quit you, Mystrade.
I’m actually not sure how many times I’ve read that fic now. Sometimes I just go back and re-read my favorite sections.
Same
Bookmarked, thanks.
I don’t think it’s lacked an open browser tab on phone, desktop, and iPad since we first all discussed it.
I’ve been reading all of dirgewithoutmusic’s HP fics. They’re all so good!
Yes! I just finished her Andromeda Tonks fic a few days ago and I’m in awe!
OKAY THO, I just read World Ain’t Ready and was utterly delighted! Les Mis fake dating modern day high school AUs are my jam, I guess
I read the last two chapters yesterday. So good!
I’m so sad it’s over, I loved every chapter of that fic.
Not too much this week, still all MCU for me (since AOS’s US release is looming and I am trying to avoid tumblr and still feed my obsession)– reading a copperbadge Steve/Clint fic, swapping mostly old Steve/Peggy recs with a friend on twitter.
Would love more Steve/Peggy recs if anyone has ’em! (Oooor Steve/Darcy. Or Steve/Bucky. Or Steve/whomever. Steeeeeve.)
One of my favorite Mycroft/Molly fics, The Space Beneath Our Clothes by kingaofthewoods, updated over at A03.
I have been watching Vikings and therefore going back to an old favorite, Patience, a Steady Hand, an Arthur/Eames Viking AU. It is my very favorite kind of fic: ridiculous Harlequin premise, fantastic characterization, slow burn angst with a happy ending.
I FUCKING LOVE THAT FIC OH MY GOD. You’re the only other person I know who’s read it.
Have you read the Steinway!verse series?
Oh, oh, oh.
Possibly my most favorite story ever.
It’s just…overwhelmingly good. I think I need to add that to the re-read list. For, like, today.
I ended up rereading it last night.
🙂
Omg, YES. Helenish is my queen. One of the only writers I’ll follow to ANY fandom, no matter how ridiculous.
Have you read any of her HP stuff? Her Draco/Neville forced marriage fic is so good I could scream.
I haven’t read it in… a month maybe? But “The Great Sex Olympics of 221B” is just crack to me. I can’t quit.
*moan-y text message alert*
Can’t stop the Dragon Age 2 fanfics. Fenders, why can’t I quit you?
“but then they do not arrive at their destination”
They’re with Admiral Archer’s prized beagle.
Beautiful Toasties, it has been a stressful few weeks at work but I wanted to contribute to today’s thread. So: astrology. I’ve gotten embarrassingly into astrology lately thanks to all the Tumblr memes. What are your signs? How do your moon signs interact with your sun signs? How does your sign interact with your partners’ and friends’?
I’m a Sag sun with Capricorn moon and knowing this has CHANGED MY LIFE. Somehow.
I’ve been studying astrology for nearly 13 years. It’s kind of just a silly hobby, but I do find it helpful, because it forces me to consider who I am and who I want to be.
I’m a Gemini sun, Cancer moon, Cancer rising. 🙂
Does anyone here wear garters and thigh-highs on the reg for non-sexytime purposes? I am a small-waisted but big-thighed girl who usually wears dresses and skirts to work since I have finally given up on ever finding dress pants that don’t give me sausage thighs or jam into my crotch. Lately I have also been pretty uncomfortable in regular tights even when I buy them larger than my actual size.
Does anyone have garter/hose recommendations? I have read that the Rago garter is good.
Also, I have a small bladder and have to pee a lot. Are the logistics on this going to work?
On the pee thing, I always got the advice to put underpants on OVER the garters, that way you can just pull them down like you normally would.
Seconded!
yep, i do this anyway for sexytime purposes because…it’s nice to keep the garters on.
Yes. In my grandmother’s words, “If you’re wearing shorts, they go on last.”
Erm, okay, it’s not letting me add a new comment, so I’ll just add to this one: I’ve worn stockings and garters since I was 15 because I could not get on a pair of pantyhose without putting my fingers through the thighs. I used to buy my stockings from the Hanes online outlet, but they’ve stopped carrying them (sob). I still have a couple packages left, but I’ll be interested in recommendations, myself. My last garter belt I bought from some old-lady underwear place. I don’t remember the name of the place, but it’s similar to the one you can get from Vermont Country Store. Not sexy, really, but so practical.
I used to wear garters a lot, especially when I was pregnant. IIRC last pregnancy I had to order online–a check of my email says I ordered this and another one that is no longer available.
And yes, you fasten the garters and then step into your underwear.
I used to, but I found them too complicated to do and undo, and felt that they were not really comfortable to wear all day in the office. But that may just have been the kind I had. Sock Dreams sells a few–I had some lightweight ones for hose and sock garters worn around the thigh (no good for me), but I didn’t try their serious hockey garter style.
I have the same issue with fitting dress pants to my absurd waist-hip ratio and finding tights uncomfortable. It’s not ideal, but I have two pairs of dress pants that fit and maybe three pairs of tights that are stretchy and comfortable enough to wear all day, which is just enough to rotate. It took me literal months to get that much together, so I’ll watch this thread with interest.
i don’t know about more utilitarian garters, but i’ve always had good experiences with nordstrom brand stockings. the tops don’t roll and they don’t run super easily. but the price on nice stockings always make me boggle, i can’t imagine buying enough to wear them on an everyday basis.
FWIW, companies do make thigh-highs that are supposed to stand up on their own! (I think, at least! Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all these years…) I used the Hanes/Berkshire ones.
I have the Rago waist cincher and it’s very good. Way more comfortable than you’d think something like that would be. I don’t know about regular garter belts from them, but based on what I’ve got I’m assuming they’d be pretty good quality.
No get a garter belt that goes around your waist and you can pull your underwear down separately of that. I got the $12 one at sock dreams and it’s so cute and good.
Seconding Sock Dreams. I get my garter belts from them and my cold-weather stockings – I haven’t tried any of their warm-weather ones yet.
Fun tip – if you have regular stockings that don’t fit quite right (e.g. they’re too long in the leg or w/e) you can just snip the legs off and use them as thigh-highs with a garter. I find that they stay in the garter belt better than some thigh-highs that were thigh-highs from the start.
Yes to everyone recommending SockDreams. Also, if you wear a short-ish slip or long-ish boyshort undies, you can just buy 4 or 6 garter clips and clip your stockings to the hem of your slip or leg openings of your underwear. As long as the stockings are either quite lightweight _or_ heavy but really tight-fitting to your leg (so they don’t slip down drastically when you walk) it’s a really good way to attach them, and you don’t have to fuss with a garter belt of any kind. Also, if they’re clipped to your underwear, just be somewhat careful about how you are pulling them down to pee, and you can just leave them clipped on with no problem — and honestly, unclipping them/adjusting them/moving them around is so much less hassle than messing with most attached-to-garter-belt-garters.
If you want to give tights another go, I highly recommend the Foot Traffic Signature Cotton Tights (they have a footless version also) sold by SockDreams. They are amazing, their plus size is _very_ stretchy, and they are both highly thick/opaque but also really breathable. And — a huge plus for me — no control top. They’re spendy, but worth it.
Hey Toasties! First time posting in the open thread.
This week, I was thinking about records. I love the idea of a physical space in my house dedicated to music-listening, but… they’re so expensive, and I am not enough of an audiophile to justify the $200 to get this started as a hobby. But records are so hip right now that they’re all anyone is talking about. Do any of you guys have thoughts about a ‘listening to music’ shrine alternative? Just a really fancy speaker setup? Buy actual CDs of the albums I really like? Posters?
Honestly using a computer to play files is so practical. I would focus on getting some great speakers. I think it may be difficult to find CDs by a lot of non-major artists these days.
(Tapes are also have a resurgence…. you could try that, ha!)
EDIT: Also I recommend Band Camp. I have been buying music from them recently, and I really enjoy the profile page. It feels more like a special collection, kind of how it feels to have this stack of vinyl.
I love the Bandcamp idea! (Also tapes sounds kind of fun… maybe I’ll see if I can grab something at a garage sale??) The idea of having a ‘special collection’ is definitely why I haven’t gotten my mind off of vinyl lately, so I’ll definitely check it out.
I love Bandcamp too!
For speaker recommendations: I have a Logitech UE Miniboom, which is a portable Bluetooth speaker, and I love it. It charges via USB, has good heft for its size, and has great sound for a tiny speaker. I got it on sale for about $50-60.
That is a wonderful price. All the Bluetooth stuff I’ve seen is quite expensive, but it’s all done by quirky speaker companies, so maybe I should be looking at Logitech.
I’ve thought about this, but in a slightly different context – growing up, we were always surrounded by people’s reading and listening materials and you could stumble upon new things in their collections. I wonder how the next generations are going to have those same kinds of connections/”stumble upon” experiences when everything is stored in the cloud and used on personal electronic devices – I mean obviously there’s the internet, but that “Oh my mom had the entire Beatles collection so I got really into them” connection isn’t really there any more. I still own most of my cd’s but not the jewel cases, so I’m not going to have a nice little row of albums ever….
Thought exercise aside, I’d really like nice speakers and a set up that’s easy to connect to them. I don’t want to lug my laptop around to plug it in to a system, then unplug and move to a desk to get work done, etc etc. So probably some kind of wireless/bluetooth connection to a speaker system? I also have a few posters of bands I like I want to eventually put in whatever kind of rec room (do houses still do rec rooms?) there is in my as-yet-unknown future home.
I will talk to you about this for ages!
The semi-technical-term is “serendipitous discovery” and information professionals concern themselves a LOT about whether we’re depriving people of serendipity when we remove the “browsing” feature of physical items in arrangement. That said, arrangement (contrary to what the Library of Congress and Melvil Dewey would have you believe) is pretty fuckin’ arbitrary and it can totally be replicated in digital in a number of polyhierarchical facets with little to no work, as long as you know how to think in tech terms. Like, user-submitted tags are everywhere now, and you can use them all the time to discover connections you wouldn’t have made on your own, and often when people fuck them up and misuse them it kinda works out even better sometimes.
You’ll always be surrounded by the collections of your friends and family, always forced into interaction with them whether you want to or not. I post a lot of songs I’m listening to to social media because I want that exact thing to occur.
As for the original post, I own records, but fewer than 100, and only albums that I want in a legacy format — stuff that I’m going to be delighted to listen to forever. Everything else is digital, and I would never buy vinyl as first exposure. They are decor for sure, and I’m okay with that. (My record player was free, and so were my speakers, but my vintage stereo tuner was a really nice $50 find on cragislist.)
I post a lot of songs I’m listening to to social media because I want that exact thing to occur.
URL PLEASE.
Oh, well, golly. I’m allanaaaaaaa on twitter and I mostly post music and stuff about libraries.
And uh I have an 8tracks that could be better kempt: 8tracks.com/allana
Facebook wasn’t useful to me until I decided I was going to DJ it, since I wasn’t interested myself in reading about how my day was going. At LEAST one song every day as the first post, usually many more, in the best quality available, whether it be video or audio only. I’m only allowed to skip it if I’m out of town and away from my computer.
Also my own physical media isn’t in ANY damn kind of order aside from little islands of alphabetization from the previous decade. I don’t entirely take my work home with me.
I would listen to you talk about this for hours! My current avenue for serendipitous discovery is 8tracks, since it limits you from skipping too many songs and doesn’t sort things super well.
I think that if I were to acquire a record player for free, and it plugged into my existing speakers, I might pick up the habit. Starting from scratch is pricey, though.
I love stumbling on things on people’s bookshelves! And it’s very interesting for me to see what their collection says about them as a person (usually it at least hints at what classes they took in college…)
I have some decent speakers right now but they’re basically wired to my desk (I have a desktop). I’ve been thinking about just using headphones with my computer and moving the speakers somewhere sexy—using bluetooth sounds like a great idea.
Both my fiance and our roommate love records, and it burns me up how much square footage we pay for to house those things.
Give me rdio or give me death (I also buy albums I like to support the artists, but not physically, because I hate stuff). Really nice speakers are awesome, though.
Yeah, I’ve been on a minimizing kick lately, throwing out books/clothes/etc that I realized I don’t use anymore, and it seems counter-productive to fill up the newly-found space with another hobby or five. But I do love physical stuff, so the wanting is strong… focusing on speakers might be the best way to deal with that.
If you love sound, you really can’t go wrong with investing in good speakers. Everything else you can kind of skimp a little bit, but good speakers, man…
I have everything connected to my home theater receiver and surround speakers.
What system do you have? I think my next big purchase (after NZ trip) will be a sound system.
I’ve had the speakers for almost sixteen years from an RCA set (I tried replacing them once but the new plastic ones weren’t as good as these old wooden jobbies it seems) but the receiver is a Yamaha. I love the “5 channel stereo” setting Yamaha offers (maintains left and right separation but uses all five speakers) and I’m able to have six things plugged into it.
It’s good stuff and not crazy pricey.
I’m kind of an audiophile, but have never had room for an LP collection. I make do with CDs (if I really love something, I insist on owning an actual physical copy of it just in case), killer speakers (Martin Logan speakers with two Polk Audio Pro subwoofers), and a good receiver. The Burgomaster recently bought me a 4TB hard drive computer so I could copy over all my CDs in lossless format to a more accessible format.
I have been known to spend an entire day listening to every single album by certain artists. Nothing else, just sitting and listening. So yes, I am HERE FOR YOU and your listening shrine.
Oh man, I hadn’t heard of Martin Logan before, and I just spent the last twenty minutes browsing their website and sighing.
I do like to pick and choose and shuffle sometimes, but there are days that you just want to sit down and methodically enjoy one artist, album by album. You appreciate so much more that way!
I’m very lucky. A friend of mine worked for Martin Logan and bought some at employee rates. Years later he moved and needed money, so I got them for a steal. They’re the same style as the ones on the set of Friends in Chandler and Joey’s apartment. =D
What are your faves to marathon-listen? Mine are Muse and Peter Gabriel. I’ve done a Led Zep marathon a couple times, too!
Peter Gabriel would make me cry, I think… although I just got into Sufjan Stevens, and explored his discography a few weeks ago, so maybe I would enjoy that 😛
Elton John, Queen, and the Eagles are my go-tos. Shorter discographies, but I’m still really into them: Janelle Monae and Corinne Bailey Rae.
“copy over all my CDs in lossless format”
I respect your devotion to high fidelity. And I envy your drive space.
New Egg, I’m tellin’ ya.
My take is go for it! Having a space dedicated to music is such a wonderful thing, and it can be as fancy or simple as you’d like. For me it’s laptop + speakers for spotify type streaming listening, and a hand-me-down record player that I’ve had since I was a child and a record collection that doesn’t take up more than 2 milk crates. I buy new albums at the rate of about 1 per year, so I may have to expand into another milk crate, but not too soon.
As far as the expense of records, the systems might be spendy because of the popularity, but maybe you could get a used one for not too much. Mine is a terrible weird monstrosity that I couldn’t get more than $15 for if I tried to sell it, and there must be a lot of those floating around. From there, it’s expensive if you want current albums and laughably cheap if you are OK with a bunch of stuff from the 70s/80s. There’s a twenty five cent bin at my local store that has yielded some treasures.
But however you do it, yes to dedicated music space!
What kind of record player do you have? I’d like to look into used stuff but I’m worried about buying something that’s close to wearing down, since I hear that it’s pretty pricey to replace parts on an old player.
And I mean, the 70s/80s had some great music! It’d be a great place to start a collection.
I had a great time in Colorado where it was beautiful and warm, and not this shitty weather we seem to be having in the Northeast. GO AWAY WINTER. I HATE YOU.
In other news, I finally closed out my UTMA account my parents opened for me a million years ago, have put some in an IRA, paid of a credit card with some, and the rest will stay in my savings account. Look at me! Making responsible decisions about my future! What Adult things have you guys done lately?
My husband and I bought a new vacuum a couple weeks ago. From a vacuum store and everything. It replaced an 11 year old vacuum that was purchased because it was the cheapest bagless vacuum in Target. This new vacuum sucks so much better! We’ve been unreasonably excited about our new vacuum and then realizing how old and boring this makes us.
We are responsibly holding on to our tax return until my freelancer husband signs a few more contracts for upcoming work and then it will be deposited into our IRA.
This is the first time we’ve gotten a refund since we were students (lo those 6 years ago) but the first thing I thought when I realized we were getting one, after “did our tax guy f*ck up?”, was WE GET TO SAVE FOR RETIREMENT!
ugh, adulting.
Ok guys… just to summarize:
– won the gold in my division at the pole dance competition last weekend. I am now technically “pro” if I compete again within this sporting organization, which – I feel woefully unprepared for, but who knows what another year will bring!
– accepted a (fantastic, lucrative, experience-rich) job across the country, and was completely alarmed about the decision, but am now feeling extremely stoked and excited. The Boo is finding things in the new town to be excited about himself, without any encouragement from me, and is also feeling stoked about the move. My heart may have exploded with love for him a few dozen times this week, for all his support and maturity and general all around awesomeness and appeal.
Everyone’s input and support as I struggled with the moving decision was OUTSTANDING. the Toast community nails it again. <3
THANK YOU!!!
Great job!! On both counts! I hope your move is minimally painful (because there’s no such thing as a painless move) and that you start loving your new city right away! It’s very vicariously exciting!
both of these things are totally badass! congratulations!
I am going to the Ren Faire this weekend and i went to Goodwill and I bought things and I cut things and with a belt they look Rather Good. Excited for friends and drinking and costumes and drinking with friends while in costumes ^_^
Hi Toast!
I just want to say thank you to everyone who replied to my slightly hysterical question about relationship counselling on the open thread last week. You were all so awesome and supportive… and I may have gotten a little anxious and overwhelmed and so didn’t reply to your lovely messages.
For the record, ex (an he is now officially an ex, somewhere in all the hysterics he managed to find time to change our relationship status on facebook I DON’T EVEN KNOW) and I won’t be pursuing counselling. The majority of our conversations this week have been via text and email, and having things written down has just made it incredibly clear how (intentionally or unintentionally) manipulative and gaslighty he has been, and just how little he respects me. (Apparently I am lowballing him on the estimate of the house’s value so I can buy him out for cheap, and apparently not immediately cancelling the gas and electricity – THAT HE TOLD ME NOT TO CHANGE AND IS IN HIS NAME SO I COULN’T ANYWAY – is me trying to destroy his credit rating, just like his incredibly abusive father did to his mother 20 years ago, and therefore she is bawling her eyes out at the memory and LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO MY MOTHER YOU AWFUL EMPATHY-DEFICIENT MONSTER.) It’s gotten to the point where his accusations and contradictions (“why is the mortgage payment coming from my savings account that I insisted it come from! Change it!” “Okay, sign this form and it will come from my account instead” “YOU KNOW I’M TOO FRAGILE TO COMPREHEND FORMS YOU’RE TRYING TO SCREW ME OVER”) have gone all the way through gut-wrenching and come out as morbidly hilarious.
On the upside, I just got approved for an adorable little apartment will let me take my cats and is halfway between my work and my best friend’s house! My Dad flew in to help me pack up the house and dispense fatherly advice about household goods and legal things and also maybe get a bit teary anytime I started doubting whether I was actually a good person! I have actually been struggling to find the time to see all the friends that would like to catch up with me to offer support/a place to stay/help moving! Sure, there’s all sorts of guilt about leaving and shame that I stayed so long and anxiousness about the future and horror that someone I loved for 11 years could think those things about me, and crying over tv shows we watched together, but I’m also excited about what the next stage will be.
So glad everything is turning out for the better. Hooray for loving fathers!
*super hugs*!!!!! Your dad sounds amazing, and you sound like you’re on a great path!
Thank you! I feel like I should also mention that my mum was up here for the first week and helped me hold it together when the guilt at hurting someone I loved meant I just wanted to run straight back home and pretend it never happened. She also took me to a lot of open inspections so I could start imagining what my post-relationship life would look like (and also because she loves looking at other people’s houses). Dad tagged in (they’ve been divorced for 20 years, but in a functional way) when she had to go home At first I was kind of surprised that they thought it was a big enough deal to both come across the country for so long, but now that I’m out I can see how screwed up the relationship was, and how desperate they’ve been for me to get out.
Aw, love both your parents! It’s so nice they can be there together for you at the same time.
You are awesome, and your parents are awesome. Congratulations on breaking free. 🙂
Good work! I am impressed you’re on the excited about the future bit already, that is awesome. Flat sounds great too!
It helps that he’s been such a cock. The first week was anger with regular doses of ‘I’ve known for 10 years you’re the only girl I could ever love and trust’ and ‘let’s fill our backyard with roses and spend 6 hours trying to braid our [hypothetical since he said I’m too crazy to have children] daughter’s hair” (crying just typing that) and man I wanted it so badly. The second week has been a lot of accusations with a side order of you’re a terrible human being and unreasonable property settlement demands, which is much easier to handle from an emotional standpoint.
yeeeeeeaaaaaaah… fuck that guy. so glad you’re out of that situation.
a little apartment that you and your cat can have all to yourselves sounds as many percentage points better as it is possible for things to be better.
Ugh I’m sorry he is making this so much harder for you but I think you will be in a better place someday soon and your shoulders can come down from around your ears. <3
Shoulders coming down from the ears is a great way to put it. I was thimking about something that I was worried about today, and then I remembered that I didn’t have to include his reaction in my thoughts and it suddnely became so much less stressful. The realisation that my fuck ups are now my fuck ups for me to come to terms with, not my fuckup to deal with AND THEN deal with his view of my fuck up is just so liberating.
So, so glad you’re getting away from that situation. Yay Dad! Yay a new awesome home for you and your cats!
Ah this is so reminiscent of my break-up last summer. The “morbidly hilarious” aspect of the whole thing made healing and moving on incredibly easy. I wish you the best, sounds like you’re SO much better off!!! Congratulations!
I’d say you’ve made a very good decision, and your new apartment sounds perfect.
My parents used to sing me “Skinnamarink” to me all the time when I was little! I’d forgotten the second part of it, so now I’m riding waves of nostalgia.
i just finished jonathan strange and mr norrell. WHAT A BOOK!!! kind of worried that i will never like something this much again. does anyone want to cry about it with me?? or recommend me something else AMAZING and magical?? aagghhh
I just checked out the audiobook. I had an abortive attempt at reading it many years ago.
I keep looking at it when my audible credit arrives but then I always choose something that isn’t 32 hours long. Please let me know if it’s good though!
I hear excellent things about it but (1) the audiobook narrator is a dude, but the book narrator isn’t, so I would find that really distracting and (2) IIRC there’s something sub-optimal about the way it handles footnotes, though granted that was always going to be an issue with this book.
Speaking of notes, I’ve gotta finish “The Return Of The King” first (it’s taken me over a year to FINALLY “read” the whole story) and I don’t know how electrifying Rob Inglis is going to be reading the appendix.
Also Jenny Sterlin is great at reading the Mary Russell books, I’m pissed that my library stopped buying the audios a couple of titles back.
Oh no, do they really make him read ALL the appendices! Because there is in fact plot-critical information in there that I still don’t understand while JRRT didn’t put _in the text_ (Aragorn’s backstory! It was the thing that I found least explicable during the Tor.com reread), and there’s a bunch of great story-like bits, but also the calendars and family trees and pronunication guides . . . ?!
Don’t know quite how much they cover. Yeah, OPENING the whole thing with hobbit genealogy is what ground my reading to a halt years ago.
People should totally start with Chapter 1. (New Lord of the Rings readers: start with chapter 1! Don’t read any of the stuff before it!)
Do report back if you make it through, I’m very curious now!
I love the paper book and the audiobook. One thing I really love about the audiobook is that the notes are read as they appear in the text, not at the end of the chapters. I listened to it at work, and was so, so sad when it ended.
Good, a positive vote. It’s next to me at my desk here at work. Big ol’ hulk intimidating me.
Um, just letting you know that the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell BBC mini-series starts next month!!!!
i know, this is what prompted me to finally read it! i saw the first two episodes at the BFI last week and they’re AMAZING.
AHH! I’m jealous! But I’m glad to hear it’s great because I cannot wait.
Ooh, is it next month?? The website just says 2015. I cannot wait!
I loved that book so much. And good news! The tv mini-series starts airing next month and is apparently very faithful. I’m excited.
Have you read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern? It’s beautiful and magical and I would like to live inside of it.
yeah i’ve seen the first two episodes and i LOVE THEM so i am very, very excited to see the rest. why isn’t it on now!!!!
i haven’t — i was interested when it came out but i was suspicious because the marketing was so good. which isn’t a great reason to be suspicious, i’m aware. i should order it in at the library.
I avoided it for the same reason until my sister-in-law gifted it to me and told me I HAD to read it and she was right.
same here, and I loved it! It definitely required some “ok, don’t think too hard, just enjoy,” but it was so beautifully written that that was easy to do.
I’m currently reading A Stranger In Olondria which reminds me of Night Circus in its super lush, sensual descriptions, like, you know how people’s clothing feels and how the food smells. Having grown up on Redwall I can appreciate a good description of food.
I’d second that. It’s a very different style of writing–all very pretty surfaces and not so much of the faux historical footnoting–but very magical and enjoyable.
That’s true.
For magic + historical fiction, I really enjoyed Marie Brennan’s Onyx Court series, which follows faeries living in London from the time of Elizabeth I (first book) to Victoria (4th book)
I love it so much I wrote thousands of words about it!
Did you know that the BBC is apparently putting the finishing touches on an adaptation, hopefully to air very soon?
have seen the first two episodes and they’re amazing (i went to a preview at the BFI – the reason i finished reading it now is that i wanted it all done before the rest air).
i will read this now! thank you! i’m excited. it’s all i want to think/talk about.
!!!!!
SO. JEALOUS.
I still don’t even know if BBC America is going to air them simultaneous!
I’m so glad to hear they were good, it seems like such a hard thing to do but so rewarding if they get it right.
The had a preview for it during Orphan Black last week, so I assume they’ll be airing it
Yup, I just don’t know if it will be at the same time as the BBC in the UK or if I will have to resort to . . . other means . . . to see it timely!
The Golem and The Jinni. Nowhere near as much magic, but it was definitely amazing.
A thousand times yes.
It’s not strictly fantasy, but I would recommend Neil Stephenson’s stuff (especially Diamond Age!). It’s “cyberpunk”ish, but the main thing is that he takes his time building these incredible worlds of the future (which are actually very probable), and inhabits them with strongly written characters. It’s magic and fantasy in its own way!
I love all Stephenson’s work so much. Probably the most ‘fantasyish’ though really it’s historical fiction is the Baroque Cycle, which I liked a lot (basically covers the history of Newton and Liebniz but fictionally).
I have just started rereading it! I am hoping that knowing how brilliant it is will help me plough on through the beginning – it took me about four goes to get more than 100 pages in the first time. God bless kindles though, part of the reason it took so long the first time was that I could only read it in bed as I couldn’t hold it up without killing my wrists!
Maybe try American Gods by Neil Gaiman? It also creates a world of magic in a world very much like our real world. I’ve read it 3 or 4 times.
HELLO BOOK TWIN, I just finished it yesterday! I’ve been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to type an eloquent comment about how much I loved it, but I just… loved it. I kept having to pause in the middle of my reading to marvel at how beautiful certain sentences were, how fantastic the imagination, and how much I was enjoying it in general. It was an experience I haven’t had in a long time.
TOASTS. I think MrChouffe got a job. There is a collective sighing of relief in the house.
<WILD APPLAUSE AND SHRIEKS OF CONGRATULATIONS>
THANK YOU. This is a huge weight off.
WootWoot!!
Fuckin’ A right!!! Congratulations! Here’s to much less stress in your future.
ALSO I got irrationally irritated this morning because I have a friend who is studying her PhD in history and posted a snotty status about hating recreational historians for being in archives, and like….hey, you realize that people you enjoy, LIKE ME, are recreational historians because we have bills to pay and the PhD track is not one for everyone?????? Goddamn.
That’s a little too Jocasta Nu for me. Yeah, I’d be annoyed too.
As a tenure-track history professor (now complete with book contract!), I have to say that your friend is either super-insecure, or kind of a bitch. I personally don’t mind genealogists, journalists, or amateur historians in the archives at all. It’s a goddamn reading room! Everybody’s quiet! I kind of love it when enthusiastic people ask me about the crazy medieval and early modern documents I’m reading. It makes me feel ever-so-slightly less like I’m toiling in obscurity.
Ugh, thank you. I have my goddamn Masters, but reading stuff like that makes me feel horribly inadequate, but like…Why NOT have more people? More people means more money for the archives! Encourage that!
Yes exactly! I may have just finished designing and submitting to my Uni. a course that will hopefully get some undergrads into the archives, so I am firmly on your side.
I would also point out to your friend that archives were originally conceived for lawyers and tax men and other governmental agents. They were never fully the property of academic historians, nor should they be. HISTORY BELONGS TO EVERYBODY!
ALSO I love to talk to people outside the academy who are interested in my work, because they often shake up my paradigms. The genesis for my second book project was an offhand comment I heard from a flea market vendor.
Folks like were my bete noire when I was a wee history student. Oh, if you aren’t already deeply knowledgeable about the highly specific and obscure thing I’m studying I’ll turn up my nose at you, but if you’re trying to get knowledgeable I’ll dismiss whatever you’re reading as pop history… barf. If you’re truly passionate about history wouldn’t you want everyone to have the opportunity to experience it?
You would think!!! But there are some people who love the idea of No One Is as Good As Me.
Seconding bocadelperro above. I even loved the genealogy folks who *weren’t* quiet… some of my fondest memories of researching my first book are of reading documents while half-overhearing someone working on their family histories.
See also Matt Houlbrook’s blog, which quotes the evergreen Raphael Samuel. “‘If history was thought of as an activity rather than a profession’, notes the historian Raphael Samuel, ‘then the number of its practitioners would be legion’. History is a common project, and the public future of the past is in the hands of all of its practitioners.” https://mbsbham.wordpress.com/responding-to-the-h…
Toastfolk! What webcomics does everyone read? What are everyone’s favorites?
I used to read several dozen religiously, but now the only currently updating ones I keep up with are xkcd, Gunnerkrigg Court, and Homestuck. And it has been an extremely emotional month for Gunnerkrigg Court *and* an emotional week for Homestuck, but with completely different emotions.
She may be too modest to post it, but I will – written by a ‘Pinner/Toastie, adorable art and it’s witty as fuck: saybrennana.com
My regulars are (most of this are pretty one-off not serial stories):
XKCD
Non-Adventures of Wonderalla
Oglaf (NSFW usually)
Cat and Girl
Wondermark
Nedroid Picture Diary
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
The Oatmeal
Please Listen to Me
Hark, A Vagrant
I like Scary Go Round, Dumbing of Age, and also this crazy one called Kill Six Billion Demons (that one only updates once a week, if that, but it’s pretty bonkers)
I had to stop reading Gunnerkrigg this month, I’ll wait until this storyline is done and then go catch up. Too stressful :/
I love everything John Allison does, and the current Bad Machinery plot is really tickling my fancy because it is about young girls who love science. In the last couple strips, they encounter sexism, but it’s very funny and they handle it well, it’s not like a “tragic backstory, girls beaten down!” thing at all.
I can’t blame you at all. For a couple of weeks there, every update, I’d go, “Okay, that was horrific, but surely it can’t get worse” and then it would get worse!!
Thank you for reminding me that Bad Machinery exists! I haven’t looked at it in at least six months, but I love it whenever I remember to read it.
I’m with you re: Gunnerkrigg. I trust that the storyline will resolve in a satisfying way eventually, but until then it’s just a dose of incredible stress every time I check.
Oh goodness. I normally binge it a couple of months worth at a time as I am thoroughly impatient, but now I am not sure I want to catch up!
You definitely will want to catch up eventually, but now is NOT the time, because you will join us in the game of “oh help every page is a cliffhanger.”
Awkward Zombie and Chaos Life!
Chaos Life is awesome! I got to see the authors at ECCC and bought unicorn pins from them, they are super cool.
Going to plug Anna Galactic, which in addition to being funny and awesome, is written and drawn by an actual IRL friend of mine. I make him tell me stories about all the other webcomics he knows. It is delightful.
Another thumbs up for Scary Go Round (it amazes me to think of how many directions it’s gone in during the last 6 years)
Also Questionable Content, which is a slice-of-life with lots of queer representation (though it’s by no means a “queer” story). You have to be ready to do some serious archive diving if you want to be all caught up, though. It’s been going since about 2003.
Digger by Ursula Vernon is great, if you like talking animals and dead gods and fantasy universes (which I do). It’s complete, so you can binge read it, or you can buy it in print.
I binge read it last year, binge read it again three months later, and bought the omnibus so I can force everyone I know to read it. <3
It’s finished now, but if you want something to read all at once check out The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal: tjandamal.com
I’m also loving Check Please: omgcheckplease.tumblr.com
I was coming to rec Check Please! My love for that comic can barely be contained. The success of the kickstarter this week has filled me with great joy, mostly because I’m glad the author is getting so rewarded for her work.
yoooo Check Please! I love it, I gave some money to the kickstarter because I want more!
I read the first chapter of Stand Still, Stay Silent (Nordic and post-apocalyptic, two of my favorite things) when the gorgeous Indo-European and Finno-Ugric tree illustration from it was being passed around, and have been meaning for a while to finish the rest of the archive and start keeping up with it, but have been busy.
Did anyone else read Yu+Me Dream? It’s a “surreal lesbian love story” and it was so good.
I love, love, love SSSS. It makes a great binge-read.
A Redtail’s Dream! The artwork is absolutely beautiful.
Cucumber Quest! It’s a fantasy comic about bunnies saving the world and it’s amazing. It’s funny and beautifully colored.
I’m going to copy & paste from my reply to aravisthequeen about things to read online:
Dicebox (itinerant workers in space, at least at the start)
Family Man (eighteenth century German academia and werewolves)
Galaxion (space exploration, including first contact with an alien species)
Girl Genius (a world ruled by mad science. Badly.)
Magellan Academy (superhero cadets)
Narbonic and Skin Horse (Narbonic is adorable mad science. Skin Horse is the black ops social workers who mainly help the products of adorable mad science.)
2D Goggles (Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage fight crime with the help of Babbage’s difference engine)
Also Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, and a bunch of comics that people have already mentioned in this thread.
I’m not sure I could pick a favourite, though. Maybe Magellan Academy, but it doesn’t win by much.
Gunnerkrigg Court has made me want to punch things and rip phonebooks these last few weeks!
Dinosaur Comics! Ryan North reminds me of Mallory in some ways; they’re both really good at using emphasis to get their voice across through text.
Questionable Content
Sinfest, but mostly from the last 2-3 years? It had funny bits before, but recently took a seriously feminist turn
And Girls with Slingshots just finished but also started re-running from the beginning so you can get in there too.
My favorite right now is called KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS. It is badass and awesome.
gocomics.com/frazz
Twin City Toasties!! I’ve decided to take it upon myself to organize a meetup.
Possible plans in comments.
How does Tuesday 5/5 at Muddy Waters on Lyndale sound? Sometime around 7 for drinks/dinner? If you’re interested please reply here, and I’ll announce it again in next week’s open thread. If you’re interested but can’t make that date/time, let me know that too and maybe we can reschedule or figure out another meetup in June.
I just opened up my twitter DMs, so you could also message me there, if you prefer. (@mfvendetti)
I hope some of you can make it! I’m so ready for outside drinks and chatting about non-job-related things.
Hey, are any Toastrons into meditation? I’ve been practicing for a little while now, and I find it beneficial, but I have a problem with staying awake for any meditation longer that 8 or 10 minutes. I’ve tried sitting in a slightly uncomfortable position, sitting near an open window and other tips for staying awake during meditation, but no matter what my head always starts to nod and my consciousness starts slipping into a dreaming-state after a certain amount of time. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not exactly fulfilling the ‘intention to be awake and aware’. I’m attending an all-day mindfulness course on Sunday with long sessions, and I’m slightly anxious at the possibility of dropping off in front some Very Eminent Teacher. Anyone else have this problem?
I swear to you I’m not poking fun, but…maybe first try working on your sleep habits and getting enough sleep? This might be your body telling you that you’re exhausted.
I find I meditate best ~30 minutes after caffeine. It’s so much easier it feels like cheating, but I’m dealing with insomnia right now so I’ll take what I can get.
Seconding the caffeine idea. All those stories about monks noticing the goats eating coffee beans and leaping all over, and of course green tea is delightfully zoomy.
I think a great way to say aware but still practice meditation is do some listening meditation. It requires you to be aware/awake enough to hear the sounds around you but it also a great exercise in observing without commenting on said noises. I start with some simple sensation mediation, transition to listening to the noises from inside the room without judgement, and then later moving on to including noises from outside the room as well.
I sometimes get overwhelmed by noises when I get really stressed and listening mediation really helps me calm down.
In some ways I wish I had your problem — the sleep I’ve gotten accidentally while meditating has always been the best sleep!
Everyone else’s advice so far has been excellent. I would just add: try watching your breath, or scanning your body for different sensations, which is probably an active enough thing to do that it will keep you awake. Don’t meditate in uncomfortable positions — you can definitely get knee problems and whatnot from that, more quickly than you’d think!
Also, I think everybody generally understands if someone falls asleep for a little bit.
Toasties! I am a longtime reader/infrequent commenter, but I love this place with every fiber of my being and would like to start contributing more.
Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with anxiety and insecurities that are having a negative impact on your relationship? A month or so ago I decided to start seeing a therapist for the first time. The impetus was overwhelming anxiety from a big work project, but it’s something I should have done a long time ago. I’ve struggled with an eating disorder, mild depression, anxiety, and a host of insecurities for years, and while I’ve mostly got the ED under control, I am having trouble with the rest. I think part of the problem is that I’m in my first long-term relationship (almost 1.5 years) so this is the first time I’ve had to really share/communicate my struggles with someone else. My boyfriend is generally wonderful and understanding (and was actually the one who encouraged me to go see a therapist), but I think he is getting frustrated with me.
I have a problem where I will sometimes have a visceral negative reaction to something that I KNOW is irrational, but it still makes me feel anxious, weepy, tense, etc. This can happen when I let myself get too hungry (which I obviously try not to do because seriously, I turn into a MONSTER) but occasionally at other times, too, especially if my anxiety level is high. It’s often caused by my insecurity-ridden brain misinterpreting something that someone says, e.g. my BF asks if I am sure I want to come hang out with him and his friends – that must mean he doesn’t want me to go! Clearly…
I often KNOW this reaction is silly, but I can’t recover quickly from the emotional distress it causes. I also don’t want to say what is bothering me out loud, because I know it’s dumb and often, I’m embarrassed. This leads me to act withdrawn and quiet, as I try to calm myself down. My BF recently confronted me about this and said how difficult it was for him to be around and how “it’s not OK to act this way” and he feels like he’s dealing with a sullen teenager. I didn’t really know what to say, because I’m sure it IS really annoying, but I am certainly not doing it on purpose, and I feel kind of helpless because I don’t know how to control it. We have talked before about how I need to tell him what is bothering me instead of letting it stew – but what if I know my anxiety/insecurities are driving my reaction, I just can’t shake the emotional hangover? It’s like my reasonable mind and emotional mind are fighting, and I can’t be a normal person until they finish duking it out.
I am going to talk to my therapist about finding strategies for dealing with this, but in the meantime, please shower me with your wisdom!
No particular advice, I just wanted to say that dude, I could have written this myself.
yep; me, tooo.
Just want to give you some virtual support and/or hugs. That happens to me too – I know it’s irrational, and maybe it’s not even bothering me anymore, but my body and emotional brain need time to calm down and decompress. I am gonna disagree with your boyfriend and say it IS okay! You know that you are having an anxiety or emotional response that isn’t based in reality (don’t want this to sound bad/condescending, my therapist has used the “Based in reality” language with me before and it fits well with how I see it), and you are in your own way – quiet and alone time – trying to let yourself get through it. Maybe there are other ways to cope, but I don’t think it’s bad or not normal at all.
I was in therapy for my anxiety, and I found the cognitive-behavioral approach really useful. I too kind of knew many of my anxiety reactions were irrational and/or out of proportion, but I didn’t have the next step to do after I realized that. CBT helped give me some ways to approach the anxiety loops, some of which were more helpful than others of course! What I found most helpful was having something concrete to DO, even if it was kind of silly to have to have an “anxiety workbook,” or at least that’s how I felt. Good luck, it can get better!
Hey, I can’t offer too much advice about dealing with those awful ‘intellectually I get this, but emotionally NO’ loops, but as someone who has been the partner on the other side, getting a heads up about what is happening in the withdrawn person’s head is often a good start. Hearing something along the lines of ‘I’m upset about something that I know isn’t really rational, but my body hasn’t quite got that message yet, so I’m not upset at you, just giving my intellectual and emotional brain some time to reconcile, no offence but this is a no talking thiing’ is really helpful for me. My best friend and I both have some anxiety/depression issues, and have learned that essentially making subtext text has made our relationship work so well. Instead of trying to write a layered email that elegantly gets across all nuances, we write very blunt things like ‘I miss your face and want to invite you out to show you I care but I don’t want to make you more anxious by pressuring you. I will not be mad if you need to hermit for a bit longer. Do you want to catch up for [high interaction option] or [low interaction option]? Saying no is 100% legitimate I still love you’ and ‘I miss you too but I can’t bring myself to human right now as I have entered a committed relationship with my couch, but it feels good that you care’.
This in in contrast to my now ex who would get upset about something and just shut down completely. Like almost catatonic. No indication of whether he’s looking for comfort or space or if it’s something you did or something unrelated. It was horrible to sit through. If you can verbalise ‘my brain is being weird, not mad at you, but still need space’ it might help your boyfriend a bit? If you are doing that and he’s still calling you a sullen teenager, well you need coping strategies for your own wellbeing, but he needs to settle down too.
Thank you all so much for your lovely suggestions/expressions of empathy. I love the term “emotional inertia” – that’s exactly it. My therapist has a CBT approach so I’m looking forward to hearing what she says.
To expand a little bit, after he made the “sullen teenager” comment (and I got really upset), we did have a good talk where I tried to explain why I do that and what is happening in my head, and I think he understood somewhat. There’s definitely some of the, “if you don’t tell me what’s happening, then how can I fix it??” going on, which isn’t super helpful because often I don’t need “fixing,” I just need time/space. I’m also getting better about saying “I am feeling irrationally upset about something and I just need to deal with it alone for a little bit” and usually he’s receptive. I think we could both do a better job of being up-front about things, though.
One thing that helped me and my partner was having a short phrase for “I am feeling irrationally upset about something and I just need to deal with it alone for a little bit”, just a single-word kind of code that I could use in such moments. It made it easier at a time when things were really hard.
omg also could have written this. no advice, but will be following along and appreciating any advice offered.
I’m dealing with the same problems. I’m a person who needs to process on their own before talking about issues with my SO (or, in my case, figuring out whether the reaction I am having is related to something else entirely OR if it actually is an issue that I talk to my SO about). I am also a person who grew up in a household where extreme passive aggression was the first method of communication, and I do not want to be like that, so I need time to think about how to better frame what, if anything, I want to talk to SO about.
A first thing: how you deal with your anxiety is NOT something your boyfriend gets to dictate! My guy is NOT an internal processor like I am and also really struggles when I’m just sitting there, clearly upset but silent. The solution we’ve developed is that I tell him THAT I am upset, not necessarily what about — “I am having a reaction to something you said / happened on TV / happened earlier this week that I just remembered to get upset about, but I am not sure how to talk about it yet. I need a little time. Would you prefer if I go off by myself while I process?” I say this with the understanding that “yes” is a totally acceptable answer to that question. Having told him what’s happening and what to expect, he gets to accept that I’m doing what I need to do and backs off until I’m ready to chat. And then when I have figured out what I want to talk about and how, I will say, “I am ready to talk now, is this a good time?” and the answer is usually yes and then we have a productive conversation and we both feel better after.
He can help me feel loved even when I am struggling — by being near, by cooking dinner, by snuggling, by playing cards or watching a show with me; being “alone with your thoughts” doesn’t mean you need to be literally alone. Knowing that he still wants to be near me even when I’m distracted by anxiety really helps me to manage my anxiety, so maybe that’s something you can talk about with your guy. Maybe that’s not something he feels able to do; that’s something y’all have to figure out for your circumstances.
But apart from just being around you, maybe there’s nothing he can do to help you do that preliminary processing if talking about it right away isn’t working for you. It’s not your responsibility to make room for him to help you if he literally cannot help you. I do think it can be good for your relationship to immediately communicate THAT you are having a hard time, what you’re trying to do to calm down / process / move on from the difficult moment, and what you would like from him while you are doing that. But I don’t think you need to immediately communicate the details of what you’re having a hard time with, especially given what you’ve described above where sometimes you’re not sure how to manage ‘silly’ anxiety-based reactions.
tl;dr: Think about what you need — from him and/or for yourself — when you’re anxious, and talk about this when you’re feeling calm. If not communicating your worries In That Moment is helpful to managing your anxiety, talk about that. Then, based on that reality, ask him if there is something else that can “help him” in these situations, when you need what you need, so he feels less like an unhelping wart who feels like he needs from you more than you feel able to offer.
One last: Your behavior? Not the problem. “It’s not okay to act this way” is not actually true when you cannot really control your reactions. The best you can do is communicate your needs. If not telling him your ‘silly’ anxiety thoughts is what you need, then that’s what you need, and it IS okay to act in whatever way you need.
So, question for Philadelphian runners? I have to buy new running shoes and I’ll be in Philly next week and does Pa. still not tax clothing? Perhaps I should buy some running shoes in Philly and save, like $10 on taxes? But where?
Fun Thing to Research of the Day: I am currently lost in the Voyager 1’s Golden Record. A recording of sounds from earth and pictorial instructions to help intelligent life find our planet if they ever recovered the Voyager.
Included on the track, Sounds from Earth:
-Footsteps, heartbeat, laughter
-Kiss, mother and child
-crickets, frogs
And then some music from around the world. There is a playlist on youtube.
Happy Friday!
I am listening to this right now, and it is wonderful. I had no idea this existed!
I’m staffed on a project at work that simultaneously makes me feel like the smartest and the dumbest person in the room. In efforts to bolster feelings of the former, what’s your favorite phrase or shorthand or technical word in your professional or hobby life that makes you feel like YEAH I KNOW SHIT, LOOK AT ALL THIS SHIT I KNOW, WE GOT AN EXPERT OVAH HERE AND IT’S MEEEEE!
I have a few that rotate depending on the project, but right now my top one “neg dec,” said out loud (just say it! it’s great!), short for a “Negative Declaration” of environmental impacts.
Tell me yours! Definitions/context not necessary.
Well, obvs I’ve always been partial to Ethylbenzene. It always sounded to me like the name of a superhero.
“Fuzzy match”, or just “fuzzy”. As in, “I smell fuzzies!” when you get a new project, or “This. Is. Fuzzy. As. Shit. WHY?!”
“Tacit knowledge” — it’s the information people have in their heads about the best ways to do their jobs / interact in their communities, that it would be incredibly hard to get them to articulate without basically interviewing them for hours and hours and being super interrogative and maybe mean.
Basically everything I do as an info-pro is “mitigating tacit knowledge issues.”
When I was in library school, it was metadata.
I LOVED metadata when I was first learning GIS and other analysis programs. It’s the data’s data!!!!
GPT/CVAT, and why they matter to the customer even if they don’t know why.
I would just like to say I miss doing environmental reviews SO MUCH. It was my favorite part of my last job. I secretly loved it when projects got a “pos dec” because that meant I got to put together an EIS. Working with the wetland delineators and archeologists was my favorite.
Now I only do transportation stuff and if a project happens to trigger NEPA, which they never do, the consultants do all the work. Boooo.
What’s the silliest or dumbest misconception that you held onto for way too long? I say this because I recently learned that my boyfriend did not realize until he was an adult that raisins are dried grapes. He thought they were their own kind of fruit, and that they just emerged from some kind of plant as fully realized raisins. I’m not one to talk though, because until this year I totally thought my mom was being factual when she told me that if you open a bottle of wine you have to finish it that same night or it will turn to vinegar.
i thought “chaos” was pronounced “cha -ose” like cha-cha and fructose until I was like 17.
my husband thought until very recently that all winds go west to east.
you and cha-ose are not alone. Ah, the difficulties of learning vocabulary visually instead of orally!
My mom always told me to tell people that I have a reader’s vocabulary.
I’ve told this story before, but –
Did not realise Narwhals were real until I was in my twenties.
Did not realize narwhals were real until last week, so. (although, also in my twenties. but I feel like I NEVER heard of narwhals before until they became this twee pinterest thing in the last few years? so I just assumed they were fake)
THEY SEEM SO MADE UP
THEY ARE LITERALLY A SEA UNICORN
THEY FIGHT EACH OTHER WITH A SINGLE GIANT TOOTH THAT GROWS OUT OF THEIR HEAD
Actually they don’t fight with it though! They sometimes rub their horns against each other because it feels nice. They use it to sense things like the amount of salt in the water!
One of my friends from undergrad learned in our last year that narwhals were real! He heard a bunch of us talking about them and was like, “Haha, what a funny mythological animal” and then he thought we were trying to prank him when we said tey were real.
I thought Tyler Florence and Bobby Flay were the same person for a long, long while and didn’t get why he was so nice and charming on one show (Tyler) and such an asshat on every other show (Bobby).
That is totally legit and honestly right now I’m having a hard time not picturing the same person when I think of both…
My parents told me that women had more ribs than men, because Adam and Eve.
I believed them for the longest time.
Your mother is 100% correct, at least I assume because I’ve never not finished a bottle that same night. Why risk it?
Until last year I thought bumblebees and honey bees were the same thing.
I just learned that bumblebees and honey bees were not the same thing. Awesome right now.
Until I was about 30 (and my boyfriend informed me otherwise), I thought that men invariably peed standing up 100% of the time and then sat down to poo.
I had the pleasure of watching a friend of mine reel in disbelief when she heard that men don’t have to use toilet paper after they pee. She and a male friend were arguing over whether or not it’s true that women use more toilet paper, and she saw no reason why men shouldn’t use just as much.
I’m still kind of flabbergasted that men don’t use toilet paper after they pee. Doesn’t some like, drip onto the end? When you’re pouring a bottle of wine it’s like impossible to make it stop cleanly! Penises are wine bottles goddammit!
You have to drink them all in one night?….wait…
I’m an aging penis-haver, and I can tell you that even wiping won’t stop those damp spots. On particularly bad days I borrow my spouse’s pads…
I remember seeing that scene where Lindsay thinks wine isn’t alcoholic unless you let it sit out and thinking “what a moron! It’s obviously the other way around.”
Ah you beat me to it!
Two from people I knew in college:
A friend and I were listening to a talk with an analogy about making pickles. As soon as the speaker got to the prepping cucumbers part my friend said “Pickles are made of cucumbers?” as though she thought pickles were their own veggie.
But this one takes the cake. My roommate and I had just made chocolate chip cookies and a bunch of friends had come over. I went to eat one of the still warm cookies and a guy shouted at me “what are you doing?” I asked what he meant and he explained that eating hot cookies gives you diarrhea. Everyone in the room looked at him like he was crazy. My roommate asked him who told him that and he said his mom had. To keep her kids from sneaking cookies that were cooling she told them it would give them the runs. He believed her until he was 23 YEARS OLD!
*files under Things to Say to Kids Someday*
Right? I had two thoughts, one: he’s an idiot, two: his mom is a genius
I thought Hawaii was just off the coast of California until I was in my twenties. I was chatting with a friend who was talking about the length of the trip to Hawaii and I was like “Why should it take so long? It’s like, right there.” I guess the insets in the map confused me, although I managed to figure out where Alaska was.
That reminds me of another one! It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized that the Bay area and the San Francisco metropolitan area are one in the same. I thought that the cities on the coast of California were like LA, SF, San Diego, and then some sort of vaguely defined additional one that’s around a bay.
So you know that song about the saints going marching in? I always thought it was a military song. Probably the emphasis on marching. But I always picture, like, a line of soldiers (the “saints”, like the rangers or the green berets or whatever) marching into a fort and a young boy who’s all about patriotism and glory really wanting to grow up and become a soldier himself.
It was only last year that I realized it was actually about going to heaven. In my defense I did not grow up in a religious household.
Guess what I just learned!
My Grandma told me that eating the crust of my bread would help me learn how to whistle.
I was in my twenties before I put it together.
I had a girlfriend in college who believed with every fiber of her being that a man and a woman could not conceive a child unless they both orgasmed at the same time.
My mom told me that the crust of the bread was where the most nutrients are (like the skin of a potato) so I had to eat it. I didn’t every think about this long enough to realize how obviously untrue that is until like a year ago. When I asked her, she said it just made sense to tell me that cause there was no way she was gonna spend her time cutting crusts off.
I was JUST discussing this with a friend yesterday. I believed it too! It just occurred to me that it makes no sense.
This is actually a little bit true!
http://www.realsimple.com/health/first-aid-health…
My supposed heterosexuality. Also, I thought “impudent” was “impundent” until I was 15.
My supposed heterosexuality.
*high-fives* SAME
(A few days ago I was recommending some fanfic to my boyfriend and didn’t understand why he wasn’t interested in m/m pairings. “But I read f/f pairings all the time- oh”. We then had a long conversation in which he repeatedly explained to me that no, he doesn’t feel the slightest bit attracted to men, even if they are objectively attractive. I kept saying, in tones of disbelief, that I had just thought it was a normal heterosexual thing.)
Ponies aren’t baby horses.
Oh my god.
I know, right??!!
I have no anecdote to share, but I wanted to thank you because this is one of the best comment threads in a Toast OT ever.
My sister-in-law thought Alaska was an island until she was 26. (“How can you DRIVE to Alaska?!”)
A LOT of people seem really unclear on just where Alaska is. A friend of mine posted on facebook about driving to Alaska and needing to find her passport and people were calling her stupid for thinking she needed a passport to get to Alaska because it’s part of the US…..
My mom, completely seriously and yet with no proof at all, believed until three weeks ago that the face on the tail of Alaska Airlines planes was Johnny Cash.
Makes me wonder what else she thinks…
A friend who works at a market is always filling me in in on the bizarre questions she gets at work. Recently she told me a full grown man came in to seriously inquire “What gender chicken lays these eggs?”. C’mon, man!
As a kid on road trips, I always counted the wheels on big trucks, and could NEVER figure out why the trucks with over six wheels were only using ONE right lane, because the sign said they were supposed to use two right lanes …which I interpreted as needing to drive iN BOTH right lanes AT THE SAME TIME.
It wasn’t until fourth grade that I learned the urethra and vagina were separate anatomical structures.
And it’s not like I lived in a super-repressive household, either! I just… never really looked closely, because ew pee comes from there so why would I.
I discovered very recently that Denali and Mt. McKinley are the same mountain. I had previously thought that Denali was a super cool mountain in Alaska that outdoorsy people all wanted to climb, and Mt. McKinley was this other mountain in Alaska that was for some reason totally boring and you would only hear about for being the tallest one.
Obviously I am not a person that does a lot of mountaineering.
Speaking of learning words from reading them, it took me a long time to realize that the “public hair” they talked about in YA novels was the same as the “pubic hair” you get when you hit puberty. (…publerty?)
On cans of soda and what-have-you, the amount is listed as FL OZ. Like, 16 FL OZ. or whatever. I was _well_ into my 20s before I realized that stood for Fluid Ounces. My whole life, I thought it was Full Ounces. (Which sort of confused me a bit as a child, because you never saw a container of something with un-full ounces…) Confession: Even though I know what it actually stands for now, I still read it as Full Ounces in my head whenever I see it.
Also, as someone who is very un-hip to pop cultural affairs, I thought that Taylor Swift was Taylor Hicks until I saw her that time when she was the musical guest on SNL a few years ago? And I confused Tyler Perry and Taylor Swift’s names when a friend was talking about one of them being in a movie last year. (And honestly I still don’t really know who Tyler Perry is.) My friend was so amused by that conversation that she apparently made it her Facebook status that day.
In the vocabulary category, I was well into college before I realized that “misled” is pronounced like being led amiss and is a form of “mislead”. I heard people saying the word misled, but whenever I saw it in print I thought it was a completely separate word, pronounced meye-zelld (like the past tense of “misle”).
I didn’t do this, but I’ve heard about lots of folks who did. So you aren’t alone.
I was an adult the first time I tried to pronounce La Jolla (the city in California). I speak Spanish (sort of)! I am not stupid! WHYYYY did I say “la jawl-ah”???
I have a friend who, in college, pronounced “thus” with a soft th and a hard s instead of the other way around.
I did this with “albeit”. I thought it was pronounced “all-bait”.
My granny thought so as well until she was in her twenties, and now ‘meye-zelld’ is part of our family vocabulary to such an extent that I forget to use the correct pronunciation with people who Don’t Know.
I pronounced it “misseled”.
ok so I was 31 (aka, this happened a few months ago) before a dear friend kindly informed me, in the midst of a terrible (terrible! actually mostly lame) joke that the term “gypped” comes from gypsy. She herself was unaware of this fact until not long before. HOW am I a grown woman, educated and progressive and allllll of the things and somehow never knew this? I don’t know if this falls into the category of dumbest misconception of just dumbest tragic racial slur usage. :/
Any Toasties in Swarthmore, PA? I’m considering a move to the area and would like to hear anything, good or bad, about it. Anywhere around there is fair game, too.
I’m leaving Philly soon, but Swarthmore is quite close to Philly (which is really a great town) and that area has a lot of “fun stuff” going on. I put that in quotes because I don’t have any direct knowledge of the fun stuff, but I know it’s there. My sister lives in Media, which is in that area, and that little town has a lot of great community stuff (food festivals, art festivals, concerts, etc). And you’re a short regional rail ride away from everything Philly has to offer, which is a lot.
I went to Swarthmore for college and lived in Philly for a few years too. Philly is THE BEST, and if you live in West Philly you’ll be by the right regional rail like to get out to Swarthmore pretty easily. Swarthmore itself does not have a lot going on. I agree with Noodge that Media is pretty nice, especially if you have kids or just enjoy family-friendly street festivals and cute, moderately cheap restaurants.
Former Swattie plumbing the depths of her memory here: It wasn’t a huge hassle to get into Phily, and if transportation is covered, I might recommend living there instead? The town(ship?) itself is very quiet/residential, but everything from grocery stores to target/BB&B/a sad little mall was within a 15 minute bike ride.
Thanks for the tip. I’ve scoured the internet and for the life of me haven’t been able to find any appealing rentals in the area.
Hey, has anyone had luck getting rid of ants? The condo where I live has an ant problem, particularly downstairs in the den where my cat stays. They keep finding her water bowl – they appear to only be after water and other very wet things – and I’d like to stop them. The problem is, I can’t figure out where they’re coming in from. Are there any pet-friendly things I can use whenever I find them? Or that I can put around the cat bowls to block them?
Also I’m writing half of a class presentation right now (due tonight – I’m sending a script and a Powerpoint to a team mate for him to record) and basically I just want to scream for so many reasons. I hate this class, I hate the vagueness of the directions for this assignment, I hate doing group projects in online classes, and I hate presentations in general. Please send fluffy things too? The end is in sight but it’s not near enough yet.
We just use ant traps. They usually have a “caution do not allow pets to play with these!” warning but are actually quite low toxicity. (Also the cats tend to ignore them; it’s really our dog who tries to chew them up.) We just place them in the middle of any given trail of ants and within a few days they are gone. Alternately, our hippie-dippy neighbor used talcum powder in our shared shed and that seemed to work for a while.
High five, I’m working on a class presentation right now too! Group projects suuuuuck.
Group projects are the Worst. The. Worst. I was even going to take some classes this summer but then I realised there was a significant chance that I’d have to spend the summer doing even more group projects, so I bailed on that plan. I need a break before I can try working with others again.
I use some kind of ant poison – it only takes like a drop. I *think* it’s pet friendly, but I use it outside where the ants come from, and my cats stay inside, and I’m cavalier like that. This is not very helpful.
It works though.
Those are moisture ants, I tried a million things to get them out of my bathroom, but what actually worked was Raid Ant Gel. It only took a few days, but if you can work out where they are coming in and put the gel down, that should do the trick. The issue is keeping your cat away from the gel because it’s not good for animals to ingest or touch. Things that did NOT work are bleach, peppermint oil (though the bathroom smelled minty clean) or ant traps.
I’ve heard cayenne pepper is a good natural remedy but I haven’t tried it!
ETA: But my vegan former roomie said we got ants, and sprinkled cayenne pepper in our living room by the doors to the backyard, and I never saw an ant in there except for once so…I guess maybe I have sort of tried it and it worked?
Borax powder! It’s a wonder powder that I seriously use all the time now. Here’s a link to all the amazing stuff it does.
I’ve heard about the borax. I may have to get some just to use it on other household woes, tbh.
Second/third using ant traps (I use terro liquid ant baits) – it hasn’t totally solved my ant problem, but it’s gotten a lot better. the first few days after you put them down you’re probably gonna see a LOT of ants around the traps… and then they start dying 🙂 I’m not sure about the toxicity level, though my dog never seemed to bother with them.
Ha! Should have looked at your comment first! That stuff is seriously the best. Also we have cats so I was extra paranoid about keeping them out of the kitchen during this process, but everything worked out ok.
it’s amaaaaazing and I love it. first they come in swarms, but eventually they just start staggering… away… and dying on the way back to their nests and it’s GREAT. I think it satisfies my bloodlust or something, haha.
Ok, so we have a terrible landlord who will not fix or let us fix the actual HOLES via which the ants come so we had a turrrible ant problem this summer which made me freak out regularly. The only thing that worked was this Terro Ant Bait stuff. You can buy pre-filled traps or buy the liquid stuff and put it on a piece of foil.
It seems kind of crazy but the way it works is that the ants think it’s delicious so they will come and drink up and carry the poison back to their nest. For the first couple of days you will have a crazy swarm of ants. It’s pretty gross, sorry. Then the swarm will downgrade to a trickle, and then finally just one or two ants once in a while. We put liquid drop traps in all the worst places (they were getting into my oil and vinegar cabinet and infesting my dish rack, EW) and would swap them out when they got full of ant bodies as I am superstitious and would be worried that the ants would figure it out. I think we actually were dealing with 2 or 3 nests, truth be told, as they could just come in from outside FROM MY WALL IN WHICH THERE ARE GIANT HOLES (sorry, still emotional about this because ANTS).
Anyway, if you’re at all like me (a terrible person, that is), you’ll start taking a perverse delight in the process (yes, yes, drink up, my pretties! *cackle*).
I filled in holes without telling my landlord. I used sugru that I had left over from another project and it worked, mostly. They found a new way in that I haven’t figured out how to fill yet.
The sugru is a good idea, actually. I’ll look into it. I think at this point my more pessimistic view of “he’ll weasel out of giving us our deposit back no matter what” is more realistic, so I’m going to fill in all the holes this summer. Those ants are tricky jerks, though, aren’t they?
Ewww, ants in the dish rack, ewwww.
And I already take perverse delight in getting ants out of the water bowl, so I’m sure ant poison would make me pretty happy indeed. Because I am terrible but as long as I’m terrible and ant-free…
It’s kind of amazing! They’re like “oh thanks for the nice snack! I’ll take it back to my queen,” and you’re like “MWAHAHA.”
Clove oil is natural, smell pretty good, and works SO WELL. Buy a tiny bottle and use it like once or twice a summer around your doors and windows. Done deal.
I am really looking forward to this weekend! Saturday I am hosting Broad City Self Care Lady Day, where me and three friends who have never watched it (we are from the UK, give them a break) are watching all of S1 and doing facials and manicures during it, and eating cherry and almond meringue cookie things that I’m making tonight.
Sunday I am doing a screening of Love & Basketball in New Cross at the New Cross and Deptford Free Film Festival (2.30pm at the Amersham Arms if anyone in the SE London area wants to come!) and that should be fun too!
Oooh, those cookies sound divine.
They really are! I think it’s an Ottolenghi recipe, but it was given to me so can’t remember.
180g ground almonds
60g dried sour cherries, roughly chopped
Drops of almond essence (I can’t drop from my bottle so just dribble some in)
Zest of 1 lemon
120g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
2 egg whites
2 teaspoons honey
Icing sugar for rolling in
Heat oven to 170C.
Mix everything except honey/egg/icing sugar in bowl. Whisk honey and egg whites to make stuff meringue mix. Fold this into almond mix to make a paste. Line baking tray with baking parchment. Put a fair bit of icing sugar in bowl and drop balls of paste in and roll around and plop on tray. Then the recipe says bake for 12 mins but mine always take like 20 so I guess depends on the size you made the balls (I think I make mine slightly too large) and your oven. Should be golden and crisping slightly. Cool (important for them to be as nice as possible!) and then eat eat eat.
I have loved every time I introduced someone to Broad City or squeed over discovering our mutual interest.
Toasties, I found out yesterday that I didn’t get the training grant I applied for, so there’s just enough funding to get me to the end of the year. So I basically need to finish what I thought I had a year and a half to do in the seven months before the end of the year.
In a way it’s good since it means my PI can’t keep adding to my project, but I’m also freaking out because I need to find a job like, SOON. And all the things I had planned for next year are pretty much out.
Basically I am freaking out about being able to count down to my dissertation defense in months rather than years and it’s making me panic HELP
Oh no, that is an awful shock! But you can do it! You can definitely do it! Is there any possibility of teaching or dissertation completion fellowships at your institution? Anything that can pay for you for an extra semester to buy you a little more time if you need it?
So, my program is helping out with a TA appointment for the fall quarter to cover my tuition and such. But I don’t know if I can extend that into the Winter to give me more of a cushion.
All our dissertation year grants here are either for those who come from educationally/economically disadvantaged backgrounds (which I am blessed to not have come from) or don’t apply to my program. But our coordinator is keeping an eye out for me.
I’m trying to stay positive and not panic too much- it’s just a lot to try and finish/write up two projects AND my dissertation in seven months, especially since one is still in the pilot phase.
It’s great that your coordinator is keeping an eye out for you! If they’re in your corner I bet everything will wind up working out.
I don’t really have advice other than you can do it! and everything will be ok! and also breathe.
My family, to this day, sings this Sharon, Lois and Bram Happy Birthday song at family birthday celebrations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMZ8e4geixs
Lois, you will be missed!
LOIS!!!!!!!!!!
I am crushed beyond all sense or reason right now.
Reasons why Sharon, Lois, and Bram are the best:
1. They sing about food with gusto. “First you take the peanuts and you squish ’em, you squish ’em, you squish ’em squish ’em. Then you spread ’em, you spread ’em, you spread ’em spread ’em spread em.” Also a whole song about Fish and Chips and Vinegar.
2. Their lyrics speak to my Canadian soul: “It’s cold in the winter! It’s cold in the Fall! It’s cold in the summer when it doesn’t matter at all!” Indeed.
3. Their songs are sweet but not saccharine: “I love you in the morning and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening underneath the moon!”
Guys, guys, ONLINE DATING! I HAVE STORIES
Okay!
Wow. So, who knew this past week would get so insane? I was starting to get down! Three things:
1. I am meeting my ongoing date’s wife next next Sunday. I am nervous! I want to impress her! We’re going to have dinner, maybe, but definitely watch Game of Thrones. Yes, they have HBO. Yes, this might be the real reason we’re all meeting.
2. A guy who opened with being friends because he’s pretty Christian and I’m pretty atheist eventually was too flustered by how sexy I can be (????) or sexually liberated, so he may or may not get back to me after a break from talking to me. I feel for him and hope he can find some peace with his feelings, whatever they turn out to be, but I am now maybe a godless temptress/siren/damner of men.
3. I’m talking to a guy I super like right now. Funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to and fun with to flirt with. I sent him photos of silly grocery store things and he just told me a story about a scandalizing bathroom in the food court of the building where he works — the guards who do the round there are known as the Glory Hole Patrol. Our banter includes allusions to Alice in Wonderland, me recently joking I am Jezebel/Salome, and puns. I am having lots of fun!
Kudos to you for point 2, and a high-five.
Ooh, good luck on number 1! I have never got that far with a date, but I imagine I would be nervous.
Visited Fermilab out in Chicago this week and saw this awesome talk poster, which made me smile:
Also, does anyone have any experience doing quantitive finance interview math & programming stuff?? I just started some job application stuff and have NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING.
Fermilab is the best! It looks like Starfleet Academy after a decade of grueling budget cuts.
That is a PERFECT description for it.
What kind of finance/math stuff are you looking for help with? Like have you had interviews already or are the applications warning you that there will be quantitative questions in the interview? What kind of jobs are you applying for?
(Sorry lots of questions but basically tell me moreeee and maybe I can help?)
Just starting! I’m very early in the process and have just spoken to a recruiter, and I apparently have a C++/Python programming test in a week or so already, yikes! The companies fit into the hedge fund / mid-frequency trading / investment strategy mold. Broadly speaking, I’d be going for something doing statistical analysis of investment data over time (the phrase “statistical arbitrage” was dropped). Sorry if that’s all rather vague – I’m coming into this as a clueless physics person, so the whole “finance” aspect is still quite new and terrifying!
Ireland is having a constitutional referendum on same-sex marriage in May and its very important that it passes!
I can’t vote due to fleeing the country (aka emigrating) a few years ago, but gosh darn I can blog about it! My first real blog post too!
https://abookfullofpages.wordpress.com/2015/04/24…
If there’s any other Irish Toasties out there, please vote yes if you’re in the country and if you’re not, consider coming home to support the troops!
Toasties, how do you tell if a thing is racist when the creator of the thing is of that same race?
Ex: this fluffy YA book I’m reading between study sessions, in which the protagonist is half-Taiwanese and her entire internal monologue is a weird Asian potpourri. Her zits are the size of Mount Fuji; her cousins are a set of china dolls; she doesn’t diss somebody but “hai-yah karate chop” their argument. On every page there’s a dubious reference to something that might be Chinese, Japanese, Korean, but doesn’t really belong anywhere in context. And yet the author’s Chinese-American and it’s in the vein of Embracing Your Heritage 101.
My theory is not to worry about internalized [-ism] unless I am part of [marginalized group] myself. And even then I usually figure it’s their own ish to deal with (might have a private conversation if I know the person). That’s my two cents though.
I think that’s a really good take! I agree that it’s not my place to pass judgement on internalized [-ism] unless I’m part of the group– but “don’t worry about it” doesn’t really cover reactions to media very well. For instance, I’m not going to make a stink about how “the author is racist!” but could I, in good conscience, recommend the book to another person? Is not recommending it because I feel uncomfortable with racial depictions racist in itself, since I’m not a member of the group? What do you think?
Not to be too simplistic, but if it kept you from enjoying the book, it kept you from enjoying the book. Seems reasonable to say “I realize the author is ___, but the way she talked about race didn’t sit well with me and that distracted me from the story.”
Personally, based on what I know about race and racism, I’d feel uncomfortable reading that book and not recommend it to anyone unless a thoughtful Asian friend or blogger/activist/whatever whose opinion I trust told me that they thought it was okay. If someone asked me whether I could recommend it, I would say, “no, the depiction of race made me uncomfortable, honestly – but you might want to get a second opinion on that from someone who’s Asian themselves.”
This is a good way to put it. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone if it made you uncomfortable.
But yeah, I would ask an actual Asian friend about the book. I don’t even know if it has to be someone who’s particularly thoughtful or a known activist. It’s hard to recognize when your own perceptions might be faulty– but as a white person it’s happened to me a lot on PoC issues. Because I’m … still white, no matter how much theory I’ve read. An Asian person will be able to straighten this out.
This might be dumb but isn’t it automatically not racist if its someone saying something about the group that they themselves belong to?
That’s like saying women can’t be misogynists – you can internalize racism/sexism/homophobia to the point that even if you’re a member of [insert group here], you can still be [group]-ist.
This could be a total derail but I agree with floridagal to an extent. I also feel generally, like calling out internalized [-ism] can be overdone– a prime example being highly educated women calling out less-educated women for internalized misogyny. A woman working 3 jobs who grew up in a red state and never went to college probably can’t compete in the feminism department against someone with a gender studies degree.
But I think about these things too much.
This is a really good question, I’ll be interested to hear other people’s takes. I felt sort of the same about Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being” to the point where I couldn’t finish it– half the story is a “diary” by a Japanese girl, but at times the diary entries throw in every trope of Japan that westerners have come to expect? And kind of damaging tropes, too… really negative stereotypes, especially of Japanese men. Maybe the book turns it around, but I felt very uncomfortable reading it.
I loved that book but did not consider that angle. Thanks for making me rethink it.
I review a lot of YA for work, and this comes up semi-regularly for me. I’ve come to assume–and could totally be wrong, of course–that when it’s a young protagonist narrating the story, that kind of thing springs from a desire to get there first. As in, I wasn’t out as queer when I was young, but was unable to be closeted about my weight, so I made a lot of reflexive and sometimes very offensive fat jokes, since to say it myself meant I didn’t have to hear it from another kid. And when that happens in Asian-narrated YA, I suspect part of what they’re deflecting is that range of dumb questions that all come down to “Where are you from?” Oh, you know, just Asia. All of it.
TOAST THREAD
I had this idea this morning while fighting with cold butter. What do you like on your toast? What sort of bread do you use. Personally I like salty butter* on whole wheat toast. It’s my breakfast of choice at the moment. On the weekends, when I have a little more time, I like it with a soft boiled egg.
At other points in my life, I have been devoted to almond and peanut butter toast, particularly as a toasted english muffin. Avocado toast is also having a moment. I like mine with a little bagel spice ( http://www.bagelspice.com/ ),
*Mr. Delperro has pre-hypertension (despite being a marathoner) and so I am reduced to salting my toast after buttering. Marriage ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Depending on my mood and how much time I have and what time of day it is, I like any of the following:
peanut butter
peanut butter and honey
butter and raspberry preserves
nutella
eggs over easy
butter and cinnamon
tuna fish and cheddar cheese
Toast is really great.
oh man tuna melts! I had a tuna melt for dinner last night. They are THE BEST. I also love eggs on toast, and eggy in a basket! (which is technically fried bread, but definitely in the toast ballpark).
TOAST! I like Ezekiel bread (OK it’s weird healthy bread, obviously I would like white bread better but it’s OK), toasted with Kerrygold butter and two fried eggs and something extra to make it more fancy– like kimchi, or avocado, or goat cheese or olive or artichoke spread.
Also sometimes when I don’t have time to make a real dinner I just do toasted Ezekiel with melty cheese and a chicken sausage on the side.
Yeah, I get the 100% whole wheat bread from a local bakery, but what I really want is the sourdough boule that sits right next to it on their display. I, however, have a family history of diabetes and need to avoid white carbs.
Tapenade or artichoke spread on toast sounds delightful.
Thank you for guiding me gently towards the word “tapenade” after I sat there for two minutes trying to remember what the word for the delicious olive stuff is 🙂
At the minute, the pear and ginger jam I opened two days ago and could happily eat on toast forevermore.
Great googly moogly that sounds good. I’m in a salty toast phase, but I bet I could a whole jar of that with a spoon.
I am trying not to!
I made some extremely delicious pear-bourbon-ginger jam a couple of years ago. It called for asian pears but I bet it would also work with the right European pear. I will have to remember to make it again this year. (Link: http://locallypreserved.blogspot.com/2009/11/asia… )
My favorite is pugliese bread, cut into thick slabs and smeared with butter. It’s so perfect that anything else seems to just be a distraction. I also like:
butter and honey
eggs (with runny yolks, or scrambled, or scrambled with bananas in the pan)
avocado
melted cheddar and apple slices
AVOCADO seconded–with garlic powder sprinkled on top.
I’ll also do eggs over easy with tons of black pepper or butter and vegemite. I tend to like my toast savory, unless I’m feeling ill. Then thick slabs of sourdough toast with cinnamon applesauce on top really hits the spot.
Mmmm melted cheddar with apple slices sounds awesome. Do you toast the apple slices or add the afterwards?
I put the apples on top of the toast, the cheddar on top of the apples, and then the whole deal under the broiler for the cheddar to get melty and bubbly. The apples stay crisp since it only takes a couple minutes, but are just warm enough to avoid unpleasant temperature mismatches.
oh my god. that sounds sublime.
I just opened a jar of blackberry jam my boyfriend put up last summer, when he was visiting his dad. Their house has abundant and wild blackberry plants. I typically hate jam, but this stuff is so good– still has big fruit chunks, and all the seeds are left in, and it is exactly what you need to spread on your toast at the end of a horrible winter.
I feel you on the salty butter. Minimalist and delicious. When I was being frugal in college, I’d buy unsalted butter, because I figured I could always add salt later. Now I am a Career Woman and just buy myself two types of butter.
Hah. I have often thought about buying fancyass cultured butter for my toast, but the spousal grumblings would be too much to bear. Plus we have limited counter and fridge space, so I stick with the sweet cream and ye olde salt shaker.
Kerrygold butter will change your life. Just TRY it I will go without many things before I forego my Kerrygold. Goddamn, I feel like some kind of pusher.
Yes Kerrygold is delightful. Pulgra is also quite good.
I love creamed eggs on toast. Great for dinner and breakfast. I love making jam/preserves and my two favorites from last year are peach/mesquite honey/vanilla bean and a spiced pear butter. I have ginger strawberry planned for this summer and found some cheap blackberries this week that I might jam, but I’m not sure what to put with them.
I grew up eating buttered toast with Salad Supreme sprinkled on top like a salty, savory cinnamon toast alternative http://www.mccormick.com/spices-and-flavors/herbs…
Those jams sound absolutely amazing.
You had me at mesquite honey.
Blackberry and rosemary go surprisingly well together. I usually just do the blackberry plain though; it’s one of my favorites.
I haven’t canned in a couple of years (due to living in an RV) but I’m missing it and looking forward to putting up some jams this year. Maybe asparagus pickles, as asparagus season just started here and I cannot get enough.
Butter then grated parmesan cheese is the best toast topping (toast on high so it’s nice and crispy. Toaster oven required obviously).
I never thought of that but now I have to try it. A friend of mine used to put that and some garlic salt on old hamburger buns in the broiler. I remember it as a tasty student snack.
I pretty much lived on peanut butter and honey toast when I was in college.
Also, Pepperidge Farm raisin cinnamon swirl bread toasted with Skippy peanut butter gives me all the food emotions, because it was what I ate (or devoured ravenously) every morning we spent at my grandparents’ house.
I love raisin bread toast. LOVE IT.
sweet: thick slab of sourdough. too thick for the toaster. do it under the broiler. buttered, then topped with cream cheese and strawberry preserves.
savory: albertson’s store brand white sandwich bread (it gets super light and flaky, kinda like a croissant in bread form). buttered and topped with a veeeeery sunny side up fried egg.
oh man these sounds delightful too! I love cream cheese and jam, although as a Cuban-American, my heart belongs to cream cheese and guava.
My all-time favorite toast is good crusty bread with ghee, raspberry jam, and salt.
oh man that sounds delightful. I never thought to put salt and jam together, but now that you say it, it makes total sense.
Tahini, honey and cinnamon on whole wheat– yummmm. I think I got that idea from Food52.
Also, toast smeared with goat cheese and topped with wilted greens.
Or with compound butter– miso butter, herb butter, vanilla butter, any butter. Ooh, new idea: toast with vanilla butter and marmalade.
goat cheese and arugula on toast is one of my all-time favorites too!
(ooh vanilla butter and lemon marmalade sounds super good)
Second/third/whatever number mashed avocado with salt/pepper/garlic and a fried egg on top of wheat toast. Avocado toast is popular for a reason, damnit.
Also goat cheese with fig jam.
Wow, I came to post about buying a toaster this week. Kismet! Whole-grain sourdough + ricotta cheese + marmalade = my happy place. Even happier if the marmalade has half a knob of ginger grated in.
Smitten Kitchen had this recipe which is now my go-to when I am eating alone. From bottom to top: toast, Dijon mustard, goat cheese, sautéed spinach, soft boiled egg. Yum I want this so bad right now!
Also, have you seen this knife?
It’s called the butterup knife, and you can buy it from the moma store, idk where else
WHAT?! NO! THIS IS LIFE-CHANGING! SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
SERIOUSLY.
When I was a kid, my favorite toast topping was butter with sugar sprinkled on top. Nowadays I prefer savory breakfasts, so avocado toast sounds delicious. I also like toad in the hole/egg in a frame.
Toasts, it has been a week. But! This afternoon is the optional fire extinguisher training offered by my institution. It had better be awesome is all.
FALLEN LONDON THREAD!
I have hit 200 Persuasive, so now I have turned my attention to increasing my Shadowy, which is my lowest skill. Except right now I am zailing around in my zubmarine, trying to hunt down another plated seal. I still haven’t found a new storyline to explore that will hold my interest for very long, though 🙁
What have you been up to?
I got to 100 in all my stats! Now I’m working on getting featured in tales of the university to 25. Woo!!! I haven’t been playing as much since I had that point though. It’s been feeling so grind-y and not as story driven lately.
I’m trying to get a Screaming Map, without having the faintest idea what it’s for or whether it’s worth it. It’s terrible but also fun. (I’m still at a point where, to advance any of the stuff I’m really interested in, I have to wait for opportunity cards — so when I have extra actions and no cards, I’ve just been doing things at random to kill time. Currently I am grinding a zillion glim to trade for the stuff I need for the Screaming Map storylets.)
The screaming map allows you to go to Polythreme!
You need a Screaming Map to zail to Polythreme, which is both wacky and possibly necessary at some point depending on what your Ambition is (mine is Heart’s Desire so I needed it).
That may be handy! Mine is Nemesis – currently I’m trying to get to the Iron Republic, but because I have steadfastly refused to look at Ambition spoilers I have no idea what’s waiting for me further down the line.
You mmmmay want to find someone who can tell you what items you will need on hand–I’ve heard of people having to zail back and forth between the Iron Republic multiple times because they originally went there under-equipped.
Alas, I’m Heart’s Desire, so I am not that person.
Just got my Notability to 5, now I need to get scholar of the Correspondence up so I can become a Correspondant. That Pot of Violant Ink will be mine!
Speaking of Notability & Making Waves – to avoid losing Notability when Time the Healer strikes, do I need to have more than at least twice as many MW as I do N, or is twice as much ok?
You actually just need exactly as much MW as Notability! For example I’ve got Notability 15 and have to get my Making Waves up to 15 each week. If it were 30 each week I would die. By which I mean rapidly become much less Notable.
Oh that is so reassuring, thank you!
I finally became a Person of Some Importance! Now a whole bunch of new storylines have opened up and I’m not clicking the same button over and over again for days.
Have you been to the Iron Republic? It is bizarre and delightful.
I have been grinding stuff and connections–I finally got a salon and am now working up to inviting the Captivating Princess.
I haven’t yet but I really want to – I am Closest To the Devils. I’m still missing a mark of credit page for my safe-conduct.
I’ve been grinding so much making waves so I could upgrade my profession. But now I’ve done it! I am a crooked cross… I made some poor priest deface a golden cross and now I use it as my weapon.
Now I’m going to get my shadowy up a bit and then continue working on constructing my zubmarine.
I finally got another animal to breed in the labyrinth of tigers (the lion in the tomb colonies) Now I’m building items back up to head across the underzee.
Hnnnnng SO CLOSE to being able to gamble with Mr. Apples for that damnable yacht… I am stockpiling 10 of everything you need because you lose one of each if you fail the luck check, which, lol OF COURSE I will, A BUNCH. I have 10 cellars of wine and 10k amber, now I just need 2 more Comprehensive Bribes and 7 (sob) more Favors in High Places.
I am getting the Bribes from the Fidgeting Writer and I have to say that the museum docents are probably sick of me constantly breaking their priceless artifact lenses, but also it’s their fault for continuing to give them to me.
And when I have my YACHT you are all invited to come on board and we will have a Fallen London Tea Party where we dress up as misandrists and dump horrible men into the harbor, CHUFFY MCAVOY-DAUNTLESS YOU’RE FIRST
I think I’m about to desecrate the altar of Saint Joshua and get close to some group other than the Great Game spies. It feels momentous since I am a Midnighter right now. But I think that is also the reason the game has been seeming a little dull lately — it seems like possibilities for other activities will open up if I switch professions, which used to be such an easy thing to do!
Also I am very excited to interview all and sundry for my newspaper — if we are acquainted, I will hit you up. It’s part of my clearly doomed attempt to embarrass the Masters by publishing THE NAKED TRUTH about them and their activities. Frankly my plan seems eminently misguided, but it was either that or get in league with Mr. Fires or Mr. Stones or possibly Mr. Public Decency, and I deeply dislike all three.
Also the Bishop of Southwark asked me to join in his plan to attack Hell, and I disagreed with him because he is a hothead, and I’d rather not have to inhabit the Fifth or Sixth City. Has anyone else gotten any further in this plot line, especially if you decided to take his side?
Ok, I am the last person in the world to do this but I need to get off the cable train. What streaming service(s) do you subscribe to? What gadget do you use to watch them on your tv?
We have Netflix and run it through my husband’s PS3. No issues at all.
Netflix and Roku and it’s been so great.
We use Roku and we love it. Netflix and Amazon Prime have been good to us.
The Roku is fabulous– highly recommend. I have a Roku and watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Warner Archive (which has a lot of ’30s-’40s things) on it.
Hulu Plus is also great because it has all of the Criterion Collection films (if you’re into that).
Initially: AppleTV & Netflix & HuluPlus, a combination that has made us very happy going on 4 years now.
We’ve since upgraded our dvd player to a bluray (Samsung, I think, ~$70) that also connects to our wifi, so we can now stream Amazon Prime through that, and we bought a digital antenna (the Mohu Leaf on sale from Amazon) so we could watch Jeopardy on the local affiliate.
I have this exact same setup and adore it. Also HBO Go is now open to subscribers, I think, so maybe look into that if you like dramas!
Oh yeah! It’s called HBO Now and available through AppleTV exclusively at the moment, I believe?
But If you have Amazon Prime you also have access to all the HBO shows (except I think current seasons?) for free.
Ooor just use a friend/loved one’s HBO Go password, since HBO Now is twice the cost of Netflix/HuluPlus for now.
Netflix and torrents 😛
Do you mean torrents, as in sites like thepiratebay.se? Because I have a question about using something to hide that I’m downloading torrents …. eek.
I do, ask away :). (If you prefer to contact me via email let me know)
I was using the torrent site kickass.to and got a nastygram from Universal Studios, et. al. and my internet company because I did not use anything to hide my identity. I think these hider things are called VPNs. But there are so many. Do you use one, if so, which one and how do you choose and stuff.
I found this right now, but it’s helpful only if you know what they’re talking about: http://lifehacker.com/5940565/why-you-should-star…
I also used the sites popcorntime and thepiratebay without a vpn and I haven’t gotten menacing letters because of them yet … so only the kickass stuff showed up. Anyway, anything you could explain or websites you could send me to, and I will be on my way … thank you thank you.
Yes, I got a couple of those too and switched to a VPN. It is a pretty good idea if you use public trackers like tpb or kickass (I use kickass a lot too).
I like BolehVPN:
https://bolehvpn.net/
Simple, they don’t log users, and they have many fast server in countries with better laws than us on this stuff. Any of their Fully Routed servers should protect you fine. It is around $80 / year I think which is not too bad.
You can find free VPNs out there but I doubt they are very trustworthy overall. Plus using a VPN is useful if you need to get around country restrictions or just want to have safer more anonymous traffic.
I will check it out! First I have to get over my paranoia that my internet connection is being monitored for huge data usage, LOL.
I have Comcast and have gone over my ‘usage quota’ many times and they never cared. Though I think that varies in different locations. If you anonymity your traffic with a VPN though they can’t tell what the data is anyway so you shouldn’t get any letters.
We have a Roku, so we use Netflix, Amazon Instant and Sling (I now get to watch HGTV! Woo!).
I hook my laptop up to the screen and use it to watch netflix and hulu (free, not paid) and amazon prime. It’s super easy and my laptop remote works for most things, or a cordless mouse on the side table for selecting shows etc
Apple TV, Netflix, Hulu+, HBO Now. No regrets.
I subscribe to Hulu Plus. I use my sister’s Netflix, she uses my Hulu Plus, and my mom has/had (not sure) Amazon Prime that I could use. My sister also traded my Hulu Plus login for an HBO Go login, but I can’t get it to work for whatever reason.
I use Netflix and stream it through my XBox 360, which goes great except when XBox Live decides to take a smoke break. 😛
For shows that aren’t on Netflix, I use projectfree[dot]tv to stream them. No downloading for me! A friend of mine tried to teach me how to use ThePirateBay last year, and even with her looking over my shoulder and directing my every move I immediately contracted some malware on my computer. Never again.
I have nothing–
But I do use my roommate’s Roku to watch YouTube yoga in the garage. If I didn’t have that I’d just use my laptop though.
Redbox for movies.
This is only because Nicole talked about destroyed her iPhone that made me think of this, but it’s neat and so I thought I would share:
On my phone I have a picture of this graffiti that appeared in Philadelphia, somoene spraypainted “I Believe in Werner Herzog” on a bunch of buildings, and I took this really great picture of it (just kind of off-center, with a chainlink fence in the foreground, very nice picture). Anyway, the graffiti is gone now, and I never shared the picture with anyone else, so I have this picture on my phone that I know no one else in the world has, and that no one else in the world CAN have.
At one level, I realize that this is basically what photography is, and lots of people have this similar experience. But on another level, there’s something really cool about it.
earlier this year, someone spraypainted “struggle is forever” on a wall opposite my bus stop. it was only up for a few days and the last time i saw it was as i waited for the bus at 5 in the morning during a real emotional shitshow of a week.
when i came back, it was gone and painted over. i wish i had taken a photo of it.
Please never fail to tweet pics of graffiti and signs to @hughesunderhill
Pics of these would be massive!
Toasties, superficial question – where do you buy clothes? I feel like I’ve grown out of the places I have shopped but don’t have enough room in the budget for more “grown up” clothing.
If you’re in the US, I recommend Dress Barn for work clothes. Very reasonably priced, and you can usually sign up for emails and stuff to get discounts. Their stuff is dressy but not old and frumpy (despite the name), and they carry some plus sizes in their brick and mortar stores.
My super secret clothing store is… Lands End. I KNOW it skews nautical old lady but they have good basics in a huge range of sizes, they’re good quality, and there are tons of sales. Plus they actually have some younger-looking stuff and since that’s not their average shopper it goes on super clearance. I just bought a new dress to wear to weddings that fits beautifly, is super nice fabric, has pockets, is a super cool print, and it cost me $25, free shipping. Score!
For dresses with pockets, eshakti.com is the best! pricier than that, but they have a lot of sales. I also love their customization to make dresses the way I want them.
I buy a lot of my clothes at Target. I tend to wear slacks and 3/4 sleeve cardis (or short sleeves in summer, long in winter) to work, with camis under. My more casual clothes tend to be jeans and shaped t-shirts or cardigans. I also like LOFT for work clothes. I used to buy jeans there, but they discontinued my favorites and I’m a size they don’t carry in store anymore, so I shop there less.
Target and LOFT are two of my favorites as well. Target’s Merona line often reads as a slightly less whimsical/crazy J. Crew.
i think i’m in the same situation as you.
i do most of my shopping at forever 21, and mostly it’s okay. i mostly wear black jeans and blouses and i know i look professional. but since 95% of the store is stuff i wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing, shopping there is…increasingly frustrating.
but i’m also so used to the fast-fashion prices, shopping elsewhere makes me break out in a cold sweat!
I feel like H&M is basically a grown up F21 – slightly higher prices, but also less sheer tops.
I feel too old for H&M – I bought the longest pair of shorts I could find there a couple weeks ago, and they’re still so short I have to depilate my bikini line before I wear them.
I do like their stuff, but there is very little that I would wear to work, even at a relatively lax work environment.
Oh dear I have clearly not been to an H&M in awhile!
It’s also very location-dependent. The stuff on their website looks fine, but the store near me was catering to younger people, and it’s in a place that’s very unconservative in dress (New Orleans), so yeah, finding shorts was a bit of an odyssey for me.
ugh, the shorts saga. how are those shorts inseams so short? a good few pairs did not actually cover my butt in the back.
eventually i made my own cut-offs, but later i surprised to see that old navy had shorts with inseams in 5″ and 3.5″ lengths for about the same price point as h&m or forever 21.
[upscale-ish but mainstream store, like Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, J Crew, Lands End (like SmrtCookie said….DRESSES WITH POCKETS)] + [your size] + [pre-owned] on ebay. There’s remarkably little skeeviness in those sales, in my experience – folks will post copious amounts of photos and provide actual measurements.
For work stuff, mainly Kohl’s. It’s relatively inexpensive, but a bit more professional-looking than some other places.
I’m 45 and I still shop nearly exclusively at thrift stores. But I make it a point to avoid dressing “my age,” so….
I don’t even understand what dressing my age means anymore. Am pushing 40.
I espouse this like once per open thread: Goodwill! You can find upper end brands a lot of the time– not like, Prada upper end, but I always see a lot of Ralph Lauren and J. Crew– very lightly worn or easily fixable. And Goodwill has stuff for all ages and body types.
Everlane, which I’m always going on and on about in the comments here and everywhere else; Banana Republic; Gap; Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft; sometimes J. Crew but very little of their stuff fits me well; LL Bean for some more casual stuff, flannels and such; and goodwill/thrift stores.
Everlane is awesome! Along with them, I shop at Boden, J.Crew, Madewell, ASOS, and Anthropologie. When I can afford it, I like to hit up Zady and local boutiques to get some non-made-in-China stuff that’s higher quality.
I shop Loft a lot because they often have 40-60% off sales if you’re signed up for their email list. Most of my not-jeans work pants are from Loft, and a decent amount of my sweaters/button downs/work tops.
I’ve salvaged a pretty respectable professional wardrobe out of thrift and consignment stores, but of course your mileage may vary. Used clothing stores can obviously vary wildly in character, and if you’re a thrifter you thrift often and figure out which days your favorite stores restock the racks so you have first crack at the good stuff.
When I buy new, I mostly buy from Macy’s sale racks, New York & Co (they occasionally have store-wide sales so you can get a discount on the better-made pieces), and Marshall’s. I’m also an in-between size–not quite plus, but definitely too curvy for H&M styles–so I tend to shop places that have a good range of sizes and that don’t skimp on arm and leg coverage.
Broke Student Life means I shop at Target, Nordstrom Rack, TJ Maxx, and thrift stores (only in the next city over because college town thrift shops are hella picked-over).
Uniqlo is great for dress basics, and usually have good sales. I also used to love the Lands End Canvas line, but they don’t carry it anymore at my local Sears 🙁
Banana Republic and J.Crew on excellent sales. 1861 (Canadian) for dresses and skirts.
I do a lot of shopping at department stores. Really! Their stuff is usually decently-priced and they carry a huge variety of brands, so I never feel like I have to tromp around to a million different stores, and there’s always a sale or something going on. Upscale stores like Nordstrom’s are the best for their house-brand stuff being really cute and high-quality at decent prices; places like Sears and Penneys for “hmm, I need something and I don’t want to think about it for too long.”
Consignment stores are THE BEST.
Hunt around for ones that balance pricing and selection–my go-to out in LA is Crossroads Trading, because their selection goes from Old Navy to Alexander McQueen, and I can get something like a pair of Joe’s Jeans for $25 or a 100% cashmere sweater for $15. Honestly, almost all of my grown-up clothing comes from there at this point. It requires more hunting, because there won’t be ten different sizes of a top you like, but it’s an incredible way to get quality clothing for a minimal price point.
I went to a ‘storytelling for grownups’ hing last weekend, which strikes me as a thing some toasties might be interested in. http://www.crickcrackclub.com
They do stuff in London, and the one I went to was in Dorset, in a200 seat earth house replica of an Iron Age roundhouse, in a hill and lit by firelight and lanterns. There were two performers and they were telling Indian folk tales and it was brilliant.
in a200 seat earth house replica of an Iron Age roundhouse, in a hill and lit by firelight and lanterns
That sounds AMAZING!
http://www.ancienttechnologycentre.co.uk/index.ht…
It was here – I have no idea how I’ve managed to live 20 minutes from this place all my life and not know about it.
Podcast Toasties! I have been listening to a whole bunch of You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes. I have been thinking incessantly about what an episode with Mallory would be like. She is so funny and insightful and would be excellent at making it weird. And also Pete Holmes could use some more female / female identifying view points. People successfully lobby to make this kind of thing happen all of the time.
She wrote this: http://thehairpin.com/2012/09/love-letters-ive-se…
And this: http://gawker.com/5959784/have-you-heard-the-one-…
If you also think this is something that could be magical and wonderful join me in lobbying them!
In other news, I am always looking for new podcasts to listen to. I spend long days in the lab. I listen to all of the usual suspects, but I am always looking for more.
Completely selfish recommendation but my friend and I just started a podcast about movie musicals. “All That Pod” – check it out. We watch a musical and discuss it along with a million other tangents. Its fun and stupid and I’m super proud of the fact that we got our shit together to actually start making it.
If you like This American Life, you might enjoy Planet Money. It’s a similar storytelling style with shorter episodes, and they’re all focused on money or business in some way (I know that sounds boring but it’s actually fascinating).
If you like Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, BBC Radio Four has a Friday Night Comedy podcast that sometimes has episodes of News Quiz.
Others I like: Yo Is This Racist, Frontline, Sawbones, Stuff You Missed in History Class, The Bugle. I also feel the need to plug the History of Japan Podcast, since it’s run by my main squeeze (warning: the upcoming episode about comfort women is a MASSIVE DOWNER).
I’ve plugged it on the last few podcast threads, but Dead Authors Podcast with Paul F Tompkins is hilarious and awesome.
Learned League Thread???
I know Nicole is in LL, and I bet other Toasties are too. I’m looking for a referral, and I don’t know anyone IRL who plays. Could anyone hook me up?
I’ve been trying to create a MAGNIFICENT MISANDRY PLAYLIST.
Please make suggestions for songs below!!
I have so far:
These Boots Are Made for Walking – Nancy Sinatra
Why D’ya Do It? – Marianne Faithfull
Why Don’t You Do Right? – Lil Green
Hit the Road Jack – Ray Charles
Money Power Glory – Lana Del Rey
Hah, I ran a playlist exchange among friends and misandry was one of the ones that someone made. Here’s the track list; I don’t know a lot of these myself, mind:
“Herjazz,” Huggy Bear
“Matoja,” PMMP
“Stay Away,” Heavens To Betsy
“Let’s Go,” The Shondes
“PunkRock-icity,” Delta Dart
“A Dame With A Rod,” The Juliana Hatfield Three
“All About Us,” t.A.T.u
“Bubblegum Bitch,” Marina and the Diamonds
“I’m A Slut,” bis
“We Are Rebels,” Alice In Videoland
“Dans Ta Vraie Vie,” Yelle
“Formula One Racing Girls,” Helen Love
“Strumpet,” Lois
“P.U.N.K. Girl,” Heavenly
“Mind The Gap,” Nabiha
“Nevermind,” The Birthday Massacre
“There’s No Other Way – No You Don’t,” Bratmobile
Thanks! I’ll check them out!
Marina and the Diamonds! “How to be a Heartbreaker” is also pretty misandrist.
And I’d like to submit “Gentlemen Aren’t Nice” by Emilie Autumn for consideration.
Ladykiller by Lush
AHHHH! I’d forgotten about that song! I loved it growing up!!! Thanks!
Chumbawamba do misandry well – Bad Dog, Stitch That, This Dress Kills.
“my last nerve” by she keeps bees
“i only fucked you as a joke” by childbirth
I Hope You’re Satisfied (You Rascal, You)- Ella Fitzgerald
P!nk, U + Ur Hand.
Great theme! Here’s some from my own personal version:
Salute – Little Mix
Dang-A-Lang – Trina
Bills, Bills, Bills – Destiny’s Child
“Different Drum” – Linda Ronstadt
Goodbye, Earl by the Dixie Chicks.
Came here to say just that!!
Mostly because I’m still mad my best friend wouldn’t let me work in a reference during my MoH speech at her wedding. (Her husband is a good guy! But I just needed him to know that I. Will. Cut. Him. if he steps out of line.))
“Hit ‘Em Up Style,” Blu Cantrell
“Don’t Do Boys,” Elektra
“Prove It On Me Blues,” Ma Rainey
That one Kelis song that goes “I haTE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!!!!1!!!1!”
THANKS EVERYONE! Keep ’em coming! Really looking forward to listening to all these suggestions!
Frazier Chorus, “Prefer You Dead” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpHd0HhbpQc
King of Anything
Mr Hurricane by Beast
No Man’s Woman by Sinead O’Connor
Malo by Bebe
Sisters are Doing it for Themselves by Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox
You’re no Good by Linda Ronstadt
Is … Natalia Kills too obvious? “Kill My Boyfriend”* is extremely direct. You’re really left with no questions.
*under no circumstances am I advocating for intimate partner violence! I think the gist is that her boyfriend, like most men, is trash.
My “stupid men” playlist is called “Fuck You, I’m Awesome”, which is the genre which an AV Club article placed Beyonce/Destiny’s Child’s music into. I do not have any particular interesting recommendations from that playlist though. This is mine:
Irreplaceable – Beyonce
Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood
Shake It Out – Florence and the Machine
Rumour Has It – Adele
U + Ur Hand – Pink
Gives You Hell (Glee version)
Stronger – Kelly Clarkson
You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette
Just a Girl – No Doubt
That’s Not My Name – The Ting Tings
actually pretty much anything by childbirth but especially (i can’t believe i forgot this) “how do girls even do it?” featuring the lyrics, “i don’t get it! i don’t understand! which one of you’s the man???”
you can listen to the whole album for free legally here: https://childbirth.bandcamp.com/
“I was Jesus” by Hello Saferide.
“The Pill” Loretta Lynn
“Joan” or “Medusa”, Heather Dale
always a fan of “your kisses are wasted on me” by the pipettes.
Maneater – Blue Eyed Songs. So very literal and so very violent 😉 I love it so much.
dead men don’t rape — 7 year bitch
cell block tango — chicago musical
FASHION FRIDAY
Last week I thought it over and realized that, in my whole wardrobe, the only words that appear on the outside of any clothing are “smalltown supersound” (a record label, the closest I have to a band t-shirt). Does that make me an adult now?
I bought a two-pack of underwear at Winners this week and they both clearly say the same size on the inside labels, but one fit perfectly and the other was awfully tight. Why, underwear gods, why?
For some reason it is telling me I am not logged in on The Toast when I am clearly logged in on WordPress and ID in other tabs. Also that’s my icon. So, whatevs?
Ummm, I may be suffering a terrible case of the trendy French-phrases on my t-shirts. But I actually speak a little French so at least I know what it says?
I realized a lot of my wardrobe boils down to “navy that’s so dark it looks black but is really navy.”
I also realized that my favourite wool coat might be ten years old! I’m impressed with myself, because there’s so much I buy and then lose interest in. It fits me really well, and is the perfect mix of feminine, spare/modern, and practical (embodying a lot of my style), and makes me feel like a badass every time I wear it. I’m kind of proud I still have it!
I remember when I bought it, I knew I didn’t really “need” a new coat. But it turned out to be a great lesson in investing in something that just works *for me.*
I bought new bras this week! My clothes all look so much better now! I know, I know, everyone knows that you need bras that fit but my old ones mostly fit, they were just stretched out and their underwires were poking out. Yeah, note to future self- go buy new bras when you need them!
I went out last weekend fully prepared to drop some srs ca$h on a new bra. Ended up spending a whopping $10 at TJ Maxx on a really great white t-shirt bra that fits me perfectly and provides exactly the kind of lift and support I need. It is just SO satisfying to finally have my breasts where I want them to be!
I am making an effort to photograph my outfit combos because summertime is always difficult for me. Warm weather layering options in Kansas are tricky, y’all.
Last week I went thrifting with a friend for the first time. I gave her the directions “camo colors and black, texture is good but no design prints, knits only, medium tops for underlayers, medium or large for overlayers.” She’s a good shopping partner. She found several great pieces for me (she’s the one who discovered the three major finds of the day) and didn’t get hurt or offended when I turned down half of the stuff she pulled. It was a great experience, having a different set of eyes and experiences. Got me to try on some things I wouldn’t have otherwise even noticed, much less tried on.
I am convinced that some colors of underwear run smaller than others.
I got some nice work pants and now I will need to buy belts because the size that fits my thighs and butt is loose around my waist.
Depending on the thickness of the fabric and waistband construction, try adding darts to the back waist.
Today I bought a pink shirt that is covered in colorful donuts. I’m pretty happy about it.
STATION ELEVEN STATION ELEVEN STATION ELEVEN I JUST FINISHED IT WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT IT
ME ME ME.
So…is it a little weird that I want to live in that airport?
It’s a little weird, isn’t it.
Hahah. I definitely had some moments of “wow, this would be kind of cool to experience” “Oh wait, it would mean everyone I loved was dead” “OK but I guess if it had to happen I’d be a little bit OK hanging out in that airport”.
I was also reading it in NYC in February, so I kept thinking to myself “This stupid city looks just like a post-apocalyptic landscape right now, except without the luxury of fewer goddamned people. THIS WOULD BE COOL IF ALL THE PEOPLE JUST DISAPPEARED”
Yessss, that was a big part of the appeal. This huge building created to hold many thousands of people at once but used by only a few hundred. Actual space to spread out!
If you’re going to get stuck somewhere, an airport is a pretty good place! Lots of light, lots of supplies, possibly arable land nearby. And they seemed to stay so civilized.
I loved this book so much I made a list of things I love. They include: Miranda, “Survival is Insufficient,” and how gently and wisely the book engages post-apocalypse tropes.
*GASP* and *heart eyes*! I loved Miranda, too, and that there were no superheroes. And the optimism! I’m such a sucker for pragmatic optimism in the face of loss.
I loved that their motto was Survival is Insufficient and I loved that they had a lot of discussions about whether or not it was embarrassing to get their motto from Star Trek when they perform Shakespeare. What a freaking amazing examination of like, all the (supposedly) high and low brow influences we have in life as a function of society and what does and does not matter when that society largely fails.
I just. Ugh. I don’t even have words to describe what a beautiful revelation the book was on every single level. It was the perfect union of narrative drive and meaning.
Better the airport then weird cult villages anyway. I really enjoyed the book.
Out of all the places one could live in that situation, the airport sounded best, so no!
Fantastic book, I’ve been pushing it to all my loved ones since I finished reading it.
I had actual creepy chills up my spine the first time that the cult leader said “Everything happens for a reason.”
I did kind of wish that Tyler had been fleshed out a little more. The scene when Arthur calls him, close to the end, felt a little too forced– it was right before Tyler got killed, like, we’re supposed to have sympathy for him now? Right at the end?
Clark and Miranda were the best. And I’m weirdly glad that Jeevan never met up with Kristen or Clark or any of them, just went on living his quiet post-apocalyptic life in North Carolina. It would have been too neat for all of them to get together at the end.
How do we think that town at the end got their electricity back?!
I don’t know, but I just got major shivers just remembering that moment when they see the lights.
I wonder! Hand crank generators? But that doesn’t explain why it took them twenty years to manage it. Or maybe it’s that that’s how long it took them to find one. Or someone in the town is an electrical engineer or similar, and that’s how long it took them to build a small power plant. Or they found some solar panels? I don’t know!
I never knew what to think of Tyler. I never really felt that we were supposed to feel sympathy for him beyond an understanding of how he became who he did, but maybe I’m being naive. At that point I mostly felt sympathy for Arthur, knowing what his son would become and that he almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to prevent it even if he hadn’t had that heart attack.
I want to read Miranda’s comic books, also I love that she worked her whole life on it but it was really only for herself.
Ah, I know, while I was reading I kept telling myself to go look them up later for reference, and then I’d be like, wait.
Hey DC/MD/VA Toasties, there was a post on a cocktail hour last year about a DC area group. Is that still a thing? Should I still be emailing the same person (Jocasta) to join? Are there meetups? Can I come tooooo?
Commenting to follow along 🙂
same here. I’m in Baltimore and would love to meet toasties!
Hi all – there’s a FB group, so if you just email me at itallfitsinmycar (at) gmail (dot) com I can send you the direct link! There’s also a book club/trivia attendance group, but I’m not sure who runs it.
GREY’S ANATOMY DISCUSSION THREAD
spoilers inside
OBVIOUSLY everything is terrible.
let’s talk about our favorite Derek moments.
Mine is probably “Alzheimer’s is a bad disease. We should cure it”
I looked through this slideshow on Entertainment Weekly,
http://www.ew.com/gallery/greys-anatomy-patrick-d…
and I think my favorite is slide #6, which I’ll excerpt here:
“””
After the hospital’s encounter with a bomb—inside a patient!—Shepherd stops by Meredith’s house. “You almost died today,” he greets her. They share seconds’ worth of meaningful looks before Grey admits she can’t remember their last kiss. He almost leaves, but ducks back in to recount the kiss down to every detail. “You kissed me, soft. It was quick. Kind of like a habit. You know, like we’d do it every day for the rest of our lives.” Swoon
“””
http://www.ew.com/gallery/greys-anatomy-patrick-d…
okay, yours is better.
I swear to the goddess I didn’t know which one to pick there were so many. So many.
Umph, that one was so good
(nothing else to add, I stopped watching after season 4, but follow along via wikipedia the last few years)
Oh god that was a fucking great moment.
everything is awful and I’m choosing to believe that this whole thing is Meredith’s first slide into Alzheimer’s and it’s really just a horrible horrible hallucination, la la la
it’s like, what else can she lose?
she has already lost: her mother, her sister, her father (basically), her person, her child, two very good friends, the chance at professional acclaim (harper avery as long as she stays at sgmh), and she has barely survived so much already. she’s not close with webber, her new sister, or any of Derek’s family. she’s just alone with two little babies.
i just feel awful forever.
She should move to Switzerland!
I get that people are upset but….I hated Derek! Me and my friends had a jubilant group text this morning. Meredith is free from McMeany! Are the three of us really the only humans who feel that way?
Just finished an epic hate-read/listen earlier this week. Apparently Audible has figured out that “Books [I] may enjoy” usually involve at least two of the following: cults, sex abuse, murder, sociopathy, religion used as a weapon, horrible men getting comeuppance/habing their horribleness exposed by tough women. (Other recent listens include Under the Banner of Heaven, Going Clear and Green River Running Red.)
So, highly recommended to make you yell at the audiobook or rend the paperback to shreds: Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell.
http://www.amazon.com/Doc-The-Rape-Town-Lovell/dp…
After spending last weekend in the glow of Mallory’s biting wit at the la times book fair, I have found this week to be extra tedious. The one good thing about today is it’s overcast and rainy which, in Phoenix, is like a national event. I feel bored and cuddly, but am unfortunately at work. Where are the good reads to get me through the day?? Also, if anyone hasn’t signed up for Ann Friedman’s newsletter, please do so. You’ll thank me later….
Hey Toasties! I know we’ve discussed Criminal Minds here before and I wanted to talk about it because I started my recap blog (https://unsubmary.wordpress.com/) and I’m finding that there’s a lot more to talk about than I thought! Morgan, you guys, is just the absolute WORST and the way he treats Reid is something I never noticed when I watched before. Also omg how much I hate his relationship with Garcia! Please talk to me about Criminal Minds!!!
I’m watching Criminal Minds right now! Morgan is absolutely the worst. Any man who repeatedly called me “baby girl” at work, in front of our colleagues would likely be castrated.
I kind of love Morgan, but now that I think about it, I was not a huge fan of him until season three or four?
Hotch, on the other hand. Hotch is basically my ideal man.
I watch the program for Garcia, both for her fashion sense and zillion pairs of glasses and how she matches things, but also, I’m a database person, and I try to figure out what databases she would have to access to get the information she needs … and sometimes, or maybe a lot, there are no databases that exist to get the information so obviously she is magic. I play solitaire when she is not on screen.
Also I have a photographic memory, so Reid is someone I watch with cat looks.
Late to the party, but I wanted to share with all my Toasties that I have been officially certified as a candidate for ministry in my church! So excited, especially since it is a long and arduous process. Sometimes it’s lonely being a feminist pro LGBT progressive Christian but I am glad I have a place here to talk about it, laugh about ridic things in faith and the Bible, and that we can share our faith (or non faith) stories with each other in a safe space. Religion is not always a safe place for women…and it’s hard to make it so.
I am so excited for you and so impressed by what you’re doing.
Thanks!! <3
Congrats! On the (tiny) off-chance you don’t already know the Slacktivist, you should definitely have a look. And it’s one of the rare blogs where you can actually read the comments!
I love Fred Clark and the Slacktivist blog so much. It really keeps me going sometimes. His analysis is so smart.
Congratulations!!
Thanks!
Congratulations!!! May you be the love of God to your world. *hug*
LIFTING THREAD!!
Who wants to talk about lifting? Did you lift? Do you want to lift? Did you set a new Personal Record (PR)? Do you Have Lifting Questions for other Toasties?
I want to read about other people lifting because I am still on the bench. Waiting for my PCP to call in a referral for physical therapy because I am getting real tired of this SI joint BS. This came across my Tumblr dash this week and I just about wept from envy and desire.
That is awesome. That kind of looks like Aneta Florczyk
I am actually having some SI joint issues as well. What is your rehab protocol? Mostly I’m doing the SI shotgun, and it seems to help a lot. Also long leisurely walks through the neighborhood seem to help. Plus Ice and stuff. But I’d love to hear what you are doing.
In case anyone wants MOAR ANETA, here is:
– Aneta setting a record for rolling up frying pans
– Aneta picking up and pressing a ton of dudes like they are made of balsa wood
– Aneta deadlifting 250 Kg (551 lbs)
I do this yang yoga series once a week, lie on my sacrowedgy for ten minutes at least three times a week, walk 1/6 of a mile every hour on the hour (or as often as I can), BioFreeze when it’s a particularly bad day, and a heating pad when it’s a particularly bad evening. I finally had my naturopath (whom I see for my autoimmune management issues and who is also a chiropractor) give me a small adjustment on Tuesday and that helped a lot.
I’m trying to get insurance to help cover a visit to a MovNat coach/physical therapist so he can help me fully recover from this and perhaps avoid it happening again. I’ve got some internal rotation issues that I want to resolve before I start lifting heavy again. I think that’s what caused that horrible deadlift-gone-wrong that triggered these nine wretched months of back issues.
Best wishes with your own SI issues! I’m gonna check out that SI Shotgun thing. Looks kind of similar to the yang yoga stuff.
Cool, thanks for the writeup! I’m going to go through the yang yoga series and see how it feels.
It feels excruciating is how it feels. Especially at the end when I get to the clamshell–wakes up my gluteus medias like nothing else. Helps, though!
SI joint pain can suuuuuck iiiiiit; I’ve been trying chiro for the first time and while I think my hips are more balanced, all the attaching muscles are having fits about the new alignment. It was a little bit of a kick that the doc told me I needed to do core work and then, when I listed what I have been doing and asked him what I need to do differently, blinked and said, “So on a scale of one to ten for abs exercises, with ten being the hardest, those are around an eight? And I think you need to be at a three while stuff adjusts.” So instead of TRX crunches and atomic push-ups and one-legged planks, it’s crunches on an exercise ball, sigh; instead of goblet squats and heavy pull-downs, it’s gingerly doing yoga practice with lots of child pose breaks. I’m still riding, but trot and canter have been agony, so I’ve been doing mostly walk work.
But how awesome are weights? All the awesome! I mean, I hate them while I’m doing them, but this enforced rest is driving home how much a regular lifting routine can become addictive.
WEIGHTS ARE SO AWESOME GOD I MISS THEM SO MUCH.
Hope you recover soon!
MY PRECIOUS CALLUSES COME BACK TO ME. Likewise wishing you a complete and comfortable return to hoiking up the heavy weights and putting them down, world without end amen.
I did non-kneeling pushups for the first time in like a year and a half and my abs hurt and I blame you.
Don’t forget you also pulled a 20 pound deadlift PR – 185 pounds!!
ETA: congrats on the pushups!
Okay, I got back into lifting recently, but now an old knees injury is acting up. I’d fallen on ice while carrying something really heavy and knocked both my knees out. Does anyone know safe lower body lifting I can do ::: like a website for that? Or should I just hire a personal trainer?
If you can possibly afford to, get a trainer. Especially one who enjoys working with older or injured athletes. Someone who will encourage you to do what you can, not push you to do what you (or they) want. Also, maybe stick with single-sided things for a while. Single leg squats and such are so hard, but so good for recovery.
It also depends on where your knee injuries are. As in, where do they hurt, and what if any range of motion limitations do you have?
Well, they hurt in the middle of the knee if I do lunges or squats, and sometimes it feels like the front disc is out of place. I also have had a total hip replacement after a car accident that crushed my pelvis and upper thigh, which limits how far I can bend and I can’t explain. Knees can’t go above my waist or something.
Yikes! Man, I was whinging about my SIJ pain upthread, but… crushed pelvis? Holy moly. I don’t pretend to understand the biomechanics of how you were rebuilt as your new, terminator self, but I can see how your range of motion would be limited.
I think maybe deadlifts might be a thing you could do without injuring or aggravating anything? Since generally the shin stays pretty vertical and the hips don’t go that low, so it could keep the strain off the knee and not jack up your hips.
For squats, I dunno. I’d suggest maybe trying what I’ve begun calling Channing Tatum Squats (most people call them “stripper squats,” as you hang onto a pole. Basically they are body weight squats, but you hang onto a sturdy pole or other immovable object (I use an upright on my power rack). This lets you control rate of descent, your depth, and also you can use your arms to help you back up. Obvs you cannot load up with weights, but as a rehab/checking out how much you can do without reinjuring yourself thing, they are pretty good.
Best thing, as CleverManka said, is to get a trainer if you can. One who trains older athletes is ideal, as they’ll be used to working with folks who have to work around injuries.
( I think the toughest thing about the accident was having to relearn to walk, but I didn’t actually mind being in a wheelchair for 6 months. Of course, that probably had to do with the massive amount of pain killers I was on. )
I can definitely do the dead lifts, but the Channing Tatum squats sound great. Should probably save up for a trainer, tho, hunh?
I love this thread. Weightlifting can be such a joy.
Real talk tho:
The most important thing is that, now that you’ve had your hip replaced, you can demand that all of your friends call you a cyborg, and acknowledge that they are now your minions.
Titanium rocks, so minions they shall be!
I want to start lifting, but I already go running 2 or 3 times a week because the endorphins are really good at relieving my depression, and I don’t want my legs to be too tired to run. So I was thinking about just lifting weights once a week, focusing on my arms and core, since I don’t really have the energy to do more than that. But I don’t know whether only lifting once a week with half my body is pointless?
It isn’t pointless at all. A lot of ultrarunners do that sort of thing! I’d recommend maybe thinking about barbell complexes. You can get them over with fast, they are good for short-track cardio, and they can help you add some muscle if that is something you want to do. Dan John has a pretty good article on them from several years back.
Rebuild Yourself With Complexes
There’s also Girls Gone Strong, which has a lot of resources for lifting. Molly Galbraith (co-founder of GGS) has a ton of vids out there about how to do various lifts. As does Stumptuous.
Cool thanks 🙂 Girls Gone Strong looks great. I wasn’t sure if you can get endorphins from lifting weights, so that’s good to know.
PS: I get the endorphin thing. I lift to manage my stress levels, which is not at all the same thing, but I do know that I get an endorphin high when I lift heavy. Maybe that’ll be another path for you in that regard? That would be neat!
I love you for starting this thread. <3 <3 <3
Also, I have not lifted this week because I have been fighting a cold! I guess you could say that I am trying to lift some phlegm out of my lungs, but that’s gross. ^^;
🙂
PS: I creeperstalked you on FB and saw your meet vid. At least, I think it was you. I ended up on a gym page because someone shared a “How to carry your husband/BF out of a burning building” vid (I can’t remember the exact title, but it was awesome). I went to the gym page, and there was a Hieu at the top of the feed setting meet PRs. If it was you, congrats 🙂 If not, some other Hieu is super freaked out by a random commenter and that’s not so cool.
No, that was me! And that was my gym’s owner lifting her husband–my primary coach–off the ground! I responded with a “hi!” but FB doesn’t thread comments properly. 😀 I was really delighted to get any comments outside of Bmore at all.
Woot! Imma FB friend you, and then you can go through and FB friend all the decent USAPL athletes who I’ve convinced to friend me 🙂
Toasties! A couple weeks ago I enlisted your help with my feels about my cystectomy and you were all so kind. Good news: I am recovered from my surgery!
Well, not fully recovered, I still have these annoying wounds covering my stomach. But I have been back at work for a week and I’m not even taking Percocet any more! They were able to save the ovary, which is good news since apparently I only have one. My surgeon theorized that I lost the other one to a pre-birth torsion while I was in the womb. So that’s weird!
Thanks to all for your kind words and helpful tips. It was all way less scary than I had built up in my mind (obviously). The nurses were all very sweet and kind and that helped a lot. And then I got 5 days of sitting on the couch doing nothing, which was good and bad.
Hooray for recovering! 🙂
So glad to hear you’re doing well!
Yay! So glad to hear everything went well!
I have blossoms on my peach tree! Also, this is the house MrKat and I bought last year! It’s super yellow!
YOUR HOUSE IS BEAUTIFUL. Oh my goodness. Real estate lust, happening, right now.
Ditto. I WANT TO LIVE IN THERE
One of the first things one of the new neighbors asked me was when we were going to paint. Um, how about never?
Awww, thank you! Pretty sure we only got it at the price we did because when you first opened the door you were smacked hard in the face with cat urine stench. Poor neglected kitties and horrible previous owners. There isn’t as much original woodwork in the house as I would have liked, and I’m even planning to paint the horrible trim someone installed in the last ten years, something I would absolutely NOT do if the wood was decent, and I have some paint-stripping to do because the banister is lovely and covered in literal globs of white paint. But I’m burned out on odor-removal (which involved tearing out floors and painting joists with odor-killing primer) and things have stalled.
Gorgeous! And I adore your house!!!
Thank you! It’s very exciting after 9 years of apartment living to have a yard. And a fruit tree!
What a super cute house!!!
Thanks! It was built in 1910 and I can’t quite pin it down, architecturally-speaking. It’s almost like an American foursquare inside, with a central switchback staircase, except the weird Victorian trim someone put in in the last few years is confusing with the craftsman balustrade. I really just want to fix the bathrooms.
Oh, your house is so cute! I don’t even usually like yellow on houses, but it works so well with the color and the architectural style.
pretty!! and your house is cute as hell, oh man.
Hey Toast. This isn’t exactly a problem, or something I’m looking for advice on – more just a vent on something that bothered me, and I wanted to check whether anyone else understood/recognized my feelings on the matter.
I am, by nature, a pretty introverted person, and I’m always fairly reserved with people I don’t know well. It’s not crippling shyness – I’m fine with making polite conversation – but I just don’t feel comfortable letting my guard down unless I’ve known the person for a while. Anyway, I’m currently in grad school, and the administrative person in charge of the program is VERY sweet and bubbly. She’s gone out of her way to learn everyone’s names, will shout greetings down the hallway, gives out hugs on a whim, etc etc. Which is great for her, and most people really respond well to that. But to be honest, my interactions with her have always felt kind of awkward and strained, because I just can’t match her level of enthusiasm and warmth, and I come off looking and feeling kind of dour by comparison.
That would be OK, except she has now started to tease me about it, making joking comments along the lines of “oh, you’re always so quiet and serious”. And that bothers me a lot more. I’ve spent years getting to the point where I don’t feel bad/guilty/inadequate about being reserved, and I just feel kind of inexplicably angry at this woman for trying to tease me about it. Which makes no sense, because I know she means well. And if I try to articulate the problem (e.g. to my boyfriend) it basically comes out as, “This woman makes me feel uncomfortable because she’s way too nice and sweet to me,” which really makes me feel like I have no leg to stand on. Fellow introverted Toasties – please tell me one of you has had a similar reaction at some point!
Totally. It’s very hard not to feel defensive, as if “quiet and serious” were a BAD thing! And you know they aren’t saying “you’re quiet and that is WRONG” or “you’re quiet and I think that means you’re sad or angry at me” but you hear that anyway.
All I’ve got advice wise is when she says “you’re so quiet!” smile warmly and say “yes, I sure am!”
Oh, I like that advice! Thank you.
I’ve done that kind of a lot, especially when I was younger, with varying degrees of niceness. “You don’t talk much, do you?” “Nope!”
I’ve actually replied to comments like that with “I’m the strong, silent type.” (It seems to flummox people when it’s coming from a lady-person.)
My boss is also SO extroverted and bubbly, seriously the sweetest person ever, but her energy level exceeds mine by a billion. I don’t have any advice I guess but you’re not alone. Your coworker probably doesn’t mean anything by it when she says you’re quiet, which I know doesn’t help. Even well intended comments can still feel shitty! Maybe she’ll get over it and just let it go. In the meantime, from one quiet person to another – you are great and there’s nothing wrong with us for being reserved!
Thank you! I’m so glad to hear I’m not the only one with this particular problem.
Oh gosh except for a few details I was afraid you maybe went to school where my mother works, ack.
I am a pretty reserved/introverted person, but I’m not sure I can help you much because I’m a fake-extrovert in environments like this. I’m torn between giving you advice like “Try to up your enthusiasm and warmth, just a little” and also “Teasing anyone for who they are is obnoxious and juvenile, she is an ass.” So I don’t have much help, but I do have my sympathy and commiseration.
Haha, just based on age, I’m pretty sure she’s not your mom! Thanks for your sympathy, though.
I tend to mirror peoples’ enthusiasm back at them, but it’s very superficial. I’m actually pretty reserved–I don’t like talking to people I don’t know well about stuff I actually care about or important things going on in my life. I don’t take people up on their offers to hang out if I don’t know them well.
It’s not the she’s too nice and sweet to you–it’s that she’s nice and sweet to you, and she expects you to reciprocate. This is not a reasonable thing to ask of people! I don’t have any advice, but I feel your pain and frustration. It is not cool that she’s making fun of you for just acting the way you feel comfortable acting.
Yeah, it’s difficult because I am 99% sure she doesn’t mean to be rude/hurtful/whatever. It’s always been my experience that extroverted people are generally way more comfortable with good-natured teasing of that sort. It just doesn’t sound wrong to her ears in the way it does to mine! Thanks for your response; it’s good to know I’m not alone in this.
It came up last year in an appraisal (with a manager I no longer have) that ‘you’re very quiet in the office and you keep yourself to yourself’. I looked confused and said ‘where’s your point?’ and he admitted he didn’t have one and shut up.
Haha YES.
I would find that annoying too. Being reserved is not a character flaw! And it is totally fine to not be okay with even good natured teasing. I wish people wouldn’t tease others unless they know that person is fine with that kind of humour.
After years and years, I’ve gotten to the point where I am so over people joking about my being reserved or quiet or trying to make me feel bad about it because it somehow makes them uncomfortable. So I’d be likely to say something, nicely but firmly, like “I know you mean well, but consistently pointing out a feature of my personality like my quietness, makes me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious.” And then if she continues, probably follow up with “would you say to someone who was out-going/chatty, ‘oh you just never stop talking do you?’ or ‘wow, literally no one can get in a word edgewise around you’?” (No, because it’s rude.)
Talk to her in private–tell her very honestly that you appreciate her warmth and kindness, but that her particular approach with you makes you feel uncomfortable, and you know she doesn’t mean to do that.
As an extrovert who has Sometimes Inadvertently Made Quiet People Feel Bad, it is SUPER important to know *how* I may be making someone feel awkward, or I will never be able to correct my behavior with them. She is likely in the same boat–just doesn’t realize that a different approach is needed with you or other quieter personalities.
TOASTS, HERE IT IS! LIVEJOURNAL FRIENDING MEME SINCE I CAN’T EDIT MY POST!
http://kickthehobbit.livejournal.com/743947.html
I am leaving work early today because I have a splitting headache. But I have to tough it out for another 40 minutes or so.
Baltimore Toasties! I will soon be joining your ranks! I figured out all my grad school stuff and I’ll be there in August! I’m so excited. And also a little weepy, because this is my last week of undergrad and I’m about a page away from finishing my last undergraduate paper ever. Feels weird.
Games thread!
I just bought a series of point and click adventures called the Charnel House Trilogy. They are kind of creeping horror type stories, but I’m not very far so it hasn’t gotten creepy yet.
Started playing Hearthstone on my phone as well, so that is fun. Any other bnet users out there?
I made some simple 3d models and textures (not for anything specifically, just practice):
https://skfb.ly/DTo6 https://skfb.ly/DTpn
I just bought Pillars of Eternity and I’m trying to find THE PERFECT portrait for my character before I start playing because that really matters I swear, shut up.
No, I understand, it is a very important step. And then the portraits you like don’t ‘quite’ match up with what your character actually is but it’s way better so you have to decide is that mismatch ok? Yeah it’s ok.
You guys. Between burlesque and becoming A. Bride. I’ve been doing a LOT of performing femininity today. I’m watching RuPaul’s Drag Race as an antidote and for inspiration. It’s SO GOOD. How did I not know before?
I looooove RPDR. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure because it can get problematic, especially in the earlier seasons, but I gag on their runway looks. They’re always so so good. Which season are you watching?
SOOOO good. This season isn’t quite on level with like seasons 3 and 4, but it’s still awesomely ridiculous. The most recent episode slayed me.
Only replying to second all of the sentiments on RPDR!!!! Fourth season is the best! But I LIVE for Bianca del Rio from Season 6!!!! This season, I am loving Katya!!!!
If Katya doesn’t win I’m going to hold my breath forever. She’s the only one that really seems sharp. I don’t know why this season has so many boring contestants.
SEASON SIX OH MAH GLURB.
In the continuation of Absotively Has a Free Cable Trial, I am still mostly only watching Star Trek: Voyager, but I have been forced to admit to myself that it is a somewhat flawed show.
Both Janeway and Chakotay tend to switch “we’re good friends/a family” and “I’m your commanding officer and you have to do what I say” without reason or warning, which is clearly a terrible management style. And then there’s Paris’s space racism. In what universe is it acceptable to constantly make fun of Tuvok for being a Vulcan? And what makes him think it’s his place to pressure B’Elanna to do more Klingon things?
Also, why didn’t Janeway remember Kes’ warning about the Krenim? Is that going to be addressed in part two of the year of hell, which is the next episode on my list? It better be.
I grew up watching Voyager and still love the hell out of it, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to admit to myself that I wouldn’t love it as much if I’d watched it when older/after any of the other series, which are a bit more consistent.
The Year of Hell is pretty awesome, though, and it has its moments that make it worth watching, imho.
Voyager is…yes, somewhat flawed. Kind of. Just a little. /s But it premiered when I was a shy, lustful early teen, so it will always have a place in my heart and/or vagina. Tom Paris: Hottest Space Racist.
For some reason Tom Paris’ hotness went unnoticed by me when I was an early teen. Possibly because I was also watching TNG reruns, and as I confessed in the comments of the female desire article recently, I thought Wesley Crusher was quite something. Now that I’m older, it is definitely upsetting that one of the hottest dudes on the ship is guilty of so much space racism.
TNG is also terrible with the command dynamic. I mean, I get that you’re not technically a military, whatever you mean by that, but you get in a lot of military-type situations and you maybe need to be a little more formal with that?
I don’t remember it being quite as terrible, but it’s been longer since I watched much of it.
I watched Voyager last year and the way they treated Tuvok bothered me too. Like using the holodeck to make a mockery of something he finds culturally/spiritually significant is played off as a hilarious prank.
I do like Star Trek time travel nonsense though, and Voyager has some decent episodes.
Ugh, Toast, my business trip will never end and I never get to go home. I’ve been here for 3 weeks and it just got extended AGAIN. And now I’m staying in a crap hotel with no kitchen or laundry instead of the perfectly functional apartment I was in for the rest of the trip. I seriously thought my boss was drunk and/or joking when he told me (he was drunk, but not joking).
I found a cat cafe today, which helped, but WHAT AM I STILL DOING IN THIS COUNTRY?
On a related note, I have such a crush on one of my coworkers here and it’s like the only thing sustaining me in the face of indefinite travel dates. Too bad nothing will happen because it would be pretty irresponsible considering our particular jobs.
toasties, question time!
I’m contemplating running a kickstarter for my next music project album thing, do any of you have relevant experience? wisdom? common errors to avoid? anything that seriously annoys you when you look at a kickstarter? any super clever ideas that you’ve come across??
<3<3<3
For my job, I just copyedited a book that included some advice about crowdfunding! Here is what I remember from it:
1. Def use kickstarter, because if you use one that gives you the money regardless of whether you hit your goal, you’ll be on the hook to make your album whether you’ve got enough money to do it or not.
2. Almost all donations come at the beginning and end of the campaign, so work really hard on getting people amped about it before it goes up.
3. Don’t do T-shirts as a reward! they cost too much to make to be worth it
Anyone going to New Orleans Jazz Fest next weekend?
let’s chat about it
nope but i did just go to new orleans for the first time last weekend! it was a good time, bourbon street is a portal to hell that should be avoided at all costs, etc etc.
I’ll be there on Sunday, at least! When are you going? Anybody in particular you’re trying to see?
Toasties, I have developed a weird habit and I want to know if anyone else indulges in the same thing. Even though I have many more years before I can consider buying a house, I have become OBSESSED with looking at listings. I spend a lot of time gaming out how much I need to save for a down payment, how far out of town I would be willing to move, what color I will paint my future walls, etc. Again, it’s going to be years before I can even entertain the notion of actually buying a place.
I think this is coming out of a combination of fear of rent increases and longing for a more permanent home–I have moved at least once a year for the last 7-ish years and I’m really longing for a living space that I can actually get attached to.
Do you do this thing too? Am I crazy for doing this thing?
YOU’RE NOT CRAZY. I am house-obsessed as well. It has to be a result of current conditions – you want to settle down, I want to have more than 400 square feet of living space! Too bad I don’t have 30k lying around for a down payment…
Oh yes, I would do terrible things for more space. I recently revisited the house I grew up in (bought 30 years ago in a much cheaper city, by two people with stable jobs) and I just could not comprehend how much extra space there was.
I do this too! And then I get really depressed about my current income and wish I had room in the budget for saving more than $20-50/mo, because at this rate it would take 50 years to get a down payment. Something’s got to change
You are not crazy. My sister likes to do this too even though she is a longs ways off from buying a house.
I have designed my house from the ground up, I save stuff from Houzz, I get the 15 pound Restoration Hardware catalog; I’ve chosen flooring, sinks, showers, cabinets, stoves, copper pan sets; couches and writing tables (I will have a writing table in at least 5 rooms of my 20 room house); I look through artfulhome for art glass and other things … and I will never have a house unless I get off disability and become a best-selling author. So I should write instead of looking through house-related websites, lol.
Can we talk about how annoying it is when people who own homes smugly tell you that it’s much better renting because owning a home is hard and expensive and we should just give up our dreams of homeownership? Because those people have clearly either been very lucky or not had the experience of bad landlords and/or periodic rent increase worry and adjustment.
I’m lucky that I don’t get a ton of this, because rent hikes and crappy landlords trying to oust lower-income tenants are making the news regularly where I live. Mostly it’s people who have high-paying jobs or who bought foreclosures after the housing crash telling me that it’s so easy to buy a condo, anyone can do it.
My partner did this for years and YEARS before we could buy a house, and it was actually really helpful, because she learned a ton and was very knowledgeable about market trends etc.
I do it! Think it’s positive–you can really get to know the market.
My parents just booked a two-week visit over American Thanksgiving and beyond and I’m trying to smile gamely through my fear! WHEEEEE!!!!!!
I feel your pain, lady.
I find it helps with my parents if I have activities planned ahead of time that minimize potential conflict situations, or situations in which we find ourselves talking about issues we vehemently disagree on. Set aside time for yourself–take a walk or a bath every day, just to reset.
*hug* You’ve got this.
Friends, toastrons, countrymen, lend me your unbiased-by-being-present opinions? In the first week of March I came home after a weekend away to find my fridge had stopped cooling and so lost $70 worth of food. Landlords replaced this right away! I was impressed. Then the hot water tap in my shower inexplicably began leaking — the hot water knob, not out of the spout. It was four days of no hot water in my bathroom, but they fixed the problem and replaced both sinks in my apartment while they were at it, so that seemed reasonable.
But three days after this repair was completed, the ceiling above my shower collapsed. It took them a week to even start work on that, but they didn’t tell me when the repair guys were coming, so I waited for them Wednesday-Friday before calling to wonder what was happening, at which time they told me they were coming on Monday. And they did! They came daily, Monday through Thursday. Then they said they would finish the job on the following Monday. So I waited again the following Monday and Tuesday, and still they did not come. They came on Wednesday (two days ago) to finally finish, two weeks after the ceiling collapsed in the first place.
Today both the hot and cold water in my apartment are inexplicably off. I called the building manager to ask why. He did not know! He did not know why I do not have water. I would like to shower and do dishes and flush the toilet, please. It is unclear when I will get water back, since the building manager could not tell me why it is off in the first place.
I have recourse if the water continues to be off for ???? reasons, but otherwise this is apparently not enough where I live to request to be let out of my lease early, even though I would still give two months notice. I am not handling the stress of my living quarters, where I also work, being imposed upon by strange men whose names I do not know more days than not for several weeks. I have trouble with anxiety and kind of stopped sleeping altogether for a few days in the middle of all this, but it’s hard to tell if I feel legitimately anxious or if this is just triggering some old stuff to do with a seemingly unstable living situation. Does this … seem like … something reasonable to be having a reaction about?? This is a bad apartment, right? I think it’s okay for me to feel upset but it’s hard to say if this is actually an upsetting situation in and of itself.
That sounds like a very bad apartment, and you’re absolutely right to be upset! I also had trouble sleeping when I was in a bad living situation–it’s really hard to relax enough to sleep in the middle of the place that’s stressing you out. The only thing that totally fixed it was moving into a place where I felt comfortable again.
Thank you for the validation! I feel very silly to get so upset over basically fixable issues that are actually being addressed, in some manner.
Do you live in a rapidly gentrifying area by any chance? Somewhere where the rents are rising rapidly? I have heard of landlords using tactics like this–making the unit basically unlivable–as a way to get stable long-term tenants to leave so they can gentrify the fuck out of it and get themselves some fancier new tenants at higher market rates…
I live in an area that is affordable to people like me who do not clear the poverty line. To this end, I suspect perhaps expectations upon the landlord to present livable quarters is less, because people who are struggling to find an apartment for income reasons don’t wish to draw attention to themselves. I just moved in in September and will be leaving, at the latest, when my one-year lease expires. I don’t get the impression they get enough long-term tenancy to suffer from any ill-effects therefrom.
Oh, that’s a terrible situation. People who are already feeling disenfranchised aren’t likely to feel empowered to make complaints to the landlord, esp. when experience tells them that complaints won’t actually even get results. You deserve better!
That sounds really stressful. It’s absolutely reasonable to be upset about it!
I am not an expert in this by any means, but do you have the resources to withhold rent? You’d have to look up the requirements in your city/state, but there are usually avenues through which you can withhold rent and put it in an escrow account until certain repairs are made when conditions become unlivable (which having no water certainly is).
You are absolutely reasonable to be anxious and upset about this! I have lived in a bunch of apartments that weren’t unlivable but had chronic/serious problems, and even though I’m generally pretty easygoing, having problems with my home caused me a TON of stress. Home is supposed to be where you can rest and relax, and if you have constant problems that are out of your control or you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, that’s taken away from you. Last year, I moved from an apartment that I really liked but had chronic issues (roaches, ants, ceiling leaks, landlord allowing building to rot), and I was immediately so much less stressed. (Current place has its problems, too, but they’ve been things we could actually get the landlord to fix.) I would definitely look into the possibility of putting your rent in escrow or breaking your lease without losing your deposit. A lot of cities have groups that offer free legal support services for tenants, too.
It sounds like you’ve looked into your legal options already, but definitely make sure you know what all of your rights are (maybe check to see if there’s a tenants’ rights group in your area?), because stuff like not telling you when people are going to be in your apartment (just because you work from home and can wait for them doesn’t mean you should have to) and leaving you without water with no notice are at least STRONGLY DISCOURAGED, and at most totally illegal, in a lot of cities/states.
Is there a Legal Aid near you? Most universities have a Legal Aid clinic that offers free legal advice to the community and it is really really helpful for renters. This does vary by region, but in the vast majority of regions, your landlord cannot have you living in a place without running water without either offering you an alternative that he pays for or forfeiting rent, and it is also usually illegal to give entry to anyone other than yourself, including maintenance workers, without letting you know beforehand.
Withholding rent is the only way to go in these situations, with an unresponsive landlord. Polka_stripes is right that you should put it in an account with escrow, and have proof of that — this way they can’t evict you for lack of paying rent in retaliation. It doesn’t hurt to research whether your town has an office for landlord/tenant problems, and let your landlord know you are planning on calling them (and go ahead and do call — sometimes they are very helpful in precisely these situations).
Withholding rent is not going to make you any friends, so be sure you’re ready when you do it — but it DOES tend to create very fast results. You can also do it without escrow if it is a minor thing, like reimbursement for the ruined groceries, as long as you include documentation. I once withheld $70 for dry-cleaning because my landlord had decided to whitewash the whole stairwell at 6am without any notice or putting out any signs about wet paint, so of course that morning on my way to work and I brushed against the wall, covering my hand and leather jacket in white paint! I just included a photograph and the dry-cleaning bill with my reduced rent check and that was that.
Good luck!!
I’m posting this here because I know what the people on the Ask a Manager open thread will tell me.
I really want to quit my job, an otherwise good job that’s sucking all my energy and enjoyment away. I have a little savings, my husband makes enough that we could get by on one income for a little while, and I do some freelance work, but not enough to live on forever. I’m just at my wits’ end. Been trying to find a new job for two years and nothing’s happened. And I feel guilty because my job isn’t THAT BAD. It’s just boring and my commute is 1.5 hours long. I just want to quit and take it easy for a month or so and then start applying to ten jobs every day.
So you spend three hours a day commuting?! That does sound rough. Job hunts are rough also, though. I have been temping for a year while I look for a full-time job, and I haven’t even had a nibble. But! Temping is a nice safety net, especially if with your husband’s salary your straits wouldn’t be too dire. Temping is also boring and pretty unfulfilling, but maybe you could find something closer? Then you could stuff envelopes or whatever for a while and give yourself a break before you started hunting for real. (Sometimes I do freelance work AT my temp job and get paid for two things at once and feel squirrely about it, but hey! Two tiny paychecks are better than one!)
I think your main consideration is whether the potential of being unemployed for (a) a short time or (b) a long time will cause you more grief and upset than staying in your current job will. The situation is improved by the fact that you have a husband and thus a second income, but “a short time” needs to probably be “a year” or else it probably isn’t worth it. I say this having quit a job in July thinking I would find a full-time job within six months! It’s May now; nothing yet (but I can just barely pay the bills off my existing part-time job). BUT I don’t regret quitting my job, even though my financial stress is greater. It’s a coin toss. Which sucks more, the stress of a job or the stress of no job? That’s the most significant factor, IMO.
Do that–quit and feel no guilt and then start applying to ten jobs every day. It’s a rough job market, but cast your net wide. What if you worked somewhere part-time for awhile? What if you applied to some things outside of your field? What if you did literally anything other than continue spending three hours traveling to a job you dislike every weekday, even if you take up something that makes a little less money or doesn’t necessarily advance your career for awhile?
*tears of gratitude*
Yeah, I think I need to muster the courage and just DO IT. This job is hella safe but maybe the safest option isn’t always the best.
rather late to the game, but nevertheless– i got rejected this week from a teaching assistantship i both badly wanted and [cockily, but perhaps also accurately?] thought i absolutely deserved… aaaaand my best friend got it instead. i desperately want to be an adult about this, to be happy for her, and to move on. instead, i am grumpy and weepy and nervous about what this will do to our friendship. YIKES.
on a happier note, do any of you listen to the podcast “call your girlfriend”? it is all things perfect.
Oooooh, that is rough. Is your best friend being gracious about it? Does she know how badly you wanted it?
Sorry to hear about that. 😛 I had something like that happen last year. I whined to other people about it (while apologizing for whining) so that I could be civil in front of my friend, and after some time I was over it and onto new things.
Hey Toasts! Does anyone have any experience with anger management?
I’ve been really irritable and kind of on a low-simmering anger setting lately, and have been feeling like I need to do something to fix it. I have been interpreting everything (at home, at work, on the roads, on the internet, etc.) as an intentional slight to me and reacting very poorly to it, and it’s becoming a problem. I don’t want to feel this way, and I don’t like the way I am behaving toward other people. I haven’t been to my therapist in a while, but I think it might be worth going back.
In any case, does anyone have any insights or advice about general therapy for this purpose, or any other methods of controlling/dealing with such an issue?
I can’t help re: therapy, but imagine a good therapist may be able to offer you some sound advice about catching your behavior and retraining away from it. As an Old, I *can* tell you that the joys of perimenopause turned me from someone who would get mad occasionally into a Raging Bull/Incredible Hulk hybrid at the most unexpected times. It’s getting better now, but I’m really hot to find medical care and try cajoling my hormones into working for me instead of against me. Might be worth keeping an eye on, and I hope it gets easier for you–it just feels so crummy to constantly be on guard and in lash-out mode.
I got new glasses! They’re just reading glasses but I feel super cute and like my grandma on her wedding day combined with a NASA scientist working on the Apollo missions with just a dash of punkishness and I never knew this is how I want to feel every day.
With a description like that, you can’t not give us a picture!!!!
Well twist my arm why don’t you! They are Warby Parker and I feel super fancy.
Oh dear, it’s not working for me – let me know if you can’t see it and I’ll just post the link.
Link please!
The best glasses of the word
Everything about this is amazing.
Hi Toasties! I’m a newbie to posting here but have admired all of your infinite wisdom and wit from afar for a while now.
I’m in a relationship pickle. I’ve been happily dating a lovely man for almost 6 months now. This is our second round dating–the first round started about a year before this round, and we became very good friends in between. Then fell back together again….right when I was starting to explore dating girls. So maybe he was a safety net that I reached for when I got a little nervous about being openly bi, but honestly I think we are great together and could be very happy together for a very long time.
BUT. Given the timing of when we started dating seriously, I have had this thing nagging in the back of my head that maybe I should have explored more with girls. If I thought this man and I were just a passing thing, it wouldn’t bother me, as I’d know I’d get my chance. But things are getting serious and we both think about The Future a lot–we were planning a trip to his hometown next month to meet his family/friends, and we’ve had tipsy conversations about one day maybe moving in together (later…we are both fiercely protective of our independence).
Last night a petty argument ballooned into a big Relationship Talk, in which he expressed that he’d had doubts whether I really wanted to be with him or whether I’m just there because I think I should be (I am a little Spock-like when it comes to the feels, I have a hard time expressing/showing/identifying what I’m feeling). Which led to me letting him in on these nagging doubts and wonderings, and the occasional fantasizing about being with a woman instead. He’s extremely understanding, and had his suspicions all along–he has had his own experiences with same-sex relationships and believes in fluid sexuality without labels, etc. etc. But now, totally unexpectedly, we’re at this place where we’re asking, What do we do? Do we stay together or not?
Toasties, what do we do here? Split up for a month or two so I can be wild and free (but I have never been wild, so all I might accomplish in that time is a couple awkward first dates, at best)? Try to be poly for a bit (he has tried that before with a previous girlfriend, and did not like it, so he is not big on this)? It’s not fair to him for me to just cling on while I still have all these unresolved pent-up feelings, which might one day just lead things to an end anyway. But if we split up for bit, he’s not going to wait around. The idea of splitting up still makes both of us very sad, but could it be for the best? We can try to be friends again–we both want each other in our lives in whatever way is necessary–but I can already feel the heat of jealousy when I think about him with other women. I love him but have also had the thought, sometimes, that maybe I’m being too logical about this…maybe I’m not as crazy in love as I should be? I don’t know where my natural Spock-like-but-loving nature ends and actual apathy begins. Would it be dumb to end things just for a few flings that might only lead me to want to be with him again–and risk him not being there when I come back? I feel especially guilty because this is round 2–I was the one who wasn’t emotionally ready for anything serious in round 1, and now I’m doing it to him again in round 2 apparently. So I’m not banking on him being willing to try a round 3 if it comes to that.
Back when we were just friends, he was the one I’d talk to about these confusing relationship feelings (and lack thereof). So I’m kind of at a loss now for an outside opinion. Has anyone been in this situation for? How do you weigh the pros/cons when you’re not even sure if the pros/cons you’re listing are real or not? Does that make any sense? What kind of surreal miasma of sexuality am I caught up in here? Help!
Poly/open is off the table and I agree with Leigh that it’s kind of cruel to break up temporarily but keep him on the hook. So to me it sounds like you have 2 options: monogamy or break up. Here’s the thing with monogamy- you have to want to be with that person more than you want to be with hypothetical (or actual I suppose) other people. This is true no matter what your sexual orientation is! So I think you have to figure out which you value more- and which you actually value more, not which you think you should value more or which would hurt less for your boyfriend or which people expect of you. That’s a lot of noise to tune I but I think you can do it!
It depends on what you want in terms of exploring your bisexuality but if the desire is strongly sexual, rather than wanting to have relationships with women, then have you and your partner maybe considered threesomes? I know it’s not the same as having sex with just a woman, but it could be a fun way of exploring your sexual attraction to women in away that doesn’t exclude your boyfriend?
I have had similar feelings in my relationship so I do sympathise. I guess it boils down to whether your desire to explore is strong enough that you’re willing to risk losing this guy. I’ve decided that for me it’s not, but we may revisit the issue another time when we might be both more open to the idea of an open relationship.
I have no good advice for you. Only commiseration, because this is like it came from my own (nonexistent) diary. Post again next week with an update if you figure it out? I don’t know what the hell to do either.
Does anyone have any recommendations for flats that are good for walking around a city all day in, but also look good with dresses? I pretty much exclusively wear dresses, and they’re not the kind that really work with tennis shoes and I can just never find really comfortable and supportive flats.
Also fashion related: does anyone else find packing guides with pictures as interesting as I do? They aren’t really helpful for me since they tend to focus mainly on separates and as I said I’m all about dresses, but I still really like seeing what people could/do pack for a trip.
Finding cute walking flats has been like a two-year obsession for me. Last year I bought a pair of Tieks. They are the most comfortable flat I’ve ever worn, but the downsides are they are expensive and scuff like crazy.
About a month ago, I bought a pair of Hush Puppies Chaste Ballet flats, and they are a fraction of the cost of Tieks, almost as comfortable, and haven’t given me any blisters or pain. They aren’t incredibly supportive, but they have some arch support and are fine for my feet.
I actually have a pair of Tieks, but they aren’t as good as I was hoping. When I bought them they were just a little too tight, which I figured would mean they’d stretch just enough to fit perfectly. They did, but now even though they don’t feel loose, sometimes my heels or the sides of my feet somehow come out of them. Maybe it’s the way I walk, but it’s not great for all day walking.
Unfortunately Clark’s stopped making the flats I live in, but you can apparently still find them in some online outlets, the Un.Cedar and Un.Linda (which, as far as I can tell, are exactly the same). They are very comfortable, especially since I need room to wiggle my toes! So you might check those or or try their current styles.
Sofft, Born (pricier), and Naturalizer (less so) are the core of my work flat wardrobe. Soffts and Borns often show up at DSW, TJ Maxx, Nordstrom Rack, and similar.
Naturalizer makes some flats that are pretty cute. Some are old lady, but a few are less so.
I love my Frye flats! They are a bit expensive, but have worn really well and are suuuuper comfy.
Seconding the Frye recommendation! They are SUPER well-made, and you can get them resoled. Check out 6pm.com for sales–they are Zappos discount website.
Maybe this is like a super obvious suggestion but I buy shoes a half-size up and then stick insoles in ’em. http://www.drscholls.com/productsandbrands/IIOind…
It makes EVERY shoe a walking shoe! Well, ok, it probably won’t work so well for sandals, open-toes, or the like, but anything that is an essentially closed shoe can become instantly supportive and comfortable with the right insoles.
Skechers do some nice girly flat ones that are a bit smarter than you’d expect but still have comfy soles and some substance to them. I’m encatted otherwise I’d take a pic of the pretty ones I live in with dresses. They’re a few years old so probably not being made any more but I’m sure they have equivalents this season. I have flat feet and plantar fasciitis and I find the tiny ballet pump style shoes really trigger the PF as they’re too insubstantial.
Cobb Hill by New Balance makes super comfortable shoes – I too am obsessed with finding the perfect pair of walking flats.
Currently eyeing up this to try: http://www.cobbhillshoes.com/Cobb-Hill-Ireland-CH…
Asics/Onitsuka Tiger used to make some slightly sporty flats that I loved. They stopped making the particular kind I wore, but I think they have other styles (last I checked, they no longer made flats in my size, so I haven’t kept checking). These ones looked good with dresses, had a grippy sole, were supportive, and had space for orthotics. Teva also makes some flats–the ones I had weren’t super-supportive, but they were comfortable and ultra lightweight.
I live in a walking city, and am at the point where I only buy shoes from REI these days. All the hiking brands have started making fairly nice-looking work-safe shoes, but they’re also flats with great support and durability. Plus, REI is amazing about refunds (I know a girl who used to work there and they had a customer who’d return his shoes every year for a new pair. Which I don’t suggest you do, but if you did, they’d still let you return them!)
Late, and not exactly flats, but I swear by Bass oxfords. They come in both standard and weird colors (especially this time of year), they look good with dresses, and they are the only cute shoes I have ever owned that I could wear straight out of the box without blisters. My favorite pair are khaki colored canvas with bright yellow soles and they remain the most perfect clothing purchase I have ever made.
Okay, so, let’s play “What If”.
What if the governmental/administrative borders of places were based on the places’ watersheds? I think about this a lot lately b/c of the ongoing situation in California w/r/t its regional water disputes.
Ooooh. So instead a border running along a river (my bank across from your bank); each watershed would be distinct?
Very interesting. Brb, claiming the entire Great Lakes watershed.
Of course, I have no idea where you’d draw the line on that– is the Missouri River watershed its own thing, or would it be part of a greater Mississippi watershed unit? You could end up with a whole other kind of upstream/downstream federalism!
Interesting. I have nothing to add but hope others do.
maps! http://communitybuilders.net/the-united-watershed…
(re-reading this, I notice there’s kind of a divide between “we’d build stuff better because our borders are based on watersheds” vs. “we’d build stuff better because we were conscientious enough to base out borders on watersheds in the first place.” and oh man there is a long comment thread there too, I forgot to turn off my comment-blocker!)
Oh, hey, wow!
…now, what happens if we overlay that on top of the map of North American Food Nations? http://mapscroll.blogspot.com/2009/03/food-nation…
Hmm…
Hello Toast. This is whining. If anyone has any suggestions for how to convince myself that I don’t need to know everything about a series before I can have worthwhile, interesting things to say about it, please place them here. I spent all morning panicking that an internet friend of mine thinks I’m an idiot for expressing an opinion on our shared interest. All actual evidence points to this not being the case at all. I have found that emotions are not entirely cooperative about listening to evidence.
Just think about all the men who are untroubled by this concern! You’re smarter than THEY are, so you should be fine to say whatever you want.
Thanks everyone for your kind words on Wednesday when I was having a meltdown about my husband’s difficult mental health. It has been a rough couple of weeks after a couple of really *good* weeks, which has made it even harder of course. Things seem to be on the upswing now. More in a reply …
I had dinner with his mom last night and learned that he has basically always been this way, since he was a little kid. She says she spent a lot of time managing his environment so that he could cope. BUT she also said that that is not MY job, that is a job for a mother, not a partner. It was really good to hear that (even though I spend a lot of time telling myself/him/our therapist) that I am not going to be his mother) from an external source who obviously cares a great deal about him but also about my health.
She also more or less said she wouldn’t blame me if I couldn’t handle it and bailed. Which is weird to hear from your mother-in-law.
Things I’m thinking about this week:
How do I know when I can’t help anymore? How do I know when it’s time to let it go? What are other things I can/should do before that? I mean we should probably quit farming to see if that helps, but … I don’t want to.
I learned this week that burnout is an actual clinical thing, related to compassion fatigue. A lot of the literature seems to be for professional caretakers (nurses, therapists, aid workers) but I assume that family members who do caretaking can also have this. Anyone have any experience with this? Treating it, preventing it, literature for family members?
Thanks everyone. This place is the best.
Caretakers burnout is A HUGE ISSUE especially among people taking care of elderly parents. If you can Google up “caretakers resources” a lot of stuff will be targeted towards that older age group but it’s an enormous deal. The other group that gets a lot of targeted info is parents of very handicapped children (to the point where they require round the clock care). I know these are not your situations but there’s a lot of information on caregiver support and caregiver burnout at these two groups.
It’s like long distance driving. When you realize you feel a little tired is when you pull over and take a nap. Because the realization occurs late, after you’ve been too tired to drive carefully for at least an hour.
So when you stop helping on autopilot, when you no longer assume you will hang on forever, that is your realization. It may be time to let go. It is certainly time to consider it. Or to plan for it. The realization is probably late. You’ve probably needed to plan an exit or at least a break for a long while now.
I accept that I may be wrong. I trust your judgment. I am pleased you have your MIL for support. A counselor of your own would be ideal. Can you take a leave of absence at work to find the resources you need? FMLA covers caring for a spouse with a diagnosed illness.
Heh, I am awful at long-distance driving (I fall asleep quite easily in moving vehicles) so maybe this is just the analogy that I should be internalizing. More breaks!
Fortunately work is flexible and I can use sick time however I want, and there is plenty of it. Hooray for working for the government.
The magic words you’re looking for, that I learned far too late while caring for my dying father, are “Respite Care.” As in, someone steps in to do a little of the heavy lifting so you can go back to the spa, or color a mandala (ha!), or watch all the Fasts and Furiouses. It falls under the umbrella of yes, self-care sound selfish, but without it it eventually becomes impossible to give a fuck about anyone or anything. You just gotta suck it up and get that massage. Glad to hear you’ve got some clarity and resources going forward. I missed your reply to me from that earlier thread because I went to look at online mandalas to be sure I wasn’t full of crap, and the ones you can color with your computer are sooooo amaaaaazing I lost a few hours. Thanks again for that!
Does anyone have any suggestions for great audiobooks? A few I’ve listened to in the past are: Lolita, American Gods, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a few Bill Bryson books, Anna Karenina, and I’m now going through Mrs. Dalloway.
Meheheh, do I EVER.
I loved the Anansi Boys audiobook I got from the library a few years ago. That may have been the Lenny Henry version, which is Gaiman’s favorite.
Have you found librivox yet? First of all, it’s free–volunteer-run and all the books are public domain.
My favorite readers are Karen Savage and Elizabeth Klett.
They both have an overwhelming catalogue. As a starter for Karen Savage, I’d recommend her reading of The Scarlet Pimpernel. I believe she’s done some of the sequels, too, but I haven’t listened to them yet. Elizabeth Klett reading Jane Austen is delightful, as she manages to convey all of the subtle amusement that pervades so much of Austen’s work. Also, she has the best voice ever. You might want to start with Emma. If you like male readers better, there’s a guy who reads Mark Twain named John Greenman who seems to be very popular. Here’s a list of popular and prolific readers on Librivox.
Just a note: readers do solo works, or they read collaboratively. You might enjoy dramatic readings (I like the Dramatic Reading I found of Little Women), in which a variety of readers of varying quality act out the parts, or you may prefer to stick to just one reader. The Librivox Catalogue is huge. I hope you enjoy it!
The Mary Russell books by Laurie R. King, I was just recommending Jenny Sterlin, the narrator, on page 1.
The Artemis Fowl series.
(did you get that re-recorded American Gods where they had a full cast?)
Any of the Modern Scholar courses by Timothy Shutt or Monica Potkay (interesting stuff but I really like their voices)
Roy Dotrice is fantastic on the first three “Ice and Fire” books. Another guy read “A Feast For Crows” then Roy came back for “A Dance With Dragons” and suddenly everyone sounded like an Irish crone. He then went and redid “Feast” in much the same way. Hey, he’s old, ya get loopy.
Stephen Briggs–he only does Terry Pratchett’s books, last I looked, but he is AMAZING.
Full Cast Audiobook’s Tamora Pierce works are also terrific. They cast perfectly.
Douglas Adams reading his own work.
Diane Duane’s Young Wizards books, terrific narrator.
Oh my gosh I almost forgot, Patrick Tull’s narration of the Aubrey-Maturin books! So, so excellent, and really helped me understand the humor and the battles when I couldn’t skim.
Fellow Toasts, I am DONE. I am going a month between having full weekends off from work. Earlier this week my usually-unflappable boss cried in a meeting. This morning I found out that one friend has been bitten by another friend’s irresponsible dickweed of a dad’s dog. I still have to go yell at the pharmacy about fucking up my antidepressant prescription yet again. Which gallon jug of wine should I buy to get me through what fragments of weekend I will be able to scrape together?
Scrap the wine, come sit by me – I make a mean cocktail and I’ll be drinking lots of them. It has been a similar few weeks and I just. can’t. take it.
I finally ordered progressive lenses yesterday and of course they said that my frames would break if they tried to put in new lenses, but luckily I found frames within my insurance allowance.
Any advice on the inevitable freakout my eyes are gonna have?
I’ve never had the plastic on top/wire on the bottom frames before. I guess I can pretend I’m in the “Ouija Board, Ouija Board” video now. “The table is rumbling…and I really can’t tell where the ground is.”
https://youtu.be/iX9-3JvSeDs
Oh, kind of like bifocals? I used to have bifocals for about 5 years as a kid (because I have terrible eyesight).
THey are, frankly, always a little aggravating, but you do have better vision. I would start out wearing them just at home for a couple of days until you are used to them. I remember it taking a couple of conscious efforts in the beginning for me to look out of the right part of the lens, and then it started to become fairly automatic. But it is still nice to take a few hours to get used to it outside of the public eye. Practice looking into the distance, then reading a book or a label, then the reverse a couple of times consciously and you’ll get the hang of it and you’ll stop noticing the moment of vertigo when your eye goes over the seam in the glass (unless that’s what they’ve eliminated, hence “progressive” instead of “bifocal”?)
The freakout was more of a brain freakout than an eye one for me — because your brain has to start processing things differently, and controlling your eyeball differently. If that makes sense.
Thank you! Yeah, “no line” so they kinda merge into each other.
FREAKOUT!
What’s everyone reading at the moment?
I’ve started reading the Lucifer spin-off from the Sandman comics. So far it’s great. Mazikeen is seriously badass. I want to like Lucifer, but he’s such a dick it’s quite hard to.
I finished all the books on my Kindle that I had on loan from the library, so I think it’s maybe time that I go back and finish Of Human Bondage. I didn’t stop because I disliked it, but because the Toast informed me of Overdrive and I got into a run of checking out books from the BPL instead.
I’m reading ‘Bark’ by Lorrie Moore. Every story in the collection is so good. It doesn’t necessarily make you feel good to read them – in fact, some of them are deliberately kind of sad/difficult to read – but she can write so, so well. I’m in awe. Reading her stuff always fills me with a weird combination of appreciation (this is so good!) and rage (why can’t I write like this? Life is unfair). In conclusion, I am a child.
I’m reading Lucifer too! For some mysterious reason, the local libraries are missing volumes 8 and 9 (of the older trades? I didn’t know there were two different runs until I tried finding them), so I’m trying to find alternate copies and finish the series.
I also picked up the first volume of The Wicked + The Divine for… more comic book Lucifers? I guess? Also good and with very pretty art. You might like that one too, if you haven’t already read it.
Oh cool, thanks 🙂 I hadn’t heard of that one before.
I am only reading fluff right now. RL is too stressful to read anything difficult, so I’ve got an audiobook of a newer Harry Bosch and some fluffy fantasy to get me through the weekend.
I might even call in reinforcements
I am alllmost done with The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders, a book about Victorian broadsides, sensation novels, penny-bloods, and detective stories, and of course all the real-life murders they were based on. I do not understand the organizing principle, but since it’s mostly just one outrageous story after another I don’t think it matters.
Oh, that sounds perfect for me!
I keep saying my summer clothes are not as cute as my winter clothes, but I’ve still found a way to make them work.
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For example:
I think we should have a selfie thread at some point!
In other news, I have a week and a half left of undergraduate classes. Then I graduate and I’ll have to grow up and do adult things and find an adult job and I’m not sure I want that. I just want to play Minecraft or Sims while watching Mianite videos and not have to be responsible for anything. I am only a tiny baby gay and I don’t know how to be an adult 🙁
I’d be totally down with a selfie thread. My hair looks amazing today, it should be worshipped.
Good hair days are good days. I shall worship your hair from afar, sight-unseen.
“So…..do I have to start paying back my student loans……tomorrow?”
As The Ghost Host might say “Of course there’s always……GRAD school.”
(and you look great)
I want to take a break from school for a bit and try to find a job so I know specifically what subdicipline of geology I want to go into. I’m thinking seismology or stable isotope analysis or maybe planetary sciences?? IDK I WANT TO DO ALL THE THINGS BUT ALAS I CANNOT
(also thanks! <3)
I like scientists.
Don’t worry about being planted in one place, changes’ll happen. You’ll probably notice that careers are mutable like the Earth and it’s totally normal if you want to change direction at some point. You’ll refine it, you’ll find what you REALLY want to be doing, and it’s the thing that you’re MEANT to be doing.
This has been “Old-splaining With Jay” Don’t get discouraged, just keep going.
Here’s a kind of geology song http://grooveshark.com/s/Debris+Slide/6KHGMV?src=…
Oh my god you are so cute like WOW. So cute. Congrats to you.
*blushes*
THANK U
I agree, summer styling is so hard. Your aesthetic, however, is solid. I like it. SKIRTS AND BOOTS 5EVAH. Also I covet that necklace.
Let me assure you, nobody knows how to be an adult. We’re all learning along with you, a day at a time.
“nobody knows how to be an adult”
Absolutely nobody. I graduated college eighteen years ago. I’m a better cook and I do more housecleaning, that’s about all that’s changed.
Also you can wear Dr. Martens your whole life, I’m on my 24th year (I generally maintain a 3-hole and a 10-hole, both “steel” toe, which is good for bumping into book carts…and various other things)
Also it’s unfair to the belt that the rest of the stuff is great, but it’s unfair to the rest of the stuff how great the belt is. How can one resolve this?
you can wear Dr. Martens your whole life
TRUTH.
I have to admit, I gave up all but one pair of my non-zip Docs because I got lazy when I passed 35. Now I wear these (sadly discontinued) jump boots from Double H. I bought three extra pairs when they stopped making them, and I’m still wearing the first pair I bought before that ten years later so I’m pretty sure all four pairs will last me into my 70s, at least. Zippered boots. Such a time-saver.
But yeah, fuck anyone who bases style on “age appropriate” bullshit. My style changes periodically, but the changes are most definitely not based on my changing age. And agreed on the greatness of that belt.
*sigh* I could talk about fashion all day. Well, actually make that I could just talk all day.
Hang on a minute: DR. SEUSS NICK CAVE?!?!
Wasn’t it MAGNIFICENT?????
Quite.
I have a Work Problem. My boss has tasked me with revamping the website. I have no web design experience, so we bought a template and I started moving things around in it and changing colors etc. Now he’s obsessed with having a slider at the top with photos with words. This is feeling beyond my capabilities. I recently designed the new logo and business cards but really don’t have any graphic design experience. (Also he’s an attorney, but doesn’t seem to understand that lack of a watermark doesn’t make a photo free for us to use) I mostly work as a receptionist/legal assistant.
Beyond this one project, I’ve been with the firm for two years without a raise. I make 8.25/hr and barely get by. I turned 30 a few months ago and really want to be in a more comfortable position, and not one where I freak out about everything costing any money. I’m wondering if it’s time to move on, but mostly do like the work. I have been working with my doctor to adjust my depression/anxiety medication but I wonder if my job is causing a lot of the problem. My boss complains that the architect building his house is charging too much, and told my immediate supervisor that they can’t afford to pay me more and that if he has to take another pay cut he’ll need a second job. HE’S MARRIED TO A JUDGE! They could probably survive on her salary alone. I’m having a hard time concentrating on my work or even getting things done. I like the flexability on time I get here, and that he lets me bring my dog (technically to help with the anxiety) but I just feel blah.
There’s no downside to looking for your next job. Actually, it will make you feel better, just sending out that first resume. While keeping your current job. Temporarily. Just until you find someone who will pay closer to a living wage.
“feeling beyond my capabilities”
More like beyond what they’re *paying* you. That’s free webmastering.
I’m the last person to say “pffft, fuck ’em, get another job” cause that’s not so easy. But I encourage *looking* for one. Good luck!
You absolutely deserve to be making more, I hope you can find someone who agrees with you. Even if you were “just” a receptionist (which, no such thing), $8.25/hr is too low; add in the legal assistant-ing and the other abilities you have, and you should be making AT LEAST double that.
I do some legal assistance work and that is way too low. I definitely think you should see about getting another job that’s better paid — from what you seem to be doing at your current job, I don’t think it would be super hard to come by, even in the current climate. (Of course job hunting is always a drag but I think it’s def worth giving it a go!) A less dickish boss and more economic stability can only be good for your mental health! Good luck!
PS – though I think your boss should piss off about the website, if it makes your life easier… the quickest way of getting your boss his precious slider is probably to change templates to one with a built-in silder. I don’t know what platform you’re using but if you’re using wordpress, elegantthemes.com are cheap and have a lot of decent professional looking websites with sliders.)
PPS – just remembered I once had a boss who said he couldn’t pay me much of a commission because his tax rate is 40%…which is only the case if you’re in the top bracket of earners. URGH!
the slider problem isn’t so much the slider, the template has one built in. My problem is getting the photos with words on them to not look cheesy and dumb, and for him to adjust the content to be about promoting his business and not cutting down the competition (even if they are unethical assholes)
Soo, I guess I know what I’m doing with my weekend. I did a little looking around and found several receptionist jobs with $14-22/hr pay. I don’t know that I will leave for sure, but seeing if anyone is willing to hire me can’t hurt.
I talked to my supervisor about it about an hour after my post, and she (as a fellow depressioneer) said she noticed that I haven’t been doing well. I told her I was going to see about adjusting my meds and she said that she thinks it’s my job, not the meds that’s making me sleep all weekend, not cook enough meals, and leave dirty dishes in the sink until I can no longer stand the smell or need to use one of my pans. I usually sew every day, and I haven’t sewn anything since Easter except to adjust my dog’s harness. My schedule has been work, walk, eat, tv, sleep. The only thing besides sleep I’ve done the last two weekends is take 5-7 mile walks. I’ve done about 2 miles every day during the week, which is good, but not enough.
Thank you all for helping push me to at least look. Sometimes you need someone to tell you that leaving is ok.
Good luck with looking this weekend! I hope you find some interesting things to apply to. I’m pretty happy in my job, but I always keep an eye on other opportunities, just in case, you know? Leaving jobs is okay, too. Take care, and let us know how it goes 🙂
I was having a pretty good conversation in the hall at my university with a female acquaintance, hoping to lead her away from her idea that in some situations men deserved to be paid more than women. It was going well, when suddenly this 20-something dudebro plants himself next to us and mansplains that women are paid less because men are better at negotiation.
Despite the fact that I wanted him to disintegrate, I tried to non-aggressively reason what I found lacking in that statement, but in no time he had derailed the entire conversation and the only thing I could do was walk away.
It took me days to get over HIS SMUG FUCKING FACE. 🙁
It made me really uncomfortable when Ellen Pao said that. (mainly because it could help dudebro think he’s right and….I don’t really want that)
Too Many Cooks + Game Of Thrones. The extent to which this works is ridiculous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBxBXX8wU1Q
It is the end of my Easter holidays, and I have spent a lot of it in a bit of a state – sleeping all the time, feeling completely unmotivated when it comes to writing coursework essays, and feeling so guilty over my lack of work that I feel even less capable of doing stuff. I now have two essays to write over the weekend and have been panicking horribly. Not helping is the fact that all of a sudden I am having to make decisions about the future – a job advert was emailed around to people on my course which I liked the look of, and now I am signed up with a recruitment agency and have an interview for the job next week and they have other jobs they think I should look at. And I am about to start a two-week work placement. It is all a bit overwhelming.
In other news, I have completely mainlined Community over the last month and am now halfway through S5. I love it so much.
Ah I remember going through similar things during my Masters. Good luck! Sometimes you need the deadline-nearing fear to do good work! But if things do get too hard then just talk to the relevant people in your department, preferably soon. They’re generally quite understanding if you let them know in advance that you’ve been having some issues that have affected your work.
In any case, whatever happens, essays are not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and everything will be okay so don’t worry! x
This week: I got a slightly misguided haircut, so now it looks like I fell into a running lawnmower but it will be fine in a few weeks; I bought a toaster and small nonstick frying pan, so there are going to be a lot of warm sandwichy things in my future; and I found a pedometer while cleaning, and am currently obsessed with how many steps everything in my life is from everything else. So far most of them are too close for my feet to be hurting this much, so I may need to find some other way of moving my carcass around for fitness-ness. ETA: I somehow managed to accidentally post this in the Link Roundup. It takes talent.
LATE-BREAKING VIDEO OF DWAYNE THE ROCK JOHNSON TALKING TO A TURTLE.
Awesome!
I seem to be fixated on this song and find the lyrics hauntingly beautiful.
http://grooveshark.com/s/Polar+Bear/2z5CET?src=5
(TWO WEEKS! Daddy’s gonna need a nap for that late-ass show)
LOVE Christopher Baldwin's comics. My favourites are Spacetrawler and Little Dee (everyone go check them out — the series are over but they're still online), and now I'm really getting into his new one, Anna Galactic.
<img src="http://jaynagyphoto.com/mitch.png">
(TWO WEEKS! Daddy's gonna need a nap for that late-ass show)
I just remembered that I have Girl Scout Cookies in the pantry! My week is now 100 times better now than an hour ago!
I have THREE CASES in my basement that are destined for other people, alas!
I’m saying you should maybe take up your daughter’s offer on ice cream reviews in this case.
A day late and a dollar short…..
So AAG was positive and negative. I was somehow stuck in a very weird session that was supposedly feminist, but I do geoarchaeology (very math heavy stuff, too). AND 40 minutes before my presentation got a nosebleed. AND the session started with a scholar who particularly didn’t understand the difference between research and pathos and had a visual-based domestic violence platform but about a 7th grader’s sophistication in talking about the subject, and I’m a DV survivor and still forced to deal with the guy because we have kids, and it was BAD. my advisor saw my speech and said she’d never seen me so nervous. Um, triggers will do that. But of the small, very full room there were a lot of blank faces. Luckily there was one guy from new zealand who came up to me afterwards and said he really l.iked my work and was trying to do the same thing at his university and, well, that made me feel much better. Now I have to get on linked in and contact him, etc.
Also the radar work my son and I helped my advisor do in 2013 was very well received and made more people I should keep in touch with.
This all brought to a head what I already knew, which is that I am incredibly underpaid for the job that my (supposedly temporary, part time) job is turning into, I need to polish my resume, get on linked in, send out my thesis and follow up on all that professional stuff because I can’t survive on part time work, I need pay that is actually good for my field, and cue the next phase in being a grown up (back to all that “things will be better when” angst).
Both my advisors have been on me to write up my thesis research for publishing and I got a big boost when the one thing I have published in a journal (a book review) was in the copy on the display table for taylor and francis, and I got to pick it up and open it and brag, “look, there’s my name!!” to my fellow student who hasnt’ quite finished yet, and on the OTHER side of the exhibition hallway, I was told about a brand new journal that focuses on MY EXACT METHOD and basically wants EXACTLY WHAT I DID (digital applications in archaeology, with 3-d images). So there’s the motivation to publish if there every was one.
Tomorrow is an all-day lacrosse tournament, and it’s goign to be 45 out.
Tonight is swing dance prom, I drove home and only got in at 4:30 am, I foresee sleep deprivation continuing.
FUCKFACE REPORT:
there were very, very, very many embarrassing tears in front of colleagues in my hotel room yesterday. I found out that my ex screwed me once again, my divorce decree says that EVERY YEAR he gets to pick 3 weeks of the summer to have the kids and I have to allow it, I never get to pick. He is going to always and forever pick the first week of summer, which is the time the kids are the happiest, and my daughter’s birthday, and she wants to be with me and I cant’ do a thing about it. And I can’t let him know how upset that makes me, and I will never see her on her birthday and I’m crying again.
fuck.
ohmygod awful. i’m so sorry *jedi hugs*
Thank you! Yeah, "no line" so they kinda merge into each other.
FREAKOUT!
Thank you for your comments on this, they are so smart and thoughtful.
Boys Who Rape Should All Be Destroyed by the Raveonettes, though IDK how misandrist it is I feel like it probably fits the bill
Ok, I know you posted this three days ago, but I actually read the article so I thought I would respond. I thought it was an interesting theory. The parts about indigenous cultures raising kids without coercion was really interesting to me. I almost can't comprehend how that would even be possible. I think it may not really be possible to do so in our own society, since we have so many more distractions and looser social groups. It seems like the positive peer pressures of a small scale society would make this workable. My whole take away from the arctic was that I should nag less, so I'll work on that.
Talk about days late and dollars short, but: I am surprised, and very dismayed, to hear that your state allows divorce decrees to be that set in stone. There's really no way to change it so that, I don't know, he can get any three weeks except that first week? or if he gets that first week one year, you get it the next year? or your daughter's wishes (how old is she?) are taken into account?
I'm only working part time, have thousands in debt, and rely on my mom to pinch in and help out for after school transport, etc. He's got the new "wife" ish person, a giant house, tons of money (because he's not paying rent, he's hiding that), and all the greasy suck-up power in a county that is VERY mens-rights. I barely avoided him getting 50/50 custody last time, and that was with evidence he hadn't taken kids to the ER for broken bones…if I open up that bag of worms by trying to get the agreement changed, he very well might get 50/50 or more. It's also money my parents and siblings paid the last time (over 12k) and for the foreclosure (3k). This will get very ugly, and even when he was actively stalking me and stealing money from the joint account the court wouldn't let me have an advocate (although that might have been my bad lawyer's bad advice too–"they'll see you as falsely accusing him and that will be a bad image you'll have to fight against"). He's waged a huge bribery campaign and my son would say in a heartbeat he wants to go live with dad. He makes them feel guilty if they so much as call me when they are at his house, and my daughter can't handle it. I know I should fight this but I can't face what would happen if I lost–then I would really not see them half the time, instead of only during the summer.
I'm so sorry – that sounds absolutely awful. I hope you and your daughter can plan an unbirthday celebration for when she's back.