Toasties! The new Whitney is so great, and the cafe is also awesome. Everything is expensive, but that’s to be expected of a building from which one can see the Statue of Liberty and inside which one can see Contemporary (not really) Art. The Bartender has an asthma attack for the first time ever on Friday, at the ripe old age of 33. Who knew there were still such joys ahead?! It’s a brave new world. Open thread!
Tags: cocktail hour, open thread, the bartender
I have an exciting weekend ahead! One of my best friends is visiting and I’ve taken Monday off to maximize my time with her. We have 2.5 days of excitement, shopping, antiquing, afternoon tea, museums, brunch, excellent coffee, all that good stuff.
I also have a lot of cleaning to do before she gets here, lest she be repulsed by my slovenly ways.
On a completely different note, are there are Toasties who will be attending the CLA conference in 2 weeks? I have never been to a conference before and I am useless at networking. Can I follow you around like a lost puppy?
IN SIMILAR NEWS I AM TAKING AN ENTIRE WEEK OFF OF EVERYTHING TO SLEEP ON THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE COUCH OF THE VERY BEST PERSON I KNOW I AM THRILLED HENCE THE CAPS.
I’m not going to CLA but I know lots of people who are! (Seriously, you should be on Librarian Twitter already. Meeting people IRL after making crass jokes with them online is The Best.) Lemme know if you want me to e-introduce you to folks.
That would be great, actually! Thank you 🙂 And what is librarian twitter? :O I just follow a few CLA twitter accounts but they’re a bit dry, unsurprisingly.
(My personal email is arbors.and.ardors at gmail.)
toasts. i’m running on five hours’ sleep after what is arguably the busiest work week i’ve ever had and have lost the ability to capitalize sentences and/or possibly be coherent. i have contemplated my body down to a molecular level. this is what i assume being high is like.
share with me your wacky sleep stories. are you a sleepwalker? do you talk in your sleep? taken ambien and didn’t fall asleep right away and hallucinated you were in a giant can of spam?
when i was in field camp, the first night i got to sleep in a bed i apparently had an entire conversation with myself and only woke up when one of the other girls threw a pillow at me to wake me up. another time, after a particularly exhausting geology trip, i passed out on my dorm bed, had a dream that i was eating a giant totino’s pizza roll, and found wet bite marks on my pillowcase when i woke up. i thought that was something that only happened in movies.
At one point in my childhood, whenever I slept, I responded to all noise and stimuli with an irritated, “I’m reading!”
It became a family joke. Since I basically always had a book in my hands, I was always getting, in a faux-sleep-talking voice, “She’s reeeeeeaaading!”
I sleepwalked alllll the time as a kid. One year around Halloween, when I was maybe 8 or 9, I had one of those plug-in plastic jack o’ lanterns in my bedroom window. I do not have any memory of this, because sleepwalking, but apparently I woke my parents up one night SCREAMING at the top of my lungs. They rushed into my room and I was just standing in front of my window, pointing at the jack o’ lantern. While screaming.
I’m surprised they kept me after that because that is some straight up horror movie shit.
Did they toss out the jack o lantern at least?
I remember one kid night horror, I dreamed I had bitten off my own thumb and I ran mostly-asleep to my parents’ room, horrified, because in the dream it hadn’t started bleeding yet but it was about to start and it was going to be AWFUL. I must have been screaming so I have no idea how Mom managed to ask so calmly, “which thumb?” I show her…”hmm, maybe it was the other one.” Nope, they’re both still on.
IT WAS SO REAL THOUGH
I used to sleepwalk as a wee lass and also I used to get night terrors. So, good times. The night terrors were the worst — I can still remember exactly how it felt, I was awake but still dreaming and it was incredibly terrifying. :::shudder::
Were you still interested in maybe doing a gal science together, btw? I have more time and spoons now if you would like to discuss!
ah yes, definitely!!! i have been so fucking busy that it has completely slipped my mind. hit me up at elysetheamazing at gmail dot com and we can brainstorm something!
ps, you will understand my plight this week – as we’re going up for bid, client wanted budgets for the lifetime of the site. in two and a half days. i cried, a lot. but somehow it got done????
Whaaaaat no that’s insane. Like, how can you even determine that?! It depends on so much!
i know!!! we had a conference call about it on monday, said they needed them by noon yesterday, and as soon as the call was over i excused myself to the darkest conference room i could find and just…sobbed. this is ridiculous. when Very Important Oil Company #1 made their people do it for a bid last year, they had three weeks and we get not quite three days???
I started sleepwalking post-puberty, which is kind of unusual. I am very vocal, frequently nonsensically bossy, and like to climb into small spaces (closets, under the bed) but always put myself back to bed at some point in the night. White noise at night and exercising in the morning instead of the evening have both helped cut down on sleepwalking.
I love other people’s sleepwalking stories.
my work husband is a sleepwalker. i kinda hope he sleepwalks when we go to the anime convention that we’re sharing a hotel room for because i want to witness this firsthand. the best story he’s ever told me is that one night he sleepwalked out to the front porch in his underwear and went back to bed there, made a huge racket and woke his dad up, and when asked why he was on the porch in his underwear he said “because it was too fucking hot, dad” and then fell back asleep.
Yes! My partner is now used to me sleepwalking and talking and is mostly amused by it. When we first moved in together I really only scared him once (he woke up to me chattering away about some made-up scenario but I had crawled under the bed and the fact that my voice was coming from underneath was apparently disconcerting), and now he likes baiting me into saying all sorts of nonsense, especially since my most active sleep activity is about one REM cycle in when he tends to still be up. He got me to tell him a garbled sleep half-truth about where we were going for his birthday one year.
LOL. “Nonsensically bossy”. That’s a fun phrase. I used to sleep walk when I was much younger, now I just talk occasionally.
My husband said that I yelled at him in my sleep a couple of weeks ago because he tried to pry the blanket away from me. We start out with the blanket equally divided between us, but as the night progresses, I take more and more of the blanket and tangle myself in it. He said I called him a blanket thief in my sleep. I think we need two separate blankets. LOL
I’ve only sleepwalked once or twice that I remember. When I was a young teenager though I used to have night terrors. I would bolt up screaming at the top of my lungs and freak everyone in the house out. I of course, had absolutely no memories of doing any of this (not even nightmares, I guess night terrors happen in a different part of your sleep cycle than dreams). I felt so bad for my parents then.
Once I did so when sleeping over at a friend’s house, which of course scared the shit out of them. I think his dad ran in with his gun (!) thinking we were being murdered or something. Again, no memories of this personally.
I am a sleep-talker! Mostly very boring things, like asking my college roommate where she was going early in the morning (“Band practice, [gripyfish]. Just like yesterday.” was her infinitely patient reply) or saying good night to my girlfriend and asking if the cat is in the other room. I’m just very practical, I guess?
I had a stressful call center job for two years. My partner regularly overheard me sleep-talking in which I was trying to continue to do my job in my sleep.
I once slept with my hand in a tub full of margarine, accidentally. (someone forgot to put it away, or at least put the top on, or at least move it farther away from the bed, which was on the floor at the time, because we had just moved.)
I have also been caught trying to sleep work. How weird is that? I thought I was total lunatic. Maybe we both are.
Once, when my best friend was sleeping over, I apparently started talking to her in my sleep. “[BFF’s Name]!!! Hurry!! We have to get out!!! Come on, we have to get to the escape pods!!!” To which she responded (grumpily, she informed me the next morning), “What? Why??” And I said, “UGH, NEVERMIND.” and rolled over and went to sleep. I was having a dream about being on a space station, and it was blowing up. Apparently if you don’t listen to me in my dreams, you go down with the ship. O.O
My high school chemistry class was right in the middle of my body’s young-adult sleep requirement. I passed out on my desk during every class and the professor could not wake me.
Soooooo in other words I took biology in college.
I still sleepwalk on occasion, especially when my routine is changed. I know this because whenever we are on vacation my husband has to stop my dreaming self from walking the dunes (and/or drowning) in reality.
One night back in high school, I was dreaming that I was in the shower and that the phone rang and it was for me so my mom called me, and I yelled back “I’m in the shower!”. Pretty boring dream except I also yelled “I’M IN THE SHOWER!” in real life loud enough to wake up my entire family.
A friend of mine took Ambien and woke up standing in front of his microwave, watching his wallet go up in flames.
oh man. that anecdote about being in the giant can of spam actually happened to my sister. she stumbled into my room after ambien gone awry and i had to reassure her that no, we weren’t in spam, i promise. and no, there are no palm trees either.
Just gonna leave this here: http://www.sharingmachine.com/ubersearch/ubersear…
When I was younger and anxious about something the next day I would sleepwalk…into the shower. I cannot count the number of times I woke up drenched and confused.
My mom said she once walked by my bedroom and heard me laughing in my sleep, which strikes me as completely terrifying.
My husband talks in his sleep – he once told me sternly, “Go tie yourself to a dog.” And on one occasion, an old “special friend” of mine was dozing off, and then bolted upright in bed, cried out “HOMEOPATHY IS BULLSHIT,” then subsided and fell back asleep. That was memorable.
in the past ten years (18-28) I’ve woken up three different people by laughing in my sleep. I’ve woken myself up too. I guess at this point I should just own that I’m a sleep-laugher.
I also am a regular sleep-laugher! It apparently is very eerie. At least one of us is having fun, I suppose.
though the term is so thoroughly abused at this point as they have no meaning, LOL. I literally laughed out loud.
I’m a sleep talker. More when I was younger, but apparently once or twice a week now. My husband says it never makes sense – the words are real, but I combine them randomly.
When very ill or stressed i WIll sometimes sleep walk. When ill a few years ago I apparently got up, walked to the middle of the room, took off my night clothes, folded them neatly and placed them in the washing basket.
I was very confused to wake up naked when I’d gone to sleep in some cute jimjams.
Last summer I kept waking up to feel a hand gently stroking my cheek. I would inevitably panic until I woke up enough to realize that it was my own hand. I think it must have been sleep cat petting interrupted by said cat wandering off.
When I was little, like 8 or so, I threw up in my sleep. It was gross when I woke up, but I remember being vaguely pleased that I hadn’t been awake for the actual event. I also fell out of bed and hit my head on the nightstand around the same age. Don’t know what was going on with my sleep then, since now I’m a totally boring sleeper.
My wife doesn’t exactly talk in her sleep, but if I wake her up and have a conversation with her and she goes back to sleep, she will remember none of it upon re-awakening.
I sleep talk some. My favorite story is from when I was in late elementary school. My mom stopped by my room to check on me before she went to bed, like she always did. I sat bolt upright in bed and said, voice full of urgency, “Mom. Tell the cats. Tell the cats. Tell the cats.” After a few moments, I said, “Oh well,” and flopped back down on the bed.
My boyfriend sleep talks and sometimes walks. When we first started sleeping in the same bed regularly, he would sometimes sit bolt upright shortly after dozing off, and start interrogating me about who I was and what I was doing in his bed. Once he said “Who are you?? You’re SUSPICIOUS!” Which was alarming, if also slightly hilarious! Like,does he subconsciously not trust me? I made fun of him at the time but was mildly freaked out. But his unconscious mind seems to have gotten used to me now, as it hasn’t happened in months, so that’s good I guess!
Ooh I have a good third-hand sleepwalking story. So my mom was a Gastroenterology nurse (just just retired). One patient came in for a colonoscopy and when they started they noticed a ton of seeds and things, so clearly she was not prepped and they couldn’t continue. When talking to her she insisted she was prepped and hadn’t eaten anything, especially with seeds since she hated things with seeds.
So my mom asked, do you take Ambien for sleep, and she did. She asked do you ever sleepwalk / eat on Ambien. She said she did, her husband had caught her eating an entire cake in the middle of the night before, and couldn’t stop her as she would get angry with him while sleepwalking. But she insisted they had no food with nuts / seeds as she didn’t like them.
What they did have, it turns out, was a giant container of birdseed. She had been scooping up birdseed and sleep-eating it on Ambien in the middle of the night!
D: D:
I have had entire conversations in the middle of the night that I do not remember. Like, people have called me, I have woken up, answered the phone, spoken with them, gone back to sleep, and not remembered any of it.
Oh man, up until I was about 14 on some occasions I would suffer sleep paralysis. I would wake up, always after sunrise, fully conscious but unable to move my body AT. ALL. All I could do was move my eyes, & I wouldn’t be breathing. This would last right until I felt like I would scream, and right then like magic I could move again. I never suffered from the hallucinations that a lot of people experience with sleep paralysis, but let me tell you it was NOT FUN.
Otherwise, I sleep like the dead. Not even an apocalypse would wake me. I had 2 friends staying with me once and 1 of them came down with a serious stomach bug during the night. My 1 bathroom was connected to my bedroom, & all night she was vomiting & they were cleaning things & not trying to be quiet, but I didn’t hear a thing!!! Cue my utter embarrassment & shame when I woke up cheerful & they were in the next room sleep deprived & miserable thinking I was a complete ass that ignored their plight all night.
I still have it, but I can’t move at all. Sometimes I can move my little finger, but it feels stuck and laborious, like it’s locked. I think it’s worse that you can open your eyes, it just makes everything so real.
I’ve recently had a dream within a dream in which I tried to wake up but was paralyzed. Then I woke up in the dream and felt the real sleep paralysis in reality. I was so confused when I woke up.
I try to contend myself with the fact that it’s something that happens all the time. Our bodies lock themselves when we sleep so we don’t act out our dreams and hurt ourselves. It’s the flip-side of sleep walking. When it happens to me, I try to remind myself that my body will unlock itself soon, but the few seconds where it happens feel like five forevers.
Body position always seems to be the key for me – if I sleep on my back I’m way more prone to sleep paralysis/night terrors, not so much when side-sleeping. The dreams within dreams are awful!
You know, now that you’re saying it, I too always get it when I sleep on my back. That’s really weird. I usually get paralyzed if I didn’t sleep enough or if I slept too much. I need to have a regular sleep schedule to avoid them.
Have you ever had dreams within dreams? I have them a lot. My brain gets all meta on me. I also have a dream director and we sometimes have feedback conversations after my dreams. In my brain, dreams are like a theater production where I have props that I often see and play similar roles. Sometimes though, my dream director messes up. I often get to tell him though and he tries not to repeat the same mistake twice. The dream within a dream is all the rage in my head right now. I can only hope it’ll go away. It’s confusing.
My dreams within dreams are invariably part of the night terrors – I’m in bed but there’s something in the room with me or spiders crawling down the wall towards me. Your dream theater sounds much better than insects and creepy presences, even if it’s occasionally confusing!
That is terrifying. The only thing more terrifying than spiders is happy clowns (they’re murderous). I really find it reassuring that you and others here say that they have sleep paralysis too. Sometimes you think you’re the only one who knows what it feels like.
I really love dreaming for the most part. Can one say that their hobby is dreaming? Most of the times, my dreams are elaborate and interesting.
I get sleep paralysis, too (though only very rarely since high school, thank god, and when talking to a coworker who also gets it, we found that we both are more prone to it when sleeping on our backs. I wonder why that is. Maybe because it’s easier for your body to relax?
Maybe. I don’t think they really understand Sleep Paralysis all that well. There’s no “cure” for it, except for making sure you have a regular sleep cycle. Maybe it is about the body being more relaxed.
When I was in basic training, I apparently fell out, made my bed, put on my PT gear and was trying to leave to go out to the track before the trainee on guard caught me. Everyone did strange sleeping things during basic though. The sleep marchers were the best.
My sister is a sleep puncher. And kicker. And scratcher.
My sister kicked me in the head once while we were sharing a bed. She is a very mobile sleeper AND very flexible.
My twin sister used to sleep walk. For most of our childhood, we shared a bunk bed, she was on top and I was on the bottom. One night when we were 11 or 12, she sleep-walked out of her bed and tried to climb the shelves in our room thinking that they were ladders. I think I was reading a book at the time and when I noticed her trying to climb the shelves, I tried to steer her back to bed.
“Why won’t you let me sleep?” she complained, she was a testy sleepwalker.
I eventually got her back to bed, but it took a good 5 minutes. She doesn’t remember any of this, but I won’t forget it. I am told I used to sleepwalk too, but I have no idea what happened to me and it’s been years since I have.
Hope you get a good night’s sleep.
My college roommate swore up and down that she once tried to wake me up early in the morning and I sat up, said “My hovercraft is full of eels!”, and went back to sleep again. My dreaming brain apparently has 100% accurate Monty Python quote recall.
Also, I once woke up at 2 a.m. absolutely convinced that it was morning, started a pot of coffee, got in the shower, and went through about half my morning routine before it registered that it was still dark outside and the clock said 2 a.m.
I don’t normally sleepwalk, but once I woke up, standing in the corner of my room, from a dream in which, if I didn’t keep standing there, Cthulhu would destroy the world.
Also, when I was on Prozac I kept getting hypnagogic hallucinations of spiders, and once (after watching a horror film) dripping blood and hieroglyphs. I switched to a different anti-depressant after that. 😐
Once, when I was about 10 or so, my family went on vacation, and my mom and I shared a hotel bed. She swears that I was singing in my sleep that night.
My other favorite sleeptalking story is not my own, but that of a close friend. His freshman year of college, he sat up in bed, turned towards his roommate, and asked him “how to do the sex,” then promptly fell back onto his pillow.
Quick poll: where/how/when did you learn to do makeup, if at all?
I ask because I thought I wanted to wear makeup to my first college reunion, so I bought a decent looking eyeshadow palette, and now I am entirely at a loss. I never learned to do makeup. I can do the self-explanatory stuff– mascara, lipstick, nail polish, eyeliner (though nothing fancy)– but I am mystified by eyeshadow, foundation, bronzer, concealer, brow shaping, etc. Online tutorials seem to either be for theatrical looks or really advanced “daytime” ones, nothing that boils down to “put the dark shadow here and the light shadow here.” When I was young, my mom, who also wears no makeup, offered to buy me lessons, since she couldn’t teach me herself, but I assumed I’d be able to pick it up through osmosis. I have previously had no shortage of nearby/live-in female friends who would step in and help me out if I asked. I just never learned to do it myself. So I’m curious how you all figured things out!
And now I’m off to said reunion, sans eyeshadow palette. The thing didn’t come with a brush, so I’m physically as well as mentally unprepared.
I still haven’t really learned to do makeup, but the little bit I know I learned from youtube tutorials.
I learned to do my makeup in the mid-80s, mostly through self-trial and error so that should probably tell you all you need to know about my makeup techniques. They mostly boil down to “I can make you look great if you’re going out clubbing or for Halloween but for anything else, you might want to just look up some online tutorials.”
Honestly, mascara/lipstick/ concealer/eyeliner is the extent of my makeup knowledge, and I make it look subtle or glamorous depending on the amount and colors.
Actually, maybe try experimenting with different colors? It’s a good way to have fun without actually having to learn anything. And you can stick to cheap shit until you find something you really like.
I really would like to try different lip colors. I have thus far only used a very basic red– it looks nice, but it’s Too Much for my workplace, and i’d like something I could wear more often. I love the coral/orange-y lipsticks that were big on runways a couple years ago, but I’m not sure how they’d translate onto me, or under fluorescent lights.
you could try the colors you like, but in something that’s not lipstick, so that it’s a bit more muted? I have a burts bees “lip shimmer”, an ELF “lip stain” (marker thing), and a couple glosses that I’ll wear at work if I don’t think I can pull off a bright red lipstick that day.
what IS lip stain??
Basically lip sharpie as far as I can tell? I tried an NYC one on the inside of my wrist and it took two showers’ worth of heavy scrubbing to get that shit to come off completely.
Yup, this. I have a couple of these, and it’s like a pointy marker for my lips. (although i think there may be other form factors that aren’t markers??)
What I’ve been doing, when I want to do something, is put on lip stain, then put on lipstick. The lipstain sticks around for a bit longer than the lipstick, so I don’t feel like i need to reapply every 15 seconds (which wasn’t ever going to happen anyway) and seems to make the lipstick pop a bit more than it would otherwise. Or I’ll put on the lipstain and then a clear gloss and/or just a bit of vaseline.
I loves the lip sharpies. I own a truly ridiculous amount of them, in a wide variety of colors, and I think they are fantastic. If you wanted to learn, I can show you all of what they can do.
Oh please teach me.
Lip stain is awesome! I just have a hot pink one but it’s so good – plus, you can use it as a blush if you want, like, “naturally” pink cheeks.
Sheer lipsticks are often easier to pull of (or at least feel comfortable in) when you’re new to makeup. I LOVE the Revlon lip butters for this. They come in vibrant colors, but aren’t too opaque. You can always blot after or apply lip balm before to keep it even sheerer.
Sephora once gave me this little “smoky eye” tutorial pamphlet that is useful for combining light and dark in general. Not sure if they still have that sort of thing, but they do give you free consultations on products. Basically, the idea was that you put light shadow all over your eyelid, and up to your eyebrow if you want. Then you sweep the darker shade from the corner of your eye around into the indented part right above your eyeball (like at 37seconds into this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3b0wtUOJNM). I use this whenever I combine matching light and dark colors. It tends to work best with a slightly higher-quality shadow, otherwise it can be tough to blend. And also good to practice with less intense colors first. I use one like this almost every day: http://www.sephora.com/microsmooth-eyeshadow-trio…
And a makeup brush is definitely essential for this kind of thing, although I have a crappy one that was about two dollars from e.l.f. that has served me well.
The only way to learn is to do it a lot, probably terribly at first. I started putting in on myself in middle school, where I had the benefit of being one of many, many girls wearing questionably-applied makeup. The learning curve might be steeper later on, but I’ve picked up tricky things later on just by practicing a lot on my own when I don’t have anywhere to go.
I’ve picked up bits and pieces from friends and my little sister, but I still rarely wear any makeup.
I have to say, when I’ve gone to buy makeup and shyly asked for tutorials, the ladies I’ve spoken with at Sephora have always been lovely. I’m always worried they’ll judge me for being not a teenager and unsure of how to put stuff on, but they’ve been wonderful and never ever pushed me towards more expensive stuff
I learned how to do stage makeup for dance recitals when I was about 10. And it was so much and so heavy that I rebelled and didn’t wear makeup again for many years. Then I decided I should wear some for wedding pictures. And I mostly figured it out through trial and error. I bought some stuff, signed up for birchbox as a way to find stuff, looked up a few youtube tutorials to figure out eyeliner. But it took about six months of just trying out this or that before I really figured things out and settled on a look that I like.
If you’ve got a Sephora around, I’ve had good luck with asking for help there.
My own personal makeup tutor is my daughter, for when I need help, or I sometimes watch youtube tutorials.
My go to daytime eyeshadow is Urban Decay’s Naked pallette, with mascara and lipstick.
eta – your pinky is a perfectly good substitute for an eyeshadow brush!
I have also used qtips, and i do actually have a brush, and usually end up using my pinky anyway.
What she said. All of that is true.
Scheduling a session with a makeup artist (like at Sephora or your favorite makeup section in the mall) is always good for learning new techniques. I feel like they’re always happy to explain each step so you can replicate the look at home if you ask. FWIW, I think good makeup brushes really do make a difference. Maybe buy a travel set and experiment?
I’m still learning (like you), but for foundation, I asked my sister a couple of months ago. Our skin is similar, and whenever she would go to the makeup counter, the person there would inevitably put her in makeup that was too dark, but my sister was like “nope, our skin amplifies makeup as the day goes on” which is why when I was a teenager wearing foundation, you could tell that I was wearing foundation. And that is why I’m just now learning how to makeup.
I had a friend in high school how was very skilled and I asked her to show me the basics. She did and I’m not great with makeup, but I at least know what sorts of colors to put on my eyelids where and how to properly apply blush. Since then I have learned a bit here and there, but mostly I prefer to go without. Basically you put the primary color on your lid, a darker color in the crease (not too much, just a bit–I usually apply this with my pinky and then a light color sort of on your brow bone area. I like to use a gold on my lid, a bronze in the crease, and a shiny creamy color on my brow bone area. It seems to work, and it highlights the eyes without looking too crazy or taking me entirely too much time.
That’s exactly the sort of instruction I can get behind, thanks! This thread has been so helpful, now I wish I had packed the palette…
I didn’t do makeup at all till I was like 22 and got my first real job (obviously by “job” I mean “unpaid internship”). One of my best friends is a total makeup junkie/mega hottie and she taught me some basics about slapping shit on your eyeballs. It’s pretty much just lightest color on the inner half of your eyelid + slighter darker color on the outer half + tiny bit of darkest color in the crease part + blend 4 ever. The blending is really the important part, I’m lazy and have terrible hand-eye coordination and blending vigorously fixes most of my mistakes. I’m also real bad at eyeliner so I like to use a little angled brush and dark powder instead, it’s softer looking and harder to fuck up.
Can’t help you with bronzer though, that shit freaks me out.
BLENDING is the most important part of eyeshadow. Totally right.
I started browsing the Makeup Addiction subreddit, reddit.com/r/makeupaddiction, a while back and picked up a lot of useful tips. If nothing else, their lists of drugstore and mid range (Sephora, etc.) products are really good jumping off points: http://redditmakeupaddiction.blogspot.com/2015/02… http://redditmakeupaddiction.blogspot.com/2014/11…
I like MUA, and MUA’s less consumerism-inclined sister sub, Makeup Rehab. (r/makeuprehab). MUR has a Daily Chat where you can ask all your makeup questions, and a Tutorial Thursday thread as well.
I can barely even do the mascara and lipstick parts. Do I need lipliner? What is it? How do I do it? Am I supposed to put mascara on my bottom lashes? Am I supposed to do something to my eyebrows? (edit: I realize there is no makeup mandate. But if one wants to do it, how does one do these things?)
Oh man, lip liner, don’t get me started! People say it keeps your lipstick from bleeding, but (a) I’ve never noticed my lipstick bleed, am I just a slob?? and (b) what color lip liner are you supposed to use so you don’t look like the 80s? and (c) what is “overdrawing” and “underdrawing” and for god’s sake will someone explain what a “cupid’s bow” is??
cupid’s bow= the weird v shaped bit in the center of your top lip.
if your lipstick doesn’t bleed, don’t worry about trying to make it not bleed.
youtube videos tell me that one uses the exact same color lipliner as your lipstick, unless one is going for some sort of effect. which sounds ridiculous to me, because I do not want to have to have that many lip products and have to try to match that many things in the morning.
I’ve had mixed results with lip liner tbh. It’s SUPPOSED to keep your color from feathering and getting out from the confines of your lip, but it seems to really depend on like, Mercury rertrograde or something because sometimes it works great and sometimes my lip color runs for the hills. I have had the best luck with the Revlon color stay brand of lip stuff. It goes on liquid, then dries, then there’s a gloss you can put on top, and I’ve never used anything that stays put as well.
If you do want to try lip liner, the basic technique is to make a “M” shape or an “X” shape with the pointy bit of your top lip, then line down to the corners. The bottom lip I start in the middle then out to the corners. Some people advocating filling in with the liner for extra color stay but I’ve not found it useful, but YMMV. Hope this helps!
I NEVER mascara on my bottom lashes but I have no real thoughts about it.
I have big full lips, and I wear some sort of lipstick on a daily basis — and have done for years — and it still takes me ages to apply it. I don’t use lip liner ever, because I feel like it ends up looking too much like HELLO LOOK AT MY MOUTH!!!! if there’s a very intensely defined line. So I apply all lipsticks — even really dark dramatic matte ones — by applying to the middle parts of my lips, and kind of patting/blending them into all of my lips with my fingertip. And then I’ll touch up the bits that need touching up with the lipstick itself, and sometimes layer some more on/do some more fingertip blending, depending on the color/texture of the lipstick I’m using. It works great, but it takes way longer than your average person takes to apply lipstick, I think. (I’m always a little embarrassed by my lack of technique when I’m trying on lipstick at Sephora or wherever.)
I MOSTLY mascara my bottom lashes, when I wear it! Just the outer third or half of my top lashes, and all of my bottom lashes. (A friend of mine who used to do regular drag shows told me once that the bottom lashes were _vital_ to good drag makeup — I think I really internalized that for no apparent reason.)
lipliner is optional but sometimes helpful, but if you aren’t excited about lip-related makeup, you can probably safely ignore it entirely.
You can put mascara on your bottom lashes, but again, optional.
Eyebrows are more complicated. If they look sparse, some sort of liner/pencil/powder is rumored to make things look better. I have never managed to pull this one off correctly, and a couple times have really really iritated the skin in the attempt, so now I put any of that energy into shaping/trimming/etc.
Are you meant to trim eyebrows? I generally just pluck to shape but other than that have no idea whether they look unkempt or what.
Depends on your eyebrows. I have a couple hairs that start in the middle of my eyebrows (y’know, where I want them), but they basically go straight up towards my hairline. If my eyebrows have been waxed/plucked/threaded into a proper shape, the hair is long enough that it goes outside of its approved area. I could try to train that hair to go in the direction of the rest of the brow, but that only works so well. On the other hand, if I just trim a bit off those couple of unruly hairs, they behave and look good without me having to do anything crazy like add gel to my eyebrows, which i will NOT do.
I don’t make any attempt to trim other than that.
Thank youuu! So, cut down the ringleaders and the rest will fall in line.
My eyebrow hairs are looong, and also curly. Plucked out, they look like long eyelashes. I have to brush them all up and then trim the ones that stick out above the line of where I want them, and then brush them down and repeat.
Alternately, you can get them waxed at just about any salon for around 10-20$. Eyebrow waxing can make you look very well groomed, and a good stylist can help you decide what kind of shape you like.
I’d recommend threading instead of waxing. My hairdresser also threads brows, and I look approximately one thousand times more put-together after I see her.
I really only use lipliner if I’m doing a red or burgundy lip, or if I find a really interesting color and then I use it instead of a lipstick. I usually just brush my brows into place, unless I’m doing a full-glam look. And mascara doesn’t work on the bottom for everyone, but I like to use a smaller wand mascara for the lower lashes (which means keeping 2 mascaras all the time, which might be a bit much.)
If you want help, and have a way to get in touch, I am happy to lend a hand. I love helping people with makeup. Also, I am madly in love with your screen name. It is witty as all heck.
Side question, is swearing allowed in toastland?
Fuck no! (To the swear part.)
You need to embrace your inner 15 year old! Get some ridiculous, embarrassing, but tasty booze beverage (or pot, whatever makes you feel more like a rebellious teen), put on some Tori Amos or Depeche Mode or whatever you loved to dramatically dance around your bedroom to before you realized how dumb you looked, make brownies, and then sit crossed legged in a full length mirror and just try it on and mess with it for HOURS. Wash it off, do it again, try something different, watch you tube, whatever.
I say this because I don’t think you can really learn from other people. Your face is unique and trial and error is the only way to find out what looks good on your own face. E.g., I look like bullshit in eyeshadow, but can pull off ten pounds of blush.
All of what was just said, right there. Also, another fantastic screen name. Is the wittiness level higher than average in here?
As a former goth kid, I taught myself, and although my general look these days is less dramatic, I think I’m pretty good at it. I use my fingers instead of brushes, because I feel like I get better control that way. I don’t do blush or contouring or bronzer, but I do use BB cream and/or foundation (depending on where I’m going and how much coverage I want). Here’s my routine:
1. Wash face. Remove all previous makeup.
2. Apply a foundation primer (I like the Dr. Brandt “pores no more” because I have huge pores). Make sure I get my eyelids and under eyes.
2a. Sometimes apply an under-eye brightener.
3. Apply foundation or BB cream by squirting some out on my fingers and smearing it all over my face. I go in chunks — nose first, blend, then forehead, then cheek 1 and cheek 2, then chin. I have short hair so I make sure I blend under my chin so I don’t have some kind of weird line. Apply a bit to under eye and eyelid (this helps the eye makeup go on nicer IMO).
3. Apply liquid eyeliner. I do this first so I can correct any mistakes with eyeshadow!
4. Apply my base eyeshadow color once the eyeliner is dry. This should be the lightest color you’re using. For my basic smoky eye, it’s white. Apply from lashes to brows. I use the whole pad of my index finger for this.
5. Apply a medium-dark highlight color to the crease of your eyelid using the tip of your finger. This would be a gray color.
6. Apply the darkest color you’re comfortable with close to your lash line using the tip of your finger. Depending on time of day, this ranges for me from a dark gray to a black with sparkles.
7. For nighttime — I line the bottom of my lid with an angled brush and gel liner.
8. Curl and mascara.
9. If you need it — loose powder to minimize shine all over face.
Here’s a pretty usual evening look for me:
I love that lip colour on you!
I learned the basics at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom when I was 12: my mom paid for me to get a makeup lesson from them before my bat mitzvah, and then bought me a bunch of the products as a present. I had already been experimenting with makeup on my own, but that’s where I learned things like how to use more than one color of eyeshadow at once, and where blush goes on your cheek. This was a pre-Sephora era, but if Sephora overwhelms you then a fancy department store makeup counter could be a good option!
My middle school Girl Scout troop leaders actually brought in, like, an Avon lady one meeting to teach us all how to do makeup (and the next day we went to a hair salon to learn how to style our hair), ostensibly for a beauty badge? I spent the meeting sassing at her and not learning anything about makeup, though.
When I actually learned was the afternoon I went with my sister to the MAC counter for a makeup event (it was my birthday gift to her). Through some very lucky chance, I got the most patient and least pushy makeup artist who very nicely walked me through how to do everything (and how to tone up/tone down for different events or times of day). I still don’t wear anything more than lip gloss on an everyday basis, but I’m really glad to have the knowledge for special occasions when I do decide to put on more makeup.
I started wearing makeup in middle school because of theatre. Mostly I learned through osmosis (watching other people, especially my mom). Didn’t really get way into makeup until college when our city got a Sephora. Getting to try stuff on made all the difference for me. Also my uncle & aunt gave my Kevyn Aucoin’s book for Christmas my senior year in high school and I used that as my makeup bible for years (still do kind of).
Ermegerd! I have that same Kevin AuCoin book, got it in high school, and it was my makeup bible at the time. How weird is that? Great book.
Makeup tutorials on youtube are absolutely where i have learned most things. Yes, I am unlikely to want to go all out on foundation AND eyes AND lips AND contouring AND AND AND on a normal day… hell, even a special day. But there are actually some “every day look” tutorials that are aimed at people who don’t want to do a LOT. And even the more in depth tutorials that are THING specific can give me what i need/want— ie, I am unlikely to ever follow a fifteen step tutorial on lipstick, but I now know what order to do things in of the things i choose to do, and that, for example, if I make a mess of coloring in the lines, i can fix it after with foundation.
Also, yes, absolutely, people who work at makeup stores will help you out. After doing a bunch of research, I decided I wanted to drop a bunch of money for some basics at Bare Escentuals, and you can basically drop in and set up a time for someone to help you figure out which products/colors are right for you, and show you how to put it on. Especially if they’re not slammed, they’re happy to help!
I also really enjoy my ELF products. They’re cheap, but many are a pretty good bargain, and they let me play around with something (ie, lip stain vs. gloss vs. lipstick) to help me figure out what I like, what looks good on me, what I’ll actually wear. Then if I like something and want to upgrade on quality, I can do that later. I don’t mind dropping $10 on 5 different lip products only to find that I only like one but don’t want to use it that much, but if the choice is dropping $20 on one item I might not like, I just don’t. Feeling the freedom to play around and figure out what works for me has been great.
yep. The cheaper lines are a great way to play with different colors! If you aren’t sure how a shade will look on you you can experiment to find what color to look for in the higher-end products.
For anyone looking for natural, easy looks for all ages, check out Lisa Eldridge. She’s a master and works with all kinds of models, so you can find one with a similar eye shape etc. She is a font of knowledge.
http://www.lisaeldridge.com/
Allison Emm is holy grail – plus, I learned a lot of things just experimenting on my own. I’m sure celebrity makeup is a really good tutorial on it’s own. http://community.sparknotes.com/blog/contributor/…
I’ve been a “just eyeliner, mascara, and sunscreen” person for pretty much ever. Eyeshadow never seemed to work the way it works in youtube tutorials– UNTIL I realized, wait, maybe when they say “put the dark color here”, “dark” can be the light brown one, and then the “light” one can be the one that’s just my skin color. Wooooo it worked!
A lot of eyeshadow palettes will actually have little instructions on the back for which color goes where, including variations for daytime and more dramatic stuff. (You can also usually get reasonably decent make-up tools, including brushes at drug stores)
You can also get a quick how-to at any make-up counter or store (e.g. Sephora), but sometimes the salespeople will either a) go for the hard sell or b) do more than you really want to do on the regular.
My skin can be hard to match to a foundation, so I go the tinted moisturizer route as I find that it blends better (no risk of that hard line at the jaw). It doesn’t cover as thoroughly, but most days I have a pretty decent and even complexion, so I don’t really need the “blank canvas” effect that foundation can give you.
My mother taught me in High School, which unfortunately did lead to some days of wearing a full face of drugstore make-up (including the aforementioned poorly blended foundation) to school. But the best advice I got was actually when she took me to the Clinique counter when I was in college, where the saleswoman taught me about tinted moisturizer and simple, neutral shadows. From there it’s mostly trial and error and the occasional youtube video or article. EDIT: I also did theater in High School, but we did not really do Advanced make-up, but it certainly helped. I remember at least one day having someone come in and show us some tricks, since we were all going to have to do our own.
Lisaelderidge.com
She has a lot of natural looks http://www.lisaeldridge.com/video/20082/chic-simp…
and some with minimal tools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWnlY105q34
Yes! Lisa Eldridge has been so helpful
I just learned how to make up in the last year or two. Before then, I just did liquid eyeliner, blush, and pressed powder and lipstick. Now I’m foundation, eyeshadow, liner, mascara, blush, lipstick. And I think I look GREAT. (and I’m 38, so it’s never too late?)
My parents were very conservative and very opposed to makeup in my teens, so whatever I learned, I learned on my own. I’m not very good at it though. I always think I look strange with makeup. It cakes, it pools in the wrong places, it makes me look like a clown. I stopped using makeup for the time being. Sometimes it feels like a moral failing that I can’t use makeup as a 30 year old. I’m just glad that the natural look is back in style.
Learn the Faceics! http://www.rookiemag.com/tag/learning-the-face-ic…
Trial and error, mostly! When I got older and wanted to do more advanced things than put pretty colors on my eyelids, I turned to the internet and asked it things like “how do you apply foundation to dry skin” or “fill in dark patchy eyebrows” or “what does face primer do.”
You can try googling/youtubing “[name of your palette] tutorial” and you’ll probably find some person modeling looks with the exact colors you have, so that might give you some ideas! Beauty bloggers are extremely thorough.
Everyone has really great advice here, but I’m going to second either a) a make up counter and/or b) an eyeshadow palette with instructions in it. Or, an eyeshadow palette and then youtube for “[palette] tutorial” or “how to use [palette]” Definitely also recommend ELF products to play around with (I really like their eyeshadow C brush with the black handle!) before committing to something more expensive!
1. Love ELF.
2. I want my new band name to be ‘The Polka Stripes’.
I’m surprised no one mentioned Jane Marie. Check out her tutorials:
http://thehairpin.com/tag/makeup-tutorials/
Wanted to add: Please scroll through the many pages of posts, those first ones make it look like all silly/halloween/st pats tutorials. She is the best.
I have nothing good going on here so let’s share what we’re reading!
I am slogging my way through Deerskin, which is hard going for me. I read Gone With The Wind for like the twentieth time this past week for escapism. I also finally got a copy of Kindred by Octavia Butler that I am really close to finishing (Yay! But wow, hard to read) and then three or four Dear Americas for my blog.
Next up is Camp Nurse by Tilda Shalof, followed by The Emperor of Maladies.
Thumbs up for Emperor of Maladies! Fascinating read & so well written.
I’m working my way thru Memoirs of Hadrian, slowly but surely 🙂
I just finished Alif the Unseen (which was interesting but…actually a little amateurish, I think; it was Wilson’s first novel, though, so) and now am working on The Bone Clocks.
I tried to read The Luminaries, because you know, Booker Prize winner, there was a sale at Amazon, but. I don’t know, none of it is bad, but there’s no urgency to anything, I don’t feel like I’m going to miss out at any point if I just set the book down and never pick it up again.
That’s how I felt about Catton’s other book, The Rehearsal.
It reminds me of a book about American transcendentalism I once bought for some reason and decided to read: there’s something interesting on every page, but it’s somehow soporific to my curiosity — I’m gratified to have learned something neat, but not particularly interested in knowing anything more.
I am in the middle of The Luminaries too and I feel exactly the same way.
I really liked Cairo, and was looking forward to Alif the Unseen–good to know that it may not be everything I was hoping, but I’ll still read it!
Also Luminaries…I got it as a gift for Christmas and have not yet been able to start it. Hmmmmm.
It was fun enough, I think, but also more admirable for being unabashedly about Muslim values than for anything else.
I was reading Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, but I am taking a break from it for a while. I found that, while I’m usually a voracious reader, especially with my long train commute, I was finding literally anything to do except read it. Which is weird, because I do like it, I just… don’t want to read it right now. So instead I got Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (a pseudonym for two male authors), which I am really enjoying despite a few “ugh, this book was so written by men,” moments. I can’t tell whether some of the passages in that fashion that made me roll my eyes were meant to illustrate that one of the main characters is kind of a disaster, or if it’s more of an author viewpoint that they assume is universal.
I also want to read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson when I’m done – has anyone tacked that yet? I hear it’s a bit uneven, but it sounds good.
Also, my quest next week is to reactivate my library membership. I lost my card and haven’t been since I finished grad school 9 years ago (my god, where has the time gone?) and racked up a ton of fines by keeping the books I used for writing my final papers way past their due date. I need to get that sorted out and either pay the fines or do one of their amnesty things. They used to allow you to donate food in lieu of your fines, but I’m not sure they still do that. Anyway, this should cut down on my Kindle spending, especially when I decide I want to catch up on older sci-fi and fantasy series that have multiple entries.
I’m juggling about 3 books right now (I know, I KNOW). Almost done with Catherine the Great by Robert Massie (subconsciously slowing down because I’ve really enjoyed it); Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton, which is reminding me of my minor in German Language/Literature and all those mythology/folklore classes I took in college; and just starting Tell My Horse by Zora Neale Hurston, which is a study of life and voodoo in Jamaica & Haiti, published in 1938. She apparently was a voodoo initiate, was an anthropologist/folklorist, and had an insatiable curious nature. It’s sooo interesting. I love learning about different religions/cultures in general, but I knew absolutely nothing about voodoo coming into this, so it’s enlightening!
I loved that Catherine the Great bio!!
I’m reading The Ladies of Grace Adieu, but slowly, because I can’t deal with having no new Susanna Clarke to read. It’s really great, though!
I’m also reading McKenzie Wark’s book, The Beach Beneath The Street, which is about the situationists. it’s surprisingly both fun and readable!
Canadian Professional Engineering and Geoscience: Practice and Ethics, Fourth Edition. It’s not as dry as I’d feared, but it’s still pretty dry. There’s a fifth edition, but I was able to borrow this one from a coworker, so hopefully not too much has changed.
I still haven’t read The Witch With No Name, by Kim Harrison. At this point I’m planning to save it for my vacation next week.
Am still semi-planning to join Sasquan and vote in the Hugos, so I should really start reading Hugo nominees very soon.
I am trying to read, for about the billionth time, Greed, by Elfride Jelink. The Piano Teacher was _so good_, but reading Greed feels like being in the head of a not particularly coherent puddle of anxiety. It is great, don’t get me wrong, just also a slog.
I’m reading The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert – it’s really good, but now I’m pretty convinced the world (as we know it) is going to end by like 2050, so…. there’s that.
I picked up The Left Hand of Darkness at a book sale and am so excited to start reading it!
I love it! Seriously one of my favorite books. I even love the intro Le Guin wrote for my copy.
I just read that! Sooooooo good!
I’m almost finished with Ancillary Justice, which I also love.
If only Ancillary Mercy were already out! Breq is seriously the best ever.
Finished Babe Walker’s Psychos and The Luckiest Girl Alice last weekend. This week has been all about the Fifth Gospel (which has been double interesting because I did jury stuff this week so I’ve been thinking about the legal system and this book is about Vatican law).
I’m finishing up Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. I am very impressed by the consistent level of craziness in the book. When I’m done I’ll read the last Megan Abbott book on my list (The Song is You) and then switch over to some ancient history books – I nabbed The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian at a used bookstore the other day, and I got a book on Antony & Cleopatra from the library.
I loved CRA and the sequel is out now!
It is?? Yay! Is this the cousin’s story?
Kwan built a great world, loved his characters. Did not like how often he used alternative speech tags, or adverbs for his speech tags. (“Hi,” she enthused. “How are you?” he asked reprovingly. “Yesterday was my birthday!” she chirruped. “I’m sorry I missed it,” he replied lugubriously.) (<– Not actual CRA text.) But that’s my internal editor getting grouchy again.
I’m reading Apocalypse Baby by Virgine Despentes (so far so good but I’m only a few pages in) and rereading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, which I loved when I was 15, and it is not holding up.
Ditto on Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Re-reading it made me cringingly aware just why the Women’s Lib movement arose when it did, in a way that I didn’t really get the first time around, probably because the Women’s Lib movement was still in the process of arising.
I just read Heidi Julavits’ diary/memoir The Folded Clock and I loved it. It started out kind of slight and goofy, then it really grew on me. It made me laugh out loud on the bus multiple times.
I took ‘This is how you lose her’ out of the library and…I was kind of underwhelmed? Is Diaz’s other work more interesting? After all the hubbub, I was expecting to be entranced, or something, and I very nearly had to push myself to finish towards the end.
Next up is a Roddy Doyle (I think it’s a collection of columns he wrote?) and ‘The Golden Gate’ by Vikram Seth which I tried to read last year but was too distracted to really concentrate on.
hmmm I loved Oscar Wao and liked Drown (I’m not a short story fan in general, so props to a professor for assigning him & Lorrie Moore, otherwise I might never have picked up either collection). But he’s got such a singular style I can see why he’s not for everyone. I’ve read a few other books in that sort of free-flowing, reference-dropping style and not really liked them, it feels like a fine balance between great & clever for clever’s sake.
I just had to take a break from Spinster: Making A Life Of One’s Own by Kate Bolick to zip through a bunch of things that are due back at the library, but luckily one of those things was Marie Brennan’s Voyage of the Basilisk, which is the latest entry in her delightful series about dragon-obsessed naturalist Isabella, Lady Trent. Now back to spinsters!
Also recently finished Cixin Liu’s Three-Body Problem and….honestly, guys, I’m not sure I get the hype. The characters felt almost more allegorical than three-dimensional, but the translator’s note mentions that Chinese SF has a very different affect from Western SF so I’d be interested to know whether that’s part of it. Aside from that, though – so many problems with the science! So. Many.
Wait, there’s a new Marie Brennan? I did not know!
Yes, this one’s sort of Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle with alt-Victorian feminism and MOAR DRAGONS. It was excellent!
That’s good to know – Three-Body Problem is near the top of my TBR list, so maybe I’ll bump it for something else.
I love the Lady Trent books! SO GREAT!
Yay Lady Trent and her lifelong long affair with science!
I started reading How to be both, by Ali Smith and I like it, but I’m feeling the same way a lot of people here seem to feel about Luminaries. Nothing bad about it, but nothing really driving it for me either. I want to come back to it when I might be in a more receptive frame of mind, so in the meantime I picked up The Bell Jar. I have no idea how, especially as a Smith grad, I made it to my 30th year without reading the Bell Jar, but here we are. I have no excuses for that, but I love it so far. I wish someone had slapped Catcher in the Rye out of my hand when I was 16 and put the Plath in its place.
I loved the Bell Jar and found Plath’s description of this slow, insidious mental illness to be very real and relatable.
What part of the book is first in your version? I have a feeling that might make a difference with How To Be Both, which I adored but can totally understand being underwhelmed by.
So, I wound up borrowing two separate copies from the library. The first version, which I started reading and am halfway through begins with George’s story. The 2nd copy, which I now have, is the one that starts with the Italian story and I considered skipping to that story and then returning to George. It’s funny how individual our responses are to stories. I couldn’t put down The Luminaries, where with How to Be Both, I could sort of take it or leave it, but I want to persist because so many people seem to love it and I am curious as to how the stories tie together.
So, I wound up borrowing two separate copies from the library. The first version, which I started reading and am halfway through begins with George’s story. The 2nd copy, which I now have, is the one that starts with the Italian story and I considered skipping to that story and then returning to George. It’s funny how individual our responses are to stories. I couldn’t put down The Luminaries, where with How to Be Both, I could sort of take it or leave it, but I want to persist because so many people seem to love it and I am curious as to how the stories tie together.
Orange Mint & Honey. It’s good! Not blowing me away, but I’m liking it, and I’m admiring the author for what must have been a hard narrator to write (she’s depressed and burned out and does/says some awful/frustrating things, and you see how they make sense in her brain).
Grasshopper Jungle is up next! I hear good/weird things.
I’m still working on Great Expectations, but I just ordered a biography of Charles II recommended to me by another Toastie, and I am so excited!
I’m midway through An Ember in the Ashes, which is a perfectly entertaining YA novel, but isn’t blowing me away. I’ve also just started A Stranger in Orolandria, which is delightful.
I just read To Sir With Love, which is SUPER GROSS. On the one hand, the depiction of post-WWII British racism is very interesting. On the other hand, the narrator cannot get over how women and girls have breasts, and at one point he went on a rant in his classroom and called all the girls filthy little sluts. Also, it’s supposed to be an inspirational teacher story, but all he seems to have taught the kids is how to be polite in class and slightly less racist. But slightly more sexist. I should have known from the song that came from the movie, it always seemed kinda wrong to me.
I am now reading Up The Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman, which is a less horrifying semi-autobiographical teacher story.
I’ve been hopping in and out of Sarah Waters’ oeuvre for the past few months – so many tragic lesbians! And I’m not being flippant, her books are really heart-wrenching, and I need to take a break before I start the next one. I got a bunch of Anne Tyler books after Nicole tweeted about how good they are, and she was not wrong! They are all sad in their own ways, but it’s a gentle sort of melancholy that I rather enjoy.
I’m still slogging my way through naval expedition research books, but I’m still trying to get side reading in.
I’ve just started the old copy of The Wind in the Willows that I got from the library book sale. I’m about to meet Mr. Badger in the next chapter. I really, really wish I could have read this as a child. But as an adult it’s still a lovely, springish read.
One summer I went to camp and they told us to bring “one or two” books to read–not realizing yet that I read far more and far faster than 90% of humanity, I took them at their word, and thus had little option but to keep rereading Wind in the Willows every few days for 4 weeks. “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” chapter is one of the ones I look back and and say, “yup, this is probably when I started being a pagan.”
I LOVED Deerskin when I read it years ago. Not sure if I still would. Emperor of Maladies was great, too, but I liked The Lowland better.
I’m reading To Make Men Free by Heather Cox Richardson, which is a COMPLETELY FASCINATING history of the Republican Party. Next up is A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar for book club on Sunday (whoops). I’m trying to break my romance novel streak, which has been fun but is not doing much for my brain parts.
I am picking away at A Thread of Grace which is just lovely, but it is also heavily about Nazis so I can only take it in very small doses, and never right before bed. So my bedtime reading is A Feast for Crows which is clearly much lighter-hearted.
I just finished Michael Crummey’s Sweetland and it’s crazy good. The subtle intensity of Crummey’s characters is my crack. (I’ve only also read his Galore, which: YES, but will be hoarding & savoring the rest of his work now.)
I started Elisa Albert’s After Birth today & it’s a bummer so far, which is as it should be.
I’m not so much reading as bookhopping this week. I just can’t seem to focus on one book. I’m reading:
1. “Consider the Fork” about the history of the kitchen,
2. “The Right Type” about the history of typefaces,
3. and “Call the Midwife” about London in the 1950s. I recently started watching the show, but the books are way better.
I’m going to look through this thread and see if I can find some fiction story to occupy my restless mind.
That’s funny! It took me a year to read Gone With The Wind because I kept throwing it across the room, but I checked out Deerskin so much from the tiny YA section at my library (this was the 90’s, so mostly YA was about Life Lessons with the occasional treasure like Robin McKinley) that I would be surprised if anyone else got a chance to read it. Sorry, kids of Wheaton, MD.
FINALLY got my mitts on a copy of Station Eleven and read it in two days on the train even though I wasn’t done with classes yet. Then I read some romance novels because my brain was tired but now I’m reading Euphoria, by Lily King. Warily. It is about white people anthropologists, after all.
I’m currently reading Everything I Never Told You. Recently I finished a bunch of comics/graphic novels, and I must recommend Nimona and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl to everyone everywhere.
I’ve been listening to Foxglove Summer, by Ben Arronovitch, from the super fun Rivers of London series, and reading assorted pulpy romance novels in an effort to escape my anxiety,
THE DEAR AMERICA BOOKS. God, I read SO MANY of those as a kid. Especially the one about Zipporah, pretty sure I had half of that one memorized by middle school. BRB, going to read all of your blog entries because I read so much historical YA as a kid. SO MUCH.
Currently reading some really old Lisa Kleypas books I somehow managed to miss to tide myself over until Brown Eyed Girl/Cold Hearted Rake. Also, Missoula, which is excellent but also BRUTALLY difficult to read, so it’s being alternated with fanfic/romance fluff to keep me from breaking down and bawling every other page.
I’m confident if looking at my blog you’ve already discovered this, but I did Zippy a few weeks ago!
Yeah, I just read that review and I’m SO glad you loved it too! I was commenting in the Link Roundup about how few Jewish protagonists that I read about as a kid (or rather, ones that weren’t Holocaust related) but Zippy was my favorite. I was convinced she was real in elementary school and tried to look her up on the Internet to no avail. The Dear America/Royal Diary books were my crack as a kid- I’m so sad that I gave most of them to the library during college.
“Lady of Quality”, Georgette Heyer (Toasties, come talk to me about Heyer romances, this is only my third one!)
and “Sebastian”, by Anne Bishop.
Tragically, I’m not going to be online much longer today, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew about this mashup, yeah?
Have you seen the recent trailer for Crimson Peak? I wish October was tomorrow. Victorian garbed TH *sigh*
I try not to think about it too much because it leads to me staring off into space, possibly drooling, and definitely not getting anything done.
ETA I mean just KILL ME NOW.
OH MY….*blushes profusely as productivity comes to a complete halt*
No, but did you see THIS MASHUP?!?!
MANKAAAAAAAA
You get my last comment, bb! I’m logging off for the weekend!
I knew of it but had not previously had a download link. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
CRITICAL UPDATE: Jeeves’ Instagram
I might have to set up an instagram account just to follow Jeeves…
EEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Crossed paws! Squeeeeeeee! (Also: crossed paws = relaxed cat, so very happy that a little lost morsel feels at home!)
WHAT! Cuteness!!!
Happy weekend everyone.
Has everyone read this yet? (Link is below) Gorgeous, witty, dynamic, beautiful wife & mother; Maggie Gyllenhaal was deemed unsuitable to play opposite a 55yo lead due to her age. At 37yo she was “too old” for the part. WTF!!! Shout out to The Honorable Woman which if you haven’t yet seen please open up your Netflix & savor w/ a great glass of red wine. My favorite Maggie performance since Secretary 🙂
I’m not naive, Hollywood has been & always will be an ultra sexist environment. An actress’ shelf life is ridiculously shorter than their male counterparts by decades. It’s the nature of the beast & most women going into the profession are well aware of it.
However the level & intensity of sexism towards women in Hollywood seems to have reached new heights. I’m not sure if it’s become more apparent because more & more women are stepping forward & vocalizing their frustrations in public. Maybe it’s become so glaring we can no longer ignore it. Either way the spill over effect is massive. The rise in sexual assault, the inability to respect women’s boundaries, the crude “humor” used to discuss women, basically everything Amy Schumer has brought up this season, is a testament to that.
I’m not a pessimistic person, but if none too bright (adolescent) males (those in the hallowed 18-35 demo) whose only exposure to interacting w/ women is thru the crap Hollywood & the media in general feeds them, then I’m ready to say hell with this and decamp to a neo Amazonian colony (some men are allowed but where the man child will be dealt with severely).
http://www.thewrap.com/maggie-gyllenhaal-on-holly…
I said on FB yesterday that I’m pretty sure that producer’s not too old to punch in the face for saying that to her.
I am so happy that we’re finally getting to the point where actresses talk openly about this kind of crap! You just know it’s been going on for ages.
This is the only place in the known or unknown universe where I can share that I woke up with THIS stuck in my head today and it hasn’t gone away yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dImprgiB8
What earworms are plaguing you this fine Friday?
woke up with an unholy want to listen to moby, blasted his greatest hits all morning. that was out of character!
We are all made of stars.
This, which is not bad as earworms go! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FlQCtg96SQ
Of all the things I expected to hear when I clicked that YouTube link, what I actually got was not anything I could have anticipated. Hats off to you for that wonderful surprise.
*blush*
You’re welcome!
This week has been alternating between Yoga by Janelle Monae and The Knock by Hop Along.
One night I both went to be and then woke up with The Knock in my head, which seems unfair.
Yessss, I love Yoga.
right when I read that, I realized my brain was going “doop, da-doop, da-doop, da-dododo-doop” like a sneaky-funny thing in a classic cartoon.
I downloaded some new (to me) tunes the other day, and have been sing-screaming the new song Delilah by Florence and the Machine, some of the Marina and the Diamonds songs off of Froot, and stalking around to Go by Santigold.
The last thing on my iPod last night was The Swords of 1,000 men (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HYgXt43uGU), so I might just have listened to it on repeat for the entire walk to work this am.
I would suggest that I am ashamed, but let’s be real here. The Real McKenzies are great. And there is NOTHING like hollering “here come the swords of 1000 men” at 8:30 in the morning while fellow pedestrian commuters look at you like you are a crazy person who is about to attack them.
We should all do that every day.
I’ve been singing Re:Your Brains to my student workers all day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6vnM9I7HIo
This morning it was that boom-de-yada song from the Discovery Channel ad a while back, and NOW it’s “Not in Notthingham” :’) I need to rewatch that movie…
(earlier this week it was a mashup of Mad Max music and the “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” song from That Coke Ad. Hmmm, I wonder which media’s been on my mind lately…)
#BBHMM
I’m not mad, tho. Just wondering, when Rih has “your wife in the backseat of [her] brand new foreign car,” did she kidnap your wife as collateral for her money? Or did your wife leave you for the clearly superior Rihanna? I’m thinking– little of column a, little of b.
THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE BAND: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXjiHv-Wp3M
Thanks to Texts from The Hieronymous Bosch, Black Sun In a White World is resonating through my head. No complaints!
For the earworm thread: I’ve had “Close Another Door,” by the Bee-Gees stuck in my head all week
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHARsLVRhk4
Thanks to the Mormon YA article earlier in the week, the second verse of In Our Lovely Deseret.
https://youtu.be/iX-3kIllE8A
VaNa MaZi: https://youtu.be/5RAy-9kZMvc
I really don’t know if it counts as an earworm because I actually love the song, but I can’t get “King Kunta” out of my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRK7PVJFbS8
Some evil part of my brain likes to play Garfunkel and Oates’ “The Loophole” on repeat at the MOST inappropriate times.
Ha!
Does anyone have recommendations for things to do, places to go, places to eat in Palm Springs? Especially if it will probably be over 100 degrees?
Cheeky’s for brunch!
And if you eat pork, get the Bacon Flight!
For the Palm Springs thread: The Greens Cafe!
Even if you don’t like dates, try a date milkshake – they’re as tasty as everyone says.
…even if you DON”T LIKE DATES?! What?! Do these monsters exist?
…I…am not a huge fan of them. 🙁 Sorry! I eat them IN things, like milkshakes and these date-nut energy bar things that I make, and I like them stuffed with things and wrapped in bacon, but I don’t dig them just on their own. But hey, that’s just more for you!
Melvyn’s – super old-school American steak joint, go to the bar at least to take some Frank Sinatra cocktail napkins!!
Saguaro Hotel – it’s all rainbowed-out and adorable, your Instagrams will be gorgeous
Main shopping district is okay, lots of the shops are very… odd… which can be fun to wander. Although this area tends to be pretty empty until sundown because it’s so hot. Everyone comes out at night like vampires, which was hilarious to watch.
Your hotel pool – hopefully you have one! The first couple times I went to Palm Springs I had full days of sightseeing planned out and then realized that if it’s over 100, and you have the means, there’s really no better way to spend the day.
Share your favorite, stupid jokes with me, Toasties. Mine is below.
156 pieces of tape walk into a bar. They order a drink. The bartender says, “I’m not giving you beer! You’re 156 pieces of tape!” The pieces of tape say, “That’s okay, we’ll just stick to the pretzels.”
Get it? STICK to the pretzels?!
my sister had some absolute gems when she was a child, it’s no wonder she’s the funny one:
q. why did the dinosaur go to the doctor?
a. he had a saurus throat!
q. what holds all of america’s gold reserves and smells real bad?
a. fart knox!
that last one destroyed my entire family on a road trip to florida so badly that we laughed through the entirety of west virginia.
This one’s better out loud.
Two whales walk into a bar.
The first whale says: “Auuuwuuaaahhhhhaaaawuuuaaaaaaa” [do your best whale song impression here]
The second whale says: “Shut up Steve, you’re drunk”.
How did Harry Potter get down the hill?
Walking.
JK, rolling.
This is possibly the only way I will ever remember to say her name correctly, so thank you for that.
Because she is one of the wealthiest authors in the world, in my house we say she is “JK Rowling in it”
What did the fish say when he swam into the brick wall? “DAM!”
A man walks into a bar. Says “Ow.”
A three legged puppy walks into a bar and says, “Know anybody who shot my Paw?”
What did one mountain say to the other mountain after the earthquake
“Don’t look at me, it wasn’t my fault.”
Q: What’s green with wheels?
A: Grass. I was just kidding about the wheels.
So this string walks into a bar and the bartender says to him “get outta here, we don’t serve your kind!” So the string goes out into the alley, ties himself in a knot, frays his ends, and goes back in. The bartender says to him “hey aren’t you the string I just told to get outta here?!” and the string says “no, sir, I’m a frayed knot!”
I came here to post this joke and it makes me so proud that I don’t have to now.
A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar. You think one of them would have noticed.
what do you call a frog that’s parked illegally?
TOAD
What’s brown and sticky?
A stick!!!
This is my favorite!
That is my favorite too!
Why don’t seagulls fly over the bay?
Because then they’d be BAGELS.
A hamburger walks into a bar and the bartender says “sorry, we don’t serve food here.”
A dog walks into a bar and says “hey, where can I get a drink around here?” and the bartender says “toilet’s down the hall.”
Why do mermaids wear seashells?
Because D shells would be too big.
Ole and Lena are building a house and Lena notices that while Ole is hammering boards he inspecting each nail and throwing half of them away. “Ole, why are you wasting those perfectly good nails?”
“Half of these are defective!” he says. “They have the pointy part on the wrong end!”
“Ole, you idiot!” Lena says. “Those are for the other side of the house!”
And my dad’s favorite (slightly risque) joke: So a chicken and an egg are sitting side by side in bed and the chicken takes a drag off a cigarette and says, “Well, that solves that mystery.”
Related to your last one, and blatantly stealing this from a TV show I just watched but can’t remember which one:
Q. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
A. The rooster
q. What do you call a mama cow after she’s had her baby?
a. De-calfenated
Why did the kid stick a garden hose in his friend’s ear?
He wanted to brainwash him.
(Thank you, popsicle sticks of my youth.)
[upvotes every single comment in this thread]
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Owls.
Owls who?
They sure do!
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting chicken.
Interrupt–
CLUCK!
(Repeat forever if you are between the ages of 3 and 6.)
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting sloth.
Interrupt—
[very, very slowly moves towards them]
To take knock-knock-jokes in a slightly darker direction:
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
9/11.
9/11 who?
BUT YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER FORGET
I genuinely laughed out loud.
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting rabbit.
Interr-
*wiggles nose cutely*
My daughter doesn’t quite get this one, so when she tells it she lets you say the whole “interrupting chicken who?” and then bursts into laughter.
It took the Pip (3.5 years old) a while to get the hang of it, but now he will cycle through every animal he can think of at top volume. But yes, it’s funny even before they get it.
Also: the book Interrupting Chicken, while not about this joke, is super-extra-cute.
To be told as a pair:
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting cow.
Interrupt—
MOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting coefficient of friction.
Interrupt—
MUUUUUUUUUUUUU
The Existentialist Hot Dog Joke:
Two hot dogs sitting on a grill. First one says, “Gee, it’s kind of hot on this grill.” Other one says “OH MY GOD IT’S A TALKING HOT DOG”
…..because we’re all just talking hot dogs. But do we know it?
How do you make a venetian blind?
Poke ’em in the eye.
And now I want to watch History of the World Part One.
It’s like “How do you wake up Lady Gaga? Poker face”
It’s late afternoon in court at Toon Town, and everyone in the courtroom is haggard. This hearing has lasted too long, been too nitpick-y. The judge looks down at Mickey Mouse, rubs his judicial hands over his tired face and reiterates:
“Mr. Mouse, we’ve been over this. You can’t divorce someone just because they are suffering from mental illness.”
Mickey, equally as tired and sporting some 5 o’clock shadow, feels his ears flop down. Is no one listening?
“I didn’t say she was crazy,” Mickey says. “I said she was fucking Goofy.”
What’s the body temperature of a tauntaun?
Luke-warm
Oh filing this one away for the next time I talk to my dad.
A priest, a rabbi, a cowboy, a lawyer, a clown, a nun, and a doctor walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and asks, “What is this, some kind of joke?”
What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday?
Ayyyyy, matey.
A neutron walks into a bar and asks, “How much for a beer?”. The bartender says, “For you? No charge!”
Stealing this from tumblr. I claim no part in its creation, but lord, I love it:
The Boston Symphony was performing Beethoven’s Ninth. In the piece, there’s a long passage about 20 minutes during which the double basses have nothing to do. Rather than sit around the whole time looking stupid, some bassists decided to sneak offstage and go to the tavern next door for a quick one. After slamming several beers in quick succession (as double bassists are prone to do), one of them looked at his watch. “Hey! We need to get back!”
“No need to panic,” said a fellow bassist. “I thought we might need some extra time, so I tied the last few pages of the conductor’s score together with string. It’ll take him a few minutes to get it untangled.“
A few moments later they staggered back to the concert hall and took their places in the orchestra. About this time, a member of the audience noticed the conductor seemed a bit edgy and said as much to her companion.
“Well, of course,” said her companion. “Don’t you see? It’s the bottom of the Ninth, the score is tied, and the bassists are loaded.”
A couple favorites from my baby brother, when he was about 5:
What’s yellow, smooth, and dangerous?
Shark infested custard!
What’s green and deadly?
A thundering herd of pickles!
He was a goofy kid.
Herd of pickles….lol. That’s actually pretty hilarious.
Oh right, I also like:
Why can’t you ever get a kleptomaniac to laugh at a pun?
Because they’re always taking things literally.
Why does the fixie-riding hipster always have the right of way?
Because he was into the intersection before you were.
I used to date a tennis player, but I soon found out love meant nothing to her.
A little duck walks into a bar one day. He saunters up to the bartender and asks, “Got any gwapes?
“Nope, sorry,” says the bartender. The duck walks out, disappointed.
The next day, the duck walks into the bar again and asks, “Got any gwapes?”
“I already told you, no, I don’t!” says the bartender angrily. The duck leaves, again disappointed.
The day after that, the duck walks in again and says, “Got any gwapes?”
“No! I do not have any grapes! If you come in here one more time asking for grapes I’ll nail your feet to the floor!”
The next day, the duck waddles into the bar. The bartender eyes him suspiciously. “Got any nails?” the duck asks.
“No, why?” the bartender asks.
“Got any gwapes?”
What’s green and fuzzy and if it fell out of a tree could kill you?
A pool table.
Why do mice have such small balls?
Not many of them know how to dance.
The mayor of a small town got a phone call one day.
“Mr. Mayor, I’m from the National Association for Integrating Fantasy Characters. I’m calling you because our information indicates that fantasy characters have a difficult time assimilating within your community.”
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. The principal of our high school is a Hobbit, there are several Elf families living here, and our police force recently inducted its first class of Orcs.”
“Sir, you know as well I do that’s only Tolkien integration.”
A skeleton walks into a bar and says “I’d like a beer…and a mop.”
What kind of cheese is not yours?
Nacho cheese!!!!!!!
What do you call a cow with no legs?
Ground beef!!!!!!!
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
Make me one with everything!
When the Buddhist pays the hot dog with a vendor with a $20 and the vendor doesn’t give him any change back, the Buddhist says, “What gives?” and the vendor says:
Change comes from within, my friend!
i don’t usually participate in these, but i’m starting law school next week and i am shit-terrified. what if i fail out? what if i hate it? what if i get all the way through and decide i don’t want to be an attorney? any reassurances would be appreciated.
If you fail out, you will have awesome stories to tell, and will have learned other hard but valuable life/self things.
If you hate it, then you will have learned that.
If you get all the way through, you can do 10,000 other awesome things with a law degree.
I’m excited for you!
You’re just like my brother. I mean it in a non-creepy, nice way.
I got two-thirds of the way through and decided I didn’t want to be an attorney! But then I finished anyway and now I am a non-practicing attorney with a different career and it is just fine. You will be fine. Law school is not the last decision you will make and it doesn’t define your future career.
My biggest piece of advice is to be around non-law-school people as much as possible. It’ll help you keep perspective on how much (or little) whatever piece of schoolwork you’re currently worrying about matters. And it’s hard to remember in the moment, but law school doesn’t last forever.
I’m an attorney! I’m having an awesome time practicing actually. I found what I like although the pay is not spectacular, I’m quite fulfilled. I struggled through law school and befriended all the self-identified weirdos and queers, who helped me survive. I assure you that you’ll find your people and survive too, even when things seem hard and stupid.
You won’t! Nobody can tell the future – if you don’t want to be, just get on with the degree, then do whatever you want to do.
1) All will be well. Even if you hate law school, your life will not be over. My sister-in-law decided she hated law, graduated but never took the bar, and is doing just fine.
2) Here is a rec: a book about law school, by a co-worker and one of the smarter attorneys I know (and I work in an office full of very smart attorneys). Um, that’s if you are in the U.S., if you’re starting law school next week you might not be.
3) Here are two personal pieces of advice: (a) have something other than law school that you do, especially first year, to keep it from eating your life; (b) take a broad range of basic courses, because now’s the time to get the foundations solid. (I never took federal courts or administrative law, because I said, “oh, I’m not going to clerk, I don’t need those!” Which was WRONG, as I found out when I started doing litigation in federal and state courts, often about administrative agencies’ actions!)
4) The failure mode of our profession is asshole. Don’t be one.
5) All will be well.
God yes. “Don’t be an asshole” is rock-solid advice for an attorney.
The point of lawschool isn’t how smart you are. It’s how hard you work. Do the reading, make outlines, and you will be fine. When I was in lawschool I was one of like 3% of the people who did the reading. It’s not hard to stand out.
Are many Toasties tattooed? I’m getting my second one this afternoon (a spectacular way to use my first summer Friday afternoon). It’s been 8 years since I got my first, and this one’s going on my foot, so I’m a little apprehensive about the pain, but really excited.
I have two foot tattoos And am a giant wuss. Yes, they hurt, but it was never soo painful I needed them to stop or anything. Keep telling yourself how much you’ll love it when you’re done–and don’t wear tight or strappy shoes afterwards for a day or two.
Ditto! This, exactly.
I got mine done in November in Canada. A tiny piece of it is missing because of shoe 🙁
Yikes! It’s going on the top of my foot so I wore the lowest flats I have and I think I’ll be good.
i have fifteen tattoos, and each have been varying degrees of painful! i take a lot of deep breaths, joke with my tattoo artist about rocks, and contort my face into ridiculous shapes. i hope it comes out just the way you want it, if not better!!
I am having many increasingly serious thoughts about getting my first tattoo, so I will definitely be lurking about this thread.
i have six!
i don’t really understand how certain parts of the body are supposed to hurt more than others? the ones i have over bone felt about the same as the ones i have on fleshy arm space. i guess the sensitive skin parts—inner arms/inner thigh—hurt a bit more, but even then not dramatically more than the rest. what made a way bigger difference is that when i was relaxed/excited, it hurt less than when i was stressed/anxious.
I have one and it’s on my rib. I was prepared for the pain, which wasn’t too bad, but unprepared for how ticklish it could be. My tattoo artist was pretty amused by that.
I was thinking that I was toughing it out admirably until the tattoo artist said she was all done and I said way too loudly, “Oh thank god!”
Oh, god. I have been thinking about getting a tattoo on my ribs and I am ridic ticklish. Might need to rethink…
Yessss tattoos. I just got my third a couple weeks ago, after about a five-year break, and now I immediately want another.
Two of mine are rib and inner wrist, which are supposed to be extra painful but were basically fine. Rib hurt a bit, but I’ve seriously had worse cat scratches than the inner wrist one.
I have my whole back done, and one on each side of my ribcage. Considering going down one leg next. I mostly fall asleep while they’e being done, which entertains my tattoo artist greatly, as I squeal when he does the spraying and wiping down thing afterwards.
I have one tattoo (poetry on my back) and I really want another one- ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’ in red on my ribcage, but I know that one will hurt a lot. I had a dream about getting it and I’ve wanted it ever since.
Oh, I love that.
It’s great, right? I’ve loved that quote since I read Julian of Norwich for a medieval lit class and I’m really glad my subconscious came up with the idea.
Yay new tattoo! My tried-and-true method is to, shortly before the session, to eat a) pre-emptive ibuprofen and/or a stronger painkiller and then b) a hearty and healthy meal. It’s too late to remind you to hydrate all week, but that’s helpful, too. Avoid too much caffeine, and the while it’s happening, breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. A lot.
Have fun! Pics when it’s done!!!
Just last saturday I went through a similar thing! My other tattoos are on my back and this one is on my inner upper arm, and the pain was more intense, and I could actually see the healing process, so I got more freaked out. But it was fun and fine and I love the new addition. Congrats on yours!
I have two — one around my right wrist and one covering about half of my left thigh — and…I don’t think they actually hurt at all? Not even a little? Is that weird? It was…interesting sensation that verged into discomfort a bit, but nothing I would actually call even mild pain. (I suspect this has a lot to do both with my weird pain tolerance, and the fact that tattoo needle is all buzzy, so the sensation is way more diffuse than it would be if someone was just jabbing you again and again with a needle they held in their hand.)
Fanfic thread? Fanfic thread.
This can also be “things you are obsessed with in fandom thread” because sometimes you need to yell about things with people who ~get it~
I just finished reading all of Chash’s The 100 fic because studybears is a terrible/wonderful human being. WHY DO I LOVE AUs SO MUCH PLEASE LET’S DISCUSS THAT.
fanfic thread!! I’m just finishing up chapter 7 of a fic I’ve been writing since last APRIL (I think? I definitely started it in spring). not sure how many more there are to go, but this is a ~~significant one so it’s exciting to me. And I’ve usually been so SLOW at it but this is my second chapter for it in two days 🙂
what have people been reading this week? anything good?
Has anyone else read the AMAZING Harry Potter what-if one shots at ink-splotch.tumblr.com? The author responds to prompts like “What if Voldemort had gone after Neville?” and “What if Voldemort had killed off both Harry and Neville, and there was no chosen one?” Both of these have literally moved me to tears.
YES. Those were amazing. I saved the first one for an upcoming Tumblr all-Neville-all-the-time collection.
I heart Neville. Have you seen the cover of attitude magazine this month?
http://attitude.co.uk/harry-potters-matthew-lewis…
Cover, hell. Have you seen the full photoshoot? I am not ashamed to say I stared at the photo that’s basically a dickpic for about two minutes before I was able to shake myself out of the trance it induced.
Four different people posted a link to it on my facebook page. They all know me so well!!
Oh gosh yes, those are amazing!
I JUST SPENT A HALF HOUR READING THE “WHAT IF HARRY HAD BEEN REJECTED BY THE DURSLEYS” AND HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I suddenly feel inadequate about my HP fic writing abilities and i don’t even care
Just finished that one earlier this evening! OMG.
Warrington!!!!
No but now I’m going to!
What have you done to me?? :sniffles:
I went through and put all of ink-splotch’s AO3 Harry Potter pieces on my kindle earlier this week and at night I’ve been reading the “we must unite inside her walls or we’ll crumble from within” series and inevitably crying.
THE ANDROMEDA ONE, THO.
I spent an entire evening earlier this week re-reading the Arthur/Eames Chav!verse series.
One of the things I love about that series is that it could be AU…or…not. Totally plausible in canon, really.
I circle back to Arthur/Eames once every six months or so and am sad to find that there isn’t much that’s new.
Yeah, this was my second re-read of Chav!verse. Probably time for a Steinway!verse go-again.
I haven’t been reading much fanfic these last few weeks but just wanted to chime in on the love for AUs! What is it about them? I have no clue but I love ’em.
I think it was here that sent me to read a bunch of Avengers fanfic – the Taking Action series by Closer. (How do I not know how to link things?? http://archiveofourown.org/series/22959 )
ALSO the alternate universe Sherlock fic, How the Mouth Changes its Shape, is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. Time for a revisit, I think. http://archiveofourown.org/works/704773/chapters/…
I am currently reading the Taking Action thing too! I think I/we got there from Sulagna’s piece? But yes, I am enjoying it as well, It’s a break from going back and reading the entire collected works of copperbadge.
YESSSSSSS CHASH YESSSS AUS
I spent like 5 minutes trying to come up with an answer to why I love AUs so much but I just couldn’t express my feelings properly. I’ve read some good theorizing about AUs on tumblr that are definitely like part of my love for AUs and yet…I don’t know.
In other thinking-about-fic-preferences thoughts, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about tropes I’m fine with and/or love in fic but hate in books. For example, I’ve found I’m not really a romance novel kind of person, but also I’m not sure why not? Like 90% of the fics I read are romance heavy and undoubtably use romance novel tropes, but I don’t find that stuff particularly interesting or enjoyable when I read a romance novel.
Obviously some of it has to do with the fact that I’m reading fic about characters I already care about, but it still seems like my book tastes vs my fic tastes are often very different and I find that unexpected, I guess? Or maybe it’s normal. Thoughts anyone?
I have a request for music recommendations!
So I’ve been really digging Bastille’s remix of “Bloody Shirt,” originally done by To Kill A King, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P00kfamddrI) and I’m wondering if anyone else knows of any creepy, dark and atmospheric music like this.
Are you familiar with The Knife? Their early stuff is all electro-pop, but as time goes by they get darker. Silent Shout is dark and atmospheric while still being accessible, and their last album, Shaking The Habitual, is inspired by Judith Butler’s thinking on gender and performativity. It is their deliberate attempt to make an album that does not adhere to patriarchal musical values. It’s not all great, but I definitely think it is worth the 4 hours of my time to listen to that album. And is way darker than all of their previous albums.
You may also enjoy Saltlands. http://saltland.ca/music/ So pretty. The show was great; the drummer looked so angry and played with SO MANY BUTTONS while the cellist made all the pretty sounds. It may not be dark enough, though…
My usual favorite for creepy and atmospheric is Timber Timbre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJOkfS7ImA
Not particularly creepy, but I also like Austra when I’m in the mood for dark and atmospheric https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMelIUILdc
Camping Toasties! My sister and I are going on an overnight canoe trip this weekend and I need to plan for food. What are your favorite around-the-campfire recipes?
Campfire food is so good! Have you ever made campfire pies? You need a special tool for it (a campfire sandwich press thingy) but you basically use it to toast two pieces of bread with canned pie filling in the middle. Super satisfying.
My proudest camping innovation was what I like to call “Cold Nachos.” It was late, dark, and wet, so we couldn’t get a campfire started, so we bought the ingredients for nachos, threw them in a bowl, and then dipped chips in them. It was so ridiculously good that we sometimes have cold nachos now for the hell of it.
Another recent innovation was that I wanted s’mores, and had a campfire, marshmallows, but no chocolate bars or graham crackers. I ended up toasting marshmallows, sticking chocolate chips in them, and then eating them with my fingers. If you imagine a cartoon bear messily eating gooey chocolate mallow ball on a stick, that is what it looked like. I call them S’more Bombs. Only recommend if you you can basically hose yourself off afterwards.
My family makes pizzas in the sandwich press thing. Put tomato sauce on the insides of the bread, add cheese and pepperoni and whatever else, enjoy! I guess it’s basically an “Italian” grilled cheese.
I have nothing useful to reply with. I love your username and icon too much.
S’mores made with chocolate chip cookies instead of graham crackers are a go-to. Also hot dogs or sausages (the pre-cooked kind), cooked on a stick to your level of toastiness. (I basically take camping as an excuse to eat like a five year old! Delicious.)
CAMP FOOD. The only cooking I can do! My favorite camp dinner is foil packets–take a bunch of chopped chicken or ground beef, chop up vegetables of choice, add seasoning of choice, wrap it all up in foil and stick it on the fire. Also, butter the inside of the foil so things don’t stick to the foil. Basically any food that can be wrapped in foil is an excellent choice for campfire cooking.
S’more varieties: S’more tacos: stuff a soft flour taco shell with mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and (if desired) peanut butter. Again, wrapped in foil and stuck on a fire. Breakfast s’mores: Wrap a marshmallow in one of those Pillsbury crescent roll triangles. Put on stick, roast over fire.
Seconding foil packets! You can put ANYTHING in a packet. I’ve even had grilled fish filets in them (just put in lemon juice/half a lemon, salt and pepper). They were super delicious. But you can also just throw like beans and cheese and veggies in ’em and do a burrito-sans-tortilla.
You really can cook anything in foil. I went on a camp out with a big group and we cooked an entire chicken in foil. It was perfect and delicious and we also had a foil packet of veggies tossed in rosemary and olive oil and all together it was probably one of the best meals I have ever eaten.
It’s all about the foil packs. My fave is fish filets with some chopped veggies all covered with pesto. Actually we had that on a camping trip last weekend, and we were like, why do we wait for camping trips to cook in foil packs? This is so good and the clean up is so easy!
I just love a good, simple, coals-baked potato. Maybe in a foil packet with onions, if you wanna get fancy. My ideal camping meal is cheese & apples out of the cooler and a baked potato as the entree.
I like to make up some burritos ahead of time and wrap them in foil. Then just throw them on the campfire, flip them a few times and you’re done! Corn on the cob cooked in the husk is great over a fire as well. Foil packs are super easy too, as others have mentioned.
I hate camping, but I love banana boats! (so much that I make them in a mug in the microwave sometimes)
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/c…
I agree with the foil pack crew, but make sure whatever you bring that you prep as much as you can ahead of time. Chop your veggies and/or any meat and then you can just plunk it into the foil and throw it in the fire. I’d also be tempted to bring a head of garlic for roasting because that would be wonderful with/on anything. Also for lunches on trips like this I love bread, cheese, and charcuterie and whatever fruits are good and in season that will travel well. (It really is a glorious feeling to tear off a hunk of good bread and smear it with a lump of brie and not care for a single second that it’s probably 900000 calories because you’ve earned it, dammit.) Also s’mores are required and I highly suggest bringing Nutella as well as/in lieu of chocolate because it melts better as it turns into a molten, chocolate-hazlenutty goo. Oh my, I think I need to plan a camping trip sometime soon.
Do any Bay Area Toasties use ClassPass? Which classes do are you into? Any new activities that you’re addicted now but wouldn’t have tried before? I’m feeling this one hip-hop cardio class on the Peninsula and I want to check out an actual hip-hop class.
Trying indoor rowing! It’s crazy hard, and at least at my gym, the instructors are very visually … inspiring (I mean hot, in an inspiring way).
So, how many of you saw jonathan strange and mr norrell?? I LOVE IT SO MUCH! especially childermass. my god. and ARABELLA.
SO GOOD SO GOOD SO GOOD.
ARABELLA IS MY QUEEEEEEEEEN.
And yes HNNNNG CHILDERMASS. I do not recall having these feelings while reading the book…
so in love
Wait, was I the only person who had those feelings while reading the book? I thought so……
Nope. I def. had them too.
So good, I need more immediately!
Any idea when I can watch it in the U.S.???
It airs on BBC America next month – starts on June 13th, I think
OMG SO EXCITED.
YES. It’s so good all I want to do is binge watch it. Alas!
I have so many Thoughts about it. I actually wrote them up in anticipation of openthread. Listen to my opinions, everyone. They’re like super important.
My thoughts on Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. (So mostly a list of things I loved.)
Childermass’s opening bit of narration.
John Segundus’s face.
The way that Norrell looks at Childermass before making decisions.
John Segundus’s enthusiasm.
All of the kings arguing with each other during the stones of York. (I am always down with people getting angry at Stephen. The king, not the butler.)
Speaking of, I love Norrell’s face when he’s first interacting with Stephen Black. He’s clearly so uncomfortable, but Stephen doesn’t miss a beat.
The way that he sniffs the book at the party. Oh. Oh, I understand the sentiment entirely.
Lascelles.
Vinculus and the ‘his words, not mine.’
The way that Norrell’s accent becomes more prominent when he’s upset.
Arabella in her entirety.
Strange’s smile after the funeral.
His thoughts on Lyme Regis.
His expression when Vinculus is prophesying.
The fact that Sam West exists.
Drawlight’s delayed, pretending to get it laugh to Lascelles’s ’tis pity she’s a corpse’ joke.
The way that it looks like the Gentleman will slowly be becoming more humanlike in appearance at least as the show progresses. The other photos I’ve seen of him look less… leafy.
The fact that the first episode seemed to be focusing solely on these two white male main characters, but the really important players have already been introduced on the sidelines. Someone who hasn’t read the book probably would never know how important they become, but we know. Oh yes, we know.
SEGUNDUS.
Things I can’t wait for and want to have in front of my face like yesterday.
The war.
Lost Hope.
WELLINGTON. (Though I doubt he will top Stephen Fry’s version in Blackadder.)
Hadley-Bright. In a perfect world I will get to see all three Strangite students onscreen, but if I have to I’ll settle for just him.
I LOVE ALL THE THINGS.
YESS!! just all the best!! omg i read this list with such a big smile on my face. it’s SUCH a good adaptation. so beautiful. and you’ve reminded me of my favourite non-childermass gif from this episode…
I love his face almost as much as I love Segundus’s. Almost.
The way he sniffs the book at the party! I laughed and loved it.
I was prepared to love Mr. Norrell and Childermass; they seemed perfectly cast, and they are! Norrell has so many feelings. Childermass has so much charisma I almost wanted him to kiss Vinculus I can’t stand how handsome his face is.
I am SURPRISED to love Jonathan Strange so much! I had so many doubts but he is so perfectly snarky and smug.
The fact that Sam West exists.
So very agreed. (But all of your points are excellent! The adaptation is great.)
Oh, Sam West. He will always be the Caspian/Anthony Blunt/Edrington/& now Sir Walter of my heart.
Anthony Blunt is undoubtedly the best of all the Cambridge Spies. <3
Oh dear. A likeminded person. Clearly more people should be interested in dead, gay, English spies. Clearly.
YES. I am so upset that I can’t binge-watch it yet, almost to the point (ALMOST) that I would be willing to forego the next few weeks of watching it just so I can watch several episodes in a row omg it is so good
MIStah NorrrELLLLL.
I keep wanting to say that in a ridiculously over-dramatic voice with appropriate gestures, but no one is around to get it….
Video it and put it on here. We will appreciate it.
The person they found to portray Drawlight is beyond perfect. Such a weasel.
oh my gosh this week has been RIDICULOUS and I have only seen the first twenty minutes, eep! I can’t wait to finish it.
I want to say something eloquent and interesting and good about how much I love this adaption and its source novel but all I can think is AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAA – my brain will provide nothing but various squeeing noises. IT’S SO PERFECT.
Hey guys! Haven’t posted on the FOT in a while, but here I am to ask for some advice becaaaaause…next weekend I will be getting on a plane and heading out to Arizona, with some family and friends, to go camping and white water rafting in the Grand Canyon for two weeks! Because, yes! Why not live at the bottom of a giant hole for half a month! This sounds like a very good idea!
Jokes aside, I’m stoked as shit (FUCKING HATE FLYING THO, AND A HELICOPTER MIGHT BE INVOLVED AT SOME POINT, DR. ROMANO FLASHBACKS, ETC) but hey guys, has anyone done anything like this? Tips, advice, etc? Equipment and gear is mostly taken care of, but if you have any nuggets of wisdom for me, please shout!
this is it: http://www.riveradventures.com/ (I believe we are doing the 12 day oar-powered trip, with a few days of extra non-rafting time, fwiw.)
Be vigilant about sunscreen! Especially shoulders and thighs and feet (if you’re wearing sandals). It’s super easy to get wrapped up in what you’re doing and realize later that you were on the river for like five hours without reapplying sunscreen and now you are very sad and crispy. Drink more water than you think you should. Make sure you bring some good quick-dry athletic shorts because bare thighs + hot, wet raft is not pleasant.
TIP YOUR RAFT GUIDES. They are adorable hippies who probably live in a tent and don’t get paid for shit.
I am so so jealous, have the best time!
Thank you! Especially for the tip tip!
Also remember to sunscreen things like the undersides of your nose/chin etc., since you’ll be on the water & that could reflect the sun into unexpected places.
Sunscreen, make sure you get your feet even if you are wearing covered water shoes. I once wound up with a ring of sunburn around my ankle where my shoe moved back and forth all day (kayaking, not rafting, but same dif) It also doesn’t hurt to put sunscreen on the tops of your ears. Seriously. Even with a hat, sometimes the ear tips get enough sun during the day to burn (what with the hat coming off now and then in a rapid). And remember to re-apply to both areas when you do the more expected sunscreen spots, ha!
Because the sun is not my friend, I wear long shorts and a tshirt over my swimsuit so there is less of me to worry about sunburning. I shake my fist at the sun: You will not keep me from outdoor fun! 😛
Sunburn ring around the ankle is so not fun though.
Oh god, sunburn ring around the ankle sound TERRIBLE. When I was a kid, I got incredibly painful I-am-going-to-die sunburn on my feet at least twice, and so I am VERY vigilant about sunscreen on ankles and feet, but yeeeesh to a ring around your ankle. Luckily, I not only work in the water for part of my job, I am also very Irish, so I am used to ridiculous and unexpected sunburn. Thanks!
well, you probably won’t see this, even after you are back, but the funny part was, it took me *hours* to figure out what was going on. I was stomping around the campfire grumbling about this weird red rash around my ankles and saying I didn’t remember walking though any poison ivy or anything. And then the lightbulb went on over my head. Oh. sunburn. I didn’t take my shoes off and re-apply sunscreen–I thought I could get enough on my ankles without taking my shoes off. Nope. ha!
Know your own hangry cues, because wow can they sneak up on you. If everyone around you is suddenly too stupid to live, it’s not them, it’s you: rehydrate, have something to eat, maybe let someone know that you’re tanking. Learning to stash protein/sugar fixes in my travel gear immeasurably improved my ability to handle life on long adventure rides (and a flask of scotch is essential camping equipment–a wee nip can be personal first aid). The trip sound amazing; have fun and take pics!
Thanks! Ugh, yeah, keep track of the hangry cues, got it. And thank you for reassuring me that scotch is my friend on this trip.
Wear tons of sunscreen, keep your sun hat firmly affixed to your head, and drink three times as much water as you think you’ll need. Your guides will be on you about that, but folks who haven’t lived in the desert often underestimate it.
Thanks for the advice! I’m going to pick myself up a hat with a string this week, cause I doubt a baseball cap will stay on for two weeks.
Yes, be sure to get something with a string. Otherwise, if memory serves, you’ll lose your baseball cap on the first rapid.
I recommend something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Panel-Large-Bill-W15S48B-Kh…
When Mr. Delperro and his dad went down the canyon, his mom, who is a dermatologist in Phoenix, bought them both these (which also come with a baseball cap-like brim, if that’s your pleasure) http://www.amazon.com/Panel-Large-Bill-W15S48B-Kh…
definitely a hat with a string, and croakies for your sunglasses if you can bear it.
the hat will ideally also have a brim on the back to cover your neck a bit.
enjoy! this trip sounds amazing!
Ugh, I actually need to go guy some sunnies for this trip, I don’t have proper sport glasses anymore, thanks for reminding me!
If you fall in, keep your feet up!
Up as in above water?? Oh god now I’m thinking about falling in.
I am sure your guide will cover it all with you so it’s clear, but the idea is that you want to be moving down the river feet first, with your feet and head elevated. That way your feet can’t get caught on any underwater obstacles! You’ll be FINE, I promise!
Got it, thanks! I will be fine, I will be fine, I will be fine…
Seriously, don’t worry. Thousands of people do this every year and almost no one dies on guided trips, including untold numbers of oblivious European tourists who have no idea what real wilderness is like. You’ll be fine.
Yeah, I’m not worried, I’m pretty outdoorsy, I just laugh because everyone keeps saying things like “well, in case you fall out of the raft” and I think “yes, OR, I just won’t do that”.
well, if you fall out of the raft, you’ll be wearing a life jacket, and your guides will throw you a line and pull you back in and yell at you and then someone will hand you a drink, and you’ll have a funny story to tell.
Also, I just remembered that one of my cousins successfully went down the canyon in the early 90s when he was in the beginning stages of ALS (and so rapidly losing strength, but still mobile).
Wow, that is amazing. And thanks for the hat tips upthread, I may get that baseball cap-y one.
Yeah that side of my family is pretty rugged. Good luck and have fun! The canyon from the bottom is like a completely different place. It’s even more breathtakingly beautiful than from the top. Enjoy it!
I did something like this in Idaho! It was a blast!!! I don’t think I have any specific pointers except for letting you know that if you get the opportunity to jump off of a huge rock into the river, DO IT!! Also, like catoclock said, sunscreen!! Also also, the back of the raft is the most challenging place to be.
I am all about jumping off rocks into water! Luckily, I’m a pale Irish girl, who is already paranoid about sunscreen, so I will maybe just bathe in it. Put irritating people in the back of the raft, got it. Thanks!
I have nothing to contribute except that I still think about what happened to Dr. Romano all the time.
It haunts me to this day. I ran down my dorm hall screaming when it happened. People were concerned.
I was thinking about it just the other day. *shudder*
My dad is a helicopter pilot, and I grew up in them – if you have any helicopter specific questions, let me know!
Thank you! I mostly have paranoid fears about them, based on hour-long fictional dramas on NBC in the early 2000s.
They can be super fun! The feeling of taking off in a helicopter is unlike anything else. Chat up the pilot if you can! They are usually either interesting old guys like my dad, or mega-babes (of both genders).
Mega-babes of both genders…I suddenly want to ride in a helicopter, thank you!
You will have so much fun! I did a motorized Colorado River trip with the same company and would go again in a heartbeat.
I’ll put in a good word for a pair of dorky lightweight zip-off pants, especially if you burn easily! It was nice to be able to wear shorts while running around and hiking but be fully covered while hanging out on the boat.
That is great advice, thank you!
Also, if you can spare the space, I highly recommend taking an extra set of clothes in a gallon ziplock (something really easily packable, like a tank, workout shorts and underthings) and then not touching it all week. After you helicopter out, you’re taken to a ranch where you can have a shower, and it’s REALLY nice to not have to put your inevitably filthy river clothes back on.
Yes! even if there is no helicopter ride involved, driving home in clean clothes is much more pleasant. 🙂
@LiitlestOak, @newglasses This is something I will absolutely try to do, thanks for the heads up!
i know i’m late to this but in case you haven’t already left for your trip…
as someone who lives in Phoenix and also spends weeks at a time in the Nevada desert: a camelback with electrolytes added to the water is indispensable. you will need to drink a ton of water. like, TONS. i have been dehydrated in the open desert exactly once and it was The Worst Thing EVER. i’d rather piddle my pants on a raft than go through that shit-show again.
Thank you for the advice! And ugh, sorry you had to deal with that shit. Also, I’ll be in Glendale for the first and last night of the entire trip (grandparents house) and while I may be totally beat that last night, that first night I’ll probably be buzzing with energy (and we drive the next day to stay overnight in the town from where we’ll hike in, so I’d be able to go out that first night without worry) any advice on places to hit up in either Glendale or Pheonix on a Saturday night? Haven’t been there in a couple of years, and that was for Thanksgiving. Thanks again:)
Toastorinas:
My cross country move is hurtling at me at light speed, or so it seems. And Philly is just spectacular at this time of year, so I’m getting lots of wistful feels. The excitement of the future is helping some.
How are all the other Movers faring? Let’s BIG MOVE open thread up in this jawn. I wanna know.
Also, I have a geriatric cat whose health has decided to falter over the past few monhs. Considerable loss of weight and increased drinking/urination, leading me to believe it’s a metabolic disorder that I don’t believe in treating in a Cat of Advanced Years. (after being a vet tech for years, I don’t really believe in many heroic measures in pets who have lived a long and happy life). The question im facing is: how to decide how to proceed with him? I’ve set down some parameters to guide a decision to euthanize prior to the move if they are met, but it’s not easy. This guy has been with me through literally EVERYTHING important that has happened to me in the past 16 years. The best cat I’ve ever had. It’s the last loving gift I can provide him, but jeez… I wish it could wait, or I wish it were more obvious what the right thing to do is.
Good! We’re still four to five months from being ready to move, but doing a good job so far of trimming to the bare essentials and researching places to live. It still feels surreal, but I am doing an OK job of not worrying too much. Although, I do have to gear myself up for a job hunt that I full expect will be brutal, but one day at a time. Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof. All that jazz.
I’m glad you’re feeling excited! It’s nice to enjoy the last few drops of a place too before heading off to a new adventure.
Do you think it’s diabetes? The insulin thing is pretty easy (my cat was diagnosed a few weeks ago, same symptoms, but she’s five and otherwise healthy), but I think it’s fair to ask how stressful the move will be for him and whether this sort of thing will add to that stress. I might be projecting because my cat thinks a 5 minute car ride is akin to waterboarding. Anyway, I’m sorry you’re in this situation and have to make a hard choice. He sounds like an excellent little dude that’s had a good ride with you.
We’re moving from Connecticut to Austin TX in one week – long planned in theory, but last week I miraculously found a great job that needs me in early June so we’re panicking a little. Pretty dirt poor at the moment, so we’re taking my little car down now and he’ll fly back up in a month or so for a wedding and get his. We’re not bringing any furniture, and I’m pretty used to hopping around the country but he’s never left the state. Who has opinions about…spacebags? I want to mostly camp on the way down, since my opinion is that a $20 campground in a national/state park is a lot safer than a $50 motel off the highway, considering we’re driving a car with out of state plates packed to the gills.
Camping – yay or nay?
I say “yay” if you’re not pushing yourself too hard in the drives and/or you’re an easy sleeper. With my cross country moves in the past, a hotel bed/shower/(relative) quiet was a very welcome thing after a long day behind the wheel.
Good point, I hope a tandem one night camping, one night hotel might do the trick!
Moving sympathies! I’ve had those wistful feels — I moved from Philadelphia to Connecticut around this time of year, and every summer outdoor thing I went to had a tinge of “the last time I’ll do this in Philly.” (Also, no advice, but I’m so sorry to hear about your cat’s state of health.)
I now have an apartment walk-through scheduled for next week with the guy from the moving company. But I won’t move until the end of July at the earliest and NYC apartments don’t usually get listed more than 4-6 weeks in advance, so I’m still twiddling my thumbs and staring at apartment listings and waiting until mid-June to actually start looking at apartments. I’ve reached the “obsessively drawing floor plans to see how small a space my furniture will fit in” stage of things, complete with graph paper and little cut-out furniture pieces.
Also cross-country moving. It is… not so much. But my best friend has now twice times moved across the Atlantic, so, I feel lame stressing. Which doesn’t mean i am not stressing, just that I also feel bad about it. And what is up with that light speed business?? I have also noticed this and it is not so much.
So sorry to hear about your kitty. That is heart wrenching. I KNOW you know this, but, trust yourself. And trust him to communicate what he needs. Bless you, and bless your little companion.
Hey, as we head into a US holiday weekend, look around your kitchens. Do you have an ungodly number of coffee bags (for beans or ground) you don’t have a use for? How about mylar chip and cookie bags? Consider saving them until you have a stack worth mailing, then hit me up at hlsegg over in the Hotmails. I’ve got an upcycling/craft jones I need to work out. Thanks!
Good news! Buzzfeed found us a location for the Toast commune. It’s not within walking distance of downtown Toronto, but it is within walking distance of a subway station, which is good enough for me. We might have to take out the tennis court to make more room for tiny houses and fruit trees, though.
Hold on, it’s further from the subway station than I thought. We may need a bicycle pool or something.
Yesterday was my birthday and it was wonderful and all of a sudden I wanted a new tattoo like nothing I’ve ever wanted in my life. There is a line from a book that I just suddenly wanted to burn into my body, to wear it in my skin and remind myself forever of who I am and could be and have always been. Hoooooly cow. It was this incredibly physical desire and I don’t know where it came from. I am thankful I am too broke to get a tattoo right now because otherwise I’d have it before knowing if this intense love will last.
Happy birthday! Maybe just write the line on your arm with ballpoint pen til you’re sure! 😉
I probably will. For my first one I carried it around, doodled it, henna-ed it, and generally did all manner of things to test it out. 11 years later, I still love it, so my system works! But man, all I can think of is this line. But I am the sizzle preceeding disaster. 29 seems like a good year to embrace all the parts of myself that I’ve been ashamed of and to acknowledge them and that line just does something to me. Oof.
Ooooh, that IS a good line. What’s it from?
It’s from Only Revolutions by Mark Z Danielewski. I just love the character who says that and the way she says it and…yeah. I think it’s fantastic.
I do not foresee that being regretted.
That’s awesome! (Just make sure it’s spelled correctly if you get it inked!) (Sorry I’m terrible.)
Gah thank you, I was going to be that person if someone hadn’t already said it.
But that sounds like an awesome tattoo, OP! I’m currently in search of a line from a book to put on myself, and I’m jealous that you have found one that resonates.
Haha, no worries! Not terrible at all – as soon as I typed it I knew it looked wrong but the work got in the way of my internal debate, haha
Happy birthday!
I got the same feeling reading the line that I’m getting later today…well, the whole passage, but the final line works as a tattoo. I’m basically getting it half because of the line itself and half because I want to be reminded of how reading it (and how reading in general) makes me feel.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You can get Tattly – they look permanent, but they’re those kid-friendly water thingies.
Awesome idea! Thanks 🙂
PORTLAND INTERVIEW HAPPENED YESTERDAY. I feel like it went really well, because everyone was happy and we laughed (it was a group of people interviewing me), and they said it was really rare to find someone with experience like mine. They told me they’re still interviewing people and they should know for sure in the next couple of weeks.
Naturally, I took this as a sign that I have no chance whatever and crashed hard into a depressive state I haven’t felt in almost a year. NOT to the point of doing anything dangerous! Luckily I had an appt with my psychiatrist the same day to mitigate some of it, but I still feel like there’s a giant turtle strapped to my back. Hopefully everything goes smoothly on their end, and I hear back one way or another soon. In the meantime, I have a 3 day weekend to practice healthy ways of dealing with the turtle.
I’m relating to this so hard. I finished up a writing class last weekend, and despite earning an A+ in the course and receiving heartfelt and awesome feedback from my professor, NONE of it mattered when I overheard her offer to work on a book proposal with another student because she hadn’t offered the same to me. I have been spiraling ever since and it feels so silly yet unstoppable. Solidarity in working through it – hope you have a healthy, productive weekend of self-care.
Oh man, have I been there before. I work in science now, but most of my academic career was creative writing-focused. Sending good thoughts your way, and thank you for the support.
Cat Thread!!
No new pictures today, but I bring you the news that Bonny is still sleeping in the bed with us, under the covers, draped across my husbands side, and that she has learned that if any of our parts are unclothed kneading them is a terrible idea.
I see you are online. You should be petting me. I can wait….
Pity poor Casimir. Forced to stare at life outside his apartment while perched on pink velvet. No wonder all the tough cats across the street make fun of him.
At least his dog loves him and his freakishly long tail.
Beautiful pics! Especially the second one…
Your cat and my cat should be cat friends.
The green eyes make yours look much prettier. Caz needs more contrast. I am a shallow cat person apparently?
She’s a beauty queen for sure. She’s got nothing on that tail though!
It’s true. He’s a very well-endowed young cat.
Caz has such a ruggedly handsome profile though. He’s like the Harrison Ford of cats.
That’s an amazing tail. Mine both have weirdly short stumpy ones.
It’s so long that he can’t hold it straight up and instead it flops over.
It’s almost indecent.
It is amazing. Puts mine to shame!
Awww. They’re like Fat Boo’s tail.
Repeating photos from my instagram (@amyofdoom) because Kismet was extra cute this week (she’s feeling a lot better and is almost healed from her gland rupture a few weeks ago).
Here she is snuggled into her pillows
and a super-glamourous shot. Majesstic and fancy
Gorgeous shots!
Here is mine after a hard day’s work waiting for me to come home:
And on a better day:
Toasts I am taking ALL of next week off and my dear friend is coming to visit me and we are going to watch ALL of the MCU while watching these two goobers, and it is going to be amazing.
CUDDLES!
And Captain watching the kitten video from the Wednesday thread.
Boudicca/Fat Boo photos.
Are you not seduced?
I caught the boys plotting.
“What? We weren’t doing anything, Mom.”
Looks like they’re proper friends now?
They’re… making progress, I guess? Most of the time if they’re that close to each other, Diesel is actually trying to hump Moa (which, wtf cat, you’ve been neutered for ten years, what gives) which Moa is none too happy about. But yeah, they’re getting along pretty well! They do a lot of batting at each other, which is adorable.
Patrick
Being in my face
As always
Toasties my job hunt is turning into an exercise in DRIVING ME CRAZY and it’s a good crazy, it’s good that I have interviews and that people are seriously considering me as a candidate for really awesome interesting jobs but I am going a little bouncing-off-the-walls nuts.
Give me distractions? Tell me it’s going to be okay and all work out for the best? Be willing to listen to me complain about things I shouldn’t complain about because I feel bad complaining about too many interviews?
So many interviews can be hard on introverts. Yes, it’s good to have so much interest from employers with open positions. But holy cow does it take so much energy. The company research, preparation of self and wardrobe, never-ending alertness during interviews, thank-you notes.
Oy, I’m tired just thinking about repeating all that effort. Don’t feel bad about complaining.
I have strained my shoulder, I am having what feel like Pre-mesntrual cramps but shouldn’t be, and I had a huge row over IM with my beloved last night over something stupid that I can honestly say we share equal blame for.
(Blah blah both of our issues and flaws happened to clash in an impressive display).
Also, I am fucking fed up of not having any money. I would like to get the lighting fixed so we don’t have to have clip-on lights everywherre, and there is a knitting book I want that costs £18 and I can’t have it. I was actually ecstatic to discover that I’d earned enough from copify to buy three balls of yarn for my friends hood that I’m making, that’s how hard up we are right now.
UGH. I am having weird cramps for no reason I can think of, too. SOLIDARITY SISTER.
That sucks. Sympathies.
Friends, I am doing research now, and I am going to make myself a daggone Mad Max jacket with a pauldron on it, come hell or high water or whatever desert steampunk marauder pocksyclips the universe has got in store.
Extra points for all repurposed car parts and spikes!
yeah, I got to get access to a junkyard somehow, my earlier plan of looting all the parts from the corpses of desert marauders has suffered some minor setbacks
pleeeeeeeeeeeease post pictures when you are done, this is going to be incredible!
I get on a plane for Miami in about 12 hours! (Visiting inlaws but also beach time). We are also going down to the Keys this year.
Gonna start the dog thread here: here is a corgi head from above!
The borgi, with antler:
Coonhound mix head kinda from above?
It is impossible to get a picture where she is not looking up at you, because if something is hovering over her head it must be food, right?
Awww corgi face! Here is Tuva when she was much, much, much smaller, at her happy place where she can bound over tundra:
YOU GUYS I’m in the midst of the adoption process for an absolutely beautiful but incredibly shy 5 month old Cardigan corgi/Australian cattle dog mix. My boyfriend and I have been officially approved but she is SO SCARED of people that we’re not sure yet if it’s going to work. At this point we’re just going back to the shelter every day at lunch and sitting with her and hoping she’ll approach us eventually. How does one convince an exceptionally apprehensive but very sweet dog that one wishes it no harm?
Time and patience. A lot of both. And treats.
Our corgi was very much not into people (even us) as a puppy. She has gotten better with age. Just give her time 🙂
She also might do much, much better after a day or two at home, being able to retreat into a safe space as needed; the shelter is such a strange/scary/stressful place for some pups it can be hard to get through to them. When you get her home, try spending lots of time lying on the floor crooning to her. And food. Always food.
She sounds completely adorable! I can’t wait for photos!
Just got back from my third shelter visit! She let me touch her this time! I sang her silly songs and fed her so many treats and scratched her behind her ears and took her on a walk and she seems to be warming up to me and she is SO SOFT YOU GUYS.
LOOK AT HERRRR http://www.petango.com/sms/photos/213/9f6eb1f4-1c…
We adopted a hound-shar pei mix from the humane society a few weeks ago! He is wonderful in every way.
Here is his face:
A shound!
Online dating thread
-Dude I am interested in/semi-dating/sleeping with has not been heard from since Monday. We were supposed to go out Monday and Tuesday but work dragged him out of town and he said he’d see me when he got back. No word from him, but he only got back last night. Not too upset if I don’t hear from him, except I want sex and I’m leaving but I also don’t want to be the only one to intitiate texting? The more I think about it, the sillier I feel. I’m moving, what do I care? Except I care. Feelings! Don’t have them for people you’re supposed to be just casually dating. It sucks.
-Dude I am not too terribly interested in but who seems like he’d be a ridiculous story got in touch and will be back in my city next month. I’m debating seeing him, but will probably decide against since I’d have to squeeze him in between a poetry reading and an early-morning flight.
How’s dating treating the rest of my Toasties?
BLAGH.
I got a “you gotta date looking for a provider if you want babies!” exclamation last night from what I’m sure continues to be a well-meaning friend. Yeah, I’ve been dating a 26-year-old going into journalism grad school, and I’m not worried about that, so what of it? Also, everyone in that circle is like, pregnant or pre-pregnant.
Then my date for Saturday was like, “Hey, please say no if you want, but how do you feel about changing our hang-out at your place to a hang-out with my kids at the museum? My wife is going on a date!” And I’m like, “Maaaaaaaaaaaaan. I really don’t want to think about being your babysitter-date because I just woke up from a night of sobbing and then decided to put on some YouTube music and the ad was for diapers and how babies are so loved and YOU ARE LOVED.” So I cancelled on him altogether.
THEN my date for Sunday — said 26-year-old — said he kind of judged me a little for my Craigslist adventures (which were really tame, even if I say so myself, just a couple of hook-ups) because he’s probably dumb about it, but CRAIGSLIST, RIGHT? Seemed a bit “reckless.” I’m probably going to cancel on him. Don’t know yet.
Whatever.
Yes, cancel on him. He is being a judgy-judgerson and doesn’t deserve you.
that or he is vanilla af and you need to Show Him Your Ways
I got stood up for the first time ever today! I’ve been online dating on and off for around a year so I feel like it was bound to happen eventually. I drank a beer, got a sandwich to go, and ate it by the pool with my friends so the afternoon was salvaged. Mostly I’m pissed because I blowdried my hair and I almost never do that. Makeup was on point too. Ugh.
West Coast Toastfolk! Do you still want to organize to do something on the last weekend in June?
Relatedly, those Toasties who may be coming to Vancouver for the FIFA final, when will you be here? For how long? Will you be in the middle of the city, or staying in a suburb? Do you want us to wait & do something when you’re here?
We may be there for the Women’s World Cup finals! We’d be staying at my relatives’ place near Deep Cove.
Yes? Where on the West Coast? I do not remember this conversation?
Vancouver (and suburbs)!
I’ve sprinkled it in the open thread a couple of times and in true west coast fashion we’ve all said ‘sure!’ but done no real organizing. 😉
Oh that’s why I don’t remember it, I’m in Southern California. I thought you meant the REAL west coast.
*flounces away trying not to look jealous*
Hello I will be there for the WWC final! July 2-8, and the game is on the 5th. I’m staying at some hotel pretty close to downtown, because my mother is lame and refused my AirBnB tendencies. I think it’s on the south side of the river, kind of across from the stadium, but my mom picked it and I didn’t pay much attention aside from location.
Would love to meet with Toastfolk! Can ditch my mother for the occasion. But don’t schedule around me, or anything.
Hooray! Maybe we could do something on the 4th, if that would work for hugpunch and others?
I turn 30 on the 30th next week and I still have no idea what to do because I’m slumping off into a depression and I feel like 30 shouldn’t matter but maybe it does and I just don’t know. No one local really wants to celebrate and my plans of “going somewhere” have been thwarted by the “I’m poor” bank account.
Man, thirty is a pain, because you get to it and you feel like you’ve crossed some threshold, and now you can’t forgive yourself for being young anymore, you’ve got to whatever, chin up, get to work, make all the decisions that will decide the rest of your life.
You don’t really, though, you wake up and it’s just another Tuesday, and you’ve still got your regular life to do, the same as always.
If you happen to live in southern california, I’ll take you bowling or something 😀
And if none of your friends want to celebrate, what the fuck? I mean you could hang out and make jello [shots] and popcorn, at least.
Ugh, I turned 30 this winter in the middle of a particularly heinous bout of seasonal depression (my gift to myself was one of those SAD lamps).
If you are usually the sort of person who enjoys celebrating these sort of things, I encourage you to make plans despite the depression.
And–I’m trying to find the right way to say this– is it possible that your local people would actually like to celebrate with you but you feel like they don’t because you are depressed? When I get low like that one of the first things that happens is I start to disbelieve that my friends actually like me (because who would? no one should! says my depression). But that’s not actually the case.
For muttershanks birthday thread: 30 on the 30th, awesome! try doing or finding 30 sets of 30 things? I wound up stressing myself out about 30 way too much
Between now and your birthday:
Do 30 pushups?
Find 30 things to throw out/ donate in your living space?
Drink 30 cups of coffee!
Read 30 poems
Make a playlist of 30 new songs / old songs/ nostalgic songs
etc
Drink 30 cups of coffee!
I turned 30 in October and the only thing I did was lunch with friends, which was kind of perfect (apart from the panic attack I had in the parking lot before, which was less fun) but turning 30 was still hard. I REALLY want a husband and kids and feel like I’m running out of time and nothing is happening.
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.
My personal view on birthdays, which I offer in case it’s a congenial change of perspective, is that they’re a time to say “hey! you were alive another year! good work!” And . . . that’s pretty much it. But that’s because that’s what they mean _to me_. If it’s useful to you for them to mean something else, cool. But if not, totally feel free to disregard it as much as you want.
Also: hey! You were alive another year! Good work!
I turned 30 in April and I went through something similar. For a couple of weeks, I felt very sad about being 30, like I should have done more with my life beforehand. Luckily, the funk passed and I’m back to my cheery self. I hear from other friends that they had a similar experience when they turned 30. You should do something fun for your birthday. If no one else is around, take yourself to a movie or treat yourself to a new haircut or something fun like that.
Happy birthday!
One night back in high school, I was dreaming that I was in the shower and that the phone rang and it was for me so my mom called me, and I yelled back “I’m in the shower!”. Pretty boring dream except I also yelled “I’M IN THE SHOWER!” in real life loud enough to wake up my entire family.
A friend of mine took Ambien and woke up standing in front of his microwave, watching his wallet go up in flames.
I found pencil sharpeners shaped like angry piranhas, and it was the highlight of my week. Nay, twas the highlight of my month!
I have a pencil sharpener that is shaped like a giant nose and you stick the pencil into one nostril. It makes me laugh every time. I’m going to have to look for angry piranha sharpeners now…
the coworker who sits next to me has a tape dispenser shaped like a chameleon made of whatever mood rings are made of which means it changes colors when you use it.
WANT!
I’m not gonna lie, it’s magical.
I bought myself a cartoon elephant-shaped receptacle for draining utensils while washing dishes. It’s silly how happy it makes me. Every time I use it.
Have you seen the soup ladle shaped like the Loch Ness Monster? Also gleeful.
A nurse from the city came by the house to check the baby’s lead levels this morning. Babyguy was so brave! He did not even cry, and was no wigglier than you’d expect. In a few minutes we have a weird baby party to attend in my work building. I hope we’re not the only ones who show up. It’s hosted by someone who is very nice, but seemingly just firmly believed it would be cute.
I am dead at work after three hours of sleep, but I had three hours of sleep because I was celebrating winning my industry’s employee of the year award last night at the annual industry awards ceremony! Wooo! Sorry to be BRAGGY but also I am happy and amazed by it still.
I have a weekend of barbecues in front of me, and also my mum has got us theatre tickets to go see a play where the audience are the guests at a wedding, and I think they give us wedding food to eat too! Maybe – she hasn’t told me much information about it and she maybe said that to sell the idea to me.
Still sick a wombat. I have work tomorrow, I can’t afford to call out so my only hope is that I’ll get better overnight, or be sent home.
In other fun news, my mother called to yell at me for not having already hired movers. I’m moving in a month. I said that one does not need that much lead time to post an ad for a guy with a truck on craigslist. This naturally led to more yelling (unbonded movers! the internet! unprepared child!). So I sneezed until she stopped talking.
Is sick like a wombat . . . a thing? It sounds kind of cute?
I’m sure this has already been done on a smaller scale, but the world needs a crime-spree series with a bunch of women from a kickboxing class. They aren’t vigilante heroes, they’re criminals in yoga pants. Whaddya guys think.
“They’re getting fit– AND getting even!” hahaha
Most days I can’t decide if I am hella lame or hella strange.
Hello! I feel ya on the “light speed hurtling” feeling. In general I have been doing pretty well with things– the bulk of the work is done and I think the fact that the wheels are so far in motion has lessened my anxiety about it overall; it’s like welp, my furniture is in a truck hurtling west, there’s obviously no turning back now. But I definitely am still have moments of sheer panic on occasion.
I have also become a pinterest FIEND, because I just now figured out how Pinterest works and I am having a lot of fun pretending that might actually be capable of turning my balcony into a viney wonderland. Also fantasizing about buying fancy new work clothes, and getting a puppy.
Best wishes for your cat! I wish I had advice but my experience in this realm is nil 🙁
My sweetie and I are in the fun oooooh, a big nifty project!! stage of wedding planning, i.e., we don’t have enough information yet to have anything to worry about.
Also I’ve been telling friends we are engaged but this seems like the appropriate venue to stand on my Small Feminist Statements soapbox and proclaim that I PROPOSED TO HIM. At first I was all like “it’s no fair to women that men are expected to do this, it is soooo funnnn to plan! whee,” and then I was all like “wait it is no fair to MEN that they are expected to do this, it is TERRIFYING.”
ALSO thanks to, IIRC, ethylbenzene? for the thread a while back about “relationships take work” and what that should actually mean, it helped me put some “here’s why I like you” stuff into words I could write in a “marry me!” card. Toasts, y’all are the best & most eloquent.
Fuck yes!! I proposed to MrChouffe also, and it was great 🙂
Congratulations and have so much fun.
thanks! I look forward to the first time someone asks me why *I* did it so I can answer truthfully “Because I wanted to.”
Yuuuup. But do be ready to answer that question A LOT. Also for the “gasp!” look that will inevitably occur when someone asks him how he proposed and he answers (or you answer) that you proposed, not him. It’s great.
wheeee! My intensedebatestalking fails me, did y’all have the wedding yet? Either way, I hope the planning went/is going as swimmingly as possible!
Nope! We walk the plank in September. Four months and five days!! And thank you, it has been a trip. My mother has gone Full Mom which is actually realllllllly useful, because she thinks about things like “How will you get the cake to your friends’ restaurant, and when?” and my response is “…a cake?”
aww, between this & yesterday’s advice thread, your mom sounds like a great person to have on Team You!
She seriously, seriously is. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
Me: “Hi, Mom, calling from across an ocean in this last week of May to tell you I told Mr. Future Daki to propose, so he did, so now we’re engaged. We’ll be living on this continent until September, and we will get married in your house in early October. Cool?”
Mom: “Cool. I’ll be there next month so we can get your dress. I’ll do everything else.”
Me: “Cool. Oh, and tell my brother to get ordained so he can perform the ceremony.”
Mom: “Cool.”
Great wedding. Super easy…for me.
Yay, congratulations! Has anybody sent you to A Practical Wedding yet? There are lots of websites to get you through the “ooh this will be fun and so so pretty” stage, but APW is great when you are ready to like, figure out how to serve drinks to 100 people, or write your ceremony, or just when you want to think about being actually married! Very feminist, also very helpful commentariat! 🙂
I got the book! I actually found em when I was looking for fun non-ring proposal gifts and now I can’t stop reading 😀
Aw thanks!
Friends, I quit my gym and joined ClassPass instead and I am a convert! I’ve worked out more in the last month than I have probably in years. And people are always friendly and no one cares that I make a total fool of myself.
(Part of my approach is to deliberately take classes that I know I will be bad at because I think being the worst in the room at something is good for my ego. And I’ve been right every time – literally no one cares. If anything, I’m doing a public service for everyone else in the room who can look to me if they want to feel better about themselves.)
Anyway, I have a $50 off coupon that also gets me $50, if anyone is interested: https://classpass.com/mayreferafriend?utm_content…
Oh I’ve been thinking about doing that–I am clicking on your coupon as we speak (type)!
Toasties! First time contributing here, so kind of nervous, but the community here is really great.
Anyway, there’s a referendum at our university this week about what to wear to exams. Currently, we’re required to wear a dark suit + white bow tie, or a dark skirt, white shirt + dark ribbon, with a gown on top of that (Yes, I know…). There are other details too, but it’s all compulsory, and quite strictly enforced. The referendum’s on whether it should carry on being compulsory, and it looks like the vote’s going to go in favour of keeping it. For some reason, I’m finding the whole thing weirdly upsetting, so I was just wondering what people from outside the weird university bubble thought?
I think that is insane. Is this outside the US I assume? I work at a university and I could never imagine that happening…
It’s in the UK, yes. Thanks, that’s really heartening to hear, especially when the consensus at the university seems to be that it’s all AOK.
When I was in college, I wore whatever I could find on my floor that was marginally clean because I’d spent the previous 48 hours either partying or cramming. WTF suits and ties? I can’t even imagine.
I had to take a final on the same day i was scheduled to wait in line to see a LOTR movie. I was in costume. So guess what I wore to my final? Sword maiden fashion!
PS, that is weird. I mean as a tradition it’s kindof fun, but as a requirement? Weird.
Yes, to an American, this is patently ridiculous. I wore all manner of craziness in college, ranging from basically rags that should be thrown away, to lace evening gowns covered in stickers, to kimono, often accessorizing with a rubber chicken or a hat covered in eyeballs.
But on the other hand, I suppose there’s something to be said for a standard level of decorum…
oh, i remember this. i found it really stupid (and once almost got fined for taking my shirt off in an exam – i had a vest top underneath).
anyway – i am in favour of them ditching it (and this isn’t the first referendum they’ve had on it). but it does instill a weird sense of camaderie when exams come around, which is a silver lining to it being kept, i guess?
Aah, no way that sucks: I always thought they were more relaxed during the exam itself. :s
Definitely agree about the camaraderie. ^^ I don’t think it’ll be terrible if the result is that we keep it, just that it’d be a nicer place.
They’re not! I’d been told they didn’t care but an invigilator kept me behind and told me that if a proctor had been there I’d have been fined £50 🙁
It would DEFINITELY be nicer without it. The carnations are the only bit I liked 🙁
Ah no, I’m sorry. :s Thanks for the heads up.
The carnations are lovely, and definitely a nice way to wish other people luck. 🙂
Just out of curiosity, do you go to Oxford? Also, WELCOME ABOARD, SOL! But I’m not surprised if this has anything to do with Oxbridge – them and their weird traditions. But I mean, you’re supposed to be as comfortable as you can when you take exams, they shouldn’t enforce clothing JUST for exams. That’s bonkers.
I do, though the weird regulations aren’t even an Oxbridge thing: it hasn’t been required for Cambridge exams for something like 10 years now I think.
But yeah, comfortable clothing would be nice. ^^’
I found the ribbon round the neck the weirdest thing about exam dress. It honestly didn’t bother me at all – I had comfy clothes and they happened to be black and white, and I never noticed my gown once it was on anyway.
Alumnus here too! My Facebook feed has some people who are super-into keeping sub-fusc. I have to say I found it calming to have my exam outfit laid out — I got this grungy mid-calf skirt that was really comfy, and 5 cheap white shirts. The ribbon is odd (when I went for my graduation finally many years later, I had to have a real excavation to find it) and the hat and gown are also not normal, but that exam period is so stressful anyway that I appreciated having some kind of order over my clothes.
I also cooked and froze all my meals for the 2 weeks of my exam, and bought about 12 different vitamins so I couldn’t possibly get sick. My ritual meal before every exam was a cheese omelette, which is full of protein and therefore supposed to keep you alert. Then in the evening I ate meat, veg and potatoes — carby goodness to get me to sleep.
So it probably looks weird from the outside, but I never stressed about subfusc.
Oooh, now I feel like an old conservative fuddy-duddy, but when I lived in Oxford, I loved seeing the students in their exam-getups. And the carnations were great especially. So I’m all for keeping it, but I’m a uniform loving kind of person anyway.
Toastinis, how do you distinguish between things you need to improve on anD things your body just won’t do, exercise-wise? I’m anemic and I can’t run a mile without ending u dizzy and winded, which can’t be good for my health.
I can’t run a mile without getting winded and dizzy because running is the devil. Actually, though, I don’t know for sure because nothing short of the promise of vast amounts of cash could make me even try. But if you want to run, maybe first start small. You know, like a brisk walk around the block or something. Then work up to it? If you don’t want to run, believe me, there are zillions of other activities for improving your health that aren’t running. Weight lifting, yoga, dance, rock climbing, martial arts…
Or horizontal running. Perhaps try dancing to your favorite songs?
I tried to turn myself into a runner for several years, and I have now officially given up. People call it low impact, but my heart rate always seems to shoot up to 175 immediately, probably because I’m not good at pacing myself. Plus I have bad ankles and bad knees and it was just hell on my joints. Twice I twisted my ankle and had to hobble half a mile back to my house. Once I tried to run a 5k and ended up having a panic attack about halfway through.
Now I ride my bike instead. It’s easier on my joints, easier on my heart rate, and all around more fun for me. If something isn’t working for you, try something else. No point trying to push yourself to do something you really don’t want to do.
I’m not sure who’s been telling you running is low-impact but it really is NOT. Swimming, biking, tai chi, those are low-impact. Running is the devil.
Running is terrible, don’t do it. (I mean, do it if you want to. But it’s terrible.)
I’ve gotten much fitter over the past two years and it’s pretty much because I figured out that I didn’t have to run, I could do strength training instead. And, amazingly, strength training made me run better! If there is a type of exercise that you aren’t good at and/or don’t like, just find a different one. They’re all good.
I tried to like running for a while, and I was actually just starting to not hate it when this nagging hip ache I had turned into full blown PAIN. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor since then to fix some alignment issues (which is where the pain came from) and I thought I could try running again – just slow jogging on a treadmill – but nope! Even though my body feels much better now, I just…can’t do that. But other cardio stuff is fine, walking is fine, the non-treadmill machines at the gym are ok, and I do this cardio weightlifting thing which is a great workout and so much more fun to me than running. My hips don’t want me to run, but they are a-ok with doing squats and lunges, so I do that instead!
When I was doing PT for hip stuff, my therapist wouldn’t let me jog until I could do full single-leg bodyweight squats. I was able to go back to throwing people before jogging felt okay…
I make a list of what I plan to do each week (short calisthenics routine Mon-Sat), but each day I have to check in and see if I can do what I’ve written or need to scale it down to accommodate those times when all my life force has been drained out through my little toe. This entire month has been like that and I feel bad about not doing more, but rubbing some dirt on it and powering through have found me unconscious on the floor in the past, so it’s going to bloody well have to do for now. When I reinflate again I’ll try to up my walking mileage & go from there, but daily check-ins are 100% key to the process.
If it’s discouraging you from doing exercise altogether, or it makes you have lingering pain, it’s no good! I have realized my body doesn’t like 50% of yoga poses, and it makes me resentful, so fuck it! I forced myself to run for a long time too, and got to the point I could run 10 miles, but you know what? I was still slow as shit at it and never wanted to do it. Cycling and rowing are really doing it for me, so to hell with running. Resentful exercise or exercise that makes you concerned about your health is bad exercise.
I’d do cardio endurance stuff that’s not fast and mix with anything that adds resistance. So cardio- brisk walk, swim, elliptical, stair climbing, etc. Resistance- yoga, kickboxing, weight lifting, dance, stair climb again.
lately I’ve been rollerblading, and oh my god does that feel great. you don’t get that horrible knee hit plodding feeling that running always gives me, but you still get a good workout .
anemia: take your iron (if you do so) with orange juice/some type of vitamin c for better absorbtion. Avoid taking it with anything with calcium, the calcium binds it. What I learned after major blood loss was that molecularly chlorophyll and hemoglobin are very similar, so take a LOT LOT LOT of chlorophyll (take like nine gelcaps at once, 2 or 3 times a day, until your poop turns black, then you know you’re getting enough). Your body then only has to swap out the copper in the chlorophyll for the iron and boom, new blood cells. It restores your blood much faster. Be careful if you have hay fever or allergies, some of the chlorophyll comes from alfalfa, which is related to ragweed I think? or barley? if you do, you can just get blue/green algae capsules or spirulina capsules and they’ll do the same thing.
Toast boobs! Is anyone willing to share their experiences with breast reduction (thought process, planning, cost, overall pro/con)? I may just be reacting to the annual despair brought on by the combination of switching to warm-weather clothing and owning a pair of 34Hs, but I find myself idly Googling and wondering whether this is crazy to consider in the absence of serious health issues.
I have nothing to share but me and my 30Gs are also very curious about this.
Expressions of busty solidarity much appreciated.
I have pondered it a lot, with my 34Hs (now 36Ks, thanks baby) – almost did it once, then work switched our insurance and the cost went from like $500 to $4,000, which I didn’t really have… I have recently been enjoying breastfeeding my baby, which is often difficult after reduction, so if you’re interested in that, you might not want to.
I have mostly learned how to dress mine, finally, more or less, which helps a bit. But I do plan to revisit the issue when I’m done reproducing. I’m not good at waking up form anesthesia, and I heal pretty slowly, so I don’t know if it will ever be the thing I do, but I would like these things to be smaller! I know several people who’ve had it done and were just ecstatic about it. (One of them though gained a good amount of weight later, and grew back pretty much her whole boobs, so that sucks.)
Thanks, friend. I also hate doctors and hospitals and that whole shebang – my only surgical experiences involved reconstruction from a traumatic injury, so I’m surprising myself by even thinking about this. But oh boy although I am far from decided about whether to have kids, I have thought despairingly, “sweet JESUS how could things things get even bigger?” when my smaller-chested friends have mentioned that side effect to pregnancy/breastfeeding in a positive way.
Yeah, I knew they would get bigger, but I was seriously stunned to see them go up like two cup sizes in 24 hours. I couldn’t even fit in the giant flowy maxi dress I had brought to wear home from the hospital.
I am coming to realize that if you have bigger boobs, they will just…keep getting bigger. Everything makes them bigger. Birth control. Babies. Breathing. There is no stopping them without surgical intervention, they will expand and expand until you are just a set of boobs.
Evil flesh kudzu. Dangit.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! They’re coming for me!
oh my god seriously? I’m at 33 weeks and my normally 34-36Hs are now something like 38I/Js and I’m down to one bra that fits that doesn’t hurt. I haven’t thought ahead to “oh they get even bigger after birth”. How long do they stay like that? They do shrink from the birthing size eventually, right?
I am planning on getting a reduction after I know I am done with childbearing, because I’ve heard from enough women who got breast reductions and find themselves at their previous size post-baby. In the meantime I struggle and get regular massages.
Nearly 14 months later, I can, for a few uncomfortable hours, squeeze into my largest bra from pregnancy. (I’m still breastfeeding a couple times a day. I have high hopes they’ll get somewhat smaller when we stop.)
I had my son 8 yeaRd ago, and my 34DDD grew into a 36J and never shrank. WHY? It is a massive pain to find bras, and I look like I’m stooping all the time. I fear the dowager’s hump.
Well that’s depressing.
did mine about 12 years ago and I regret NOTHING. They have grown back, but I think what extra I have now is just fat because they are definitely not asheavy. Thinking about doing it again after babbies happen, but I recommend it. (True story, when my mom asked the surgeon about side effects, she just looked her in the eye and said “Joy.”)
I haven’t (36 G/H here!) but my mom did. She had to badger her insurance to cover it (the surgery was cheaper than weekly chiropractic visits for the rest of her life) but they gave in eventually. She’s down to a 40DD (from I) and much happier, also in less pain.
My ex had a breast reduction because her chest was causing her back pain and she was worried it would just get worse and worse with age. She’s always been very happy she did it. I think it was probably covered by her provincial health care, though.
you should check out the reviews on http://www.realself.com/!
Whoa, this is new to me. Fascinating!
i waste so much time on that site, it’s incredible.
I came for the breast reductions, but I’m staying for the Brazilian butt lift reviews.
God everything on that site is so amazing– Invisalign! Face lifts! “Mommy makeovers” (which I did not know existed)!
you have to make sure to get the ones that are at least a year post-op and post a lot of pictures to get the real effect.
also, NSFW sometimes! People are a-okay about showing boobs for even non-boob related surgeries. some people also use it as their personal flickr with totally unrelated photos. it’s sort of precious.
Nope. Nope. Had to stop at the Latisse photos with the crazy spider eyes. Nope.
My reduction was in April or May one year, and reforming my summer wardrobe was *the best*
http://the-toast.net/2014/04/16/having-a-mammopla… is pretty much my whole spiel about it all, but the tl;dr is: PRO. Very pro.
This is only perfect – not sure how I missed it when it was published, but thank you for writing it in the first place and linking to it here! Target bras – living the DREAM!
Oh man, Toasties, I got Invisalign and my mouth hurts and is hideous because of the attachments they placed on ALL MY FRONT TEETH. I didn’t realize that would happen. The whole point of Invisalign was that they are supposed to be not very noticeable, but they are, on the contrary, totally noticeable. Fuck.
Eeek that sucks! I also was under the impression that they only put the attachments on non-visible teeth. I hope you can yell at someone about it!!
In solidarity: I had to have braces twice as a kid, and the second time they offered me the “clear” version, which basically means that they are normal braces but made of clear plastic instead of metal with rubber bands. Well, the problem with that is, they only stay clear for about two weeks! Then they get stained a delightful yellowy brown because of all the food and drink. So for about a year I had to walk around looking like I had weird growths/stains/bumps on all my teeth and constantly having people ask “…wait are those braces??”
I have Invisalign and a million attachments, and it is still not very noticeable! I know that seems impossible, but I promise it is true. Give it three weeks and you will feel better.
I would like to offer this thing I found in an antique shop to anyone who needs its important message today:
Please oh please tell me you bought it. And if not, the address of said antique shop so I can.
ditto, but she got dibs. I kind of want to make one now. That image has been permanently added to the collection.
This is so awesome – thanks doll!
I used to take sleeping pills and stay awake, sit on the patio, and hallucinate the the trees were talking to me and reaching out to me. It was awesome! A couple of times I left my friends voice mails narrating my experience to them- this was three or four years ago, and my friend recently discovered she still had it saved on her phone and let me listen to it. It was hilarious!
“HELLOOOOOOOO. HERE IS YOUR PERSONAL HALLUCINATORY EMAIL………… I mean voice mail. Don’t be afraid!”
This was meant to be in response to the sleep thread.
I think it works as a stand-alone comment just fine. I think it might be one of my fave comments on this OT so far, actually. I’m glad it wasn’t buried in a thread I might not have read.
were you on ambien? my neigbbor had a pro-life sign in their yard, and I was on ambien for a while. long story short, this devolved into a three-month standoff where i stole three of their pro-life signs while still awake but not conscious on those damned sleep meds. I REGRET NOTHING.
Ha! THAT IS AWESOME! And yes, Ambien, the wonder drug. Sometimes when I was on it I would sit on the couch while my then-boyfriend played video games, reach out my hand to the game on the TV and say “wow it’s so reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaal” . Also, once I lay awake for (what seemed like) hours staring at this picture of a man and woman dancing on the beach in the rain, which was in a guest bedroom at my parents’ house, convinced it was moving. So trippy.
I love that stuff.
I need to get some ambien, like, tonight.
Although I have a suspicion that it is not a good idea (even if I found some) with my drinking habits. I’ll stick to illegal drugs.
Etiquette question time!
One of my close college friends is going on a voluntourism trip to a struggling equatorial nation, presumably to do work that residents of the actual nation could be paid to do themselves, but whatever. She’s set up a web page for donations and boosts it at least once a day on social media.
You guys, I know she’s meaning well and her heart’s in the right place, but I am not going to help fund this trip. I’m going to her house this weekend where she will probably bring up the trip (and everyone in attendance will probably say they’ll support her) buuuuut how do I gracefully decline this invitation? Should I just say money’s tight and offer my well-wishes? Make noncommittal noises and hope she doesn’t notice I haven’t PayPal-ed her up?
Money and friends just do not mix.
That’s tough. I’m with you on not wanting to finance the trip. I am also kinda a know-it-all bitch, so I’d probably say something like “oh, no thanks; I already donate to a charity that employs locals for that work.” But your way sounds a lot nicer!
I would not say anything at all. Her request for a donation is not your obligation. If she straight-out asks you where your money is, then you can say that it’s not in your budget right now and hope that she feels embarrassed for asking.
Blame the budget.
That’s my go to for getting out of dinners/concerts/etc that I don’t want to go to and should work for this too.
Mmhm, I have a “charitable donation section of my monthly budget” that only exists when I’m being asked for things like that.
I have a few friends who go on missionary trips and will ask for donations this way. I usually just ignore the social media blasts and if they ask me personally (which has happened) I say that I am glad they’re passionate about it and I hope their trip goes well but I don’t feel comfortable supporting the organization they’re working with.
This is wonderful! Thank you!
I don’t get why you have to say anything at all? Is she actually going to be rude enough to say, “I noticed you didn’t give me sweet sweet cash” ?! Is someone else going to ask?
If asked to remark on her trip can you just say, “that sounds very exciting, it’s wonderful that you want to help.” It’s true. Both of those things are true and it doesn’t add any of that “but…..ugh it’s a scam!”
I have lots of friends who fund raise for various things and i can’t say any of them have ever asked my WHY I didn’t give.
Generic comments are good. I think I’m overthinking this, as I don’t believe she’d actually so bold as to straight-up ask me for money. And, if she did, I’d assume she’d be able to handle me saying no. No reason given.
I totally get the overthinking thing- its got that horrible combination of money, personal choices that you aren’t on board with and a social event. Like a wedding with a ghastly registry, a bouquet and garter toss and a horrible groom
…Were we at the same wedding a couple of weeks ago?
Some variation on “My donation budget is all spoken for this [month/year” is the phrase I use when someone pushes me to donate to a cause I don’t feel is worthy of my support, and also the true thing I say when someone asks for a donation to a worthy cause when I’ve already spent my donation budget, though then I might add “Next time, hit me up earlier in the year!”
eech! Other posters have offered solid advice on handling the donation request. I just wanted to offer some solidarity in having experienced the same issue with a friend. I wound up having multiple conversations with my friend about why I didn’t feel I could support her fundraising financially. Those conversations can be difficult. If you end up having a frank discussion with your friend I hope you can both hear each other with open hearts and minds. good luck!
TOASTS I have to go to a cocktail-attire birthday party tomorrow and I’m a little freaked out by it, but I’m going to wear my Fluevogs which I’m not sure if I’ve ever worn outside the house, and I’m excited about that part.
Not my picture, but these are the shoes:
Love these so hard!
Those are awesome! I have the same shoes in tan and cream. They’re so fantastic and you’re going to rock them!
Also these are the ones I was thinking of when someone was asking about “power bitch” shoes the other day (last week?)
Those shoes will take you everywhere.
Oooh.
HELLS YES TO FLUEVOGS
So to add to the birth control discussion from the other day, I got an IUD yesterday- it was totally fine for me, maybe a little worse than the average Pap smear. The few hours of crampiness afterward were probably worse than the insertion (I got the 3-year one), but ibuprofen and a hot water bottle worked. Anyway, long term who knows, but wanted to add that story to the list. My OB does a ton of them, so that may have helped it go smoothly. YMMV obviously.
I hope it works out well! I scheduled a consultation with my doc for early next month and then will likely get it a few weeks later. The comments from everyone last week were very helpful!
If you feel like it would help, I asked for a Ativan script at my consult, and took that before getting the IUD. It was amazing, and I was soooo chill about the whole thing.
IUDs yay! I was inspired by last week’s discussion to finally make the appointment to get mine replaced (this will hopefully help with the month of spontaneous crying that I’ve been writing off as PMS symptoms) and I am already feeling calmer and more in control of my life!
I got mine in september and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. Periods are about 80% lighter, no weird moods, nothing. I get an occasional twinge of mittelschmerz and a bit of gum sensitivity around ovulation, and that’s it. absolutely worth it compared to the last 3 years of 5 straight days of torrential period and tons of cramps.
I have the hormonal one. really really strongly recommend it, it’s a very light direct dose. The copper one can make periods and cramps heavier, if you have bad ones.
I got the Mirena in July of last year and the insertion was pretty bad. Had to be driven home, had awful cramps for most of the next week. BUT.
Now I have no period.
Once in a while I’ll get extra hungry for a while and then go, Huh. So that’s what a blood-free (and pain free) period feels like.
I thought my lunette cup was a revelation for periods, but no. An IUD is.
I am here for anyone who still needs to talk about Mad Max. Because I would like to keep talking about it, possibly forever. I am in love and don’t have the time as a new mom to fangirl properly.
AUGH. I am going offline in three minutes for pretty much the rest of the weekend, but if you’re interested, I’ll be posting a big collection of Mad Max Fury Road stuff (articles, gifs, analysis) to my Tumblr on Tuesday morning. I’m clevermanka there, too.
*runs to follow* I’m dragonmuse over the tumbles!
If you haven’t already, definitely check out this article by Chuck Wendig on women in Mad Max and Game of Thrones. Really good. http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/05/19/we-are…
Just saw it on Wednesday!! I have many thoughts about it! My most recent many thoughts have been about Furiosa’s back story. I think the easy route is that she was in the harem, got kicked out due to losing her arm/ or perhaps infertility and has since been carefully plotting her revenge. I don’t like that, though, because it relies on the trope of damaged woman picks up gun to enact revenge on her abuser (though she clearly has every right to be pissed). What I greatly prefer is that Furiosa gets kicked out of the harem for the same possible reasons as above then becomes a road warrior to ensure her own survival. It is only then at the point where a moral difficulty with being complicit with a warmongering, patriarchal society kicks in that she rescues the women and escapes. So I want to read her ascendency in the war machine as initial complicity with a terrible society to ensure her own survival, but then she is able to utilize the tools of that society to subvert it from within. Which is why she tells Max she wants redemption. I want this to be her story SO BAD.
(sorry for the delay, work called me away from the fun)
I LOVE your version of the story. I even like the idea that maybe she was so vicious that she couldn’t be part of the harem. Like that’s why she gets Max because she was at that point of being pure anger and pain and crazy that means needing to render her unconscious if they even wanted to get near her.
Apparently she is getting a stand alone comic, but I can’t imagine that it can live up to the movie which I think benefits from having such a lack of detail, it leaves such generous room for interpretation from the audience in a way a lot more movies should take notes on.
I totally agree about the comic!!! On one hand I want to know more but on the other hand I am kind of satisfied to fill in my own blanks. And I also kinda love her having a mysterious past that we can speculate about. I keep thinking now about this movie and I’m sure It wouldn’t have been so thought provoking if all the details were provided.
It was fantastic and I loved it and want to see it again.
Two things:
1) How did people who are discussing it know any characters names? I think I realized Nux was named that around his final scene. The posse of harem girls I never caught any of their names and was confused by everyone who just rattled them all off. Is there a scene I missed?
2) Every time someone sprayed their face with the paint, please tell me I wan’t the only one who thought of this:
I didn’t know most of their names during the movie either but was super excited to see them in the credits (helped when I knew the actor, for instance I recognized Zoe Kravitz and then was super excited to find out her character was named Toast the Knowing. FOR REAL.)
Also in case y’all haven’t seen it yet: https://youtu.be/mkBmpyu8-8k
I also didn’t catch their names, but I love them in retrospect, particularity the nonsense one. The Dag? Name? Title? Who cares!
TOAST THE KNOWING. YES. I did not pick them up from the movie either and indeed either got them from the credits or from my obsessive analyses reading online.
GUYS I FINALLY SAW IT ARGH I LOVED IT SO MUCH
So I know no one is reading this but did anyone else totally get a “you killed my wife, I’ll kill you” vibe from Valkyrie right before she died? I mean, it is possible that there is no consensual sex in this world but I’d like to believe this.
Also I love that Furiosa and Max are just good pals at the end, the end. No stupid love story or whatever where she has sex with a dude and suddenly can’t operate the gun SHE WAS HOLDING WHEN SHE MET THE HERO (I’m looking at YOU, Omega Man).
http://www.avclub.com/article/what-works-do-you-e…
Inspired by this article: What dated pop culture do you love because it’s so dated? I’d particularly love to hear your books, because I need some more things to add to my Kindle! I really love books, movies, and TV that are dated and let me imagine what it would be like to live in a different decade. I probably have so many I could name, but the earliest one loving I remember is Sister of the Bride by Beverly Cleary.
My local NPR station (WAMU) plays a three-hour block of old-time radio broadcasts every Sunday, and I loooove it. Some of them are pretty good by today’s standards– I am reconsidering my thoughts on Westerns after listening to so much Gunsmoke– but the noir detective stories and vaudeville comedy shows definitely feel like artifacts from another era, in a good way.
I listen to those too! Gunsmoke is the best, WAMU for the win.
oh man, they kind of touch on it in the article but one of my favorite rides at disney world is the carousel of progress, just for this very reason. ‘the future’ is 1980! how great is that?
I love any kind of science fiction that was written long enough ago for its future to be our past
Yes! I especially like cyberpunk as it’s pretty much about the 80s.
Ha ha yes. Ticker tapes on starships has been my favorite lately even though I didn’t like the book.
The latest thing I have been laughing at is how Sisko has stacks of PADDs, which are essentially IPads, on his desk with everyone’s various reports. So close to predicting the future, and yet so far.
There’s this scene in Zoolander where he answers his super tiny phone and one day I realized how that joke will no longer make sense to anyone five to ten years younger than me.
I recently read The Group by Mary McArthy. While I would not suggest that it is a Stellar Work, it is Really Dated, and openly feminist? (My major complaint is that men are treated in the book as women are in most partiarchal fiction; people to sleep with or not, but never complete characters in and of themselves) Again. Not good. But _fascinating_ descriptions of early birth control.
I’ve read that! I quite enjoyed it, and I remember all of the birth control discussions you’re talking about. I also particularly like when they refer to this amazing new lettuce: iceberg!
Haha! Yes! I also liked the weird brands that I had never heard of (is this because it is 60 years later, or because Canada? I may never know), and the casually dropped philosophers that I had _never heard of_, despite having mispent my time in grad school, and therefore having a more-than-passing knowledge of philosophers (or so I thought).
I actually really love reading pop-culture reality pieces on the Super Rich of the mid-00s, right before the crash. Stuff like The OC/Laguna Beach and anything that was on Bravo at the time is good, too. It’s recent enough to still be fresh in our minds, but seeing it all through the lens of the past decade is delicious.
This is a big part of the reason I love Arrested Development (and hated the Netflix season). Watching it now you know what’s coming, but they so perfectly captured the hubris that came before the crash!
Every few years I re-hate-read Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber because it’s a well-written book with so many mansplainy terrible ideas about women from a fauz ally from many years ago.
omfg I love old cookbooks so much, especially the chatty kind that unintentionally reveal much more than they intend about the cultural expectations around housekeeping in general, like the mid-century Fannie Farmer that outlines elaborate multi-course everyday breakfasts, or 1940s menu & hosting suggestions that take into account that some households are servantless.
I love reading old etiquette books for the same reason.
Many of which are available for free on Project Gutenburg and similar venues.
I don’t know what it was like when it came out but Endless Summer feels like this amazing artifact from a time capsule watching it today. It’s one of my favorite documentaries.
I love 1980s/90s episodes of any TV about the dangers of computers or the internet. They just fill me with joy.
Oh man, perfect timing. I just discovered 9 to 5 on Netflix and it was AMAZING. The overt, non-apologetic 1980’s feminist message and takedown of sexist villainy was just exactly what I needed. Not to mention the wonderful outdated office tech. Oh and of course Jane Fonda/Lily Tomlin/Dolly Parton are hilarious together. <3
HI Kat,
I’m in law school, and it is scary and a lot of work, and at least once a week, I think about quitting and doing something else- opening a bakery, going to social work school, taking to the sea etc. But I’m still here, two years in because even though the school part can be draining and people can be competitive, working in the law makes me excited to be here, and to help people in the limited ways the law allows you to makes me happy.. If you’re going to law school for a reason, any reason- interest in the law, desire to help others, to support yourself and your family- you can always turn back to that to remember why you’re staying. And if you quit, you’ll be ok. I know people who have quit, and they are happy and ok. It’s ok to be shit-terrified, because law school can be shit-terrifying. Having a support system helps also. You’ll be fine, I promise.
Love,
A Rising 3L
Penny Dreadful, anyone?
I haven’t had time to watch the bootleg copy a friend made for me and it’s killing me.
I am EMBARRASSED that it took me a whole season to climb on board (although that did mean I got to marathon the first season), and also I can’t find intelligent reviews of it anywhere. The last review I read seemed to be willfully misunderstanding everything and their opinions were so terribly wrongheaded, the poor dear, that it was pointless to continue.
That last episode! Eva Green is the best. Someone on the AV Club said that was what AHS: Coven wishes it could be.
Yes! I love how the character development is so gradual and natural, and that last episode was, as one reviewer put it (okay, I lied, there was one review from the 2nd season that is ok), one hell of a superhero origin story.
And Patti Fucking Lupone. Did she blink, at all, until the tar? “So it is always for those who do for women,” (or whatever it was exactly) indeed.
I also really loved the fact that in the first season, as they’re trying to deal with Vanessa’s possession, that no one, up until the stealth werewolf turned on the Latin chanting, had any idea what to do. There weren’t any magical books they pored over, or experts to consult, or rituals they tried. Just helpless men in the face of this evil, and she was fighting it all alone.
Toasts! Mr_whatwhat told me last night that he would like to have a child one day. I never wanted children and now I am freaking out a bit. He told me he definitely wants to stay with me even if I’ll never want children and it’s not something that would happen in a few years anyway. But now I know that if we don’t have children it will be because I don’t want them, not because we both don’t want them, and it feels like I am making a big life decision for him. I am confused and scared to lose him at some point, and also scared of having children and regretting it. and of not having children and regretting that.. Any other toasties who don’t want children but have partners who do? anyone who didn’t want children but changed their mind? what made you change it?
I never wanted children, until some hormones or something kicked in, and then I did. So, you might change your mind! Or you might not. Who knows. Do you believe him when he says he wants you more than he wants children?
I believe that he means that now, but I’m afraid it might change at some point if I don’t change my mind.. I know he would be a great father and co-parent, and I can imagine I might feel differently at some point, but I am also terrified of having children and then regretting my decision.
I think if you can trust him to tell you what he feels on matters of importance generally, that should also apply here; and that yeah, possibly he might change his mind, but possibly (other major things) could happen, by chance even, so that’s kinda par for the course. But it’s a LOT to process, it’s okay to need to time to get your head around it!
yeah I trust him and I know he will talk openly about whatever his feeling are down the road. And who knows; maybe I’ll have a case of the hormones in a few years and change my mind, but right now the idea is freaking me the hell out.
Totally understandable. Best wishes.
I am in this boat, and we’ve had a few conversations about it, but I feel exactly the same way as you do. It’s scary, and now more friends that ever are announcing their pregnancies (two last week!) and I just feel dread because i know one or both of us is going to be sad in the long run. Wish I had more to offer, other than solidarity.
I’m sorry you’re in the same boat, but thank you for commenting, it helps to know I’m not alone! I am very happy to be an auntie and I love my nephews and nieces, but I am also so relieved to not be the person responsible for not messing them up.
I am in this boat, and we’ve had a few conversations about it, but I feel exactly the same way as you do. It’s scary, and now more friends that ever are announcing their pregnancies (two last week!) and I just feel dread because i know someone or both of us is going to be sad. Wish I had more to offer, other than solidarity.
Same boat. I don’t really think one can change someone else’s mind about it, and I don’t know that I would want to. Maybe someone far more persuasive than I am. It would be a bit more gratifying if I felt like my partner really UNDERSTOOD my hesitation: parenting is a shitload of work, much of it not very fun, with an uncertain outcome, and I want to know that fundamentally changing the course of our entire lives is a net positive. (Instead I feel like he just thinks I’m a Debbie Downer. Which may be true – he probably just wants me to UNDERSTAND his optimism.)
yeah, you can’t persuade anyone to want/not want kids. The talk yesterday was pretty much what you described: him being all optimistic and me thinking about all of the not fun work involved with having a kid. Aaaah. I hope it works out for the two of you!
Ha, I know, why can’t other people just feel the same way I feel about things?! Life would be easier, eh?
it feels like I am making a big life decision for him
Whatever else happens, you can work on letting that feeling go. You’re being honest about what you want and trusting him to be honest about what he wants. That’s the opposite of making decisions for him; that’s sharing the information* that you both need to make decisions, on your own and together.
*And hey, sometimes the information or decisions change, or the circumstances do. That’s okay, too, and you can’t require yourself to know the whole unknowable future right now.
yeah, I think I’m extra-sensitive to this at the moment because he moved to my city for us to be together until my contracts ends at the end of next year and is kind of miserable here. That on top of possibly passing up having children to be with me just feels like a lot of sacrifice on one end. On the other hand I know he is a grown man and capable of making these decisions for himself. Oh man, Being an Adult and Making Decisions Together is terrifying.
This is SO SO individual, and I can’t say it applies to other people at all. But to add another perspective to the many many reasons people might – or might not – change their minds on this: I never wanted children; my partner did. I examined why I didn’t want them, and realized it was because I had crushingly low self-esteem and some trust issues. Once I’d worked on THAT stuff in therapy, I realized that I’d spent years in denial about the fact that I DID want kids, and revisited the conversation with my partner, and we’re going to start trying soon.
Again, this is so individual, and I would never, ever say that someone else might “change their mind” on this. It’s like almost anything else about humans: there’s a massive spectrum of experiences from YES KIDS to NO KIDS. It may very well be that you and Mr_whatwhat are in different places on the spectrum. I can totally understand your feelings, and my recommendation is get yourself to a trustworthy therapist if possible and talk out your fears. If Mr_whatwhat can/will go with you a few times, even better. No matter what the ultimate decision is, communication will help, I bet!
thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies and for letting me know I’m not alone! I am feeling (slightly) less freaked out, my next course of action will be Orphan Black, candy and wine 🙂
ms_whatwhat, I don’t know you or your partner so I may be completely wrong when it comes to your situation….but from what I have seen, this is one of those rare things in life that one simply cannot compromise on. if he strongly wants children and you don’t, this will only breed resentment between the two of you (his if you don’t have children, yours if you feel yourself guilted or pressured into having one).
Someone very close to me is the child of parents who had her because it ‘was just what people did’. Even though her folks are basically good people and they did their best to hide their impatience and resentment about parenthood, it effected her deeply and she struggles with horrible self esteem to this day. Please don’t bring a child into the world unless you’re certain motherhood is what you want.
Adding my voice to those in the same boat…I don’t know if I want kids, the significant other really, really wants kids, but he has reassured me, repeatedly, that he wants to stay with me even if that means he doesn’t get to be a father. And I worry about this SO MUCH. So thank you for starting this thread–this has made me feel less alone too.
I don’t want children, and my partner has said in the past that he might. I really want to stay together (it’s been six years so far), but the thought of having children really doesn’t appeal.
So my question this weekend is kind of a downer. I recently found out that someone I have considered sort of a mentor in my career– and who I was planning to use for future job references– is under investigation for some very troubling charges that may involve sexual assault. I just… don’t know what to think? I’m feeling pissed off and sad and jaded all at the same time. How do you deal when you find out that someone you looked up to might be a huge piece of shit?
Ugh that sucks. But the terrible things this person did to others don’t cancel out the good things they did for you. People are mad complicated, to be sure. So I would refrain from using them as a job reference contact, but definitely feel free to enjoy your memories of them and the lessons you’ve learned. And if you feel gross continuing a relationship, then don’t!
Yeah, I’m not sure I would be able to talk to this person again. I’m just so angry at him, if it is true. I remember him telling me that it’s hard to be a woman in this field and that I should never put up with anybody’s shit, so knowing that somebody else had to put up with his shit is just– ugh, I can’t fucking believe how two-faced that is, and it makes me wonder how many other people out there are only paying lip service to my safety and advancement.
You have my sympathy. They don’t make Hallmark cards for that one, and many people won’t know what to say. From a practical standpoint, if he’s indicted that would limit your ability to use him as a reference. (Or even if he’s not, if the rumor mill is powerful enough in your field.)
I am so sorry. The actions of bad people are not your fault, and you can’t bear responsibility for them unless you knew what they were doing and didn’t say anything. And it does not sound like that’s the case! If you only ever saw the facade, you had no way of knowing. That’s the problem with abusers- they look like normal people.
Everything GreenGrasses says, because that is all solid advice, and also give yourself space to feel whatever you feel about this news without self-recriminations.
I’m sorry about this. It must be a horrible thing to find out.
I do just want to point out that -from a legal as well as an actual standpoint – ‘under investigation’ is not the same as ‘guilty of’. I’ve been under investigation for a crime I didn’t commit in my life.
There is a tiny but not zero chance he is not, in fact, guilty. I don’t know if that helps you or not.
I’ve been thinking about that too, which is part of why this is so confusing. There aren’t very many details available right now but I have heard some speculation (because it is rumor city right now) that his offense was that he covered up for somebody else’s actions.
Whatever the truth is, you get to feel however about it. You do! And the shitty things he may or may not have done do nut undermine the good he did you. They do not make *you* a bad person for having found him helpful and valuable.
I am putting together our annual report. Send help and/or wine and/or bourbon and/or goopy pizza.
/wobbles
In more awesome news, today is MrChouffe’s first payday and it is v v exciting. Hooray, jobs!
And I want to thank all of you amazing Toasties for your kind and thoughtful responses yesterday. It is a gift to know y’all, truly.
Always on it, you are. <3
*SENDS HELP VIA SWAT TEAM, ALSO SENDS MULTITUDE OF FUDGE CAKE AND GOOPY PIZZA* NO WINE FOR YOU, TODAY. SORRY!
That used to be one of my jobs. *raises enormous glass of wine in solidarity*
Hey Toasties! I SWEAR YOU GUYS ARE THE ONLY GOOD PART ABOUT THIS WEEK. Everything has been awful. I’m depressed again, and I’ve considered dying but I’m too scared and YOLO, so, here I am. My parents have been criticizing and name-calling and kicking me down in any and every way possible – “You’re a failure, ” “You’re gonna flunk out of college,” “Marine Biology is a fantasy, your dreams don’t matter,” “You should understand that you’re not a bright student – everyone else is better than you,” “Your brother was so much better than you,” “You’re a disgrace to our family,” “We don’t trust nor believe in you because you’re a good-for-nothing failure.” So, yeah. Yeah. I need to move out. Anyone willing to adopt me?
Door’s open.
I’m honestly holding you to it. I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE BACK HOME.
Your parents sound super-toxic. You must be very strong to have made it this far with that kind of horror show at home. Definitely move out. Definitely don’t die. Imagine what you’ll be able to do without that kind of input dragging you down!
Yes, you are doing great to survive in such a toxic environment! I bet your college has some resources for you – counselors, housing help, etc. Also let your professors know what’s going on – they don’t want to fail you any more than you want to fail out! See what you can work out as far as extensions and such if that would be helpful.
Oh, I know I won’t fail out of college or anything because I’m a hard worker and stuff – just my parents thinking they can see the future is kinda unsettling. I will definitely find a good resource in college. I know they will go so far as to call and remind me of all of this.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to nag. I do hope you can get away from your parents.
YOU MOST CERTAINLY AREN’T NAGGING. *tacklehugs* I hope so too.
Is there any way you can move out sooner? Can you at least spend as much time as possible out of the house? I know you can make it to August, but if we can help you with a plan that gets you out of there sooner, let us know.
Thank you so much! Probably not – my brother flies in early July, so, I’m safe then. I’m just ignoring them and not voicing my opinion, hopefully it works.
look VERY HARD for an internship/field school. Go to Shovelbums.org and get in an archaeological field school even, anything to get out of the house. Become a camp counselor or a river guide for the summer. get an internship with your local EPA office.
(It’s all I’ve got, but I’ve been looking into internships/field schools and wow there are some amazing things out there, and it would keep you away from those toxic parents and maybe give you some confidence to be around people who also think that research is important and you are smart. Because you are. And if I could go back to school at 41 for archaeology anything is possible.
Yes, what CCoryy said, and if you can’t get a move-out sort of summer opportunity at this late date, at least get out of the house every day. Find a job during the day, or go hang out in bookstores and coffee shops or with friends.
You’re like Harry Potter, having to put up with the Dursleys for summer. He roamed the town and spent a lot of time at the Weasleys’, right?
I am so angry at your parents. They had ONE JOB: love and support their child. And they’ve decided to do the opposite! WTF!
Yeah, I’m actually thinking of going to my grandparents’ over the summer. They’re so much nicer. I AM LIKE HARRY POTTER. This makes so much sense now. I know!!! And they’re somehow hoping I change my major to Mechanical Engineering – like, WTH? I DO NOT WANT TO BE AN ENGINEER. To which they say, “Having a degree in Mechanical Engineering doesn’t make you an engineer.” WHY WOULD I NEED A DEGREE FOR SOMETHING I DON’T WANT TO DO?
My spouse’s mom told him she wouldn’t pay for school if he didn’t get a degree in engineering so he got really depressed and flunked out. It’s an incredibly difficult major for people who WANT to do it, let alone someone who hates it. And honestly, not to sound rude, but if your parents think marine biology is an urealistic pipe dream, they are misinformed. Is it as easy to get a job in as if you were an accountant? No. But penny of people do it and jobs related to itand you’ll be fine. My parents were the same way when I wanted to be a geology major, because they didn’t understand that there’s whole industries out there they don’t know anything about.
HA, you know what’s funny is that my dad is an Earth Science major and a professor of Geology. I’m so sorry to hear about your husband’s mom. Parents shouldn’t be that way. Or this way. Ugh, parents.
So you’d think he’d realize that there are, truly, entire industries he probably doesn’t know about, because he works in a field with entire technical journals devoted to one single piece of machinery let alone the companies that make them and the component parts and everything. Just think of all the associated supportive parts of the industry — people who create and manufacture testing equipment, tagging equipment and supplies, GPS stuff, computer programs, etc., and all that’s aside from things like zoos and aquariums! Sheesh.
Also — not to bring anyone down, but spouse’s mom was a pretty miserable person and she and spouse didn’t really repair their relationship until she was dying. But you reap what you sow.
He’s actually pretty successful in his field, which surprises me as to how he doesn’t want me to be the same. I’ve checked job requirements and stuff like that, and while they want people with a Marine Biology background, they also want them to be experts (to be rounded) in fields like Chemistry (two years of Chem in college), Computer Science and Acoustics. If he would help me be more employable rather than criticizing me, that’d be nice.
Well, no offense, but bitter people like that really don’t deserve much thought. I didn’t know how difficult it would be to finance a college education before taking a loan – thank goodness my parents are helping out, but if they didn’t, it would’ve been so hard.
I can’t do anything this summer, but I intend on not visiting much over the next four years. I’ve already decided to stay there for the winters, so, yeah. Thanks so much for that website! I’ll be looking. Also, that’s great!! I didn’t know you were in school for Archaeology. How’s that coming along?
I got to do alot of really cool research, and actually graduated with a master’s in geography because the remote sensing stuff I want to do was based in the geography dept, but I bridged the anthro and geography depts. Currently only part time employed in a geography job, looking at reasonable jobs in either. Unfortunately I cannot relocate (kids, divorce) so it’s pretty much heartbreaking at the moment. The good news is that the jobs are plentiful, even in my state, just not where I can get to them, yet. The government needs archaeologists a lot, because they can’t use federal land for anything without a CRM survey. Lots of oil development = lots of surveys needed= lots of archaeologists needed. Have a few full time jobs I”m looking at to apply for this weekend, so cross fingers!
THAT’S GREAT! I’m so proud of you. You’ve accomplished SO much. *fingers crossed* I’m sure you’ll get it. Archaeology is such an important field. I know people who are dying to be Marine Archaeologists, and even that is in so much demand. You went out there and you did it. Everything happens for a reason. Really, you give me hope. <3
What the FUCK, parents. You gots to get out of there.
Shoot me an email anytime. Do you know about the toast connections spreadsheet? You can find my contact info on there. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_26MiL9WN…
I didn’t know about it but I do now. THANK YOU. Really, thank you. <3
Internet hugs. They sound appalling and nothing they say about you is true.
*hugs* Thanks Abanthis. It just feels that it IS true even though I know it’s not, solely because they keep breathing down my neck, you know what I mean?
Just to be absolutely explicit about this, because sometimes it helps to hear it from someone outside the situation: You’re wise to recognize how toxic your parents’ remarks are and they are not true. They are expressions of something, and no outsider can guess what, that originates inside your parents’ heads, not from you.
You are strong to make it this far with that kind of harsh judgment hanging over you, and you’ll feel stronger still once you have some space away from it.
Thank you, Elsa. I really don’t know what I’d do without you guys. They’ve sort of been forcing it on me so I’m starting to think it’s true. How can they want me to fail? Just to say, “I told you so”?
I hope so. I just need to hang in there. *hugs*
You might find Making Light’s Dysfunctional Families series another good place for clarity and empathy. ML’s comments are, if anything, MORE tightly moderated than the Toast’s (offenders have their vowels removed), and the archives include a lot of conversations about and witnessing to the different ways that people have pulled themselves through in the face of family abuse. There’s very little unsolicited advice–but if you ask for concrete suggestions, people there often have them from personal experience.
Thanks Rill! I’ll look into it ASAP. God knows I need advice on keeping my cool. Thanks! 🙂
Hey, holy shit, your parents sound awful and, more importantly, wrong.
I second the recommendation to seek help from your college. Trying to get through school when you’re not feeling emotionally in control is absolutely exhausting, and I know from experience that having resources available doesn’t mean shit when you don’t have the time or energy to advocate for yourself. BUT. I was truly stunned at the lengths my school was willing to go to take care of me when I was scared and alone and failing at the only thing I had ever been good at (academics, yay!). Even just reaching out to your professors (again, daunting and a major accomplishment in itself) can help enormously. You’d be surprised at how much leeway you can get just by letting the instructor know that you take their class seriously but are struggling with other issues, and you may even gain a mentor or two, which is a huge help when the adults in your life aren’t pulling their weight.
Also WTF are they talking about, marine biology is great.
They are. Very bitter. Very vain. I didn’t know you could do that – do professors really care that much? But I’d be too shy…how was it like? Telling them, I mean.
Yes, professors really care that much. They are teachers, they want you to learn. They have enough interest in and passion for what they teach that they spent a lot of time and energy getting advanced degrees in it. They want to share that with you. They want you to succeed.
I really can’t wait for college. I’m ready to work hard, I just need people to believe in me.
We’re here, believing in you!
Thanks Lauren! I really don’t know what I’d do otherwise. <3
Professors can be amazingly compassionate to their students! But it was very, very scary to ask for help. I’d recommend a quick email explaining that you’re having some trouble and could use some advice, and would they mind terribly meeting with you at some point to discuss your work in their class. In my experience, they’ve seen a lot of shit– they deal with hundreds of young adults in a stressful and transitional period in their lives, and they really do appreciate the ones that make an effort. Even if you don’t think you’re making enough of an effort, they probably see it differently and genuinely want to do what they can to ensure that a motivated student is successful. I didn’t see myself as being worthy of help, but they were SO accommodating and willing to work with me, and it really helped me immeasurably.
ETA realizing now that it’s summer and so maybe some of this advice is irrelevant…but it’s worth reaching out to next semester’s instructors if your schedule is already settled, especially if any of them are people you’ve worked with before, and asking what you can do to make sure you get the most out of their classes. Bonus: having a good relationship with your teachers opens up opportunities for summer work that can get you away from your family in the future!
ETA2 and now realizing that you haven’t actually started yet. This is good! Clean slate! Making early connections with knowledgeable teachers in a field you’re passionate about will be a huge help. Go forth and accomplish great things!
Thank you so so much. I didn’t know I could do that. Obviously I’ll try my best to do well in class, but this support could mean a much better time for me there. I’ll make sure to be open with my advisor about it, at first. And some of the professors I feel would be good support. Some of the Ecology professors are scary. :/ I’m so glad you got help, though. And thank you again, for sharing this with me. I really appreciate it.
– I will! I have my appointment with my advisor in June, after which I can be in more in touch with the university. YES, I would really want that to happen! If not for getting away from home, but to prove my parents wrong. Though it’s more like I’ll never be enough, but still.
– THANK YOU, LADY! <3
Sending virtual cookies and hugs!
Thanks Sarah! THESE LOOK DELISH! <3
Just adding my voice to the chorus to say I very much hope things improve for you. You are worthy of better messages than your family are broadcasting; that kind of crap is what we usually tell ourselves in the dead of night and spend all day fighting against, your parents don’t need to be laying it on with a trowel. Wishing you improvement and cookies.
Thanks so much, Heather! *graciously accepts cookies* I feel so much better now, thanks to you and everyone else. You guys are so amazing. Hearing all of that made me feel horrible and hopeless, but I’m a warrior now. *cheesy, I know*
You have free room and board for a summer vacation at my house, if you want it. And we can discuss how I can help you get to central Texas. rmcd1974 at hot mail dot com
^ she means it
Ohmigosh, Rose, that is unbelievable. I don’t know what to say – I’m crying. This is such an overwhelming amount of support and I’m so touched. Really. I’ve never had this many people believe in me and have faith in me before. I don’t mean to be soppy, but you’re such a wonderful person. All of you. Thank you. So much. Thank you. <3
And Lauren: <3 <3 <3
Oh man, your parents are acting super shitty. Add me to the toasties who would be happy to have you for the summer. I need to add my info to that toast spread sheet but if you ever need to get out of town give a holler. Also let me know if you ever need help finding summer internships to keep you out of town. I’m on the freshwater side of science but a lot of the skills transfer. It’s probably a bit late for a paying gig for this summer but I can keep an eye out!
Thanks Cookie! I really don’t know what to say – I didn’t think I’d leave this Open Thread with a booster pack of an immense amount of strength. I feel so confident right now and I’m so glad I have you and the other Toasties.
You ARE bright and your dreams DO matter. And there are people who will see that and believe in you and support you (like Toasties, for starters). You will SHINE.
Thanks so much Silver! *continues crying*
You have so many amazing hug gifs!!!!
Did we start the musician thread yet this week? Tell me of your banjo lessons and your experiments with many delay pedals and how you’re thinking about learning to play the piano!
Speaking of delay pedals, Strymon just launched this puppy: http://www.strymon.net/dig/ Those guys are gonna get alllll my money.
Oh my! How much is it? I love my good-ol’ Boss DD-7 but that Dig thing…sheesh wouldn’t need anything else. Well maybe some overdrive.
Those Strymon pedals are all north of $500, and every last one of them is a thing of beauty and delight. Ah, pedalporn. You are my favorite.
I’m here! Just watched a bunch of video on Stry Mon, I obviously need to get a second ha! Have our second band practice on Monday, I may have more to report next week.
Helloooooooooooooo! And yes! I can’t wait for the report!!! *new band dance of glee*
Eeks, I was just having Guilt becuase I have not practiced for three weeks while my choir master is in Europe. Thanks for the reminder?
In fact, practicing never seems to get done, which makes me sad, because making music makes me happy. BUT. I have just heard from my job that I am being laid off for a month, maybe 2, and am at a cushy enough spot in life that I will JUST TAKE THIS FUNEMPLOYMENT, and use it to practice all of the things. I plan to spend more time with my Hanon than with most of my friends.
Isn’t “I haven’t practiced my [thing that I love doing]” just about the worst guilt ever? Second only to Mom Guilt.
Have we talked about the “Going to the Gym” method of tricking oneself into practicing/playing here yet? Like, only commit to touching your instrument and/or playing it for 15 minutes on X number of days. Of course as soon as you pick it up, you’ll play it until you have to go to bed or eat or pee or whatever, but 15 minutes is like nothing. That’s “waiting for Game of Thrones” to download time.
(This is still possible when the instrument is your face, right?)
With the discipline that comes with choral singing, what other practice methods do you use or daydream about?
Is it second to mom guilt? My mom is super chill, and extremely bad at guilting me into things, becuase I am very good about logically working my way around her. But yes. This is the worst guilt.
I tried the “fiteen minutes thing” by adding it ot my habitrpg, but it is always the first thing to fall of my list. I think it is because it’s not a chore (ie doesn’t contribute to the household), and it takes over the WHOLE GODDAMEND HOUSE. (Gentleman X does not have this issue. He merrily plugs his guitarz in and jams away, which is fine, and i love, but also jealous).
Choral singing training is weird; a lot of it has to do with vocal placement and using the right muscles. So I sing a LOT as I wander down the street (see Sword of 1000 men comment, above), and make a lot of weird chirping sounds. And stick my tongue out in weird ways (did you know you can stretch your vocal chords?) Other than that my training is mostly just learning the songs well enough that if someone else messes it up I can keep my line (this is what I have been failing at for the last 3 weeks) and working on my ABYSMAL sight-singing skills.
Sight-singing: UGH. But, I did NOT know you could stretch your vocal chords and now I really want to know everything there is to know about that.
I got no more tips on making yourself practice, though. Just do it? Want me to call you and yell? I would do that for you.
SO USEFUL. Weirdly, I can find no videos for you.
Essentially, tuck the tip of your tongue behind your back teeth, and then stick the middle of your tongue out as _far_ as it can go. Now do it more. Do it harder. Drop your jaw and stick it out further. Is that as far as it can go? Is it really? STICK IT OUT MORE. You should feel this in basically all of your neck, but mostly around from where your chin meets your neck to your collarbone (you’ll feel it in more places if your vocal chords are tired). Do this for 2 minutes EVERY DAY.
re: calling and yelling, I’ll be ok 😉 Nothing you could ever say will make me feel as badly as what is going on in my head.
Well, you might want to at least Skype me sometime just to watch me try to do this stretching exercise! “STICK IT OUT MORE.” So much giggles…
Heh. I would TOTALLY do that. But I would be doing it at the same time, so we’d be alternately sticking our tongues out at each other and then demanding to know if that is REALLY as far as you can go 😉
Obviously we are meant to be friends.
#truth
Thank u for mentioning Hanon, as I have been looking for piano practice exercises. I googled him and am planning to print out his book of exercises. The title is scary (The ~Virtuoso~ Pianist!), but the amazon reviews say they are suitable for all levels (true?). Enjoy your funemployment!
Hm. Hanon requires a little knowledge of how to hold your hand and wrist and how to move your fingers together (or oppositely). The best analogy that I can come up with is flexibility training for pole dancers. Hanon strengthens and increases flexilibty, but no one is ever going to listen to your Hanon exercises and go “Wow, beautiful!”.
I don’t know what classical training is like where you are from, but I did Royal Conservatory of Music, and Hanon gets introduced around grade 4. Before that, generally one uses “A Dozen a Day”, which are still finger exercises, but a little more interesting. Or at least, that is how I remember them. I was, like, 8 when I was using my Dozen a Day.
O, and you may want to invest in a Big Brown Book of Scales for all of your scale needs. (literally. Every. Single. One.) And chord needs. And arpeggio needs. ALL OF THE TECHNICAL is in this book 🙂
Thanks!! I will check those others out too.
I want to start playing piano again but it is hard when I do not have a piano! I took lessons for about 10 years as a kid and stopped when I graduated high school, I enjoyed it a lot but don’t have a great ear/sense of rhythm and I have tiny hands so I kind of reached the highest level I could go then stopped. But I played on a relative’s piano while visiting fairly recently and it was lots of fun!
It IS hard to practice when you don’t have a thing to practice on! But, if it’s something you miss, there are lots of ways around that! People who have pianos but don’t use them LOVE to have people play them, even if it’s just to play some scales. Do you have friends who have pianos?
sadly no, I’m in NYC so everyone has tiny apartments. I’m thinking of looking for a cheap keyboard though!
Look for something that has full-size keys or you will just be maaaaaaaad about it. If you can find something with weighted keys, even better.
I’m really fond of anything in the Yamaha Portable Grand line: http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instrument… They don’t all have weighted keys, but they’re sturdy and portable and perfect for beginners/returning students, and I think you can probably find them on CL for REAL cheap.
Oo thank you! Bookmarking that for future Craigslist searching.
Oooo, I can totally second the Yamaha line. I have a claviersonaten, with weighted keys. It’s not great (it is not a grand, or even an upright), but it does not make me want to scratch out my eyes because of lack of dynamics. And it has different voices and lets me change to harpsichord if I want! Sadly, the action does not change.
I went to rock & roll camp last weekend & I decided I want to be in an all-women alt-country band, even though I have only played the bass for about 12 hours total in my life. But! Everybody there was great and super-supportive, and now they’ve all got my back, so as long as I can keep the impostor syndrome and the depression from getting to me, I might actually pull it off?
YES YES YES. DO IT!!!
Twelve hours is about ten hours more experience than I had the first time I ever played bass in a band in a club: that was 20 years ago and it only gets better from there.
For some of the musicians I know who struggle with depression (quite a large overlap, really), the music is helpful. I think there is a thing about it offering an outlet but not an obligation.
Plus another part of it is the financial issue (I start a lot of hobbies, so I have a rule that I can’t spend more than $50 on a new one unless/until I know it’s going to last) and literally the day after rock camp I was talking to my friend and she was like, “I have a bass you can borrow!” If that’s not a sign from the universe, I don’t know what is.
THAT IS A SIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(And a really good rule. A REALLY good rule.)
Wasn’t I saying last week that everyone has a friend with a bass they can borrow?! I’m so excited for you!
I want to buy an electric lap steel guitar (pedal steels are way too expensive peices of furniture) but my old bandmate said that it is really hard and I’m like, “But I’m good at lot of stringed instruments and it’ll be fun to learn” and then she doubled down shaking her head with wide eyes like it’s a scary undertaking.
Maybe for her! But not for you, obviously, because you want to learn it. DO IT. (And keep your eyes peeled for used pedal steels; you sometimes see a glut of them in music shops and you can find decent ones for not that much money.)
I just got a bodhran, (traditional irish hand drum) and am learning to drum. I’ve always kind of wanted to learn to drum but it’s not feasible for me to have a full drum set, and I feel like this is versatile enough to fill the need for percussion in my life. Also, go figure, it actually takes practice and I’m not amazing right off the hop. Who knew, right? My biggest challenge right now is making sure that I practice but also have fun with it, because I need to do both of those things to get any good.
also, my friend invited me to a local bar that has an acoustic night every week and I’ve sung twice now, and i’m working with her on a few more songs. It’s a bit scary but lots of fun!
Yay!!! I like scary: it means we’re getting out of comfort zones and trying something new. Way to go!
I don’t know about where you live, but in my area, we have several regular “open session” nights that are all about traditional American folk and Celtic music. Even if you’re not ready to debut your bodhran in public yet, checking that out might give you the extra inspiration you need to practice more often!
The flea market and garage sale season has begun in earnest here in Vermont and I could not be happier. I try to only let myself get something if I can buy it with the cash I’ve got on me and it can yield interesting results. On Sunday I bought a $25 chair on a whim. After cleaning and inspection I suspect it might actually be a much nicer/older thing than the vendor thought.
What are your favorite garage/yard sale, flea market, thrift store, general secondhand finds?
That is gorgeous! A steal at $25.
I worked at a regional auction house on and off for a few years, and my favorite auction purchase is this massive oil on board (it’s about 1.5m x 2m) of a polar bear’s head, on a pink backdrop. Text reading “but you must understand/my father was eaten by a polar bear” runs above and below the head. The text is very Times New Roman, and the image is really soft focus and pastel, and I love love love it. None of the auctioneers could figure out where it came from, and it wasn’t signed anywhere. It’s my prize possession.
When my spouse’s mom died, we got a bunch of her weird and wonderful vintage finds, including a big box of vintage and antique mechanical pencils and fountain pens. We decided neither of us had a love for them so I turned into a vintage pencil and pen expert and sold them on eBay for over $300!! One singe vintage mechanical pencil went for almost $50! I’m so glad that they went to people who can really enjoy them and who are passionate about them, too!
I hit a thrift store last weekend looking for some nice light summery work-appropriate pants, BUT THEN there was a $2-$5 rack and I got four skirts, a little black dress (it’s basically nothing, and makes my tits look like magic), and the aforementioned pants, for $18.
I want your chair. It is boss. I would sit in that chair, with a martini, and opera gloves, and feel like I was Mallory Archer.
If I ever write a play it will be about a family of schemers (the Seeley’s clan) who are constantly attempting to scam others around. Like they try, but never quite succeed. It will be called “Seeley’s Try Angles.”
The day after performances, when attendees are asked what they did last night, they will say “I saw Seeley’s Try Angles.”
This week I had to rip down the TARDIS garden shed my dad made for me a few years ago as a birthday present. It was not built to last upstate NY winters, apparently, and was completely falling apart. I played the TARDIS sound on my phone once it was gone. 🙁 Goodbye, blue garden shed. You were not bigger on the inside.
But now it’s bigger! Now that you’ve torn down the walls, it’s as big as the whooooooole world.
It just suddenly got VERY dusty in the office. Clearly, because now my eyes are all watery.
Toasties, I have discovered that my work on fireplaces and chimneys allows me to instantly bond with Dads of all sorts (which I could do before, but now with even greater success). I spend lots of time looking at brickwork, and then I nerd out over people’s fireplaces and stoves, at which point any Dads in the vicinity appear and start discussing the architecture, and I am accepted as one of the Good Ones. Sometimes they try to mansplain, but then I start using technical language, which shuts them down pretty quickly.
Can I ask you a question that will allow you to nerd out? Feel free to ignore if you’d rather. Do you have any idea whether or not old brick that has been painted white (and red? The mortar looks sort of pink, but we do have an endless supply of red sandstone around here and is it at all possible that they used it to make the mortar?) and then stripped (I do not know the method, I’d say chemicals and scraping based on the condition and color of the brick now) can be covered with some sort of clear coating that might bring some of the red back? I know that it’s pretty damaged, but the house was built in 1910 and I’m not going to paint the fireplace again. Just wondered if there’s any sort of conditioner or something I can use, or just let it go? Want a pic? Here’s a pic:
Also, any clue what that rectangular indented part is for? Was something in there? Just a bit of style?
Based on a quick bit of research, as well as asking the boss, I don’t know of any products that would do that. I’d be inclined to let it go, honestly, and just put warm-colored things around the fireplace and on the mantel to bring out the red coloring. And yeah, the mortar’s probably always been that color.
And the indentation’s probably just for a bit of style. Although it does look a bit as if there was something there at one time, just based on the amount of soot that’s built up outside of the depression vs. the amount of soot inside.
Thank you very much for sharing your expertise! I legit cringed right after I posted, because, “hey, do some free work for an internet stranger” is bad manners and I am sorry about that. I am so lazy about this stuff lately that leaving it alone is going to make me feel accomplished, because I’m taking professional advice. Thank you again.
I actually love giving people advice! It gives me a chance to practice my customer consultation style, and fulfills my frustrated pedagogical ambitions.
toastbrarians with a feminist bent, i need your help.
when i was in college i took a german class that focused on women writers, and i did not appreciate it at the time because i had not yet been as introduced to feminism as i am now, and it’s a shame. i wish i could re-take that class.
anyway, one of the authors i remember reading did a series of takes on henrik ibsen’s plays – a doll’s house and two others – but from a feminist bent. there may have been birds involved. they are originally written in german, but i am positive i had an english translation. i have tried for years to find some information out about this author, but i am no longer in contact with the professor of the class and i can’t remember. at all. other librarian friends have tried to help, but i don’t think they quite knew what i was talking about.
would anyone have any starting points for me? i’m desperate to re-read these!
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/theater/newsand… (maybe?)
In the feminist era there have been two prominent sequels to “A Doll’s House,” both premised on the notion that despite progress, important aspects of female self-determination have never been realized. One, “What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband, or Pillars of Society” was written in the late 70’s by the Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
oh my god you may be onto something with the jelinek – it could very well be her! thank you so much!!! i have much research to do.
Could it be this?
https://books.google.ca/books?id=luLfPGt3Va0C&…
(scroll down a bit on the page) — it’s called “A Fable (1906)” by Lou Andreas-Salome, it’s in translation from the German, in a book called “German Feminist Writings,” and it’s a series of six fables about wild birds, each of whom bears the name of one of the protagonists from Ibsen plays.
YES
THAT IS IT EXACTLY
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU OH MY GOD THIS HAS BEEN PLAGUING ME FOR AT LEAST FIVE YEARS
Any other Runner 5s around? I’m about halfway through season two and I’m kind of emotionally wrecked at the moment. Also, my base has been super weird after the switch to the new system.
Grrrr, I got a new phone when I was almost done with season one and it lost all my progress and I haven’t been able to bring myself to restart. I miss the lovely British running companions!
Oh that’s frustrating! If you do bring yourself to get back to it, download the new version, all the seasons are free now!
Halfway through Season 1 – I’m hoping to pick back up next week. I can’t seem to get much of a base going at the moment, it seems like every upgrade requires some other upgrade I don’t have. I haven’t downloaded the update yet, will have to do that tonight!
I did have a moment of hilarity while listening to the Radio Abel function and the host whose name I forgot said “this next song is the song that was playing the first time I kissed a girl… and more” and the song that played was Picture Me Rolling by 2Pac.
Oh the strange song combinations! I finished an episode from season 2 last week that involved pyrotechnics and then character death and the song that followed the final installement was Bastille’s “Things We Lost in the Fire”. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or to cry.
I’ve started lifting heavy things with 2 friends! One who has been my previous gym partner, but is not a good influence and will let me cancel for no reason. And another who is very gung ho and would make me feel very guilty for cancelling for no good reason.
The video rental place in my town is finally shutting down, and I am devastated. But their copies of Picnic at Hanging Rock and Pride now have a safe home with me. What should I keep an eye out for when I go full vulture at their last-week sale?
I managed to sprain my supraspinatus (a muscle I didn’t even know I had!) by heroically catching a couple of cash drawers with one hand as they were about to fall off a desk. This resulted in a trip to the ER, a workplace incident report, and… uh, significant shoulder pain. oW. I went back into work after I got out of the ER and went in this morning, but the pain combined with our servers being down so I couldn’t access what I needed to meant I left at ten.
So instead of catching up on what I missed yesterday, I’m going to be spending today with toradol and netflix. Whee.
I have shoulder pain in that area, and boy it is not fun. I will post back later when I have time to give you exercises to do for when you are out of the acute pain stage. Feel better!
That would be fantastic, thank you!
I found this through a research pub, but I can’t find the original article. Basically it said that while exercise programs are always done for shoulder injuries, this is the only one that has been tested and proven to reduce pain and increase mobility. Here is the first video in the series that gives an overview of all the exercises, and if you go to their home youtube page, you can get a detailed video of each exercise by itself. I hope this helps!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_pY1UF6xg
I had to go to the student version of the ER last semester because I was wiping down a table and wiped UNDER THE BLADE OF THE PAPER CUTTER. Durrrrrr.
So embarrassing! But funny! And now I have a “kid, you’d better listen up because this could be you,” story for new trainees.
Apparently workplace policy is that you have to right up a safety procedure that explains how to prevent whatever you did to get hurt. Mine will be pretty simple- catch falling cash drawers with two hands, genius. Or just let them fall and clean up the mess.
Optional belt-and-suspenders-type addition: don’t balance cash drawers precariously.
In news that may be relevant to last week’s commenting: I started writing CSI Lewis as a joke and all of a sudden it isn’t a joke anymore. There is like a plot and I fell down the research hole and now there are fascists and communists and bright young things and shellshocked veterans and homosexuals and interwar problems and how did this end up being a thing I am suddenly invested in writing? I haven’t even been to Oxford since I was four. Research must correct this.
I really want to read this!!
Are you perhaps posting this somewhere that interested Toasties might peruse it and cheer you on?
Not as of yet because a) I wouldn’t know where to and b) I am incredibly self-conscious of my writing. Which is kind of hilarious in retrospect since I am not humble and/or inclined towards doubt about anything else in my life.
Archive of Our Own? (You might not consider it fanfic but the Archive doesn’t really care, you can put “original work” in the “fandom” field.) Tumblr? Single-purpose WordPress blog? There are lots of options! But not before you feel comfortable.
even if I never get to read it, i’m happy it’s being written. This legit just made my day.
In dear-god-I-did-not-need-more-stress-right-now news, I am worried about the people who bought the house next door. Last night when they came to do whatever they were doing (I guess prep for moving in?) they parked their car right in front of our driveway. Who does that? What kind of idiot do you have to be to block someone’s driveway? I’m just really worried and anxious now that they’re going to end up being noisy and inconsiderate. Ultimately I won’t have to deal with it long as I will be moving, but my roommate will, and I don’t want her to have to be stressed out every time she’s home.
Unless I win the lotto tonight in which case I can buy her a little place somewhere with a bigger lot, so that the neighbours are not as close.
UPDATE: the house is up for rent on cl, so the people I’ve been seeing must be the owners who are not actually going to live there?
Relatedly, if any Vancouver-area toasties want to rent a tiny house, and are not noisy…message me naow.
I did a KonMari treatment on my clothes last weekend. I spent a while going through my closet and kept wavering and putting things back, and when I got to the end I thought “I didn’t get rid of very much” until I realized I had a heap of empty hangers on my bed. So clearly I discarded a lot! And then instantly forgot about it. The clothes lineup in my closet even seems to look the same, just…smaller somehow.
I’ve also been shocked to discover how many pairs of socks I actually own.
The downside is now I have bags of clothes to donate sitting around my apartment, and I’ve neglected my other housework. Weirdly, dishes still need washing even in the middle of a declutter project.
I did the exact same thing! And now I am trying to figure out what to do with my “to donate” pile, if I should try selling some stuff to Buffalo Exchange or if I should take a taxi to the nearest Goodwill that accepts donations or if I should drop it all in one of those sketchy random “donate” boxes down the block because that way I don’t have to pay for a taxi to a donation center.
Sometimes I default to sketchy corner box, simple because finding the ‘right’ way to donate is actually part of my holding onto things pattern.
YES, this. It’s a problem.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Most of my stuff is probably going to go to the sketchy corner box, but I have one dress that I got in China and never ever wear (I have a second, similar one I bought at the same time which I like a bit better and am more likely to wear on the rare occasions that are appropriate for a short, tight cheongsam). It seems too special for the roadside box so I’ll probably look for a secondhand shop to try to sell it to–but I have to actually show up and do this!
Women’s shelter? Also, in my area, the Friends of The National Multiple Sclerosis Society will come to your house and take things away, no taxi required!
I’ve been sorta-kinda KonMari-ing my home, though I haven’t done my clothing yet. I got rid of a pick-up truck’s worth of household stuff, then started on clothing and only got as far as my socks/underwear drawer before I needed to stop—for work, for rest, and frankly to absorb the anxiety of paring down. (I also looked up the tax-deduction value of the clothing I already set aside as I was decluttering another room and decided I need to start tallying and documenting these donations.)
I was also shocked how many socks I own! Even after tossing any sock* with a hole in it or any pair that falls down, it’s more than I could wear in two weeks of winter. That was a gratifying discovery.
*Most of my socks are the same brand and make, and only a few colors, which is mighty convenient when one of a pair wears out.
I am KonMari-ing my clothes in bits and pieces, because apparently I am not great at following instructions. I’ve now spent a week and a half on my shirts. But I am still making steady progress! I am hoping to have the shirts done before I leave on vacation, and then I’ll start on bottoms as soon as I am unpacked. I think bottoms will be easier; I own way too many t-shirts that I am sentimental about, and I think I should have started with some other category.
Much of my “to donate” stuff is dusty and wrinkly, so I think I’m going to wash it all before I donate it. There’s going to be several loads of just shirts. If I can get that done before my vacation too, then I’ll really consider myself to be making progress. Most of them are just going to Value Village. I do have one UU t-shirt that I will probably find a new owner for at church, and a whole bunch of t-shirts from university that I feel like some current student who likes vintage would appreciate more, but I will don’t know if I care enough to actually seek out such a person.
I had a bunch of t-shirts I’d held onto for sentimental reasons, but then I realized that I don’t actually like them as shirts, so they must not actually have sentimental value. Apparently I’ve been remembering college just fine without wearing my weird glee club concert shirt. Plus many of them were cheaply printed and kinda look like crap now.
My real problem is books and papers, but I started with clothes because KonMari told me to. I’m feeling good about that though–I’ve learned something about the process from doing clothes, and I hope it will make the books and papers easier.
The hardest ones are actually t-shirts from things that I feel like I failed at, which is weird because obviously they are not sparking joy at all, but discarding them feels a teensy bit like failing again. I think my favourite thing about KonMari is that it’s like 90% about how to manage feelings about stuff.
I also have way too many t-shirts…I’ve had a t-shirt quilt in progress for awhile now. It will probably never be finished, as I’ll always keep accumulating t-shirts that I love and can not part with but have a hole in the back or something…I’m actually ok with that.
I KonMaried my closet a couple weekends ago and got rid of NINE black trash bags of clothes. But I also didn’t listen to the rules and gave it all to my sister-in-law to go through and pick things out of. She is then in charge of donating the rest. Maybe cheating but she has enjoyed getting my hand-me-downs in the past, so who cares.
I was so overwhelmed but also pleased with the results. But now I’m procrastinating on the rest of the steps because it was hard.
I did that with my books a few weekends ago, and now the bags of books-to-be-donated-or-sold are occupying my living room floor. This weekend, I keep telling myself, I’ll make a dent in them.
Thank you, Toastadvicegivers, for your excellent Wednesday-open-thread urgings to tell me to get my own place!
I went to an open house on a whim Wednesday night after browsing Craigslist for like four minutes, liked it (DOUBLE COMPARTMENT SINK ENSUITE LAUNDRY SKYLIGHT IN THE KITCHEN KKKKKKKK), filled out an application. Landlord called me yesterday and said he’d love to rent to a girl, and I look great, and can he call my references.
Had it out with the roommate. She is cool but bad at confrontations, so this has been stewing and simmering for a month without her telling me anything useful:
Her bonehead boyfriend is the cause of the tension, because of a dumb fight we had once, and she has been taking everything I’ve been doing to the apartment (in an effort to make it nice and reduce her stress) as entitled selfishness without consulting her. WOOOOP.
We are friends! The friendship will be maintained! But I am going to try to take this apartment (IT IS TWO MINUTES AWAY AND I WILL STILL BE THERE FOR HER) and move on July 1st. Time to juggle the ol’ finances!
Tell me about miraculous karmic destiny moments where you managed to find an awesome and almost-affordable place in ~72 hours, Toasties!
I had exactly the same thing happen in January. Decided I might like to move in the new year, thought I’d look in January, give a months notice and move in for march. Spent 5 mins on Gumtree, found a place 5mins up the road, affordable and lovely. Went to see it the next day, moved at the end of Jan!
Sometimes the stars align and you find your perfect house
YES!
I moved to a new state a few years ago, no job. Lived in the spare room at my aunts house while I job hunted, three months later found a temp job for 1 month. After the month they offered me the job. I told my aunt, she said good, she was going to be watching grandkids for a week and would nee the room for them. SAME DAY as the job offer, my sister (who lived 6 blocks from my aunt) texted saying her roommate couldn’t live with her any more because of boy drama (guy roommate liked started dating my sister) and was moving out that weekend. So I had a job, and a place to live, all on the same day.
NICE
…. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand signing the lease tomorrow <3
the place I’m in now, I found in 1 week after I decided I was moving. I originally moved from a meh place into another meh place with a friend and her husband, turns out that was a terrible idea so after 6 months of misery I hit the point where I was like, “Fuck it, I just wasted summer by being so unhappy with my living situation, I am not spending winter cramped and miserable”. I found the new place within a week, was moved in 3 weeks, and it’s my favourite place I’ve lived in so far. AND it’s cheaper than the original meh place and has a better layout.
So I am heading to Asheville, NC this week for a short trip! My boyfriend and I are just going on kind of a whim, not to see anything in particular. We have an AirBnB near downtown – what should we see? What should we eat? What beer should we drink? Any recommendations would be most appreciated!
go to Tupelo Honey Cafe! It is worth it and so amazing
There’s a café in an old double-decker bus whose name escapes me, but it’s very pretty and their apple cider is delicious (I’m sure they will have equally delicious drinks appropriate for summer weather).
I LIVE HERE.
If you like outdoor spaces and really good seasonal beer, go to the Wedge in the River Arts District. Close to downtown, but not necessarily walkable. But it’s amazing! This is my favorite beer joint. A close second would be French Broad Brewing– the 13 Rebels is good as is the Wee Heavy Ale, and their Kolsch is really good this time of year. You could also hit up Wicked Weed, which is downtown, but ALWAYS incredibly crowded, one-in-one-out kinda deal. I am not sold on their beer, but it changes weekly, and clearly a lot of people love it. YMMV.
Downtown is pretty good, but be ready for crowds! These are yummy downtown things:
+ The Double Decker Coffeebus is cute, but they are cash only.
+ My friends own/work at Izzy’s Coffee Den. It’s a small disgruntled artist enclave, but good coffee, good music.
+ White Duck Taco has really good tacos! I recommend trying the Bangkok Shrimp Taco.
+ If you are able to find two tickets, do a LaZoom tour! They are about $30 a piece tho, but HILARIOUS and great fun and you can bring beer on the bus to drink while you get a tour of the greater downtown vicinity. I like the Haunted Tour, personally.
+ FRENCH BROAD CHOCOLATE LOUNGE. They just moved to the center of downtown. Amazing everything. Get a liquid truffle if you like feeling like you’re going to die of chocolate overload.
+ Nightbell is a good (expensive) night-time lounge operated by Chef Katie Button. Good, but expensive drinks.
+ Tiger Mountain Thirst Parlor is fun and I think you can get around the members only thing for $5? It’s a trashy hipster bar filled with babies, but I like it.
+ The Crow & Quill is kinda next to Tiger Mountain, but it is a tiny lil bitty goth bar. Amazing cocktails, my friend owns the joint, but weekends can be busy. But A+.
+ There are other bars in town but a lot of them are members only. I am a member at most of them should you wanna meet up or something?
+ Malaprops Bookstore is great! As is Downtown Books and News.
+ Wall Street has a bunch of good restaurants (Early Girl Eatery, MG Road Lounge, Laughing Seed [all vegetarian!]) and neat little whimsical shops. Actually, all of downtown is filled with lots of whimsical little shops and hippy boutiques.
+ It’s fun to just walk around downtown. It’s very small and very walkable.
+ The Blue Ridge Parkway is really close by, and the further up you get the cooler it gets; the rhododendrons and azaleas might still be blooming at this point, or the mountain laurels might be blooming by now. Lots of good places to pull over and take a gander. There is A LOT of hiking to be done really close to Asheville, if that is your thing.
+ If you have cash to burn, the Biltmore Estate. They have 40+ costumes from Downton Abbey on display in the house right now, plus the gardens are amazing. But this is a very pricey tourist option.
Don’t go tubing in the French Broad, the water is nasty.
I could probably think of a lot more things later. I hope you have fun and enjoy your visit!
Other downtown?ish restaurants of note: Chai Pani (Indian street food, delectable!), Tupelo Honey (famous and delicious, but really busy), Salsa’s (latin fusion cuisine, super yummy), Curate (Also a Chef Katie Button tapas restaurant), Seven Sows Bourbon & Larder (it’s closing, but not because the food wasn’t good), King James Public House (not necessarily in downtown, but real close, and also yummy + good drinks) the LAB (beer place, good food). 12 Bones; Obama eats here when he comes to town. Joe Biden eats at Luella’s BBQ, which is also good. Um, we have a Kombucha bar called the Buchi Bar? IDEK. Rosetta’s Kitchen is late night grub, but YMMV on the taste of that too. Chiesa is in Montford, nice homey italian food. Nine Mile is in both Montford and west Asheville; kinda Jamaican inspired food, really yummy.
Biltmore Village has nice way-too expensive art things, like at New Morning Gallery. But it’s nice to cruise through I suppose?
I hear good things, but have not been to: Rhubarb, Lex18, Plant.
Pick up the free newsrag The Mountain Xpress, it will have a list of most things going on in Asheville this week. They’re also online.
Also I meant “I LIVE HERE” as more as a “yay I can maybe recommend somethings!” instead of “I AM AN AUTHORITY ON THE SUBJECT” because I am totally not, even though I grew up here. There is so much more to do here than I normally do.
Battery Park Book Exchange! It’s a combination used bookstore and champagne bar, so just a lovely spot when you have spent the day running around and need a recharge.
Also seconding Chai Pani, get the fried okra yummmm
The champagne bar is like one of my favorite places, why did I forget this, ahhhhhhhh
My second novel is being released in a week (yay!) from a wee little press which is simultaneously very exciting but also very draining as I am not the sort to do all this book promotion and now I wish I had a fainting couch.
Link??
What? Aw! YOUR INTEREST IS AN HONOR!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WRWHVVA
Congratulations! If you’re comfortable linking your authorial name to this ID account, I’d love a link to the book!
y’all I am seriously so flattered. How did I describe it recently to a friend, oh here:
COME FOR THE QUEER ELVES
STAY FOR THE VEILED MEDITATIONS ON RACISM ETC
amazon.com/author/brsanders
The book is called Ariah and it is available for pre-order
*hides in the corner blushing furiously*
fuck yes
Excitement!! (And total agreement about fainting couches being superior to promo. Ugh, promo.)
Link if you’re comfortable doing so.
B, give the Toasties what they want!
Also, so everyone can be jealous, B is coming to MY house this week and if they so choose, may faint from book-promotion-exhaustion all over my apartment. Probably not on my couch though because it is an offensively uncomfortable piece of furniture.
Will Jen buy a new couch–the eternal question.
Spoiler alert: not without a life coach
CONGRATULATIONS SUCH EXCITING NEWS!
Yay, congratulations! Part of the joy of OT Fridays is seeing how accomplished so many of you are. Also: Queer elves! Double yay!
Fallen London thread? I didn’t see one. Is there one already? I’ll start one. Hemlock Cantarella now has a zubmarine and basically feels like they have one the game. They haven’t though–still holding out for however you get a rubbery tentacle or whatever lets you romance a rubbery man.
It’s Fate-locked. Do you want clues?
And remember the spreadsheet, delicious Toasties!
(I am currently looping the Iron Republic because it amuses me, so I am not available for social actions right now, but I should be back early next week.)
Yes, please. I NEED A TENTACLE IT’S ALL I’VE EVER WANTED. If that’s wrong I don’t want to be right, man.
Get thee to Flute Street!
I am still grinding away trying to get enough Whispered Secrets to move into the Bazaar. It’s slow going, especially since I’m in the Forgotten Quarter and I keep going insane.
I’m also slowly saving enough money to buy an Overgoat. Only 9000 Echoes to go :/
I went to the Iron Republic and am now taking an extended vacation in Flute Street, and it has gotten me out of my rut!
Flute Street sounds so innocuous AND YET
I got sucked into Sunless Sea for the week so haven’t made much progress in FL. Finally got all the requirements to become a Correspondent though, and it’s taking FOREVER for the Unsigned Message card to show up.
Oh man i LOVE Sunless Sea. I am on my third captain.
I’m on my….fifth? And that’s with the cheat of quitting if I get murdered at zee so I can reload from the last port (my combat skills are laughable).
That said, I’m running it on a fairly ancient Mac and it’s pretty sluggish, which does not help with my zee battles. I may or may not be trying to justify the purchase of a new computer just for zippier game-playing.
Oh dude i totally cheat that way, too. There are deaths that count and deaths that do not count by my reckoning. I RETIRE MY CAPTAINS WHEN I SEE FIT, GAME.
I haven’t been on Open Thread the past few weeks as I’ve had work-Fridays! Today I’m working but it’s from home so I can have breaks.
I got a zubmarine finally! I also started the war of illusions, and am working through the Mahogany Hall. Still not been to zee yet, but I think it’s calling me.
BaronBenas
YOU GUYS. A friend of mine is in a building with a bedbug infestation (in th basement, they are up one floor), and they are spraying, but – possibly as a result of the spraying – she found a bedbug in her shower.
I am trying to be supportive, but I have never had bedbugs and I don’t know how to be supportive without being like “I am showing up at your place with an industrial vacuum cleaner and a caulking gun”, which i cannot do because said friend is faaaaaaaaaaaaar. My “throw out all of the clutter” suggestion may have just caused marital discord 🙁 Advice?
ugh, so after a very stressful bout of bedbug bites that I got last fall, I treated my home (for $500 uggghhh) and then kept getting them, leading to the eventual conclusion that they were actually at the Best Boo’s house. So I had to 1.) do an experiment to determine if they were from his house, and when they were 2.) break the news to him then 3.) wait patiently as his gentle mind/soul absorbed the news and then 4.) hold his hand as he freaked the fuck out when he finally found their nests ::shudder::
so, he did a physical cleanse (finding his things that they lived in and throwing them out. just… throwing them all out. Mattress, pillows – and then finding where they lived on the walls and crevices and killing them with spray). We used the dryer to kill them in all his other stuff. ALL HIS OTHER STUFF, all clothes, all linens, everything was double bagged, brought to my house, brought directly to the basement, and one by one unbagged and stuffed in the dryer high heat for an hour. He then bombed his room and it all seems ok? Fingers crossed.
Boys are weird. This EXACT thing happened to my bestie; she’d get bites every time she slept over at her boyfriends’ place, but he didn’t believe her until she just straight up started refusing to sleep in his bed and the bastards got hungry enough to feast on HIS flesh instead of hers.
Were you there for the nests? She asked, trepidaciously…
*sigh*. Yeah. Litreally the only solution is to clean all of the things. Happily her landlord is spraying her apartment now too, so things are probably under control?
See, he definitely believed me, and knew he needed to do something, but he’s a bit… avoidant with really horrible stuff like this. It was only about a week from when I told him to when he kicked into action, and the panic from seeing the nests and beasties running around definitely was the kick he needed. They were clearly feeding off of him too, but apparently about 50% of the population isn’t allergic, so he had no idea.
I was NOT there for the nests. THANK GOD.
Avoiding dealing with having bedbugs seems like soso many kinds of normal to me. I would. Apologies for suggesting your boo did not believe.
I am weirdly obsessed with bedbugs. I think it is weird and also awesome that our parent’s generation and mine (and maybe my kids’, depending on whether the poison resistant bedbugs make real headway) were bascially the only generation to live bedbug free.
What determines whether or not you are allergic? Are there correlations? Or is it, like, a part of the world thing? So many questions…
I think bedbugs are one of things that make it okay to temporarily abandon your friend.
Okay, not REALLY, but this would hit all my anxiety triggers. I would do my best to support her by listening to how awful it is…over the phone.
That said, diatomaceous earth is apparently good for bedbugs?
You are not the only one. This friend would drop me like a hot potato in similar circumstances (which I would expect), and is planning a visit for next weekend that she is considering cancelling because she does not want to spread a possible infestation.
diatomaceous earth. Check. ty.
I didn’t see this posted anywhere yet (sorry if I missed it) but dakimel started an awesome spreadsheet of toast connections so we can find each other in other places! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_26MiL9WN…
To add it to your google drive, make sure you are logged in and then click the little grey folder icon next to the doc title.
related question: The Toast goodreads group, how are folks using the “bookshelf?” Favorite/recommended books? Books often discussed here?
Yesssss going through and following a bunch of Toastie tumblrs!!
So I’m having internet woes at work and home and an not sure how or if i could add my stuff to the social media tabs? (i basically can only internet with my phone right now) Help?
if it’s giving you hassle, you can email your info to me – mel @ melaniegreene .com – and I’ll input it for you.
Oh yeah it’s not great on mobile. You might try getting the app, but then I don’t know how you tell it to open the link in the app instead of in the browser. Or just email Mel like she suggests!
This is awesome!
yay! going to go follow people on Twitter/Tumblr now.
Toasts, I have a new co-worker, who is a Young Man. He is half whistling, half singing along to the chorus of our lab tunes.
I used to think that people who did this were pathologically inconsiderate but then I realized they are just men.
O noes! I do this too. I am even worse, as sometimes I sing to the tunes on my headphones. I try to do it when there is no one else around, but sometimes I get caugh, and there is blushing, and stammering apologies, and I KNOW that I have made someone very angry.
I am sorry if it is you. I just get so carried away!
Aw dude no way – you can’t POSSIBLY be my new co-worker because you are aware of the effect your accidental singing might have on the people around you!
My job consists of moving tiny volumes of liquids from one tube to another tube, precisely, hundreds of times, over and over and over. I just really need to concentrate is all!
Haha, it is also totally not possible that anyone would ever give me that job 🙂 The reason I am only a decent baker is because my philosophy is “eh, close enough”. Which is fine for soups and stews, but baking is science for hungry people, and does not tolerate my lackidasical nature.
Pro tip: the young bros of today do not know the words to Pretenders or Runaways songs. They will sing along to Queen but will fall into silence the second Joan Jett comes on.
JOAN JETT FIXES EVERYTHING
I had a male whistler today. Ugh bro, this is a library, be aware of yourself.
I once threatened to have a co-worker fired if he didn’t stop whistling near my desk. It was an empty threat and I’m not particularly proud of myself for it, but it happened.
Hello open thread! This reminds me, I’ve been meaning to go to the new Whitney, and this long weekend might be just the right weekend to do it.
Toasties, I have a milestone birthday is coming up next weekend, and — in lieu of trying to organize an activity or find a bar chill enough to hang out in with an unspecified number of people on a weekend evening — I’ve just decided to have a low-key “invite some friends to show up at my place between X and Y o’clock in the evening, and have refreshments on hand” thing. It’s been a while since I’ve hosted anything, but one of the things I want to do in my 40s (yes, it’s *that* milestone birthday) is invite friends over more often. Do any of you have any recommendations for easy food and drinks for entertaining? I’m considering making punch. Maybe even cheese straws.
Happy birthday! This sounds like such a good time!
I’m a big fan of the simple dip/spread surrounded by a platter of gorgeous crudités* (which look fancy but you can prep them the night before and just plunk on the tray before the party), some bread or crackers, and a big dish of olives or nuts or one of each. It’s predictable, but dang if it isn’t good, and they’re always picked bare at my parties. If you choose your dip carefully, this can also be a vegan-friendly platter without being all HI I AM A CONCESSION PRIZE FOR VEGANS. For that reason, if I’m also serving cheese (say, hummus, olives, crudités, chunked feta, pita), I put it in/on a separate dish nearby.
An enormous hit at the last party I catered: barely blanched and well-drained asparagus (though raw would probably work fine) wrapped in strips of prosciutto, sprinkled with parmesan, and broiled. By the time I got the second tray out of the oven, guests were hovering by the entrance to the room waiting to snatch them up; by the third tray, a few intrepid people infiltrated the kitchen to get at ’em. These are fiddly to prepare— not remotely difficult, but they take some time — and again, you can prepare them well ahead and just stick ’em in the oven when you’re ready to serve. Cutting the prosciutto into strips gives the dish balanced flavors as well as letting you stretch a splurgy ingredient.
Here are several party dishes — no recipes, just ideas, but they’re all pretty simple — that I made when I was injured and prepping a series of my own parties one-handed. That brown-sugar baked brie is a winner, and a nice change from the(also very good) pastry-wrapped brie I often see at parties; I also like to do baked brie with a fat splotch of jam on top and bake it ’til it’s molten.
*Taking even the smallest amount of trouble with vegetables makes them so much more appealing than most veg-and-dips are. I like to cut carrots into coins or ovals, not sticks, so they dip like a chip, and soak them overnight, then drain, so they’re very chilled and crispy. I blanch hard green veg like broccoli florets or green beans and asparagus, slice cucumbers into rounds, and dd grape tomatoes, whole or halved — even nicer if you can find a mixed assortment of tiny tomatoes.
Oh yum! This all sounds great, and I’m going to have to try that asparagus and prosciutto — if not for this party, then sometime soon. I was thinking prosciutto wrapped around figs, but this is the right time of year for asparagus. And baked brie would be lovely and easy.
God knows I could use a cocktail – a friend and coworker dropped dead in his garage yesterday, leaving a bereaved wife and 2 year old son. I had just written these lines yesterday without knowing:
I suspect death is like sleep
a constant forgetting of dreams
Walking shadow, step out of the light…
I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry to hear it, what a terrible shock for everyone.
I am so, so sorry.
Can I suggest a support group like http://www.bereavedfamilies.net/ (Ontario), for when your friend’s wife is ready for one? They do peer support, with people who have survived a sudden loss, and are especially helpful for young widows with kids.
OH OH
I met Jaya and Matt at TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival) earlier this month! They are delightful, and lovely. I introduced myself via the Toast and my fandom of Dad Magazine. They shook my hand because they are adults, and Jaya seemed very pleased when I said I read Uncommon Courtesy.
Also, Matt is … um … a handsome man. I’m going to run away now.
Polling the hive-mind:
What comes to mind when you think of the name Astrid?
could be as a baby name, could be as an adult — what are your associations? What is an Astrid like?
please let loose with whatever comes to mind! and thank you!
Fringe (the TV show)! and …Vikings?
I loved the moment when she met her double and freaked out. Red Astrid was so great.
Plus this Walter-Astrid exchange in the finale really got me.
“It’s a beautiful name.”
“What is?”
“Astrid.”
White Oleander
Ha! Coming here to post just that.
I have a second cousin named Astrid, I think she’s about 10 now. It’s a pretty Scandinavian name, which my family is (my great-grandmother, still living & 101 & awesome, immigrated from Norway as a child). My associations are Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking), Astrid Kircherr (the Beatles photographer/friend), and I think there’s an Astrid in How To Train Your Dragon. I think it’s a pretty cool name!
My best friend’s family farm’s foreign exchange labourer from our youth, who is lovely, tall, svelte, accented, gracious, and now married happily and I think living fancily in Montreal.
The mother of the family that lived across the street from me growing up was named Astrid, and her husband was named Thor, and they were both awesome people. (How could they not be, with those names?)
First thing, unfortunately, is a “The Office” episode, when Michael misunderstands and thinks Jan’s baby is named Astird.
But my second thought is Astrid Lindgren!
I, too, think of Pippi Longstocking. It is a name that sounds very Scandinavian.
Definitely Vikings. IIRC, Astrid was the Important Girl in How To Train Your Dragon?
Lindgren for me.
Smart, savvy, witty one liners. British?
swedish? Definitely blonde, potentially quite tall, probably likes hiking.
It doesn’t matter what a nice name it is, everyone will just assume (if this is about naming a baby) that you named her after How to Train Your Dragon. (I named my kid Gavin. I got the captain of the Love Boat, and the lead singer from Bush. Nobody cared that it was the closest my nerd-self could get to “Gawain”.)
My sister was named after a character in a popular play. It stopped being a popular play soon after she started speaking in sentences. No one recognizes her name as coming from a play.
Shannon Kilbourne’s dog (a Bernese mountain dog) from the Baby Sitter’s Club was named Astrid. Every time I hear the name I immediately think “Astrid of Grenvile” (the dog’s full name). But it was a very fancy fictional dog so the connotation is positive.
Beautiful starry night sky. Delicate small fuzzy pastel blossoms.
VIDEO GAME THREAD! Did someone already start it? I did ctrl + F to check but I had to start one because, look. Whichever one of you jerks talked about playing Oblivion last week. I thought to myself “Oh, Oblivion, I haven’t played that in years, Skyrim is so much better, maybe I’ll open Oblivion and replay a little bit during my free morning, just a little low-impact relaxation gaming, and I’ll put it right back down again before all the Oblivion gates open….”
AND 500 HOURS LATER I’m about to become the Arch-Mage and the Grey Fox so THANKS
my partner once attempted to become the archmage but she got herself so addicted to Oblivion Skooma (the hard shit–you know, the kind that robs you of intelligence points) that she actually reduced her intelligence to 0, thereby ruining her shot at mage glory. True story.
Also, in Oblivion, I was so bad at not accidentally killing rando characters that I ended up with a bounty so high I said FUCK IT and spent 900 days in Oblivion jail.
It may have been me! I was praising Oblivion last week. It’s so colorful! And you can make your own spells!
I have been playing… Pokemon Shuffle AND Pokemon Rumble on my 3DS on the train. I can’t quite stick to the mainline games even though I find them very charming, but the crazy-low stakes of Shuffle and Rumble are perfect for killing time during my commute.
Hi, this is a post in a hurry because, lacrosse practice.
We lost yesterday to the team we beat last week. oh well.
Large college son of mine helped work the clock at the game, though, and I have confirmed that he has just been being lazy. I am still worried that he’s screwing up and won’t be able to get his transfer class, but that is a screw up I can handle.
OTOH, he’s been at his dad’s for a week now, and the girlfriend has been crashing there, no worries. But who gets the call at 11 pm last night when she’s hysterical and basically had to move out in a hurry because her mom’s crazy and threatening to call the cops on her for not calling home overnight (yes, mom is that crazy, girl is almost 20, and her phone died). Mom extorted rent money out of girl, took away computer and ipad that girl paid for, threatened to call cops for no reason against girl, girl left and ran (with half her stuff and all her legal docs, this girl is smart) to my ex’s where her bf/my son was. Then the boy did NOT ask his father for help, but called me instead. I love the boy. Girl is pretty great too.
This poses problems because i expected girl to do this while son was at college and always assumed i would give girl boy’s empty room. With two younger siblings in the house, doing that now with boy home introduces talks/criticism I don’t need right now.
Hopefully older sibling who’s a doctor will help girl get her stuff and if not I’ll go to the cops and have them help us move her out. And put a spare bed in the only room big enough, mine.
ANyway. drama. mom worries. more after practice.
Wow, hope everything works out for girl. You are super nice to help her.
I met her when her mother showed up at my doorstep to swear at me because they (almost 16 year old boy, almost 17 year old girl) had admitted to having had sex, and it was all my son’s fault. Mom at that time pulled the girl out of school, and moved! Then girl left a note on my son’s locker one day when she came back to the school to accept an award in latin class, and somehow mom turned that into a mandatory week in locked psych ward for girl. Girl snuck out of the house while grounded TO CATCH THE SCHOOL BUS and mom turned her in to the cops for “running away”. Boy took girl to prom his jr, her sr. year, mom tracked them on the phone on prom night and mom’s boyfriend pulled my kid out of his car and threatened my son and I got a phone call from the cops when they stopped in a park.
Then girl got suicidal (go figure). She’s pretty amazing and she’s lived through a lot and we’ve worked on her getting her away from her abusive mom for years.
That is so amazing, it sounds like you are such a strong positive force in this girl’s life.
Wow, I just went out to dinner with my parents, and my mom wants to help me fix up a room for her. My mom is awesome.
I am so glad you are able to be there for her.
Hrm. I’d say, that since your son and his girlfriend are mostly staying at your ex’s ANYWAY, give girlfriend your son’s room, have his room officially be at your ex’s place.
That, or just make an arbitrary rule that once one graduates high school, one is eligible to have significant others sleep over, subject to approval. If they’re obviously sleeping in the same bed elsewhere, not sure what’s gained by arbitrarily preventing it at your place.
I can’t let son stay at dad’s all summer, his FAFSA is based on my address, and if I let son stay there, dad will screw around with his funding for college. Son knows this.
The only thing gained by not having them share a room is not having to have grandma and grandpa lecture me on what I’m encouraging the younger siblings to do, and keeping up appearances for younger siblings. Anything like that, even if their dad lets it happen at his house, dad will use against me if he can say I’m setting a bad example for the younger kids at my house. He’s an asshole like that.
For this weekend I don’t care where they are, as long as she gets her stuff from her mom’s before mom trashes it, and hopefully without police involvement.
Anything like that, even if their dad lets it happen at his house, dad will use against me if he can say I’m setting a bad example for the younger kids at my house. He’s an asshole like that.
Ugh. Gross. Sorry.
I’m going to Detroit! Late June/early July. Staying in a neighbourhood called Woodbridge. Key event is the DIA, but I’ll have 2-2.5 days, so Detroit Toasties, let me know your Thing I Should Do!
Breakfast, dinner, sandwiches, markets, fancy food stores, pastries, and housewares stores are of special interest, but anything else!
I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. I love the Motown Museum! It is small but very cool, I would suggest it if you have any interest in that era of music/history/pop culture. And the DIA is great so I am glad you are going there! It has been a while since I’ve gone so I’m not great on food recs unfortunately.
I have heard that Eastern Market is awesome. I haven’t had a chance to go yet, but it is on my to-do list! Other fun things to check out include The Heidelberg Project, Traffic Jam & Snug (restaurant), Green Dot Stables (restaurant), and Belle Isle. Enjoy!
if you’re going to be downtown, hit Greek Town. nommy nom nom noms! i’m especially fond of Placka’s. it’s a 24/7 diner that’s totally cray at 3 in the morning after all the clubs empty out.
i also dearly miss the Majestic on Woodward. it’s a bowling alley, bar, pizza joint, and music venue rolled into one. there are a couple of pool tables, too.
i second the suggestion for Belle Isle. there’s an aquarium and a flower garden and teeny tiny deer running amok.
Pregnancy thread! I had my first every charley horse last night and it woke me (and my husband) up out of a sound sleep. Well, my thrashing and gasping did, anyway.
We met with our doula for the first time yesterday. It was good! I felt weird talking so much about my first labor, since I never really processed it and feel a little silly to talk about “processing” labor, anyway.
How’s everyone else doing?
Oh, I’d forgotten about all the charley horses from pregnancy. I used to get them as a kid, then nothing until that pregnancy, and only like twice since. I used to keep a ceramic tile on the floor next to my bed b/c apparently standing on something cold makes it go away?
And my dr made me drink a lot of milk of magnesia to keep them at bay.
Charley horses are just weird.
We had to go to the hospital this weekend because I found a wee bit of spotting that turned out to be caused by the sex we’d had the previous night. So, awesome! (Baby is fine.)
At one point, the nurse leaned in at one point, “I have to ask you a really sensitive question…have you had sexual intercourse in the last 24 hours?” I responded, “Yes. Wait, why is that a sensitive question? OH! Because I might have said yes and he might have said no and then it would have come out that I was cheating on him and that might have caused issues?” I then realized that both my husband and the nurse were staring at me as though I had grown a second head. I genuinely could not think of any other reason why asking about sex would be sensitive — it was the maternity ward, after all!
The nurse later asked me privately if she had said the wrong thing, I explained that I couldn’t imagine the fact of having had sex being sensitive, and she agreed with me, “I just said to someone yesterday, if it wasn’t for sex we’d all be out of jobs!”
Also, in awesome news, we just found out that husband gets four weeks of paid parental leave! I realize that this is an insanely small amount of time, but it’s way better than our previous plan of him using every single day of sick and vacation leave all at once.
Hi Toastatrons, I have a gaming question:
My sisters are 11 and 13, and live across the country from me. I’d like to find a game that I can play with them long-distance. We’re none of us big gamers, but it would be fun to have something where we could interact a bit, since I don’t see them as much as I would like. I don’t really know where to start, or even what kind of game would be best–I could imagine anything from a MMOG to Words with Friends to poker. Anyone have a game they love?
If you all have iDevices, Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride might be fun, though you can’t really interact.
Which platform (computer, phone?) Is Minecraft still popular with kids? I don’t know. It can be a fun one to just build things and hang out in.
Most the phone games I can think of are turn based, so not really live interaction. Letterpress, Trivia Crack are like that.
I’m mildly fond of Scrabble on Facebook,. There’s a chat in the game where you can talk to the other players. When I play against my sister we use it to complain about our letters and each other’s grabbing of the triple word score and so on.
Is Minecraft still popular in that age group? You’d need to set up or pay for or join a server to all play together, but there can be a fair bit of interacting with the other players if you collaborate on building a house and a farm and whatever else. But it’s only really interactive if you’re online at the same time, I think. I like it better with a Skype call (or Hangouts or whatever), so you can talk to each other instead of having to type everything.
Thanks for all the great suggestions! They use a PC, so I probably would too.
I know a lot of people do Minecraft — people can set up their own servers so you can just talk to your sibs.
Diablo III. I know, it is so 5 minutes ago, but you can run a skype with a headset (get that set up first, then launch Diablo) and slaughter things while you do it! And then _they explode into treasure_ (and blood and guts, but probably fine for grade 6). The learning curve is appropriate and built into the game, as are breaks (for re-equipping and visits to town and stuff). The story-line is fine but irrelevant, and some of the characters are… problematic, but not so much so that I couldn’t ignore it for the sake of explode-y treasure.
And it is so absorbing that I actually broke my stove while playing it. That was not one of my finer moments.
In that same vein, I was going to suggest maybe Torchlight 2 which is a bit less BLOOD GOTHIC DEMONS BLARG BLARG (Diablo does actually have a decent amount of humor to it but it’s still the sort of thing that put me off of it initially) or maybe Marvel Heroes which is also a super fun Diablo-like but it depends on if they/you are into superheroes or not. Torchlight 2 costs a few bucks upfront but it’s something you can run on pretty much any computer and it can be entirely private to you guys. Marvel Heroes is free (you can pay money for more heroes or costumes and things) but it’s online-only and it is a pretty big game download-wise.
Some games also might just be fun by letting one person drive and the others point out what to do via just screensharing on Skype — this works pretty well for any sort of turn-based game (we used to do Civilization) or for RPGs (maybe Costume Quest or one of the older Final Fantasy games) or for adventure games (such as some of Telltale’s or Double Fine’s or even some of the old Lucasarts adventure games).
My family plays Trivia Pursuit via skype, which is fun.
Minecraft or Don’t Starve Together if they don’t mind a sort of Tim Burton/Edward Gorey type aesthetic.
My kid and his friends at college all skype each other while playing steam games. 11 year olds are REALLY into minecraft and another one just like it, i can’t think of it right now. Spore might be fun, it’s an evolution game. Can you interact with the Sims? Mario cart wars got my kids through middle school and they still have ds competitions with each other when they come home from college. Can you play rock band on the internet? Because my 11 year old and i had fun doing that the other day, and it got the recluse (otherwise known as a 14 year old boy) out of his room voluntarily to join us.
TOASTS! I totally missed out on the Open Thread primetime, but…
I GOT MARRIED! The wedding went so smoothly, in spite of some serious family tension the day before, my wife looked absolutely radiant, the pictures we’ve seen so far have been great (my BOSS almost cried looking at them today), and the honeymoon was beyond amazing (scuba diving, lots of reading in the sun, delicious food, etc.) I read so many books! I think I finished three (Americanah, Station Eleven, and my childhood favorite Redwall), and got a good chunk of the way through Bad Feminist.
I missed The Toast, but not so much that I wouldn’t immediately trade internet/cell access and my favorite websites for more diving and laying on the beach. I hope all has been well for the rest of you, and that all of the planning is going smoothly for the other soon-to-be-married Toasties!
Congratulations! Way to go getting past the family tension & right into the awesome radiance and beach time.
Congrats! That all sounds amazing!
WHAT how wonderful! Best wishes to you both, and how sweet to hear it all went so well. You deserve every happiness.
I made carbonara last night.
I make carbonara a lot actually but last night I fucking nailed it, I love when I do that. I’m a good cook but do so almost entirely by estimation so some things are less consistent than they should be despite how often I make them.
I love making carbonara. it’s awesome when you nail things even when you’re already good at them. carbonara is delicious. I hate the peas though, I don’t use peas, I use broccoli.
Carbonara with broc or kale is delicious and so easy!
I haven’t had time to read that one yet!!! I’m glad it’s just as awe-inspiring as the others.
That is the coolest age for a kid to be at! My nephew is just a little older than her and it’s amazing to be at the point where you can have a real interaction and genuinely communicate, beyond “you sleepy? hungry?”
My nephew was also nervous to let go and start really walking, and he ended up doing it in the CUTEST way; my brother and SIL went to visit a friend of theirs with a baby that’s the same age, and she had started walking really early. . .and she kept seeing nephew holding on to things for support, and coming over and batting his hand away! He started for real walking about two days later; she basically shamed him into walking. That’s not a suggestion though, just a cute story. She’ll get there!
This open post idea is interesting. I believe I will try it. The salad in the picture looks very nice. I would have one of those, and feel like I was participating, except I don’t have any. So I will have cookies and beer instead. Sound the kazoos! Songs will be sung of this day.
I’m going to work in 10 minutes and it’s almost bearable. I don’t go with a heavy heart and horribly sore feet. I’ve also been taken down to 4.5s for 5 days a week, and although I really like the money I was getting, my health is loving the crappy hours. I also started a tumblr with this name, but I’ve yet to journal this journey.
OH MY GOD I can’t believe I forgot to post about the MISANDRY SOCKS I got last week!!!
From Blue Q, they have tons of other ones with swears including a “fuck this shit” pair I got for my husband.
I haven’t spent much time posting here since a recent-ish delurking, so I am not sure if this is party-crashing or what, but… zomg y’all.
I am moving to Austin with partner, baby, and two cats week after next. The house lease still has not been approved and we have already lost out on one place because we were too late on the app and another because of my credit score, so I am worried. I have a billion things to do, including getting packing supplies and, you know, packing.
And yet of all the things, I cried my eyes out today because I had to write the post telling my World of Warcraft guild I was giving up leadership and raiding because the time difference was just going to be too much. And really, there were some complicated reasons beyond that which I did not explain but… so much feels, y’all. So much feels.
Another mover! There’s a moving thread above started by @noodge4lyfe that I have been finding comforting. Mostly because so many people are in the same boat re the moving/packing/hassle shuffle. Best of luck in finding a place!
And yeah, it’s weird what things bring up the feelings. It’s so hard moving out of the familiar and into the unknown.
Welcome to Austin! (well, soon anyways). I hope you like rain, as we seem to be getting a lot this year. Fingers crossed on your lease- is there an area you’re looking at specifically? The rental market is way goofy here (just, generally, but also this time of year). Worst case you could probably find a sublet in the university area- people should be getting desperate since graduation is this weekend…
My kid finally paid attention for “The Princess Bride”!
Omg, I just finished reading her most recent one less than an hour ago!
Warrington!!!!
(This was supposed to be a response to something in the fanfic thread. My apologies!)
Toasties! I’m in Georgetown/Charleston for two days and Huntington Beach State Park for 3 days! What to do when I’m not at the beach? Where to eat raw seafood? How do I get a job around here so I can never leave the ocean?
Also, did we ever figure out the reason for, if media tropes exist to maintain the status quo, marriage is both seen as inevitable and miserable?
I may be a bit late in here, but seriously interested in Toasty feedback re: dude in my garage.
My apartment building has a parking garage adjacent, for which I have a permit. I work nights, and seem to be the only one who is ever in the garage when I get home at 4:00 AM save for a homeless dude who sleeps in a corner there. I can’t not drive right by him and wake him up when I get in. Usually we just ignore each other, but tonight he said “hi”. What would you do? A) greet homeless dude, or B) hurry along? My thoughts go thusly:
A) Homeless dude is likely just a dude who is homeless. What harm in being polite or friendly? He probably gets treated like a human being precious little and it might make his day.
B) This could possibly get scary. Apartment building has pass codes to open doors, but no live security or anything. Dude knows I come home alone every night. Dude might notknow I live alone, but it would be super easy for him to follow me into my building if he decided to be creepy, and nobody could help me.
A) I have made a habit of scoffing at those who say women should live in fear! I always walked home from college alone at night, after all. Why allow the media coverage of rape, assault, and murder in my hometown to cause me to avoid human interaction?
B) Seriously, there is kind of a disturbing amount of rape in my hometown. Even understanding that most of it is not done by strangers, maybe play it safe?
A) Hey, maybe stranger danger is why homeless dude is here instead of where most homeless dudes congregate. Wasn’t there a stabbing over there recently? I’ve seen this dude fingerpainting. Maybe he’s less scary and more scared.
B) We have shelters in this town. Quite a few. One a short walk away. Why does he not stay there? I fear what strange answer this might have!
Anyway, brain goes in circles. Toasties, your thoughts?
I would go for “hi” because he’s a person who is low on human connection and I’ve never had a negative experience with a homeless person, as opposed to white old well-off men and white boys my age and etc. Solidarity of second class citizens I guess?
You aren’t obligated to give everyone a chance, but maybe look at why. Are you having instinctive feelings of creepiness, or just creeped out in general? Sometimes people just feel guilty when they see someone who is worse off, so they try to block them out. And that’s not fair or helpful.
(Remember the end of Scrooge? If you see someone who needs help, say hello to them, make them a sandwich, we can make every day like Christmas if you are not afraid to be compassionate?)
” I’ve never had a negative experience with a homeless person”
I have, but it was because of an ex-husband (white boy roughly my age) who was a manipulative and somewhat abusive bastard anyway. Unfortunately, it took me a couple of years to wise up. When I refused to take him back and support him again he ended up homeless and hanging out with other homeless dudes but still kept hanging around wanting me to take him back. This is where some negative experiences came in. None of this the fault of the dude in the garage, of course, but sometimes these mental associations from our past still hang around and haunt us even if we don’t want them to.
I like your thought process. It’s thorough and compassionate and shows humility. I support any decision you come to. I think you’re safe to return his greeting. I think you are correct if you choose to limit contact for your own safety. I trust your instincts. In fact, I want to be more like you.
This.
Two other points: 1) Stabbings (and theft) is probably why this guy doesn’t go to a shelter. 2) If it’s an apartment building other people are around, so you’re safer than if you lived in a house alone and he lived in your garage.
I’d go with saying hi right back. As shartbreaker said, the homeless are deprived of human connection and it would probably make his day. He’s a neighbour and you’re right, fingerpainting doesn’t sound scary.
I think you are appropriately cautions and also seem to be a good amount of compassionate. I think if you’re always mindful of the reality that many marginalized people develop coping strategies and survival skills that do not always lend themselves to healthy interactions, you’ll probably be fine (i.e., don’t let yourself be manipulated into doing anything you don’t want to do like letting him into take a shower or giving him rides somewhere – not because he’s a bad person who manipulates people but because he’s had to learn how to wring everything he can out of a uncaring world).
Thanks so much for the sweet replies, everybody! Will totally say “hi” back next time. (Last night it was when I was almost out of earshot already so I shamefully just pretended I didn’t hear. I had previously said “gesundheit” when he sneezed, though, so didn’t totally ignore the dude.)
IRELAND!!!!!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First time ever gay marriage has been legalized by popular vote!!!!!!!!!! I hope they’re very proud of themselves, they should be.
Woo hoo!!!!!
Sometimes I get so full up with resentment against spoiled manchildren who expect normal humans to be porn fantasies that I want to scream and tear my hair out. I can process all this anger, and I don’t know how to let go of it.