Summer is the time for fruit! Preferably stuck into batter and sugar and slathered with butter and later maple syrup and/or sweetened condensed milk. The Bartender obviously prefers the latter. What sweetness are you looking forward to this weekend? Open thread!
Tags: cocktail hour, open thread, the bartender is in
EXCELLENT THINGS
– I have finally succeeded in styling my hair into a braid crown and I look cute as heck. (Next step is figuring out how to secure the bobby pins in such a way that they won’t be so visible.)
– I saw a little wild bunny outside the mall yesterday, just hanging out and eating a leaf.
– I am reading a spy thriller which a former coworker thoughtfully “donated” to our library, which in this case means that they cleaned out their office on their last day, found a bunch of useless old books, and thought we would want them for some reason. (This is a small govt agency library and the scope of our collection is obviously restricted to the field that the agency works in.) This book is SO TERRIBLE that it goes right back around to being completely amazing. It has it all: a cast of thousands (and of course all the male characters have a chiseled jaw, a steely gaze, a brow that was hewn from granite by God Himself, etc.), shadowy government figures, aliens, a wealth of cultural stereotypes (“Olga was a bit overweight, but in Mother Russia this was not considered a disadvantage”), characters who start speaking German out of the blue (this is educational, so far I have learned how to say “monkey ass,” “deception” and “lick my dick”). It’s all so absurd that reading it fills me with pure happiness. This is my favourite passage so far.
– Tomorrow we’re off for 3 weeks in Switzerland and the Czech Republic! I am SUPER PSYCHED. I’ve been planning this trip since last fall and counting down the days since February when I bought the tickets. We will have many adventures!
LESS EXCELLENT THINGS
– We have to do a bunch of last-minute housework tonight so that our lovely pet-sitter won’t think we are complete slobs.
– On top of being SUPER PSYCHED I am also queasy. I always get psychosomatic-sick the day before and the morning of a trip because I am a very nervous flyer. (Although the first instance of pre-trip-nausea I remember was the night before a long bus expedition, so maybe it’s a more general anxiety thing.) I’ll think to myself, “We are going to have such a great time!” and then this malevolent imp in my brain goes, “Or maybe we’ll die!” I have the very reassuring ICAO 2014 air safety report open, my purse is loaded up with Ativan, I know everything will be fine, but… you can’t reason with anxiety.
– three weeks without the hot homoerotic mess that is Hannibal
– I will miss all of you! (On the bright side, catching up with 3 weeks’ worth of The Toast will help me avoid doing actual work upon my return.)
(Once again, if anyone wants postcards, you can send me your address at arbors.and.ardors at gmail. There are several Toasties who can vouch that I do indeed send postcards and not, like, trained assassins.)
Your braid crown looks fantastic! I’m eagerly awaiting the day when my hair grows out long enough for me to do braid crowns again! Also, I’m so jealous of your trip, that sounds awesome!
OH MY GOD THAT PASSAGE. There are no words. SCREW ROGER MOORE AND MICHAEL CAINE. Oh my god I am so delighted right now by the sheer absurdity. Thank you for sharing that, and excuse me while I go hunt down a copy!
Seconded! Oh that was amazing.
Thirded! I love passages that read as absurd humour when they definitely aren’t intended as such.
Also, winterbymorning, have a wonderful trip!
YESS JOIN THE RANKS OF THE BRAID-CROWNED. (I have an ungodly amount of hair and I wear it in a braid crown every day, it’s lovely.) For the bobby pins, I’d look into getting some matte-brown ones? They’re way less visible when they’re not shiny.
I had a chin-length bob for most of my adult life and now that I’ve grown my hair out I am trying to figure out things to do with it. It’s really fun (but occasionally frustrating).
I’ll keep an eye out for matte brown bobby pins. I’ve only seen matte black and shiny copper so far, and I went for the copper because it’s the closest match to my hair colour.
I had to get mine online – bobby pins are not a priority for most people anymore, alas. These are the ones I use, but from the picture it looks like your hair is finer than mine, and those pins might be too heavy.
Your hair looks great!
Bobby pins can be scratchy when the protective tips fall off. There are French tortoiseshell-colored plastic hairpins (they also come in black and clear) which may work for you, depending on how slippery your hair is. Starting the style with something structural to fasten into firmly like a French braid or herringboned base can make it more secure, if it is prone to slippage.
The ideal for this style (IMO) is trailing wisps yes, but hair firmly anchored so it doesn’t slither down by itself when the head moves!
… what if I want a trained assassin/spy/international art/jewel thief instead of a post card?
I once grew my hair out specifically so I could do a braid crown, managed to do it exactly once (lopsidedly), felt terribly accomplished even though it was wonky, and then made an appointment to get my hair hacked my hair off to a much more reasonable, short, length.
Safe travels!
Wishing you calm and serenity for your flights. I like to carry/clutch a small stuffed teddy bear. Not only does it comfort me, it signals to others that I am struggling so that they may be supportive and/or avoid calling on me for adult-level chores. ::tiny stuffed-bear hugs::
The teddy bear is a good idea! I have a penguin travel pillow that could fill that role.
Oh, by the way, shop for hair accessories in Europe. Pro tip!
Hair! Bunny! Booooook! You are kicking ass today ๐
…Can I borrow that book when you’re done? It looks AMAZEBALLS.
I used to have very long Marcia Brady hair. If your hair is as baby-fine as mine, I recommend shopping for *children’s* hair accessories. That’s where I found bobby pins with the slightly tacky sleeves. They were the only ones that did not slip out.
You do indeed look cute as heck! And that passage from the spy thriller is amazing. Is it all like that?
Enjoy the holiday! Where in the Czech Republic are you going? I went to Prague a few years ago and really loved it. (And sympathy on the pre-travel nausea. My brother routinely gets stomach issues before a flight, despite not being a particularly nervous flier; plane travel is just stressful. I hope yours is all as straightforward as possible.)
Target now makes half-length bobby pins! They are WONDERFUL.
Friends I have discovered that I am getting a new supervisor at work, and i am anxious about this, because my previous supervisor was very good.
If it comes to fisticuffs, you will get fired for sure.
Yeah, I got a good union, but it’s not THAT good.
Still, if there’s anything I want on my tombstone, it’s definitely, “He went out roundhousing punk suckers”, so.
Stick a fat pugilistic cherub on top of that stone, make sure more visitors to the graveyard come over to read it and pay homage.
Possible inspiration:
Yes, it’s wearying, just thinking about all the effort a new supervisor requires as you train them to be a competent manager. Or at least a manager who communicates clearly then gets the fuck out of the way. Good luck, braak.
I tried to just politely decline having a supervisor at all, but the district administrator did not accept this.
All the sympathy.
My school has a new principal, and I’m VERY ANXIOUS, mostly because the previous principal was a giant pile of garbage in a trenchcoat pretending to be a human being, which caused over 1/4 of the staff to quit.
We have got similar problems from opposite ends of the spectrum, and that just goes to show that when it comes to anxiety we’re all the same.
Here, my Toasties, is a partial list of replies I have made on OKCupid in the past week:
-You are seventeen years older than the max age I am looking for.
-You are more than twice my age.
-Nothing about my profile gives the indication that I enjoy sucking dick.
-Note that my “I am looking for” section only requests people ages 18-22 who are NOT straight couples looking for a threesome.
-Your text-to-speech program must be amazing if you read my profile without eyes. I don’t want a threesome and I’ve asked that straight couples keep away.
-You’re right, that *does* make you sound like an ignorant fuckboy.
-You know that messaging random women on a dating site about your Big Important Man Problems is a surefire way to make sure none of them date you, right?
You should definitely send some of those to one of the OKC/dating/etc blogs on tumblr! Like okcreepsters, or perennial favorite, straightwhiteboystexting, lol.
Friday cats!
An older picture for you today. Please ignore the built up cat fluff on the stairs. Fucking beige carpets.
Dolly showing off her fluff and flexibility
It was too bright the other day for a nap so she had to cover her eyes with her paw. Life is rough for a cat.
MT agrees. Life is tough.
There is nothing more adorable than cats hiding their eyes.
Cats who forget to pull their tongues all the way back in. (Possibly a toss-up.)
Mine never do that! We get a lot of face-hiding though.
Kismet’s new thing is jumping on me the second I hit the snooze button and demanding cuddles until my alarm goes off again. It’s adorable.
FLOOF.
That is a brilliant picture. I see no catfluff. :blind to it after all these years:
Mine have mostly been upside down this week. Saffron lies on her back when she wants me to go and pay her attention, and Captain is dieting (again) so starts writhing round on his back yelling at me every day, 3/4 hour before dinner time.
TUMMIES!
My tabby has a fluffy, rosy, spotted belly just like yours! So cute!
I have three cats, but Kit was being extra adorable this week so here, have some pics of Miss Floof.
FOOT FLUFF.
Ugh I want to share kitty photos but Instagram changed again and I can’t get an image URL very easily. Will keep trying…
View page source, and then CTRL+F to search for “.jpg”. It’ll bring you right to the image URL! ๐
Ah ha, thanks. I used to inspect the element and was able to get it from there, but now they’ve obfuscated the URL in that area.
Action cats!
Here are two cats that are definitely not fighting, if that is what you are thinking.
Thanks to burningupasun I can now post creepy kitties:
I also took some photos of this big kitty (and more) at the zoo:
“I see dead people”
KITTENS! They really enjoy getting me up at 4:30 am so they can walk on my head and cuddle in 5 second bursts.
This is Impurrator Furiosa Pye, or Pye.
And this is Capt. Cat-thryn Janeway. She goes by Janie.
Here they are trying to drink my friend’s water from a mug.
oh, those goofballs!
Tia, on the other hand, is a VICIOUS KILLER.
This is mine enjoying a cooler day in the garden…
Foster kitty Alf going to town on some cat grass:
I’m gonna go buy some cat grass now…
I am a regular lurker here but I did post a while ago about potentially adopting a kitty. Well I did it! This is Squeaky Charlie. She just turned one, has a very squeaky meow that is sometimes constant and really likes ice cubes.
(hopefully these pictures work…)
oh god so cute
Oh gosh, she’s adorable! I love her white eyebrow hairs.
She looks rather like my Asa Gray, they should form a grey tux lady cat club!
She’s a beauty! I love her little stripe. Grey Tux Lady Cat Club sounds like an awesome plan.
I would like to share that I went on a first date, and, in the course of conversation, told the gent that I had purchased a new Roomba to replace my old busted one. “So you’re excited about …. cleaning?”
I told him, tersely, that I was excited about ROBOTS. 0/10, would not recommend this bro. Cleaning, indeed. Bah.
WAY TO MISS THE POINT, DUDE
Also, yisss. Robots.
i just scoffed at my laptop screen. the whole point of a roomba is that it’s a robot that does the cleaning for you!
the WHOLE POINT of a Roomba is 1. you get your own robot and 2. you DON’T CLEAN, the ROBOT CLEANS. Dude!
The point is indeed the robot, and the fact that I can turn it on, put up my feet, drink wine, and go “Ahhh, thank you, Robie the Robot.”
I named my roomba Rollo. Otherwise exactly this.
oh my god I would never date a man who was not excited about my growing robot army. I currently have a roomba, a coffee robot, and a litter box robot. I want more robots.
<picks up coffee cup and raises eyebrows> Go on….
It’s a jura capresso. You turn it on and push a button and it grinds and brews coffee in 60 seconds (no pods or weird shit, just coffee).
What robot would you have if money/reality were not barriers?
Daily housecleaning robot that wipes down counters and folds up blankets and recycles junk mail etc etc for sure. You?
Omg, crumb-free counters forever. That’s the dream!
Counter roomba! It would be just a smaller, wet wipe-equiped version of its floor friend.
Is there a wet version that cleans up kitchen floor messes (like food spills, and squished blueberries?)
There’s the Scooba, which is also an iRobot product that mops, and then there are other products that are basically mechanized Swiffers – they have little washable pads that attach to the underside, one wet, one dry, and it scoots around and gets all the dirt. I’m not sure how they’d be in the scrubbing department, though.
I have two of that version. Kitchen messes are cleaned up within seconds of hitting the floor. Their veterinary bills are sobering, but their cuddliness and loyalty more than make up for the expense.
“NO PODS OR WEIRD SHIT” I love this, put it on my tombstone.
I saw a grill roomba at a trade show. It has brushes on its feet, and it just zips around your gas grill, scrubbing it clean.
NB: almost nobody has a large enough grill to need this. It’s purely a “look at my cleaning robot” item.
And you know what, even if you WERE excited about cleaning, eff him for scoffing at you! Cleaning can be bloody exciting for the right person or someone in a certain frame of mind, and doing it well/finding ways to do it better and more efficiently can take a lot of thought and ingenuity. I have no patience for people who pooh-pooh others’ genuine excitement/passions. It’s just like, why? You don’t have to be excited about it too but don’t burst someone else’s bubble just cause you don’t think it’s worth being excited about.
Plus – a potential partner who likes cleaning? How would this be a negative? Men who will clean my house for me should by all means include that in their selling points. I will cook you delicious food and fix anything that breaks around the house, you will take care of as much cleaning as makes this an equitable split of labor, and we shall live in blissful love until the day that robots render men obsolete.
It reminds me of the old joke:
A man at a bar suggestively tells a woman he will do anything she wants if she can limit herself to three words. The woman thinks for a bit, then says, “Clean. My. House.”
I enjoy being in a clean space, but I am deeply lazy, so I get incredibly excited about ways to clean more effectively with less work.
What did you name your Roomba? Mine is named Charlie in honor of a guy that owned the bar I used to go to after work. Sometimes I give him a vodka tonic that I put on a coaster on him in memoriam.
His name is Robie! Robie the Robot. I am going to try to rig up some little LED lights on my new one. My old one (Robie Sr., I guess) has a fried sensor, and once I get my hands on a soldering iron, I am going to try to fix him. If I manage to do so, I intend to rig him up to a portable speaker. Thus, my robots will play music and flashing lights and basically throw me a rave while they clean.
That’s a dangerous path to go down though. After that you get a third roomba to mount a bubble blower, then a fourth for a smoke machine. Next thing you know you have a small army of roombas delivering drinks and molly and the cleanest apartment in the tri-state area.
…dangerous? I think you mean “awesome.”
Roomba Fight!
(Youtube video)
They would also deliver glasses of water alongside the MDMA. We run safe robot raves around my house, missy.
I thought that my raving days were over, but I would bust out ye olde phat pants for this event. (Who am I kidding, I would never fit into them)(they were comfy though.)
#Bestlife right there.
If I souped up a roomba with speakers, I’d want it to make space ship noises while it worked and chirp, “Danger, Will Robinson!” intermittently.
SOMEBODY WHO IS BETTER AT POSTING GIFS THAN ME PLEASE FIND DJ ROOMBA FROM PARKS AND REC. Thank you.
I love you.
I was just rueing my laziness and being on the phone and being late to this thread because I wanted to add j
DJ Roomba and HERE IT IS. Necessary addition to excellent house cleaning robot thread.
Tidy Von Slurpage
Robbie Nemo.
I had a Neato named Rosie (from the Jetsons) until the cat hair killed it ๐
If I can put on my Hermione Granger hat for a moment, have you done a minor disassemble and then tackled it with a can of compressed air? I resuscitated my old one at least four or five times (and cat/human hair was the issue for me, too). Two key items to help are an ice cube tray (for the tiny screws) and a magnetized screwdriver. I haven’t worked on a Neato, but it helped with my Roomba!
Yes, we thought Mr. Slurpage was toast until my husband did some robot surgery and discovered he was just choking on copious amounts of my hair.
I know that Mr. Thuja took Rosie apart a number of times to remove hair from her innards. However, the amount of repair time vs. the amount of time it took to refill with hair became less than ideal. Rosie is still in the basement and we are considering donating her to anyone who might want to build fighting cleaning robots.
Arthur! I was mistakenly under the impression that he was an R4.
Does anyone with a Roomba put googly eyes on it? That’s what I would do. And tell people it’s my pet.
ETA: A Google Image search on “Roombas with googly eyes” turned up many, many results– e.g.:
Aw! It’s so cute. I wonder if I did this whether my baby would stop being scared of my Roomba? I suspect not. It’s a non-human thing that moves on its own and makes unpredictable movements. She’s even scared by it when it’s not moving so we had to move it to a hidden corner of the room. Poor little monkey.
I am going to be moving and one of the things which is an unstated-but-present criteria is Roomba-friendliness of new space. If I cannot buy a cocktail robot, and I can’t have a self-chauffeured car yet, then I want the cleaning robot.
A window cleaning robot would also be good. I like clean windows but hate washing them.
I have good news for you: http://www.amazon.com/WINBOT-W730-Cleaning-Framel…
Thank you.
And thank Bezos for BUY IT NOW.
Hey Toast, my week at work (my last two months really) has been awful. To try to end the week on a positive note, would you share with me your successes, no matter how large or small, so that I can congratulate you on them? Brag as much as you want. Or just tell me how great the ice cream cone you got last night was.
um coming here to brag about my book going on presale (On the Edges of Vision – the one that Nicole kindly mentioned the other day) but mostly also to say BAD WORK IS AWFUL and I just had to quit a job that was driving me up the wall with stress. I have a new job with nicer colleagues now and hope you get through this!
Congratulations on your book! I googled and saw your Kickstarter & have set a reminder to myself to back. A book tour would be incredibly cool!
Aw thank you so much! If you are in or near a tour city on that list do come and see me read (if you like readings obvi) and say hello!! Sausagedog is such a great handle btw.
If you have any open-to-the-public, outside-of-working-hours events in Boston, I will definitely attend!
I’m going to be in Boston! Currently working on where, but it’ll be an evening thing on the 26th of August probably. I’m also being interviewed for Mr Bear’s Violet Hour Saloon on Boston Free Radio on the 25th. If you haven’t listened to her, I can totally recommend the podcasts of the live show. Lots of cool writers paired with indie music choices.
I successfully adapted a favorite recipe to the slow cooker so I did not have to turn on the oven! Yum!
That is really timely. We’ve had a couple cooler days this week but on Monday I was really regretting my lack of slow-cooker ownership. What’s the recipe for?
Vegetarian chilaquiles. It’s basically a layer of tortilla chips (better if they are a little stale), topped with some enchilada sauce, a layer of veggie burger crumbles, a layer of scrambled tofu with peppers and onions and chili powder (dried chilies, cumin, oregano, coriander, dried garlic and onion, some salt), then another layer of enchilada sauce and veggie crumbles, then CHEESE SO MUCH CHEESE. It came out great in the slow cooker — I made the sauce more watery, put some in the bottom under the chips, and added the cheese at the end. Cooked on low for about 4-5 hours, then left on warm for a while because we had to go to Urgent Care for Spouse’s broken finger, so you know it’ll hold a while!
We have a restaurant close to us that makes delicious chilaquiles, I’ll have to try making it at home too! The slow cooker is a great idea.
THIS SOUNDS AMAZING
Thanks! It was originally based on a recipe in a cookbook from vegan Philly restaurant Horizons, which has since closed down. I added the cheese and made the enchilada sauce my own based on my unhealthy love of cumin ๐
That sounds so good, omg. I love making vegetarian Tex Mex. And what a perfect comfort food to come home to after an Urgent Care visit– I hope Spouse is feeling better!
Well I had a dragging sort of week so that’s not much help, BUT I did get the first paycheck that contained the rate for my new position (I got promoted), which was nice!
Also, I got some sesame sticks last night that were AMAZING.
Paychecks assuage all kinds of weeks. Congratulations on t he promotion!
And by sesame sticks, do you mean those little crunchy brown guys that always come in too-small quantities in trail mix? Those things are the *best*
Thanks!!
YES! Nature’s Promise sells them in a bag, JUST the sesame sticks, no unnecessary trail mix! I am officially addicted to them.
It’s a minor victory, but I had a nasty situation at work and I didn’t melt down over it. I have a bad track record, but I used my well-cultivated bag of psychological trickery on myself and I think it’s all gonna be fine. (Sending you good vibes, too.)
Hey, not melting down is totally a victory. I hope it does turn out fine and that you can use the weekend to decompress
I think I finally think my legs look great! I don’t know if they look really different, I’ve been walking more but not that intensely, but I feel good about them! And I NEVER HAVE BEFORE, not my whole life. And nobody else — family, friends, strangers, suitors — has said anything about my legs.
So even if nothing has changed physically, I feel proud that I can feel good about my body, independently. It is possible. I am checking myself out in the elevator, so.
Hooray for feeling good about your body!
Yess!! Work those stems. I cannot see them from here but I’m sure they look great. It’s still too dang hot for tights, but maybe this fall you can get some fun colored/sparkly/galaxy/lace ones to show off?
Yassssss maybe I’ll sneak an elevator photo one time
That is HUGE. Congratulations!
I bought a pint of cotton candy ice cream last night, and it was delicious!
Are there any small successes you can glean from your terribad week so I can congratulate you on them too? ๐
Cotton candy ice cream instantly makes me think of Baskin Robbins, when I was a kid. Wow! I bet it was delicious.
I have questions about the texture of this – was it all wispy and delicious? Or kind of harder and sugary-crunchy?
It was interesting! It’s Ben and Jerry’s brand, but is exclusive to Wal-Mart. It’s a nice sweet cream base with little clumps of cotton candy in it, which when you chew them dissolve into little sugar sprinkles and it’s just SO DANG NICE.
!!! That sounds good!
OMG I just remembered a dream I had about ice cream last night.
TELL ME PLZ
It honestly was just a dream about having a big carton of chocolate-peanut butter ice cream all to myself.
Cotton candy ice cream sounds like one of those things that could be great, but I’d be too scared to try. Did you top it with anything? Is it blue or pink?
My terribad week has actually had a lot of small successes but ones that I fought so long and bitterly for that I’m just exhausted by them rather than happy. But there is a *hard stop* on this project next Friday so I can see the silver lining!
It was neither blue nor pink, it was white! With multicolor cotton candy bits inside! Very sweet, very lovely.
And hooray on the end of the project! Sometimes, all you want is for your dumb project to be over. I can totally understand and appreciate that.
I fixed my garbage disposal last week! I have a tendency to turn a blind eye to household problems because I’m the least handy person ever and it fills me with panic. But it got to the point where my sink wasn’t draining at all and my mom didn’t have her phone on so I couldn’t ask her what to do. So I steeled myself, looked up the problem on Youtube, grabbed an Allen wrench and fuckin’ FIXED IT MYSELF. (It was like…the most common problem and simplest solution ever, but still!)
It is rad to fix plumbing by yourself! Great job! And garbage disposals might be simple but they are still scary, so you get extra points for being brave.
I felt very proud when I disassembled and reassembled a sink drain to unclog it for the first time, and now it’s a handy skill I keep in my back pocket. I can’t solve every problem, but darn it, if my hairy roommate clogs the sink, I can fix it!
I fixed my dryer last month! I took it apart and greased it, replaced a belt, and now it isn’t squeaky anymore. Feels great to fix stuff!
To quote my 2-year-old self “I do it myself!”
Last Saturday was my daughter’s birthday, and I made a peach pie for the first time. It was so good that my daughter actually teared-up. Whenever I try new things, I get anxiety, and it actually took me 5 hours to make it because I had to obsess over every step! So making this successfully was gratifying.
The recipe is from Taste of Home:
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/peach-pie
And peaches are on-sale at the grocery market, so I will be making the pie again next week.
Tears of joy over baked goods? I think that is a pretty dang awesome win right there!
Hmm, IntenseDebate seems to have eaten my reply? I guess it was hungry for peach pastry. Anyways– congratulations on the pie, that sounds fantastic, and happy birthday to your daughter! I am glad she has someone to bake her excellent peach things on her anniversary of birth.
And I just made a loaf of banana bread, so Casa Ella is apparently all about the fruit. ๐
I wrote a Beowulf/Uptown Funk mashup in the Link Round Up today, and I’m inordinately proud of it, especially since I have been out of school for decades and had to dust off some corners of the brain to remember some phrases.
Edit: Also, thank you for giving me a chance to boast, that felt very nice actually.
That was awesome!ย & thank you for bestowing it on the Toast!ย You clearly remember more of Beowulf than I do, maybe I should re-read to make sure I didn’t missย any good jokes. Still very funny with my hazy remembrance, though.
today is day# 37 of Not Smoking. 2 serious meltdowns so far but no actual relapses. my partner has been kind and patient and supportive and stern, each in turn as needed.
(i’d been a heeeeavy smoker for a long time and quit 9 years ago. for some stupid fucking reason i picked it up again about 6 months ago.)
You’ve made it over a month so far and that is a great thing. I’m glad you have a supportive partner, & I’m sending you internet good vibes as you need them. Thank you for sharing your strength!
Congratulations, quitting smoking is HARD! I’m glad you have someone who is supportive, and just remember that every day without a smoke is a victory.
Ugh, awful work is awful, I’m so sorry for you. My great success this week was avoiding depression by walking two miles to downtown and lounging about in bookstores and cafes all day long. (And I didn’t even hurt myself! Which is kind of a thing, I have a bad foot and I keep re-injuring it, but this time I’m fine!)
Oh I am sometimes awful about injuring my feet by walking farther than I need to, I totally get that. I’m glad self-care worked for you, bookstore/cafe lounging is the best when you can do it. Maybe I can do the same this weekend to help shake off the tension from the week!
I made an awesome “partysaurus” cake for Mr. Thuja’s birthday, after getting the cake pan his mom used to make him cakes for most of his childhood.
omg skillz
If I ever do it again, I’m using the larger star tip, no matter what the instructions say. Those tiny stars took ages.
Mr Thuja is a lucky man!!
I make sure to remind him of this on the regular.
Oh wow did you really pipe each one of those little stars? You have the patience of a saint and the steady hands of a surgeon. So cute! And I love the color choices.
WOW you are my hero!
I coded my first app! It is just a little sime practice app, but I’m a super newbie to coding so I’m just thrilled to make something that kinda works and doesn’t crash!
Such a satisfying feeling, isn’t it? Well done! And don’t sell yourself short, everyone has to start somewhere ๐
I went on a family trip and managed to stay in a town about half an hour away from the rest of the family without offending them. Major victory for self-care! If anyone has particular anxiety about family trips, I can’t recommend highly enough having your own car and your own accommodations if that’s an option you can make work.
That is truly awesome. Family diplomacy is quite possibly the most difficult, delicate kind of diplomacy, so hearty congratulations on making it work!
Thanks! I have some health problems that are aggravated by travel, so it was especially exciting to be able to prioritize taking care of them. It’s been (excellently) bewildering coming back from a trip and not having any major fallout to deal with, either in health or in family politics!
It wasn’t a cone, but I had an ice cream bar that was ice cream cake flavored and coated with those chocolate bits that ice cream cakes have.
Those chocolate bits are so good, what even are those?
whoa, that sounds amazing!
It is! It’s by Friendly’s. They had “Ice Cream Cake” as a limited time flavor that you could get in cartons last year, but I guess this year they are just doing the bars.
This success has some backstory: So, at my girl scout camp, we have this story that we tell/perform at every end-of-week campfire. It’s either the counselors or counselors-in-training (CITs) who perform it. When I was a CIT II, we did an excellent performance of it and went all-out with costumes and everything, and I got to be the villain. I had a staff, I stroked my imaginary goatee, it was great. All throughout my four summers as an employee, I volunteered for being in the story as much as possible, and as often as I could, I would be the villain.
Last night was the alumni reunion dinner at camp, and a friend from my CIT group and I were discussing the story. We are both die-hard camp traditionalists. She’d made an illustrated version of the story as a gift for another counselor. And she told me, “Oh, and I based my illustration of the villain on your portrayal of him.”
I am SO HAPPY about this. SO HAPPY.
That’s so cute, and it’s also really wonderful that the camp has alumni reunions like that. A+ villaining!
It’s so nice of you to reply to all of our successes! Thanks for doing that. ๐
I have such happy memories of Girl Scout camp, go you for giving more girls those memories!
I was heartbroken, literally crying, recently when I found out my camp had been sold and is no longer where hometown girls go to camp.
I’m so, so sorry! I’m sending you a lot of hugs over the internet.
I was supposed to spend the weekend sitting poolside with my mother drinking cocktails and reading (and occasionally wandering out for food/shopping), but that has been put on hold because the puppy may have MRSA again (it’s been a bad summer for the family, health-wise).
SO I am seeking things to do with my now open weekend. Otherwise I will probably sit on my couch and watch Netflix/read Bellarke fanfic all weekend and I really don’t want to do that for the third weekend in a row…
I didn’t know puppies could get MRSA. ๐ I wish her speedy healing.
Do you like cooking/baking? Perhaps try a new recipe and then eat all of it without having to share! Or find a hilarious/inspiring craft project on pinterest and try it out.
i ate two cartons of blueberries this week, so…i agree.
toasties: who else has read/been reading ta-nehisi coates’ between the world and me this week? i just finished it this morning, and feel like i’ve been knocked over the head. i’m not sure i can say anything more articulate than that at the moment, but i want to hear your thoughts!
Finished it earlier this week, devouring the whole thing in about a 48 hour period here. Could not stop reading it. “Knocked over the head” is really a good expression for how I felt afterwards. The whole experience is such a painful, heartfelt gut-punch, albeit one with some of the most beautiful prose you’ll ever read. It also feels like the exact right book for the moment, given all of the shit that continues to go down every week. It makes me angry beyond words that so many on the right (and even on the left) would dismiss him out of hand as “that dude who hates whites”. A big sarcastic yay for both a massive lack of reading comprehension and perfect example of some of the book’s points.
For those that have finished, I’d be very curious to hear their opinions on the very last portion of the book, which ties the “Dreamers” from US white supremacy to a much larger theme of the destruction of the planet / global warming. It was an unexpected turn for me, but the more I think about it, the more resonant it seems, generalizing to the tendency of humanity to build its “utopia” on the bones of others in a state of willful ignorance and a lack of empathy. The older I get, the more I agree with Coates’ lack of belief in the inevitability of justice.
having just finished it about…an hour ago, my thoughts haven’t really settled, but essentially: yes.
i was also thrown by the global warming tangent so late in the book, but it makes sense. both in specific terms (white flight, suburbia, infrastructure being built on cheap labor, etc) and in general terms (building a dream by terrible means with eyes willfully closed). it may have seemed kind of sudden, but i’m not sure if it could have fit elsewhere in the book.
I have it in my possession and hope to have a few hours to start reading this weekend. I’ve read so many favorable reviews from friends and professional critics that I’m really getting antsy to see what he has to say!
I listened to the audiobook in one evening. I think what I appreciate the most about TNC and why I originally starting reading his columns is the sheer rigor of interrogating why you think what you think and not letting the reader off the hook for actually taking apart whatever mythology and assumption they have. It makes the idiotic replies more galling though because they are so intellectually lazy and it’s like gah! did we even read (or listen to) the same book??!?
Almost exactly four months ago I wrote in Cocktail Hour about how my partner of five years left me without warning or explanation. I was really broken up, Toasties gave me wonderful advice and support, and I’ve been moving on. I wasn’t entirely over it yet, but definitely on the cusp.
…can you guess what happened? Can you? He wants to get back together.
I have a lot of confused feelings right now. Chief among them is probably, “Well, yeah, sure, but what’s in it for me?” Which doesn’t sound very nice, but for real. I’m not a novel he can stick a bookmark in and forget under a stack of junk mail until he’s ready to read it again. It seems like he should have to put a little more effort into regaining my trust than just offering himself up like a prize. Am I a horrible person? Argh.
Um, NO, you are not a horrible person. You are a perfectly reasonable person looking to protect herself from further hurt, and from the direct source.
I’m not against people getting back together, even if one party was left very unceremoniously, but the approach is very important, and it is VERY important that it be acknowledged that trust has to be built up. There is also no rush, at all. There is zero reason to proceed any faster than you feel is okay or what you can deal with.
I think other Toasties would have more insightful stuff to say, especially from experience, but I just want to voice my support for you.
It sounds like you have your shit correct, IMO.
NO, you are not-a-doormat. Your life doesn’t just go on hold while he sorts out his feeilngs – bollocks to him. He has his chance, he fucked it up, he’s put you through misery and stress, you are absolutely 100% right to think ‘what’s in it for me’.
I am rageful on your behalf.
You are completely reasonable, the dude doesn’t deserve immediate trust, and I admire your self-preservation instincts.
You’re not a horrible person at all – you sound like a thoughtful person who values yourself. That’s not an easy thing to do. Be on Team CM Stone – I know we all are.
you are not a horrible person! follow your gut feeling on this. it is spot on.
No, you’re not terrible. If he left without explanation, he’d better provide some pretty damn good explanations before even thinking about asking you to get back together with him. There needs to be something in this for both of you.
DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT (pauses for breath)
this is not the time for “nice.” This is the time for strength and loving yourself and learning how to get along without him. You are not a horrible person.
That is a dude who doesn’t know himself, and doesn’t know what he wants.
Fuck that dude.
Or don’t!
Metaphorically.
Just wanted to chime in that I went something similar a few years ago (relationship of 4.5 years abruptly ended, he wanted me back about a year later). I turned him down because I couldn’t trust him again after putting me through emotional hell.
So yeah, I feel you.
You’re not a horrible person. You’re a human being with feelings. If he understood that, he wouldn’t have dropped out of your life without any apparent reason.
If I had to guess he just realized that whatever it was he was freaking out about had pretty much nothing to do with you. Which is great news for your self esteem! But it also means your presence or absence in his life isn’t going to fix whatever his issues are, and the bad news is unless he’s been in therapy round the clock for the past 4 months he probably he hasn’t figured his thing out yet, and also he blamed your relationship for his thing when he left you and ugh….
Here’s the question I’d ask in terms of what’s in it for you, if you get back with him do you have to give up on or pause your plans for your life? In the last 4 months did you make some plans independent of him? Would there be new costs to getting back together? Does it take time away from something? Etc? I have no idea if you are a pro marriage person, but when my 4.5 year relationship ended, I realized I never wanted to be with someone at this age that would need that long to decide if we should share our lives. How long of being back together would it take for you to trust him again? That’s a sunk cost if it doesn’t work out, so if you lose the 4 months, then it’s another 5 months before you trust him, then 3 months of breaking up again, that’s a year of getting over him and meeting a hot new guy he eats up, or traveling alone through europe reflecting poetically. What is that time worth to you? Being alone with no prospects on the horizon is actually about 100% closer to being in a great relationship than being WITH someone who isn’t great to you, because then you are available.
So is he worth it? That’s not for anyone else to decide, its a harsh math. When I was 26, one more year to figure it out, whatever. At 31? I’d be like, fuck it you got 5 good years already, I’m done, I’ve got like 4-6 more years to get knocked up before I’d prefer to adopt, so this time is not for goofing around.
if it were me…and it was me except that I did get an explanation, and he never did come crawling back…I would entertain taking him back if and only if he can articulate to you why he did it, in a way that doesn’t crush you, and if he can make a convincing presentation of why it will be safe for you to trust him not to do it again in another five years. (the crucial part). he must understand that it is for him to figure out a way to prove that he is trustworthy and not for you to figure it out for him and give directions.
then again if you like giving directions, that’s another angle. I personally worked out a whole complex set of heroic tasks that my ex would have had to perform to win me back, starting with taking me to one of the world’s great Ice Hotels (there is one in Quebec, one in Sweden, I think – one is rebuilt every year with blocks of ice hewn from glaciers or something and the other is so far in the frozen north that it never melts. you sleep on great ice mountains covered with bear pelts and drink vodka out of ice glasses from the ice bar.) this would have been perfect because he hates and fears the cold.
so, that’s a secondary suggestion, think of a great feat he can perform to justify his worth. steal the ice hotel idea if it appeals to you
On my phone, so summary: this is textbook hoovering, as in, the vacuuming sucking attempt to pull you back in. I, for one, would not give the time of day to anybody who took 4 months to decide they missed me. You are nobody’s backup plan.
Urg, ouch! Nope, you are not horrible in the slightest. He left without warning or explanation? Now THAT is fucking horrible. Someone who respects and cares about you does NOT treat you so carelessly. If he wants to respect and care about you now, he’s got a lot of mileage to put in.
For what it’s worth, when something similar happened to me it was a good 7-8 months before I felt certain that I wouldn’t take him back if he ever asked (he didn’t). Previous to that I was still in grieving/untangling mode and although my logic brain hated his guts, I was still emotionally attached to him and the idea of us in some way or another. Having processed all that almost two years later, I am SO GRATEFUL he never came back. Maybe we would’ve been happy, but it would have been a long, tough slog getting there and on the other side, I am definitely happy now without him! There’s really no right or wrong decision here, each situation is so personal but please don’t beat yourself up, he ain’t automatically a prize. He needs to prove himself here.
In lieu of direct response allow me to tell a story.
Seven years ago, I sat in a grad school seminar and one of my classmates burst into tears. None of us knew each other well, but it was a small private group and she felt comfortable explaining that her partner of six years had left abruptly, suddenly, without warning, although they were starting to talk again and she didn’t know what to do. Instead of going around the table to provide feedback on her seminar paper, we went around the table to provide feedback on her life. The other ladies said soothing words about how they were sure the two of them would work through it and love would prevail.
When it was my turn, I said “Why would you take back someone who thinks it is an acceptable and logical thing to leave your whole life together without talking to you about it or telling you where he’d gone? Why would you take back someone childish enough to upend your whole world and then change his mind a little while later?” (I was younger then and a little more brusque than I would be now.)
Reader, seven years later we are still best friends and she is happily married to a different, kinder man and expecting their first child.
GOOD FOR YOU. I’m so glad you said what you needed to be said. I’m so happy for your friend!
DON’T DO IT.
This is a very typical guy response! You are the safe option, and comfortable, and easy, and he knows how to jerk you around. So much easier than dealing with anyone new. Do not get back together! Do not meet for lunch or coffee! Do not offer “closure!”
You are a charming and delightful human being and you do not owe him anything: it’s over.
Block him, delete him, rub him out of your rollcall and drum him out of your dreams.
Your comment demonstrates mature understanding and healthy self-care. You are a very fine person.
If he were worth taking back, worthy of you, the content of his abject apology, the description of how you deserved so much better, and the explanation of plans to make it up to you would have left you without need to wonder what’s in it for you.
If you are tempted to take him back, do *not* agree to any requirement of effort or sacrifice from you. It’s *all* on him. And words are not enough. You wait for observable behaviors to prove his sincerity.
I trust your judgment and I will support any decision you make. But I admit I’m hoping you tell him to go fuck himself and never to contact you again. IMO, he is not worthy of you.
Doesn’t it feel great to have the power to say “no” to him now? Unless there’s just something amazing about him that makes it all worth it (which seems unlikely), you should probably take ahold of that power and enjoy it ๐
Team CM Stone, reporting in!
I agree with everyone else – this guy has behaved very badly. You recognized that and want to protect yourself from further hurt! YAY YOU! Let this loser get on with his life without you – there’s a much better partner out there for you.
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
Because seriously, you might be.
This guy sounds shady as fuck and like he does not really realize you are a human person with feelings and needs independent of his. I am very mad at him on your behalf.
I am seconding, thirding, whatever, what all the other Toasties have said. You do *not* have to take him back. You do not have to accept his reasons, or make any excuses for him.
also, <3
add me to Team NoNoNoNoNo. i give a strong side-eye to the idea of reconciliation, especially in a case like this where one party just drops it with no explanation. i could never trust someone like that again. nopenopenope.
Am I a horrible person? Argh.
NOPE NOPE NOPE
“Well, yeah, sure, but what’s in it for me?” is a reeeeeeeally good question to ask yourself. Someone hurt you badly, you rebuilt your life without his help or consideration, and now he wants back in with no explanation or offer to work on regaining your trust and affection?
Even if it feels a little rough to phrase it so baldly, “What’s in it for me” is the most important question for you to ask yourself, because from your description, it sounds like the answer is “Nothing but more heartache.”
I’m not a novel he can stick a bookmark in and forget under a stack of junk mail until he’s ready to read it again
DING DING DING. Applause to you!
Don’t do it! Whatever you do, do not take him back. It will not be better. He only is interested because you are not, because you seem unattainable. Continue being unattainable. For real, and not as a ploy to get him back.
Things I have overheard my coworkers saying the past week:
– I caught the tail end of a conversation about another coworker who – you better sit down for this one – does not shave her armpits. “I could never. I have to wax or I feel like a dirty hippie.” “But like… do you think she knows she has hair there…?” “These women, like, not only do they have body hair, but they’re dyeing it fluorescent pink.”
– A rant about how young women these days are wearing “clown makeup.”
– On how unfair it is that the Confederate flag has been getting so much negative press lately: “The Southern United States wasn’t any more into slavery than any other country in the world. It’s just that they lost the war so everybody thinks it’s okay to pick on them.”
– “Well, maybe we should stop sending aid to Africa!” (Same person as above.)
– On how certain people allegedly don’t respect the office’s no-perfume policy: “I was outside on a smoke break earlier, and this woman was spraying perfume on, and I was like, oh my god that is so inconsiderate!”
But wouldn’t it be the best if young women these days REALLY WERE wearing clown makeup?
I wonder if that coworker of mine knows about Juggalos.
hey i have an idea for your next casual friday
can you guess it
can you
This week my mother referred to the fact that I stopped wearing any makeup last year โ I was never a makeup person, but in my college years I used to wear powder/eyeliner/mascara and since then it was eyeliner/mascara and then mascara and then nothing, mostly from laziness โ as “when you went through your ‘down with the patriarchy’ phase and stopped wearing makeup”. It was not meant kindly.
Down with the patriarchy isn’t a phase, it’s an ambition!
My “down with the patriarchy phase” shows no signs of ending, and I am very happy about that.
Do you think they heard something about clown contouring and extrapolated? That is what I wish to believe.
Bless your heart for sharing that.
Maybe I should dye my armpit hair! Fun!
*gasp* Good heavens, Reginald, fetch the smelling salts and wax! I suddenly seem to have sprouted hair… down there!
“do you think she knows she has hair there” no. she injured her neck as a child and hasn’t been able to turn her head to the right or left since then. She hasn’t seen her armpits in 15 years.
Oh man. Oh man. To add to the collection, I have:
– “Teachers are just all so bad these days.”
– “Doctors are good for nothing these days.”
– “Asia needs to sort out their feminism problem, yeah?”
Coming to this a little late, but I believe any sentence containing the phrase “these days” or equivalent is statistically likely to be garbage.
“The way girls dress these days, it just doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, right?”
“I don’t know, these days you have to be all PC and stuff.”
“Of course these days, there are all these ‘alternative lifestyles’…”
GARBAGE! GARBAGE EVERYWHERE!
God, that Confederate flag one is SO TEMPTING, like, here, sit down by me and let me talk to you about various slavery systems and how chattel slavery as practiced in the US was different from slave systems elsewhere and let’s also talk about the patchwork of abolitionist strategies and laws and wait, where are you going? Why don’t you want to be my friend anymore? I HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO TELL YOU COME BACK.
Also do you work in hell? Just curious because it sounds like hell.
Yesterday I had a conversation with my coworker in which he told me:
– a few days ago there was a woman in the store he was in with blue hair and four kids and the kids ran around a lot and one was wearing what looked like maybe pajamas, all of which he found “bizarre”
– that such “bizarre” sights were the reason he and his friends used to go to Walmart to people watch late on Friday nights when they were in university
– he finds unnatural hair colours and asymmetrical haircuts on non-teen women to be very offputting, and figures they must not realize that men like him would find such things offputting.
All I could think about is how he must be the dullest man in the world that such things are so upsetting and astonishing to him. Also, that I really wish I had blue hair again like I did in my early 20s.
Oh, and then he complained for a while that Facebook didn’t automatically realize that people he had friended with the same last name as him were his relatives and that he had to manually designate them as “Family” for that tag to work.
See, I always thought that unnatural hair colors and asymmetrical haircuts being offputting to men like that was part of the appeal. It’s like how poisonous frogs will be bright colors to scare off predators.
FEAR MY BLUE HAIR. RUN FROM ME.
Honestly, if it would make him stop talking to me I think I’d be willing to go back to the hassle of bleaching/dying it constantly again.
Seriously. Guys make online screeds against women with short hair never seem to realize that one of the benefits of having short hair is it keeps guys like them away!
“Dude, it’s not a bug. It’s a FEATURE.”
I lurk in r/makeupaddiction and there have been a few posts about “how do men feel about colourful makeup?” and “if I wear super bright lipstick, will this be off-putting to guys?”
I’m married, so the point is mostly moot, but the kind of guy who would be put off by my bright lipstick is not the kind of guy I want approaching me in the first place.
when i hear dudes get their knickers all in a twist about something as trivial as hair color, all i can think is, “it must be a big, scary world out there for you”.
I like your attitude. But intensedebate allows me only one Thumbs Up.
oh, the Toast. a place where people LIKE my attitude <3
My poor 12 year old, puberty-avoidant daughter was in the pool making fun of her brother’s armpit hair when he pointed hers out. She asked for a shaving lesson. Only made it through one armpit. Later we discussed the armpit dye option. Son maintained armpit hair is gross on both sexes. Daughter was silent in shock. They did appreciate the argument that, if people
are going to call what grows naturally gross, then firing back with antagonistic color statements might be a valid response, if you were the confrontational type.
A+ parenting
Not that anyone should offer an unsolicited opinion about your parenting… but anyway, you are inspiring to me. ๐
Thank you!!
This is coming from a place where the nuns tried to not allow me to walk across the stage at graduation because I had (gasp, horrors) shaved the back of my head under the edge of my bob haircut. I was never allowed to dye my hair the bright cherry red I always wanted or I’d get kicked out of school. When I decided I wanted to go purple, my baby sister said I was copying her and my advisor pointed out that it was something of a 40-something divorced women trope, so I’ve gone copper instead. My inner riot-grrl is always finding ways to come out.
Sigh! My workplace can get so incredibly ignorant, and often racist. I’m always overhearing, but not actually directly in the conversation, and I haven’t had the balls to say anything to them. It’s a small office, and it’s just so easy to imagine my work life getting even worse through social isolation or retaliation. ๐
It really weighs on me, though, when I realize I should have said something, and once again, I didn’t.
Luckily I have one ally here, so we can vent together. But sigh…..
This is why I don’t make small talk with my coworkers. I’d rather be the “weird” one who keeps to herself than subject myself to that.
They should tell her she has hair there! I bet it’s all just because she never realised, and will be so grateful for the heads-up.
Game-playing Toastrons: WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING THIS WEEKEND?
I’m traveling for vacation this weekend, so no videogames for me. BUT. I got really drunk last night and, on the way home, started ranking BioWare boyfriends with my husband as unwilling audience!
Top BioWare boyfriend (yaaaay!):
Bottom BioWare boyfriend (boooo!):
Feel free to give your own rankings, or to include BioWare girlfriends too! Or to not do so, but man, you’re missing out!
Garrus is always my top Bioware boyfriend. Like, in ME1 they thought I WOULDN’T want to fuck a metallic space-bird with a sexy voice? What is wrong with you, Bioware? Thank you for giving him to me in two, Bioware.
I have noticed I tend to prefer Bioware’s male LI to their female ones. I think it’s because they are less willing to give women the ’emotionally traumatised but hiding it under snark and/or duty, deeply conflicted and morally uncertain, with a sexy voice’ thing that I like.
Except with Isabela. Rrrow.
Haha, I was going to say “But Isabela!”, but there you go.
Agreed on BioWare being willing to go to more interesting places with their male LIs than their female ones. You can see that in what happens to the ME2 love interests in ME3. For the men, one dies, and the other cheats on you (and the third is Garrus :3). For the women, they’re all really happy to see you and want to kiss you. To a certain extent, I can’t blame BioWare, given that fandom loooooves to hate on female characters for faults they’ll forgive in male ones (see: Sera is racist and abusive, but Solas is a perfect boyfriend).
BioWare’s male LIs also got a lot better once they stopped going to the whole “dead wife or gf” well (see: Carth, Kaidan, Thane too but he gets a dispensation for the sexiest voice eveerrrrrrr).
You make a good point that the female LIs are less… tumultuous. But I, a cishet lady, still choose to lady LIs. Samantha Traynor is probably my favorite. She’s such a nerd but she is also really, really sensual and confident! And the shower scene!
To say nothing of her Citadel game championship!
Aw, I love Traynor too. I love ALL of the Mass Effect characters! (Even you, Jacob and Ashley.)
Isabela is the best, but also in DA2 you basically had the romantic options of Isabela or one of three walking red flags.
I mean, I have also romanced Anders, the reddest flag, so.
Oh GOD.
I HAVE A TYPE.
Fuck it, I loved the Anders romance. It’s so tortured and toxic. He gradually seduced my pro-Templar Aggressive Duderogue Hawke with his wily apostate ways, and they had angry makeouts, and in the end Hawke supported the mages for him and they ran away together. It’s so poorly considered, and so sexy! ~*~Bad Decisions~*~
Oh, I have too. (I romance everybody!) But the whole “drown this city in a river of blood” conversation really is the BIGGEST RED FLAG in the world.
I loved the Andersmance! It had so much potential for tragedy and it made good on all of them! My poor pro-circle self loathing mage had to stab him with the murder knife. THE DEVASTATION (emotionally and literally because then we didn’t have a healer for the last battle and it didn’t go very well.). ๐
Totally romanced Anders. I regret nothing. That first kiss is worth it.
Or, if you’re me, Isabela AND one of the three walking red flags.
I really wish Bioware had more nonmonogamous romances like Isabella and Kelly Chambers. Isabela doesn’t care if you start seeing someone else, she’ll just start dating Fenris. Kelly just has a heart full of love.
Isabella + Zevran + [some protagonist*] = Yes.
*In my case it was my manmage Faux Hawke, but so many options.
For my very first ME playthrough I romanced Liara the first game and switched to Garrus for two and three, but I like to imagine (and the way Liara stays a very close friend it can kind of be read that way) that in fact they’re a polyamorous V.
But yeah seriously, if I’m going to violate Space Navy protocol against relationships with my crewmates/underlings, I might as well go all out with it.
I honestly think Garrus’d be cool with that (and we know that Liara’s cool with polyamory from ME1). He respects Liara too, and he’d do anything to make Shepard happy and to make things work out well (after lots of research). Basically, I picture the Garrus relationship as being like the Flight of the Conchords song “If You’re Into It”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0
I pre-ordered the latest Starcraft 2 expansion and so got into the beta, and have been playing a bit with my friend (I pretty much only like to play on a team).
I recently busted out Dragon Age Origins just so I could be reunited with my first BioWare Boyfriend, Alistair. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
Alistair is number 2 on the list, and it was a very difficult choice. (My first BWBF too!)
See, the nice thing about The Toast is that I completely respect the difficult choice you made.
*A sober and considered nod.*
Alistair! *heart eyes* So bumbling, so sweet, so romantical!
Miiiiiight be working on a new fic just because I miss him so much. Maybe. Possibly. Totally.
Hooray! I’m already looking forward to it.
I’ve been spending the last week trying to mentally figure out how I could do a Varric/Cassandra Leverage AU. If I can make it work, and up my writing game, I think it could be awesome.
I did not watch leverage but I would definitely be down to read that. ๐
I asked my boyfriend (the Bioware player in this relationship) to tell me if that was accurate, and his description of Alistair made me clasp my hands together and yelp with glee.
I hated Alistair because he stressed me out SO MUCH because I could never find any way to make him happy. And then I went to Orzammar and spent like 20 hours there and never played Origins again.
I’m playing Dark Souls for the first time right now. I’m at the spider lady boss right now. Apparently it starts to get real interesting after that.
Man, I wish Dark Souls agreed with me at all. I’ve tried to start it ~3 times, and have only made it part of the way through the Undead Burg because quitting in frustration. I wish I could keep playing – it seems so cool!
I typically don’t do this for most games, but you just have to watch the youtube tip videos that show you how to get the good swords early on and how to dodge the boss attacks.
I’m gonna finish up ME2 this weekend and start ME3 (for the *fifth* time, this time romancing Samara, as best I can). It still hasn’t gotten old. ๐ As for Bioware significant others, here’s a ranked list of everyone I’ve romanced so far:
1: Liara (SPACE WIFE FOREVER)
2: Garrus
3: Thane
4: Samantha
5: Kaidan
6: Jacob (This game was so unfair to you, but that doesn’t change the fact that I find you so bland)
Honorable mention: Samara, whose romance arc I’m not done with yet (It’s makes me SO SAD but it also makes so much sense. D: )
Aww, Samara. I like that the Citadel DLC finally gave her a tiny bit of closure re: romance.
I think I’m going to one day start a new playthrough just so I can romance Liara all the way through and do the thing right this time. I romanced her in my very first ME playthrough ever, but when I got to ME2 she seemed so cold (didn’t do the kissy greeting with me for some reason) and so I romanced Garrus AND Thane. (After I defeated the collectors, for some reason Garrus went back to his “are we crazy to do this” conversation prompt and I actually said yes, then somehow triggered Thane’s romance scene.) In 3, I was all set to win back Liara but Thane was dying and then Liara said “Shepard, I know you’re back in Thane” and wouldn’t flirt with me anymore.
In my second full playthrough, my broShep dated Ashley in 1 and Miranda in 2. In 3, I was planning to go back to Ashley but got was locked in with Liara just by answering one of her questions as Paragon. I didn’t mind, exactly, but Liara deserves better. Her character is so interesting and she’s so important to Shepherd that I just don’t feel right yanking her around like that.
I acidentally romanced Liara in ME1 and I’m still not sure how it happened – might have been a bug – no romance scene in ME1 or anything, but she greeted my Shepard by snogging her in ME2 DLC. It was with my asshole Shepard though, so she ditched her for Garrus with no regrets.
Haaah, oh man, that’s the weirdest bug. I guess Garrus had a VERY different idea of what “this” meant! Work on your human sex research, dude!
Wait, you can romance Samara?? Time for another play-through!
I’ve started playing Alphabear and Hotel Story. I really want to start curating the craziest after pictures from alphabear, I’ve gotten some really good ones.
Bioware boyfriends
Top: Alistair, no real contest there! (Except maybe Fenris….)
I am currently system-less, but I have played this all the way through about five times so far and it just gets funnier and funnier. Escape From The Man Sized Cabinet, it’s a text-based adventure game created by Stephen Colbert.
http://colbertlateshow.com/escape-from-the-man-si…
Oh man, I LOVED that Colbert Twine game!
I never actually finished doing the Garrus romance (and now no longer have a 360 so I will have to wait on some sort of ME collection release). My annoyance with him during missions tends to carry over. “I told you to stay BEHIND THE BOX, GARRUS, WHY ARE YOU STANDING ON TOP OF IT YOU STUPID BIRD.” I think the game counted me as having a Liara romance although I didn’t really do that on purpose. I really wanted to date Tali, and held out hope all the way until the end of ME3, but that did not pan out. The one dude I actually tried to romance was James, at that was the ONE TIME the game was like “uh, Shepard, you shouldn’t date your subordinates.”
I dated Cullen in DAI because he was just So. Cute.
This week I finally caught up to where I was in my original Last of Us save that got eaten when my first PS4 died, which turned out to be all of like 30 minutes from the end, so I finished that. I also beat Never Alone and picked up Transistor, which was on sale this week. Aside from that, it’s been a lot of “practicing how now to be an asshole DPS” in FFXIV. I’ve never really played an MMO before so I learned that there are strict rules on how this all works due to some pointed comments in the party chat. Whoops.
My relationship with Garrus: “Garrus, why are you standing over the hole in the 2nd floor. Garrus, how are you standing over the hole in the 2nd floor. Wait, nevermind, TRY TAKING COVER GODDAMNIT!” Also he kept switching off of his sniper rifle, I got you the fancy rifle for a reason Garrus!
Yeah, pretty much. Once I replayed the game as an Infiltrator and realized that it was my One True Class, I started leaving Garrus at home most of the time.
JAMES.
So muscley. So cocky. So bro. Yet so irresistible.
I also wanted to romance him, but I was worried that would mess up my chances with Garrus, so I didn’t. I just pined from afar. Call me Lola again! I like it when you do that.
Garrus + Jack = Team “How The Fuck Does Cover Work?”
I broke out Fallout 3 which I can’t remember how to play. I somehow left the vault with no money and no weapons, so I’m pretty sure my poor character is gonna die out there.
I finished Dishonored, which has my heart. Oh I love it so, so much. I want the sequel NOOOWWWW.
Bioware People:
1) …Fenris. Uh. I blame fanfiction for this one. So many red flags, don’t care. 2) Garrus. 3) Isabela 4) JOSIE! (I paired her up with my Knight In Shining Armour qunari and it’s the BEST!) 5) I haven’t played as ManQuisitor yet, but I’m gonna put Cassandra here anyway because I love her. <3
Also, in terms of what I’m playing I am replaying fallout 3 and fallout nv in preperation for 4 and yet again wishing their were romance options as (see my previous types) I would kind of like to make Veronica or Boone love me. Also Fawkes, because apparently ‘lacks primary and secondary sexual characteristics, has no sex drive, is massive and green’ won’t stop me. And Harkness is the sweetest little android ever and I will not let anyone hurt him.
Nor a lot of the people on AO3, it seems.
And I’m sorta hoping there is at least marriage in fallout 4, if not full on romance subplots, because just on the little I’ve seen I am INTO Preston Garvey.
Ah well, if there isn’t, I’ll just have to write fanfic, won’t I.
Ungh, why isn’t Boone romance-able??? Silly Obsidian. He and my Courier went on some great dates shooting Legion dudes together. Anything to make him smile!
I JUST WANT TO FIX HIS SELF-HATE WITH MY VAGINA
PRECISELY
I always treated poor Fawkes as walking luggage. Boone I would have liked to have gotten to know, but alas, he clipped into the scenery at one point in FONV and never came out, pretty much ruining my game progress.
I just started my hojillionth playthrough of Baldur’s Gate (via the Expanded Edition on Steam). The dude romance options definitely still blow in that game ๐
News has just come that Fallout 4 companions are potentially romancable.
This has increased the time I will live solely for this game by at least 2 weeks.
Awwwww crap. Really? I’m in real fucking danger here, then. (I mean, more than before.) (Like, the moment they showed off the personal stronghold furniture crafting mechanic, I was doomed.) (Oh fuck.)
Fenris is probably my top Bioware boyfriend. I giggle every time the wall slamming happens! And he’s s… broody.
My least-favourite Bioware boyfriend is probably Blackwall. I dumped him the third time he asked me to and smooched Josephine instead and never looked back. He’s just not my type of character!
I got a ps4 a week ago and I’ve managed to stick to one inquisitor since then (amazingly)
Meet Ruckus Cadash!
(I hope I did the height/width adjustment correctly)
He is very socially anxious and does not want to be here. Right now he is trapped a year in the future and this is the worst thing that has ever happened to him, which is saying a lot. He has a hopeless crush on Cassandra but mostly he just wants to leave.
Blackwall is a consistently disappointing boyfriend for many reasons, but I do like him with a nice Dom-ish lady qunari girlfriend. He needs a firm guiding hand, shall we say, hehe.
Hey, you managed to get his beard looking pretty good! Nice job! As for Ruckus’ prospects with Cassandra:
Yeah my dwarf templar was too nice for him.
This is the look of a dwarf who has just been hit by the sledgehammer of love and you cannot tell me differently.
Foster Dog Update!
Roxanne is still with us. We thought that maybe a couple here in Austin would take her but Roxanne chased their cat around their small apartment, so it did not work out. Now, though, we have an application from someone in North Carolina. He put in his application asking for Roxanne. If all goes well with his home visit, it seems that Roxanne will go to him. Fingers crossed.
Good luck Roxanne!
Ooh, I love these updates! Good luck on finding your forever home, Roxy!
Have you arranged transport? I volunteer to drive Roxanne to NC. rmcd1974 at hot mail dot com
The rescue group we belong to uses Freedom Train to transport the animals. If this goes through, I might be able to put up the info for volunteering with them. Thanks for the offer of help!
Yes, do share my contact info for transporting dogs. I love to drive. And I love dogs. And l have lots of experience with rescue dogs.
Happy Friday, Toasties! After having not heard anything from the museum I interviewed with the first week of this month (and prepping to send them an e-mail next Monday to check to see whatโs up), I finally heard back from them! Unfortunately it was just a quick check in to let me know their process is running slower than expected because itโs summer and people are on vacation, but I appreciate that they took the time to touch base with me. They also said that I was one of their top choices and they hoped I was still interested in the job, so Iโm thinking thatโs a good sign! When I interviewed they definitely already had a start date in mind, and Iโm hoping that if they offer me the position they can be a bit flexible with that. Iโll have to move across the country, and I would want to leave my current position right (2 weeks notice and all that). Trying to squeeze that into like 2-3 weeks would not be ideal for me!
Of course that is a good sign! They wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. (And of course they should understand that if they ran the decision all the way to their start date it would change any candidate’s logistics, and if they didn’t it would be a bad sign about working for them.)
Oh, glad I caught this!
Online dating thread!
There’s not much, except I’ve been feeling a little more blue the past week or so. I’m not worried — the normal ebb and flow. I’m yelling more about babies (see Link Roundup).
I’ve been supporting my friends a little more in their dating ventures, and doling out advice which one of my friends said has been very good and she really appreciated it, which boosted me greatly! But it suddenly made me feel a little lonelier. Not that my friends aren’t warmly supportive, but I’ve gotten much of the most insightful stuff from other sources I’ve sought on my own, like my therapist, online advice like Captain Awkward, and Toasties (so much gratitude and love for you all!).
Anyway, share your stories — progress reports, sit reps!
My dude (who has been around for a bit now but was found on OKC so I’m still counting him amongst the online dating folks) gave me a Rad American Women A-Z children’s book this week because he saw it in a store and thought I would love it (he is correct on that count, and he also thinks it’s awesome). He’s a good dude.
!!! I would LOVE to get a children’s book as a present. I have a small but lovely collection, and Rad American Women A-Z sounds like a stellar one.
I AM GOING TO LOOK AT HOT AIR BALLOONS WITH THE GUY I’VE BEEN SEEING TONIGHT AND I AM ALL CAPS EXCITED ABOUT THAT!
You may have seen my yelling on the internets before. Oh man, I fucking love hot air balloons.
Please allow me to float you a hot air balloon with hugs and love from this part of the world. *insert appropriate emoji here*
YOU ARE APPROPRIATELY EXCITED!! Have fun smooching in the skies ๐
Edit: Oh, *looking.* Still exciting! Have fun smooching on the ground ๐
I’ve felt so apathetic about my online dating ventures lately. I find someone on Tinder or Coffee Meets Bagel (anyone else use that?) and we chat for a bit, but I just can’t bring myself to care enough to set up a proper date and the conversation peters out. There just hasn’t been someone I found interesting enough for the idea of “going out and spending money” to seem more appealing than “watching Netflix and eating cookies alone.”
I have gotten back in touch with a guy I met on OKC and dated semi-seriously last year. Things ended amicably and mutually, but we didn’t keep in contact. However, now we both work at the same hospital, so we got dinner a few weeks ago. It was nice, but it kinda feels like he wants to get back together. On Friday night he texted and asked if I wanted to watch Lord of the Rings with him (I always want to watch LOTR) but it was 9:30 and he lives an hour away so I declined, but said “maybe another weekend.” But will I actually be motivated enough to cross state lines for hobbits and the D? Stay tuned.
“hobbits and the D” is an A+ phrase and you should feel good about having written it.
(keep us posted!)
I’m not entirely sure this counts as online dating, but…
I bumped into a guy online about a month ago in, um, slightly embarrassing circumstances. We agreed to stay in touch, and swapped Skype details so we could talk again if we wanted to, and we did. Not loads, but a few fairly long text conversations that were quite fun, and he seemed like a really nice guy. It turned out as well that, by chance, he was going to be near me visiting a friend in August so we agreed to go for a drink when he was around. Then, on Wednesday, I opened Skype to find he’d just removed as a contact. No explanation, no apology, nothing. My instinct is that, as the last time we’d spoken was the first time we’d videoed in a while, he remembered what I looked like and decided he actually wasn’t interested in someone that looked like that. :/
Anyway, maybe it’s a good thing as it means I can actually concentrate on work and friends, but it still smarted nevertheless.
๐
I think it sounds more like someone who should have said “sorry, I think I’m not looking forward to hanging out anymore” instead of ghosting. Hiding makes people think the worst, when it could be something like he just got cold feet in general, is feeling stronger about someone else, what have you. We panic that it’s because they didn’t want to say something horrible about us when it might be because they couldn’t deal with their own plain social awkwardness.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was about your looks from what you say. Even if it was, you want to spend time with someone who is really nice but also wants to see you because or regardless of how you look, and these someones definitely exist.
Another possible explanation was that he met someone that he’s now in a relationship with, and rather than have the awkward conversation with you about not being interested in you as more-than-friends at the moment (or whatever), he just deleted you.
Still not the adult way to go about things, but it might have comparatively little to do with your looks?
Thank you both! Being a numpty, I hadn’t really thought of that. That makes a lot more sense than my fairly uncharitable knee-jerk reaction, and you could both well be right. That helps things sit more easily, even if I am still sad at not getting to meet up, so thanks again.
D’aww. Yeah, it still usually hurts a bit when someone cuts of contact, no matter what the reason or how generously they handle it. So FEEL YOUR FEELS, etc, and hey, it’s possible your gut feeling is correct. I just don’t think you know enough to assume the most likely scenario is that it had anything to do with you!
(and, just to underscore, even if you were an unpleasant person* who had a Guinness Book Certification for being the Objectively Least Attractive Person In The World ™**, as long as you weren’t some sort of creepy stalking human, he could have handled it better, and that is ON HIM.)
*You’re a Toastie, so, i reject this as a possibility out of hand as Rather Unlikely.***
**Seems unlikely, as this is a thing I just made up.
***But if it were true, I imagine that the root cause would not be your default state, but instead would be the fault of A Man.
++++1 can’t upvote this enough
Okay, so, I think this counts. I mean, it’s close at least.
My (poly) partner is on OKC. His profile is literally just a couple (really) good pictures of him, the normal demographic questions, and the additional question that add to match percentage. There is NOTHING in any of the “about me” questions. noooooothing. He also generally doesn’t message others.
He’s looking for friends at the moment over romantic or sexual partners (due to current health issues), but his profile doesn’t say that, because it doesn’t say anything. He’s been messaging back and forth for a bit with a woman in the area. He’d like to, at some point, go out for coffee/tea. He mentioned this to me, and I pointed out to him that, unless there had been specific conversation otherwise, this other person was going to be going into such a meeting either
a. assuming it was a date
or
b. assuming that there was a very good chance it was a date.
and that if he wanted to to be a friend-date instead, he should actually be very specific about that.
This was, apparently, news to him. Like, it seemed like it genuinely hadn’t occurred to him that this person might be interested in him in a romantic/sexual context.
And, I mean, there’s other stuff going on that makes this way more complicated, and we’re dealing with all of this, but I am struggling with the rest of it more than i might otherwise because if he really actually didn’t consider the idea that this person might think it was more-than-friend territory…… i…. what?? what?????
Yikes, yeah. I mean, I have certainly heard of people who say they use OKC for friends-only purposes, but I don’t *really* know anyone who has actually done that? Sometimes people meet someone via OKC and there’s no romantic chemistry but they wind up hanging out and becoming friends, but I think it’s a little…naive, maybe? misguided?..to meet someone assuming they have the platonic intentions your fella does.
Right??? Right???? I figure that most of the people who are exclusively looking for friends make that really clear up front in their profiles/conversations. That once can assume that people are looking for more-than-friend unless specifically stated otherwise.
And, while right now would be TERRIBLE timing for him to seek a new more-than-friends relationship, I’m actually not opposed to it generally, but the idea that he was (originally) suggesting getting coffee with this person this weekend without really realizing that he might not be on the same page as this person is launching (not just raising. launching) all sorts of red flags for me. Based on context, I’m actually very willing to believe that it really is him being naive/misguided/etc, rather than him trying to “get away with” something, or whatever other explanation that’s a bit more dishonest and/or malicious.
And while that makes things better for me, it’s also not that comforting. Around this time last year he started a new relationship that crashed and burned in truly magnificent fashion, and nearly torched our relationship as well in the process, and there are, of course, complications, contributing factors, etc etc etc etc….. but one of the concerns that I had that I think is still relevant was that he was pretty bad at predicting his future feelings/interests/plans, but also very confident that he could predict those things. (ie, within the space of a month he went from “I’d like a new friend” to “I want a sexual summer fling” to
“I want an emotionally intimate long term committed relationship”).
I VERY much understand that people are not rational in the face of sex and love, and that even if you fully intend to ONLY connect with new people as friends for a while, sometimes you meet someone special unexpectedly, and that person is awesome enough to make you question things, and you cannot say that it absolutely won’t happen because you can’t make promises about the way you’ll feel in the future, you can barely make honest promises about how you’ll behave in the future. He’s telling me that he absolutely won’t do certain things, and I felt like SCREAMING at him that THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID LAST TIME. But we were in a Whole Foods at the time, so I did not actually scream.
So, yeah, I know that the degree to which this scares me has to do with how bad things went last time, and that we haven’t yet fully unpacked how last time wasn’t good and how we’ll avoid those problems in the future, and a bunch of this is my shit to deal with. But he knows that I wanted to get through that unpacking prior to either of us seeking new more-than-friend relationships, and we haven’t done that.
But this whole thing makes me really worried. There were factors that made last time pretty bad that are not in the picture right now, and he is quick to blame nearly all of the badness on those factors, and this seems to make clear that perhaps that was even more optimistic than I thought. : /
Yeah I definitely assume okc meetups are dates unless otherwise specified, and most people who are just looking for friends will say so upfront. Also, it would bother me if a partner was meeting people and not being upfront about being in a poly relationship with me, it feels like a lack of respect, whether purposeful or not.
The good news about things (from my end) is that he seemed to realize that it could be A Thing enough to mention the possibility of a meetup with me prior to discussing the possibility of a meetup with her, so, it’s tabled for now pending further discussion. Because I am clearly Not Okay with it, and he (wisely) is not going to move forward with seeing her in person until we have a chance to talk that through. What I don’t know (yet), but will find out before he moves forward with THAT, is what SHE knows. which is obviously also very important.
my okc profile makes it clear that i have other partners. his profile does not make anything clear because it doesn’t say anything, so who knows if it’s come up in conversation. and if he really thinks that she’s just interested in friendship, it’s not necessarily relevant, but could make the whole thing even more awkward if he has (as seems likely) massively misread what’s going on.
So, I’m relatively newly broken up (little over a month). Ex-BF and I dated for almost a year, were in love, got along great, sexually compatible, etc. etc. but we’re at different life stages (he’s late 20s and I’m mid-30s) and ultimately see our futures differently. He’d never dated much (FWB and ONS stuff mostly) and went to undergrad and grad school abroad, which, for him, precluded serious relationships. I was basically his first serious girlfriend, so things that I would call minor differences (the “nice to haves”) loomed larger for him: I’m very neat, he’s extremely messy (related to his ADHD I think); he hates/may be some level of phobic of cats, I have 2 cats; I need things planned more carefully to manage my anxiety disorder, he finds advance planning anxiety-provoking; he may be getting a job with a top secret security clearance and therefore he would not be allowed to talk to me about what he does unless I also have a top secret clearance. That last one definitely falls under “DC problems.”
(Semi-tangential aside: He DID start using the calendar on his phone to keep track of things when we were dating and I was just unreasonably tickled by that.)
Anyhow, he and I are still on good terms. For various values of “good terms” that include hanging out and may involve sex on occasion. (WHOOPS) The latter is something I am gradually backing away from. He’s still conflicted about the breakup and wonders if he made the right decision, but I’ve said that he needs to figure out what he wants to do for himself and that coming on to me isn’t very nice or fair.
I recently reactivated my OKC account although I’m still feeling a bit tender. I can’t tell whether potentially directing my attention elsewhere is healthy/fair to those guys. Like, on the one hand, I want to date in good faith because I hated it when I’d go out with a dude and it was super obvious that he wasn’t over his ex and he was looking for someone to “fix” that. On the other, I’m not sure that holeing up in my apartment and binge-watching Netflix until I’m certain I’m over this completely is a great solution either.
What say you, Toasties? My overall emotional reaction to online dating right now is: MEH, but maybe if I make myself do it it won’t be that bad? Or maybe if I just focus on lower emotional impact sorts of things. I’ve been volunteering and going to plays mostly. There are some classes I might want to check out, and I’m planning on going back to my usual Sunday night social club this weekend. Haven’t felt like doing much with that for a while.
The OLD thing might be a moot point, since all the guys I’ve matched with areโฆreally into Bukowski and city biking, which makes me wary anyhow. D: I just don’t know how to tell the difference between “you are still getting over this, just take it easy” vs. “even in a great state of mind this is a lot of work so just get on with it.”
If you make yourself do it, you’ll probably resent it as you go (I’ve been there). I’m struggling with something similar right now though, recently out of something that lasted a while and grappling with the emotions that come with that while trying to decide if I want to deal with dating, Sent my first message out on OKC last night since I reactivated my profile though. Maybe just treat the next few weeks as time to be super picky? Only go out with someone new if you think there’s a very big chance of connection, so it’s not like you’re using them to distract you from your breakup and/or forcing yourself to get out here just to do it.
Yes, pick someone you actually really like, so it’ll be easier for you to focus on them as a person rather than a distraction!
Also, back to OP, definitely go out and do stuff for yourself. Keep it up! Volunteering sounds super. Try one new thing that you’ve been meaning to — can be as simple as finally going to a farmer’s market, a cafe. That advice is repeated a lot and it can be hard to do, but it helps.
I updated briefly after my date last Friday (thank you to the Toasties who responded!), but there’s a little more:
So, I got along with this guy at first! Only, he initially said that he had to leave at 10:30/11 for an overnight shift (answering some kind of a hotline), which was GREAT! I was soooo tired, and ready to go home by that point, and call it a good date. Except, when I was in the bathroom, he called his supervisor to switch his shift, because he “wanted to spend more time getting to know me.” I tried to rally because I’m a people pleaser and I wanted to be nice and at that point, I still thought I liked him, so even though I was DONE with the night, I stuck around. And he proceeded to diss my hometown* (“it’s full of repressed and stuck up people”), pressure me to go out dancing, and tell me that I was “too reserved” and a “normal person” would “seize the opportunity” and rearrange her plans for Saturday in favor of staying out all night dancing.
But I was still being a people pleaser, so although I was seething/yawning inside, I was polite and not a jerk, and he not unreasonably thought I was interested in him. And then as I was leaving, he kissed me (which was the worst kiss EVER, he needs lessons) and asked if he could go home with me and sleep in my guest room (????). No, no you can’t.
And he texted me 4 times and called me on my 20-minute drive home to tell me what a great time he had had, and how sexy and smart I am. By that time, I was so weirded out that I took a different route to make sure he wasn’t following me (I am not a paranoid person, I have never felt the need to do that before).
He texted me a lot on Saturday, and then on Sunday texted me that my communication skills are bad because I didn’t respond to his texts.
I’m taking a break from dating.
*Edited to add, he also dissed L.A., which is one of my favorite cities in the world and which I had just finished describing as diverse and fun and exciting: “only superficial people live in L.A.”
Oh my gosh, not even just for dating, but if anyone told me that an engagement was ending at 10:30/11 and then rescinded on that while said engagement was in progress, I’d be so upset. Time boundaries are very important boundaries.
I mean just in general it sounds like this guy has boundary issues.
Ughhhhh, what a clueless boundary-trampler. Gross.
…. this guy sounds like he has been getting (very bad) advice from PUA type sources.
Gross.
I think he was negging me. It was really gross, and the more I thought about it, the more upset I got.
Every rational part of my brain is reminding me that the safest, most mature, most rational course of action for you to take is to never respond to him ever again or acknowledge his existence in any way, shape, or form, and to move on.
But there is a sizable portion of me that really wants to suggest that the more exciting, just, and fulfilling course of action is some sort of mixture of radical honesty slash negging him right back. Along the lines of :
“Wow, I had been interested in you, until you showed what an insecure needy beta you really are. I only offer up my body to Real Men.”
………… After typing that up, it doesn’t seem nearly as fulfilling as I imagined. Either my rational brain was correct, or my first draft just isn’t my best work. SIIIIIGH.
I can finally contribute something not depressing to this thread! I went on a Tinder date this week and the guy said possibly the sexiest thing a man has ever said to me: “I’m a straight white dude, so I pretty much shut up and don’t argue when a feminist is talking”. And then we made out a lot and we’re going on a picnic tomorrow!
(thumbs-up emoji)
The dude I’ve been seeing (mentioned up-thread for giving me a Rad American Women book this week) said something very similar on our first date and I was simultaneously floored and thrilled. I hope the picnic is fun!
I met a dude on okc in February when he was visiting my city, and we had an instant, passionate connection. Now I am in his city and we have plans to meet up tomorrow! I am super excited but also nervous (in the fun way) because in some ways we know each other so well, but in some ways I know very little about him because we only had a short time together. I think we are going to have to ease back into physical contact etc, but I’m sure it won’t take long. He is so dreamy, in the cute, funny, nerdy intersectional feminist way, and beyond that we just clicked immediately, chemistry-wise.
Yesterday I met my new lover’s wife for the first time. It was just in passing, we were at the same event and I knew they’d be there together, so we planned to say hi. I was super nervous, but it was fine, her wife seems lovely. It’s the first time I’ve met a lover’s partner, and I was surprised by how affirming it felt. They seem like such a great couple, and I feel honoured that there is space in their dynamic for me.
Also, in offline dating news, I kissed a pretty girl who I’ve been crushing on for awhile a days ago. We have tentative plans to get together sometime soon, so I am cautiously optimistic.
I am feeling very hashtag blessed with how well my dating life is going right now. Creating some nice memories to look back on during the dry spells, is the way I’m looking at it, because if I’m afraid I’ll jinx it if I get too excited.
Yay!!! Good for you on making memories. Those are important.
“They seem like such a great couple, and I feel honoured that there is space in their dynamic for me.” I know what you mean. I realized how much I appreciate that my date has a good, healthy marriage. It makes me much more comfortable for me.
-Inept dude who brought up sex in the 3rd message last Friday continued to text me every day, despite my smack-down in response to the sex comment and lack of replies to all subsequent messages. I continued to ignore him. Tuesday, I got this message from him. “Did I lose ya?” This sent me into a blind rage, but I decided disengaging was smarter, no matter how much I wanted to scream at him.
-I’ve started to keep a collection of warning signs from profiles I run across. My favorite this week included this as part of his “10 point abstract” (which, of course, is 11 points):
“I’m more idea oriented than action and organization oriented. I’m open to partnering with a lady that has some effective “man-management” skills. Having dated a couple of divorced ladies now with this kind of well honed skill set, I’m not sure how I even made it this far.”
-I’m suddenly, randomly, wildly popular with dudes who are either a really terrible match or over 100 miles away.
EDIT: within an hour of posting this, I got a message from a dude in Manchester, UK. I live in Seattle, WA, USA. Not helpful.
re: second dude: I keep trying to find it in me to say something like “at least he knows his weaknesses and is open about what it takes to work around them” but … I just can’t get there.
I do not have it in me. It sounds to much like “Please take care of me because I don’t feel compelled to work on my shit!”.
(It doesn’t help that the statement I quote is followed by something like “If you have a boyfriend or husband-shaped cookie cutter, please move along.” I enjoy the lack of self-awareness that leads him to want specific things but expect women to just magically embrace his many dazzling qualities.)
Oh, I mean, yeah, that’s definitely what he was actually saying.
Sure, because nothing is more fun than a relationship where the other person expects you to “manage” them – either you exhaust yourself trying to keep two people functional at once, or it all goes to shit and it’s your fault for not managing him. Good times!
Block first dude. Bloooooooooooock.
I’m late for this, but this week I got a message from a dude that just said, “So. If I was going to randomly hit on you. How would I go about that?”
Like, what? I’m sorry? Did you mean to say, “Hello, I’m [name], would you care to discuss [an interest indicated in your profile]?” Because that’s… how you go about that. Generally speaking. Ugh.
>:(
I know this is late, but some guy has posted a pic of him with Channing Tatum and the Toast was who I wanted to share it with…
It’s really hard to get information from my dad’s doctors about next steps in treating his colon cancer. I don’t know why the communication is so bare, but it is. I’m also getting it all third-hand.
My dad is FINALLY getting a CT scan today, and on Tuesday he meets with a vascular surgeon. Google and I cannot figure out why he’d need to see a vascular surgeon for colon cancer, but then Google and I are not oncologists.
I’m so sorry you and your family are going through this. We went through it with partner’s mom many years ago and it sucks.
I don’t know if this helps, but have your father tell his doctors that they are allowed to discuss his health and treatment with you, in case they are being squirrelly on account of HIPAA.
best of thoughts are with you.
If he has an online-portal for any of his health care providers, make sure he’s using it (as he feels comfortable with it) and see if he’ll share his account info with you (as he feels comfortable with it). Especially with cancer, they tend not to put stuff out there before talking to patients about it first, but even if it’s just you being able to see when he’s had appointments, or blood test results or whatever, that may help to keep everyone on the same page/keep track of things/etc.
My understanding on Vascular stuff— depending on what they’re operating on and where, how good your veins are is important. Clotting (to much or too little), appropriate blood supply to the area to promote healing, etc, are all important, and a Vascular person is the most appropriate person to say “yeah, from my perspective, everything’s fine” or “you should be careful about XYZ and take extra precautions” or whatever. (This from a family member who needed a vascular consult before a non-cancer thing, so YMMV).
Well, The Toast, this is my last post as an unwed Hugpunch. On Monday, we head out for wedding prep, and then there’s a big party next Saturday and then I’m on a much-needed honeymoon for two weeks. Honestly more excited for the honeymoon at this point.
Congratulations! Hope you wring every bit of relief and relaxation you can out of that honeymoon.
<3 <3 <3 hurrah and congrats!!
Thank you! If the Toast had central offices, I’d send you a coconut from Hawaii.
Woooooo!!! I’m sure your wedding will be lovely. Enjoy that well-earned honeymoon!! YAYYYYYYY!!!
HUZZAH! It will be super fun and delightful, I am certain.
Congratulations!
EEEEE!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations!!
Congratulations! I totally understand that feeling, too. We were overjoyed about our wedding day and how lovely everything was, but we still both repeatedly said, “OK IS IT HONEYMOON TIME YET YES PLEASE.” The good/bad news is, everything from this point to the honeymoon, even if it feels stressful at the time, will go by in a blink.
How exciting!
Eeeee! Congratulations! I hope your wedding and subsequent celebrations are they best they could possibly be, and a fine start to a long and happy life with your beloved.
Hurray, and congratulations!
Happy Wedding, HugPunch! Sending love and happy thoughts your way!
Hi Toastadas, despite the weather being gloomy and rainy where I am, I have some positive news this week!
– I got my UK citizenship application approved! Now I’m only waiting for a letter from my local council to schedule and have my ceremony, and I will be British. Holy cats!
– I scored a sweet pair of new, fancy velvet brogues on eBay that I love love love for roughly 1/5th of their retail price
– My watermelon plant is going nuts and I have like 7 baby watermelons growing! Who knows if they’ll make it, but…baby watermelons!
Also, this means I have to start planning my outfit for my ceremony, because if there’s ever a chance to do some themed dress up, I will snatch it so fast. So fast.
Yay baby watermelons! I’m growing sugar cube melons for the first time and cackling gleefully about the number of flowers that have appeared.
Congratulations on your UK citizenship and hot shoe score!
Thanks! And dude, maybe it’s a watermelon thing? I’ve grown other cucurbits in the past, but they didn’t seem quite as enthused as these guys.
That’s so exciting! Did you move to the UK for a specific reason or did you just want to live there? I often think about emigrating to Scotland or something, but don’t know that I ever would follow through. Congratulations!
Cheers! I did move for a specific reason, however, it had sort of been a life goal for me when I was in high school/college, especially after doing my year abroad in Scotland? Like, I legit thought maybe I could come over here, suddenly become RICH and translate Old English and medieval Welsh texts all flippin’ day for fun. Seriously. Anyway, completely whacked out pipedreams aside, my (English) boyfriend (who I met in CA) was getting his PhD here and I was sort of at a crossroads in my life. My dream job was to be a costume curator at the Victoria and Albert museum, and rather serendipitously, the university where bf was studying had a MA programme taught by V&A curators, so I thought fuck it, I’ll have an MA at the end, even if bf and I don’t stay together. But we did, and now we’re married, and after a short stint at the V&A, I realised that it wasn’t my dream job after all and now I am quite happy working in libraries and planning my brewery. Sorry for the life story, but that is my sort of circuitous path to living here.
Have you spent much time over here/in Scotland? I love Scotland, but overall the process of moving here is a massive pain in the ass, w/r/t visas. It was one impetus to get my citizenship asap, because while I knew I wanted it eventually, it wasn’t the most convenient time to do it, but the costs and hoops to jump through increase every year.
Ooooh congratulations!!! I hope it all goes well! I’m jealous, I’ve got five more years before I can get mine!
Thank you! Argh, the waiting is so annoying! Fingers crossed things don’t change much more in the coming years, but I wouldn’t hold my breath :p
Congratulations! Enjoy being British. (You don’t have to start liking tea, if you don’t already. I have disliked it for all 25 years of being British, and nobody has made me renounce my citizenship.)
Haha cheers. Yeah I don’t know if I will ever truly be on board with tea, but that’s ok as long as no one has pitchforks at the ready! Pimm’s tho. I can get behind Pimm’s.
Buying food for one person is hard. I am never able to finish fresh fruit/veggies that I buy for myself! I buy it with the best intentions and eat a little bit and then it rots before I finish it. The answer, obviously, is frozen fruit and veggies, and I do buy a lot of those, but I just go into this optimistic daze as soon as I walk into the farmers’ market. In my mind, I am a crunchy, hip, healthy lady who stays hydrated and makes fancy meals for herself. In real life, I eat mac and cheese like four times a week. Sigh. But the Bartender has inspired me and perhaps this weekend I’ll put my frozen fruit into PANCAKES.
Other stuff: after 6 months at my job, I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of things. I was given almost no training or supervision, and basically spent 6 months sitting at my desk going “??????” (exactly like that). But I’ve finally been a little proactive and been given actual stuff to do, and it feels great.
My bat mitzvah is a week from tomorrow! My mom, sister, and I all converted as adults (had our beit din back in June) and are having group b’nai mitzvah with 3 other adults. It’s exciting but nerve-wracking, and I’ll be glad when it’s over. Any other adult converts here?
Mazel Tov on your bat mitzvah! I had mine when I was 13 and I’ll be honest, I remember very little about the actual service part (although I do recall that I did not only a Haftorah reading but the entire Torah reading for the day, in Hebrew), and only about the pretty party after. Then again, I was 13, so of course that’s what I remember. There were pink tablecloths and a caterer, and we had it in the synagogue hall. (It was the vogue at the time, and probably still has, for kids to have parties at hotels with DJs and such… my sister had one like that, but I always liked mine the way it was.)
My Aunt did convert, but it was before I was born, so I don’t remember if she had a Bat Mitzvah or not.
I try so hard to eat a lot of produce, but it can take so much work! and after a long day I just want food that is effortless and cheap. And now after watching John Oliver’s food waste bit from Sunday I’m feeling really guilty about throwing out moldy veg that I should have eaten.
I try to keep hummus ecc in the fridge and eat it with raw vegetables when I’m too tired to cook (and it’s too hot to turn the oven on).
I have the same farmers market problem! It isn’t always possible to eat that whole bunch of <x>. But a lot of it can be triaged. I make a mean vegetable pie which is, I quickly sautรฉ or roast whatever veg needs cooking, then throw in a pie crust with salt and a light quiche batter (1 egg to every 1/3 c of don’t-judge-me-maybe-slightly-sour milk, and some grated cheese to hold it together). Bake til set. Actually anything fading should be quickly cooked (I wilt all that chard and saute everything else) and then you can throw it in a frittata which is unbelievably easy and fast and nutritious.
I do the same thing, or I’ll make a “veggie and [protein] stew” which is really just, cook some onions, cook some chicken/fish/ground beef/whatever, throw in whatever veggies look good, maybe some broth to give it a little sauce. Eat over rice. It’s brainless cooking but it’s healthy.
Buying food for one person IS hard. A tip I picked up from budgetbytes.com is to find a grocery store with a good salad bar and get fruits a veggies for one from there. It’s maybe a little more $ than you’d pay buying in bulk, but less food waste!
Mazel tov! I converted at 22, and was lucky enough to have become an adult bat mitzvah at 26, while also pregnant with my sweet daughter at the time who is now 11 (gasp!). Happy for you, I think it is such a gift to be able to experience this as an adult!
Also, yes on the pancakes, 100 times YES! My daughter leaves for sleepaway camp this Sunday for 3 weeks and I making a big pancake breakfast to see her off.
Mazel Tov! Not a convert, erm, yet. But, this week, I finally screwed up the courage and emailed a rabbi to say, basically, “Hello, I think the universe made a clerical error and I’m supposed to be Jewish. Halp?”
Totally not over here refreshing my inbox full-time.
Congratulations, that’s so exciting! I hope the rabbi gets back to you soon. My dad is Jewish but my mom isn’t, so my siblings and I weren’t raised religious but the whole family kind of got into it about 10 years back.
Hello! I have a lot of opinions about buying groceries and not wasting food.
Most importantly: practice makes perfect. I am super good at shopping and cooking for myself because I’ve been doing it for a very long time. You can become the hip crunchy lady in due time!
Next most importantly: have substantial chunks of time where you can cook up multiple dishes at once. Cooking fresh raw veg is time-consuming, no way around it. But if you take an evening and get some squash in the oven roasting and then some kale in a skillet wilting and then maybe pre-chop some salad veggies for the week, then you can coast for a few days on leftovers.
Probably the next most important: have some good resources where you can look up the care and storage for veg. I get storage recs from my CSA farmer, but Martha Stewart Online and Kitchn.com often have veggie how-to guides that include such care.
And finally, when cooking for yourself is hard, get a cooking friend. It’s a nice cheap way to spend an evening, whipping up a big lazy veggie dinner (with leftovers, hopefully) and watching some TV.
I do this! I do a lot of cooking on weekends and/or plan in advance to devote evenings during the week to it. As in, if somebody invites me out to do something else, I’ll say “can’t, I have plans to cook.” Treating it like anything else you’d have to schedule can help.
An added rec for the friend thing: it can be a friend over Skype. I have a couple of close friends living far away where we plan to have dinner and movie nights, or dinner and 2-person book group nights as a way to stay in touch where we make the same dinner and chat and drink lots of wine and it’s fun.
My big tip for consuming more fruits and vegetables is to prep it for consumption when you come home and you’re still riding high from being at the market, then store it in clear containers front-and-center in your fridge. Chop up the melon, wash and tear the greens, take all the grapes off the stems, etc. Put a paper towel in the container with the container with greens, berries and the like.
Also, you know what it a great breakfast? Slice the top off a gorgeous tomato, top it with cheese, broil. I do this way too often.
I have a similar problem! I live with my brother, so I’m used to buying food for two (we actually have a CSA subscription for fruits and veggies), and he’s always done the majority of the cooking. But he’s been gone the past few weeks visiting the folks and helping them around the house, and I’ve apparently forgotten how to cook for myself, and WHY DO I ALWAYS GET A GIANT HEAD OF LETTUCE IN MY CSA SHARE I DON’T NEED THAT MUCH LETTUCE.
Suggestions for not wasting lettuce: cook it. juice it. put those last few straggly leaves in a stock bag.
I’ve been freezing wilty lettuce, as well as any other veggies that are wilty-beyond-tasty-eating-but-not-rotten, to use later in veggie stock. However, my problem is that parts of the head will start getting slimy, and disintegrate into sludge. This happens surprisingly quickly. I’m not sure how to stop it! I don’t wash the lettuce until I’m just about to use it, so it’s not like I’m getting a bunch of moisture on the head before storing it.
I honestly have had better luck washing and storing the lettuce in a salad spinner- it takes up all the room in the fridge but lettuce actually keeps for a decent amount of time that way.
Seconded. I’m not precisely sure how, but washed lettuce in a spinner will last me a couple of weeks if I tip out the excess water every so often.
That is extremely good information for me! I’m single too, and I pretty much never buy lettuce any more because of how quickly it goes bad. But… but I love lettuce, it’s so crispy and good.
If you put fairly robust veggies like chard, kale, onions, and sometimes zucchini in a hot greased frying pan, turn the heat down to medium low, put a lid on it, and just let it braise, you will reduce said veggies to a much smaller size and achieve deliciousness. I like to add water or broth after 15 minutes or so, but I’m a lazy slattern who forgets about things on the stove.
And congratulations on your ceremony! I hope it goes splendidly.
Hi Toast! My blog is six months old tomorrow and my thirtieth post goes up on Tuesday! http://yahistoricalvault.wordpress.com Thank you all for your continued amazing support, pageviews, and comments–I appreciate every single reader more than I can possibly say. Do YOU have any YA/children’s historical fiction from the last few decades you’d like me to review? Let me know and I will try to find a copy!
ALSO TOAST: Books. Who else has absurdly specific and picky tastes in books? My example: I love historical fiction. BUT I am extremely picky about it–no plodding genre fiction for me, please! No, I prefer non-mystery non-thriller fiction with none of the following: no Greco-Roman, no stories mostly about men, no stories about royalty. (I am bored of royalty.) Basically, what I enjoy the most is fiction about women and families, usually poorer people, and their day-to-day lives and excitements and interpersonal dramas. Girl With A Pearl Earring (okay, fine, basically all of the works of Tracy Chevalier), Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue, and books in that vein are RIGHT in my wheelhouse.
Who else has extremely specific and/or weird tastes in reading OR has book recommendations they’d like to share?
I actually share your exact specific taste, though I don’t object to romance.
But why is all historic romance about such-and-such highland duke? The whole row in Barnes and Noble is just a wall of tartan.
Please, Toastfolk, send recommendations!
I enjoy the occasional romance! I just get bored of Lord Soandso and Duke Nothingham. Where is the romance of the Butcher and the baker’s daughter, I ask?
Elswyth Thane’s Williamsburg novels.
YES. Am currently in the middle of a Yankee Stranger reread. (I’ve been rereading them out of order all summer–started with Homing, then did Dawn’s Early Light, Kissing Kin, and Ever After. I like my family sagas jumbled, apparently.)
Has anyone else read these books? My mom had some of them and the local public library had the rest, and I absolutely loved them. They were influential in my creating at least 20 pages of fictional family trees for my own epic family saga that spanned the mid-1700s to WWII (and was originally based on a story I made up with my Barbie dolls).
(Apparently Elswyth Thane is what causes me to finally stop lurking and post on The Toast; I squee over so much of the literature stuff, but I never actually comment.)
Have you read The Nightingale? You might like that! It’s historical fiction set in WW2, around the lives of two French sisters. I cried, a lot.
I’m waiting for that from the library!
Oh good, I hope you like it! Fair warning that I give everyone, there is a trigger warning for rape, though it is handled pretty well by the story. It is otherwise a very good book, or at least I loved it.
Oh, I’m really picky too any more. My fiction genre of choice is fantasy but I’ve just been slowly wittling down my choices in there to basically nothing. Like, I’ve just decided that I primarily like sort of ‘just around the corner’ fantasy, where the magic is the sort of thing that could be just around the corner if you knew where to look, but with limited romance because I’m bored of the romance I find in most published books and none of the various supernatural creatures that creep me out too much and preferably not a series unless it’s just a really short series.
It makes it really difficult to find anything so maybe that’s why I’ve just switched over to nonfiction, where I’m only limited by what topics I care to delve into at any given time.
That is specific! Have you read Jo Walton’s Among Others? It does have supernatural creatures though.
Yes! It’s very good indeed and I’ve actually been looking for books with a similar feel. Graham Joyce’s Some Kind of Fairy Tale is close, but it’s about the only one I’ve found. To be fair, it’s a bit tricky to pull off a fantasy novel with no real fantasy or magic on the page.
And most supernatural creatures are fine, I’ve just really been over the zombie/undead trend for ages now. I don’t like post-apocalyptic stories and I don’t like zombies for most of the same reasons. I keep finding promising-sounding books and then zombies. Not cool!
I think we have been reading off the same list or something! Does that mean you’ve also read The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic? It might be close. The book jacket pushes a romance angle, but I recall any romance being pretty secondary. Or what about Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane?
I love Neil Gaiman and got The Ocean at the End of the Lane from the library the second it was available, but I haven’t read The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic. Who’s the author?
Yes, I think TOatEotL (what a title) is one of my favorite Gaiman books, but I need to reread American Gods to see. And maybe the rest of them too — what a burden! Emily Croy Barker wrote The Thinking Woman…, I think it’s her first novel.
Have you read Nina Kiriki Hoffman at all? Her books contain characters who are extremely magical but the settings are entirely mundane.
I’ve read one of her books, but sadly that was the only one my library had, so I haven’t had the opportunity to explore too much of her work. Are there any particular books of hers that I should track down?
A Fistful of Sky is probably my favourite, about a woman from a magical family who comes to her talent (curses!) later in life. Red Heart of Memories/Past The Size of Dreaming/Stir of Bones is a trilogy centered around a woman who has the power to talk to inanimate objects and the male witch she meets and whose past they eventually confront.
As a heads, up, though, issues of power and its abuse in varied forms are central themes in her work, and because of that they can be difficult reads.
Not sure if this would fit the kind of thing you’re looking for, and it is by a white dude, but I LOVED The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Lost-Things-John-Conno…
It’s very fairy-tale influenced, and like…the magic of books? And growing up and grief and etc. Only one book, and he’s a kid so while there’s some (imo, pretty interesting) sort of early sexual awakening stuff, no romance. I found it delightfully creepy and melancholy. Sort of like Pan’s Labrynth, but less horrifically depressing.
Oh, that’s on my library list because it sounded vaguely interesting when I read a summary. I shall definitely pick it up soon then! I do quite like a bit of a fairy tale influence.
I absolutely LOVE your blog! I read soooo much historical YA as a kid (I basically read every single Dear America/Ann Rinaldi book). I keep meaning to do a big re-read, but then my TBR pile starts calling me guiltily
Have you read The Witch of Blackbird Pond?. That was one of my FAVORITES as a kid.
Thank you! And I have and even listened to the audio book! I will get around to it one of these days, I swear.
Your blog is so great!
One that sticks with me for some reason is The Raging Quiet. Ok, I know the reason, it’s because there was a sex scene that lil 12 year old me found super hot, which I’m sure is actually laughably tame. Anyway, I’d love to hear if you think it holds up!
I feel like I’ve heard of that but never read it. Onto the list!
Yes, The Raging Quiet! Young me also found the sex scene extremely hot.
Have you read Connie Willis’ time travel books? Once the time travel happens, you get tons of wonderful detail about life in the time period they traveled to. No royalty, no travel to Greco-Roman times, fair number of non-wealthy people, and lots of female characters.
Yes!!!! Oh man they are all so so so good!!!
Yes! I wish she would write more, but she seems to doing more traditional SF these days. So I just reread, which isn’t bad either.
Did you read Donoghue’s The Sealed Letter? I finished it last week. Didn’t quite gel for me as much as Slammerkin, but still worth a read. I also HIGHLY recommend her short story collection, The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits.
I felt the same as you–not as good as Slammerkin or Rabbits, but still pretty good as these things go!
I’m thinking Frog Music looks pretty good too, but that might be too mystery-adjacent?
Right now I’m reading All the Light We Cannot See and it’s just gloriously written. Sometimes I read Pulitzer winners and I’m like: WUT. But with this one I get it.
I THOUGHT I RESPONDED TO THIS but clearly I did not. I didn’t like Frog Music, which bummed me out real bad–I didn’t even finish it, after waiting for it to come in off hold for a while.
But oh my holy Lord, did I love All The Light We Cannot See. LOVED IT. Could not rave about it enough. Just adored it.
Oh no! I think I have it on my ereader somewhere. Emma Donoghue is a bit hit or miss for me sometimes. ๐
Now I’m determined to search my Goodreads for a book in your niche. Like I am sure you’ve read Year of Wonders, which I loved right up until that seriously WTF ending. The Dress Lodger maybe? I don’t remember it being very thriller-y. A few others: The Leto Bundle, The Love-Artist, Yellowbird (I may be biased on that one because it was written by one of my favorite undergrad professors).
Try it! You may enjoy it better than me.
I also loved Year Of Wonders until the end, which I kind of made a confused-puppy face and then went “Ugh, way to ruin a book.” Like….why??? Why was that the BEST ending you could come up with?????
I’m not sure if it is YA or not, but Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor is fantastic. Urban fantasy set in Nigeria.
Pretty sure that is marketed as YA! It is very good. I can’t wait to have time to read Lagoon
Here for recommendations for Tracy Chevalier read-alikes!
Is it just me, or is every other book published these days set during WWII? I tire of it, darlings.
It’s true! I’ve read tons of WWII stuff and I’m not going to turn up my nose at it, but….lots of other eras, people. Ones just as exciting, even!
I have the wonkiest tastes in books, because I’ll pass over six or seven books of the same genre, only to pick up an eighth that’s indistinguishable, just because it “feels” right. I don’t know. Evidently I pick books the way you pick tarot cards.
I do the same thing! I am the queen of judging books by their covers. It has worked well for me about 90% of the time, so I doubt I’ll stop doing it any time soon ๐
Well, if you think about it, they design covers to appeal to a particular target audience, so if the type of books you like tend to have a particular style of cover, then picking books by their cover is often a pretty good way to start. I was part of this survey group for Harlequin once (how I ended up selected, I’m still a little fuzzy about, but they paid me!) and I filled out bunches of surveys about different cover designs and what expectations they gave me for the book and how changes in font or position of the title affected that. It was actually really interesting, especially since the surveys covered different lines with different content and cover styles.
I’ve been enjoying your blog a lot! I just finished a very good middle grade book Listen Slowly by Thanhha Lai. It’s not historical, but it deals a lot with history. It’s about a middle school girl who goes back to Vietnam with her grandmother and father, as her grandmother tries to figure out what happened to her husband, the MC’s grandfather, during the Vietnam War.
I read pretty widely, but I’m particularly fond of books by British authors ca. 1880-1930 who were well-known in their day but have since fallen into obscurity. (Or biographies about them). Virago has reprinted a lot of interesting books by female authors who fall into that category.
I also love American humorists from the 1920s and ’30s (e.g., Robert Benchley, Donald Ogden Stewart, et al.)
What do you think of E.H. Young? I just loved Miss Mole and Chatterton Square; I was really surprised that she isn’t better known.
Thinking about historical YA fiction, I really loved the Caroline B Cooney book Mercy (I think published as The Ransom of Mercy Carter in other countries) when I was younger. Oh, and her time-travel quartet, starting with Both Sides of Time! Also Daughter of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli.
Oh yes, it was The Ransom Of Mercy Carter in the States, and I had one! I loved it!
I might recommend Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. It’s a retelling of Cinderella, but as I recall it comes down on the side of magic not being real. It’s definitely about women and class upheaval in the past.
My office has windows that are basically floor-to-ceiling spanning one whole wall and recently a group of large spiders have constructed an elaborate network of webs spanning at least six of the panes. Every morning when I come in the sun is hitting it at just the right angle to see all the different webs, swaying in the breeze. There’s one web section that is so full of tiny dead bugs that the strands have started twisting together into some kind of braid of corpses. It’s disgusting but fascinating and I find myself staring at it constantly.
David Sedaris has a lovely essay about his fondness for spiders – http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/24/apri…
I’d be fascinated. I envy you the lovely spider webs. I once lost an entire Saturday afternoon watching a spider make a new web, then watch her kill and wrap up an unlucky fly. I’d never get any work done if I were near those windows.
Toastfriends! I need to complain and maybe ask for some advice, because I don’t know what to do. Every year, my father’s extended family rents a Very Large Beach House in North Carolina. My mom and dad are there as we speak. My father’s brothers, their children, wives, aunts, uncles, cousins…everyone goes.
Except me and my sister, that is. We have never been invited. I have a few ideas as to why, but most of them come down to:
a) my father’s side of the family doesn’t like my mother that much
b) I have a full-time job and my sister is disabled, therefore rendering us unable to go, so they just choose not to ask us to go
c) as a result of point A, the family may not like us that much by proxy? (this is a guess, I have no idea.)
d) vaguely classist reasons
My grandmother is getting old, and my mother said that she is not looking good. I haven’t seen her since 2011, since she’s not in good enough health to travel up here anymore. I’m…I’m hurt that I’m not invited. It’s one thing to decline the invitation due to work/the inability to have time off/capitalism etc, but to just not be invited at all really stings. Especially since they take family photographs while they’re down here and someone inevitably says “oh, we’re all here!” until my mom pipes up with “no, no we’re not.”
So I made a kind of passive aggressive post on Facebook last night saying something like “Wishing I were down in NC with my family, hope everyone’s having a great time!” and so far the only family member that’s liked it is my maternal grandmother, who lives a few towns over and I see all the time.
Am I being petty? This isn’t the kind of thing that I can invite myself along on, but my sister and I are feeling very left out at this point. Any suggestions would be v. appreciated.
Have either of your parents been able to shed any light on this?
Not really. A few years ago apparently the reason was that “oh, they could come, but they’d have to stay with the rest of the children” – my sister and I were in our mid 20s at that point and “the children” were 10 or younger. There is an older set of cousins that I assume have their own room down there, mostly because the one girl has a child at this point and her sister would stay with her, but that just seemed extra hurtful, that there wasn’t the room for us.
I’m really sorry this is happening – that’s got to cut deep. Are your parents the sort that will go to bat for you? I know the extended family is their family too, but you’re their kid.
My mom, definitely, and does frequently. This is the only time my dad gets to see his family, though, since everyone else has moved away (we are ‘historically’ from NJ, but my dad is the only brother left up here) and it just gets so damn tangled. I think I will have a talk with him when they get back, he does tend to listen to me.
That sucks. I’m sorry.
I have no helpful advice, only holy shit on steroids, that’s AWFUL. (And I can’t believe your parents go when you aren’t invited!)
Not petty at all, but I’d have an Adult Conversation with your parents. Something along the lines of “it’s hurtful to be excluded from family vacations, is there something we need to talk about?” Don’t hand them the excuse that you probably wouldn’t be able to go – wait for their words and reasons. Lance the wound (calmly and kindly) before it gets too toxic.
They are aware, and my mother points it out frequently while she’s down there, but because they aren’t the ones doing the arranging – it’s my NC relatives, mostly. So in a month or so they’ll get an email from my one aunt saying that they owe X amount for next year’s house without any consulting. The whole thing is one massive clusterfuck.
Oh, that is kinda weird. Would it be too much for your parents to ask them to stand up for you, and ask wtf? (Not being snarky, you have every right to ask your parent to defend you – though we all know that life doesn’t always work out that way)
I did ask my mother to really rub it in that we weren’t there this year, and when I talked to her last night she said that she has been doing so every chance she gets, so there’s that. I will probably be having a discussion with my father when they get back because I’m not sure if he’s aware of the extent of how upset we actually are about this.
I think that’s very brave of you! Could you possibly also speak to the aunt who arranges this, maybe? Not right now but afetr you talk to your dad perhaps?
The aunt that arranges this and I…well…have no relationship whatsoever? I can count on one hand the number of times I have interacted with her, so that may not go over well. My grandmother on the other hand, I may be able to actually talk with about this. Good point!
This is great advice. The “lance the wound” metaphor is perfectly put.
Wait, do your parents know that this is hurtful to you? Have they said anything to the extended family? (“They” should be your father in this case, probably, seeing as it’s his family.)
I don’t think you’re being petty at all, this is pretty hurtful. I wouldn’t go making more FB posts about it, though. FB posts never help anything.
Other thought – sort out who you’re upset with. The extended family? Your parents for not standing up for you? Both?
you are not being an ounce of petty. bleah.
That doesn’t sound petty at all. I’m sorry this is happening to you, and hope it works out.
The fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! is all I have to add to this conversation. The fuck! You are not being petty, not in the least.
Have you and your sister ever been invited? Is this a new thing, or has it been going on all your lives?
Your parents should not be condoning this cut-out by attending. This is thoroughly repellent, and even if there are several million-dollar inheritances riding on their sucking up and going, they are treating you badly.
Love me, love my dog; but to collaborate in the exclusion of their own children is a cruel and great wrong. Your parents owe you an apology and they should decline the invitations in the future.
It might be useful to you to send this over to Captain Awkward and see what kind of scripts she can suggest for the awkward conversations that should be had about this, because it’s the sort of hurt that festers and stresses and makes everything worse. You and your sister deserve better, and an open, truthful conversation about what exactly is going on and why your parents think this is okay (hint: it is not okay) is the least you two deserve.
The whole “beach house” thing has only started within the past four, maybe five years? So not my whole life, no, but to the best of my knowledge, we have never been invited. This is the only time my father really gets to see his family, so I can understand him wanting to go! But I think I definitely need to have a sit down with him and say yo daddio, Sister and I would really like to be at the very least invited, and you guys going regardless feels like it kind of condones us not being invited.
Truthfully though, I don’t place much blame on them so much as the extended family, as all they really do is get the invitation and – as I said above – kinda get shoehorned in. I know my mother isn’t the world’s biggest fan of this trip and has tried to get out of it in the past, but you know. It’s the extended family that I am more upset with, because they seemingly do this every year.
ugh, what an awful situation. I hope your parents get it sorted out for the future asap. Just in terms of tactics, though, it is probably best for your dad to handle it, since it’s his family, especially if your mom does not get on super-well with the extended family. Having her “rub it in” that you’re not there is probably counterproductive, not helpful — it may make everyone dig in their heels (about what? I have no idea, it sounds ridiculous and wrong).
And don’t feel too singled out for having this happen. Extended families do get dysfunctional — I think a lot of us (including me) have stories.
Your feelings are very understandable. That just sounds bizarre to me.
I couldn’t even begin to guess what their reasons are for excluding you, but I think it’s safe to say it’s THEIR weird issue and not your (or your sister’s) fault in any way. And it’s their loss if they don’t want to make the effort to spend time with you.
I know this is late, but I can commiserate. My grandmother hated my grandfather (for good reason) and my dad was my grandfather’s favourite kid, so he ended up her least favourite kid and us her least favourite grandkids by proxy. There were a lot of things we just happened not to get invited to, to the point where after my cousin gave a very heartfelt epitaph at her funeral my family and I joked to each other that we must have ended up at the wrong funeral because we certainly never met the sweet, warm woman my cousin baked cookies with.
But the difference is that my parents and siblings stuck together and just kind of did our own thing, our own holidays, our own traditions etc. I can’t imagine my parents agreeing to cut us out of a family event just to get along with the rest of the family, and I’m a little appalled that your parents are willing to do so. I know they have their reasons, but I honestly don’t think it’s appropriate for your parents to make peace with your dad’s family by allowing them to pretend you and your sister don’t exist. It’s up to you whether you want to push your parents on this, but I think it’d be perfectly appropriate for you to ask your parents not to go if you two aren’t invited. If grandma really wants to see your dad, well, there’s an easy fix for that. It sounds like you wouldn’t even be able to go, probably, so they don’t even have to see you, just acknowledge you’re part of the family, too.
Today I saw a man assert on Facebook that “normally the term ‘mansplaining’ is used to explain something a man would not understand because he’s not a woman.”
I don’t know this guy and whatever, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t come up with this bit of complete nonsense all by himself, but it still means that somewhere out there some dude decided to MANSPLAIN MANSPLAINING and, predictably, got it completely wrong. I found it very funny but it also made me want to die a little.
This is the most meta mansplain of all time. Beautiful.
It was also a pretty advanced mansplain, in that he offered it to correct another dude who had actually used the term right in the first place.
omg it only gets better โค
So many nested mansplanations, all of them ridiculous!
MANSPLAINCEPTION
It’s Mansplaining all the way down.
It’s unnecessary opinions all the way down.
That has got to be some kind of bingo!
(Looks into the camera like I’m on The Office)
I hate to ruin this comment by adding a reply beneath it, but I’ve read it seventeen times now and just wanted to tell you how perfect it is.
MEN.
They shouldn’t be allowed out without a chaperone.
Mwahahahaha
I once witnessed my ex get lectured for a good fifteen minutes about a subject that he’s an expert in by an older trans woman of our acquaintance. Almost everything she was saying was wrong, but she wouldn’t hear any of his (very polite) tries to point out the mistakes. After she left, he was just kind of stunned. And he turned to me and said, “Did I just get transplained?” And I had to admit that yes, yes he did.
In other mansplaining news, my office just got a copy of a memo from a VP in another branch, phrased in the most condescending, insulting, and pretentious way possible, refuting a memo we’d put together. In it he said we didn’t understand a very basic regulation and how it was applied, which was extra great because my fantastic coworker used to work for him and her entire job was…. applying that regulation. So if he doesn’t believe she understands it, then everything he is referencing as justification for his position would be invalid.
But if he DID believe she understands it, then that would mean that a woman is competent at something, and god knows we can’t have that!
Yeah, he’s a real gem!
I am freaking exhausted, Toast. Sorry I’ve been so absent. This is why I haven’t been around: websites, which I’ve been building at work. The test sites just went live and I’m ready to go home and pop a bottle of champagne.
So, tell me about your work-related successes? You’re all super cool so I bet you have a lot of them and the inspiration boost to push through with the rest of this project would be helpful.
NO LONGER PREGNANT THREAD!
Baby was born last Friday after a slow induction and very fast (about 3 hour) active labor with a grand total of ten minutes of pushing. No meds (except a butload of pitocin), which is just how I wanted it. I had a fantastic doula and an unexpectedly awesome nurse, who had to keep telling me it was okay to swear and even encouraged me by shouting “Fuck!”
Everyone is doing great; he’s an absolute angel compared to our first, and everything is way, way, way easier the second time around. I highly recommend second babies.
Congratulations!!!
Congrats!!! So glad everything went well and you got a chill second baby out of it!
Congrats! I didn’t see this until after I posted because of baby brain!
My baby girl was born two and a half weeks ago after 22 hours of labor, an epidural that wore off, and my mother-in -law screaming. “ANUS” in my ear for every second I pushed. (to be fair, I found it really helpful and asked her to continue.)
I want a second baby at some points! I fell asleep with her in my arms, possibly still feeding last night, so tired enough to start disregarding safety protocols.
congratulations!!! I must know more about this anus story, please.
So, with the fair warning that sinceย you are newly pregnant, you reallyย don’t need to worry about the pain at the end, which genuinely does go away really quickly:
So, in my delivery room were my husband and my mother-in-law, who is a magical creature and amazing and who had four kids of her own, so I wanted her help.ย I am a pain wimp who is incredibly squeamish about any kind of body surgery or the like, so I basically avoided all labor and delivery stories and wasn’t quite sure what I was doing. I also had a nurse I disliked even before sheย mangled my cervix when checking how dilated I was,ย so I really did not want her to check again as my contractions became more frequent. (I was also in a fair bit of semi-unrelated pain in my butt, which my magical mother-in-law diagnosed as my sciatica nerve, so she was massaging that and giving me cold compresses to sit on.) this is all to say, when I actually had the pushing phase begin, I did not know what was going on, and genuninelyย thought I had to poop, as clearly my massive bowel movementย was blocking the baby.ย This wasn’t helped byย nurse giving me really contradictory directions and also telling me not to make noise — not in a Scientology silent-birth way, more in a “if you hold your breath you can push more efficiently” way — so I was completely confused.
Then magical MIL started telling me to focus and visualize my anus, and push out through there. Which made sense to me, because I, again, thought I was pooping. So while husband and nurse counted to ten, my MIL started chanting “anus, anus.” Only she’s Israeli, so it came out, “ah-NOOS, ah-NOOS.”
So I yelled at the end of the count to ten, “[MIL NAME], IT’Sย AY-NUS.”
She corrected herself for the next count of ten, but during the next contraction she went back to trying to explain to me to visualize the anus. This was too much for me, so at my next breath I yelled, “go back to shouting ‘anus’.”ย And she did!
Luckily for me, shortly after this there was a nurse switch. So for the rest of my labor until the doctor came in,ย my new nurse gave me positive reinforcement, my husband kept counting to ten, and my MIL shouted “ANUS” in my ear. The pushing phase only lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes — the doctor only being present for the last 15 or so — and to my total surprise, I did not poop at all.
THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING BIRTH STORY I HAVE EVER HEARD, CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations! I’ve been thinking about you and so so glad to hear that he is here and everyone is doing well.
Hooray! And also, did you see the Yarn Harlot writing about second baby magic? http://www.yarnharlot.ca/2015/07/dear-frankie/
something in my eye.
also yes, i was a much better parent the second time around.
OK what, second baby magic indeed! Gah, this was beautiful. And congrats a million times over!!
Aw, that was wonderful! Everyone is conspiring to make me cry today.
Congratulations!! And ten minutes of pushing!!!
Hooray!! Congratulations!
Congratulations! I’m glad everything went smoothly.
Congratulations! I’m glad everything went so well for you!
Congratulations! Second babies are wonderful!
YAAAYYYY!!!! Mazel tov!!! So happy for you.
Hurray!
I need to tidy my flat, change the sheets on the bed for the catsitter, pack a weekend bag, make a cake for the gentleman caller’s birthday (hence weekend bag, going up north to visit him), and probably hoover.
What am I doing? Arsing about on the internet.
Arsing about on the internet is one of life’s greatest pleasures. I salute your phrasing, will be stealing and adding “arsing” to my daily lexicon and finally, here’s to a wonderful weekend of [insert favourite pastime here] with your GC!
I have at least got his cake in the oven now. I want to be in bed in about three hours though, so I do need to get on and stop arsing!!
Friends, I have just been invited to go see Benelux Cul-de-sac play Hamlet in London in late September. I live in California so this would be a little challenging, but then I have not yet taken a real vacation this year and I’m tempted. My friend has not yet replied to answer my question about the price of the show ticket, even though I was careful to phrase it in very broad terms (“More or less than the price of the plane ticket I would need to buy?”) which makes me a little nervous. Still, I should go… right?
I think you should, because life is short, but also, I really like that I didn’t even have to pause and think to understand exactly who you were talking about.
Has friend already got tickets? Because they are sold out on general sale and being released in batches: http://hamlet.barbican.org.uk
Oh, yes I should have said. This would be me taking the place of a ticket holder who can no longer go.
Only if it is at the World replica theater. Then, you should definitely go!
Sadly no, it’s at the Barbican.
I’m going to see BC in Hamlet this October with my mom! We’re spinning it into a Paris/London sightsee adventure. You should definitely go! He’s a world class actor doing a role he’s been preparing for years (at least, mentally). We got very (very) good prices on tickets from Norwegian Air. Good luck and enjoy!!
DO IT OMFG DO IT
YES, OBVIOUSLY.
Fanfic thread?
I’ve been reading this AU Harry Potter fic about Harry being raised at Hogwarts after his parents’ deaths instead of at the Dursley’s. It’s very good. Harry makes friends with the Basilisk and reads them ancient myths about snakes in Parseltongue: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4308786
There’s also this Fury Road fic about the war rig crew (pre-canon): http://archiveofourown.org/works/4390514
Warning: all of the feelings. Serious feelings.
I’ve been re-reading my favorite Good Omens series (Crown of Thorns by irisbleufic, the most delightfully sugar-coated domesticity I could have ever wished for): http://archiveofourown.org/works/728117
I’ve also started on the last fic in my Mass Effect AU, which I wasn’t completely sure would actually happen. So that’s nice. ๐
I do love a nice Aziraphale/Crowley fic. Thank you!
it’s very much worth reading the rest of that author’s work (the AU HP stuff) because they are all really really good. I can’t remember if I saw them recommended on here or somewhere else but I have the author’s page bookmarked now.
I posted one by that author “if Petunia loved Harry” a few months ago because it was so beautiful it made me cry.
edit: this one: http://archiveofourown.org/works/3073562?view_adu…
I haven’t seen that one!!! But I am the one who recommended all of that author’s work on here a few months ago.
I’ve just discovered the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell kink meme. It’s kept me occupied for some time now.
I’ve been living inside the Daredevil kink meme for the past week and it is a lovely, lovely place full of delightful people who just really like watching Charlie Cox/Matt Murdock cry. I could not be happier.
I’m enjoying AJHall’s archive (http://archiveofourown.org/users/AJHall/pseuds/AJHall)–at least the ones where I recognize most of the characters. Wardrobe Pressure is a Cabin Pressure/CS Lewis mashup, and if you read The Toast it is probably relevant to your interests.
This week I binge read The Least of All Possible Mistakes and the Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail and they were both fantastic, highly recommend.
Toasts, I come to you all not with news from Portland (which is still fantastic), but with an urgent dilemma.
I woke up yesterday to a closet that smelled like penicillin. The culprit turned out to be my two brand new, very expensive bras. Despite a heavy-duty wash in hot water, they continue to smell funky, just not as strongly. Is there any hope of fixing this that doesn’t involve bleach?
In the meantime, I’ve moved my drying rack into the bathroom, which has much better ventilation. It won’t be the end of the world if they turn out to be a lost cause, since I have a gift card to the store where I bought them, but I’m still annoyed. (Also, despite seeing a movie yesterday, I’m super tempted to see Magic Mike this weekend, despite going to the theater maybe three times a year on average.)
What does penicillin smell like? Are these bras with foam padding in them that may be outgassing?
It’s hard to describe, because it’s like mold, but not exactly. And yeah, they’re foam-molded, so that might be it…
White vinegar! It’s pretty colour and fabric safe, but you can try a spot first to see if there’s any discoloration. Baking soda also absorbs smells — you can also try shaking some on while the bras are dry and leaving at least overnight to see if the odours go away.
I’m not sure what penicillin smells like either. Mould?
2nd for white vinegar. Soak those babies overnight.
thirded, but I recommend a solution. A strong one, perhaps! But still a solution.
A solution may be your solution.
You need the US equivalent of this – I use it for t-shirts I’ve exercised hard in that are fine when washed and unworn, but as soon as you put them on and they warm up, they smell. http://www.dettol.co.uk/products/laundry-sanitise…
And go and see Magic Mike.
wash with vinegar, use a dryer on the highest setting the bras can stand, repeat and you should be fine.
Thirding/fourthing/fifthing the baking soda and vinegar comments, but maybe your closet is also a culprit? Do your other clothes or items in the closet stink? Can you stick a canister of Damp-Rid in there or something?
I checked everything else in the closet, and it’s all fine. I’m still gonna do the Damp-Rid thing, just to be safe. Thanks. ๐
Vinegar. http://thehairpin.com/2012/05/ask-a-clean-person-…
I use this stuff on my stanky bras: http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Brands-Sport-Wash/d…
I finally went to see Magic Mike yesterday, and it was definitely a good choice. Go!
Unless you haven’t seen Mad Max and it’s still playing near you, in which case you should go to that instead (or also). I really liked Magic Mike, but I *loved* Mad Max.
Try one of the pet odor products–the ones that have actual enzymes–and soak the bras with it. I’ve found that the enzyme cleaner I have for Cat Issues is also fantastic for human smells (which includes sour smelling clothes). I spray it in my running shoes to get rid of that smell and as a pre-treat on sweat soaked shirts that smell vile. Soaking them down, then running them through the wash (not the running shoes though, ha!) and the smell is gone. If not, another round usually does it. Bonus then there is not the horrible overmasking smells that things like Febreze have (though that means just get the regular pet odor products, they have ones with scents in them, and no, no, no, as far as I’m concerned).
I have been known to take my spray bottle of enzyme cleaner along on trips, to deal with the musty odors and weird smells that clothing accumulates when being washed and dried in less than ideal conditions–
I bought a bunch of new VS bras that continue to smell weird, despite being washed numerous times. (Like, an unpleasant plastic-y, chemical-y smell). I have no idea how to fix it– I’ve just been keeping them in another room hoping they would air out.
T-minus 8 weeks and counting at the current job. Terrified/excited to be starting new career/life phase.
I just did the same thing and it is exciting AND terrifying!
Hi Toasties!
My beau and I cooked something in an aluminum (I think that is the material) pressure cooker. We lazily just left the food in the pot, uncovered, and stored it in the fridge … for weeks. And as you can imagine, there was so much mold. So I have been trying to clean out the mold by boiling water in it, scrubbing it, etc. but it is just not going away. You can still see small specks of mold throughout the inside of the pot.
His mom says that it is only stained, but is still okay to use. I am skeptical. Thoughts? Ideas on what to do?!
Aluminum does stain and pit really easily, so it really could just be stains. Have you tried a steel wool scouring pad (eg SOS)?
Also, I would let it sit full of bleachy water for ten minutes, on the theory if there is any mold left after that it will at least be dead mold. (Thing I didn’t know until I learned it from the internet: apparently you should use cold or cool water with bleach, so that more of it will stay in the water and clean stuff instead of evaporating and irritating your lungs.)
If it’s aluminum it may just be pitted/stained due to the leftover food, age, and the harsh cleaning you’ve been giving it ๐ Here’s some more info.
She is correct, but if the stains bother you, perhaps try Barkeeper’s Friend. It’s oxalic acid and works really well (but use gloves when you scrub with it if you have sensitive skin at all).
I used that in my bathtub and it is amazing!
You could write to Ask A Clean Person! I’m sure Jolie knows how to fix this.
Spouse broke his pinky finger yesterday in a bike crash and is feeling all “I suck at riding my bike maybe I should just quit” and I really feel bad for him because that’s clearly his jerkbrain (he’s actually quite good and has improved a lot recently, which has led directly to the injuries because he’s taking more chances on more dangerous drops/stunts/trails, but he is Not Ready To Hear That. So we are meeting for a beer after work because that should help.
In related news, despite many bike crashes and other incidents, I’ve never once broken a bone. I’m 37! How is that possible??
I haven’t broken a bone, which I attribute to growing up in the Dairy State & therefore having bones of steel. (Not really, it’s actually because I am a very cautious person & rarely do things that could result in bone breakage, but shhh. Let me justify my cheese and yogurt diet.)
Reading thread? I just finished Nemesis Games and thoroughly enjoyed it, giggling to myself about how even James Holden is starting to go โOh Holden Noโ. Every time a new Expanse novel comes out I sort of think, โoh good, new Expanse novelโ, then I start reading emerge a day and a half later, blinking. Those guys have a highly readable style, is what Iโm saying.
Now reading Daniel Jose Olderโs Shadowshapers, which is a goddamned delight. His other urban fantasy series didnโt really do it for me (no thanks, male protagonist falling into instant obsession with a woman), but this one is just fantastic. The language, the setting, the characters are effervescent and down to earth all at once. A+.
Bring Up the Bodies. It’s been 5 years since I read Wolf Hall, and either I’ve become a better reader, or the prose is a bit more precise, because it feels a LOT easier to read. Same utterly beautiful, poetic descriptive writing, though!
I loved Bring Up the Bodies, and yeah it does feel like an easier read than Wolf Hall (which I also loved). Can’t wait for the 3rd book.
I finished “An Ember in the Ashes” yesterday, and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It picked up a lot towards the end, I’ll probably check out the next book in the series whenever that’s released. I’m currently reading Kelly Link’s “Stranger Things Happen”, which I’ve read before but is still a delight. “Travels With the Snow Queen” is such an excellent short story!
I just last night finished Ian Tregillis’ Bitter Seed, and went to the library this morning to request the rest of the trilogy.
It’s an alt WWII historical fantasy. Creepy and full of terrible choices and action. Loving it.
Bitter Seed was excellent but I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the rest of the trilogy, precisely because of those terrible choices. There are books that can only be read when my moral strength and resilience are topped up and those are among them.
that sounds excellent
I’m reading Misfortune for my book club, which has started to pick up in pace now that the narrator has been introduced. So far, it’s fascinating and my favorite character is obsessed with books and it is wonderful!
I’m reading You Know When the Men Are Gone and I’m not as impressed as all the reviews I read clearly were. To me it’s very “This is my MFA project” writing but I must be in the minority judging by the gushing reviews.
I’m reading Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series this week. It’s very twee and hipster PNW fantasy, but also very Narnia-esque and although I’ve never read it before it’s an awful lot like comfort reading, so I’m enjoying it without being terribly impressed.
Just finished Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, which I’d been putting off for a while for no real reason. Turns out I loved it and especially Bernadette & Bee. I would have read it way sooner if I’d known Semple was a writer on Arrested Development.
Yesterday I started Cryptonomicon, because apparently I’m insane. So far it’s classic Stephenson, but I’m only 3% into its 900+ pages.
I don’t know if you are like me, but while I don’t mind Stephenson’s forays into minutiae when it’s subjects I like, I just can’t seem to get interested in patterns and cryptography. I liked the book, especially the World War II sections, but I skimmed over a lot of the cryptography infodumps and rolled my eyes every time he wrote Nippon instead of Japan.
If, on the other hand, you are like me and you really dig Stephenson’s random forays into cryptography and economics, you should definitely read The Baroque Cycle. I mean, it’s 3,000 pages, but they’re great pages.
I just finished Seveneves and have thoughts… I don’t want to give spoilers, so I’ll just say I found the last third of the book problematic. Anyone else?
I liked it, but I think it should have been either shorter (like an epilogue that leaves you wondering “what the fuck?”) or longer so that all the ramifications could be explored.
I’m a fan of his sidetracks and infodumps on those, The Baroque Cycle has been on my To Read list for a while.
I just finished Nemesis Games yesterday! And yes, our little Holden is growing up… a bit.
I’m glad to hear you say Shadowshapers was good. I honestly did not like Half-Resurrection Blues that much even though I find Older delightful on Twitter.
I also got The Guns of August out of the library, but I think I was a bit optimistic about how much I am going to want to read about World War I during my train commute instead of, you know, fanfic.
Spending time with the rest of the crew was really fun (for disaster-movie values of fun), and bringing everything back to human-scale events was an interesting choice given the mad-alien-technology focus of the previous books.
I bounced hard off Half-Resurrection Blues for the reason I mentioned above and just couldn’t bring myself to care enough to finish. I was very happy to find that Shadowshaper has the same good writing and intriguing world-building with characters I adored immediately.
I just finished Logic’s Emporium of Stolen Memories by D J Natelson, which the author kindly put on free offer for kindle last week after a discussion on the Diana Wynne Jones email list, and it was really good.
Now onto the Secret Pilgrim by John le Carre.
Reading Vivek Shraya’s She Of The Mountains and it’s gorgeous and perfect.
I’m rereading Jonathan Strange and Dr. Norrell, for which I blame all you Toasties and your descriptions of the excellent-sounding TV series of it. I am realizing that I have forgotten….most of it? Lots of it, anyway. Which is exciting! I enjoy rereads even if I practically know the book by heart (O HAI all of the Roald Dahls of my childhood), but it is nice to be able to be surprised again.
I finished with the last 50 pages of the mystery I had figured out, and now I’ve started Station Eleven.
Do you ever put a book in your Goodreads list or place a hold at the library and then don’t remember the plot or who recommended the book? Happens to me disturbingly often these days, but Station Eleven is pretty good so far.
AGREED ON SHADOWSHAPER BEING A FUCKING DELIGHT
dear reading thread:
I have a free short story in a short story competition here if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s about 700 words long, and it’s a low fantasy thingamabob featuring a fisherman.
http://www.inkitt.com/stories/17028
BR, that story is creepy and wonderful!
I don’t trust that kid.
I finished Tigerman, by Nick Harkaway. I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it. It was good, but somehow unsatisfying. My BFF is reading it now, and I’m looking forward to discussing it with her. (Tigerman is no Gone Away World, for sure.)
Then I raced through The Future Falls by Tanya Huff, which was fun but not as fun as The Wild Ways. (I’m sensing a theme here.)
I’m now reading The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith, who I’ve never read before. So far, the thing I’m enjoying the most is that the story includes a ship stranded in the ice in 1879-1880 which appears to be at least partly based on a real ship that was stranded on the ice from 1879 – 1881, the USS Jeannette. Its story is covered in In the Kingdom of Ice, by Hampton Sides, which I whole-heartedly recommend if you’re a fan of tragic arctic exploration stories. (Or non-tragic ones.)
I finished Shadowshaper recently too, and loved it despite also not loving Half-Resurrection Blues. I did really like his collection of short stories (Salsa Nocturna) in the H-RB universe, though.
Today I finished Look At Me by Jennifer Egan, which I enjoyed, but which made me feel like I needed to have read it in a Contemporary Lit seminar or something so I could spend some time connecting the thematic dots. I had lots of *ding ding! paper topic!* moments while reading, which was a funny throwback to undergrad. Next up for me is Between the World and Me, and I’m bracing myself already.
Hi toast. I think I might be (intentionally) pregnant. oh my gosh oh my gosh.
Ooh! Exciting! I’m waiting for this month’s roulette to see if anything took after copious sex.
I think this month’s success may be the result of me getting a positive ovulation test at work 2 hours before a 2-day work trip, and zooming home to bang my husband for 4 minutes and then leaving. ROMANCE.
yay for intentional pregnancy! I just had a baby! It’s a fun ride. Good luck and many, many hugs for you.
yay! (also, breathe!)
yayyay!!! I hope you get good news soon!
Yaaaaaaay! Lots of positive vibes for all the maybe pregnant Toasties today!!!!!
Yea, we can be pregnancy twins! Okay, that sounds weird, maybe not. But congratulations! Take a test and find out for sure!
Hello, the Toast! I just moved to LA to ~pursue my dreams~ and I’m… miserably homesick. Do you live in LA? What do you like about the city? What gets you jazzed up about being here?
Los Angeles has some of the best food in the world?
I wasn’t super excited about living here but being at the intersection of Thai Town and Little Armenia and Koreatown and Little Ethiopia has mollified me a bit.
Good luck re:dreams! ๐
Thank you! I ended up living in the Valley so food is a little less excellent than it might be, but I also just need to explore around my own neighborhood a little more.
Oh no! The homesick in a new city feeling is the worst! I’m not in LA, but may be moving out that way in the next couple of months. I hope you’re able to find something to make you feel less homesick and more excited to be there! Congrats on getting out there and pursuing your dreams though, that’s huge!
Thank you so much! It was a big thing to get out here. I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve been in the city itself for less than two weeks, and in a permanent dwelling for a week. These things take time! (But I want to feel at home nowwwwwww…)
I love it here! I’m actually just about to leave and I’m giving it up for love of a person, but man, it really shows how much I love that person that I’m giving up my true love of the last 7 years, Los Angeles. I came here from the East Coast, and it did take a little while to get my sea legs though. I think it was a year before I fully felt like I had settled and then another year to be fully in love. It helps to make friends. Make friends with a few native Angelenos, and a few expats from other places who love it here, so you get a full view around the city.
I live in Koreatown and I love it. What do I love about LA? Hmm. The weather, the culture, the diversity, food, the discovery of nooks and crannies. Here are a few things I love love love and I’m excited for you to find them:
Outdoorsy:
1. The Huntington Gardens
2. Point Dume
3. Velasquez rocks
4. Eaton Canyon
5. Ferndell at Griffith Park, then teh trail up to the observatory
6. Walking around the silverlake reservoir right when the sun is going down and everyone else is.
7. Barnsdall park (there’s a Frank Lloyd Wright house and wine tastings and art gallery and art classes hidden up there)
8. Biking or rollerblading on the beach bike path.
Little hot spots around town:
Los Feliz- vermont and hollywood (near barnsdall park)
Little Tokyo (two in the know spots for you to check out- honda ya izakaya and the blue whale jazz club)
Downtown, I know all the bars, I strongly recommend The Must and you should go scope Grand Central Market
Sunset Junction- one of the few dedicated cheese shops I know of, cute coffee shop called the Casbah Cafe and Pine and Crane for delicious dumplings
Chinatown- interesting little art gallery scene tucked away in here, dim sum at the recently re-opened empress pavilion, there’s a grocery called..Wing Fung i think that has a great selection of loose teas, and under it there’s an outpost of Roy Choi’s called Chego and you should see all the Roy Choi restaurants to get the fusion LA feeling
In hollywood, off the strip, the farmers market, fancy dinner at hungry cat, happy hour at little fork and movies at the arclight- you nearly always see someone famous on this circut
THE FERRIS WHEEL AT THE SANTA MONICA PIER- I’ve seen DOLPHINS while on this ferris wheel.
A sense of belonging:
LA Bicycle Coalition- for the civic minded biking types, you’ll get a view of the city or Friends of the LA River
HOLA- volunteering in Mac Arthur Park, lots of options to volunteer with youths, you’ll meet lots of sweet adult people who care about things.
Environmentalists- Check out the LA Eco Village, its a little hub.
Arts- The Women’s Center For Creative Work, There’s a modern quilt guild.
Anyway this is a teeny weeny little list, but I love it here. I love the people, I love the place and I hope you will too.
THANK YOU, this is incredible! The Women’s Center for Creative Work sounds right up my alley, and it’s good to have a list of places to explore.
I think part of my difficulty is that I feel trapped in the place I moved into. I only had a week to find somewhere to live and move in, and no knowledge of the city to start with. I landed in a house in Van Nuys with roommates that seem lovely, but also cats that puke on everything and nothing within walking distance. My strategy at home for making friends was “exit apartment, turn left, say hello to someone at a bar and do my best” but that gets much more complicated when I have to drive 25 minutes to everything. BUT if I have non-drinking destinations that will help a lot–so thank you!
You are welcome!
Living in the Valley is DEFINITELY a different animal. I don’t think anyone who I’ve met who ended up in the valley first is the same starry eyed lover of LA that I am. When you are ready for a different housing experience I’d recommend getting on the other side of the Hollywood Hills. In the meantime, now you have a chance to go scope all the neighborhoods out and see what kind of Angeleno you want to be. If you want a valley to live in, check out Altadena and Pasadena.
I don’t particularly want to live in a valley… I would have much preferred to live in the city itself! But the short time frame and desire to have a place to call my own after two weeks of travel/transience wreaked havoc with my long term priorities. (And I had a few suburb-loving friends from this area trying to scare me out of living in the city itself. Which worked, to my chagrin.)
I’m stuck until the end of April. So it’s time to make the best of it and do some exploring!
I just moved to LA too! I’ve been wanting to put together a Toast meetup, but probably won’t have time to actually do so for awhile because my work life is insane at the moment. But let’s do that at some point, and then we’ll all have awesome LA ladyfriends!
Yes, that would be excellent! I will keep my eyes open for updates in future Open Threads.
I did not like living there but I loved the hikes, really liked the Huntington Library and there’s lots of good comedy shows.
Libraries are a surefire way to get me excited–thank you for the tip!
Welcome to the neighborhood, lady!
LA can be super-intimidating at first, but for real, it’s amazing once you know where you’re going. If you haven’t visited the fabric/flower/garment districts in downtown (near Maple and 9th), you are going to LOVE it. Pasadena is my local ‘hood–full of walkable neighborhoods, great coffee (you can take the Gold Line metro to Allen, and walk a block to Jameson Brown, my absolute favorite coffeeshop!), and nice people. LA Weekly is a good resource for finding activities all over the county, and I would highly recommend picking up a copy, or checking out their website. LAist is also a great resource!
Being in the Valley can be a tricky monkey in terms of getting to and from things–make the 170 and the 134 your friends. There truly is something in LA for everyone–it is a vast town, but you will find your niche! Glad you’re here!
I’m getting my tragus pierced tomorrow! I’m excited, but not looking forward to the healing process. I did my helix over a year ago and it seemed like healing took forever. So! Tell me about recent body mods!
Tragus isn’t too bad to heal, enjoy!
Meet Medusa, my newest tattooed lady:
(my sister did the artwork, tattoo by the incomprarable Chuck at Revolver Tattoo, New Brunswick, NJ. Color in November!)
I have both tragus and helix piercings, too! I don’t remember the healing process for the helix very well (it was a long time ago). The tragus, though, which I got five years ago, healed very easily (although it may be because the piercing I had the year before it was an eyebrow piercing and that was ridiculous to heal, since it’s so easy to knock it against things…). You do have to be careful when sleeping (and avoiding sleeping on that ear), which seemed more of a problem than I had had with previous ear piercings (the helix and the 5 lower ear lobe ones I have).
The only thing I’ve found with the tragus piercing is that it interferes with earbuds. I wear a captive bead ring in the piercing, which is part of it, I’m sure, but I do have to carefully situate the earbud to make it stay in place (particularly when running).
Toasties, I am epically far behind on the Toast and all goings-on here, because I have a new baby girl (two and a half weeks old now!) and she is wonderful and precious and I can’t wait until I can explain postmodernism to her.
Congratulations! ๐
You should start explaining now. Get ’em while they’re young and impressionable.
So sweet! Congrats!!!
Congratulations! I hope she lets you sleep soon.
Ok, I’ve got a question. Is it A Thing that middle-aged men purposefully get things wrong about you?
I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence or what but it’s happened three times since the beginning of the year. First, a professor (one who I know pretty well) accidentally said the wrong name when introducing me to somebody. He corrected himself pretty quickly but now it’s a joke with him to call me the wrong name. Then the owner of my gym thought I went to a different school than I really do and now he jokingly asks how that other school is whenever I see him. Most recently my project manager at work has been spelling my name wrong. I don’t know if it’s on purpose at this point anymore but it’s certainly a joke. He admitted that the reason he thought it was spelled the other way was that his high school girlfriend spelled it that way, which I get but… still.
I’m not mad at any of them. I mean, I don’t find it as funny as they seem to but it doesn’t upset me either so I just play along. But why is this happening? And why only men over 40?
You know, now that you mention it, I feel like this is definitely something older dudes do. Not necessarily getting things wrong more often, but making long-term, uncomfortable jokes about it. Yuck. Maybe you can just use your words when it happens, Captain Awkward-style? Like “hey, just so you know, this joke is starting to make me a little uncomfortable, and I’d appreciate it if we can just move on.”
Uggghhh it’s definitely something older people do, generally – I have this problem with an older woman at my master’s swim who’s joke has been going on A YEAR now. It was funny for about the first ten seconds and hasn’t been since.
Agreed. I’m wondering if maybe this is a way of coping with their own discomfort regarding their failing memories? But when it is a coping mechanism that is making you feel uncomfortable, you should not have to just awkwardly laugh!
I recently took my qualifying exam for grad school (I passed! I’m a candidate!) and the very first thing that anyone said during my talk was one of the old man professors interjecting and addressing me by a diminutive version of my name that I virtually never use. It was just such a weird moment because I do not know this professor well at all and he very well may have just forgotten my name but it just threw me off with surprise. I recovered and rocked it though, so all’s good.
I think it’s that thing that’s like “office culture”? Where you make the one joke one time and every time you run into that coworker you see only every other week they have to make the SAME joke, because it’s your joke that you share and you don’t know each other that well to make more than one social gesture.
My uncle has jokingly called my fiance “Kevin” instead of his real name for the entire nine years we’ve been together because he got it wrong once. He thinks it’s the funniest joke in the world.
My grandfather, a man with four daughters, called every boyfriend any of them ever had “Humphrey” till they were just about engaged.
The father of one of my friends called all his daughter’s school friends “Melvin”. All her friends were girls. But we all got used to being called Melvin. Dads!
My own Man-Over-40 does this and I hate it. For him, it’s because he lacks social skills. He lacks social skills, in large part, because he is a tall white man and therefore has never been required to gain them. He always gets a pass. He remains oblivious. He is accepted always and everywhere, so he figures he must be doing something right. So no change. No thought of change.
Who me, frustrated?
Yes! My Very Considered Theory on this is that it’s narcissism — people more aptly remember things they say about you than things that are actually about you. Oblivious, lack-of-social-skills, etc.
I think it might also be a social hierarchy thing? The remembering what they said instead of the actual facts is kind of disrespectful, so I feel like maybe it’s a way of sort of subconsciously demonstrating that they don’t have to show you as much respect as they would show another middle-aged man, because patriarchy, etc.
Alas, it isn’t only men over 40. I work in a public library and I have regulars who I see EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Who can’t be bothered to remember my name. Most of them are men, but not always and I’ve found this in everyone from early 20s on up.
I would play along to the tune of “Oh Jeremy, that’s so funny!” “What? Riiiight. Jonathan. My old dog’s trainer’s cousin was named Jeremy.”
Hi all! I’ve got a health insurance question, if any American Toast-readers can advise me. A few weeks ago I saw my doctor for my annual well-woman checkup… and I was charged a $50 copay to get in the door. I thought these annual checkups were classified as preventive care by the ACA? What’s going on? Should I contact my insurer to be reimbursed?
Another worry: Next week I have an appointment for an initial IUD consultation. Does anyone know which/how many IUD-related appointments are supposed to be copay free under the ACA? All of them? Only the insertion appointment? I don’t know what to expect, and I need to save money for textbooks ๐
Has your insurance changed recently? Have you had to pay a copay before? Here’s what the infamous site has to say: https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-benefi…
It sounds to me like you should only have been charged a copay if your doctor is out-of-network. Check to see if they’re still an in-network provider. If they are, I would recommend contacting the doctor’s office first to see if they can give you any answers. If they can’t help, I would call the insurance company, which can be an absolute nightmare.
Sadly I’m not sure about anything on the IUD front ๐
I was under the impression that the annual should be free. I would call your insurance company and ask. I recently was overcharged by a doctor, so I sent my health care provider a message through my online portal, and they contacted me back the next day and called the doctor explaining i shouldn’t owe anything else.
Most likely you will not get a refund until the doctor’s office receives the payment and explanation of benefits document from your insurance. the explanation of benefits document should be available to you as well, and will document how much you owe.
Also if you ever talk to your insurance company on the phone, ask for a reference number for the call and write down the date and time.
That depends!!
There are some insurance groups that have been grandfathered through the ACA and aren’t subject to the requirements for no-copy BC/well-woman exams. Small groups aren’t necessarily subject to the requirements. There are a lot of reasons this could have happened.
Under the ACA, all the above should be free as long as you were at an in-network provider. (Assuming your coverage is college or employer-provided and falls under ACA requirements, which most plans do at this point.) you can look at healthcare.gov/preventive-care-benefits/women/ for more. ๐
For sure call your insurance company. They mess stuff like that up ALL. THE. TIME. It may also be that your doc is the one who needs to be spanked, in which case your insurance company can do that better than you. And if you still can’t work it out, see if your state exchange has a helpline–if your insurance company needs to be spanked, they can do that better than you.
Also! Your insurance company can tell you what to expect re: IUD consults. Ask! Ask ask! And if they are jerky, see advice above re: exchange.
You probably should not have been made to pay the copay, and all your IUD appointments should be free as well. That was the case for me when I had my IUD inserted post-Obamacare, and I had an initial consultation, the insertion, a follow-up, AND an ultrasound because they couldn’t find the strings during the first follow-up. I remember one time they did charge me the copay (only $20 so not as big a deal), but then realized they shouldn’t have and sent me a check to pay me back.
I just did the annual check-up a few weeks ago, it was 100% free, and the receptionist and I had a little chat about what a surprise it was not to pay the copay, which she told me explicitly was due to Obamacare.
Health insurance companies make (and correct) mistakes all the time. Try calling them on it and see what happens! Squeaky wheel!
I had to remind my (in-network) doc that the visit for the IUD insertion (1.5 weeks ago, yay!) was supposed to be free with no copay, and I’d confirmed with my insurance this was the case. They tried to charge me the copay when I checked in.
Definitely call your insurance and verify that they cover the insertion and prescription for the specific brand of IUD you plan to get, though.
Toasties! Yesterday I got a surprise call from a delightful lady friend to tell me that she is currently in a city less than 1000 miles from where I am. She’s witchy and whimsical, fiercely intellectual and was the one to introduce me to contemporary art and not shaving my armpits, and has spent far too much time on the other side of a very large ocean therefore preventing us from meeting up as much as we’d like over the past few years. I have invested many $ in a bottle of a fancy alcoholic drink we both enjoy, have my train tickets booked and am SO EXCITED for the weekend to come.
Anyone else meeting up with wonderful girl pals this weekend?
Not this weekend but next week my best friend and her family (who are like my extended family) are coming for a weeklong visit. She is currently in Iraq (doing amazing work for displaced children) so I don’t see her often. It will be AMAZING.
Have fun with your friend, she sounds awesome!!
Oooh that sounds lovely! Wishing you both wonderful and witchy hangtime vibes! I’m meeting up with my dear friend who is the only person I know who actually hates men as much as I do. She might even hate them more. I can let all my man-hating hair down with her and I love it.
Not this weekend, but in 2 weeks my good friend who moved to CA the day before my birthday is coming back for a short visit. I’m excited to see her again and drink lots of bubble tea with her and play Shadowrun not over skype and generally have her back for a few days.
YAY Have a great time!! Also, long train journeys are the best. I hope you have a good book.
I dearly miss my girlpals, since i moved to a suburb far far away. but will be seeing one in a couple weeks and together we will travel for a week!! so super excited.
IN the meantime, this week, I have lunch with two potential new local friends and can’t wait to possibly have girls in walking distance again. the friend-dating period is a tough one, but the rewards are so great!
My roommates from ten years ago just emailed this week to set up a Skype date together on Monday, which is a delightful idea. I’ve seen them a few times since we lived together and it’s always like no time has passed at all!
I am! My very good friend moved from NY to LA a few years ago (she writes for The Mary Sue and is awesome and the best, she once went to a male strip show with Majel Roddenberry who she had just met that day because that is the level of ridiculous excellence that she creates in the world) and I miss her like fierce! She is in for a couple weeks and I am going to meet her at a park on Sunday with my dog and my fiance and it will be pretty much the best day.
Awesome! I get to see of of my best pals this evening. She’s been living and working in Haiti for the last couple of years. Always so great to have her around. It’s been kind of a tough year emotionally so far and she’s someone that is not only super supportive and helpful, but also fun enough to help me see the other side.
In just under two weeks, my best friend is joining me in London for Nine Worlds! She lives in Wales, which is not actually all that far away – about 3-4 hours by train – but is still another country.
Toasties! I’m starting my first actual job on Monday (although it’s just for eight weeks over the summer), and I’m excited and nervous in equal measure.
It’s a really interesting job, that I was very lucky to get. It’s doing some cataloguing/archiving in the college library, and the librarians are super friendly and seem like they’ll be lovely to work with.
There are two things I’m worried about though. The first is that I’ve been finding it more difficult than usual to motivate myself recently, which means I’m not as prepared as I should/would like to be, and I’m also worried that might transfer over into the work. Fingers crossed that won’t happen though. Secondly, I’m concerned the work might be too hard for me, that they think they’ve hired someone vaguely competent and intelligent, but I’ll get there and they’ll realise that isn’t the case at all. Overall I think it’ll be ok, but this stuff is rolling about my brain at the moment. Anyway, I’ll stop whining over the Open Thread now… Hope everyone’s had a good week!
That’s just the imposter syndrome talking there!! You’ll be great!!
Thank you! I certainly hope so. ^^
Attitude on the job is everything. Make it evident that you welcome instruction, want to learn from others. Do your best and look for opportunities to ask for advice. They’re going to love you.
Thanks, that sounds like really solid advice! I’ll try my best.
Speaking as someone who has worked in libraries most of his life, I think you will find the people pleasant and the environment restful.
Thank you for the kind words. Pleasant and restful sounds very good indeed.
… and also you can ask people on The Toast about librariany/archivy things and we will answer you. Most of us don’t know everything, we just have awesome networks we can call upon for advice and discussion. Good luck!
Thank you, that’s awesome! Really kind of you.
My master’s thesis is slowly becoming less terrifying as I continue to chug thru my research – yesterday I decided four case studies is too many, and dropped one. Sorry, Angola.
Also I’ve been watching MST3K in the evenings to relax and stop thinking about academia. My personal fav episodes (lately) are “Earth vs. the Spider,” “Space Mutiny,” and all the Russo-Finnish ones. What are YOURS?
SPACE MUTINY! God, I love that one. It’s in my top three with Pumaman and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Devil Fish is a runner up, as is Starfighters.
Omg I haven’t watched that in years!!!! I remember my sisters and I watching the Gilman one I think, and it was great.
I am totally going to keep an we on this thread for ideas on ones to watch! Keep them coming!
Favorite episode, hands down, is “Riding With Death.” It’s the Ben Murphiest!
Oh good, I thought I was the only one with a particular fondness for those Finnish Fractured Fairy Tales.
I LOVE “Hobgoblins.” I think it’s on the same level as “Space Mutiny” and “Werewolf,” but for some reason it doesn’t get the same recognition. (Possibly because the movie seems to maybe be bad on purpose, which is cheating.)
I love the shorts best (especially “A Date with Your Family” and “The Chicken of Tomorrow”). Many of those are on YouTube, I think.
“Manos”and “Pumaman” of course, and also the Russian ones, especially “Jack Frost”. I love that one because it was actually a fairly popular movie to air around Christmas when I was a kid, so I grew up with “No, not a princess. A queen!” in my pop culture quotes arsenal.
I love “The Final Sacrifice” because it brought us Rowsdower. Rowsdower!
WHEEEEEEEE mst3k thread!
All these are great suggestions! I’m also partial to Horror at Party Beach, Laserblast, Pod People (Trumpy!), Robot Monster, Untamed Youth, Sidehackers, Mole People (down, down, down…), Cave Dwellers (there’s miles of Miles!), Giant Spider Invasion, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Mitchell, Sinister Urge, Deadly Mantis, Parts: The Clonus Horror, Time Chasers…
I’m partial to Season 8 in general. It was my first. *nostalgic heartflutter, swoony eyes, self-deprecating grin*
I have to shill for “Mitchell” here since it hasn’t been mentioned yet! I’ve been rewatching them recently and I think I like it more than ever now. Poor Joe Don Baker, so many jokes at his slovenly character’s expense.
My other absolute favorites are “Werewolf” (“I don’t know, you had him last!”), “Space Mutiny,” and “Pumaman!”
PUMAMAN!! Loling forever
I am going to see Steeleye Span (NOT Steely Dan, NOT Steel Ice Band [which is probably a thing but not MY thing]) tonight, the band of my youth, of my heart, of my knowing all the (weird, Childe ballad, folk songs, but electrified) songs and being able to sing them ALL !!!! I am delighted to be going. I am actually delighted to be going alone, in part because no one around here shares my derangement.
SO – If you are in Davis Square in Cambridge and see a deranged looking middle aged woman with a gray shirt with a crow on, that is me! Braid, glasses, crow shirt: come and say hi!
Steeleye Span! I love them! My parents had most of their records when I was a small thing and I loved listening to them, especially “Below the Salt” and “Rocket Cottage”
Oh man, my dad would be so jealous. He’s the reason I even know who they are! Enjoy your concert!!
Yay for Steeleye Span, band of my youth as well. Probably about #4 or 5 on Reasons I Wound Up with a Doctorate in Medieval Folklore.
In that case, they probably have a lot to answer for.
I drink so much diet coke, and I have yet to come across a bottle with my name on it. To be sad about that fact, I’ve started a tumblr about all the names I have gotten: http://stillnotcarly.tumblr.com
We were sitting around the other day thinking of things we would like to put on Coke instead of names. Like, “Your Wife,” “My Frenemy,” “Someone’s Ex For Good Reasons,” and so on.
Cans and 2 litre bottles and things like “VIP” and “Best Friends” but I like the names on the 20 oz. better.
Why is “Your Mom” not a thing yet?
I don’t drink that much Coke anymore, but every time I go by one of those displays I look for my name and I’ve still never seen it.
Wait, that tumblr is genius. ๐
I just want you to know that I snorted when I saw your Tumblr name, so well done there ๐
FALLEN LONDON THREAD! What is everyone up to?
I am trying to decide if I should upgrade my lodgings to the fancy room at the Bazaar or the fancy room at the Brass Embassy. It seems like the Vial of M—–s B—d would be easier to get than the reported location of a one-time Prince of Hell, but I do like the Devils far more than the Masters.
Did you do the Cave of the Nadir? I seem to recall that one of the factions will give you the reported location of a one-time Prince of Hell in exchange for its location.
I’m currently down in Flute Street playing catch with a Rubbery Hound. In other news, I made a tactical error by divorcing the Master Jewel Thief before snagging the Magnificent Diamond I need for a grand proposal of marriage – does anyone have any tips on good alternate sources for those?
I did, but I sold the location to Hell (which is why I’m so close to the Devils now).
You can find Magnificent Diamonds in the Forgotten Quarter but they are very rare, much more so than the Eyeless Skulls in my experience.
Become a Murderer! bwa ha ha
Or get close to the Criminal faction and use the option on the shady priest’s opportunity card to beat someone up for diamonds.
Ooh, good one! I usually get the shady priest to hook me up with souls but will look into fisticuffs for diamonds instead.
I have done a lot of zailing. Went to Polythreme and the Iron Republic. Also recently did some breeding in the Labyrinth of Tigers. Now I’m trying to figure out how to finish up the Jack of Smiles case
*minor spoilers*
(I took the option that continues after Polythreme)
Isn’t it best to wait until Christmas, and use lacre? Long time to wait though.
I’ve got a mood card in my deck which is totally stressing me out โ I can’t go back to zee or do anything until I’ve used it. I already lost two mood cards โ one by going mad unexpectedly and one by *accidentally pressing delete*. I was thinking of hanging around at the university getting my scholar of correspondence up over 10? Bit lame, but I’m rather interested in the Correspondence.
Argh I am in the same position. Problem is I don’t have anything I CAN do with it right now that wouldn’t just be a waste. I think I need to figure out how to get more Uncanny Incunabula fast and then use it to get more Searing Enigmas from the machine at the University…
I’m in the foreign office working through that storyline at the moment.
I started playing a few weeks ago because of these threads! I love it so far, the atmosphere and writing are great. My current mission is to become a Person of Some Importance, which I’ve heard is an important milestone. Thanks Toasties for turning me onto this game!
Modern Day Anthropological Question.
I live in a European country where ‘being normal/average’ is considered the best and only thing to be. As an involuntary oddball that irks me no end (weirdness is so much more interesting). STILL. I am not that fond of my being an exception, mainly because it leads to endless QUESTIONS about yunonormal? I often wish I didn’t have such an aversion to the CONTENT of being average. The concept seems very reassuring and safe to me, but the actual reality is just too dull to even consider for a second.
Anyway. Through the US media I consume, I often get the feeling that many Americans dรณ strive for being special, being exceptional, not being part of the crowd. But then I wonder: Don’t they get the same amount of questios and pressure regarding being average and yunonormallikeus?
I find being different a burden, whereas I get the feeling that (some) USians seem to strive for it.
Who can explain this difference to me?
Europe is a bit more collectivist than the U.S.- not as much as East Asian countries, but you’ns can communicate without insisting on your own exceptional ism and pass socialist legislation without it being called communism. The U.S. is hugely individualistic. The best thing you can be here is an individual, confident in your own quirks and ruling supreme over your farm or company, beholden not to the IRS but to Jesus Christ Himself.
This…is the most terrifyingly accurate analysis of this mentality that I’ve ever heard.
I think the difference in the US is that you have to be different, but **the right kind** of different. Like being a manic pixie dream white girl is a-ok, but a manic pixie dream black/queer/trans girl is whoa, calm yo tits with the otherness, we don’t want to see that here. It’s as if there’s a very narrow corridor of quirkiness that is tolerable – and is generally considerably more tolerable if it’s backed by privilege (whether that privilege is whiteness, or money, or perceived success in a field etc.)
The only arena I can think of where the US values “averageness” is in intelligence, which has been greatly a feature of the 21st century (Thanks Dubya!) There’s this distrust of science and smart people — it’s all the nonsense about “well, I don’t use big words, I’m an average joe” kind of thing which is revered by many. I don’t understand that and I don’t subscribe to it, but we do witness that crap a lot.
Thinking about this some more… I think it’s an important distinction that specialness is okay and otherness is not.
Like, “yer a wizard, ‘arry!” is specialness, and a kind of status above ordinary, and there is not a brand or a story or any part of American life that doesn’t include the message to strive for that. But “otherness” or weirdness is gross and embarrassing and not okay – and usually met with distaste, fear, ignorance, invasive and demeaning questioning, and downright hatred.
this makes a ton of sense, and it makes me think of some of the things we like to celebrate as specialness – like, being a wizard would REALLY set you apart, but I’m picturing all those Buzzfeed lists like “27 things only left-handed people get!” or “You know you’re an Italian-American if…” or “15 signs you grew up in Michigan.” Like, cool, those are all legit things to identify with, but none of them are very unusual. No idea if that’s uniquely American, but we’re a big & diverse enough country that a lot of us can take pride in a “weird” identity that we share with several million others.
‘arry’s a wizard in a culture that recognizes wizards. It’s the surprising, never-thought-of-that kind of different that seems to trigger the fearful folk.
Very true! Otherwise he’d be burned at the stake for otherness. (We-el, Harry himself might get off the hook due to white penis considerations, but your point remains valid. ๐ )
What I find interesting is that it’s such an odd thing – like no one will pillory you for being average, but there is a very strong narrative that you have to distinguish yourself from the herd (**cough** personal branding **projectile vomiting**). So instead of just being a person, you are a Mom/Irish-American/”Carrie” in the SATC quiz you took. Not unremarkable or unaverage things, but because they are building blocks of identity they become Big/Exceptional Deals. And we post these things on social media, which is already a funhouse mirror of our real selves, looking for validation that we’re normal/average and special ~at the same time~.
Hahahaha yes: “Acceptably Special”
The American situation seems a lot less honest when you frame it like that.
At least in your home country people are open about thinking conformity is ideal. Americans like to pretend that they value difference and individuality but still punish and ignore people whose nonconformity extends beyond superficial quirks. The white lawyer with the tattoo is praised for being edgy while anyone assigned male at birth is punished for even the smallest identification with femme aesthetics etc.
and even the guy who’s praised for being edgy will get questions daily. Why do you have tattoos? Can I touch them? What’s this one mean? Did it hurt? Doesn’t that hurt your chance of getting a job? Culturally we praise that guy for self-expression but anyone doing that kind of self-expression knows the cost is dealing with a lot of the same annoying questions.
And of course we’re such a huge country – normal in New York is quirky in Minneapolis and downright bizarre in a conservative small town.
I agree that mileage varies according to location, but I think in many cases the white upper class conformists get tattoos BECAUSE they want to invite those questions so they can maintain the illusion that they’re transgressive and different. But I am probably biased because I work in an office full of guys like that.
true! of course, that kind of guy is happy to invite questions because he doesn’t already get a zillion obnoxious people going “when are you having kids?” or “you should lose weight!” or “don’t wear pink, it’s for girls” at him.
Or, that old favorite, “What are you?”
And of course we’re such a huge country – normal in New York is quirky in Minneapolis and downright bizarre in a conservative small town.
Yes, this. I live in New York now, and there are all kinds of things about me that were considered “OMGSOWEIRD, why do you insist on being SUCH A WEIRDO YOU WEIRDO?” in the small town I lived in previously, but here those things are perfectly unremarkable. The more heterogeneous the place where you live, the less likely people are to get on each other’s cases for not being “normal,” because the range of what’s “normal” is so much wider.
In reaction to you (and some stuff of what others have said).
I am grateful that my country is a lot less anti-intellectual (relatively) than some places in the US can be.
I was talking to a US friend of mine who moved here on a Fullbright scholarship. That’s of course a screaming symbol of excelling, and working hard, and trying to escape averageness. When I talked to him about how in my country people strive for averageness, he almost got a seizure on the spot, it was so anathema to me.
There are reasons though. Living in a super socialist country, you don’t HAVE to excell, because there’s quite a big government network to catch you when you fall. So in that way we are a bit spoilt/ can afford to be average.
But culturally speaking, excellence is NOT rewarded. Yes, yes, great that you’re a famous sportsman/singer/actor, but we love you most when you keep on living in a small house and still shop at the local supermarket. We see it as a sign of staying ‘real & normal’ and not getting too big for your brichtes (DOOMSCENARIO)
Also, the concept of Hero worship is totally alien to us. Of course you can say: Oh, such and such is a great pianist/sportsman, it would be great if I could be as good as him/her, so an individual person might be an inspiration, but never a HERO.
Maybe because we know that every hero is a human, and will inevitably fall? So sites like ‘yourfaveisproblematic’ would only make people go: Uhm, yeah, and?
This is not to say that we don’t suck, please understand that I’n not bigging up my country vs the US. We’re full of assholes and bad traits ๐
No country/culture is perfect but that lack of hero worship sounds really refreshing. And from the outside, it’s really endearing to see that Robyn sorts her own recycling. That’s the kind of humility some of us admire about more socialist places. (I’m not assuming you’re Swedish but your description reminded me of that Robyn story…)
I’m not Swedish, but it’s indeed EXACTLY what I’m talking about ๐
It’s interesting to me that you brought this up today, because I am still sorting through how I feel about an acquaintance of mine being held up publicly as an example of OMGweird Silicon Valley socrazyyyyy (via Bloomberg). I mean, yes it’s unusual for someone who can afford to live well to choose to live a radically reduced lifestyle but he has clear reasons for doing so that are also held up as bizarre. Is wanting to pay off your farm so you can afford to live there really that odd? I can’t help but feel that any of my friends could be held up for examination this way and it doesn’t feel so great.
But parts of the US value *only* those who conform. I refer to my current location as Conformity Station, Texas.
Lots of Scandinavian ancestory around perchance?
Czech, German, Scots, Irish. Mostly, though, it’s We-Lost-The-Civil-War-And-Cannot-Admit-It combined with Small-Town xenophobia. But I’ve only been here two years. I welcome corrections. USians recognize my references and know exactly where I am.
*endless amounts of hugs*
I lived in Conformity Station for a few years, and every day felt like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Show no emotion! Do not express any of your actual opinions! Repress your true personality as thoroughly as possible! It is imperative that they believe you are one of them! Once, when I was distracted, I told a co-worker that I wasn’t going to church on Easter, and the look on her face! I swear she was about to do the pod person INTRUDER ALERT shriek. It was very stressful.
Oh My Furiosa, you understand! I am so grateful for that. Thank you!
Hmm, to me the myth of American Exceptionalism is not that it’s Cool to Be Different, but that it’s Cool to Be Better than Everyone Else. Sometimes this masquerades as pride in being ~different (“I’m not like other girls” or “I’m just more authentic/honest than all those other posers/sheeple/what-have-you”) but really, we just want to confirm our own superiority.
That’s true, it strikes me now as you’re saying that that difference in the US is always cast in the competitive mode.
i feel like a lot of it is that the media tries to sell us the idea that to be individual is special (and btw if you consume our thing you will be different and exceptional and special so consume our thing) but the reality on the ground is that there’s very little patience for striking individualism.
others have used the word “quirky” and that sounds about right. being slightly quirky in a way that’s approachable and understandable to the masses is OK but if you’re Really Different and Nonconforming, you hit resistance.
Confession: I am Not A Fan of fruit in pancakes. The mountains surrounding my house when I was a wee lass were full of wild huckleberries and black raspberries and my grandmother would put them in the pancakes and inevitably it would just be this… kind of sour mess, and the flavor just doesn’t go with maple syrup in my brain. Yuck.
Now. Berries cooked down with a touch of sugar and put ON pancakes? I am there. I am absolutely there.
Are you THE Girl named Jack? From the frugal cooking blog?
I am not! But now I am intrigued by the other Girl Named Jack. Must go do some internet hunting, BRB.
ETA: Whew, I’m safe, she’s a Girl Called Jack. Thought I might have to change my identity to some other Jack-related thing.
Whoops, my bad! Check her out anyway, she’s great if you’re into food + social justice issues.
I am Team Fruit Butter so I totally agree with your last sentence. Fruit jam, jelly, preserve, conserve? Get outta here with that shit. Cook it down until it’s rich-tasting and wonderful and gels all by its lonesome (maybe with the help of a lemon slice or two), and can that shiz. That’s where it’s AT.
Ditto. Especially if the pancakes are more like crepes. Nalesniki with berries and powdered sugar? Perfection.
The heck with fruit. You know what belongs in pancakes? Chocolate chips. Mmmmmmmm.
YES
Yes to chocolate chip pancakes.
Also, is it weird/morbid that I like syrup in addition to chocolate chips? I mean, I know it’s morbid, but I’m not alone in this, right?
This is completely acceptable. Fruit on Pancakes wins hands down Every. Time.
I theoretically like fruit in pancakes (good fruit, not gross bananas or anything) but in practice often do not. I think it’s because the fruit is often too big and messes up how the pancake cooks, so you get big raw/soggy patches. I think that’s why I prefer blueberry pancakes (and muffins) from a mix, because the little dried blueberries integrate much more seamlessly.
i’ll let you in on my way of putting fruit (thinly cut strawberries OR whole blueberries, please!) in pancakes.
pour some batter in the pan. place the fruit into the cake by hand. push ’em down in there a little bit. spread a bit more batter over the fruit.
now your fruit is *IN* your pancake.
this also solves the problem of all of the fruit settling to the bottom of the mixing bowl leaving you with uneven fruit distribution in your cakes.
Toast comrades, I can’t tell anyone else in real life yet, but I got a positive pregnancy test this morning!!! ๐ My husband and I have been trying since November, and after some ovulation troubles, it looks like a second round of Clomid did the trick.
I am so, so excited – I ambushed my husband in the shower with the positive test, and many soggy hugs and tears ensued. I’m also, of course, terrified, mostly about miscarrying; every bathroom trip today has started with a whispered “please please please no blood,” and I’ve been fine so far, but still.
Aahhhhh!!
yayyyyyy!!!!! I am testing tonight I think.
Hooray, good luck!!
Thank you!! I am sending you many soggy hugs and wish so many wonderful things for your pregnancy!
Will cross my fingers for you!
How wonderful! Congratulations! Fingers crossed all goes well!!!!
ahhhh, congrats!
Eeeeee! Congratulations!!
Congratulations!
Hurray! More pregnant Toasties! I am with you on the “no blood no blood” anxiety, which I thought would be lessened with the second go round, but it is not.
NEWBERRY LIBRARY BOOK FAIR.
You guys I found a nineteenth century PHRENOLOGY SEX BOOK. Don’t you want to learn what this guy has to say about love?
I do indeed.
From what I gathered on cursory examination, the basic advice is:
– no celibacy
– lots of womb activity for those with wombs (this means frequent childbearing to counter hysterical propensities, obviously, but WOMB ACTIVITY is a pretty funny phrase)
– no masturbating ever not even once
Well I guess my doing one out of three ain’t bad. (Hint. It ain’t number three and I’m relatively sure it ain’t number two. Though womb activity could cover quite a few things presumably.)
Whoops. Or not. I somehow didn’t read the no in front of celibacy. Big difference there.
Damn it.
Yes I think I can say quite absolutely that Professor O. S. Fowler would be sorely disappointed in my life choices as well.
Fuck him anyway, phrenology was a stupid thing to believe in.
Is this the same guy advertising on The Toast in the link roundup yesterday?
Phrenology? So…like…sex bumps…?
Yes, I think so! I really don’t know how the bumps play into things yet.
I do know that I’m very much looking forward to the section on “ruination of girlhood.”
Oh my goodness that is amazing! I really want to know how your head bumps can lead to perfect children.
I found this at an antique shop a few years ago (it’s from the 1920s) and gave it to my friend as a bachelorette present.
Oh maaaaaaaan I want that. What a great present! And what a great friend you are, giving away such a treasure!
I wish I had remembered to take a picture of who the author was. I might have to ask my friend to check that for me, because it was a book full of whiplash. It goes along talking about how both the man and the woman should be into the act and consenting and all, and then becomes full on racist a paragraph later. Oh history, how interesting and horrible you can be.
It’s true! This should surprise no one, but anything about phrenology, relying as it does on the whole ideal skull shape concept, comes with some truly toxic racism. Whiplash definitely describes the experience of reading about it now – it starts out preposterous and harmless and funny, and then quickly becomes very profoundly not funny at all.
Walt Whitman’s favoritest book evar
My family reunion is over! YAY! It was less awkward than I had expected, but still super stressful and my mom, sisters, and I all fell asleep pretty much as soon as we got back to my mom’s house. It was for my dad’s side of the family and he brought his new wife and her daughter (didn’t know she was coming). I’d never met them, so awkward. Also, my mom and I were in charge of the food, and she had never met them either. My dad brought New Wife over to meet my mom while she was talking to my aunt, interrupting the conversation (typical of him) My mom shook his hand, then New Wife asked (in broken English, they live in China, and she is Chinese) if she could give my mom a hug. Mom didn’t know how to say no (always a problem for her) and New Wife whispered that she was sorry (my dad lived with her while he was still married to my mom and didn’t tell my mom that he was in a new relationship in China while he was there for work, very messy situation)
But now it’s over! and we have a holiday weekend here in Utah, so my plans for today, and the rest of the weekend are pretty much just Netflix and puppy snuggles
Wow, that’s seriously the most awkward family reunion story I’ve heard in a long time. Why did you dad think that was a good idea??
He is incapable of understanding that other people experience life differently than he does and that their feelings might not be the same as his. That’s the only explanation that fits his behavior the past 5 or so years.
Oh my LORD. My father did a similar thing (cheated on my mother while living abroad, is now married to the Other Woman), and if he tried a stunt like that I would kick his ass twelve ways to Sunday and out the door of that reunion. How on earth did your mom not punch him in the face?! I’m so sorry. Like you said, at least it’s over!
I am really, really excited for the Newberry Library book fair tomorrow. It may have to be followed by a trip to the furniture store because our bookshelves are already bursting. Maybe we can have a Used Books Thread?
This is probably my favorite used bookstore for quality books. But it’s all well-lit and tidy and cat-free and that’s not quite the right spirit.
Best/worst used book find: The Warmth of Other Suns for $1 on the library cart, all because some justifiably upset reader underlined a few paragraphs about how nasty life was in the Jim Crow South and put “!!!” in the margins. Best find because, great newly released (at the time) hardback for $1, worst because it’s big and heavy and I was already overloaded and had to walk 2 miles home.
One of the best (or most memorable anyway) books I ever found in a library book sale was from the early ’60s and was called “Every Girl is Entitled to a Husband.” Or something like that.
It was . . . quite a read.
There was a fairly memorable passage in which the author takes incredible pains to say “consider marrying a gay man” without *actually* saying that outright.
A large part of me firmly believes it was a satirical tome, but there’s another part of me that’s afraid that’s just false hope.
(At the same book sale, I also got a paperback called “The Hard Men” with two handsome cowboys leaning on a fence together. The contents in no way lived up to the cover.)
. . . For the hundreds of used books I’ve owned and read, I have no idea why those are the first two I think of.
My favorite recent used book find is Rockwell Kent’s N by E. I found it at The Strand in NYC. I had been planning to get it for my husband from abebooks, so I was extra happy to find it in a used bookstore. I also recently found two cookbooks by Jennifer McLagan (Fat and Bones) for cheap at a used bookstore in my hometown that usually mostly has much older used cookbooks. Great find.
Erm, I guess I don’t know how to do the html here. Oopsie.
http://www.thehauntedbookshop.com/shop/haunted/in…
^^^
Best used bookshop evar – two cats and lots of seats for extended “browsing.” Also antique typewriters, which are a curious draw for young children and adults alike.
So I started doing roller derby a few months ago and it’s really starting to come together for me but I got double bad news today and I’m a bit upset by it. I can’t skate in the fun practice scrimmage tonight because, while I am close, I haven’t passed the minimal skills test yet. I also can’t participate in the four weekend skill clinic that would really help me pass the test because that is for women only which wasn’t mentioned at any point when I signed up for it.
So here I am trying my hardest and that’s not good enough and it’s just… ughhh…
Toast, I am here to talk about Elena Ferrante. I’ve just finished the second of the Neapolitan novels and I don’t know what else to say except that I am absolutely breathless with joy that someone has written these books. I want to hear everything you think about them (but not spoilers, please!). Talk to me!
I just bought the first one and am so excited to read it this weekend!
I can’t wait for the fourth one to come out in September! I read the first two pretty quickly, and then slowed down on the third to really savor it.
I read the first and third (stupid library has minimal copies of #2) and they are searingly good and painful. Once again so grateful not to have grown up as a young woman in the 60s.
What up, pregnant Toast-slices! I hit my second trimester this week and HURRAY FOR NO BARFS! I still fit into most of my clothes, I have started eating vegetables again, and there is the tiniest bump starting to emerge (although that might just be last night’s stir-fry…?).
How are y’all doing? What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you so far in your (present or past) pregnancies? Mine was probably getting bonked on the head by the toilet seat when I was still in barf-mode.
Past-past pregnancy! My daughter was so active in my womb — twirling and swirling and doing somersaults — that, when I rode the bus, people would just stare at my tummy for the entire ride with serious concentration and prolonged cat looks. No questions or anything, just fascination at What Was Going On In There.
YAY FOR T2!!!!!! It is the most amazing thing to go from feeling like shit literally all the time to feeling like a human being again. I stopped puking around week 13 but it still took me until about week 18 or 20 to get my energy back.
I am 28 weeks today and still feeling good. I’ve been enjoying all the movement and kicks the baby’s doing, and also enjoying that every time my husband puts his hand on my belly and then feels a kick, he jumps out of his skin and pulls his hand away like it touched fire. Makes me laugh every single time.
I’m definitely having moments like, “I don’t feel like garbage. Am I even pregnant any more? Has something happened?” o.O
Literally every stage of this process seems fraught with peril and anxiety.
Oh man, second trimester is amazing. I never barfed with my first (or so far with this second one), but I was just always mildly nauseated, like a mild hangover all day long. I am so tired by 3pm that I want to pass out and hibernate. I remember talking to my doctor at my 12 week appt, saying, okay, this exhaustion – that will end this week, right? And she said, “Well, technically your first trimester isn’t over until about week 14, so…” and I wanted to punch her in the face.
So….Hannibal thread? Spoilers in the comments!
(Screams incoherently for five minutes)
The first thing I’ll say is that I thought the reproductive horror aspect of Digestivo was…a little unnecessary. There were so many reasons to kill Mason already that this one final dick move on his part just seemed squicky and needlessly awful. I would be interested to hear other takes on it.
But ohhh, the Hannigram. My heart is broken. Hannibal turning himself in is simultaneously so tragic and SO DOUCHEY. He knows that to stay near Will is to hurt him, he knows that this will only cause Will more pain, it’s an opportunity to break and bend him psychologically. But he also really was the Saddest Cannibal when Will broke up with him. He didn’t want to run without Will on his heels or by his side. It’s selfish and twisted and horrible and this show has permanently broken me.
re: saddest cannibal: it is like when I yell at my cat for biting me all the time and say, stop eating me, cat, aren’t we friends, don’t I keep you alive out of affection, and she rolls over on her back and waves her paws in the air because she is literally too stupid to understand why biting each other is not what friends do, or why her unpredictable alternation between snuggling and trying to bite me might put me on edge
too late to name her Hannibal but not too late to dress her up as him for Halloween
This may be the best explanation of Fancy Cannibal I’ve ever heard. Bless you.
also – I watched a gag reel compilation on youtube the other day that included a couple of those scenes where Hannibal does a flippy thing with an onion and catches it on his knife point on the way down, and he messed it up in a couple of outtakes, like a human would, which made me think – you know all the cooking scenes are so so slick and perfect every time, I feel like they should end season 3 with Hannibal negligently flipping a pancake while talking about time’s arrow and then they go into slow motion just as he realizes the trajectory is slightly off, and they start playing the Goldberg aria in the background but slowed down TEN times this time, and film his reaction to it landing on the floor the same way they did Will getting knifed in the belly. for symmetry. because I do think that a cooking humiliation would bring him to his knees in a way that no breakup ever could.
As soon as Mason mentioned the surrogate, I was almost sure it was a pig, somehow. And then…it was a pig. After the episode, I googled “pig surrogate human fetus” to see if it was A Thing. Thanks, show.
Ok, what did you find out from your google search? because I spent that whole scene shrieking “I DON’T THINK THIS IS POSSIBLE!” (would google it myself but i’m at work and don’t want to answer questions about that)
Wikipedia link on interspecific pregnancy. It’s actually A Thing!
Apparently the immune response can be very tricky to manage (really, y’don’t say), so the fetus dying would be the most realistic outcome of…that whole situation. Except that it was almost full term, so I’m really not sure at what point in the timeline the pig’s body rejected it, or if Mason let it die just to be the most horrible bastard in the entire world, or what. I have a lot of questions that I wish I had never considered, basically.
Hannibal is the world’s worst Ex.
Soylent review update!
I have been having Soylent for breakfast all week. The main problem has been that I find it too rich/thick/sweet to drink quickly, so then I don’t get a full breakfast’s worth in before I leave for work, and then I’m hungry.
The stuff from the bottom of the first bag tasted better than the stuff from the top. I even tried making some plain and it was ok. I don’t know if I didn’t mix the bag well enough before openingor if I just acquired a taste for it faster than I expected or what.
I made the second bag as a whole pitcher with no flavouring, on the theory that it would avoid any differences between the top of the bag and the bottom, and also that I could try taking it to work for lunch yesterday and today and thus probably get through a whole pitcher before it goes bad. The taste is not bad at all. I can’t detect any of the offputting smell/aftertaste from the first few portions I tried.
Having it for lunch yesterday did not work well, I had the same problems as with breakfast. Then I was super hungry and ate too much fast food in the evening.
This morning I tried adding more water for breakfast, and that seemed to help. I plan to try having it with more water for lunch/snacks at work today, but I also brought backup lunch/snacks, some of which I have already eaten.
This is so interesting! Please keep updating us. I just listened to the Oh No Ross and Carrie episode about Soylent and it was hilarious. They report much flatulence.
My boyfriend is trying it out as lunches. I love food and Do Not Get It.
just want you to know i am here for any and all Soylent updates. thank you ๐
To my fellow July-bar taking toasties, this weekend will not be fun but think about all the booze and sleeping in that will happen same time next week. Who is planning on making a bonfire of their flashcards?
Five year anniversary of my bar exam here! It’s also my birthday, so I’m recalling that I spent my thirtieth trying to figure out that whole Fertile Octagenarian thing. My thirty-fifth will be spent…differently.
You are so close! I am not taking the bar but I took my qualifying exam at the beginning of July and let me tell you, it feels great from the other side. I did really want to burn my quals notebook but tragically it actually will continue to be relevant to my life. Alas, no bonfire for me.
I am sending hugs to you all!! It’ll all be over soon.
My pro-tip (if you’re staying in a hotel during the bar exam): even though I was pretty broke at the time, I ordered room service dinner after my first day of exams and stayed in watching “Harry Potter” on cable. Best money I ever spent.
Twin-Cities Toasties! I am moving to your cities soon for a grad program about which I am very excited. What things would you recommend for a bookish, very-newly-queerish twenty-something lady person who has grand designs of being more outdoorsy? What are your favorite things to do in your cities? Where is your favorite coffee shop/restaurant/bookstore/other place?
Many thanks!
Congrats on the grad program! Is it at the U?
I’ve been here a year, so my opinions are so-so. Does biking count as outdoorsy, because there is so so much biking to be done! Trails everywhere, around lakes, along rivers, through city streets. Also, people are really into canoeing/kayaking in lakes, which seems pretty fun (only done so once).
Boneshaker Books is an volunteer run bookstore with a small but wonderfully curated collection. Cedar Cultural Center is my favorite concert venue (again volunteer run). The Como Conservatory will inject green into your life during the miserable winter, which does wonders for SAD. The Walker and the MIA are great museums, plus the MIA is free all the time! I’ve gone there a couple of times just to hang out and work. The Lyndale Farmer’s Market is amazing right now (and open every day!).
Like any city, there are too many coffee shops and restaurants worth visiting to name (and possibly to visit). Some favorites places for coffee: Caffetto, Bordertown (the only one I like near the U), Hard Times, Bull Run, Urban Bean. My friends like Blue Ox a lot too. For food: Hola Arepa, Chimborazo, vietnamese food in general, Punch Pizza (my favorite lunch near the U). Groceries: the co-ops are good, but pricy; United Noodles has the best selection for Asian foods and you can cobble together most of your needs at Midtown Global Market from the quite good produce store plus the Holy Land. I’m eager to hear what others have to say.
Well, I have heard newcomers to Minneapolis/St. Paul describe the cities as compact. In that case, I’d urge you to explore some neighborhoods.
Uptown in Minneapolis — Lake St. and Hennepin Ave — is a good place to start, along with LinLake at Lake St. and Lyndale.
The Northeast neighborhood is an artsy area.
The “hottest” neighborhood right now is the North Loop, on the Mississippi side of Hennepin and 1st through 5th Streets North. And of course, there’s downtown Minneapolis, which is usually along Nicollet Mall but Nicollet is closed right now. So you’d get thrown onto Marquette and Hennepin.
In St. Paul, Grand Avenue is the main hip area.
On Summer weekends into fall, people go to the lakes: Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles, Lake Harriet — which is down farther on Lake in the Uptown area. I think a lot of U of M students live in the Uptown area, at least I did. It’s expensive unless you have a lot of roommates, but it’s on a lot of bus lines and is extremely convenient.
So, explore! There’s an MTC trip-planner and I believe you can ask for directions from wherever you are to “Hennepin Ave and Lake Street” for example … Welcome to the Twin Cities!
https://www.metrotransit.org/imap/map.aspx
So, from anywhere to “LAKE ST W & HENNEPIN AVE, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55408” for example … .
One reason why I’m looking to get out of Russia at the end of the year (I teach ESL) is that it’s a pretty sexist country. Not always in screamingly obvious ways, but it’s always right around the corner. Two examples from yesterday:
-We were doing a worksheet about jobs in our summer camp lesson with small children. When we got to the woman firefighter the Russian teacher asked me why there were so many women on the worksheet. It was an equal number of men and women. Then she asked why the firefighter was a woman and I said why not, and she said that women in Russia can’t be firefighters. She was translating to the kids and I heard her say “strange” so I (jokingly, but also seriously) yelled at her to not tell them it was strange. When we got to the female computer programmer at the end she said “Again, another woman!” And this teacher is young! Younger than I am!
-Talking about whether or not schools should teach cooking and housework in an intermediate class, I ended up trying to convince a 16 year old boy that no, cooking and cleaning is not “women’s work”. “So women should go to their regular work and then come home and do all the work at home too?” “Life isn’t fair.” He (and the woman in her 20s in the class, but she was less enthusiastic about it all) said that that’s just how things are in Russia. I told him that it doesn’t have to be and that he’s young and can change things, but I don’t know if I got through at all.
Then today my preschool class were brats, but I’ve got Nutella filled chocolate chip cookies and a party in Moscow tomorrow, so whatever.
That’s a sadly perfect example of the whole (and I’m gonna bungle the numbers) phenomenon where, if women talk just ~30% of the time, the conversation is perceived by men as being female dominated, and if something like ~20% of a group is racial minorities, it’s perceived by white people as being racially equal.
Also, you’re more patient than I am, apparently, because I would’ve been scowling and stomping away from those convos.
You are doing important work. You are planting seeds in the fertile soil that is children’s minds. You have made a difference, it just hasn’t germinated yet. Some of those kids will grow up to one day realize the truth in your lessons. Bless you. And I don’t blame you for getting away from the culture. You have earned your escape.
Good on you for challenging some kids’ assumptions! You never know what new ideas might take root there.
I was under the impression (mostly from friends who grew up in Russia) that women working in non-traditional fields– e.g., STEM, trades, etc.– was pretty well accepted there. That part is kind of surprising to me, though maybe it’s just because my friends’ parents who were able to emigrate are very well-educated and highly skilled.
But it does seem 100% accepted by *everybody* that taking care of the home and kids is entirely women’s work, and that it’s not manly for men to do anything at all around the house. And that women are definitely still expected to cook and do every single thing at home, once they get back from their full-time jobs.
Also, it seems like there’s a *much* more sexist and conformist attitude about appearances there– e.g., you *have* to be feminine and wear high heels, even if very impractical for your job. I remember seeing a Russian hospital on the news just a few years ago, where every single nurse was wearing high heels.
One of my co-workers is a Russian man–a total delight, really funny, and I enjoy working with him–but yeah, that cultural acceptance of gender norms is deeply, deeply entrenched in Russian thought, even with someone like him who has lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years or more. We have fascinating discussions about feminism on a regular basis, as you can imagine–he can acknowledge that equal work for equal pay is correct and fair, but he still believes that there are occupations and roles that men and women are just better at, purely based on their gender. It’s frustrating.
Thanks for all the book suggestions last week, Toasties! Much appreciated.
My mother and I are going to the beach next week! Nothing too special, Mom just wants to sit under an umbrella for a few days and watch the waves roll in and I got drafted into it as a driver. But finally, after a good three months (and conveniently right after I booked the hotel room), the eye problems she’s been having – nerve palsies are a bitch, guys – are finally clearing up and she can drive again. I don’t have to spend 6 hours with her on hyperalert in the passenger seat as I drive her car through cities I don’t know! And I still get to go to the beach!
Anyone else have any fun plans they’re looking forward to next week?
My 5K is tomorrow send help
You can do it!
Love,
A fellow runner
Thanks! I’m knee deep in packets and late registrations and omg I just need to make it through the next 23 hours
Remember to treat yourself after the race.
You’ve got this! Kick some ass and then relax with a frosty drink of your choice!
MrChouffe’s job is to keep me drunk for at least 24 hours after.
This is a Good Plan.
The two years I ran a charity golf tournament (which sounds like it was far far smaller than your race!), I was asleep in the passenger seat of the car before we even left the parking lot.
Yes, this is the kind of help I thought of when you asked us to send help. Good luck. It’ll be great.
You will finish it and then go on to have delicious food and beverages. That is an official Prediction Of The Future. Have fun! ๐
I can’t get there, but I could maybe ask my boss if we could send you our intern? *ducks*
OMG
YEW CAN DEW EET!
Toasties, this weekend I am helping my gentleman friend move into our new! shiny! apartment! and it is very exciting, even if I’m not moving until next month. (We’ve been living in different cities for four and a half years, and it stinks and good riddance to intermediate distance relationships.) However, I managed to wrench my back last weekend, and it’s still sooooooore, and moving furniture is probably not what I should be doing. Halp.
I’m moving in with my dude in October! I have so much to do! Good luck! Lift all the little weeny things.
Go to the nearest church or university and ask to hire one or two strong young men for a few hours. Take care of your back and congratulations on the shiny new place.
If you can afford to hire movers, it is the best money you’ll ever spend. I found some good ones on Craigslist during my last move. (If you screw up your back, you may end up spending more on medical bills than you would have on movers, so think of it as cost-effective!)
Also, yay on finally living in the same city!! I’ve done the long-distance thing and it sucks.
My week. So my thirty pound dog ate a pound or so of dark chocolate. My special once a month dark chocolate. On the day I most needed it. (Insert Key and Peele sketch here.) It was like she snorted cocaine. She was literally vibrating. 500 dollars later and four hours later, I finally got some chocolate at a gas station.
How was your week?
Our childhood lab once ate a giant box of brandy beans at Christmas, and suffered nothing worse than a hideous, walk-ruining hangover.
She eventually died of kidney disease, but for that I blame the drywall and numerous tanned leather goods she ate.
TGIF!
Happy National Tequila Day!
For reals. My office has a for-charity booze cart on Fridays, and I cannot wait.
Thank you for this gif.
Well, I don’t have much to report except I finally got a few packages into the mail that have been hanging around my room since May, so I’m feeling quite accomplished! Thankfully the cute baby clothes I’m sending to my friend were already a couple sizes up. Baby will probably fit into them now. Oop!
Isn’t sending out mail/packages the MOST SATISFYING? Like, I can accomplish nothing else, and I am like “Way to adult, you!” I am sending out two letters today and I’m gonna savor it!
So I’m going to concerts two nights in a row, and last night was Modest Mouse. It seems their most exuberant fan demographic is “bros learning to have emotions”. But they were my friend’s favorite band when we were in high school, and they played her favorite song, so she was happy. Then she decided on a whim that we should BIKE from the venue back to her apartment, and I didn’t fall off or die from physical exertion. And I get to go to another concert tonight, this time MY high school favorites, and I’ll probably cry! So it’s a good week overall.
I still struggle with most fruit, but when I go camping with my cousins we pick blueberries from the island in the middle of the lake and for Saturday brunch my aunt makes pancakes with them, and it’s the only time all year I will willingly make myself eat blueberries. That camping trip is only two weeks away, I’m excited now!
“bros learning to have emotions,” i’m dying
I will admit thought that I have a big soft spot for Building Nothing Out of Something so I can’t make too much fun though
haha, I say it from a place of endearment. I’m not the fan my friend is, but I do really like MM! & there were plenty of ladies and less bro-y dudes and other types at the show, it’s just that the bros were the ones shouting all the words and literally BOUNCING from excitement the whole time, and basically acting as though Isaac Brock’s lyrics were the first time they’d ever experienced anything.
On the bright side, they were enthusiastic enough that we got a 2nd encore, and it was pretty great.
Toasts! I just finished Scott Westerfield’s Afterworlds! I managed to get a signed copy of it (!!!!!!!!!!!) at Changing Hands Bookstore the other day. Its SUPER good and has two different stories in it that are woven together wonderfully. Seriously, if you like YA books about writing, real life, lesbians, fantasy, ghosts, LESBIANS, growing up, murder, LESBIANS!!!!!!, and getting published, than go read this book. Did I mention that there are lesbians? Because there are. Also the main character is a WoC (and gay!)! Everything is amazing about this book go read it!!
Anyone out there still playing Sims 2? I’m taking my first baby steps into the world of meshing and I’m SO glad that other people have been there before and written very good tutorials about it because it is hard. I’m planning on remaking a Sailor Moon fuku mesh at some point, but I still have a while to go before then. I got so used to being mostly good at recoloring that I forgot it took me years to get to that point and I am impatient and wanting to jump ahead before I’m ready. One day I’ll be there though!
I play TS2, but I don’t mod for it. However, I do love watching other modders’ progress. ๐ It’s fantastic that you’re exploring the wonderful world of meshing. Best of luck!
You also just reminded me that I wanted to go mod-shopping (except without the money part), now that my internet in my apartment is set up, so this afternoon should be tons of fun. ๐
I loved Afterworlds!
I re-listed stuff in my bloomer shop on Etsy. I plan to make some more of the larger sizes and list them by the end of the month. Use the word TOAST for a 20% discount!
YAAAAAAAAAY THANK YOU SO MUCH.
Yay!!!!!! I can’t wait to order some!!!!
I hope you find some you like!
That’s a pretty good Old Timey Strongwoman look you are rocking!
I never noticed it but OMG you’re so right! I LOVE IT!
Forgive me for being Etsy-ignorant, but is there an explanation of sizing somewhere? Thanks! These are so cute.
Sure thing! It’s also listed in the description of each pair of bloomers:
Size A measures 17″ from waistband to hem, 40″ at the hip and fits up to 36″ hips.
Size B measures 17″ from waistband to hem, 45″ at the hip and fits up to 40″ hips.
Size C measures 17″ from waistband to hem, 48″ at the hip and fits up to 44″ hips.
Size D measures 17″ from waistband to hem, 52″ at the hip and fits up to 48″ hips.
Oh fabulous! Thanks!!
Oh man. A couple of weeks ago I posted here about how a former boss of mine, someone who I was planning to use as a job reference, was under investigation for some shady, abusive behavior. Well, it’s looking worse, and I imagine he won’t have a job for much longer. This kind of blows a hole in my resume, does it not?
To make matters worse, my boyfriend and I had just started talking about maybe moving back to the city where I used to work– which is exciting and terrifying in its own right. I really do want to get out of the city where I live now. But the idea of getting back into my job field in that area is giving me headaches.
Was there a coworker who knew your work well? I believe under those circumstances, someone you worked with who was not a supervisor can be an acceptable reference, ALL DEPENDING of course—but people aren’t totally rigid about this stuff.
yeah, a peer or a project manager can also work as a good reference, if those roles apply
So, I may have been the only one laboring under this impression, but: Even if you post under a guest username that is a randomly chosen common noun, if you post anecdotes about your life, and if you have friends who may read comments on the Toast, they can indeed figure out who you are! And there are ways of Googling that will let them find more of your posts to confirm their suspicions that you are in fact you.
A couple open threads ago, one of my friends spotted an anecdote I told about one of our mutual friends and went “Wait, that’s about friend x!” So my friends got to be Veronica Mars and try and figure out who I was. Then I saw everyone in this friend group this weekend and they kept dropping in references to celery and toast, which I thought was an amusing coincidence and did not put together until they straight-up told me.
Hi, friends!
Presumably we can assume any friends on the Toast are ones we wouldn’t mind discovering us on the Toast, yes? One would think/hope anyway.
That’s my strategy.
Fruit season in Michigan is just the BEST.
Our raspberry bush has been producing a pint a week for the last month, and it has been amazing. I made raspberry cherry sorbet with the raspberries from our yard and you-pick black cherries from an orchard here in the state. So delicious.
Planning to make some peach sorbet with fresh peaches from the farmer’s market soon as well.
This post literally made my mouth water omg.
I got the very last of the u-pick black cherries and ate a ton and then pickled the rest with rosemary and black pepper and they are SO GOOD.
I’ve never tried picking cherries, but that sounds like such an interesting flavor combination!
Also, yes with the mouth watering. I made it (in large part for my wife who prefers sorbet to ice cream) right before she left for a month in Europe, and it’s taking all of my self-control to keep from devouring it all myself.
Here’s the recipe if you’re interested. I double-checked in comments when I bought the rice vinegar because it’s only 4.5%, but according to the blogger, who meticulously tests things, the cherries provide enough acidity to safely can in a water bath.
I used them on a cheese and charcuterie plate, as well as in a blue cheese creamy pasta thing.
OH GOD YES.
SPEAKING OF FRUIT: On the street where I usually do my evening walks, there are a couple of blackberry bushes (?) growing by the sidewalk. I want to stress that they aren’t on anyone’s private property. They’re on this strip of median between a corporate office building’s parking lot and another corporate office building’s parking lot, and it’s really obvious that they weren’t planted there on purpose.
I’m doing a junkton of research before I dare attempting to eat one, but I just think it’s so nifty that wild fruit is growing outside my apartment. The only wild fruit I ever saw in Texas had spines. Anyone else have berries or other fruit growing wild near where they live? Anyone have a vegetable garden? If so, I’d love to see photos. ๐
There is a pie cherry tree in the front yard of a house down the street. They are just starting to ripen and no one is living in the house now (it’s a rental and the last people moved out a couple weeks ago, no new tenants yet). I’m trying to get up the courage to go and talk to the house next door to make sure they don’t want them and then go on a cherry picking/baking rampage.
This is maybe the least impressive-looking photo of our garden plot I’ve ever taken, but here’s the one we have in our community garden.
We also have a 6’x3′ raised bed at home, as well as a newly sprawling raspberry bush that has made my summer so so so delicious.
I had a job site once that was pretty overgrown and there were blackberry bushes along one end of the property, so one day I picked a bunch in my hardhat before heading home. My friends were like “do I want blackberries picked from an old factory and currently residing in a hard hat? OF COURSE I DO!”
I have eaten loads of berries that I found in parks, along trails, etc. If it looks like a blackberry or raspberry, it’s not likely to be poisonous. Go for it!
Blackberries growing wild are really common in the UK – going out blackberry picking was an annual thing back when I lived at home, so we could make lots of nice blackberry crumble. That was in a small town surrounded by countryside, but even now I’m living in London I see brambles everywhere. They should be ripe in a month or so, so I am strongly considering going to the local park and picking lots.
Does anyone want to talk about crushes again? Specifically, ones on people who are Wholly Inappropriate and with whom you’ve had some recent-ish Weird Things happen? Because you know when just the two of you hang out and have some drinks you sometimes get Slightly Handsy? And you know damn well you should stop putting yourself in these situations and yet you do not? Just asking. For a friend. Yeah.
Mental health thread?
After last week’s crash-and-burn I did call in sick to work on Saturday, even though I felt terribly guilty for making my boss cover my shift after she’d already done the same for TWO OTHER PEOPLE earlier in the week, but it helped. And then I got a surprise day off on Tuesday, and rather than sit around my apartment marinating in guilt, I walked the two miles to downtown and spent the day buying books and drinking expensive coffees and eating frozen yogurt. It was wonderful, and I feel so much better. (It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to walk 4+ miles in one day without any lingering negative side effects, but honestly it was so great I’m thinking about doing it again on Monday.)
How are you taking care of yourselves this week?
I’m noticing the creeping paralysis of depression setting in, and I’m not sure what the best way to deal with it is. I deep-cleaned the kitchen sink area on Monday (it was nasty, and there was a fly situation, because my housemate never cleans), and I’m going to try to get my room better-organized tonight (unfucking my habitat helps me feel more in control of my life), but I’m starting to worry. I may be sleep-deprived, since I keep accidentally staying up way too late. It may also be summer SAD, because I hate really hot weather. HATE. Summer makes me listless and cranky.
I feel you on the summer. This past month I’ve had to just crank the air conditioning and accept the doubled electricity bills.
I just can’t leave the house. I’m stuck in an indoor rut, because I can’t just go outside and absorb sunlight and be spontaneous, because the air is attacking me. It just makes me want to cry. But I’m pretty sure my boss won’t accept “I feel weary and pointless” as a reason to go home early instead of getting work done.
Is there somewhere you could go where you could sit indoors in the air conditioning and still sit in a patch of sunlight? It’s not the same as being outside, but when you’re battling humidity and mosquitoes, it’s a whole lot better than nothing.
(For calling in sick, migraines are my go-to excuse, when I feel the need to say something other than “I feel terrible, I need to go home.”)
My house is surrounded by trees, which is awesome for the heat situation, but terrible for the sunlight. My houseplants and I agree on this. I also just need to stop looking at the same stupid walls of my stupid house.
(asthma is my go-to, but allergy season is pretty much over, so that takes more forethought and planning.)
Hey, your second reply to this, presumably sent via email, includes your full name and email address. I didn’t reply to that one in case you want to go edit it out.
Oh man, thanks for letting me know. I deleted that comment; I don’t know why it was sent twice, or why it included my email heading.
The heat got me way down, too, and I generally like the summer heat. Do you have access to a gym for after work? I find exercise to be essential when I’m starting to feel helpless/sad/losing confidence and if you can go to an air conditioned gym maybe you can get your heart rate up, dopamines, confidence, etc?
I need to mow the lawn anyway, so I’m planning to do that after work, and it’s an amazing workout (reel lawnmower, hell yes).
Update: mowing the lawn was a big help, even if my sinuses are mad at me today. And then I found a new ridiculous Spanish tv series on Netflix, so everything is pretty great today.
Hooray! It is so awesome that you got those days to yourself. I find walking to be so head-clearing and important. I hope the trend continues.
After a rough start to the week, my anxiety seems to be clearing a bit. I think much of it has to do with isolation/loneliness in a new place, but I finally have a tiny bit of a social calendar and things are looking up. Now just crossing my fingers I can build my resiliency for the next time things aren’t looking so rosy.
Hooray for tiny social calendar! Resiliency is the hardest thing. One thing I’ve been considering is making myself care packages when I’m feeling good – like, here is a package of good chocolate, here is twenty bucks for a pizza, here is the link for the therapy chat service, here is your boss’s phone number and a script for what to say if you can’t come to work. It’s not the same thing as resiliency, but it should lower some barriers? I hope.
I can confirm that those are so, so helpful. Also, food prep is great to do when you’re in a good place, so you can still eat well while you’re feeling rough, without having to waste any of your spoons on, like, slicing vegetables.
This comment brought to you by the discovery of a forgotten jar of Freezer Soup that saved one of my dinners this week, and got food into me that wasn’t composed entirely of starch and grease.
I started training to walk dogs at the SPCA near me! I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but was a little concerned about the time commitment (2 hours a week, which isn’t a lot, but basically the only shifts available are during working hours). However, I’m in grad school and my PI really doesn’t care when we’re in lab as long as we get our work done, so it there’s no real reason not to do it.
The training is kind of obnoxious but once I got to actually interact with a dog I was SO HAPPY immediately and I’m really excited to have this be part of my week now. Here’s a really terrible picture of my first charge:
Puppy! <3
Oh, yay, what fun! Puppies!!
I didn’t note the name of the Toastie who mentioned ploughman’s lunches as an easy go-to meal last week, but oh man, thank you. I made lazy American variants of that three times this past week and am considering buying a plow just to justify my love. Also: After a year and a half of dystopian-level isolation following a move intended to get me out among people, last night my next door neighbor asked me over and we walked her dog together, and now I want to marry her. This is what happens when you keep to yourself for too long. Still, that was really fun.
That was me, so glad it was helpful! I’m just finishing off today’s version which included leftover spanakopita.
THANK YOU! So many ways to switch it up, and it’s never a bad time to walk around the house humming “Call Mr. Plough, that’s my name, that name again is Mr. Plough” under one’s breath. This week I’m venturing into fried eggs on toast in hopes it will complete my reanimation process.
Ploughman’s lunch is the best.
Since I have no awesome plans and it will be hot, I will do what I did last weekend: Read, sleep, and watch tv. Perhaps I shall write a few poems. Maybe.
Speaking of poems:
The Coffee Song!
Oh coffee’s got us by the balls
we’ll never give it up!
Even when we climb the walls
we want another cup!
Oh, Coffee coffee coffee
we really are your slaves
we are agape
there’s no escape
until we’re in our graves!
No matter if the beans are from
Antigua or Peru
we’ll slam the dregs
on shaking legs
and start another brew!
Coffee coffee coffee
the office worker’s crack
we down a cup
our pressure’s up
you liquid heart-attack!
So go and get some water
and grind some lovely beans
then we’ll drink
til our breath stinks
we’re damaging our genes!
Coffee coffee coffee
let’s make another pot!
one’s not enough
this modern snuff
go drink it while it’s hot!
Any Toasties in or around Colchester, U.K.? I am moving there in less than a month and looking for advice, possible future friendship, etc.
So, I’ve never posted a comment on The Toast, even though I’ve been reading forever & constantly strong-arm my friends into reading. I feel like a real dick posting about what I’m posting about for my first post. (Phew. Did I say ‘post’ enough?)
I’ve recently been asked to participate in my first art show since being out of school! If there are any Richmond VA-area Toasties, I would LOVE to see you there! It should be a really great time. There will be 25 visual artists, some musicians, and a runway show (with lingerie!). It’s 8:00-10:00 on Aug 13 at the Hippodrome. The dickish part is that instead of taking commission, this organization requires you to sell a certain number of tickets to the event. So, I’m trying to sell some tickets. They’re only $15 and there should be some great work by the other artists, including a REALLY awesome woven piece that says “eat a dick.”
My profile for the show is here: http://www.rawartists.org/kaholloway where you can also buy tickets if this seems like a cool think you’d like to do on a thursday night.
Thanks for reading & sorry for being a dick!
This week at work has been super weird. One of the founders of the organization was in an accident over the weekend and a few days afterwards his family removed him from life support. A lot of the people at the organization have known him for years or decades, but he went on medical leave then retired shortly before I was hired so I never actually met him. Pretty much everyone else is pretty much consumed with grief, but are still attempting to work, which has meant that everyone’s upset, things are getting half done, and my boss (the other founder, who has been close friends with him for almost 40 years) has been trying to work and just ends up sending out confusing and vague emails. It’s also been a minefield of trying to guess at how sad I’m supposed to seem. There’s kind of the assumption that everyone is barely functioning and that that’s the correct state to be in but… I’m not, actually. Like, I’m sad for his friends and family, but I have no personal connection to him and I’m not generally an emotional person to begin with. I got some flak from my boss a few days ago for not cancelling my vacation planned for two weeks from now, and although I know grieving people are not always rational I’m also kind of annoyed that there’s an expectation that I do that when there is no pressing work of my own or that I could do for other people that this vacation would prevent.
That is ridiculous and your boss is definitely overreacting / might maybe not be thinking totally straight.
Historically speaking, I have been the less-consumed-by-grief one in various situations, and I find it’s pretty easy to hide your lack of emotional turbulence by being the most helpful, thoughtful, etc. person around. Are you making all the tea and coffee? Is there work you can do for people who are barely-functioning? Surely a few days of that kind of unobtrusive assistance should buy you back some respect (sucks, but true).
That is a great idea. Me and another coworker who is doing ok have been working to try and deal with as much of the paperwork/organizational stuff and small tasks around work that we can to avoid everyone else having to deal with them, but the downside of that is that I don’t think anyone’s noticed because we’re trying to be out of sight about it. Maybe I should also take on some unobtrusive-but-visible other tasks, too.
We’ve had a number of deaths since I started at my firm, and I’m always on edge that same way – I knew these people, but I wasn’t close to them, so I didn’t have many feelings about it beyond sympathy for their families and the people at the office who were close to them. It also doesn’t help that my manager has a lot of Feelings, and it makes it tough to work with him when stuff like this happens. So I don’t have any advice, but I definitely don’t think you’re doing anything wrong by taking a vacation (as long as you’re not sending back a ton of postcards like “I’m sure enjoying being still alive and on this vacation!” because that would be rude).
I have just been reminded that today is the last day to join the Kickstarter campaign for “The Secret Loves of Geek Girls”. It is “An all-female comic/text anthology of true stories about love, romance, and sex! Featuring new cartoons by Margaret Atwood”. I signed up a few weeks ago and I am really excited for this to be made.
Here is the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hopelnichols…
Anyone moving across the country or who has moved across the country have any tips? How did you get your junk from city A to City B? I have some furniture and I’m reading all this stuff and any recommendations any one has would be helpful. I can’t just ditch everything as tempting as it is, because I think even if it costs 3k to move everything it would cost more than 3k to entirely furnish the new place. The goal though is for it to cost LESS than 3k. Any tips?
Anyone also shipped art? I paint and I have a lot of paintings and some fragile paper pieces. I’ll be flying there 2x before the move. We’re also roadtripping to get the car there. Should the art go in the car with me? Should the art go out in boxes on the plane when I fly to to city B in august? The only issue there is then my boyfriend would have to get it to our new place.
Lots of moving experience here. For the art, it’s all about the packing. Hire someone with museum or art gallery experience or do it yourself. Do not let “moving guys” touch it! Trust me on this. Hard experience talking.
The cost is about how much of your own labor you will put in. Hiring someone to do the packing will increase costs, for example. But some items must be crated to withstand a 3,000 mile trip and still function on the other end. This is why certain items should be left behind and replacement purchased. It was cheaper for me to leave behind perfectly functional washer & dryer and buy new than to move them across the country. Give a cold, calculating eye to anything that might be damaged in the move.
I have done the pack-it-myself, load-it-myself, drive-the-trailer-myself, unload-it-myself kind of move. It can be done affordably. Just remember you will have considerable costs in time, energy, and health. It’s hard. Good luck.
I haven’t moved a long distance since I acquired more stuff than would fit in my parent’s van, but I have been kind of considering it a bit and half-heartedly researching options. Giant boxes seem to be pretty popular for this, and I think they might work well for me, but I don’t know if they would suit everyone. You hire a giant box from PODS or Big Steel Box or wherever, and they drop it off outside your house and leave it for several days so you can pack it yourself, and then they pick it up on a giant truck and drive it to your new place and drop it off outside your new house so you can unpack it yourself. Or you can hire people to help with the packing and unpacking separately. They can also store the giant box for a little while, if you need it to not get there before you or whatever.
No idea about the art, though. Sorry.
I did this. For a single move, had to use both Pods and Pack Rat. Great opportunity to compare and I plan to go with Pack Rat in the future. Pods wasn’t bad, but Pack Rat was significantly better.
It’s been a long time, but when I did a cross-country move ABF U Pack was far and away the cheapest option. Basically, you calculate the square feet you need on a truck and pack it on. I think they also do a system similar to Pods.
My gut says that the art should go in the car, as long as it comfortably fits.
On one of my moves, my partner and I rented a small truck and a car trailer, which was the best way for us to get all of our stuff AND the car where they both needed to go. But we also packed everything ourselves, and then hired some college-aged dudebros to drag our boxes/furniture from the 6th floor, down the elevator, across the building, and to the truck, and play truck tetris. Since we had everything in the boxes, they were only there for a couple hours so it didn’t cost all that much, and it was some of the best money we spent.
My experience: anything particular fragile or valuable should definitely go in the car with you, if possible!
Jumping in on the moving thread to ask for advice myself! I’ve decided not to take any furniture with me when I make my cross country-move, but I have a lot of books that I want to ship. There’s a bit of a lag time (2 weeks) between when I can send my stuff and when I’ll actually arrive at my new place. Question: If I ask the post office to hold my mail for that new address, does that mean they will hold on to the packages until I arrive? It seems too good to be true.
If you are in the US, ship your books “Parcel Post”. It can take up to 3 weeks, but is so much cheaper. Books are heavy. And go to the post office to ask for advice. If you avoid their busiest times (start, end of day, lunch), you’ll get good counsel. FYI: POs near universities have the most knowledgeable and most patient staff. Wishing you an uneventful move.
After the newspaper post yesterday, I went back through pictures I’d taken from old Vogue magazines in the local campus library. I found this winner.
Toasties! Does anyone have lyme disease testing advice?
I was bitten on the underside of one breast (waking up with an itchy, slightly bloody lump on a boob: NO FUN, SORT OF TERRIFYING) while I was sleeping by what my doc thinks was a tick. She gave me the blood test and it was negative, but when I mentioned the bite to my stepmother she was all, “I have doctor friends who specialize and let me get info from them.” So one of them was like: “American blood tests are garbage, she should call me I know how to see if there’s anything going on.” But this lady does a lot with alternative therapies that are not covered by insurance and I am skeptical to say the least.
The reading I did on the CDC’s website suggests that I should be tested again in 4-6 weeks because that will give antibodies time to develop. In the meantime, the alternative medicine lady has made me a bit nervous that blood tests are, indeed, garbage. I need additional info.
(Disclaimer: I am an American RN. You can attribute my answer to bias in favor of American medicine, if you want.)
First off: American blood tests are not garbage. Doctors can and have gotten into a lot of trouble for using blood tests that are “garbage”.
I would be healthily skeptical of alternative therapies, especially where blood tests are going on. The lyme disease blood test looks to see if your immune system has developed antibodies to fight the disease. There is another follow up test to screen for false positives in the event the first test comes up positive. In your case, you may want to get another test in 4 to 6 weeks to see if your body’s immune system has begun producing antibodies after the first test was drawn.
I mean no disrespect to the alternative medicine practitioner, but I’ve seen a lot of people in alternative medicine disparage mainstream medical techniques simply to make themselves sound more credible, and that’s dangerous. Bear in mind that for something to be classified “alternative”, it has to be either not proven to work, or it has to be proven not to work.
In the meantime, don’t be afraid to see your doctor again if you start feeling unwell. Make sure to keep the bite spot clean and covered, to prevent infection. /rant
Thank you! My doctor put me on doxy for 10 days as well, so that should help if there were an issue. I don’t think I’ll go have a “Lecher antennae for diagnosing and balancing” used on me, but I probably will follow up with my doc for a second blood test to make sure I’m okay.
I must say Lecher antennae sound like something from a kind of porny manga…
I have no direct knowledge but I’d go with the CDC and not unproven alternative treatments. You could ask what the alternative lady’s testing involves to see if it’s remotely legit, because it could definitely be something like “looking at your tongue and reading your horoscope.”
Direct from the website: “In the last year I have been a student of the ACMOS Method of Healing as well as Bioresonance Analysis of Health. These two systems use the Lecher antennae for diagnosing and balancing.
Zyto is a biofeedback computerized system that I use to help put together the puzzle and to determine which supplements are compatible with a personโs body.”
I think I am going to give that a pass. Also it is $90-$250 per session, depending. D:
This is literally all I can picture right now:
Watch the area to see whether the lump gets bigger or develops the “target” rash and DO DO DO get tested again for your own peace of mind.
Photos can be helpful for tracking the progress of the lump. Try to hold the area in the same way each time and just take a quick boobie selfie so you can compare and aren’t second-guessing your own memory all the time!
The blood tests are not garbage; like all medical tests, they have to be used correctly. The CDC has a great page on Lyme on their website. Go there for additional info.
The lump is long gone (fortunately!). The unfortunate part is the bite corresponded with what my doctor thought was a burgeoning sinus infection. And hopefully that is the reason that my mouth tasted like metal and my tongue swelled up for a day or so and was also very sensitive. The two things close together was unnerving. The CDC’s website is very good! I just didn’t want to WebMD myself into a tizzy. ๐
The area is kind of dry and scaly, but I’ve been trying to keep it moisturized.
After swelling, sometimes skin does slough off (the dry and scaly stuff) and that can be irritated and itchy. OTC 1% cortisone cream is safe to use on a spot like that—it can be easier or more effective to put it on at night when you’re moving around less and not rubbing it off. Just keep an eye on it for redness or any other changes, and do go back please please please for the blood test. Lyme is a nasty one, though treatable.
The swelling/metal taste sound like your immune system was ringing bells about something, but hard to tell. Take care of yourself.
I dont know a ton, but I live in a very lymes-prone area and many close friends and family are exposed to tick and get lyme all the time.
Here’s my two cents: I believe that a tick has to be in you long enough to become engorged which is about 24 hours before it will infect you. Do you have any recollection of the day or night before you got bit and whether you checked under your boob and remember seeing anything? If you didn’t have anything the night before, it was probably a spider, not a tick.
BUT if you don’t know, and you think it could be a tick (ie you were out in the woods or tall grass in a place with lots of deer), doctors in my area (Eastern Long Island/Lyme capital of the world) are prescribing the following:
DOXYCYCLINE HYCLATE CAP 100MG
2 capsules by mouth
just once (at same time) a.s.a.p. –so don’t wait for test.
Apparently one dose of that powerful antibiotic right away will catch the disease before it really gets into your system. The antibiotic will make you feel sick for a couple hours (take it with food if you’re sensitive). Good luck! The great thing is you already went to the doctor and are already thinking about lyme, so you are well ahead of the curve. If you get sick, you wont waste any time with a mistaken diagnosis.
Yeah, my aunt lives on Long Island (although western part) and ended up with lyme disease and complications. I’d been out on the National Mall all day doing volunteer work the day before, so not bushes so much (which is what I think of as prime deer-tick habitat), but tall trees. I didn’t notice anything, but then a) I’m well endowed so I’m not always touching all parts of my boobs when I’m levering them in and out of bras and b) I went straight from the sports bra I wore volunteering to the sports bra I wear to sleep in (because my life is a non-stop sexyparty)
Anyhow, my doctor had me on doxy: 2 capsules a day for 10 days. But it’s nice to know that my initial instincts were right. I also know that I can freaking sleep through something taking a nice sized chomp out of me. Sleep champ!
Phew! Sounds like you’ll be okay. Between the tests and the vigilance and the 10 days of doxy, I bet it’s fine.
So super frustrating though that ticks carry this crazy hard to detect and potentially very damaging disease, but the more we know about it, the better we’ll get at recognizing and treating before it causes too much damage.
My mom just got the rash a couple days ago… Third (?) time with Lyme for her. So she’s on three weeks of antibiotics now. The thing is, she finds ticks on her all. the. time. so the fact that really a pretty small percentage of them have transmitted lyme is a teeny tiny bit reassuring.
I am no expert either, but agree that it could be something other than a tick. I grew up in the woods/tick country, and those suckers stay on you for a while… they don’t bite and crawl off. So basically you find the tick still clinging to you, unless it’s been days. Yes, gross, sorry.
We used masking tape to peel them off when I was a kid. It works well!
GYM / LIFTING / OTHER EXERCISE THREAD!
Tell me about what you are doing, what personal records or other milestones you’ve set, or how you are feeling about your workouts!
Today I did 60lb lateral pulldowns (new best!) 60lb two-handed bicep curls (also new best!) and 55 lb bench press machine (also also new best!)
I’m really feeling good about how my lifting is going. I felt like I plateaued for a bit, but I’ve been able to healthily push myself a bit further and start making more gains. I’m a bit frustrated with how limited the equipment is in my office building’s exercise room (I work out there over lunch break), though. Debating whether to actually join a gym, but I’m not sure if I’d be as successful about attending regularly if it’s not as incredibly convenient to get to as taking an elevator ride down during lunch break.
That’s some legit weight. Nice work! Your office gym may be able to offer everything you need, depending on your goals, even if it is crummy and limited in equipment. Goblet squats, dumbbell deadlifts, and stuff like that are all great.
It’s the lack of free weights that’s killing me! They only have exercise machines. I assume it’s because no one can steal a machine, or maybe it’s for liability reasons. I’d really like to start doing barbell squats, but there’s no barbell.
Oh I just started lifting and to my surprise I really like it!!!! It is a pretty simple weights routine to start off. I’m doing Romanian dead lifts for the first time, which I like.
I’m running a half marathon this weekend and am wholly underprepared.Work and life and school sort of derailed my training for a while. This is my fourth half and I’m pretty confident I’ll finish fine, but I had very illustrious goals for this race that will absolutely not be met. Oh well, there are worse things than slogging around for 2+ hours at a slower pace than planned.
I’ve been thinking really hard about actually paying for a few sessions with a trainer at my gym. I’m pretty confident at my ability to do cardio stuff, but I want to do more strength training and I need help with that.
I’ve re-committed to using my office gym twice a week. I jog/walk for 30 mins while I watch HGTV and then I do two sets of 25 each squats, curls, lunges, military presses, step-ups, tricep extensions, and planks, also while watching HGTV. So, I’m mostly there for the HGTV.
That’s a pretty badass workout IMO. Especially since you can watch HGTV while you work.
HGTV? Niiice! Way beter than CNN, which is all I get at my gym.
I’ve been taking it easy in the pool while recovering from a rotator cuff injury but had to put some hustle on yesterday while sharing the lane with a deceptively fast woman. It felt pretty good! It’s always hard to distinguish between legitimately not pushing things in order to heal properly and just being a fucking sloth, and my natural tendency is towards slothdom. Thanks, deceptively fast lady!
Now that I have specific weight goals in mind for a couple of my lifts, I have been making SPREADSHEETS. With FORMULAS. Currently Excel predicts I will reach a 200-lb bench press in a little less than a year and a half. (Excel is probably not a very reliable judge of this sort of thing.)
Edit: oh man I just thought of a way I could make my spreadsheet more streamlined, too. This is great, I’m combining so many of my interests! (Weightlifting; spreadsheets; wasting time at work. Now if I can just find a way to work elves in there somehow…)
Have I shared my training plan google sheet with you? If not I will. It has a cool tab to track various rep-PRs and stuff.
I squatted 100 lbs! Woo!
YESSSS! Congratulations! Triple digits is an awesome milestone ๐
Biked a bit over 20km with the boyfriend this afternoon, which meant we went faster than I’ll push on my own. Awesome ride, and now crashed out on the back porch.
In Tough Stuff, am currently listening to my mom talk on the phone to someone about her medical bills. She is slowly getting better after her heart failure a few weeks ago, but now we are in the taking meds and paying bills part, which is tough because she has lived in pretty limited means since my dad/her husband passed away a decade ago. And she needs financial help but bless her, doesn’t want to take it because “other people are far worse off than her.” And I can only force her to let me pay for her insurance and sometimes sneak Trader Joe’s groceries into the house. Sigh. .
IN GOOD NEWS. Am about to spend the evening going to the art museum, having dinner, and then FINAL FANTASY CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERT YOU GUYS.
Also I just received a new messenger bag that I have long coveted and I am super stoked about it. So there’s all that.
Glad your mom survived her heart failure. I’m sure that was scary. Would it help to remind her that the financial help available exists because she and your dad paid taxes? That it is her money? Would that help her accept it?
And what I good person you are, sneaking in Trader Joe’s groceries and paying for her insurance. You are a blessing.
Thank you ๐
That is a really good point. I will have to remind her of that and hopefully she will feel better about it. My dad is an excellent trump card so reminding her that he didn’t work and pay taxes for years for benefits his wife wouldn’t take advantage of when she needs them.
Dog thread?
I finally got an office of sorts set up in a spare room in one of the barns. It’s not super cozy, but I bought a dog bed so Ruby can hang out with me while I work.
Fry is very sweet and dumb.
Help! I feel an urgent need to know how big these adorable dogs are so I can imagine their muzzles in my hand as I rub their chins. I love Ruby’s white paws and it seems you named Fry perfectly.
And I’m happy for you, creating a space of your own. I hope it becomes suited to you exactly as you adjust it for your comfort.
Ruby is ~45 lbs; Fry is ~70. Both are supposedly border collie mutts though I assume Ruby is pibble instead/as well. If Fry is truly a border collie, he is by far the dumbest one I’ve ever seen. But we love him.
Toastfolk, why are people so rude? The guy who moved in next door a couple of months ago has been pretty good overall, but last weekend he had a bbq and put concert-sized speakers in his backyard and proceeded to blast us all with music for almost five hours. I sent an email to his landlady saying what had gone on. I was too stressed out during it to be able to go over and ask him to turn it down/off, so I left a really polite note the next day, explaining the stress it caused, and asking him to not repeat it. I have been anxious AGAIN all week about whether he’s the type to not care (and therefore do it again) or to be retaliatory (and do it again). I’ve found over the years that people are under this misconception that noise doesn’t matter until some magical 11pm time, when in fact a lot of bylaws are 24/7.
I just don’t want to have to phone his landlady/the bylaw office/the police this weekend. I really don’t. I’m so tired of this behaviour.
Internet ninja hugs to you. I have similar anxiety issues with some people down the street from me. I’ve actually gone and talked to them several times about turning down music and they haven’t been loud for a couple weeks, but it still stresses me out. I hope the guy was just clueless and now that you’ve given him a clue he goes back to being pretty good overall.
I just wish all the noisy people/people who didn’t care would all live together in one suburb or something, and then us church mice could live in another, and everyone would be content.
A Toast Commune would solve so many problems.
It would indeed.
Thanks to all the Toasties who offered their support for me in the Link Roundup this morning. I live in Lafayette, Louisiana and have for basically my whole life. I am still so sad about what happened last night, but here’s a thing I wrote to try to feel better: http://primandpolkadotted.tumblr.com/post/1249279…
Toasts! What are your Montreal recommendations, please? I am here this weekend and looking for things to eat and do. Especially if you have Ethiopian food recommendations, because you can’t get it where I live, so I always look for it when I come to real cities. Also, what’s a good queer-friendly bookstore?
Ask and you shall receive!
I have heard good things about the East Africa restaurant in NDG (around vendome metro). http://www.eastafricarestaurant.com/#_=_
As for bookstores, the death of the printed word has shuttered many of them. I’d recommend the Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore: http://www.co-opbookstore.ca
Drawn and Quarterly is also pretty fantastic and worth checking out: http://211blog.drawnandquarterly.com
There’s a lovely cat cafe on blvd. St Denis, near the Sherbrooke train station.
Also, Juliette et Chocolat on blvd. St. Catherine, walking distance from the cat cafe.
This has been a pretty tough week. Not bad, but tough. Mom is home from replacement knee surgery and doing ok. Sister goes back to Vegas tomorrow to one more week of idiot-husband-leaving her before he leaves for China. He is at least not dicking around and claims to have already gotten a storage unit…but what if he emptied the house out while she was gone and what if he took all the money and he has money in an account in china she’ll never, ever be able to get to, and she’s my BABY SISTER and I know all the bad things because they all happened to me…
(he hasn’t done those things yet. He’s only B-movie level bad guy, not “I’m going to make sure nobody ever finds him” bad, yet)
My kids leave for a week with their dad on Sunday. And I had to work all this week. It’s been the ONLY week it’s been above 70 and sunny all summer. I will miss them. I am jealous of everyone who got to take their kids on vacation. I”m currently splurging by heating the pool that I only have time to swim in after dark.
No jobs. Asked a former mentor to be a reference and again, she’s applying for the same damn job. There are NO jobs in my field in this area.
That is not reassuring.
Anyway, today it is sunny. And although I didn’t get nearly enough time with my sister (because she is spending all her time concentrating on taking care of mom so that she doesn’t think about her divorce that she has to initiate because he’s a loser), after I drive her to the airport tomorrow at 5 am I will have 1 1/2 days with no work, sun, and my kids. Not much money either, but I’ll take sun and swimming all day for a consolation prize.
Also. BEtween the flooded basement, the son panicking over college, and an impromptu trip to niagara falls sponsored by “pre surgery grandma”, I skipped/forgot a counseling appt. last week. I’ve been not scheduling them because my life is insane, it always is, and I can get my kids to theirs, barely. It was my only day all summer that all three kids were talking to me and willing to spend all day with me and dammit, that was more important. So yesterday, in lieu of crying I swam for 20 minutes before the follow up appt. and showed up 15 minutes late. The counselor then proceeded to wait another 10 minutes, come down to get me, and ream me out for being late and irresponsible for not calling. Fuck her. She is not married and does not have kids and is a sympathetic person but can not understand what being a single parent is like, much less the drama that somehow follows me around. I need to switch counselors, but I’m not sure how many there are left at the county free health care site (they won’t put me with anybody who’s seen my kids). I am over 40. I may be depressed, but I have agency. ANd if I say I forgot (I did, I remembered after the appt. time and while I was in a different state), I forgot. Do not lecture me like a little petulant hall monitor –oh, and THEN she refused to even talk to me, she just took me in her office, scolded me, and said, “I think we should not talk today, you have wasted my time” and showed me out. WTF?! has she never been late to anything before? Has she never had summer? Has she never had three households to juggle and people to care for?
Wow that is some bullshit. That lady is so fired. I hope you can find a more understanding therapist and a non stressful job. My old therapist said swimming activates some sort of destressing process in the brain. It was all very scientific. I mean, I’m explaining it poorly but it made sense when she said it. *nods wisely*
My sympathies for all the BS in your life. But it’s wonderful you’ll get a sunny weekend with your children!
Oooooooof. That’s really rough. ๐ I think you did well to swim–exercise, and exercise you enjoy is so kind to your brain and body. I stick my tongue out at your therapist.
Moving commiseration thread! Toasts, my move (assuming everything works out) is less than two weeks away, but the new landlords are being slow as molasses about preparing a lease. So even though they approved me for the apartment a week ago, I’m paranoid about its slipping through my fingers because I haven’t signed the lease yet. It doesn’t help that the broker I’m working with just said “I wouldn’t schedule moving yet.” BUT I’VE GOT LESS THAN TWO WEEKS TO GO AND THE MOVERS NEED A DATE! And the post office needs to know where to forward my mail! And I need to schedule the cable guy to disconnect my cable! And and and. The last-minute-ness of every single aspect of this process just makes me want to scream with frustration and/or cry and/or abandon all worldly possessions and live in a houseboat.
How does anyone in this city manage to move without having a full-on nervous breakdown? That’s what I’d currently like to know. Because I’m about to have one if the landlord radio silence continues.
Oh my god, that sucks so hard. I had pretty much the same experience last year and I was FREAKING OUT (and the leasing agent was very nice and very patient and kept telling me not to panic). And I did eventually get moved and everything was wonderful. I hope it all gets ironed out for you soon!
omg this is my life. I think we got an apartment, but I have no idea what the owner is doing. We haven’t signed a lease yet. Another unit I submitted for, didn’t get back to me after I turned in the application and now I see they are holding more open houses. I have perfect credit so I have no idea why she didn’t like me, paranoid my current landlord is giving us awful references and we will never be able to move ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Been there, done that. Oh it sucks. I’m sorry. When it happens to me, I stick to my move schedule, but I change the destinations. I procure a storage space for my stuff and I find temporary housing and live out of a suitcase until the lease/mortgage is final. I’m so sorry. This really sucks.
Cool Songs thread: I was just reminded that Jenny Lewis’s “Carpetbaggers” features Elvis Costello, and now I am listening to it on loop.
Also, The Aquabats’ “Pink Pants” features none other than STRONG BAD.
Any other Cool Songs you want to share, Toasties?
I get hooked on this song/video sometimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAI_1FsJ8rE
OK this will probably get buried but I’m pulling the trigger on filing an official complaint with the state medical board about my nightmare reparative/conversion psychiatrist of 15 years ago, who is still practicing back in California. The form asks for witnesses and I just sent an email to my estranged parents to ask them to state the simple facts of what the psychiatrist told them back then. I don’t expect them to go for it but if they don’t, then that whole relationship is over. In the past, one of my siblings was furious with me over even considering filing a complaint, so I’m looking at this as a probable relationship ender and I feel. . . kind of light? Like no more pretending these people have my best interests in mind. I don’t expect the complaint to go anywhere – conversion therapy for minors was still legal at the time, and I was of age, though still a teen, but one of my friends worked with a current child patient of nightmare doctor a couple of weeks ago and this was extremely galvanizing. Also contacted National Center for Lesbian Rights about what else I can do to get this woman shut down, if it’s even possible. It all feels… not good. But solid. I’ll do what I can, and take my experience and try to mitigate some of the harm she’s done.
I am very proud of you for taking this step! I hope you can get that “psychiatrist” shut down; we’ll all be rooting for you!
I think that is so completely unlikely – she’s been sued before and seems to operate mostly by shoehorning herself into small, conservative, underserved communities but I really want to do whatever I can. Read an interview with her from 2011 that made my stomach turn, and I just really hope someone investigates, somehow.
You are a hero. To yourself and to future gaybies. I’m so sorry you were put through that shit. And I am in awe of your response to it.
Well, I was old enough that when presented with the option to continue seeing her or getting kicked out of the house, I moved out and was pretty ok. And my time with her was relatively limited – my memory is fuzzy but I don’t think it was more than 6 months or so. AND it only took me a decade and a half to do anything about it! But thank you.
Amazing, I’m so proud of you! This is huge. I hope you have been able to heal. <3
I have! I’ve been very fortunate in many ways – was thinking the other day about manifestations of white privilege and how truly every difficult experience I’ve had would have been a thousand times worse without the privileges I do posses, and it made me even more resolved to do what I can in this particular situation, however limited it may be. Thank you so much! ๐
Good luck! Even if nothing happens, you’ll at least have done the best you could.
Thank you! That is my hope. I truly am not expecting anything but I will like knowing that somewhere out there, my name will be in a file registering my disapproval. That her office will get the notice to release my medical records. That maybe some other kids somewhere will be spared that shit – found an old high school journal the other day and my partner was like, “Oh, I bet it’s hilarious!” Mostly it was a lot of praying for god to make me not evil. :/
This is so brave and I am so proud of you! Big time internet hugs to you. You are amazing.
I also want to be clear: she didn’t advocate for conversion therapy openly, but instead was the only child/adolescent psychiatrist within like 300 miles or something, so she really had/has access to a large vulnerable population who don’t necessarily have any idea what her views are going into it.
I went off my birth control for the first time in 14 years, and I feel great! My sex drive is back, and I’m happier. I should have tried going off of the pill much earlier!
Toasts, we BOUGHT A CONDO!!!!! Closed today. I can’t believe it. After 10 years in the same apartment, we are moving to a slightly bigger, much nicer apartment in a different town. I’m extremely excited. I’m also sad to be leaving my current town, which I adore, but which has gentrified like whoa in the last few years and was too expensive for us to buy in (and had actually become too expensive to rent in, at least in the parts that were walkable to our jobs).
I will have to work extra hard to make sure that I still see my friends, especially since I’m having a baby in October and don’t want to turn into the isolated new mother in the (semi) suburbs of 1950s nightmares. But on the bright side, I’ll have a functional oven and dishwasher and non-coin-op laundry, which is more than I can say right now. So that’s a big win. And it even comes with a pre-decorated baby’s room that I really like – pale gray walls with decals of birch trunks going up to the ceiling on one wall and a few yellow birds here and there. Lovely, understated, and gender neutral. Nursery = done.
woke up like dis
… in a beach house in Kapoho, the music of George Helm playing gently in the background.
Enjoy your Friday!
A sort-of PSA:
Yesterday I was really shaken up by a comment someone made (not here!) to the effect of, “There is never a good reason to surrender a pet to a shelter, and if you do you’re a terrible person who should not have pets.”
Well, about four years ago I had to surrender my beloved cat to a shelter because I was in a spell of unemployment and was driving myself into debt trying to pay for treatment for his chronic medical condition. My options were either euthanize him (certain death), or surrender him to a shelter and hope someone who could afford a special needs cat would pick him up (probable death). I chose to give him a slim chance of life without me instead of killing him.
I miss him to this day; I don’t know if he’s alive or not. I have a tattoo of him to for remember him. After I read that comment I had to go cry on my partner’s shoulder for a while.
So please, Toasties, stop to think before you start getting judgey about someone surrendering a pet. Sometimes it’s the least terrible option available.
I actually just posted about this in response to another comment, but my old roommate got a dog that had to be returned after a couple of months because it beat the shit out of my much smaller dog โ to the tune of a $4000 emergency vet visit, minor surgery, and massive fear/drama on my part. Turns out the shelter knew the dog had a history of violence and didn’t mention it. No good reason to return an animal to the shelter my ass.
That’s clearly pretty different than your story โ but I also agree that not being able to take good enough care of your pet is a good reason. Too many people have pets that don’t want to put in the work that, if you know better and really care about being a good pet owner and just can’t, then not being a pet owner is probably the most responsible choice. Even though it’s hard!
I have my dog because the first woman who had her couldn’t keep her due to medical issues. She turned her over to the shelter, which sent her to a foster group that was able to fundraise for the medical procedure. I got her right after recovery and it’s been a great fit.
If she hadn’t given up a dog she couldn’t care for, I wouldn’t have my perfect furry companion.
You did the right thing, the most loving thing. Would a true story help you feel better?
The small dog dozing next to me right now was surrendered to a shelter, where I met him. Let’s call my canine shadow “Gilligan”. It suits him: not very bright, always meaning well, often goofy, will protect me loyally for the rest of his life.
Gilligan’s first human was a priest who promised himself two puppies for his retirement. Gilligan was one of them. When his dogs were five years old, Father got very sick. Likely a stroke. He was suddenly unable to care for his dogs. He had to move to a nursing home and surrendered his dogs to breed-specific rescues. I never met Gilligan’s companion dog, as they were not of the same breed.
Meanwhile, I visited a shelter, seeking a companion for my little female dog, who was making herself sick over the recent loss of our older dog. We met Gilligan. It was evident Father had loved Gilligan, thoroughly loved him. I have never before encountered a rescue dog with no anxieties or fears. Nothing scares him. Just a happy little guy all the time.
It was also evident Father did no training, likely knew nothing about dogs. Gilligan didn’t even know “sit”. Yes, I tried commands in multiple languages. Nothing. It was evident Gilligan had never been off-leash. It was evident Gilligan had never been told “no”. He still, at the age of 5, tried to eat everything he could get into his mouth, like a puppy. The day I met him, he ate grass nonstop until pulled onto the porch.
Gilligan is a special-needs dog.
Gilligan has been my dog for 6 years now. He now knows “sit” and other commands after years of training. Seriously, that bit about old dogs and new tricks? They can learn, it just takes years. But he still eats anything he can get into his mouth, including rocks and sticks. I have shoved my hand into his mouth to pull a bolt out of his throat. He cannot be let out into the back yard. He must be on a leash, with a vigilant human, or he will eat grass until it kills him. Every day he has to be helped to stop drinking water. He is obsessive, just cannot stop without help.
Gilligan is better now, but I have to look back years to see improvement. About twice a week now he has back yard sessions (on a leash, under my watchful eye) that last several minutes before he starts eating grass and has to be pulled onto the patio.
And he learned Day One at my house that sitting is required to get anything he wants. Consequently, if he is across the room from me when I reach for the doggy treat jar, he sits where he is. So hard you can almost hear his butt slam on the floor. Then he excitedly makes his way to me while trying to maintain the sitting posture. I wish you could see it. It’s hilarious.
My heart breaks for Father, giving up a dog who is so very loving and so very loyal. And I wonder if Father knew Gilligan was a special-needs dog. I wonder if Father knew many people would have, probably did, pass him over as too difficult.
You, RudyRed, and Gilligan’s Father did the right thing. ::hugs:: from me. And Gilligan says, “Look RudyRed, I’m sitting. If I sit, will you pet me? Please? I’m sitting!”
That did make me feel better, thank you! Gilligan sounds like a wonderful dog.
The wild invasive blackberries are ripening at my place. Any Seattle-area toasts should invite yourselves over to pick berries if you want!
Whenever my boyfriend goes back to his Seattle-area dad’s home, he brings back an extra suitcase filled with homemade blackberry jam. I don’t even like jam, and I like blackberry jam. Have you ever attempted jam making? It seems like a mystical process to me, but the boyfriend swears it isn’t that hard, and the results are so nice to have in the dreary dead of winter.
I have! In 2011 I made so much jam of all kinds that I haven’t needed to make any since then. I also can tomatoes. It really isn’t that hard. It’s hot, but I always tell myself “I’m going to be so grateful for this in February” and it’s always true.
My week at work.
Mine too ๐ At least it’s over, right? And we’re both going to do our best to NOT work the entire weekend…right?
(probably not.)
Mr. Floridagal jokes that I’m a bit of a workaholic, but my name IRL literally does mean “work”. See, it’s just my nature…
Toasties, this is my first time EVER commenting however I have something SUPER IMPORTANT that I need your help to process. You see, I just watched Tommy Wiseau’s The Room for the first time last Saturday. And I live-blogged it. You can see the unedited, alcohol-tinged results beginning here: http://underemployedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/0…
Main goal: I need to talk about this… travesty of a movie. The Scotchka, the “Oh hi, ____” inflection every 2 seconds, the creepy sex scenes. PLEASE HELP ME PROCESS THIS!!!!
I have good news for you: http://www.freep.com/story/life/advice/2015/07/04…
Ooooh yes. My husband was the one was the one who was all like “You know what? I think I need to watch The Room.” So I placed a hold on it at the library and while we waited a few days for it to show up he made me read this. Good lord. Poor Ask Amy!
If you have not yet read The Disaster Artist, get you to your nearest bookstore/library and find it RIGHT NOW. Greg Sestero (Mark) tells the story of the filming of The Room. It is just as bananas as you would think. Tommy Wiseau is probably an alien.
YOU ARE MY ROSE YOU ARE MY ROSE YOUAREMAHROSE
So…I left someone I probably should have left 2 years ago a couple of weeks ago and I can’t get over my feelings of anger at how things ended. He was the only person in my life who talked down to me like I was stupid, would resort to throwing out accusations of my being “irrational” or “emotional” or “immature” in arguments rather than listening to what I was saying and trying to understand where I was coming from and I just finally got mad enough that my attempts to be cool and calm and communicative kept getting met with nothing comparable on his part.
But…the sex was also really good. Like better by a lot than any other sex I’ve had in my life and so my anger is all mixed up in my missing it and my fear that this is just the end of good sex for me. If not forever, it at least will be for a while, cause dating’s a bitch and I’m not ready to throw myself into it.
Tips for dealing?
Hi, are you me from four years ago? Because that sounds like me from four years ago.
I am extremely confident that your chances of having excellent sex again will actually go up as time goes on. You know more about you and will gain confidence in communicating what you need, and you’ll meet men in a similar place in their lives, and there will be far more sexy, confident interactions.
If that doesn’t happen for awhile, so be it. You are far better off without it, if the price of admission is a partner who minimizes, dismisses, and openly disrespects your feelings.
You may be surprised, though. Four-years-ago-me rebounded with my yoga teacher a few months after leaving my gaslighting partner. So much for my fear of never enjoying myself again.
Dealing: schedule a lot of friend-dates, keep busy, take care of yourself like you hired yourself to do just that, do things that make you feel sexy and self-confident, because you’ve got some lost time to make up for after spending a couple of years with a jerk who didn’t value you.
Sex is available elsewhere. Good sex is not as uncommon as your emotions believe right now. And sex with the narcissistic, gaslighting fuckwad you so rightly kicked to the curb would have gone downhill eventually. Sooner than later, probably. Great sex becomes deeply disappointing when you don’t like your sex partner. And when you remember your sex partner does not respect you. Sex definitely sucks in that situation. If you had not noticed that, it was coming.
Dating *is* a bitch. And you do not have to throw yourself into it. Wait until you want to date. Which usually happens when you meet someone you want to date. Take some time. You deserve a break. And you deserve a partner who can fucking communicate like an adult.
TOASTS.
I just literally this minute learned that my lab partner / closest co-worker / work husband (kind of hate that phrase) is looking to move cross country and thus will be leaving the lab in the coming months.
Someone hold me. Alternatively, tell me about your work spouses, and how you found great new ones after your besties left.
I just got my first work spouse/friend. I do not know what I would do if she left. Take him out to dinner/drinks at every opportunity?
Toastpersons – I now finally have both a passport and a social security card in my married name, but I haven’t signed either yet, because I don’t know what the hell to do about my signature. Do I create a new one? Do I keep the same sad scribble I don’t like very much? I’ve filled up entire pages with various attempts and I can’t seem to find anything that sings to me. Pray tell me your signature stories, I need inspiration. (Also I really need to learn not to show up so dang late for the open thread, daaaang.)
Anecdote: I have a doctor friend who got married a couple years ago. She said she always resisted having a “doctor signature” (i. e. entirely illegible) but once she changed her name she was like “ah, screw it” and just started scribbling something vaguely consistent, because she could never remember to sign the correct name.
I kind of half-assed changing my signature when I changed my name. I also made pages of practice signatures and nothing really took, so now I just do what I think of as an elegant scrawl.
My last name is long and has letters that are hard to do smoothly in cursive (at least, for me), so now I just do a scribble that’s so bad that when I try to sign on those electronic signature pads for credit cards, they usually won’t accept it. So I think maybe I went a little too far in the other direction? But at least my scribble is fairly consistent, so that’s something.
I took to my new signature like a duck to water because my old name started with a B, which is the very worst cursive capital letter. (Except X, maybe.) I also took the opportunity to start signing “Liz” on many things instead of “Elizabeth” — I figured that, since I was creating a new signature anyway, and since you don’t actually have to sign your full legal name most of the time, I might as well create a new signature that wouldn’t take so goddamn long to sign. But I never really had a “signature” the way that some people seem to, like, a special mark distinct from just “my name written in sloppy cursive,” so I don’t know how relevant my story really is.
My advice is to keep the sad scribble unless you’re confident you can sign your new signature consistently. Probably nobody will ever check your signature and it won’t be an issue, but I had my (French) bank stop a wire transfer until they could get hold of me because I had carefully done my prettiest signature filling out the paperwork to open my account, and then had dashed into my bank months later to do a wire transfer on a winter day when my hands were cold, and had done my usual initial-letter-scribble-scribble without thinking about it.
Me too! …I am at a loss regarding my signatures as well.
My mother signs first-initial last-name. My dad signs first-name middle-initial last-name, just as he has when he learned how to write cursive in the 1940s. Dads are great at consistency.
My signature has evolved over the last 20 years into the first few letters of my first name and the letters of my last name that extend higher/lower than a lowercase “o”, with an upward flourish at the end of each, and a dangly bit on my first name that doesn’t actually correspond to any of the letters. The most legible bits are my first and last initials. The rest is kind of elided and swoopy.
*shrug* I like it.
Blast, I’m a bit late for my first open thread post. But, I’m happy to say that I’m going to my first ever queer book group tonight. I’m equal parts excited and nervous. It’s specifically a BTQ themed group, so I feel slightly less anxious about being a bi woman married to a man than I usually do before going to a new queer space.
Yay! Hope you have a good time. ๐
Me too (I also hope I’m brave enough to actually go, which is probably why I’m posting my plans all over teh internet.
GUYS I MET BESTLAIDPLANS AND SHE IS SUPER AWESOME ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐
OMG, Toast soldiers, my boss got a call today from the detective in charge of ex!boss’s case, and our server and iPad have been cleared to be released to us! I guess this means that they’ve gone through and either collected all of the evidence they need (ewwwww), or found no evidence (this would be vastly preferable). We’ve been using one of the computers as an ad hoc server, which works, but some of our files are getting corrupted, and I think putting them back onto an actual server would be better (also the warehouse guy could shut his computer down when he leaves at night).
Also, this puts us one step closer to an actual resolution of this nightmare.
AND I can hear about him without getting panicky, which is amazing. I still prefer not to, of course, but his existence doesn’t trigger anxiety the way it did.
Super late to the game here, but has anyone worked through “The Artist’s Way” book before? I’m in a major rut and only mildly identify as a creative, but I just need something…new/challenging/idk? I picked up the book this week and started on Wednesday, so I guess I’ll see how it goes, but just curious about others experiences with it!
My only experience with it is having several friends who’ve done it and really rave about it. I looked at it once and decided it was too structured for me, but I’ve heard good things from other people who thought it was helpful. A couple of my online friends really like her morning papers exercise (I’m pretty sure that’s from the Artist’s Way).
Thanks! That’s the one! Glad to hear others have raved about it. I’m a little worried about all the tasks and structure, but at the same time, the rest of my life is super unstructured, so it might be a nice challenge! Time will tell!
So, I just finished reading Sons and other flammable objects by Porochista Khakpour, and DO NOT GET IT. I don’t dislike the book, the language is good, and some scenes are vividly written, but I just don’t understand the characters. Why does Xerxes have the issue in Frankfurt? Is Darius supposed to be mentally unstable? Why does the story about the birds become such a huge deal? Also, what was the point of the subplot with Gigi? I’d really like to hear from someone who liked the book.
Has anyone else been watching the Olympic Anniversary Games?
I was in the stadium yesterday, and loved it. Most of the field sports and about half of the races were women’s events, and it was fantastic watching them in action. Favourite moment was the last jump of the women’s long jump, where Proctor jumped 30cm clear of all the previous jumps – amazing!
I’m heading back there today for National Paralympic day. The weather is miserable, so I don’t know how much will go ahead, but hopefully it will be a great day all the same.
I was in the stadium on Saturday too and saw Proctor's jump which was ace! Also loved seeing Asher-Smith set a new British record in the 100m and the awesome Rudisha / Amos race and the men's 100m relay was also brilliant and what a great day! Athletics, wooo!
I hope the Paralympic events weren't too disrupted by the Great British Summer (unending rain…). So pleased there was another Toastie at the Olympic Park though!
The Paralympics didn't seem to be much affected by the rain, thankfully, and it was awesome. There were a few really close photo-finish races, which are of course the most exciting.
I haven't had much luck finding photos of days 2 or 3, but these of the first night are pretty good:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2015/jul…
I particularly like the Ohuruogo photo, and both the men's and women's hurdles ones. And I love the power in this one of Ennis-Hill running for the long jump:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jul/25/jess…
Hey! I am just seeing this, but congratulations! Best of luck as you traverse these next five days, and I hope you have the best time ever.