Tootsies, why isn’t every salad covered by a huge piece of cheese? The Bartender shall demand this from now on. Let’s talk about anything but the Pope. Unless you really want to talk about the Pope. Open thread!
Cocktail Hour: Open Thread
Hey Toasties, you know that part in Hamilton where our boy pisses off a bunch of people with a defamatory letter to John Adams? The “Sit down, John, YOU FAT MOTHERFUCKER” bit? aWell, THERE WAS AN ENTIRE JOHN ADAMS DISS RAP THAT GOT CUT
Please join me in flailing in joy and memorizing the entire thing.
LIN SAID IT MAY BE A BONUS TRACK AND I WANT IT SO BAD
IT IS MY FAVORITE
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH it just keeps getting better
I came to the open thread hoping for more Hamilton talk and THIS IS MUCH BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WAS IMAGINING THANK YOU HERO
Gotta say I’m kinda bummed they cut the only “bitch please” on the album.
I have to either thank or curse the person who mentioned on the Link Roundup that the soundtrack is streaming free on Amazon Prime. That was the straw that caused this camel to bow to Toast pressure and listen. . . and now I understand.
Toasties! What is your favorite place to shop for ethically made clothing?
If you are looking for shoes, I love Melissas:
http://www.melissa.com.br/en/
They are comfortable and vegan and made in a super ethical factory! Enjoy.
Ooh jumping in for notifications on this!
Someone on here recommended Nisolo shoes ages ago and I recently sucked it up and sprung for a pair of these flats and oh my god they are so beautiful and amazing. No regrets.
I went on a handmade underwear/sleepwear spree recently and can highly recommend Ohhh Lulu and Bad Bunny Shop. I also really like the handmade tees at Thimble and Acorn on Etsy.
I like Braintree Hemp for socks.
Oooh, I want to get in on this thread as well for notifications. Once I save up enough shoe money, I’m thinking of getting a pair of shoes from the aurora shoe company
Yeeesss!!
Everlane for basics that are well priced
Elizabeth Suzanne for special awesome clothes
Nisolo for shoes and bags
Etsy for dresses because there are a lot of shops that do custom stuff for a good price
People Tree has good stuff but I’ve never bought anything
Zady has good basics but they’re expensive
Oh, can you recommend any specific Etsy shops for dresses?
Sure! I recently got a really awesome dress from MissesCountry, and I have my eye on stuff from THIMBLEandACORN and Metaformose. My style is basically “make this linen fit my body” though so I don’t have any recs for fancier clothing than that!
Tell me how to find things on Etsy! I find Etsy very overwhelming.
Ohhh man Etsy is the worst and the best. I try not to ever use the search bar, but you still have to sometimes. Then you have to scan through all the crap to get to the good stuff.
I’ve (surprisingly) had success with Etsy’s recommendation function. If you go to the Etsy homepage and dive in and just click around the editor’s picks and the popular stuff and favorite some things, then eventually it starts recommending things for you and recommending people with lists that are similar to yours. Then I just click on all those and go through other people’s lists and gradually build up my own!
I also follow some tumblrs, like etsyfindoftheday and etsyifyourenasty, which means that someone else has gone through and picked out the good stuff for you and you can find cool shops that you might not have stumbled upon otherwise.
I’m not totally sure whether this is ethical or just obnoxiously ethical-sounding (made by women in Nepal! organic!), but I have a couple things from Synergy Clothing that I like.
I can’t believe I was at work during an ethical clothing thread!!! I worked in Fair Trade for a number of years, and currently work at a store that sells all sorts of funky handmade things so ethical shopping is very much my jam. So, I’m looking forward to seeing what other ethical shops people frequent, as I’m looking to expand my Fair Trade bubble. However, since FT was my thing, here are some of my favorite Fair Trade sorts of places.
My favorite Fair Trade clothing is by Indigenous , which is Not Cheap, but if you subscribe to the email list for promo codes and watch their clearance sales like a hawk (as I do), then you never half to pay full price. Granted, even sale prices are pretty steep. I very much like Maggie’s for leggings, socks, and tanks. My friends who wear cute dresses (not my thing) love Mata Traders. I’ve also heard good things about Pact (for underwear), Soulfower (casual clothing / yoga wear), and Oliberté (for shoes). Oh, and Prana if you are looking for fancy yoga wear.
I shop at People Tree a fair bit (www.peopletree.co.uk)
I tentatively suggest my former employer’s house brand, MEC, but even though they bill themselves as ethical only like 20% of their clothing is fair-trade certified, so you need to read the label. And they pay their retail employees as terribly as everybody else. Patagonia is also mostly fair-trade I think? They’re really expensive but their clothes last a really long time.
toasties, it’s my birthday! i have mixed emotions about it all (i’m not big on birthdays in the first place) but so far, so good, and i am determined to have a lovely friday. covering a salad with a giant piece of cheese sounds like a good addition.
tell me what your favorite kind of cake is! usually i’m a staunch carrot cake supporter, but this year i made banana bread and slathered some nutella on, and it was heavenly.
Happy birthday! I’m chocolate all the way.
thank you! a good chocolate cake is just…delicious decadence. mm, chocolate.
Happy birthday! Here is a recent favorite: Brown butter polenta cake.
thanks! and oooh, this looks good. i’ve never had a polenta cake but i sense one in my future.
for my bday on the 19th I made this chocolate hazelnut torte:
thank you! and yummmmm. chocolate + hazelnuts = perfect together. happy belated birthday!
Ice cream cake 4 life!
i’m a big fan of ice cream with everything, so…yes, definitely haha.
Happy Birthday! Mine was Tuesday and would have gone unheralded but I got a haircut and flu shot to feel like I was marking the occasion. I like German Chocolate, but this year I just had an oatmeal cookie.
thanks, and happy belated birthday! i am not doing anything particular, either, but i think a haircut and a flu shot are not a bad way to go!
Happy birthday! Angel food cake (with or without strawberries and whipped cream) is my hands-down favorite.
thank you! this thread is making me realize all the cakes i have never tried, including, amazingly, angel food cake. time to remedy that.
Happy birthday! If you must have one, you can do worse than a beautiful September Friday!
I am a garbage person with terrible taste and legitimately love disgusting sheet cake from the grocery store.
thank you! also i maintain that there is a time and place for grocery-store baked goods, including those sugar cookies that taste like delicious plastic.
Hey now, nothing wrong with grocery store sheet cake! Particularly after everyone leaves and you just get to eat it directly from the box with a fork.
My mom’s favorite cake, and the one she insists on for her birthdays, is the Pepperidge Farm layer cake that you buy in the supermarket freezer section and have to thaw out before you serve. I have no idea why. Individual tastes are weird.
happy birthday! I’ve had chocolate cake with vanilla frosting every year since I was ten.
thank you! also there is something to be said for consistency 🙂
Strawberry shortcake or chantilly. Fruit and cream, basically.
yum!
Happy Birthday! Hope your Friday is good.
I like chocolate swiss roll (or any swiss roll really).
thank you! i’ve never had a swiss roll, but i just looked it up, and dang, it looks really good.
Happy birthday!
My faves are tiramisu and chocolate lava cake.
thank you! tiramisu is delicious but i’ve never had chocolate lava cake. this thread is basically resulting with a list titled “cakes i should eat before my next birthday,” haha
Happy birthday! My favorites are carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, or dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, and sometimes red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m all about the cream cheese frosting.
thank you! and yes, cream cheese frosting is obviously the superior frosting!
I was going to say “poppy seed with cream cheese frosting” so maybe add that to your list?
I have never heard of this combination, but you can bet your sweet bippy I’m going to have to try it! Is this a lemon poppy seed, or …?
Happy birthday!! I’m on the Good Ship Carrot Cake with you. Slathered in a cream cheese frosting? There’s nothing finer!!
thank you! and yes, mmm. i know i just had the aforementioned banana bread but adding carrot cake to the equation can hardly hurt.
I really like black forest cake. It’s chocolate, which is always good, but made just a little fancier (plus there’s whipped cream. It’s hard to go wrong with whipped cream)
black forest cake has the cherry topping, right? it always looks so fancy, which can’t be a bad thing when it comes to cake. yummm
Happy birthday! I am not massively fond of chocolate cake – I like chocolate, and cake, but not together. I often make orangeade cupcakes (using sodastream syrup instead of some of the sugar), or normal orange cake, banoffee cake (banana bread with rolos or similar studding it), or cinnamon cupcakes with a blob of apple pie filling in the middle, or normal vicky sponge cupcakes with a blob of jam in the middle…
I make a lot of cake. Tonight is being spent making maple syrup cheesecake for my sister’s birthday.
thank you! you sound like quite the baker, i’m a little jealous, haha. banoffee cake sounds amazingggg.
I made this banoffee cake a couple months ago, and it was fantastic. http://www.onceuponachef.com/2014/11/sticky-toffe…
In terms of general cake genres, I support your initial conclusion that carrot cake is the best (cream cheese frosting mandatory).
As far as recipes go, this is the one I bust out on special occasions. To me, it is the platonic ideal of what a chocolate cake should taste like.
cream cheese frosting is a given! there is nothing more disappointing than biting into a forkful of carrot cake and realize someone has frosted it with regular frosting. why??
also, i think any recipe that includes the words “double chocolate” is promising.
Pistachio! Ordinary white or yellow cake with instant pistachio pudding mixed in. Works with both buttercream and cream cheese frosting!
I also highly recommend poke cakes of any kind (cakes whose tops you make a zillion pokes with a straw and then pour caramel or condensed milk into.)
i have never had either of these cakes and they both sound incredible!! adding to my list…
Oooh, poke cakes with caramel??? I’ve only ever had poke cakes with pudding or Jell-O on top. Dang, I need to move this caramel concept right to the top of the queue.
Yes!! I made this for my sister’s birthday and it was amaaaazing.
Happy Birthday!
Banana bread with chocolate/nutella is always delicious. My favorite is straight up chocolate cake with the fudgiest chocolate frosting possible. The Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe is my favorite and I made it for my own birthday three weeks ago.
thank you! and happy belated birthday! fudgy chocolate frosting sounds preettttty good to me.
Happy birthday! The best kind of cake is the kind of cake you can trade for some pie. Although when the new ShopRite near me opened, they had this stoplight cake thing that was almondy and heavenly – I don’t like almonds, but I do like almondy things for some reason – but they haven’t had it in months, and I look every time and it’s not there.
thank you! and yes, pie, i also had a slice of pie earlier this week. it was walnut, and it was delicious. and mmm, almonds.
OMG I FORGOT: tomato soup cake. The greatest midcentury-home-economics-degree baked good around. My family makes it with whipped cream on top.
whaaaaa? this looks intriguing. i love spice cakes.
Happy birthday! Flourless chocolate with raspberry stuff on top.
thank you! and yum, that sounds good!
Happy birthday! If you were at my house, you’d be getting Italian Cream Cake: coconut cake with cream cheese pecan frosting. Some people make it with the pecans in the cake, coconut in the frosting, but they are doing it wrong.
thank you! and holy crap, that sounds amazing.
Not gonna lie, it’s amazing. Best part: no worries about crumbs in the frosting, as the chopped pecans hide all!
Happy birthday! The Bay area got you this not-intolerably-hot weather! (I think you’re in the Bay area?) Almost every cake is a good cake, but in the carrot cake and banana bread-adjacent genre of simple snacky cakes, I especially like citrus yogurt cakes. Like this one.
thank you! and yes, i am! i would prefer foggy autumn weather, but at least it’s not disgustingly hot!
that citrus yogurt cake sounds soooo good and fresh!
Yellow cake with peanut butter frosting. (Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting is also wonderful.)
On sewing_bee’s recommendation I finally watched Happy Valley (Netflix has been recommending it for months on the grounds that I have watched anything else ever). It is very good. It’s fairly slow but that’s good because it lets characters have enough space for actually coping with emotions.
Be warned however that there is rape and violence and death and none of it is just blown by off camera. It’s a show about a woman dealing with that horrible shit much more so than about her solving the case.
She does solve the case though, by being tough and good at her job, so that’s icing.
I watched the first episode and there was (SPOILER but not that much, I only saw one episode so I don’t know anything too exciting) a kidnapping that just felt much too real for me to want to keep watching. I’m sure it’s good, but I just don’t need to be watching violence that feels too real and visceral.
It is sort of the real world version of Tracy Jordan’s Hard To Watch. It lacks a lot of the filmic unreality that allows us to watch so many crime shows.
I am a fan of slow-paced british crime dramas, I should check this out! Have you watched Broadchurch? If so, how does it compare?
Pig post.
Pig Pig is apparently quite accomplished at levitation. As all pigs are.
(There’s a pun here somewhere. I’m too lazy to find it though.)
Bless you. I’ve begun looking forward to your pigs every week. I don’t know what it is!! But I love it!!
Toasties, I ate a giant plate of french fries for lunch and I have no regrets. AMA.
hell yeah, a giant plate of french fries is one of life’s reliably satisfying meals.
What shape / cut were the fries
Shoestring, so not the best cut, but I’ll take what I can get.
Do you find shoestrings are the best, though, for topping with lots of great stuff? Are you in Canada by chance? Fries Supreme on shoestrings is the bombbbb
Shoestrings fell flat for me today because I didn’t have the requisite number of toppings to appreciate them (I know, I know, rookie mistake). I am not in Canada, although I have had fries supreme with a glass of Steamwhistle in Toronto and it is definitely worth the trip.
Waffle fries with BBQ sauce are so so good but the only place to get waffle fries around here is Chic-fil-a and I Will Not.
Cheese? Catsup?
BOTH because both are great!
Ugh, this reminds me of a conversation I just had about a Greek place right next door to my apartment. They have “Greek fries” – fries with melted feta and oregano on them – and now I wish I hate a plate of them.
Melted feta, aaaaaah! That sounds amaaaaaazing
There’s a Mexican place near me that does “Irish Nachos” which is apparently fries with guacamole, salsa, and cotija, but I feel like the fries don’t really add anything that some good fresh-made tortilla chips don’t already provide.
Which is funny because potatoes are absolutely as Mexican as they are Irish. One of the things I like about New Mexican food is they kept the potatoes.
This comment made me stop with my cup halfway to my mouth, gape for a full 5 seconds, and then smack my cup down on the table and think to myself (I am in the office otherwise it would have been out loud) ‘I know what I’M doing tonight!’
I ate about half a bag of Cheddar Bacon Mac and Cheese Lays for lunch.
Some regrets, I’ll be honest.
I just had French Fries for dinner! The Dutch kind: with a fat dollop of mayo.
European mayo with fries is so good. It’s hard to find mayo like that in the states.
Add some gravy and cheese curds and I would totally do that as well.
oh no, now I want poutine.
I got fired on Monday, you better believe that my dinner was the biggest, greasiest poutine one can obtain
This sounds like an excellent idea. Might steal.
I had a beer with my boss and a colleague from out of town and then went to the Jamaican patty place for a spicy patty stuck in a coconut bread bun and it was heavenly.
It’s a French fry kind of day, apparently.
I discovered that my local Winners (discount department store, sister company to TJ Maxx) stocks sheet masks… very bad for my wallet, very good for my face. I love how indulgent and luxurious it feels to use them, especially these super fancy ones. I think spending a few hours a week looking like a serial killer wearing someone’s skin is a small price to pay for not going through the winter with a cracking, peeling, flaking face.
What are your favourite self-indulgent beauty rituals/tips for getting through cold, dry weather without too much damage?
I went on a little internet shopping spree and am now waiting on 6 orders. Most of them have very wide delivery date ranges because I am too cheap to pay for shipping. One was delayed because the sender put the wrong address on it; two, coming from Korea, don’t have any tracking updates once they leave the country and Canada Post doesn’t recognize the tracking numbers. I’m too impatient for this!
I opened Twitter last night and had a Silence of the Lambs flashback. Was that you?! If so, so spooky outside but no doubt emollient and delightful underneath.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never tweeted a sheet mask selfie, but now I’m very tempted to start!
That mystery has been solved, and replaced by the one where a bunch of our identities are now a G lying on its back contemplating life’s mysteries. Why is this so?
i just noticed these and:
1. glad it’s not just my phone, then.
2. that description is excellent and makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing. hello, philosophical little G.
YAY internet shopping sprees! I went on one earlier this month and the wait time was nerve wracking, but the delivery days were ecstatic.
COCONUT OIL EVERYWHERE
Ooh, Korean face sheet masks are THE BEST! When I was visiting my hometown last month, I went to the local TNT (Asian Supermarket) and bought three different types. My skin (mature, dry) loved them, and I scraped every last drop out of the packaging before recycling them.
I’m loving sheet masks too. My local H-Mart (http://www.hmart.com/index.asp) has a really great Tony Moly corner which acts as a moneypit for me.
Bath bombs from Luuussssshhhhhhhhh. They’ve got oils in them and you get out of the tub feeling really expensive and soft and your skin and hair smell incredible for like 48 hours after. The Phoenix one is the best for fall, it smells like cinnamon and magic and it turns the water purple, and it’s being DISCONTINUED so stock up!
Bath bombs from Lush ARE amazing. I want to get through my current stash before I buy any more (I just finished my stash of Lush soaps, all of which were between 4 and 8 years old…. I’m not proud of my beauty-product-hoarding tendencies). I’ve never tried the Phoenix one – I’m more of a jasmine or rose person – but it sounds great!
Pure oils are what get me through the winter!! In the summer I do mainly moisturizing creams and sprays, but in the winter, I add oils to the rotation. This Burt’s Bees one is my favey-fave:
http://www.burtsbees.com/Repair-Serum-with-Attar-…
It smells crazy good and works really well around my eyes and on my dry patches. Plus, you only need a tiny bit so the tube lasts forreevverrr.
I just bought a Bésame lipstick online from Sephora because apparently they aren’t sold in stores within a 150km radius of where I live! I went with Bésame because of Ella’s post on The Pool. I thought I needed a lipstick that could carry me through a hard day.
I have dry skin and live in Utah, which makes it worse. The thing that made the biggest difference was eliminating SLS cleansing products. It costs more in soap, but I use so much less lotion. I even keep a tiny bottle in my purse and at my desk so I never have to use public restroom soap. I’m a big fan of CeraVe moisturizer, for all over my body in the winter, topped with coconut oil. (in the summer I do the oil alone) I also use that tub on my face at night, with Tarte maracuja oil on dry patches and around my eyes. The other big thing is to exfoliate, and on my skin I just use a handul of kosher salt and my loofah, but on my face I like the Dr Brant microdermabrasion, which is way expensive ($80!) but a tube lasts me at least 12 months, often more, because you use so little.
I’ve just bought a ton of extra-fancy lip balms to keep my lips from cracking and bleeding this winter (hopefully!)
Wise Toasties, what is a nice thing to do for a longtime friend/neighbor who is going through chemo?
Pretty much anything? Everything I’ve ever heard implies they will wind up too tired too chew at least half the time so almost anything is likely to be appreciated as long as it’s not/even if it is too patronizing.
Do you know what kind of books s/he likes? Audiobooks are a nice gift for someone who has a lot of time to fill, needs to take their mind off something, and might not be able to read without getting a headache.
Maybe some housework or some cooking?
Offer to drive him/her to appointments and run errands. Specific errands, not “tell me if you want anything” but “I’m going to the grocery store so can I pick up groceries for you, cook dinner tomorrow night, mow your lawn, run a load of laundry for you, clean your house”. And talk about things other than cancer, just like you used to. Virtual hugs for being a great friend/neighbour!
Offhand, I would say offering to help with yard/house maintenance (mowing lawn, raking leaves, shoveling snow) would probably be very welcome!
People brought us plastic wear (utensils, plates), paper towels, napkins, toilet paper, etc. That sounds like a weird thing but when you’re exhausted you can’t do the dishes and it’s nice to not have to run out to the store for kleenx because your friends stocked up.
A bunch of college chums banded together on Facebook to pool money to get a housecleaning service for a classmate who is fighting cancer. Classmate thanks us profusely every time the service visits, so this is my current go-to suggestion, if you can make it happen.
Food is wonderful…. if it’s something that the person can imagine eating, which is tricky. Soft warm clothes/blankets are wonderful…. if they fit and are the person’s preferred style. Both of those things *can* be amazing gifts, but can also be difficult to do well.
I agree with others— offer specific errands or chores. I especially like the grocery run idea– if you say you’re going anyway, it may feel less of an imposition. Offer to either drop them off at the door (in case the friend will be embarrassed about the state of their space or the way they look, or might not want to socialize) OR to bring them all in AND put them away (in case the person is tired enough that they worry perishables might spoil before they’ll have the energy to get to them).
Offering to drive to treatments is super helpful, usually, although it’s a touchy thing for some people.
If the person has regular caregivers, consider their needs too/instead. They may need a break, or may be a better person to coordinate groceries, and when you can’t take care of the loved ones that are taking care of you, sometimes other people caring for your loved ones is just as important.
Just be there and available for pretty much anything?
When I went through chemo, I mostly laid on the couch and reread my favorite books. If you want to gift books, I’d give simple and engaging ones. Maybe a specific offer to pick something up from the library, too. An offer of grocery shopping would be so great. I was too tired to move, let alone go shopping. My dad cared for me and I know he would have appreciated a break, a beer and a sympathetic ear. I also second queenmondegreens’s suggestions of comfy clothes.
A lot of what I needed was very specific. At one point I got throat sores and couldn’t swallow without pain. If someone had offered to bring me smoothies, I would have cried in gratitude. You can offer to grab something when you run errands. Text, if your friend does that, instead of call. Phone calls were exhausting for me and often woke me up.
You’re a lovely friend for thinking of something and asking.
Ask to do a daily or weekly or monthly chore that your friend dreads. Ask what that chore is, and promise to do it ahead of schedule.
Chemo is HARD. It makes carrying out your regular responsibilities difficult. If you can remove one burden, NOT JUST ONCE, but regularly, that makes you one of the most valuable allies a person can have.
“Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) came out teary-eyed and started choking up when asked what he thought of Boehner’s resignation. Cramer said that Boehner recited the prayer of Saint Francis when announcing his resignation to House Republicans Friday morning.
“It’s kind of like the announcement of a death,” Cramer said.”
lol what
Are people in the habit of announcing their deaths? Is this something only Republicans do?
I am intensely curious about Boehner’s resignation and whether he had a for real crisis of faith yesterday but… I’m not religious and even I know the prayer of Saint Francis. How did Boehner get through that weekly without marinating in sheer hypocrisy?
I guess that’s why he drinks.
he’s been trying to get the Pope here for basically his whole career, so I can see why he’d be okay with quitting now.
I don’t like the guy, but being an old-fashioned republican with all those tea party wackos pushing his buttons every day has got to be pretty tough. Not surprised he’s quitting.
“Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace”–FAIL
I think it’s not impossible that he realized that he was not accomplishing the things he had hoped to accomplish as a person living his faith and that he could maybe do more to help people doing something different. (my feelings on him are incredibly conflicted. I can’t stand a lot of his policies but I do believe his sincerity. Ever since he’s had to ride herd on the tea party kids I’ve felt sorry for him because when it came down to it most of the time he was fighting for the sensible thing.)
Guys let’s talk about something that isn’t Hamilton (I mean, we can talk about Hamilton still obvs, but there are other things in this world).
FANFIC THREAD!!!!
So, do we think there’s going to be more Hamilton/Angelica or Hamilton/Laurens fic on AO3?
God I can’t decide which I expect to see more of in the Hamilton fandom; like logically the cast album gives (I feel) way more to work with for Hamilton/Angelica (or is that just my admittedly biased adoration of Angelica?) but also fandom is fandom and I could see Hamilton/Laurens taking off and becoming dominant on AO3.
There is canonical support for both in history!
Oh yeah, for sure, and though I haven’t been lucky enough to see the show in person, I just feel like I could see many of the Hamilton/Laurens shippers initially coming from those who have seen the show (considering what was left out of the cast album) and then it taking off from there, as opposed to Hamilton/Angelica which is pretty well covered on the album and therefore might start out more popular at first?
I think there will be more people writing Hamilton/Angelica but more individual stories about Hamilton/Laurens because the fanbase will be loud and passionate. Although personally, I was feeling Hamilton/Lafayette.
I have not seen Hamilton. I have not listened to Hamilton. I only know it is about Hamilton. But I will ship Hamilton/Lafayette forever.
History ships are really the only reason I’m a history major.
What is your favorite historical ship? Or one of them? Or all of them? I need this discussion in my life.
Oooo. Good question. I am forever a fan of Richard I and Philip Augustus, probably due largely to The Lion in Winter. My recently stumbling across The Devil’s Crown and an entire book of Plantagenet/Capet sexytimes thinly disguised as straight up historical fiction only added fuel to the fire. Political machinations and families that are way too connected and crusader drama and hate sex and imprisonment and the fact that Philip was also totally banging Geoffrey and Richard’s blatant nemesis mine situation with Saladin. http://www.harkavagrant.com/nonsense/Nemesissm.pn… (Seriously. I forget exactly which Arab account of the crusade it is, but in between the mass slaughter and general atrocities there’s Richard sending out letter after letter essentially saying, ‘So can we hang out now? Cause I think you’re like super cool and oh! I know! I know! You’ve got a spare brother and I’ve got a spare sister and if they get together we can be inlaws! omg that’d be the BEST. Cause you’re awesome and I’m awesome too. Think it over, bro. I’ll be here. In my tent. PS. Thanks for the ice. And the horse.’)
The early Angevin Plantagenets really are my historical figures of choice just because they’re so damn unrepentantly soap opera-y and I love it.
There are more. I’ve just never had occasion to make a concrete list before, but now I really want to.
I would like to subscribe to this newsletter.
I can’t remember who recommended “The Pure and Simple Truth” in a Fanfic thread a few weeks ago, but I’m intensely grateful to whoever it was. That was amazing.
Link?
http://archiveofourown.org/works/392764/chapters/… (It’s a Harry Potter fic)
Thanks!
I don’t know about Hamilton fanfics, but I did discover a pretty awesome unexpected pregnancy Solasmance fic the other day. It’s a wip, but so far updating regularly.
Perhaps Hamilton’s only flaw is that it leaves no possibility of lesbian (incest-free) fanfic. I mean unless you have Eliza/Maria hatefucking.
I just caught a reference to Sally Hemmings, so there’s a chance of Sally Hemmings/Eliza!
Yeah, I just got through mopping up my tears from listening to the whole thing, and realized I don’t think this show even passes the Bechdel test.
I’m only halfway through my first listen, but don’t the sisters talk about the revolution and whatnot in their intro song?
Yeah, sorta. They are talking to Aaron Burr though. With reference to Jefferson and their Daddy. I don’t know, I guess without seeing the show I can’t really tell. I guess they are talking amongst themselves before Burr addresses them. It’s a bit of a close call.
Toasties, my life is bananas right now and I couldn’t be more excited! I just accepted a new job which pays me almost exactly twice what I’m making right now. I start a week from Monday!
Also, I get married exactly one month from today! All the things are happening! Who else has good news to share?
What a happy pair of things. Congratulations on the new job! And the almost-wedding! How is the tail end of planning treating you?
This is a bit boring, but I got paid today and took care of a medical bill that’s been hanging around for too long. It is Friday, and that lightness is something to celebrate.
Not bad at all! Everything’s basically done. All we need to do is finalize seating (based on RSVPs, which are still incoming), and meet with our DJ to discuss the music. We also moved a couple weeks ago (when my fiancé started his new job), so we have to finish unpacking and whatnot before the apartment is fit for company, but that’s about it! Honestly, the wedding is probably the least stressful thing we’ve dealt with in the last couple months.
Congrats and Congrats! My good news is: my house is officially on the market! Hooray! It’s still so new that my spirit hasn’t been crushed by the prospect of it not selling. 😀
Congratulations and best wishes!
One of my students (not a poetry student) sent me, unprompted, a poem that he wrote and it was terrific. That’s not major-life-event news, but it is a thing that made me happy today.
And I got an idea for a writing thing that might be annoying but might be cool, so if it’s the latter I will have a new thing to do with my brain!
That poem sounds like a wonderful surprise!
Yay!! Congrats to all!
My good news is that I start a new job in my weird field (journalism) in 2 weeks. I’ve been covering an area that’s not my favorite to get experience, but I think the new gig is going to be a much better fit subject matter-wise!
I’m going into final negotiations for a new job and flirting with a hot pediatrician! (And my ex just emailed to ask if we could get together. Talk about yesterday’s news!)
I GOT A JOB INTERVIEW FOR THE OSF*!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MYGOD
*The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland for those of you not caught up on your American Theater.
NO WAIT WHAT?!! That is SO COOL.
I LOVE THE OSF AALSKDJSLKJDS
I am also starting a new job that pays me twice as much a week from Monday! High five!
Also, I have been unhappy with the way my body looks for a while now, post childbirth and periods of depression, etc, and I started eating better and have been getting on the treadmill a few times a week for the past couple months and have lost an amount of weight that I am really happy about!
I just feel like my life as a whole is moving in a really positive direction, and that feels great.
Firstly super massive congratulations to you!
I QUIT MY HORRIBLE CAFE JOB AND I AM STARTING MY DREAM INTERNSHIP NEXT WEEK!
I was working in a cafe which was fine, but it was in the CBD which meant we got some really nasty customers. I loved my coworkers apart from one guy who is a passive aggressive dick and was bullying me (giving me undeserved dressings down in front of customers, making me do all the menial tasks I’m not tall or strong enough for, generally humiliating me… And he was exactly the same level as me) so I’m glad to be gone.
Dream internship is in the events department of a major contemporary art gallery! The other operations staff are all incredibly friendly, I went for an induction session there today and my favourite radio station was on in the office so I think it’s meant to be.
I’m reconnecting with a very dear friend I fought with and almost lost last year, planning a housewarming dinner party for next week, and I just had amazing soup for dinner. My anxiety is more under control lately than it has been for a really long time.
All good over here.
Overheard at the office, number 4* in a series:
– Grimly: “We’ve had problems with ducks before.”
– Coworker using the guillotine-style paper cutter managed to cut a few strips out of her own shirt.
– Coworker 1: “I lost my virginity to this guy because he lived next door to Van Halen.” Coworker 2, knowingly: “Well, we all have our little weaknesses.”
– “I would show you, but I can’t without taking my pants off.”
– “He was really born in the wrong era. His personality is much better suited to… olden times.”
– “Well, he’s a Jesuit, and Jesuits are big on ownership of everything.”
or maybe 3, I don’t remember.
These are great, please never stop.
Seconded.
Several months back there was a free Muscovy duck on my local Craigslist. Free for being too big and mean. The important thing here is that it was also clearly a dinosaur and not the end result of millions of years of evolution from-a-dinosaur. Clearly still a dinosaur. Very much the sort of thing that might give you trouble.
I use a guillotine all the time at work and have yet to cut any of my clothes, so after reading this, I feel like a million bucks! Thanks!
Were they talking about that duck boat crash?
Oh man, so sad :(. I never did trust those things.
Agreed. It’s just so tragic.
Ducks are always a problem. Dirtbags.
Kate Beaton is the best!
This is somehow my most quoted/paraphrased Kate Beaton cartoon.
Aw yiss! I had the chance to see Kate Beaton speak at the Toronto Reference Library on Tuesday and she was so funny and well-spoken and thoughtful. I assume that her talk will be posted on the library’s youtube channel eventually.
“- Coworker using the guillotine-style paper cutter managed to cut a few strips out of her own shirt. ”
Good Lord.
What the fuck is wrong with your coworkers??
My contribution: “Did you ever replace her? She used to walk on my back and was just right across from my office and I xould catch her anytime, that was heaven”
Except in deaf-old-man voice, from the guy who asked me if I could make him a map without him giving me a list of addresses he wanted on the map. You know, through telepathy, because running the zoning office and writing down addresses is too hard.
…olden times.
YES.
Well I can say for sure that in Scranton (from whence I come, yes yes the office) the Jesuits who run the university (DA UUU) are, in fact, super big on ownership of everything.
For a while, there was an old lady with a big old house right near campus and every year they would offer her more money to sell it and she would be like “NOPE” but it was an EYESORE, so until she died they just sent people out to paint and repair her house and plant her yard every year so it would look nice. That lady is my hero.
Toasties, thank you all for your advice about IUDs last week! My consultation went really well, although I was not expecting the pelvic exam (although I guess I would’ve needed one of those at some point anyway). Someone will be calling me in the next couple of weeks to discuss what my insurance will cover for the three options, and then I have to choose an IUD, and schedule the appointment.
Scheduling will be…interesting. I’ve only just completed my first month at the job, and I’ve already taken a half-day (for the consultation), and will be taking two more days in November for a wedding. I’m assuming I would need at least one day off when I get the IUD, plus a half-day off for the followup appointment, which feels like a lot. I have the days – I was an internal transfer, so I’m not on any kind of probationary period – but I am still new to the office and don’t want to get a reputation for taking a lot of time off. Buuut I don’t want to wait until December if October might be an option. :/
Do you think it’d help if you framed it as a medical procedure? You don’t have to tell them what it is, and you should probably assure them nothing is wrong it’s “just a preventative out-patient procedure. I’ll be good to go the next day”. That way you look less flighty.
If you can get it scheduled late in the day on Friday, you could use the weekend to recover! And some Planned Parenthoods have Saturday hours, too. Not that you aren’t entirely justified in taking time off work to care for your body!
Are follow ups a regular thing? I don’t think I had one, oops!
They do the follow-up to make sure that it’s properly placed after your first period/time when you would normally have a period, since the first month is when you have the greatest chance of expulsion.
I had a follow-up ultrasound when I got mine, to make sure it stayed in the right place. It was a good thing I had it, because I had some strong cramps while jogging in the first few weeks after insertion, and I was half convinced that my uterus had been perforated. The follow-up confirmed that everything was intact in there, so any discomfort was just my body getting used to the thing.
I don’t know if follow-ups are a regular thing for everyone, but they apparently are with my ob/gyn! Ideally I would get a Friday appointment, but since I’m told the appointment needs to happen during the first five days of my period, that might not be possible.
Hi toasties! Hope you all had a great week!
I’m super into Historical fiction lately, especially Historical YA Fiction, but either really as long as it has a female lead. Any recommendations? I’ve recently devoured In the Shadow of the Blackbird and The Uninvited and The Cure for Dreaming by Kat Winters (seriously recommend ALL of them, so good, and TCFD is especially feminist-oriented), and I’m currently reading Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman. I’ve also developed a taste for Historical Fiction Mysteries (I’ve been reading a series set in Elizabeth I’s reign where she has a group of maid spies!) so if you have any suggestions like that (with female leads preferably), I am here for it.
I tried reading In the Shadow of the Blackbird and had to stop not far into it. Usually if I can’t read historical fiction it’s because there’s been some glaring historical error, but in her case it was a clash of my tastes versus the author’s style. Too juvenile? And the main character bugged me to distraction. The ‘steampunk’ touches of the unnecessary goggles and a clockwork necklace (I think? It’s been a while since it came out.) and men’s boots and no time for femininity, but she’s still so startlingly beautiful that her picture is adored and she was made of poor decisions and… wow. I apparently have a lot of feelings for a book I never finished like two years ago. I know I shouldn’t expect Pat Barker or anything going into YA fiction about the First World War, but apparently I did?
But on the recommendation front may I humbly recommend anything by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Which isn’t difficult because she only wrote two books. But each of them is a perfect gem. I think they may be marketed as middle grade fiction now instead of YA, but they remain my benchmark for what good historical fiction for younger audiences should be. The bits of The Sherwood Ring set in the ‘modern day’ are a bit dated (it was written in the fifties), but the flashbacks to the American Revolution and the characters therein are exquisite. And The Perilous Gard (retelling of Tam Lin set in the very end of Mary I’s reign/beginning of Elizabeth I’s) has been my favorite book for almost two decades running. That is some serious staying power right there. The women are smart and strong. The men are good looking. The romances are wonderful. Love triangles are nonexistent. Good decision making is a notable plus.
THE PERILOUS GARD
THE PERILOUS GARD
THE PERILOUS GARD
so good. SO GOOD. i have so many lingering weird tween/pre-teen feelings about christopher. (i think i reread it like 5 years ago and had the same feelings, though, so maybe markedly post-teen feelings as well)
eta: cecily cecily where is cecily
THE PERILOUS GARD CHANGED THE COURSE OF MY LIFE.
No really. At the age of nine I made the conscious decision to try to be Kate Sutton. I don’t know if it worked or not, but my rather epic ability to face life completely stone faced is entirely thanks to that book and a lot of training. When I am in any way called tough I want to reach back in time and hug that book and little third grade me.
And Christopher is still hot. Another side effect of that book may be my inability to settle for lesser men now. Though… have you read The Sherwood Ring? Peaceable Drummond Sherwood may surpass him. Good God. I didn’t read that one until a year or so ago and as a fully functioning adult I was nonetheless more than a little smitten. God damn that woman knew how to write.
I’m currently halfway through Life Mask by Emma Donoghue. The two main characters are female! There are “Sapphic” scandals! It’s set in the 1780s-90s! It’s loosely based on real people too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Seymour_Damer)
Hello! Historical YA fiction is my favourite genre of book and the focus of my blog! http://yahistoricalvault.wordpress.com but that is mostly from a few years ago. I am at work right now but when I get home I have a LAUNDRY LIST of books I love!!!!!
OH oh oh you need to read all of these!
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Mr Churchill’s Secretary
Maisie Dobbs
Cocaine Blues: A Phryne Fisher Mystery
I JUST got “Cocaine Blues” from the library this week, it’s next on my list to read! But I will check those others out, thanks!!!
I very much enjoyed Ariana Franklin’s Mistress of the Art of Death series about a woman trained as a doctor in Italy who ends up as an informal medical examiner/detective in 12th century Cambridge.
I also like many of the Catherine LeVendeur mysteries. Abelard and Heloise are in them, there are some largish parts about the persecution of Jews in France, and other social issues of the time. The first is Death Comes as Epiphany.
Yay!! Mistress of the Art of Death! Seconded!
Also here for Mistress of the Art of Death! Don’t get too attached to the series, though, the author sadly died & left it unfinished…
I know, I was so sad about that! I think it left off in a fairly okay if somewhat ambiguous place though.
It’s alternate history, and it’s not YA, but I am on the second book of Jo Walton’s Farthing Series, which are mysteries set in a 1940s and 1950s England where England made peace with Germany in 1941-ish and is sliding into fascism itself, and they are quite good.
Cora Harrison writes interesting historical mysteries set in Ireland during Henry VIII time. I like C.S. Harris, Ariana Franklin. (I liked the first bunch of Maisie Dobbs but have dumped them, also Mary Russell and Flavia de Luce which start out good and then aren’t.) I like Karen Maitland, but she’s a bit weird. Imogen Robertson’s one off — Paris Winter. Margaret Lawrence wrote a great series set just after the American Revolution.
Wells and Wong is the best YA historical mystery series around. The Enola Holmes books come close.
Have you read Code Name Verity? I am awful at keeping track of which Toasties have read it. If you haven’t, you must.
I was also coming here to recommend Code Name Verity. I need to re-read that one.
Katherine, by Anya Seton. It’s a fictionalised life of Katherine Swynford, who is ancestor to most of Europe’s royal families. The bare bones of the story are true, but it’s told in a fictionalised way. I really liked it.
My daughter is named Katherine because I saw that book on my shelf when I was thinking about baby names. True story.
I’m currently re-reading the Ursula Blanchard series by Fiona Buckley. They are as good as I remembered, definitely recommend. Blanchard is a Lady-in-Waiting to Elizabeth I and gets tangled up in intrigue etc, and keeps taking on jobs for William Cecil because she has to support her daughter, since she was widowed. They’re good and historically accurate enough for my cursory knowledge of the period, and both Blanchard and Elizabeth are given believable motives and are tough but still human. I am really loving them (although I had to have a break because I was having dreams about being chased by Hugenots because I am Catholic).
Made it to London! Could not have done it without our friends, and now miss them like crazy. All our energy now is going in to finding a permanent place, so I’m not sure if I will be around much, plus the timing is different, not that I have a routine yet, or even a plan, but I wanted to say thank you for all the advice and all the moving commiseration and basically for helping to make it feel possible when it didn’t really seem possible. Thanks you guys!
Wooooooo!
Thanks! And we’re getting closer and closer to settled in. Going for a big long walk today to shake off flat hunting blues. Thank goodness it’s still so nice out.
Cats.
Gomez is settling in nicely. And it really helps that he’s just naturally so decorative.
Caz has had to up his game.
Though Gomez, like his namesake, is a bit of an attention beast. It is cuddle, cuddle, cuddle all day and all night. (Which is kind of nice because Caz only cuddles and sleeps with the dog.) What hath I brought unto my house?
I am half convinced he’s a Carmilla vampire cat who will consume me out of love.
That earless last picture is making me so happy right now.
I keep trying to get a truer picture of that moment. Usually he has his fangs poking out and everything.
Gomez is such a handsome cat!
Atticus spent a good half hour alternately retrieving his lime toy from this box and dropping it back in.
I love this one so much. Such cat.
Casimir does that only he likes to dunk various things in his water bowl and go fishing for them. Eventually he gets bored and leaves them in there. I’ve woken up more times than I care to remember to the sight of the dog’s stuffed rabbit (which is larger than the cat) lying half in and half out of the communal water dish, completely soaked through.
Sunday afternoon was spent napping. Janie seemed to enjoy the downtime.
Both the kittens hung out on top of the bookshelf last night, but Pye was more amenable to taking adorable photos.
I love how sometimes they look like kittens, and other times you can totally see the adult cats they’re growing up to be.
The two different-colored paws!!!
She has the best little mismatched socks, I know! <3 <3
Here is a close-up, just for you. It’s like her paw was dipped and splattered with white paint instead of black like the rest. I die.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
Death by adorable mismatched paws is a real thing! View this image with caution, fellow posters!
Oh my that is just the cutest reach.
My mom’s friend calls that “the beseeching paw.” Which I love for two reasons: first, it’s a perfect term for that and second, she’s not someone you would recognize as a cat person at all or even a sentimental person but she loved her old cat so much and misses her terribly.
I knit a bow tie for my cat.
That face! That inky nose! So dignified, too.
So dapper!
Last summer I sewed a bow tie for Oliver
Haha! Love that expression! And the fabric for the tie. Very gears. Such steampunk.
Oh Caz, don’t you see that that corner is all in cool blacks, blues, and greys? It is not the place for a warm orangish neutral cat. You need to go sit near that orange-dominated poster and teal pillow to bring out your fur. Honestly, sometimes it’s like cats no nothing about colour theory.
Moxie loves to sit on the ladder, but he finds getting down a bit difficult.
He really does have no sense of color theory. I think he’s just given up and likes sitting by the snake goddess pillow. (Who wouldn’t?) Luckily Gomez goes with everything.
It took me forever to realize that I’d picked a purple couch so it wouldn’t clash with either my marmalade/tortie swirl cat or my grey tabby.
We had two small lavender tabbies growing up. They were practically camouflaged amongst the mauve and pinkish/purple/cream decor. (Not by design, btw. Just the kittens someone we knew happened to have.)
They sound so pretty. It’s just that I am not an obviously purple furniture person.
Sent from my iPad
BOX LOVE.
oh garsh.
We got a new blanket at Costco over the weekend. Asa approved.
OMG that Gomez face.
argh, my work computer is grrrrrr-inducing.
Apparently some kind of space time vortex was opening in the kitchen and I didn’t notice. . .but Clio looks very pretty!
New toy that dispenses treats! Usually my cats disdain working for treats (besides upping the pathos pitch of their meows), but this is really minimal effort of a few swats
Which is only fair after how taxing their lives are
I think she particularly appreciates sleeping at me when I’m grading or trying desperately to produce a lesson plan.
That is an amazing kitty bed.
Sleeping AT you? I love that and am going to use that from now on when discussing cats. That’s totally what they do.
Gomez is very handsome.
Charlie sat on my lap out of her own choosing for the first time since I adopted her in May. I was a little bit excited.
Aww! When I first got my girls they stayed in the closet or under the china hutch for days–that first snuggle was SO GREAT!
My cat is the opposite! He was incredibly snuggly on the first few days we got him, and since then it is more rare because he is so active whenever I’m home.
Sebastian & Triton had their first shots this week. They behaved very well and are very healthy!
Sebastian felt a bit betrayed though.
Oh my goodness that face!
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/nature/files/2014/08/0…
!!!!!
omg grey kitties grey kitties grey kitties
“You have betrayed my tiny trust!”
THOSE EARS!!!
Any cycling toasties? I just got a new bike last weekend and I’m obsessed with it. I’ve been riding a too small hybrid and upgraded to a decent road bike that actually fits me and it’s such a joy to ride. Right now II mostly come by bike, but I want to start doing some longer rides too. Any advice for biking adventures? Anyone familiar with biking in the bay area? Has anyone else had exciting bike things lately?
My bike just got stolen so I need a new one 🙁 but check out 7×7, they have a feature called the Ultimate Sunday Ride that features 20-60 mile rides all over the bay area. I also recommend getting the Sonoma County Bike coalition map, it is this fantastic map that shows great rides, traffic patterns, shoulders, etc., so you can plan a route that is less traffic-y. I really love riding in west marin and west sonoma counties. There’s a ride that goes through the town of bodega, around tomales bay, to Wildflower bakery, and in a big loop…it’s heaven.
Bikebikebikebike! What did you get? I did a few good rides this summer – our longest was about 80kms, and if it dries out more, I’d like to try to hit 100.
Get a water bottle! I didn’t have one for ages, and it made a difference. Do you use clips or cages? I don’t like clips, but for longer rides, cages can be really great. Do you have padded bike shorts?
A man tried to cut me off on my commute home the other day, but I wouldn’t budge an inch and he had to dead stop on his bike, or hit a parked car. It was satisfying.
I got a Trek Lexa SLX. Isn’t she pretty?!
I got lucky and got it on super sale since it’s a women’s frame but is pretty gigantic (58 cm) and there’s clearly not that much demand for women’s bikes of that size.
Treks are so good! And that bar tape is rad, A plus aesthetic choice.
Last weekend I proved to myself that I could do 120km a day! For three days! In a row! And I fell in love with my new-to-me touring bike all over again. I wasn’t super into it when I was test riding it with light loads, but it turns out that it’s designed to have the best handling when it’s fully loaded and now I LOVE it. I barely felt the weight – and since I was doing mechanical support for a paid tour I had a lot of extra metal on me, so that is significant!
I live in the mostly-flat Midwest, so planning a road cycling trip is mostly a matter of deciding which roads aren’t cycling-friendly. I’d imagine that there are plenty of local rides near you, though, and I might want to take a new bike on The Wiggle as a maiden voyage/shakedown cruise. In terms of adventures, I did RAGBRAI for the second year in a row (I’d done it a couple years previous, but this and last year were the first times I’d done the whole thing), and this year I did an optional loop on one day that made that day a century (100 mile) ride, the first time I’d done that in at least fifteen years. Dunno if that would be your kind of thing, too far afield, etc. Next year I want to do RAIN, which I’d have to start training for, oh, about now.
The wiggle is a staple of mine! I commute 6 miles through SF and I’m thankful for the wiggle everyday for saving me from (some of) the hills.
I am a bicycle nerd, but despite being unemployed for months I haven’t been able to do many fun rides this summer–either it was too hot or I was too depressed. Booooo. I miss bicycle tours/bicycle camping like crazy, and now it’s going to be too cold and/or wet, even if I had the time off.
And now that I have a job, I do lots more cycling–the four miles each to and from work. Plus grocery runs. Better than nothing. And Portland got a new bridge that’s closed to cars (it’s mass transit, plus bikes and peds) and it shortened my commute and it’s quite lovely.
I’m at work, doing data entry, so I have time to comment while waiting for data uploads. Things are scary at work right now, two people got fired this week and they warned us they may be laying people off. But I’m going hiking tomorrow and the book I’ve been waiting on from teh library came in and I’m determined to have a good weekend.
Oof, I’m sorry for the work uncertainty! I hope you sail through still be-jobbed, and it doesn’t hurt the office cutlure too much. Was your hike good?
Thanks! It was raining when we started on the hike, turning to hail right at the half-way point, but the sun came out as we headed back. It took me the rest of the day to warm up! We say a coyote, moose and grouse.
I leave tomorrow for a two week road trip vacation through the American Southwest. Woo!
I leave you with this photo of these goofs hanging out:
Have fun! That sounds amazing!
That cat looks like it snuck out of a fantasy novel. Those eyes!
This is Fern! I can never get a picture of her where she’s both on my lap and looking at the camera. But she was feeling snuggly last night.
I’m leaving for my southwest vacation tomorrow too! HAVE FUN 🙂
You too! Where all are you going? We are going to drive down from Seattle through California, out to the Grand Canyon, over to NM, loop up through Utah, then Vegas, Death Valley, and back north.
We’re flying into Phoenix and driving up to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, over to Mesa Verde and Pagosa Springs, then down to Taos and Santa Fe. a lot to fit into 10 days, but what can you do 😉
Sounds like a great trip! We’ll be seeing lots of those things as well.
They are beautiful! enjoy your trip!
O…OMG
So, my job is making me increasingly miserable, and this week has really gone over the edge of poor communication and resentment into spectacular fuckups which I am responsible for cleaning up yet powerless to fix. The job’s main perk is that I work from home, meaning that I can listen to the Mountain Goats as loudly as I want, and rage-sob in the bathroom without upsetting anyone except possibly my neighbors.
I’ve been hesitant to look for a way out because the money’s decent, I hate looking for work, and it’s an objectively cool job working for a company I want to love. It’s just gone from “mild inferiority complex about not being a real employee” to “being actively thrown under the bus and shut out of all communication” and I can’t do this anymore.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: JOB HUNTING THREAD! Where do you look for jobs? How do you acquire skills so that you aren’t lying when you claim to understand Quickbooks? How do you spin experience into a better job? What am I doing with my life?
Indeed.com is my go-to. Also askamanager.org is a great resource for, well, everything 😀
THANK YOU YES
No idea, but I am following along because this is my life right now.
I am sorry you are in this situation. I have been there and it’s so miserable, but you will get out and once again experience liking work! SUPER IMPORTANT, don’t let what’s going on now get you down more than it has to – remember that you cannot do your job if you are being cut out of communications, this is absolutely not your fault, you will flourish in a less toxic environment.
Here are the emails that I send on the cold approach, you can adapt them to cover letters also. They at least open out a conversation and will help you to understand what is needed on the market – which will in turn help you to spin your own experience towards that.
To recruiters (everyone who has ever approached you with a job on LinkedIn):
Hi [recruiter],
I’m currently working as a [job title] at [current company]. In the last year, I’ve [achievements] – and now I’m ready for a new challenge!
Please let me know if you have anything available that would suit someone with a strong commercial and [other strength] background like mine, or if you would like to discuss further.
Talk soon,
[your name].
To department leads in companies companies you interested in (e.g. directors of marketing if you are a marketer, of HR if that is your field):
Dear [name],
I hope you do not mind my direct approach; I’d like to discuss potential roles at [new company] with you.
I’m currently working as a [job title] at [current company]. In the last year, I’ve [achievements] – and now I’m ready for a new challenge!
I have a strong [your top skillset here] skillset encompassing [three things that evidence that skillset]. In the previous year of my current, highly commercial role at [current company], I’ve seen that translated into results for the business. I’d like to discuss what I could bring to [new company] – when is a good time for us to talk about this?
Best regards,
[your name].
Thank you so much for this! I feel like now is a good time to mention that I’ve always avoided LinkedIn because it terrifies me. Nothing to be afraid of, right? I should definitely do this thing?
FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY.
I get a lot out of LinkedIn, and the more active you are, the more you appear in search, the more approaches you get. It is the social network from which I get the most utility and it’s relatively low maintenance. I’m heading out now (London time!) but if you can message me via IntenseDebate I’m happy to talk you thru a profile and how to build a nice one on Monday, LinkedIn is one of my core skills.
That would be fantastic, you’re amazing. I’ll be in touch!
I figured it out! You will get an email notification and then I’ll delete my comment.
My email is [REDACTED – REPLY TO THIS COMMENT IF THE EMAIL NOTIFICATION DID NOT TRIGGER IN TIME]. Welcome to the exciting week in which you conquer your fear of LinkedIn!
Oh dang, just quit my own utterly miserable job (which was about 50% work from home) last month, so very much sympathy!
I’m trying to “rebrand” (ugh) myself from an academic physicist into a straight-up data scientist, and so a lot of my happy unemployed time (and surprisingly happy it has been!) had been trying to do exactly what you’re asking about: trying to spin experience into a better job and firm up skills which I mostly KIND of have. Did a long re-write of my resume, tailoring it for the job that I think I might want. That helped me assess which areas of my resume I reaaally need to firm up. Since then, for the “easy” skills (“oh crap, I really should know more SQL”), I’ve been looking up lots of free resources / textbooks / tutorials online. For turning my existing skills into new skills, and doing more complicated things, I’ve been taking some Coursera classes, though this is obviously much more time-consuming. It’s honestly felt GREAT to do and learn something new, though, after literal years of feeling stuck in a rut with nothing interesting to look forward to at my job.
We’re in a weird place because my husband and I had originally planned to move to City A, where my family is, and so I’ve been working my networking connections in industry in City A like hell. Had some VERY promising conversations with a few companies last week when I went down to visit. However, there’s now also a strong chance my husband will get his dream job in City B all the way on the other side of the country, so I have no fucking clue where we’re going to be in a few month’s time and thus can’t officially apply for jobs. Blergh. I guess this is a nice problem to have, where ONE of us will have a good job by the new year, but right now it just feels like being stuck in limbo.
Ask A Manager is in fact the best. I want to clarify that I have NEVER job hunted while employed, because I keep getting laid off before I can start job hunting. But my personal things include a) setting a reasonable and achievable goal for how many jobs I’ll apply to per week and b) writing cover letters in under thirty minutes and then saying I AM DONE WITH THIS because it’s too easy to spend forever tweaking one sentence.
Re: skills, I’m all about the free/inexpensive trainings. I do live in NYC, which makes such things easier. But things like Udemy, which has discount codes all the time, are great. So is Lynda, which some libraries are now subscribing to – any NYPL card holder can use Lynda via their website.
Thanks for the Udemy and Lynda recs!
This Facebook post I wrote has been my last 3 weeks, and I hope you guys find it as hilarious as I did. I wrote:
“So I’m out of ritalin, which I need, because my traumatic brain injury manifests itself in ADHD. I didn’t get the script filled and now I’m in a STATE. This is how it’s going:
Today I ran out of forks. And I thought, “where are all the forks?” I looked around randomly through the apartment — the Gallery, the Renaissance Room, the Blue Room — and finally figured out that they were in the Kitchen, in the dishwasher. That I filled a few days ago, because the dirty dishes and forks were piling up. So I turned the dishwasher on, and then realized that, well, there were more dishes to load. Panic. Oh, right, I can stop and restart the dishwasher. I think. Right? Yes. Yes, you can stop and restart the dishwasher, I said to myself. Does anyone know for sure though? Okay. I will try that.
The dishwasher is running now, and I’m pretending not to look at it, as I sit on the couch, because I’m pretty sure I did something wrong in the loading. If anyone sees an explosion, northward, that’s my dishwasher, expressing itself.
I will never let myself run out of ritalin again, ever, ever, ever.”
My daughter’s response:
“BUWAHAHAH!! The struggle is REAL.
I can picture it now Ma …
You, sitting ever so coy-like across the room, randomly throwing the dish washer cat looks at every off-beat noise that come from its general direction …
… And praying to The Lord above that today is NOT the day in which your potentially impulsive dishwasher robot decides to quite literally express itself to the WORLD
Funny stuff mumzie dearest. Funny stuff!”
(My daughter calls me “mumzie” which I love!) Hope you guys find some humor in my idiocy as well. Thank god for Ritalin.
Toast friends, thank you for helping me last week with my depressive episode. This is a wonderful community of kind and thoughtful people.
I spoke to my therapist on monday and she is helping me to make a plan to move out of my parents’ home and attempt to live on my own, which I have not done in slightly over a decade due to illness. I’m terrified but hopeful.
I’ve been wondering how you were. Congratulations on taking such a brave step!
<3
I’m sorry you’re terrified. But’s it’s OK to be terrified. You can move forward with your plans while terrified. I believe in you. Hooray for hopeful. That’s evidence of good health, evidence of your efforts to build good habits and to be kind to yourself. How best can we Toastfriends help you now?
Wow, thats great! I’m actually doing a similar thing, though I was only at my parents house a few months so that part is different. But anyway I’m planning to sort of split my time between the 2 residences until I feel more comfortable, maybe that would be an option for you too! In any case, at least you get to decorate and all that fun stuff!
Thanks for the update. Are you feeling better? Hooray for your therapist and your new plan.
Sending jedi-hugs of encouragement.
(((you)))
Bunburying, so good to hear from you. Please keep us posted on the move.
good luck, and let us know how it goes
Toasties, I am pretty depressed today. I was in the ER yesterday and found out that I’m either prediabetic or have type 2 diabetes. I’m getting testing on Tuesday to see which, but I’m a mess right now. Diabetes runs in our family, so it was probably inevitable, but I can’t help but blame myself. And right now because I’m not diagnosed, I’m not being treated so I feel pretty miserable as my blood sugar fluctuates. (I’m eating low sugar and carb right now, but still have some issues.)
Any diabetic or prediabetic toasties with good advice? (My dad was a Bad Diabetic who did everything you really shouldn’t do–ate what he wanted, smoked, and worked a HIGH stress job–and it wreaked havoc on his health. I think that’s a big reason why I’m so scared and sad right now, although I’m much healthier than he ever was and I think I have more self control when it comes to diet and exercise.)
That’s too bad. It runs in my family too so I may get it one day. My family members who watch their diet and exercise regularly stay healthy, though.
It’s in my family, too. And in Mr Rose’s family. His dad was a Bad Diabetic and it killed him after making him bedridden and on kidney dialysis for years. It was hardest on Mr Rose’s mom, caring for a very big man who could not get out of bed on his own. For years. So you’re way ahead, as is Mr Rose, being aware of how serious the consequences can be, and therefore motivated to take care of yourself.
Protein should be your focus. Every time you eat. If your intake includes protein every time, you have a much better chance of controlling your blood sugar. Don’t go overboard and consume 12 oz steaks every day. That can hurt anyone’s kidneys. Just line up protein sources you can easily add to any snack or meal. I make sure I never run out of nut butter, low fat dairy products (cottage cheese is amazingly high in protein), canned beans, and oats (also quite high in protein, but also carbs – be careful).
For emergencies, carry little tubes of cake icing in your bag. That’s for low blood sugar episodes, which is a side effect once you’re on medication. Teach the people around you what high blood sugar looks like. If you act drunk, they should get you to a doctor right away. No matter how belligerently you refuse, which is common in a hyperglycolic episode.
You know all of this. I’m just typing reminders and support. You can handle this. It will feel overwhelming from time to time. That’s because diabetes messes with your emotional equilibrium. Don’t despair. You can do this.
I’m sorry about your bad news – that is rough.
Most of my family has been diabetic (type 2) for most of my life, so it is sort of inevitable for me too. On the other hand, having lived with diabetic people for so long has really normalized it for me. Maybe it would be helpful to keep in mind that while it is a serious illness and does require lifestyle changes, it can be very livable? Honestly I have trouble remembering that it is actually dangerous because it has become such background noise in the lives of my family members. I don’t want to minimize your feelings about the potential diagnosis, but I thought this perspective might be helpful – and I apologize if it isn’t.
This is actually really helpful. It was such a big issue in my family, that I need reminding that plenty of people handle this disease without too much trouble. I think what’s making me the most depressed is that we were literally just going to start trying to get pregnant. I was actually about to go off birth control, and now I know having kids is much more complicated than it would have been and I’m scared that by waiting, it’s now too late. It’s good to hear about normal families with diabetes. It makes me feel like maybe having a normal life is possible once the doctors figure out what’s going on and I can get whatever it is I have treated.
Type 2 here, and the main takeaway here is that It Is Not The End Of The World. You’re already doing low carb, so that’s good–breaking a sugar jones was one of the toughest things for me personally. (Well, I really, really needed to stop drinking first, for the usual reasons, and for a while I was compensating for the lack of alcohol with a pint-of-B&J-a-day habit. Once I figured that if I could quit booze, I could quit sugar, things got a lot better and easier.) Low carb and exercise will help keep your blood glucose levels at a reasonable level. If you drink, you do *not* need to quit it, although that assumes drinking in moderation.
WRT the diet thing, forgive me Toasties for what I am about to do, but I would suggest the /r/keto subreddit. Lots of people focus on the weight loss aspect of a ketogenic diet, but it’s largely free of the shitbirds that have made Reddit infamous, and there’s a ton of good info on there. I haven’t lost much weight on the diet myself, but it’s done wonders for my HbA1c levels (and that test is one that you’ll become very, very familiar with, as it is a better indicator of your average blood glucose levels than the daily finger-stick-and-meter method (which you can/should also do)).
Medication-wise, unless you’ve got some particular aspect of your situation that requires you to take something else, they’ll probably put you on Metformin. The description in the link makes it sound scary, but I haven’t had any major problem with it, although of course others do, particularly the shits. (BTW, going on the keto diet helped me go from 1000 mg 2X a day down to 500 2X.) Insulin is mostly reserved for T2s that can’t be treated with medications like Metformin.
Best of luck. Again, it’s not a death sentence.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. Type II also runs in my family and I’m also worried it might be inevitable for me. There’s been a lot of useful things said in this thread already, but one of the things that I find helpful when I worry about this possibility is that diabetes really can be quite manageable. My dad is also a Bad Diabetic and makes pretty terrible choices in regards to his health, which stresses me out a lot. I find it helpful to remind myself that those things are not inevitable – the fact that you recognize the Bad Diabetic behavior means you are well equipped to be a Good Diabetic. That doesn’t mean it will be easy, but you can be healthy and sane and make good choices for your health, regardless of what others you know who are diabetic have done.
(as an aside, my dad is sometimes so absurd that it verges on comical if you can forget this is the kind of thing that can have really serious health consequences. I was trying to convince him to exercise more by talking about how great it would be for our dog to get more walks and he was like “I play fetch with Gemma all the time! She gets plenty of exercise” and I was like “YES DAD THIS ISN’T ACTUALLY ABOUT THE DOG THOUGH”)
I’m sorry to hear this because it can be very scary, but once you get some clarity with testing there is so much information that can help you manage it now! That wasn’t true for my mother, and I can recall being shocked at how taken-for-granted it is now that once you’ve been diagnosed you need to take much better care of your heart. Which is not hard to do! As long as you know it’s needed! Given the family history I do the best I can to take care of myself, which right now means finding exercises that will work with whatever pain I might be having, trying to eat well and especially trying to keep stress in check. I’ll keep a good thought for you Tuesday and hope you have the best possible outcome and feel better soon!
Are any Toasties fans of @Midnight? On Wednesday a female comedian was in third place and slated for elimination, and when she said, “It’s OK, I’m not a titan of late night…yet,” Chris Hardwick acknowledged that as yet another white male host he was part of the problem, undid her elimination and passed her to the final round. It’s such a small thing on a planet often overflowing with the exact opposite, but the whole show is like that and as such so nice to see. Happy Friday!
That is great!!
Yeah, I liked that moment. Ron Funches’ retort was also hilarious.
But then I also tweeted at them back in the early days that for one two weeks of shows available on streaming, a woman or a brown person was always the one who got the red light.
It’s a little like Jeopardy! in that regard. Sometimes I feel like it’s audience bias and sometimes I’m yelling “Use your buzzer! You’re funny, come onnnnnn!” Housemate and I both lost our shit at Ron Funches’ line. If anyone should be a titan of late night…
I watch it every day (the day after, on Hulu). The quality of the episodes depends so much on who’s on that night and the chemistry the comedians have together, but in general I really like it. I also like that they do seem to make an effort to get women and people of color on, even if some nights it’s just three white men. I remember watching an episode with Mamrie Hart, Grace Helbig, and Hannah Hart (I didn’t know who any of them were before then) that I loved. I don’t think there are a lot of shows out there that would have three female comedian contestants (and no men) without even commenting on the fact.
I’ll get excited to hear someone I like is going to be on and they often fall flat because the show is so internetty and skews younger in both its humor and its speed! But it has turned me on to new folks to like, and I’m amazed that CH can stop the show and in virtually no time at all give detailed context about certain types of humor (like making fun of Jared Fogle) that is educational without stopping the show. He strikes me as a really good guy.
And of course, you get to see who is an improv person and who isn’t. There are some VERY funny people in the world who just don’t do well when they’re put on the spot like that.
YES! This. It’s always such a joy to find someone you think might do okay-but-not-great has a secret toolkit full of quick retorts. I try to come up with responses to the live challenge questions and always think I’m going to have an aneurysm, so I’m probably not one of those people myself.
I have not watched this show (CAN I even watch it from Australia) but I am such a big Chris Hardwick fan. I stopped listening to the nerdist podcast because the other two dudes were… not my cup of tea. Mat Mira particularly. But gosh CH just seems nice. Have you seen All Star Celebrity Bowling? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F5986B34… The Epic Mealtime one has Hannah Hart and is great.
I didn’t know about Nerdist, but that’s how my housemate found @Midnight (he has a giant CH crush). Now I’m going to have to check out the bowling, thank you! And I will keep a good thought for @M to reach your shores eventually, possibly by visualizing the Hulu logo superimposed on a koala.
I didn’t watch, but I think that was Sara Schaefer, she’s great! Check her out: http://saraschaefer.com/ Yay female comedians!
That was her! Nice username, I’m imagining your husky voice now.
we on-demand the week’s episodes every Saturday after breakfast. love it! i’m occasionally annoyed that being gay or being kinky is treated as the butt of a joke but otherwise, it’s LOVE LOVE LOVE. i fell hard for CH & crew during the AOTS days and am so very glad to have him on @Midnight.
Housemate is gay and I am lady-type gay, and one thing we sometimes actually pause the show to talk about is how many of those jokes manage to do it without “punching down” as it were. Like there’s a fair amount of gay humor in the Jump Street movies and it’s the same thing, there’s a heart behind it and no intent to be cruel, so somehow it works. And if it doesn’t, in ten seconds something new will have replaced it! My favorite kind of humor is always too much of everything at once.
Ottawa area Toasties! Meetup October 3rd at the Mayfair and gelato afterwards! And maybe something later in the month / fall since a couple people can’t make it then?
Aww, I won’t be able to make it. 🙁 Later this fall would be great!
Later this fall it is, then!
Morning/afternoon/evening?
Evening! (Specific time pending what movie’s playing then.)
So close and yet so far.
Toasts, it has been a shitty couple of weeks. My closest coworker quit and waaaaaaaaaaaah and Things Will Change and I hate that.
So, comforting gif thread? Alternately, tell me how you survived shifting dynamics in the workplace.
Ahhh Chase Utley with dogs <3333
I have no comforting gifs.
I deal horribly with change in the workplace (as in, I’m totally alienating my new manager because oh god, I don’t *know* you). So also no advice, but I feel your pain.
I like how he’s sneaking up to that dog so he can be its best friend!!!! This is a man who understands canine sensibilities.
Finally Friday!
Toasties, what have you been reading this month? I’m still going through Red Mars in paperback and something Neil DeGrasse Tyson on CD. And I’ve decided to watch Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries on Netflix in lieu of adding Yet Another Book to the Neverending Reading List.
I’m halfway through the audio book of Stardance. Which is fun. Spider Robinson attempting to describe postmodern dance in his very distinct literary voice is a so very odd.
I’ve had Red Mars on my to-read list for forever!
Start it! It’s great.
I just finished The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley, after a fellow toastie recommended it – really charming, quick read! Before that was Uprooted by Naomi Novik, which I loved (that magic system!! that friendship! <3). and now I want to be Baba Jaga.
next up is Ancillary Justice!
Ancillary Justice is also on my list! Although a bit further from the top. 🙂
oh yeah, the magic was the best part of Uprooted! I felt like I could get a spell working if I tried hard enough, the book gave me that much insight into how it worked.
I have just started “The Billion Dollar Spy,” which was highlighted on Stuff You Missed In History Class a couple of weeks ago. Plus, I am rereading 11/22/63 and wishing literally anyone other than James Franco were playing Jake in the upcoming miniseries.
Just finished Steve Silberman’s NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and The Future of Neurodiversity, which was both fascinating and gutting. Michael Harris’ Party Of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover is technically next on my library to-read bookshelf but I suspect I’ll be hitting up the fluffy comfort re-reads next instead because real-time politics is giving me enough hives.
Right now I’m reading The Murder at the Vicarage (the first Miss Marples book). In the last week I’ve read It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell and Barbara the Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes. Both were really good. I also read Hasty Wedding by Mignon G. Eberhart based on a recommendation by someone on here, but I didn’t enjoy it all that much. It wasn’t bad, but the main character was a young woman who basically just stayed home and kind of reacted to things that happened to her. But mostly she didn’t even do anything in reaction. She just had a few feelings and did what the men told her to.
I FINALLY read Station Eleven and oh my god you guys why did I wait?!
I also watched all of Miss Fisher season three and then inevitably felt bereft that there was no more to watch.
I really liked Station Eleven and it’s on my re-read list for later. There is just so much there that I’m sure I didn’t get it all.
Also it is my sincere intent to consume every Miss Fisher episode Netflix has to offer, this weekend.
We really need to put an end to these reading threads, my to-read list can’t handle it!!!
I’m in the middle of Adulthood Rites (second in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series). But I paused to read The Turner House (which was fantastic, if you’re a fan of character-driven family dramas – I don’t recommend it if you need fast-paced and plot, but I loooved it) and re-read the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (it had been way too long since I picked them up as an adult, but I still remember just about everything).
I finally read Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword and now I’m counting the days until my copy of Ancillary Mercy finally appears in my mailbox. AJ was a little slow to get started, but the build-up is completely worth it, and then I crazy loved AS. I think the key is to start reading Ancillary Justice on a very long plane ride so that you have to stay focused for the first part, and then can jump straight to Ancillary Sword and read it in one delirious rush. (I just did Tokyo-Newark direct twice and I never want to get on a plane again, how was your month?)
Good to know! As it happens, I’ll be starting Ancilliary Justice on a NY-Phoenix flight tomorrow 🙂
and oh god, how long was Tokyo-Newark?? my longest flight was NY-Auckland, but I had a layover in LA…
I’m listening to the audiobook of Invasion of the Tearling which has a different feel than the first book in the series, but not in a bad way. Yesterday I finished The Shepherd’s Crown which was bittersweet. No more new Terry Pratchett books! I started The Last Unicorn on my train in to work this morning, because I’ve never read it and somehow that seems wrong.
I’ve read both of Lauren Willig’s most recent novels this month. One was the finale of her long-running Pink Carnation series “The Lure of the Moonflower” which was charming enough. And the other was her most recent stand-alone, “The Other Daughter” set in 1920s Britain. It was thoroughly delightful with some charming inspiration from P.G. Wodehouse, it would seem, and I devoured it in under 24 hours.
I don’t remember if it was a link roundup or an open thread, but I’d just like to thank the Toasties who were talking about C.S.E. Cooney’s Bone Swans. I just finished it today and holy nuts was it ever good. Descriptions of her novels don’t appeal as much to me, but I’m definitely going to be on the lookout for any future short story collections.
Adding Red Mars to my list!
I’ve been reading Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (sci fi short stories by James Tiptree aka Alice Sheldon). Really well written and thought-provoking, though a lot of terrible stuff happens and I ended up skipping over a few parts that were too intense for me (e.g. most of The Screwfly Solution).
Persona, by Genevieve Valentine – a thriller in a future where celebrity ambassadors are the face of world diplomacy. Suyana, Face of the United Amazonia Rainforest Confederation with secrets to hide, goes on the run after an assassination attempt, and teams up with a wannabe papparazzo with divided loyalties. Listened on audiobook this week, loved it, stayed up late to finish.
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott is the other recent read that I really loved.
Did anyone sign up for the writing class in that sponsored post yesterday? If so, any interest in starting a Toast group?
(If not… general purpose writing thread? Anyone planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year?)
I did! I am!
(to the first two questions)
Looks like someone was already on top of it– there’s a group called Toasties, I found it by just searching The Toast! See you there!
Delightful! Joining that group now!
Someone made a Toasties group! Come and join us!
I’m super excited and anxious about the writing class. I want to complete NaNoWriMo this year (have only done so once before) and I want to move towards my Goal of being a Writer. NaNo is one step, this course is another. And of course I’m petrified of failure. But I fail a lot and haven’t died yet so I’ve got to keep going.
I don’t have a firm NaNo idea yet and that’s starting to bug me. It’s so close already, I need to start outlining and planning.
Yes, I started the group. Unless there are two. 🙂 although I feel the same as laurenipsum!
Group link
PS does anyone else feel like the site is maybe not coded the best? It seems really slow and non intuitive. Oh well.
If you decide to do NaNo, let me know! I added a bunch of Toasties to my “friends” last year, and while there isn’t a big social component, it was fun to know people who were in the same boat.
I’ve “finished” twice but never actually finished the novels, and then they just fade out of my consciousness after November. I’m determined to not let that happen this year, but that means I need to do a lot more up-front planning.
I did! And I would join a group! I think I selected “audit” rather “actively participate” for the moment, because I’m probably unreasonably hesitant at the moment about whether or not I actually have the nerve to write things . . . But I will hopefully change my mind about that in the next day or so.
Yeah, I haven’t chosen either audit or active yet… I think I’m gonna go for active, though, since hey, it was free, so if I mentally paralyze myself and never actually do anything, it’s fine! Right?
That is exactly the thing I’m trying to convince myself of! I will probably switch it back to active . . .
I signed up for the MOOC as well, and I’m currently trying to do the intro stuff. I’m kinda scared because I have bipolar depressions to work through, and I haven’t taken an English class since 1983 … nonetheless, I’m trying to be a writer. A Toast group would be great, I think.
Someone upthread made a toastie group, called Toasties! I hadn’t realized before I posted. Lemme know if you can’t find it.
I think I joined the group! I decided to participate in the class rather than audit and now I’m terrified (because of the bp) but hopefully we will have an understanding group that understands not only the stage-fright of showing writing to Other Real People but also the Vagaries of Life in General!
I totally missed the course yesterday, but I’m already taking one MOOC right now and I don’t know if I can juggle two. But! NaNo is definite. My region is fantastic (all-day write-ins, traveling write-ins, last-minute challenges with tiny penguins as prizes) and I’m really looking forward to it. I just bought a new laptop specifically for NaNo (and writing more generally).
I signed up but am not sure if I’ll audit or not, and also am not sure WHY I’ve signed up, so who knows if I’ll actually get it done.
I’m planning to do NaNo!! I’m going to do a total revamp of my 2011 NaNoWriMo (I realized that two characters who were on the same side in the original draft really, logically, should be on completely opposing sides. It all spiraled from there.) I haven’t signed up for the MOOC, though…general fiction courses usually don’t seem very open to fantasy, and that’s all I write.
I haven’t done a MOOC before but I sort of imagine it would be more open to fantasy, because it’s not as centralized. You can probably make it what you want! And it’s free, so you could always sign up and then be like “nah, not for me.”
Just going through some course materials, in the list of weekly discussion boards, I found this:
“Writing practices in speculative fiction.
One discussion of the writing assignment as it may be applied to writing speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, slipstream …) All writers are welcome to join this discussion.”
Seems like a good sign?
Interesting! I hadn’t gone through the course materials yet–thank you (and laurenipsum). I’ll have to look into it this weekend and decide.
On the syllabus there is at least one thing (discussion? unclear) dedicated to speculative fiction.
I haven’t signed up, but I want to, is the registration still open?
I haven’t done NaNo in a few years, but I’m thinking of giving it another go this year.
“Class sessions” don’t start until next Friday so you should still be good to sign up!
Can someone link to it? I’m interested but missed the post!
Here is the post. It was sponsored. “How Writers Write Fiction”: The Creative Writing MOOC Of Your Dreams
Here is the group, once you’ve joined: Toasties
Thank you!
I signed up too, and I just joined the Toast group. Happy writing, everyone!
I am, as suggested, carrying a notebook around with me today. Now I just have to get over my pre-emptive embarrassment at whipping it out in public.
I am slightly annoyed that the site never actually defines what a MOOC is? I had to end up Googling it to understand WTF was going on.
I saw that post and thought, “Ugh, you kids and your internet acronyms!” Now I’m going to have to go read the thing, dagnabit.
Massively Open Online Course — just a big college-style class online, usually not for actual credit.
Has anyone done the part where you have to give feedback on other people’s writing? Is there a guideline for how to do that?
i am signing up today! i’m a bit nervous but also excited.
i will definitely join the toastie group
I just signed up because of this thread!
Can we have a thread for Toasties who are SO UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE POPE STUFF? I’m an atheist who was raised Catholic and this whole thing is just making me so uncomfortable. First of all there’s the obvious issues with the separation of church and state. But there’s also this weird thing where all these conservative evangelicals are all like “OMG THE POPE” except for how a lot of those denominations think Catholics are all going to hell and they aren’t really Christians. I mean, I left the church a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see hypocrisy. Thoughts?
OK, THANK YOU. I mean, I like Francis more than most popes, but as someone who spent most of undergrad studying Europe’s wars of religion, I’m kind of like… ok, Evangelicals. Like. There are a whole buncha differences between y’all, even if you’re both socially conservative on matters of sexuality. It’s kind of shady to be TEAM POPE! just because he’s against abortion and gay marriage, too.
That said, when the Pope trolled the Republicans by talking about protecting life at all stages… and then proceeded to talk about why the death penalty is immoral, I. LOVED. IT. I don’t expect the Catholic church to change its stance on contraception/abortion/whatever, but I love that he implicitly said “one party does not have a lockdown on Catholic social teaching, here.”
In fairness to young Evangelicals, though, I do think that some of the OMG POPE! stuff is due to the fact that he is doing so much to advocate for the poor. There is a (in my experience) growing strain of Evangelicalism that is VERY interested in anti-poverty work, restorative justice, environmental stewardship, peacemaking, etc. And I think that a lot of social justice-oriented Evangelicals are drawn to Francis’ message because it’s refreshingly close to the Gospels.
ALSO HE’S DRIVING A FIAT.
There does seem to be a very strong but very quiet push in young Evangelicals to go back to the old idea of missionary work- being the Lord’s hands where they’re needed, even if it’s dangerous- but doing it better, without all the hateful colonial parts. I think it’s beautiful.
And I want the Pope to grow a mustache and ride a fixed-gear bike around Rome now.
Nothing to add. But yeah, cosigned
I’m totally weirded out by Pope-worship in general, especially being an agnostic raised staunchly Protestant.
AGREE. I’m glad he seems like a good Pope but like…he’s the Pope. We are not a religious nation. (ha ha.) It feels super weird.
I’m trying my best to ignore all the pope fanwank on my feeds. It is difficult. I was raised Catholic but have been a searing white-hot ball of levelling rage for many years now; my brother is traveling to see the pope this weekend and I’m all, “oh. that’s nice.”
I’m with you there. To me, the Pope is the ultimate symbol of the hierarchy of power in the church/Christianity that has repressed and kept so many deserving women, POCs, and other minorities from being seen and treated as equals. I officially broke with religion not too long ago. I was raised in a very Christian (Presbyterian- not Catholic) home, so I feel like doubly seeing this from an outsider’s viewpoint.
But yes, there is definitely a LOT of hypocrisy in conservative evangelicals “embracing” the Pope’s visit. Personally, I think they welcome him because they are so desperate for Christianity to get even the merest smidge of positive PR since the cracks in their belief system have nothing to hide behind in our new media age.
Yeah, they’re more often used to seeing Christians called out for their crap and whatnot in the media (all while feeding their own collective persecution complex and remaining oblivious to their religious privilege) that they lap up any positive attention that comes.
But yes to all of that. Not to mention Pope Francis just canonized Junipero Serra, who was complicit in the abuse and genocide of Native Americans in California. (See the Twitter hashtag #serraisnosaint.) I’m just not interested.
*is someone who was raised Protestant/evangelical*
Yep. Yep. He’s good for a pope, but that doesn’t make him actually some kind of awesome progressive perfect hero.
Seriously. “Good for a pope” is still really, really terrible for a lot of people.
^THIS
SERIOUSLY I periodically find myself getting excited like ‘he’s sometimes nice to people! He seems to be acting according to the teachings in the bible about being a good person! He’s not actively terrible! Maybe the Church is changing!’
And then I realise how dang low that bar is. Uuuuuugh.
I was at the gym yesterday and they were showing the mass at St. Patrick’s on like EVERY FUCKING CHANNEL and like, Francis, he’s aight as far as popes are gonna go I guess, but I’m real pooped over this Pope stuff.
(Especially being in the area. JFC, we’ve had signs on the highway warning about NYC traffic due to “major events” for the past two weeks. There are bobbleheads and prayer candles in the grocery store.)
Okay, look, I’ve watched masses from the Vatican because I’m a) Catholic and b) fond of really dull television. There is no reason to inflict that on other people.
Ugh, god, yes. I’m so tired of hearing about him EVERY DAY on public radio and I’m so tired of people talking about how nice and accepting he is or whatever. Birth control and queer people are still bad? Women still can’t be priests? We can “hope” for the cease of sex abuse in the church instead of directly addressing it or apologizing or doing anything about it? Cool, cool, call me (never) when we make a little progress on all that stuff.
Oops, I guess I’m still a little mad about everything that made me give up being Catholic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Jeez, yes. NPR, you are supposed to be where I go to get away from incessant coverage of one issue. I actually changed the channel this morning and I never do that! Especially because the alternative is “rock radio morning guy.” :c
One of my favorite parts of Parks and Rec was their spot-on radio guys. Not only Crazy Ira and The Douche, but their public radio bits too.
Not much to add because the thread is already full of my thoughts, but yeah, adding my agreement. It’s weird seeing staunchly progressive and non-Catholic friends get excited about the guy in a “ooh, celebrity in town, let’s go look at him” way – not an unreasonable reaction or anything, just one I don’t share at all.
I feel like a lot of it is just typical American foreign-celebrity worship. They’d be the same way about the Dalai Lama or the Queen of England.
This is vaguely not true, as the Dalai Lama comes to America pretty regularly and there is not usually a lot of fuss. His brother lived in the town where I went to college and the Dalai Lama has visited and spoken there a few times without much fanfare.
The Queen of England probably would draw some press attention, though.
He’s liberal for a pope (and especially compared to the last two–it’s important to remember, given how un-charismatic Benedict VI was compared to his predecessor, that the much-venerated and adored John Paul II was just as conservative, if not reactionary, and was completely responsible for Benedict’s elevation to the papal throne), and there are quite a few conservatives who aren’t jumping on the papal bandwagon. So there’s that.
This does not reflect the values/thoughts/opinions of The-Toast, but only of the Bartender: I AM SO ANNOYED BY THE POPE HYSTERIA. Oh, you’ll forgive women who had abortions and were victims of rape this one jubilee year? wow, how generous. And sure he’s a better pope than some other popes, but he’s no pope julius sponsoring michelangelo and raphael. And the whole climate change talking but not supporting the carbon tax? whatever. He still represents a very conservative institution, which fine, everyone should obviously believe everything, etc., but the hysteria… THE HYSTERIA.
THANK YOU. I grew up very Catholic and am now not-Catholic and I’m just like “YOU GUYS THE THINGS HE’S SAYING AREN’T AS LIBERAL AS YOU THINK THEY ARE, THE CHURCH STILL THINKS ABORTION = MURDER AND GAY PEOPLE ARE “INTRINSICALLY DISORDERED”” but even non-religious people seem so excited about the Cool Pope (TM). I really liked this NYMag piece on his spin strategy, “The Wily Political Strategy Of Pope Francis”: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/pope…
I have been resisting listening to Hamilton. I thought this was because everyone on the Internet is yelling at me to do so, and I don’t like being told what to do. Today I realized this is because it is supposed to be a work of sparkling genius about the nature of ambition (I think?) and I am so lost and so frightened about my own ambitions that I don’t need some stupid perfect musical to make me feel WORSE. Which is amazingly, ridiculously petty, but I’m still frightened about listening to the musical, so I’m just going to hide under the bed in my mind and maybe eventually listen to Hamilton and cry a lot.
I totally get you. I was totally surprised by how much I related to A. Hams on the ambition front. That driving need to contribute something worthwhile to society and the crippling perfectionism that often comes with it can be a real pain in the ass most of the time.
I feel you so much on this. A million hugs to you.
Girl I hear you. And it will also make you love/hate Lin Manuel Miranda for being so fucking brilliant it’s not faaaaaair
You know, I felt this way about Magic Mike XXL. The afraid to feel part, anyway. Mine was different in that since I’m really not attracted to muscly meatheads, then what does that say about me? Is there something wrong with me? I’m coming out of a depression and even risking feeling like I don’t belong (among women I really really want to belong with) was terrifying. I mean, I’m fairly certain I’ll love Hamilton, but I’m also hesitant to join in. I desperately wish I could go see it, but I would be alone in doing so and I’m not even sure I could afford a ticket.
Vancouver-area Toastfolk! I popped this in yesterday’s link roundup comments, but am reposting to catch more of you:
ROXANE IS COMING TO VANCOUVER next month for the Writer’s Fest. She’s doing three panels. Do you want to go to one of them as a big friendly group?
Yes! I have bought tickets for a few things already and I think some of them overlap with her panels, but if you end up at the Women in Peril panel, I can join you all. I think I’ll be down at Granville Island all day on the 24th 🙂
Ugh, I’m so jealous! Roxane was in my neck of the woods yesterday and I was 100% planning on going until the undergrad I supervise decided not to do some time-sensitive stuff and not tell anyone she wasn’t doing it. So I had to either work late or leave my entire team stranded for a week. But everyone within reasonable travel distance should go for sure!!
Oh! I SO, SO wish I could join, but I stupidly booked a trip away during that time. How foolish!! Have so much fun!!!
I got the last new Terry Pratchett from the library. The last new Discworld ever. I’m so sad I can barely read it. (But I will. It’s a Tiffany Aching novel!)
I’ve been consciously avoiding it, because I’d cry about it for weeks and also I just don’t want it to be over. Maybe I’ll just read it at the end of my current re-read cycle (I’m towards the end of Masquerade and I hadn’t read it for years and it’s so lovely!), but that’s a long way off…
I just got my husband to start reading them, so I’ve been rereading along with him. These books got me through high school, I can’t believe they’re over or that PTerry is gone.
It’s pretty good. Not quite as sparkling and overflowing as the books he wrote in his prime, but a solid, true effort. And it’s Tiffany Aching.
ahh. This is good to hear. I have been avoiding it because I did not like the discworld books that came out in the last few years and I didn’t think I could take it if I did not like a Tiffany Aching book. They are, hands down, my favourites.
Tiffany Aching is perfect and my only regret about the Tiffany books is that they weren’t out when I was 12. I feel like there was something really special that PTerry put in them.
Oh man, I had totally missed that the last one was an Aching book. Now I am so sad.
I just finished it. I read it about 20x more slowly than any book before because it’s the last. It’s a good wrap up.
I’m dating a new dude who’s an absurdly good cook and WOW! has he taught me that cheese should be on EVERYTHING! and makes life GREAT!
Do we have separate cats and dogs threads? We do today!
Here’s my dog CC, who has observed that Putting On Sneakers nearly always leads to WALK.
The little tail!!!
Such a smart doggie!
Check out these drumsticks:
If I sit up straight and keep quiet like a good dog, my human will *have* to take me for a walk. I mean, look how cute and earnest I am! How could anyone refuse me? Especially the human who owns my heart.
don’t be fooled. she’s a total asshole.
that’s why I love her, tbh
Oh I understand. My dogs are often little shits. They can fool others, but I am on the receiving end of their assholery. But I will always adore them. Frequently heard in my house: I love you anyway.
Shelter pups!!!
And finally, since there were multiple comments on Larry’s ears last week, may I present Larry with a cone of shame:
not a dog picture, but I’ve just started listening to the podcast “Can I Pet Your Dog?” and it is SO GOOD.
I’ve started listening to ‘Retail Nightmares’ and I love their segment ‘Puppo of the Week’ and I’ve been calling everyone ‘puppo’ now.
There were some top quality Puppos at the dog beach near my house this weekend.
Christmas merch has been set at Target this week… This the not even last week of September.
Fuck Christmas.
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
what.
Ugh.
(I wish I could make fonts more squat so that when I deadpan it actually looks flatter than normal type, but I think to properly convey the flatness of my “what” in this instance would require something more like this: ____, which is hardly legible or helpful to reply with.)
I LOVE Christmas (and now can enjoy again it since it’s long enough since the family tragedy that happened over christmas) but I get cranky at too-early signs of it.
EXCEPT that it means that I can once more buy Gluten-free mince pies. YES PLEASE.
Hey gorgeous people with your cute faces,
Black Cat (our version of homecoming) starts on Sunday night and everything is absolute craziness. I tried to do song practice but school spirit is hard to come by because we’ve only been here a month. I’m currently sitting in the lobby and nobody’s come to practice in the three hours I’ve been here. I can’t wait to reveal our mascot. We have left a long decoy trail that the upperclassmen have been picking up on, but our super cool RA got a hold of what it is.
Swing dancing is tonight again, and hopefully the boy I saw last week is single because I would like to take a date to the Black Cat Dance!
I knit a large green rectangle as part of our decorations but I keep putting it over my head and pretending Im Little Edie Bouvier.
Also I love you all for giving me an outlet for ALL THIS HAMILTON locked up inside me.
One question: Any Atlanta area Toasties I can get in touch with? I need reasons to get off campus, or people I can show around campus.
Love ya all!
Toasties, I will be dog/house-sitting all weekend in a house with fantastic acoustics.
Obviously this means I will be singing ‘Hamilton’ all day, erry day. I prooooobably should also study my new part in ‘Nunsense’ but….
I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is . . . more Hamilton!
I… offered to lead a workshop on cooking with pumpkin? Next month?
Honestly, a lot of things I agreed to do immediately after turning in my thesis were deeply out of character.
But if you guys have any good pumpkin recipes?
It’s probably not a helpful recipe, but pumpkin curry is excellent, either cubed and added like a vegetable, or canned and added like tomato puree. I don’t have much more of a recipe than that, though, because my curries tend to be a bit haphazard.
I’ve heard pumpkin curry is nice with bits of banana in, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Ooh. I don’t usually like sweet curries, but I will try that. What kind of curry? I usually just stick pumpkin into mine to bulk it out, and because the texture’s good.
So the book I have just calls it ‘pumpkin and banana curry’, but this is the recipe:
Ingredients for 2-3 people:
– 1/2 large onion
– 1.5cm piece of ginger
– 150g sweet potato
– 300g pumpkin or butternut squash
– 1 1/2 tbsp oil
– 1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
– 1/2 tsp each fenugreek seeds, turmeric, cinnamon, garam masala
– pinch chilli powder
– 100ml coconut milk
– 100ml stock
– 1/4 tsp salt
– 1 banana
– 1 tbsp fresh coriander
1. Peel and chop the onion into chunks, peel and finely chop the ginger. Peel and chop the sweet potato and pumpkin/squash into bitesize chunks.
2. Heat the oil in a pan, and cook the onion, garlic, ginger and fenugreek seeds for 5 mins. Add the other spices, cook for 3 mins.
3. Add the veg and stir through. Then add the coconut milk and enough stock to cover, add salt to taste and cover and simmer for 15-20 mins, until the vegetables are done. Remove the lid halfway through.
4. Peel and chop the banana into small chunks and add towards the end. Serve garnished with coriander.
I really want to make this next time I get a squash in my veg box.
Pumpkin (or winter squash of any kind) coconut milk curry is one of my go-to meals in winter. I crock pot the pumpkin or squash and freeze the mashed up squashy goodness.
Recipe-ish:
a couple of cups of cooked pumpkin/winter squash
2 cans coconut milk
Thai red curry paste (or Panang, or Massaman in a pinch)
1/4 c. fish sauce (or to taste)
1/4 c. soy sauce (or to taste)
1 onion, diced
about 5 cloves garlic, smashed or diced
about a tablespoon of minced or grated ginger
Tofu or leftover steak
Other veg you feel like tossing in (green beans, sliced zuke, carrots, cabbage, or nothing at all)
Lime and cilantro
Start a batch of Jasmine rice.
Saute the onion until soft. Add garlic and ginger and saute for another minute or so, then add a heap of curry paste. Saute until paste is distributed.
Add coconut milk and bring to a simmer. Add pumpkin or squash, then add water if necessary for desired consistency. Add tofu or other meat if using, and other veg if using. Add fish and/or soy sauce.
Simmer until everything is done and yummy (not long if you are using tofu and pre-cooked pumpkin, longer if you’ve tossed in firm veg like carrots).
Add fresh lime juice at end of cooking. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding more salty (soy/fish sauce) or sweet (brown sugar or maple syrup, if you need it to balance the spicy/salty).
Serve over rice and garnish with cilantro.
Makes a ton, keeps well, can be frozen.
OJ, canned pumpkin, and frozen mango smoothie. It’s so crazy it works.
Oh and you can mix yogurt, canned pumpkin, cinnamon, maple syrup / molasses.
Also I just realized that these are both non-cooking recipes. We haven’t had much winter in SoCal the last few years, using the oven heats the whole damn place up 🙁
I know pumpkin pie is boring and overdone (JUST KIDDING it is the best food and I could eat it forever) but it’s really excellent if you dump some whiskey and cayenne pepper in the mix. It’s also excellent if you don’t do that.
I make this every year for Thanksgiving, and sometimes in between because it is really quite good. The frosting makes it.
From Bon Appetit: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/pumpkin-spice-la…
Pumpkin rolls and a spicy pumpkin and leek soup are a couple of our favorites. The pumpkin roll is usually just adapted from the recipe from the LIBBY canned pumpkin company. The soup is a recipe from a friend:
1-2 fall squash, peeled & cubed (obvs pumpkin for this purpose)
1-2 onions
2-3 leeks
Broth or stock
Salt
Pepper
Chili Powder
Caramelize onions. Add leeks & simmer 2-5 minutes. Add squash & stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer ~20 min, until squash is very soft. Mash/blend until smooth. Add spices to taste.
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2011/09/baked-pumpkin-…
Can we talk about how great Budget Bytes is? I love her.
She is pretty great. We especially like the make-ahead breakfast concept, in all forms.
Adding canned pumpkin to the Budget Bytes standard chili is yummy!
I have so many! Are you looking for cooking or baking? Sweet or savoury?
Fine if made ahead, easy to portion, good at room temperature, not requiring lots of effort.
PUMPKIN SOUUUUUUP
I have both a standard and a curried version; they are both delicious.
I just made this a couple days ago: http://www.luckypennyfarm.com/pumpkin-soup-with-c… and it was (still is) delicious! I added a red bell pepper, which thickened it up a bit much and if I do it again I’ll either skip that or add broth.
i’m waiting and waiting for pumpkins to show up for me to make soup with…. yum!
Go on…
Pumpkin and goat cheese ravioli with a browned butter and sage sauce! Not a lot of ingredients needed and, aside from making the pasta dough, it’s really easy.
I mixed canned pumpkin with a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. Then you just add a spoonful of that with a dollop of goat cheese and honey for the filling. You can use whatever pasta recipe you like for the ravioli sheets.
While the pasta is cooking you can make the sauce, and when that’s done you just toss the pasta in the sauce for a few minutes and then serve with freshly grated parmesan. It’s the perfect fall pasta dish.
Okay, my Italian grandmorth is going to disown me but if I was to make easy ravioli (and I usually make pumpkin/goat cheese too!) I use pre-made wonton wrappers instead of pasta. Still delicious!
LIFE. CHANGED.
The first time I made it I used the pre-made wonton wrappers too! But I don’t think I cooked them properly because the “pasta” part ended up being gummy with a weird texture. The filling tasted amazing though! If you have any tricks for cooking the wonton wrappers as pasta, please spill! I’m always up for kitchen shortcuts.
It’s been awhile since I’ve used wonton wrappers but I remember you need to just barely cook them. I’m pretty sure I also left assembled but uncooked ravioli uncovered in the fridge like overnight so kind of dehydrate them? I think I read that tip somewhere and it makes them fragile but less likely to get gummy.
You should do something with the seeds too! Pumpkin seed brittle??
This one is amazing and I make it every year because my mom requests it. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/spicy-…
If you want to/can talk about the difference in flavor you get from using pure calabaza (the native to the Americas pumpkin) and butternut squash. Libby’s is calabaza and it’s redder and I like the flavor better but that could be because I grew up with that.
All pumpkins are native to the Americas?
They are! I’ve always thought the butternut squash was from Italy. Not sure where that idea came from.
I still stick by my statement that calabaza are better for pie than all others though.
Sent from my iPad
If you’re cooking with fresh pumpkin and you need to pre-cook the pumpkin, I’ve been told a pressure cooker is the fastest/easiest/best option, but I’ve never tried it so maybe do more research before believing me about this.
Pumpkin black bean soup! http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/11/black-bean…
I make it sans ham and with vegetarian stock and it is still a delicious, super satisfying, and nutritious pot o’ soup. Extra bonuses: can be made with mostly canned goods so a good “keep ingredients around just in case” backup dinner option, pretty affordable ingredients, still tasty if you don’t have a blender.
lots of great ideas here! i will say this: aside from all it’s fall comforts, pumpkin also has an important place in the grain-free / paleo community, since it’s a great wet/fiber ingredient to pair with coconut & almond flours + eggs to come out with delicious grain-free breads and cakes. this is my favorite of late, because it uses a higher ratio of pumpkin overall, and tastes great even without any honey added or any frosting: http://www.paleonewbie.com/paleo-pumpkin-cake-cin…
another thing i like to do is make a savory pumpkin pie. you can do it with or without a crust [if you do it crust-free, just add more eggs and oil the glass dish you bake it in. the basic premise is that you saute onions, garlic and mushrooms, mix with your pumpkin puree, eggs and parmesan cheese, season and add anything else you like, and bake. it’s a very forgiving recipe, you might do up to 2 cups sautéed veggies to 2 cups pumpkin to 1/2 cup parmesan, and 2 eggs if you put it in a crust or 4 just in a glass dish. sometimes i add 1/4 cup coconut flour to firm it up.
Two things:
Pumpkin dip: canned pumpkin and cream cheese – beat well, add brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, and cloves to taste. Eat with slices of pear and/or apple.
Pumpkin bread: I also have a yeast bread recipe if you are interested that incorporates pumpkin puree in the dough (it’s a sweet bread, with sugar and cinnamon).
Dear Toasts! I am happy for Open Thread time. This week has been a bit of a downer for me. I’ve been off work for a few months trying to combat/heal from a particularly aggressive bout of depression & anxiety. Things had been on a slow and steady up and up, but I felt like I backslid a bit this week, and I need something to shore me up. I’ve been trying my usual tricks – meditation, to-do lists, keeping house-tidy, walks, etc; but it’s not quite cutting the cheese, and I’m fearful of the licks of fog rolling back into my brain. Any suggestions welcome: your tips, your tricks, your mesmerizing and hilarious GIFs, anything to appease the trolls in my brains. Many thanks.
SAD lamp?
Audiobooks with the walks, so that you’re completely lost on the walk in the story. Also, getting an exercise tracker of some sort so that you make sure you’re getting as much exercise as you think.
When you get home, putting on nice pajamas and having a cup of tea, so that you feel cozy. If you want to have a pajama day, changing into different pajamas so that you feel like you’re getting dressed.
Being productive in some external way, gardening, writing, cooking, building a shelf, while watching or listening to something that makes you feel happy.
I actually decided to just settle into a bit of a down day, & returned to bed, after a short walk to return some recycling. Oldies are on. Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions!
Stupid question, but: are you in therapy? Even a temporary (couple months) bout of therapy might help get you on track? Particularly cognitive-behavioral therapy specialists, since in those cases you often dont have to devote 4 sessions to giving your whole life story… its more focused on the here & now and practical solutions. (Toasties correct me if I’m wrong here!)
Also: forgive yourself your emotions, whatever they may be. It may work better to just feel & welcome them instead of fearing or trying to control them. (Of course this is super hard and I struggle with it, but something to keep in mind.) Feelings are not facts.
CBT wasn’t my jam when I tried it, but I did take some time to re-read my therapy workbook this week & reinforce things that I *already know*! Isn’t that the kicker, when you know the answers already, but the Feelings Part of your brain won’t let you listen?
And: I’m trying to find a new, sliding-scale therapist. Crossing my fingers that the waitlists reach me soon….
I’ve found baking seems to help me (something about measuring each component exactly and methodically rolling out dough improves my mood) and since your list of tricks all sound similarly methodical, maybe it would generate a similar feeling? Best wishes for a full recovery.
Warm drinks. It sounds goofy, but I rely quite heavily on things like Ovaltine and milk tea. In summer, the same but with raspberry lemonade. I find that being very clear with myself that I am getting a small treat because I am feeling fragile goes a long way towards helping me feel better, because I get the warm fuzzy boost of feeling good about taking care of myself. Fancy cheese would also work in this capacity, but a beverage is nice because it can be small and cheap and still quite satisfying.
Dog therapy! Local dog park. Sit quietly (there are usually benches). Wait for a curious canine to sniff your knees. Pet that dog. Makes me feel better every time. Of course, I have my own pair of therapy dogs. But most communities have a dog park. I’m sorry you’re struggling.
Lately I’ve been having a pretty good dep’n’anx cocktail myself. Especially with the anxiety, I’ve found that an internal monologue naming and discussing my feelings has been tremendously helpful. Yesterday, I could feel a panic attack building but I managed to nip it in the bud by saying, “Okay, you have an anxiety disorder, and you’re at the dentist’s, so yes, you’re anxious. And this woman who’s trying to put you at your ease is a very excitable extrovert who thinks the best way to do that is with small talk, so she’s making you anxious too. That’s okay – it’s okay to be anxious, and it’s perfectly understandable. You’ll be out of this particular situation before long.” I was frankly amazed by how well that worked!
With the depressive side of things, searching for gratitude is my go-to self-soothing mechanism. Fortunately, despite some pretty god-awful months, I do have a lot in my life to be grateful for, and stopping to look for that every now and then has so far kept me from sinking into a real bona fide depressive episode (which would be Pretty Bad right now).
You are wise.
I think this is great advice. It seems like for many people, there are times when distraction-type activities (TV, internet, friends, cleaning) work, and other times when you just need to acknowledge and, y’know, feel your feelings. IsabelleBleu, sounds like your strategies mainly lie in the former category, perhaps considering the latter as an option could help?
I appreciate these reminders, one and all. Sometimes I just need to hear this stuff from the outside, even if I’ve heard it before. xo.
Was anyone else diagnosed with hypertension while still young?
How young? I was officially diagnosed when I was 31, but I had it for a while before that.
That’s young!!! I had high blood pressure for years, but wasn’t told I had hypertension & put on medication until I was over 40. It’s bummed me out and I was wondering how common it was.
Yeah, it runs in my family, so even if I exercise regularly and eat better, it’s still on the high side. But, I’m lucky enough that I can take a pill a day and it’s handled, so I don’t really complain.
I almost got put on blood pressure medicine last year (at 23), but that turned out to be stress-related. I will say that I’ve taken care of a lot of patients under 40 who are on hypertension meds in the past, though. Usually they have a family history of it, and most of them did fine with medication.
Were you diagnosed recently, or was it a while ago? (If you don’t mind me asking, feel free to ignore that question.)
Recently. It upset me, but learning that it’s not that uncommon is helpful.
Yep – I’ve been diagnosed since 22, multiple batteries of tests have been unable to determine any concrete cause. And mine gets BAD when I’m unmedicated – I think my highest reading was 165/110, which terrified the doctor.
One consolation is that because it’s fairly common, the medication is usually dirt cheap 🙂 Although I have twice now had the pharmacist call me back and ask if the doctor gave me the right prescription, sigh.
I was 185/120. The doctor told me to go to emergency if I felt like I was going to have a stroke, which was not particularly helpful advice. It is a relief that the meds are cheap. He told me that to get hypertension really young means “bad genes”. My grandmother was diagnosed at the same age I was… and lived to be 97.
FALLEN LONDON THREAD
I finally bought my Ubergoat! Not sure what to do with it exactly, but I have it, and that’s what matters.
Anyone else play the latest Exceptional Friends story? I loved it, because the Devils are my favourite faction (I’m closest to them at Connected 155) but I felt that it ended a bit abruptly. I’ve felt that about every EF story though – I never see the end of the plot coming and it takes me by surprise every time.
I’m trying to do the Fidgeting Writer storyline to the end so I can get a Coruscating Soul, but I’ve never gotten past the stage where I visit him at the Royal Beth. *grumblegrumble*
I got myself an Impossible Theorem this week! I seem to have incredible good luck with the high-level challenges; got it on the first try. It’s a fun collector’s item, but I have nothing I actually want to do with it (if I wanted the upgraded lodging you can get with it, I’d get it at Xmas).
So for now it’s just hanging out on my mantelpiece, looking shiny.
Fidgeting Writer tip: don’t play it as a “story,” do it in bulk. Get yourself 20 Sense of Deja Vu before you move on to the next step. When you do it this way, it feels less like a kick in the gut when you fail.
I turned of EF for now as I’m kind of stalled in FL. I have a few longer term goals (like buying my own Ubergoat) but not much to work toward in the short term.
Yeah, same here re: long term versus short term goals. I’m working on getting my Shadowy up to 200, but apart from that I don’t really know what to do. Maybe I’ll take to the Zee.
Yes! With the same feelings!
I needed a ton of souls for my ambition, so I’ve robbed the Brass Embassy about a million times now. And robbed the bazaar twice, just for shits.
Then I went to the Iron Republic, killed the man who killed my brother (my Bringer of Death is now at 4, which is pleasing), and am now working on killing the people that hired the man I just killed.
I’m getting back into it after a bit of a hiatus.
The EF story ends even more abruptly if you refuse to cooperate with [spoiler]. Just so everyone knows.
I couldn’t figure out how to get Salome’s soul! But I’m playing with a new character with low stats so maybe that’s got something to do with it?
I’m sorry you’re having a rough time at work, and change does suck! Things just got super unsettled around here as well so I’m determinedly sticking to my workouts – exercise seems to help calm down the hamster spinning around a worry-wheel in my brain and let me focus on the things I can control rather than the things I can’t.
Other than that I have nothing except well wishes for you, because I have no gif game.
ETA this is in reply to onehundredthjen
I don’t know whether this was linked in comments on the earlier post on the subject, but these are really powerful first-hand accounts from Canadian Indigenous women of the impacts of colonialism and abuse through generations – http://site.macleans.ca/longform/almost-missing/i….
I saw that, it’s – I was about to say “extraordinary”, but of course the point is that it IS ordinary. Your word “powerful” is best.
THISSSSS! i was reading it last week and trying not to weep openly on the bus.
“We inherit the rape of our ancestors” had me in tears in my cubicle.
TOASTIES HOLY SHIT TOASTIES.
Can I take a moment to rave about my still-new job? I’ve been here for just over a month. I do comms for a pretty kickass small human rights nonprofit, focusing on digital–website, email, social strategy, etc. And due to circumstances that I literally am not allowed to tell you about because the NDA is INSANE, we are ramping up our content production in a really big way and my colleague and I are having a BLAST brainstorming things we can do, and I am SO FUCKING PUMPED for what will probably be an obscenely busy three months of my life. This is more excited than I have ever felt about anything in my career. It’s amazing.
So please share your career-related joy with me because I know that when we are fortunate enough to have it is if FUCKING AWESOME.
I fucking love my job. I work an incredible library for the best director I’ve ever known. I bust my ass and I’ve never been more exhausted, but we’re all rewarded and respected for our (CONSIDERABLE) efforts. It’s great.
I’m going through an intense period of job misery right now and let me just say that it gives me so much hope that people out there have fulfilling and exciting careers! TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW HAPPY YOU ARE SO I CAN FEED OFF OF IT PLEASE
That is so amazing! CONGRATS!
Today a coworker stopped by my desk to ask me to write a poem. We’ve been writing one each a week as part of promotion for an upcoming reading. Work: Where you write poems at your desk and get paid for that.*
*OK, there’s a little more to it than that, but still.
I work at a teensy literary agency. Well, I “work” at a teensy literary agency. It’s about 20% work, 75% goofing off, and 5% eating chocolate croissants from the french cafe downstairs. The pay is nigh nonexistent, so I can’t stay forever, but the sheer relief of waking up in the morning and not having 890219735789 emails is compensation enough.
I’ve been at New Job for two months, and have been so ridiculously incredibly happy I just don’t believe it. I keep waiting for the “oh okay, so this is actually not so great, it can be pretty bleh” because last job was kind of like that, started out seeming like a great opportunity and then was a complete disaster. And jobs before that (that I stayed at for years) were like “well I’m not UNhappy but I wouldn’t say I love my job.” But here, I love my job. So very much.
(I’m a nurse practitioner in a breast health program)
I work with kids, which I never in a million years thought would be my kinda thing. (SPOILER: it totally was.) I started because I wanted to do something non-academic to subdue the depression that had made me drop out four years into a master’s degree in mathematics. Five years later I’m in the process of getting another degree, this time in early childhood education, and I love it.
I firmly believe this job has saved my life. It’s always busy, sometimes frustrating, but never boring. Being around small kids is the best cure I’ve found for feeling dead inside (also medication helps, but this thread isn’t about that). Their aliveness is contagious. They are so resourceful, so proto-clever, even the ones who would never be labeled “intelligent” in the Stanford-Binet sense. Working with kids has made me like humans, including myself sometimes, instead of just wishing we’d be wiped out by some freak pandemic or other.
There are so many other things to love about my job. Yesterday I chased a dozen tiny scream-laughing boys across the playground, throwing one of them in the snow and pretending to cook and eat him, only to be immediately crowded by his loyal cronies with their pretend lasers and magic spells. How did I think I’d get away with such a crime? Hubris, that’s how! Off to prison with me – until the warden announced he was now asleep and I should probably escape before he stopped snoring. Which I did, and the hunter became the hunted. This is considered a sign of an excellent work ethic on my part. How could I NOT love my job?
I told you about that job application last week — I got an interview for The Perfect Job! Next Tuesday! It apparently involves talking to two people and a “writing exercise”. It’s a bit daunting, because I fear my test anxiety will kick in, which would be awful. A few of my friends work there, the institute is attached to my university department… I’m probably going to have to see the people again. I’m already dying of embarrassment.
You guys were really helpful last week, so… any tipps, lifehacks or commandments for surviving a job interview with my dignity intact?
Well done! Maybe remember to slow down when giving your answers? I’ve heard a lot of people talk too fast in interviews cos of nerves (I know I do, anyway).
Good luck 🙂
The Halloween entertainment thread up top reminded me of the impending release of CRIMSON PEAK!
Who else is basically dying of readiness for this movie? It looks like everything I’ve ever wanted.
Crimson Peak! I was talking about it yesterday and couldn’t remember the name, so I definitely called it “Crimson House.”
I am SO PSYCHED.
I need that movie SO BAD
Waiting for it, not patiently.
ME ME ME ME ME ME
Meeeeeee! I can’t wait to see a “return” to horror from GdT. The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth were staples of teen movie nights for me, and I’m hoping Crimson Peak is just as incredibly creepy.
SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE. I am not a horror fan by any means but I LOVED Pan’s Labyrinth and I am ON BOARD for sexy, gothic, mysterious T-Hiddles.
Yesterday somebody on facebook linked to Kate Beaton’s twitter cartoon about Crimson Peak and I am now even more excited.
I am being a serious hypochondriac today – I found out my sleep apnea yesterday has a “Central” component, meaning it is likely caused by a neurological condition. Made the mistake of doing a web search (NEVER do this) and saw that it can be associated with several serious medical conditions, including congestive heart failure. Of course now I have every symptom of every condition I read about.
I’m trying to chill out, but that’s never been one of my strong points. Really, I don’t feel any worse today than usual. Bleah.
I’ve scared myself silly doing the web search thing in the past! Would it help if I told you that I know a few people with sleep apnea and get it sometimes myself – it runs in the family – and none of them have developed serious medical conditions?
I have a CPAP machine, but it only helps ‘Obstructive’ sleep apnea (Which I also seem to have). It’s only the Central type that involves the nervous system. You know, I’ll probably be fine. Just need to convince my brain of that. Stoopid brain.
Ugh. I have this problem as well. In fact, recently I have been having health issues. Saw a doctor, got some tests that would rule out the serious conditions, they all came out negative. I’m seeing a specialist on Tuesday to determine if more tests are necessary, but part of my brain is doing its level best to convince the rest of my brain that those tests were FALSE NEGATIVES and that I HAVE CANCER AND WILL BE DEAD WITHIN THE YEAR. Like, thanks brain. Real nice of you to do that for me.
I’m mostly banned from searching WebMD after the infamous “sinus drainage mis-diagnosed as brain tumor” incident. It only lasted a moment, but a moment is all it takes.
Much commiseration on this. My spouse had a follow up colonoscopy this week after finding some “abnormalities” on his baseline last year, which was followed by a trip to Boston for a super fancy colonoscopy, at which point nobody could tell us what they were looking at. So we’ve basically spent the last year worrying, especially since his mom died of colon cancer aged 44 (we are 37), so it’s not like it was unreasonable. I kept reading up on, like, side effects of chemo and survival rates and stuff and planning out How to tell all our friends, that kind of thing. It did not help. Duh.
(Spouse is fine, though. His new doctor was like, “I have no idea what previous doctor thought he saw but your colon is fine.”)
I’m glad his colon is still good!
gym, fitness, exercise, sports thread?
No new weightlifting PRs for me, but I have started lifting using a program I wrote myself (which I know makes every coach cringe… I’ve been following a coach’s programming for two years this month). I’m using intuitive loading rather than percentage-based. Anybody have experience with this?
I have zero knowledge of weightlifting, aside from that heavy things are SO HARD to move, so I’ll just say WAY TO GO!
As for the exercise I do partake in, I’ve been really stepping up my running game lately, and ran two miles mid-week at about an 8:00/mile pace each, which is just a hair over the best mile I’ve run in the last 10 years or so. So I’m feeling pretty good about that. 6 mile run this weekend, too, all in preparation for a 10k portion of an upcoming marathon relay.
That is FAST WHOA!
I went on a walk yesterday that got a bit out of hand.
Ended up being about 18 miles in flip-flops.
Albuquerque has a wonderful network of bike/foot paths that nobody but me uses between 3 and 5 in the morning and I sort of misjudged my route.
I’ve started doing the Stronglifts 5×5 thing, cos I wasn’t making much progress (in terms of strength) doing 3 sets of 10 reps for each exercise. It seems to be working, yay!
I’ve started it as well, and it seems like the beginner’s lifting program that I’ve been searching for. Simple and quick.
I hurt my shoulder a while ago, and after weeks of trying to adjust my workout and figure out if I’m doing something wrong, I’ve come to the conclusion that I just need to take a break from lifting anything and let it heal. This is bumming me out.
“At least I can still run!” I think, and then I remember that I hate running.
Yeah man, I hear you, I’m on month 4 of a thumb injury that doesn’t let me put anything overhead. Its meant I’m doing way more squatting which is fine, because I needed it, but I like throwing weight over my heaaaaddddd and cardio sucks
If you have access to an axle and bumpers, overhead pressing with a thumbless grip may be an option? I know some peeps who do that when they get thumb troubs.
I had been doing some strict presses with thumbless grip for the past few months, and I’m finally jerking again with no thumb pain! So, truly, I can do overhead stuff finally. But still not with snatch grip. So no overhead squats or snatches… it makes my thumb screeeaaaam with pain after about 2 sets even at light weight 🙁 and I don’t think I’d feel safe using thumbless snatch grip (probably couldn’t get much tension on the bar). How long did it take your peeps with thumb troubs to heal? Its the slowest healing Ive ever had!
It depends; for one of them ,it was actually some external shoulder mobility issues (benching/jerking without being able to rotate shoulders out properly = mad pressure on thumbs as they take a lot of strain from the bar), and fixing the shoulder mob fixed the thumb thing. (this worked for me as well a while back when I was having thumb pain)
For another, it was tendinitis, and just took forever to get back to normal, which is sort of the norm for tendinitis. 🙁
I have experience with something like that – I use rate of perceived effort (AKA RPE) to guide my lifting. It takes a while to get used to, and you have to learn to be honest with yourself (I tend to push too hard, some folks tend to let themselves off the hook too easily; YMMV and I am getting better at knowing when I’m done). RPE is on a 1-10 scale, but really it is on a 7-10 scale, since nobody uses 1-6. As you work through a set you take stock after each rep and mentally assign a number. It is more or less:
7 – warm-up, can do many more reps
8 – volume work, can do at least 2 more reps
9 – intensity work, can do 1 more rep
10 – maximal effort, cannot manage another rep
Is that similar to what you are doing? (PS: there’s a decent article on this by Mike Tuchsherer, but it is on T-Nation, and I object to that site on general principle).
Sadly, my old man body gave out this week; small sprain (aka tear) in my teres minor, which means anything where I externally rotate my shouder (e.g., bench, squat, setting back for deadlift) is out until Monday. A week off is fine usually; a week off in the last month before a meet is blergh. If it is better on Monday, cool. If not, I’ll have to drop out of my meet.
Oh I hope you can compete! Come on, old man body!!
That’s kind of what I’m doing, except I like how your method better. My current plan has some days at “triples, going heavier, stopping when form is no longer perfect” and other days at “singles going heavier until what feels like the day’s heaviest set, then do 2 more singles at that weight”
I mostly want to avoid the emotional spiral that comes from not being able to do what my program wants from me on some days. Stop telling me how to feel, program! I’ll decide for myself what’s heavy!
I have upgraded from Level I to Level II in my bodyweight strength training program! (There are three different difficulties given for every exercise.)
The thing is, a lot of the exercises they’re having me do are martial arts based, like punching and kicking. The last time I took a martial arts class, I was about 12. I kinda want to sign up for one, just so I can make sure I’m throwing my punches correctly. There’s a Brazilian jiu-jistsu studio literally a few blocks from my house that is looking kind of tempting.
My kid (turning 19 sunday) started karate in 5th grade. 9 years ago. I started about a year after that. Since then I’ve had two knee surgeries, a massive accident that left me unable to walk correctly for 4 years, a messed up rotary cuff, and threw my back out regularly. I keep coming back to karate. This past month or so I’ve started training regularly again despite the shoulder. 3 or 4 people who started when I did are black belts already.
I was finally remembering everything and then I learned a new movement technique and I’m going back to the beginning and relearning everything *again*. But it is the single best physical and mental thing I can do for myself (and I LOVE rock climbing! But karate still draws me).
So go for it. You won’t be the oldest in your class every time. You might more often than not be training with kids who outrank you. But I wouldn’t stop if you paid me.
I felt really good at my yoga classes this week. Nothing in particular changed, I just felt strong and like I knew what I was doing. It was very satisfying.
I also mentioned this elsewhere, but I got a new bike and I’m obsessed with it. It’s so much fun to ride, so much easier than my old bike, and I’m enjoying biking in a way I never have before. Yay bikes!
We’ve put an offer in on a place and I’m full of CRIPPLING ANXIETY about it! Yay! Just a constant refrain of “wewon’tgetitwewon’tgetitwewon’tgetit maybe we’ll get it? NAHHHH” made doubly intense by the fact that our landlord is trying to pressure us into signing another lease, for a hundred and fucking fifty pounds more a month, and totally digging in his stupid asshole heels about us going month-to-month. Basically this is the beginning of my supervillain origin story, which ends with an army of murderbots sent after every London freeholder.
On a lighter note, my friends’ fashion film Silver Girl is winning all kinds of awards on the festival circuit and I am SO PROUD of everyone involved! I think Toasties will like it. It’s about ageism and sexism, which is a far cry from most fashion films.
Online dating thread?
So, background: I got divorced recently, though the actual split happened almost 2 years ago. I’m finally wading into online dating territory (just Tinder so far), and met a nice guy there who, like me, is new to the area. (Also potentially relevant: I’m a liberal city-type who just moved from DC to a Midwest town, where I’m just not finding a lot of people I seem to connect with.) I’m not an outdoorsy, fishing type and not sure I’m ready to take on kids right now, and I don’t see many people w/my interests: travel, reading, movies, yoga. I’ve been REALLY trying to keep my heart & mind open and not be a snob but I’ve failed to connect with almost anyone (though besides this one guy, i’ve only done chat.)
So anyhow, this guy was my first date and we’ve now had about 4. I’ve slept w/him. He’s charming – a little too charming, actually, I like more vulnerability in my dudes – and I’d like to continue seeing him. The issue is that while he tells me I’m the most interesting person he’s met here, he likes me and likes hanging out with me, I still feel I have no idea what he WANTS – friends w/benefits, friends, relationship (gradually, if things go well), if he likes me but just isnt into monogamy, etc. I might be into several of these things! BUT he also checks Twitter daily & updated his profile to include a very flirty line. HOw to interpret this? How do I be OK with what this ambiguity? Part of the problem is I’m coming out of a very traumatic past few yrs and its hard for me to just be “chill” bout things, even for friendships. Do I ask him about the Tinder thing? (I’m guessing know but I’m a total noob, help!)
Hmm… I mean, you’re only four dates in! No matter what there’s going to be some ambiguity because you’re still figuring each other out. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask/talk about sexual exclusivity, and I think it’s better to get that out of the way sooner rather than later for a) physical health reasons and b) emotional health. Like, you could frame it as “hey, maybe i should have asked this earlier, but what are your thoughts on being sexually exclusive? i’d prefer _____, but i want to know where you are right now, and get a sense of we’re both kind of looking for.” It doesn’t have to be a SUPER SERIOUS talk, but framing it as “trying to get a general idea of what you’re looking for” is a perfectly reasonable and adult thing. And then you can make your choices from there.
Tl;dr, too much ambiguity is lame, and good dudes don’t feel threatened by honest questions and conversations.
Seconded, esp.with regard to your last sentence. If that conversation scares him, it’s maybe a sign that he’s not great. But it’s so scary to like someone and put yourself out there without knowing. It’s hard to be vulnerable! I like middlemarch and Girl Named Jack’s advice.
And remember to put yourself first.
Thank you! Yes, I think its the past trauma that is making the ambiguity hard for me. Like, I am so much more comfortable around people that know my deal and would understand if I happened to randomly break down. Without that, I’m actually MORE anxious and MORE likely to be emotional. So, a part of me wants to get to a closer spot with him so I can feel normal. The prob is he seems like he wants to be more vague and casual about it.
Anyhow, thank you in particular for your last sentence; I need to keep that in mind.
I think it’s okay to ask what he wants! You don’t have to be ok with ambiguity. I’m a big fan of just being upfront about it. If you don’t want to ask him, maybe you can frame it in terms of what YOU want, and let him respond. That way it’s not “where do you see this going tell me right now” but “I’m liking/not liking this friends with benefits thing. I want it to continue/change into something else. What do you think?”
Yes yes yes!! Figure out what you want and let him know! It’s scary but awesome.
Thanks! I’m actually pretty open (after the divorce, trying to keep an open mind about monogamy, gender preferences, etc)… but I think what I want is just more closeness. (Maybe thats not a word?). I feel like when I TRIED to get the convo started, I didnt want to “scare him off” or whatever so it just came out as vague emotional nonsense… just me giving disclaimers to all of my comments (“i dont necessarily want to be in a relatioship but..;.”). I need to articulate what I want, even if its not something as easy as a monogamous relationship… its still clear I want something DIFFERENT, that I cant be this casual at this point in my life, and that is OK. Thank you so much for your perspective!
Just pay attention to your gut and watch for any red flags. Sorry…a little hypervigilant right now after recently getting out of my first post-divorce relationship. Inability to be vulnerable may be a sign of an inability to be emotionally intimate. The best advice I ever got, which I failed to heed, is: how do you feel right after you part? Do you feel energized? Or do you feel relieved?
Omg!!!!!!
I met this guy online, on OKC. I messaged first. We had a 9 hour date followed by mind blowing cunnilingus and sex. That was 2 months ago. Now I am at the airport waiting on a delayed plane to fly to his city and FUCK HIM ALL WEEKEND. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. I’m excited, bit nervous, as we don’t really know each other very well and two days is a long time, but I think after the hurdle of tonight we will just dive right in.
Okc has been kind to me recently. I’m still not really over my ex and I recently moved back to my country after years abroad. I now have two regular thangs in my city and this homie down south and that is kewl. Moar sex for me moar moar. Though I sometimes worry I no longer know how to approach randoms in bars, I’m loving this. Trying not to stress myself with ‘I should be settling down’ thoughts, and embracing my gemini, ENFP, butterfly nature. Whoop!
Have a great weekend!
Dive right in?? I see what you did there….
Mmmm, mmm, mmmm, mmmm. You know it!
I deleted my profile. The dude I’ve been dating deleted his a few weeks ago. But this still feels very new so I’mma keep hanging out here for awhile if that’s okay! I’m pretty excited because his birthday was this week and that’s always so weird, the whole birthday of a new dating-type person, but I’m pretty sure I NAILED IT. He’s usually not super demonstrative but he raved about the dinner I made and was genuinely delighted by the book I picked out. Phew!!
Toasties! I need something fun and easy to read over the next few weeks of work travel, sleeplessness (WHERE ARE YOU SLEEP??), and an editing-intense work project.
Things I have read during similar time periods include lots of Courtney Milan, some contemporary romance, Hunger Games fanfiction, some celebrity memoir, none of which are interesting me right now. Looking at my goodreads list, I also read The Chaperone and Boys in the Boat, to give you an idea of my brainspace right now. On my immediate to-read list are Everything I Never Told You, Station Eleven, and Gold Fame Citrus, but I don’t think my brain is really ready to handle those right now.
Good fiction recs? Something in between Sophie Kinsella and Celeste Ng, I think is what I’m looking for.
I’ve been devouring Ruth Reichl’s books – Garlic and Sapphires is my favorite so far. They’re both fun and thought-provoking! She also has a novel, but I haven’t read it yet.
I was just about to recommend the novel! It’s one of those books where the narrator is sooo special and good things happen to her for no reason, which can be annoying unless you’re in exactly the brainspace you’re in now. The story is just so fun and charming that it’s easy to turn off that “really? She just moved to New York and got the job immediately?” reaction.
here are a few more off my recent reads list:
The Carnival at Bray, YA romance with lots of 90s music
Spin by Catherine Mackenzie, darkly funny chick-lit
The Observations by Jane Harris, not super-light historical drama, but the narrator is so charming & hilarious
Lost Cat by Caroline Paul, very short read with lots of illustrations, has super sad parts but overall just sweet
Gail Carriger! The Parasol Protectorate series is perfect smart but light reading.
Have you read any of the Thursday Next books by Jasper fForde? Easy reading and quite funny.
P.G. Wodehouse saved me on my last work trip, where every single flight had mechanical issues and I was tired and cranky and mad.
For romance, if you haven’t read Rose Lerner yet (I can’t remember which other Toasties have jumped on that train), so good, so recommended. Contemporaries I’ve been digging: Kat Latham, Ruthie Knox, Molly O’Keefe, Jill Shalvis, Laura Florand, Julie James, Sarah Mayberry. And if you haven’t read Meljean Brook yet, that would be a great way to treat yourself!
I am in the middle of re-reading I Capture the Castle and would say that it is almost always a good option.
Toastfriends! Hi! Long time no talk! I am having a bit of a bummer of a day today, general malaise, the office was out of milk so I couldn’t have my cereal for breakfast.
That being said, NYCC is in two weeks and I have decided to be Ambitious and take on a new project for the Sunday of the convention (kid’s day!) and do a gijinka of Bowser Jr. for a Super Smash Bros. group. And my bffl from Scotland will be here on the fifth! I am trying to think of good things but I am really struggling right now. Things are overall good, I just am getting super depleted by work. Therein lies the problem.
Enough ramblyness, hope you all are well (especially friends that don’t have Twitter, I miss you!)
Ugh. Depleted by work. Can you say to yourself that you are depleted by making progress? I think that doing the gijinka (had to look that up) could be a great way to feel better. Small achievable goals are amazing for getting through a slump.
Toasties! How and why do you journal? Is it an emotional release exercise? Is it to keep a record of your life to look back on? Do you report on your day in a way that makes sense or is it just free flowing thoughts on the page. Do you ever think about your grandchildren or future historians reading it? If you become famous will you burn your journals before you die or let the world know all your grubby little secrets? I’ve been journaling more lately and I want to know everyone’s thoughts and practices!
I started writing 3 pages every morning, as part of the “Artist’s Way” thingummy. It’s the only part I actually stuck with. I do it first thing in the morning and it’s not intended to be read. Since I have to write 3 pages, there are a lot of filler words while I figure out what I’m thinking. And my handwriting’s atrocious.
BUT! I love it. I think it is helping me gather my thoughts for the day. It has certainly helped me to process a big break-up. And it’s also helped me to realize that things I previously thought I couldn’t do (like keep a daily journal) are, in fact, doable.
I really *want* to do morning pages, but I’m awful at the whole morning routine thing. Was there anything in particular that helped you integrate this into your mornings?
I’m reading the Artist’s Way now and having the same reaction. I like the idea, but I can just barely handle shower, dog walk, and breakfast in the morning and reliably get to work on time.
A few things, yeah. First, I didn’t wait to start until I had everything perfect. I just dove in. I’m DEFINITELY one of those “I need exactly the right pen or I can’t do this” kind of people, so I deliberately forced myself to just do it for a few days. Then, once I’d already started, I went ahead and made things more desirable, so that I’d WANT to do it. I put a desk near a window overlooking a garden (and facing the morning sun), and bought special pens and composition notebooks. And I try to make sure I set my coffeemaker the night before. Knowing I’ve got coffee waiting makes it easier to get up early and do it. The feeling of filling my very first notebook all the way to the end was amazing. I’ve only missed a few days since I started in late winter.
thanks!
I journal sometimes when the mood strikes. It take me years to fill a whole notebook. It’s not for much other than working out the crap happening in my brain.
Though, I did just buy a tiny little 5-year journal that has about 5 lines for each date, so that has been a lot of recording highlights/activities/feelings of the day. So far I’m keeping up with that daily, but it’s only been a month.
I blog more than journal these days, but both forms have always been a means of siphoning off some of the thoughts foaming around my head. Writing down ideas and thoughts–good or bad–gives them structure, and also means that I don’t have to keep thinking them if I need to get on to other things.
Somewhat relatedly, not long ago a friend sent me a book of poetry that seemed too precious for me to keep–it was autographed to him by the poet–so I read the poems and wrote down responses on index cards that I tucked into the pages, and sent it back. A+ exercise definitely plan to do it again someday. Writing the little cards made me remember things I had forgotten I knew and helped me pin down some of the more elusive feelings that emerge when reading a poem.
I use Penzu as a private journal. It is more of a record to look back on for me. I’ve gone for long periods without writing but try to write at least once a week. It’s my Sunday chore, writing in my journal.
I journal mostly because it’s a way to put my thoughts in order. I’m the only person in the world who still has a livejournal, because if I get something stuck in my head that I HAVE to write down, and I’m at work or something, I can send it to my LJ through email and not get anything weird on my work computer history.
My paper journal is where I keep notes from my tarot readings I do most evenings, as well as things that come to mind that I want to put on paper instead of out on the internet. I also use it as a way to keep track of when I have weird mood days/illnesses, because I’m a nurse and have to document everything.
I journal every night in bed, propped up againSt the pillaes (Scottish for pillows, THANK you.) I have at least 25 journals I cannot bear to throw away, though really they are just full of evening stress talk and exhortations to myself to do more things. But this practice has seen me through many ups and downs, and now i can’t sleep until I’ve journalled, even if it’s just, ‘ugh stress, now sleeep’. I also find it helps to gather my thoughts, as someone said down thread, and I’ve learnt many valuable things about myself by doing it. I recommend it, and I recommend pen and paper, though my handwriting is crap.
My mum harangues me about these old journals, but I will never chuck them. They are the map of myself through my teens and 20s.
I’m not as faithful as I should be but I always have a notebook in progress. Recently I stuck a Post-It inside and designated the last half of my current one for trying the Bullet Journal method of planning and organization, and so far I like that a lot. Now when I make lists or free write as I normally would they’re logged in and indexed, but other than that it just gives me a way to think ahead in short and long increments, which is great when you need to change your whole life and are easily overwhelmed. I’m enjoying it!
TMI below the fold.
I’ve had coldsores all my life, and this week had a breakout. Fine, whatever.
BUT NOW MY PRIVATES ARE TINGLING AND OH GOD OH GOD I HAVE GIVEN MYSELF CROTCH COOTIES OH GOD
ITS OKAY ITS OKAY a Captain Awkward exists that makes all STIs okay. You probably done have anything but if you do, ITS ALL OKAY!
http://captainawkward.com/2013/06/03/484-how-do-i…
I love that post and I read it every time I think I have an STI. Its way better than what I used to do, which is google pictures of diseased genitals.
Thanks for the link! CA should sell WWCAD? tshirts. Of course I have my personal blend of issues around sex, but thinking I’m a dirty whore is, thankfully, not one of them (especially since I got the herpes from my parents and then passed it on to myself, I mean it’s barely an STI at this point). I’m mostly scared about pain and discomfort.
Also, thanks for reminding me not to google anything.
if it makes you feel better, type 1 doesn’t really love hanging out on the nether regions. Most people who get type 1 down south do not breakout as frequently as type 1 does around the mouth or as frequently as type 2 does on the tender parts. Many people only get one breakout if the hsv goes out of its favorite zone. And anyway, tingly crotch probably doesn’t mean anything.
I like the link, except I’m sad that the fact that HSV is NOT usually part of a routine STI screen wasn’t mentioned (I mean, it’s probably in the comments somewhere, but I didn’t go searching).
It was in the comments 🙂
I recently asked my doc for antivirals and he said we have to do the bloodwork first to be sure. Then I happened to go for the bloodwork when I had a huge unmistakable outbreak, so I was like yay! Now I’ll get drugs! Then the damn doctor misinterpreted the test results and said I don’t currently have herpes. I asked him, what the fuck was on my face then? HE SAID MAYBE GASTRIC REFLUX.
Needless to say I went to another doctor, who explained why the other doctor read it wrong and gave me a prescription with lots of refills.
I have never had an outbreak, but because of (reasons), it’s very likely i’m just one of the lucky asymptomatic majority. I would love to know for sure, however, for (valid medical reasons), but:
a. doctors don’t really want to test people, because a huge number of people are positive and get freaked out.
b. once i convince the doctor (which i can do, eventually, because see: (valid medical reasons)), the health insurance company is still gonna NOPE
c. even if I decide to pay for the sort of expensive test out of pocket, it’s apparently not even that accurate (i forget if it’s a sensitivity or specificity problem) if you don’t have an active outbreak to test (which is apparently pretty accurate, cheaper, and easier to get insurance to pay for).
So I’d love to do the reasonable responsible thing and manage this risk amongst current/future partners, but apparently that’s more difficult than I’d like? : (
You’ve had cold sores all your life = you, like most humans, have been dealing with herpes all your life.
People get REALLY weird about it being on genitals, given how we all seem to pretend that it’s completely different (it’s not) or that most people don’t have any sort of herpes (HAH), and that it’s a commonly screened for STI (it’s basically never screened for, and nearly impossible to convince medical professionals to do so).
And people getting weird about it is frustrating, and pushes people with known genital outbreaks to educate the masses about how common it actually is OR live with people thinking untrue things and that’s terrible, and uncomfortable (even without the actual outbreaks being uncomfortable, although obviously that too).
But it’s *technically* their problem, not yours, even when society tries to make it yours.
Still disabled, still in university. I don’t want hugs, but I do want to brainstorm. Maybe complain juuust a little. I wish there was a manual for being disabled, you know?
2 things.
1. It’s easy to say “only you know what you need/want/should do”, but that’s actually only true for emotional insights, not practical problems. Yes, only I can know whether I truly want to become a [profession] or whether I feel ready to quit alcohol/start exercising/have children, but that does NOT mean that I can peer into my soul and uncover a logistical strategy for my brain fog that will actually work. I mean seriously this is like running a military campaign, I am not joking it’s truly hard to plan a life when your resources are this unstable (the people who’re like “have you tried using an ‘app’?” wouldn’t survive a DAY with my spreadsheets)
2. Last week, I had a run-in with a teacher – first time at this school, but not the first time, so to speak. I was late for an oral exam, but they allowed me to take the exam after everyone else was done. Great! But one of the teachers wasn’t happy. He wanted me to be more grateful. He was angry that I just accepted the offer without… grovelling a little. I mean, I said thanks, I think, I just didn’t, you know, beg. And some people want you to beg. But! I can’t do it. I can.not. beg. No, I can, but I can’t do it and also have self esteem, so I’ve been prioritising dignity. And after the last ten years, let me tell you, the moment when I keep my back straight and my chin up while saying “okay, great!” in a normal voice even though someone has just acknowledged that my disability exists feels GREAT – daring, risky, but also outright dangerous, and afterwards I know I’ll feel worse than if I just made sure that I had their approval… but still, it makes my life a little better every time. I NEED to do this. I’m gonna turn on the melodrama a little, but seriously, I have to respect the person I was, because they made me everything I am. Past Self was so demeaned by society and fought so goddamn hard for my opportunities, it would be straight up disrespectful to surrender this hard-won dignity now.
Emotional labour, y’all.
As for brainstorming, have you thought about doing something totally right-brainedly creatively odd like getting a tarot reading or doing one for yourself? I’ve been doing tarot for awhile now, and I basically always get some quirky flash of insight– not out of magic, but just by thinking about things a different way.
Also, your point two is awesome. “Dignity” looks different depending on who’s exercising it.
No, I haven’t, maybe I should do something weird! I’m a very systematic person and I tend to solve everything by thinking hard at it, but maybe I should try the complete opposite. I haven’t written anything that wasn’t about facts or drawn a picture that wasn’t still-life or landscape in AGES. Everything I read is textbooks, journalism and memoirs, no fiction at all in like a year. What happened to my imagination?? Thanks, Goomaly!
I have no advice, only commiseration. Sorry this is happening for you.
I don’t know if I’ve posted about this here yet, but I have fallen hard over the idea of beekeeping. I have a couple of friends who do it, and it just seems so awesome. I attended a workshop and a local beekeepers meeting a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been devouring “Beekeeping for Dummies” and I really want to try it. Aside from the obvious benefit of having my own hyper-local/hyper-fresh delicious liquid-gold honey, it would be great for our gardening and also for the world in general because pollinators need some love these days.
Any Toasties into beekeeping, and have any advice/warnings/encouragements/etc?
Another added bonus is that you’d be able to role play scenes from Fried Green Tomatoes.
BEES ARE THE BEST. I had three hives for a while and then they died and I moved and I haven’t gotten back into it at the new farm. But they’re SO COOL. I never actually harvested any honey, because I was afraid I wouldn’t leave them enough. I was more hands-off than the books and classes generally described, and yeah, I missed a couple of swarms. But I feel OK about that.
I did catch one swarm
I put them in a box with frames, with another box without frames on top (not sure why I did that). Before I could get frames into the top box, they filled it with their own architecture
Umm, both of these images are awesome. The idea of a swarm scares me a little (SO MANY BEES OUT IN THE OPEN IN ONE SPOT!) but thanks to all the learning I’ve been doing, I know they’re generally pretty docile. I love the look of that second one. It’s like the city of the future or something.
As for swarms, I’ve just gotten to the point of learning about swarm cells and how to spot them. But, like, are you supposed to remove those cells, then? Is that the deal?
They are SO CHILL when swarming, because they’ve got nothing to protect.
If you spot queen cells, first you have to make sure they’re not making a new queen because the old queen died or is sick. If you still have an active queen *and* queen cells, they’re getting ready to swarm. You can either destroy the swarm cells (which always makes me feel sad) and give them more boxes, or you can try to split the hive and let them raise the new queen without swarming.
Alright. I figured destroying the swarm cells or splitting the hive was probably the choice. Considering I’ll just be starting out, my guess is that I won’t be equipped to split if the issue arises. However, I also doubt I’ll run into the issue in my first season (whenever that ends up being).
I have no real advice to contribute despite fairly close interaction with coloneldad’s beekeeping endeavors. Run fast? But maybe those are just for these bees. He tried four times to get a colony that would lady through a winter up here and I’m pretty sure that the only reason these gals stick around is out of pure spite. The are some nasty bees. But with good honey. A lot of good honey. I forget the exact amount collected last year, but it was insane.
Do you have bears? or who are you trying to keep out?
Bears. They live near the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere Vermont. The threat is very real. A few years ago the governor got chased by a bear in his backyard. In the state capital. In the nude. Welcome to Vermont. Bears are jerks. And none of us wear pajamas.
Totally gonna nail the “State Slogans” category in trivia next week if they ask about Vermont.
To be fair, I’m pretty sure the actual motto is Winter is Coming.
And electronet works on them? Do they nose it first, like dogs? What kind of charger are you using?
Our biggest issue is coyotes (for the livestock, obv, not the bees), and electronet mostly works, though I’ve heard of them jumping it. I’m considering getting a guardian dog once we have better perimeter fences.
We should be friends on some other medium so we (I) don’t derail every week talking about fences and whatnot.
Ah, thought you said bookkeeping. Never mind.
This is a week late, as I was away last week, but thank you Toasties for all the advice about headache-y lethargy. I started taking a vitamin supplement, which seems to have helped a bit, and am also having a blood test next week. Thank you again: The Toast seems to bring together the loveliest and most awesome people.
HAMILTON. This is my last name, and I’m having a very stressful week, so I’m going to assume all/every praise for the play is actually for me. Thanks and carry on.
In that case, here are some more positive headlines:
HAMILTON IMPRESSSIVELY SURVIVES LOUSY WEEK
HAMILTON IS LUMINOUS AND COURAGEOUS, WITNESS ACCOUNTS SAY
STATISTICS SHOW PEOPLE NAMED HAMILTON ARE UNUSUALLY EXCELLENT
Toasties, I’m stuck in the ER for the second time in three days because my body has decided that the AIR is clearly a threat that should send it into anaphylaxis. My body is a tad dumb. In the meantime, I’m bored out of my skull. Any good webcomics, fics, books, things-accessible-via-web you can recommend to entertain me? I have a decent internet connection on my phone but no headphones, so can do written/ visual but not sound.
Have you read Gunnerkrigg Court? It is an excellent story-based webcomic that’s vaguely like what might happen if you took Harry Potter and made it sci-fi and made the main character a girl. It’s very long and you’d want to start at the beginning. (Takes a little while to warm up before it gets awesome, FYI.)
I have not read it! Thank you, that sounds like an excellent thing to be reading today.
Gunnerkrigg is amazing, I should have also mentioned that!
P.S. AWESOME USERNAME. Ekaterin reference?
Thank you! And yes, it’s an Ekaterin reference. 🙂
Octopus Pie is always good but has been on fire lately. The update schedule is a mite erratic but it’s got a huge archive to binge on. Stand Still Stay Silent is beautiful and Scandinavian, and is still new enough that you can read most of it in a single extended ER visit.
Bodies are dumb in general! I hope yours smartens up a notch. Seems crazy that we still need stupid old bodies in 2015.
Thank you!
Also, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for smart one-shot comics, and Oglaf for smart, hilarious, and VERY adult mostly one-shot comics.
Hope you feel better soon! (My rant towards my slightly dumb body is always “You had ONE job, lungs, one job!”)
Sarah Ellerton did an amazing sort-of-Victorian fantasy webcomic that finished updating a few years ago, so you can go through and read the entire thing in one go, should you wish: Phoenix Requiem
Did someone say SARAH ELLERTON?
http://dreamless.keenspot.com/
did someone say WEBCOMICS
short and funny: http://pizzawitchcbsp.tumblr.com it is about a queer witch who makes pizza, what else do you want
long and serious: http://rice-boy.com/vattu/index.php the roman empire, but with dog-people and drugs
long and funny: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/index.php steampunk fantasy that will turn your brain inside-out
I hope you find some nice distractions and feel better soon.
Webcomics!! Digger, you should read Digger (although Gunnerkrigg Court is also excellent, and I remember liking the Phoenix Requiem a lot). Digger is very Pratchett-like in its sense of humor and protagonist (a no-nonsense wombat who dislikes magic and gods and somehow tunnels into a country chock-full of both). It’s complete, at 800 or 900 pages long.
This is an obvi one but I love perusing back articles in the longform app
I am very fond of Skin Horse and the previous comic set in the same universe, Narbonic. Skin Horse does have some very minor spoilers for Narbonic, so there’s an argument for reading them in order, but the art at the very beginning of Narbonic is a little rough, so there’s an argument for not reading them in order, too.
The setting has mad scientists. Narbonic is about a mad biologist and her henchmen. Skin Horse is about the black ops social services agency that provides assistance to sentient non-humans, most of whom are products of mad science. Skin Horse employs a cross dressing army psychologist, an intelligent, talking, Canadian super battle dog, a patchwork zombie, a steampunk-style robot, and a sentient hive of bees. They’re in the same building as the Department of Jetpack Suppression.
Between them they’ve been published six days a week, plus special content on Sundays, for somewhere around fourteen years. So you definitely wouldn’t need to worry about running out.
I’m currently hanging out in my high school’s woods waiting for a fire drill to be over (happened midday but immediately after my classes end so I have decided I have no obligation to stay) and listening to This American Life instead of doing my homework. I think this is the most rebellious thing I have ever done.
Awesome. Have fun and be safe! 😀
it’s Friday, I think you’re allowed.
in high school, I was head of our school’s literary magazine during my senior year. We discovered that I magically had the authority to call litmag staff meetings at ANY TIME. Strangely, the most effective time to discuss magazine issues seemed to be late afternoon during especially dull classes.
I mean, these were actual meetings to discuss editing and layout, but they were also hour-long hangout sessions with some of my best friends that let us leave our respective classrooms to sit on the lawn, eat sun chips, and read bad poetry. never before nor since have I been allowed to wield so much comparative benevolent power.
That sounds amazing. Clubs at my school can organize field trips during school hours but none use the power (with the exception of debate before states). I actually wasn’t skipping class, I get out at noon because I take an independent study and a lecture at the university. My school just decided to have a fire drill in between classes leaving me in limbo. I haven’t the nerve to skip.
ah, i assumed you were foregoing some kind of end of day event.
i also took courses at a nearby university junior and senior years partly just for the variety and the chance to leave campus.
you won’t miss out on too much not skipping, though a judiciously applied mental health day now and then isn’t a terrible thing.
I enjoy your user name. Very clever.
Jaya’s piece about being multiracial got me wondering, how do you other multiracial folks refer to yourself when people ask what you are? When I was kid I said I was a mutt, but I’ve stopped doing that because I don’t want my kids to call themselves mutts. Now I refer to myself as a “mixed plate,” in reference to our plate lunches.
My mom used to call me and my sisters Sorta-Rican, since she’s white and our dad’s Puerto Rican, but these days I just say “mixed” and elaborate if asked.
My husband’s response (Chinese/German descent) has been to just stare at them until they’re uncomfortable and realize that it’s a stupid question. I like “mixed plate.” Sounds like “mixed race”, but maybe it’ll make them pause to think about it.
You know, I just realized his answer is different based on who he’s talking to. He works with a lot of chinese people and if they ask, he just says, “My mom’s chinese.” They’re always interested and/or excited to hear that and it can lead to further discussion. If it’s a white person, though…
This reminded me of the other question I had: from reading comments here, I understand that it’s considered rude to be asked what ethnicity you are if you aren’t white – but where I’m from, “What are you?” is a SUPER common question. Growing up, it was one of the first things you’d ask someone. And I like answering it; I’m proud to say I’m Hawaiian, and Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and some white. I’m guessing it’s a common question because being mixed is so common here.
Also, that thing about your husband and other Chinese people? I had a college teacher who was Chinese, and she was very excited that I was Chinese – she asked me about it during my entry interview! – but I think she always half-thought I was lying, because I have a Chinese last name but I don’t really look Chinese.
I just say black. I don’t feel the need to go into more than that with folks because I feel like all they’re looking for is confirmation of that one thing. Like, no one’s thinking, “oh, yeah, that must be the *Danish* that’s throwing me off”.
This is less of a problem since I started wearing my hair natural 12-13 years ago. The ‘fro answers the question for me.
I AM IN NEED OF ADVICE/INPUT REGARDING MENSTRUATION.
Toasts, I am astonished I made it in to work today, because at about 11 yesterday morning my cycle hit me like a bullet train, and all I could do was run home and try to survive. Like, I was alternating between feeling super overheated and effing freezing, and through the whole thing, my entire lower torso hurt so badly, I couldn’t move. I got so lightheaded at one point that I finished a glass of water and took it to the thermostat instead of the fridge to refill it.
My temperature never actually went above normal, and when I woke up this morning, I felt fine (or as “fine” as I get on the 2nd day of my period). Now, I’m sort of freaked out. Nothing like that has ever happened in my admittedly abnormal menstrual history. I’m absolutely bringing this up at my next MD appointment, but in the meantime, does anyone else have experience with this? Would my PCOS/the fact that I’m on a 7 week cycle instead of a 4 week cycle have anything to do with it?
Thank you all in advance.
I have no PCOS experience to draw on, so my first thought is Toxic Shock Syndrome or possibly Pelvic Inflammatory Disorder, although the fever symptoms without actual fever is really confusing, and the fact that you feel better now also suggests it probably isn’t either of those.
🙁 I hope you continue to feel better!
Now I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the yeast infection I had going on just before this started. I am feeling much better, thankfully, so hopefully it’s not infection-related. That would SUCK. Thanks so much for the input, though. 😀
I am not an expert but my immediate thought was this could be related to menopause/perimenopause? A quick google search doesn’t turn up anything about people with PCOS entering menopause early (not sure how old you are), but it’s somethi to consider.
Oh, that sounds a bit more sensible than what I was thinking! And a cyst would account for the crazy pain, so the hot/cold/dizziness and the abdominal pain might not be caused by the same thing.
I’m 24, which would make that a little scary, but it’s definitely something to look into. Thanks!
Oh goodness, that is weird! I have some issues with feeling temperatures weirdly and getting lightheaded before and during my period because I am not super great at getting enough iron in my diet/through supplements. Not having enough iron in your system can cause cramps, but I think it’s more commonly leg cramps, not torso pain.
I think you need a blood test to know for sure, but I did have a doctor who said she could tell something was up right away because my lips were pale. Good luck, and do bring it up with your doctor!
Oh man, I didn’t even think of that, but I’ve had a long history with on-and-off anemia. Thanks so much, that’s really helpful. 🙂
My periods have gotten a lot better as an adult, but in my teens, I often had this exact problem – feverish hot flashes immediately followed by freezing flashes, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. I assumed it just fell into the category of “bad periods”? I’ve been menstruating for 15 years and don’t appear to have any health problems, if that helps… it just sucks… taking an ibuprofen before helps too. Good luck!
Hi guys! Anyone want to talk about open and/or poly relationships? My husband I I have always been monogamish, and we play with an ex of mine who I’m still great friends with. Lately my feelings for the ex have been growing again, and he’s always wanted to be poly, so… int’s interesting. It’s all still developing, but it’s exciting!
Oof I would like to talk about this. My wife and I are also monogamish but haven’t really had anything else going on for a couple of years now. At first this was a result of a very bad breakup with our former third partner, but recently it’s just been a lack of opportunities presenting themselves.
I’ve been increasingly interested in actively looking for someone else for a fling, but I’ve never done this before and don’t really know how. I’m also worried about rocking the boat too much (even though she assures me it’s fine and I believe her). AND I’m a bit frustrated because she recently had a fling with a friend of ours, but he behaved poorly and it resulted in losing him as a friend. COMPLICATED.
Oh yeah, my husband I I have both been in poly relationships that weren’t working (mine was with this same ex). We feel like we’ve worked through a lot of the reasons things didn’t work before, but I don’t think my ex really has. I understand about not knowing how to find people for a fling–I can’t really get sexually interested in anyone unless I know their personality, so the usual ways of tindr or fetlife or craigslist don’t work well for me. I get about not wanting to rock the boat too–I’m trying to get better about that.
Yeah, I’m absolutely not worried about anything disrupting my relationship with my wife – we’ve been together for 12 years and have gone through all types of poly scenarios, we’re just out of practice I guess?
I have always dated people with whom I was friends first (in addition to, y’know, being partnered for a long-ass time), so I really have no idea how to navigate the “dating scene.” Also I haven’t…ever…navigated the world of dating guys (outside of high school). I’m totally open to the idea of casual sex but also wary of putting that online in as many words, because sleazeballs. So mostly I am avoiding the whole thing!
Oh my god are you my spouse? Because this is where we are at. And like, OKCupid is a cesspool, doubly so for bi ladies, and I just don’t know if I have the wherewithal for that.
Online dating (even Tinder) just seems like such a tedious slog when I’m not looking for a serious relationship. And how do you go from awkward messages back and forth to…the other stuff? I’ve never actually managed it. I need, like, one of those speed-dating events, except with people who won’t mind that I’m not actually single.
Have you ever navigated the actual search for a person before?
I’m actually considering reaching out to a couple on OKC that are looking for a third for just sexytimes. I’m a bit wary because I remember what a minefield it was when I suggested it to my ex-husband years ago. A minefield we did not successfully navigate.
BUT! My desire for sexytimes is overcoming my apprehension, so.
I’m sure they’ll appreciate you! Finding female thirds who are drama-free isn’t always easy. I was lucky in that I had an ex and an ex’s girlfriend who were both willing to try group sex out–I think finding people online is tough, especially when you’re shy like me. It definitely hasn’t worked out every time for my husband and me–we’ve had our share of jealousy and insensitive mistakes. But we’ve both been able to make compromises that work for us. Good luck!
More Than Two is my favorite book on the topic. There’s also a blog, which has some good stuff too.
Definitely check in with your husband about his feelings regarding you and ex doing stuff without him. That might trigger negative feelings that he otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s one thing to all be in on something together; it’s another entirely to be sitting at home knowing that your beloved is off canoodling with someone else, and you’re not included! That is a hard feeling to come to grips with for a lot of people, even though they may really want to be poly. It takes work. And a lot of distracting yourself with other fun activities so you’re not stewing in boredom and resentment.
Oh, my husband and I talk about everything. Usually the instant they happen, because I’m a blurter. I haven’t done anything with only my ex yet (he also is in an open relationship), but we might try soon. My husband is into voyeurism, so that helps! We’ve all been in poly relationships before, so we’ve certainly learned a lot.
Excellent! Sounds like y’all have a solid base to start from then. My biggest concern would be whether the previous relationship between you and your ex has caused any residual emotional stuff that might complicate things, but you are the only one who really knows whether that is the case. From the very little you’ve said it doesn’t sound like that’s a problem, but it might be something to keep in mind if you want to solidify the relationship there.
Not to brag or anything but I have found the answer to the unanswerable question I see here frequently, how to live with messy roommates!
My sister (who is great at not expressing herself and having inconsiderate friends) made a reverse chore chart. People do a chore under their own steam and write it on a big piece of paper in the kitchen. SO, Caleb – dishes or Guest – swept kitchen, etc. It’s great because (1) your work is noticed, no bragging, and (2) you can see when you’re falling behind with chores.
It’s amazing, and works, please enjoy!
Sorry, I can’t help it…
Micro-chore chart:
Annie–picked up a rubber band off the floor and moved it to the kitchen counter
Charlie–wiped his urine off the toilet seat after urinating
Sara–put the tooth paste in the medicine cabinet instead of leaving it on the sink
Betsy–arranged the shower curtain properly again after she finished her bath
Arlie–put the milk carton in the recycle bin after he drank the milk
Holly–didn’t leave her dirty cup on the coffee table
Daniel–put his shoes in his own room
Kathy–rinsed out her tea mug but left it ambiguously on the counter near the sink
Sam–watered the plants that were within 20 feet of the bathroom
John–spilled spaghetti sauce, then wiped it up with a paper towel
This is fantastic.
I only have one roommate, but we make a point of bragging to each other when we do stuff like take out the trash, and then the other one always praises the chore-doer lavishly. It’s goofy, but it really helps knowing that the other person knows you did a thing.
That is smart! I feel like my partner is always like “I washed your coffee cup for you, AGAIN” and I could say “thanks, I wiped the counters, changed the sheets, emptied the compost and put away the laundry” – but he doesn’t notice those, so he is pretty sure he does all the housekeeping and I do none. I like the brag list, because most of it will be ‘things it never occurred to you are actually actions’. (Which will be true for both of us but honestly I never pull this on him, I know I don’t do everything.)
Thanks so much for the advice and support, Toasties! I have been looking for jobs in three cities and my current job might (???) be able to hire me back. Post-breakup feels are still strong, but everyone was so incredibly kind and helpful here!
<3
Hope that you are still shoring up & getting the support you need from all quarters. <3
HALLOWEEN DIY THREAD, ANYONE?
-I tried to do a banner/mantlepiece thing with triangular pieces of cloth hanging down, but I can’t cut a triangle, so I have upgraded to a “rag banner” with all the halloween material I bought, that is 3 times as much as the banner in the fancy magazine. Look it up! It’s so easy and halloweenie. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b5/27/6…
-I’m going to be hand making my wendigo and my boyfriend’s moth man costume. Still in the sketching stages of that.
-I want to make these blood handprints you make out of food coloring and glue! http://thisbeefamily.blogspot.com/2012/10/hallowe…
-I am also making a rag wreath with all my scraps! http://tj-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com/2012/09/Scr…
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? I don’t know how to post pictures so send me a picture!!!
YOU ARE GOING AS A WENDIGO AND THE MOTH MAN? That is possibly the best thing I’ve heard all day.
I still need to figure out what I’m doing on Halloween, but I haven’t been able to do much/put together a costume in a few years now, so I’m really hoping I can figure something out for this year.
I just bought some $1-a-pound fabric at a resource exchange center because (a) I needed a quick-change sort of costume since I’ll be working a lot of evenings this month, so I decided to sew shark teeth around the edges of a gray hoodie (b) only no inexpensive gray hoodie has a big enough hood for this to work, who knew that cheap hoodies would be so stingy with fabric, so (c) I guess I am going to make my own hood and a fin? This is a terrible idea, I can’t sew worth a damn although I enjoy doing it. Also the fabric I got for the outside is more of a slate blue, they had not gray, I guess I’m a blue shark, ugh this am dumb.
Best way to sew- low expectations, high level of enjoyment.
Also just use a freakin’ glue gun! I make amazing costumes eery year with no sewing at all. I wish I could get dollar a pound fabric, dang! Then I wouldn’t have spent more on the handmade than the fancy storebought!
Exactly! I once made an Edward Gorey character costume with a glue gun and like 40 safety pins. Wore it over a black slip & tights. Took roughly 2 hours.
Sent from my iPad
A good suggestion although I do not currently own a glue gun. Will shop around for one because as pleasant as it is to imagine myself doggedly sewing a toothy hood as I unwind in the evenings, it also sounds very pleasant to point and shoot and knock it out in one evening.
It is so worth it. You can do so many things with a glue gun. You should check out all the DIY glue gunning–you can put trim on things! You can do anything!
I–what? You’re right. I never thought about it that way but of course, you’re completely right.
Yay! I live to serve.
Sent from my iPad
I am going as Kimmy Schmidt, mostly because I already had a pair of hot pink skinny jeans. The rest of the outfit is not coming together as smoothly. Still need: yellow cardigan, sparkly sneakers, purple backpack, and I guess a wig, because my hair is not growing as quickly as I would like it to 🙁
such a great idea!!
I got a 1930s type dress at a local theater yardsale last summer:
and Mr Thuja and I are going to fill a couple briefcases with booze, get him a fedora and a suit jacket, and be a mobile speakeasy!
I just finished making Fallout vault dweller costumes for me and my boyfriend. I even made two pip-boys out of sculpey and instamorph, and they look all right! There is a super fun local con in early October, so I am going to use my costume to cosplay for the second time in my life.
That is an awesome costume idea!
I’m getting my Bare Trees quilt back out. I made this one last year and forgot how much I like it. I might make a couple of matching pillows.
My front windows always have white twinkle lights around them, and I have hooks in the top to hang things from. For Halloween I’ve got glittered foam ghosts, bats, and owls, that I’ve strung onto fishing line at different heights.
I don’t have a picture of the halloween set up, but here’s what it looked like last Christmas. I also have some wooden leaves with glitter around the edges for November.
I’ve also bought purple fleece and some silver faux-lizard to make a dinosaur costume for my little dog, but the pattern hasn’t come yet, and I’ll probably have to scale it down to fit her. She’s going to be so cute!
http://hooniverse.com/image-embed/ Has instructions for how to post pictures to intensedebate
Ooh, that hook system is clever. And your quilt is GORGEOUS.
That is so pretty! And thank you, I will use that when pictures come!
I made a halloween ghost bride for my door. I don’t know how to do pics either but, if I do say so myself, she is magnificent.
I wanna see that!
It is SNOWING today, but on the plus side I got TWO free coffee drinks this morning because the wonderful coffee girl made my regular when she saw me pull up, but I had a free drink so ordered something fancy, so now I have six shots of deliciousness in my system and can take on the world!
Where on earth do you live that it’s snowing? It’s in the high-70s F here in North Dakota.
Interior Alaska! Where fall lasts for all of two weeks.
Ouch. Yeah, same here, but fall hasn’t quite started here. We get about 8 months of winter, 3 months of summer, and teeny bits of spring and fall squeezed into the cracks.
It’s in the 80s here in MT. I really want snow though, at least in the mountains!
Yesterday a man gave me a free afternoon americano for no reason other than probably breasts, but then neglected to make it the requested decaf, which probably made my fetus go temporarily insane and made my caffeine deprived body go into insane panicked insomnia the entire night. I’m never accepting boob discounts again.
Not that it helps your panicked insomnia, but this piece from the WSJ indicates that there isn’t particularly good scientific evidence that the caffeine you consumed is The End Of The World (for your fetus, anyway).
Heading off to jerkass professor’s ethics class now. Will update you on what wonders are revealed therein. In the last class Gandhi became a monk. And Mother Theresa became selfish and a moral failure. And he dissed Tolkien’s writing using as an example a scene that only appeared in the movies.
I’ve got my best battle lipstick on. My eyes are grey and bright, my skin is clear, my cheekbones are sharp and high, my hair is big, my mind is fell. Let’s do this.
Destroy him.
Give him Hell!
Oh my god, your horrible ethics professor may be right about something – Mother Theresa was a big hypocrite. But please do give him hell!
At least she still accomplished more than he did. That’s what I take umbrage with. How the man can stand there acting smugly superior to her and Gandhi is beyond me.
You are 1000% right.
And really, I don’t think any amount of hypocrisy (unless she was like coming home, stripping off the habit to put on her Chanel jacket, popping some champagne and sitting around watching netflix while somehow breaking space/time) put against the good done is enough to label her a failure to the extent that the professor did. (I’m too tired to run through the class recording. Suffice it to say, I don’t think he’s that hip on Catholics, for all his supposed oneness with all peoples.)
But then, the man said Gandhi was a failure.
But then, I’m pretty sure he thinks Gandhi was a Buddhist monk so….
Does he think Martin Luther King Junior was a Muslim terrorist? (thinks about it a second longer) You know what, I don’t think I actually want to know what he’s teaching his students about MLK Jr.
He lead a more meaningful life than Gandhi? Because apparently MLK got to see his goals achieved in his lifetime while Gandhi died as a result of an unsuccessful hunger strike having accomplished nothing. And was more a spiritual leader than a political one. (Cause he was a monk, remember?) But that’s ok. “Maybe he thought he’d lived a meaningful life and achieved something.” That’s a direct quote, people.
What. The. Actual. Hell.
I could fill a post with nothing but bits of bullshit from that class. Historical bullshit. Scientific bullshit. Cultural bullshit. Psychology bullshit. (He likes telling them he’s a neuroscientist. He’s not a neuroscientist.) And the constant theological bullshit. Lord, that’s almost its own beast. If you thought Mother Theresa was selfish and a failure that’s nothing compared to Jesus Christ. Did you know that he apparently only got crucified so he could get his own religion out of it?
Sadly, the majority of his bullshit is the sort that sounds just profound enough to be perfect for weaseling into the brains of nineteen year old boys and taking root. I heard a few leave class talking about how much they were learning about science in there. I almost screamed.
What I’m getting from your anecdotes is that your ethics professor is Ayn Rand.
“my hair is big, my mind is fell”
YES.
I’m at the point where I don’t want anyone to love me. I just want them to despair.
You are really living up to your username. I love it.
This seems like a reasonable life goal.
I’m chilled and lightheaded and feverish, but at work anyway since my work has terrible sick time policies, and I’m still pissed off over my latest debate with my best guy friend, whose political views border on MRA. And I haven’t seen my boyfriend in a week. And I spent all day yesterday arguing about vaginas on Jezebel.
The best thing I’ve seen today is Mallory’s dystopian style guide, but I’ve read it twice now. Does anyone have suggestions on other awesome things to read? I’m not very into pop culture or the arts. I like weird geography, surrealism, history and foreign cultures, and amazing survival stories.
You would probably like China Meiville’s The City and the City, and possibly also Embassytown, although those are books and not internet articles.
I own them both and yes! They are excellent. Although I think I like The Scar even more. I’ve read everything he’s every written. Props for shared good taste. 😀
Hurrah! Um, ok, here’s something you might not have found, and I love it so much: Best of all Possible Worlds by Karen Lord. It’s a road-trip framework, big emphasis on foreign cultures, and the plot is a survival story.
Here for Mieville. Embassytown, so good. I love everything in New Crobuzon. I think it’s time for a binge reread.
Survival stories! I am here for that. Have you read Endurance (Lansing)? Or In the Kingdom of Ice (Hampton Sides)? If you like polar stuff both are good.
We Die Alone–Nazi-fighting hero buried alive in the snow in Lapland for 3 months. Best book ever to read when you are cold, because it reminds you that you are not really cold at all, relatively speaking.
The Long Walk–hero escapes from Soviet Gulag and walks to India
I really liked Laurence Gonzales’ FLIGHT 232, about the United flight that crashed in Iowa a while back. He goes really in-depth, like, takes you second-by-second through the crash. Maybe don’t read it if you’re a nervous flyer, but I read it while on an actual plane and thoroughly enjoyed it.
There are two internet longreads I find myself revisiting every few months.
One is this HARROWING account of a cave diver’s attempt to retrieve a fallen comrade’s body: http://www.outsideonline.com/1922711/raising-dead
and one is this piece about the Iditarod by my imaginary boyfriend, Brian Phillips: http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/917539…
VIDEOGAME OPEN THREAD! What are you all playing?
I am playing Dragon Age Origins again. Made a female human noble dual-wielding rogue. NOT stopping myself from romancing Alistair again this time. My character will fucking conquer Thedas with the powers of naive goodwill, curiosity, and THOROUGH POLITENESS. Installed a shit-ton of mods with better clothes, permanent mabari companionship, tweaked gameplay mechanics, and a less cringe-worthy Alistair sex scene (which I have not yet gotten to yet…but am nearly at the point of, mmhmmmmmmm).
God damn it, Alistair, you minx. I am calling this the “unhealthy self-indulgence playthrough.”
I am excited for you playing DAO! I love that game so much it hurts. I hope one of your mods was Skip the Fade because… yeah. I don’t even hate the Fade as much as the Deep Roads, but it’s just soooo tedious after the third or fourth DAO playthrough.
I’m playing Life is Strange! And Mass Effect 3! I just started LIS a couple of weeks ago (two episodes complete) but I heard the final episode is out next month probably so I’m going to hold off on finishing it until closer to release. Until then it’s just back to the Bioware standbys. I still have to run my “perfect” DAI playthrough…
exciting! I finally beat DAO for the first time last weekend and it was soooo satisfying. I started my playthough in probably 2012, no joke, and was cruelly interrupted for about three years when my sister (and her computer, which had DAO installed) moved out. I was SO CLOSE to the end, right before the Landsmeet. Anyway I was catsitting for her last weekend, so I buckled down and beat that archdemon once and for all 🙂
edit: oops, that was in response to BourneApprox.
Yaaaaay! Clearly time to head on to DA2 and Inquisition now, hehehe.
My “definitive” Mass Effect trilogy playthrough got interrupted when we sold the 360 in order to get our PS4… I’m anxiously awaiting a next gen trilogy package so I can get that going again.
Have you done ME3 before?
Yep! I chronically replay Bioware games, to my SO’s dismay. I’ve got two complete Mass Effect playthroughs but so this third one will be the first with the Citadel DLC, since I completed my original Paragon and Renegade before it was released. I basically bounce back and forth between Bioware games depending on what is released. The only one I didn’t stick too was SWTOR, though because it’s F2P I do think of going back to Vector occasionally…
You have yet to do Citadel? You are in for a treat. (The only possible criticism of it is if you think it’s too fanservicey, and that’s not in the skeevy way.) There are some “bonus” scenes depending on who you’ve romanced. It’s worth replaying just for the different ways you can “play” through the party.
Yes to this! I would recommend playing the Citadel EP mission as early as you can, but hold off on buying party supplies and throwing the party until you’re almost ready to storm the Cerberus base. That gives you the maximum amount of time to gather your allies and activate their meetup requests, and will give you the greatest number of party guests. I found that if I threw my party too early I’d miss someone important to me, like Tali, and if I waited too late to trigger the mission (starts with having sushi with Joker), I did not get as many short, silly scenes with friends.
Oooh, I binged on the entirety of Life is Strange this month, and now I really don’t know how to wait until Episode 5! So good!
I considered installing that mod, but decided not to, since I like the little dream scenes for each of the characters. I definitely consulted a “most efficient path” walkthrough, though, and NEXT TIME… Also, this will be leading up to eventually romancing Solas in DA:I, and I think I get Approval -100 if I skip the Fade, haha.
Destiny! I don’t want to get sucked in again, but my cat woke me up around 6 AM and I thought “might as well get up and see what Xur is selling.” (He was selling garbage, at least for me.)
I still haven’t played episode 4 of Tales From the Borderlands and am hoping to get to that this weekend!
Awww. Alistair. I get all swoony just thinking about him and his lamp post.
Aw maaaan, I resized the picture in my first post and it got all blurry. He’s non-blurry Alistair:
How does this asshole still make my blush 4 years after I first played this game.
I, personally, blame Steve Valentine.
Yuuuuuuup. I still love the video he recorded with Jessica Merizan for DAI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFDDUxUMSic
Love it. I wanted so badly to be queen of Ferelden with Alistair but my mage-suspicious warrior noble would not give Morrigan’s proposal a chance.
The rose though. Alistair’s romance is for sure the most rewarding DA:O romance in terms of character development. I’ve been led astray by Zevran’s wiles but there’s no bite to his bark.
I honestly think the Alistair romance may be the product of a secret BioWare weapons research program to develop the most distracting possible videogame romance (at least for straight ladies). He’s the perfect combo of sarcastic bad jokes and utter earnestness.
Now I need to decide who to romance in DA2 this time round: Fenris or Anders. Probably Fenris, but the Anders romance is sooooo fantastically poorly considered, eeee!
THAT FIRST ANDERS KISS SWEET MAKER. I mean. Ahem. Not trying to influence you in any way.
I KNOW RIGHT
“HAWKE YOU HAVE HAUNTED MY DREAMS FOR THREE YEARS”
LIKE OKAY THAT’S SLIGHTLY CREEPY BUT WHY AM I SO TURNED ON
ON THE OTHER HAND THE FENRIS WALL PUSH KISS
WHY AM I SHOUTING OH RIGHT DRAGON AGE
Is there a DA:O mod package that contains all the mods you’d recommend?
Not that I know of, beyond a few hair compendiums, but the Dragon Age subreddit (which is a surprisingly civil and lovely place, unlike the main BW forums) has a long list of recommended mods, with links, that you can pick and choose from: https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/wiki/daomods
Beyond the ones I mentioned above, I’m very fond of Improved Atmosphere, and the Grey Wardens of Ferelden mod which gives the DA2 aesthetic to the warden armor.
Modding is surprisingly QUITE easy. Most stuff gets dumped in a folder, and you can download the Dragon Age Mod Manager for dazip and override files. Here was a good, very clear youtube guide (feel free to laugh at the mods the guy is installing, teehee): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-AxcfbyOM
Thanks!
For the last month and a half I have pretty much exclusively been playing Splatoon. I was unsure about buying it at first and now it has consumed my life. Free time that is not spent playing the game (or browsing the toast) is spent either: a) watching videos/streamers playing splatoon in an effort to get tips on how to play better or b) browsing the Splatoon subreddit. I have recently been playing a little bit of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire though, so maybe I am reaching the stage where I can be convinced to play something else.
I also have access to my sister’s ps3 for the next few months and am considering playing some of her games. I’m not sure where I want to start though; I can’t decide between Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Last of Us, Skyrim, and Ni No Kuni.
Ahhhh! Ni No Kuni! So, so lovely. So, so frustrating, combat-wise. 🙂
Oh man, that’s quite a list of stuff to choose from! A vote for Mass Effect here first (or Dragon Age, heh), though The Last of Us is special in that it can only be played on PS3 or PS4, so you might want to take the chance while you have it. Don’t start with Skyrim – you might not play anything else for a few months!
I think I am going to finish Mass Effect 3 tonight, eek. It’s my first time playing through the trilogy – took me a little while to get hooked, but now I’m actually going to miss the characters when I’m done.
What should I play next? For Xbox 360 I have Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas, but I recently got an Xbox One and would like to play something on that. I only have Borderlands and some shooter-y game (Halo?) for Xbox One, though. Should I buy something else? Play one of those? Stick with the 360 for another game? I’m torn.
Be sure to update us with how many times ME3 made you openly weep. My count was three.
That actually sounds about right.
I think at least 4 for me. I can’t even type the words “You did good, child,” without tearing up.
Yeah, um, sorry to disappoint, but I really don’t ever cry at media. I made it through completely dry-eyed. I definitely did some high-pitched yelling of various names (“Leeeeeegion!”) as the departed characters showed up again, but that’s about it.
And then I flailed around unable to play anything else for two days and finally ended up buying DA:I for the Xbox One so I can play the new DLC, because that’s the only thing that sounded appealing after all 3 Mass Effects.
I picked Skyrim back up and started playing with my stealth archer kittycat. I’m playing through the Dragonborn expansion plot for the first time, and after handily destroying the Draugr Deathlords in that Lovecraftian tomb (sniped them all from across the room; none of them ever saw me), I’m getting my ass handed to me by the damn elder dragon guarding the Word Wall. I kind of want to just hang out with the fox I found on top of the cliff behind the Wall and watch the dragon and the other draugr duke it out.
Damn it, I really need to play Dragonborn one of these days. I always start a new character and get distracted by the time I think to head over there. Maybe I should just grab the boat and chill with foxes too.
Speaking of Skyrim, this might be the single best Let’s Play I’ve ever seen of it, as recorded by a 70 year old grandmother (it’s unbelievably soothing, and she’s a good roleplayer!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jgwdkxzg78
This past Sunday, I finally got around to trying out Guacamelee … and then my daughter and me played it for like four hours straight! It’s really fun, and although she can’t do the platforming sections, she can button mash her way through the fights with me.
Toasties! I have tickets for Hamilton AND Allegiance AND Fun Home for next March. (I might add in A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder, just because I want something traditional too. Or maybe something else! I am open to suggestions and not doing anything there but watching musicals. I could theoretically even add day and get a Thursday ticket too.)
EXCELLENT CHOICES. Fun Home and Hamilton are both fantastic and unusual. I’m planning to see Allegiance pretty early if I can (need to look at ticket prices/lottery policies/etc) but it could still turn out to be a pretty traditional musical. Gentleman’s Guide closes in January (still need to see that too!) so that won’t be an option, but you could try for Something Rotten? It’s definitely a more classic musical, structurally speaking, than Fun Home or Hamilton. I saw it in August and thought it was a lot of fun.
Well, there’s Fiddler, but it might make me think of my grandfather and cry. Noises Off isn’t a musical — but then I saw it with my grandfather. Color Purple, that one with Josh Radnor, just see if I get lucky for a lottery, who knows. I have three shows I am excited by, so I am not suffering either way.
YAY FOR THEATER.
I think I should probably get a ticket for this production of Color Purple at some point too. Taking advantage of life in NYC by spending too much on theater?
Today is “American Indian Heritage Day” on campus, right outside my building. This means there will be drumming and dancing and singing, and sadly also probably a lot of really inane and rage inducing comments from coworkers.
If they have Indian tacos or some other tasty food, buy some and eat in front of the douches.
Sadly there wasn’t any food. The Native American Studies department usually sells Indian tacos a few times a year as a fundraiser, so I will get a chance to eat them soon I’m sure. They are the best.
Toasties – My top notch life plans have taken an abrupt (partial) detour. Instead of the RoR/back end web dev bootcamp I was expecting to start in October, I will be taking an iOS mobile dev course. For free, thankfully, since they had to cancel the RoR after I’d already resigned my job. On a positive note, I wanted to eventually learn mobile dev, and if I’m super frugal, I can still take the RoR course in Feb. On a less-positive note, my 2 years of self-study in Ruby are now useless (for this), I will have to redo all research into companies that I’d want to work for, I DON’T EVEN HAVE AN IPHONE, and I’m in desperate need of ideas for an app. Anything you need built/want to see/have a vague idea for?
An app where I can take pdfs that are on my laptop and put them on my phone and then read them on my phone? (Maybe I am full of fail and just don’t know how to do this, but damn, I wish I could read my saved academic articles on my iPhone!)
Dropbox? I do this all the time, albeit on Android.
You have a couple of easy options: 1) email the pdf to yourself, or 2) save to Dropbox, open from there. If you want to take notes on the pdf, you can get iAnnotate – it’s expensive, but worth it if you use the features a lot.
Mobile dev can be fun. I’m trying to think of app ideas that I’ve had (I really ought to write them down). I’ll tweet at you if I remember any of them.
Picking up a second programming language is generally a lot easier than picking up the first one, so your Ruby self-study will still help you.
For apps, I kind of want a workout log that would let me record both my plans and what I actually did, and that would make it easy to set up future workout plans, and that wouldn’t be limited to the specific exercises in its database. Maybe this already exists, though, and I just can’t find the Android version. I don’t know.
Hmm…the class is iOS, but I know I’ve used an app like that on both. I think either SparkPeople or Livestrong used to have “goal” v. “actual” for nutrition and exercise goals.
Check out this handsome boy:
SO PRETTY. Love those rosy orange cheeks! What breed is he, if you don’t mind? (I’m very bad at telling birds apart.)
Sweet Pea is an ordinary cockatiel. With a bad attitude.
An ordinary cockatiel then.
(They hunger for human flesh. All of them.)
Oh Toasties, I am having such a hard time lately. My fiance is dealing with Extra Nasty Brain Weasels, and it’s really taking a toll on both of us. The other day she came home so grumpy and despondent that I had to talk her through changing into her jammies, and by the time we went to bed she felt a little better but I was a sobbing mess. She’s doing all the right things- therapy, psychiatrist (she’s on cymbalta which is helping a bit but not a lot, and she has to change anyway cause it’s fucking with her blood pressure too much). I’m trying to be helpful cheerleader girl without swamping my own mental health reserves, but I always feel like I’m not doing enough so I keep pushing until I’m too far gone and then having to pull back.
I know that it’s just a matter of time; we are doing the right things, she will find a good medication and things will get better. But in the meantime it is ROUGH, and she is completely convinced that it’s hopeless to even try (though she still IS trying, but we’re both having to push a lot and ugh) and she’s having suicidal ideations and other Scary Stuff. Obviously I’m talking a lot with my own therapist and trying to not push myself too hard- any advice for dealing with a loved one in the mental health trenches? I know how to deal with my own depression, but it turns out other people’s, not so much.
She’s lucky to have you around!
Thank you! Is nice of you to say.
I’m a scientist. I’m interested in social justice issues, particularly feminism, and like literature and some TV.
I think perhaps this is meant to go in roumbaba’s thread below? DANG YOU INTENSE DEBATE *shakes fist*
This is SO hard. I have been in the same place (and will be again, I’m sure) and unfortunately I don’t really have any advice. But jedi hugs for you.
Thank you, I will be glad to accept the hugs.
Can you pull other friends/family into the mix? She might like to talk with others about what’s going on, and you should find an hour to go talk with a friend or just sit by yourself for a while. When one of the people I’m closest to in the world was hospitalized last year, we rotated weeks of in-person visits and who would be the point person to update everyone else (so not all of us were calling to ask, “How are you feeling?”).
It is so awful to wait for medication to work: the side effects are horrendous, and sometimes it’s hard to separate those effects from the disease itself. Half of the medications will make you so tired you can’t get up in the morning, and the other half will give you vivid nightmares or keep you up. I’m not sure where you two are with her treatment, but even if you like the doctors you’re working with, it might be worth consultation with someone new. It takes fucking forever to ease out of one medication mix and into another, and as much as you need to take care of the other person, you will need some breaks for yourself, too. I hope others can step in to support you both. Also hope this is as short as possible.
Talking with your own therapist is good! You might talk to hers, too.
Please hang in there. You’re doing important stuff here. Sending lots of love and good wishes to you both.
Thanks so much! Those are good suggestions, and I totally cried reading the last line. In a good, yay people are awesome, way. 🙂
Several months ago I was suicidally depressed, and I can tell you that 10mg of lexapro twice a day has CHANGED MY LIFE. I think it was hell for my partner to hear me threaten to hang myself just as he was on the way out the door to work. What helped us was me promising sincerely, each day, that I wouldn’t do anything until he was there. Then when he got home from work, we would snuggle and watch his choice of light comedy, like Curb Your Enthusiasm. This helped us both feel more lighthearted.
Also, my partner never stopped doing the things he loved – if I was a crying mess, he still went to the gym, hung out with his brothers, etc. He made sure I was safe and loved but he didn’t abandon his own stuff. I think this is really important. Watching him take care of himself was really healthy for both of us.
Friends, as it may be clear, I have a lot of feelings (mostly bad) about the organization that is the Catholic Church BUT do to Pontifex Francicus’ visit to Philadelphia I am getting a 4-day weekend, and that is very nearly enough to secure my conversion to papist idolatry.
Right? The pope coming to town has meant that I got to sleep in today, have a leisurely coffee, and an excuse not to go to the gym (because it’s closed). It also means secret service agents on every corner, but I guess the benefits outweigh the inconveniences for me so far.
How are other Philadelphians surviving the papal visit?
Yeah, it’s even better for me, because I actually live outside the city. The visit hasn’t disrupted my town at all, it’s just made it impossible for me to have to drive through an hour of shitty traffic in the morning to get to a job that I am not particularly enthusiastic about!
Hi Toasts! I am having a really hard time with this semester of my PhD program. I’m branching out of my comfort zone and taking two classes, one in intellectual history and one in cultural sociology, that involve heavy reading, written reading responses with vague instructions to “consider some aspect of the readings,” and then in-class discussion. This is a type of intellectual endeavor that I’m not very good at. For example, I feel like my response to readings tends to be kind of superficial and of the “this seems true, these ideas are good and are things that I had not considered” variety, while others seem to have a limitless capacity for generating thoughtful and nuanced critiques. Also, I am just not a very fast thinker, and in-class discussion is not kind to slow thinkers. Anyone have tips about:
1. becoming better at reading critically, or just reading for class in a particularly strategic way?
2. not letting the fact that you’re doing something stressful that makes you feel bad about yourself two to three times a week totally destroy your confidence and mental health?
3. not comparing yourself to others all the time?
1) I found that when I was stuck on what to think about a reading, it helped to talk casually about it with someone else who also read it (although I think even talking to someone who hadn’t read it, and trying to describe it in my own words, could help.) This is probably because I think through things by talking, so that might not work for you if you think by writing or sitting quietly or whatever, but thinking about it in a different setting can help. You can also start with your initial thoughts and just dig into those a little- why does this seem true? why are these ideas good? why hadn’t you considered them before? That will give you some extra things to talk about, or to have in the back of your mind as you listen to other people talk. Also, if there’s something that bothers you in the reading, that’s often very useful to identify and sit with for a bit. Just start with where you are- if all you have are feelings, you can still dig into the feelings long enough to get thoughts out of them.
I have difficulties with technical (math/scientific/logical-formula-heavy) readings- they require a lot of concentration from me- and so when I had discussion-based classes on them I prepared by breaking everything down until I could explain each bit and how it worked in the whole (often with visual aids/diagrams). I also identified the things I didn’t understand so I could bring them up in class. Breaking it down made it easier to see patterns and overall ideas, and being clear about the confusing things, made it easier to speak in class.
2) Let your support network know you’re stressed; ask for specific constructive feedback from a classmate or the professor (both what you’re good at and what you can improve on); remind yourself that you are doing a scary thing and you are brave and you will come out of it stronger!
3) Figure out what your job is, and hold yourself accountable to only that. Your job is what you do- it isn’t dependent on what anyone else does. You can do the reading. You can think about the reading. You can write the response. You can listen to your classmates. You can share thoughts you have. Anything else is gravy.
Thank you so much! This entire comment is incredibly helpful and wise. I think I do think through things by talking, and I have a friend who took one of these classes last year, and I can always talk at my husband or my dog if I need to.
The professor for sociology actually sends back our reading responses with comments, but I haven’t looked at them yet because I’m afraid of what they’ll say. Which I recognize is not a very helpful behavior. :-/ But I think it might be helpful to conceptualize reading and incorporating feedback as part of my job, and being emotionally unaffected by said feedback as NOT required for my job.
I find it helpful to jot down several things to talk about ahead of time and having them at the ready during the discussion. Sometimes it’s a small detail that ties in to the larger topic of discussion (or even a previous topic of discussion), or a comparison between two different readings on the same topic (“it seems like author X and author Y are kind of making the same argument, but they go about from totally opposite approaches”), or just a sentence or phrase that really resonated with you for whatever reason. It doesn’t even have to be a fully formed thought or argument, just a jumping-off point that your classmates can then build upon or disagree with or whatever.
It can also be really great in a discussion to bring up something you didn’t understand, or that you need clarification on (“was anybody else confused about this part? I thought it was saying __________ but I feel like there’s something I’m missing”). Chances are, someone else feels the same way but doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up, so if you do, you’re helping them out!
My other go-to is trying to find a way to piggyback off something someone else has said, even if it’s just to add another example of something they were describing. It can be a lot easier than coming up with an entirely new topic to introduce.
It will probably get easier, though, as the semester goes on and your in-class discussion muscles begin to strengthen. (Also, the people who thrive in class discussions could very well struggle with things that you happen to be good at. Maybe they can easily talk off-the-cuff but sit up all night agonizing over how to write a single sentence of a term paper. Who knows?)
Thank you! Several of these are strategies that I use, and it feels validating to see that they are acceptable strategies and not just things that I am doing because I’m Not Good At Contributing In A Real Way. I could definitely do better at jotting things down beforehand. 🙂
Yes, totally acceptable strategies! I think a Real Contribution can be (but isn’t limited to) anything that has the potential to spark a discussion or invites a response from someone else. It doesn’t have to be a fully supportable thesis statement pulled out of nowhere.
If your classmates’ responses are more inspiring to you than the reading, you might try focusing on responding to and drawing connections between those instead. Grad class “discussions” can get a little show-and-tell-y, which is not super productive or interesting. As both a grad student and a TA, the discussions I can still remember years later were those where students were listening to and responding to each other.
Also, critique is important and good, but discussions that are just one critique after another are not good. The professor must have thought the reading had some value if s/he assigned it, so your “these ideas are good” is still a meaningful contribution. As the class goes along, certain readings you like will remind you of previous readings you liked, so if you can pin down what qualities those readings share, that observation will also be a meaningful contribution (for yourself as well as the class).
Thank you! The intellectual history class in particular has one guy whose undergrad is in philosophy and who is just SO good at beautiful commentary. Like, I wouldn’t say his ideas are *that* much better than anyone else’s, but he just… talks the way other people write, with ideas fully formed and lots of beautiful extra clauses that clarify and support and make him sound smarter. But it’s a little much, you know? And also kind of hard to engage with. So maybe I should be more appreciative of the role of voicing half-formed ideas that other people can build on.
This might sound simplistic but the academic move that seems most likely to lead to interesting discussion is to find a thing that just strikes you as weird, and point it out. Could be an unexpected logical direction, could be a thing in an article that reminds you of something surprising, could be a linguistic oddity. Then consider what it means. I think most of my grad school papers/dissertation chapters/conference presentations started that way.
Good on you.
When I was in grad school, I took a couple of classes outside of my department and outside of my wheelhouse because the opportunities presented themselves, and because the professors in question were Genius Amazing Women.
It’s important to cultivate a self-understanding that makes much room for falling short and for failure, because Life demands that of us all.
The last three weeks at work have been… exhausting. Prepping for our huge yearly event (over today, except for a desperately needed Happy Hour) while being down a marketing person, and also preparing for another coworker’s retirement, plus normal day-to-day tasks have not made for a happy work/life balance. But there is light at the end of the tunnel now and the best news is that while I’m salaried and don’t get paid OT, I’ve worked so many extra hours that I won’t have to use any vacation when I go to Chicago in November!
And after some high-intensity weeks of networking, I plan on being completely anti-social this weekend and cuddling on the couch with some Netflix and cats.
Or you know the class could’ve been cancelled today without my hearing about it. Oh well. Would’ve been nice to know before I wasted the gas driving over, but at least it saved me a headache.
Oh, that’s interesting. In some cases (mostly for hormonal reasons, it appears?) yeast infections can cause hot flashes. YIs often flare-up just before periods, too. If you haven’t been treating the YI, or if you were treating it and you finished treatment just before your period, you might want to start treatment now, as it may not be gone yet.
Hi Toasts! I hope you all know that I’m living vicariously through my children, in that I told the boy-who-will-be-19 that is driving to NYC for his b-day to see They Might Be Giants, that if he has time, to go see Hamilton. I didn’t tell him it was from my misandry board, that’s what he calls you (and he’s ok with it), but here’s hoping. He came home from APUSH class in high school telling me all about 1776, so it might happen. If his father is going to finance his travels, I can at least try to steer him. However, I am feeling guilty because I missed his football game (he plays trumpet in the band) AND his wind ensemble this week (he is in college 2 hours away), and will miss his birthday, and if I *do* see him, I have no present for him, so I have to change out of work clothes fast and buy him a sappy card.
High school boy is good. I have asked his teacher to send me his homework so if I can figure out how to use the old Ti_81 I’ll refresh my trig and we are bonding over showing me how it works. (I never had a graphing calculator, so I want to learn how to use one). Not so much guilt with that kid, this week.
Girl child is posing for a postcard for our dojo, which I will be photoshopping with two other karateka into a mailer. I had to actually braid her hair, the horrors! At least I know she’ll be a cheap teenager in terms of beauty products.
I am currently debating missing two days of work next week so that I can fly out to vegas and help my sister move into her first divorced-woman house. I want to but missing two days of work means less money, so, I will just sit here feeling guilty, I guess. I’m good at guilt this week.
Your eldest son sounds so freaking awesome.
All your children sound so freaking awesome.
I think Hamilton is an excellent counterpart to TMBG and it would go perfectly! And if he questions your motives just send him the link to the soundtrack. That is enough to convince everyone.
Thank you. I will keep telling myself that as I grit my teeth through this “letting them leave the nest” thing with the eldest.
I’m your eldest son’s age ish and I know the pain from the other end. I hated leaving home, but I know it will just make seeing them all the sweeter.
I think that college brings you ever closer to family because you dont take them for granted. He’ll be fine, especially since he has all that going on.
OMG. You guys. An older dude on our cleaning staff just brought my work wife a very expensive flower arrangement and a box of fancy local chocolates. Because “he thought there was a wall up and he didn’t want there to be any stress between them.” There was not? But now there definitely, definitely is.
What’s the weirdest, most WTF thing you’ve seen this week?? (Are things extra weird because of the eclipse? I think so.)
A girl got banned from our Overheard page for saying obscene things about Gillian Anderson
About how she knows that “turning gay” is not a thing except when Gillian Anderson “turns you gay” it’s perfectly acceptable.
And then another thing praising her that used a lot of profanity.
I saw a squirrel run across a 2-lane road right up to a moving car, bump its nose against the moving car’s tire, and then nonchalantly run back across the road like it was playing tag with it, or something.
Clearly that was on a dare from his fellow #teen squirrels
teenage dirtbag squirrels, muttering “nutever” as they skateboard off
AND the eclipse is over a BLOOD MOON, which must explain why dudes are acting so heinously. What else could explain all the hilariously terrible Man Reactions to the #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag?
Just this morning! I was in my car, running errands, and I drove by a young man running on the side of the road in the opposite direction, barefoot, with a mischievous smile on his face. And then about 50 yards down the road, I passed a beat-up white minivan parked on the shoulder. An older, shirtless man was leaning out the driver-side window, looking forlornly in the direction of the barefoot guy.
Last Saturday, as we were driving home in the afternoon, a young woman emerged from some thick bushes on the side of the road holding a small log. She had a backpack on, and was very dirty and sweaty, and as we passed her she turned and began beating the log on the ground, over and over. I have no idea what she was doing.
Time traveling log lady?
As I was biking home from Target a couple days ago, I was stopped at a stoplight, and a crusty approached me (this was an area in which crusties generally don’t congregate, so that in itself was a bit WTF) and asked me something. I didn’t catch what he said the first time around, so he repeated, “What day is it?”
“Uh… Wednesday,” I said. At this point the light turned green and I started off, just in time to hear him say, “How did I…?” but I was out of hearing range before he finished the question. I think he was just discovering that he was missing a day or two.
“a crusty approached me” got me cringing like when the NYT writes about “blacks”
I assumed she’s referring to a crust punk, and not using a strange slur for “homeless person.” Unless you’re saying that discrimination against crust punks is an issue we should all be considering.
UPDATE- There was also a Starbucks card. It was hidden in the bag with the chocolate. WTF?? This is not normal, right??
NOPE. Creepy and weird.
Thanks, I needed the reassurance! Work wife is trying to play it down but I think she’s pretty sketched out. We made sure our boss knew but he didn’t seem to think it was too strange so I was doubting myself.
No, not normal. Gifts like that would make me nervous, too; I’d fear loaded expectations.
Traveled to Minneapolis last weekend and saw a potato on the sidewalk in two different places.
Walked around Chicago today and saw a packet of mayo on the sidewalk in two different places.
None of those things is THAT weird to find on the sidewalk, but not normal either. My theory is someone is making a VERY deconstructed potato salad, but that’s just silly.
I once happened upon an abandoned shoe, followed by another shoe, followed by a sock, and another sock, followed by a shirt, followed by a pair of pants along the path I was walking–each were several minutes apart from one another. This was years ago, but I still wonder what happened there, and if someone was wandering around Paris in their underwear, or if I would have happened upon their underclothes, too, if I’d taken a different route.
Plate O Shrimp.
Happy Friday, Toastfolks! On Sunday I am going to Vietnam for three weeks with my best girlfriend. Have you been? What were your favourites?
I love seeing new places and eating delicious things and meeting lovely new people, but I always battle mega homesickness when I travel, probably because I’m always really anxious. Gotta make sure I live in the moment while I’m there. My husband is SO excited for a house to himself for three weeks.
Where are you travelling to next?
I’ve done Hanoi, Ninh Binh, and Ha Long Bay in 2013. Are you headed to any of those places?
Yeah, heading to all those places. Flying in and out of Hanoi, so planning to do lots of stuff up north. Ha Long Bay and over to Quan Lan Island, and then either Sapa or Ha Giang to motorbike around a bit, then Ninh Binh, then flying down to wherever the weather is nice – probaby Na Trang and back up toward Hanoi. Did you sleep on a boat in Ha Long Bay? How was your trip?
Oh I forgot we did Sapa too (motorbike). It was so awesome! We just asked the hostel owner for someone to take us and he just picked us up at the hostel in the a.m. and – while communication was tough -it was overall such a great day. (A disclaimer: this is prob not for everyone, but obv other countries have diff standards re safety, norms, legality, etc.)
We did sleep on a boat, it was fun if you can get into the cheesy-touristy aspect of it (eg all the speeches during dinner are very well-rehearsed, a little over the top). But I had never done anything like that so the novelty was worth it for me.
Also: eat everything. We stayed with frienda there at the time, and they explained some of the food culture to us… basically grocery stores are pretty rare as opposed to western cultures… many in Hanoi get their meat & veg the day the same day they cook it so the food – even the stuff on the street is usually fresh & flavorful & delightful. Restaurants often prioritize food over decor/ambience. (I’m generalizing greatly here; I am not an expert on Vietnamese cultures and apologize if I’m being too simplistic.)
Yay! Every single class I took in college was reading-and-discussion, even the math and science ones, so I developed a lot of strategies for making sure I’d be able to contribute and I’m glad to see they resonate. (Also there are some things you’re just not going to have strong opinions on, or you’re going to have super-strong opinions on them and not be able to talk about them without frothing at the mouth a little- just take it in stride, you can’t be engaged and reasonable all the time.)
I’m also terrified of feedback, so your conceptualization sounds right! (And man, I had to think for a bit on #3. I struggled a lot with that in my first job and felt like a complete waste of space, and it took the experience of project/role ownership and success at a later job for me to be able to separate my failures from other people’s successes, and see where I was successful.)
is that salad covered in one slice of cheese?
at first glance i thought it was a frozen lime daquiri.
and now i want frozen lime daquiris.
can it be the end of worktime weekday now?
Yes, it can! Just go for it. I give you permission to leave.
Where did my Gravatar go, IntenseDebate???
I just had an Intense Debate avatar which now seems to be gone and I guess they are switching over to only using Gravatar? I don’t want to sign up for WordPress which I don’t even use just to reassign my avatar. Annoying!
HAHAHAHAHA i could see your gravatar, and then i clicked on “1 reply” to see the reply, AND NOW IT DISAPPEARED. And I was going to be all “…… hrrrmmm… seems to be there to me” but NOPE. NOOOOOPE NOPE.
so typical of today.
We are all living on the Lazy G Ranch now for some reason.
I was just thinking about a book about Eleanor of Aquitaine that I had to read for school in fifth grade called A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. And while I remember nothing about the book or whether I liked it, I find myself thinking, “Man, that’s a good title.”
So: What are some of your favorite titles ever? Why?
Song titles, movie titles, short story titles, book titles, album titles, whatever.
(My high school history teacher pronounced her name Eleanor of Aqua-teen. Just so you all know.)
I’ve always been a fan of Discovery by Daft Punk, mostly because they did a photo shoot for a magazine with the caption “VERY DISCO” over their portrait shots, and it blew my teenage mind. I’m also fond of Good Omens’s full title, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, because I love the fact that “witch” is used as a title after her name, like MD or PhD.
The first time I read Good Omens was through the local library so they had the hardcover with the full title on it. I recommended it to a friend not long afterwards and he ordered it from his library. When it finally came through interlibrary loan the librarian took one look at the cover and held the book indefinitely while she called his mother to let her know that her son was reading satanic books.
Texas?
Rhode Island. He lived on one of the islands, I lived on the mainland. Such drama. Those small island librarians see satan everywhere?
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver was definitely one of those book titles that I just went around repeating to myself as a child because I liked the title. Ditto The Perilous Gard and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.. Which I could not pronounce. So it was tread-ar instead of tread-er. Nine year old me thought it sounded better. To this day I still pronounce the title of the book like that in my head.
I have a book called “Dead Men Do Tell Tales”.
Hi all.. I posted back in June about having the Essure procedure done (newfangled tubal ligation) and promised to update after I had the folllow-up HSG done. Well…
The radiologist said that the procedure was a success, which means NO MORE PREGNANCY WORRIES EVER. HALLELUJAH!!!!
In general I thought the whole thing went fairly smoothly. A couple of unexpected speed bumps:
* Minor cramping and twinges in the fallopian tube areas for a few weeks after the procedure. This made sense to me but I do wish I’d known about it beforehand.
* More moodiness than usual in the weeks following the procedure. I had one really, really bad day. Hormones, which tubal procedures aren’t “supposed” to affect? Side effect of anesthesia coming out of my system slowly? Midlife crisis? (Check.) Mercury in retrograde? Who knows. It’s worth noting, though, for those of us who are more volatile than the average person.
* Some info on the HSG: what happens is that the doctor inserts a speculum into the vagina, cleans the cervix off with an antiseptic, then inserts a small straw through which a small amount of dye is injected into the uterus. The dye’s “travel” is monitored via X-ray. If the dye “stops” at a certain point in the fallopian tube, the tube is effectively blocked. (That’s how my X-ray looked.)
* To be on the safe side, I took 800 mg ibuprofen about an hour before the procedure. No other medication was given. The straw insertion was a little pinchy but that was over in a few seconds. I could watch the whole thing being done on the X-ray monitor near my head, which was kind of cool If they hadn’t told me they were injecting the dye, I wouldn’t have felt it. 10 minutes from speculum insertion to end of procedure.
YAY! Congratulations!!!
Thanks for the info about the procedure, too. I’m glad it went well!
This is something I think I’ll be contemplating in the not-so-distant future, so thanks for the info! Congrats on your worry-free existence (pregnancy-wise)!!
That is so great! I’m also contemplating getting my tubes tied and it’s been super helpful to read about your experience!
Friends I just want to talk about Slings & Arrows.
I love this show so much, but have only managed to see the first season . . . about five or six times . . .
I think my local library has all of it, though, so I really should get on that.
“Shakespeare didn’t care about anachronism so neither will we” is a sentiment that gets quoted a lot in discussions between my fiancé and me. (That and a ton of other lines, honestly.)
S1 is definitely the best, so you’ve started off well. S2 is a bit weak and suffers from two great actors, Geraint Wyn Davies and Colm Feore, playing truly unlikable characters, but I really like Anna’s arc there. S3 is beautiful and heartbreaking.
That’s definitely good to know, so if/when I get around to watching S2, I don’t get disappointed and decide not to bother with S3.
(Now I want to just go home and start rewatching from the beginning again.)
S3 made me sob. Just those little bits of the end of Lear and I was BAWLING.
I need to own these on blu-ray like yesterday.
I was incredibly lucky to see William Hutt play Prospero in the Tempest in his last season at Stratford (the festival & town on which New Burbage is not-so-loosely based, in case you’re not Canadian). He was amazing and heartbreaking. This role is *even sadder*.
I am so jealous. After watching S3 I took a docu video about him out of the library and yeah, he looks like he would have been AMAZING to see in real life.
One of these years I really must get to Stratford. Before Feore decides to leave, ideally.
I feel like he’ll always come back. He’s had years when he was off being a Frost Giant or whatever, but I think his wife directs/choreographs quite often at Stratford.
I AM ALWAYS READY TO DISCUSS THIS. Any time I’m annoyed I say “I’m going to KILL you” with exactly his inflection.
I love that moment. I love the entire show SO HARD. It used to be on Netflix but it’s not anymore, I should get the DVDs. Just the other day a friend quoted the scene where he holds up the coffee cup that says “Art!”.
Oooh. Now THAT is something I should rewatch.
BEST SHOW. So much love. I think maybe I need to watch the first season again in one giant gulp.
I think once the discs are in my possession I will sit my bf down & binge-watch all the way through as he’s never seen them.
Yes, forever. This show. My heart.
It’s been ages since I’ve seen S1, and I still haven’t seen the other two.
Anyone else feel like S4 of Call the Midwife is of distinctly lower quality, writing-wise? Like every episode is a Very Special Episode about an important social checkbox? I have loved the show in the past, but now I feel like I’m watching Afterschool Specials.
It’s not just you; I was finding a lot of the episodes predictable, and seeing the endings coming from miles away. And I was completely enraged by what happens with Patsy’s story arc at the end of the season. GRR ARGH.
I’m not there yet, but as you say, I can see it coming.
Haven’t seen S4 yet, but I felt like things were going downhill already in season 3…it was getting repetitive, which I guess is hard to blame them for in a certain way.
I have been enjoying how the tall, awkward, posh midwife (forget the actress’ name) has been a bit of a breakout in Hollywood lately as a sidekick in comedies! Did you see her in Spy?
Toasts, I have just been hit with my second period for the month of September.
YES YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY.
Ugh I want to murder everything/one. How is this even happening? My Skyla usually stops periods from happening altogether!
Oh god, I am so sorry. I haven’t had that happen in years, but I haven’t forgotten the last time. Wishing you all the best and hoping very little murder becomes necessary.
I’m sorry. My body has recently decided that a 3 week cycle is my future, so I can commiserate.
It might not be so bad if I were used to dealing with this shit. But I’ve been able to avoid having periods for so long that I’m completely out of practice.
Maybe because of the rare blood moon we’re supposed to be having.
*long, mournful howl*
My mirena does that too. I’ll have barely any spotting for a few months and then 2 for-real periods in a row. I think my mirena just gets a little vindictive when I’m not properly thankful for it.
So sorry. This used to happen to me on occasion. Which is why I want to live in a Feminine Utopia where menstrual cycles are revered and we are given a week off every month.
I have been house hunting and going to a bunch of open houses, and I gotta say, it’s very frustrating sifting
through a million listings only to find a couple of good ones that then get snapped up rather quickly, but it’s also incredibly fun poking around people’s houses. The best one so far had a urinal with a plant in it in one bathroom, and a giant portrait of Elvis in the other. I also really enjoyed the house that was completely empty except for the fake cake on the kitchen island.
Toasts, it has been a stressful, anxious week, but punctuated by talks with friends that made me feel less anxious and less stressed. Also this gif crossed my Twitter timeline and it’s perfect:
Is anyone else planning to watch the supermoon lunar eclipse on Sunday night? I’m thinking I might go watch at least part of it from the High Line in lower Manhattan, assuming it’s not cloudy.
Oh me! I’m actually going to an event at the Air & Space Museum so I hope it’s not cloudy!
Earlier this year, one of my oldest best friends took the time to tell me that I had been falling down on my end of our friendship, and she had been feeling ignored. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to do better, to keep in touch more, to ask her more about what’s going on in her life. I thought I was doing better. But I just got a text from her that says she’s been feeling like I’m not doing my part in our friendship again. It feels like this came out of nowhere. Toasties, she’s really important to me, and I don’t know what I did wrong this time. Help.
Ouch, indeed. Don’t forget that you’re only half of this relationship. This woman is responsible for effective communication. What does she say when you ask for examples of what she wants changed? How does she describe what she wants from you? Jedi hugs.
Yeah it seems really rude that she would demand change but then not define what that change would look like. Our buddy ouch is not a mind reader!!
Showing up very late, but, still- Definitely ask for clarification, ask for specific examples, perhaps bring up Love Languages? (ie, maybe she wants to see you in person, or she’d prefer a monthly snail mail letter to weekly phone chats or something else that isn’t obvious to you).
i don’t know anywhere else to say this so: i am a college person and recently wrote a small essay for a classics course about phaethon in which i based a lot of my point off the “daedalus and icarus and beautiful male incompetence” post from a couple months back, and the professor liked it enough that she may put it on the department’s website
That’s wonderful, what an accomplishment! Congratulations! Could you please post a link if you do?
Went to the common ground fair today, which is the big event for the state organic farming group.
I made friends
Little tiny black piglets! Love
Donkey ears donkey ears donkey ears! Also, those EYES.
I move into my own place next week! I am steadfastly embarking on the post-divorce, post-abusive relationship, single professional life. Determined, committed, excited to be focusing on ME fo’ real! It’s already furnished, which is fine since I own NOTHING but my clothes and can’t really afford furniture at the moment.
What would be the first amazing self-care thing you did in your new place?
In past, for me it’s always been to plant something. An herb, a window cactus; something to say “here I am” and “I’ll watch this grow”, maybe even “We’ll grow together”.
yes, I’ve always wanted a tiny cactus garden and I have the perfect window or it!
Congratulations! Maybe post a photo or picture of something that makes you happy and/or reminds you of your accomplishments?
Yes indeed!
Congratulations! I would cook something only for me, and savour greedily eating up all the leftovers.
Ooh yes, especially if it’s something your ex HATES but you love!
Meat. Eating meat. Frying Spam. Hamburgers. Steak.
He was a vegetarian and wouldn’t let me eat meat in front of him. And he would tell me he could smell it if I ate it during the day and sneer at me and tell me to floss.
Ughhhhh this guy.
Marvelous idea!
I’m so glad you checked in!
I would say for a cheap bit of self-care, I like doing a spa day. Bubble bath, sheet mask (or a DIY mask out of oatmeal or something!), exfoliate everything (kosher salt or sugar and olive oil is all you need!), moisturize everything, do your nails, Jill off the way you like best if applicable. Then get into comfy pajamas and get some really good sleep.
Hey did you send a question into Yo, Should I Dump This Asshole? I saw one that sounded familiar….
Lol, re Yo, Should I Dump This Asshole…ahem? Moi? I deny all allegations. 😉
I love that site. Very clear headed.
I have never heard of a sheet mask, where have I been?
Sheet masks are fun, they are like, creepy face-shaped pieces of cotton or whatever that are soaked in stuff that is good for your skin, and they are usually sold individually so they are super cheap. Target has them now but they originated in Korea I think.
Late pregnancy insomnia sucks, and feels quite ironic given that everyone is like “take this special time to rest before the baby comes!” Yeah I’d definitely do that if I didn’t wake up every time I change positions and need to pee every 15 minutes and ALSO need to continue working full time until birth, thanks.
1) I am apparently a day late to the open thread, OOPS (this is what having a regular Tuesday-Saturday schedule will do to you)
2) I am about to attempt this twitter thing again and have once again lost the link to the toastie social media spreadsheet. Help?
I also work the regular Tuesday-Saturday schedule, and occasionally forget which day the open thread is and have to catch up on Saturday! I’m glad I’m not the only one!
And I can help with the spreadsheet! Also, the Toastie list on Twitter!
Ask to do a daily or weekly or monthly chore that your friend dreads. Ask what that chore is, and promise to do it ahead of schedule.
Chemo is HARD. It makes carrying out your regular responsibilities difficult. If you can remove one burden, NOT JUST ONCE, but regularly, that makes you one of the most valuable allies a person can have.
I am an Old Woman! It pleases me immensely that I am outside of the toastiest demographic. I am a professor in a religion department in a marvelous city. I am queer af. I love librarians and literature and art history and hilarity of many sorts.
Toastthings that Do Not Interest Me: Fandoms, If X Were Your Boy/Girlfriend, Musicals, the 90s.
Good on you.
When I was in grad school, I took a couple of classes outside of my department and outside of my wheelhouse because the opportunities presented themselves, and because the professors in question were Genius Amazing Women.
It's important to cultivate a self-understanding that makes much room for falling short and for failure, because Life demands that of us all.
Plate O Shrimp.
Here is a reminder that no one will ever see, but it is directed toward Chicago Toastfriends.
First Thursdays.
7 ish pm.
Rogers Park Social.
There is a First Thursday on the horizon. October 1.
Here is a reminder that no one will ever see, but it is directed toward Chicago Toastfriends.
First Thursdays.
7 ish pm.
Rogers Park Social.
There is a First Thursday on the horizon. October 1.
I was just checking the movies listed and just saw this reply now- thank you so much for the music recs! Down By The Water has to be one of the most played songs on my iPod.