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Mallory is sick. Talk amongst yourselves. I should also mention the school shooting that we’re just now learning about, there will probably be new information coming in this afternoon. Stay safe.
An Open Thread For No Reason
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Pals, I am having a very tough health time. Soothing gifs and hugs would be appreciated.
My autoimmune issues have been in flare-up for about two weeks, now. I feel ya, bb.
having bodies: is it worth it?
Honestly? My instinct is NO but then I remember orgasms.
I was just thinking about this last night, in the context of “I hate being a mammal who has to shave legs and get a period.”
There’s an article.
There’s a series, AMOF.
(((((hugs)))))
♥♥♥♥♥
All the hugs you want!
(it is really hard to find a hug gif that is not 1. Glee 2. Supernatural 3. Sherlock or 4. Voldemort)
this is so comforting, thank you
Sherlock hug gifs are super welcome, just sayin
(i try to be fandom neutral when it comes to hug gifs, but will always provide one from a specific fandom if desired)
*contented sigh*
I started re-re-re-re(?)-watching last week and intend to spend Hurricane Weekend finishing it.
This chicken hug is also getting me through the day. <3
Big hug
Infinite hugs to you!
All the hugs. I hope things improve for you soon.
All the hugs to you.
Sends you many hugs.
Hello, Toast comments, who I have not seen in a while. I have been taking lots of sewing classes and I made a skirt (Colette Zinnia, in a blue floral lawn) and I’m working on a bag that will be a bike pannier (Colette Cooper). It’s a hobby that I’m not very good at yet but I’m going to keep working at it until I am awesome (gonna build up those perseverance muscles.) Anyone else doing Cool Sewing (or other craft) projects?
I had a great project cut and laid out last weekend and then had a nasty argument with my serger. We’re still not speaking.
I’m setting up my sewing room! I painted it last weekend! I’ve been working on tassel buntings for above the windows! I’m hitting ikea on Saturday for odds and ends! I’m so excited!
I can’t wait until I have a place big enough for a sewing/crafting room! I’m so excited for you. TASSEL BUNTINGS
Oh, the rest of my house is still a mess but my sewing room will be lovely! Priorities!
Woo! I’ve just started sewing recently and I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t had access to the sewing machine I’ve been using for the past couple weeks, but I’m already scheming for the next round. I really like the Colette Cooper! I’m biking way more than I used too (obsessed with my new bike) and I need bag options that aren’t my school backpack. I’m eyeing the messenger bag option.
Ahh how exciting! With the Cooper, the satchel version can be clipped onto a bike rack! I’m doing the satchel version but I’m going to add a removable messenger bag strap. 🙂
I’ve been doing a lot of knitting lately and I just got fabric to make a lined tote bag. The lining will be an adorable dinosaur print! Now I just need to actually sit down and make it.
I love cute dinosaur print fabrics!
Fantastic! I took adult beginner sewing lessons a couple of years ago and I’m still working my way up to clothing. I made a messenger bag a couple of weeks ago that turned out okay but I’m not in love with it. It’ll do me until we get our Toast totes, anyway. My next mission is to start working on zippers.
I started knitting those HWAET socks and then screwed them up, had to start over, and have not yet started over. Sometime…
I’m also making a skirt! I have got as far as cutting out the pattern pieces, but then the start of the semester happened and I’m super scared of failing this year, so that’s taking up most of my time._It’s going to be a half-circle skirt in pretty pink and orange cotton. I wanted to make a full circle, but that would have meant spending £30 on material :/_I don’t have a lot of experience, but if all else fails I suppose I can call my mother, who is awesome at sewing (among other things). The biggest challenge will be putting in a zip, which I’ve never done before._Wishing everyone good luck with their projects!
If you find yourself super intimidated by the zipper, I highly recommend sewing it in by hand. There’s a nice tutorial for hand-picked zipper insertion here.
I totally second this! I fit my first zip by machine and it was pretty much of a shitshow; the second I did by hand and it was one of my proudest moments. It looked SO GOOD. The rest of the skirt was lumpy- bumpy but the zip was immaculate and I felt proud as hell. Give yourself the gift of a hand- picked zip!
I made a little makeup bag with a zipper recently and it was way simpler than I expected. I was very scared, but managed just fine (though it is a little wonky, I will admit).
I just today subscribed to Seamwork online magazine and got my two patterns for the month. I chose Oslo and Akita. I’m super excited to try out both of them.
Ah cool! I just subscribed last month and I am excited for the change they made. I’m not sure what patterns I’ll be getting this month, but I’m excited!
It was the change in how they are doing the patterns that made me subscribe. I’d been on the fence for a while and that tipped me over the edge. I”m waiting to hear back from the campus printing office on what their prices are for large format printing so I can just have them print the patterns and I don’t have to tape together 30 pieces of paper.
I find hand sewing and darning meditative and relaxing, and machine stitching to be the opposite. As a friend once said, “It’s like de-bugging code, only with a ruler, hot iron and rotary cutter. The swearing is the same.” Hand stitching takes eleventybillion years though, so definitely not a plan for completing a lot of things.
Considering sewing an Alice in Wonderland dress for my two year old for her birthday/Halloween. Too ambitious? I’m scared. But also not paying $85 for one off etsy. Stubborn > scared.
I am preparing wool to spin during Spinzilla next week. So much wool. I dyed a pile of it blue, pink, and purple and have carefully blended it into a smooth gradient.
Are there any other Toastie spinners?
I think there is something interesting about how there is always a call after school shootings not to “politicize” the issue. Because of what I think it says about politics — like, politics isn’t a tool that we use to get things done, it’s some kind of game about who’s better. “You can’t use this issue in order to pass reform to prevent it from happening again, are you some kind of monster?” doesn’t make any sense but, “You can’t use this issue to win points in our game!” totally does.
I always mentally replace that phrase with “let’s depoliticize this.”
I dunno, I think we need different words for electoral politics & politics as in power structures.
These are the people who fail to understand the political is personal on a very basic level.
I read a bit, a while back, about how generally voters are either voters who believe that elections and politics are meant to specifically do things, and voters who believe that voting is about affirming a personal or a political identity. I don’t want to demonize all Republicans, but Republicans tend to believe in politics as a tool of identity — that’s why they’re convinced that black people only want to vote for other black people, women only vote for other women, &c.
Very well said!
My poor daughter. She had an assignment on Monday to look up a “newspaper” article about “somebody’s character”. It didn’t matter if it was a dog rescuing a cat from a fire, it just had to be about character. I said, “how about the volkswagen scandal? How about how a woman running for president is lying about planned parenthood? How about jeb bush?”. (she’s 12).. She asked, could we *please* find something that said something NICE about someone’s character?
The only thing I could find was the pope eating lunch with the homeless. Of course, we know what he did next, but it was all I had. In the middle of this, her teenage brother came into the room while I was listing things and said, “mom, you don’t have to make everything political!”. I bit my tongue, because I SO wanted to say “The personal IS POLITICAL” but I think that would have been too much for a Monday.
Very good point. If I ever die in some sort of horrible way that can be improved through policy please politicize the f*ck out of my death, thank you.
MAKE ME A SYMBOL.
This tweet always gets me about how f*ed up political debate around gun control is:
“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” https://twitter.com/dpjhodges/status/611943312401…
I think about this all the time.
There’s always hue and cry about politicizing these shootings.
“Let the dust settle, now’s not the time,” they’ll say.
But we have so many. We live in unsettled dust, choking us, forcing tears from our eyes.
It’s never time.
One of the best tweets I read today: It’s always “too early” to talk about gun policy because there has always just been another shooting.
Oh how is he so suave and so dweeby at the same time? Like the perfect ratios of each?
It is the most magical thing I know of in this muggle-y world
Today is not a good day.
cosigned.
Hey Toasties! It’s been a rough week for me, confidence-wise and I can’t express how much I’ve appreciated having this space to squee over Hamilton and GBBO with people. I’ve spent most of the days feeling like an utter failure at everything I try to do, so having a place where my thoughts are appreciated and valued has been awesome.
I also just can’t deal with the school shooting stuff because the last thing I need today is to deal with Tech memories, so let’s talk about GBBO and Hamilton and OMG IS ANYONE ELSE WATCHING “YOU’RE THE WORST” WHAT WAS WITH THE ENDING TO LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE?????
hoooooooold up, is season 2 of You’re the Worst on???? And NO ONE TOLD ME?
YES THERE HAVE BEEN FOUR EPISODES AND THEY’VE BEEN AMAZING AND I NEEEEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS SHOW BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS
!!!!
so upset I missed this/so excited I have four episodes to catch up on!
Sorry for the rough week *hugs*
I don’t watch GBBO, but I am ALSO glad to have someplace for my Hamilton squeeing. My fiance is bearing its constancy in our apartment with good grace, but I think most of the people I know are really sick of talking to me about it, and it is ALL I WANT TO TALK ABOUT.
So, Hamilton: There’s a bit that seems to me to be an Ed Sheeran reference (“We’ll get a little place in Harlem and we’ll figure it out”), but it could easily be that LMM and Sheeran are both referencing something else entirely, which honestly seems more likely to me, but if so, I don’t know what it is or how to find it.
This is not in any way important, but it’s been festering in my brain for a while.
That line feels like a reference to me too and I can’t figure it out, but I have never heard Ed Sheeran (he is a singer with Taylor Swift?), so my feeling of familiarity is not a reference to him.
Sheeran is a British singer/songwriter who toured with Taylor Swift for a while, he’s pretty famous in his own right. He does a LOT of covers, does a bit of improv in live shows, and there’s one song in particular that when he does it live (with a loop pedal) he may stretch the song out for a while (like, 20, 30 minutes), including adding mash-up style parts of other songs, mostly hip hop, in the middle. There are a few songs he goes to often (in da club, no diggity), but he will ALSO take into mind where he is (ie, Detroit is more likely to get Eminem).
Which is to say, Ed Sheeran knows hip hop better than I do.
The Sheeran bit I’m referencing is from his track “Don’t”:
“And those shows have never been what it’s about
But maybe we’ll go together and just figure it out”
The cadence of the line is *the*same*. I’m very confident it’s a reference. I’m just not convinced that LMM is referencing Sheeran over the theory of both of them referencing some other “figure it out” line in hip hop.
I have enjoyed vastly all the Hamilton discussion! Did you see on Lin’s twitter there IS going to be a Hamilton mixtape?
My mom bought us tickets to see Hamilton in January so I’ll be squeeing over the soundtrack until then.
I’m so sorry you’re feeling that way, and I can so relate. You’re not a failure. You are appreciated and valued.
I finished listening to Star Dance by Spider and Jeanne Robinson.
I enjoyed it although it posits a world in which a sufficiently amazing dance is capable of rendering it’s copyright holders private-space-station-rich which as far as Big Lies in sci-fi books may be the biggest leap I’ve ever been asked to indulge.
Also like I said in the open thread last week: Spider’s authorial voice being used to describe dance is kind of a trip.
I applied for the Buzzfeed Emerging Writers fellowship last night. I’ve been working on the application for ages and was getting pretty stressed about it so I’m very glad its done! Wish me luck! CAUSE I WANT REAL BAD.
Also, if by some miracle I do get the position, it will all be thanks to the Toast/Butter, who introduced me to the works of Ashley Ford who tweeted about the fellowship. So thanks!
Oh man, good luck!
In good news, the redesign is going to go live late on October 23rd, and be in full blossom for Monday the 26th, at which point we will run a very long and nerdy piece by the redesign team about how they did it, and what is involved in a project like this. I think it will be really interesting, and I am SO excited for you to see the bee-yooo-tiful new site that will run like a cheetah and not crash your shit.
Yay. Because it literally is crashing my desktop computer as I type this with my phone.
I’m looking forward to both the redesign and the long and nerdy piece! It’s like a behind-the-scenes DVD featurette.
Since Oct 23 is my bday I will consider it a gift. THANKS, TOAST!
Oct 26 is my bday and I’m also claiming it (happy birthday!)
The 26th is my birthday too, so happy birthday to us all!
SO EXCITED. Also so sympathetic to how hard a redesign is to do properly.
CHEETAHS!
Sorry, nothing to see here, just a big fan of cheetahs.
I like to imagine the British dude who thinks his train is very clever seeing a cheetah for the first time. They were the fastest thing on earth until the 19th century (falcons don’t count that’s falling with style)
Nerdy stuff = sexy stuff. I will be waiting with bated breath.
Btw, my Person is a QA software engineer, and things always go wrong, and sometimes they go very wrong, and usually when you fix what is wrong, six more things break, all while in the in the process of moving towards and in some ways going well, so don’t let it worry you. I’m sure it will be fantastic, and we will all be as patient as a group of rabid maenads can possibly be. <3
Any updates on when the tote bags will be available? Eh? Eh?
I am a QA/PM nerd and totally ready to read the big piece by my people!
Will I weep with joy? MAYBE.
I am having a combination sexuality, dating, and evangelical courtship bullshit related anxiety to the soundtrack of Hamilton along with the traditional job stress.
I think we need more information. And some champagne, maybe.
I have had 1 long term relationship (I’m 31) and it lasted less than a year. I might be bi or ace, and I used to be an evangelical calvinist kid who’s parents were a fan of duggar style courtship (Dad gets asked before you can go out on a date, dates have chaperones, not a lot of anything besides kissing (no tongues) before marriage etc.) before they realized I was way too shy to be of any concern.
Hamilton lyrics are stuck in my head which is unrelated, but deep down I need to start a revolution or at least learn to sing since musicals have made it clear that apparently it’s not a revolution without a catchy tune.
Also, maybe I’m just annoyed by like 90% of straight men, which means I’m not any sort of Bi or Ace, I’m just really easily annoyed and should get another cat.
I am a combination of eyeroll about straight men and bi, so that can also be a thing, too. I hate being dismissive and making generalizations, but, yeah, no with straight men. I suspect it’s common. You probably should get another cat anyway, for what it’s worth, because, cats.
More seriously, my partner was raised in a deeply religious household and it has had a massive impact on the relationship. To the degree that we eventually entered therapy because the fallout was impacting things so much and neither of us felt equipped to manage it and deal with being new parents. You have a lot of social training that’s shaping how you feel about the whole situation. It’s immense pressure, in what is already a pressure cooker of hormones and energetic tides and social pressures. Anxiety sounds completely reasonable as a response. So does a good soundtrack for your revolution.
I know you were kidding but a revolution is right on target. Really having a sense of breaking away and having a clean slate that you can create with as you please, and space to be patient and kind to yourself as you sort out what you want and how you feel, are pretty important. You’re in the midst of personal transformation – that’s powerful and scary and frustrating and flat-out weird, but it’s cool, and I am happy for you. Is there anyone around that you can download to, just so that how you feel doesn’t stay locked up in the same tail-chasing patterns all the time? I know my partner kind of lost not only family but entire social network when making the big break-away, but I recommend a therapist or a friend that loves you enough to stay neutral and just listen.
i originally read this as “sexuality, dating, &.courtship anxiety related to the soundtrack of Hamilton”, and was going to say “definitely do not do sexing, nor dating, nor accept courting from anyone who overly resembles any character in Hamilton!” Probably still good advice generally, even though it turns out not to be what you need….
SHHH, don’t mess with my secret crushes on historical figures.
I have avoided listening to the Hamilton soundtrack thus far because I just can’t be any more distracted this week than I already am. It is my bribe for the weekend.
However, I feel like you could basically be me on the sexuality frustration front and so you get ALL the hugs. I’m 27 and have hooked up with one girl twice ever. I know I am bi, and also recently figured out that I’m demi-romantic and probably demi-sexual? Or maybe just completely misanthropic, that’s definitely still on the table. Because the realization that I would have to actively try to make more friends in order to have a dating pool makes me want to never leave the house and my pjs again.
It’s a melancholy, overcast day but if you like dance, World Ballet Day is streaming live. National Ballet of Canada is on right now! 🙂
Yes!!!
Canadian politics/panic discussion? We seem to have reached that point in the campaign where suddenly the Conservatives are making a comeback and the NDP and Liberals are sniping at each other instead of tackling the Conservative record and it’s all utterly horrible.
I keep reminding myself that in 2010, all of the polls had Nenshi a long way from winning the Calgary mayoral election. And then he did. Because the people who answer polls are not the people he appealed to.
That is my hope as well!
NENSHI FOR PRIME MINISTER COULD WE DO THAT IS THAT A THING WE COULD DO
please let us do that thing Nenshi is awesome.
SO HORRIBLE. I get sinking dread in my gut every time I drive past a Conservative MP sign; they are everywhere and I am so friggin’ terrified Harper will get a majority again. It doesn’t matter that the list of objectively horrible things he has done grows and grows, the other parties refuse to work together and I was going to vote NDP but it looks like the Liberals in my riding will have a better chance of beating our pro-life incumbent (whose one notable act in parliament was to put forward a fetuses-are-human private member bill he calls “action toward human equality” *sob*), but oh man the vote is going to be split again and I don’t really like Tom Mulcair and oh goddddd
*explodes*
I know that feel. I drive past the rich person houses that have like a bajillion Conservative signs on my way to work and I wish I hard a large pointed stick to poke all the signs HEARTILY. Then I drive through the artist house area and it’s a sea of orange, and I’m hopeful until I see that the big Conservative weenie MP in that riding is winning and I’m WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY
On the bright side, the giant sign near my house for my local Libertarian candidate has been joined by a smaller sign promising a 15% flat tax. I guess they want to phase in their Libertarian paradise gradually? I dunno, it’s not like I’ve actually bothered to read their website.
Of course this is only the bright side because they have no chance.
Where are these guys coming from? There’s a Libertarian candidate in my riding too, and I had to double-take to confirm he wasn’t Green.
lalalalalala it isn’t happening.
I can only hope that the Cons starting to lead in the polls will just scare everyone into voting strategically
As a distraction from the upsetting news, here is some more of my friend Libby’s puppy, Marilyn Monroe, aka “Em”. Her current hobbies including playing with sticks (but only the ones that have leaves on them), running under the couch from one side to the other again and again, hiding under the ottoman, and crying a lot any time she is not being held.
HOW IS SHE SO TINY? WHO GAVE HER THE RIGHT? I am constantly offended by how tiny she is, clearly.
Noooooo soooo tinyyyyyyy oh my goddddddddddd
Literally my response every time she texts me a new pic. And every time she tells me that Em cries if she’s not being held I’m like HOLD HER GODDAMN IT. I’d be an awful puppy Mom.
all due respect to Nicole’s pro-big dog position, animals who are too tiny to exist are the bessssst
Today is not usually an open thread day or a day I visit the shelter pups, but both happened!
This is Riley. We met this morning. I want to adopt him so bad it’s problematic.
And the rest of the pups, who were all fantastic too.
Riley’s EARS
HOW DO YOU NOT TAKE THEM ALL HOME
NORMALLY I CAN MANAGE BUT RILEY IS GIVING ME PROBLEMS.
(It’s super hard I just keep repeating “my apartment is too small I don’t work regular hours I’m in grad school so I’m not home enough” and on and on and usually that works but sometimes it’s REALLY HARD.)
Don’t feel bad! Boyfriend adopted a dog AT THE BALLPARK a few weeks ago because “I don’t know, something happened to me.”
He went to a game and came home with a dog?
Yup! Our local Humane Society brings some shelter pups to each game, and you can adopt them right there. We usually stop by and scruff them and then carry on, but this time, one of them really tugged his l’il heartstrings. So, boyfriend has a new dog:� �https://instagram.com/p/7UOCx7NnRm/
Oh no that face. I don’t think I’d be able to resist either, and I’m not a terrier person.
RIGHT?!?! And it turns out that she’s incredibly well-behaved, loves to play fetch and tug-of-war, and bonded to Boyfriend in under 24 hours. She likes me ok, scruffy little muppet.
Oh man that’s a great face. I would have a hard time leaving her too.
Apparently I have a type when it comes to dogs, and it’s black and white smooth-coated border-collie-looking mutts with white socks and a white tail tip and black spots on their noses. If Riley had just a dash more pit bull, he’d look exactly like my pup.
Aww, my childhood dog was a border collie mix! My mom recently sent me a bunch of baby/childhood pictures, so I finally have photos of her again (she didn’t look at all like Riley, but I won’t hold it against him).
Wretched beautiful precious treasure! I WAAAAANNNNTTTT ONE!
SAAAAAAAME, every text she sends kills me and yet I NEED ALL THE PICS OF HER.
Here is my equally tiny kitten, Goldy LoveCat.
I’m sorry, that must be photoshopped, it’s too cute for this world!
He’s super cute.. I promise not a bit of photoshop! He also does the ‘Puss in Boots’ look from Shrek.
oh god! so adorable! <3 <3 <<<<<heart-eyes>>>>>
It’s really cruel of you to post things like that if you are not also on my doorstep with said fluffbomb so that I may snoogle him to even tinier bits. Orange stripey cats forevvvveeeerrrr!
YOU. ARE. KIDDING ME!!!
This level of adorable is UNPOSSIBLE
And the big paws!
You stop that. YOU STOP IT TINY FELINE! I can’t own one of you because everyone but me is allergic in this house. AND I JUST WANT YOU TO KNEAD MY LEG WITH YOUR STUPID ADORABLE PAWS. THIS STUPID HOUSE! GAH! (I love you tiny kitten. I’m sorry if my stridency via internet startled you)
I almost hit “report” instead of “like” but tbh either of those are appropriate bc that amount of cuteness and tininess is NOT RIGHT
omg those are my hobbies tooooooooooooooo!!
I am also offended by her tiny, tiny perfection. It’s disgusting. I can’t even cope with it. I should probably hold her. I could come by this evening.
I too have a Tiny Dog! Most of my pictures don’t show how small she is, but she is adorable and friendly, and weighs only 4 lbs, even if the mailman is claiming she attacked him THROUGH A GLASS DOOR so he can force our building to get community mailboxes. #$%&*(#$%$@$%*+(&%$^&Mailman
She has youtube videos, which I cannot embed, but this is the playlist: https://youtu.be/dE-1UhPD36A?list=PLhQdzLcrNpOPmu…
You can always find more on Twitter/Instagram with #TrixieMcPixie
Our landlord’s property manager at work has an English mastiff, and I have genuine trouble accepting the size of his head as real, to go in the other direction. I think each of his paws is almost as big as Em.
Okay so Toby isn’t that tiny (13 lbs or so) but have a pic of my baby anyway. He lives with my mother (who is the beloved Mommy) and if she tells him that Little Mommy is coming home he starts going to the door to look for me.
I’m having a long week (despite having both Monday and Tuesday off), so when I discovered that our taqueria has tres leches cake (what the third leche is, idk, but it’s got at least condensed milk and whipped cream, plus coconut on the top), I figured that was a treat I should give myself. Because I’ve been spotting for the entire 3-week run of my BCP pack, and I’m really fucking sick of it. Taking iron pills and eating iron-rich foods to keep my blood moving just makes it stronger, which continues the anemia, so that’s obnoxious. I can only slow the bleeding by being so anemic that my fingers keep going numb, which is not cool.
But hey, I have cake and a taco.
It’s usually evaporated milk: “the other canned milk!”
Well that health stuff sucks, but I remember the Tres Leches cake that my uncle used to make and ngngngnngngngnngngng.
May I join you in anemia hatred? I was all set to have dinner at an actual sushi place, but nope! Nothing but heaps of spinach and greasy dining-hall beef for four days!
Fortunately, I keep a jar of blanched, chopped kale in the freezer for just such occasions, and will make my sweet potato/kale cakes for dinner tonight (in the cast iron skillet, because that should also help).
Are the iron rich foods red meat and leafy greens? Anyone have any iron deficiency magical advice? Because I need to do better. I’m stuck in a cycle where iron pills give me unfortunate stomach issues, I stop taking them, I get bloodwork done and promise start taking them again…
I’m also interested!
I just tried iron pills for the first time this past week (the slow-release ferrous sulfate ones), and ended up hurling all night. 🙁
I started using my cast iron pans for cooking more often and that helped. It’s not a magical fix all, but maybe it can help you over the baseline?
I also take flintstones chewable vitamins with iron because I’m awful at swallowing pills.
I’ve hard marginally better luck with FeraMax, which is a coated version that’s supposed to break down in the intestines rather than the stomach. Also, taking your iron source with something containing vitamin C helps promote its absorption. So OJ wth your steak and leafy greens.
Well, I’m taking iron supplements, but I’m also trying to keep the red meat and green leafy vegetable levels up. One thing I’m trying to focus on is cooking in a cast iron skillet as much as I can, to keep iron even in the iron-poor food. Also, citric acid aids in iron absorption, so if you include, say, lime juice in a vinaigrette for your kale salad, it helps your body maximize the iron content of your food.
when I lost a lot of blood from a miscarriage, my midwife told me to take chlorophyll capsules. LOTS at a time, untill your poop is blackish green. Wash them down with orange juice for extra iron processing power. Apparently all your body has to do is swap out the copper from the center and replace it with iron to get an entire hemoglobin cell, so it’s much faster at rebuilding your blood stores. I was better in days. Be careful if you have pollen allergies, though. Lots of chlorophyll is made from alfalfa, which cross reacts. If you need a non-alfalfa source, make sure your chlorophyll comes from spirulina or blue-green algae.
When I was on the pill and spotting, they told me to double up my dose for two or three days and sure enough, that stopped it. (if I were you, I’d see if the pharmacist would fill your next month’s scrip a little early and see if you could skip the placebo days while you get the bleeding under control first)
I’m kinda down because I didn’t get rostered for what could have been my first roller derby bout this weekend, but if any Atlanta area people are interested in watching some hot man-on-man derby action on Saturday, you should come out.
I can’t come this weekend, but I will try to make it to a bout soon! (Also I think I may know someone who plays with you, assuming he still does it!)
Hopefully you will get rostered for next weekend. Good luck!!
Alas, it’s not that simple. We typically play once a month at best and this is the last game of the season. It will be late February at the earliest before everyone starts playing again.
Oh, blargh. Well, that sucks. I am crossing my fingers for you for February then. That’s a good month for violence and bloodshed in the name of fun, right?
Me, a couple days ago: “hey I’m concerned about this flaw in our process, what do”
US team lead: “good question, let me ask UK team lead”
US TL, next day: “she hasn’t gotten back to me, I’ll poke her”
US TL, next day: “she still hasn’t gotten back to me”
UK TL, this morning: “FLAW DISCOVERED IN PROCESS AFFECTING UK TEAM”
Me: ok this affects the US team too, how should we handle it
US TL: here’s my answer based on what UK TL said
UK TL: here’s my answer, it’s the opposite of what US TL said lol
Me: f this *goes on Twitter*
I work in the US office of a British company and I feel this so hard.
I’m thinking of taking a coding course in the new year. I’m not sure why, but I feel like it’s something I should learn. But I also feel like people say “coding!” with the enthusiasm of that guy in The Graduate who informs Benjamin he should go into “Plastics!” A friend asked me what I wanted to make. And I was like: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’d like to make a game, actually. A scrolling style game where the little character squashes MRAs as they jump out of bushes and pop out of the ground. Kind of like Tampon Run.
My library has a partnership with Treehouse so I’ve been taking some coding classes through them. I like some of the teachers better than others but I’ve still been able to grasp the concepts despite not being a STEM person. It might be worth looking to see if your library has something similar.
Why not go try playing with Scratch? It’s free and a very gentle introduction, and you can make lil games with it.
https://scratch.mit.edu/
Once you’re comfortable with that, there is a fun free online class from Coursera that teaches Python through game making. I have volunteered as a teaching assistant with it before, that is how much I like it. Go to Coursera.org and search for An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python. It’s in two parts.
Check out some links on Games Are For Everyone — you might be able to get started right away, or at least you might be able to figure out what tools you’re interested in (and thus maybe coding languages you should look into), or if there are any specific topics that are roadblocks.
Being familiar with code is definitely something useful for game making — even though there’s some game software out there that doesn’t require any programming knowledge, there’s still usually a way to peek under the hood and get into code that might allow you to wire things up differently than you’d be able to otherwise, and a lot of the software I’ve seen is set up visually similarly to a lot of (non-gaming) development software, so being familiar with how those are organized can be helpful.
Would definitely play this game.
Oooooh. I am code-ignorant beyond the very basics of HTML but a gamer who thinks she should be able to program, so I am unreasonably excited on your behalf. And relate to the “feel like it’s something [I] should learn” thing.
Plus, having something you want to go, however humble a game you think it is, will make the learning process much easier. Guarantee.
OH, I am definitely getting a dog, in case you don’t follow me on Twitter. I am going to name her Sansa, and I think I might have her by Christmas, and she is going to weigh, like, 120 pounds by adulthood, and I am going to do everything in my power to make her pair-bond with me instead of my husband, as is my lifelong dream.
I am so excited for you!!!!!
My spouse and I are in near-constant discussions about whether to get a dog. We both desperately want one, but we also have an extremely elderly and furious cat who hates everything, plus finances are tight, so we keep saying we’ll wait, but in the meantime, my soul is clearly empty and devoid of joy. Ugh.
I hate when my soul (and finances, and cats) are like that. I hope it resolves in good ways, in good time.
So what you’re saying is brace ourselves for an onslaught of daily puppy pictures in the Link Roundup?
it’ll be so hard though
Yes. It will be literally all I do.
I AM SO READY FOR THIS.
You just need to find another dog whose name is Brienne and then you can have an epic dog wedding hosted by Janeane Garofalo.
Absurdly huge dogs are the only type of dogs worth having (FIGHTING WORDS). No, but my friends have a Newfie and he is incredible. His head is like a boulder. I love him.
Here for advice on the pair-bonding.
I begged my husband for our dog. BEGGED. Researched the breed, found the breeder (yes, breeder… in my defense, she was an older dog they wanted to rehome and not a puppy), negotiated the price, and signed her up for obedience classes.
The dog is ALL about him. I’m totally chopped liver.
Our daughter is also an extreme Daddy’s Girl. (After how sick I was during my pregnancy with her, *grump*.)
I may or may not sulk about this from time to time. (I also may or may not revel in slightly-malicious glee about it when they both demand all his attention at the same time because Mom Won’t Do.)
Are you me? Because you are definitely having my life. Well, except sub in two cats who actually lived with me BEFORE he did. Ingrates!
Time for a gratuitous posting of my 120 lb girl, Tuva, who believes that my husband is God and I am a convenient playmate/ ear-massager.
It’s an old photo, but we got a winter storm so she’s been doing this all week:
EEEE! In my experience, if you do most of the walks and as many of the feedings as you can, you’ll have a head start. (My dog switches allegiances based on these metrics.) But once when my spouse was tickling me and I was yelping, my dog got into his face and barked once, loudly, and then leaned in for a hug which means we have a special bond, I think. And my pup is a mere 75 lbs, but he’s almost as tall as me when he’s standing on his legs. Big dogs are very special.
My Ali would have heartily approved, and for the record, bonding with a boxer mix involved, like, a few rawhides and the occasional slipping of some green beans under the table. But you have little kids, so unless you can commit to dropping more food on the floor at mealtimes than they do, Sansa will love them more.
My sister’s Border Terrier is basically more her familiar than a pet. One way she achieved this was by literally tethering herself to the dog with a leash in his early days, so they would never be more than 5 feet apart.
For anyone who missed it last open thread, one of our lovely commentariat started a Toasties group for the “How Writers Write Fiction” MOOC that has been running sponsored posts on the site for the last week. It has been going swimmingly so far! Let me know if you have trouble finding it and I’ll link you.
I’m rubbish at human interaction in all its many forms but I would like very much to lurk there with you all and bask in your collective brilliance. Link please?
Yes! You are welcome to join in whatever capacity you’e comfortable with. https://novoed.com/how-writers-write-fiction-2015…
The joy and gratitude with which I greet Surprise Open Thread is a wee bit demoralizing. One day I would like to think “aw, I missed Open thread because I was too involved in meaningful work and not desperately refreshing the same five websites.” ONE DAY.
Anyone else having a great time watching Peeple go up in spectacular flames? I want to ignore it because I suspect it will fade into obscurity next week, but I also hate it for representing yet another damn tech “innovation” whose founders and funders just straight-up cannot fathom any problems with.
One day I would like to think “aw, I missed Open thread because I was too involved in meaningful work and not desperately refreshing the same five websites.”
I am actually skipping my lunch break to party with y’all. So….
The only reason I’ve read the articles about Peeple, rather than just relying on the blurbs about it, was to double-check to see if any of the founders were actually the mean girls I knew in middle school. Not to knock on middle school girls, but the premise of that app is pretty much the 2015 version of one of those shitty fake games I remember “playing” with the other girls in 6th-8th grade, that really just amounted to a circle of girls heaping verbal abuse on one another.
right??? and the founders’ response sounds like what you say when the teacher tells you to stop being so nasty.
I should so totally be doing homework right now for it is due in 2 hours and yet…here I am
I feel you about the desperately refreshing the same websites. (Oh, do I ever.) But at the moment I actually have nothing but warm and pleasant feelings for surprise!openthread. Such nice feelings, y’all.
You have five whole websites you refresh? Aw, man.
With you on the joy + gratitude +demoralized. I made my first top-level Open Thread post today and I massively overshared, so Imma throw in some embarrassment and squirmy, uncomfortable hope.
Peeple made me go up in spectacular flames, but I recovered. Sometimes the whole internet just makes me facepalm for minutes and minutes at a time.
Guys, LIFE IS A RICH TAPESTRY
I can’t pick my favorite part – the guy who wants to nickname himself “Turquoise Dude”? The host himself? The part where they all whip out cameraphones to film the dryer?
It makes me so happy.
“When I came across the club, I was like, ‘Oh my god there’s more people like me’, you know, and it was really nice.”
This is amazing.
“THERE’S THAT BURPING ACTION”
THE GUYS TAKING PICTURES OF THE MACHINES WASHING.
I might have watched the entire thing with this expression:
Wow, that was amazing. It’s some kind of mega ultra dadpocalypse?
I have so many questions. So many.
1. There is NO COMMENT on how literally every single one of these hobbyists, and also the reporter, are 40-70 years old white men. The voiceover says “what could make completely normal people collect washing-machines” (or something like that), still without mentioning that there’s no one of colour and no women EVEN THOUGH doing laundry is usually stereotyped as female. Why is everyone white and male?
2. Do these guys wash all their family’s laundry? If not, why not?? Do they just have a million washing-machines at home that they don’t even use??? What do their wives say????
3. Yesterday I was poking around in PubMed trying to find some kind of definition of what a “restricted interest” (as a symptom of autism spectrum disorders) actually is, bc I’m seeing crap like middle-aged psychologists assuming that teenagers who play a lot of computer games are displaying “restricted interests”, even though practising a computer game isn’t inherently more “restricted” than practising a sport. I mean, if they spent all their waking hours swimming or playing the guitar nobody would have a problem, it’s called the autism spectrum not the uncoolness spectrum, etc (note: I’m severely uncool, unlike many people with autism). Anyway, in the DSM they don’t really give any details, except a few examples like being “preoccupied with vacuum cleaners”. And I thought of that while watching this video, and while it’s possible that some laundry enthusiasts may be non-neurotypical, it’s totally being presented as being a “normal” though slightly quirky hobby for “normal” people, and what even is normal anyway
Oh thank you for this. I love it and I want to know so much more about these dudes.
I just wanted you to know I watched this again today AND sent it to a friend. THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this.
Oh I’m so glad the joy is being shared!
OH SHIT HI EVERYONE. I got married and it was great. 10/10 would wed again.
YEEEEEEEAAAAAA! Cheers to you both!
Congratulations!
Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaats!!!
CONGRATS!!!
S U P E R G R A T Z
Happy for you!
Hello, Toast! Spouse and I went to a couples’ counselor for the first time this week! It was scary at first, but she is awesome and very progressive and LGBT-friendly and stuff, so I felt very comfortable. I’m very proud of spouse for starting the process of dealing with his mom’s death ten years ago, too! I’m hopeful we can get to a good point where he can unpack what he wants from his career with what he feels like he needs to prove to his dead mom, and we can both be on board with next steps. Whew.
Oh this is great news!! xoxox
We just hit the one year mark for therapy, and it’s been all kinds of awesome. Love it. Good luck to you!!
WHAT A CRAPPY WEEK IT HAS BEEN
This gif is all I’ve texted this week.
In case you want some variety.
yes.
AMEN
YES. Starting Saturday night actually for me.
oh man dancercise. I spilled an entire cup of coffee in my purse on my (LATE) way out the door yesterday morning, and if you are a toastie who knows me irl you 100% know it’s me because I lamented the SHIT out of my fucked morning allllll dayyyyyyyy.
AND YES. what a crappy week. at least now it’s feeling like fall and that’s good.
Last week a freak snowstorm dumped nine inches of snow on my town, and yesterday another freak snowstorm dumped another eleven inches on us, and school got canceled FOR SNOW which never, ever happens here, and something like 15,000 homes lost power because of trees falling on powerlines. (I just looked out my window and there is a dude unicycling around the campus, through the snow. Show-off.) So on the one hand, yay, yesterday was a snow day (I teach at the university), but on the other hand I was snowed in with no power and no cellphone service whatsoever, and my cabin is dark at the best of times. I got up yesterday morning and I was like, okay, I got this, I have a propane stove and wood heat, everything is under control, I put water on to boil for my coffee – and then I realized I had a bag of coffee beans and an electric coffee grinder and no electricity. So there was wailing and gnashing of teeth for a few minutes, and then I wrapped coffee beans in paper towels and hit them with a hammer and woke up my neighbor across the wall. And now everything is supposedly back to normal – people are going to work, classes have started up again – but my house is still dark and it just feels like I shouldn’t have to do anything.
What! Where do you live?? Are you in the Northern Hemisphere?
Fairbanks, Alaska! This is weird, even for us. Usually we don’t get snow until mid-October, and there’s not this much of it, and it’s not this wet and heavy. It’s weighing down all the poor birch trees that didn’t have time to shed all their leaves, and they’re breaking and landing on power lines.
Maybe try grinding your coffee beans with like a cheese grater or a microplaner?
I have a completely skewed comprehension of what it’s like to live so far north thanks to being in the due South fandom, but I was under the impression that everyone who lived north of, say, Toronto, just does things like that as a matter of course.
OMG another Fairbanks toastie?!?!?!?! HI!!!! I work at UAF too!
Hi! What department are you in? I’m an adjunct in the English department.
I’m in management and budget, but I know a few of the English folks (Eric is on my husband’s committee, and I work with Sarah’s husband through governance). Such a small world!
I went to UAF! How are they doing with plows and getting the roads cleared? I remember just dealing with snowpack on the roads and sidewalks, and I hope they have some plan in place.
Stay safe!
The main roads are pretty good by now, mostly because it’s still so warm the ice is melting right off them. But I tried walking the dog yesterday on a little side road that doesn’t get much traffic, and not only had it not been plowed, there were so many trees down we couldn’t get more than a few yards.
Amazon sells great little Japanese coffee grinders for grinding coffee beans by hand. Mine cost about $25. It takes under a minute to grind up enough beans for my coffee-maker… and it is nice to know you’re good for coffee even if the electricity goes out.
Good to know! I may have to invest in one.
When we moved out to the exurb’s where the power goes out all the time, I stocked up on vintage coffee grinders. They are 100% worth all the space they take up in your cupboard.
My grandma had an old fashioned coffee grinder (not unlike this and we were absolutely entranced with it. Plus, no electricity!
GUYS IM STILL TRYING TO BUY A HOUSE and I feel very blah about everything I’ve seen except the house we got waaaaay outbid on a few wks back. I mean, I’ve only been seriously looking for a month, and I know its a process, and yet and yet…. I found a place I LOVED this afternoon and somehow neglected to see its $800k+ pricetag– WHAT?! How wealthy do you have to be to have a home large enough for 2 adults + dog who like to entertain occasionally???
In other news, the east coast may get a few hurricane days next week. Is there some kind of protocol I should be aware of?
I am also trying to buy a house and it seems like that answer to your question is approximately half a million dollars. It makes me sad and anxious – where am I going to live?!?! Where is everyone else getting all their money?!
WHERE IS EVERYONE ELSE GETTING ALL THEIR MONEY INDEED
I am also trying to buy a house and I keep making the mistake of looking at houses that will make my commute longer and more annoying than I’d like it to be. I keep thinking there must be some way I can filter things out to stop seeing houses that will break my heart, but the threshold for terribleness doesn’t really follow any kind of zip code/town boundary. Yesterday I saw a house that was pretty much perfect, but I drove there at an off-peak time, and I’m kind of afraid of how bad it will be when I drive there today after work. I really wish I had just gotten the house I fell in love with back in February, but I wasn’t convinced I was ready to buy back then. Every other house is dumb and terrible and stupidly-located in comparison to that first house.
every other house IS dumb and terrible and stupidly-located in comparison to my first love *cough* HOUSE as well…
Well, here where I live, you’d just have to be wealthy enough to swing $150k… but of course the job market here is dreadful, so there’s that. My sympathies – it’d be really fantastic if jobs could just somehow redistribute themselves so everyone could have access to reasonably priced housing.
Good luck! I was exactly where you are about a month ago and now I’m less than 2 weeks from closing (but paranoid it could all fall through at any moment and I’ll be right back to where you are – it almost did last week when I read the terrifying HOA bylaws, but then I was convinced by a bunch of people that HOA bylaws are always terrifying, but also always ignored, which is totally logical and not at all worrying). It’s a shitty, difficult process but hopefully at the end of it all will be a home you really love. My fingers are crossed for you.
Continual Hamilton Madness thread?
Today in my geology lab we were analyzing metamorphic rocks, and when I picked up a probable gneiss sample, the earworm attacked: It must be gneiss, it must be gnei-iss…
I’ve been humming it to myself all day. It’s the only thing that kept me sane as I had to individually scan like 50 different photographs, and then scan them all again because I did it wrong the first time.
I made this and I can’t stop and I’M NOT SORRY
I adore you
I finally changed my ringtone. (Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now.)
That refrain has been stuck in my head alllll day, tempted to also make it my ringtone now…
I was internetting, and about ten minutes ago, I thought, “I’m missing something. What is it? OH, I can listen to Hamilton again now!” time for the sixth or seventh relisten.
I’m currently dying over how Angelica says “May you always be satisfied” in her toast, right before it rewinds and we find out the significance of it. Angelica <3
I am taking an online defensive driving course for work. I have always been taking an online defensive driving course for work. It has been 3 hrs so far. I may still be taking it during tomorrow’s open thread.
What’s the most exciting thing you get to do between now and noon tomorrow? Mine is finish the damn course. And hang with my friend who is bringing me flowers that were left over from an event.
I am going to the Night Market for the first time! I am not sure what a Night Market is, nor whether I will enjoy it as a person with very little disposable income at this time, but it sounds mysterious and fun and is taking place near my gentleman friend’s house, so.
Night Markets are AWESOME and involve lots of cheap and delicious food, in my experience. I went to the ones in Richmond, BC, if that provides any useful context for you.
In theory my new coffee maker gets delivered today!! I’ve been coffee maker-less since mine broke Monday morning and it has been a miserable few days.
Lol, I just opened this to say that after work I am going to go buy a new coffee maker because last week I somehow swiped mine off the counter and it broke into a billion pieces. There are few things more satisfying than purchasing housewares.
Hopefully the new Hark! A Vagrant and Beartato books I ordered will arrive, and I’ll get to read them! If that doesn’t happen, there’s always leftover pizza (best pizza: fig jam, caramelized onions, blue cheese, granny smith apples, and mozzarella).
Watch the Steelers lose to the Ravens with their new Turd Sandwich quarterback (he replaces the Giant Douche).
I grew up outside of Pittsburgh so the steelers were my NFL team by default but now I just want them to crash and burn.
I’m…trying to understand the effectiveness of a driving course where you don’t actually…get…to…drive?
What’s the most exciting thing you get to do between now and noon tomorrow?
Be in the house by myself all evening while the Burgomaster is entertaining a visiting scholar. YESSSSSSSSSSS
Oh my god I am so jealous of your empty house. MrChouffe’s mother is halfway into a two-week stay in our house and I’m about to lose my shit.
If anything you should be questioning any driving tests that emphasizes tape players as sources of distraction… Yeah, I got nothing out of that.
TAPE PLAYERS
My favorite coworker is taking me out for a drink after work today, for reasons of shitty life events but it’s still very nice of her and I’m gonna have to reign in (again) the crush I have always had on her.
And then I am going to bury myself in my third playthrough of Dragon Age Inquisition and not think about anything real, which is REALLY the most exciting thing.
I’m told there are mods by which your female Inquisitor can romance Cassandra, should you so desire. I dunno if that brightens your day, but it brightened mine.
I did know about that! I play on Xbox, so no modding for me (or at least I don’t know how), but my second playthrough was as a dude expressly for the purpose of romancing Cassandra. She is the best.
The longest online course I was ever required to take for work was eight hours of learning how to survive being taken hostage and/or escape your kidnappers and survive in the wild. I somehow retained very little information other than quite possibly the least inspirational quote ever, which I decided I had to copy-paste and save forever: “Mother nature may seem like it is out to get you; however, she could not care less whether you live or die.”
Oh my god, what is your job?
Hahaha, I’m an underpaid admin assistant.
It’s just that the mandatory training for travel is kind of hardcore when you’re traveling overseas as part of the Dept of Defense and for some reason, they managed to decide that the admin subcontractor was a necessary member of a team going to a not-totally-safe country for two weeks.
Seconding bird_internet’s question.
…… are you Liam Neeson?
You can tell us, we promise we’ll be cool. (freaks out)
I WISH. IF ONLY.
Eating macaroni and cheese, probably? And/or compulsively check my email for glimmers of new-job hope. Nothing too terribly interesting at all.
Mmmm, mac and cheese.
Now I know what I want for dinner!
I get to take a helicopter to work! It will involve far more waiting around than actual flyin time, but, HELICOPTER!!! Such excite.
I just had the following e-mail exchange with my mother, and I wanted to share it.
My sisters and I are all in the path of the hurricane this weekend, so Mom sent us all an e-mail with instructions on how to drive in flood conditions. The first two items were “Pay attention to barricades. Don’t ignore them by driving past them.”
I wrote, “I’m amused and kind of concerned that the first item on this list of advice is ‘Don’t ignore barricades.'”
Mom replied, “Beyond the barricades is there a world you long to see? ..…NO!”
Awesome. WELL PLAYED MOM.
My mom has been blowing up my inbox today with multiple emails all titled “Another helpful hurricane hint from Your Mother.”
They are all things I have known to do for 10 years. (Basically since Katrina. :/)
Today is just a sucky day! October better get its act together. I’m stuck at home with a tiny trickle of internet, waiting for the internet repair person to get here “between 8 and 5”.
Also I made a dumb mistake at work that someone else found, and is going to set a project back a couple weeks, and I had to send apologetic emails, very slowly, using my trickle of internet. No one is mad at me, which is nice, but I feel so stupid!!
What a shitty combination of things.
That gif is scarily close to my own facial expression 🙂
Thanks for the sympathy!
Toasties, I am having my first new-apartment dinner party tomorrow night. It’s actually the first “large-ish group” dinner I’ve ever done solo (there are eight people coming) and there’s a small possible chance of drama. It’ll be a squeeze… I am a little nervous. Words of advice please?
I’m making lamb and aubergine stew, with orzo and cavolo nero – http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/slow-c…
and A FREAKING RED WINE CHOCOLATE CAKE – http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/09/red-wine-c…
I’m doing the cake tonight and I just had to run to the store halfway through making to get vanilla (I am an idiot), I have to do SO MUCH CLEANING tomorrow. Aaaaaaaaargh
Taking advantage of the now open bottle of red and bingeing on Buffy to make it all go away
That sounds delicious!
Thanks!
Holy shit that cake sounds amazing.
Can confirm it’s the greatest (once you have all the ingredients), I’ve made it before and it’s kind of sacred to me. Serve it with mascarpone and raspberries and cry.
Also confirming that I have made that cake and it is so, so good! Yum!
That is my favorite cake of all time; I make it for myself each year for my birthday. I always forget how emotional that post makes me though, and I always end up crying on my birthday. All the feels. All the delicious cake.
Toast, I have an extremely embarrassing health problem right now that is very scary to me. Please share with me that I am not the only person to go to the doctor with a mortifying concern and that I probably will not die.
GET THEE TO A DOCTOR. It’s going to be okay. Hugs xx
You are probably not going to die and your doctor has almost certainly dealt with weirder shit! I’m a grad student at a school with a large med school and I went to the doctor because I was pretty sure I was fine but also terrified that I was actually dying and she was just like “don’t worry, the med students always show up thinking they have whatever weird disease they’re studying at the moment. They never do.” I also semi-recently had to go to student health for emergency contraception, which I wasn’t particularly proud of, and it was one of the chillest and nicest appointments I’ve had. You’ll be fine!
(Daughter of a nurse here). Don’t worry, doctors and nurses have seen and heard it all, and won’t judge. They really have. They’ll just be glad that you came in for help. Best wishes!
I am here to tell you that doctors, nurses, and pretty much everyone who works with people and their bodies has seen such /incredible bananagrams shit*/ in their careers that your issue probably won’t even make them blink. Leaf through any dermatology textbook. You’ll see. And yes, you’re probably not going to die. I hope you get a caring doc who gives you good answers and things get less scary soon!
*frequently it is literal shit that will then be discussed in detail, because healthy pooping is important
Remember there was that dude who live-tweeted his ER trip to get the not-designed-for-anal-play toy out of his butt? You’re gonna be okay.
And that’s probably a pretty unremarkable event for the ER staff.
My friend who is a nurse has many stories of things in butts. (Her favorite, FYI, is the guy who had a lube bottle stuck up there. OH BUDDY. So close, and yet, so far).
Married to a doctor here. No matter how gross or embarrassing your problem is, the doctor has seen 10X worse. I tell myself, but cannot confirm, that it’s the same thing with plumbers and exterminators. (Our exterminator is so cute! But he probably thinks I live in squalor.)
I went to the doc for something embarrassing once, and she assured me she sees it at least once a month. So don’t feel bad!
You’re going to be okay, and you’re doing the right thing. Go, go, go! Make that appointment now if you have not already!
Plus: I doubt it’s the weirdest thing they have seen, and may not even be weirder than they have personally experienced. I mean, if you ever have a round table conversation about weird medical stuff, EVERYONE has a story, amirite?
Best of luck and comforting feelings to you!
In my own exprience… chatting with the cool nurse who was my age and knew a coworker of mine, while she inserted a catheter and drained my crazy full bladder because my first herpes outbreak had shut down my ability to relax those muscles: not a terrible experience, really. Hope yours is no worse and you get a good provider!
(BTW, not to freak anybody out. Herpes is not a big deal. What happened to me is really rare, and I barely get outbreaks anymore, with no ongoing treatment needed.)
I once tried to gross out one of my doctor friends. Turns out, it’s completely impossible, even with the mortifying and gross problem I had a couple of years ago that I won’t share here because during I couldn’t help but go “ew, ew, EEEEW” non-stop, and I don’t want to do that to you guys.
In other words: go! Your doctor will not judge you.
I’m not having a good pain day. I walked to the dumpster, and now my ankle is yelling. Which goes well with all the other angry joints. IDK, interwebs. Now closed practice was pretty sure that it the pain is something autoimmune, but I can’t afford much testing. I do know that it’s probs not RA, and that my brain looks fine. (Pretend that my gif worked “”I like being brainwashed. I have a clean brain, you can eat off it!”)
BAH, I say to it all. BAH
On a different note, I’m treating myself to a pre knitting group beer and baked potato. Because might as well
Do you have any GI problems? My brother had lots of joint pain before he was diagnosed with Crohn’s, probably not that, but none of his doctors recognized it as related and it would have been better to start him on treatment soon.
Feel better!
Thankfully no. Which is good as I have the eating habits of a gouty raccoon.
It is so beautiful here in South Central Indiana I feel we should only work when it rains.
When I’m in charge, early to mid-fall will be a national holiday.
Hmmm…Bloomington? If so, I agree, because the IU campus is so stupidly gorgeous in fall.
Pretty much always, but particularly in fall.
I wish I had money and people to feed because it is getting rather annoying to have a growing list of recipes I want to experiment with but end up eating Top Ramen + frozen vegetables because its A) Cheap B) If I make enough food for 2+ I don’t freeze most of it I just eat it all so that I can make more food the next day and that is terrible for both my weight and my wallet.
Even if I did freeze most of it that would just mean an ever growing pile of food in my freezer that I’m not eating.
I just got my flu shot! Toasties, get vaccinated, flu season is upon us and people are awful and full of germs!
I got my flu shot yesterday! Yay vaccines!
I get my flu shot through work… and we haven’t had our flu clinic yet. Not a big deal, it’s still early in the season, right?
Wrong. Yesterday, I was at a college career fair recruiting. Touched so so many hands. Am now awaiting the inevitable.
I’m also waiting anxiously for my office to start scheduling them. They usually do them on-site.
Until then, I’m just following my usual OCD tactic of opening every doorknob with my sleeve.
Yeah, we usually have an on-site flu clinic here too.
However I had to go to Kaiser for an eye exam on Tuesday anyway and they do free flu shots for their members, so boom. Two self-care boxes checked with one visit!
Mine’s scheduled for Tuesday!
Two weeks!
I actually just got a cold and I feel TERRIBLE because I’ve been trying to be as careful as possible (covering mouth, using hand sanitizer) as I can, but I think I may have gotten the girl who sits next to me sick. Sorry, coworker!! I would’ve stayed home but I’m out of days until November!
I second this, especially as it is that weird time of year where it’s 60 degrees one day and 80 the next and it makes so many people sick.
I don’t get mine until early November. What is employer thinking? Flu season totally starts before then!
Just shelled out some money and got mine at a MinuteClinic two days ago. I work with kids 5 days a week and this time of year is the germocalypse.
So yesterday was a very unfortunate day for me, but it was crowned with misery when I decided to spill details to a friend by text about a particularly horrifying sex dream I’d had earlier in the week. After I sent aaaaall the gruesome details, I realized I had incorrectly entered my friend’s phone # into my new phone & had instead told my dream to A COMPLETE STRANGER who then responded with many lol’s.
…so now some person in North Carolina has the most insane story about a Canadian wrong number to tell their friends over a beer, & I’m just eternally mortified.
It might be small comfort, but at least it *was* a complete stranger and you will never in your life have to look that person in the eye.
YOU NEVER KNOW LIFE IS WEIRD THAT WAY
Somehow this sounds like something Anne Shirley would do in a modern AU.
You probably made their day. I would honestly be deeply amused and sympathetic if someone did that to me.
Maybe you can take comfort in the fact that you’ll probably never actually meet this stranger and you’ve given them an amazing anecdote for their life?
And if it’s any consolation, when I got home from work yesterday and was figuring out what to make for dinner, I thought I was texting my fiancé but ended up accidentally texting someone I don’t know very well but have been very much hoping to become better friends with. So now this person might mostly know me as someone who accidentally sent them a really long involved message about all my thoughts on pimento cheese. (And they didn’t reply to my apology so I may have failed at friendmaking by scaring them off with Too Many Cheese Opinions.)
Well you know what Dan Savage says. Your pimento cheese opinions disclosure tells them one thing about you; their reaction tells you everything you need to know about them.
CHICAGO TOASTFRIENDS!
First Thursdays (yes, including tonight!) at Rogers Park Social. 7 pm ish. Near the Morse stop on the Red Line.
Oh god this is such a good day for a surprise open thread.
I found out two days ago that I’m being laid off from my amazing, challenging, fun, dream job that I’ve held for 2.5 years. (I’m the one who manages a circus.) It totally blindsided me and I’m pretty fucking devastated. They are giving me 8 weeks notice, which on the one hand is good because I have NO plan in place for this, but on the other, I’m fairly annoyed that I have to keep doing my job for that long as if nothing’s wrong. And I do have to do that, because I love my coworkers and a number of people’s lives would be negatively affected if I just nope’d out for the next 8 weeks like I want to do. UGH, TOAST, HELP.
Thoughts? Advice? Tips on how not to throw everything out a window between now and Thanksgiving?
If you’re in the US, you’ll qualify for unemployment, which is usually 75% of your gross earnings over 3 of the past 4 quarters or something like that. A little cushion to help you plan your next step? Which can only be even more amazing than managing a literal circus, I would think. At least, I would hire you based on that single line on your resume.
Yeah, I’ve been on unemployment before, and it’s not the worst thing. A bit shitty because it caps out at about 40% of my income, unfortunately, but for sure better than nothing.
I hope people will hire me just because of that resume line! I honestly can’t think of anything else I’m particularly trained to do, so…
For reals, I would hire you just to see that experience play out in a more office-y setting. You have to have LOTS of logistics-type skills that would translate to any other kind of thing you might like to do; the key will be tailoring your resume to demonstrate “look at all this cool shit I can do! I managed a freaking CIRCUS so this widget-company-accounting-department-manager-thingie would be a cakewalk!”
Um, I love helping people tailor their resumes to the story they want to tell in interviews, so hit me up when you start looking if you want some eyeballs.
(And start poking around all the theater and performance-based organizations nearby. If you haven’t already made friends at some of those places, now is a great time to lay some groundwork. I am thinking, for example, about an all-ages gallery and venue where I volunteer. We recently had an opening for the person who handles all the booking and day-to-day operations. If I knew you, and knew that position was available around the time you were losing your job? I’d call you!)
(Ok, I can be done being annoying cheerleader peptalker person now if you like.)
Yes you are correct about the logistics-y problem-solver skills. They also come with some totally random skills like procurement of visas to the US and Canada, writing of really bizarre contracts (lol I am actually also a lawyer), and some serious travel agent wizardry abilities. And I’ve just outed myself to anyone who knows me IRL.
I’m pretty sure some of this could be useful in other industries, but I have literally only worked in theatre (Broadway, off-Broadway, certain giant nonprofits that produce shows that have recently been talked about a lot on The Toast) and don’t even know where to begin outside of that. JOB HUNTING SUCKS AND I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH IT.
I appreciate your pep-talking! It’s nice to rant to someone who isn’t right in the middle of the issue like the only other people I’ve told (my wife and my favorite coworker).
Job hunting is terrible, so rant away!
Don’t be scared about getting outside your theater-y comfort zone. First, there are tons of other artsy things that need logistics wizards. (as a level 39 logistics wizard myself, as well as a Person In The Arts, let us all nod our heads together about how we need many many many more Clipboard People (TM) around. Like, everyone should have a tour manager. Anyway…) Second, seek out all the jobs that look interesting, regardless of whether you think they’ll be a good fit for your skills or you’re not sure of the industry or whatever. Sometimes the universe has a way of introducing us to things that are way cooler than we thought possible, but we have to get out of our own ways, right?
My sister used to manage a circus (Cavalia). Do you need Vegas contacts? I can ask her to take a look at your resume if you’d like.
Hah, I used to work for Cavalia’s competitor in Europe. And thanks for the offer, but my current company has an office in Vegas and runs two shows there, so I have a lot of my own contacts there. (Also I’ve been actively resisting moving to Vegas for like two years now…because Vegas.)
Move to Chicago and work for the Cat Circus! http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/tlg/5188443833….
Oh wow, they had one of those in Branson, where my family took yearly vacations when I was a kid. I would always beg my parents to go to it but we NEVER DID and I am still a tiny bit disgruntled. Nice to know that I can see this without ever having to return to Branson!
I saw one close to ten years ago. It was sooooo low budget and in a sketchy part of Indianapolis in this ancient how-is-it-not-condemned church that had been converted (badly) to a theater and my parents (whom I’d coerced into buying tickets for this thing) were ready to bolt, but man, it was one of the best things ever and my mom still has a photograph magnet from it on their fridge.
HOLY SHIT. I would do that in a second – cats and circus are two of my favorite things, and I have family in Chicago.
(Except I’m pretty sure it pays basically nothing and probably involves more tour shenanigans than I’m really prepared to deal with at my advanced age of 30.)
OH NO! 🙁 🙁
I am so very, very sorry. I work in an industry where layoffs are a real and present danger and many of my friends have been laid off in the past two years, but none with as much notice as you have. The only advice I can offer beyond definitely applying for unemployment is to remember that even though it is completely okay to WANT to throw everything out a window, you’ll get better references later if you do not actually throw anything.
Best of luck to you–I hope you land something new and even more awesome before your eight weeks are even up.
So what’s the over/ under on this “Peeple” app (i.e., the one where you rate people like restaurants) being some kind of hoax or performance art thing? Because, from everything I’ve heard, it sounds way too awful to be real.
I can’t see how it can possibly work, because from what I read, you have to register with the site for your negative reviews to show publicly… So no one with any interest their reputation would ever register, right? How is that a business model?
Once upon a time, a friend and I were bored at work and googling everyone we knew, including ourselves. My name and my old address showed up on a site called something like ‘how hot are you,’ and I was listed as a 7 out of 10. We just read the google blurb, and didn’t click to the site (being at work and all). I checked it out when I got home that night, wondering what the hell it was all about, and it was some map showing how close to an “area of radioactivity” you lived. Ha! I can only imagine that kind of thing for real. Ick. I think an app about radioactivity would be much more useful.
Well Lulu isn’t dead yet and it’s been years.
I can see it being a fake. It sounds just like that episode of Community with the MeowMeowBeens, and anything that close to an episode of Community can’t be entirely serious, right? Right? Please, humanity?
Just got an email addressed to “Anna-Care” instead of “Anne-Cara,” which is actually a new one considering that no one ever seems to get my name right (and while mine’s unusual, it not even that difficult!). What’s the worst way someone’s ever mangled your name, Toasties?
Autumn –> Austin is I think the strangest, though I also frequently get Amber, April, August, and Ashley.
Despite my legal name being pretty common, I’ve learned to answer to anything that sounds remotely like it, because nobody seems to be able to remember it/spell it.
I had a coworker regularly type in my email address correctly and then open with “Hello, Allison.”
I had another coworker I’ve known for four years call me Melissa yesterday.
I worked a job once where the entire staff knew me as Alice the entire time I was there.
I had my math teacher call me Elisa both out loud and in writing for an entire year of high school.
I also answer to Lisa, Elise, Elsa, Ashley, Eliza, and Alicia. Really, any name with some L and S sounds glued together with some vowels.
As a Siobhan, that’s pretty much the norm for me. My particular favorites, though:
– Spell check always replaces my name with “Soybean”
– Got 100 address labels in the mail once for “Sibbhzn”
– Flu shot receipt that said “Sopbjam” ( after I gave the pharmacist my driver’s license with my name on it).
That flu shot receipt is the best/worst
I have a weird name and a much more normal middle name, so any time I have to show my license for anything, people often acknowledge my middle name instead. I had a notary write my middle name on an apartment lease and then I almost lost the place because the landlord insisted I must be a different person.
oh, my name usually gets mangled in boring, predictable ways (I am not a Megan).
BUT autocorrect once suggested “Kinkily” for my last name. Still not over that.
I’m also not a Megan, and yet I frequently get called that.
And my last name is a pretty common first name that starts with the same letter as my actual first name, so I get that mistake a LOT.
seriously, it took me like 3 months to train my coworkers out of calling me Megan and tbh I’m still not sure all of them are on board. I don’t even bother correcting anyone I won’t have to see every day.
But tbh the worst people are the ones who hear my name is really Margaret and immediately ask if they can call me Marge.
I’m a Margaret who goes by Margaret and people cannot understand how I have so many nickname options and do not want any of them. I’m not a Maggie!
oh no I’ve never gotten “Kinkily” That would be scarring.
I wanna say it was from my Samsung Galaxy when it was new?? But only that one time, it was indeed very… strange.
My name is Jade, and someone once pronounced it like Sade the singer 🙂
I am Christina but I’ve learned to answer to Christine, Kristin, Christiana, Crystal, Christa, etc. I gave up on hostesses/baristas getting it right so I give my husband’s last name, which is an easy to spell, somewhat common ladies’ name that never gets messed up.
My last name always get skewered, too, even though it’s really not that hard.
My name is Ioana. I had someone write my name down as “Rana” last week (he was looking at my ID while writing it, which made it especially horrifying) but my favourites have been “Yolanda” and “Jodana.” I once got an email addressed to “Jioana” which… why?
I am a Demetria and I once got “Damatra.” I’ve decided to just start responding to Demetrius, Dmitri, and Demetrus since they’re close enough.
Weirder still are the people who hear my name and become desperate to give me some nickname, any nickname. “Are you SURE you don’t have a nickname? What about Demi? Can that be your nickname now?”
My name is Caitlin, and a barista once wrote “K8lynn” on my coffee cup. It was the second “n” that bothered me the most.
My new flatmate is lovely, but he seems incapable of mastering the difference between Susan and Suzanne :/
Someone totally misheard me on the voice mail and called me “Myrna.”
(My name has no ‘m’s in it, three syllables, does not rhyme with Myrna, and does not sound like a name for an unfortunate person from the 1940s, just for the record).
(with apologies to any real Myrnas out there).
Rachel so I get a lot of Raquel and Rochelle. I also go by Chel and have occasionally been called Chelsea.
My last name is very common as a first name, but basically unheard of as a last name. When I say or write my first and last name together, about 80% of the time people conclude I’ve put my own name in the wrong order and decide to switch it for me. I’ve gotten used to over the years, although it’s irritating when I repeatedly sign my emails to someone with my first name and they keep addressing their replies to my last name.
My name occasionally causes more serious mix-ups with paperwork. One particularly stressful example that springs to mind was in the middle of a final exam at university, as the invigilator circulated with the roster to verify the identities of the exam takers. When they got to me, they insisted that I wasn’t on the list, was not enrolled in the class, and would have to leave the exam immediately. After several minutes of panicked arguing, I guessed that perhaps some well-meaning person had decided to reverse my names and that I was down on paper as taking the exam in the other half of the alphabet’s exam location. I had to get the invigilator to find me the other group’s list (I was right), and then had to persuade them to let me stay.
I got Addy at Starbucks once. Which isn’t even a name (I think?) so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I am really, really tired of people spelling my name Alley. I am not a dark and creepy corridor, and I don’t think anyone named Alli/Allie/Ally/Ali/etc. spells their name this way.
Also when people pronounce my name like the famous boxer’s. I just… I sound like a woman, I know I do, and I don’t think I know of a single woman (even the ones who do spell their names “Ali”) who pronounce it that way, and it’s really frustrating.
I am playing in my first Android: Netrunner tournament in just over a week! Unless the event it is part of collapses under its own weight, which is possible because I kind of get the impression that the people running it are in over their heads, but it seems to be rolling along mostly ok so far.
Anyways, they had a thing where if you signed up for any of their card game events before a certain deadline you get a free playmat, so I signed up because I figured a playmat would be useful, but I just learned that they have revealed the design and it’s two scantily-armoured female fighters. I know this sort of thing is pretty much standard in some gaming communities, but it very much isn’t in Netrunner, and I’m pretty annoyed.
So here’s a question: if I have a Sharpie and not much artistic skill, is there any way to make that not awful? Or shall I just not bother picking it up, and buy a playmat somewhere? The answer is probably the second thing, isn’t it?
Maybe I could just add speech bubbles…
And yes, I will complain at them as soon as I get home tonight, not that it’s likely to do any good.
Speech bubbles sounds like a good idea (and you could probably even download and cut out stencils for them from the internet) and then you could give them some really feminist and subversive dialogue.
Yeah, but the speech bubbles probably wouldn’t be that visible when I’m actually using the mat. Unless I put the speech bubbles in front of their torsos or something. Maybe adapted quotes from the Strong Female Characters “Origin” strip?
But then having it covered with paper might make it harder to pick up cards, and making it easier to pick up cards is one of the main points of having a playmat.
If the playmats are the soft, sorta fabric-y types (like mousepads) you could totally color in the skin parts with marker. But if they’re the cheaper, plastic-y ones, probably not.
Also, that sucks.
I was assuming fabric-y, I haven’t encountered the plastic-y ones. If it’s plastic-y it might not be worth bothering to pick up anyways.
I think I will probably just not take it. There are so many non-terrible playmats that I could get instead. This one, maybe, or this one.
The images won’t load, but I hope you get a mat you love!
I am sure I’ll find something awesome! I didn’t expect the free one to be perfect, but it was free and required no effort and I figured it would do until I got around to getting something nicer. Clearly I was wrong, but that just means I’ll have to seek out something nice sooner, so that part’s not such a big deal.
Get the paymat, and just play on it upside down (on the grippy side). No problematic artwork, one less bad playmat to clutter the world. Then a silver sharpie, later when idle, can lay out cool circuitry and similar easy art at your leisure.
Ooh, this is smart.
I’m also starting to think that drawing pants on them might be easier than doing anything about the torsos, so maybe I’ll try my hand with a marker and then use it upside down if that doesn’t help.
Pants and boob-window-filler. And maybe sensibly located navels.
Exercising!
So I’ve been going to the personal trainer for a month and a half, and this week I actually got (and used) an inhaler for exercise-induced asthma that works. The change from the week of having the inhaler to the week of not having the inhaler is like night and day. I finished the first exercise that I would normally be needing to catch my breath for like, at least an entire minute after and stood up in shock, just about fine. The inhaler I had as a kid didn’t work this well, so I think I just accepted that not being able to breathe well after doing anything was just how exercise worked. And it turns out it isn’t!
This is going to affect a lot of things, I think.
That is awesome!
I am at this very moment in the middle of listening to the HAMILTON cast recording, and the repeat of “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” from earlier in the show just kills me during Best of Wives and Best of Women. That’s the only useful thing I have to say right now because the news out of Oregon really knocked the wind out of me.
That line yanks my heart out every single time. Dramatic irony, why must you do this to us?
Dramatic irony is not throwing away its shot.
The last two weeks have felt very long and I would like it to be tomorrow now. It being tomorrow won’t actually help because it’s all schoolwork-related and I have more work to do this weekend, but something about Fridays tend to make them feel a bit comforting to me. I have also put on my new Halloween earrings I impulse bought at Target a few weeks ago and that is also helping me feel better.
My computer mouse has decided to be an ass, though, double clicking on things and not clicking at all on others, and I need to replace it before I fling it out the window. Anyone have a favorite mouse that isn’t too expensive?
Video game toasts! What new gaming system should I buy? I currently have a GameCube & a PS2, and I’m looking for something to play RPGs on (also open to recommendations on that) and also watch Netflix in this brand new decade of ours (not).
I have an Xbox 360 that meets my RPG needs!
Great! Thank you! I’ve heard that’s a good choice. I’ve since learned that my beloved TV probably can’t handle anything above what I currently have — it has a built-in VHS player…
I have no advice, but plan to piggyback on whatever you are told. I hope you don’t mind. My parents are donated one of their TVs to us for bedroom usage since I have been ill enough to not be able to be at my computer much lately and I want a system that will play DVDs and is wireless ofr Netflix and can cope with Dragon Age: Inquisition. That sounds like a tall order. But technology is magic, right?
In your case you can just use the TV as a computer monitor, assuming your computer can do all that 🙂
You might have a fun time with cables depending on how old/new everything is, but its totally doable.
Of course I don’t mind! I hope that you are able to entertain yourself well through your illness. And technology /is/ magic.
I would say Xbox360 over PS3 for an older system for games, though the PS3 is easier to watch Nexflix on. If you want a new system I would look into computer builds. The Steam big screen (or TV or whatever it is called) is pretty nice and most games on Steam support controllers now. And then it is easy to watch netflix! More expensive than a console though. If you have questions I can outsource them to Mr kirpunz, who built my gaming PC as well as ones for several of our friends.
Thank you so much! It does sound like I’ll have to transition to something new either way, since my beloved TV — as I said upthread — has a built in VHS player and that, apparently, is not super compatible with some of the newer gaming systems.
Yeah, unfortunately. After I got my Xbox360 I “had” to upgrade my TV (the Xbox made me do it, I didn’t want the shiny flat panel LCD, nooooo!). I couldn’t even see some of the button promts except as a tiny tiny green dot. Reading text and subtitles was right out.
Autumn wardrobe go! All of my cool weather clothing more or less self-destructed at the end of last winter, so I need to get lots of stuff. Boots, cords, tops, etc. I love the practical/comfortable/librarian/soft butch look, and I LOATHE the browsing part of clothes shopping. Suggestions on things that are out there right now? So I can waltz into a store and grab pants and try them on and buy and flee?
Thank you in advance for doing the hard work for me, Toasties. You are the best.
Old Navy Pixie pants. Wear with flats or tall boots. Available in a zillion colors and fabrics and actually universally flattering. I do not know ANYONE who doesn’t look amazing in them.
LL Bean flannels–they’re beautiful and durable. Get ’em oversized and wear ’em with skintight black jeans. Ya look great.
More massive life stuff below
Just in case getting married wasn’t enough major life change, I had a phenomenal interview at a very very cool firm yesterday so please keep your fingers crossed that it comes through. I have got to GTFO of this place. Coming back this morning after a week off was actually physically uncomfortable–I have had a headache and upset stomach and have felt on the verge of tears all day, and I think it’s because after talking with this company yesterday it became really clear exactly how fucked up it is here and how much differently I approach literally everything from everyone else. I lost two pounds in a week because of not stress-eating every night. It’s getting to the point where I can’t even enjoy my commute through the most beautiful place in the world because I’m dreading getting to work. It isn’t good, it isn’t healthy, and I don’t know how much longer I can do it. So please, any Toast good-job-getting vibes you could send this way, I’d thoroughly appreciate.
CleverManka, would you share your gif-posting magic? I would like to know how to do this without having to look at the page source. >.>
Sure! Do you mean just how to post images? This is the HTML for inserting an image. Just remove the asterisks.
<*img src=”http://url.of.actual.gif/gif.jpg”*>
So, for the above gif, I would type:
<*img src=”http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/clevermanka/1047329/236068/236068_600.gif”*> (sans asterisks)
Always be sure you’re looking at the URL for the gif itself. My LJ scrapbook (which is open and available to everyone for their gif-using needs!) houses the gifs, but if you usethe page that … houses(?) the gif, it won’t work. You have to use the image for the gif itself, which you can do by right-clicking the image and choosing “View Image.”
Hope that helps!
houblonchouffe, I will be thinking of you frequently this weekend. Please post back with an update.
Road Opener magic heading your way. Until then, remember to shield yourself when you go in. Literally imagine a bubble around yourself.
I’m getting a divorce and a hurricane might or might not be heading right for me. Life is metaphor is life. I should have seen this hurricane coming for me all along? Et tu Joaquin?
Okay but under these circumstances your username is perfect.
Yes. Pretty much everything traumatic in my life has been accompanied by hurricanes, tsunami warnings, and lately, even volcanoes. It’s kind of comforting. Like the earth is pissed off too.
Isn’t it kind of funny and frustrating when life is just too on the nose? I want to shake my fist at the sky and shout “You’re a hack!”
Be careful, You Might Be In The Movie A Serious Man.
Just look at that parking lot!
I once was in that position except it was a desert monsoon. The moon will rise, the sun will rise, you will rise. <3
May the hurricane blow/wash away your troubles and make way for new exciting experiences!
Right now I have a week in between stressful business trips and I have so much to catch up with at the office that I have barely been home. How do people deal with this stuff? Right now I’m guiltily taking a Toast break because the idea of having to be “on” all the time makes me so fucking anxious that I break out in hives. I think half the reason that my anxiety is under control at all is that I have a job that gives me some wiggle room to zone out during the day, and at the end of the day i usually get to forget about work completely and just decompress for a few hours. But recently I have been trusted with some heavier tasks and oh my god what if I’m always this busy from now on because I think my brain would actually melt?
I go home even though the work isn’t done and the phone calls aren’t all returned and the emails are not all answered.
My inbox is going up in flames, I talk to my boss most days (including days off) and I just got back from a week on the road.
I’m taking two comp days to make a four day weekend. I HAVE to take some time off, or I will burn out. Alllllllll the work stuff can wait. If I don’t take care of myself, I can’t do the job longterm.
Big hugs. Hope you get todecompress tonight, and have a weekend without worrying.
Bullet journaling – does anyone do this? I currently have one large planner and two small notebooks rolling around with me, I am crazy about lists, I think and organizer better on paper, and I like the idea of having everything in one place instead of spread all over. Any stories of success, struggles, or methods that have worked for you are appreciated!
Also, the guy who runs the bullet journal website strikes me as obnoxious. Opinions on if he is actually full of hipster nonsense or if I’m just overly sensitive to his name being Ryder are welcome. http://bulletjournal.com/
My mother, who has had ADHD her whole life, LOVES bullet journaling. It’s all she talked about for weeks when she started doing it, and it’s really helped her be an organized person.
I have been doing it for a month! I mostly ignore the website, because it’s full of hipster nonsense. Possibly I shouldn’t have ignored it quite as much as I did to start, because I just started with what’s in the video, and so I didn’t know about the Future Log, and now my Future Log is in the middle of September.
Also I bought a notebook that is way too small according to his guidelines, but that was on purpose because I wanted it to fit in my pocket with my phone, and I don’t care if the monthly calendar and task list take four pages instead of two.
It’s been going really well. I really like that it’s no big deal when I don’t get to everything on my to-do list some days. It’s easy to move them, and mark that they’ve been moved, and go back occasionally to look for things that didn’t get done or moved. It’s also no big deal if I miss a day.
TL;DR: The bullet journal guy does seem to be an annoying hipster, but the actual method is pretty good, even if you ignore or screw up parts of it.
This is what I wanted to hear about! I love that you started off without paying super close attention to the method, used a different sized notebook so it would work for you, and you still really like it. I think I’m going to take the plunge and dedicate myself to trying it for a full month.
I’m a massive fan – like, as Slate loves hot takes, I love it – of IDoneThis. You get an email (daily, or whenever you want to schedule it) and email a list back. You can use # if you like, and make checkboxes, too. You get an online, downloadable, calendar of what you did. It’s made my life so much better.
This is really nice. A big part of my job is facilitating processes and while I lead the inspecting and solving, O’m not the person who really owns the process, so a major thing for me is managing the handing off of responsibilities and getting the people who actually perform the process to do the tasks, and learn to share with and sync up with each other. I’m going to look into adopting this, especially when it’s a process where the people involved are scattered or don’t normally work together.
It’s the simplicity that’s so brilliant, and how I sell people on it. I think I’ve got about 4 years of entries now, and it’s so cool/helpful.
I made an account! I think it could be a good fit for me and my work team but I’m also starting a project next week to help create a kind of check-back system for a program that has very few documentation requirements to the funder, and that currently does not have leadership (there have been problems lately with activities not being done and program staff legitimately believing that someone else was taking care of it :I). I’m going to bring this with me and pitch it, thank you so much for the suggestion!
I’d never heard of bullet journaling and I am entranced. Oh my goodness this looks amazing. Thank you for bringing this up!
I figured there would be some Toasties who do it – structured system for documenting that allows for creativity and justification for new desk supplies? Yes please.
I used to do something like this! During my dark ages (depression + relationship stuff + job stuff + leaving academia) I used to take short notes on what I was doing everyday, as some sort of way to keep a tenuous grip on what felt like a life falling out of control. When days seemed to slip away from me, it really helped to be able to go back and see what I had been doing.
I have some anxiety problems and list-making helps, but so does having a way of checking in on myself and doing something creative. The way bullet journaling encourages you to have a system for documenting but also to set aside space for writing or journaling or sketching alongside that planning is really nice to me. I’ve been treating my agenda as something that needs to be wholly separate and I have separate notebooks for a daily diary/ reflection and yet another little one for planning tasks/ list-making that is not directly related to my daily agenda. Incorporating all of those into one thing and letting them feed off of each other seems like it’s worth trying.
I tried it for a while, but I’m just neurotic enough that I want to buy his actual $20 Bullet Journal even though part of the /point/ is that you can do it in (almost) any journal. Someone stop me.
Let’s talk about delicious food! I got the King Arthur cookbook and so far I’ve made the gingerbread snacking cake and the fudge cookies which are basically melted chocolate and eggs with a little bit of flour and sugar to bind it all together. They’re amaaaazing.
I’ve made each of these (vegetarian!) entrees twice in the last two weeks because they’re so good and so easy:
Tahini noodles
Black pepper tofu
I halved each. For the tahini noodles, I put in thinly sliced jalapenos instead of green beans and scallions instead of red onions, because that’s what I had on hand, and it was great. For the black pepper tofu, I leave out 80% of the butter and it still tastes ridiculously rich. I only have “regular” soy sauce instead of light and dark, but I did invest in some kecap manis. I could eat the sauce with a spoon, seriously.
Oh man I’ve made that black pepper tofu and it’s amaaaaazing…but a lot of work for me on a weeknight. (I also did not think to halve the butter). I love gatheredtable and have been using it for all my cooking planning needs.
I made Alton Brown’s soft preztels for the first time and they are superb plus pretty damned easy.
ORLY? Did you need lye?
Nope, just a boatload of baking soda.
They’re amazing! He uses a baking soda water bath, and they turn out great. I like them as twists, as rolls for ham sandwiches, and as buns filled with ham and cheese before baking. The only change I’ve made to the recipe is to use oil instead of butter.
Oh, I have to make those! That sounds amazing.
Cooks Illsutrated found that baking your baking soda does something to it so you get the pH benefits of lye without having such a scary chemical to use. Remind me tomorrow and I’ll go track down the recipe if you’d like 🙂
The King Arthur cookbooks are amazing. Every recipe is so well explained it is a joy to cook from.
Speaking of flour, I’m trying to get back into bread-baking – just the easy no-knead stuff because I’m not a great baker.
Also, now that it’s autumn, I’m looking forward to making this cake: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/11/dorie-greens…
Again, really easy even for not-bakers, really delicious and not overly sweet. I have had nothing but compliments.
I really love bread-baking, I hope your stuff works out!
I just embarked on finding the perfect soft crust white sandwich loaf. It’s the salt level that gets me every time. But even middlingly good fresh bread is treated as miraculous by non-bakers so it’s a confidence boost!
I tend to rage bake and between being midway through my senior year of college as a grown adult (get your BS degrees before you are in your mid 30s kiddies) and the political system in here in the States…we…we have a lot of bread.
If you have not done some version of the Mark Bittman no-knead bread in a cast iron pot (I like this one), get thee a cast iron pot and do so immediately. Super delicious and easy.
We got a really nice breadmachine at a yardsale from a really nice couple that was leaving the states — for $5. I don’t think I would’ve invested in one at full price, but we’ve used it pretty much at least once a week since buying it over a year ago, so it would’ve been worth full price, I think. It’s just so easy!! But it doesn’t help with the ragebaking (k)ne(a/e)ds (ha) (there’s a better way to make that joke) so YMMV.
Fudge cookies sound crazeballs good.
I am trying to get us eating healthier as a family, so I am embarking on experimental salmon tonight (along side a much more reliable steamed brussels sprouts and a saffron and lemon rice it’s impossible to ruin). I have no recipe and no clue what I am going to do until Google tells me what to do.
When I used to live where salmon was relatively cheap some spices + baking for a little while worked pretty well for me.
Oooh I scored a half a pork shoulder for like, $6, which is a good price as well as a reasonable amount of meat. I did it in the slow cooker with guajillo chiles, and made enchiladas and nachos with it so far! SUCH terrible meaty cravings lately.
I made a tasty sweet potato and chard casserole and it came out great. Here’s how I did it.
Hello from Oregon. Fuck the NRA and our broken health care system. Fuck it right in the ear.
Damn right. *waves from Eugene*
Watching the rerun of Obama’s press conference about the shooting.
One of my friends from highschool is mom to a teenager who is transitioning (YES I AM OLD). And she is being SUCH a supportive mom that I tear up every time I think about it. I am just so glad to see the way she is handling being a parent. It gives me hope for humanity.
My friend whose teen transitioned last year handled it with 1000% grace and charm and support and mama-bear-ness (in the face of a community full of conservatives and Mormons and backlash) and it wasn’t a surprise but it was a total delight to see. Also, her other kid was excited to take her new big sister shopping for accessories, cause her other kid is the girliest girl ever. Fabulous families FTW.
I have preordered the DVD of Mad Max: Fury Road, and it should arrive on Monday (stupid UK release date; why is it so much later than the US one?), and I am very excited about getting to watch it again instead of just the Youtube clips/gifsets/fanfic/meta on which I have been relying (which are all pretty great, to be fair). I will be making my boyfriend watch it, and am deeply afraid that he won’t like it. (He has found my perpetual sighing over Furiosa for the past few months somewhat entertaining.) I don’t know how to adequately prepare him for it! On the one hand, I want to warn him that it is super over the top and ridiculous in places, and the cast is full of Large Hams, and you just have to go with it, but on the otherI feel it’s important that he understand that loads of it is subtle and understated and he needs to pay close attention to eye contact and body language in order to grasp all the nuances. Why are you not straightforward, film?
The fact that it isn’t straightforward is what makes it amazing, though! Honestly, this movie has become a litmus test for me. It’s cool if you don’t get all of it at the first viewing (who could?), but if you don’t appreciate it on a basic general level? That doesn’t bode well for us continuing a rewarding relationship. To be fair, I feel the same way about the Jump Street movies, sooooooo…..
We’re six and a half years in, so I probably shouldn’t end things if he doesn’t like it.
WELL I SUPPOSE
You’re right about both Fury Road and Jump Streets though. Also I feel like maybe MMXXL is in that category.
Oh god I am only admitting this because it’s so buried in the comments nobody will see it: I HAVE NOT SEEN IT. And if ever I need to hang up my Toastie hat it’s now. So. Embarrassing.
OH NO, MANKA
I’m less worried about your Toastie hat and more about whether you’re feeling all right? You know Channing Tatum is in it, right? Like, mostly naked?
I will give you my amazon credentials if you want to stream it. I’m not kidding. It’s important to restore justice to the universe by getting this movie in front of your eyeballs.
OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU I am laughing out loud for actual and real.
The reason I haven’t seen it yet is the Burgomaster really wants to see it with me and we missed it in the theater so we’re waiting for the Blu-Ray to come out (next week!) because the Burgomaster (bless him) wants to buy it for me and watch it together with all the special features, etc. Like, make a whole night of it with food-in-front-of-the-TV (which we hardly ever do) and up until we’ve watched every damn feature on the disc.
I will accept this. But only just.
Nor have I! If not for the fact that I was a librarian, I would feel completely undeserving to comment here.
We shall keep each other’s secrets safe. Pinky promise.
It is very important. http://briecs.tumblr.com/post/125397061060/magic-…
Does he usually pay attention to films? Or is he like reading Facebook at the same time? If he usually pays attention, I’d say don’t tell him anything. If he usually fiddles, tell him it is forbidden.
I’m a movie multitasker who saw the movie ten times (truly) in the theater and I still find myself getting sucked in and away from my internet fiddling when it’s on. So hopefully he won’t have any trouble.
Then come join us on Tumblr.
He sometimes reads Facebook (or worse, writes code) while watching stuff, so I will definitely be forbidding that. But yes, it would be pretty hard not to get sucked in, I think.
All of the stuff I see on Tumblr is so interesting, but I find the thought of actually joining scary – I am not good at doing anything other than hovering on the periphery of fandoms.
It’s pretty easy to get sucked into it as action-spectacle, but if he doesn’t watch a lot of action films, he might miss out on the subtle world building. I know that I did the first time… without much dialogue to establish the world, you have to really read between the lines. And most movies train you NOT to think about worlds too hard, or the paper mache backdrop is too garish.
Just realised I may not be able to watch it until Friday (partner is going out with work colleagues on Monday, we’re going to a comedy show on Tuesday, GBBO final is on Wednesday, and I’m working late on Thursday). I started shrieking and flailing in horrified rage.
So I’ve been jonesing to watch it again recently and discovered it’s still showing at a cinema near my work! So if you’re in London you could go to the Prince Charles Cinema and see it tomorrow at 1.30pm. Just sayin’.
I am in London, but infuriatingly am about to head down to Sussex to catsit for my parents, who are away this weekend. Why, universe? But thank you for the tip anyway!
Aw boo!
Also, hello fellow London Toastie 🙂
Hello to you too! Enjoy your cinema trip, if you go.
I worked on a few designs for promoting the program I run at my library and sent them to my boss a week ago. They have yet to give me any response, positive or negative.
Unrelated, I just bought “mouth probiotics” which are, plainly enough, probiotics you dissolve in your mouth. Because I’m slowly but surely turning into my nature-healing-obsessed mother.
Toasties! I am dealing with the impeding death of a beloved relative. For the most part I am handling things ok, except at work, where every minor annoyance is making me FURIOUS that I am WASTING MY LIFE on this TRIVIAL BULLSHIT. Yesterday I came thiiiiiiiis close to quitting dramatically and only barely managed to pull myself back before I told my boss what was really on my mind.
Tell me, have you ever quit a job dramatically? Did things turn out ok in the end? I would really love to live vicariously through someone else’s cathartic quitting story before I create one of my own.
Well, I tried to quit dramatically and was thwarted, but did lose the job less than two weeks later. I actually JUST talked about this on my (cough) LJ earlier this week, so I’m just gonna copypasta:
…This is the place where the shitty-ass operations manager hated me for no reasonable reason I ever determined and because he didn’t want to give me a raise at my first-year evaluation he said this about me: “Clever Manka unfortunately relies on the most efficient way of solving a problem instead of researching other solutions first.” Not. Even. Kidding. After 18 months, I’d had enough of his crap and turned in my resignation (without even having something else lined up). The president of the company begged me to stay and promised he’d have me moved to a different supervisor. Two weeks later they laid me off because of failing financials. That’s how absolutely terrible the ops manager was. They had to pay me a severance package and unemployment because the damn president of the company was so unaware of the state of the business that he didn’t just let me walk. I still laugh about that. Eighteen months of hell, but what a punch line.
CleverManka is TOO EFFICIENT? Fuck that guy.
He was THE WORST. The whole company went under about a year later. Imagine my surprise.
Ahhh, that is so satisfying.
Ugh, my former manager once gave me a negative mark on my performance review because I “spent too much time researching all the facts and history of a situation, instead of jumping right in.”
Wet blanket ahoy. I did once, years ago. I wouldn’t recommend it, but no bad external circumstances came of it. I suffered for it privately, though.
Six months ago I resigned from a job I’d held for nearly a decade. That was really tough. I don’t regret moving on, but oh my God, I have become so sensitive about losing even casual relationships. And that leads right into.. losing a loved one.
Something in that realm happened about a month ago that pushed me right back into Zen practice. I think that situation may well have put a permanent damper on my tendency toward rashness. Therapy and communication with a trusted friend has helped too.
I’m sorry to hear about your relative. I commented elsewhere in the open thread about my mom passing away on Tuesday.
I’m sorry about your mom, my condolences.
The weird thing is, I’m not at all an rash person normally. It’s like all the desires to do something impulsive that I *haven’t* felt over the past few years, or that I did feel and reasoned my way out of acting on, are suddenly all coming out at once.
I walked off the floor at Starbucks one day, after my manger, who spoke in baby voice alll the time, told me I wasn’t smiling enough. I had a kidney infection and had tried to call in sick, but she told me she’d cut all my hours unless I showed. So when she told me to smile, I was just all “fuck this, I’m leaving” and she started crying, saying that no one had ever walked off shift before. I told her to get used to it. It was my most triumphant moment.
When i felt better I just went and got a job at another coffee shop, a lateral move, but it was okay!
Mmmmm kiiiind of. I worked at a bike shop during grad school, one my spouse and I had variously worked at/helped out at for many years. I headed up front of house, and the head mechanic ran things in the shop. He. Was. An. Asshole. He haaaated me for some reason, and we just couldn’t get along. It all culminated one day in a screaming match during which I quit, stormed out, etc.
I want to interject here that this was when j was like, 32, and had worked in offices for like ten years prior, so it’s not like I didn’t know any better professional norms, I was just so sick of this douchebag treating me like shit for no reason.
The owners called me and pled with me to come back, and I did after the asshole apologized. Things weren’t that much better but he at least stopped being an outright asshole when I HAD to talk to him about important work stuff.
I will say that storming out was only kind of satisfying. Losing my temper and yelling in front of everyone and tellin the asshole what I thought of him wasn’t as much fun as you would think.
Well, I just convinced myself that my husband was probably dead because he hadn’t sent out a weekly scheduling email to our friends group that he normally send out on Thursday mornings, so I think MAYBE it is about time to go back to the shrink and discuss where my anxiety is at these days. (I’ve actually been very lucky — although I have (? had?) OCD and general anxiety issues, my brain has been very well-behaved for the last 5 years or so, and it’s been a few years since I’ve been on daily medication or in regular therapy. But… now perhaps not so much. BRAINS.)
So maybe some maintenance therapy and some anti-anxiety exercises or meditations? Those have done wonders for my depression-induced anxiety spin-outs.
I find that my OCD has been cyclical since hitting 30 or so, I’m quiet-ish (read controllable) for a couple years and then have a couple years of “DEATH IS COMING FOR ALL OF US QUITE PROMPTLY. Possible its already arrived so I’m just going to go ahead and weep uncontrollably right now. NBD” I don’t know if that’s a thing or not. But my husband noticed the cycle a while back.
That being said nothing wrong with a little maintenance check up! Your trick cyclist will be glad for the connect and will probably jump at the chance to help!
Sending good (and less disruptive) thoughts your way!
(also hello from a fellow OCD sufferer! Our awareness week is coming up in a week and a half and I have found that that knowledge has been a bit triggery for me…for whatever reason. I’m at a low simmer anxiety wise.)
Today is my penultimate day at my current job! I start my amazing dream job on Monday!! I almost can’t believe it. And of course I saved all of the difficult/long tasks until today and tomorrow, almost 100% guaranteeing that I don’t get them finished. Cool.
I am so proud of myself, though, because I sent an email to my current-almost-former supervisor that basically said “I have been working on this manuscript for over a year, but I don’t have time or energy to work on it any more. I’ll give up my first authorship to have someone finish this. Please, please don’t make me continue to do revisions.” So, I’m no longer going to be the first author (on the paper that I’ve been leading for LITERALLY OVER A YEAR) but IDGAF because I hate it and the subject matter and good riddance.
“Good riddance” is a very underrated lifehack. And congratulations on the new job! Remember to get plenty to eat and drink and sleep in your first couple of weeks /mum voice.
Ha ha ha the ADHD therapist I contacted got back to me with the info that his initial consult fee is $850. So, you know, back to researching therapists.
My Dad brought me the blanket chest he built (I FORGOT to get the Daddest of Dad photos of him with it, but next time…) and Toasties, I wept. Not only is it made of wood from a cherry tree on their property that he processed himself, but he did most of it by hand, and he freaking hand-carved an elaborate design on the three front panels. He’s just, ugh, so talented and this is a hobby he has only been really devoting himself to in the last few years since retiring from teaching. Dads!
Holy shit, fuck that therapist. God, people suck.
Yay, Dad, though!
Seriously, how can any therapist justify $850 for an initial session? Nonsense. I hope you laughed maniacally and wrote a scathing Yelp review.
I love the Dad bit. We need a photo of the chest! And your dad! When he is over next. That is amazing.
I presume his brain must be gold-plated. And during the process, it melted.
Pregnant cat thread! I found a pregnant stray a few days ago and took her in. She seems like she’s pretty close to labor… anyone have any tips or experience?
Cardboard box, old towels, give her a raw egg if she wants it, and darkness. She’ll wake you up yowling one day, and then there will be little blind gooey things squirming around in the box.
/lessons learned during a childhood with an eternally pregnant cat
A raw egg! Fascinating! I will try that. I’ve got the box all set up and everything. I’m just worried because I haven’t felt the kittens moving, but the internet tells me that once in a while that happens and the kittens are still ok. Hopefully they’ll be here by tomorrow!
Feed her A LOT, probably if she is a stray she has not had good nutrition. And ask a vet about dewormer, there are kinds that pregnant cats can have which makes it less likely they will give worms to the kittens. And then get yourself to tinykittens.com to watch livestreams of kitten births! The old ones are on Youtube too (just search Tinykittens). Shelley usually live-narrates the births and talks about things that are normal as well as the things that can go wrong during the birth and after. She is a fostering pro. Tip was the most recent cat to give birth and she was an experienced momcat. But the one before that, Eve (about 12-14 weeks before Tip?) was pretty bad at birthing and Shelley had to help a lot. Though it may just all happen when you are sleeping. You never know! KITTENS!!!
Yes! Feed her a lot. And the best quality cat food you can afford. It does make a difference; the cheap food seems to go right though cats (ask me how I know–) and the more expensive food seems to actually give them more nutrition. I know when I’ve fostered, the expensive stuff (like Blue Buffalo level expensive) actually lasts longer per bag because they eat until they are satisfied, and though that’s a LOT when you first bring them in, it tapers off and they eat less food once they’ve made up their calorie deficit. (I don’t free feed after the first few days; they get breakfast and dinner, and they tend to have leftovers with better food and are constantly hungry with the cheaper food.)
As far as birth, some cats want company; some cats want totally privacy. If she’s comfortable with you by the time she has the kittens, she’ll probably be fine with you watching/helping. Also, even when they seem hugely pregnant, they may not be to term and it may be another week or so before she actually has the kittens.
Give her a choice of cozy, private nests, and keep all other drawers and cabinets shut tight.
I fostered a pregnant cat last summer. I gave her approximately 6 million boxes padded with various materials, and she chose to have her kittens in the litterbox. I came home halfway through the process, freaked out a little, observed, and did nothing until all the kittens were born. Then I cleaned them off and moved them to a clean box – you’re not really supposed to do this, but the litterbox was gross – and she moved with them and all was fine! And then my apartment was terrorized by 5 adorable kittens for the next 10 weeks.
When I woke up this morning I had to make a list of reasons to be happy about consciousness, and it included reading Dear Prudie and the Toast. So today was a good one.
Also my manager bought in banana cake baked by his 92-year-old nan. He’s such a nice dude, and his nan can bake up a storm.
Sci-fi Toasts! Ancillary Mercy comes out in five days! Ann Leckie is doing a reading tour, starting in Seattle! I’ll be there, and you should come if you can!
What! I had completely lost track of time, this is so SOON!
I know, right? I was just looking at my bookshelf a couple days ago & thinking that I should replace my copy of Ancillary Justice that I perma-loaned to a friend, and then I remembered that the previous books had both come out in October, and now here we are!
I’m so pumped for this book! Here’s a link to a sample if anyone is interested: http://www.orbitbooks.net/excerpt/ancillary-mercy…
Argh I am going to run out of time for a reread. I totally need to be sick next Wed so I can stay home and read.
If anyone’s in the SF area, I might try to see Ann Leckie when she’s there October 10th.
Also, I pre-ordered Ancillary Mercy at my local book store and they let me have it early so I’ve been cackling gleefully for several days.
oooh I haven’t read the 2nd book yet because I had a hard enough time with the characters’ names the FIRST time around, I’m just gonna start over when it’s all written. IS IT ALL WRITTEN IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME??
IT IS! (I mean, I wouldn’t object at all if she wanted to keep writing in that universe, but this particular trilogy is complete)
Omg I live for those books AND I live in Seattle! I will totally be there!
Toasties this has been an awful week, I’m just gonna vent for a minute. I spent the weekend crying my eyes out at my grandfather’s memorial service and as soon as I got back from that I came down with the most awful head cold ever which I’m pretty sure was/is actually the flu. I’ve had to miss work and classes and sports practices this week and I am still not 100% better even though I have another exam this evening. I’m so stressed and I’ve also been feeling really guilty about skipping things in order to sleep in and consequently falling behind on work. I’m even feeling guilty about listening to the Hamilton soundtrack too much, because what if I see it live one day and I’ve spoiled it for myself? Ugh can this week just be over???
Also the weather here has suddenly decided to go to utter shit after a beautiful September that basically felt like an extended summer. Why you gotta be like that, Northeast?
Do you like seeing musicians live even if you’ve listened to their albums over & over? Because that’s how I imagine seeing Hamilton after listening to the soundtrack would be, where there’s all kinds of stuff in the acting & inflection & etc. that you won’t get off the recording, so if you like concerts, you should listen to it. (sorry I can’t help with any of the other things!)
I do, I do! I love listening to musical soundtracks and I love seeing my favorite shows performed live too. I guess I’m just getting in my head about it because it would have been really incredible to experience all this music for the first time through a live performance. I’m very grateful to have access to a recording of the music with the Broadway cast – I wish there were a way to pay to watch a version of the live show online as well xP.
Oof, ME TOO. There is no way on earth I can justify/afford going to New York to see it, but I want to so bad.
Hug. Almost there.
NO. I draw the line at feeling guilty for listening to Hamilton. You simply must listen to all the Hamilton you need. Never feel guilty for this.
Why must we endure assholes? Does anyone know? I’ve had enough! Enough, I say!
My cat has decided to be frisky with the dog this week. The dog has an obligingly fluffy tail which requires attacking at all times. I love when the weather changes and the cat goes a little bonkers.
(feel better soon, Mallory!)
I was hoping for an early open thread.
Toasties, my mom died early Tuesday morning. She was 88 and had struggled with dementia and aphasia for a few years. I knew what the call would be about when the phone rang at 4:30 a.m. and it was my mom’s nursing home.
I’m crying on and off, but as anyone who’s had a parent with dementia can tell you, you get a long time to contemplate the loss, which happens in stages. Most of our last good times together were a few years ago already.
I’m writing a thing about it. Maybe I’ll actually put it out in public someplace. It’s hard to know sometimes whether publishing something is the “right” thing to do (and by “right” I mean, will it benefit anyone, including me).
I have a private viewing on Friday afternoon, so you’ll probably see me in Friday’s open thread as well. Funeral mass on Saturday, burial on Monday.
Lots of gentle hugs to you through the interwebs.
Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. This is such a horrifying familiar story for me – but it was my grandmother, and my mom was the primary caregiver through her mother’s dementia. I’m glad that you can remember those good times, and I hope you’ll find comfort in all your communities, online and off, in the coming days.
I’m very sorry for your loss.
My sympathy. I hope you have good people to comfort and help you grieve.
Bless you. I am so sorry for your pain and loss, and for the time spent coping with her dementia. It is so painful. Write, and share, and heal.
I’m so sorry. Please write about it. Submit it here.
Oh, I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry. I’ll be thinking of you. <3
So sorry for your loss. I hope the weekend is healing at least a little for you.
I’m so sorry.
My condolences for your tremendous loss.
Allow my humiliation to be your laugh of the day.
So apparently it’s A Thing that in late pregnancy your body produces a lot of relaxin, the actual name for a hormone that makes your joints looser, thus increasing one’s preexisting clumsiness. Combined with my much-changed center of gravity, this has led to me falling several times in the last week (which, at 8.5 months pregnant, is not really a thing you want to be happening.)
Well, on Tuesday, I was out with a friend at a restaurant. I got up to go to the bathroom, as you do when you’re this pregnant. As I walked across the restaurant, I stepped from the part of the floor that was tiled to the section that was wooden, with very old, worn, silky boards. My right foot slipped straight out from under me. As I tried not to fall either forward or to either side, I descended straight down. That’s right – in the middle of a crowded restaurant and bar at happy hour, I suddenly and dramatically dropped into the splits. In a dress. While 37 weeks pregnant.
I’m not sure I have ever been such a spectacle in my life.
I would pay good money for video of the people who saw that happen. And I’m really glad you’re okay!
You and me both, re: video. And thanks!! Me too!!
Yiiiiiikes – did it hurt?? Are you okay?
Weirdly, I did this days after giving birth and… it was no bueno. But funny, at the same time.
OMG. That would be so. much. worse.
It did not hurt nearly as much as it probably would have without the relaxin! I was a little sore in my left hip (the one that went backward) yesterday and this morning, but am otherwise totally fine, physically.
My dignity, on the other hand, collapsed at the scene and could not be revived.
well, then you’re ready for your hospital birth! Dignity goes right out the window!!!
Seriously, I’m glad you’re ok. If it helps, on my son’s due date I went to the mall to buy sandals for my swollen feet. He wasn’t coming out anytime soon. I couldn’t see my feet and stubbed, and broke, my toe in the Payless. I then started jumping up and down, all 40 weeks of me, swearing up a storm. I have NEVER seen a store empty so fast in my entire life!! (luckily, the kid was two weeks late, so I had time to recover from the stupid toe pain. I was so angry, though, I was yelling, “I don’t want to have to need pain meds just for my toe!!!”
I was just so happy I slid politely into the splits instead of, like, hurtling bum over teakettle into more furniture and waking the baby, it took some of the pain away. Besides, I was already on Percocet. The look on my partner’s face was priceless, which helped.
And doesn’t it seem unfair that relaxin should make one clumsier on top of the shifting of one’s center of gravity?? Like, shouldn’t there be a hormone or *something* that gives one amazing, cat-like, ninja reflexes? I’ve only done it the one time, but I am starting to suspect some flaws in the engineering. Someone should have done more QA for this whole thing.
Who needs dignity, really? I feel like there’s a silly, dad-level dignitary joke to be made, but I am about to fall over sideways so I will not be making it.
Just to prepare you: you know about pooping on the table during delivery, right?
Pregnancy is one long series of indignities designed to get you ready for being covered in someone else’s bodily fluids for the next year. LOL But babies are *so* adorable that the math somehow works out.
Toasties, I am feeling overwhelmed about Big Exciting Work Project to the point where I’m just – doing nothing. It’s a problem. HELP.
That happens to me a lot. I’m not going to pretend like I have this down but here are some ideas that have sort of worked at times. 1) Try to break it down into multiple phases on separate post its. Then set aside all the other phases’ post-its but the first one. Stick them into your work planner on a later date, or just hide them in a desk drawer. Those are for Later You to worry about!!! 2) Break Phase 1 down further. Identify the steps you’ll need to take. Then identify: What is the first actual physical action you can do to start phase 1? 3) Make sure you are not physically uncomfortable in any way (hungry? thirsty? gotta go?) and if so remedy those situations. 4) Set a timer on your phone for 20 minutes, promise yourself you get to stop after that if you are not on a roll. 5) Do the action from step 2.
Hugs. Work paralysis is so hard. You got this though!
List-making is not an awful place to start. Breaking down phases of the project or sections of the project and outlining them. Maybe make a schedule? You don’t have to keep to any of this – it’s just to galvanize you to action. Do one thing, just one thing, and see if it doesn’t get easier to get moving. Good luck.
I KISSED A GIRL LAST NIGHT AND IT WAS AWESOME
(Ill go into greater detail tomorrow but AGH)
I am going to have a girlfriend by Monday and Im Catholic and this is scary
help meeee
EEEEEE!!!!!
She’s really pretty, and Ive been questioning for two years now, and she took me out to the rose garden at 2 in the morning and….yeah it was great.
GET. IT.
Woo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FdwUGwasck
*high fives*
Guys I gotta A++++ wholeheartedly recommend Toast group therapy. I threadjacked the Link Roundup to post about a terrible time I’m having at work, and the support was overwhelming and so useful and constructive – practical advice and sage wisdom. And then a certain N. Cliffe blew me the fuck away by referring me to her employment lawyer and offering to pay for the consultation. Goddamn, you amazing beautiful librarians and librarian-adjacents. I truly love you all and hope that I can give back even a fraction of the support I got from you today.
…and also I booked an interview for another job tomorrow!
FERVENT GOOD WISHES for your job interview! I’ve been worrying about you periodically during the day; I really hope things turn around soon!
YAAAY!
Oooooh, good luck!!!!! You’ll rock it. You have Toastie mojo backing you up. 🙂
The Washington Post notes that no calendar week has passed during Barack Obama’s second term without an incident in which four or more people were shot.
There was a time when a random open thread like this would have been almost nothing but talk of today’s shooting.
That time was a long time ago.
It’s starting to feel like there’s nothing left to say. How do we fix this?
We, ourselves, are probably fucked. But CONGRESS could pass some fucking gun laws, but noooo…
They certainly could!
I can’t remember who said it earlier, I’d search it but I’m cooking dinner, because I guess we should keep eating until this planet just catches fire forever and dies, but someone earlier said that after Sandy Hook, the debate was over.
Dead kindergartners, dead college kids, aren’t as important as “2nd amendment rights”. That’s it.
I just wish that someone would have sent me like, an official memo that our right to walk outside without being murdered was not all that important, because america.
At this point, most of the comments would just be long profanity chains, honestly.
That’s why I never have anything to add.
Oh yeah, exactly. This is just reality. As nice as “love is stronger than hate” sounds, hate is really, really fucking strong in a lot of people in this country, and hate is usually fueled by anger. So. There you go.
This is my first personal contribution to Open Thread and it’s a little intimidating, so I will respond like I always do to a challenge and go all in. (I am the absolute worst at poker.)
I am a stay at home mom (for which I KNOW I am so stupidly lucky to be, in many ways) but prior to having the wee adorable monster known as My Amazing Daughter (now almost two), I got reeally, really sick. Major autoimmune disaster, crippling pain issues, and it effectively ended my career. Now it is really sinking in that what I think of as my real life is over, and I don’t get to pick it up and dust it off and put it on again. So what do I do? I don’t even feel like a real person anymore. My self-esteem is in the dirt, my identity is blurred into insensibility, I am simultaneously bored and crazy busy with about all my poor body can handle, and even if I had a career to pursue, I don’t think we could afford that amount of quality childcare. I have no idea how to work my way out of this situation and into creating a life i love and am proud of and feels productive, for me and the people around me and the causes I believe in. Chronic illness is depressing, chronic pain is depressing, but I feel like a good antidote would be some purpose and more structure than just what the baby needs. I need more than Pinterest.
Plus, my partner is baby crazy, and while I want time to myself back, and my life back, and my body back, if we’re having a second, I want to do it now. I am privately very, very scared that physically I cannot handle another pregnancy or another child, and I am possibly conflating the sense of loss for my brother’s death with the need for my sociable child to have a sibling. Is my determination to do this and do it Right Now about defying my own ill health or about having a plan to get the small child stuff out of the way so I have time to heal and invest in myself and create something for myself again?
Insult to injury, I have been working hard at taking better care of myself since we moved in July, and for two days I have had ungodly pain issues. It feels like virtue has no reward, and at a deeper level, there’s no hope for healing.
That all sounds super hard. I feel like there was a Captain Awkward that was similar a while ago, but I’m posting from my iPad so copying and pasting links usually gets messed up. I’ll see if I can find it tomorrow.
Is there room for more than one Captain Awkward? Are they taking applications??
I’d be interested if you find it, and if not, thanks for thinking of it, and I will keep a look out in case I happen across it myself.
Here’s one about feeling really lousy about yourself when dealing with chronic illness, and some suggestions on getting yourself back to yourself: What’s the difference between can’t and I’m scared/don’t wanna?”
Here’s the one I was thinking of and it’s literally called How do I claw my way out of a depressing living situation? The situation itself may not be totally applicable to you, but the answer and discussion in comments have some great info.
I think, personally, that talking to a therapist would be a good way to sort out how you’re feeling about the children question, with someone who isn’t as invested as your partner, and that’s where I would start. Maybe take a free online course, and see if any local organizations you are interested in need someone who can help them out from home (data entry, stuff like that). I know being at home all the time (various flavors of unemployed/working from home/starting a business over here) means that structure is often lacking, so volunteering for a set chunk of time a week may feel surprisingly good, and be a gateway to sorting more things out.
Ooof, that is a lot to deal with. I have no advice, only commiseration.
Commiseration is a comforting thing. I really love this site, and its inhabitants. It is a good reminder that the world is a better place than it sometimes seems and that my own flailing is not without witness or empathy. Thank you.
Hugs. I am a mom to a three-month-old and I love her deeply and am happy to be at home with her, but I miss using my brain a lot, and I’m trying to balance the desire for more kids with the desire to do good, useful things for the world. And right now I’m not sure where that is yet.
“I miss using my brain” – this. Actually, your whole post is a great summary. I share a lot of that feeling.
I remember three months as being pretty awesome. I hope parenthood is treating you well.
It seems as if that urge to balance external drive to be out in the world and creative in non-parenting ways is much more common than I thought. It’s good to know it’s not me versus the Industrial Motherhood Complex and Jessica Alba. I really need to make more friends who are parents. I think sometimes parenting in a vacuum is much more stressful than it has to be.
Good luck to you, in finding your balance.
You are 100% allowed to feel overwhelmed and sad and unmoored, even if it’s true that you’re lucky to not be financially destroyed by not working. I hear that voice in my own head all the time: “STOP WHINING about the things that make you feel bad; don’t you know you have it better than most people on this earth?”
But what you’re describing are real, difficult, life struggles, even if they’re not strictly monetary.
I have no advice. I am also at a career/life/self crossroads – except not even crossroads, because that implies clear options to choose from. This is more like having ended up lost in the woods and not knowing where the paths even ARE, never mind where they’d take me or how to choose among them. It’s hard, it’s scary, it has done a number on my sense of self-worth and identity.
That said, it sound like there is at least one clear crossroads before you. Maybe you could make something like a decision tree: to have another baby now or not? Lay out the likely health, self, family, and career outcomes of those alternatives, and then see what options flow from each of them? Making sure to recognize your own needs as valid and urgent, whether of your body, your heart, or your mind. They may not all point to the same decision, but they are all worth hearing and respecting.
Finally, I am so sorry for the loss of your brother. What a terrible blow.
What kind, awesome, and wonderful advice/support. Thank you. Unmoored is also a very romantical and poetry-adjacent description of the whole damn thing and I am adopting it this instant. I may embroider a pillow with it. Or, you know, doodle a napkin. Either way.
Every word is wonderful, truly. I wish you well on your own lost-in-the-woods journeying. I keep reminding myself that this kind of freefall is a goldmine of transformational energy and lends itself to fantastic change… instead of just being frustrated about feeling directionless. Regardless, trying to embrace the process of transformation instead of being impatient and needing it Right Now gives me at least a glimmer of hope. I hope that offers little light in the darkness for you as well.
I appreciate the thought, regarding my brother. It is a deeply haunting thing. Sometimes i feel like that event broke me so deeply it’s why I haven’t been able to piece together the rest of my life. But, people are resilient. Life goes on.
Thank you, truly.
<3
I really like the idea about the decision tree — I was thinking of something similar, but couldn’t find the words. Your whole post is so kind and wise.
I googled asexual dating sites today, and the good news is that they exist, that’s a thing. The bad news is that one of them makes you choose whether you are Male, Female or Transgender (ugh) and the other one doesn’t seem to know that bi people are a thing.
*flops*
I mean, honestly, I wasn’t really going to sign up anyway. And if I had I wouldn’t have actually looked at the site at all or tried to communicate with anyone ever.
Anyone watche The Duke Of Burgundy on Netflix yet? Kinky surreal S&M relationship wackness.
I watched it Tuesday and still don’t even know if I really liked it or not, but I can’t get the damned thing out of my head.
I have not, but I’m pretty sold on kinky surreal S&M relationship wackness. That’s kind of my wheelhouse. I’ll have to check it out.
I loved that there was not a single man in that movie. None. There was even a female sex carpenter!
I. LOVED. this movie. I saw it at a film festival last year and I was in tears by the end, which doesn’t happen too often. The downside of getting so emotionally involved was that I then got overly pissed off by all the audience members afterwards whose reactions were just “lol that was weird”. Sigh.
[At the same festival I’d previously groused at a middle-aged dude coming out of The Clouds of Sils Maria who was saying to his female companion that the movie’d been “to female-oriented” for him to get into. If a movie with two *fascinating* female main characters is too female-oriented for you, broseph, then just think about all those movies with two male leads that you probably regard as worthy of universal acclaim…]
Well I know what I’m doing this weekend!
pretty sure I’m too late for this, and if so I’ll try again tomorrow, but…
can anybody tell me about the Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill area of NC??? I’ve lived in major northeastern cities my whole life and desperately need a change of pace, but I’ve never been to the area. I want to live in a warmer, smaller, but still diverse & artistic place… any thoughts on Durham in particular?
hi! I’m in chapel hill/carrboro! i live here because of the university.
depends on your idea of diverse & artistic — basically if you want vermont or somerville, mass, carrboro’s your place. (chapel hill is very much The University Town, lots of undergrads, etc. interesting cultural stuff goes down in carrboro. and merritt mill road serves as the boundary between the two — they’re right next door to each other — so it’s not like it’s a long trip!)
if you want brooklyn, durham’s it. i really like this piece’s take on durham, through the lens of merge records: http://www.spin.com/2013/08/superchunk-merge-reco…
i will say that even in chapel hill i meet lots of people who move here for exactly the reasons you want to move, but without being affiliated with either UNC or duke (or nc state, wake forest, etc. etc.). and i’ve done an oral history project with the folks from the sun (http://thesunmagazine.org/) where sy said that the reason he moved here in the 70s was exactly what you were looking for and he just never left. so. sounds like it could fit the bill!
this is really helpful! thanks so much!
Seconding what Fang said. Unfortunately, I can’t give you more detail than that as far as “artistic” goes–I’ve never been very tapped into the artistic scene anywhere I’ve lived (which I sometimes feel bad about). But I might be able to answer other questions about the area, if you have others!
The biggest drawback for the Triangle (and basically all southeastern cities) is that the public transit will not be what you’d like after living places with great networks. That said, I’ve used CH’s busses without incident.
It’s a beautiful area, and Durham is definitely the more artsy scene. The comparison to Brooklyn was apt.
I lived in Durham for 18 months recently, after many years spent in a very large city, and I did I enjoy it. Life is easy, the airport is pretty good for the size of the city, there’s day trips and weekend trips in the area, and there were good bars/restaurants (esp. Dain’s, the Federal, and Bar Lusconi) and farmer’s markets (esp. Carrboro). That said, a couple things surprised me:
(1) The apartment-rental market is not as well developed as a big city’s, so some of the nicer apts were fairly expensive. (Houses are relatively cheap though.) Not a big condo market either.
(2) We didn’t live right smack in downtown Durham, we lived closer to Duke’s campus, so we had to drive everywhere. Everytime we wanted a beer, a meal, a frozen yogurt, etc.
(3) We love exploring new neighborhoods, restaurants and bars, etc., so Durham and the environs started to feel a little small and stable eventually. That said, I think if we had been more inclined to walk around nature, as opposed to urban environments, we would have been happier.
(4) Some of that vaunted southern hospitality can feel a little fake (and I say this as someone who was born and raised in the midwest…).
I liked Durham overall, but I just thought it might be helpful to share some of the potential downsides before you make any irreversible life decisions!
I also concur with most of what others have said here and will add:
Durham is the best and I love it! Source: me who has lived in Durham on and off since 2006.
Toasties! Long time no post!
So, I made a couple of comments on various pregnancy threads when I managed to catch an open thread or two…baby spines is here! She is lovely and adorable and 9 weeks old today, which she celebrated by sleeping for an 8 hour stretch last night, huzzah!
On the down side, my husband was up half the night with a fever, so I’m terrified he has the flu, so he is quarantined in the study on the sofa bed, and baby spines and I are hiding from the germs in our bedroom. I’ve also sprayed everything he touched with disinfectant. I’m so scared he might have given baby spines the flu before he was symptomatic! So if everyone could send their good health and germ banishing vibes this way, it would be much appreciated!
My new baby is 11 weeks tomorrow and has slept a grand total of five hours in a row … once. My first baby was a terrible sleeper, too–worse, actually. At least this one will go right back to sleep after waking up for the fourth time in a row to nurse instead of crying uncontrollably for 45 minutes.
Whyyyyyyyy meeeeeeeee.
Yeah, I’ve done nothing at all to influence her, she did it all herself! I’m basically thinking she’ll be an only child, because surely any subsequent child would never sleep, to even it all out!
Congratulations!! Eight hours is ammaaaaazzzzing. I hope you luxuriated in it as you deserve.
Sending good vibes for a flu-free house and quick recoveries.
Thank you!
Ironically I didn’t enjoy the 8 hours as my husband woke me up at about the 5 1/2 hour mark to help with his fever (ie find the paracetamol) and after that I couldn’t sleep as I was waiting for her to wake up for her feed, but she just kept on sleeping, ha! We did both go back to sleep after she eventually ate though!
ok, so I need some mom reassurance. About 2 years ish ago my ex didn’t pick my kid up from sleep away camp because he went to jail for beating up his girlfriend. It got dismissed because she moved away (which is what he was trying to accomplish, don’t get me started on hoe domestic court fails the victim). Anyway, that was the start of his senior year. From then on, he’s stuggled with depression, bad grades, ups and downs, been on and off antidepressants. he’s just back for his soph year of college and is pretty much having to redo an entire semester, but he was back on zoloft and doing ok.
Well, when I took him to get the meds in June he got blood tests. Apparently yesterday he finally listened to the message the doc left on his voice mail in June. He’s 19 and hypothyroid. What the hell. When did this happen? Was I wrong to push the meds (we did have an abusive marriage and he’s the kid who was in the most denial, so I naturally assumed this was life or my shitty brain genes). I never even suspected or asked for a blood test. I feel very very guilty. There is NO history of thyroid. I know this is no big deal, health wise. he’s thrilled to have a reason for his issues. I’m just having a lot of mom guilt and wishing I had known earlier. How much better could senior year have gone? How much better would last spring have gone? What did I miss?
Oh man, that sounds really hard, I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all of that.
You absolutely did the best thing for your kid with the info you had at the time, there’s no way to do more than that! There’s no way you could have known about the thyroid, and really that’s what doctors are for, because you shouldn’t have to know about every possible diagnosis! Anyway, now that your son has the test results, hopefully things will improve lots for him! Best of luck to you both!
I’m all about the mom guilt, so I can definitely relate, but you really get a pass on this one. I was recently diagnosed hypo, so I’ve been researching nonstop. Thyroid affects EVERYTHING. There is no way you could tease it out from all your life events. Carry on with your badass mom self.
I’m new but muchly excited to wander amongst the Toast community! For my fellow Canadians, you should know that Metis artist Jaime Black is working on the ReDress project to raise awareness about missing and murdered aboriginal women. She’s asking that Canadians wear red dresses, donate red dresses to the project or hang red dresses from their windows to show support for our sisters on October 4th. I’ll be active and dapper in my lemur covered red dress!
Any Columbus, OH area toasties? Am searching for new lady friends. Not that there’s anything wrong with my current lady friends, but it’d be nice to meet people outside of my colleagues!
OMG YES. I AM FROM COLUMBUS. HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!
yes. yes. yes.
Let’s be friends! (I feel like in kindergarten, when you go up to someone who seems promising and ask “Will you be my friend?”). I can be found on this name over at ye olde twitter, if you want to dm me there!
Librarian toasties! And other interested parties! I have a query for you.
How do I get back into reading for fun? How do adults choose books?
When I was a kid I just read everything I could get my hands on, constantly, because I wasn’t allowed to watch tv and I had no friends. As a teenager I read almost exclusively crappy-but-fun science fiction and fantasy. As an adult, my time is too limited to just pick any old book, so how do I get into Serious Literature without spending a bunch of time with books I end up hating? The western canon seems intimidating and not fun, and modern lit seems awash in boring straight white dudes. I tried jumping in with Ulysses and then Infinite Jest (go big or go home, right?) but I stalled at about 1/3 of the way through with each.
I currently read a lot of queer lit, political/enviromentalist non-fiction and feelingsy memoirs, but I feel bored and depressed and want fiction that is escapist without being complete mental junk food. I just feel so intimidated, trying to pick out books! There are so many and can never read all of them, so how do I choose?
Come and join The Toast on Goodreads! We’re small but growing.
But as to methods? There are a ton of things you can do! You can research your favorite authors to see what authors THEY like. You can go to the review sections of books you liked on goodreads and look for like-minded reviewers, then go and check out their bookshelves and sort by stars. You can go stand in the library in your favorite genre section and randomly pull books off the shelf to check out the synopses (totally how I found new books from age 7 to age 28 or so, when suddenly I discovered the possibilities of the internet).
Oh, and there are a ton of book blogs out there.
And lots of people talking about books on The Toast open threads, of course. 🙂
This doesn’t answer your question about how to find those books, but for one that is an absolute delight and romp but not at all mental junk food, I recommend Angela Carter’s Wise Children. It hit my exact sweet spot for not being too heavy (either in style or substance) but also being brilliant and not at all formulaic.
I feel you on the queer lit. As much as I love reading about something so cutting edge it can get so sad and you just want to chuck the book at the wall and complain about how the world sucks.
But college is a thing and so is a womens studies degree.
N.K. Jemisin N.K. Jemisin N.K. Jemisin N.K. Jemisin
Ahem. I’m struggling at the moment to figure out what I want to read when I’ve run out of books by N.K. Jemisin. Pretty much anything will be a let down. I usually default to re-reading Discworld books if I have nothing else I’m excited about. Oh, have you read any Discworld? That’s light and funny but also very very clever. I tend to assume everyone’s read it.
You need a starting point, and to work out what you like from there. http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/ can help you from there.
For fun books, how about go to the library, go to the new fiction section, and pick five novels that catch your eye Don’t read the inside flap (try not to get any spoilers on what it’s ABOUT. You judged it by the cover.) (It’s okay to check to see if it’s by a white dude and discriminate. I certainly do!) Bring them home and start one. Give it 20 minutes or some approximate set time. Don’t like it? Go to the next. Repeat until something works. Start a Goodreads account and give the ones you finished 5 stars, and the ones you didn’t finish (because you didn’t like them) 1 star. Goodreads will start to make recommendations. Follow those trails and you will be pretty solidly on your way to knowing what you like to read.
Oh and on that first library trip, you should probably also grab something you enjoyed as a kid, maybe some YA fantasy like Tamora Pierce, for backup, in case you hate everything from your first library trip.
As for Serious Literature, Goodreads has lists for feminist classics, classic novels by women, etc. Also you could check the Tiptree award lists for gender-topical scifi, if that’s more your thing.
So I’m feeling like we need a Toast job hunting/employment advice/networking forum? Because some of you have jobs that you really like, and I would like to learn from your wisdom. I have two part-time jobs and love one of them (the grant funded one that goes away in like 18 months, naturally). And one that is very new and I am very iffy on. But I want to find a career that I actually love and not just hop from job to job trying to find a good fit. 🙁
I would really like this, I was realizing today that I’m going to want to make a career change at one point and I’m not sure how to get there.
I second this! I’m graduating with a degree that is vastly different from the work I spent a decade doing. And I am terrified to sally forth into the job market. Guide us joyfully employed Toasties!
I’d love to be a part of this. I’m a liker of work, good at jobhunting, and enjoy talking about both.
I have no idea what a good forum platform is or if the Toast is interested in making this semi-official, but I shall explore this in the next couple of weeks and report back!
I’m sure I’m too late for this, but I just found out this morning (four hours later than the initial announcement that scores were available) that I passed the bar exam!!! I’m a real lawyer!!!! Well, I’m not a lawyer until I get a job, but still.
In unrelated news, you should go see The Martian because it is wonderful.
YAAAAAAYYYYYY BAR EXAM! congrats!!!
I will Martian later this weekend, I figure.
CONGRATULATIONS!! Spectacular!! I am so happy for you.
And I would, but I am oddly specifically afraid of being abandoned in space, and I kind of have enough issues without hanging out in that Zone of Anxiety. But it looks good, and I may send others to see it on my behalf.
Congratulations!! I’m always so glad we don’t have to do a bar exam in Australia, because everything I’ve heard about it sounds horrific!
I realize that I’m late to this, and I didn’t know anyone at the shooting, and stuff, but I’m From Oregon and Oregon Is My Home and I’m Not There and Something Terrible Happened and it fEELS LIKE it happened to me. And It did not and I have no right to grieve? But it’s my heart? Oh, my heart. I’m so sad. And I don’t feel like I can post much about my feelings on social media where people Know Me, because 1) what will it contribute? and 2) I try to be SOMEWHAT private on social media, even in terms of stuff like this. But I’m just so sad. So discouraged. This is probably gonna be a very drunk weekend.
A lot of us non-Roseburg people here in Oregon are feeling pretty sad. Hugs if you want them.
Also seconding Floradix.