Toasties! It’s pecan dessert season! Also, movie watching season. What are some fantastical fun movies that aren’t Harry Potter but just as fun? Tell The Bartender new things to watch and open-thread like a summer wind!
Cocktail Hour: Open Thread!
So, I may have not yet boarded the Hamiltrain, but I sure as hell follow the Rock on Instagram, which is how I learned that he considers your man Lin-Manuel to be “the dopest composer on the planet” https://instagram.com/p/8mYG_lIh4h/?taken-by=ther…
Following the Rock on social media is such a pleasure.
He really is a delight. Some article somewhere recently referred to him as “pathologically likable” and it is so, so true.
Toast, what a strange week. I braved the doctor (most mortifying experience at the doctor to date, especially when the nurse practitioner grabbed a doctor and it turned out to be an incredibly cute guy younger than me–just kill me) and if my issue doesn’t clear up by next week there may be surgery in my future. What larks. Additionally I am going to Alberta tomorrow with my husband and parents to see my in laws and visit Banff for the very first time! Mixed feelings: should be a fun trip! Also will probably be the last trip I get to take with my dad.
ALSO: discovered that my ex – boyfriend is engaged to a girl who looks like she should be his cousin. This fucker screwed me up pretty badly so let’s all share some horrible breakup stories to reassure one another that it is not the end of life. I’ll start: the previously mentioned ex and I had been together for almost a year, discussed marriage and the future and all. He said he was going away for work for a week and we’d get together when he got back. We did not. He quit answering my texts and phone calls, defriended me on Facebook, and moved two provinces away a week later. Because he was too afraid to say anything to me. I said very mean things to his face about how he was a child in a man’s body and he was twenty-five years old and should act like it. He agreed that he was a bag of shit. He proceeded to email me every six months asking how I was until I got engaged, then added me on Facebook again after I got married. Good luck to his fiancee.
Sorry to hear about last trip with your dad. =(
Yay horrible break up stories! Ex-Dude and I were together long enough we bought a house together (which meant me giving up my much-loved apartment where I’d been for seven years) and then when I got really sick (autoimmune disease good times!) he became emotionally abusive, started an emotional affair with someone, and then said he wanted to be in a poly relationship with her because you know, I liked girls so why wouldn’t I be up for that? GOD WHAT A DOUCHEBAG.
And then the Burgomaster and I got together and there is not a man on this earth who could make me happier. Except for maybe Tom Hiddleston. For 72 hours. In a hotel room. But I’m talking long-term happiness, so…
My spouse and I are happily poly, but I did get dumped in spectacular fashion by a boyfriend a couple years ago. Waited till I left town for a month for a class, then dumped me via text message and also disclosed AT THAT TIME that he had genital warts. Luckily, we hadn’t done anything sexually that put me at risk but he definitely should have told me up front for fuck’s sake. I also found out later that not only hadn’t he broken up with his previous girlfriend after all, he was also seeing a third woman who didn’t know about any of the rest of us.
This seems to go along with the whole “poly isn’t a solution to cheating” thing we were talking about in the link roundup, no?
A while later, him and his best friend’s reprehensible fiance got together behind best friend’s back, engagement got broken off, and best friend was left bereft and on a Naval submarine. He was a real winner, and at least he found someone as terrible as him.
I’m just reading this now so this is late, but ‘bereft on a Naval submarine’ sounds like both the name of an album/band/book of poetry and just the worst experience ever.
Yeah she literally broke it off with him right before he deployed. She was the WORSSSST and I’m just glad her and the ex are inflicting themselves only on each other now (hahahaha juussssst kidding the ex is almost certainly still cheating his ass off!).
Hey on a positive note, the Navy lad texted me and is in town this weekend so we are hanging out and may get to meet his new wife, so things for him at least are a-ok!
During break up talks ex declared “You’ll never be with anyone who treated you as well as I do or who loves you as much as me!” and it took every ounce of willpower not to shout “yes, that’s the point because I’d rather die alone than be with you one day longer!” because I did not want to crush his soul. Perhaps a miscalculation in hindsight. What I said instead was “I’m unhappy and it’s not working for me.”
I should have broken up with him the first time I considered it and not waited until I was miserable. Oh well.
Your second paragraph is my every breakup.
Mine tooooooooo
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
BANFF: go see Lake Peyto… Short but STEEP hike to the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. Like
One ex couldn’t face really breaking up with me, so she just treated me like shit and then cheated on me. I found out about the cheating because we used the same computer and her girlfriend texted ex’s AIM account with details. I called the now-ex at work (Starbucks) and screamed at her. And that’s how we finally broke up, something that should have happened years before it did.
Fun bad break up stories:
– In high school, my second-ever boyfriend broke up with me on my 16th birthday. Well, correction, technically his mother broke up with me on my 16th birthday. As in, for a whole weekend I didn’t hear from him and he didn’t show up to my 16th birthday party that Sunday and then on Monday, my actual birthday, when I called him in the morning before school, his mother told me that he “didn’t want to talk to me again”. So that was how I got dumped on my sweet sixteen by my boyfriend’s Mom over the phone.
– In more adult-years breakup stories, after I had started divorce proceedings with my husband, I started seeing a woman long-distance who had been just a friend of mine up until then. We had a LDR for several months, and I went to visit her (she lived in another state) to great success. Then, a month later or so, I went back for a second trip. I did not know this at the time but apparently she had been “having doubts” about the relationship. However instead of telling me, she decided she wanted to let me have “one more nice weekend”… aka she let me spend $400 flying out to see her, spent a weekend basically ignoring me and being super quiet to me constantly, refusing to touch me/cuddle/etc, let me GET A TATTOO ON MY WRIST (it was a planned appt for the trip, I ironically got the word ‘love’ in Hebrew), then dropped me off at the airport two hours early and broke up with me by text message; leaving me to sit in the airport crying for two hours waiting for my flight.
So basically I had to go through a divorce, AND a breakup at the same time, haha, fun fun. (With a tattoo that, as much as I love it now, constantly reminds me of that weekend.)
I usually don’t wish harm on people I don’t know, but I hope the woman in the second story feels really really bad about that, now. And always.
Hah! I doubt she does, tbh. After attempts to remain somewhat friendly dissolved into her being actively nasty behind my back, I ended up “running into her” online a couple years later. She wanted to join an online community I was part of (moderated by some friends of mine), and after they told her she couldn’t join, she sent this like, passive-aggressive email about how she “would have thought we were adults who could be mature about things like this” and I was like lol no, bye, and never responded.
That breakup/treatment combined with my divorce was what pretty much put me into the depression I’m still coping with like 5 years later, so no thanks lol.
So a couple of years ago, I met a guy at the going-away party of a mutual friend. We ended up hooking up that night and continued to see each other casually for about a month or so. He was from Norway and I referred to him as the Viking (though he was not large or strong or anything else sexy that the word might imply. just blond.). He had told me I might not see him for a week or so, as his brother was visiting him from Norway. From FB, I gleaned that they had spent a weekend at Myrtle Beach and I actually ran into him while out and about downtown with some of my own friends one evening. He was with his brother, so that part I don’t doubt was legit. Anyway, later that evening I get a text from him that he had met someone at Myrtle Beach and he wanted to try having a relationship with her but it was so lovely to have met me and gotten to know me. I promptly told him to go to hell and was upset for the rest of the evening.
To this day, I am not sure which is the worse prospect: that he didn’t want to see me anymore and came up with a bullshit story about meeting a girl at Myrtle thinking it would be a way to let me down easy? Or that he actually met some girl he thought was more appealing than me at Myrtle freaking Beach? Either scenario, however, I have decided is evidence that he was a loser and I am much better off without him.
My most recent ex just let me apply to jobs in Boston for two months, moved out there and ended up breaking up with me over the phone after five years after I had already given notice at my own job/apartment. (It’s been only a month so I am still bitter. So, so bitter.)
And I still had to explain to her that no, we would not be friends after this.
I remember you talking about this when it happened, and I’m still livid on your behalf.
I appreciate your lividness! I had three job interviews this week though so things are looking up considerably.
Also, I kept the cat 😀
Same, I’m still so outraged about this.
I don’t have any good break up stories, but I have one ex boyfriend who has given me a number of great after-break-up stories.
He emailed me a few months ago because he felt I should know that he has a girlfriend now, and they’ve been dating for a couple months so it’s serious, and he didn’t want me to hear it from someone else. We broke up over 5 years ago after dating for only two years. My current boyfriend and I bought a house together earlier this year. Thanks for the update dude, but I don’t actually care.
Ugh. My ex and I were together for 3.5 years (basically all of college), we were each other’s first pretty-much-everything, we had gotten to the point where he had told me a general time frame when he was going to propose, and we’d planned the wedding menu and other smaller wedding-related tasks. Then we hit a rough patch, went to (tremendously helpful) couples therapy, and we were fine… until one day we were having a discussion about how to raise the kids, and we ran into a brick wall and realized we couldn’t agree on some very important foundational issues, so we broke up. It was very amicable, and we went into the breakup determined to stay friends and leave the door open for “maybe one day this would work out again.” (I was 21! So naive!)
Two months later one of our mutual friends was hanging out with me and my roommate, when out of nowhere he accidentally (?) drops the bomb that Ex is sleeping with [that nice friend of a friend that I had invited to all my parties] and had been since [roughly 4 days after we broke up]. My roommate FROZE and they both watched me walk calmly into the kitchen and kick back 3 successive shots of whiskey before calmly walking back into the living room and sitting down. She hustled that “friend” (he is not a good person, not then and not ever) right out the door and I spent the rest of the night drinking and crying. I didn’t speak to Ex, or attend any parties where I knew he would be present, for more than a year. So I lost a ton of friends, because they were all mutual with him and I essentially dropped them for a year in order to avoid him.
We’re on speaking terms now, although we are friendLY, not friends. I messaged him a couple days after his 30th birthday just to wish him well, belatedly, and the universe rewarded me for my kindness: he thanked me for the well-wishes, and noted that my message arrived on the same day as his first grey hair.
I was long-distance with my most horrible ex for the last couple of months of our relationship, where he accused me of cheating on him at least once a day. Then, after I broke up with him, he MADE UP A STORY about how he found someone he wanted to date when we were still together, so decided to act like an asshole (cheating accusations, stonewalling me, etc.) so I’d break up with him and he could see this other girl without being the bad guy. He confessed this all to me, tearfully, because he believed if I knew the truth about what he did, it would make me realize how much I loved him and want to be back with him and ‘try harder’ at the relationship so he wouldn’t stray (??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!?????!!!)
The last I heard of him was from a storage company where he had rented a unit, and put me as the emergency contact. I received a call from them about a year after we broke up, trying to locate him due to six months’ nonpayment of rent. I didn’t have any responsibility to pay them if he didn’t, so I told them I had no idea where he was. I still don’t.
He also spent part of out relationship in jail. I broke up with him via text in a Burger King drive-thru and then celebrated with BOGO chicken sandwiches.
I broke up with him via text in a Burger King drive-thru and then celebrated with BOGO chicken sandwiches.
I guess this isn’t a douchbag break-up story like most of these – but I’m heartbroken and want to share. He’s great! All the things matched, friends get along, we were introduced by family, good age match, interests overlap but aren’t duplicate. He wasn’t sure if he wanted kids and that’s one thing I’ve always know I do want. He hadn’t been in a relationship for a while (read 7 years) and so hadn’t felt the need to really think about the kid thing. We spent a lovely summer while I let him think about it and where I proceeded to fall completely, deeply, in Love – capital L, Love. He comes out of it not with a solid “I just don’t want kids” but with a “well, i can’t think of a good reason to have kids, so probably not.” I have to respect that, but I miss him so, and I miss the dreams I had of everything working out in the long run. Le sigh – sniff.
awwwww. That’s not fair. Hugs to you. That’s rough.
My terrible ex story takes place in Banff! I had started dating this dude mostly because he was really into me and it was winter and I was bored and lonely, which I know are terrible reasons, but I was younger. He started getting gradually more controlling of my time and mad that I didn’t always want to hang out with him, so I broke up with him. Before the breakup I had promised to give him a ride to Lake Louise for a thing, and because a few months before he had helped me buy my car (by knowing car things, I mean, I paid for it all myself), I kept that promise. On the way back he asked to pull over so we could talk so I did, we’re parked in a hotel parking lot just off the highway, and he started going on about how good we were and “don’t you think we should get back together?” and I said no, I’m happy now, and drove home. He then proceeded to send me two emails a week for like a month, the first trying to get me back, the second, half an hour later, calling me a bitch. Thank goodness for email filters!
But Banff is so great! The best restaurant in town is the Bison, which also does an incredible brunch, highly recommend that place. The Wildflour cafe does delicious breakfast/baked goods/coffee, etc. The Banff Ave. Brewing Company is great beer and good food, especially the black pilsner. For a low-key hiking experience, the Fenland trail out to the Vermillion Lakes is gorgeous and foresty and the lakes are so calm and you get an incredible view of the surrounding mountains. For a more strenuous hike, walk up Sulphur Mountain and then take the gondola down (it’s usually free if you’re just going down). It will be about ten degrees (C) colder at the top of mountains than at the bottom so pack layers. Lake Minnewanka, just outside town, is a nice medium-ish hike, also foresty and lake-y and canyon-y. If you have the time/$$, go for the weekend brunch buffet at the Banff Springs Hotel, they serve breakfast, lunch, and dessert, in a four-hour all you can eat extravaganza, all so delicious and fancy. I took my grandparents when they came to visit me and it was so, so worth it, that’s one of my fondest memories of my grandpa now.
because he was really into me and it was winter and I was bored and lonely
Yeahhhh been there.
Horrible breakups! I have one. I’m pretty much the villain.
I had dated this guy for 3 years and deep down inside always knew I didn’t want to be with him, but somehow suppressed it? He moved with me when I went to law school in my hometown (giving up his dream grad program for one less dreamy near me) and hated it, and our whole relationship crumbled because we were wrong for each other and because law school and because resentment and reasons (mostly we were very very wrong for each other) and I broke up with him in the summer and he moved home.
We started talking again after he began dating someone else (because I am an ASSHOLE, I think, and was like “nuh-uh that’s mine”), and eventually we sort of got back together-ish. I wouldn’t really agree because I really felt like the problems we had had not gone away. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to stop being a dick and just end it. But I did really love him on some level and I was young and dumb and scared of being alone.
Anyway, eventually he flies 5000 km to come visit me and takes me on an expensive romantic weekend and even drives (he didn’t have a licence before and made me drive him everywhere but got one after we broke up to prove he wasn’t useless). He was falling even more in love with me. I was realizing that I could. not. The last day I developed a mysterious stomachache that meant he could not touch me. In the lobby of the hotel while waiting for the car he asks me to commit to the relationship. I told him I needed more time. He told me I didn’t get more time. I said then no, I didn’t want to be with him. And the HUGEST wave of relief washed over me.
And then we get in the car (with me driving this time) and drive 2 hours back to the city, and he just berates me the whole time. Tells me that my life is empty and I’ll regret this forever and that I’d become a shallow party girl and that he would think of me when he was married and had two kids and I was still slutting it up at bars (to be fair when we were broken up I had become a prolific bar slut, which was a fun part of my life). Just lays into me, and I took it because honestly he was in a really shitty situation.
We get back to my building, and I park the car in the alley, and he gets out and gets on his knees and begs me not to do this, but I FINALLY knew that I would rather be alone forever than be with him, and was like “I’m sorry, it’s done, please please get up.”
I then offer to get him a hotel room for his last night in town, and he refuses, and demands to sleep in my bed, and I feel so bad that I let him and I end up having a panic attack and then we end up having sex.
In the middle of the night my roommate’s dog pees on his brand-new handpainted super cool sneakers that he got in an attempt to show me that he’d changed (?).
Omg every time I tell that story I hate myself a little bit more.
I appreciate that you’re willing to admit to being the asshole. I was definitely the asshole in a couple of my breakups. I did something similar to your story to my high school sweetheart–made him drive three hours to visit me at my college so I could break up with him pretty much as soon as he arrived because (I told myself) I didn’t want to do it over the phone. Well done, 18-year-old self. That was really compassionate of you.
Ok if we’re telling the stories where we’re the villians. When I was…..oh let’s say 16 or 17, I hung out a couple of times with this guy who really really realllllly liked me. We made out a couple times. He was ok, but I wasn’t THAT into him, but as mentioned above, I was bored and lonely. Well, at one point he and our mutual friend came over and we hung out, and one of my friends came over, and we were in my basement watching Holy Grail, and I am fairly sure that I never told him at any point that I didn’t really want to date him, and I nonetheless was leaning up against our mutual friend who I was VERY attracted to on one end of the couch while he sat on the other end. My friend was hanging out on the floor with some pillows. And, well. Attractive mutual friend and I um….”wound up” making out. On the couch. While the other guy was sitting there.
So… he wasn’t super thrilled about that. Sent me a big, big long letter about how much he liked me etc. Ugh. I forget even what happened after that, whether I called him or not or wrote back. Mutual sexy friend and I continued to have periodic sexy times, until I went to college and he unfortunately died in a car accident. I feel so terrible about it to this day. Ugh.
I started to write a response to this and realized my story is actually a much too loooooong shitty relationship story in which the breakup was the best part. A Friday toast to all toasties that have had the experience of walking away from something awful!
Mine too! Hooray ending shitty relationships!
I have nested bad break up stories!
1) Husband of 14 years and I are getting a divorce, fairly amicably as these things go. One day I get a series of messages from him (text! email! phone!), ultimately revealing that he’s started dating someone else. He had goofed and put some pictures of them on FB, then remembered we were still FB friends. The divorce is still two months from final. She looks somewhat like me, and I get a series of messages from mutual friends who see his FB post along the lines of WTF?!?
2) I go out of town for a weekend in June to see friends and hang out in San Francisco. Super fun weekend, then I come home and have to have my cat euthanized. The next evening, I learn (via Facebook OF COURSE) that ex is engaged to new lady, complete with cheesy photo prominently featuring engagement ring. That night I have a first date via OKC with a charming French guy. I am upset, he is bangable, ergo I take him home.
3) Sometime in the late fall French guy has been ghosting. He finally emails me and says we need to talk. I stop by his place during my work day (which involves driving around anyway) and he tells me he has met someone new, but that he’s gone out with me longer than he usually goes out with anyone, and that “I’m a very rewarding person to be with.” He has received a holiday package full of European chocolate bars from his family, and tells me I should take 2. I do (although in retrospect I really should have grabbed more). The guilt chocolate is delicious, as in the bourbon with which I was down my woes.
(Footnote: ex and new lady’s engagement didn’t last, shockingly. I haven’t heard from charming but shiftless French guy since.)
I’m sorry you went through all that. But also, I think as a society we should institute a new rule that anyone breaking up with someone else should be required to provide consolation chocolate.
just one of my divorce highlights, because if I told the whole story a) I’d need a book and b)nobody would believe the same person did all those things. Okay, maybe two divorce highlights.
one: I found out I was getting a divorce from my 13 year old kid seeing his dad’s facebook post with a playlist of love songs to another woman and confronting me.
two: idiot got drunk and told me that his plan was to move his long-term (20 year) mistress into our 200 year old house. He and she would sleep in the dining room, because who needs that? and it closed with french doors. Then I would go live with my mother, but the kids would stay in the house with him. During the day, so his plan went, I would come and be stay-at-home mom while he worked, doing all the things like laundry and chores and driving kids places, so they wouldn’t have to deal with any changes (!), and then he expected me to get a night job to “earn my own way since I”d done nothing for the past year except lie around the couch and run up medical bills” (I’d had a miscarriage that nearly killed me and then two months later an accident that left me unable to walk or even dress myself for months). He thought this was a perfectly workable plan, couldn’t figure out why I objected to it.
I managed to get my friend to come pick me up RIGHT THEN without throwing anything, and thus I am not in jail for throwing him out the window. That particular night, that night, it was very close.
Wow. That plan is… Wow.
Wowwwwww this fucking guy.
holy shit ccoryy I am in awe of your restraint.
unfortunately my friend had something similar happen the next week, and she ( 4’9″) got thrown in jail at 2 am on the word of his (he was 6’3″) non-english speaking girlfriend with the same first name as my friend. It had been orchestrated so that for months she’d sell the old house, do all the work, by a house in her name and move 2 kids into it with no help from him, thenhe begged forgiveness and she she let him move back in to start over, and then they pulled the “have her come home and find me in bed with her” trick so that they could kick her out of the new house, get a restraining order against her, and pursue criminal charges against a woman who punched her husband for sleeping with another woman in her bed. She lost the house, had to pay a divorce lawyer and a criminal lawyer, couldn’t see her kids except with cops present for months, and got sentenced to abuse counseling. Say what you will about corrupt social systems, they put her in the abuse victim counseling meetings, when she had expected she was getting “don’t be an abuser” counseling.
For the year and a half before that my husband had been trying to bring up issues to drive me and my friend apart, and her husband had been trying to prevent us from doing our mutual babysitting date night. As much as I’ve gone through things in my head from that time, it seriously wasn’t until your comment this morning that I figured another thing out. They were purposely trying to keep us from hanging out because we might compare notes. Huh. Never considered that before.
That is deeply, deeply fucked up. I am so sorry your friend had to go through all that, and so glad you escaped it. I hope she’s doing OK now.
She’s happy and just got engaged. Our daughters are still friends, which is awesome.
CCoryy, I think I just sprained a finger flipping him off through the screen. What a terrible person he is.
High school boyfriend broke up with me on my 16th birthday. We got back to together a few months later on New Years, he broke up with me again on Valentines. A few years later we sorta hooked up again, and then I broke up with him on my birthday. (This time it took.)
College boyfriend–I moved a few states away for school, but we were going to try long distance. Only a few weeks after I moved, he stopped calling and writing. I finally got a hold of someone at his house (this was pre-cell phone days), and his mom told me he was off hooking up with his ex-girlfriend. The same ex-girlfriend he had told me was manipulative, controlling, severe mental health issues which she was not treating, and that he never wanted to see her again. He never actually called or wrote to tell me it was over, just complete radio silence for about eight months. Suddenly, he called out of blue, acted like nothing had happened–he was talking about getting a ticket out to see me, how much was rent where I was, etc. I was having none of it, and said so–his response was that I could either forgive him and we could move on, or else I could just hold onto my bitterness and ruin a good thing….notice he did not actually apologize, grovel or admit any wrongdoing whatsoever. He called one more time trying to pretend like we were fine, and then I never head from him again.
I have so many horrible break-up stories, I can hardly choose. : /
Back when I was 25, I was dating a guy who was a couple years older than me. When we were in the process of breaking up, he said, “You are someone I want to date when I am 40, or maybe 35.” When I pointed out that when he was 40, I would no longer be 25, his face fell. Because he had forgotten that I was an actual person with thoughts, interests, a life trajectory, and that he couldn’t effectively put me on ice for 13 years and take me out again, entirely unchanged, when his future self was ready to date me.
That was a bummer. Also, he is over 40 now. I have not been tempted to go back for another round of being treated like a satellite to someone else.
CRIMSON PEAK THIS WEEKEND Y’ALL.
In other news, I’m seeing Puscifer in concert next month and thought I’d check out their merch website. They have a band-branded tampon holder, y’all.
That Puscifer tampon holder is KILLING ME
It’s the only thing ever I’ve seen that makes me go “aw dang I wish I still used tampons.”
Their lipbalms look pretty great, too
Hooray for the period cup!!
I am so damn ready for Crimson Peak. So ready. My Halloween media canon needs expanding.
I am so excited for Crimson Peak! Here it doesn’t come out til the 15th though. 🙁
Ugh. Here, too! I just mistyped and by the time I realized my mistake, someone had already replied.
I saw a commercial and it has that yummy English guy, but what’s it about?
Murder ghosts? Probably?
It looked a bit like Rebecca only with more actual (or implied, or simulated) weird shit.
Repressed, kinky English people and murder house, apparently.
Official international trailer here.
Let’s be honest, though. It’s about this:
I read the article about it on WhatCulture, and I’m in. Especially after seeing that GIF.
I am sooooo afraid of seeing Crimson Peak. I want to see it a lot but I am a giant baby in regards to scary movies in spite of loving them.
This is me!! I don’t like scary movies – but for the costume pron alone I HAVE to see this movie. And the Hiddleston, of course.
wow that is a gif I should not be watching at work.
*chinhands*
Same here! This has so many things I love – Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Victorian costumes, Gothic romance – but I’m not sure I can handle the terror. Heavens, the trailer scared the crap out of me. I may have to wait and rent it when I can watch in a very well-lit room with a pillow to hide my face in. (Although the gifs CleverManka posted may have convinced me otherwise.)
SO, SO EXCITED FOR CRIMSON PEAK. (signed, a horror-movie wimp who loved Pan’s Labyrinth, and then watched The Devil’s Backbone through her fingers because Guillermo del Toro is worth overcoming one’s horror-wimpiness for)
He really is WONDERFUL. Did you see Book of Life? So good and you don’t have to watch through your fingers!
Toasties! Does anybody else have weird headcannons (am I using that right?) for Hamilton characters? I haven’t seen it staged and I do know what the actors look like, but I still imagine certain people in the roles… Here’s my list!
– King George is definitely Dennis dressed up as a Tory in the IASIP episode “The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell” <a href=”http://(http://cnemacentre.com/wp-content/uploads/images/episode-images/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-thumb-4-11.png)” target=”_blank”>(http://cnemacentre.com/wp-content/uploads/images/episode-images/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-thumb-4-11.png)
– George Washington is Lawrence Fishburne
– Angelica Schuyler is Kerry Washington
– Jefferson is tough. I LOVE the dude who plays him in HBO’s John Adams miniseries <a href=”http://(http://24.media.tumblr.com/42fd173bc1f660178e523979c122de08/tumblr_mk63t3f21S1qddfrco8_250.gif),” target=”_blank”>(http://24.media.tumblr.com/42fd173bc1f660178e523979c122de08/tumblr_mk63t3f21S1qddfrco8_250.gif), so I picture him a lot, but he definitely doesn’t match with Daveed Diggs’ voice and DD is so good so I just don’t know!!!
– Philip Hamilton is Dulé Hill <a href=”http://(http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/images/publications/wct/2013-05-15/NUP_130606_0192-1-20color.jpg)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/images/publications/wct/2013-05-15/NUP_130606_0192-1-20color.jpg) because of his adorable cockiness
Tell me yours – I need to know!!!
I feel really stupid but since you have not seen it staged either maybe you will help me figure this out. How are people accessing Hamilton without going to see it in person? Is it online somewhere? I would really REALLY love to see it in person but since I cannot I want to see it some other way if possible.
Those of us who can’t see it staged have been taking refuge in the soundtrack! I bought it from iTunes the day it was released and have been listening to it NON-STOP! It was also out a week before the release date on NPR’s website, which is where a lot of people heard it first.
I’ve also seen some footage and pictures online, which has helped me get an idea of how the production actually looks/operates.
Right now the only way to see it is in person – though, like GreenGrasses said, the soundtrack is available for purchase (and is also floating illicitly around YouTube).
BUT! Lin-Manuel Miranda tweeted recently that he hopes they can film the show before the year is out and release it to a wider audience. So that’s good news if you, like me, don’t stand a chance of actually securing a ticket to the Room Where it Happens.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can also add the cast recording to your library and stream it while you’re on the computer. If you download the music library app you can then carry it around with you and listen to it while you’re on the bus, or in the car or..
not that I’ve done that
You are all wonderful and thank you! I am listening to it via Amazon Prime right now and having hearts for eyes.
It’s on Spotify!
Happy almost Canadian Thanksgiving!
We are packing up for an extended family camping weekend. I am looking forward to eating alllll the things. Mostly pumpkin pie.
Happy Canadian thanksgiving! For my part I am scrubbing and soaking a Virginia Ham in the tub today, to ideally be edible on Monday. I have never done this before. Virginians are weird.
Ohhhhh yum.
Ham is so much more complex than I once thought! Is a Virginia Ham one of the cured but not cooked types?
BLASPHEMER there is no pie but apple.
PUMPKIN PIE OR DEATH.
Berry pies are also acceptable.
APPLE PIE FOREVER!!! And homemade cranberry sauce with citrus and BOOZE!!! yes.
We are having guests over on monday and I will be cooking an entire thanksgiving meal for the first time! I love cooking so I am very excited.
Happy Thanksgiving! I’m having a ridiculous mob of friends over for dinner Sunday but it’s potluck (and they’re all great cooks) so all I have to manage is the turkey and its associated bits.
Hello, Toasts! It is my birthday and my mother-in-law is home safely which means HOUSE TO OURSELVES. I believe tonight we will watch new episodes of Doc Martin and/or Doctor Who and eat pizza and drink wine and aaaaaaaaahhhhh. It’s going to be amazing to take a break from the mad rush of life even if just for the evening. It is seriously overdue.
How are you recharging lately?
happiest of happy birthdays!
pizza is always a good way to recharge. lately i’ve been recharging with cheese, chocolate, and watching “drunk history” while wearing a blanket.
Happy birthday!
This gif has a certain tantalus vibe to it – why does the wine glass never get all the way full !?!
As long as it’s never empty, I’m not gonna complain.
Happy birthday!
I have been recharging by radically cutting down on the amount of stuff I do every day. (I am one of those people who sets goals for relaxation time. It is…counterproductive.) So this week I rewatched Season Two of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on DVD instead of stressing out about finishing my library books and working on holiday gift crafts, and while I am a little embarrassed at how strongly I resemble Amy, I am much happier.
Ah! Brooklyn Nine-Nine is on my list as soon as the Burgomaster and I finish watching Leverage! We’re on the third season, so about halfway there. I’m looking forward to it!
(I could’ve sworn I posted this message like 14 hours ago when I was significantly more on time and significantly less drunk but intensedebate seems to disagree with me sooooo)
AHHHH LEVERAGE MY BABIES I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.
Uh, I mean, if you ever have feelings about Leverage you would like to discuss, please message me because my feelings for Leverage are vehement and all encompassing.
Happy birthday! That sounds like a wonderful evening! Enjoy!
Happy Birthday! That sounds like a great birthday plan.
I’ve been recharging by giving myself permission to not leave the house all day, and reading fanfiction and playing old video games, with a hot water bottle & a blanket.
Happy birthday!
I’m braving Ann Arbor traffic tomorrow to go watch football, yell like a fool, and eat fried things to recharge.
Oh man, have so much fun!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I do basically the same thing as you to recharge, but have been doing it with Phryne Fisher in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. sooooo goood
Horror movies and wine (which is a pretty normal recharging for me, but becomes very much the norm in fall). Sometime the wine gets traded in for pumpkin beer 🙂
Hear hear, to pecan dessert season! And also to SWEATER WEATHER, which is finally here!
I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting sweater weather, so give me the highlights of your sweater collection, Toasties!
My two favorites sweaters are a fairisle sweater my mom knit me, in cream, dark red, and navy blue, and this amazing Christmas sweater, which is a great way to make new friends. People *love* it.
My two current favorites:
1. big fluffy beige sweater with a black owl knitted into the front
2. lightweight asymmetrical gray and white stripes
Both excellent for wearing over leggings.
Ahhhh, owl sweater! I want one!
I have one I affectionately call my ladybug sweater as it is covered in spots and feels like living in an offensively red cloud.
it is not sweater weather here, but it will be. soon. hopefully.
most of my sweaters are, like the rest of my wardrobe, grey or black. i do have one cable-knit sweater that is goose-poop green. caca d’oie. that murky green-yellow color. it’s great.
I LOVE THAT COLOR.
I’ve been calling it my Ravenclaw sweater even though it’s not really ravenclaw and actually maybe it’s a bit Slytherin but fuckit I’M Ravenclaw so there.
That’s so cool! I love the pattern and I am partial to green (despite being a Gryffindor here)
Sweater highlights? Well, I have, um, more than twenty cashmere sweaters because I am really good at finding cashmere in thrift stores. Anytime I find cashmere in a thrift store I buy it and then give them to friends because there is nothing more decadent than pulling on a cashmere sweater for weekend lounging and not feeling conscious about it in the slightest because it cost three freakin’ bucks.
I live in Vermont. Sweaters are all I do for nine months of the year. (80% of my closet and drawers are sweaters. And I love them all.) But…
One sweater to rule them all.
Yes, its like sixty years old. Yes, its technically menswear. Don’t care. Funny thing is, its still too warm up here to wear it. Sweater weather for me doesn’t start until the mid-thirties and even that’s pretty mild. It’s a balmy 45 degrees today.
Very cute. Love the color combo!
That’s gorgeous!
I just moved to a place that doesn’t seem to have sweater or coat weather, so I’ll just be living vicariously in this thread.
Tragically, my college is too far South to have anything approaching sweater weather. (People here pull out sweatshirts the second the thermometer dips below 70. They are weak.) I have a muted turquoise v-neck that stretches just enough and is thin enough to layer over my perpetual winter button-ups, but I won’t be able to bust it out until January.
I am those people. I am indeed weak. Thank goodness my sweater collection is strong! I have an obnoxious puffy red sweater with a decal in puffy paint of Santa riding in a classic convertible. It’s ridiculous and I wear it basically non-stop until it’s actually Christmas season, and then I tuck it away until mid-January.
I have a super comfy oatmeal-colored sweater that I got to pull out of the closet last week for the first time this year, and it fits even better now than it did last year. I’m so happy.
That sweater is amazing! Love the ad copy too. I would definitely put out my anxious, tentative “…friend?” feelers.
I’ve been loving this movie about a queer blind Brazilian kid called The Way He Looks, but I have reached a dilemma, my friends. What does Netflix have in the LGBT category that’s actually about lesbians/bi girls? Not one lesbian friend, not creepy oversharing sex scenes for straight guys, but a show or movie that is focused on ladyqueers. And is not The L Word.
I tried to look up several good films centered on queer women that were previously on Netflix streaming but are now available only on DVD (which is outdated technology). So my suggestion is to look *beyond* Netflix.
Have you watched Life Partners? I’m pretty sure it’s still on netflix. It’s not solely about lesbians (it’s more about the friendship between two women, one gay, one straight) but it’s cute and charming not exploitative at all.
GIRL TRASH GIRL TRASH GIRL TRASH
it’s a entirely gay girl musical, it is TERRIBLE, watch it and feel joy
Mosquita y Mari*, Show Me Love*, Frida*, Tig, Orange is the New Black, Life Partners, Girltrash All Night Long (it sounds like porn but isn’t at all). Sense8 is an ensemble piece but one of the 8 leads is a woman with a girlfriend. Asterisks are for ones I haven’t seen myself so I can’t 100% verify there aren’t oversharing sex scenes but I doubt it based on description.
Also my bad if you were just complaining about lack of women/women content and not asking for reqs (cuz complaining about that is totally valid and not negated by these movies being on there!)
Try Pariah. But only if you’re prepared to be absolutely devastated.
Desert Hearts!! If it’s still there, really sweet older movie
My dearest Toasties, how do you figure out what YOU want (big picture)? And what if you are responsible for other people? Is it still possible to know what YOU want if everything feels overshadowed by your spouse or child’s needs?
I’m not great at articulating what I want on a small scale (often the truth is that I really don’t care whether we have pizza or tacos), and I think that’s OK. But if I don’t know what I want to do professionally or where I want to live or what really matters to ME… that seems like something I should work on.
How are you figuring these things out?
I, personally, have not been.
My spouse and I are seeing a couple’s counselor in part to help him figure that very thing out. We don’t have kids, but he’s spent so long focusing on getting the rent and bills paid, and going to school part time, that now that graduation is in sight, he has no idea what is next. This week, our counselor asked “what gives your life meaning?” I had a ready answer (I’m very mission-driven, as they say). Spouse was surprised that he really didn’t. Well, surprised and frustrated. But that’s what we are there for — therapy is no good if you’re not feeling uncomfortable and itchy on the inside of your brain.
All of which is to say — this may be something a vocational counselor could be helpful in untangling. It may take a little while to figure out, but it could be very worthwhile.
I wonder if articulating what we want on a small scale helps us articulate what we want on a big scale?
I sometimes struggle with bits of this too. I also don’t always care about pizza or tacos, and I don’t always care about some of the bigger picture questions. But I wonder if training myself to listen closely to myself for some of the smaller scale questions (ie, I could be happy with pizza or tacos, but I actually would prefer tacos tonight) helps when thinking about bigger questions.
I think this is probably true. My therapist has been pushing me to do things that actually make me feel better instead of things that pass the time, and I realized that I have very little sense of how small decisions actually impact my day-to-day life. I’m sure they do, I just don’t connect things up very well. So I’ve been working on paying attention to cause and effect, being aware of my own emotional state, and being less judgmental of my own preferences.
And rereading this blog post. Particularly this bit:
Living up to your potential is not crossing off everything on your to do list on time, under budget. Or canonizing your ideas in a book deal. Really, no one cares. You are not on this earth to do that. Trust me. No one is. You are on this earth to be kind. That is your only potential.
And then you have to earn a living.
“do things that actually make me feel better instead of things that pass the time”
That’s exactly it! So much mere “time-passing”. It’s insidious. I have a list on the phone called “Let me count the ways I stop myself from engaging with the world” (catchy, right?) and whenever I notice myself doing something that prevents me from engaging, I add it to the list.
They’re things like “listening to music whenever I’m in danger of being alone with my thoughts” and “taking out my phone every time I’m waiting for the elevator” mostly. Nothing bad, really, only cumulatively I end up being taken out of my body and out of my world and into some nether-place where where I am and what I’m doing doesn’t “count”. It’s definitely something I’m trying to be more aware of.
I have noticed this about myself too. I always have some background distraction going. Part of it is what I have heard called “temptation bundling,” where I can only watch X garbage TV program if I’m also exercising or folding laundry or whatever. I can’t remember the last time I went for a walk without an audiobook.
You keep a list – do you find yourself able to engage once you catch yourself? If so, do you feel like what you’ve gained by being present with your own thoughts is positive?
Some of it’s systematic, but some of it is moment-to-moment.
Meaning, I’ll go down the list and think of alternatives systematically. What if I take a class and listen to lectures when I’m in the car instead? Will that make me feel more “fed” at the end of the drive? What if instead of choosing music that pushes me into a bright aggressively happy mood, I choose music that accents my current state of mind or body, even if it’s a sad or stressed or tired one? What if in the morning drive when I’m zombie-like is when I listen to audio, and the evening drive when I’m awake is when I spend some time with my mind?
But moment to moment, it comes down to what I need at the time.
It’s the nights that I spend time with my thoughts that lead to change.
I am much more in a place of “My finances and personal relationships are going well, but I don’t feel a sense of purpose about anything I’m doing. What’s up with that?”
things that actually make me feel better instead of things that pass the time SO MUCH THIS. Wish I could figure out what those things are.
I was really terrible at it (writing out a breakup story above really made me realize HOW terrible). But I’ve gotten way better.
The best thing I’ve done generally is just spend time alone having to make decisions. Travelling alone accelerated the learning curve for me HUGELY. Just learning how to please myself when there was no one else to please was so powerful.
Also, a 10 day silent meditation course helped a lot.
Also also I’m not in a people-pleasing profession (just the opposite) so learning to be confrontational and say no I think has helped me to more of it in my own life.
I’m pretty grateful I got to do some of those things before I had a spouse (or kids, which I don’t yet have, but I imagine make the process even trickier).
Today was the first morning this fall that I woke up and thought it was several hours earlier than it really was, because the sky was still so dark. It’s hard enough to drag myself out of bed and to work at the best of times, never mind when it’s still dark by the time I have to leave :/ I’m looking forward to a long weekend of sleeping, reading and fighting the urge to buy excessive quantities of makeup and skincare products, aka the usual.
A friend on our OHS committee let slip that there will be a fire drill today, so I’m going to be dreading that for the rest of the afternoon. “Can I safely go to the bathroom now or will I be forced to evacuate the building mid-poop?” My only hope is that they’ll do it late enough in the day that I can just slink off and go home.
Ack fire drills! We had an earthquake drill here in the summer, which was our over-zealous office manager running around yelling “RUMBLE RUMBLE”. I won “Earthquake drill rockstar”, but that was mainly because I slid under my desk quickly in embarrassment for her.
I wish there were more opportunities to be labeled a “rock star” by hiding under my desk.
yeah, it’s officially dark when i wake up now. which has been making me feel super groggy, ugh.
what makeup and/or skincare are you fighting the urge to buy? i don’t wear much makeup but i keep getting tempted by glossier skin tint. everyone always looks so luminous in the photos…possibly because they have amazing skin to begin with.
I’ve fallen deep into the K-beauty hole and because a lot of the products are less expensive than the Western skincare I can find in local stores, it can be hard to talk myself out of spontaneously ordering a bunch of moisturizers and cleansers. (Also, this lotion that’s 96% snail goo is like a little miracle for my face.)
Makeup-wise I want a whole bunch of stuff from Zoeva but since I’ll be in Munich for a few days around Christmas, I’ll buy it in stores there (if I still want it by then!) rather than ordering online.
i’ve heard good things about zoeva! really pigmented shadows, apparently?
also tell me about the snail goo! i’ve heard that it’s magical, but like…how? moisturizing? just…rejuvenation? i’m intrigued!
I have the Zoeva rose gold brush set and really like it. I want to do a bit more research on the makeup side of things but I have my eye on two lipsticks and two eyeshadow palettes.
The snail goo is moisturizing and soothing. I’ve been trying out so many new products lately that my skin is justifiably annoyed with me, and the snail goo is good at making my red bumps and other signs of irritation go away pretty fast.
I currently talk myself out of buying everything in the Besame range. Their lipsticks in particular are so pigmented and moisturizing and smell divine.
We were warned yesterday to expect a power outage at some point in the afternoon and I had the same dilemma.
I highly recommend a sunrise lamp if you can afford one! I have trouble getting up when it’s dark but for some reason the lamp makes a huge difference.
I second the sunrise lamp – and there’s a cheaper solution called Lighten Up! (exclamation point required) that is a timer that hooks up to a lamp you already have. Way cheaper solution, and works like a charm! I got one recently and it has completely changed my mornings with how much more energy I have. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aag/main?ie=UTF8&sel…
I have been telling EVERYONE I know about this, it’s wonderful.
I have an alarm clock that slowly gets brighter until it’s time to wake up! It is sooo helpful.
Yes, so dark in the mornings.
Favorite fantastical fun film — Labryinth duh.
The first one that came to mind for me was Spirited Away! The magic holds up even n years later.
NOOOOO. That film scarred me for life even though I didn’t realize it until someone made me watch it in college the first time around. My intense dislike of owls and skittering noises in the dark has one source.
Oh no, I’m so sorry! I love it so! Now, the Dark Crystal, on the other hand, yikes.
That was my favorite for years and years! I saw it in the theater. Have you seen Mirrormask?
The Dark Crystal definitely traumatized me as a child.
Howl’s Moving Castle. Or Ladyhawke. Hmmm.
Does WIllow count? because Willow.
Willow! I even loved the NES video game.
Practical Magic–now on (Canadian) Netflix
I am in the throes of a gross fall cough/generally feeling shitty, but I am still at work and therefore still interacting with museum visitors even though I sound like an eighty-year-old chain smoker and my voice cracks every couple of minutes. If anyone asks what’s wrong with my voice today, I think I’m just going to say “What are you talking about? This is what I always sound like” and then stare at them until they go away.
This is Mulder, the kitten who showed up on our doorstep last week.
We took him to the vet.
He wasn’t chipped, and he was in good health overall.
We adopted him, and he has brought a bit of youth and playfulness to our existing cat, Fred, as well as our dog, Beans. Although you can’t tell from this pic, he’s a pretty active little guy.
PS: other names we considered: Stan Lee, Steve Rogers. But everyone compromised on Mulder. I haven’t seen him lose his gun and get his ass kicked by a monster-of-the-week, so I’m not sure it is 100% appropriate. But we can call him “Spooky” if we want, I guess. Although everyone just seems to call him “Little bro” most of the time. (I also campaigned for Clint Barton, so we could “bro” him like the Tracksuit Draculas, but I was outvoted)
Mulder!! What an excellent name and an excellent cat! Good on you for getting him into a safe place. October is notoriously bad for stray cats, especially black cats, and it’s clear he has found his people in you. <3
He looks like young David Duchovny! Somehow!
He is adorable!
You could even call him “Fox” in a husky voice if something really emotionally charged was happening….
My wife and daughter like walking into the room and saying that quintessential Scully line, “Mulder, it’s me.”
Awww. He looks like a baby Gomez.
SO HANDSOME
THOSE EARS
oh good lord, i love how he is just like a little sack of jello, with long long limbs. I can feel that sprawly kitty lap weight just looking at him!
He has in fact slid bonelessly out of my lap a number of times, inadvertently clawing my leg up trying to save himself 🙂
That first pic is so great! “Hey. HEY. I know you’re home! I can see you through the glass! LET ME IN.”
“FBI, OPEN THE DOOR!!”
SO MUCH LEGS. <3
So cute! Our kitten is named Spooky after Mulder too!
SPOOKY MULDER, THE OCTOBER SURPRISE
(he is perfect)
For some reason the first picture seems like such a Mulder face if he were a cat. “SCULLY. WE HAVE TO UNCOVER THE ALIEN CONSPIRACY.”
Also yay black cats! My cat growing up was a black cat and I always get sad when I see stats about them being way less likely to be adopted and being in legitimate danger around Halloween.
This might be the best cat I have ever seen.
“No more typing, Dave. Your arm is no longer yours. It is mine. Mine for lounging. You are mine. You are my lounge furniture.”
Get used to it. Little guy correctly assumes he’s safe with you. Kudos on your calming, comforting vibe. It’s a compliment to be owned by a recently homeless cat.
You know that you now HAVE to get a skeptical looking orange cat.
Mulder and Scully cats. You are brilliant!
Senior Cat Agent Fred will have to do. Despite his background glare in this pic, he and Mulder get along super well, and play with each other happily:
Agent Fred looks like my late kitty Ashes – right down to the nose spot! Love his super grumpy face!
BEANS
Beans trying to work up the courage to say hi:
Please invite me to your house and don’t notice the unusually large bag I’m carrying and don’t look around for your kitten after I leave.
I literally just sent you an invite for a Halloween party 🙂
Excellent. Now to find a costume which requires a kitten-sized bag and perhaps a few trailing feathers or catnip-stuffed baubles.
This cat is objectively perfect.
hey toasties.
do you ever find yourself sliding into increasingly murky territory but find yourself unwilling to do anything about it? not to be needlessly vague, but you know, in general: you think “wow this is a bad idea” and just keep going anyway?
HOW DO YOU STOP?
(disclaimer: nothing lifethreatening or even like, super bad that requires immediate intervention. just, eh, potentially really regrettable?)
Yes. I have many hilarious stories to tell, now it’s all a few years in the past.
Well, my own murky situation blew up in my face SPECTACULARLY a few years ago, so mostly I just remind myself of the fallout from that. Of course, that was a live and learn thing, so idk if this helps, haha
You just described the entire decade of my 20s.
I had a giant post-breakup midlife crisis aged 30, my 20s were very sensible. I regret nothing either, and had so much fun I have continued behaving ridiculously long after the crisis was over.
that tongue though
MINE TOO MINE TOO
Yepppp. Usually I continue doing it until I’m almost sick of myself/the regrettable thing. Then I talk to my straight-talking mom or friends (or therapist when I had one), and they ask if that’s really what I want to be doing. I say maaaaybe not and they give me the “well there you go” gesture. And I do it a little more and eventually stop. That probably doesn’t help at all but that seems to be my usual path-of-least-resistance strategy.
Ah, yes, like most relationships in my very questionable romantic history! And most other major decisions. Just keep an eye out for when things shift from murky to very, very clear and be ready to bail and you should be fine! Time makes many things okay in the end.
Oh yes. OHHHHH YES.
I KNOW when we go out together and have A Certain Number of drinks, that things are getting increasingly non plausibly deniable, but I am also probably not going to say anything because oh my god so hot and sexy and well. WELL.
Try not to become transfixed by one’s own Romantic self-destructiveness. It adds an obscuring layer of meta to whatever the actual problem is.
Whoa. This is very solid advice.
I mean, what are the stakes?
If it’s… “wow, I will be so embarrassed to admit I dated that guy”…. whatever.
If it’s….. “wow, I’m pretty sure I just allowed the water supply of a major metropolitan area to be poisoned” or “I just destroyed my relationship with someone very dear to me”………. maybe reconsider?
My advice would be to call your mother, or whoever is that support/advice/mentorship person for you, and casually tell them about it as part of What’s Up With You, What’s Up With Me. She’ll be nice and non-judgemental but also call you on it if you’re BSing yourself about consequences, and I find it helps to hear it from someone else.
For me this usually involves eating more cheese, drinking more wine, and going to the gym less. More and More and less and less. Until I have to decide if i’m buying new clothes or if I’m going to start taking care of myself again. So I try out the eating good /actually getting up in the morning to exercise thing for a week. I promise myself only a week. And then it feels so good when I start taking care of myself again that I’m like … eh, I could do this more. Fast forward a few months and I’m so happy and feeling so good that I reward myself with cheese and wine. And here we go again.
CATS.
FLOOFBELLIES
Also A+ synchronized sleeping floofbellies!
When either of them is curled up tight (see Saffron), if you sneak a finger into the bellyfluff and tickle them they spread like flowers (see Captain). I can’t get them both to do it at the ame time though!
Pizza cat!
Atticus being Baddicus. He’s (mostly) given up on climbing this bookshelf and now just kind of hangs out on the bottom shelf.
Gertie is just hanging out.
Klaas-Jan, sprawled out facing towards the TV for a change (he usually ends up in the opposite direction)
omg, that is the most happy and trusting kitty!
He tends to spend a lot of time most evenings stretched out on his back on my lap. Usually his head is pointed the other direction. I guess I’m a good platform for proper snoozing.
Asa enjoying the bean bag and the blanket I draped over her
Oliver rocking the ruff I made him after cutting the elastic off an old fitted sheet.
omg that little collar is the cutest thing i have ever seen
Gomez “Give Me Love Give It To Me Now Why Are You Even Typing” Addams takes umbrage at my priorities.
Our cat is a spoiled cat.
When I came home the other day Dolly was perfectly sprawled out in the one sunny spot in the house.
She then proceeded to take a nap on top of me.
Haven’t posted any Kismet in a while…
She’s been going outside (!) lately on supervised visits of the porch. Mostly she rolls in the dirt and leaves her scent for my neighbor’s dogs.
That little pink nose!
She is the very picture of happy.
those chubby fluffy bellies! ahhhhhh!
Today Moxie is not approving of the idea that “MilesofMountain is working from home” does not mean “MilesofMountain is on full-time cat entertainment duty”. He is expressing that by:
1) Jumping up to the gap between my desk and the wall to pull off anything he can get his paws on
2) Placing his favourite toy on the other side of the door so he can “hunt” it through the gap under the door
3) and collapsing in a sadly mewing dramatic heap on the floor
Oh poor pitiful Moxie!
Oh no! Oh dear, oh dear, poor cat! What a dreadfully tough life for a Moxie!
This is Captain’s solution to the working at home vs cat entertainment dilemma.
Ahahahaha such a hard life Moxie
Reluctant cuddling
![](http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc397/nutellatime/IMG_0487.jpg?t=1444327166")
finally got a photo of Tia in the time machine!
I don’t know why she’s aiming for the future, she was my first kitty and I know she’d like to go back to before I imposed a younger, dumber, boy cat on her.
My next box might have to become a Calvin and Hobbes transmogrifier.
In this week’s round of Overheard at the Office:
– A coworker who recently transferred here from the Dept of Aboriginal Affairs mentioned that at their last office Halloween party, a new employee came in dressed as Pocahontas. As if that weren’t bad enough, the people she was telling this story to did not see the problem with that. Grown-ass women had to have it explained to them why that is a) a horrible thing to do b) especially when you work for Aboriginal Affairs.
– Another coworker was going around trying to raise money for “an organist that provides support for sick children.” When asked “Um, do you mean an organization?” she indignantly replied, “No!” I guess this mysterious organist is trying to cure sick children with the healing power of music? A noble goal.
– Coworker A asked Coworker B to stop farting in her (A’s) office, Coworker B told her to shut up, a lively argument ensued.
– Coworkers trying to pick a name for their trivia team considered going with “The Baby-Busters” on the grounds that “we’re not baby boomers.” At some point one of them realized that name makes it sound like they beat up babies, so they went with “Quizlamic Extremists.”
-Coworker revealed that she though that “Novak Djokovic” is the real name of the Joker.
Hey, that last one? New headcanon.
The Djokar.
Well, I’ve heard Novak be referred to as The Djoker, sooooo…
God I love these. Please never stop.
I wish I could stop, in the sense that I wish I worked somewhere where people weren’t constantly spouting such ridiculousness. But that doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon.
The lively farting conversation line made me actually laugh out loud even though I’m working on minimal sleep because of first-day-period cramping.
Totally unsurprised yet still horrified by that Pocahontas costume story.
UGH WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE. Racism, clearly, but good lord, what the eternal fuck.
My coworker that-has-the-same-name-as-me-and-makes-me-cringe (and she spells it wrong, too), came back from her “European vacation”.
Main complaint: too many foreigners. “No English people” in london, only rich I-can’t-remember-who–she was upset she heard nobody “speak with accents” (I later figured out that meant, she heard lots of accents, but none like My Fair Lady).
Only “middle eastern refugees trying to sell cheap Eiffel towers on the street” in Paris.
I send out multiple job applications a week.
she heard lots of accents, but none like My Fair Lady
this is incredible
Did she expect them to talk like Audrey Hepburn in the movie? Because no actual British person has ever sounded like that.
(See also: Dick van Dyke in “Mary Poppins”).
What? No!
Just. No. To all of it. But especially the jackassery from Aboriginal Affairs.
Just. Fix the fucking water crisis already. Or something. Constructive.
I think this was the winner this week for me: “Oh, I loved Microsoft Bob!”
(Oh man, that Wikipedia article: “Microsoft Bob was greatly criticized in the press, did not gain wide acceptance with users, and was not a successful or long-lived product.”)
I have this one coworker who likes to talk about how he so rarely gets warm food to eat (because he’s a divorced 55yo who lives alone in an apartment that I am sure has a stove and oven and yet he can’t crack the code on his own). Anyway, I heard him talking to our boss the other day and I wasn’t really paying attention but then I heard him say “people ask why I don’t get a microwave to warm up my food and that’s why I don’t” and I’m really disappointed I didn’t hear the preceding statement. Based on other things I’ve heard him say (he doesn’t believe in sunblock) I assume the reason is “I’m a crackpot” but I do want to know more.
I also overheard the IT guy talk about how the owner of the company is always going to seminars and getting new ideas about what it takes to get more sales (more salespeople, more engineers, etc). Then he said that they never say you need more IT people, but then he said they should have more and they should be young, female, and attractive.
Then two outside IT dudes came in to install new software and one mentioned he has a cat named Taliban and the other started talking about how he lost his dog in his divorce and called his sister a Boca Raton bitch, because that’s a specific kind of bitch, apparently.
Not a great week for IT dudes.
Okay, I know you don’t feel this way, but I gotta say – you have the best coworkers
I’ll be honest, I laughed at “quizlamic extremists”.
Same. Let’s be terrible people together.
This week my coworker explained to me how lotteries work (“you write down which numbers you think will win then they draw numbers and…”) and how insurance works (“the insurance doesn’t pay for everything, there’s something called a co-pay”). I am 30 years old. I own a car and a house of course I fucking know how insurance works.
On the actual, pleasant coworker-I-like front: “That’s what this job is half the time, soothing old men’s egos.” THANK GOD SOMEONE ELSE SEES IT.
There is a coworker I super hate. She seems very anxious and awkward which makes you want to be nice to her, but she is also really rude if anyone questions her, and also super incompetent. I HAAATE her and will post the Best Of every friday from now on.
Best of! Coworker offered to pay ($40) for a patient’s (not necessary) narcotics. Stupid Coworker approaches me and tells me they will take it out of the fund we have for women who can’t afford abortions.
Me: Why doesn’t coworker pay for it?
Her: *in the instantly snottiest and rudest tone imaginable* “Don’t you think this is a big chunk out of coworker’s paycheck? Boss approved it, so just show me where to write it down, okay?”
Coworker lives in a big-ass house with her partner and pays my boyfriend $10/hr to babysit her son. I so regret backing down from that because that fund is donations only and it makes no sense to use it for unnecessary things, that someone else offered to pay for, who can afford it, because she offered. I will not fall for that stupid tone again.
Thank you for giving me a space to share that because I was pissed off for the whole rest of the day.
If you’re in the US, it’s *illegal* to misuse donations. When a donor indicates how their donation is to be spent, it is illegal to spend it differently. Maybe ask Snotty Coworker who misuses abortion donations to explain that law to you.
You know, I will ask my boss! I don’t know if she would actually lie about that, but like, coworker can definitely afford $40.
They try to use it for convenience all the time. Like if someone forgot to pay for something, they try to get it out of there, rather than admit they made a mistake and call the patient.
Yeah I’m gonna talk to my boss. She is kind of intimidating because she does not speak her mind, but I’m trying to lead by example and be incredibly frank all the time. I’m gonna do it on Monday. Clock in early, look super fresh, tell her what I think.
Thank you for that 🙂 it is really good to share.
Previously, in Her:
*to a young (light skinned possibly of Latina descent) girl with her white grandpa* “Do you speak english? Is this your translator?” Not even a fucking hello.
*to me, working at my own desk, not facing her* “Is my computer on?”
Me: “Is um… is the light on”
Her: “Well this is a lot different from my computer in the back and I am not used to this desk *rant in nasty tone*…” (she just had to jiggle the mouse to see yes or no, right?)
*countless times, while holding the appointment book, to me* “Do you know how busy friday looks?”
Me, finally: “Well you have the book so… all the answers lie in your hands.”
Her, super incensed: “Well I just thought you would know because you seem to make a lot of appointments… *rant*”
I hate this person. So much.
Toasties, how had I not heard of Habitica before? I’m sure the positive effects on my productivity will wear off over time, but treating my life as an RPG is just the right way to get me motivated. I already bought myself a neat leather armor, and I’m actually trying to come up with to-do items so that I can check them off for gold and experience.
As for fun fantastical things: has the bartender ever watched Nighthawke?
I love Habitica! Have you joined the Toastie group there!? It is called Toastrons I think and you can find it under the guilds!
I had not, and I will do so immediately!
Yes, join us! Habitica is the best!
There’s both a guild and a party! If you want to join the party, then someone has to invite you, but just ask in the guild chat and someone will.
AH! Joining now – my darn kid stopped using it so I’ve been all alone, just me and my cotton-candy-blue dragon. Glad to know other Toasties are there.
I also just realized I mixed things up, and meant Ladyhawke.
Ladyhawke is the best!
Ladyhawke love 5EVAH
I’ve been using it for almost a year now and the positive effects haven’t worn off at all! In fact, every time I take a break (I was on a kinda longish one just now because thought I was getting sick but never did; thanks for reminding me to come back), my house goes back to how it was before I joined, and it’s instantly noticeable.
So, I found out some news about my ex yesterday that’s got me all in a weird headspace. Just kind of hanging on at my desk until I can go home and vent/cry/journal/play video games/all of the above. Details in the reply for mention of abuse.
So, I broke up with my ex back in April. It was the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long time. He’s got a pretty serious drinking problem, and had been cheating pretty regularly. (Fun!) Anyway, it took me a long time to be able to do it on my terms, but I ended it and haven’t looked back.
As soon as I broke up with him, but before he moved out, he started “crashing” at an acquaintance’s house. Surprise surprise, they later started dating. I was fine with this. More than fine. I felt like somehow I had transferred a curse onto another person.
After less than a month of them moving in together, they’d broken up. Didn’t really think about why too much. Then last night, a mutual friend tells me it’s because he got blackout drunk and beat the crap out of her. She pressed charges, I guess. It was very bad.
Obviously my heart goes out to her. I feel terrible for her. Yet I also am very aware that it could’ve easily been me. I spent years perfecting the technique of not setting him off when he got drunk. He did get violent on me once, ages ago, and after he promised to never do it again I took him back. But it wasn’t so much that he held to the promise as I learned how to not set him off.
So now I’m just in a fuzzy space. How could I let myself be in that position for so long? I’m second-guessing everything about whether I can pick a good partner. Ugh. I just… any words of kindness would be very helpful, Toasticles. Thanks.
Oh, honey, I’m so so so sorry. What a horrible and terrifying situation. I felt a bit delicate when I realized an ex had been emotionally abusive. I didn’t actually cop to that until after the breakup and suddenly recognized the same behavior in someone else I started seeing. So I get that self-doubt. I understand. I don’t have any advice, but I do have loads of sympathy.
Many, many lovely people end up with abusive partners and so many of us look back on past relationships and see abusive patterns of behaviour we feel foolish for not recognizing at the time. Your experience with your ex doesn’t have to cast a shadow over future relationships, nor do you need to interpret it as a sign that you can’t pick a good partner. Be kind to yourself.
Oh sweetie. Your new ability to recognize this behavior at the outset of a relationship AND your desire to not go down that path again will help you pick a better partner in the future, I promise.
Internet hugs. I’ve been there, and really do relate.
But listen, congratulations on leaving him. You recognized that the situation was unhealthy and you got out, on your own terms. That is so hard and it took real courage. Don’t beat yourself up for not having done it in an ideal-in-retrospect timeframe.
Thanks everyone. It really means a lot to me.
You can pick a good partner, and you deserve a good partner, and you will find a good partner. You are going to be in a relationship, and it will involve respect and kindness, and you’ll find yourself compromising on something, and it’ll give you pause, and then you’ll remember that he compromised on something, too, and more importantly that if you didn’t compromise, the fallout would not involve physical or emotional abuse.
What you went through in your ex relationship really sucks, and what happened to the new woman really sucks, but both of you are going to move forward, while he sits in jail. What he did to you both does not define either of you, it defines him. You define yourself, and one of those self-definitions is that of someone who got out, who broke off the relationship, who saw it was better to be without that with. You’re strong and smart and self-reliant, and those qualities will help you find a partner who deserves you.
I can only echo what everybody else is saying, that you got out, and you know better now, and all you can do is forgive yourself.
The one thing I learned above all from the Lundy Bancroft book is that *it is in the abuser’s interest to have you not know that you are being abused, because once you understand that it is abuse they lose the control/power over you. They work hard at getting you to NOT recognize that you are being abused, because controlling you is the point*
You did not willingly let yourself be in that position. He put you in that position, and you got yourself out. That was very brave and wonderful, and I’m praying for you and your friend (and that your ex feels very ashamed of himself).
I’m so sorry, and I can totally understand how that could put you into a tailspin of self-doubt about the people you choose to be in your life. But remember, you were able to recognize that you were in a bad situation, and you were able to get yourself out of it. You did that for yourself! And you became a stronger person in the process, and you learned to take care of yourself a little bit better. And now you can take your new self-care skills and your new-found strength into the next stage of life with you.
But give yourself time. Let yourself heal. Make yourself tea and cook yourself elaborate meals if that’s what makes you feel good. Or indulge in other little ways that help you to feel loved by you. It will get better. I know that it’s hard to imagine right now, but in the end I’m guessing you will feel stronger and more confident than ever. And in the meantime I am sending good healing thoughts your way.
Thank you for sharing. Not being quiet about it helps others in ways you probably won’t ever know.
It’s not your fault and you can see it more clearly now. Learn what you can from every relationship and leave the rest behind you.
I AM SEEING HAMILTON NEXT SUMMER YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!
Oh Toasties, it has been a hell of a week. I had the singular experience of having to tell my on-campus counselor that I needed an urgent appointment because I’d been having panic attacks all week, her profusely apologizing for not having an opening that day that would work with my schedule and sending me to a floating counselor, and then seeing her 5 hours later at a GSA meeting. Never have I been so glad for confidentiality rules.
I have a TON of work to do this weekend, including some really boring repetitive grunt work, so what are your favorite things to listen to while you do that kind of stuff? I’m all caught up on my regular podcasts and I’m not ready for a West Wing re-listen yet.
I’m so sorry to hear about your troubles this week! I used to work at a popular off-campus coffee shop, and had similar experiences with running into medical professionals there. My skin is sort of crawling just thinking about it.
Can I ask more about this West Wing podcast?
It’s not actually a West Wing podcast- I’ve seen the episodes so many times, that I can literally just listen to them on Netflix without losing any of the story. So the past few times I’ve had intense periods of data analysis/entry for my experiments, I’ll just have the West Wing playing in the background.
I think there is a West Wing podcast in the style of Gilmore Guys, but I don’t know anyone who has listened to it, and I’m not sure if it’s any good.
I just read that Josh Malina might do a show-by-show podcast rewatch of WW. I’m keeping an eye out for it.
Podcasts I love:
1) Stop Podcasting Yourself – two hilarious Canadian dudes. Don’t listen to the most recent ep, because it was a switcheroo week on their network. Go back a few.
2) Death, Sex and Money – Interview series about (duh) death, sex money. They had some Katrina-anniversary eps that were really good.
3 How to be Amazing – Michael Ian Black’s interview podcast. Generally very good!
I absolutely love Murder She Wrote episodes for this purpose. Since they are all variations on a theme, I find them easy to have on in the background.
If you have any money to spare on it, I recommend buying a long and absorbing audiobook. I like listening to Harry Potter, because it goes on forever, or mystery novels. If not, the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish is great.
Also, listening to the podcast Welcome to Night Vale helps when I feel like I might have a panic attack.
I had to jump in, because how is Welcome to Night Vale so relaxing? Like, I get that it is spooky and fun, but I also find it really relaxes me – like everything is crazy and there’s nothing you can do about it, so just go with the flow.
Also, I get a bunch of audiobooks at the library, so you can browse for free ones there.
And, finally, my new favorite podcast is I Don’t Even Own a TV, where they talk about books they hated, and it is hilarious!
Right? I think with Night Vale, it is so removed from normal life that it provides another focus. None of the problems in the show are related to my life, and the tone tends to be calm and reassuring, like (as is the point) reading a community newspaper of a town where nothing worrying is happening and you’re not connected to the news.
yay to library audiobooks.
in addition to whatever they have on CD, many public libraries subscribe to OverDrive, which is a downloadable ebook/audiobook service.
OverDrive is honestly kind of terrible, in that it has a crappy user interface and a stupidly bad search functionality, but it is really pretty great to decide at like 10pm on a Sunday that you want a new audiobook to listen to, and to be able to find and download one right then.
Oh ‘bug, I’m sorry for your hard week. Panic attacks are evil and I wish I could just intimidate them away from you. I’d happily beat them to a pulp for you. I’m glad you sought help.
Seeing members of your counseling/medical team in public is surreal. I remember talking with an old Catholic priest. He said he wished he could give everyone the insight of his perspective. He would see a parishioner at the park and watch her flush a bit as she greeted him not 3 days after confessing to him. He said it’s human nature to assume our own embarrassing details are unique. But he can attest that everyone she sees that day has something similar to feel a little squirmy about. He heard confession from 30% of the adults in a small town. He should know.
It is my belief that half of the people at your GSA meeting have had counseling or need it. But I understand that startle and tension on seeing your counselor there. Let us know how next week goes, OK? I’ll be sending positive thoughts in your direction.
You are so sweet, and I would LOVE to surround my panic attacks with furious Toasties. I imagine y’all as avenging Valkyries riding to my rescue.
It’s especially interesting because the meeting was about what we can use some of our excess funds for to support mental health services. Last year I wrote (with another rep) a resolution that got us an extra psychiatrist on campus, and we still have money leftover, so we wanted to work with them to see where we could put it to use. And I’ve been open about having used CAPS services before and how badly grad students need them, but it was just a little surreal to have it all happen on the same day. But that’s life, I suppose?
I’ve recently gotten caught up on The JV Club Podcast. Janet Varney is just the most supportive empathetic person, and she talks about the teenage years to exclusively women (except for the Boys of Summer Series’s the past two summers). Really funny and interesting and I have found listening to women talking to be extremely calming on many occasions.
Fave podcasts in general…
1) Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids. It is exactly what it says, recorded at live shows across Canada (and a little bit of the US). If that sort of thing doesn’t work you up, it’s a lot of fun to listen to. (And it has some more poignant moments in there sometimes.)
2) Welcome to Night Vale.
3) Not one of my regular listens, but Ask Me Another. Fun little quiz show.
It’s not updating anymore, but I’ve been working my way through the extensive backlog of The Thrilling Adventure Hour. It’s a variety of comedy series done in the style of old time radio shows and I love it.
Frank and Sadie 4EVER!!!!!!!
Podfic! I listen to podfic while knitting or commuting. I usually only listen to fics that I have already read, so it’s not a big deal if I get distracted for a few minutes. Try http://www.audiofic.jinjurly.com/ or the podfic tag on the AO3.
Toasties, what are you reading? I finished listening to The Dorito Effect and do recommend. I still have 150 pages to go in Red Mars, I just do not get enough time for reading an actual-factual book.
I started listening to The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss this morning, and wow. Great start.
Reading a couple of Alison Weir biographies (Elizabeth of York, disapprove of over-reliance on Polydore Vergil as a source; Katherine Swynford, too early to make determination).
I have just started the fifth Rivers of London book – I only started the first one a week and a half ago but have been devouring them.
I am reading a sci-fi ya comic by Craig Thompson called Space Dumplins (spelled like that), and it’s making me wish I had a twelve year old daughter so I could give it to her.
Amongst other things, it takes place in a universe wherein chickens have become self-aware. Subsequently, a chicken scientist invented an alternate way to provide humanity (and many aliens) with protein.
I am reading The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, sequel to the Three Body Problem. Very good so far, though still hard science fiction without the attention given to characterization I might normally look for in books. I like reading what is a super popular SF series in China. It’s a lot of fun.
On the book I have, it says Cixin Liu. But on Wikipedia, it says Liu Cixin. Do any Toasties know which would be better/ preferred? I went with the one on the published book, but genuinely don’t know.
!!!! I didn’t think the translation was out yet!! eeeee
Tor decided to Anglicize the order of the name for some unknown reason; even Tor.com was calling him Liu Cixin up do the US publication of The Three-Body Problem.
I heard the translator of the first speak and he said that it was a very long discussion in-house about what was going to be easiest for bookstores and purchasers, and they knew there was no good solution (paraphrased).
I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle for the first time this week, and loved it! I don’t know why I hadn’t read it before? I’ve also been listening to the audiobook for The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black and really enjoying it.
October is my spooky read month, so I also just started The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, and when I finish my audiobook on the way home today my next one will be Practical Magic. I also have Chernow’s Hamilton biography checked out from my library, and The Social Sex by Marilyn Yalom and Theresa Donovan Brown came in for me yesterday, so my to-read library pile is getting a little intense.
I do love Name of The Wind and hope you enjoy it! Sometimes it’s just nice to read something with pretty words.
i’m reading Ancillary Justice – still only about 100 pages in since I started it on vacation and, who knew, I don’t read much when I’m on vacation (except for guidebooks and field guides)! Enjoying it quite a bit though.
Just finished Richard Thaler’s Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics which was recommended by another Toastie and quite enjoyable – so much bad science and handwaving seems involved in classical economics, it generally makes me want to slap economists upside the head, so it was a pleasure to read about quantifying how people actually make decisions rather than how economists think people make decisions.
Also read Yoon Ha Lee’s short story collection Conservation Of Shadows – I’m not generally the biggest fan of short stories but holy cow Lee is an amazing writer. They’re mostly space opera and I’m not sure how it’s possible to make stories of war and colonization appallingly beautiful, but Lee does it. Still thinking about them.
I just finished Working Stiff by Judy Melinick, which is about her two years training to be a medical examiner in NYC. It was really fascinating, albeit often kinda gross, so I had to skim a bit. But definitely worth a read.
*zooms off to add to library hold request list*
I read that a while ago, also on a Toast recommendation I think! Very gross in some places, and somewhat overwhelming, but fascinating.
I stayed up until 3am finishing The Martian last night and I have no regrets. (Now I have to see the movie this weekend!)
Also in the currently-reading stack: still working on Two Serpents Rise (Max Gladstone turns out to be too much for me when I’m sick, his prose takes concentration), Machine of Death (a very uneven anthology), and a surprisingly fantastic collection of late 19th/early 20th century horror called, inaccurately, H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of Horror. (What it is is they took a long essay Lovecraft wrote about weird fiction and then made an anthology out of all the short stories he mentioned, so there’s no actual Lovecraft here, but a lot of interesting creepy stuff I’ve never read before.)
Thanks for sharing! I found the collection-from-Lovecraft book as H.P. Lovecraft’s Book of the Supernatural–it seems to be the same–on Kindle. (And on audio CD in my library system.) But not on Overdrive. 🙁 In case anyone else is looking!
Another Toastie recommended Uprooted and I can’t remember who but it is AMAZING and is getting progressively more creepy and everything is fantastic!
haha I definitely picked up that book based on a sort of collective Toastie recommendation. EVERYONE recommended it!
SO GOOD!
I really enjoyed Uprooted! I read a lot of it on a floaty on my last pool day of the summer and it was a good time.
I might read that next then, it’s on the kindle waiting!
Just finished The Traitor Baru Cormorant yesterday. I didn’t end up liking it as much as I hoped I would, honestly. I really appreciate what the author did as far as an original world and non-Western-European fantasy setting, and I appreciate what he was trying to do. But–possibly because I have been flat-out exhausted last week–there was a time skip in the middle of the book that left me going “Whaaaaaaa?” and I never really recovered my sense of “Wait, so why is this character doing this?” I’d like to elaborate a bit more on that, but don’t want to spoil anyone!
Ancillary Mercy!
aaaaaargh I went to my local bookstore the day after it came out to buy a copy, but they had just sold out. “We’ll send it over from our other store,” they said, “we’ll call you tomorrow morning when it comes in.” And of course they haven’t called and of course I keep forgetting to check if it came in anyway.
(I really want to support my local bookstore, but they are TERRIBLE this way, I have never once ordered something and had it go smoothly, and I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED.)
I know what you mean! My local bookstore does not have it either, but I got lucky in that my parents were on vacation in a city where they could get the book for me as a ‘present.’ (I actually paid them back for it lol). BUT. I did not know until it was too late that Carry On came out the same day and now I am having the same trouble you are with that book. Whyyyyyyyyy.
I just finished reading it, and am…not pleased. Not at the ending, but at how as a story it never seemed to really even get started! <side-eyes book>
I’m not the only one! I’m a scifi person, but I was like, enh.
Just started Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932.
Just finished Hush by Jacqueline Woodson (pretty good, but ran into the Adult Reading Kid Book problem, where is my sending books to younger self time machine?) and Shifting Through Neutral by Bridgett M Davis (didn’t like it quite as much as her other novel, but it hit me harder, right in the feels).
Floating between Coming through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje (heartbreaking and sensual and gorgeous, also nice and small so a perfect commute read) and Grace Jones’s new memoir, which I think should become Toast required reading.
My husband just made me read Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. He wanted me to know what he would be like in five years.
I just finished A Little Life last weekend and spent a while just being slightly dazed. What a brutal and beautiful book.
I’m about to start Carry On – I bought it yesterday as a reward for being a responsible adult (hah) and actually going to the dentist and not avoiding it as I so deeply wanted to. I’m very excited!
I’m reading what everyone else is reading– Furiously Happy (Jenny Lawson) and Carry On (Rainbow Rowell). Also I’m reading my first Lucy Stone cozy mystery (Trick or Treat Murder) in my browser (thanks public library/ overdrive!) because it’s a slow day at work.
I want to read Furiously Happy so much but all copies are checked out in my library system and I told myself I wouldn’t buy any more books until Christmas. I regret this decision immensely.
It’s been a reading marathon week: I read all the Steerswoman books by Rosemary Kirstein following a Toastie recommendation, then The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Ann Long, then The Invasion of the Tearling (on sale digitally for $1.99!!!!) and just finished Entreat Me by Grace Draven (another take on Beauty and the Beast, really highly super recommend!)
Yay Steerswoman series! I hope you enjoyed.
Loved them!!! Can’t wait for the next book.
I’m reading Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan and it’s great and strange and difficult.
I just finished listening to the audiobook version of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Lin-Manuel Miranda reads it and it was wonderful. I want him to read every book to me now. He is amazing at putting so much emotion into everything (which is why he can make me cry with like one word when I’m listening to Hamilton).
I read all of Carry On in one big gulp the day it came out and loved it.
Before that, I read Single, Carefree, Mellow, a collection of short stories all about the relationships of young-ish women and I liked it a lot. I think the author could’ve branched out a bit and not gone to the adultery well quite as much, but I can see how you’d want a unifying theme in your collection. At any rate, it was SO NICE to read a bunch of stories about the lives of women.
I also recently read “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which was a good October pick.
Oh, and I read Anna and the French Kiss. I knew lots of people liked it, but I always found the title to be dumb and off-putting, but I wound up liking it a lot.
Just started Killing Pretty by Richard Kadrey, whom I’ve been a fan of for quite some time.
I really like the Sandman Slim series and Killing Pretty did not disappoint.
Midnight’s Children (which is striking me as being sooo similar to 100 Years of Solitude, which I just reread a few months ago – it’s like a Marquez book dropped into an Indian setting) and Rosemary’s Baby. For the latter, I’m super annoyed because the copy I bought on Amazon not only has a promotional image for its cover (which is always a pet peeve), but it’s not of the movie that everyone knows and widely considers a classic (in spite of its criminal director), it’s for the miniseries that no one watched or cared about. Grrrrr. I’ve been thinking about taking a black marker to it.
I’m reading Bad Feminist and Ancillary Mercy and enjoying both so far.
Finished Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Days and Binti by Nnedi Okorafor this week, and now I’m reading The Duchess War (which I heard about from Toasties, so thank you!). I’m also in the middle of At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcon, and Cetaganda for the nth time, because Miles is always somehow very soothing.
Organized or Etsy-ing Toasts, I’m looking for a dot grid notebook that’s roughly 3.5 by 6.5 inches. If any of you make something along these lines or can just recommend a favorite that’s in that ballpark, I promise not to complain about the cost of shipping. Thank you!!!
Rhodia makes a ton of different types of notebooks – I’d check them out! Kinda expensive but very high quality.
My Rhodia 5.5×8 is my constant companion.
My roommate sells hand-made notebooks on her Etsy shop. The jotters are approximately the size you’re looking for, and she stocks them with both plain and graph paper– no dot grid, but she does do custom work!
I love Fabriano, so I’d recommend their dot grid pocket notebook, it’s more like 3.5 x 5.5 though. They are often available at art supply stores.
Thank you, good ideas all!
Sewing toasties: I have been seized with the urge to MAKE CLOTHING of my own due to a mix of needing a stress buster and discovering Colette patterns.
1. What is an affordable, user friendly machine for a newb?
2. Are there any affordable sewing lessons in the LA area? Because all the classes online are like $60 – learn to sew a button!!!1!
Buy a good, used, refurbished machine from a store that has good reviews on Yelp or whatever. DO NOT buy a cheap, new machine. Please please please. Nothing will kill the desire to learn to sew faster than a shitty, cheap, plastic-y machine. Don’t fall for the brand name “Singer.” Singer hasn’t made a decent machine since the 60s. If you can find one of the old Sears Kenmore machines (again, used and refurbished), those are workhorses. I know someone who sewed custom wedding dresses for a living and that was her backup machine. I still have my mom’s old White from the late 60s as my backup machine.
If you can possibly find someone to go with you to the stores to test-drive the machines, do that! And also take your own fabrics along to sew. The fabrics they have for test-drives at the stores won’t be helpful. If a store won’t let you try out the machine, DO NOT BUY IT.
Oof, good to know. My budget is minuscule – I’m a student and I really can’t justify anything over $100, so I’m hoping my mom or grandma will give me one of their old machines from sometime between the 60’s-80’s. Otherwise, yeah, I’m glad to know to avoid newer singers, as I’m pretty much going to be hunting for machines on eBay and at goodwill.
Good luck! One easy-enough thing to remember is, if you pick it up and think “JFC how in the world does this tiny thing weigh so much?” that’s generally a Very Good Thing.
Lots of shops repair vacuums-and-sewing-machines (similar motors, I guess?) so you could also look into buying a super cheap broken one and fixing it up. It’s a little risky, but I once found a machine on the curb that just needed the alignment fixed.
My sewing machine is from Ikea and it is Totally Fine. But I haven’t become a serious sewer or anything, so if you anticipate heavy use probably you should take the advice above.
Yeah, my goals are very simple and honestly the ikea machine would probably work for them – make some shift dresses, skirts, tote bags, curtains, hem pants. But! At some point I might want to make a simple quilt or something, and I’m wary of getting a cheap machine as I don’t want to have to buy another, too.
I have http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Feature-Rich-Built-… and it does pretty much everything. As for classes, check out Craftsy.
I bought a bottom of the range Singer when I started sewing again a couple of years ago (99pounds at John Lewis). TBH it’s been completely fine. I am just now getting to the point where I would quite like to upgrade, but I don’t *need* to upgrade, I would just quite like to. I sew mainly garments but have made a child size quilt, including doing the free motion quilting, on this machine. All you really need is straight stitch, zigzag stitch and a buttonhole function. Although I agree with the comment above that adjustable needle position and lightening stitch are nice to haves (my machine doesn’t have lightening stitch and this is the main reason I want to upgrade). I would hold off on buying all the fancy feet–as a beginner sewer you don’t need them. Buy them one by one later as you start sewing more advanced projects. Have fun!
Kingdom Sewing (in Northridge and Simi Valley) They’ll fix up an old machine if you’d like. If you buy a machine from them you get FREE sewing lessons for the life of your machine and 5 years free adjustments. Plus they’re great people. They might be able to direct you to someone who has an older machine for sale.
Also I second the Craftsy lessons. They have tons of sales all the time and I’ve even been gifted free classes by them when I write in with suggestions or reviews. Not a guarantee, but they’re big on customer service and getting you to try their classes.
Today on This Week in Dirtbag Ethics Professor: Just when you think you couldn’t hate him anymore…
Not only is he a militantly straightedge vegan, clueless, jerkass, pseudo-activist who thinks Gandhi was a monk and only achieved anything spiritually.
He goes through ‘possession fasts.’ That pair of black skinny jeans he wears every day? They’re the only pair of pants he owns. According to him he has given up all possessions, lives in a pre-furnished apartment (in Burlington, of course), sleeps on the floor with the rest of his family, and goes dumpster diving for sustenance. While on a full time professor’s salary. With a wife who also works.
Also. He does his best to think well of everyone and always put himself in the other person’s shoes. Like when people correct him. I mean, obviously he must be the one who’s right because he’s the one with the PhD and fifteen publications, but, you know, he tries to see it from the other person’s perspective.
Even if I wasn’t the only person who has corrected him in class (and boy what a reaction did I get), even if he didn’t constantly go on about how he lives in ‘the real world’ as opposed to the entirety of the class, I’m pretty sure I’d still be livid. Just when I thought he couldn’t get anymore pretentious.
I am literally speechless.
Are we sure this isn’t performance art? Surely no one can be such a tool and still function.
god, I thought I couldn’t hate the phrase “real world” (as in that place college students don’t live, because they obviously are exempt from paying rent and having jobs and supporting families etc) more. but now I do!
The thing that really gets me is the fact that his real world is Burlington. His talking to the average Vermonter is having a conversation with students at UVM. Meanwhile I’m living here in Barre, just barely above the poverty level, surrounded by families well under it and I could not be more furious. The school itself is in an equally fairly economically depressed area. Just like the rest of the state. Except for a large portion of Burlington. Where he lives. And commutes roughly two hours every day as part of his ride share. Of course. Of fucking course.
Oh my god of COURSE he lives in Burlington
OF COURSE. He wouldn’t be caught dead actually residing in the area where the school is.
I left a super-isolated, super-impoverished hometown on the other side of the country to go to UVM because [I don’t know what I was thinking] and meeting my new peers was eye-opening as hell. There are some real nightmare people living in that town.
And now there’s one more. I could not be less surprised.
How has the worst of all academia coalesced into one physical entity?
Hahahahahah lolsobvomit.
Grrrrrrrrrrr.
From your stories about this guy, I’d almost think a former professor of mine had switched disciplines again, but he didn’t believe in driving cars, so obviously there must be more than one of them, which is unfortunate for all their potential students.
‘Possession fasts’. Good lord. There’s something to be said for being conscious of possessions but that really doesn’t preclude having a second pair of pants and food purchased from a grocery store.
He’s like the Ur-Dirtbag Professor. It’d be impressive if it weren’t so horrifyingly revolting.
This man cannot be real. I am aghast every week when you update. I’m gonna pour one out (of any beverage of your choosing) for you tonight.
If he isn’t drinking water from his bare hands and sleeping in a barrel like Diogenes, he hasn’t given up jack shit. And what kind of steaming asshole makes his family sleep on the floor just because it suits his ideological whims?
I can just imagine what Christmas is like in that household. Does everyone get a new hairshirt personalized to match their skateboard? (Lord knows his kids aren’t getting helmets since he doesn’t believe in them.)
Lol, presents? The only gift his kids are ever getting is the gift of freedom from the burden of materialism! (I made myself sick writing that.)
I feel so viscerally angry about this guy! I can easily believe that he exists, but can’t believe that anyone would choose to work with him. How do these monsters sneak past the bananas hiring process? [Don’t worry, I actually know how 🙁 ]
This guy is my worst nightmare.
He’s saying this stuff in lectures? WTF? I don’t recall learning anywhere near as much of the personal lives of my professors.
The red flag of insecurity.
His middle name is tmi. I guess cause he’s an ethics professor he figures he’ll use the most ethical person he can think of as an example.
How old are his kids, again? I kind of feel like adults deciding to sleep on the floor and eat food from dumpsters even though they could easily afford a bed and groceries is one thing, but adults deciding to make their children do the same is another, much worse, thing.
It’s true that he does get worse every time you tell us more about him.
Yeah, that’s…. not good. Maybe tell him that Child Protective Services is a thing in “the Real World”.
I finally went to a new psychiatrist and got back on meds! I dearly hope this helps me especially since I semi have a new diagnosis as well. I just watched a youtube video about a woman with ADHD that had depressive symptoms and lo and behold, that might be me too.
So… exciting new chapter in my life. Anyone else have good stories from this week?
No good stories, but ADHD with depressive symptoms right here! Its funny how little I know about my own disorder, but I had thought that I’d out grown it until I realized that a lot of the new symptoms I’m dealing with at the moment are probably part of it (Like did you know anxiety can be a symptom? CAUSE I DIDN’T)
Unfortunately I am struggling to find any professional who thinks I need help, since I’m functioning, just about, well enough to get by. My new GP wants me to come off medication purely because I’ve been on it for 6 years, but I don’t want to and in fact I think its time for a dosage adjustment again.
We are legion. I went into the meeting thinking I was just depressed, and at the end of describing myself, my nurse said, “Well obviously you have depression AND anxiety, and you’re ticking a lot of boxes for ADHD.” O_O = my face.
I am so sorry to hear about your GP. Not sure what system you’re in but could you get a second opinion? Yeah, I always worry before first appointments that the healthcare provider will think I’m too functional to be on meds even when I’m clearly struggling a lot to hold it together. I always debate in the back of my mind whether I should show up in my normal clothes and make up or in sweatpants and ratty hair or something.
I’m in the uk, the NHS is brilliant but adult mental health is woefully underfunded so unless you’re a threat to yourself or others or compleletly non-functioning, you’re responsible for organizing your own care; which I’m finding difficult to organise at the moment.
I never know if I’m compleletly over inflating my problems (cause i really don’t have it as bad as others) or if I’m compleletly underselling the issues I’m having. I really struggled as a teen to get anyone to even notice that something was wrong and even then I always sensed there was a hesitation in those around me (I.e. therapists) to tell me that I was sick.
I’m sorry your docs confuse high function with health. I encourage you to continue the pursuit of therapy. I wish it weren’t this hard.
I’m high functioning, too. I have had chronic depression and anxiety all my life. So when I sought treatment at 40, I had decades of practice being functional while suffering.
It was not hard to convince my GP, though. He was a little older than me and reassured me that it is *common* to be so functional while so sick for so long. Especially for women in our society. We run the world. Society would collapse if it had no women to do all the feeding, cleaning, child rearing, and emotional work that men ignore. And we are fucking superheroes, continuing to hold society together no matter how miserable we might be.
I have had other docs since then who needed convincing. The phrases that do it are “suicidal ideation” and reporting daily weeping.
Thanks. I don’t want to go in to it now but I don’t know if its ms being unwilling to admit the extent of what’s going on or the people around me refusing to confirm to me that I’m sick (that sounds rather paranoid but its true, it keeps happening to me, people keep telling me oh that’s just normal for someone your age, but i highly fucking doubt that.)
“My new GP wants me to come off medication purely because I’ve been on it for 6 years”
That’s not a valid reason to discontinue taking medication that’s stabilizing your mental health. That GP doesn’t sound particularly well informed.
*Plenty* of people are on long-term medication to treat depression, etc. As far as I know, continuing medication is the standard of care unless (e.g.) it’s no longer effective for you, or it’s putting you at high risk of developing a specific medical problem. For many people, the risks of not taking medication are far higher than any potential side effects (etc.) from the drugs.
Thanks 🙂
I’ve found that generally doctors/therapists are very uninformed about adult\female ADHD. They assume I’m on stimulant medication which might be whybthey think coming off would be good (I’m on atomoxetine, a NON stimulant ADHD medication, unfortunately it’s less common than the stimulant kinds like ritilan)
It’s a long story how I got to the current GP, but yeah, she doesn’t understand add and has no experience with my medication, however since its not licenced in my catchment area I’m going to have to fight to stay on it, and its all the fighting\struggling to get anything that’s kind of killing me at the moment.
Yay for you! I had my first appointment with a new therapist this morning, whose specialties align with my personal trifecta of ADHD, anxiety, and depression and it went super well. She’s going to try to find me a different psychiatrist, since the guy who prescribes for me is treating me like I’m 10 and won’t give me a full month of meds, insisting I need to take breaks. Which means for 8 days out of the month I’m utterly non-productive and dragging my brain through treacle in order to get ANYTHING done. He doesn’t have the greatest grasp of what ADHD is all about, really.
Have you read “Women with ADD” by Sari Solden? I read that several years ago and was like, welp, that’s me!
Thank you and congrats to you too! I’m very excited for this psychiatrist so my next hunt will be for a good therapist who takes my insurance. Sorry about your psychiatrist but definitely glad you’re trying to move on! I’ve only been scolded twice by healthcare providers, and they’ve both been male psychiatrists.
I got a list of books to read about women with ADHD from my doctor and took an online quiz from additudemag.com. I gotta see which books are at my library now, and I’ll look for Solden’s too!
I’ve been wondering about this lately because I suspect that this is my situation as well, but I’m terrified of going to a psychiatrist and just coming off as drug-seeking so I’ve been putting it off forever. Congratulations!
Thanks! I’ve been putting it off for months for just the same reason tbh. I’ve even been on meds before but still I worried whether they would think I was just trying to hoodwink them or something. Luckily, I found a good psychiatrist. Now to find a therapist! Good luck to you <3
Please don’t let that stop you from talking to a doctor, and maybe getting a diagnosis!! Different doctors have very different approaches to meds– some insist on regular appointments (ie- monthly), especially for patients who are trying stimulant meds for the first time. Some are a bit more relaxed about things. Some are hesitant to prescribe at all. Some find out that you haven’t been taking your meds every day and seem to be worried about if you’ve been selling them, and some find out you haven’t been taking your meds every day and are clearly mostly worried that that means you haven’t been taking care of yourself as well as you might be, and maybe you need to talk to them about how it’s really okay to take meds. (Like that time my psych found out I wasn’t always taking stimulants prior to job interviews, and then had a stern talk with me about not self-sabotaging more than necessary).
But that’s a concern for some other time, because *getting* a diagnosis is often helpful, apart entirely from getting medication. I mean, medication can be important, life changing, etc…. but medication also isn’t always the best option for everyone. And depending on your particular list of symptoms/diagnoses/other medical stuff, stimulants aren’t even always the first thing on the list (for example, some people find that welbutrin helps with both their depression AND their ADHD). Talk therapy is also helpful for some people for some things.
And if you phrase things to medical professionals that way— “I’m primarily looking to see if there’s something here that fits a diagnostic label– if there is, then I’ll look at what treatment options are, and consider what would work for me”….. then you potentially end up in a better position, even if you don’t get a bottle of pills out of it because some asshole thinks you’re just in it for the bottle of pills.
also, there’s nothing terrible about be drug-seeking, necessarily.
…… maybe i should get back to work.
maybe.
Would it help to see your regular doc first and get a referral to a psychiatrist? That puts your regular doc’s name on your so-called drug-seeking.
Oh goodness, I spent about half of my senior year of high school trying SSRI after SSRI (all of which played HORRIBLY with my body chemistry) for the Generalized Anxiety Disorder I’d been diagnosed with. I finally tried a new psychiatrist, who VERY quickly figured out that we’d all got the direction of the arrow wrong. It wasn’t my anxiety making me unable to concentrate on schoolwork, it was inability to concentrate on schoolwork causing anxiety. It was truly life changing.
Magnificent Toastrons, I would love to hear about any experiences you might have with anti-depressants, as I am considering them (after finally addressing the depression and anxiety I’ve been ignoring for years, tbh). If you don’t want to talk about it here, you can give me a shout on twitter under the same name. I would be glad to hear about your experiences. (BLUGHGHGUHGUHGUGHUGH EVERYTHING IS STUPID)
I was on Prozac brifely as a teen, but found it didn’t do much except give me brilliant dreams. However that was probably because I wasn’t depressed, I have ADD. The right medication completely changed my life, I was no longer frozen by indecision and completely unable to do anything. I’ve been on it a long time now, and I’ve also grown up a lot, so its hard to tell what is from medication and what is from just plain old growing up, but I’m 100% sure I wouldn’t be where I am without medication.
If you think that medication might help you, then give it a try! You can always stop if you don’t like what happens, although from what I know of anti-depressants you do need to give it a bit of time to start working (which can be tough when you’re depressed and just want to be fixed RIGHT NOW.)
Thank you!
1. Prozac never did anything for me, except cause outrageous panic attacks when I first started taking it.
2. Ditto Welbutrin, minus the panic attacks
3. Effexor works, but the withdrawal symptoms are legendary, so it’s hard to stop when you start.
thanks!
I did come off Effexor without withdrawal by tapering VERY slowly. Like by 1/8 of one pill for each step down. (Sorry, don’t remember what my dosage was.)
I’m a fan of them – I’ve been on a wide bunch and Prozac has been making me functional for the past couple years. But I think when I first went on them (Zoloft) when I was younger, it was so gradual that I was never sure anything was actually happening, and it took me way too long to realize that maybe I was on the wrong one and could actually switch to one that would work better for me. Good luck!
thank you!
I found it took trying a few different types before I found one that worked on my brain chemistry and didn’t have horrible side effects. But then when I did find one that worked, it meant that I then felt okay enough to engage actively in therapy and for that to work. (I think it took about a month before I noticed them working).
I think they all affect people differently – I know a few people who found prozac okay or helpful, but it made me sleep for about 14 hours a night. And lofepramine works really well for me, but some people hate it.
The one I found that works, does still have mild side effects (I get an upset stomach quite easily), but I decided it was liveable with comparable to severe depression, or trying to find another one that both worked and didn’t have really bad side effects. But it might not have been necessary to settle for that, I’m not sure.
I really didn’t want to take anti-depressants (I think because I was scared of taking them?) but I’m really glad that I did. It didn’t fix me, but it’s definitely made things easier.
thank you! yeah, I’m scared of the potential of things getting worse (some friends have had that experience), or not knowing WHAT’S going to happen. I feel like I have a handle (of sort) on my current state, and the unknown is a little worrisome (but not enough to deter me, probably).
Hi! I had a very complicated relationship with antidepressants for several years. I’m off them now and mostly happy with that fact, although I know I never could have gotten to the place where I am without chemical help. That said, I was very much overmedicated and barely-functional for quite a while, and made some very poor life decisions in that time because I was basically alone and trying to manage everything myself (not exactly possible in the state I was in).
My fragmented, complicated antidepressant advice basically boils down to: do not isolate yourself. Make sure you have someone to talk to besides your psychiatrist. Keep busy and devote actual time and energy to your hobbies. Get outside as much as possible. Write down how everything makes you feel and try to keep a clear head, because if you’re anything like me you’ll end up stuck in a neverending loop of forgetting and confusion. Also, do not start dating terrible people and then decide to cohabitate with them.
Yes, everything is stupid! Everything is still stupid for me, really, but I’m basically okay now and you will be too!
Thank you, that is excellent advice. I tend to worsen in isolation and am especially leery of isolating myself when I don’t know what my brain chemistry is doing. Very helpful. Thanks for the encouragement, too! 🙂
I took Effexor for a few years to deal with anxiety. It did work pretty well and allowed me to have a good life and get through school and all that, and I do not regret taking it. I did not experience any side effects until I started weaning off it, at which point I had pretty bad withdrawal symptoms that was like a low level flu lasting like two months. I would not have a problem taking antidepressants again, but I would not take Effexor again just because stopping was pretty miserable.
Oh, also I found it easy to come off prozac and citalopram (which didn’t work for me) after only taking them for a few months. But when I tried to come off lofepramine after a year and a half, I had to really slowly reduce the dose over 4-5 months, otherwise I got really agitated and manic (despite not experiencing mania normally), and got this scary ache in my chest.
I started on a relatively low dose of sertraline + wellbutrin last year and it has been so fantastic for me. It’s not like one day I woke up and was perfectly happy and calm, but I started slowing realizing that my balance of good days and bad days was shifting, I am much more resilient to stressful situations (things that would knock me out for days at a time are now minor inconveniences), and while real legitimate stressors remain, the completely fictional things I would often get stressed about have far diminished. I resisted going on drugs for years and years, but it has made a really tremendous change in quality of life for me.
That’s almost exactly the response that MrChouffe has had to lexapro–the things that would ruin a night or a weekend or a week are now things he can shrug off; there are way way fewer bad-brain days; he’s much more able to resist panicking or overreaction. It’s helped him so, so much.
Same here – it wasn’t a clear-cut “everything is okay now”, but I noticed over time that I was coping much better with things that previously would have completely thrown me.
Prozac saved my life. I needed it for a couple of years. Then I didn’t. I will need it again one day, I’m sure. I like knowing it’s available. That thought alone is probably therapeutic.
Addressing years of anxiety and depression is an accomplishment. I hope you think of it that way. You’re probably in a healthy place on this subject, but in case society’s fucked up attitudes chip away at you, remember this:
Emotional health is health. Mental health is health. When you’re sick, you get treatment. No difference between diabetes and depression.
I was on Effexor and Wellbutrin but had to go off them because my blood pressure shot up to dangerous levels (my psychiatrist kept saying “this is a really rare side effect” in this accusing voice like I was doing it on purpose). She switched me to Cipralex which works well for me, and few side effects. It’s an enantiometer so it targets the receptors more specifically.
Scolding psychiatrists really piss me off. Sorry you had to go through that.
I’ve been on antidepressants for about 6 months. Zoloft works well for me, although it took a while to get the dose right and it gave me horrible heartburn at first. I have way less suicidal ideation and my depression and anxiety are more manageable. When I first met with a psychiatrist I was all ‘oh how long do you think I’d need to be on them’ but now I have no intention of going off them in the foreseeable future.
I have a number of friends and family for whom anti-depressants are literally life-changing and life-saving. Absolutely give it a try, if it’s something that your doctor recommends. You may find it makes a huge difference.
I’m not taking any at the moment, but I did find them extremely helpful in the past when I needed them. They can have side effects and very different effects on different people, so you may have to try a few to find what works best for you.
I also know several people who’ve found talk therapy beneficial, although there have been some recent studies questioning its efficacy.
Thank you! I’ve been seeing a therapist (and have been finding it fairly helpful) and she brought up medication, so I thought I’d see what the Toast readership had to say.
I took something called Pristiq (can’t remember which type of anti-depressant it is), after about 4 years of completely ignoring my depression. Can’t say exactly how soon it was obviously working, but I found it very helpful. Definitely had more energy and felt less like a zombie, although I also started seeing a psychotherapist once a month which I’m sure helped (also got a job and established a routine). Anyways, about a year in I kept forgetting to take my medication daily and was doing fine and managed to stop taking it with no side effects.
I take a low-ish dose of sertraline for anxiety/depression, and it’s worked well for me (with minimal side effects). As other have said, I still get anxious/depressed, but it’s not as overwhelming/life-stalling as it used to be. (For example, if I’m on the way home from work and remember a minor mistake I made that day, I’m only mildly anxious for about half an hour, as opposed to being non-functionally anxious for the rest of the night).
Oh man mental health is basically my life struggle. I’m on Effexor and Lamictal, which are keeping me stable. Previous flirtations with Wellbutrin left me feeling scared and crazy, and Prozac did nothing even though I stayed on it for a year just waiting for it to work. Abilify made me gain weight, but it was also very effective.
Meds have gotten me to a place where I can use my brain to help reason with my jerkbrain. Now when I get depressed I think about what kind of life I want, and how I can take baby steps towards that. My amazing therapist who moved away and left me said that the best thing you can do to get out of a funk is take action, even if it’s just to get out of bed and into the shower.
Meditation and practicing gratitude help me remember to live in the moment, appreciate what’s good about it, accept what’s bad and not to think about how I’d rather be anywhere else. I’m working on engaging with my life instead of being a reluctant observer. A thing that helps me a lot is to check in with my body and kind of feel how my emotions are affecting me physically. One thing I have a hard time with is remembering that I don’t have to engage with my thoughts, I can just watch them pass.
This. All of this.
I’m pretty much the poster child for Prozac and it’s lovely cheap generic version. I started taking it after years and years and years of chronic depression, during a period when life piled some anxiety on top of the depression. After a week and a half, I had an evening when I realized I wasn’t freaked out and panic-stricken about the next day. (I was working as a professor, and was pretty much in a permanent state of dread.) That was 9 or 10 years ago, and I’ve never seriously considered going off of it.
For me, Prozac/fluoxetine sort of works by recalibrating my emotional responses to something more moderate and sensible. If you picture a stereo equalizer, every little thing sent me flying into the red. With the magic ‘zac, I still get happy and sad and have a full range, but it’s more centered and I don’t go straight to flip-out.
I’m incredibly lucky that the first anti-depressant I tried works for me. It doesn’t really have any side effects. (I still have orgasms!) I saw a psychiatrist during my marriage’s tailspin, and she added Wellbutrin (because I was SO TIRED all the time), but it made me hellishly jittery and I gained like 15 pounds in 3 weeks. It turned out I needed a divorce, not more drugs.
I have been on antidepressants (Sertraline) for about five years, and it has helped me a lot. I took a break of about nine months after I’d been taking them for a few years, to see if I was doing well enough to cope without them, but found that I definitely still needed them (I was just finding things much harder to handle and getting more overwhelmed and unhappy without them), so am back on. The side effects have been minimal – just a few weeks of jaw-clenching and shakiness when starting to take them, but nothing noticeable once my body’s adjusted.
(My prescription ran out a few days ago and I stupidly forgot to get it refilled, so I am currently feeling VERY noticeable withdrawal effects, which is not fun. Hilariously, I ran out on World Mental Health Day.)
I am vair grumpy today because the weather is terrible, the Jays lost yesterday, I am stuck at work while literally every other person in Toronto is watching the game (LITERALLY EVERY PERSON), I got my period and I have a hurty tummy, I am swamped with tasks, and I have a meeting tomorrow I DESPERATELY do not want to attend before I am free to go home for Thanksgiving. Make me feel better pls.
Also — I have a second job interview next week for a major Canadian charity (or, more accurately, their for-profit sister company) and I’ve heard enough terrible things about the workload and culture there that I’m starting to think I should run while I still can. But the starting salary alone is enough of a raise over my current gig that I have to at least consider it, not to mention that I’m extremely qualified for the job and might be able to negotiate an even better salary. Thoughts?
Have you talked to anyone (besides the interview team) who actually works there? If not, do you know of any friend-of-friends who work there, or maybe ask your interviewer for some names/contacts of your potential team members? If you take them out for coffee away from work, I think most people would be somewhat candid about what the office culture is actually like and what they feel offsets the bad. Or at least, if it’s bad I suspect they won’t be able to resist hinting about it. I had a previous employer who suggested this when I was interviewing and I found it really helpful and now would be suspicious of an employer who discouraged it.
Yes, I reached out to a friend who has ties to the not-for-profit world and she put me in touch with a friend of hers who still works there. She was nice enough to elaborate on her experience, and she said it was mostly positive, but it’s true that the hours are crazy and the pay does not reflect that. She did say that it was a very good growth opportunity for her, and she got the chance to handle a lot of big clients, which is rare for someone at her stage of career, and she didn’t warn me off it by any means. But she kind of confirmed the thing that’s making me go, “Enhhhh.”
That’s a tough one. For what it’s worth, my first career job out of school was like that (although private, not a not-for-profit), it was at company with a reputation as a meat grinder for entry-level people because of the intense workload and expectations, and it paid ok but not great. I spent a hard couple years there but I got to do loads of things in those first few years that I wouldn’t have gotten to do elsewhere and I think it’s helped my career and skill set. It definitely helped that I do well in sink-or-swim and high pressure situations and that it was at the beginning of my career so I wasn’t having to balance kids or other responsibilities with my work.
I got my period and I have a hurty tummy
BASICALLY.
How much value is a higher salary if it only lasts a few months? Because the workload and culture make you miserable and you start another job hunt a few months in. Your emotional well-being is more important than a higher salary. If you can currently pay your bills, that is.
Or take the job for the extra bucks and the resume boost while looking for the next job immediately. Consider it temporary.
Yeah, this is a good point. I’m planning to leave my current gig because of the low pay and because of the increasing disrespect for my boundaries. So while the pay increase would be nice, I’m not sure the gig is sustainable. It’s also outside my current field, so it’s not like it would do much for my career either.
I know the company you’re talking about and I’ve also heard murky things about the workload and culture. But nothing concrete…
Ha, I was hoping someone would cotton on. Yeah, I hadn’t heard anything (not working in non-profit) so I went looking on Glassdoor and there are a LOT of complaints. Obviously, anonymous reviews you take with a grain of salt, but repeated, identical complaints from lots of sources sort of makes me wonder…
Commiserations re: the hurty tummy!!
Have you tried those disposable heating pads that you stick on yourself? I have awful cramps and they’ve been a game-changer for me.
Seconding the stick-on heating pads.
Just here to commiserate about the Jays loss yesterday and today. Hoping for a win on Sunday and you’ll be able to watch!
If the ‘major Canadian charity’ is Free the Children / Me to We, I have heard very bad things about the organizational culture. (OTOH, my kids have participated in school-based Free the Children groups and We Day and gotten a lot out of it.)
I’m launching a website at work and I’m on day 5 of working on 3-5 hours of sleep and have worked through the last 4 weekends.
I’m bringing this website up a LOT in my performance review next year.
I watched Over the Garden Wall this week based on a recommendation in last week’s Halloween thread. It was so, so good. Like a charming and funny and sometimes seriously creepy fairy tale. It’s only 10 episodes of 11 minutes each (on Hulu!) so I spread it out over the week so that I wouldn’t watch it all in two hours. You could do that though, and I probably will again very soon. It’s very seasonally appropriate and I highly recommend it.
I’ve been recommending that show to everyone I know. Have you watched Gravity Falls yet? It’s also amazing and so funny and Halloween appropriate!
The like, 3 second “highway man” dance sequence in OtGW is probably the best bit of animation to be made in the U.S. in the last few decades. This show is so great.
Yessss gonna check this out tonight when I get home!!
So good! I wish they would release it on Bluray so I could own it in physical form.
You may already know this, but there is a DVD featuring (among other things) the Composer’s Cut, which has just the music, at full volume, without the dialogue. The composers put so much work into the score, and there are tons of little musical Easter eggs. It’s really cool.
Oh! I did not know that! Last I’d heard they weren’t releasing any physical disk. I’ll be needing that for sure.
I’m already wondering how old my niece will need to be before she can watch it. She’s 9 months old.
I binged on it this spring. Definitely need to do it again now.
Oh awesome, I’m so glad you liked it! I ordered the DVD this week and I’m waiting with bated breath for it to arrive.
My partner introduced me to it last weekend and I loved it more than anything I’ve watched in a long time. It was just the perfect blend of spooky and cute and I can’t stop thinking about it. We’ve already decided that we are going to make it a tradition to watch it every fall!
Book thread?
Dear Toast-editors and readers, thank you for your impeccable taste in literature! I just realized that so many of the books I’ve read and loved over the last 2 years have been Toast-recommendations: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, I Capture the Castle, Middlemarch(!!), An Untamed State, Everything I Never Told You, Stone Butch Blues, Unbecoming, the Elena Ferrante novels…
Nicole, are you planning to do another book-club reading? Toasties, which books(old and new) have you recently discovered and fallen in love with?
Americanah !! I just haven’t been blown away by a book like that since …. Half of a Yellow Sun.
And I’m currently about 1/4 into Brixton Beach and so far it’s incredibly engrossing. The characters are just incredible. (sorry, I’m not a very natural book reviewer. Usually, I just have a feeling when something is very very good. I want to kind of wave it around and point emphatically, but wordlessly)
Seconded! That novel is the best.
Agreed! I reread Americanah for a book club just recently, and felt like I was getting punched in the gut by language twice every page. You’d think I would have been ready for it on the second reading. I was not.
yes to all of chimamanda ngozi adichies books! and I am the same re: reviewing, I find it really hard to put into words what makes a book good, some books just suck you in and don’t let go even long after you finish reading (for me most recently the Elena Ferrante books)
I will never stop recommending The Golem and the Jinni.
Oh, don’t. I read it sort of out of nowhere and thought it was so amazing — I had been excited by some other book that was just meh in the end and this was a lovely surprise. Write more, Helene Wecker!
Yes to this. Everyone should read it!
I just started the new Margaret Atwood novel. I’ve also been reading all of Sarah Waters’ books. They’re addictive literary historical lesbian romances.
yes! Tipping the Velvet is another book I “discovered” through the toast.
I’ve been audiobooking a lot lately, and if you’re into nonfiction I would highly recommend “The Guns of August”, which is all about the run up to WWI. I personally find WWI fascinating, but even more than that is how SHADY the British narrator is in the audiobook about the ruling class and early 20th century military culture.
Ooo and also “The Girl on the Train” for just fun mystery drama + “In the Unlikely Event” which grown up Judy Bloom and just completely great + The Martian is a great novel (and I hear great movie)
The Turner House surprised me with how much I loved it, it felt like a standard literary family drama as I started it and then I realized several hours of reading had drifted by and I didn’t want it to end.
The Goblin Emperor was another pleasant surprise. How can such a quiet little book about court politics with so many godawful fantasy-character names and families to remember stretch my brain so much and fill it with so much emotion?
I liked both of those books a lot! I liked how much of a character Detroit was in the Turner House . I do wish the names in Goblin Emperor were more dissimilar. So confusing, though it was a good read.
I just added The Turner House to my “to-read” list on Goodreads, thanks! 🙂
I recently reread The Night Circus and fell in love with it all over again. It’s the sort of book you feel a little empty when it’s over because it’s just so beautiful and perfect to the very end. It’s also a perfect autumn read that pairs perfectly with hot cider and chilly nights.
Agreed! Also, The Night Circus seems like a PERFECT book to re-read with this weather. Thx for the idea!
It’s one of those books where I have to pace myself because otherwise I’ll finish it in a day and then be disappointed that it’s over so soon.
It is SO GOOD and also, it’s an even more amazing audiobook. Jim Dale reads it, and the language is so visual and stunning that it sounds particularly gorgeous while being read to you.
I am constantly recommending this, but ‘Strong Poison,’ by Dorothy Sayers. If you ever want to read mysteries, read that.
After a Toast recommendation, I started reading the Phryne Fisher novels. If anyone hasn’t read them I highly recommend them! Phryne is a delight. I think I swoon every time she tells a love interest she’s not into “forever”, or mentally dismisses marriage for herself, or goes after whatever she wants… In the last book I read (the fourth one, my favorite so far) she bemoaned the death of a young handsome man because “there aren’t enough beautiful boys in the world” and it’s a tragedy to have one removed, and it was SO the opposite/gender flip of most male detective-type novels/movies/whatever that I had to put the book down and relish it. The first one is a bit of a bumpy start but they get progressively better.
I was really not impressed with the ending of the first one; it needs trigger warnings but they’re spoilers, so hie thee to http://www.rot13.com and paste this in:
gur ivyynva vf rvgure na rivy nfrkhny be fbzrbar rkgerzryl genhzngvmrq ol frkhny nohfr, naq vf riraghnyyl birepbzr ol ure bja erihyfvba gbjneq frk.
Yeah I know what you mean. I wasn’t really that impressed by the first one (for that reason, and the writing itself), but the books after that seemed much improved.
Although I will add there is a somewhat-mildly-disturbing tendency to include background sexual assault and such, especially in her secondary cases, that makes me a little uncomfortable. I will give the author credit though that she never describes it or even shows it happening, it’s more mentioned in the background as something that occurred to someone, which is better IMO. I am getting a little tired of the fact that in pretty much every book there’s a little girl whose been abused or a woman who was abused as a child. (I think it’s meant to help connect to Phryne who has hinted she suffered something similar as a child.)
Thanks for the context! I occasionally think I ought to pick them back up as I understand that in the novels she has a lover of Asian ancestry who’s been ignored by the TV show, but my TBR pile is so overwhelming anyway that I doubt I ever will.
Can anyone recommend good horror by a woman author who is not Shirley Jackson or Daphne DuMaurier? I’m a terrible snob, so even though it is genre writing, I want it to be good. I’m reading The Witch of Painted Sorrows and the writing is terrible. If it helps, I’m a huge Stephen King fan and will defend the quality of his writing to death.
Mira Grant’s books are quite good. I’ve enjoyed both Newsflesh and Parasitology. I would probably start with her second series, Parasitology.
I’d highly recommend the ghost stories of E. Nesbit:
http://www.amazon.com/Grim-Tales-E-Edith-Nesbit-e…
Edith Wharton and L.M. Montgomery both wrote some great ghost stories:
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Stories-Edith-Wharton…
http://www.amazon.com/Among-Shadows-Tales-Darker-…
There are also a bunch of female authors in this excellent Oxford anthology of English ghost stories:
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Book-English-Ghost-S…
Thank you for asking this question and extra thank you to those who provided answers. (Also I DuMaurier was not already on my radar, so thanks for that too).
I love Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites – it’s a novel based on the last woman executed in Iceland.
I read that last winter! Not trying to be punny, but it really did have this chilly bleak beauty in the language.
I’m rereading Forever Amber right now and I just want to clasp its trashy brilliance to my heaving bosom forever and ever.
For new books I’m reading A Fine and Private Place.
Damn all these baby authors giving me complexes with their beautiful beautiful books written at ridiculously young ages.
I’m just started Heidi Julavits’s The Folded Clock and I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s a sort of complicated memoir/diary – really one of these books where you are just hanging out with someone else’s brain, which I like. (Another of that ilk that I recently enjoyed was The Shelf by Phyllis Rose, who wrote Parallel Lives.) Julavits’s authorial voice is really strongly reminding me of something else I’ve read recently, and I can’t figure out what & it’s driving me a bit nuts. It’s the same sensation as when you can’t figure out who someone looks or sounds like, but I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced it with prose style before.
Might just have to get Carry On for the long weekend – I was a little skeptical about the concept but I’m ready to love it as much as everyone seems to!
I read The Best of All Possible Worlds this fall, probably because of one of these threads, and I really enjoyed it!
Hi all! I am reading a fabulous book, and I have to share: it’s Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne. It’s incredible and very intense (warning for violence and loss, if any toasties want a particular rundown on things that might be triggering in particular, I’d be more than obliged to put it as a response below) and I just cannot pull myself away because the characters and relationships are so compelling.
In other news, Sydney toasties there’s an amazing restaurant employing women refugees and asylum seekers: http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexlee/this-proudly-femi… Go and post pictures in the threads and make me insanely jealous!
And, maybe I will put this elsewhere, because this is probably too many topics for one single comment, but … has anyone been watching the Naked Choir? I love a cappella music to an embarrassing degree. Boyz II Men II was the first album I ever owned as a youngster, so I might have imprinted like a baby duck. Anyway, enough with the excuses, because I am going to share something very embarrassing: in principle, I hate this song, but listening to this version I got goosebumps and may have shed a tear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukwemIbJ-cg Anyone else really enjoying all this a cappella? Please tell me I am not alone.
I think that’s a resounding, Yes, yes you are alone in your a cappella. But that’s Okay! I have this Committed cover of Apologize to comfort me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZujtYVV_4LE (the live version is better, but blocked in the UK … womp woooomp)
This is late, but I hope you see it. I’m having a rough week, and this is a thing of beauty:) thank you!
Toasties, a question: what would you do with two pound hand weights? My sweet but misguided husband decided to support my new interest in weightlifting by buying me a pair along with a weighted eight pound ball thing, and I have no idea what to do with weights less than like ten pounds. Like, should I hold them while I do cardio? Do zillions of reps? Use them for Jane Fonda-esque aerobics?
Suggestions (and general discussion of any cool exercise things you’re doing) very welcome!
awww thats so sweet but confused 🙂
Depending on your walls and the space you have, you can practice throwing the weighted ball either for height or for distance! I am at a lost about what to do with 2lb weights though, hopefully someone else can chime in.
Maybe try to balance them on your back while you work on pushups? ^^;
I have very small wrists that are unfortunately quite touchy, so I hold small hand weights when doing planks or certain yoga positions, even table top and cat/cow type things where you’re not holding yourself up exactly, but there is some pressure on the wrists.
That is a great suggestion! I’ve noticed my wrists hurting a little while doing planks, I’ll try it with the weights and see if it helps!
What kind of ball thing? My trainer has me do something where I throw a weighted ball on the ground really hard and then pick it up and then throw it again, for a bunch of reps. It is hard! I have no idea what to do with the hand weights though.
My workout stuff is going good I think! Translating the kgs I do to pounds makes me sound kind of tougher to myself. I will eventually be good at this, I think, which is kind of exciting because I’ve never really felt like I’d be good at anything athletic.
I am a weakling with 3lb weights and even though I’m starting to grow out of them (thank goodness–my goal is to be able to do a single pull up someday), I find they are still sometimes useful. For example, I use them for doing arm circles. I also plan on taking them out when I go on my daily walks so that way when I pump my arms so I can up my cardio game.
I had to do wrist exercises with tiny weights because I got repetitive strain injury. You hold the rest of your arm straight and just lift with your hand/wrist.
You can actually strengthen your tendons pretty well with them! I can try to find some videos online if you’d like.
Oh my god that is hilarious.
My trainer started me on YTWs with fractional weights. So maybe if you’re already shoulder-strong you could do them with the 2-lbers. If not, work up to them, or do less of them with the 2 lbs. They look easy, but trust me when you move from Y to T to W with no break between ten to fifteen reps each it fuckin’ burns.
yeah TYWL are really good for shoulder mobility. 2lb weights will last you a long time.
guhhh I need to do that, my shoulders are terrible right now.
Those will fix your problem right up.
Yup I was going to say the same thing! 2lbs might even be much too heavy at first.
Oh my god my shoulders are burning a little just watching that video. Will definitely try it!!
There’s an exercise you can do with fairly low weights that I find tremendously hard, which is holding a ball or circular weight straight in front if you at arms length at shoulder height, and turning it like a steering wheel for eight or ten reps. It kills me with a ten pound weight so eight would probably be ideal.
Are those 2 lb weights the kind with a strap? If not, rig up a loop of twine or something and do finger lifts. Immobilize your hand and forearm on a table, with your fingers beyond the edge. Dangle a 2 lb weight from one finger at a time and do lifts. Flip your hand over and lift in the other direction.
I don’t remember how much weight, but I did this ages ago to strengthen a couple of recalcitrant fingers after a hand sprain healed. Those fingers were annoying me at the piano, so I poured a bunch of bolts and washers into a bag and worked them until they would obey me more reliably.
This Pilates book has exercises that use one or two pound hand weights + internal resistance. So most of the resistance comes from pitting your muscles against your other muscles, and the weights just add a teensy bit. And also make it easier to get your form right, I think. I forget the details. Not sure if it would fit what you’re looking for, though.
I sometimes use them while I’m reading internet stuff at my desk to do reps.
Small weights are good for toning exercises–still building strength just not necessarily bulk. I really enjoy the Ten Minute ___ (yoga, pilates, etc.) series of videos and the 10 Minute Pilates has a wonderful sculpting sequence that makes my arms feel great, and after several months my arms (always my weak point, physical-strength-wise) are noticeably stronger.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! Will definitely try them and ask again the next time he decides to helpily buy me fitness stuff.
I went to the Horse of the Year show this week (we didn’t win but the pony did all that was asked of him and cope with the atmosphere really well.)
Highlight of the day was a display by the Team GB vaulting team – it was AMAZING.
Oooh what classes were you in?
New Forest ridden.
Adorable. I’m gonna need some pictures of said pony to squee over. (And well done on getting to HOYS!)
Here he is, with rider (holding him) me (chief ponypolisher) and owner. We were recreating the same pic we took with his grandfather at the Horse of the Year Show in 1997!
And here’s the one of us with his grandfather. The middle generation has also been, but we neglected the photo op! I think we’re going to have to pose with him in a carpark somewhere and pretend.
I love dark bays! So much hunky ponies! I never got to have a pony, went straight to horses, so now I have a notion that in a few year, after I’ve established myself and have a few hunky sport horses, I’ll buy myself a scruffy old driving pony and live out my childhood pong dreams!
(God I need some horse time! Seeing my boy, who’s on lease atm back home, at the end of the month!)
I briefly had a warmblood in my teens, then went back to ponies! I loved my horse, but I wouldn’t have another, ponies are definitely where it’s at.
Wow, that is amazing!
Also, good job pony for doing your best!
Good job to you and your pony!! These pics are awesome. Vaulting is such a crazy weird awesome sport. I can only look on in awe and continue riding via sitting down like a CHUMP.
See, I see these displays and then I think I am still 14 and able to do headstands on a pony while it’s moving. It’s probably a good job Petal’s been lame (her cushings flared up and she had laminitis, she went out yesterday) because my back is not up to it these days but I’m firmly in denial.
I found this image somewhere on the internet, and I thought Toasties might enjoy.
CORRECT
A boob bib. Of course! That’s what my wardrobe is missing.
1– Maze Runner (original) was actually pretty great! Kind of Lord of the Flies-y meets Hunger Games? And it seems like every young adult actor w a good agent is in it, including Jojen Reed!
2– LADIES. Real estate in DC is fking INSANE. We saw a cheap & 60s-chic condo Mon at midnight; viewed the unit on Tues night; HAD TO MAKE A MAJOR LIFE DECISION IN 10 HRS to have an offer in by 10am Wed; and by 1pm THAT SAME DAY someone else had gotten it. HOW. We were willing to go SO much over listing price bc of the location and it Still *clap* Didnt *clap* WORK *clap.
TL;DR– buying a house is impossible renting is a debtors prison something something generational wealth
Re 1) I was thinking about seeing Maze Runner because I heard Ki Hong Lee was in it, and I’m still having palpitations from his role in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (not that the character couldn’t have been written much better, but their chemistry was gooood and I have decided *stop reading if you do not want a sort of elliptical spoiler* the last episode just did not happen. Funny how they ended a whole 10 minutes early. Something like that.
Anyway, if it’s a genuinely watchable movie then I think I have weekend plans now!
I am pretty much assuming I will need to move out of DC after grad school so I can afford a place. Sigh.
…but where real estate is cheap there are no jobs… oh 21st century look what you have wroth.
I recommend western NY– housing is still super-cheap and the job market is starting to get better.
Depends on what you do. My parents have been needling me to return to my midwestern home city essentially since I left. And I’ll be honest, it’s got unemployment half what it is here, and for what I’m paying in rent, I could have a mortgage on a 3-bedroom house… it’s occasionally very tempting. But then I remember what the winters are like and snap out of it.
Oh man, I just posted about trying to find a reasonable place to rent in DC, I can’t even imagine trying to find someplace to buy! I’m so sorry, I hope you find something amazing and perfect and everything you want soon and with minimum hassle when it comes to putting an offer in and getting it accepted! Sending good vibes your way!
I just went through this, although I’m renting– I’m very happy about the place we got, but we were told we had to make a decision on it within a space of like 6 hours, and meanwhile we had applications pending for a couple of other places, at least one of which was clearly much nicer and a better deal than my current place. Surprise surprise, 3 days after I sign the lease the people from the nicer place call back and say we’ve been approved. UGH UGH UGH.
I also went to one open house where the dude told us WHEN WE ARRIVED that someone else had already signed it, and another where I sent my application within 15 minutes of leaving the open house (at which I was the first viewer) and was immediately informed that somebody else beat me to it. Fuck you, everyone in DC!
It also definitely ruined my self esteem, because I feel like everyone else I saw at open houses was some sparkly blonde newlywed couple in matching workout clothes. And then me and my boyfriend stumble in looking disheveled and hung over and you can just see the landlord thinking “I bet you idiots are going to drop a whole pot of marinara on the white carpet as soon as you move in.”
Dear Toasties,
I’ve been having a weird thing lately where I can tell my blood sugar is dropping and that I must be hungry, but the thought of food disgusts me and makes my stomach roll. This is a problem, because I’m a very emotional hungry person. I can generally choke down some cereal or toast but that does not seem like a healthy long term solution if this keeps up. Please share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I also have no idea why this happening, I am one hundred percent for sure not pregnant.
I used to have a weird blood sugar thing (related to anxiety though, so it’s probably different?) and the only thing I could eat at those times was apple juice – then after it kicked in and raised my blood sugar I could eat actual food.
Oh – juice is a good idea!
I had this too, definitely anxiety-related, and would usually drink a glass of milk or eat a plain slice of bread and then wait a while before eating anything substantial.
Also, it helps to not let yourself get too hungry– have snacks on you at all times, eat meals at the same time every day.
I have had those things a lot lately. I’ve resorted to Clif bars – they don’t taste like much, but they’ve got calories and caffeine, and they’re better than nothing.
That really sucks!
I tend to feel nauseous when I’m hungry. I find if I eat something that I actually like (I’m a fiend for sweet things), I can usually change the balance between hunger and nausea toward hunger’s favor. There are times when even that won’t convince my stomach, though, and I end up just starving it out.
This happens to me! I have no solutions besides sucking down SOMEthing, like an energy bar or gel or something. I also can tolerate fruit chews or something when I’m like that.
The same thing happens to me a lot, mostly right after I wake up. Sometimes at dinner too, when I haven’t eaten much all day and I should be super hungry, but instead I think of food and I’m like ‘BLEH’.
Why does this happen to us 🙁
Mine’s the exact same! I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s maybe related to my coffee consumption or stress. Which are actually hard to separate because when I’m stressed I’m generally not getting enough sleep and therefore drinking more coffee. I’ve also noticed it’s much more likely to happen if I just have a salad by itself for lunch, which is not great for the eating healthy plan.
Maybe look at tweaking your lunch salads? It’s possible that don’t they have enough protein/fat/calories to actually be a good lunch for you.
It’s true that coffee can do things to stomachs, but coffee is actually a health drink (see all recent studies! yay) so I hope you don’t have to cut back on that. When I’m in the state you’re describing (I call it nervous stomach), bland things are great, like pureed root vegetables with some nuts or olive oil blended in. Or just nibbling on something mild, like a bit of bread, or a nut, or a light sweet thing, until appetite comes back again. Carrying almonds or cashews around for a bit may help.
Something similar happens to me every once in a while – I get hungry, but as soon as I eat anything I feel nauseous. I think it’s linked to stress for me, but I can’t tell for sure. I usually hit the probiotics and pickles/kimchi pretty hard for a week or so and it clears up. This also tends to happen around my period, which is a new and fun symptom. It’s definitely not fun – you have all my sympathy.
Same things happens to me. GEE I WONDER WHY.
Have you had a medical check-up recently to see if you might be diabetic? (Not everybody with occasional hypoglycemic episodes is diabetic, but it’s a possibility).
There are all kinds of possible underlying causes for changes in appetite and nausea (e.g., endocrine or GI issues), so I definitely would talk to a doctor.
Stress/ anxiety is also certainly a possibility.
Belatedly chiming in to add a me too! The trick of eating something (juice is great for this) to return me to hungry instead of nauseated works for me most of the time. Bonus: I’m also a hangry sufferer, so I’m super fun to be around when I haven’t eaten.
Hey Toasties, thanks for all the support last week! Really appreciated it and motivated me to get that application in.
Otherwise, it’s been a week of applications and some great news: I found out I got a First on masters dissertation, which I was really really not expecting. I still think I need some time away from academia, but it’s making going back at some point seem much more viable.
How’s everyone else’s job-hunting going?
I understand this completely. I’m living at home in New York, while trying to find a nice place in downtown Orlando where my boyfriend lives. We keep getting sniped out of housing the same day he tours. It’s demoralizing. All the cute houses where I can plant a nice little garden get stolen away from me, BUT THE APARTMENT COMPLEXES WON’T CALL ME BACK, EITHER.
Last weekend I had a very bad experience with an entitled asshole male. I don’t really want to get into it, but it was an violation that was sexual in nature, and it’s made for a very stressful week. (FYI ON PLAN B: if you weigh over 165lb or have a bmi over 28 or so, Plan B is less effective, and you may want to get a prescription for Ella instead.) I always understood intellectually why women would blame themselves for such things, but now I’m really feeling it. I know it wasn’t my fault, but I keep thinking, if only I hadn’t… if only I had… Ugh. But it’s been getting better as the days go by. Just very emotional right now.
Aw. I know you know this, but: none of this was your fault. The one definite thing that could have made this not happen is that dude not being an entitled asshole, and you have no control over that.
*internet hugs*
I am so so sorry.
I’ve also been in situations where I *know* [x terrible thing] isn’t my fault, but I don’t *believe* it. We’re socialized to do it, and really none of us are immune. You’re not alone!
Be kind to yourself. I hope you have the support you need, and let us know if there’s anything we can do.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and you’re 100% right that it wasn’t your fault, please keep holding onto that thought.
I’m so sorry, that sucks so bad. It wasn’t your fault, and I hope you can take good care of yourself this weekend and keep feeling better as time goes by.
I’m so sorry, that sounds horrible.
That guy is awful, and it is absolutely his fault.
It was not your fault, he is a great big bag of dicks and if you want I will happily burn him in effigy at the Halloween bonfire.
Ughhhhhhh. I have no words for this, just hugs and comfort. And enormous rage for the asshole, obviously.
Sending you hugs and a cozy blanket and some delicious tea and a comforting movie.
It’s not your fault, and I’m so so so sorry that you’re having to deal with this.
It really is such a normal, common thing that brilliant, independent, feminist women that on some level know better still fall into the same emotional traps (see also: the convo on abuse upthread). It sucks to feel that way, but as you already 100% know, the fault completely lies elsewhere and you can just keep telling that obnoxious (although natural) voice in your head that you know better and everyone on the toast backs you up. So there.
I’m in the same boat this week. It totally sucks that half of the people I shared with were like “why didn’t you…” and “what if you…” and “shouldn’t you have…”
It’s not our fault. It’s not our fault. It’s not our fault. And we are not alone. Hugs and love to you.
Hugs to both of you. It’s not your fault.
THAT IS AWFUL OF THOSE PEOPLE TO SAY.
It’s not anything YOU did, it’s what HE did.
We’ve got your back. <fierce, loving scowl>
I’m so sorry those people said that. It’s not your fault. The person who is responsible and who should have made different choices is the person who assaulted you. It’s not your fault.
Speaking of desserts: there’s a video that’s been making the rounds on my Facebook showing how to make Apple Roses and I am making them.tonight. I can hold out no longer.
Let us know how they go! I have saved that idea for an upcoming baby shower, and I really want to hear that they do, in fact, work and taste yummy!
Apple Roses update! So must have sliced my apple too thickly because the first attempt at rolling a rose, my slices broke. After another 3 minutes in the microwave the apple was soft enough to roll! End result: quite tasty, as pretty as the pictures, prepare to clean up sticky preserves + cinnamon from your counter tops. Remember to spray Pam on the muffin tin. Would definitely make again and this time serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Awesome! Thanks for the report.
Serious Hamilton discussion question: I love Hamilton partly because it’s an act by immigrants, their children, and other POC to re-engage and reclaim the founding of the US. However, over the past year I have been thinking more about the concept of settler colonialism, and I wonder if this musical perpetuates it by once again erasing the presence and history of engagement and genocide of Native American tribes from this overall conversation.
I’ve been thinking about this particularly with regards to how I and other non-NA POC tend to talk or think about assimilating or “making it” or staking out a claim that we are a *PART* of this country without directly acknowledging the hundreds of nations that were here beforehand and have continued to survive in spite of genocidal policies.
/killjoy OUT
[I have more fun, less serious thoughts about Hamilton, but I can save them for another thread.]
I’ve also wondered this a lot. I’m sure LMM has stuff to say about this as well, why don’t you Tweet at him and see if he bites?
Found this article by Ishmael Reed, fellow MacArthur grantee and not exactly a Hamilton fan (TL;DR – Hamilton was involved in slave trades, Schuylers owned slaves, Jefferson called for the extermination of Native Americans, the musical is using the music of the oppressed to distort history and exonerate oppressors). Would love to hear LMM or someone else involved with the production respond to it: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/21/hamilton-t…
Damn, that was caustic and brought a lot of history to the forefront. I’m going to have to mull that one over too.
Seconded on “caustic.” I think the author makes some points worth noting, but also wades into rhetorically murky territory at times (blurring our understanding of Andrew Jackson into our understanding of the Founding Fathers, for example, but also not acknowledging that the musical does critique the hell out of Thomas Jefferson). Also, I’m reading the Chernow Hamilton biography right now and there are good, historical record-type reasons why Chernow frames all of his statements about Hamilton and slave-owning with “might”s and “may”s. There is no good way, because of shortcomings in the historical record, to say what Alexander Hamilton actually thought about slavery. He may have purchased slaves. There is no evidence any actually worked in his home (but maybe they did and there’s just no evidence!). He was a central member of the New York Manumission Society, an abolitionist group. What does this add up to? :: shrug ::
The lack of any reference to Native Americans has tripped me up while listening, definitely, but I respect the difficulty that CleverManka references of addressing every single issue.
The thing that gets me is how the musical so head-on addresses Jefferson’s hypocrisy and slave-ownership, but so completely ignores George Washington’s. Like, obviously he’s meant to be a more sympathetic character than TJ, but still….
A lot of people handwave Washington’s plantation by saying that either Washington had all his slaves freed after his death, or Martha owned most of the slaves on Mt Vernon. Both of which are true, meaning that Washington’s death left the majority of the family slaves still in slavery. Washington also doled out particularly harsh punishments, used legal loopholes to get around freeing his slaves, pursued escapees with a vengeance, and had some of his slaves’ teeth pulled out for use in his dentures.
So on cosetthetable’s suggestion, let me mention this children’s book I recently found for my niece with an interest in US History: The Escape of Oney Judge, one of Martha Washington’s slaves who fled for freedom.
I don’t know how old your niece is, but there’s really no wrong age to be shown the Oney Judge Drunk History episode.
I haven’t seen that one myself, so obviously I have to watch it before showing it to her.. 😉
[She just turned 8 yesterday! I got her four books for her birthday. 😉 ]
She’s awesome. And the other major Washington escapee was Hercules the chef, aka the guy I for sure thought The Mighty Oak was playing based on promos.
I’m starting to get why school kids get taught the weird fiction that he had wooden teeth…
Yeah, I don’t know what to think of that article. It certainly raises some interesting and complex points, but the author also calls all the performers “ignorant” for appearing in the show and then compares everybody to Hitler, so.
While I would like to know more about Hamilton’s relationship to slavery and abolitionism, I would find that article a lot more persuasive if it addressed anything about the musical other than the fact that it exists. It’s not clear to me whether or not the author has seen the show. Maybe he doesn’t want to spend money on it, and it certainly is expensive, but if that’s the case–and I don’t know that it is–a “here’s why I’m not seeing Hamilton” post would be more compelling to me than “this musical has black actors play George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Here are some facts about them” with no comment on what the show actually has those characters say and do.
There’s also something really off in calling Lin-Manuel Miranda a “very clever salesman for this project” rather than giving him credit as its creator, and talking about how much money the investors have made while disregarding the benefits that performing artists of color are getting because of Miranda’s work. Besides the fact that they get to earn a good living right now by starring in this show, which is a big deal, these actors are having a career-making, reputation-making, very-possibly-Tony-winning run, playing substantial, artistically challenging, complex leading roles. They deserve some credit for having thought about the art they’re making.
I’ve seen several posts on Tumblr about the problems Hamilton doesn’t address, and somewhere in there was (I think) a response from LMM that was basically he understood, but there was no way to write what he was writing and address every single issue. I can try to dig through my dash to find the post(s) if you don’t have any luck. The Hamilton tag on Tumblr is nicely full of responses and meta, not just images.
No worries! I don’t spend very much time on tumblr these days, but it doesn’t mean I can’t make some time here and there! Thanks for the suggestion.
Was it this? What Hamilton Does and Doesn’t Have
I really liked that post. It’s from a huge fan who adores the show but can nonethless acknowledge that the show doesn’t address indigenous issues or pass the bechdel test or critique the “bootstraps” narrative. Which are things I also appreciate talking about and acknowledging about the show, which I also love.
Like, we can spot bullshit a mile away when it’s a creator who simply hasn’t given thought to diverse perspectives or privilege. In this case it seems like we’ve got an aware and informed creator who made something ground-breaking, but there is just so much more ground to break.
Yes! That’s the one! Something went wonky in the link, though, so I’m going to try it again, here in case others want to read it. Thank you for finding it!
In this case it seems like we’ve got an aware and informed creator who made something ground-breaking, but there is just so much more ground to break.
Yeah this is how I’m feeling about it.
Shiiit I just read that post (great piece) and now I understand where all of the Lam love is now.
My bitter, sarcastic, cynical self says that nothing makes you more “part” of this nation than being unaware of indigenous history, so…
(I think these are all good and valid questions to ask. I’m just really pessimistic about the general public ever really getting a good handle on this stuff.)
One thing to think about: do you know whose land you live on? Was it ceded by treaty or taken by force? Where are the descendants of the original inhabitants now? I’ve found that making a point of finding this out for where I live (and where I travel) has really shaped my perspective.
My bitter, sarcastic, cynical self says that nothing makes you more “part” of this nation than being unaware of indigenous history, so…
HA
Those are really good questions! I’ve begun thinking about it more recently because some of the facilitators of a group that is starting up in Bmore puts mentioning the names of the tribes that use to live (and where she travels) first in any event she facilitates, and it’s part of why I’ve begun thinking about this at a relatively late age more recently. I know the names of the nations, but not much more than that. Time to do some more reading.
Yes, I know some folks (academics) who do this when they present. It’s interesting to watch people respond to it — you can really see the light click on for some people.
I think I’ve recommended this here before, so apologies if I’m a broken record, but this is a good place to start: http://www.nmai.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item/?… (and gloriously freeeeee, our tax dollars at work!)
Australia is racist as hell, but they do, as a matter of course, mention the traditional owners of wherever you are during government or a lot of cultural events. I mean, they also didn’t legally count indigenous people as humans until the 1970s, but this one thing is pretty okay and I’d live it to catch on here in the states.
Excellent points and things to remember, especially with… *shudder*…. Columbus day coming up.
I think this is probably one of those times where the answer is not to look for one work that addresses ALL issues really well, because that’s not going to happen and is unfair to creators. I think it is a time where we need MORE. We need really good art that makes it to mass consumption that talks about slavery, and about genocide of native peoples, and about the destruction of the environment, and religious freedom in the colonies, and none of this is easy to do well. And it’s that much harder if you try to do it all, simultaneously, all while making something that people WANT to engage with.
IIRC, LMM had a song that got deeper into the complicated relationship these people had with slavery, but ended up cutting it because it killed the momentum of the show.
So, yes, I agree, there are lots of things that don’t get addressed in Hamilton that are really important issues, that are things that really ought to get addressed. I’m just not down for making LMM responsible for addressing all important issues (not that that’s what you were doing here!). Especially since these sort of expectations seem to disproportionately fall onto people from minority groups.
I guess I just think that what I want my response to be is more along the lines of “LMM wrote a musical that really spoke to the experience of immigrants, and I liked it. Does anyone have suggestions for works about that timeframe that speak to the experiences of Native people?” and “TNC wrote a book about his experience as a black man. Does anyone have any suggestions for something similar from the perspective of black women?”
I guess I just think that what I want my response to be is more along the lines of “LMM wrote a musical that really spoke to the experience of immigrants, and I liked it. Does anyone have suggestions for works about that timeframe that speak to the experiences of Native people?” and “TNC wrote a book about his experience as a black man. Does anyone have any suggestions for something similar from the perspective of black women?”
This is a really good point, and thank you for these suggestions on how to reframe this! Part of the reason why I led this thread off the way I did is because *I’m* struggling on how to decolonize my mind and I’m still working through some of these thoughts at a pretty novice level sometimes, which is pretty shabby considering my understanding of anti black-racism or the racism faced by other POC. I mean, some of this didn’t occur to me to this depth until the second or third listening, which is much too late in my opinion.
Yeah, I think “work in progress” is the most any of us can really do on a lot of this stuff!!!
Part of what I want to accomplish with reframing it that way is that by doing that, I choose to direct my dollars, clicks, time, attention, etc, in the direction of providing positive attention to people doing interesting things, talking about issues I think matter, especially when they’re issues that are often overlooked. It’s plenty fun, and often important, to point out when something falls short somewhere. But if society only does that, there’s not much incentive to create, because we’re all always going to fall short somewhere. If I push myself to take some of the resources I would have used on people who don’t get it, and instead spend those resources on people who are at least heading in the right direction, then I hope that I’m doing my part to push the incentives towards making it better for the people creating those sorts of works.
co-sign on all of this
I am super happy to say that after being worried for almost two weeks straight I was tested I am not even remotely diabetic or pre-diabetic, no matter what scary ER doctor told me! It turns out that all my symptoms and scary results on the pre-fasting blood test tests were caused by a combination of a nasty UTI (blasted things) and a weird side effect from cough medicine I was taking. The infection and side effects just happened to start at exactly the same time, so it was really just a coincidence, albeit a truly terrifying one. I am so happy, although the scare has made me realize that given my family history I need to get my act together, health wise, which is a Good Thing.
Thanks to everyone who gave me kind words and advice a couple weeks ago! It helped my morale more than I can readily put into words.
You have discovered why ER docs are almost uniformly willing to scare patients regarding diabetes. It’s become more common and everyone can benefit from a few dietary changes. Happy it turned out to be a false alarm. And good idea, treating it as a nudge in a good direction.
I’m actually really glad he scared me like that! It made me do a lot of research and take a good look at my diet. I ate fairly healthy and was somewhat active before, but it’s definitely encouraged me to up my game. More than anything else, though, it made me realize that with my genetics I need to get tested every year, no matter how healthy I’m eating or how much I’m exercising.
It’s not really the same vibe as Harry Potter, but I recently watched The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec & it is so ludicrous and good. It has all of the fun of Indiana Jones, plus…Night at the Museum? idk, but with a lovely lady protagonist & Sisterly Love being the central Love Plot.
Maybe some Moulin Rouge thrown in, too?
That. Sounds. Amazing. Putting on my To Watch list. Thanks!
It’s great, if a little mindless! I hope you like it.
and a pterosaur! There is a dinosaur in this movie, I feel that is important to mention.
I’m honestly furious with myself for neglecting to mention that a DINOSAUR and DINOSAUR RIDING both occur in this film.
Oh my goodness, I love this movie so much! I keep seeing rumors that there is a sequel in the works and it crushes me every time I realize it doesn’t exist yet.
I didn’t even realize they’d made the comic into a movie!
Yes! So much love for Adele and hope for a sequel!
I’m really struggling with liking and dressing my changing body. I’ve always fought to control my weight but I had gotten to a stable place where I looked and felt really good. I had a nice wardrobe of clothes I really liked. But then I decided to become a mother…due to pregnancy, breastfeeding, and health issues, I don’t think I have been the same size for more than two months in the last 3.5 years. I’ve gone up and down. Now I’m pregnant again (which is great) but I am just so frustrated with anticipating years more of this. Growing belly, shrinking belly, growing boobs, shrinking boobs, widening hips, narrowing hips, loss of waist, widening ribcage (who knew?)…
Does anyone have any advice (practical or philosophical) on how to manage this. I’m not happy with my efforts thus far.
I remember when I first held my son to my breasts I did not believe milk would really come out of them, When it did, and it kept my son alive, it felt like the coolest thing in the world that the boobs were doing their part. Maybe I need to focus on the wonder of body or something.
I don’t really have any advice, but I will commiserate! My baby is 18 months old, and I have what the cool kids are calling a capsule wardrobe – not because I like to dress that way, but because I can’t be bothered to find any more clothes that kind of half-way fit.
I believe the actual answer is caftans and vodka (well maybe not for you right this minute, sorry! but also congratulations).
I am not a parent. But due to similar-to-pregnancy hormonal high-jinx over decades, my body cannot be trusted to be stable for long. To limit frustration I budget to purchase clothing once a quarter. I buy one complete outfit 4 times a year. I also budget to get tailoring. That way, my wardrobe always has one go-to combo that fit perfectly less than 3 months ago.
I’m sorry for your struggles. It *is* cool that you can feed your child with your body. I think focusing on what your body can *do* is helpful. I feel better when I am most physically active, not having the much cooler option of feeding a real live, adorable, little human.
I’d like some warm wooly knee-high socks to layer over tights and leggings. I have fairly large calves, though (around 15 inches) and I’m having trouble finding socks that will definitely fit. Does anyone have recommendations?
Oh please tell me if you find any.
Sockdreams has a lot of knee high (and over the knee) socks and I’ve noticed that they are starting to include the stretch measurements on the cuff and calf.
I was gonna chime in with Sockdreams, too. They even feature large-calf women in photos!
Me, too. They have fabulous stuff!
I had to close the tab that I used to link to them because they have new socks and it’s fall and I waaaaant them!
I’ve ordered some socks from sockdreams, but I have yet to find wooly knee-highs that fit!
Darn it!
I don’t know about any woolly ones in particular, but I have 15-inch calves and Sock Dreams regular sizing fits me.
Toastatrons, I have a question. I have a writing piece that I’m working on (I am not a writer, but this essay really wanted to get out, so I’m putting it on paper). I’m hoping to pitch it here when it’s finished, but I have a hard time finding the…tone? voice? Something that makes it sound like me. What’s the best way to do that?
I can’t give much help without discussing it, but I would try getting the whole thing out in some form, and then reading it out loud to yourself. I think that helps a lot with tone and feeling, and you start to get a better grasp of what you want the structure to do.
Tell it to someone, out loud. Record it. Listen to yourself. Ask friends to listen and tell you which was the best part, what they like about the *way* you tell it.
Congratulations on putting your essay on paper. You *are* a writer. A writer is someone who writes.
Thanks, ToastFriends! I will try reading it out loud. I do have friends who would be willing to read it/edit it, so I’ll give that a try, too. It’s scary to go down this road. I find myself waking up in the middle of night with phrasing ideas.
The bedside notebook has saved me many nights. A quick scribble in the dark and I am suddenly able to sleep again.
Start by writing the part you are most passionate about. Write it as if it were a speech you were giving in front of the people you want to convince or motivate. Don’t worry about an introduction or a conclusion or being politically correct or anything. Use bad words and personal examples. After you get it down, go back and add the structure and make it sound nice.
I also agree with the other suggestion to explain your thesis out loud to someone else.
I’m ready for my cocktail now, and the workday’s only half over. Aaargh.
If I learned anything from Mad Men it’s that those were terrible times and your cocktail will come soon, if not exactly right away. Good luck finishing out the week!
But hey, at least it’s Friday? (Which really doesn’t apply if you don’t have a M-F job so hopefully you do, haha.)
Less serious Hamilton thread: I was thinking about genderbent Hamilton last night on Twitter and wanted to share some of these gems with you.
Alexandra Hamilton
Elias Schuyler Hamilton
Antonio Schuyler
Peter Schuyler
Georgina Washington
Pippa Hamilton
Artemis (or Atalanta, let’s talk it out) Mulligan
Jane Laurens
Marquess de Lafayette
Erin Burr (OBVIOUSLY)
Jane Madison
..
Struggling with Jefferson here. Trisha Jefferson?
King George would still stay King George, because I also like the idea of this musical being an obvs rebellion against patriarchy, but would appreciate arguments on this point.
Thomasina is the feminine version of Thomas!
But is it too long for a song? I’m trying to remember if he’s ever referred to by his first name in the musical.
Hmm…it might be. It works for Burr’s introduction (“You simply must meet Thomasina!” instead of “Thomas Thomas”), but is probably too long for “Thomasina Jefferson’s coming hooooome”.
Tamsin is a variant of Thomasina, if that helps.
I’ve actually been fantasizing about Lea Delaria playing King George at some point.
“I AM ARTEMIS MULLIGAN” sounds sooooooo good
I figured, why not give Mulligan the name of another asskicking Greek mythology figure whose name ends with an “s”??
Tammy Jefferson, maybe? Wikipedia says it can be short for Thomasina.
Tina?
Australian Toasties! I’ve been lurking in the comments for a while now, but never seen any mention of an Aussie Toasties group? It’d be awesome to know who you are/even organise meet-ups if there enough of us in a city?
I’m in Canberra, but would also travel to Sydney to meet fellow Toasties 🙂
I’m a bit of a lurker too (this is my third ever comment), and I live in Melbourne. Greetings!
Hello! I’m in Adelaide!
I’m in Sydney and am mostly a lurker too but I would love to meet other Toasties of Australia!
I’m in Sydney, and I’m the lurkiest of lurkers but I would love to catch up with any and all Toastaussies!
Hello! I feel like there must be. I’m in Melbourne.
Dating thread!
So last Saturday after seeing The Visit and gallivanting about the neighborhood at different bars, I met a guy at a bar close to my house who pretty much puts all my online-achieved dates to shame. He’s also objectively one of the most attractive people I’ve ever hooked up with, and he seems to think I’m hot stuff. He’s also very smart and really talented. We’re supposed to go to a play tomorrow and basically I can’t stop thinking about him.
How’s your dating lives going, Toasties?
I wish I had one! I just started a new job and want to get a bit more settled in that before I start dating again. Bah. There’s something that Liz Lemon says about wanting to go straight to the comfortable stage when no one’s trying to hard or something. That’s how I’m feeling atm.
Oh man, I relate to that feeling so hard.
I’m so glad you’ve met someone you like so much! Fingers crossed for you 😀
So I had crushes on two people at once for ages – one who lives in my city and whose feelings about me I could not read at all, and one who lives across the country and definitely likes me. Long Distance Person officially declared an interest in dating me a few months ago, so I spent a long time trying to get to a place emotionally where I wasn’t pining for Close Girl and wouldn’t feel like I was “choosing” or settling – if I went for things with Long Distance Person I wanted it to be a choice I made actively and freely; I didn’t want there to be an element of “well if Close Girl doesn’t like me I have this other option.”
And after lots of thinking and talking things over I finally got myself to that point and am officially dating Long Distance Person! We overlapped at college for a year and liked each other then, but they transferred away before we could do anything about our feelings. So basically we’ve lowkey liked each other for 5 years, and I know long distance is hard and I don’t even know when I’ll be able to go visit them (or vice versa); I just know I like them so much that I want to at least try this. It’s still a little messy because Close Girl is my closest friend in the area and is like 90% of my social life and sometimes I still get a “more than friends” vibe, but I was relieved when I didn’t feel any regret or longing or whatever after making my decision.
Hello all! I am back from my two week road trip a bit a head of schedule, thanks to our 13 hour push yesterday. Good to be home after so much time on the road. We had a lot of fun though. Time to process photos!
Did you take the pups with you?
Ah, no, they do not travel well, unfortunately (the bigger guy gets car sick and both are a bit of a handful besides). They did have a wonderful two weeks at my parents’ house where there is lots of room to run around, and the neighbors have four(!) giant labs that they can play with.
Typically after staying there for a while they don’t want to come home.
Hope you had a good trip!
Any fellow Toasts who learned to drive as adults? If so, and you bought some driving lessons, how many did you need? I have my permit and have tried to patch together times with my dad in movie theater parking lots and the like but really I just need to buckle down and get lessons, but have no idea how to proceed. Do I need like, ten? Three? Halp.
12: they came in packages of 6 and at the end of 6th one, my instructor said I needed more before I took the test. I did pass the first time, though I had to take two tries at parallel parking.
I think I probably needed up in the high teens, but I had a pretty traumatic experience when I tried as a teenager (not an accident or anything) and after the first time I went with my dad the instructor told me not to practice with my parents since they made me about 70% worse. So.
I guess the moral is if eventually I learned, it is possible!
If I could do it all over again, I would take lessons with someone other than my parents. My father is an aggressive, hyperaware driver who constantly points out shit like red lights (still! I’ve been driving for over half my life now!) and my mother was a nervous wreck who would keep gasping and stomping her foot to try and brake from the passenger seat. I don’t consider myself a terrible driver, but I HATE driving other people anywhere, I’m a nervous wreck the whole time which makes me a much worse driver than I normally am.
My dad is a good driving teacher, but, yeah, I think it’s generally a bad idea for most people.
My grandparents almost got divorced when my grandfather was teaching my grandma to drive.
I’ve been a non-driver for the better part of a decade, and I am investigating lessons (at almost 40). “Learning” with my parents in the car as a young person was distinctly counter-productive.
I got my license when I was 30. I think I had 10 lessons, and probably could have gotten away with maybe 8.
I took a few lessons as a teen and hated to drive, but needed to know in my mid 20s, essentially starting from zero. I took the standard packet of 12 and that was about right for me, as someone who still doesn’t like to drive. I did it all in the space of about 3 months.
A handful, more than three but less than ten, but also I was living at home and very lucky to have parents who could practice with me a lot, like I drove to work every day with my mother in the passenger seat. I got my license at 22.
I’m having a bit of a weird one mental health-wise, Toasties. I’m not sure what’s up but my anxiety is manifesting in really low moods and zero interest in anything. Usually I’m more of a “very high energy intense panic crying hysteria” (I take beta blockers for panic attacks) kind of girl but lately… I don’t know. No motivation, no energy. I’ve also totally lost interest in a crush, which is obviously not major but still? I don’t feel like myself.
I’ve registered for an initial appointment with my uni’s psychological support service but that’s a few weeks away. Am I just having back to school blues or what?
(My very sweet lecturer suggested lunar interference and although I’m a total cynic about everything it’s the best suggestion I’ve had so far…)
I get this pretty often–I think it’s my brain trying to cope with anxiety by refusing to engage in anything with the slightest possibility of risk or failure or rejection, and the sheer amount of behind-the-scenes mental effort that takes is in and of itself exhausting. We’ve been experimenting with different levels of anxiety meds for different points in my anxiety cycle, so to speak, but we haven’t found a really solid one yet. I don’t have any super advice–in theory I know that if I can accomplish some little, low-stakes tasks sometimes that is enough to start pushing me out of it, but I know that’s also amazingly hard sometimes, so.
No, thank you – that is super advice. I think I probably have exhausted myself. I moved house this summer, just started an internship and I’m going into final year uni and I thought I’d coped with it all but really, I haven’t. Thank you for being lovely x
Seasonal depression, maybe? I didn’t get it until I moved from Tennessee to Chicago for college (and now I’ve just realized “hey, this is why I don’t feel motivated”)
Tbh season change always messes with me and it”s really wintery here at the moment! Thanks
also chicago blows (solidarity, sister)
I get that feeling a lot but I have always associated it with my depression, not my anxiety (having both is fun times). The low moods and lack of energy and motivation and interest and desire for basically anything tends to happen when I’m in a bad downswing. It might not be that for you, of course, maybe it is tied to your anxiety somehow!
I didn’t really realise that one could have both, although I’ve wondered about it before… Thank you for the heads up, it’s definitely something I’ll bring up when I FINALLY get a consultation which will take weeks ugh… My anxiety tends to come in bursts and inevitably by the time I get to see a doctor it’s subdued and I get sent away! thank you
lack of interest in things one is generally interested in, low mood, no motivation– all signs of depression.
I went to the doctor for anxiety last year and ended up on anti-depressants, which worked. The doc explained how anxiety and depression can be very closely related. Could be now that you’ve got your panic attacks under control, depression is coming out to explore.
Alternatively, mercury retrograde ends today soooooo I have no idea what that means actually.
I didn’t really realise that one could have both, although I’ve wondered about it before… Definitely something I’ll look into, I have asked about antidepressants for anxiety before but was told to see how the beta blockers worked, and since the panic attacks stopped I assumed that was it? So we’ll see what happens I guess. Thank you!
Yeah I have no idea either but she was SO SWEET about the lunar eclipse meaning transitions, and my friend’s decided she’s going to read my tarot so that’s happening and I’m not sure why I’m agreeing with any of this…
I had a pretty rough week due to being in an emotional funk. Not exactly depressed but books, movies or walks didn’t quite bring me the satisfaction it usually does.
Now I’m feeling better because I’m slowly putting in the work to make a big change in my life. What steps are we taking to achieve our goals?
I’m writing more and chipping away at this novel whose plot refuses to work out for me. I’m also taking free classes to make my resume better. And lastly, I signed up to volunteer for an event at the city I want to move to, to make more friends and maybe even network a little.
What’s everyone else up to?
Same here on that first part–I’m in a temporary living situation but have no lines or leads on anything permanent, and the longer I stay in a place with no friends or peer group the worse things get emotionally. Didn’t help that the guy I’m renting from was kind of an ass last night & I’ve been out of sorts and feeling unwelcome here since. So TODAY I’m talking to someone about a possible new job in half an hour, trying to make oat and quinoa milk to see if my recipe idea works, and hoping to find a loom big enough to knit myself a hat on (so, bicycle tire sized, I guess). I hope your efforts bear good fruit!
I feel you on the living situation. The landlord is nice but it just doesn’t feel like home to me.
Good luck on the job!
I have been stuck at home all the time (outdoor allergies that keep landing me in the hospital, it’s ridiculous), and I am slowly chipping away at making my living environment a more pleasant place to be as a way to combat the cabin fever. I’m also doing the University of Iowa Creative Writing class that Nicole posted about here on the Toast, and though I have not been entirely diligent in doing the assignments, it’s still been a very pleasant way to get out of my own headspace.
I’m doing the Iowa class too, but I’m just auditing. I figure the lectures, the suggested readings and the writing assignments will keep the habit of writing up.
Glad it’s helping with your mental space. It’s doing me some good, too.
I probably ought to be auditing, I may try changing my status if it seems like I’m inconveniencing someone by only sporadically doing the assignments. But it’s been a fun course so far! I’m looking forward to watching the Session 2 video this weekend.
Yesterday I finished an intensive outpatient program for my depression and drinking problem. Lots of skill building, accountability, compassionate group discussion, and awareness practice. I also discovered a low dose of lithium–my blood level’s not even supposed to be therapeutic–actually helped lift my depression (after making me spacy for a week when it kicked in–I stuck with it and that passed). (No antidepressants have worked for me over the years; also, I have bipolar and my mania is controlled by lamotrigine but it didn’t help my depression.) A+ experience, would recommend, would attend again. (I have great insurance now through Obamacare with a regional health system, or none of this would have been possible!)
It’s also been scary and anxiety-inducing facing the end of the program and the prospect of being “on my own” in managing my mood disorder. That, and being at home sick for awhile, triggered some moderate depression in the past couple weeks. But with the help of the group facilitator and my therapist I have a really good continued care plan and am actually feeling pretty good last night and today so far. Better than I thought it would be–I actually feel like I got this.
I’m scheduling 2 or 3 personal training sessions a week starting this coming week, which had been great but which I stopped going to a few months ago in my last descent into depression, triggered by being laid off from one of my part time jobs and not being able to look for more work to be financially independent. I had a little extra money before that so I started the personal training, and was under contract so I’ve got another month or so of it and lots of sessions I can make up that are already paid for. So that’s good!
I’ve got two weekly support groups, and am getting to know one person outside of one. I’m going to her play tonight! Building social connections (outside of my mom and my one close friend/former boyfriend/current FWB) has been my huge challenge and the progress is great. With more intensive treatment I am feeling so much more confident and comfortable around people.
In a month I’ll be in a DBT program and mindfulness-based relapse prevention program. All told I’ll have five regularly scheduled things a week focused on mental health care. And I already have one or two things scheduled outside of the house around/with other people, with accountability, every day. (I work 24 hours a week at a job I like.)
I’m downloading the SuperBetter app and a DBT app, and looking into this Habitica thing. Excited about those.
Giving myself credit, and continuing to continually practice awareness of my thoughts and emotions and accessing self-compassion, are key, and so far going pretty well. It was crazy how difficult it was listening to all the positive feedback from group members at my outgo! Anyone else experience that?
The Toast is also part of my ongoing recovery! I love you, Toasties, every one. Keep on being you, y’all! And to anyone experiencing similar struggles with mental illness and low functioning, I want to encourage you to seek whatever intensive treatment you can access that really addresses you particular challenges. You can do it, and it’s the best thing you can do for yourself. For years I couldn’t accept that I needed/deserved more support, and that it was possible for me to do things to feel better. With more support and practice, it was possible. The people are out there. Warm wishes and all my best to you. You deserve to be happy and to get whatever you need to help you to be so. People will help and appreciate you more than you realize.
Toasts! Anyone have advice about How To Tell Your Boyfriend That The PC Police Are Not a Real Thing?
Boyfriend’s not a douchebag, but he has read a couple of articles about how college faculty in the US are all losing their jobs for committing microaggressions (we are early-career academics in Europe; I am American) and he has gotten it into his head that if he works in the US he’ll constantly be at risk of being fired for accidentally offending someone. (Example he used: “I don’t want to be afraid of what’ll happen if I say I don’t like hats!”)
The problem is, I don’t want to minimize two real, legit anxieties that are buried in there: one, the complete lack of workplace protections and job security for American workers (technically, many employers CAN fire you for if they don’t like your opinions on hats!) and two, how nerve-wracking it can be to work in a new culture, where you’re not sure about all the unspoken norms of behavior.
But. He is a white guy with sought-after skills, who is naturally courteous, respectful and easy to get along with. Nobody’s going to be firing him for saying he doesn’t like hats!
(The academic two-body problem and where we’re going to settle is already a fraught topic in our household, so there may be more going on here than FREEDOM OF HAT OPINION.)
Ugh, I hate to say this, but if what your boyfriend is taking from hearing that he maybe, just maybe, can’t get off scot-free if he does something hurtful and unprofessional is “oh, no, I am going to be hunted down arbitrarily for saying harmless things by those mean women/minorities!”, then there is a real problem there. I don’t want to jump to DTMFA, but this guy is telling you he is not ready for prime time.
I wouldn’t necessarily jump straight there–this is a guy who is not American wondering how he’s going to negotiate what sounds like a completely bonkers other culture where the price of a small misstep is total disaster. At least, that’s how all the scare-mongering articles that get published are presenting it.
The Burgomaster is a non-tenure-track academic who regularly calls out his white male students on their privilege and doesn’t let anything slide in class discussions. If someone’s being even vaguely offensive (like “I’m not racist, but…” BS), he addresses it immediately, in front of the class. Granted, he’s incredibly good at this, and has received many notes of thanks from the people he corrects, but yeah. Your Boyfriend doesn’t have anything to worry about, especially if he lands a tenure-track position.
Look at the crap Bighairnoheart’s worthless instructor pulls on a weekly basis.
Boyfriend will be fine if he wants to be.
There are plenty of responses to many of those articles. I like this one on the Mary Sue. I think I had some quibbles with this one, but I think I overall liked it? And this one by Arthur Chu.
Those mostly focus on the bigger “political correctness” thing, the one probably most specifically useful to the “bf worried about college faculty in particular” thing is this one.
I work in American academia and encounter that attitude in a lot of otherwise pleasant male friends and colleagues. It’s kind of a mishmash of TRIGGER WARNINGS ARE DESTROYING FREE SPEECH AND THE LIBERAL ARTS BECAUSE ALL YOUTHS ARE CODDLED AND OVERSENSITIVE AND LIBERALS/WOMEN/MINORITIES ARE THE REAL THREAT TO ACADEMIC FREEDOM!
And, like you said, they’re not feeling this stuff for no reason – teaching jobs seem ridiculously unstable and the whole system of adjuncts is a horror show – but that comes from American Universities being run as businesses. I usually try to steer them away from the idea that oversensitive students are their problem, and go on about working conditions for academics having more to do with campus administration, something that’s mediated by things like a strong faculty union and a supportive department.
Best of luck to you and your bf! I’m recently past the two-body problem, I have a non-faculty archivist gig and spouse is teaching middle school, and can definitely sympathize!
This depends A LOT on where he’s working, so if he can suss out campus culture during the application/interview process, that might put his mind at rest a lot. But of course that exacerbates the two-body problem.
Being fired for not liking hats is the SWEETEST example! I don’t have any good ideas for you but I am very tickled by the hats.
Ooh, I want a pecan dessert!
Also, it’s been a while since I’ve had the dream where my ex!boss is back in the office and nobody knows how to deal with that, but I had it again Sunday night (in this dream, he had a furlough from jail one day a week, and apparently decided to spend that day of freedom, Wednesday in this case, trying to keep running the company). However, in an exciting turn of subconscious events, this time the dream involved all of us taking our lunch break at the same time, venting about how much we hate him, and deciding if we were going to go back to work at all. Then we went back to the shop, he gave us shit about all being off the clock at the same time, and not doing our work, and we told him to fuck off. Emotional development!
I think the reason I had the dream is that he finally had his grand jury hearing, so everything’s gotten stirred up again.
There was also the requisite “entire part of the store I didn’t know existed” with a weird hallway that looped back on itself.
Anyone want to talk about how amazingly twisted and funny Review was this season. Andy Daly is a god and James Urbaniak is pretty much the devil, but a fun devil. Let’s hope they get AJ out of the studio next season, Megan Stevenson is perfect.
I tried watching one episode in the first season (the pancakes episode) and it seemed more awkward and painful than anything else. Am I missing something? Does it grow the beard at some point? I’d really like to be on board with any TV show described as amazingly twisted and funny.
If you didn’t like the pancakes episode then you will probably not be a fan of it to be honest. The second season is really good and significantly darker/darkly humorous, but that’s one of the best episodes of the show.
It might have just been the subject–I didn’t make it through the whole episode because I was feeling sympathetic nausea at the idea of eating so many pancakes at once, haha.
I am not caught up on Review yet, although I did love the first season and was psyched that they picked up another. I *puffy heart eyes* James Urbaniak, although I’ve never ever seen him play a not-creep before. If you have Hulu, he actually plays a cuddly boyfriend (from my admittedly weird perspective) to one of the protagonists in Difficult People and it is so weirdly satisfying to see him playing against type, and doing it really really well. I’m excited to catch up on Review now!!
I. . .almost cried about his imaginary friend. And when his dad visited him. How am I more emotionally engaged in this than all the Serious Dramaz?
Review is so capital-G Good. I read a blurb about it being Purgatory or something (maybe this just a joke that all shows face in our post-Lost world?), which I think could be totally accurate.
Last night I got only three and a half hours of sleep and somehow I am sharper and more productive today than I have been in weeks. I’ve been very “when will my normal sleep pattern return from war” lately, but this is a whole new level of weird.
Also! In the midst of last night’s insomnia, I was thinking about all the ways I make myself miserable (as you do) and I realized a thing about myself. When I am capable of doing something, I feel like I have to do it. Legacy of all the Great Depression farmers in my family? Side-effect of being the smart kid who was always told they could do anything? I don’t know, but it’s an exhausting way to live.
In the short term what this means is admitting that although I am capable of sewing most of a wardrobe from scratch, I actually hate doing it, and getting rid of the ancient, broken sewing machine I’ve been fighting with for years (and the ridiculous backlog of projects I was going to get to “someday”). In the long term… I’m not sure. I have some things to think about, definitely. Does anybody else have this weird self-reliance compulsion thing? Or this (even weirder) not realizing that you actually do not enjoy your own hobbies?
raising my hand. Luckily my sister and my parents often try to talk me out of committing myself to anything else.
Bad sewing machines are the worst, because even when you do give up and buy a new one, learning to use it is so overwhelming you stick with the broken one.
When you have a weird body and everything in the store is ugly, sewing things creeps into your brain. But you must resist! It’s not cheaper! It’s not a good use of your time if you don’t enjoy it!
There are a very few things that it’s worth it to me to sew, and those things are basically circle skirts. But I always hem them by hand anyway, and that’s 90% of the work of a circle skirt, so why am I fighting with a sewing machine again?
Oh, I definitely have the self-reliance compulsion thing. Exciting recent personal growth – buying pre-washed lettuce and spinach is fiiiiine, hawthorn, you hate washing greens and there is way less moral weight to this decision than you seem to believe!
Yes! This! Look, mother, I understand that a head of lettuce is cheaper in the absolute, but throwing out wilted, slimy lettuce is deeply unpleasant and that is what will happen, so.
prewashed salad, pregrated cheese, and sometimes (the horror!) pre-chopped fruits are my most indulgent indulgences. (I mean, probably not actually, but as far as going against the voice of Oh That Sure Is An Expensive Way To Buy Cheese, Isn’t It Lemonadefish?? voice, well, it’s a very tough decision BUT I MAKE IT!)
Also sewing your own clothes is super expensive (time-wise at least, if not also $$) and if you don’t like it, you certainly must stop immediately. The very best thing about being an adult is deciding which things you like to do, and which things you’d rather pay someone else to do.
I too had the pre-washed greens revelation recently. It just comes in a bag and you put it on your plate! No elaborate spinning or drippy wet half-eaten romaine hearts! And you can buy pasta sauce that someone else made, you don’t have to make tomato sauce from scratch every time.
I am trying to nurture the idea that it’s ok to pay for things like food delivery and house cleaning. It’s hard when money *is* sort of tight–not so tight that I can’t pay a little extra for the convenience, but tight enough that I usually end up deciding to do it myself instead.
In this week, I’ve started applying to law programmes, been told I’m doing really well in my new job, and had to put my dog down. The last one is really cancelling out the other two.
jedi hugs for you.
🙁 I’m very sorry about your dog, it is so hard to have to let them go. I hope you’re able to do something comfy and healing this weekend.
HarrietVane, I’m so sorry about your dog. You gave the beloved dog a peaceful gentle death. That is the ultimate loving act, at the most cost to you. I just put my LittleBoyDog down yesterday. He died peacefully in my lap. So I’m right there with you. Come sit by me. We’ll keep a box of tissues between us and share our favorite dog stories between crying jags. ::hugs::
RoseCamelia, I thought about you and your LittleBoyDog this week. I’m so sorry you had to put him down and I know he loved you and his last days with you. Take care.
Thank you so much for your kindness, citystillbreath.
I am ever so sorry for you.
I’m very sorry to hear about your dog.
I found a new ADHD therapist who doesn’t charge $800/hr! I had my initial session this morning, and ugh, she totally gets it. Her specialties exactly align with my issues, and she’s reasonably-priced enough to swing once a week appointments. Now I just need a new psychiatrist who will prescribe the correct number of pills and maybe I can have a life again!
Also, I have been helping a friend out with childcare this week and having an absolutely hilarious time with this charming five year old girlchild. She’ll sidle up to you and ask, “Can I tell you something?” and it’s always a very very solemn and important statement, usually about how much she dislikes vegetables or how much she likes her dad’s dog. This afternoon is our last day together and I think I’m going to bring her on my pet food run (there are GUINEA PIGS at the store) and maybe try to plant crocus bulbs if the rain holds out. If it doesn’t, I have purchased many beads and melty beads (did not realize these were still a thing; got inordinately excited at the junk store the other day) we can look at patterns for her Halloween costume, and she can pretend to be a cat for 40 minutes again.
It’s really awesome after moving away from Brooklyn and experiencing a bit of a geographical freeze-out from my friends there (no one wants to come to NJ, I don’t blame them a bit, although I would like to show my cute house to people) to have new social contacts that involve wee children. I don’t want to be anyone’s parent, but it’s nice to be peripherally involved. I’m angling for honorary auntie over here!
My friend from college and I experienced a serious bonding moment over the amazing “It’s Decorative Gourd Season” piece at McSweeney’s last year and occasionally email back and forth gourd-adjacent news articles. Because, of course, we’re huge dorks like that. Last month, I found a site that sells decorative gourds in bulk and I ordered a boxful to be delivered to her. Like, thirty miniature decorative gourds in a box. The tracking emails says they should have gotten it yesterday but I haven’t heard anything from her. I hope she got the box. I hope she gets the joke.
That is awesome. My husband and I have been randomly screaming the title of the piece to each other for the past month. Especially since we have some motherfucking freaky-ass squash on our dining room table at the moment.
“It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.” I am not a fan of cold or the changing color of leaves or even pumpkin spice, but that really makes this season feel worth it.
If I had a time machine I would go back in time and become that friend.
One of my colleagues and I have a running joke about that piece — so much so that the two of us actually read it out loud to a third colleague a couple of weeks ago when we found out she’d never heard of it. Neither of us could keep a straight face, but it was awesome.
Toastieeees what is your favorite fast, healthy breakfast? Preferably not dairy-based? I am trying to optimize my mornings, having read some articles about how mornings are when successful people do things to become successful. Reading descriptions of breakfasts seems like a good first step toward success!
I bake up a big ol batch of granola every few weeks – happy to share a recipe if you want! I like it with yogurt but it’s fine alone.
Same here! I eat it with cashew milk.
I do smoothies, which can be dairy-based or not. I use almond milk in mine, and I use kefir, but you don’t have to have kefir or yogurt. My basic recipe is: kefir (something to give it some smoothness and body), almond milk, banana, greens, blueberries and blackberries, almond butter, matcha powder, flax seeds/chia seeds, and sometimes an additional fruit.
Ooo yum. Do you have a dishwasher, or have you made peace with how inexplicably annoying it is to clean a blender?
My life was changed when someone casually mentioned they clean their blender by dumping in a little soap and some hot water then firing it up for a few seconds. Now I make All The Smoothies.
WHOA.
I KNOW RITE
Plug for the NutriBullet! Easiest puree-ing thing to clean ever, just right size for smoothies, you can drink right out of the cup, even put a lid on it to take with you. </infomercial>
avocado on toast!
I tend to go with bran flakes, granola (for flavor and variation in texture), and rice milk. It’s not particularly exciting, but it’s easy and keeps me full for a while. (Plus, it’s got a lot of iron and protein, which are both problem nutrients for me.)
I make a breakfast sandwich – scramble an egg into a tiny pan, toast an English muffin, warm up a slice of ham once the egg has cooked. (I like cheese, too, but you can skip the cheese if you must.) It takes about as long as the coffee takes to brew, and at this point I can do it in my sleep. It’s tasty, it’s got protein, and it makes me feel victorious when I drive past Starbucks without stopping.
Avocado and hard boiled eggs on a bagel!
sometimes when I am particularly together, I will make a week’s worth of oatmeal in mason jars. Coconut milk or whatever is fine. I like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, dried blueberries, brown sugar, and walnuts in mine.
Or Kashi frozen blueberry waffles. Pretty healthy, very fast, kinda pricey.
Granny Smith apples and peanut butter. I actually keep a jar of peanut butter at my desk and eat whenever I get a free moment.
Toast, of course. With nut butter.
Hard boiled eggs (2) and a piece of wafer bread with raspberry jam.
Because I’m a crunchy hippie nightmare (I jest), I’ve been making breakfast the night before: chia seeds + almond milk + honey + vanilla + frozen or fresh fruit/berries + walnuts. I aim for about1:4::chia:milk and leave it in a jar in the fridge overnight, and it turns into a nice pudding-y consistency. Super easy, pretty healthy, definitely recommend.
I have recently started making this and it is great!!
Eggs with toast, preferably or sometimes veggies.
Tomato slices on toast
Smoothies – lots of good recommendations above, and I’ve finally succumbed to Mr. Lass’s love of protein powders, which I tend to blend in with yogurt and fruit and water. (Vega One is currently the one in our cupboard). I also add ground flax or hemp hearts, and sometimes kale.
A bowl of cereal with brown sugar and milk. See also: supper on my own, just because i can.
I like to make a batch of steel-cut oats that I can then reheat for breakfast. I usually go for savory toppings as they tend to satisfy me more in the morning – soy sauce, sesame oil, and a soft boiled egg is a favorite.
“how mornings are when successful people do things”
This is all lies, don’t believe a word of it. (pulls covers over self and goes back to sleep)
Healthy is maaaybe a stretch but I like to pretend the oats and fruit makes the single pancake count. I use less sugar and generally replace the blueberries with cranberries.
I have this amazing toaster that also cooks eggs.
So I put a piece of bread and a little water and an egg in their respective places in the toaster, push the button, get dressed while it’s toasting, then put the egg on the toast and go. (Usually I add a piece of cheese and some spinach leaves and salt/pepper/paprika on top of the toast too, but those are optional.)
I make a bunch of these in advance: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2013/05/chipotle-sweet… Then eat a couple with a fried egg on top most mornings.
I used to do breakfast tacos (with either pre-made black beans or chipotle mashed sweet potatoes inside), but am trying to cut down on carbs during the day for energy/productivity reasons, so the tortillas are out. But those didn’t take a ton of time either.
I’m a huge fan of Budget Bytes’ baked oatmeal recipes. You can make a batch on the weekend, and reheat on weekday mornings. I usually sub regular oats for steel cut. My favorite version is the pumpkin recipe, which seasonally appropriate and sooooooo delicious!
I like microwaving (not ideal, but…) frozen burritos that have all recognizable ingredients. Not all of them have cheese. Evol brand are the tastiest I’ve found. (Their frozen dinners are awesome, too. Way tastier than Kashi.)
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2011/09/baked-pumpkin-…
this is hella easy to make (I use almond milk with no ill results) and will feed you, deliciously, for at least 4 mornings.
Hello, Toasts! What podcasts are you enjoying this week?
I started listening to Read it and Weep, since it was recommended by one of the hosts of I Don’t Even Own a Television, and I love it. It’s the right balance of low key and making fun of dumb stuff, in my opinion. They also employ the compliment sandwich technique, which is refreshing. I highly recommend their episode on Hocus Pocus to anyone wanting to check them out, because they’re more than willing to acknowledge that even though it’s a dumb movie, it’s also full of joy and silliness.
I’ve been enjoying Reply All, which is the right mix of interesting and soothing for me when I just need to sit and chill. It’s theoretically a podcast about the internet, but they’re pretty generous in their definition of “related somehow to life on the internet,” so it’s basically just a hodgepodge of stories about anything. A little like This American Life, but in smaller doses.
Pop Culture Happy Hour is eternally my favorite. I’ve also started listening to Pop Rocket recently because it’s somewhat similar to PCHH, and while I don’t like the hosts as much, I’m enjoying it. I’ve also been listening to All the Books–they talk about a handful of new books that came out that week, as well as some older titles. They got me to read Uprooted and a few other things I liked a lot. I also like Extra Hot Great (tv podcast from the TWOP/Previously.tv people).
I just learned about You Must Remember This by Karina Longworth, which is about “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century.” I have only listened to one episode, about Frank Sinatra’s 1979 space-themed album–a subject I did not expect to have any interest in–and it was great, so I think I will like others!
I lost track of I Don’t Even Own a Television! Time to catch up.
The radio drama-style podcast “Limetown” has been fun if occasionally a little stagy. There are also only three episodes so far, one of which is very short, and new episodes only come out every other week.
I always enjoy the Savage Lovecast. For $20 every six months you get an 80 minute show every week with no ads.
It’s funny, the guests are interesting and enlightening, and I learn so much from other people’s experiences and problems (so I don’t have to!). Usually I think his advice is very good. And his political rants at the top of the show are positively cathartic.
Commenting anonymously since I would like to vent about highly personal things, in comments below.
I have been in a depressive spiral of late, and I’m not sure how long it’s lasted or how to fix it. I’m functional, but have cause for concern.
For example, I got a big work bonus and blew a lot of it on a long vacation and several expensive impulse purchases. A month later, we have none of it. We did slightly reduce credit card debt (from around $4K to $1500), but ran it back up again to around $2K pretty quickly. My partner sort of lazily ok’d the impulse buys and vacation. The vacation didn’t turn out to be that great. We’re increasingly at odds in weird ways (we are new parents to a very loved baby girl). Like we exacerbate each other’s worst qualities a lot of the time (self-isolating, distrustful of others, easily stressed out, harsh outlook, demanding standards of each other) and don’t really know how to make each other laugh and feel better. It’s just constantly stressful and we pour 100% of our energy into work and parenting, and wind up tearing each other apart in surprise fights (that are happening almost daily).
Also, partner’s sister visited and she is infertile due to ovarian cysts that destroyed both of her ovaries. She was so affectionate with my daughter and I felt that she was very unhappy and kept joking about taking my daughter back with her that I almost began to feel guilty, like she should be daughter’s mom, not me. And illogically angry at her for loving my daughter. I’m not sure where all of that is coming from.
I’m having really strained conversations with the sister that was closest to me growing up, and is still the person who knows me best. Her criticisms really got under my skin in a terrible way.
I’ve noticed the signs of depression beginning to set in, or maybe it’s finally PMS of my period returning, but I’ve been getting increasingly anxious at my socially toxic job, have found it more of an effort to be cheerful and affectionate with my daughter (although I always show her love and affection no matter how bad I feel. Always.). I have been feeling alienated from my partner, don’t leave the house on weekends, am lashing out at partner verbally without realizing that the things I perceive him doing/thinking are a creation of my own paranoid perceptions until too late, am basically feeling like no one likes me because I am unlikeable, and have started staying up late after baby’s asleep watching really terrible shows like Teen Mom that just depress me further.
Also, worst of all, I don’t really have a confidante besides partner and sister, so am feeling very isolated. I find it difficult to make friends, but don’t really try to get out there and make it happen, so I exacerbate my own problems.
I need to figure out how to get back on top of things, and I think friendly commiseration would help the most. It’s pathetic to expect that from the internet, but typing it all out has been helpful regardless. If you made it down to here, thanks for listening, and I hope you have a lovely weekend full of delicious treats and laughter!
Pursuing your well being is important to your baby. She needs a healthy, happy mom. Everything you describe indicates a professional counselor would be the single best improvement for you and for your family.
You used “isolated” twice and “depression” 3 times = counseling needed and necessary. I’m sorry you are struggling. Please get screened for post-partum depression. Recent research indicates it can strike a year after birth.
Babies are wonderful and exhausting, and not just physically. Your toxic work environment is exhausting you. Any partner relationship takes energy. Yours needs extra energy just now, when you have the least to give.
Could your partner do this for you? Make an appointment for you, alone, with a counselor. And your partner needs to cover baby care for that appointment.
One thing at a time. One task: ask partner to make the appointment.
::hugs::
Thanks for the concern, and I realize the way I wrote it sounds terrible, but it’s not that-that bad. I’m usually doing pretty ok, and partner, baby, and I have a lot of good times as well. I don’t think it’s PPD, but maybe seeing a therapist wouldn’t be the worst idea. Getting started with that and actually trusting someone enough to respect their opinion on what’s going on in my life is intimidating, though. I also don’t, as a working parent, have a lot of time to go to appointments and try to sort through a handful of therapists to find one I gel with. I should at least consider it though. Thanks again.
I think it probably is that bad, or you wouldn’t have reached out for help. There’s nothing bad or shameful about seeing a counselor. When my kids were babies, I was horribly depressed. That’s very clear to me now, in hindsight, and I wonder why no one around me noticed and got me to see a counselor. Or maybe they did and I downplayed it and said “oh, it’s not THAT bad.” Please get help.
This all sounds so incredibly hard. I want to say though, that depression LIES to us. “It’s not that bad.” “Other people have ‘real’ issues.” “You should just be able to buck up and power through.” “Your life really is pretty good so isn’t this kind of self-indulgent?” “Stop being so pathetic.”
Those are all lies that jerkbrains tell us because the jerkbrains don’t want us to get help and feel better. I think you could probably feel a whole lot better, and your relationship with your spouse could feel a lot better. I think based on my own experiences with therapy and medication that a good first step would be to tell someone professional how you are feeling. You don’t have to make an appointment and commit to anything — maybe you could call a helpline and just talk to someone for a couple of minutes? Let us know if you need help finding a hotline to call and we can dig something up for you if you want.
This this this. The tone of your “thanks for your concern” response just made the alarm bells go off even louder for me. (I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m piling on; I’m not, I’m just worried)
So much sympathy. I definitely self-isolate when I’m depressed, so I totally get you there.
I agree that counseling is probably a good call. But in the meantime, could you make the commitment to yourself that you will spend half an hour outside moving your body every day? I understand there’s lots of reasons why that might not be possible, but if it is, I think it might really help in the meantime. Evidence is growing about how nature helps our stress levels, and there’s already good evidence about the benefits of exercise. It might also break you out of the rut of staying inside all weekend.
Making impulse purchases that make money just disappear is one symptom of bipolar, and most people with bipolar experience also LOT of depression. Just a thought, may or may not be applicable.
Also, support groups! You don’t have to have a diagnosis to go to one, and you don’t have to share anything but your name if you don’t want to. The acceptance, sense of belonging, and benefiting from others’ experiences have been great at my peer-led depression support group. They’re not all the same; if you don’t like one, you might like a different one. It can also depend on the mix of people at any given meeting.
Sorry if this is more advice than commiseration… I feel for you! I posted in a reply to a different comment above about my recent journey with difficult moods; check it out if you like. Best wishes whatever you decide going forward. Thank you for sharing.
Migraine thread? I had a doozy earlier this week and, well, lying in a dark room for a day and a half does give one a lot of time to think about migraines.
How do other people deal with them? Are there tricks you’ve found to help? So far my best strategy is to take the longest, hottest shower I can tolerate, focusing the water on the eye/quadrant of my face where the migraine lives. It produces this very strange sensation that I think of as “confusing the migraine,” and then the pain usually lifts (at least a bit, at least for a little while). Other migraine hacks that work for you?
Also, how do you pass the time when your eyes don’t work properly and all stimuli are terrible? Sometimes the boredom of waiting without being able to read, watch Netflix, etc. is the worst part.
Lastly, do migraines give you any superpowers? I’ve realized recently that what I thought was just a heightened reaction to smells is actually the ability to smell things that I normally can’t . . . like identifying my coworkers’ packed/sealed lunches from across the office, or becoming instantly aware of a layered, complex scent profile for every person I encounter. Sort of like being a dog, I imagine.
I just have to lie down and wait for it to pass. It’s not the pain that incapacitates me so much as the nausea.
Ugh, yeah, I hear you. It’s like everything in the world suddenly becomes actively offensive to my body. No fun.
Thankfully, I don’t get migraines much anymore, but I had basically one long migraine that lasted from when I was 12 until when I was 14, just before Imitrex was available.
When I couldn’t stand stimuli but also was bored to tears, I (being a huge video game fan) would run through the game Super Metroid via memory with my eyes closed. Is there a book or tv show or memory you know really well that you could picture?
Two years of migraine???? That sounds like complete hell; I’m so sorry. Replaying memories/books/movies is an intriguing idea. My thoughts tend to get distorted so I might end up with some amusing fanfic….
Does the smell thing happen first, like an aura? (I get that, too).
My go-to is to take the excedrin ASAP as soon as I get the aura. The pediatrician told my son he could take 800mg ibuprofen ASAP. If you already have one, then you could alternate high ibuprofen (like 600) with regular tylenol/excedrin 2-3 hours later. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it just makes you feel cloudy, but that’s better than shooting pain and nausea.
You know, I’ve never really thought of it as an aura before (it tends to come at the same time as the head pain) but it makes sense that it would be related. Excedrin is my go-to as well, but for some reason it only works for me if the migraine begins in the morning (it’s weird, isn’t it, how you get to know the quirks of these things, almost like they have personalities). Ibuprofen doesn’t do much for me on its own but I will definitely try the alternating thing–thanks!
I take excedrin right away, try and drink a lot of water, and usually stay inside in a low-lit room. There’s not really much other solutions. I have found that peppermint oil (on the temples, bridge of the nose, or brows, aka wherever the migraine is, but not too close to your eyes just in case) can help somewhat with my migraine pain.
Yes, yes, peppermint tea for the scent, the tummy-soothing oils, and hydration.
I like the thought of peppermint oil. Something cool and crisp would definitely be appealing. Thanks!
Yeah, it’s definitely a nice cool, tingly feeling. It feels better and I think the “tingling” distracts from the pain which makes it go away a bit. You’re welcome, and I hope it works!
Ugh. Poor thing. Sorry to hear you have to deal with them.
The only thing that works for me is sleeping (earplugs and eye mask because I’m light- and sound-sensitive when suffering). Sometimes an hour or two works, but usually I need a good seven or eight hour overnight to really (ahem) put it to bed. I use meditative breathing techniques to pass the time because often it literally just hurts to think.
As far as superpowers, there are tons of theories out there that early xtian mystics (I’m thinking about Hildegard of Bingen) were actually suffering from migraines.
BTW, in searching for a link for her, I found this completely unrelated article about Spiritual Warfare and Adrenal Fatigue, which has comments of comedy gold, like this excerpt:
p.s. i’ve heard prayer and miraculous healing are good cures for this
p.p.s. don’t eat fruit. it is the devil’s way of tempting us in to sinful tasty pleasure.
Ooh, can I ask what meditative breathing techniques you use? I know exactly what you mean about thoughts adding to the pain/nausea, so something that could regulate/quiet the brain a bit sounds just right.
I’ve heard theories that the saints’ visions came from epilepsy, but I didn’t know about the migraine-mysticism link–how fascinating. Migraines definitely do open up a different version of reality, so it makes sense.
The comments at that second link are AMAZING.
“Yeah, I agree, I have had some warfare since I left my previous megachurch, not all the time, but I now look at it objectively”
“the churches in the usa have fallen asleep and let stain take over . . . oh and by the way you will come to the father throw buses not marry”
I’ve been practicing yoga for about 15 years, so I do a lot of ujjayi breathing, even when I’m not migraine-y. I use it to calm myself when I’m doing self-myofascial release on a particularly crunchy bit of soft tissue, too. I don’t try to count on the inhales/exhales (because thinking) but I do sometimes visualize the breath as coming in as a (pardon the woo-woo) warm, soothing energy to break up the dark, angry patches of headache. It doesn’t get rid of the pain, but it does distract/calm me enough that I can fall asleep.
Hope that helps!
I’ve had a migraine for about a week now. (Fun!) I’m sensitive to smells anyway, but I get really sensitive pre-migraine which just adds to the nausea.
Yikes! I hope you feel better very soon. And yes, the fact that migraines intensify your senses in a way that intensifies the migraine is a cruel, cruel trick.
My migraines have evolved into these weird things where I get the aura and some of the nausea (and sometimes bonus things like partial numbness in my tongue) but very little of the pain. I certainly don’t miss fantasizing about taking a pickaxe to my forehead and pulling out the pain, but I still have to go lie down in a dark room until I can see properly again. That’s the only thing that’s ever really worked for me.
Sound doesn’t bother me as much any more if I keep the volume low, so I listen to audiobooks or podcasts while I hide my eyes, something quiet.
That’s so interesting. Do you have any idea what caused the change?
No idea. I know something’s still going on in there because I typically still feel kinda out of it, but it’s not registering as pain so much. It might be hormonal, maybe – my mother’s migraines were also like that for a while but the pain’s starting to come back now just as she’s gotten through menopause.
I did a bunch of reading on migraines a few months ago and there’s so many ways the damn things can present. I about wouldn’t be surprised if anything’s fair game for them.
Poor you 🙁 (Great chance you have already tried it but) I finally tried Ibuprofen about five years ago after many people had recommended it to me, and since than it as soon as I noticed the onset has stopped every attack for me within half an hour. I still had weird sensations in my hands and a mild headache for a while, but not the nausea/not being able to see clearly, so just had to wait it out with a movie. You might need to take another tablet after a while, so it doesn’t start in full force after the first one has worked off.
Before, I could not bear any stimuli like you said, only very boring news radio without music
Thanks for the sympathy 🙂 I haven’t had great luck with ibuprofen in the past, but I might give it another shot. And I might try news radio, too–it sounds like it would be low-key enough to be bearable.
I’m in the midst of a bad patch with mine. Most of my strategies involve triptans and botox, but in terms of the “that one weird trick” family of options, I will put very cold things (ice, popsicles, ice cream) on the roof of my mouth. I have no evidence for this being anything other than the placebo effect, but whatever, it can’t HURT.
I do that too! The effect is not consistent, but sometimes it works very well. Otter Pops in particular seem to help for some reason, although I don’t particularly like them. I hope yours clear up soon.
I am not a migraine sufferer, but my soul-mother gets really bad ones and she has recently found this biofeedback strategy that is working wonders for her. The theory is that stress causes vasoconstriction, and in most people, after stress is released, so is the vasoconstriction, but not in migraine sufferers, so it just builds up and when it eventually get released, a bunch of blood floods the brain and causes migraines.
Anyway, she has to do this meditation-type thing to basically control her skin temperature if it gets too cold and that has helped her greatly. Sorry I don’t know enough to explain it properly, but she’s become an evangelist about it, so I figured I should pass her advice along
Whoa, interesting. I have definitely noticed a pattern, in that my migraines often follow periods of stress (and that was certainly true in this case). I’m curious about the skin temperature thing and will check it out; thanks!
I got migraines at least twice a week from age 7-13ish and it was absolute hell. I couldn’t eat when I had one and I often threw up. I was a bony lil kid for a while there. Ibuprofen didn’t help me and I must have been too young for Excedrin or something.
Now I only have migraines once a month or so and they don’t incapacitate me nearly as much. When I feel one coming on, I take some Excedrin and lie down for at least fifteen minutes. I like a hard floor better than a soft bed for this. I also massage my head and neck where they hurt. If I’ve got the time, I’ll spend an hour or more alternating lying down, massaging the ouchy bits, and trying to stretch out my neck, shoulders, and back. It’s a pretty silly-looking and elaborate ritual, but I’ve eliminated a few migraines this way.
Going for a run also seems to help shake out and loosen up the tense muscles. And going to sleep is the best, of course!
I’m on a beta blocker as a preventative, but I still get the occasional migraine. If caffeine isn’t a trigger for you/if excedrin helps, I like a hot caffeinated drink right when I’m getting aura symptoms or the pain starts. It sometimes stops it altogether. (This is only since the pills, which have decreased my pain as well as frequency. Caffeine wouldn’t have cut it for me before, but my actual headache rarely tops a 5 now and I do get aura only migraine without headaches sometimes. Ymmv.)
I’m smell sensitive, too, when migraining. Brains are weird.
I’m so conflicted right now! The advance polls are open for the Canadian election and my riding is one of the ones targeted as a “swing riding”. Do I vote with my conscience or vote strategically?????????????????????? Help?
If there’s a big difference in the polls between your first-choice party and the strategic choice, and if historically your riding has voted in greater numbers for the strategic choice, maybe you could vote strategically with a clear conscience assuming there are no personal deal-breakers for that candidate/party.
You could also frame it as who do you least wish to see take your riding, and how best to achieve that; someone online was cautioning about not letting perfect be the enemy of the good in this election, which is what has been driving my choices. Good luck, and hurray for voting!
I would vote strategically, which is something I never thought I would do, but Harper is so evil it’s worth it.
I was raised to vote against the bad guy instead of voting for the best candidate. I actually remember going into the voting booth with my dad in the 1988 presidential election, and trying to make him vote for Lenora Fulani, and him explaining that it was very important that George Bush didn’t win, so he was voting for Michael Dukakis (which didn’t work, as you may know, but in any case, it seemed like a sensible strategy then, and I still use it).
How far apart are the two candidates on the issues most important to you? Personally, I’d vote strategically, and consider maybe donating time or $$ to the cause that candidate lags on, as a bit of personal atonement.
I’m thinking you’re right.
I used to be really anti-strategic voting, but I’ve come around this election because I am so worried what another Harper government would do. I’d vote strategic, especially since there’s a chance your vote actually might swing the riding.
I say strategic. I think I might say that in any case, but also I’m a NDP supporter who is annoyed with some of what they’ve been saying this campaign, so I’m less upset than I might otherwise be to see some of their votes go to Liberals. If you’re coming at it from the opposite side, I think the Liberals have been pretty annoying themselves in various ways, so I think you could use the same reasoning.
There was a really interesting conversation on TVO this week on strategic voting. (with Steve Pakin?)
He interviewed someone from a strategic voting organization that is resourcing swing ridings, so maybe check them out?
http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-ste…
Thanks, I’ll listen to that. I also see that the Science for the People podcast just uploaded an episode about the election, specifically how it affects science.
I’m having the same dilemma! My riding is pretty safely NDP, but I really like the Liberal candidate more. On the other hand, I think I want Mulcair for PM. So…? But I really, really believe that the Liberal candidate would do more for my riding. The other guy has been in for almost 20 years and he’s a buffoon. And who knows? This may all end with a Liberal/NDP coalition.
I feel in a riding where Liberal and NDP are battling it out for first place (like mine), you can vote your conscience (NDP because I REALLY HATE my liberal candidate because he was shoehorned in — Conservatives have 0 chance here). It’s only in swing ridings where it matters.
I am in a Liberal/NDP tie riding too but I am still torn! I like both candidates here (both incredibly smart, competent women), and am honestly ambivalent about which party ends up with the most. I would like to advance vote this weekend but that will require making up my mind sooner.
I hate our voting system! There are other systems where you rank the candidates or you cast one vote per candidate instead of one vote per ballot, I’d prefer those systems.
Hahaha omg… Winnipeg centre????
Here for this discussion!
I have avoided voting in the advance polls because I am actually working at on of the advance polling stations all weekend but MOSTLY because I am still torn between two parties and want the extra time to watch for deal breakers from either potential MPs or potential PMs.
I plan to vote tomorrow, but am still not 100% decided. I do think I’ll end up voting strategically; getting Harper out is more important than anything else (to me).
Phew, it’s very comforting that many people have already posted “BLARGH THIS WEEK IS WEIRD-TERRIBLE” comments.
It’s also very comforting and touching that somehow many friends have sensed my fucked-up mood and sent appropriately inappropriate texts, photos, and emails this week. Feeling very loved and known, even as I act like a giant crankypants asshole.
San Francisco Toasties, I am here until Sunday afternoon for a work conference. What are great places to eat dinner around here?
Oh no, no one got back to you! I’m new to the area and more in the east bay, but Burma Superstar would be my first rec.
You’re so sweet! We were on our way back to Buffalo when I got this, but we had some good eats at Bouche and Bobo’s, though Bobo’s was by far superior and the better bang for the buck. So much consonance in that sentence…
TOASTS! I’ve been looking forward to the Cocktail hour all week! A round of hot chocolate with bourbon cream (it’s a real thing! look it up!) is on me, though it is not *quite* cold enough to properly enjoy it. I’mma still have some.
I’m currently being blown away by The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. Anyone else read anything good lately?
Ooooo! Hot chocolate and bourbon cream sounds just the ticket! I’m ready for the switchover to warm drinks, as I’m currently wearing yoga pants and a sweater and am wrapped up in my comforter.
I really enjoyed binge-reading the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. It’s about a changeling detective in San Francisco – very similar to the Dresden Files, but without the chauvinism and a little more consistent in quality after you get past the first two books. The latest one just arrived in the mail, so I’ll be finishing it off this weekend!
hot chocolate with bourbon cream
Oh my god, this sounds amazing. I may have to create a nonalcoholic version of this this winter.
Toast, I have accidentally overdosed on Spooky Things. I’ve always gotten scared very easily, mostly by stories about ghosts. But I also kind of dig the adrenaline of getting properly spooked. So when my horror buff friend started taking me to horror movies and recommending scary podcasts, I was totally down because most of my friends won’t go near those things. (I don’t know what horror buff friend gets out of this except me screaming in her ear, crushing the bones in her hands, and occasionally punching her because my startle response is apparently very violent.)
But after a week in which I saw The Visit and listened to all of The Black Tapes and Lore, I hit some kind of tipping point. I got home from work on Wednesday and couldn’t go into my apartment because I was absolutely sure someone or something was waiting for me inside. It took me literally an hour and a half, many safety precautions, and promises from friends to call the police if I didn’t text them within 5 minutes, to unlock my door and go inside. And I couldn’t sleep that night AT ALL (and have had trouble sleeping since).
This is weird! I mean, like I said, I scare easily and often have to sleep with a light on after something scary. But this is really intense, like bordering on paranoia/not being able to know what’s real and what’s not, and it’s messing with my head.
…So, naturally, last night I went to Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary, one of the most famous haunted house attractions in the country. I had a blast and it wasn’t the kind of thing that keeps me up at night (slow, creeping horror is what messes with me; not so much monsters jumping out at me) but it was terrifying. If you live near Philly I highly recommend.
Ahhh I want to go to the Penitentiary sooo much, but I have no one to go with, am a giant coward, and it’s like five hours away. woooe
I manage to overdose on Spooky every year around this time. I love the macabre, I love creepy things, I love darkness– but in very specific ways, and it’s hard to tell around now what will be the kind of horror I like and what will be the kind that keeps me awake.
The thing that usually gets me is the Jezebel “share your spooky stories” thread. Some of them are like… ghosts! Demons! Paranormal activity! which is great fun, but then some are like “when I was 5 a guy broke into our house and tried to kill me and my mom,” which is just scary. Not fun at all.
I usually fix it by coming up with contingency plans for myself. I think about where all the possible weapons of self defense are in my room. I come up with an escape route. I flex my muscles and bare my teeth until I feel giant and then I can fall asleep.
and if you are interested in history and can manage the cost, get a VIP ticket and take a nighttime tour in the dark with meeeee
Any toasties planning exciting travel? We decided to skip the holiday angst this year by flying to Russia on Christmas Eve, then working our way south down the Baltic coast through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to Poland. It will be fast and cold and ridiculous and I am so excited. Also, we’re getting tickets to see the Nutcracker in St. Petersburg on Christmas Night!
And this is why I have enormous amounts of credit card debt and live without running water.
Wow! That sounds amazing! My husband’s cousin is having a wedding ceremony in Greece next summer (allegedly. We have no details yet), so we’re saving up for that.
Oooh, that sounds fantastic! Intense sunshine and olives and wine all sound like the best possible things today.
Skipping holiday angst is important. Mr Rose and I found a pet-friendly hotel on San Antonio’s Riverwalk last year. This winter solstice we will likely be in Galveston with LittleGirlDog.
That sounds awesome! I did Estonia and Latvia during my last big trip and LOVED it.
Any recommendations? We’ll be in Tallinn and Riga each for a couple of days!
Poland is lovely! Where will you be?
Gdansk! We’re sticking to Baltic Coast as a theme 🙂 I’ve never been- are there anythings I must eat/drink/try?
Gosh it’s been years and years since I’ve been. Um…. All the pierogies? I remember there was also currant juice and currants in everything. I had a plate of pierogies filled with blueberries and slathered in sour cream back then that I still dream about.
Oh that sounds so good!
Have you watched Hairy Bikers polar-baltic adventure? It just finished on the BBC, they went through all those countries and it looked amazing! Now I really want to do a Baltic adventure!!
I’ll have to look for that!
Estonia is GORGEOUS. Or at least Tallinn is. I’d love to do a trip like that, maybe from Berlin up through the Baltic states and then flying back from Helsinki or something. Have an amazing time; I bet the holiday season is fantastic there.
The pictures of Tallinn in the snow are just slaying me. So pretty. So fairy tale.
Holy crap, that is so not my life, I can’t even see it from here, but I hope you have a beautiful time!
Thank you!
If you need any insults or dodgy questions translated into Russian, I’m available.
In high school, my class took a trip to St. Petersburg and also saw The Nutcracker. Which resulted in “Little triangle-playing shit!” becoming a permanent part of my vocabulary.
Dogs!
Here is Keaton, wagging leaves off the sidewalk:
OMG does Keaton have pointy ears pressed against that adorable head?? If so, your dog is a doppelganger for one of my childhood dogs, who was like a large version of a schipperke, with a floofy fox tail. I love the muzzle-grey, too.
Black dogs are the best dogs. Here are Gertie (with the white) and Leela in a rare cuddly moment:
Awww lil snugglies! Shiny dogs! I’d like to pet Leela’s ears through my screen.
Keaton’s ears are kind of.. soft pointy? I think he might be some sort of Lab/Chow
His tail’s floofy to the max, but I don’t have a good photo, so here’s him posing with cats:
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! He is the cutest and looks so so soft.
I love the look on the ginger cat’s face. Rising panic and beseeching: “Human? Human? There’s a dog. THERE’S A DOG. Can’t you SEEEEE it??!? It. Is. TOUCHING. me.”
I have two lab/border collies of different ages and origins and they both look pretty similar to yours, but maybe a little bit fluffier?
Shelter pups of the week!
I have a total dog type and it is black retriever mutts with white marks on their chests (AKA both the dogs I’ve owned in my life) and this week there were TWO stellar examples and I want them so bad. So bad.
Plus two other complete lovelies.
So lovely!
Shelter pups this week is one of my favorite parts of Open Thread, thank you for sharing!
Aw, I’m glad! Always happy to share the latest shelter pups.
Black retriever mixes with white chest markings are my type, too! Mine also have white paws and are good at sleeping invisibly on the path between the bedroom and the bathroom and getting stepped on at night. I assume that someday this behaviour will be recognized as a breed trait of black retriever mixes.
ahh, what a sweet little face!
here’s my Laika:
🙂
Laika is just. so. pretty.
I hope that, when I am reincarnated as a doggie, I am that pretty. I’d have all kinds of dog boyfriends. And this is the future so I have birth control and am in control of my dog body. I’m starting to get weird so I will stop. But seriously I want to be that pretty!
“Yes, it IS exhausting to have eyes this blue and ears this soft. Please bring snacks to revive me”.
I like to see a pet doing a chore! Way to clear those leaves, Keaton!
OMG THAT FAAAAAAAAACE
Awkward dogs playing awkwardly:
“Pictured: Branch Manager and Assistant Branch Manager”
(stolen from somewhere on the internet)
Beautiful red doggie eyes! He should be a hellhound for halloween.
My girl dog decided that the pile of leaves was supposed to be her bed after zooming around the backyard this morning.
And both puppies snuggled up with blankets during a weirdly cold day we recently had.
GREYHOUNDS. I love them.
I need suggestions on what to do with boiled cider! I just bought a big bottle from King Arthur Flour after wanting to try it for years and I’m looking for recipes/suggestions on how to actually use it so it doesn’t just sit in my pantry. I think I’ll probably do at least a batch of apple cider caramels, but that’s all I’ve got at the moment.
Two batches of apple cider caramels?
(I got nothing else, but then I really love apple cider caramels)
It is incredibly delicious used as a pancake syrup. However, I am the only member of the household who feels this way, so ymmv.
It’s delicious in/on oatmeal.
It can be a tasty vinaigrette ingredient, too.
I blobbed some into some slow cooker pulled pork I was making once. (Recipe called for apple cider vinegar. I didn’t have any, so regular vinegar + boiled cider)
Add to a lovely reduction sauce for pork chops.
apple cider caramels is such a good idea! I think I will do this with the farmer’s market cider that I know I’m not going to finish drinking — thank you.
And for you — what about using it as a thread of cider-syrup that runs through a spice cake and marbles it? or as the base of a glaze on top of gingerbread?
I bought a garter belt this week, because I wear dresses most of the time at work and am equipped with thighs that strain any tights or stockings small enough to not literally fall down around my ankles. Now that I have done so, however, I can’t seem to find much in the way of stockings or tights to wear with it. Internet searches are leading me to a lot of faux-garter patterned tights and thigh highs with the elastic tops, which I don’t want. Any ideas?
I saw The Martian last night and loved it (but am also here for talk of Matt Damon’s recent shittiness and the race-changing of three characters). That Sebastian Stan is a handsome young man, that’s for sure.
Last time I bought a garter belt and stockings I did so at http://www.stockingstore.com/ .
Thank you!
Oh! Bookmarked! Thank you!
I’ve worn garters-and-stocking since I was sixteen and yeah, it’s increasingly difficult to find actual stockings, now. I’ve reverted to just cutting the panty part off tights. Not even the Vermont Country Store sells stockings, anymore.
I was very tempted to do this very thing, especially when I ripped a hole in a brand new pair of tights right at the thighs earlier this week while trying to adjust them, so I am glad to know that just cutting them is an option!
And if they’re a little tight/pinchy (the top will roll since it doesn’t have that thicker layer of knit at the top like Actual Stockings), just snip little clips out of the top edge. Ain’t nobody gonna see them, anyway.
On multiple occasions I’ve taking regular stockings and just cut the legs off. Poof! Garter-belt-compatible thigh highs! Depending on where you’re sourcing them, this can be cheaper than buying actual thigh-highs. It tends to work better with thick tights, like sweater tights.
Oh I am glad to read this, I possess a pair of sweater tights which are lovely warm and soft yet inexplicably the legs face different directions- I can’t wear them as is but been too afraid to try cutting them
I second Sock Dreams, and We Love Colors has thigh highs that look like they have stretchy tops but in a low-key way. I haven’t worn them, though.
On the topic of garter belts, though, do the clips dig into your thighs when you sit down? That’s why I stopped wearing mine.
So I haven’t posted here for a while, but I’m doing fairly ok with things right now. Mostly, I want to say thanks to everyone who said nice stuff after I posted about having to put my kitty to sleep. It was really hard on me (and the parental unit too) but seeing everyone’s lovely words made stuff at least a little less sad. Its been almost a month now, but I still miss my little gingerbread loaf. Parents have said they would consider getting another cat, but after the holidays.
Also, I have a job now! Not a geology job, just a seasonal position at [Brand Name Fabric and Craft Store]! It’ll give me something to do in the mean time while I’m searching for a science job, plus 20% off (30% on special days!!!) merchandise for employees is a nice benefit. I’m planning on making a Tuxedo Mask costume for next year. I’m going to look at all the patterns I need and get all the materials sometime next week!
Speaking of Tuxedo Mask… I watched La Reconquista a few weeks ago, and then La Petite Etrangere last week. Toast folk, I have fallen absolutely head-over-heels for Yuga Yamato, who plays Tuxedo Mask. I mean, I am in love with the ENTIRE cast of these musicals because they are beautiful and perfect, but Yuga is just so GORGEOUS. I cannot wait for Un Nouveau Voyage to get subbed!!
I’m stealing this gif
Like I steal literally all of your gifs 🙂
Whee! It makes me happy to enable/share the gif love. You have the URL for where I keep all of them, right? I’m always adding new ones (well, at least one or two a week), so feel free to check back once in a while to browse!
My husband is going out of town this weekend, meaning I’m going to plop myself on the couch in approximately 5 hours and not move until Sunday!
Any Netflix/HBO Go/Amazon Prime shows, movies, or documentaries I should binge watch this weekend? Any delicious foods I should make and/or buy for myself? (Husband is a vegetarian, so the weekends when he’s gone are my time to Eat All The Meat).
If you like thrillery crime mystery dramas, we watched the first season of The Killing a bit ago and it was AMAZING. I felt like I was running a marathon the whole way.
Gilmore Girls!
Pulled pork sammiches!
Happy weekend!
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries!
Pizza with extra meat and extra cheese!
Salami, cheddar and triscuits!
Seconding Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries! It’s a lot of fun. And, oh, THE HATS.
Hi! I recently watched Ballet 422 on Netflix, it is a ballet doc, and it was a wonderful. Enjoy your time! Sounds really delightful.
Watch Iris, the documentary about Iris Apfel. She’s a delight! And also the one on Diana Vreeland, The Eye Must Travel.
Season 1 of the Great British Bake-Off is on Amazon. Highly recommend!!
I also recommend stocking your own baked goods so you don’t go mad with jealousy and hunger.
Steven Universe.
macaroni and cheese with bacon, ice cream sandwiches
Miss Fisher and something delicious and braised, like pulled pork or beef short ribs or chicken thighs.
I’ve been enjoying the Witches of East End if you like witchy things (and pretty people, cause this show’s got them galore).
This is probably too late, but might be useful next time your husband is away and you are indulging in meat-eating – Parma ham dry-fried in a pan until crispy and then broken up into small pieces, figs cut up and fried until they start to caramelise a bit, and soft goats’ cheese, all stirred into tagliatelle so the cheese melts and coats the pasta. My boyfriend is a vegetarian, and I make this for myself as much as I can when he’s away (autumn is the best time for it because there are actually figs in the shops).
My BFF is visiting me this weekend! It has been. . .a really long time since I had an ongoing friendship survive not being in proximity. I also have some calming collars to attempt to put on the cats so they don’t get incredibly stressed out about a Not-Me being in the apartment for 3.5 days.
I had a really nasty sinus cold most of the week, but I stayed home from job 1 on Thursday and slept an extra five hours and I think I am definitely in recovery mode now.
I am pretty stressed about midterm grades for my students–it’s something I’ve never done before and would be anxiety-provoking enough even if I weren’t having tons of problems with the technical stuff.
Thank you! I know it’s health, but it can be hard to remind myself of that sometimes, as much as I like to think I know it.
ETA: supposed to be a reply to RoseCamelia. Thanks, intense debate.
Toasts, this week I made a pretty huge breakthrough at work and I should be very very happy about it. But I’m actually kind of ragey and panicky that it took so long to find out what the problem was, and that the solution is so simple, and obvious, and WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF IT SOONER and WHY DIDN’T MY COWORKERS and etc etc etc.
Rationally, I know this is a case of hindsight being what it is, and that this is the scientific process (I work in a lab) and blah blah blah, but also, I kind of want to go throw rocks in the lake while screaming into the wind.
Commiseration from another lab scientist. Last year I had a hellish time trying to track down a source of contamination that I wasn’t even sure existed because no one else seemed to be having any contamination problems (they totally were but just weren’t paying attention) and at the end of it was the same feeling: relief, but also WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO FIGURE THIS OUT AND WHY DIDN’T ANYONE ELSE?
Chances are you’ll feel better in a few days. Go enjoy the weekend!
Thank you! Contamination is THE WORST.
I told my boss that I’ve been trying to unfuck this single problem for so long that I forgot what the actual point of my project was. She replied, “I haven’t.”
Soooooo for now, back to the bench. But weekend soon!
She replied, “I haven’t.”
Oh, geesh.
Toasties who have given birth – what should I pack in my hospital bag? There are a million lists on the internet but I’d love to know what you found really helpful/essential for your physical/emotional well being. I’m 39 weeks today, eek!! So I could give birth tomorrow, or in 3 weeks.
PILLOWS.
Pretty much everything else they will give you, or you can work around. But you will need nice soft extra many pillows.
Also an extension cord for your phone charger.
And a going home outfit with A LOT of boob space. I personally went up three or four cup sizes in two days, and couldn’t even get my giant stretchy maxi dress on. I hope this does not happen to you, but it might!
And maybe some snacks – there is a huge amount of variation in the quality of hospital food these days – mine was really terrible, but I was starving, so I ate almost everything anyway.
Oh, an extension cord is a great idea. I wouldn’t have thought of that! Thanks!
earplugs
Definitely!! And an eye mask, I think. Thank you.
Congratulations! How exciting!
snacks
something to read/play/listen to
eye mask and ear plugs for sleeping
slippers
phone charger
cash in small bills for vending machines
a sweater
hairclip
toothbrush
support people with cameras
I brought an ultrasound picture of my baby to focus on, but mostly I just held it in my mind’s eye while I was in labor.
A list of everything you bring so you don’t forget any of it.
The most important thing you can bring is a person (like your partner) who will let you squeeze their arm and go get you a burrito when you have delivered the baby and who will argue with the staff about how to spell your name correctly and who will go home again and get something if you forgot it.
This is awesome – thank you!!
Yes to snacks! Also lip balm. And nice comfy clothes to go home in. And baby clothes that are smaller than you think you need. (Even normal-sized babies tend to swim in newborn pants, since they’re just all crunched up and squishy.)
Other than that it’s so hard to say, because it depends on what your hospital has, what your birth is like, and how close you are to home. I brought a lot of entertainment this last time but found that I didn’t do much of anything, just sort of sat around and visited with people and looked at the baby. It was actually very pleasant.
Maybe a nice towel? My hospital was superb in almost every respect, but the towels were really subpar.
GOOD LUCK!!!!
Thank you!!!! I really appreciate it. I think this will be a good hospital – it has the reputation for being one of the best to deliver at in the region.
Ok. I haven’t given birth but I’ve heard that one of the most important things to bring is granny panties! You want to be comfortable, lots of room… etc etc. I’ve heard this from many, many of my friends.
This will sound a little over the top, but was so, so nice – a bedside lamp and a string of Xmas lights. My hospital had beautiful adjustable soft lighting in the delivery suite, but it was back to standard industrial fluorescents in the recovery room, which I will just never understand. So I packed a small reading lamp and white Xmas lights that my husband installed in the room at some point using those removable sticky hooks. It was so much more pleasant, especially since I ended up being in that room longer than expected after a C-section. Most of the nurses loved it and nobody even whispered a hint of a suggestion that I shouldn’t have them.
So the event with a Netrunner tournament that I’m entering this weekend is turning out to be even more of a gong show than expected.
In the Facebook group that has includes most of the people in my city who go to Netrunner events, there are a total of three people signed up for this. One of them has now decided to back out and ask for a refund. Also, it seems that no one in the same group knows who is running the Netrunner portion of the event, which is weird.
On the bright side, I’m still happy to have spent money on this, weirdly. I get both the warm fuzzies of supporting people who are trying to make their dreams reality *and* a front row seat for the resulting train wreck. You would think I wouldn’t feel both things at once, but emotions are complicated.
For context, here’s the event’s highly professional website.
(The other good thing about this is that there’s a non-train-wreck Netrunner tournament next weekend, which I am also entering.)
I get both the warm fuzzies of supporting people who are trying to make their dreams reality *and* a front row seat for the resulting train wreck
I think we’d probably get along quite well in person because I totally, totally grok this.
😀
There’s some pity in there too. And a sort of sympathy/terror mixture, because I am involved in organizing a different nerdy event, and I can almost imagine being in their shoes. Except that I am certain we know how to avoid most of the mistakes that have led them here, so I’m not actually worried by them. (The event I’m involved in is making different mistakes, I’m sure, but ours have less terrifying consequences.)
I need some motivation or something.
I still haven’t managed to have my cat murdered (as we all agreed many weeks ago was the only option, and which I have been meaning to do for, oh, a year now, but haven’t (summary: will never consistently use a litter box again; no rescues within a five-hour radius will even consider him; there are no backyards he could live in (plus he hates the outside)).
Also I think I need to quit my job. My boss is a terrible bully, and the last outburst (started with how I’m trying to sabotage the company (by sending boss a rendering that was “too fancy”), morphed to how all the clients hate me because I’m just so unlikable (actually my secret fear, but not something he or I have any actual evidence of) with a detour through There’s nowhere else in this town you’d have it so good (also quite probably true? and my house is basically unsellable and my husband has a fairly specific job so moving is not really much of an option)) has left me in a fairly depressed funk (which makes me not want to kill the cat just now, because that could easily tip me over the edge (though it’s also depressing to see him cry about not being allowed to come upstairs and snuggle)). I don’t feel like I have time to put together a portfolio, and also I have internalized so much of what he yells at me – even though I can clearly see it happening, and identify it as typical abusive behavior, that I fear no one else will want me. Our finances are pretty tight – we do have a decent emergency fund, but I don’t feel like wanting to quit my job is an actual emergency, but we couldn’t make it more than a few weeks without me working without dipping into it. And I want to have another kid soon, and I’m afraid of trying to take maternity leave whilst being a brand-new employee (at a likely small company, given the options locally). I am full of excuses to keep myself in a situation that is ruining my brain!
Also I don’t want to put away the laundry.
I guess I probably need therapy? If there’s one thing I hate, it’s finding new servicepeople. I have had a dentist I don’t like for seven years because I can’t face trying to find another I like better.
tl;dr – adulting is hard.
Yes, getting out of an abusive job is *an emergency*. Your mental health requires it. Do it soon, please! After that, chores like finding a new dentist or a new job will be infinitely less difficult. I’d like to know how you’re doing next week. Try to post how you feel, even if you’ve taken no actions, in a link roundup, OK?
Thank you. I will actually be at the state-wide industry convention next Friday – perhaps I can sneak in some networking without any of the four bosses noticing. I will try to come back in tow weeks and give an update (Friday afternoons often end up weird these days!)
Yes, what RoseCamelia said. Think of it this way — if you had a friend who was being treated by her romantic partner this way, getting our would be something that would need to happen even if it meant sleeping on couches or borrowing money or packing up and leaving in the middle of the night, right?
Maybe sending out a couple resumes is impossible right now, but maybe if you make time for it and do it even though it feels really hard, it will help you maintain your grasp on reality (i.e., that there are other jobs with people who aren’t abusive bullies). I hope you can find a better situation soon! I’ve been there and had many months of therapy to get over it.
I know – I keep thinking “right, this is why people don’t leave their abusive partners!” I will try to at least make working on my portfolio a free-time priority.
Uffda, that’s a lot all at once! I like the suggestions made for you so far, but in the smaller and short-term I also hope you have a chance to do something really nice for yourself this weekend. It sounds like you could really use a break, even if it’s just a half hour over your favorite caffeinated beverage someplace very far away from the laundry. Jedi hugs to you (if you want them).
We will have company this weekend – perhaps we can abandon the baby and go do something fun!
eta: Also I’m going to go get my eyebrows done in a few minutes. And maybe I’ll treat myself to a flu shot as well! Woo!
Has anyone suggested the miracle cat litter Cat Attract? I know of several cats whose lives it’s saved. Get a new litterbox to go with it just in case the cat has associated the old litterbox with bad feelings. Make sure it’s easy for the cat to get into. I’m assuming you’ve been to the vet already too and ruled out medical issues.
Thank you for the suggestion, but yes, we’ve tried Cat Attract. We’ve been to the vet too many times to count – he has had some medical issues that likely started this whole drama, but they are now resolved. We’ve tried Feliway, many different litters in many different boxes in many different locations, many different foods (of ever-increasing cost), Prozac, going outside, not going outside, and discussing it rationally with him. He sometimes uses the litter box, but often doesn’t, and never when he has diarrhea (which is every couple weeks at least – and he prefers to run laps while it’s happening). For now he spends the nights ruining the garage powder room, and the days being angry that he’s sitting on the patio. I’d love to try something else, but neither I nor the vet can think of anything (last time we were there, she asked if I knew anyone with a farm he would like to go live on…).
Hey Toasties!
This week I got diagnosed with ADHD, hypothyroidism, and insulin resistance syndrome. I also changed from full time to part time at my job, it’s finals week, and I’m working on some major freelance stuff that is super important and I’m not keeping up.
I feel like my body is just destroying me. I already have bipolar and anxiety, and I already have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue and migraines. Why more stuff? I just can’t stand this. 🙁
I REALLY hope the rest of you are having better weeks!
OH HONEY
That is a pretty accurate picture of how I feel right now, honestly.
<3
I’m really sorry you are going through all that! Hang on there, and treat your body as well as you can. Like you were paid to take care of you. Set reminders to eat, rest, etc. if you have to.
The silver lining here is that now that you are diagnosed with the new stuff, treating it may help with some of the old stuff. I think it is not overly optimistic to hope so. For example, an underactive thyroid can make a body feel achy and painful and depressed as shit; it’s possible that treating it will help you recover some energy and equilibrium. (It did for me, anecdotally.) Good luck and take care.
Thank you! Yeah, the doctor said we are hoping to see some changes. I could really use some health improvements!
Whenever I add a diagnosis to my already to-long list, I need to remind myself that if I’ve gotten to the point of diagnosis, it’s actually been around for a while, I’ve been dealing with it a while, and the fact that it’s made my list longer doesn’t mean that I’m any sicker than 15 minutes before someone said the words. And that each diagnosis helps me to figure out the best way to take care of my body. And then I spend some time having to remind myself of all of the really nifty things my body CAN do. (not that I always live up to these things. there is plenty of time in which i angrily shake my fist at the sky. but those are the things i find most *helpful*).
🙂 I appreciate the advice. It’s frustrating sometimes having so much weight like this on life. I think it’s just hit me at a bad time. I’ll try your thought process though!
Interspecies snuggle thread? Roo (the cat) and Leela in a fairly typical sleeping arrangement:
I have done a lot of the career-type things I needed to do so far. I have applied for three jobs, started a linkedin profile (but the only real thing I accomplished on it was blocking my ex), answered about 6 lacrosse emails/schedule questions, written 3 new cover letters to go with the resumes.
I am a single mom of three (one in college) kids who is not allowed to leave the county the ex lives in without court permission. There are no jobs in my area. As long as I’m applying for jobs that require court permission….do I apply to the one that sounds like a high-paying startup in Brooklyn, NY? (I have a brother and SIl in Maplewood, so have support). What I do not have is money. I totally qualify for the job, but….
MEH–looked into the Brooklyn company more. I could do it, but I can’t see myself caring that much, since it seems to be a “lookup stuff about things to convince people to invest in those things or not” company. Well, that makes my day easier—
Anyway. Send me don’t-make-a-fool-of-myself vibes, because I’ve been out of academia but this is a mostly academic conference I’m going to tonight. I feel behind because I haven’t managed to get published (because I haven’t written up my research like I should have this past year or submitted it anywhere because real life), and I’m feeling out of place even in my own (previous) department (which is hosting the conference).
Kids are ok–I think the thyroid meds are going ok with college boy, I need to get the other two blood tests for their thyroids. Pediatrician thinks 12 year old should get physical therapy for her knees.
Am missing high schooler’s band performance tonight due to conference/networking? was planning on going to college boys’ tomorrow with my college buddies. I may not due to a change in the conference program. Need to get over the mom guilt. It was hard when they were babies, ok when they were in school, as they get closer to being in college the “they won’t be mine forever” guilt comes back.
I did find out that two of the jobs I applied for in August are still under consideration, I just haven’t heard anything from them yet. Of course they would mean moving.
I hope after the conference tonight someone hands me beer.
“I feel behind because I haven’t managed to get published (because I haven’t written up my research like I should have this past year or submitted it anywhere because real life), and I’m feeling out of place”
CCoryy, I say this with kindness: Fuck “should”. It’s a word that has been used to keep women down for generations. “Should” is hateful and hurtful, no use to anyone, not to you nor to society. Please be more kind to yourself. Writing up your research hasn’t been done. That is all. Perhaps it will be done in the future. That is all. No “should”, please.
And feeling out of place is just impostor syndrome. You know that. It’s just hard to see when you’re in the midst of it. You belong anywhere you choose to show up. It’s other people who have to prove they belong with you.
You accomplish more in any ordinary week than I can get done in 3 months. Consider setting aside a few minutes this weekend to list your accomplishments and feel good about them. And enjoy a beer. You deserve good things.
Thank you. You are so often the voice of reason! I will enjoy tonight’s reception, I’ve cleared tomorrow with the college boy so I can stay and do all the important networking/catching up on research, and I’ve got a new empty notebook and a teeny knitting projectin my bag. I am prepared for conference sitting!
high-five for doing the career stuff! Those things are no fun and you totally deserve a beer at the end of the day, especially after getting through all that inherently awkward conference meeting and greeting.
I’m not qualified to speak to parental guilt, but I am so sure your kids know how much you want to be there and understand you don’t decide that something else is more important lightly.
Hi toasts! I know some of you are weightlifters, and I was hoping to get some advice!
My work just built a gym, and I’d like to start lifting weights. Realistically, I would do it twice a week, 30 min at a time. I think there are only free weights, although something called a “power rack” is allegedly coming. My goal is to get stronger, especially in my arms/upper body.
Can any of you recommend some workouts to begin, or point me to some resources? I’ve gone through periods of weightlifting before, but haven’t kept it up – I’m hoping I can be more consistent with toasties at my back.
Go, you!
I’ll repeat my mantra of Find A Trainer Find A Trainer Find A Trainer because it’s just so important if you’re gonna lift to lift correctly.
Failing that, though, there’s always Starting Strength, which is pretty much the gold standard for weight lifting textbooks.
Thank you! I need all the support I can get 🙂
Work does offer training sessions for a reasonable fee, so I’ll do a couple of those. Will report back in a few weeks!
Woohoo! I look forward to hearing your updates!
Since it’s at your work, I’m assuming there are no trainers, but is there another gym nearby with trainers who will do one or two session with you? I got into weight lifting in the spring by taking a class through my school district’s continuing ed class. It was one teacher and four students including me, and the teacher explained his theory of how we should structure our workouts and how to do the exercises. While I probably could’ve learned the what exercises/what order/how much stuff online, it REALLY helps to have someone actually watch you and tell you what you’re doing wrong. My classes went on for 10 weeks or so, but you could get some basics down in a couple sessions, I’d think.
I think that we can have a personal training sessions for a moderate fee, so I will definitely do that since so many of you are recommending it!
I started off with Stumptuous and one of her beginner workouts. They’re good simple, low equipment workouts and she’s pretty staunchly feminist, pro body-positivity and anti-fitspo. I think her workout ideas are in the Training section. I also recommend her Dork to Diva series for learning how to do lifts properly.
You might not be able to do all of the lifts right away, but once they get power rack I think you can do most of them.
I love her website – thank you for reminding me. I haven’t seen it in years, and there’s so much more information now!
A friend and I have been using this workout. It’s solid. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/rudy6.htm
I just bought my sister The New Rules of Lifting for Women: http://www.thenewrulesoflifting.com/nrol-for-wome…
It’s based on having a more complete gym, but in the intro, the author basically says “Look at the guys in the free weights area at your gym. Watch them carefully. Do not do what they do. If you don’t know how to do an exercise, find a trainer that will show you the correct form. Do not let gym bros tell you what to do.”
That book looks great! I just put it on hold at the library.
Pecan desserts are great in theory but in practice some aren’t. Anyone have particularly excellent pecan dessert recipes? Chocolate is a bonus.
I don’t cook. But have been consuming pecans for decades. Pecans and bourbon pair well in desserts.
I leave tomorrow on my Denmark/Sweden vacation. I’m going to Visby! Could the Toastie who suggested it a week or so ago please send me some advice?
It wasn’t me, but my friend goes there for work regularly and the photos she posts are like something out of a children’s storybook. It is so beautiful. I hope you have a fantastic time!
That was meee I’m excited for you!! Also I need to procrastinate a very important essay, so, here goes.
I don’t really know anything about your budget, preferences, etc, so I’ll just tell you what I like to do. Here’s a map, I’ll refer to everything by the Swedish names on this map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Visby,+Sverige/…
First off, bring comfortable shoes. Visby’s streets (inside the city walls) are cobbled. There are hills and stairs.
Try to find a place to stay within the ringwall if you can! Look for “Visby innerstad”, that means “inner city”, or “innanför ringmuren” meaning “within the ringwall”. This place lists hotels: http://www.gotland.net/en/start/ But if you want a hostel, Visby vandrarhem (“vandrarhem” = hostel) is really cheap in the off season. It’s in the old prison by the harbour. http://visbyfangelse.se/en/ Or find other hostels here: http://www.booking.com/hostels/city/se/visby.en-g…
There’s a tourist information place in the harbour, on Donners plats 1. Website: http://gotland.com/en/
Take all the walks you possibly can. Just walk in any direction. You can’t get lost (for long), because you’re surrounded by the wall on three sides and the Baltic on the fourth side. Follow the city wall, both on the outside and on the inside. I recommend starting at either Almedalen and following the seaside, or if you want a shorter walk you start at the northwest corner in the botanical garden, and then following the north and east side of the wall until you get to the Österport gate.
On the outside, you’ll follow the sea and then the old moats. There will be ivy-covered fortress walls and fierce-looking towers, and they all have stories. The landscape will be weird and hilly. You NEED to have full mobility to walk on the paths outside the wall, btw.
Inside the walls, you will se extremely cute little streets with tiny houses covered in roses next to the ruins of burned churches. The wall towers over pretty little gardens, quirky shops and lots of cafés. (If you need to buy something normal, go to Adelsgatan, or leave the inner city by the Österport gate and use the shopping mall).
There are two beautiful parks that I love dearly: Almedalen and the botanical garden, “DBW:s botaniska trädgård”. Almedalen looks like this and lies JUST where the wall starts:
Look for Kruttornet, the Gunpowder tower – on Google maps, it’s marked with “Visby ringmur”.
The botanical garden is in the northwest corner of the ringwall. It’s amazing in the summer, and Visby is milder than the rest of Sweden (windy as heck though) so I think the garden might look great even though it’s October? They’ve put stairs in a ringwall tower there (on the northern part of the wall), so you can climb it and have a look!
Most of the medieval tourist traps are closed in the off season. That’s a shame, some of them are really good. At least there’s a great history museum, Fornsalen, on Strandgatan. They seem to have an art museum as well. This website lists a lot of cultural events (click “translate” for garbled English): <a href=”http://www.gotlandsmuseum.se/” target=”_blank”>http://www.gotlandsmuseum.se/
Now, FOOD. Food is very important. Everything you can eat or drink is expensive in Sweden, but Visby’s food is GREAT and I hate shopping, so I usually just dedicate my entire budget to food. There’s literally a billion cute cafés, pubs, restaurants and such all over the place, but here’s a few of my favourites (again, these are the names on Google maps, so you’ll easily find them):
Surfers – amazing Szechuan food in a… surf environment?? Don’t question it, just enjoy. Casual atmosphere, kinda pricy, but worth EVERY amount of money you’re able to spend. If you’re on a budget, just get one dish (the dishes are small, you’re supposed to get two or three) or an appetizer. There’s a great combo deal on the appetizers, IIRC, you get three of them for a very reasonable sum of money. The cocktail menu looks incredible but I’ve never felt I can afford it (but I’m usually poor, so).
Strykjärnet Creperi & logi – serves crepes and galettes, super cute. “Strykjärnet” is a nickname because the house is shaped like an iron (strykjärn = the thing you iron clothes with).
Hedbergs bok & musikkafe – tiny book café with lots of vegan options, lots of hipster charm, very nice.
Visbyglass – local icecream.
Black Sheep Arms – English pub.
If you want to try Swedish/Gotlandish food, I’ve heard good things about Packhuskällaren. It’s in a super old medieval warehouse building on Strandgatan. The menu looks amazing but expensive.
If you choke on all the quirk and just want a burger, go outside Österport gate, there’s a McDonald’s. Around the corner from McD, there’s a Max, a Swedish burger chain.
Food shops:
a normal grocery store – go to Stora torget (the town square)
Gotlands bryggeri – beer brewery!
Karamellboden – oldtimey candy shop!
Wisby ost – cheeeeese.
Kränku te & kaffe – tea with lots of local mixes and flavours. Kränku tea is a “thing”, it comes in paper bags with Visby prints and makes for good souvenirs. Also sells coffee, terrifyingly expensive teapots, cute mugs, etc.
There’s a few local delicacies that you’ve got to try! Every café will serve saffron pancake (actually a rice pudding) with jam from a weird local berry (salmbär):
Free Wifi: Almedalsbiblioteket, the public library in Almedalen.
If you can drive, you could also rent a car and see some other parts of Gotland as well. Fårö, an island just off the Gotland coast, is supposed to be beautiful. Lummelundagrottorna is a cave system with guided tours (at least in the summer).
Runners and Hamilton enthusiasts!
Tomorrow I’m running a half marathon that starts in Hamilton, IL, to the tune of the Hamilton cast recording! (I’ve added an extra 15 minutes of Nikki Minaj and Wondaland, in case of delays) It’s my second half, and I’m feeling ridiculously cocky compared to the first, where I was a trembling mess.
Anyone doing NaNoWriMo? This is my first time attempting and I’m scared! You can look me up, same name as here.
Replying to my post so I see replies if any.
NaNo is so exciting! I’ve found the best way to win it is to make friends with someone who writes juuuuuust a little bit faster than you, and race them. (But then again, my competitive streak, let me show you it.)
Thank you, that is a great tip. There are folks that live near me (I am in northeast NJ) so am using that as sort of a motivator too.
Me! I had a few false starts over the years, but the last 2 years I finished. It really helps to have one IRL friend who is a good motivator do it with you. I also set my daily word goal to 2000 words, so that if I had a day or two when i couldn’t hit my goal, I had some padding.
I like that, having a daily word goal is very smart! Thank you!
I’m planning on it! I did it last year for the first time in a while, after doing it 2006-2008. Don’t be scared! Go into it as zen as possible. Remember that it’s quantity over quality. Breathe and don’t beat yourself up even a little over doing it.
Add me (meriweather) as a buddy if you want! I don’t do a whole lot of community participation but I’m always happy to cheerlead for a Toastie in need.
I just added you, thank you!
Yesss? Maybe? I’m scared too…
I’m trying to be zen about it but LOL. I have time at my desk job, I really do, and I thought instead of the endless reading to do something more active? I don’t know.
Yes! I haven’t done NaNo for a few years but I want to get back into it.
I am feeling deliciously spooky this week, Toast-friends! I am giving nighttime history tours at an old dilapidated prison that has many fascinating stories and also a major haunted house attraction. I got to work last night feeling a little tired–this is my third job, so I arrived after a shift elsewhere–and there was a sign in the break room saying “spooky cookies and cider in the fridge!” and indeed, there were. I ate a ghost cookie and had a blast on my tour. Definitely a good gig for a girl who loves Halloween.
If you dig food history, I’ve been compiling some of what I’ve learned about the prison food practices on my food blog.
So, fantasy movies! Not precisely on point but the first thing I thought of was The Fall. It’s a simply beautiful, vividly colored film in which Lee Pace meets a little immigrant girl in a hospital in the Wild West, and he tells her a long fantastical tale to make friends. I mean parts of this movie are very sad, TW emotional manipulation, drug abuse, and suicidal ideation. But the little girl does a phenomenal job, Lee Pace is very handsome, the love interest is the lovely woman who played Molly in Wives and Daughters.
Srs scenery:
Srs bsns:
I almost mentioned The Fall, but then I reflected on how much I wept during it, so I decided it was not a “fun” movie. It is SUCH a great, beautiful movie though!
Yes, it is true, it is a weeper. And yet years later I still think about it fondly, so I forgive it for making me cry.
I WHOLEHEARTEDLY second that recommendation. I think it’s on Netflix and it is utterly bizarre and delightful.
One of the most visually gorgeous films ever made!
I love this movie. I own this movie. I show this movie to everyone I know who hasn’t seen it. But yeah. It’s a weeper.
I just finished my first zine earlier this week! Sorry to everyone who already has to put up with me screaming about it nonstop on twitter.
Does anyone else make zines & want to trade? You can peep my zine A World of Hotdogs here: https://instagram.com/arsenic.green/
The Virgin Mary holding a hot dog is delightful.
Congratulations! I never had the urge to make a zine myself, but I read (and loved) them so much in the 90s. I haven’t followed any for a while, but yours is too cute to pass up.
Super late because I was not able to participate in the open thread on Friday but went back and read the comments – I make minicomics and zines and would love to trade if you’re interested! (Edited to fix the link, a preview of one of mine is here: http://bindavis.tumblr.com/post/101227245667/asse…
I really like your style of drawing figures and am interested to see the whole zine!
Thanks! The zine is pretty small & silly, and it’s all altered art, none of my figurative drawings. I would love to do a trade, though! Your zine looks amazing. Is tumblr the best place to contact you?
Ha, I was trying to look at the images on my tiny phone while at work and just saw the larger images of the drawings and assumed it was the zine. Silly is great too! I’m horrible at altering art in a convincing way so I’m always impressed when someone else does it.
Twitter (@bindavisdraws) or Instagram (@bindavisdraws) are the best. I use tumblr frequently because I like the way it formats images but I always forget to check my messages on there.
Toasties,
My interesting times continue. .. movers are getting me set up in my lovely new loft apartment. I’m not at all sure I downsized enough stuff. The apartment is steps away from the commuter rail station … good thing I like train noise!
I am hoping to play the banjo and sing on Sunday night in Cambridge. I have a friend going with me but could use some moral support from Toasts, whom I know to be of good fiber. 🙂
Florida Toasties!
I know it’s like a month out, but is anyone else going to the Sufjan Stevens concert in Orlando on Nov. 6th? I was thinking about ridesharing/meeting up with people because I’m going alone to a concert for the first time and am nervous/excited. I’m terrible at doing things on my own and wanted to push myself, but now it’s feeling like I’ll be lonely and anxious the entire time so it might help to have someone else I know there!
– Debating over whether or not to see Steve Jobs. I mean, it’s hardly news to an Apple fanboy that he could be a real cobag, especially to his family, and even though Michael Fassbender is fantastic generally, he really doesn’t look anything like Jobs and doesn’t even seem to try, going by the trailer (except for the last part where he’s at least got the glasses), but Kate Winslet. (Winslet is one of those actresses who can at least partially redeem almost any movie she’s in.)
– I’m doing low carb again, and intend to gut it out at least until Christmas (I broke it recently just to get my pumpkin spice on briefly, and felt like crap, and now I’m in the induced semi-hypoglycemic phase until the ketogenic part kicks in), so about the only pecan-ish things I can have are pecans themselves; I may try them with a dusting of cinnamon.
I have heard nothing but good about the Steve Jobs movie from some very picky critics. Not an Apple fangirl or Jobs acolyte myself but I plan to see the movie.
I have never heard the word cobag before and I had to look it up and I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
Toasties, today I discovered that that “smart” menstrual cup on Kickstarter only communicates with the app if its stem “rests outside your vagina,” which is 1) BONKERS and 2) not at all easy to discover on their KS page (I found it in the Slate article), so it seemed like something you all might like to know.
…who designed this cup?
A man, of course.
WHAT no.
Apologies for two posts in today’s OT, but Figwiggin just tweeted about this.
Speaking of, does anyone know, has Figwiggin left the Toastie comentariat? I don’t remember the last time I saw her around here.
that is one glorious gif
Hi! It’s true, I haven’t been around in an embarrassingly long time; I haven’t had the time or energy to read most of the great pieces being published or comment on them thoughtfully! It is something I feel guilty about, and I would like to find the time to be more of a part of the community again.
Aw, please don’t feel guilty, bb! I was just worried that something had happened to put you off and I felt awkward asking you via Twitter.
Nothing is required of you! Just pop in and let us love you, like CleverManka’s Hiddles gif says. I hope you are well.
Okay, I kind of think the Coen brothers are overrated at times, but that movie does look really fun.
Toasties! I just found out that my best friend got engaged last night, and I have been walking around with a grin on my face all day but I CAN’T TELL ANYONE ELSE YET WHO KNOWS HER. So, this is me squeeing for joy among people who have no idea who she is. Who else has happy good news this week?
Omg! That is so cool 😀 do you like the person she is engaged with?
Come to think of it… I mean it’s not good news but how about something I can’t tell anyone?
This really cute couple who has been together for 4 years and always seemed totally in love are possibly breaking up because the guy admitted he found someone else to be more attractive than his partner… and that person is someone who only tangentially interacts maybe once or twice a year with the guy… and that person is my sister.
Can you imagine laying waste to relationships with your beauty?? Like. They are just so unrelated to each other in the social circle, I can’t even describe how weird it is. Also we look alike so I am feeling tangentially SMOKIN’.
She is engaged to an EXCELLENT person who went to college with both of us. Everyone from our college watched them for four years expecting them to date, but they didn’t actually get together until a couple years later, when they were living in different states and he kept driving six hours to visit her. They are adorable and I could not be happier for them.
I am glad you are feeling as smoking as you undoubtedly are! Let us assume that the relationship was one that both parties will ultimately be better off without so that we can fully enjoy this story. Next step, launching a thousand ships!
Freeform notes as ethics class progressed.
Connectedness. This is a Buddhist concept so it might be a bit difficult for you to understand so you have to think about it like a lot. (Like me.)
Life began 1.1 million years ago
Keeps referring to evolution as ‘theory of evolution’
Natural disasters are beneficial
Puts probiotics on eyelashes to encourage mites cause he sleeps w/ contacts
It’s got to be performance art
Oh dear now he’s pretending to be a radical, kill all men feminist to enrage the mostly male class while discussing ethics of care.
And he’s brought Fury Road into it. Kill it with fire. Kill it now. Kill it NOW. He is ruining beautiful things.
Please, please, when you write your teacher performance evaluation, post it here.
oh my. That sounds terrifying.
WHY DOESN’T HE JUST TAKE HIS CONTACTS OUT???
Cause he is so intellectual that he doesn’t pay any attention to his bodily functions when he’s thinking about thinking. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t crap. He’s like Sherlock without one redeeming quality. At least Holmes solves crime.
But he plans ahead far enough to get eyelash-mite-encouraging eye drops (!?!?!?!), because….?
(I mean, obviously because that’s a weird thing to do, and heaven forbid he do something the regular way when he can get attention for making it way complicated)
I was 98% sure that it was a joke until I went to google. Apparently it is a real thing. (At least at the bottom of this website. http://www.growyouthful.com/ailment/blepharitis.p…
Yeah, that was when I said “WHAT” out loud. Not all that other bullshit, but the sleeping with contacts. Eesh.
… Are the eyelash mites his pets?
I don’t know. I thought it was a joke but then I actually found some hippy dippy shit online about fostering healthy eyes by using homemade probiotics on them to grow mites which he apparently does because he sleeps in his contacts? I just don’t know anymore. I have had it up to here with oversharing and pretentious bullshit. The next time he tells me to drop his class because my not being able to access the online portion means I can’t multitask as well as him I am going to dropkick him in the face.
“Life began 1.1 million years ago”
Wait WHAT? This is bonkers. It’s seriously bad. Why.
I mean. How wrong can one single person be. Normal people would have to TRY to be this wrong about literally everything.
Puts probiotics on eyelashes to encourage mites cause he sleeps w/ contacts
Wait, what? What is the logic here?
Damn him for daring to sully Fury Road with his presence.
IT GOT WORSE.
After class came up and asked if there was some other format that we might be able to work with quizzes since I can’t access the online site he puts them on. Dirtbag ethics professor starts suggesting I buy something that will access it. I don’t have money. He starts going on about the campus computer labs etc and I’m like ‘great, but still can’t access it and I don’t have the sort of time to sit there and wrangle with it for an hour each time there’s a quiz.’ Cue his telling me that maybe I shouldn’t be in the class and don’t talk to him about not having time since he has four kids and commutes two and a half hours every day (whose fault is that?) and is working on five publications and doesn’t sleep and he is somehow able to multitask.
Jesus H Fucking Christ.
And oops. I accidentally recorded the whole thing. (It really was an accident.)
WAIT after your last post he suggested BUYING A NEW COMPUTER? No. Noooooooo.
What?! I’ve become accustomed to the fact that your professor is awful in every available way, but what the hell kind of system did he find that is that hard to access? Did he sit and really devote time to thinking about how to make it cost a lot of money to pass his class?
I regret that I only have one thumbs up to give.
I am literally angry with rage. I’m pissed, I’m dieting and I’m bleeding. If I actually had access to a flamethrower things would not end well.
But damn if I wouldn’t feel satisfied.
GIRL I HEAR YOU. I’ve been watching what I eat lately (I have ONE PAIR of jeans I so badly want to fit into again because here is what my ass looks like in them) but I started bleeding today and just FUCK A BUNCH OF THAT for at least this weekend. I’m making these as soon as I get home tonight.
I allowed myself to eat a chocolatey diet bar. With an expression of sheer murder on my face. I am this close to just throwing everything out there to the world. This is his name. This is his website. (That he directed everyone to on the first day of class.) Go forth and see what a tool he is.
The alumni I know want to put it all over facebook so badly. Why am I being nice and discreet for once?
Well, because you want to pass the fucking class, maybe, and that’s how this shitty world works?
I would 100% let the alumni drag him, though. TOTALLY. He doesn’t have to know they heard this shit from you.
Oh yeah. I was all ‘maybe I’ll wait until the class is over maybe he will magically become less of a dick,’ but no. The incredibly conservative alumni base of this school would shred him to pieces. It’s time I gave them the go ahead.
I can’t help it if I tell my friends things and then they just happen to post it all over the internet.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOO EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
(Insert gif of happy bouncy Merida here.)
I know I use this gif every week, but he’s awful EVERY WEEK, so I just have to repeat it until the universe drops an anvil on his head:
Wait, is there or is there not a VIDEO GAME THREAD yet? I do not see one, and I longed for a place to put my inappropriate video game quote (below the cut). But yes, if you haven’t already, tell me what you’re playing, tell me what you’re replaying, tell me about your moral quandaries and romantic pursuits and sweet loot.
It’s just that I was perusing the Toast Points for the week and reading the excerpt from “Why I go by Mother Megan,” which is lovely and thoughtful, but instead of appreciating how lovely and thoughtful I starting thinking instead about ME3 when you meet Liara’s asari father Aetheyta, and Shepard says “It’s just that if you were human you’d both be called mother” and Aetheyta says “well, I’m not human, am I, you anthropocentric bag of dicks”
Ahhhh that game is full of treasures.
Oh god that conversation with Aetheyta is the BEST. And the continuing eavesdropping opportunities after you introduce Liara to her are even better.
Mistress Aetheyta is the greatest.
I’m still plugging away at Destiny but got so frustrated with myself when I was playing the other night that I ended up quitting out of a strike. Hunters are just not designed for platforming. I also always feel that I have to be super good because if I’m not, they’ll know I’m a woman and just use it as proof that all women are terrible gamers.
I’m getting super hyped for Fallout 4 and will probably download Broken Age this weekend since it’s the free PS4 game.
I just started playing Dragon Age Origins and could do with fewer cut-scenes but overall it reminds me of the RPGs of my childhood, in a good way.
Splendid! I just finished replaying not long ago, in fact, and I did feel that it held up. What was your origin?
Human mage! I want to destroy everything.
I am theoretically playing Ori and the Blind Forest. In practice, what this means is I die 100 times in the same place before starting to whine at my partner to get me past that place, which (justifiably) bugs the shit out of her and then we grump at each other until I ragequit the game. So…I might not be playing this one much longer, even though it is beautiful.
Have not made any more progress in my third DA:I playthrough. Still mid-Hinterlands. Enjoying how different the Xbox One game looks from the 360 version though!
Finished Chapter 2 of Life is Strange. I’ll probably play at least one more chapter this weekend. I kind of just want to have played it, not to actually be playing it, you know?
I do!
Still playing Skyrim! This time I switched to my Nord shieldmaiden, Roswitha. She can’t cast magic and doesn’t know shit about alchemy, but she’s pretty good at smithing and enchanting. She has a particular fascination with the Dwemer, and collects as many books and artifacts related to them as she can.
Roswitha threw her lot in with the Stormcloaks, and we just finished the assault on Whiterun. I was terrified that I’d have to kill Balgruuf the Greater (this was my first time playing through the Stormcloak storyline instead of the Empire one), but I didn’t, so whew. Roswitha did feel a tinge of guilt when he told her off after surrendering, though.
Now Roswitha is doing more Dwemer delving and routing out Forsworn in the Reach. She just hired Vorstag; he’s kinda cute. May be a bonds of matrimony candidate.
What a marvelous backstory! If you want to visit balgruff and his kids, I think they are under house arrest in windhelm, either in the castle or in some guy’s house. They will still be mad at you though.
My friend always marries vorstag- says he’s the only good looking guy in skyrim. I always end up marrying a lady for that reason.
It helps that Roswitha and Vorstag have matching eye makeup. It’s meant to be!
My kittycat stealth archer married Aela the Huntress. I guess I have a thing for war paint.
You know, watching Miss Fisher and enjoying all the UST has been great, and it’s also really highlighted the absence of any sort of chemistry in other “great tv relationships,” like, oh I dunno, Ross and Rachel (UGH UGH UGH), and especially the later years of the Ted-Robin-Barney mess.
What are you favorite high-chemistry couples? Or, alternatively, what couples are the LEAST believable?
I just watched Scrotal Recall with my boyfriend and we were both cringing at how much of the tension in the show revolves around characters who like each other but won’t say anything about it. Even when they’re both single! Even when they’ve been asked a direct question about it! SERIOUSLY JUST OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND MAKE WORDS WITH IT, IT’S NOT THAT DIFFICULT.
Downton Abbey is one of those shows where I can’t understand the appeal of pretty much every canonical relationship. But I keep watching because the dresses, they are so pretty!
I was shocked to realize that a show called Scrotal Recall was so sweet and funny, personally. But yeah, oh my god you guys use your freaking wordsssss.
I am currently watching Veronica Mars (just started series 3!) and I just haven’t seen any chemistry between Veronica and any of her boyfriends so far. Her chemistry with Mac and Weevil is so much better than her chemistry with her actual boyfriends. (My own boyfriend ships Veronica and Logan, but i just can’t do it.)
I accidentally stumbled across some Veronica/Weevil fic and all of a sudden everything clicked. I adore Veronica, her dad, Wallace, Mac, and Weevil, but the boyfriends are boring as hell.
They really are. I am a million times more invested in Veronica’s (non-romantic) relationships with the characters you mentioned than any of her boyfriends so far. (I haven’t reached Veronica/Piz yet, but I can’t see how it’s going to be any better than any of her other romantic relationships.)
So in this case it’s fine that the open thread is so far along because maybe no one will see this and get mad at me, but I have to say what I think because I am a historian listening to Hamilton.
1) It’s delightful. And beautiful! And I’ve actually gotten misty-eyed more than once so far!
2) LOVE the diverse cast. Love bringing hip-hop to Revolutionary America in a way that isn’t embarrassing. Can I just mention how clever and compelling this is?
3) Wellll…. so it’s Great Man History. And it’s bootstrappy. And it’s a totally old-school and completely uncontroversial look at the Revolution, the causes and effects of which are far from being settled. And where are Native Americans? My god. I mean, the Revolution was bad news for them no matter how you look, and there were no easy choices–and they were forced to make a choice because neither side would allow them to remain neutral. I mean, ever. Like look back just a decade to the Seven Years’ War for more of this. And not only were they slaughtered by their enemies, but also by not their enemies. And SO many broken promises. And while I think the diverse cast is superb, I also have some issue with the fact that there’s no mention whatsoever of actual black men who, just like Native Americans, were absolutely not allowed to remain neutral, whether that meant signing up voluntarily for either side or being captured as booty and put to hard, brutal work. Enslaved black people were forced to work in drudgery on both sides doing the most degrading work.
4)So there you have it. My thoughts on the whole thing. Sorry.
There’s a whole thread on page 1 about native Americans in Hamilton. I feel like the slavery thing is more present in the stage show than you’re maybe hearing, fwiw – like, Laurens’s whole thing is trying to muster a brigade of slaves who will be freed by congressional decree for fighting, etc. Jeffersons slaves are visible on stage. It isn’t ignored – and I think some of the above remarks re: NA visibility probably apply to your concerns as well.
Unexpected good yet stressful news!
I have a small bachelor apartment in a basement, but my lease doesn’t come up for renewal for a long time. My friend’s apartment building a few blocks away had an availability for a 2 bedroom come up, at a really cheap price for my city, (Winnipeg) and I jumped on it, and I got it! Apartments in her building normally go really quickly so I had to apply right away, where normally I like to deliberate about these things a bit more.
So within the span of 5 days I went from nothing big happening to: I am moving this month and have to get a subletter for my current place! (Not that I forsee a problem, but still, it is A Thing that has to be done, and as such is a bit stressful to think about.)
Moving into a larger apartment is a good problem to have, I just can’t believe it all happened so quickly! I’m going to have an art room! And an actual bedroom! (there’s a kind of bed nook in my current place, that only really fits a very small bed.) I’m going to have MORE THAN ONE DRAWER IN MY KITCHEN!!!
Have any of you guys jumped on an unexpected opportunity and had it turn out really well? I’d love to hear about it! I don’t exactly have misgivings, but I’m used to taking more time to think about things before making a decision.
Sort of related? I moved in with my now husband at the drop of a hat because my new neighbours, in my own new apartment, had a baby, and I couldn’t handle it. I never actually spent a night in my new place. I left at the first cry, and stayed with him, moved in the next week, and we’ve been together and happy ever since!
I only have one drawer in my kitchen at the moment, so I am very happy for you! More kitchen storage space is excellent news.
I posted last week about bullet journals and I started mine yesterday (I went full-on pretentious and ordered a Baron Fig dot grid journal). So far I really like it and the basics of the system make sense to me. If I stick with it through November I’ll update with a picture and what I find is working well for me.
Stationery! Lists! A system for those lists! All things that make my brain happy.
Can we have a fertility awareness & NFP thread? Anyone else doing this? What system? Can you BELIEVE the way the Symptothermal handbook is written? I’m using Creighton and my practitioner took away my yellow stamps, which made me feel like I had to repeat the third grade, but she also said I’ve been taking good notes. 🙂 🙂 🙂 And yes, I’m being a gradeschooler about my Grownup Woman Knows About Her Body project.
Cooking advice! Considering making the Budget Bytes black bean enchiladas for a work potluck – if I baked them the night before, could I reheat the pan in the microwave at work?
I feel that the answer to this is yes. I made them last week, and took leftovers to work the next day and microwaved. They were delicious. (I didn’t use the whole sauce batch, and I think I should have, because they needed to be saucier.)
I have finally, to my great joy, rewatched Mad Mad: Fury Road (DVD only came out in the UK on Monday), and got my boyfriend to watch it too. He enjoyed it, but found it very difficult to follow what was going on (I had this experience too, and I watched it in the cinema rather than on our tiny television screen). I told him that my solution was to spend several months studiously reading meta and fanfic. It is helping me answer all his questions!
It sounds like you’re just going to have to watch it with him lots more times. It’ll be tough, for sure, but I have faith you’ll be able to stick it out.
Yep, it’ll be an uphill struggle! But I have faith that I can do it. (Partner just said, “maybe we should watch it again with subtitles”, which is a step in the right direction. I have assured him that I could probably tell him what’s being said in any given scene, and also he should ask me any questions he has, as there has literally not been a day since I first watched it that I haven’t thought about it.)
HALLOWE’EN COSTUMES!
Fiance and I are going as Diana and Dead Actaeon, because he appreciates tongue-in-cheek misandry and the classics.
Awesome dual costume.
Damn, I really gotta think of something. I always used to dress up as something scary. (The only right way to do it, imho.) I think last time was… 2009? I might commit to going to a costume party this year and get something together again. Halloween is my favorite holiday.
How do you handle dating a person who appears to be insecure in relationships/fearful of intimacy when you yourself are those things?
Make sure they aren’t the only person you are dating. You need others to compare this person to. You need others you can learn from, yourself. You’re doing well, to recognize insecurity and fear of intimacy in yourself and others.
Toasties, I am probably too late to this party to expect a response, but here goes.
In September 2010, Stephen Fry did a round of interviews in the British press to promote the publication of The Fry Chronicles. In one of them, a double-page spread, he ended by discussing his relationship with Hugh Laurie, and quoted someone else’s very moving comment on a similar relationship.
I am hunting for this article, for a simple reason: clipped out and strategically underlined, it was the last thing ever sent to me by someone I loved dearly, and whose sudden and horrible left a hole in my life I am yet to entirely mend. I feel strongly, although perhaps incorrectly, that if I could find the article again and read what they had wanted me to think about, I would be able to come to terms with it.
If anyone, for some reason, remembers this article or where it was from, or even has ideas about how to find it, I would be forever in their debt. Sorry to bother you, Toastariat, but you seem the people to ask.
If you don’t get an answer, let me know; I can post it to AskMetafilter for you if you want.
(Though, have you tried asking a librarian?)
That is an extremely generous response.
(I have, but they laughed when I said it was from 2010 – apparently too recent to be of interest, had I tried Dr Google)
Because toasties will appreciate this: I went to my conference meet & greet. Lots of friends were there. A former teacher/friend now came in while I was speaking to my advisor. She is head of the department, a totally kickass scientist, and was made provost this year for a year. My friend is coming in with someone and she turns to me and says, “oh my, I have to go talk to him, he’s scary, he used to run the ROTC program when he was here, and then he went to teach at West Point”.
Well. The friend and ROTC guy (who is dean at friend’s community college) came up to me later that night. When I was getting brave enough to go to school for my master’s, I took some classes there as “warm ups” and to help my grad school application. In one of them I made a map of a VJJ project that was on ravelry at the time, sending crochet uteruses to anti-woman politicians. It was a pretty cool map of who got sent them, for what reasons, and where they governed. It won an award at a conference. That was five years ago.
Scary guy comes up to me and says, “You are amazing. That was truly an amazing map. I can’t even find the vocabulary to praise it enough. You are definitely going to be an amazing geographer”. (etc etc etc he kept talking!!!! )
I am very flattered. I am very proud. I am also somewhat cringing because 5 years later at that school my map is an example to others and everybody in that college (including the president) knows me as “the woman with the VJJ project”.
No cringing! No shame! That’s awesome! WEAR THAT LIKE A BADGE OF HONOR.
That’s great! Was it GIS? I love love love GIS and am sad I only took one semester in grad school. I actually was able to use the free trial of ArcGIS to work up some maps to help me decide where to base my nonprofit I’m starting, though, and hopefully once I’m incorporated I can get in on their nonprofit program (free ArcGIS OMG OMG OMG).
I am looking at the new arc pro–it’s entirely cloud based project computing, without all the pesky licensing limitations. Yup, it was Arcgis. I am getting pretty good at the FOSS QGIS, and I just activated another free one-year trial of Arc, so if you need any maps made, let me know. Does intense debate do private messaging? is “job skills I’m willing to share” a category on the Toast contact document?
Fun! How do you get a one year free trial? The only one I saw was a 30 day. I will definitely let you know if/when I need help!
I went to an aag conference. Esri has a lot of conferences and presentations at them.they give away cd’s if you attend their specific skills workshops.
Oh neat, I’ll keep that in mind!
Today I bought tickets to see Carrie Brownstein AND Patti Smith talk about their new books next month! I am so excited!!!
Holy moly! I survived being a bridesmaid in my little sister’s wedding! It was beautiful, and she was so, so happy that all the stress and ugly dresses (our fault, not hers…never order from WeddingtonWay.com) was completely worth it. https://instagram.com/p/8roogui5G2/?taken-by=spew…
I did the same this year! Way to go! <fist bump>
She picked out great semi-custom dresses from an Etsy place. Oh my god, she did ALL the wedding things… so not me! And I had to give a TOAST. I can always write something (on the way there… procrastination yay), and am okay talking in front of people when I have a script, so it went well. I loved getting to say those things to her, in the end. And I made the groom laugh so hard that his ring flew off, and they captured a picture of it! So, success. It’s hard to believe when it’s all over.
The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald. It’s set in early 20th C Russia, (or late 19thC?) and it’s beautiful and slightly weird, and SHORT! Highly highly recommended.
Is The Toast down today, due to the three-day weekend (for some! Not me!)?
I DON’T KNOW BUT I’M SAD ABOUT IT
I came to the open thread just to see if people were talking about it, because I can’t start my day without at least a little Toast.
Me too! Is it a holiday in the US, or something? Because it is just a normal working day in the UK and I am confused and distressed by the lack of Toast.
It’s Columbus Day, but it’s not a bank holiday or anything. Don’t they usually say something when there’s not going to be any content on a day when we’d normally expect it? :\
I think they do usually? But maybe not all the time, as I seem to recall often being surprised by it.
It was Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday, which may account for the lack of Toast.
Yes! I had my most freaking clueless expat experience yet (just moved away a few weeks ago), because the Link Round-up didn’t go up at the usual time and after about an hour I checked back in… and then googled “American holiday???” to find out if there was a reason. In my defense, we don’t usually get Columbus day off in Texas, and who wants to celebrate that genocidal ratbastard anyway? Still, egg on my face. And I miss the Link Round Up because I’m pretty homesick and every little slice of normal is appreciated.
i had no idea it’s Columbus Day. huh.
oh well. i don’t get the day off and the dude was a jerk so *shrug*
I was so confused, since so many people don’t get (what should be called Indigenous Peoples Day) off.
~Sitting at work, missing my Toast.~
OH GOD IT’S NOT JUST ME THANK FUCK
It seems… really really weird that THIS website would recognize THIS holiday with a day off. Particularly without any words about it beforehand.
According to downornotworking.com it’s down. https://downornotworking.com/the-toast.net/
Also I did not know it was Columbus Day until I saw Autostraddle talking about celebrations of indigenous people, and made the tentative connection. Heck, I have a (local) government job and it was a normal day. Glad it was, too. Fuck that guy, seriously.
It was also Candian Thansgiving, which makes much more sense!
Ooh that makes more sense! I may have over-determined my google searching.
Super late because I was not able to participate in the open thread on Friday but went back and read the comments – I make minicomics and zines and would love to trade if you're interested! (Edited to fix the link, a preview of one of mine is here: http://bindavis.tumblr.com/post/101227245667/asse…
I really like your style of drawing figures and am interested to see the whole zine!
Thanks! The zine is pretty small & silly, and it's all altered art, none of my figurative drawings. I would love to do a trade, though! Your zine looks amazing. Is tumblr the best place to contact you?
Ha, I was trying to look at the images on my tiny phone while at work and just saw the larger images of the drawings and assumed it was the zine. Silly is great too! I'm horrible at altering art in a convincing way so I'm always impressed when someone else does it.
Twitter (@bindavisdraws) or Instagram (@bindavisdraws) are the best. I use tumblr frequently because I like the way it formats images but I always forget to check my messages on there.
My 4-person group house in Chevy Chase has an opening in November- it's a smallish room, but it has a big closet and an attached private bathroom. It's probably going to be $750/month rent; utilities (including internet) run $50-100 depending on season and weather. The open room is on the ground floor; me, other female housemate, and male housemate are all upstairs. It's a 10-14 minute walk to the Bethesda metro (I'm pretty sure it depends how long your legs are, my housemates and I get different counts) and a 10-minute walk to downtown shopping. There's free parking as well, although no one who lives here currently has a car. Let me know if you'd like to hear/see more.
It might have just been the subject–I didn't make it through the whole episode because I was feeling sympathetic nausea at the idea of eating so many pancakes at once, haha.