Just a little butter and garlic salt and joy is in your plate. Happy Fall, Toasties! Talk of nice things.
Cocktail Hour: Open Thread
Just a little butter and garlic salt and joy is in your plate. Happy Fall, Toasties! Talk of nice things.
Hello all, I need positive thoughts sent my way. Mr. BHam is still in the throes of job searching, getting more and more discouraged by the day. To pile onto that, today he will get his unofficial bar exam results. He felt really creamed by the exam when he took it in July and has been saying for months that he didn’t pass, but I think actually seeing the words “you did not pass” will still be a blow, even if he already feels certain he failed. Something about the quashing of that last little ray of light…
Anyway, I’m trying to freak out away from him, but I am just dreading how bummed out he’ll be if he hasn’t passed. We have fun things planned for this weekend (seeing SPECTRE tonight, going to a jazz concert tomorrow) but I can’t muster any excitement for them with this dangling overhead.
I know not passing is not the end of the world and he’s already expecting to retake in February, but gosh I wish we could fast forward past the disappointment/sadness part!
And if any of you are in the D.C. area and want a very smart research/legal/policy assistant, hit me up!
perf
My fiance originally passed one state and failed the other. He felt really overwhelmed and nervous to the point of vomiting the first time he took it. When he retook the state he failed, he CRUSHED it. If Mr. BHam does have to retake, it sucks, but I bet he will feel much more comfortable the second time around.
Everyone thinks that–he’ll probably be ok. They write the bar exams to be so difficult that even the most prepared test takers encounter things that they don’t know. It shakes everybody’s confidence, then they make you stew in it for months and months while your career hangs in the balance. And even if he does’nt, you’ll all be ok. Plan some fun for once he gets the news!
Every single person I know (including me) who passed the bar exam was 100% convinced that they did a terrible job and bombed it. He probably did a lot better than he thinks!
(I feel for him, though– it really is an agonizing wait).
Hi! I work in DC at a healthcare and education research company. Shoot me an email at abbysnail at gmail dot com and I can give you my company’s website – if he sees any jobs that he likes I’d be happy to put him in as an internal referral. This also goes for any other Toasties looking for work in the DC area that are in the research/policy vein.
You are great.
I feel you! I am in a similar position where my partner was laid off while working on a grad degree, so now she’s furiously trying to finish the thesis while also job hunting and the end of her severance is upon us. However, the nice thing is that my day job is actually in HR so I’ve been able to do concrete things to help; and I professionally know that she is eminently employable and the sector she is applying in is slow-moving – but rife with opportunity for someone of her skill-set. So it’s been super stressful but at least my anxious mind has a peace it doesn’t usually when things are super stressful!
I’m Canadian so I don’t think I cam concretely help you (but someone else has made an awesome offer I see!) but I’m wishing you both some piece of mind as well.
Seconding Mrs_Peel, no one comes out of the bar thinking they rocked it. Also not passing is not the end of the world though it may feel like it at the time, tons of famous smart people didn’t pass (Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton http://www.buzzfeed.com/deenashanker/fail-the-bar…
Keep us updated!!
Is he open to federal government work?
Heck yeah!
Looks like I’m going to get my uterus removed before the end of the year (I hope to, anyway, since I’ve already met this year’s deductibles and next year they triple) and I got my first mammogram (at my surgeon’s request) and it was weird because they gave me weird nipple stickers that apparently nobody in the world except me has ever used during a mammogram, but those are not the important thing!
The important thing is someone sent me this clip of Channing Tatum and Jimmy Kimmel reading scenes written by kids who were given the title “Magic Mike.” Yes.
That clip has made me very happy.
Thankyou and good luck for operations!
We should just let elementary school children write all of our television and movies, IMHO.
Good luck with your surgery!
I always get nipple stickers. I didn’t know they were unusual?
I love that clip. And good luck with your surgery scheduling! It will work out well.
Some other advice a friend recently gave about recovery period – if you aren’t a walker now, work up to walking like 2 miles a day, which will make getting up & about afterwards way easier (I flaked on this advice. Bad idea.) Also, make a checklist of things you want to watch and read during your laying around time. You may not feel like making decisions, but if you can look at a list and go, “Oh, Miss Fisher Season 3, okay” and push play, you’ll be entertained stress-free.
Well you are the first one who’s even heard of them. THANK GOD I’M NOT ALONE.
Also, thank you so so so much for the advice! I better start walking NOW.
I had those stickers the first time I got a mammogram too. Mine were pink with flowers. I might have giggled.
Mine were zebra striped!
Toasties have a lot of surgery! Wishing you the best of luck with yours. <3
Good luck with this process, take care of yourself, and I hope that these procedures help you feel:
This gif is doing things to me.
Hi darling, wishing you the best of luck with your surgery. I had to have a hysterectomy this summer, it sucks but you eventually will feel better I promise! Lots of love to you! Cue up your Netflix and enjoy the forced rest!
I have so much watching and reading queued up! =D
Welcome to the club. I hope you get the timing you’re after. Wishing you a perfectly ordinary surgery and a swift, uneventful recovery. Toasthugs.
Thank you, bb!
Presumably you’re having an old-school hysterectomy, not the new easy-peasy one where they remove the uterus through the, shall we say, existing opening? I had an abdominal one nearly five years ago and my advice is to bring earplugs and a sleep mask to the hospital, they really helped me sleep and start the recovery process. Once home, make sure you have a pillow for under your knees while you’re sleeping on your back, it’s less strain on your front. Sleep as much as you possibly can. And good luck, it will be fine!
That is the goal, yes! Alas, my fibroids are HUGE and they’ve warned me they might have use alternate measures. We’ll see. I sleep with an eyemask and earplugs at home, so I’ll certainly be bringing those along. Thank you for the reminder and the well wishes!
So it turns out the Schuyler sisters are having just as much fun as you would expect backstage, and my embarrassing celebrity crush extends to the entire Hamilton cast.
Oh god. Do I want to click this link? I am unsure of my ability to handle more crushes at this point.
They aré the CUTEST and they slay Destiny’s Child even in warmups. Don’t say no to this.
Toasties! My loves/mentors/surrogate aunts and uncles!
It’s opening night for the Fall Show tonight (She Stoops to Conquer) and my super good friend/doppelganger has the male lead and her costume is my pride and joy. She does not look unlike Thomas Jefferson. I do, however, miss my girlfriend’s dance performance, which sucks.
Also, my roommate is the platonic love of my life and made Texts from Hamilton for you because she is beautiful and precious. http://weenakedchild.tumblr.com/post/132648679151…
(She loves you all and says hello)
The next time you hear from me on the Open Thread I’ll be 18, which is so scary and daunting. Any advice for adulthood?
Im going to try to post photos from the show in the replies, we’ll see how that goes.
Those costumes are amazeballs.
Thanks! We rented them but I had to dress em up so handsewing was the only solution.
Nicolette (far right) is obsessed with her cape and rightly so.
and Waverly in the lavender dress has been dubbed the Lavender Menace because she looks like a lesbian pirate
Blue Cape has her pose just solid. That toe point is a thing of beauty. They’re all things of beauty, though. Ah, youth! Speaking of youth, you probably don’t really want or need any of my advice about adulting, which can be summed up as doing everything you wanted to do as a kid but couldn’t, and avoid getting arrested.
Haha thanks the crew will be so excited to hear that.
Will avoid arrest, thanks.
You guys. That is awesome.
awwwwwh thanks!!!!
I spent so much time stressing over them and whether they would get here in time and then I saw them and everything was okay and I felt so much better.
I finally got to spend time in our costume shop and it is going to be my new home in the spring I can feel it.
SO GREAT!!
Well, next time I post on an open thread (that isn’t this one) I will be 38, so happy birthday fellow birthday-weeker and you have made me feel very old!
Happy Birthday! Please don’t feel old just because I’m abnormally young and naive.
quite the opposite. we olds feel younger by basking in your youthfullenss. i love your updates <3
My dad said this to me once when I was about 24, which is that after 25 he just always felt like he was still his 25 year old self he just had more stuff to do, and people to answer to and felt more tired. Even at 63 he still feels like that 25 year old with a bad back. You get wiser as you age, but maybe not smarter?
So if I were going back to 18 year old me and giving advice, I’d be like, you are going to crystalize a bit at 25 when you have a grown up job and stuff, so before you have that kind of responsibility, maybe explore a lot of ways of being a person between 18 and 25, and don’t hold on too hard to what you think you are like so that you don’t stop yourself from finding things out. Don’t turn down things that you’d like to try. Especially at college, where you don’t realize yet that you have this incredible intersection of time and resources- this is the time to learn something niche from people who have the niches- sculpture or french or special software programs. Pick a niche that maybe isn’t in your major and get some hands on with it, it’s great to have things like that later in life- just a wee bit of exposure to various things can often be the leg up.
That’s funny, because my dad once said exactly that to me – that he always felt basically 25 on the inside, and it sometimes surprised him when people treated him differently (he’s in his sixties).
Happy birthday!
Everyone is going to try and tell you their Hot Take on college advice, and your college classmates are all going to seem self-assured and more capable than you. They’re all bullshitting. College adulthood is a polite fiction where everybody pretends they’ve never re-worn underwear or lived off of spoonfuls of peanut butter. We all have though, and if you’re lucky you’ll find some other clueless people who are willing to admit it.
I cried legit tears and showed my Roomie. Thanks love <3
I have a 3.75, I stay up until 3 some nights keeping it that way, and yesterday I stabbed myself bloody with a pencil I was sharpening. Life is a rich tapestry.
TRUTH. Adulthood is what makes it possible to re-wear underwear and live off of spoonfuls of peanut butter.
Also, I am all over that Texts from Hamilton! Great idea, great execution.
Librarian and potential-librarian Toastie master thread!
Today I want to talk about the Library Journal salary + placements survey. Comes out every year, looks kinda like this? http://lj.libraryjournal.com/category/placements-…
Says that wages are going up and there’s an 80% employment rate and some people are making over $100,000 right out of graduation?
Is a total lie? Has ridiculously bad methodology and a self-reporting bias and doesn’t actually survey a decent set of the population at all?
I mostly just want to know if any of you have seen this survey in this year or previous years and how you feel about it. Were you convinced that library school was a good idea because of it? Do you despise Library Journal? Let’s talk.
Ugh that survey. There was a brilliant twitter thread about it, if I can ever find it again.
uhhhhh there is a greater-than-zero chance that I was that twitter thread. (if it’s from last week.)
I HAVE SO MANY FEELS ABOUT THIS. (And I’m writing a scholarly article critiquing it.)
You were! Here’s the storify: https://storify.com/allanaaaaaaa/lj-salary-survey…
UGH THAT SURVEY REPORT.
A toast to you for that critique! Gosh that is skewed. I am a woman with an MA+MLIS in Canada and, eight years out, I cannot get a job that uses/requires those skills (bc less-qualified-than-me men have been hired for those jobs) and it makes me so damn mad. So I am bored out of my mind in a technician job which is at least full time with benefits. My boss told me “maybe in five years, when people retire” there will be an librarian opening for me. But I have already been waiting for eight, I cannot wait another five.
On that note, if anyone has suggestions for other career possibilities for MLIS people, I would love to hear them. I’m already looking at corporate research but my contact in that field is with banks and all the banks are laying off thousands of people these days so that does not seem like a good bet.
HELLO I WISH TO READ YOUR SCHOLARLY ARTICLE
ME TOO PLEASE
OKAY
(GOSH THANKS GUYS)
I’m trying to find the best Open Access journal for it. I’m tempted towards EBLIP, but I’d prefer an American journal.
Just read your Storify thread and it is EXCELLENT. I’m not even a librarian but I really enjoyed it, you blew them away!
And, yes, totally despise LJ. But then, I’m a children’s librarian, and we only exist to be condescended to anyway.
I can’t even bring myself to open that link because I will feel bad about how thoroughly I bombed out of the whole employment in the field at a reasonable or living wage. I cannot believe how unforgivably bad the methodology is. It would irk me if I didn’t spend so much time trying to pretend it didn’t exist.
Is my kind of bitter response! Sorry, but I just … sigh.
Nobody in my academic library makes $100k, not even the dean, so I highly doubt there are many people making that right after graduation.
I remember years ago, getting in an argument online with some guy who was convinced that librarians make bank because he knew one person that was making over 100K a year in a library. I don’t know what position the person held, as the guy never replied after that. Maybe our dean is making that (I don’t know), but certainly none of my coworkers are. Pfui.
The only librarian I’ve known who made six figures ran the public library system for an entire city, so maybe that’s who he knew.
We have one or two universities in Canada where almost all the archivists and librarians are making $100,000+ (which have to be reported publicly because they’re public institutions, yay Sunshine List). And of course they have all the other academic perks like sabbaticals and tenure and professional development funds.
Meanwhile three *other* universities’ librarians and archivists are about to go on strike. The disparity is really intense.
What I’ve been keeping an eye out for is whether the rich librarians and archivists are actually working with, like, light-years-ahead tech, or supporting huge nation-wide initiatives. The answer, so far: kinda, but not really? Like, what is that money supporting?!
Or, to put it differently than “what is that money supporting” — look what a good fair wage for *everybody* might be!
Maybe you meant this implicitly too, I’m not sure, but I feel strongly about this so just want to say it explicitly: Let’s lift up salaries for librarians at other universities if there is a disparity (not give administrators excuses to lower salaries across the board). $100k for highly educated professionals who probably have Ph.D.s: right on!
Yes and no — I absolutely want everybody to be making money equivalent to their educations (which are more commonly 2 Masters, rarely PhDs) and I want the profession to be vibrant and healthy.
That said, I want money to be a measure of not just excellence at one’s own institution but in bigger initiatives and collaborations across the country. We have a lot of room for helping out smaller organizations, rural libraries, niche communities, etc., where I know you could never manage to pay a librarian more than $50,000. So I want the ones making $100,000 to also be creating platforms for everyone to use for free, making the job easier for other people. I want to see people using their sabbaticals not for ephemeral research but for going and working with some place that really needs the help.
The librarians at York U are a great example: they’re doing cool things with Islandora and building a community around that tech.
It’s not an ideal situation, but that’s kinda where we’re at right now.
Thank you for bringing this up and I’m looking forward to lurking in this thread. I am planning on going to library school next year (after 3 years in a paraprofessional position in an ARL library) and I am having such a hard time figuring out how employable I’ll be in the end. Online it seems like a lot of librarians are un/underemployed, but the librarians at my library keep assuring me that I’ll definitely find a job. It makes the decision to go very murky.
ETA: Happy to take advice if anyone has any! I’ve been doing informational interviews with librarians at my workplace but of course they’re all employed and many of them came to this career path after leaving a PhD program, which is not my situation.
Hello, are you future me? I just started working as a program assistant in an ARL lib and am considering librarianship as a career. Although you are a lurker (as am I), I would love to hear more about you experiences and such.
Hi! What sort of stuff would you like to know?
Good question — Would you mind tell me about your daily responsibilities/what sub-discipline within library science you are thinking of pursuing? I’m only on day 3 here and am feeling overwhelmed with potential future directions (though I probably just need to focus on my present job)!
Do you have an email where we could chat privately? I don’t feel comfortable getting too specific about my job on here because I don’t want to be ID’ed.
Sure sure, sorry my web etiquette is not up to snuff — I’m going to try to figure out if I can message you privately…my email address is my full name
Mine too, unfortunately.
I was a paraprofessional, went to library school and then was only able to get paraprofessional jobs. Not that I didn’t enjoy the process, but I have a ridiculous amount of student loans to show for it and it soured me on the things that I did enjoy about working in the field. I don’t discuss it often though, because I end up sounding like a bitter old crone when I do.
This is my worry as well and I’ve seen people in the same situation at my library. Would love to hear more of your opinions about getting your MLIS and what you’ve done afterward, if you feel like sharing.
If you have a para job, I would say:
Get your place of work to give it to you straight about whether they like you enough to keep you forever, then get the MLIS to move up in the organization, and maybe get them to pay for part of it!
If they are like “Well we don’t really see spots opening up anytime soon” or are otherwise cagey I’d hold off on the MLIS. I would find a para job somewhere else and repeat Step One.
Either way, having a job BEFORE the degree that will still be there AFTER the degree is the safe bet.
Thanks for your response! I am planning on working at my current para job through the degree so I have a little bit of a safety net in that way. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback (as I said above) about pursuing the degree but we’re not hiring anyone at the moment so I have been a bit nervous about asking out and out if there will be work for me when I’m done. Are there libraries out there that help people get their degree? Mine did away with tuition assistance for an MLIS a few years before I started.
My vague impression, having been out of the job-seeking market for 10 years, is that if you’re willing to move anywhere, and work in the middle of nowhere, then yes, you can find a job. If you’re like I was when I graduated library school and not willing to move (and, even worse, living in a city with two library schools pumping out graduates), it may take you some time.
But making connections with other libraries and librarians helps. I suck at that, but was saved by being right in the middle of having good tech skills combined with librarianship when a local university decided they needed someone who wasn’t quite a full-on librarian and wasn’t quite a full-on web developer, but who could do both.
Are your tech skills something you picked up in library school or something you learned beforehand? I have been doing (very beginner) Python stuff via Codecademy because it seems useful for my department but I have been wondering if I should be aggressively building coding skills on my own in preparation for the job market.
Both, really. Before I went to library school I taught myself PHP and MySQL and started doing HTML, but managed to take a couple of classes that taught me some Javascript and ASP. I think the hiring committee liked the evidence that I could pick up a coding language on my own.
I’d say that picking more stuff up on your own will not hurt you one bit and may help–being able to show a portfolio of stuff you’ve done should be good. I was able to talk about a restaurant review website I’d coded, and a simple CMS I’d coded for another site I hosted, and show off some sites I’d built for a science fiction convention I was the webmaster for. (All of which was terrible according to today’s standards, but it impressed the hiring committee!)
DEFINITELY be willing to move anywhere. At SAA this year, that was the number one piece of advice given in the career panels. I graduated with my MLIS in 2012 and was job searching for 3 years until I got my current archivist position. I was originally only searching in cities that I wanted to live in (aka places my friends lived) but after lots of frustration and dead ends I expanded my search to everywhere in the US. I thankfully landed a job in a small Wisconsin city as a corporate archivist. If I hadn’t broadened my location parameters I would still be looking.
Additionally, while I was job searching, I had a full time job in records management and took on a part-time job as a public librarian in order to stay in the field and continue to build my resume. Volunteer or stay involved in the profession as best as you can.
Very smart! Getting or staying in the game, professionally, is invaluable, especially if all you have is tech experience. Volunteering and internships count, too, if they are meaningful, e.g. developing programs, leading projects, etc.
Another little piece of advice is that, if you want to work in a particular city, consider going to library school in a different city – like on another coast or in another country. Being from “elsewhere” educationally means you’ll bring a different intellectual and experiential perspective, which is a sought-after quality in a candidate, especially at entry-level.
Yes to all this. At least in academic librarianship, promotion from tech to librarian within your current institution is rare-to-nonexistent. Even for currently-employed librarians, meaningful promotion within institutions isn’t that common. If you are ambitious, you’ll likely be changing institutions, and more than once.
Career-track librarian jobs are nationally advertised, and attract candidates from all over. You are competing with the best students from the best programs nationwide (and Canada!).
Personally, unless I was under 30, already had another masters degree, and was ready to move wherever, and move again after that probably, I wouldn’t do it. But I am not that young and not willing to move! If it’s your dream, and your confident you’d be a ROCKSTAR at it, go for it.
Their n values are so small! How can they claim anything representative?!
$100,000 seems feasible if you’re actually a data analysis person who went straight from, say, Michigan to SV. But yeah, I feel like the conditions of reading and caring about Library Journal + feeling like you have the authority to speak up/provide data is necessarily going to create strong selection effects. (Not to mention that they only include full professional & full-time salaries in a lot of those tables.)
Ah! While we’re shitting on LJ, can we talk about the ~*Starred*~ Libraries list? Because they just released their data and it, too, is trash, and I, too, went on a Twitter rant.
Basically, it tells us the ~best~ libraries based on circulation, visitors, program attendance, and public internet use. Being a New England librarian, I looked up the stats for New England libraries. The V A S T majority were wealthy libraries in wealthy towns. 12 of the 16 listed in Massachusetts were on Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard. All seven of Maine’s were on the coast where rich people ‘summer’. New Hampshire and Rhode Island only had one apiece, but they were in very wealthy touristy areas too (a ski resort and an island with an average property value of $975k, respectively.)
There’s one dinky throwaway line where LJ admits that tourist spots can rank higher because they see more individual visitors. I was STEAMING mad when I saw this list, because (at least around here anyway) it gives props to the libraries that already have the accolades, heft in their communities, and the property tax $$$$$$$$$ to make their spaces attractive and welcoming.
My twitter rant is here, but you’ll have to wade through a whole lot of me yelling about figure skating to see it.
If you’re in another state, please weigh in on your states’ selected libraries. I want to see if this holds true nationwide.
tl;dr Fuck Library Journal and also fuck the fact that it’s still telling us that using memes to promote our libraries is something we should be doing
Oh man, that just brought up all the bitter feelings I’m apparently still harboring toward library school.
Oh man that is a mess. Thanks for sharing. As a Canadian, LJ doesn’t even apply to me in specifics, but I feel like their aggregate “ALL IS WELL” shit is doing everyone a disservice, so that’s why I’m all up in arms.
MEMES THOUGH, WTF
That list makes me wanna punch something in the face on a regular basis. Naperville is one of the most obnoxious libraries I’ve ever patronized; why oh why does it roll in at five stars??
6-figure salaries right after graduation? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO. *wipes away semi-hysterical tears of laughter*
Ahahaha. No.
See also: hell no
BT: “Graying profession”
NT: Deprofessionalization
IMPORTANT INFORMATION has come to my attention; namely, that this dog is available for adoption in Toronto.
HIS NAME IS BARK RUFFALO.
WHAT AN ANGEL and what a perfect name.
I may have impulse-emailed the animal shelter to find out more about fostering/adopting an eyeless kitty that they posted on their FB page yesterday. I absolutely fell in love, and I want to name this cat Oedipus. Or Matt Purrdock.
MATT PURRDOCK
MATT PURRDOCK BRB DYING FROM THE CUTE PUNNINESS
A couple months ago I realized that one of my life goals is to own an eyeless dog named Regina so that I can constantly explain that fetch is not happening.
you may be my hero
I just spat water all over my desk, THANKS
He looks like he’d be exactly as chill as I assume Mark Ruffalo is.
But the dog probably isn’t a 9/11 truther, so bonus!
nooooo I didn’t know that until now 🙁
BARK RUFFALO YESSSSS THIS IS EXCELLENT. lol RUFFalo. Amazing.
No thank you I do not need another dog stop looking at me omg that face no no no.
What a week.
I was home with Family last week. We we’re planning on putting the dog to sleep on Friday, but on Wednesday he made a miraculous recovery and is now insisting he’s never felt better. It was a weird holiday TBH. He’s still very old and needs a lot of care, but he’s eating and happy so looks like he’s sticking around!
In other news I still haven’t asked for a raise. I’m literally sitting across from my boss and have been trying to pluck up the courage to ask him for a chat all day. I keep wimping out. However there may be a job offer on the horizon that will make me do something at least.
In other other news, even my mother is worried I’m going to end up alone forever. So I joined Guardian soulmates in an effort to pretend I’m actually doing something. However I only found out after I joined that you can’t hide yourself from certain groups of people (e.g. people older than 30), and the first guy who ‘liked’ me is bald and in his 40s. I have no problem with bald men in their 40s in a non-romantic sense, but I’m 23 and ew ew ew ew.
Sigh. Life is hard guys!
Haha, men are gross. Lately if I can see a guy checking me out super obviously i sometimes try to check him out back and then make a huge face of disgust and disappointment that conveys something like, “oh hey let me look at you back…oh my lord! Never! What chutzpah!” I wonder if there’s an email equivalent. Like, “LOL REALLY?! AHAHAHA Fat chance old man, I’m 23, date someone your own age you have nothing to offer me!” Then block their email address immediately. I would hope that gives them the same moment of grossness they gave you.
I have a serious bitchy resting face, so I think IRL guys know don’t fuck with me.
Online, I just ignore them unless they make direct contact. Reacting out to slag him off seems like an invitation for trouble and abuse!
I just don’t even like the idea of older men seeing my profile, I wish there was a ‘don’t show me to people over X age’ option.
Hahahaha this is excellent. Unfortunately the way the world is I worry for your safety because if you make a man’s fragile ego feel rejected… woe am I!
even my mother is worried I’m going to end up alone forever… but I’m 23
I never said it was logical. Mother is on a “have your babies young” kick, as in she’d like to see me married with kids before 30. I’m a bit more “lets see how the 20s go and think about it at 30” girl.
However she’s also worried that I’m lonely and I’ll never fall in love (baaaad relationship with father, no stable relationship role models as a child etc. I think she thinks it’d be her fault if I never find anyone), plus I just HAD to be straight which complicates things because if I was gay like her, she could just set me up with the daughter of one of her friends.
Also I think she feels she can’t compleletly move on from being a mother and be free until I’m a compleletly successful adult, most of which is achieved apart from the whole ‘falling in love’ thing. (I don’t think this, in know it, she pretty much said it to me.)
Sorry about the word vomit, I do that. And thank you for the Hiddy, if I could only marry him then I’d be sorted.
OH MOM
I KNOW RIGHT!
She keeps asking me ‘have you met anyone at all, like even a date?’, I think she thinks I’m lying when I say no, since I do have a long history of lying to her to make my life easier.
And in fairness I am kind of lying, but I’m hardly going to tell my mother about the debauched one night stands I have when the soul crushing loneliness gets too much. She wants to know about potential husbands, and those boys are not it.
I’m hardly going to tell my mother about the debauched one night stands
That’s what The Toast is for!
My people.
When I first signed up for online dating, I thought I pitched my age restrictions fairly generously–no more than four years younger (which at that point would have been 20-21ish) and up to ten years older, and I swear all I got were eighteen-year-olds and men in their 60s.
yuppp. I’m on OKC now with age restrictions 23-35 (I’m 25) and I get lots of messages from 18 year olds and men in their 40s and 50s.
Dropping this comment where I meant it to go the first time:
For what it’s worth, any time I’m stressing out over communicating something awkward/anxiety-inducing (like asking for a raise), I feel so much better after I get it over with, even if the answer isn’t what I wanted. The stewing in indecision and discomfort is always the worst part. Good luck!
Thanks, I’m exactly the same! Having it hanging over my head is jsut so much worse but I just can’t pluck up the courage to do it! I did manage to ask if we could have a chat on Monday at about 5.30, so at least I’m committed now!
I’m glad you’re getting more time with your dog! A similar thing happened with my cat a few weeks ago – she’d been going downhill since last December after a series of blood clots/mini-strokes, and had gone from “mostly fine except for in the immediate aftermath of a clot” to “blind and low on enery”, and had got bad enough (one morning she couldn’t walk) that my parents called me at work to say that they were taking her to the vet’s later that day to be put down. Text from my mum shortly afterwards saying she’d had a miraculous recovery and the vet trip was cancelled. (Not long afterwards she did, sadly, decline enough that they had to have her put down, but it was very hard to tell when it would happen – things changed so much.) I’m glad your dog is doing better, and I hope he stays happy for ages.
23 is definitely too young to worry that you are going to be alone forever! (My mum worries the same about my sister – 26 this month – but she has been with my dad since she was 16, so I think she just has no proper basis for comparison.)
Gif party? GIF PARTY
I’m gonna repost this one I used in another thread because it cracks me up every time I see it (also Noragami is a good show if you are into anime).
omg EARS!
oh favorites.
IT’S FRIDAY!!!!!
THE KITTYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
[SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAMMMMMMMM]
this looks exactly like my kitten whose photo i cannot share right now for time reasons but omgggggggggg
Making biscuits! With thumbs!
http://i.imgur.com/iacjn3w.gif
http://i.imgur.com/jJy3u.gif
(how do I embed it??)
I am in hell. Five hours until vacation.
I had a second interview on Wednesday and they told me they’d get back to me by today so please, please send good vibes, I cannot handle this fucking shit any more.
Gooooood luck. Why do big decisions happen on Fridays? Why must everyone make or break our weekends with their powers of choosing or not choosing?
Gahhh, sorry, neuroses overload. I’ll show myself out. (I HOPE YOU GET THE JOB THOUGH)
IT’S ALL TRUE THOUGH
All the vibes!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD VIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBES!!!!!!!!!
Hoping hoping hoping in your direction.
I refuse under any circumstances to consider the feelings of Shirley Jackson’s husband.
This is an excellent comment. Is it based on something from Let Me Tell You, or somewhere else, because I am on board for some good seething about that.
Also if anyone has read Shirley by Susan Scarf Merrell I would love to talk about it because I am very confused about what I think about that book.
The link post from earlier, and being two-thirds of the way through Raising Demons. I have Let Me Tell You on hold at the library and I can only imagine how angry I’ll be at Stanley as I work through her back catalog.
I just pulled up Shirley on Amazon and am kind of impressed by the audacity of that as a novel premise.
Ah. I came here first today rather than Link Roundup so I didn’t feel so far behind! Will look.
Yeah, Raising Demons has. . .some real moments.
My mom gave me Shirley–I think the author was at a thing for my mom’s. . .late in life sorority? (idk what to call it–there’s a secret handbook and an initiation and all kinds of hijinx) and I felt kind of. . .uncomfortable? unsettled the whole time reading it, but I was surprised no one else seemed to mention the feeling of voyeurism/should this exist in their reviews/comments.
Correct.
Nice Thing: That it is Friday and I am able to check in with this Open Thread. (Also, my grocery shopping was delayed when a transformer blew yesterday, so now I might get some brussels sprouts and make a vegan cheese sauce for them). Bad Thing Hanging Over My Head: I have to move again, as soon as possible. Turns out all the passive aggressive shit behavior from the homeowner was because he wants me gone. As a result, I learned that for the last two years I haven’t advanced on the waiting list for affordable housing in Mendocino County (which I was 100% counting on) because my address is now too far away. But I can’t move up on the list in Sonoma County because I live in the county seat and am…too close, I guess. It’s just very hard to work, much less constantly hustle for new work, with this uncertainty hanging overhead yet again, so…kind of sucky all around. But I’m serious about the brussels sprouts being a good option.
for the last two years I haven’t advanced on the waiting list for affordable housing in Mendocino County (which I was 100% counting on) because my address is now too far away. But I can’t move up on the list in Sonoma County because I live in the county seat and am…too close
^yep^
I tried brussel sprouts for the first time this week! They were okay except the aftertaste was bitter. I don’t think I’ll buy them again, but I’d try them to be polite or to see if they’re better when someone else makes them.
But more importantly! I’m looking for a job teaching English in a new country (currently in Russia) for January. What can people tell me about Istanbul? I’ve got an interview with a school there tomorrow. I’ve never been before. I think it meets some of my requirements (big interesting city and closer to my friends in Western Europe) but I’m concerned about safety. Who’s been to Turkey before? Any thoughts or stories?
Good Brussels sprouts are all in the preparation. namely, stir fried in lots of oil / butter (IMO).
Or roasted with olive oil and/or chicken drippings, plus lemon juice.
I’ve found locally grown brussel sprouts from the farmer’s market to be less bitter than ones from the grocery store (also, you can have swordfights with them if you buy them on stalks), so maybe it’s a storage/transportation thing.
That sounds good! They sell them also as stalks in my grocery store, but we haven’t bought them that way as they are kind of awkward to carry? And we’ve never had problems with the flavor of the loose ones.
Oh, being on stalks or not shouldn’t make any difference to the flavour, I was more thinking older due to transport = more chance of bitterness (also as Mrs_Peel points out, removing some of the outer layers will leave the sweeter bits).
I LOVE ISTANBUL. Ugh what a beautiful place. It’s been several years since I was there (…okay, eight), but I was backpacking through Greece/Italy/Turkey at the time and Istanbul was far and away my favorite part of the trip. I stayed in a great hostel and explored all over the city and went to a ridiculously expensive club on the Bosphorus and gawked at all the beautiful architecture. The people are really friendly, also, though men talk to you on the street a lot. I would go back and/or move there temporarily in a second.
Most of the bitterness is in the outer layers. If you peel them a little, the inner bits are sweet and delicious.
My boyfriend makes brussels sprouts and chestnuts in a cream sauce for Xmas, which is aaaaaaaaaa…
That’s interesting. I would have thought the leaves would have the more neutral flavor.
And thank you to everyone for the cooking suggestions, though it’s mostly a moot point right now. There are no brussels (with an s!?) sprouts to be found in my town. I got them when I was in Moscow at a gourmet grocery store. They also had a pack of baby asparagus for about $10. I abstained.
Yeah, brussels, as in Brussels- they were… developed? Discovered? in Belgium.
If you roast them or shred them up thinner I think some of that bitterness can be cooked out more, although they do always have a bit of a cabbagey bite on the end.
I have never been to Istanbul but several of my female friends have been for a week or so and loved it, so…I dunno, that’s not that helpful but I think it’s a pretty cosmopolitan place overall.
I’m actually more worried about safety in a political/terrorist kind of way right now than safety as a lone woman. Turkey is mighty close to Syria and I know things are dangerous around that border. Istanbul is on the other end of the country though, so…?
http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/aler…
Everything I see sort of implies only the South is a worry right now, that and going to political rallies in Istanbul. i’d probably see if the US consulate in Turkey has an email account and shoot them an email saying, where’s the safe/unsafe line?
I feel like this might be the place to admit that I just recently discovered that is Brussels sprouts with an S! MIND BLOWN.
An easy shredded brussel sprout recipe with a lot of non-bitter flavor is:
2 lb brussel sprouts
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic (or more)
Crushed red pepper to taste
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp honey
salt and pepper to taste
Slice or shred sprouts (depending on what texture you’re into); cook sprouts, garlic, and crushed pepper in a pan for 6-8 min; mix in vinegar, honey, salt and pepper. It’s sweet, spicy, vinegary and works well as leftovers!
This is basically how I make it, but I’ve never used honey, I will have to try that.
This sounds great — I’m going to try. My version — steam the sprouts and while they’re cooking put butter (some) and blue cheese (a fair amount) into a serving dish. Warm up the dish — I usually put it in the oven for a couple of minutes or to the back of the stove if the oven is busy — then add the brussels sprouts and stir to coat. Yum!
I love them always, but apparently a hot (cold) tip is to get them a bit later in the year, as they need a frost to be less bitter.
Sprouts I love you.
A local sports bar serves them deep fried with parmesan and lemon and holy crap. Drink a lot of beer, eat a lot of sprouts (and also their mac and cheese fritters with tomato confit) and fart your way through the weekend, happy as little pigs.
Also my autocorrect wants “parmesan” to be “partisan” which, accurate.
Oooh, we just bought a small deep fryer. So that is gonna happen.
JEALOUS
It’s actually kind of scary. We may end up deep frying all the things.
That’s why I cannot get a deep fryer. Deep fry all the things!
Cut em in half first! And report back!
Istanbul! I spent a summer studying in Turkey and then worked for a study abroad program with sites there for three years (I was in the US office, but working with the Turkish partners).
Lots of safety thoughts: It’s pretty safe as far as random crime like break-ins or muggings – probably about on par with Russia, or a bit safer. In my experience, it has a bit more of a street harassment problem than Russia – men trying to follow young women home, trying to grope them on buses, the same shit women face everywhere to varying degrees. But I personally feel fairly comfortable alone in Turkish cities. I’ve also traveled on long-distance intercity buses alone in Turkey, but prefer not to do so if I can avoid it. Being queer and out is hard, although not so much in Istanbul, which has a decent gay scene. Being a person of color can be challenging (though… not as challenging as in Russia.) Turkey is politically quite xenophobic (e.g. they don’t like Armenia, they don’t like Greece, they don’t like the Arab world, they don’t like Israel, they don’t like the U.S., etc etc etc), but Turks as individuals are quite hospitable. The biggest safety question in Istanbul is probably political protests. Obviously they can be quite dangerous, especially as the Turkish police are not warm and fuzzy – and the recent pattern of ISIS bombings would especially make me nervous. In general I feel like big political problems might be coming for Turkey in the coming years, given the Syria situation and the enormous number of refugees the country is trying to handle, but how much this might affect the life of a foreigner in Istanbul is kind of an open question.
General life thoughts: Health care is pretty good – I’d pick a Turkish hospital over a Russian one any day. The visa bureaucracy is very annoying but not impossible. Istanbul traffic is the WORST, but you can arrange job/living situations so you can take subways or trams and live fairly near where you work. You will always have fun things to do on the weekends. Istanbul is really amazing and – judging from friends, not personal experience – not hard to live in on your own as a woman. It’s not at Western European levels of English-speaking, but there are English speakers there. And the food is really good.
Sorry this is so long! Let me know if you have other questions!
Thanks! Long is good. I live in a suburb kind of town in Russia so I’m not too concerned here about crime, but even Moscow never feels too dangerous, so if it’s on par then I’m not too worried. For whatever reason I’m generally invisible to the kind of men who harass women on the street. I’m not sure why that is and I’m sure I’d still get some harassment in a city where that’s more of a problem (though I’ve lived in big cities before without it happening more than like once a year), but that’s also something I think I can live with.
Honestly, my main worry is bombings. Even if I avoid political demonstrations, it’s not like I can stay at home all the time. And I wouldn’t want to! I’m very conflicted and I kind of hope that if I get an offer it’s either so great that I’ll decide to give it a shot or there will be other downsides so I won’t have to even consider politics in turning it down.
Ha, I generally have a similar experience with not getting much street harassment. Who knows what it is, or if it’s just that I’m oblivious, but I’m not complaining. I will say that in Turkey it depends on how plausibly Turkish you look, as guys think they can get away with more with foreigners. (Learning to say “How shameful!” in Turkish is helpful.)
I am not sure what I’d do re: the bombings. It’s still a very very small risk, especially in Istanbul and especially if you don’t go to protests, but I personally would be concerned that the risk might grow soon. I guess I would go, but be prepared to leave if things get worse? I hope you get an offer that clarifies things for you!
Turkey! I went through Turkey from Istanbul through Ardahan (drove all the way through to Georgia), so my experience is more with northern & central Turkey.
Personally, I found Ankara to be much nicer than Istanbul primarily because it felt calmer. Istanbul has so much cultural significance & history, but it was far too hectic for me (even during an Eid holiday). I love huge cities, but it felt almost claustrophobic between the masses of people in my face & the small streets. It was enjoyable for a short time, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Ankara on the other hand has the benefit of being the capital & thus a government town. It’s more spread out & not nearly as scenic as Istanbul, but it felt more cosmopolitan & less claustrophobic. I felt far more comfortable walking around the capital than I did in Istanbul.
These are my 2 cents anyway!
roasting roasting roasting… low and slow for a loong time (until they are soft), or slightly higher temps for less time (until they are soft) and lots of olive oil and salt.
Late to the thread party but I wanted to say I’ve been to Istanbul twice and absolutely loved it! I’ve never felt unsafe there. I did feel like I attracted attention as a foreigner, but that’s mostly due to my inability to dress as conservatively as I probably should have due to how hot it was in the summertime.
The more recent time I went was a few years ago and I discovered how fun the nightlife is, too. It’s just such a vibrant, colorful city. Highly recommend it.
(Also, shout-out from a fellow English teacher abroad. I taught in Spain two years ago and I miss it all the time.)
Toasts! I’m so excited about Mr. Ada’s birthday this weekend, since I am getting him a very strange and puntastic, yet suitable gift.
It will be this tiki mug of Hemingway’s head:
And it will have a bit pressed and cured fish roe, aka botargo, tucked inside (also, this looks like alien gonads, right?):
I’m calling it, “The Old Man and the Sea.”
This is amazing. Those two together… somehow make sense? Even beyond the great title reference.
You know Hemingway’s head had to have been all balls and booze inside.
You’re so weird. I think I love you.
If he doesn’t like it I’ll marry you.
CAT THREAD.
Have some serious looking boxed cats (and a yeti)
Oh, cat in boxes thread!
I love his(?) face!
She likes to sit on books rather than in boxes.
Mine too!
|
Coveting both the ghost story book and the contented kitty!
She has magnificent ears.
My sister took these pictures of my babycat (not actually a baby anymore) being AGGRESSIVELY snuggly last week. It’s like he thinks he can be absorbed into my flesh if he just snuggles hard enough.
He also got very anxious about the doorbell on Halloween. He had to be Scarf Cat every time a trick or treater came to the door. He was a big hit with the kids, which was not really what he wanted.
SCARF CAT
Adorbs! Also your hair and lipstick are killer.
Oooh the love in pic 1 and 2! <3 <3 <3
Kismet does not do boxes but she does like sitting belly-up, toe-beans in the air
I love her fluffy belly.
That is quite some tum!
Here is Nellie, who does do boxes, and incidentally proving the feline dictum that they are not on the forbidden table if they are not actually touching the table, and don’t give her any shit about it
Cat anecdote: I have this very large, slightly moody cat, and also two new roommates. And recently the male new roommate says “he’s cuddly?” all sceptical-like when I said my cat was, indeed cuddly.
And like 2 weeks later I’m STILL stewing on it! And taking pictures of my cat cuddling with my betrothed for proof. And thinking while having an ecstatic late-night bed cuddle or early morning kitchen cuddle “TAKE THAT, roommate, you don’t know anything”. Intrusive defensive cat thoughts, I’m having them.
I guess it’s too late but you should tell him “He’s cuddly with people who deserve cuddles.” Or something.
So, on Sunday the boyfriend and I were doing yard work in the front of the house while the cat was in the back yard. When we went back there to check on him, he didn’t come when I called which was odd. So then I walked around the corner to where I could see the vegetable garden and found this:
They finally met! And can I just point out that this is the cat who hides under the bookcase for half an hour if someone knocks at our door? But a moose the size of a large horse is just fine.
(In all seriousness, though, guys, for all I joke about the moose they are big, grumpy, and unpredictable. We would never have let him out or been our ourselves if we knew she was around. We spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get the cat and get inside without setting her off.)
I am glad they have finally met and Moxie didn’t get stomped on! At least cats are pretty speedy at getting out of the way, I think if the love affair went sour he’d have a decent chance of escaping hooves.
Actually, she did stomp at him a little when he decided to go and sniff her feet. It was a half-hearted stomp, though, and moose are kind of flail-y and so he avoided it pretty easily. Then tried to run back to her until my boyfriend grabbed him. I think maybe his head is full of fur, not brains.
Poor Moose- that must have been so confusing. “It’s like… the littlest mountain lion ever? And it wants to sniff my feet??”
Moose is back! Their forbidden love is canon!!
The affair of Moose and Moxie is just The Best.
Moxie is SO MAJESTIC. And holy crap, moose. Why are they so big.
Is that moose eating your beautiful kale?
OH my god, so this is a thing that happens all the time?
I really really REALLY like moose. And kale. So this picture has MADE MY NIGHT.
I have been more ill than usual of late, and the kittycat has been very helpful in making sure I get my bedrest. Underneath her. She’s quite possibly purring, it’s hard to tell since she’s an inaudible purrer, but anyway she’s been delightfully snuggly. For some reason, she sees it as very important to guard my left foot, and is not fooled by my crossing my legs.
Does this work as a link to her enjoying a box?
Oh, good, it does. Let’s try a direct link for her managing to get into an Ikea box that was a whole 3″ wide:
Nope, that’s not showing up for me. You can see it here. Is very cute cat, I promise.
Good 2-dimensional box skillz there!
My phone was stolen this week and I lost my most recent cat pics. 🙁 But I will post some of my golden oldies.
Working on evolving that thumb (eta: ugh, it cropped it and photobucket is being uncooperative)
One of my faves, albeit a bit blurry
Books in Boxes Mountain, 2 weeks prior to moving
And a week late, but my beloved first cat, Portia, dressed up as a headless cat for Halloween c. 2008
GRRRR! edited and the photos vanished!
I was hoping that might stop happening with newtoast! Must be an intensedebate thing.
My phone was stolen this week and I lost my most recent cat pics. 🙁 But I will post some of my golden oldies.
Working on evolving that thumb (eta: ugh, it cropped it and photobucket is being uncooperative)
One of my faves, albeit a bit blurry
Books in Boxes Mountain, 2 weeks prior to moving
And a week late, but my beloved first cat, Portia, dressed up as a headless cat for Halloween c. 2008
Hahahaha love the headless cat.
My 9 year old self is hella jealous of your dolls.
The cats are adorable, but that triangle print blanket or couch is amazing. Could you do me a photo which shows it more clearly? I might use it for quilting inspiration.
I actually don’t have that futon anymore, but would these help?
I love it when cats pin their tails down with their paws.
I got new cushion covers, and Patrick is very vain about how gorgeous he looks on them.
hahaha that face in the second one! and those paws.
Klaas-Jan with his little tongue out:
and curled up in a ball:
and I made a gif!
This is an old picture, but Hobbes still sits in that box very frequently (we’ve trained him to scratch the scratching post and then to get in the box to get candy. The latter mostly because it means he can’t also steal his brother’s candy.) It’s really cute. His head juuuuust sticks out when he sits in it normally.
( link in case the picture’s not working)
What lovely ears he has! With fancy ear-tufts and everything!
My brave babies made it from Australia and are settling in…
Yay! I’m glad it worked out.
Following up on a comment in the Link Roundup: who’s been to A-Camp? Worth it yes/yes? Will an introvert die of spontaneous embarrassment yes/yes?
I have not been but super want to go. A couple of friends have and frequently refer to it as their best ever life choice.
I went to A-Camp 3.0, and it was def worth it. Haven’t been able to go back bc money, but I enjoyed myself.
They really work hard to provide introvert friendly panels and spaces, which I think is fantastic. And when I went, there was at least 30 min b/w sessions, which allowed for some solid decompression time if you needed/wanted it. There were hikes, introvert hangout sessions, and more.
Really, I think they do a great job on that front.
This is all super-helpful to hear. I am practicing adulting today by going to a Happy Hour for Queer Women, where I Will Talk With Humans. I am well past 30 and this is still all turmoil all the time.
Yay, glad I could be helpful! If you have any other questions about A-Camp, I’m happy to answer myself or point you in the right directions. I’m still facebook friends with tons of folks from there, and Autostraddle is usually pretty good at posting about specifics from the different camps.
And also yay for Queer Women Happy Hours! I really enjoy the queer focused happy hours when I go (because so many aren’t, especially if they’re hosted by the local sex positive org). I hope you at least get a tasty drink out of it, even if you don’t Talk With Lots of Humans.
(I usually just hang out and talk with the humans I already know. Thank you, big-city-sized-small-town.)
I went 3 times and enjoyed all of them thoroughly! Very introvert-friendly, nothing is mandatory and they have a lot of places and time to just be chill around other chill people. Make sure you do the hike, it is great! When you sign up, you may want to request a non-drinking cabin since the drinking cabins can get SUPER rowdy at night and frequently go until 3am
That is super helpful information. I didn’t even know non-drinking cabins could be a thing. Thank you!
Agree, SO HELPFUL.
I mentioned in the Roundup that I had been to the most recent one. Overall I liked it. The panels and discussions were great and there was definitely an effort to create introvert-friendly spaces.
I found it somewhat overwhelming sharing a cabin with 15 other people and didn’t bond with my cabin-mates as much as I had hoped. I had good conversations with some of them but some of them had very overpowering personalities that made it hard for me to connect to the group. I did make friends outside the cabin. I was also headachy and tired from the altitude a lot of the time so I skipped some of the late night socializing which seemed to be when everyone else bonded.
I probably won’t go again but I’ve very glad I went once.
I’ve seriously considered going. I think I’m as much worried about the fact that I am Old as I am about the introvert thing. Would a 40-year-old camper stick out like a sore thumb?
We should form an Old Campers group where everyone is Old together and yells at the kids to get off our lawn. (With their Loud Music)
Two questions:
1. Has anyone read Planetfall? I read it this week and was really enjoying it until literally the last page. I was so, so disappointed by the ending. Maybe I missed something? It was “Starbuck vanishing” level of WTF for me.
2. Did anyone’s chest just decide to up and start growing and being super painful again in their 30s? I assume it’s HBC related, but dang.
I haven’t finished Planetfall, but I’m buds with its editor, and knowing that you liked barring the last page, made me squee because it’s her favorite of all her books and she really championed it. Seeing books out in the world with readers is the bestest.
Yay! It really had so many awesome things in it. I really enjoyed the depiction of being mentally ill in a tiny colony on another planet, and the diversity of the characters, and the slowly unfolding Mystery. I just… felt like it needed maybe an epilogue to explain what the hell just happened, or what the ending meant for literally every other character/plot thread in the story.
2) Yes. I will be 38 on Tuesday and have gone up a cup size on one side and 1 1/2 cup sizes on the other! It’s happened over about the last two years, no other weight gain or size changes on the rest of my body. Mine isn’t HBC-related as far as I can tell, I was on that from ages 22-30 and then have been on it for the lst 5 years as well.
I gained 8 cup sizes after 2 years on HBC. Holy fuck, I need reduction surgery.
!!
I would take 1-2 of those for you if I could. 🙁
I would happily donate excess bosom. Would that I could. ::sigh::
Oh boy, I already have an “only purchasable on the internet” bra size.
But it may be good news that my two years on HBC were in the 90s. HBC just has to have improved since then. Ask your doc.
Well yes but I was pregnant. (And I went from a “nearly A” to a D cup just from gaining post-mid-20’s weight. Let’s not even talk about what happened when I was pregnant.)
I just squeed a bit because a quick perusal of Nicole’s twitter feed revealed that she saved me from having to explain my husband’s name change decision (blessings upon you forever until the end of time, Nicole!) in a comments section yesterday, but in case anyone is curious he is honestly just doing it because I went “I love my last name, and don’t want to change it,” and he went “I love your last name too, and think I’d like to have it.” THE END.
That is beautiful.
Kudos to your husband for being willing to do a thing lots of men can still be really stupid about.
Does that person just not know how they sound? (“But why not double-barrel? What is the motivation here?” LISTEN TO YOURSELF.)
This is how every husband and wife should settle things.
There is every indication that my not all that old laptop has crashed and burned (trip the Apple Store this afternoon to find out!) and it very much bums me out because I have a weird attachment to my electronics, My computer has a name, and I look on it with the combined affection and expectation as one might regard some sort of working animal like a sled dog or a draft pony (I would imagine, as I have no experience with either at all). This was particularly poignant during my dissertation writing days, but it still stings now.
Which all leads to my questions . . . Who has these relationships with their electronics? Do you name them? Do they have personalities? Do you have some relationship to it distinctly unlike other household appliances? Is it weird, and will eventually lead to our downfall, as Terminator et al warns us?? Let us chat.
Sorry to hear about your laptop! I hope it can be saved.
I always call my phone “My Robot Butler,” even though he’s not a very good butler.
This is a great name. I love it!
I’m bracing myself for the worst. The good news is that there won’t be much data loss. But the computer may have to go the digital farm in the sky, or wherever it is dead electronics go.
I don’t name my electronics but I am weirdly loyal to them. I held off getting a tablet for ages because I felt like I’d be betraying my phone and my laptop and they wouldn’t get enough use.
My poor phone is really, really crap, and I barely use it at all anymore because I have a tablet and a work phone that is much better, but I still feel bad about replacing it!
Yes! That’s how I felt about my first laptop. I ran her (yes her, of course) into the ground because I could not bear giving her up with only a year left of grad school. The betrayal!
I name my laptops. But it started when my job included maintaining a fleet of laptops for traveling executives. They were an entitled bunch and would “request” (after I objected to “demand”, but it was still a demand, just worded more politely) to be given the same laptop they last traveled with. But they were calling them You Know The One That Used To Be Mark’s But He Gave It To Frank And Frank Got Something Better So Now It’s In The Travel Pool.
To keep my sanity I put labels on all of them. I chose unusual names in hopes of not matching any future employee or client. And all names came from my list of personal heroes. It was a long time ago and all I can remember now is Sebastian (JS Bach).
So my personal laptops have names, too. And yes, I feel some affection for them. When they act confused, I make the worried eyebrows ( /.. ) and pet the monitor. “It’s OK Margaret (Sanger). Just take a breath. Settle down now.” Or “Come on, Mae (my grandma), you can do it.”
My relatively-new laptop has decided to start crapping out on me (I think that it’s the graphics card), and I feel like personally betrayed by it. I thought we were friends, laptop. I thought we were buddies. I take such good care of you and THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME??? (Seriously like between just getting anxious constantly about it, every time it starts to flicker and mess up I just get so MAD like how dare you do this to me.) Depending on what the tech guy tells me about the cost, I may just replace my laptop. SERVES IT RIGHT FOR BETRAYING ME LIKE THIS.
that seems totally reasonable!!! I at first felt betrayed by mine, but then I realized that she got me through my last incredible miserable year of dissertation writing, so perhaps I drove her to it. I have only myself to blame!
And full disclosure, my computer names are all final fantasy mages and all smaller electronics are summons. I am deeply pleased with this arrangement. The external hard drive is Fat Chocobo,
oh, nicely done.
mine are all baked goods! I had the Most Adorable netbook and it was Cupcake, and the current workhorse is Muffin and the tablet is Petitfour. It is a pleasure to know people’s naming conventions. I like other people making sense of things.
I name all my electronics after fictional characters, mostly anime characters. My first iPod was named Hayate after Black Hayate from Fullmetal Alchemist, and previous computers have been named Tsuzuki (Yami no Matsuei) and Nagato (Haruhi Suzumiya) in hopes that they would be indestructible. Sadly, that didn’t work. These days I name them after characters from the Ace Attorney games – my current iPod is named Mystic Pearl, and my Chromecast is Maya’s Magatama. The only thing I currently have what I’d call a relationship with, though, is my tablet, which doesn’t have a name, but it’s like an extension of my body.
No doubt because I have a metaphorical bent, I definitely have found electronics living up to their name. I had a phone named Phoenix that I dropped a mere week after getting it and had to revive, and my last computer was named after a character possessed by a sorceress and she got virus problems. I want to believe that indestructible names work but perhaps the interpretative magic doesn’t flow in that direction.
I have learned a lot about computers because I refuse to get rid of my old one. i like it, dammit, and the internet exists and I have American dollars to spend on hardware. There WILL BE a workaround.
Oh, definitely. I think I’ve named all my electronics with the exception of my iPhone. Not sure why it’s the odd one out; it’s still relatively new so maybe it will earn a name eventually. My current (aging, sob) laptop is Sheldon – it was originally Shelmerdine, but the name didn’t suit its personality. We’ve been through a lot together – it was the first computer I bought with my very own money after I graduated college, so I’ll be very sad when it finally dies. 🙁
My previous laptop was Clive (lasted through college; I LOVED that machine), and my beloved iPod classic was Marlene (RIP).
My iPod classic’s named Alan! He still works somewhat, though I haven’t added new music to him for at least five years, and he can’t go more than two albums without a recharge.
I think I read somewhere that attributing personalities to inanimate objects is a form of synaesthesia? I don’t name my devices, but I do get attached to them and upset when they die.
All the best to your laptop! My macbook is now so old that guys have started using it as an opener in coffee shops (“Wow, haven’t seen one of those in a while”).
I think it is part of the human condition to attribute personalities and build allegiances to tools we depend on. Can’t be employed without my car, so it gets a name. Can’t look for work without my laptop, so it gets a name. These tools “reward” our devotion with safe travel during a snow storm or a fabulous new job, reinforcing our feelings.
I name all of my electronics, but the name doesn’t always stick. I mean, my old laptop’s still Larry, but I have a Galaxy Note 2 that I must have given a person name, but that I just tend to refer to as “the purple thing” because it has a purple cover (I refuse to use the term “phablet”).
I do like having themes. All the pcs in our house have the names of greek gods, and I kind of love that my pc is Artemis to the boy’s Apollo. They’re sitting side by side, so it makes sense they’d be siblings.
I name my computers and peripherals, but mostly because they need hostnames. For a while I was naming my computers after female protagonists from stories with vampires in them, and my peripherals were all named after vampires from the same set of stories. But then I ran low on names, partly because I wasn’t reading as many qualifying stories.
My current plan is for future computers to be named after Radch gods. So far the only one that’s been subjected to this naming scheme is my laptop, Atagaris. Haven’t decided on a new naming scheme for non-computer electronics. They might get named after Radch gods too, there’s a lot of those. Or maybe the emanations? Or just characters from the same universe?
I haven’t named my Wii U, though I suppose maybe I should.
I have a strong attachment to my phone, by which I mean I might as well glue it to my hand since it’s there so much anyway. But I don’t name it or give it personality in my head.
My bicycles, on the other hand…..the other day I realized I call my antique British lady’s bike “she” every time I talk about her/it. My other two bikes are “its” but Miz Raleigh is “she.”
I’ve been trying to finish off this thesis chapter today (which should really be sent off about now, though I’m telling myself that 7pm is still a reasonable time to get it over to my supervisors) and just as I was finally getting into a flow with writing, my flow came, and the cramps, and the ugh…
So here I am now with a hot water bottle trying to get this done, with no one in my immediate vicinity to moan about this to, so I thought this might be the place to vent. Anyway, first time ‘Cocktail Hour’ post-er that I am, hope some of you are having a much more enjoyable day!
May the writing gods be with you!
Thanks! I’m rather liking the inadvertently appropriate user name too 🙂
I’m trying to finish a grant proposal and get it off to one of my committee members before the end of the day, and I’m telling myself “4 pm on a Friday isn’t too terrible a time to send this, right? Like, he works 15 hour days and doesn’t do weekends, this is fiiiiiiiiine.” I might have a small problem with feeling really bad about asking for letters of recommendation…
Basically, I’m sending solidarity and good writing vibes to you!
Solidarity indeed – very much appreciated! Best of luck with the proposal. I’ve honestly given up with thinking any academics care very much about deadlines like that (she says, sending off this chapter going on midnight, it’s still Friday right!?)
Bless you! Did you get it done anyway? I just passed my exam for PhD candidacy a week ago, and am fighting to keep working because I have a conference to go to in December. I just spent two massively long days in the lab and have many more ahead of me. I know you have it in you!
Toastfriends! Toastfriends!
I apologize for my long absence, but that will hopefully be changing soon as I start my new job on Monday! There has been some Serious Shit going on this month, and I don’t remember what I talked about here (job loss, yes, but did I mention my dad went Peak Dad and severely cut his fingers to the point where he needed an 8-hr surgery to repair them? while doing home improvements?)
Either way the new job is looking very promising and is approximately a $7000/yr raise!
I miss you, Toastfriends. Hopefully I will be back in the swing of things soon!
Yayyy!
How’s your dad doing? Does he still have use of the fingers?
YAY for new job!!
So far he can wiggle them (but not much, because the stitches are still in and we don’t want them to pop) but with his PT things are looking pretty promising. They’re not sure if he will get complete sensation back in them, but at this point anything is better. It was a harrowing weekend!
Congrats on the new job!! And I hope your dad has a speedy recovery, yikes.
Yay!! Best wishes!
Oh man, I’m sorry to hear about your dad. My dad once almost cut his thumb off cutting trails, 4 months after his quadruple-bypass. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
Congratulations on the new job! I HOPE IT IS THE BEST.
I feel you on dad injuries, my dad does renos for a living and a few months ago he cut his thumb with an x-acto knife basically down to the bone. When my mom got home many hours later he was still bleeding and she was all “WHY DIDN’T YOU GO TO THE HOSPITAL” and had to take him there like he was a small child. Dads, amirite.
Ok Toasties, I am turning to you as experts on a question that bugs me every Halloween, and that’s “What is the deal with cultural appropriation?” This year the two instances I saw mentioned regarded Nikki Hilton dressed as a Native American and white Californians dressing as Calaveras (Dia de los Muertos skeleton ladies.)
Obviously I understand that it is rude to dress as a negative racial or cultural stereotype, and that it is rude to wear certain ceremonial or religious clothing as a fashion statement. But from there it gets a little murky for me.
Is it okay for a person to dress as Pocahontas or Sacajawea for Halloween, in a non-ironic way? Does it matter if they are a child or an adult? Is it okay to costume yourself like a hula dancer, Cleopatra, a Samurai, a Rastafarian, a Scottish bagpipe player, a Mountie?
And here’s the bigger picture: What is cultural appropriation in everyday life? I have a white friend who teaches East Indian dancing for a living, and another white friend who is an expert in the gamelan, an Indonesian musical instrument. Is that appropriation or are they (as they perceive it) advancing knowledge of underappreciated arts? Where is the line between *everybody* appreciating and enjoying another culture’s contribution to making the world a wonderful place, and *powerful people* trying to steal the good things from a weaker culture?
Thank you.
Personally, any time someone brings up cultural appropriation I just point to St Patricks Day and how much the US has shit on Irish culture without anyone seeming to care.
On a serious note, I think its fine to be interested in other cultures as use their elements so long as you recognize where it comes from and respect it, i.e. if you’re into native american culture and want to have feathers, you have to respect the traditions around feathers, like that they are not to fall on the floor.
I agree and would add that however much of an “expert” you are in [cultural thing that isn’t “yours”], you defer to the opinions of people of that cultural origin, even if you don’t feel like you’re being (or intending to be) offensive.
Hmm, this, in my experience, can get tricky, because as an outsider you by definition are going to be coming at [whatever it is] from a big-picture point of view, and it is not unknown for insiders to insist that the way they do things is the only way, because they come at it from a very small-picture point of view. I will take an example off the top of my head from my own experience, of southern Welsh-speaking people regarding northern Welsh-speaking people as being incomprehensible because of using different forms of the verb “to be,” whereas I, learning Welsh from scratch and starting with medieval texts that use both forms, don’t regard one as any more incomprehensible than the other because I encountered both from the start.
So I would not advise automatically deferring to the insider point of view, but rather honoring it as what it is: their experience, valuable but not necessarily definitive. Because the next person you encounter of that cultural origin may have completely different ideas. The basic thing is to shut up and listen to them all.
YES.
There are any number of situations where a person from a marginalized culture might not be an expert in all aspects of their culture, or might feel pressured to say something’s okay when it’s not, or there may be generational gaps, or different experiences of the same cultural thing!
While they’re more likely to have an informed opinion than some random uninvolved person, getting “permission” from one person in the group is…..a troubling phenomenon.
Someone at a WisCon panel once (I have a sneaking suspicion it was Mikki Kendall, but I don’t have my notes on me right now) described cultural appropriation as the difference between 1) I try your grandma’s taco recipe and they are the greatest tacos I have ever had and I fall in love with tacos and become a connoisseur of taco recipes, and 2) I try your grandma’s taco recipe and they are the greatest tacos I have ever had and I open up a taco stand where I sell Authentic Mexican Tacos. Which I think is helpful if not complete (eg. I do think cultural appropriation exists outside of commercial enterprises).
So a) I would say that there is a difference between dressing up as a specific person/character and dressing up as generic stereotype of that culture. So, Pocahontas is a different costume than “squaw”, though of course it’s not always easy to tell at first glance which is which. It’s also different if the person or archetype you are using as a costume is from your own culture, or at least one that you can claim some legitimate connection to, and also whether or not the source culture is one that has historically been oppressed. So as a white American, I would be a lot more comfortable dressing as a Mountie than as a hula dancer, even though neither one of those is part of my culture, because Americans have not historically oppressed the RCMP the way we have Native Hawaiians.
b) a lot of what is a problem with appropriation is that 1) it often takes things COMPLETELY out of context and misunderstands/misuses them (which then can lead people to think that they understand the source culture when they really don’t) and 2) often elevates the appropriating culture’s perspective on it above the source cultures. Is it possible for someone to become a respected and respectful expert on something that isn’t part of their native culture? Sure, of course it is. But ideally that person would also draw attention to other practitioners of that art who are from the source culture (so, let’s say your friend plays the gamelan for me, and I say “wow, that’s really awesome!”. ideally that leads to your friend introducing me to other artists, and ideally at least some of those artists are Indonesian).
As long as people have been around we have traded (and sometimes stolen) ideas and incorporated them into our lives and world views, and that’s okay, and often things change their meaning and their significance across time and across cultures, and that’s also okay. But it’s also okay to try to understand the history of things and to consider how people might feel to see something that is special and meaningful to them taken out of context and commercialized (and/or mocked).
I would also say – inspired mostly by your Pocahontas costume example – that whether or not something “counts” as “cultural appropriation” may be different than whether or not something hurts someone else. That’s where the whole argument breaks for me — is a casual observer, who is likely to run into this without the context or argument I could provide, going to mistake this for maliciousness or cluelessness? If so, it may not be appropriation, but it’s still a bad idea.
Yes, thank you! I actually meant to make that point.
Yes, it might be ok to dress up as Pocahontas, but since everyone is just going to see generic “Indian Princess” then really it’s not ok… but also, if you’re dressing up as Disney Pocahontas that’s a problem, and most people only know Disney Pocahontas. And if you’re dressing as real Pocahontas when she was older than a child, then it’s probably after she had converted to Christianity, taken the name Rebecca (& was severely Stockholm syndromed), so she was probably wearing European clothes.
I dressed as Frida Kahlo once and nobody took any exception to to that because it was very clear a) exactly who I was and b) that it was honouring (who would mock Frida Kahlo? She’s amazing.)
This probably shouldn’t have to be said, but if you’re dressing up as someone (a very specific person/character) from another culture you should be able to do it by costume alone – no painting your face another colour.
Just as a solid from one Toastie to another, I live in Mexico and pretty much all of my friends here HAAATE it when white girls dress as Frida. When I mentioned how popular a costume it is now in the US I was surprised by how much of a nerve it touched.
As one friend put it, Frida is theirs and it feels like she’s the only Mexican cultural icon most Americans know and that it was just an excuse to wear “peasant” clothes and a flower crown, because if there are two things white girls love it’s boho skirts and flower crowns.
Interesting data point: Everyone agreed it would be a totally different story if white girls dressed up as Chavela Vargas and Frida Kahlo and did a couples costume because that shows a knowledge of the actual history of two hugely important Mexican icons.
There’s been a big backlash against the commercialization/gringo-fication of Frida in the past couple years here in Mexico. I don’t know how it is among Mexican-Americans so this could all be pointless, but just a heads up in case you think about revisiting that costume.
This is completely true. I wish I knew of a better way to deal with this than just avoiding the costume, but so far haven’t thought of any — I avoid.
My own non-Pocahontas example that still scars me: I dressed up as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in a place where I thought it was reasonable for people to know she is the president of Liberia, because she had visited recently and given a speech… but they didn’t. I did it because I admire her, and because I just happen to have an amazing Liberian outfit that my mother had made in the 1970s when my parents lived in Monrovia for several years, a purple and white tie formal tunic-style dress with huge abstract white embroidery all over it. So I wore that, and a head scarf, because that’s how Liberian women accessorize that sort of outfit. But I’m a white lady. At a certain part my friend hosting the party asked what my costume was, and I said, “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf!”, happily because I didn’t understand why no one had been commenting on my costume up until now, and she said, “do you think people here realize that? Or do you think it looks like you’re dressed up as an African person.” And it was a really sad moment for me because I realized option B was the case and here I was at the party with no way to really fix that impression.
And to be honest, I think it is a little racist of the other people at the party to not stop for a moment and wonder if I was dressed as an individual, and which individual might that be, and perhaps one could ask instead of jumping to a crappy conclusion. Also, I think I should be able to wear my mother’s amazing tailored Liberian dress in public, even as a non-Liberian, because it is excellent (and it was made just for her!). And furthermore that it shows the strength of Liberian culture if non-Liberians admire it and want to wear it, too — the whole “cultural appropriation” meme has a point but also can backhandedly reinforce racism if we let it mean that Western clothes etc. are universal and for everybody no matter what their race, but “ethnic” clothes are not normal and not for everybody. But what are you going to do to change people’s perceptions/American culture?
Maybe I should try wearing that dress to regular summer weekend parties and barbecues and just avoid it on Halloween, I don’t know, maybe I’ll try that. But people are judgmental and they do jump to the most negative and simplest explanation very easily.
(NB: I actually starting dating a Cameroonian law student for several weeks who came up to me and chatted me up on a subway platform while I was wearing my dress on Halloween — he was thrilled to see a familiar type of clothing from home being worn in America! — but it bothered the white Americans. It was a very weird Halloween).
I think a big problem that I have with the idea of cultural appropriation is exactly what you mentioned in your last sentence – the idea of a “stronger” culture vs a “weaker” culture. This seems to be pretty central to the pop cultural idea of cultural appropriation – no one ever talks about cultural appropriation, for example, because a bunch of Americans like Downton Abbey – or, for that matter, because some Japanese kids wear crucifixes as fashion statements. As someone getting a PhD in a Japanese studies related field, I see this argument come up once in a while with regards to my own field – that only Americans/Westerners can appropriate things from Japan, and not the other way around. The unspoken argument here is that America/the West is strong and Japan is weak, so its’ heritage is available for plundering. But my own experience is that any Japanese person – and for that matter, any Chinese / Korean / East Asian person – would find that laughable. It seems profoundly condescending to me, for others to decide who constitutes a ‘weaker’ culture and who should be allowed to engage in cultural exchange.
I agree that in general it’s important to be respectful of other cultures and to listen to people from those cultures, rather than insisting on one’s own ideas, or taking up all the space. But realistically speaking, people on the Internets often use cultural appropriation to refer to any kind of action they disapprove of, from Westerners watching anime to the Met (I think it was the Met?) allowing visitors to dress in a reproduction of a kimono for a photo opportunity.
I would be glad to read more about the question, however – most of the reading I’ve done on cultural appropriation has been of the internet outrage variety.
I agree. Living in Japan for a year knocked me upside the head with the fact that I had been unconsciously viewing non-white cultures as somehow “weaker” and vulnerable to being preyed on. Since then, a lot of the internet outrage surrounding this topic has started to seem somewhat condescending. It especially bothers me how a lot of the outrage consists of white people telling other white people that their actions are offensive, without bothering to even look into how it’s seen in the eyes of the non-white culture involved.
I think some very good points have been made here, and I appreciate this thread for its clarity. I almost feel like this is the only place on the internet where we can have this conversation without it devolving into a shouting match, or people trying to double down and prove they’re the most dedicated to their cause.
Like I said upthread–I am never bothered by cultural appropriation when I am in Japan, because it doesn’t affect me there. But when I am in America, I feel that it can really frequently harm the diaspora. This is something I talk about pretty extensively with my other Asian friends and a lot of us seem to be on that page–when we’re in diaspora communities where cultural appropriation affects how the majority treats us, or when we are made fun of for cultural displays but white people get to be exotic! quirky! cultured! for participating in them and never suffer any of the shit we go through for being racial minorities, that pisses us off.
When I am with my family in Japan and wear kimono, I am fine with white people in kimono.
When I am in America, white people wearing kimono piss me off, because they can take off the trappings of my culture at will. They don’t have to put up with people making cracks about their slanty eyes or weird inappropriate geisha-themed come-ons. Basically, I feel like a huge factor in how I feel about cultural appropriation is that if I am in an environment where I can’t escape from getting shit on for my ethnicity, then my tolerance for out-group individuals participating in my culture just evaporates, because it’s a costume for them but an indelible stain on me.
I’d imagine that, when it comes to Americans using a cultural practice in a somewhat questionable way, that would potentially be more harmful/hurtful/etc to an Asian American living in the US than an Asian person living in Asia.
And so, perhaps it’s not so much about a culture that’s “stronger” so much as it’s about a culture that’s more “default”.
Although, I think there’s also something important in the idea that at least with an Asian American person in the US, that person knows that there’s (often) a place they could visit where those cultural practices are default, and that’s probably a very different experience than, for example, a Native American who knows that reservations are as close as you can get to being part of a “default” culture of Native Americanness.
As a Japanese-American, +1000 to this. When I am in Japan as part of the dominant culture, I don’t give two shits about white people wearing kimonos.
When I am in America…then I care, because 9 times out of 10, it’s geisha-costume bullshit, misidentification/conflation of Asian cultures (A QIPAO IS NOT A KIMONO OK), and I deal with icky racial bullshit in America that I just do not have to put up with when I’m in Japan.
While I agree that the “stronger” versus “weaker” framing is a bad one, I would add a note of caution to generalizing from the example of Japan. When Americans get really into anime, they watch/buy a lot of anime that is from Japan and many of them try to learn a lot about Japanese culture. When Americans get really into, say, yoga, they learn it from white people with the cultural and religious context removed, and the large quantities of money involved mostly go to white people. The latter is where cultural appropriation tends to bother people.
Not to say that no one should do yoga, because stretching and breathing are good things. Which is where it gets tricky. But I can see how if your culture develops something and no outsider thinks much of it until somebody else come along and makes a lot of money off of it, that could not feel great.
*ghosts through wall*
Yoga wasn’t really A Thing in India until the last 60-75 years ago when it gained popularity through western exportation as a fad exercise (think Crossfit). See the excellent biography: The Goddess Pose. Its pretty much the chicken tikka masala of gyms.
*ghosts away*
As a Japanese-American, this can still be really shitty to deal with. Okay, they might be putting money into the Japanese economy. But I have dealt with so much shit from white anime fans 1) insisting on speaking to me in mangled pidgin Japanese, 2) trying to assert that they know more about cultural/holiday/religious practices I was raised in than I do (Shinto practices vary widely based on region and my family’s niche deity is honored in nonstandard ways!), or 3) deciding that they want a Japanese girlfriend and attempting to impose this awkwardness on me because they buy into anime stereotypes, 4) behave inappropriately at cultural events because they want things to be Just Like One of Their Japanese Animes. It is incredibly taxing on my patience.
I was involved in bellydance before Cultural Appropriation was a commonly understood thing so I had to give this a LOT of thought when the concept was finally brought to my attention. I agree with pretty much everything said above about respect for the original culture and respect for those who are part of a culture. Myself, I don’t think my dancing and performance was appropriative. I took lessons under encouraging people who were of the culture, I didn’t wear costumes that fetishized it, and I educated myself about the history of the dance and dancers. There are people who think my performing ME dance, is appropriation but I’ve yet to meet someone from the culture itself who discouraged me. Most of them were, in fact, enthusiastic supporters and teachers.
On the other side, I did a Catrina costume several years ago and even though a Latina friend said it was beautiful and amazing, I doubt I’ll ever wear it again unless I’m doing a group costume with Latino/as. It’s just too close to that borderline.
That’s the difference, too, between
Situation A: A dear friend of mine graduated from medical school a few years ago. Both of his parents are from Delhi. I helped them get prepared for his open house, and his mother offered to teach me how to properly tie/wear a sari for the occasion;
vs
Situation B: wearing a bindi as a fashion statement.
I read a really great piece on the explosion of appropriative Day of the Dead costumes/merch that’s been going on that summed it up as, hey, we know that your culture doesn’t do death well, so we invited you to the table as a way of helping, and now you’ve made it into some kind of performance piece–why couldn’t you just say THANK YOU?
Yeah. And it’s hard to separate the “I made and wore this because I think this is meaningful and important and beautiful” and “I made and wore this because I saw pics on Pinterest!”
Right. Impact over intent, and all.
I went to a friend’s wedding in Delhi a few years ago (and was the only female guest not in a sari, argh – I missed the UK-based group shopping trip), and at one of the events leading up to the ceremony all of the guests were offered bangles and bindis to wear. The photos therefore involve quite a lot of white women wearing saris and bindis, but in the context of the setting it felt okay.
In highschool, I had an argument with an Indian friend in which he insisted that I could wear a sari and his mother would be thrilled to show me how, and I insisted that it would be appropriative and look really weird.
I took a bellydance class in college, and the instructor spent several classes worth of time devoted to cultural appropriation (although it was NOT called that). We discussed that different countries had different styles, that some artists were taking certain dance moves and moving them in a direction that was VERY much not part of the original practices, that Arabs are often portrayed VERY poorly in the media, and that she expected that part of learning “bellydance” was not just learning dance steps, but also learning about the history, culture, and current practices and controversies of bellydance. I think this was a REALLY great way to handle it. The more time we spend thinking critically about whether we’re approaching a cultural thing from a good place, we’re more likely to do it in a way that’s not TERRIBLE.
Great teacher!
(she‘s amazing on so many different levels- as a performer, an instructor, mentor, human being…. just… amazing and lovely and wonderful)
She looks awesome!
Ohhh, I took a class from this instructor in college, too! She was incredible. I’ve always remembered how she spoke about cultural appropriate, or whatever we were calling it back then. She probably had the best analogy I’ve ever heard, which is that it’s like being a guest in someone else’s home. Visiting is nice, joining in when you’ve been invited is nice, but you’re always respectful and you don’t behave the way you do at home.
I also like that she didn’t make it very narrowly about cultural appropriation! She *also* discussed how some performers were popularizing moves that were potentially dangerous, although they looked very nifty. I think it provided a really healthy perspective of looking critically at ALL of it without being needlessly judgmental– I really felt like she gave us the space to draw our own conclusions about this stuff!
Yeah, she covered a lot of ground! She also had some really great body-positive messages too, like in at least one class we watched video of a troupe of plus-sized dancers who were really skilled, that was nice.
“[I]t’s like being a guest in someone else’s home. Visiting is nice, joining in when you’ve been invited is nice, but you’re always respectful and you don’t behave the way you do at home.”
This is a stellar analogy. Thank you!
Thanks everyone for these thoughtful responses!
I knew I could count on you.
OH MY GOODNESS
Some girls here went as sexy nuns and I was so upset and offended. I wasn’t sure if I was justfully offended so I consulted my religious studies major neighbor who affirmed my offense.
You wouldn’t dress up as a sexy rabbi or a sexy minister, I don’t know why my religion is raked through the coals like this.
Ok, see that feels different to me. Catholicism has been a major oppressive force in the world for thousands of years, including in the US for many people. I was raised Episcopalian because of the number Catholicism did on my mother and her siblings as children. I still personally wouldn’t wear a sexy nun costume because there are plenty of awesome nuns out there and I wouldn’t want to upset you–but I think Catholicism is fair game.
I’m both really anxious about this comment because I hate disagreeing with Toasties on something so emotionally charged, and also regretting not working in the phrase “sexy lobbying against my reproductive rights.” It’s an odd mix of feelings.
I can’t speak for all of my fellow 1.1 billion Catholics, but I think we’re fair game too. Like you said, I’d never wear a sexy nun costume (or, well, a “sexy” anything costume), but I don’t think dressing up as a sexy nun is perpetuating any harmful stereotypes. As far as I’m aware–and I could be wrong–a big part of cultural appropriation is that it reduces a culture to a surface-level stereotype. Dressing up as a sexy nun isn’t “appropriating” anything from Catholicism, it’s going, “hey, you know how nuns are, by definition, chaste? Wouldn’t it be oh-so-hilarious if we dressed as a nun, but SEXY?” It’s 100% poking fun at religion, and everyone’s mileage is gonna vary on how comfortable they are with that. But I would say it’s not cultural appropriation in the slightest.
I agree with you! I know someone who is a lay Franciscan brother who dressed up as a priest for Halloween, and we were all really amused (especially because he clearly seriously considered being one for real as a life choice at one point!), and a lapsed-Catholic friend dressed up as a cardinal with an excellent long-brimmed cardinal hat, and everybody was highly amused, observant and non-observant alike! There is something to be said for being able to laugh at yourself — like the pope did when confronted with babies dressed up as the pope.
Th Catholic Church is also the world’s largest charitable organization, and has been kicked around and persecuted in various more and less barbaric ways for thousands of years, including in the US.
“Sexy nun” costumes are rude regardless, especially since “nun are secretly sluts” is a really old meme that’s been used to discredit the good work that religious sisters and brothers do (free healthcare for the poorest of the poor, anyone?). Especially right now, when the dominant political, academic, and social forces are so against us, they’re really hurtful–to me as a Catholic woman, it comes off as a mean-spirited way to make my faith and my community look silly and disreputable. So it’s not appropriation exactly, but I do think it’s silly and cruel. 🙁
is this a good place to ask how others feel about guys crossdressing as a halloween costume? my knee-jerk reaction is: eew. rude. do not like.
however, in a discussion on another forum, it was pointed out that Halloween is the one safe day a year for closet CD/TV guys to dress up and go out and not be afraid/harassed. so, yeah, i totally support that. but then how do i know if someone’s doing it out of genuine self-expression (yay!) or just for laughs (nooooes!)? it’s not my place to ask every cross-dressed guy on Halloween if he’s CD/TV or if it’s just a costume. that’s fucking intrusive. but i hate the idea that some douchebro is getting away with making fun of very real people for laughs because it’s rude to ask if that’s what’s going on. i’d hate to out someone who’s closeted.
*sigh*
FEELS. i haz them.
Are they dressing up as women to mock the women? Or because they like the way they look in the costume? Big difference, and one that I think is probably pretty obvious on a case-by-case basis.
Pretty obvious IME. Do the clothes fit the person? Are they good quality clothes that cost some money? Can they walk properly in those heels? Is their makeup adeptly applied? (Also relevant: are you at a party that has a ratio of queertype attendees?)
And are they dressing up as a specific woman or is the costume just “a lady I guess”? Generally speaking the latter is more likely to be insulting.
Or a specific costume, even. I spent some time with a boy in a sexy policewoman costume on Halloween, and he was clearly wearing it because of the sexy part, not because it was funny to be a woman.
I’ve been thinking about this one too!
Drag, in general, is such a complicated topic within the queer community. Messing with gendered expectations can be FUN, especially when there’s a safe space to do it for one night a year (or one night a month. or per week). And for some people, being able to escape into a different persona of a different gender presentation is important to them, and part of their genuine experience of gender. But it also seems to be especially practiced and cherished by a group of older guys, many of whom didn’t feel like they had the options or labels that are more available now (trans. genderfluid. nonbinary. etc etc etc).
So for men who have been doing drag for 20, 30 years? I’m still very much in listening mode– wanting to hear more about why it’s important to them, how it is or isn’t part of their identities, etc.
I have more trouble with younger gay guys doing the same sorts of things, especially when they do it one night a year. But maybe I shouldn’t, since most of them are going to events with other queer people. And many of them are connecting with an older generation of gay men, part of their community, and a lot of those interactions are made more complicated due to AIDS having killed a huge % of the people that would have been part of our community now, and……
I just don’t know where we draw the line, because gender is dumb and made up and unimportant and also it is the opposite of all of those things too. We should all be able to explore gender, and mess with gender expectations, and more people doing that makes more room for us all to make choices rather than being forced into boxes, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of people whose identities are regularly threatened and
grrrr why is real life so complicated?
Yes, it’s a very hard thing. People should be able to mess with gender, but being a woman (or trans) is not a funny joke. Another factor–I’ve heard a number of men, of varying sexual orientations, talk about how there aren’t a lot of options for being pretty traditionally available to men. So they will wear skirts or nail polish or whatever not so much to mess with gender as to mess with being decorated/an object of admiration. And, you know, being forcibly objectified is bad, but everyone should have the option to be pleasantly objectified in chosen ways. I would rather that pretty things and woman-things not be equivalent, but just because they are does not mean men should not get pretty things. :-/
Yes, I’m not a lady who wears make-up or jewelry, etc. etc. but I think those are prettifying options that should be available to everyone. Ditto the rush that comes with putting on a skimpy outfit to go dancing.
But using tradition markers of femininity to objectify yourself, however pleasantly, has the (most likely unintentional) side-effect of implicitly supporting the idea of feminine-as-object, which is very hurtful to, like, actual women.
Such a good thread! Thank you for starting it.
I’m really late to the party, but I’m wondering if anyone can shed light on a question I’ve had lately. It seems to me that the phrase ‘cultural appropriation’ now has a clear negative connotation (i.e. “You shouldn’t do that, it’s cultural appropriation!”), but I feel like this is a recent thing. I remember talking about appropriation in college which was– getting longer and longer ago, but not SO long ago (5-6 years), and thinking about it as any instance of a group borrowing ideas or objects and recontextualizing them. So: could be bad, but not necessarily. By this definition, cultural appropriation is a normal and widespread practice throughout historical time, and not always bad (or good!). Right?? Am I making this up? Framing cultural appropriation as a bad thing that should be avoided seems to be a) such an oversimplification, b) impossible to do and c) to encourage a weird sort of cultural isolation that definitely doesn’t feel preferable.
I was in a liberal liberal-arts college 5-6 years ago and cultural appropriation was definitely a bad thing – but I was in the anthro department, and we also talked a lot about cultural drift and exchange and the transmission of ideas. And it is tricky, because while there are some hard lines (white chicks wearing feathered war bonnets; the systematic erasure of black musicians in the process of creating 20th century popular music) there are also grey areas (yoga; weaboos).
And it’s extra-hard being from the culture that has declared itself the dominant one and always wants to excuse whatever it’s doing as okay. I don’t think there is a single good answer, but if there is one, it’s going to come from listening to somebody other than white Americans.
(Says the white American with the third comment in this thread. Shutting up now.)
I saw Carol (the movie) last night, and it was very good! Cate Blanchett is the best, and Rooney Mara is also good at her job. It could have used more ghosts, of course, but overall well done.
It’s also nice to see Kyle Chandler working. I miss Friday Night Lights sometimes.
I’m so glad to hear it’s good! I’m reading the book right now in preparation and I’m very excited.
Wow how did you see it? I read Heather’s review on Autostraddle and I really want to see it (but it says the release date is Nov. 20)!!!
This is Fridog but I don’t know how to log in on my phone and apparently I have a WordPress account. Who knew? Crazy times my friend.
Anyway, a twin cities museum is having a retrospective of Todd Haynes and arranged for an early free screening. i am not sure where heather saw it but I agree with her opinion.
Toast!!!! My stupid mortifying problem is resolving itself and I do NOT need surgery! I am so excited! It makes me feel less anxious about the other ten thousand problems in my life!
Also, who wants to talk about getting pregnant? Still not pregnant, still fretting, still totally frustrated with my coworker who keeps saying things like “I wish I had had the chance to try for a few months! My husband just looks at me and I get pregnant, ha ha.”
Yay congrats on no surgery! As for getting pregnant – are you doing fertility tracking? Have you been tested for PCOS or any other hormonal issues that make conceiving harder? It took me over a year to get pregnant the first time because my (male, of course) ob/gyn had never heard of PCOS. I mean, really.
I’ve been tracking my temp and stuff but I’ve never been tested for any issues, partially because my doctor won’t even look at you until it’s been a year of trying, and partially because I’ve never had any sort of gynecological issues at all. I’ve had perfectly normal, very regular, non painful, non heavy periods for like twelve years now, which makes me Low Priority for testing.
This isn’t at all helpful to you, and is perhaps TMI, but temping worked for me perfectly my first pregnancy, but after a very awful 2nd trimester loss, I tried temping again and it was so stressful I just was like, “FUCK IT” after 7 months. Made an appointment for fertility testing (I’m an aged maternal person so I get six months instead of a year), and then decided to just try not to think about conceiving till my doctor could see me. Chemical pregnancy right off the bat, and 2nd pregnancy that has, thus far, stuck. I’m really sorry I can’t be more helpful and that my story basically culminates with, “Try not to stress?” but the human body is a wonder and a nightmare at all times – you have my sincere sympathy. It’s SO stressful.
Also, it is almost impossible to not think about conceiving when you really really want a baby but I found a bit of wine was very helpful towards that end.
If you can find anyone in your area to teach it, I would recommend some kind of more in-depth fertility tracking. A good friend of mine used Creighton and discovered she had low progesterone. She took progesterone supplements (timed to her cycle) and did get pregnant! I’ve also had normal periods but it turns out I also have some signs of low progesterone (tail-end brown bleeding and more recently premenstrual spotting) so I’m probably getting my progesterone tested in a couple weeks.
Oh, she just needs to SHUT IT. Sorry for the frustration; been there, done that.
Still not pregnant .,,,,it’s been…..almost 2 years now, and I am about to be 36. Which feels like a scary age,
I can’t decide how I feel about it though. Here is where I make some admissions that I need people to be gentle about. I remain enough on the fence about the kids thing that I can’t bring myself to go into fertility testing or anything. Like I have enough fear about having kids that while it is one thing to go off birth control and have some sex, it is another thing entirely to actively go to someone and say “I want to get pregnant, please help me.” And so then (quiet voice) I feel l Ike it is my fault I can’t get pregnant because I don’t want it enough.
So yeah, ummmmm, I have some Feelings about it, but don’t quite know what they are.
I am in the exact same boat, except we have been trying less than six months. I recently had to talk to my partner because I was worried that no kids would be a dealbreaker for him. It wasn’t, which was great, but the whole “trying” thing is still getting old. I had really worked myself up over the fact that I don’t want kids bad enough to put myself through anything too painful or stressful. Finding out my partner didn’t want that either was such a relief. I personally don’t think it is anything to feel bad about. It’s a huge decision! I only want kids because I love my partner and having our own little family is appealing to me. I sure haven’t always known it was something I’d want. I don’t really have advice, just a whole bunch of support and solidarity.
Thank you so much for that. At this point, I definitely want support and solidarity much more than advice. In many ways, there is not a lot to do exactly, but it helps talking to others in similar boats.
Solidarity, 15 months for me, I’m also nearly 36 & ambivalent about the whole thing. Will (eventually) talk to a doctor about it, but pretty sure we’ll choose no kids over fertility treatment if it turns out that’s required.
That is so reassuring to here (though sorry to hear you are having the same issues!). But I often feel I am doing this wrong because I’m not immediately going through fertility treatments and stuff. So it takes lots of reminders that it is ok to choose not to do so. And that’s pretty normal too. But it certainly doesn’t feel like the typical can’t get pregnant narrative.
Don’t forget to talk about male fertility issues! So many of those have treatments that are so much less intrusive or difficult.
Thanks for the reminder! Yes, will probably look into the easier end of testing & treatment, but stop before it gets too intrusive. Trying to get pregnant feels like an intellectual, emotionally distant decision for me, which I know isn’t the case for many people, and I think that affects how I’m reacting to the fact that it isn’t happening right now.
I should not have used the imperative! Maybe you need the emotional distance to make a solid decision, one you can be happy with once the flush of immediacy ends? I just feel for you guys, if I’m ever in a position where having children is an option I will most likely be in the same spot you guys are. Best of all luck to you and I hope people stop saying stupid and unintentionally hurtful things to you (they won’t but a girl can live in hope)
I have no help but four thousand reassuring hugs if you want ’em.
High five on the no surgery!
My troll body has decided it would like to start having thyroid issues the instant I talked to an ob about starting to try to conceive, so instead of trying I am doing nuclear thyroid tests. Which are not anywhere as fun. Hoping I take after my grandma and this is just a flash in the pan with no future issues. This is especially pissing me off because I feel totally great, and yet had four doctor’s appointments this week… And I hate doctor’s appointments. At least I’ve been able to schedule them with basically no wait, which is something.
Lots of feels and commiseration over here.
Just tried for 8 months before getting pregnant. The key for me was getting a good ovulation test kit. It showed that I was ovulating 2-4 days earlier than I had thought (like 3 days after my period ended–crazy!) Within 3 months of having that knowledge, I was pregnant. Get the expensive kind, with the happy face, not the kind with two lines. Of course that may not work for you, but it is an easy first step.
Go ahead and tell your co-worker that talking about pregnancy stresses you out and you’d prefer for her to talk about other things.
+1 to good ovulation testing! After a year of trying, a friend (who consented to me telling you this) was referred to a fertility clinic by her GP. At her first appointment, they did an ovulation test and realized she was ovulating *that day*, which, as you said, was a few days earlier than she thought she ovulated. She and her partner were sent home to make it happen and, lo and behold, it did. We know so little about our own bodies because sex education is the wooooorst and there’s this pervasive idea that pregnancy should be easy, when it really really isn’t! It’s a carnival ring-toss game, and you know those games are totally rigged.
The frustrating thing is that it wouldn’t be (as much of) a ring-toss game if we were better educated. I know women who learned that ovulation itself is a multi-day process. A biology teacher once told me that you release thousands of eggs each cycle. I once met a high schooler who couldn’t wear tampons because she didn’t know where her vagina was.
“A biology teacher once told me that you release thousands of eggs each cycle.”
WHAT THE EVERLIVING FUCK. We are not codfish. How the FUCK did they get through a biology degree and become a TEACHER with that level of utter, idiotic ignorance.
(Though am now sort of picturing epic Egg Wars in the fallopian tubes with thousands of eggs wielding little spiky cilia to win the right to get some’a that sperm.)
This is a very good question. It was on a genetics field trip to the science center; we were having a bioethics discussion while the gel electrophoresis was running. One of the things we talked about was egg donation (for cloning for organ-harvesting), and this was his argument to get me to sell him some of my eggs in this hypothetical scenario. (I didn’t realize at the time quite how weird it was that I was in middle school and a middle aged man asked to buy my eggs! even as a hypothetical.) So that’s an extra-damaging context in which to announce this rubbish; I wonder how many girls in that class grew up believing that you release thousands of eggs in your period (!) and then became vulnerable to sketchy egg-donation/harvesting schemes.
Yes, the smiley face kit! I now text my partner “FACE!” and he knows he will be getting lucky in the near future.
Hello! I got pregnant first try, then miscarried, and then didn’t get pregnant again for several lifetimes (ok it was only 10 months, but it felt like forever…). It turns out that, even though I have always had a super-regular 28 day cycle, I do not actually ovulate at the regular time, but just a day or two before my period. So, just when I would give up having sex all the time, was when it was possible for me to get pregnant. I tired some ways of tracking ovulation (temperature and pee sticks) but they never had anything helpful to say.
So, my advice is, have sex even more. And also kick your coworker in the shins.
Yes to kicking the co-worker in the shins!
I can empathize. I have been on the slow boat to IVF since Feb of this year and it is slowly. killing. me. And I’m an ob/gyn for christ’s sake.
Basically, I feel you, personally and professionally.
Let’s talk Thanksgiving, US toast folks! I know it’s a little early, I don’t care. Where are you going? Who are you seeing? And most importantly, what are you eating??
This is the first time I’m hosting. There will just be 4 of us so I’m not super stressing over food (although I’d love to hear about your favorite apps and zerts). Everyone is staying at my house though so I’d like to put some thought into the day itself, like when to eat, whether to have a big breakfast, what else to do. I guess I’m thinking about what kind of tgiving traditions I want to start rather than just defaulting to what my extended family does.
I hosted for the first time last year! I was perhaps most pleased with making a bunch of homemade nuts (candied, spiced, etc) and having them around for snacking through the day. In the past, we would constantly be getting hungry around 2 pm (we generally eat around 3 or 4) so it was a delightful way of providing something to prevent murderous rage, while still being hungry for dinner.
I’m going to Brazil! My last grandparent died when I was in college, and since then my family has been using Thanksgiving as an opportunity to go somewhere cool together. We went last year too (my dad works for a Brazilian company and has lots of resources down there), but this time my boyfriend is coming as well. So I’ll be spending Thanksgiving on the beach, giving a big ol’ middle finger to New England winter.
That is a super great tradition!
I really love it! I don’t see my parents and sister as much as I’d like, and this way we’re guaranteed to spend a ton of time together while also doing cool, exciting stuff.
hah! This is perfect, since my husband and I are actually doing Thanksgiving tonight before he leaves for a 6-week business trip. Tonight it’s roasted chicken, rice pilaf, and glazed carrots.
We hosted the last two years, and we always cook the turkey on the charcoal grill, which is a lot of fun and always delicious. And I always make twice as much stuffing as we’ll need, so that I can eat it for breakfast for the rest of the week. That’s probably my personal favorite tradition.
This year I’m flying home to spend the holiday with my dad, his sister, and her kids. It should be great, although my aunt is newly vegetarian, so I’m not entirely sure what the menu will look like. I do know that I’m planning to make shakshuka for breakfast, but the feast itself is a big old question mark.
Hmmm… my sister makes super good shakshuka, maybe I should ask her to take care of breakfast!
Thanksgiving is 100% my favorite holiday, I’m already making recipe lists. I’m spending it with “the usual,” being my partner and his sister and brother-in-law, because the rest of our families live entirely across the country. They handle the rest of the guest list, but sometimes its just the four of us. This year is particularly exciting, since they just moved to a house, and having a house means having a proper kitchen.
I’ve been saving off recipes like mad on Food52. Partner and I being vegetarian, one thing I’ve been looking at this year is the vegetarian turducken, although I’ve got some doubts about its propriety as the main vegetarian entree.
I’ve done a squash soup as a vegetarian entree before and it has gone well. There are some fancy ones out there (vanilla bean! Spices! Cream!) that make it feel fancy and special.
That’s why I’m hosting! I have a house! It has a dining room! And not 1 kitchen, but 2 kitchens! (I don’t know why the previous owners decided to retrofit a second kind of crumby kitchen in the basement but I’ll take it!)
omg two kitchens * dies of jealousy *
I mean, it’s teeny tiny and old and kind of gross but it means I have 2 ovens and 8 burners to work with so whatevs.
I would call one half working burner in a small closet a second kitchen, sooooo…. Yeah.
Lol, midwest tiny. I forget that sometimes!
This vegducken variation has been calling my name.. .http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/vegducken
A couple of our acquaintance who own a lovely restaurant in town do a big open Thanksgiving dinner every year at the restaurant. They do a turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and gravy, and if you can bring a side and some wine, perfect, but if not, you’re welcome anyway. It is the actual best. This will be our third year there, and last night we invited an old ex of mine who’s a dear friend now to come with us. He doesn’t holiday much/well for lots of reasons, and it would be great for him to get away that week. We’ll roast some parsnips. It will be amazing.
I am actually having a Thanksgiving number one tomorrow (at my in laws who COINCIDENTALLY decided to host an early Thanksging the very year after I hosted the first time. Ahem). On Thanksgiving, I will have a joint Thanksgiving for both sides of our family, which most excitedly, will have all my sisters at for the first time in years, hooray!
We’re going to my aunt and uncle’s, which is a weird thing – we almost always host – but I’m totally fine with it because I get to hang out with my cousins and not have to do much cooking. I’ll bring a dessert. They live a 40 minute drive from my parents, so it’s no big deal, we’ll just go over for the meal.
I’m going home on Tuesday night (live in NYC and family in DC) so the train won’t be quite as insane as it is on Wednesday. Taking Wednesday off work and hanging out with mom, Thursday with the family, Friday I’ll try to hang out with my dad? And Saturday night I go home to NYC so that I get less insane trains and waking up in my OWN BED on Sunday. Should be great.
I am actually kind of dreading it – my BIL was supposed to host, but his kitchen renovation isn’t done, so he’s spending it with his in-laws instead. We might end up hosting husband’s parents and my parents, and I know if I have to spend the day with my MIL at my house I will almost certainly not enjoy it at all. 🙁
I’m going home for Thanksgiving, so it will be spent with my parents and my sister and two puppies (YAAAAAAY). I’ll be helping my mom with the pies since she hates rolling out pie crust, and it will include our annual “mom talks 24/7 about how she can’t cook turkey and recounts the varying turkey disasters from the past” and the annual “daughters attempt to distract her from turkey rants with the Gilmore Girls/Friends Thanksgiving episodes.”
The weird thing for me is that no one in California seems to take Thanksgiving very seriously, whereas in my family it is a Very Big Deal. It might be because we don’t celebrate Christmas, so Thanksgiving is our big family holiday, but everyone gives me such weird looks when I say I’m flying home for the holiday. I never even contemplated that not going would be an option.
I am an east coast person and I cannot understand this concept of not taking Thanksgiving seriously. My mom and I ADORE Thanksgiving. It’s a major holiday that is ALL ABOUT FOOD, and we both enjoy cooking, and it doesn’t involve any of the synagogue-going or ritual foods or building a hut in the backyard or anything that Jewish holidays have! I have never missed a Thanksgiving in my life. My brother is missing for the first time this year because he is in Somaliland for work (LONG story) and it is WEIRD AS HELL that he is missing Thanksgiving.
Maybe it’s a Jewish thing? Or just a standard East Coast thing? I can’t figure it out- our lab manager gives me such shit for always flying home for Thanksgiving, and I’m always like “well, A. I don’t have a husband and kids here and B. why is it ridiculous that I’d go home for a major holiday???”
It’s certainly no more ridiculous than the people who travel on December 24th even though it is THE WORST TRAVEL DAY because they have to be home for Christmas. Thanksgiving is a fantastic holiday. You and I are totally doing it right: food and family and not having to track down a shank bone!
We always travel on December 25th and it is a GODDAMN DELIGHT. Everyone is surprisingly cheerful and there are so few people anywhere in the airport/train station/on the road
Last year I made the trek early tgiving morning instead of Wednesday after work and it was AMAZING. Highly recommend, would drive again.
AGREED. I will be visiting my parents over Christmas time because I’m off work and my father and I need to see Star Wars together, and I plan to take a lovely leisurely Christmas morning train down.
I think it’s just the people you know here, because I’m a native and I take food holidays very seriously! Less the massacre historic part though, and more the menu & hang-out-time part.
I think you must just know weird people because I’d say most people I know are pretty serious about Thanksgiving. But so many Californians have family outside the state and traveling is expensive so it’s probable that a smaller percentage of Californians “go home” for Thanksgiving than they do on the East Coast or in much of the Midwest.
My mom, Dad, sister, and I are going to an Aunt’s house. We (especially my sister and I) aren’t very happy about it because both that Aunt/Uncle and another Uncle are republicans. The non-hosting Uncle’s two sons are both supporting Trump, and the oldest of the two has recently upped the anti on his anti-liberal, anti-poor-people FB postings by adding in some anti-women, sexist, racist, nonsense. My sister and I really wish we could just NOT GO, but my mother is the super super polite kind of person that thinks it’s rude. Normally I’d push more, but said Uncle (the father of the two d-bags) lost his wife very recently and this is the first Thanksgiving without her, SO, I feel like we can’t push back the way we normally might?
But wow tl;dr, I really don’t want to go because I just don’t feel comfortable around them in general anymore, even WITHOUT the risk of political discussions that tend to happen once the wine/etc starts.
(Er, on a non-my-family-sucks-tangent… we usually have the meal a little earlier, around 3/4. it’s SO filling that it lasts you into the evening, and then gives people time to relax and chat a few hours before driving home.)
Ugh, that’s exactly why I’m so happy to be hosting tgiving and dreading xmas. My extended family are all uber conservative in all the worst ways and they make me pretty uncomfortable. Especially considering at least a couple carry their guns with them. To family holidays. Where there are a lot of young children. Family sucks sometime, I hope you can eenjoy yours for the part of the day you aren’t at the aunt’s house!
My strategy is to eat just enough breakfast to get my metabolism moving, for maximum hunger at feasttime.
This is my strategy as well.
The ideal Thanksgiving breakfast is 1 or 2 Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, eaten while watching the parade on TV.
Yes, this strategy should be an Official Toast Stance. It’s so obviously superior and more scientifically sound than refusing to eat all day until feasttime, which always results in maximum crabbiness and minimum enjoyment of actual food.
My sister and her husband have hosted the last two years so I think the entire family is operating on the assumption that they’ll be doing it again this year. Fine by me! I’m thinking of making some cranberry sauce this year. We never really had it at my family Thanksgivings growing up and neither did my brother-in-law’s family, apparently, so nobody bothers to get any. But I’ve grown rather fond of certain fruits with meat, so I might as well make some. My mother will give it a try even if no one else does.
As for traditions, my family always ate dinner around noon or so when I was growing up, especially after my parents divorced and my dad took over cooking duties. My sister and company have it in the evening. Left to my own devices, I’d prefer a happy medium of the afternoon. Early enough that you don’t need to worry much about breakfast and late enough that you don’t have to get up pathologically early to roast a turkey.
Cranberry sauce is delicious and easy. My family never had it growing up either and I’m the only one who will eat it but I’m still making it!
Last year, I had a jar of lingonberry jam – my mother went on a brief pilgrimage to IKEA on a trip to visit her aunt – that I brought along for Thanksgiving, which was the Easiest since I didn’t even have to buy it myself. But Budget Bytes has a very promising cranberry sauce recipe that sounds almost as easy.
But yeah, I’ve always heard it was easy to make, so it’s always nice to have additional confirmation.
Easy peasy but so yummy when it is homemade that you (usually) get credit for wondrous sauce abilities even though all you have to do is throw a bag of cranberries in a pan with some water and sugar (we add a little OJ). One time I did it with red wine and it was AMAZING.
Let’s talk Thanksgiving! I’m hosting for the first time in a very long time this year, because we finally have a house + dining room, yay! Mainly it’s an orphan’s gathering for us, since family is spread out, but some great friends will be at the table and I kinda love how that keeps the holiday fresh with a different crowd every year.
As for new traditions, with our new home came a guava tree that gives fruit in September & October. I’ve been milling it into pulp and canning with a bit of lemon juice, but I experimented with adding honey & cooking it down to make pastries and cheesecake, and it is ON! So our little twist on the menu will to always have a guava dessert. But who knows, maybe guava cranberry sauce or guava-citrus glaze for the turkey too.
I like to do a turkey breast rather than a whole bird, which i like to cut into and stuff with prosciutto, stuffing & cherry sauce, wrap it back up & braise in champagne & orange juice.
I’ve been doing a cherry sauce instead of cranberry, in an effort to be local and lower-sugar. Dried cherries reconstitute well and don’t require sweetening, so we make a more savory version with red onions, red wine, citrus zest & juice, herbs.
We grew pumpkins this year, but thanks to a previous open thread, I learned that our pumpkins won’t make great dessert pie. So we’re doing savory pumpkin pie as a side dish, think onions, mushrooms, parmesan cheese kinda thing held together with eggs & coconut flour.
For the rest of it I’m thinking butternut squash soup, a new kind of stuffing that starts with a savory coconut flour bread I like to make, and that leaves veggies and salad. Braised mixed brassicas? Some kind of green bean + legume bean succotash? It’s honestly going to be hard to choose, but I’m kinda loving making up my own menu.
Oh dang. I want to come to your house for Thanksgiving!
i wish we could all go to ALL of them!
roasted mixed brassicas! brusselly sproots and cauliflower roasted slowly in mid-low heat with olive oil and salt = pretty much perfect. Colored Cauliflower maintains color when roasted (have you SEEN the orange kind? and the purple kind? OMG so beautiful!!). I have never roasted broccoli correctly and I am not sure it can be done but welcome corrections on that topic.
We usually do a small gathering but a big meal (we have no truck with “make your Turkey Day meal healthier!” nonsense; that’s for the other 364.25 days a year), with champagne and pie and naps.
Every year, I revisit Sars’s magnificent essay Wild Turkey, the first that made explicit the Brown End of the Spectrum Pies Rule (pumpkin, sweet potato, apple, pecan, yes; cherry, blackberry, strawberry rhubarb, no). It matches my desire for consistency in Thanksgivings, a feeling I don’t have about most other holidays.
My first time away from family this year! For the past four years we’ve gone to my brother in Europe, since it’s easier for us to fly transatlantic than it is with a child (now two) under five. But I used to be able to take off most of the week around Thanksgiving, and now that I’m teaching, my students have their big Exit Exams the Monday and Tuesday immediately following Thanksgiving. So I’m going to Brother’s (in Cambridge now) by myself in December, which will probably be a lot less stressful than dealing with parents and means I’ll be able to sleep in a real bed rather than a mattress on the playroom floor.
So for Thanksgiving, I’m flying to NYC to spend the weekend with my newish best friend who just moved from London to attend NYU. Because she lives in an apartment with 4 people, I booked my first AirBNB stay, which is slightly intimidating, especially since I ended up not with a twenty something girl but a 40something teetoalling circus performer–but a cat, so bonus. Anyway, I figure I’m only really there to shower and sleep.
We are hosting Bojangles Thanksgiving! For those not in the Southern USA, Bojangles is a fast food chicken chain. At some of them you can pre-order a deep fried turkey for Thanksgiving. This will be our third year of doing so and it is amazing. Our friends who don’t want to travel to their families, have shit families, or work in radio will be joining us. My in-laws are invited as well, but not coming this year (lower stress for me!). It should be a good time, and I’ll be making 3 pies (apple, chocolate silk, and pumpkin).
If you do not love your chocolate silk pie I found the Cooks Illustrated version to be swoonworthy.
I’m spending this Thanksgiving alone, nearly three thousand miles from my family, and I’m going to enjoy it. Thanksgiving for me was always a holiday where my mother spent nearly three days cooking way too much food – that nobody actually liked – until we started spending Thanksgiving with a friend of hers and she only had to make a couple of casseroles and pies. Either way, I remember it being stressful and vaguely unpleasant.
Previously, I’ve either spent Thanksgiving with them or had to work through the holiday, so I’ve never had much time to actually be thankful for much. That’s why this year I’m going to make exactly the kind of food I want to eat – probably some slow cooker minestrone and homemade bread, followed by a buttermilk biscuit crust cobbler – and I’m going to be thankful for the life I’ve finally made for myself, after quite a long while of working towards it.
We are going to the in-laws this year, which is my least favorite. MIL cooks everything, which, the food is fine, nothing outstanding, but fine, BUT the whole fun of Thanksgiving to me is like 20 people in the kitchen all at once singing about food and stirring each others’ gravy and stuff, so it’s kind of depressing to just show up and eat something. Also I am totally out of vacation so we will be driving five hours Thursday morning and having Thanksgiving dinner that night. The baby will be a crabby wreck, and she probably won’t be the only one. Then we will spend two days watching TV, with the possibility of the two youngest SILs having a giant fight about something (they are 30 and 32 or something, so really, should be beyond that sort of thing. But they’re not!)
hanging at the partner’s house and making foods for the 2 of us. i’ve driven myself nuts in previous years and i’ve finally learned to chill the fuck out on prep so…
he will get home made tamales from Brother’s Mother. i will make a turkey breast roast, mashed potatoes (MASH ALL THE POTATOES!), gravy (jarred), dinner rolls (frozen), cranberry sauce (canned) and… something green. greenbean casserole is now verboten* at his house so i’ll have to come up with some other green accompaniment. add wine & football & we’re all set. annual Thanksgiving Day No Pants Party in full effect, yo.
(* we go out every year and party hard on thanksgiving eve + he despises green foods, creamy foods, mushroomy foods = much hurling on his part due to the smell/look of it. i’m gonna make it at home instead and keep it there and EAT IT ALL MYSELF with other leftovers.)
This Thanksgiving will be just the two of us! Last year we hosted my husband’s dad and fiance, which was great because they’re great people. But I love having Thanksgiving dinner for 2, where we can choose what we want to eat (this year will likely be a Thanksgiving of Side Dishes), eat when we want, and drink/nap when we want.
The plan this year is for me to run an 8k Turkey Trot in the morning, then come directly home and start drinking wine and making this vegan shepherds pie for late lunch/early dinner. Also, green bean casserole and at least (at LEAST) 1 pie.
I love Thanksgiving with my whole heart!
When I first went vegan, I went all out making shit every year–stuffing and mushroom gravy from scratch and a pie, at a minimum. After a few years I realized that I was mostly cooking for myself anyway, said “fuck it,” and now I just bring a tofurky and the frozen gravy for it and trimmings and every year I get to my parents’ house early enough to pop it into their toaster oven and then take home my own leftovers. I like tofurky and it’s just so much less work!
You know that mental hell that is hearing reports that the person you are crushing on is allegedly crushing back but you’re still not 100% sure?
God yes, but this very description also made me feel about 100 years old. It has been SUCH a long time since I had that feeling, that delicious anxiety and hope.
Yeah.
YES. And then my crush-object went to Europe for 6 weeks and still isn’t back. The torture!
http://replygif.net/i/120.gif
That sounds painful. Best of luck with that dude.
How exciting! I haven’t had a rumor of reciprocal crushing in at least 10 years, which makes me feel sad and old and lonely.
The last time this happened was three years ago and we’re now 4 months married, so let me be your good crush omen.
Guys, too much of life is happening at once right now. Job interview went really well yesterday, thanks for your good thoughts. However, it pays a good deal less than what I’m making now, so I’m not sure how in the world we’d swing that. I have two more interviews this coming week.
Meanwhile, husband is officially filing for short-term disability, on the recommendation of his neurologist, to recover from his concussion. I’m really glad he’s giving himself the time to get well, but we’re also both stressed because this means he’s only making 60% of his salary until he goes back.
Meanwhile meanwhile, got a call yesterday that the fetal neural tube test for Down’s Syndrome came back with a higher than typical number, so now I’m freaking out about that – even though the doctor said it’s probably fine. Appointment today at 2. I have no idea what I would do, can’t even think about it.
Oh man. So many things all at once. I’m also glad he’s taking the time off. I was going to ask if you can take FMLA time but then I remembered your hellscape job, so NEVER MIND 🙁 🙁
And you don’t have to know what you would do, yet. You can think about it when you know more.
Oh, so much stress. I wish it were not so.
When you get another job offer, and it’s a cut in pay, consider this. Multiply your current pay by the number of months you feel you will survive the attendant bullshit. Then multiply the offered pay rate by the number of *years* you feel you could keep it while your mental health improves exponentially. Compare both numbers.
And the next job does not have to be forever. It could be a place you stay only a year until something better comes along.
It’s all so very hard. You deserve better. Toasthugs.
“And the next job does not have to be forever. It could be a place you stay only a year until something better comes along.”
This.
Yeah, looking for a new job is the most hellish thing in the world so of course you don’t want to go into one knowing that you’re going to start the whole hellish thing over again within the foreseeable future, but sometimes the act of getting out of the bad job you have now is what you need to place yourself where you can then move on to the really good job.
It*’s probably fine. *hug*
*For all values of “it”.
Oh my. All the hugs and prayers! I wish you good interviews and good discernment. About the test, remember the paradox of the false positive, and consider reaching out to parents of children with Down’s, even online, for support and just-in-case preparation. Prayers here too!
Whew, Toasts, I just cleared a big item off my to-do list last night. Big as in, going to completely change my life trajectory, if everything turns out as planned. Still got some last ends to tie up, but otherwise, it’s out of my hands. Scary, but it means I can now actually look forward to the upcoming holidays.
Anyone have travel plans for November-December-January? I’ll be splitting holiday time between WI and WA. Super psyched about both– the former because it’s nice to see my family and my old friends, especially this year, since one of my high school bests got engaged (!!!) and the latter because it’s my partner’s family, and they actually do things on NYE other than “go to sleep at 9:30 PM” like my folks.
What about y’all?
Congrats on Big Thing!
I’m going to be in Madison for Thanksgiving, which should be fun if hectic (there are many branches of the in-laws convening in one apartment).
I’m doing standard family things for Thanksgiving and Christmas–visiting family in DC for Thanksgiving, then going to my hometown with my immediate family for Christmas. But then the day after Christmas I’m going to join my boyfriend in *his* hometown and meet all of his siblings, plus his sister’s husband and child. And his parents and grandmother will be there, and I’ve met them once before. So I am nervous and excited about that!
I just cleared a big item off my to-do list last night.
Nice thing: I bought our Munich-Zurich train tickets for our Christmas trip. We’ll be in Germany in just over 6 weeks, which is something to look forward to. If anyone else will be in Germany or Switzerland over the holidays, I apologize in advance that you will not be able to find any mulled wine anywhere because it is all going right down my gullet.
EDIT another nice thing: last night I dreamt I was making out with our new Prime Minister, and it was gr9, and I wish I had never woken up.
Not so nice thing: I feel like crap now even though I felt fine this morning. All of a sudden I have chills going up my spine and across my scalp, which is a pretty trusty indication that I’m coming down with something. I’m cold and I have a headache and I want to go home 🙁
(Minor issue with Toast Mobile: when I tap “Login to IntenseDebate” on my iPhone, nothing seems to happen.)
Oh winter, it sounds like you need some mulled wine tonight. Take care of yourself. Toasthugs.
*is now going to have nightmares about David Cameron* Hang on, he already is the stuff of nightmares. I mean, how bad do you have to be before it’s revealed that you’ve fucked a dead pig and no one is really all that surprised?
My friend actually managed to get a selfie with PM JT on Wednesday after his swearing-in (sorry, I still feel weird knowing we have a PM with the first name of Justin). While he is clearly off-limits for macking on, there is always this sweatshirt…
WHERE CAN I BUY THAT
It’s apparently $60 at shelfies.com lmao
I’m just delighting in the linguistic gem that is “gr9,” carry on, I’ll be over here.
Ahhh Germany! I miss it so much! Have all the fun and give my love to Stuttgart if you pass by.
Handy Toasties: how would I go about using an outdoor hose when I don’t have an outdoor spigot? Is it possible to hook up a hose to a kitchen or bathroom faucet, and if so, how?
If the faucet threads are a different size I’d imagine there is some kind of adapter you can get.
Like one of these?
http://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center…
Ahhh, so THAT’S where I should have been looking on the Home Depot website. Thank you!
It depends on what your faucet looks like – some kitchen sinks have a screw-out element that can be replaced with a hose-compatible thingie. I also know that hardware stores sometimes carry an adapter that will hook a garden hose into a bathtub faucet, although I was always suspicious (no personal experience).
Oh, good to know – I’ll have to take a look at my faucet. Thanks!
you can also take the faucet off and take it to the hardware store with you.
Yes, this is possible. Go to the hardware store and describe your mission. They will have just the adapter for your kitchen faucet.
😀 I think I will be doing just that.
I got gas perms! On Tuesday! They are wonderful and weird and give me excellent vision and feel less terrible every day and I get to take them out in half an hour.
Also, I think my face looks weird on its own. I can’t tell how much of that is having worn glasses since forever vs. the influence of the beauty-industrial complex. I do know that applying mascara is much easier when I don’t have to put my face right up to the mirror to see my eyelashes. But then I got a bit in my eye and that was bad and I don’t think I’ll try that again until I’m much more used to these things, by which point it’s possible that I’ll also have gotten used to my face and won’t care any more.
Congratulations! It took me a long time to fully get used to my gas perms, but that was before I started wearing makeup, so I did all my makeup learning while wearing contacts. If you have any questions let me know! I love my gas perms ridiculously.
I don’t wear contacts and I saw “gas perms” and thought it was some fancy way of curling your hair 🙂
*quiet voice* me tooooo
I contemplated writing out “RGP contact lenses,” but I figured most of the people responding would be the people I asked about GPs before. Also that the second paragraph would explain it to everyone else. But I could have been clearer, and maybe I should have been.
Am not sure how a hair-curling gas perm would work, but it would definitely be interesting.
No, the time it took me to figure out that you were talking about contacts was a very amusing time for me, don’t regret it at all.
Yay, that’s great! I’m so glad you’re enjoying them. They give me such better vision than glasses ever did — I can’t imagine ever going back.
If you get good tips on make-up, I hope you share. Personally I only do eyeliner on the waterline on the bottom lid, not the top, because it’s less likely to fall into my eye and irritate it. The eyeliner goes just above/on the eyelash line for the top lid. Shadow is fine. Not enormous quantities. I am too lazy for mascara but it didn’t change comfort levels appreciably for me when I did use it. The only time eye make-up has been annoying is if a) somebody other than me wants to apply the eye make-up because they are more likely to get stuff in my eye during the application than I am, and b) if I get really sweaty and the sweat washes a lot of it in my eye all at once.
You probably do want to wait until you’re more used to the lenses, and are wearing them 8-10 hours a day, though. Also sometimes it’s good resting your eyes a little on weekends, and putting the contacts in later in the morning. (Always putting them in later — not taking them out early, if you have a choice. They change the shape of your eyeballs a little, so you’ll have spectacle blur if you take them out early at the end of the day).
I hope you get adjusted to your new face soon and like it!!
They give me about the same vision as glasses – maybe a teensy bit better, but I suspect that’s only because my prescription has changed slightly since the last time I got new lenses, but not enough to justify getting new lenses again. But they are far and away better than soft contacts ever were, which means I’m not annoyed with my vision when I have them in, so I think that will help a lot.
I’ve never worn much eye makeup because (a) putting it on was harder before and (b) it wasn’t that visible through my glasses, so I think I’m just going to have to experiment. But yes, waiting until I’m more used to them seems wise.
I’m still only wearing them three hours a day. If nothing stops me from following the schedule that the eye doctor suggested, I should be going up to six hours on Sunday and nine next Friday, so that’s not too long to wait before trying makeup again.
Next Friday is not far away at all! It’s fun being able to wear make-up and have it actually be visible — and just not wearing glasses makes your eyes look bigger, of course.
On make-up, I forgot — it can also be good to err on the side of gentle and water-soluble eye make-up. Origins and Urban Decay have both been good to me.
Different people have such different reactions to glasses vs. contacts. I’m glad you like the gas perms since they are so much better for the eyeball than soft! For me, I have way better vision with contacts because with glasses, the distance between my eye and the lens is not constant, and even a tiny centimeter of shift of the glasses makes a very big difference for my vision, so vision is always getting better & worse & better shiftily, and also I have a ridiculously high prescription so I can only see out of a small part of the lens anyway and have no peripheral vision. Also I have trouble going down stairs in glasses because everything shifts too much. Basically I am almost a blind person. But if you have a more normal prescription it’s probably less of an issue. Anyway. Glad the new contacts are working – yay!
The mascara I used is waterproof, so the water-soluble suggestion is very helpful! Thank you! I do cry easily, so that may be an issue, but one thing at a time.
At the first appointment, the contact lens specialist seemed to disapprove of me for wanting contacts even though my vision is fine with glasses. But he seemed to have got over that by Tuesday, which was nice.
The only things that shift when I’m wearing glasses are LEDs and neon lights, because of how they’re single wavelength light sources and glasses lenses are like prisms, kind of. It is weird how they stay put when I’m wearing contacts. It’s like they now exist in the same dimension as everything else. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, though!
I’m a contacts wearer since forever, and this is bizarre to me – why would the specialist seem to disapprove of you for wanting contacts??? has he never heard of “lack of peripheral vision”?? “bending your head slightly and your glasses crash to the ground”?? “it’s a little weird for me to play soccer with glasses on”???
No idea! He was just all “usually people come to me if they can’t get good vision with glasses” and I just sat there thinking “well that’s great, but if those are the only people you want to help then maybe you should do some kind of screening before you accept referrals.”
It may have been partly because I have a history of getting soft contacts and then not actually wearing them, but in my defense, soft contacts are more of a nuisance and never gave me very good vision. Also I am older and slightly more organized now, honest.
Oh man, I can’t wear gas perms (even with my tear ducts blocked!) but toric lenses had improved so much since the last time I tried, that I can wear toric soft lenses unless I’m staring at a computer screen all day (which means I wear my glasses most days anyway, harumph).
I got them a couple of years ago and it took MONTHS before my face looked normal to me without glasses. My eyes seemed HUGE. Also I’d never noticed what a mess my eyebrows were–I don’t shape them or anything, but I regularly clean them up, which I never did before.
There are still days where one lense will rotate slightly out of place, my brain will just notice “hey our vision is off” and I will poke myself between the eyes because I’m trying to push up the glasses I’m not wearing.
Being able to wear cheapo sunglasses is definitely A+.
I am definitely looking forward to cheapo sunglasses and improved 3D movie comfort.
They do finally make toric soft lenses in my prescription, but my eyeballs are a weird shape (I have steep corneas), so they don’t stay in place properly. When I tried them, my vision was apparently 20/20, but everything was slightly weird and my depth perception was a bit off. I’m glad they’re expanding the options, though!
My eyebrows are very blonde. It only bothered me a little when they were half hidden, but now I may start wearing eyebrow powder or something more often.
Back before the squad all settled down and bought houses and had babies and whatnot, we’d get together and let the dogs all run around in a pack while we drank beer and played pool. This week the last remaining dog from the old pack got unexpectedly very sick while his dude was in Japan. We all rallied to help the poor dog sitter get him to and from the vet and keep in touch with his dude until he could get back to see him and say goodbye yesterday. This particular dog was somewhat of a pain in the ass at times, but we loved him anyway, and he also represented, you know, our youth, I guess. So everyone’s very sad on a number of levels.
Hug your critters for me.
Me & pup, many years ago.
Here is a story about this dog that I posted to a grad school message board many lifetimes ago. Typos are left in order that I might keep the original tone of the post. Oliver, the dog in the picture^^^ was the dog in the crate. This post was in response to a question about household cleaning products.
“I used to work hazmat in Eugene… don’t know why that comes to mind.
I use some cucumber-scented stuff from safeway, which isn’t nearly as interesting as the story of how I came to know of this fine product.
One weekend I was dog-sitting at a friend’s parent’s house. The makeup was one asshole, one bottle of bourbon, five dogs (a corgie, two cowdog mutts, an aussie shepard/border collie cross, and a full-on, fancified border collie pup), and a CMT documentary marathon (Yay, Kris Kristofferson!).
So I drank the bottle of bourbon, learned about Kris and what he was doing in the Highwaymen, and all sorts of other things while wondering why, if CMT loves to run documentaries on these guys, it is sooo freakin’ difficult for them to play a song that’s not going to end up plagueing the campiest of campy gay bars in thirty years? I mean, “Man, I feel like a woman?” I know *pre-fucking-cisely* the demographic Mutt’s shooting for on that one.
So I run the dogs around the backyard causing no end of havoc in the herb garden. I could practically see my dog thinking, “Oh, a little fence around a plant? That must be my own personal crapper.”
Then I drink the bottle of bourbon cuz, you know, free whiskey. Kristofferson has always had that effect on me.
So I wake up the next day on my own personal sunday morning sidewalk after listening to the border collie yap and yap from his crate all morning. I let the big dogs and the corgie out into the backyard and go to let out the border collie only to find that he’s crapped–explosively I might add–his crate and, by extension, himself.
Now, I haven’t brought any extra clothes with me so you can imagine where this is going.
So I get as naked as the neighborhood will permit and carry the dog into the backyard to avoid him smearing shit all over the house and let him empty himself in the backyard while I wrestle the crate out of the house. Why is it that dog crates are never more than a half-inch smaller than the door through which they need pass?
Good times.
Then I grab the puppy and wrestle him into the shower belonging to my friends parents. I knock the copies of Sunset and Good Housekeeping out of the way and commence shampooing the dig with, if memory serves, Pert Plus. The was no dog shampoo available.
So I scrub the dog down, wrap him in a towel, and carry him once more into the backyard. Mind you, this is all hungover and prior to the morning coffee to which I’ve been addicted since I was thirteen years old.
Then I set my mind to cleaning the, shall we say, accrued filth from the bathroom of the lovely and well-decorated home in which I am a guest. Only later does it occur to me that I could have hosed the dog off in the backyard. Hangovers’ll do that.
The one memory that sticks with me above all else from the whole unseemly incident is the pleasant smell of Method-brand cucumber-scented all-surface bathroom cleaner.
And that is the story of my shower cleanser. I also keep a spare set of coveralls in my truck’s toolbox now.
[Edited to remove the unintended, possibly Freudian, and indisputably amusing typo “cumcumber.”] ”
He was a good pup.
Sorry to hear that, that’s a tough situation.
I’m sorry. Lauren. Yes, even pain-in-the-ass dogs steal a piece of our hearts. I’ve given my heart to 3 with p.i.t.a. baked into the breed.
I’m so sorry. Our cat is currently in pouncing mode, but I will hug her when she’s next amenable to it. If you want to, I’d love to hear your dog stories.
Sorry about your friend’s dog, that sounds hard 🙁
You’re a good friend.
Also, please tell me there are other Toasties watching “You’re The Worst” because I have a lot of ~feelings~ about it and I really need to talk to people who have seen it (especially this week’s episode holy fucking shit GRETCHEN)
me me me
Was the most recent episode the one where they reprise Sunday Funday and do Halloween things? I’m never entirely sure when I’m caught up.
No, the Halloween Sunday Funday one was last week (and it was so great OMG THAT HAUNTED HOUSE). This week’s was much darker and completely wrecked me, emotionally.
But… it’s already dark! I do not know where they’re going with everything and I am so worried.
I have not but I have been contemplating. Should I start?
I absolutely adore it, and season two has been stellar and has a spectacularly and heartbreakingly realistic depiction of what it’s like living with chronic depression. Also, it’s super funny.
SOLD.
o/
The entire thing was emotionally devastating. I’ve felt before that stripped down to my core I’m very Gretchenlike, but that last scene completely confirmed it. I’ve been there so many times where I try to audition a new life and I disappoint it or it disappoints me and no one else notices. Hell, I was there last week.
Man, when she started going on about wondering about how life would be different if you’d done something different? That hit so close to home, it was deeply unsettling. I think about that CONSTANTLY- if I hadn’t done this, or if I had been more like this, I bet I’d be happier/better/more loved.
Someone give Aya Cash an Emmy RIGHT. NOW.
I don’t know what to say except YES THIS. I feel like this show is the first time I’ve seen someone like me on tv.
I’m usually hesitant to talk about these things because this account is linked to my full identity, but I haven’t been able to *ahem* get a hold of the current season (at least not the first episode, and I’m particular about these things) and it’s killing me.
I’m five hours in to a 16-hour clinical right now and there is something wrong with literally all my patients, even the one who was supposed to be an easy discharge. Whyyyyyyy
AS IF YOU WERE NOT ALREADY THE GIF QUEEN *SQUEE*
And I just found out our local art-house theater is showing Galaxy Quest on the big screen this weekend. SO EXCITE!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Posting in the open thread for the first time because I have a crush on a girl and I need to talk about it somewhere! It’s a new thing for me but it’s making me really happy, so.
What is frustrating is I don’t want to tell most of my friends yet because I suspect there will be far too much “wait, you’re into girls???” rather than the far more relevant “OMG FEELINGS ARE THE WORST yes I will absolutely listen to you recount every word she has said to you so we can analyse whether she might be at all into you too”. So I’m just going to put it here and feel good about having it down in words.
(Also, this plus doing my Master’s in Library and Information Science is really making me feel like an ideal Toastie.)
Girls! Girls are great.
Oh hello, yes this is something I have lots of experience with. Please tell me about all your feelings and conversations with her so I can commiserate.
(I also have a lot of experience with the OMG YOU LIKE WOMEN bit overshadowing the actual situation, so yeah, sorry about that.)
There is definitely a lot of gushing about cheekbones and eyelashes and like literally flawless skin going on inside my head now. I am a very dignified being.
In all fairness, I don’t know that is what’s going to happen. My circle is very accepting, I’m sure they’ll be just fine, but I don’t really want to get into it until I know whether this could actually turn into something more. Sorry you’ve had to deal with that! People are crap but I hope you have some good accepting people around as well.
I am in the exact same situation! My circle is very accepting too, and it feels ridiculous to stay closeted when I know my friends would be TOTALLY fine with me being bi. However, I’ve only been on a handful of dates with this girl and I want to be “officially” in a relationship before coming out to all my friends and family (right now only a few friends know). It just seems easier to be like “I’m dating someone, and she happens to be a girl” than to go through the whole ordeal only to have it fizzle out with her, and people assume it was just a phase if I date a guy next. Ugh
Ahhh! Please feel free to overanalyze with us; I have used the Open Thread for that many times.
I recently started a new relationship with a girl and I want to gush about her to my coworkers but I work in a pretty closed-minded environment and like. Don’t want to deal with coming out. Especially because I’m Presumed Straight, having mentioned ex-boyfriends in the past; I don’t want to try and explain being bi. Just, ugh.
Ugh yes work people. If coming out at work ever becomes an issue for me I know it’s going to be a complete shitshow (my vegetarianism has been brought up at lunch literally EVERY WEEK the two years I’ve worked there, I can’t even imagine how being bi would go over).
Yay new relationship, congratulations! I hope she makes you very happy and that you have plenty of other people you can gush about her to, gushing is great!
Ahahahaha, this comment, it me. I hope the crush keeps making you happy because feelings are garbage but happy crushes make them alllllllmost worth it!
I spend a significant amount of time going “ugh I am the worst person alive and I should just lie down in a ditch” because I deal with emotions very well. And yet, somehow it’s still totally worth it!
This comment is the entire first-year class of Agnes Scott, so it’s cool.
Not gonna lie, I came out as bi to the Toasties first when I got my amazing girlfriend.
But it means now feelings can come from ANYWHERE and it sucks.
Feelings are the worst, girls are great, boys are great, people are great, end of list.
Okay, sooooo? What’s she like? Is she great? Is she totally the prettiest? Is she your usual type? Would she be a good Toastie? Is she a Toastie? Is she literally reading your words right now and wondering if they’re about her?
Toasts, I’m having a real bad day, a lot of it money-related, a lot of it relating to the fact that our landlord is raising our rent by $150 a month which is infuriating, not least because it means we’ll be paying $200 a month more than our neighbors, who have the exact same house and are also renting from her.
Commiserate with me and/or give me pictures of puppies, please?
Boo!! No local statutes to prevent such raises? As a landlord myself (sorry on behalf of all landlords) I know in my locality you can’t raise rent by more than x% without evidence of significant upgrades (and even then not really)
Louisiana is pretty much the worst place for tenant rights, so as long as she gives enough notice (as defined by the lease – there’s no minimum by state law, and we’re month-to-month at this point), there’s no limit to how much she can raise it by or if she has to do any improvements.
Management has just informed my department that as recompense for the hell we’ve been going through over the past couple of weeks they’re giving us all an amount of money we can spend at the company store which sells things like $50 pens and has an entire “Golf” section. Pointless as this gesture is, it did give me a much-needed laugh.
I know that feel. But! You may be able to get gift cards through your store. I had a bunch of those little gifts stored up and I had the option of buying gift cards, which, admittedly, were only able to be used at certain stores. One of which was GameStop, though, so I got myself a Wii-U.
I wish! It’s mostly just company-branded clothes and notebooks and stuff. I got excited when I saw there was a “Drinkware” section but it was all mugs and water bottles. I would have gladly ordered some company-branded shot glasses!
You reminded me that when I was a temp at a good and neighborly insurance company, I blew so much of my meager checks on company-branded merchandise! WHY?! I couldn’t even afford their stupid insurance!
Who else wants to join me in going “EEEEEEE!” over the fact that Edith is apparently editing the Hairpin again? (Sorry everyone, I’m still on this.)
I’ll start: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
REALLY?! Oh, I hope this is a sign of good things happening for her/with her. I’ve been fretting from afar for a while.
I have no idea what’s going on over there! Is Edith really back or is she just trolling us??
So far as I can gather (and guess) what happened seems to maybe possibly (or maybe not) be something like this:
1. Previous editors leave
2. Jolie emails Choire: “Next editor: Edith????”
3. Choire emails Edith: “Edith: next editor?????”
4. Edith is willing, and has a vague plan for the direction of the site, but nothing concrete and no big posts/contributors lined up at the moment
5. What we’re seeing is a sort of stopgap interregnum where she posts smaller things while she does get those things lined up.
That’s my guess, anyway. No one has explicitly said any of this (except Jolie alluding to something like 2.) and 3.) in the comments, but even then it was more of a question than a statement).
Oh, that is excellent news!
I stopped reading the hairpin maybe 6 months ago or so… Edith would for sure bring me back!
I really hope that it sticks. An Edith-helmed Hairpin is exactly what I need in my life right now!
Daylight savings is hitting me hard this year. It turns out that dark on my way home = very depressed hawthorn in like, 2 days. Should I get one of those lightboxes?
ALSO, anyone interested in an online toastie book club should email me (hawthorncrataegus (at) gmx (dot) com), if you haven’t already! We’re going to be talking about Girl Waits With Gun on November 21st, over Google Hangouts unless someone suggests something better.
I have used lightboxes for sleep disorders rather than SAD/winter blues, but I think they’re amazing, and they have solid research behind them for this purpose. As I recall, they’re of roughly equal efficacy to antidepressants, including for non-seasonal depression, but the most effective thing is to combine them, if that’s necessary. Read up on them a bit, as there are different types that suit different people. I got the Golite, which is a small blue LED lightbox. You don’t need to use it for as long, as blue is the wavelength that affects your serotonin production, and if you’re sensitive to fluorescent lights (which I am) it avoids that problem. You need to use them so that they hit your peripheral vision, so place them off to one side while using the computer or something.
And yes, WHERE DID THE EVENINGS GO?
Oh! I just bought one of these! Am waiting its arrival and I cannot wait to see if it actually helps.
Best of luck! I’m not sure how fast it kicks in for SAD, but it was immediate with the sleep problems, as I went from a 25 hour day to a 24 hour one.
I don’t have any experience using them for SAD, but I use a FeelBright light visor and I can swear by that for non-24-hour sleep cycle stuff (or, at least the waking up part of my sleep cycle; unfortunately it doesn’t seem to touch the going to sleep part which is SUPER FUN during the days when I go to sleep at 6:30 and get up at 9, let me tell you).
My habitual book club suggestion is Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton” (the one the musical is based on), but I don’t want to make it an *actual* suggestion for a first outing because it’s (1) non-fiction (2) 832 pages and (3) 832 pages. So instead please pretend that I did suggest that and you all threw half-eaten cookies at me, and it’ll be just like a real book club.
On that topic, though, do you know if there’s a good place I’d be able to look up the actual Constance Kopp facts? Not that I’m suggesting that as an alternative, just that (as with Hamilton) I would like to geek out over the factual story as well as the real (fictional), more true story.
I don’t, but if you find some good background on Constance Kopp I’d love to read it too.
Have you looked into darkness therapy for the going to sleep stuff? It’s like the reverse of light therapy, you block blue light in the evenings. Blue is the wavelength that stimulates serotonin and suppresses melatonin. I find it works as well as a sleeping tablet, and I’ve been able to stop using a lightbox to treat the Non-24 Sleep-Wake Disorder. I’ve got prescription orange specs by now, but a cheaper way to try it out is to get a few orange light bulbs and screen filters. Of course, if you don’t need to wear specs already, you can just get blue-blocking glasses. There are loads of reviews of them on Amazon from people using them to help sleep. I put mine on at 9.30 and go to bed at midnight.
Out of curiosity, how have the medical profession been about your N24? The local sleep centre was crap, I waited for a year only to find that they only really deal with sleep apnoea and narcolepsy, and the sleep lab technicians hadn’t even heard of circadian rhythm disorders.
I think I did do that in college, but it didn’t make much of a dent. Of course, neither did light therapy, so maybe my brain-plumbing has changed since then.
I’m afraid the medical profession was pretty cool about my non-24, mostly because my dad is in Academia and knows someone who specializes in human sleep studies. His contact hooked me with the right people (it also helped that I was lucky enough to live in places where there even *were* right people) and told me how to phrase my symptoms in sleep-specialist-ese. I expect if that hadn’t been true, they’d still be trying to treat my nonexistant sleep apnea..
Yeah, I hear it works for some people and not others. My N24 seems to be caused by having severe ME/CFS, being almost entirely housebound, and thus getting crap zeitgebers from things like natural sunlight. So for me that was a problem we could fix, in terms of giving my brain better light/dark signals. For folks who have no apparent reason for their N24, it seems to be harder, judging by the Nite Owl mailing list. Although that self-selects for the ones who can’t find a way to control the condition, by its nature.
I’m glad to hear you’re hooked up with decent medical support, at least!
I’ve been having trouble getting my new specs sorted out, and the orange tinted pair only came through about ten days ago. I am so glad to have them at last! They’re on the list of Things I Couldn’t Possibly Do Without.
I had never heard of blue blocking sunglasses but as an Olympic-level insomniac I have just bought some for £10 off amazon!
I am WITH YOU. I moved to LA recently, and work from home now, so I was hoping having warmth and access to natural light would keep off the winter blues. But… nope. The dark still makes me sad and claustrophobic. I keep accidentally succumbing to sleep way, way too early. (9 PM? 7 PM? What the hell?)
I’m a sunshine human! Bring back my sunshine!
The connection has never been quite so clear for me as it is this year, I think because my year-round depression is actually under control for once. BRAINS.
This thread even existing is super helpful for me. Having moved from Dallas (TX) to Portland (OR), I had no idea how affected I was by the dark season until I realized that sunset at 5pm makes me feel a lot like I used to when I worked the night shift – anxious and terrible.
Thing is, I’m not entirely sure yet whether I feel anxious and terrible because there’s no light, or because my subconscious mind thinks I’ve somehow gone back in time to my terrible night job where I never saw the sun and my boss was actively trying to fire me. HOWEVER, I will absolutely look into these lightboxes – which I’d never even heard of until now – if it turns out to be the 4:30 sunset’s doing. So thanks!
Hello new Portland toastie!
Hah, I *do* work a night job, but only on Friday and Saturday most weeks. I was handling it fine until this last week, but whether it’s Early Darkness (which means I get about zero hours of daylight some days) or it was just my period I don’t know yet. Blargh.
I love my lightbox! My office does not have a window (!) and the lightbox really helps. I’m also here to be That Person and encourage you to get your blood work done – my D and B12 levels both go low in the winter and so now I take gummy supplements. I still struggle a lot with DST every fall but my winters are generally better now.
Blood work! So obvious and yet it didn’t occur to me. Thanks for being That Person!
If any thing is low on your blood work and you are not a big pill person I just learned this year that my health insurance and my partner’s insurance (different plans) will approve paying for over the counter vitamins with our HSAs, so now we are indulgent and get the gummy vitamins we like best rather than the ones that are on sale. Shaking out gummy vitamins every morning feels like a treat.
Did you get my email about book club? How do I find the google hangout?
(I got my lightbox out this week, it’s helping)
Yes, sorry! You should have just gotten an email from me.
Thank you, thank you!!
VIDEOGAME THREAD. What are you playing this weekend? And have you finalized your Fallout 4 build??
This week’s intriguing recommendation is for Sun Dogs, a mostly text-based adventure game which just came out on Steam for Mac/Windows/Linux. It’s about being a transhumanist explorer in a future version of our Solar System, continually dying and being reborn in new “sleeve” bodies. You travel from station to asteroid to ruined planet, sometimes doing quests, sometimes picking up new skills and items, and sometimes just watching the sun rise over Mars as the morning glare twinkles on the spacecraft docked around the space elevator. There’s a deeper plot that I have yet to fully uncover (my save got corrupted and I couldn’t continue…no, not my game save, but my character’s cortex in-game “save state”!) But it’s intriguing enough that I’m going to go back and try again. Nice minimalist graphics and music, too. Good if you like Ann Leckie, Ian M Banks, Alistair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, and that kind of Sci-Fi.
Sun Dogs sounds amazing, I’m going to take a look at it this weekend. I’m still playing Dragon Age: Origins and reluctantly coming to terms with Morrigan being straight. I’ll just have to play as a male warden eventually.
I am sorry for your (romantic) loss! Though I also highly recommend this talk by Meg Jayanth (the writer of 80 Days), which talks about romantic disappointment in Dragon Age (warning: spoilers for romance/plot in DA2 and Inquisition also): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUGfH50TBCY
Thanks for your sympathy! I suppose I can focus my efforts on Alistair, that cheerful golden retriever of a man.
That game sound right up my alley!
I’ve always though games would be a great way to explore the more outlandish ideas in sci-fi and fantasy, I’m glad indie games are able to start doing that now (since the big publishers mostly weren’t).
Oh, decidedly. More contemplating the nature of consciousness and humanity, less dogfights and beefy space marines, plz. (Mass Effect being exempt from this space marine restriction, because Mass Effect.)
I ordered my copy of Fallout and it should arrive on Tuesday! And I have Friday off! I haven’t planned my build, because I’m sure I will end up with high Intelligence, Small Guns, and a bitching haircut like always.
High Int / Perception here, with Luck added later. Gonna snipe and hack and sneak (and seduce, if possible!) my way to Wasteland Success!
I just realized that one good thing about my job ending on Nov 20 is that I can buy Fallout 4 and play it all day for as long as I want.
If I haven’t played any of the other Fallouts, what should I know?
Don’t drink the water.
Have you played any Elder Scrolls games? This will be pretty similar (except for setting of course), but there is also the VATS system which basically lets you pause the game and pick your attacks / actions.
Yep, I’ve played Oblivion and Skyrim. Is the level of RP in Fallout about the same as those? I’m just coming off about 18 months of playing all of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so I’m trying to moderate my expectations.
Yeah, I would say so. Maybe slightly more. Fallout 3 let you make a couple of bigger decisions that changed your interactions with communities going forward.
It will probably become very obvious pretty quickly, but the Fallout future is the future of an alternate past where 50s heartland/atomic kitsch remained the dominant culture until the bombs fell in 2077. In case you are wondering why cars go up in mushroom cloud explosions (nuclear engines) and the Ink Spots play on your radio.
That sounds awesome! I’ve been enjoying this cute platformer/puzzler called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, where you play a little flying robot who’s planet has been taken over by evil shadow aliens. You have to solve physics puzzles to collect weapons to fight the bosses, and the soundtrack is ace
Oooh, just googled that, and I decidedly dig the art! Yay for colors… Sounds like fun!
Ooooh!
Mr Thuja and I started playing Tales from the Borderlands last week and we’re about halfway through episode 3. It’s fantastic and silly and so far only one person has died and I didn’t like them anyhow so it’s okay. Also, since I’ve never played a Fallout game before and I have a shiny new video card (Inquisition looks so pretty! so pretty!) Mr. Thuja started me playing Fallout New Vegas. It’s interesting, but I”m feeling like I enjoy RPGs with a bit more structure. I was super excited by the Fallout 4 launch trailer featuring both a male and female player character though.
Borderlands episodes 4 and 5 were SO GOOD.
Oh gosh I can’t decide if I want Fallout 4. I loved Fallout 2, was indifferent about Fallout 3, and LOVED Skyrim. And since I’m from near Boston, it seems like I SHOULD really want it, but…
Has anybody played Undertale? i’ve been hearing lots of good things but don’t really know what the deal is!
Oh yeah, the Bostonness means that there’s no chance I WON’T play the game, regardless of quality. I’ll be moving away from here in a month or so, so I’m taking one last cathartic chance to wander the sodden, ghoul-ridden labyrinth of the T (and in the game! *rimshot!*).
I’ve also played a bit of Undertale! It’s an indie riff on old JRPGs, but think EarthBound, rather than Final Fantasy. The twist is that you don’t have to kill a single creature in the entire game, so the “combat” consists of alternately dodging enemy attacks, and then either fighting or taking actions like “Flirt” or “Pet Dog”. It’s very charming and funny, with some fantastic characters and jokes. I got a bit tired of its gameplay, so I stopped short of finishing it, but I enjoyed my time with it, and tons of folks I respect loooove it.
Undertale is the best thing I’ve played in months – including Life Is Strange. Warm, hilarious, and just hard enough.
Really looking forward to Fallout 4, though I’m not even sure if my PC can even handle it.
Had a strange yen for real time strategy and silly voice-acting, so I’ve been playing Skirmish battles on Dawn Of War: Soulstorm. If I made a pocket soundboard of the unit quotes, maybe I could give up speaking:
“I AM NOT YOUR BOOTLICK!”
“I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!”
“I am, equipped for that.”
“I serve the Sisterhood.”
THOSE BRUSSEL SPROUTS SHOULD GET AT ME.
I’m having an interesting sex and romance week! I had a Tinder fling last weekend, another one tomorrow, and I had a great date with a wonderful guy on Tuesday! I super like Tuesday Man, I’m really stoked to see him again, but he’s a little more intense than I’m used to. My dating history is littered with guys who couldn’t really be bothered to make plans with me, text me back, demonstrate any kind of enthusiasm at spending time with me.
On the flip side, this guy REALLY likes me, but is also very insecure about it? So I spend a lot of time telling him it’s okay, it’s fine, it wasn’t awkward, you don’t have to apologize, I didn’t take it that way, etc etc. I hope that stops soon. I had to break it to him I had another date on Saturday (we have been on ONE date) and he was clearly bummed. But he ASKED DIRECTLY if that’s what I was doing this weekend, so??
I like this guy, I would like to date him exclusively at some point, but I didn’t expect this kind of — I guess, vulnerability? — at this point in the “relationship.” BLERG.
I’m not used to the American dating system of dating several people at once, so I realise a lot of things depend on local customs, but this sounds more trouble than it’s worth. If he’s this difficult when things are this early on, what will he be like later? Having to constantly reassure a partner is exhausting, and sometimes it’s because they’re messing you around. (Well, it definitely is if you are always talking someone down from wails of “I’m a bad boyfriend!” designed to make you say “no, you’re wonderful!”)
Or he could be having a bad week, does it sound like that? Online dating can be quite weird as a way of getting to know people, and plenty of people flail about a bit because of that.
I’ve been trying to gently teach him that the second-guessing isn’t necessary and he should read my responses better. Eg: “I’m sorry if I overstepped boundaries by kissing you on the first date.” “No, it was nice, and if I didn’t like it I wouldn’t have initiated further kissing.” or “Sorry you’re tired because I kept you awake texting last night.” “No, I could have said good night any time I wanted to.”
I like to think he’s had some shitty experiences in the past, and he has low self-esteem vs high expectations. I’m not sure how he would handle being told directly to cut it out, though. It could be flailing, it could be a long-term pattern, who knows! Ughhhhh dating.
All this after a few dates?! My instincts say Run, though that’s easy for me to say. I’d go for telling him directly to cut it out, you should absolutely be able to do that, and seeing how he reacts to that. If he’s behaving in a peculiar fashion which is really stressful to you, and then can’t cope with being told that, you have your answer. If, on the other hand, he says, “Sorry, you’re quite right. My anxiety issues [or whatever] have been flaring up this week, I’ll try to get a handle on it,” then that’s more promising. (I’m guessing about the anxiety issues, it sounds like he’s been lying awake at night replaying the dates and fretting about them, but you’re the one better placed to figure this out, and of course I shouldn’t be diagnosing anyone over the internet!)
If it’s any help, I was very wary when I got together with my beloved, as my previous partner was an abusive dickribbon, and wanted to take things slowly. He was absolutely fine with this, and particularly good with matters of consent. Anyway, he fell for me a smidgen faster than I fell for him, and was bursting to announce his love after a few weeks but tactfully keeping it in. So this came out as lots of compliments, and I was finding it a bit overwhelming, and asked him to tone it down a bit. He was absolutely fine with this, did so, we peaceably fell in love with each other, and it all worked out fine.
That actually is helpful advice, and I appreciate it!
Haha, my friend dated a guy like that for a while. We referred to him as the Apologetic Carpenter.
Sounds like compliment-baiting to me? (As in, he wants a response like “no I loved kissing you” or “no you’re my favorite person to text with”) Which could mean he’s feeling insecure but it could just be his standard MO… I know some people that do that by default.
Obviously I don’t know the whole story and he probably has lots of lovely qualities, but that sounds like a red flag to me! Not only is he getting intense very quickly, he’s kind of making you do a lot of emotional work in a relationship that should be casual at this point. It shouldn’t be your job to reassure him!
It’s kind of a red flag to me too! But I’m not sure if it’s the kind of behaviour that can be corrected or not. I’d like to be direct about it, I think he’d be worth it, but what if it’s not something I can fix?
How does the whole dating-several-people-at-once-before-settling-on-one-person system even work, if you don’t mind my asking, and is there a chance you have crossed wires and/or different expectations of how things should be happening? We don’t really do it like that in Scotland, unless I’m missing something and the youngsters are all dating several people at once before winnowing some of them out. Well, apart from the poly folks I know, but that seems to be different.
I am actually still trying to figure it out! This is new for me. I’ve had OKC for ages, looking for something a bit more serious, but in the last few weeks I’ve been more interested in casual sex encounters. This guy happened to contact me, was the first guy I’ve liked and seen potential in for a while, and I figured it couldn’t hurt, right? I already had my “date” (re: fuck session) planned for Saturday when I went out with anxiety man, and while I very much like anxiety man, I’m getting something different from both of them. Plus, I’m not really planning to see the casual sex guy again, and I probably won’t continue seeking casual sex if I continue to see anxiety man.
I do have a friend who has been dating two-three guys at a time for like a year, and I can only say that I admire her stamina. I don’t really know how she makes it work, other than she’s totally up front with the guys that she’s not exclusive with them, and they have to deal with it if they want to be with her at all. And I guess they’re okay with that!
i used to keep what my friends like to refer to as a “stable” of dudes. i always had a set of 3 or 4 dudes either on their way in or the way out.
i am a fuck-on-the-first-date (a bar slut, honestly) kind of girl and it takes me a long time to develop emotional attachments. i also have a very short attention span for most human interactions. most of my “relationships” have been less than a month (and there have been a lot). SO, i actually find the idea of dating one single… person… at…a…time to be a tedious and drawn out process. i’d rather be prepping for date #2 with another dude when i realize on date #5 with current dude that i can no longer stand him.
but that’s because i’m me, not necessarily because i’m american. i dunno what others’ thoughts processes are.
Oh Toasts. I am having Marital Problems. and Health Insurance Problems. and Difficulty Getting Anti-Depressant Medication Refills Problems.
Any hilarious GIFs or cuddly dog pictures would be appreciated!
I love this panda baby so much!!
This doggy is so happy! His waggy tail is everything to me right now!
I love how he has the timing down just perfect. He knows exactly when the ball’s gonna release.
I saw this one yesterday and laughed and laughed an laughed.
Has anyone ever fired someone mid-job? How do you decide payment? What do you say??
I hired this guy M to build my website. So far he has told me what to buy (hosting and domain), we talked about everything I wanted, and he started but got stuck on a problem. My friend T fixed it with much eye-rolling, saying this guy was very inexperienced. He also put down some of the colors I requested, but feel like anyone should see that and say huh that looks bad maybe I should adjust it, and it’s also less than half formatted. I want to back out and let T take over, since she is very artistic and I know she’ll make me a good website, and she is fixing the appearance right now. What should I say and how much should I pay him, assuming I was gonna pay $300 for the whole thing??
You could maybe calculate how long you expected the project to take, then use that to calculate the payment? For example, if you thought it would be say, 2 weeks of work for $300, that’s 14 days at about $21 a day. So if he only worked say, 6 days, you could give him $126. Or calculate by what percentage through the project he got? So if he’s only like say, 1/3 through the project, pay him $100?
I like the second one! However, I don’t know anything about computers so it’s hard for me to say “well you got the template up so I think you did half of it”. I might ask T because she is so smart. And then just figure out how to be like hey guy… go away…
Asking someone who is more aware of the process makes sense. She could probably make a guess on how far he got and then you could calculate accordingly. And then just send him something like: “I really appreciate the work you’ve done for me so far, but unfortunately I feel like we just aren’t going to be a good match working on this project together, and I’m going to be finding someone else to work with. Since we got about 30% through it, I’d like to pay you 30% of what we agreed on originally. Thanks again for the work you’ve done for me so far.”
THANK YOU. That sounds so nice. I guess I was trying to justify my decision in my head, so it came out like “you screwed up here, here, and here, so …” But you are right, I don’t need to defend my decision! I can just state it! I’m literally going to copy/paste that and email it to him. Thank you so much 🙂 I can’t wait to post my site in the upcoming open threads!
Y’all, I need some coping advice. Short version: my boss dislikes me (no, really), and because of the politics of my org, he’s in a position to keep me from growing as an employee. He’s the decider. (The upside is that he mostly ignores me and I get a fair amount of good stuff done otherwise.) He’s retiring sometime next year.
My question: How do I not have an attitude when he pulls shit? I don’t want to quit, I just want to ride it out.
Keep a diary. Post about it here. These exercises will help shift your perspective. The goal is to be able to pity his pettiness and laugh at his ridiculous shit.
But, I’m not diminishing your struggle. I’ve been there. Please take care of yourself.
Also a diary could serve as documentation in the event the dislike takes an harassment/hostile work environment turn.
My suggestion is to try asking Ask A Manager! Or looking on there for relevant advice? (http://askamanager.org)
However in general, I honestly think if you don’t want to leave the job (which I’d recommend if it turns out he’s not gonna retire, he may put that off!) is to just remind yourself whenever he pulls shit that this will be over soon. “This will be over soon, he’ll be gone, and this will all get better.” You know, just breathe in and out, nod and smile, etc.
It really depends on what kind of stuff he’s pulling, though. Depending on what it is, you might want to go to another manager or someone higher up eventually.
Whether or not you do traditional meditation, if you can have a little mantra about this situation or this guy not really mattering to you, it may help you distance yourself from what is happening with him. Normally I wouldn’t advise a person to disengage like this, but if as you say he’s moving on next year, then what happens with him in the immediate future actually doesn’t really matter.
However, he may put things in writing or start little side convos that cast you in a less-than-stellar light, so I would work on your direct relationships with other co-workers and managers. Help with group projects where people can see your contributions and get their own personal first-hand experience that you’re an asset at work. Once this guy is gone, his workplace opinion will go with him.
Thank you to all the Hamiltoasts who decided to follow me on Tumblr. With you guys and your connections, my follower count went up way faster and higher than I ever expected, and I am having so much fun sharing my compulsive Hamilton love with other fans (aka Hamiltrash, not a term I love, but it’s what’s in use, so okay). Thanks and love.
Reminder: LMM guests on Jimmy Fallon tonight (11:35 EST).
More Hamilton and LMM content in reply.
Hamilton will be featured on 60 Minutes on Sunday. (Wow, don’t remember the last time I watched that.)
Here’s a short preview video http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/preview-hamilton/
If you feel like glorying in the loveliness (in multiple senses) of LMM, I recently posted a large-ish series for that purpose (um, called Reasons To Love Lin-Manuel Miranda *fangirl blush*). Sorry, I can’t get a direct link to it to work in a browser, but if you click the hastag under one of the posts that should take you to a page with the series entries at the top. Series includes the following:
Honestly, I think this is second only to Hamilton itself, and Ham4Ham, in making me a sudden and ardent LMM fan.
There’s this.
I would LOVE to see more of these. Anybody have links?
That cross-stitch!
need it need it need it
Found this one again, too!
I don’t have links to more of these but I would be willing to MAKE some of these and post them on tumblr and maybe sell them if ya’ll have ideas?
I would buy a Hamilton cross-stitch! Hmmn. I’d love something from Non-Stop or Wait for It; something from the King George songs would probably sell well too.
Honestly there are so many good lines and so many Hamilton-loving toasties that you probably can’t go wrong.
Ooh, I missed the tumblr-sharing thread. If you want to follow me my url is “caralarm-bicycles,” but I should say that I post more Hannibal (and general garbage that makes me laugh) than Hamilton.
I know there’s a few Hannibal fans around here!
HEY, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.
I could swear that I recently saw a *recent* piece where the Treasury was basically saying, off the record, that they’re basically on board with not getting rid of AHam and putting a woman somewhere else on currency. When I tried to find it again, all I could find was old pieces that were not the same thing. Any idea what I was looking at?
This definitely floated around Tumblr. If nobody else has found it by the time I’m off work tonight, I’ll look for it.
I saw that too and I also cannot find it. WHERE DID IT GO.
I gotcha. It’s hearsay, but…
http://howdoyouwritenonnnstop.tumblr.com/post/132…
It is crazy hard to find old Tumblr posts. I hate it. Awhile back LMM did several tweets about how stupid it was to take Hamilton and not Jackson off. Good luck finding those, though, too. I’m getting better at bookmarking things since I will not be able to find them again except maybe by endless scrolling.
THAT WAS THE THING.
I knew you’d know what the hell i was talking about!!!
I’m behind the curve on Hamilton (just haven’t had time/mental energy for a proper listen) and I still think Lucy Maud Montgomery whenever I see LMM. That’d be an interesting guest appearance.
Toasties!
I binged watched all of Carmillla this week but really the last two days. WHO WATCHES THIS GLORIOUS SHOW?? I’m absolutely irrevocably in love with Natasha Negovanlis. I would honestly marry her in a second. She’s likes burritos, I like burritos. she likes women, I like women. She likes wearing leather pants, I like watching her wear leather pants. THIS IS REAL LOVE GUYS AND IT COULD WORK.
Me me me! I’m a little behind on this season but what a show!
I am too old for the type of fangirl crush I have on Natasha Negovanlis. It’s a disaster. I keep having to go to Toronto for work and I spend the whole time like “what if I run into her???” and/or trying to figure out where I would have the best chance of running into her.
I know she works (or at least worked last year) at a restaurant. Cursory googling has not given me the name, but I fully support you figuring it out and then respectfully going to her restaurant and have her give you food and drink, and fainting. Because that is what I would do.
Yes, I’ve also tried to get clues to the restaurant from her various social media. She wrote a post for afterellen.com on queer Toronto, which I may have followed quite closely the last time I was there. I’m going up again next week, so I shall try again – in a non-stalkery kind of way, because I am a respectful and reasonable adult who just wants to look at her face.
Those are respectful and reasonable goals and if you are successful I expect you to share the full story, in every detail.
I’m in trouble at work.
Why? Because I like to put my feet up in the teacher’s lounge (obviously not in my classroom) and the facility manager as taken this as a PERSONAL OFFENSE. To the point of complaining to all my managers and HR, and suggesting heavily that my job is on the line.
🙁 🙁 🙁
Is it only the facility manager suggesting that your job is on the line? If it’s coming from that person and not your actual managers and HR, I’d take it with a grain of salt, i.e. they’re just trying to get back at you for whatever reason. I’d suggest just talking to your manager calmly about it. Don’t get defensive, just say something like you’re sorry if you crossed some sort of line by putting your feet up in the teacher’s lounge, you’re aware the facility manager is upset, you’ll try not to do again, and you just wanted to check in about it and make sure everything is okay?
It’s actually kind of a weird situation, in that neither my HR contact nor my educational supervisor work here. The facility manager’s supposed reason for existence is to open and lock the premises and make sure the computers all work, but his REAL reason is to be a spy about ridiculous things (e.g. Mary dragged the chair instead of picking it up, thereby scratching the wax on the floor) and snitch on us in a Soviet-era type way. If a supervisor who I respected told me to put my feet down, I would do it immediately, but this is a guy who knows nothing about me or the work I actually do with my students, leaving me disinclined to respect him, yet he has enormous power to dismiss me due to the influence he has with HR. (Another teacher who started around the same time I did got fired because she didn’t wear enough makeup, even though there are no official dress codes.)
I don’t want to suck it up and apologize to him because I feel like he is just this random useless person who has nothing to do with my work. But they’ve made it clear that our job here is about appearances and not actual performance.
/end rant
tl;dr Thanks for your advice, you’re entirely right about what I should say to him, I just don’t wanna!
The entire situation sucks… especially “got fired because she didn’t wear enough makeup”
Um… what??
Yup! It was an overall sloppy professional appearance thing, to be honest, because she would come to work like with wet hair, or wearing really casual sandals, but everyone else pretty much is sloppy too but with nicely braided hair and nicely painted fingernails and a full-ish face of makeup so we pretty much concluded that if Lisa had dressed sloppily but looked really feminine at the same time, she wouldn’t have gotten fired.
He didn’t even have the guts to fire her actually, he just told another coworker “Tell Lisa not to come back on Monday.”
Yup.
(Caveat: I’m American but not in the US which is why our HR sitch is a little strange, but these things are still egregious!!)
RIGHT!?!? How is that allowed?
What the hell kind of SCHOOL fires teachers for not wearing ENOUGH MAKEUP? BURN IT DOWN. BURN IT ALL DOWN.
(Employers who police and micromanage their employees’ appearance make me furious. Seriously, unless you’re the employer of supermodels or actors, if you’re obsessing over how your employees look then you’re a) being gross and creepy and b) probably doing a craptastic job of managing the more important things because you’re focusing on something irrelevant and pointless.)
Ugh, this sounds so much like the This American Life episode Petty Tyrant. (sorry, probably not useful!)
ugh!!!
I wouldn’t apologize to this person, because that just prolongs the situation, but I would never ever bring up the incident in words, and also never ever put my feet up in the break room again, to preserve the job.
(Of course, that’s what it is… the break room. For a break. I’m sorry you have to deal with this!).
Exactly! If I were, like, flashing my students, that’s one thing. But it’s the teacher’s lounge! A run down hidden little room with beat up old desks, and half the time I’m the only one in there!
This sounds TERRIBLE. I am currently working at a place like this and I have just decided that you can truly never be good enough, they will fire whoever they want because apparently they can replace anyone and I can’t stress over being perfect. It sounds really lazy, but I truly think the bosses in these situations have a large stack of applications and awful personalities.
I once got into the same kind of trouble–like, sternly spoken to by my coworker, who was tasked with passing along to me that my boss thinks I should be fired. (My desk was too messy.) My desk is literally the least messy due to my work vs everyone else’s. … So I tried to discuss it until I finally discovered it was my Kate Beaton” Hunks” mug that I put my pens in. (The “pen cup” from the previous receptionist was a four inch tall rectangular plastic thing probably intended to hold business cards, way too short for sharpened pencils, very ugly.) It was there for 8 months!
I also had an incident where a coworker said I bent over and she could see my whole ass and the boss called me away to yell at me very scarily. I pointed out my knee-length pencil skirt (that I interviewed in and the boss said that outfit was great for work) and my sitting all the time greatly suggested that scenario was false. She didn’t backtrack though… It is just not worth it.
Toasties, my partner has finally been to the doctor about his anxiety and depression issues, and has been put on sertraline (Zoloft to Americans). Does anyone have experience with that? Neither of us is doing well at the moment in terms of health, I’ve got severe ME/CFS (has anyone else here?) and it’s all getting hard to cope with.
Also I think the cat is disappointed in us for not being cats. When she is pouncing around the flat, she will get into a space that is absolutely fine for small cats and thoroughly inaccessible for humans, usually under a chair, and then expect us to get in there and pounce on her so that she can go charging off again.
Get a cat-poking stick? I poke mine with one of the feather-on-a-stick toys when they do that and that appears to be an acceptable pounce-substitute.
She has a wide variety of toys, and being a cat, prefers whichever is least practical for us to use at any given moment. I do wish she hadn’t gone off the huge wrestling toy I made her, that was awesome for burning off energy, not to mention that it was hilarious to drag it around the floor with a snarling cat attached and kicking it to death.
You know that thing in the Doctor Who episode “Blink” where the scary statues are a certain distance away from you, and then you look again and they are suddenly much closer to you, without looking like they should have moved? She did that earlier. Sat on the living room rug glaring up at me, then I looked down a moment later and she was in the exact same position but a foot closer. Then she *huffed*. My partner grabbed the wand toy, since it’s incredibly rare for her to huff and usually is caused by someone committing the crime of coming in smelling really strongly of Another Cat. She’s been in a bit of an odd mood lately, probably because the pair of us have been ill and tense, and perhaps not attending to our pouncing duties as wel as we should have.
Although she has also been super snuggly, which I’ve appreciated. I think she can tell when I’m really ill, she’s been known to herd me back to bed when I’m overdoing it. And if you’re going to be bedbound about 23 hours a day, you may as well have a small cat curled up on your lap, graciously permitting you to pet her little chin, and pouting with her ears whenever you turf her off to go to the loo. I’m so lucky to have the pair of them, I really am.
I’m on sertraline for anxiety and depression. It’s the first SSRI I tried and it works well for me. The first week or so I was on it and after moving to a higher dose I had some trouble sleeping and was kind of shaky-restless, but that’s the worst side effect I’ve dealt with.
Thanks. Does the sleeping trouble wear off? He’s probably better off taking it at 6.30 pm with his other meds because it took him long enough to get used to those, but his sleep’s been a bit off the last few nights and we’re not sure if it’s that. This morning he woke at 5 am and went and climbed a hill to see the sun come up (it was cloudy, but still). We’ve both been sleeping badly for weeks, and if one of us sleeps badly the other will, so by now we’re in separate beds half the time, and we’d love to stop having to do that.
The sleeping trouble wore off pretty quickly for me! Taking it earlier in the evening seemed to help.
What sort of time for the pills and for bedtime worked out for you? Currently he’s going for 6.30 and a bedtime of midnight.
Hmmn, I have about 4 hours between pills and bedtime. If he’s been on sertraline for longer than two weeks or so it might be worth asking about.
I’ve been on Sertraline for several years at this point, and I don’t sleep any worse on average than I did before I started taking it (although I take it in the morning – not sure if that would still be the case if I took it in the evening)
Zoloft worked really well for me up until it very much didn’t. When it was working, though, it was great.
How long did it work for, out of curiosity, and was it more for anxiety or for depression?
More for depression (Ativan as-needed for anxiety); it worked for about nine months. I was in the 18-24 age range where they warn for extra side-effects, though.
I could have sworn the website I read on sertraline said you can’t mix it with benzos. Is that OK, then? Because they’re really useful things for anxiety attacks.
I mean, I was prescribed them together, so I guess so? I don’t remember having any adverse side effects from that. But it was almost ten years ago, so the medical recommendations might have changed.
I’m on sertraline, too! I think it’s pretty great, tbh. I try to take it within the same 30-minute window every day. I know for some people they need to take it on a full stomach, but I haven’t had any problems. I *have* noticed that I can’t drink as much coffee anymore or it makes me very shaky.
On the whole, I’ve been pleased with it. I still have cycles of anxiety/depression, but they are never as bad, nor as constant, as they were before. <3 Best to you and your partner!!!
Glad to hear it! What happens if you’re wobbly with the timing? It’s not his strongest point.
If timing is hard for him, I strongly recommend setting an alarm as a reminder. I played around with it unintentionally, and the longer I wait to take it, the weirder/more “off” I feel. Skipping a day is right out – I only did that once, felt “off” the entire day, and was kind of a disaster the next day. For me, that half-hour window is crucial. I made sure it was a time that I would be awake and doing things, even on weekends, to make sure I remembered, but I still use an alarm now just in case.
He’s been setting an alarm for his warfarin for the two years that he’s been on it, he’s picked a sensible time of day, and he still struggles with it. Hence reckoning that he’d be better off taking the sertraline at the same time, since he’s reasonably used to that by now.
I managed to forget to refill my prescription a few weeks ago and experienced several days without it before I could start taking it again. The withdrawal effects were very noticeable. It took a few days, though. I don’t take it at exactly the same time every day, either (I have it with breakfast, but that varies depending on if I’m at work or if it’s the weekend), and that hasn’t been a noticeable problem for me.
My experience is pretty much exactly yours – I once forgot to bring my meds on a five-day trip, and I could definitely feel it by the end (the symptoms were pretty minor, but very noticeable). Now that I know what that’s like, I can identify the feeling as soon as 24 hours after missing a dose, but it’s very mild & unintrusive.
I was briefly on sertraline and it did make me feel less depressed! However, it also made me WIRED so I switched to something else. And that something else works a lot better. Sending good vibes to you and your partner. He may have to try a few meds before he finds the right one for him, everyone’s system reacts differently. But there will be a right one for him. I hope you feel better too.
Thank you! Yes, everyone I know who’s taken meds for mental illness has had to go through a few to find the best ones, it’s not a quick or easy process. I don’t think he’s wired, though his sleep’s been variable. Did you end up in the same drug group? I know when my GP tried me on Prozac for PMDD (severe PMS) (talk about a sledgehammer to crack a nut, I only get about two bad days every two months) I felt numb and disconnected on it, and she said, “That sort of side effect isn’t one of the ones that goes away, and it’ll happen for you with the whole group, so I’m taking you off it.” It turned out I just needed 2mg valium to take for the bad PMDD days, so I didn’t end up on long term meds.
No, after two SSRIs with weird reactions, my prescription was ultimately a different group. I’m glad you found one that works for you! My friend has PMDD, that shit is no joke.
It turned out that getting out of an abusive relationship did wonders for it. Who’d have thought. I do get the odd bad patch, but it’s pretty rare these days, and will be caused by having an exceptionally bad time in other ways. I just wish they’d let me try the valium at the start, rather than making me wait two years for it and putting me on really invasive meds in the meantime.
Yes I have been on sertraline for about 6 months now! I will say that I had diarrhea and weird poops for a while. Quite uncomfortable for the first few weeks, then it eased off gradually. For me that’s also tied to my anxiety so as my anxiety has eased, so has the stomach stuff!
Also it does take a while for you to feel the sort of brain effects, although I was primarily taking it for depression and almost right away there were no more suicidal thought spirals. Turned right off. I started it at the end of March, and in May I was trying to whistle the Hunger Games whistle and it was harder than usual… turns out I hadn’t been whistling in quite a long time. Or being silly. Then slowly have climbed out of that bad bout of depression :). But for me, it was slow. And I was foggy sometimes at first.
My advice, give it a chance but if it’s awful it’s awful and you can try another. I’ve actually just added bupropion (wellbutrin) in addition to the sertraline to get at the rest of those neurotransmitters.
Best of luck to you and to him! I hope you find some things that help.
Also tons of Toasties have experience with this, and helped me a lot last spring so this is a great place to ask 🙂
I’ve taken sertraline for the last…five years? and it’s completely changed my life for the better, definitely more than other antidepressants I’ve tried. Of course, everyone’s different, but if it’s right for him, it’ll be great. All the best to you both!
I just switched to sertraline (from citalopram) and it was like flipping a switch. My baseline mood went from “fml” to “this is pretty okay” in about a week. I did start getting a lot more physical anxiety symptoms, though – not jitteriness, but tension, to the point where my primary doctor made me get an EKG just to make sure it really was stress and not my heart.
I have fibromyalgia, which is quite similar to CFS, I think? And anxiety and depression. I was on and off sertraline for several years–it seemed to be the go to. I didn’t find it super-effective, especially for anxiety, but I didn’t have problems with side effects (and most of the times I was on there was so much *noise* from other stressors/physical pain it’s hard to give it too much of a verdict.) I would be cautious if there are no/bad results and they just keep upping the dose rather than trying something else, but it seems like it’s a pretty common place to start, ime.
I’m currently on a cocktail of cymbalta, welbutrin (bupropion), some pain meds (an opiate and an anti-inflammatory) and a teeny tiny bit of Adderal to combat the fatigue without making me more nervous, with a low dose of Xanax for acute anxiety situations. It’s. . .a work in progress? Livable, but not great? I’ve been helped a lot by my new psychiatrist, as opposed to my pain center doctor who is kind of awful.
Sorry you’re having a rough time. :gentle hug:
*hugs back* After a few years of complaining about my pain levels, I got a fibro diagnosis too. As far as I can tell, they’re very similar, except fibro is more about pain and ME is more about fatigue. Also you’re more likely to get a fibro diagnosis in the US and an ME diagnosis (often called CFS, but we’re trying to train them out of the whole “it’s just fatigue” mindset) in the UK.
I’m glad you have pain meds that work! I’m down to occasional tramadol and diazepam, but I can’t use it regularly, and my sleep’s still recovering from using it daily for three months. Everything else was side effect central. The TENS machine does seem to help, although I became allergic to the electrodes and I’m waiting for that to clear up before trying a different brand. Also I’ve raised the amount of curcumin and Omega 3 oils and my pain is noticeably very mild, so I think that may be helping. The pain centre doctor was dire for me as well. The gynae who referred me apologised profusely for how badly it all went! The local pain clinic doesn’t have a good reputation, although yelling at me for being a wheelchair user and visually impaired (which I’d told their office three times) was pretty low.
And yep, I know what you mean about the noise. It’s so hard to tell when you have a fluctuating condition, too. I’ve got symptom and medication logging spreadsheets down to a fine art by now. Graphs are fun!
Things are a lot better than they were a few weeks ago, when certain portions of my anatomy were trying to up and kill me, so I’m zonked but relieved. Hopefully this flare will pass and I’ll be able to do exciting things like see my friends again, and perhaps even make it to the pub!
My pain meds are still iffy, but having cycled through “but. . .you shouldn’t need more than an advil to go to class” to “sometimes students develop these problems when they don’t want to work”(at the time I had all As at a school known for hard grading) to “Let’s try Neurontin. 4 pills not working? Let’s try 8! You’re having panic attacks with hyperventilation, can’t stop crying, and throwing up after 1 out of 3 attempted meals? Let’s try 20!” [four years later, oh hey, this needs a black box warning for risk of suicide/suicidal ideation] to begging the campus health center to let me go to the ER and them forcibly tearing the prescription and the four pills out of my hand to “hey, let’s give you huge amounts of a Tylenol derivative, that’s totally safe” to “and hey, let’s add some Fentanyl patches–did you know you could actually use a box of these to murder someone?” to “Well, if you DON’T want to need two four hour naps to function, what do you expect me to do” to now a fairly predictable loop of “my pain is slightly/significantly worse, can we try anything else? Nope! Same prescription–remember to come back in three months, not to see me, but to wait four hours to be given a refill scrip after being treated like a drug addict, lied to, and occasionally called a bitch by the nursing staff.”
Huh. apparently I needed to vent about that today! The only reason he ever added the anti-inflammatory was because I had a pinched nerve, but since it isn’t a restricted drug, I just keep calling in refills and the interns keep signing off on them.
My therapist is trying to find me a less horrible pain doctor, but there don’t seem to be any well-regarded candidates in the city. 🙁
*further hugs* It is SO SHIT, isn’t it. I’m currently being given the runaround by my home care agency, who are quite happy to let bullying go on for months and months but not so happy with my support workers providing assistence with my medication, in a way that’s totally OK according to the Care Inspectorate. When I realised my last support team leader was actually gaslighting me, and had been for a while, I asked for a new one, and hah, she’s no end of fun.
Anyway, yeah, pain meds are a nightmare, and so are the doctors going with them. I was put on gabapentin (neurontin) and no one mentioned that it’s scary stuff, so when I read that high dosages were sometimes great for ME, we merrily took it up to 3000mg. Thankfully the side effects were merely severe, rather than the hell on earth I’ve had with a few other things (metochlopramide was horrific), and it wasn’t doing anything for pain, so it was time to come off it. I now know that tapering by 300mg a week was far too fast. The withdrawal went on for about six months, including after I stopped it, and was absolutely horrendous. The only support I got was from a benzo withdrawal forum. Oh, and codeine isn’t addictive, did you know?! That bit of helpful advice was from a GP when I rang to say that I was getting withdrawal symptoms after taking it for a week straight and then stopping.
Is there any non-drug stuff you find helpful? Things I am currently playing with include heat pads, ice packs (though I’ve learned the fun way that if I put them somewhere where I’ll tense up the muscles in the area, that’ll make the pain worse), TENS when my skin will permit, and very gentle stretches. The annoying thing about ME is that it’s made worse by exertion, so exercise is a very delicate business. Some people swear by hot baths, and I do have a lovely new walk-in bath that’s big enough to share comfortably (my partner and I usually end up talking about theatre in there, he’s a playwright), but the pain relief doesn’t seem to last past the bath, plus I have dysautonomia and the heat can nab me. Still, that’s quite a collection, I’m getting somewhere. I’m eyeing up boswellia to try next, although right now the pain really is fine, which is either luck or something I’m taking.
And the whole “let’s treat you as a criminal by default” thing is vile, isn’t it. My city council were late sending out my Taxicard, and when I asked for a replacement, because I now didn’t have a working one and I really needed the discount on taxi fares, they not only lied and said they’d sent out a replacement when they hadn’t, they snootily informed me that they only send them out a week before the old one expires, by second class post, because if someone had two Taxicards at once, who knows what fraud they could perpetuate! (Answer: none at all, you only have 104 journeys a year and they’re all logged.)
Despite the ranting I am actually having a nice evening. We made fabulous Mexican food for supper, then I messed around melting dark chocolate and peanut butter together and putting it in little silicone mould thingies, and have just discovered the wondrous show that is iZombie.
I’m on sertraline, and have been since high school. When I first started taking it, all food tasted different, but that went away, and now I’m a functional adult, which is nice.
I’ve been on sertraline for a few years, and it works very well for me. I experienced minor side effects when starting it (jaw clenching, shaking, dizziness), but they passed after a few weeks and I’m fine on a day-to-day basis. I tried going off it for just under a year, but it became very clear that it was helping – I don’t feel noticeably happier, exactly, but it was obvious when I wasn’t taking it that I was getting overwhelmed by stuff more easily and finding it harder to cope. When I’m taking it, I’m more resilient.
Thank you for starting this thread! I also just started sertraline and it is very helpful to see other experiences. I’m super dizzy and wired today and I was blaming it on the coffee, but it’s probably a combination of caffeine and new drugs. Bodies/brains are weird.
I have a question for techie Toasties.
I’ve been taking some coding lessons from Code Academy. At first, it was very grudgingly done since I did it because I was “supposed” to. But! I find that I really like HTML and CSS. And SQL. I need a lot of practice with both, but I’m slowly working on it.
Other than doing tutorials, does anyone have suggestions on how to improve upon those skills? Which other languages to explore? And so on. I’m not sure what I want to do with those skills career wise. I have intermediate skills in Illustrator and Photoshop. I have a Library degree that I will never use for traditional libraries, but I hear having SQL and Python will help with research and database jobs.
SQL is great. Learn by doing. Take something that you know there is already a database for and see how well you can model your own. Try to think of the hardest queries you can come up with. Trading card games like Pokemon or Magic are fantastic starter projects.
Great advice! Do you know of any sites online where I can practice? Code Academy has the tutorial but I need to pay to practice. It’s not expensive but since I’m unemployed right now, I’d rather not spend if I can avoid it.
Microsoft offers a free version of SQL Server called SQL Server Express. The installation may be a little tricky, but you can find lots of help online and it’s good experience learning how to actually install and manage the SQL Server software itself.
Wow, thanks!
You can also install xampp on a computer or flash drive and play with your own little Linux server and database setup to your heart’s content. (Just don’t open it up to the web without changing the security settings, it’s made for local testing.)
I am so here for this. Nothing necessarily to contribute but I’ve been learning Swift and really into it, so I’d love to hear what others are up to!
You might want some Javascript alongside HTML/CSS. With my MLIS and self-taught HTML/CSS, I ended up in information architecture/user experience. If that field is interesting to you at all, you might look into it. There are lots of boot camps and whatnot. (Hit me up on Facebook if you want to talk about it more — I’m the admin on the Seattle Toasts group, you can find me there)
Sweet, thanks! I’ll contact you tonight or tomorrow.
Oh yeah, JavaScript is pretty much required for the modern web.
You’ll never learn more than you will by building your own personal website, in my experience. It’s so much fun tweaking templates and designing stuff, even if it’s literally just a place to experiment and try stuff. If you don’t need a portfolio site for your own career, you could just pick a topic you’re jazzed about and devote a website to it.
Can you point me to sites where I can practice that? I was thinking of creating an Author’s page for fun (nothing published yet but I can dream).
You can save the HTML and CSS files to your hard drive and view them locally to see how they’d look on the actual internet. Or if you’re building in a CMS, you can install that in XAMP or another local server.
Very true! Or you could join a site like WordPress, and practice by choosing one of their themes and altering it to suit your needs and design preferences. To me, the benefit of this is that you get to see working, functioning code, and by fiddling around with it, you can see what either changes or breaks it. This, to me, is more fun and useful than starting from scratch, because when you’re building from scratch you can only build what you know how to build. Someone else’s code can give you ideas and show you possibilities you didn’t know about.
Getting a little webspace to put up a personal page and experiment isn’t tough at all but if you like realtime feedback and don’t like commitment there’s also https://jsfiddle.net/
Or you can do what I did starting out and trying to get the hell out of the landscaping business, take a bunch of small-business Craigslist gigs and figure out how to actually do the job by, like, doing it. People have slightly higher these days than they did when I was starting out and you could still see <marquee> tags roaming the wild but, really, not that much higher.
Github pages? https://pages.github.com/
I’m sort of techie!
I’m a digital producer (often also known as a Business Analyst for some reason, although the specifics can be different), which is basically organizing everyone else to build websites/software. If you’re in anyway project management inclined, its a pretty good gig. You don’t need to be able to build or design websites, but knowing how that is done is pretty important. Skills like basic HTML/CSS, JQuery, Photoshop, Illustrator are all really handy!
I started my job knowing nothing about tech at all, and I’ve picked it all up. I did a few code academy courses, but discovered that coding hurts my brain a lot! One of the best things I find to learn about code is to go in a mess with other peoples code (in a safe environment! Don’t mess with live sites!!), have you tried inspecting elements on websites (F12 in Chrome), it lets you see all the code and you can mess with it a bit, and if you refresh it just goes back to normal!
Same thing with Photoshop/Adobe CS, I’ve learned a lot by taking other peoples PSDs/site designs and messing with them, I can’t create anything from scratch, but I’m a proficient copy & paster.
Other than that, I found that after a few courses I felt like I needed a project or something that would make me practice these skills, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. Messing with Themeforest templates is one of the things I’ve done, and its definitely helped my reading of code!
I never knew about that feature in Chrome. I may have to learn a little more than basic HTML before I try messing with sites. I look at some websites on Firefox through CTL-U and that makes my brain hurt.
Go for it because you can always refresh the page to undo what you’ve done! You can change little bits of CSS and see how it interacts with the site.
And if you play with templates and such, just remember to always keep a back up and only nmake one change at a time, that way you’re usually safe if you screw it up!
Although coding hurts my brain, I actually quite like reading other peoples code to see how they’ve done things
You should check out the Code4Lib mailing list/discussion groups. Lots going on Twitter, too, that deal with tech-y library things like data munging and database administration. If you’re interested in Python, I know there are many many Python meet-up groups, including lots specifically for women (if that applies to you.) Code with friends!
Is research and databases the kind of field you want to go into? I don’t really know what kind of skills you need for that.
But if you like CSS and HTML and want to build more frontend web development skills, learning some basic PHP and Javascript would be the next step. And then learning how to tweak and build themes in a CMS like WordPress (you’d need some basic PHP skills for that).
Python is good to learn, I like the language especially since it’s notation is more colloquial than other programming languages. You can sometimes find tutorials / projects around various places. I’m not sure the best ways to improve other than, try to set yourself problems to solve / projects and figure out how to do it in the language.
Oh yeah! To any Oregon residents, you can use the Treehouse tutorials for free: https://teamtreehouse.com/code-oregon
I’ve been learning Python through the Python for Everybody specialization on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/python
(You can pay if you want a certificate at the end or you can take courses for free.)
I like it because it’s just enough structure that I don’t procrastinate too much, but still easy to go at your own pace.
I am not sure where I am going with this, but I am also an MLIS grad with some self-taught HTML/CSS who probably won’t work in a traditional library setting (right now I do web content management and some information architecture). I just know I like messing around with code and learning about what you can do with data.
Python is a really useful language (at least in my field) and also a good language to learn best coding practices and algorithms/data structures in, because writing python is basically like writing pseudocode.
I first learned Python from Google’s excellent class and still refer back to the lectures and exercises they have.
If you’re interested in algorithms and data structures, wikipedia is actually a great resource. They have pseudocode for all the major search and sort methods, which you can use as a jumping off point. Also, I happen to know that the lazy interviewer’s go-to coding question is “explain me your favorite sort algorithm” so job-wise, they’re not a bad thing to brush up on.
Hope this kinda helps! I’m coming from an electrical engineering background, if that helps contextualize things, and live with/am friends with pure CS people.
Coursera has some fun Python classes and may well cover other langs. Highly recommend them.
Might learn PHP to go with the SQL (this was the stack at my last job). Python is also good. Beyond that, have you seen My First Commit? It’s a Twitter account that links to Github projects that need help, and points out things that beginner coders can help with.
Alternatively, I’m doing the Ruby on Rails Skillcrush right now, and think it’s really great! They’re very career-oriented, and if nothing else you should check out their blog. They’re all about women in non-tech fields learning tech skills for jobs.
JOB SCREWUP UPDATE: Despite getting yelled at by a patient for ten solid minutes, this week was infinitely better than last week. I have implemented new things for keeping organized (god I love color-coded spreadsheets), and my meeting with my supervisor is this afternoon.
Last week felt like having to rebuild a jenga tower under a serious time crunch, but the tower is rebulit, and I’ve caught up with myself, and everyone seems to regard the whole thing as “yeah, that was a bad week, but it’s done now”. As far as I’m concerned, this is the best possible outcome.
Fingers crossed things go well this afternoon.
UPDATE: THE MEETING WENT FINE. My supervisor was super helpful and brought things up in a non-judgmental, non-blame-y way that didn’t send me into a guilt spiral (and I am SO SENSITIVE so she did a super good job), and I am so thankful to have this job you guys. She understood that I had a ton of things all pile onto me when I came back from being sick, and I just feel so grateful right now what do I even do with myself.
We’re meeting again next week to check how things are going, and I’m not terrified it’ll all go wrong. Bless you all, fellow toasts, and I wish you all the best this weekend.
Wow, I’m early enough to be on the first page! Holy crap so this is what life on the East Coast feels like!
I moved to Brooklyn this month from LA and I miss LA like crazy and I’m skeptical of NY. Which since I also do not have a job I can’t unskeptical about because everywhere costs money to go. But Tuesday my cat officially got here which marks the 3rd eventful Tuesday in a series- arrival in NY, arrival of furniture in a pod and arrival of cat.
Did anyone move to NY skeptical about the whole NY thing? how did that work out? I moved here for love and love alone and while I’m sure I’ll carve out a real good life here given time, I don’t know that I’ll ever care for NY. I’d like advice from people who never fell in love with the city but still made it work. I’ve been pitching the idea of us getting really rich and being bicoastal OR moving to Europe just because, and he seems mildly receptive to it. But in the meantime…NY…how to find a grudging sort of peace?
Any recommended things to do in NY when you are slowly draining yourself of money while you job hunt?
Also I tried to join the NY Hairpin Toast FB group and sent them an email and never got one back. What does that mean?
try emailing again, Marie is a goddess.
go to the museums that are free/suggested donations! i am not really helpful because I grew up on LI and cannot imagine not living in NYC. I also find it helpful to remind myself everyone is just doing the best they can, and avoiding midtown at all costs.
I’ve sent like three emails in the past couple of months and still have a pending join request….? It’s kind of killing me to keep seeing everyone post this group and then not be approved. 🙁
I’ve sent at least two emails (maybe more?) and still have a pending request too. It’s … well, it’s really uncool.
Ah, I’m sorry, that’s a bummer. I had no idea that was an ongoing issue! 🙁
So it’s not just me, wow! I was like wondering, “Oh no, did someone read my posts and deem me not cool enough for the group so they’re just ignoring my response?” or something? But if it’s a bunch of people that makes me feel less stupid about it!
Maybe we can all batch apply again? Is there a way we could do that? Is someone in the group willing to be like, hey I recommend all these people to join, they’re the real deal? Or make a group called, people who want to join that group?
Fear not, potential new friends! I have brought this to Marie’s attention and she is working on it. (And yes, having to wade through a ton of spam and bot attention first.) But welcome in advance!
I moved to NYC for job and LOVED IT FROM DAY ONE, so I might not be super helpful. But one of my favorite things to do in NYC regardless of how much money I have available to me is to hop on the subway, get off in a neighborhood I don’t know, and ramble around. I might set aside a small amount of money for treats or shopping while doing this, but mostly it’s an exercise in “ooh, this store is cute!window shopping” and admiring the buildings and people watching.
(I also never heard back from the NY Hairpin Toast FB group. I’ve emailed more than once. It makes me sad.)
For non-bank-account-draining New York fun, The Skint is a good resource. They post daily listings of events that are either free or cheap–so everything from academic talks to art gallery openings with complimentary wine to free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s.
Also, the Nonsense NYC newsletter is a huuuuuge weekly email roundup of stuff that’s going on, most of it sort of weird and/or indie.
I fully support the idea of finding new neighborhoods to wander around and explore. One of the things I’ve noticed about NY (at least as I experience it) is that the more familiar I am with the city, the more I appreciate it. Like, it goes from “I am a tiny cog in a giant impersonal machine help how do I even” to “this is my place and I have conquered it and I know its insider secrets.”
Yeah I’m sure that will be the case. But…at the same time…NY feels sort of unnecessary to me. I resent it for not being LA and for having such a big ego and being cold and loud. What new neighborhoods do you like?
PS thank you for those links, they’re awesome. i just jumped right to being like, ugh ugh, instead of appreciating the good stuff.
For exploring, I like any Chinatown (Manhattan or Sunset Park, and yes I know about Queens but it is really far for me so I don’t head over there often). I usually end up buying random pastries and snack foods I’m not sure I’ve identified correctly. For scenic wandering, Prospect Park for sure. (If I recall correctly, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens are still free on Tuesdays.) Also an A+ spot for picnicking when it’s warm out. (…I am increasingly realizing that most of my go-to activities involve food of some sort.)
The High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park are also nice walks, and there are a bunch of areas of Queens and south Brooklyn that feel very neighborhood-y and almost suburban rather than big and loud.
Not NYC, but I moved to Chicago after grad school despite vowing that I would Never Live In Chicago (I’m from the midwest, but always resented the Chicago Hype). Anyway, it took about 2 years before I realized that I really love it. I just had to find my people and places that made it worth it.
Irony of irony, I love Chicago its on the list of cities I’d be happy to move to even though it’s cold.
Where in Brooklyn are you living? I can base recommendations on that! I just moved to LA from Brooklyn, so now that I don’t live there I am full of affection for it and can hopefully help you love the things I love!
Bushwick, and I’m jealous of your move, I hope you love LA and let me know if you need recommendations. Are there good places in brooklyn to drive a car to and walk around in?
WHAT! A BUSHWICK TOASTIE?!!?? I’m happy to give you recommendations of neighborhood things! Send me a message on twitter or instagram (my info is in my intensedebate profile).
Will do, but in the meantime, where’s the nearest library that you actually like being in? Is there a gym with swimming pool around here? Where is the closest grocery that has real asian food, not like, one sad made in the US gyoza selection, but lemongrass and tubs of kimchi and freezers full of dumplings? Is it behind me in queens up myrtle? It feels like it might be.
That area of Queens up Myrtle (Ridgewood) is primarily Polish, not so much Asian. For Japanese groceries, I usually go to Sunrise Mart near St. Marks in Manhattan because it’s easy access to the L train (I also commute through that area). If you’re near the Myrtle/Wyckoff L/M, there’s a bus that goes to Flushing which has Chinese groceries. Also check out Jackson Heights in Queens which has a little of everything (which is more of a pain to get to from Bushwick, but worth it if you want all sorts of asian ingredients).
I’ve got no idea about gyms with pools because I can’t swim! But I know there is a YMCA in Greenpoint off the L. I don’t think any of the Bushwick gyms have pools.
I very rarely go to the library so unfortunately I’m not sure I can answer that one either. Sorry!
There are a bunch of little Brooklyn Public Library locations around here (I’m in Bed Stuy, close to Bushwick, hello!). The central location is probably biggest & best, but the location on Bushwick Ave. is cute (though small), if I don’t want to trek to the main location I go to that one.
I am not Asian but have heard good things about Sunrise Mart from friends who are, so seconding that!
I know nothing about gyms.
alsoooo, I love Bushwick though it looks like most commenters here don’t!
I will say that something that helped me a lot when I moved here is realizing how drastically different the neighborhoods are – my friend who moved here & lived in the Upper West Side had a vastly different experience from my friend who lived in Park Slope, who had a vastly different experience from me in Bed-Stuy. It may help to spend some time in different neighborhoods and learn which ones you like best.
Ohh. Bushwick. Bummer. (Sorry, other friendly toastie who lives in Bushwick).
But you have a car! Go to Red Hook! Go hang around on Valentino Pier and walk down Van Brunt Street and eat all the free samples at Fairway. In general, South Brooklyn is most of what I’ll recommend these days– Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens are all beautiful to walk around in too. I was last living in Prospect Heights and that’s also great– you can go to the botanic garden and the Brooklyn Museum and Prospect Park.
I also really really recommend getting a bike if you think you might enjoy that at all. Biking around Brooklyn is the #1 thing I miss because LA is terrifying to bike long distances in.
If you happen to be really into lefty politics, meditation, radically progressive Christianity or performance art, I could recommend some of the places that I made friends.
I am into 3/4 of those things! Also like, progressive/people-of-color/queer people friendly yoga studios, if you know of any? I live in BK Heights.
Which three? I guess I’ll just tell you about all four:
1. Lefty politics, there’s a bi-weekly get-together called Drinking Liberally at the 4th Avenue pub. I haven’t been involved in quite a long time though, so can no longer vouch for the coolness of the people involved (it was. . .variable but overall good). Also I was involved in Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, if you’re of the Jewy persuasion.
2. Friday Night Zen at the Brooklyn Zen Center! Such a great group of people, combo discussion and meditation geared towards the 20s-30s age group.
3. http://www.parablesnyc.org
4. Panoply Performance Lab!
Coming up short on yoga studios, unfortunately.
YOU HAVE A CAR. Go to an Asian neighborhood (go to FLUSHING) where there are insane Chinese supermarkets and buy all the things. Then, go to Edgewater to the fancy Japanese supermarket (sashimi flown in from Japan) and Newark for the crazy Portuguese supermarket and Jackson Heights for the Indian supermarkets – all of which are for most New Yorkers some loooong subway treks.
Also moved to NYC for love. Soon will be 4 years and I don’t love the city, though the husband is great. I am still working on how to cope with this but some things that have helped are finding places that make me happy and making a point to go there, e.g., Museum of Natural History, Cloisters Museum. Museum memberships to Met an AMNH are relatively cheap. I think I find lack of nature the most difficult. I try to explore the wilder parts of the parks and go out of town when possible. Last winter I willingly endured a lecture from my boss and asked for a vacation day RIGHT NOW so I could go walking in a snowstorm. Initially I had to have some little talks with myself and my husband on defining my own identity–I feel in NYC there is a lot of pressure to fit in to one group or another (ironic since there are so many people who come here to ‘be themselves’) and I had to remember that I worked hard to make myself into the kind of person I want to be. For example, I went to one fabulous dinner with a wine club where everyone was talking about the fortunes they spend on private preschool or how they had just built a garage to hold their classic car collection at their Hamptons home, and I had to squeeze my husband’s hand and tell myself, “I’m just here because I like wine.”
Want to be friends? I would enjoy talking to someone who likes wine, hates East Coast snobbery (I grew up in it, I’m allowed to call it out) and misses being able to just go outside. I want to go to the greenhouses that I read about on the internet, it seems like there’s at least one in the bronx and maybe one in brooklyn?
I’m pretttttty sure the Brooklyn botanical gardens has a greenhouse for winter. It’s also free on Saturday mornings between 10-12 in addition to Tuesdays!
Sure, let’s be friends! Actually another thing I did to feel more at home in the city is cultivate a garden on my terrace, so I am definitely up for greenhouses.
I moved to NY for school eight years ago. Before that, I didn’t really think I’d ever want to live in this city, but the program was too good to turn down, and I figured I could leave after graduation if I hated it.
Spoiler: I’m still here. I like it fine and have a pretty great life here, but I’m not obsessed with the city or anything. I’d happily move to a number of other places if I got a job offer or something, but my industry is pretty heavily based in NYC and that’s not super likely.
I notice from the thread that you’re in Bushwick, which…sorry. It seems hard to get to know the city from such a distant neighborhood. Is it possible to justify the cost of a monthly metrocard? That would open so many doors as far as exploring and finding your people/places.
Moving here as we approach winter is also a little tricky, but if you don’t actually mind the weather, the parks are pretty great. I don’t even mean Central Park, which is constantly full of tourists, but Prospect Park and Riverbank/Riverside Parks and Brooklyn Bridge Park. And I second everyone’s recommendations to just walk through various neighborhoods – I like the East and West Villages for that, and also Williamsburg, which would be closer for you.
And I’m also one who emailed to join the FB group and never got a reply. It’s been ages.
I moved here because boyfriend got into grad school despite never having really felt any pressing need to live here. I complained a lot about how everything smelled weird and there are no trees and no animals other than disgusting pests and toothpaste is like $7 and my apartment is miniature. All of these things are still true. But it has still somehow grown on me tremendously! Like a weird subway fungus. Sorry, that’s not very encouraging. There is sort of this weird vibe about NYC that people are like “YOU MUST LOVE IT MORE THAN LIFE AND MONEY ITSELF OR YOU WILL NEVER BE HAPPY” and that’s just not true, it is entirely possible to be somewhat ambivalent but still mostly happy if slightly poorer than you would be elsewhere.
I follow The Skint, Brokelyn, and NonsenseNYC for stuff to do, plus Time Out NYC and DNAinfo. Also take lots of walks and make excuses to poke around unfamiliar neighborhoods – I’m not great at just going somewhere for no reason, but if I found an article that, say, the best cannolis in NYC are out in Bushwick, I would take a mini day trip out there.
Also trying to join the FB group and not hearing back probably just means our beloved overseer is backed up on requests, but as someone mentioned, a post has been made in the group and it will probably be addressed soon.
Oh I hope everyone in this thread sees this! I am the ghost responsible for the FB group, and am desperately backed up with new members. I know you are all waiting, and I am very truly sorry for keeping you in limbo this long.
The short version is it’s a combination of Facebook limitations for the group and being besieged by bots trying to join.
The long version involves an anthropomorphic eel and dating mixers.
I’ll be clear very soon, I swear.
Tooooasts here are my Friday feels, they are all about dudes which, sorry, not my normal style but a lot more is happening in that area of my life than usual so???? (Also they provide excellent fodder for hilarious text strings with my lady friends, which is entertaining.)
Trying to restrain myself from texting new sex friend about how much I missed him while he was out of town and how eager I am to see him AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Because sanity.
In effort to distract myself from above, last night I briefly succumbed to the affections of a stranger in a bar 7 years younger than me. I don’t normally do these things but he was controlling the juke box on his phone and stole me a sandwich from an obnoxious corporate party, so he seemed worthy. This morning he texted me a gif of 2 pugs wrestling like “this should be us.” What is life.
OH ALSO a long distance creep from the past is in town this weekend maybe? Basically nothing ever happened between us, he acted like it was this epic romance, I cooled out a little bit because WHOA dude grip yourself, then he “dumped” me when we weren’t actually dating, and I’ve been blowing him off for months. And now I’m getting the MOST passive “oh hey hi random thing made me think of you” / FB event invites to stuff in my city. Feel like he’s going to leap out from behind a bush this weekend like “OH WOW WHAT A COINCIDENCE.” Uggghhh.
SEX FRAAAAND WHERE ARE YOU
Thank you, Toast, for providing me with a safe space to dump this nonsense.
I really like the pug person 😮
Pug person sounds fab! Tell us more, and have fun! Block the fuck out of creepy dude, though. I had a guy like that after me when I was 17 or so, he was a couple of years older and in uni. I admit to one dinner, and snogging him one evening when bored, but that was it, we were never in a relationship. He sent me love letters from uni for ages, with hand prints from his four year old brother in them. Eventually I heard by the grapevine that he was going to send me a one year anniversary present, and realised that I needed to be more direct. A while later his mother (who was DEEPLY weird) cornered mine in the supermarket and said, “There was no need for AnnaHowe to be so RUDE to poor Ben!” (Everyone I attracted at that age was called Ben, I have no idea why.) Oh yes there was! And I really wasn’t rude, I think I just said, “Look, we’re not actually going out together, do you realise that?” This is back in the late nineties, so long before Facebook and online dating.
I like that you use “sex friend.” I have a gentlemen friend I’ve known for 6 years. We first went straight into a romantic relationship, I think because we have a crazy strong sexual connection, but realized we didn’t really match that way for several reasons, including long-term partner relationship goals. We are close friends, know each other incredibly well, connect very strongly together over important elements in our lives, have physical affection, support each other and call each other out when we need it, and have sex regularly. Talk on the phone every night, meet once or twice a week. We’ve both put a lot of work into communication, intimacy, and honesty with ourselves and each other in this.
I do not know what to call this. I guess it is most accurate to say we are friends and lovers, but in most situations it’s not acceptable to just come out and say it. I alternate between calling him a friend or a boyfriend, depending on the situation. Even though I see other people–well, intend to–casually and would like to pursue a serious partnered relationship and have a family someday. Probably.
Anyway anyone else in similar situation?
As a side note, we are different races and very different ages and backgrounds, in a very segregated and racially stratified city. I… like that? I feel like I would be missing out on so much if we were more similar in those ways. I also sometimes enjoy confronting people with us when we’re in public, just by being normal together. ‘Cause. I don’t know. ‘Cause we have a long way to go.
Toasties, please share with me any excellent places to buy wedding dresses online that aren’t budget-breaking. I’d like to buy one online because of the millions of options, but I’m having trouble determining which websites are scammy! Thank youuuu!
If you don’t want a massive traditional wedding dress I’d check out Modcloth. They have a nice selection of cute, lacey dresses both long and short that make fun vintage-style wedding dresses and right now they’re 20% off of orders over $100. http://www.modcloth.com/shop/vintage-wedding-dres…
I looooove Modcloth, I’m just not super into any of the white dresses they have up right now. 🙁 Thanks though!
I lucked out on eBay, actually, which is nice because seller reviews!
I mean, what kind of wedding dress do you want?
You can also rent! I wish I was in the states, I would be renting the runway allll the damn time. I wanted to wear that gold sequinned Badgley Mishka cowlback dress for my wedding, which you can rent, but instead I’m dropping all the cash on some custom local job.
I’d love to rent, but I’m doing an outdoor wedding on a hiking trail (my fiance and I are both avid hikers) and the plan is to have a photoshoot that might get the dress dirty, and I figured it was safer to buy in case it got damaged.
I’m looking for something short and with either straps or sleeves and a floofy skirt.
Oh man adorable! (Both the wedding and the dress)
Sorry, I don’t have a great suggestion, except to consider separates (such cute floofy tulle skirts out there, and then you also can control the top better). My brothers intended I think is buying a floofly tulle skirt from a local designer for like $200? And honestly it will look very cute with a simple tank or tee and/or cardigan, if that’s your kind of thing.
The wedding planning subreddit seems to have a lot of people who buy online – they may have ideas.
Oh I completely forgot to look at reddit! I mentally assume it’s all guys arguing about libertarianism, but it makes sense that there would be a wedding planning subreddit with an online-buying focus. Thank you for the suggestion, I’m going to check that out!!
The skirt is a good idea too, but I’ve been trying for a dress because I’d have to think about TWO articles of clothing for a skirt and a top, at least you get it all over with at one with the dress.
I know people who’ve had really good luck with eBay, especially if they have a particular brand or at least style in mind, as long as you can find a seller with a good rep and return policy.
Since you want short and not super-frilly/formal, you also might have luck searching for “reception dresses”–a friend of mine who wanted short did that, and I think she spent around $200 (and saw some that were cheaper). David’s Bridal even has some kind of cute ones, IMO.
(have never been a bride; this is just observational/second-hand.)
BHLDN can get awfully $$$ but they have at least one super pretty dress that is short, floofy-skirted, non-strapless and in your budget.
What is your budget, if you don’t mind sharing?
Less than $300, ideally more like $150 but I know how this stuff goes.
I (boringly) got mine from J Crew for under $300, and was really happy with it. They have lots in their sale right now (and also, a wedding jumpsuit, which I am super jealous of). Good luck!
I got a J.Crew dress too! It was actually a bridesmaids dress in ‘champagne’ and was suuuuper cheap on sale–like $100-ish?
Definitely look at reception dresses, or even bridesmaid dresses–they tend to be less frilly and come in a zillion colors.
Sadly, I think most of the websites are scammy. I found that the name of the site in the address bar for most of them was completely different from the name of the site according to the page.
I did find while I was looking for my dress (in person) that there are some white bridesmaids dresses out there that were definitely fancy enough for a wedding dress, and they were in the $100-$200 range.
Ooh, I just went through this myself. My reasoning goes, if you can’t find reviews from actual real live humans for a given vendor–preferably detailed, preferably WITH PICTURES–then nope. If it seems too good/cheap to be true, it probably is. Also, is the vendor located in China? You’re getting a shitty sweatshop knockoff of an actual designer dress, and the photo they used to advertise almost certainly depicts the original high-end version, not their version.
One place I was considering was this shop that is located in the UK but ships to the US–I did not end up buying from them, but they seemed fairly legit.
(What I ended up doing in the end was going to David’s Bridal, trying on all the short dresses they had, and choosing the one that was on sale and most approximated the look I was going for.)
I got my dress at Dillard’s, just in the party section. I didn’t end up with white, but one of the ones I tried on was super-adorable white with poofy flowery skirt… Of course who knows what’s available now, but it’s an option!
Nordstrom! The special occasion section, not the wedding section. In person is nice because they have in store alterations available, but I think they also do free round trip shipping if you go online. I bought my short, with straps and flouncy skirt wedding dress from them for about $150 and it was an entirely delightful experience (I think they are having a sale right now too)
I just bought my wedding dress there! I think it was supposed to be some kind of bridesmaid dress and is white/beige and cocktail length. It was more like $350, but still a bargain to my mind compared to “real” wedding dresses. Plus if I become too pregnant by December to wear this size (oops), I can easily exchange it for the next size up. Nordstrom has an excellent return policy.
Do NOT buy from the Chinese company Milanoo, which is all over ebay under many different names. Definitely google the name of any store for reviews, ESPECIALLY ebay shops.
Milanoo is well-known among Japanese fashion enthusiasts for being awful. They steal images from other companies to use as their own, don’t deliver on time, and whatever you get will look nothing like the image on the website.
I know they do bridal, and will advertise custom sizing for cheap cheap cheap. A good friend of mine didn’t know how awful they were and got her bridesmaid dresses there–and they were basically all unwearable. And I remember thinking, Oh honey, I wish I’d known, I would have warned you away.
Lovely Toastsicles, I need to vent for a moment about a problem that is not really so much a problem as an accumulation of small annoyances/grievances over years.
So, my MIL is a…complicated woman, let’s say that. She is astoundingly great at negging, tends to completely ignore filters/boundaries, but can turn all that around and be kind, generous, and loving the next day. I have learned over the years to accept her for who she is, but there are still times that her behavior or what she says can hurt me. Such was the case this week. She and my FIL like to go to the beach sometime in August every year. They wanted to rent a house so that all of us (Mr. Cube/Mini/myself; BIL/SIL; she and FIL) could stay together. She sent a preliminary email with a rental listing, and said it was only available for X week. I responded, saying that X week wouldn’t work for me because of work deadlines, etc, and figured others would chime in with their availability. About 10 minutes later, she sent another group email, with the same rental listing, saying that she booked it. For the week that doesn’t work for me. Mr. Cube asked her why on earth she would do that when a) I had explicitly said it didn’t work for me, and b) no one else had been able to respond with *their* availability, and she blithely stated that if I knew so far in advance when my deadlines were, and that a place had been rented, I could just get everything done beforehand. :T Unfortunately, that’s not the way my job works. If it were, I would never be working under pressure ever, and life would be a glorious paradise without stress or care.
UGH. I realize this is a great problem to have (how many people actually get to go to the beach anyway?), and it sounds flippant, but it’s just one more straw on this little camel’s back…
Ugh, sounds like my MIL. 🙁 I’m sorry.
Also my MiL. And Mother. Sadly the best way for them to ‘get’ that your job doesn’t work like that is. Welp, sorry, I told you that week doesn’t work for us, so we aren’t coming. Don’t just send partner/child alone and you miss out. If she doesn’t get that that week DIDN’T WORK FOR ALL of you, then she decided that you all aren’t joining them. Sucks, but I think you need to draw a line. Speaking as someone who has roughly 10 years of her family just assuming I can work on vacation, since ‘all I do is read’
I want to second this suggestion. If Mr. Cube is willing to roll with it, it could be a really great way for your MIL to understand that not working around you is going to mean she doesn’t get to see ANY of you.
Thank you. I’m going to touch base with Mr. Cube. He seemed just as baffled by her behavior as I did, so hopefully he agrees that drawing a line is a good option. I completely agree that it’s probably the only way for her to understand how her choices affect others.
Good luck! I know it is hard, especially with in-laws, but I agree with amanita below. Actions have consequences. You told her those dates don’t work, she booked it anyway, ergo you can’t come. If you told her those dates don’t work (no explanation) she wouldn’t have booked it (or if Mr. Cube did so) so why does she get to decide your reason wasn’t ‘good enough’?
Now I am getting worked up on your behalf.
My mom will do things like that – just think of it as a sort of self-limiting behavior. If she REALLY wants everyone to be there, and people can’t make it b/c she is making crazy-person plans, then – well, she’s the one who missed out! Her actions are her own repercussions. You can just be like, “Oh, too bad! Hope you guys have fun!” while secretly hoping it ends up just being her, alone on the beach, looking out over the waves mournfully. (I’m not that nice of a person so ymmv on that last bit.)
Personally, I would consider it a win that I didn’t have to spend a week of my precious vacation time with her…
Wow, that’s some very unsubtle passive aggression right there! Let’s hope some other family members also have a conflict and she’s made to come around from a few different people? I always sympathize with the partner in the middle here, because when there’s a parent who pulls this stuff, it’s usually because they’ve had a long history controlling your spouse this same way, and sometimes they cave. It sounds like Mr. Cube is going to stand by you on it, which is really good. Maybe you want to plan your own little getaway, as a reward for dealing with this stuff well.
Maybe she’s trying to get time with Mini at the beach without you? That is some messed-up shit. Consider not going even if she moves it to a different date. Go to the beach with people who like you.
<3 thank you.
Us birds have to stick together.
Don’t share your nest.
Yeah sounds like my MIL, too. I’d go with a cheery “can’t make it, have a lovely time!” and treat yourself to a nice bottle of wine.
So, for people who might enjoy doing light coding to customize their IntenseDebate comments, here’s what I’ve found to work. (I made an MST3K website in high school with html, and what I remember has served me well here and on Tumblr. Probably the most useful thing I learned during high school–and it wasn’t in school.)
In all the following, replace the parentheses with the triangular brackets < and > when you use it.
For links, I’ve found you’ve gotta make sure to use quotation marks within the code. Like so:
(a href=”http://www.whatever.com”)text you want to be the hyperlink(/a)
No more linking back to the comments page! This may work better now after the upgrade? Dunno, I just know it works, yay!
Other stuff:
To embed an image in your comment, find the picture or gif you want on a website, rightclick or, on mobile, touch and hold on it, and click “Copy image URL.” This puts the web address of the image into your clipboard.
Then in your comment type (img src=”whateverimageurl.jpg”), pasting the URL you’ve copied in between the ” “.
For really wide images–not usually a problem–try using
(img src=”whateverimageurl.jpg” width=”600″)
I usually start typing my comment again immediately after the closing bracket because it seems to automatically start on the next line after the image and if you hit enter there will be an extra line between the image and your next line of text. Or you could do that on purpose of course.
Make an image into a link by putting the (img src=”…”) code between (a href=”…”) and (/a)
Make the accompanying text the same link by typing it before or after (img src=”…”), as long as it is after (a href=”…”) and before (/a).
To format your comment text, enclose your text with the following:
bold (b)text(/b)
italics (i)italics(/i)
underline (u)underline(/u)
strikethrough (strike)strikethrough(/strike)
hth
FUCK YEAH STRIKETHROUGH
I think it didn’t work on the old version of the Toast? Either that or I spelled strike wrong.
I think it did? Or maybe you had to use s instead of strike. Just a second, let me test.
<s>s</s>
strike
IntenseDebate has a page saying what html is allowed in comments, or at least they used to, but it’s very nearly impossible to find and I can’t find it right now.
Welp, definitely strike works now and s doesn’t, anyways.
I kept thinking “I really should get a handle on basic markup here” but not doing it. Thanks for this!
I just had a Surprise Visit from my period. I am 35 years old. Why have I not gotten a handle on this? I’m insanely regular!
Do any Toasties have a period-tracking app to recommend? I’m neither trying to get pregnant nor at risk of pregnancy, so this creeps up on me every month. And all I want is something to ping on my phone and say, “Hey! Maybe the reason you’re feeling homicidal towards Dude!Coworker is not just because he’s terrible, but also because YOUR PERIOD IS COMING, GET THEE TO A PHARMACY.”
I use Clue! I have an iphone and I’m not sure if it’s available for other platforms, but it is awesome.
I second clue. I like it because it does not try to cute up the period with flowers and nonsense. Just give me my data! I love its interface and I think it has great options for customizing it to fit your needs.
I’m also a Clue user! On an HTC so it’s available on androids too. I’ll have been using it for a year in January, and it’s fairly accurate. It gives you a 2-day out warning notification before you start, and you can set other reminders too (like PMS starting, take your pill, do a breast exam type things).
I use it on android, so it’s available there too. I really like it, super low key, not pink and flowery, and you can use it for fertility tracking or just reminding you when you should be prepared for your period.
GOD I LOVE CLUE. I’m pretty evangelistic about it. So clear and easy to use! So loaded with info if you want it! So…..not pink!
Clue! They just updated their app so you can customize your alerts to say exactly that if you want to! (Mine has a warning before my likely PMS week that says “don’t make any life-changing decisions this week”.)
That is GENIUS. If only it could have stopped me from impulse buying $138 worth of merchandise from Sock Dreams last week.
(Although I regret nothing. Except that it’s too warm still to rock the multiple pairs of leg and arm-warmers I bought.)
Sock DREEEEEAMSSSS – I want one of everything please? Do they still have the polka-dot cashmere socks?
Totally explains my impulse $150 Sock Dreams spree, too. And my regrets are your regrets. Also I bought socks as stocking stuffers. Har har.
There’s a P Tracker app that’s pretty easy to use, but I don’t know if it does notifications? Also I quit using it when I started tracking my temp and stuff because I found it wasn’t as accurate as I was tracking it myself by hand. But it does allow to put in all kinds of random physical and emotional symptoms.
I write the word “Mooncycle”* in my iPhone notes on the first day of my period, then when I notice myself feeling homicidal a few weeks later, I check to see if the date on that note lines up.
But getting an app may be a better system.
*I’ve been calling it my womanly mooncycle ever since I died laughing in the grocery store aisle at Yogi Womanly Mooncycle Tea.
“ever since I died laughing in the grocery store aisle at Yogi Womanly Mooncycle Tea. ”
Oh, thank God, I’m not the only one!
I prefer the spear counterpart, KUNG FU MANLY MOOD-PUNCHING TRIPLE-CAFFEINE COFFEE!
Period Tracker. You can turn off the pregnancy stuff, and you can set up period notifications up to five days before you’re due. It also has an option to do customized notifications at intervals. Available for iOS and Android, there’s a free version and a paid one. It’s a bit feminine-looking, though.
Clue is also available for Android.
Another one is MCalc (free, Android-only), which is gender-neutral and not frilly, but you have to re-enter your data every time.
As someone of the same age, who had this exact experience this morning (why do I feel stabby and achy?…. trip to loo … ohh :/)
Message received universe. I have downloaded Clue.
I use MyDays, and have been happy with it for years. I do occasionally forget to log (on HBC, period shows up pretty much every 28 days) and I get a notification that says, simply “how are you?” which makes me laugh.
I put a little “c” (for “communists”) in my iCal whenever it starts, and then whenever I start feeling cranky I go and count the days since it happened. Or if I’m planning something and want to know if I should prepare.
I use the free version of P Tracker – it doesn’t ping, though, so it might not work for you; since I’m actively trying to not get pregnant, I check the app pretty regularly. Of course, I had my period surprise me today too even despite that! Hello 26 day cycle, I haven’t missed you.
It isn’t an app (or if there is one, I don’t use it), but I’ve been tracking my period on http://monthlyinfo.com/ for several years now. It’s free to use, and you have the ability to set your own personalized reminders (email and text message)–I just have one that reminds me about 2 days before my period’s predicted start date, but I think you can set however many you want.
In all the time I’ve been using it, I think I’ve been surprised by my period, like, twice.
I started my period somewhat late in the game and I’m still not used to it. Every time I get it I think to myself “Oh I’m becoming a woman! Maybe I should mature emotionally/clean out my email/read Are You There God, It’s Me Margret? and see if it’s still terrifying/reevaluate my regular social media handle/etc.” before remembering it’s the twentieth time this has happened.
I use Creighton system fertility awareness because I hate apps and I wanted the medical diagnostic options, but in general I say go for something that lets you chart cervical mucus or temperature (make sure you have a BBT thermometer if you’re doing this) as well as your period, since that gives you much better predictions. Based on cervical mucus, I always know when my period’s coming +/- 1 day.
Toasties, this week I’ve found myself wondering about other people’s funny/strange childhood disappointments. Not the sad ones (hey, some people are really evil!) or the common ones (there’s no such thing as Santa!) but the ones that might make a good This American Life bit.
For example, as a wee one I was a choir singer and I loved listening to choral CDs with my dad. I cannot even begin to explain how disappointed I was when I found out that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which I considered the apex of quality, would be off limits to me because I wasn’t Mormon.
How about you?
This one is relevant to the Reading Like a Tomboy comment thread, because it was probably caused by my obsessive reading of So you want to be a Wizzard. There was a coffee shop in my hometown I used to go to with my parents when I was around 7 or 8 that had a store built into the back of it, and posted on the door of that store was a poster that said in big letters “Magic”. I was convinced that it was a store with real magic items that would make me an actual witch, but I never went in because I sort of assumed that I’d feel an impulse to go in when the time was right (and perhaps because my subconscious was protecting me from the disappointment).
A few years later, as a jaded tween, I came across a very similar poster somewhere else and noticed the subtitle: “Magic: the Gathering”. It had been a card and boardgame store all along. And maybe I stopped believing in magic at that moment? It was kind of crushing, although tween me totally shrugged it off.
The ball drop on New Year’s eve. I always imaged it would drop really FAST from really high up, not sort of slowly meander down over the whole ten seconds. The first time I was allowed to stay up and watch it was sooo disappointing.
I’ve surveyed others about this, and apparently women all shared my particular vision of it, whereas many men imagined it would fall quickly AND smash at the bottom, somehow.
It would be so cool if the ball smashed! They should make it out of ice or something.
This is probably more a symptom of my pathological narcissism rather than a funny silly thing that happened in childhood, but…
I had real trouble understanding the concept that other people still exsisted when I wasn’t there. I fully believed that they just stopped being when I wasn’t present. And I wasn’t a little kid, I was at least 7-8 at this point. I never talked to anyone about it, but I would think about it a lot.
I also fully believed that the world was black and white before me. As in I thought that I had brought colour to the world. (This was when I was a little kid, and in fairness all ‘old’ tv was black and white!)
I thought the world used to be in black and white in, what I considered as a child to be, “the olden days” (ie – up until about 1970). *facepalm*
Same. Except I was born in the 90s and I fully believed that everything before me was b&w.
I remember confronting my much older brother about it (I must have been about 4, he would have been 13 or so):
Me: ‘Before me there was no colour.’
Him: ‘there was definitely colour before you, I was there’
Me, delivering my perfectly reasoned final blow: ‘then why is all the old TV black and white!!’
I think he just looked at me like I was crazy after that (which I was.)
I remember reading this bland Nancy Drew knockoff where the protagonist said something about dreaming in color, like a movie and I was of the age where that confounded me for much too long. I thought that I might be silly for thinking that the world had always been in color but I was afraid to ask anyone.
I was about five and thought there were three types of people: men, women, and robbers. I was flabbergasted to learn that “robbers” (the absolute worst people I could imagine) were just ordinary people like you and me!
When I was 7 I thought that at the end of 1993 we would cycle back to 1991 and just live those three years over and over again. Not that we wouldn’t all age and stuff, but that the years just didn’t go past 1993. I’m not sure what made me think this aside from a vague feeling that it might have had something to do with the Bulls’ first three-peat.
I thought everyone’s parents were in the Socialist party (like mine) until I was about 6 or 7. I only figured it out when my friend told me her mom had voted for George Bush.
This is a little different, because I don’t remember ever finding out the Horrible Truth, but when I was little, I just assumed that everyone sang-cried songs about their most pressing sorrows, Disney Princess-style. The famous one in my house is the Pink Power Ranger T-Shirt song, sung after my mom told me she was going to throw away all the clothes I couldn’t be bothered to put away & all I’d have left was the shirt I was wearing. My mom still talks about it constantly.
That is adorable.
It featured 80% more snot than you’re probably picturing, but also probably a lot more feather boas and costume jewelry than one might expect, also, so… it evens out?
This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.
Wait, why don’t we all do this all the time? It seems so obvious when you say it.
I was born forty years old, bitter and sarcastic, trapped in the body of a cute little girl, so my entire childhood was a disappointment. I hated other kids and I was the one tasked with not telling my father that Santa didn’t exist.
As far as I or anyone else can tell, I never believed in Santa. I didn’t say anything for so long because I didn’t want to ruin the magic for my parents.
Me TOO! (See also: music of choice = Mormon Tabernacle Choir.)
I don’t actually remember ever believing in Santa, but I do remember trying to use logic to convince my parents that Santa couldn’t possibly exist. They obviously thought it was hilarious and never once let on that they didn’t believe in Santa, which led to great anger and frustration on the part of five-year-old me that couldn’t believe that my parents, of all people, could be that stupid.
Lest anyone believe I was a preternaturally logical little girl, I should add that at the same time I was convinced that if I wished upon the very first star to appear in the sky at night, I would grow wings. I spent many an evening staring out the window waiting for the first star.
Although when the wings didn’t happen, I spent some time wondering if it was because the first star I saw was a planet, which might not have the same wish-granting power, and I heard somewhere that you couldn’t look at that same star again that night or the wish would be canceled, so I fretted that I might have accidentally seen it again. Hm. Science may have lost a great mind when I went into librarianship.
Child logic is amazing.
Less a disappointment than a pleasant surprise: as a kid I was convinced that TV shows kept going during commercial breaks and I just didn’t get to see what happened because they were overlaid with the commercials. Apparently I would get really annoyed when a commercial break hit just before something happened that I wanted to see because I was convinced I was going to miss it. I can only assume this was because of the way shows like to use commercial breaks as a good spot to jump the story ahead.
When I was about three (so about 1990), the only names of presidents I knew were George Washington and the then-current president, George Bush. So I believed that all presidents must be named George, like they chose a new George name when they got elected, Pope-style.
Or like when kings change their names!
There used to be adverts on TV for this shampoo brand that had bottles shaped like mermaids and fictional characters from the brand. I thought the weird animated underwater city on the advert was a real place you could actually visit.
I was invited to go to church with my friend. It was a pre-printed invite from the church that said “Jesus will be there!” I was disappointed that Jesus did not, in fact, show up. I obviously did not have a strong grasp on theology despite going to Catholic school for kindergarten.
For some reason I thought the show “60 Minutes” was actually “60 Seconds”, probably because of the stopwatch they had in the bumper. So I never understood why the show never seemed to end.
When I was nine I decided that I wanted to write a letter to CS Lewis. I was told I was too late. Fine. Then I’d settle for Roald Dahl. Same thing. Well. Then I’d go straight to the top and write Tolkien to tell him how great he was.
I have never been so unremittingly heartbroken in such a short span of time. I lived in a world where the giants were all dead. What was the point?
In retrospect I feel really bad for my grandfather or grandmother (I don’t remember which) who had to deliver the news to me.
I am heartbroken on your behalf. I remember being upset on learning that Laura Ingalls was dead, because she was so real to me in her books.
(Dating myself here.) I was 5 when Mary Poppins came out, and I loved loved loved loved loved it with a burning passion. So my mother and grandmother took me to see The Sound of Music, saying “It will be just like Mary Poppins!”
I was expecting magic and journeys to the Otherworld; I got nuns and Nazis. I have never forgiven them.
Well, they lied to you. I wouldn’t have forgiven them either.
You know, it wasn’t so much a feeling that they lied to me as the gut-wrenching realization that they just didn’t get it. Even at, what, 6-ish, I knew they were just thinking “hey, you’ve seen one Julie Andrews musical, you’ve seen them all.” I have never felt so misunderstood in my life.
I believed for a long time that when you needed to go to the hospital, someone would come in an ambulance for you and then you would have to drive it there yourself. I’m positive I remember my dad telling me this when I was little and he insists he never said anything like that. (Dads!)
I still nurse a bit of a grudge that I can’t grow up to be an oak tree, as was my ambition at the age of four.
I couldn’t even grow an oak tree, and I planted so many acorns! I blame squirrels.
I had the opposite problem a lot growing up, where I would be convinced that horrible things were just a part of everyday life, and then I’d be relieved to learn they weren’t.
I thought humans reproduced via parthenogenesis – and had no control over it. This made me sort of afraid about growing up, because even as a kid I never wanted to have kids. I sort of just assumed one day I’d wake up with a baby growing inside my stomach, and there was no way to prevent it. And I was supposed to love it, because everybody had babies, and everybody loved their babies. It kept me awake at night.
Then there was the day my mom took five year old me to her first day of children’s choir at the church, and I had a meltdown in the car because I thought she was conscripting me into a lifelong career in the church choir, instead of letting me be a doctor like I wanted to (she was a paid member of the choir, just so we’re clear). I still remember crying and saying how I didn’t want to grow up to be a “choir lady”, and how I did a total 180 when she said I didn’t have to be in choir forever, so everything was fine.
Nothing, however, tops the fact that I didn’t understand that “baby back ribs” was just a nickname, and I was convinced for quite a while that cannibalism was not only accepted in modern society, but advertised in Chili’s commercials quite a lot. My parents still laugh about this one.
omg your world must have been so stressful!
I believed in parthogenesis too! I have literally never met anyone else who believed that, I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one! And yes, it was traumatic. My fear was part of a general gender crisis I had about age 6 – first I decided that I was happy to be a girl, because boys are disgusting (I guess I wasn’t wrong…./misandry) and one reason said boys were disgusting was that when they grow up they automatically grow beards and GROSS. But then my fevered young brain ‘realised’ that as a girl I would grow up to have a baby whether I liked it or not, and that was horrifying to me. I remember wailing ‘at least if I was a boy I could shave the beard off!’. I don’t remember how I resolved this crisis, hopefully someone reassured me that neither babies nor beards *had* to be part of my future, unless I wanted them to.
I thought that you took a pill to get pregnant. Like you went to the pill shop and said ‘I would like a baby’ and they gave you a pill that you took and boom pregnant.
I guess that’s what you get when the women around you are radical feminist who assume that children don’t pay attention. No one ever explained anything to me, I just picked things upà
I thought that once you had had sex once you could just get pregnant at any time, with no warning. That was a scary thought.
Okay, I might be outing myself with this story because all my friends have heard it. But when I was in elementary school I honestly believed I had met the Pope. It was Catholic school and before our first communion some guy in long robes and a really big hat came to talk to us. I wasn’t great at paying attention in class so I thought to myself “who is this man and why is he in my class? Wait, I’ve seen that hat before– it’s the Pope!” He even ate lunch with us in the cafeteria afterwards. I remember getting home and saying to my mom “Did you know that the Pope came to our school?” Well, coincidentally, John Paul II had visited our parish some 10 years before I was born. So she said yes, she did know that. And I contented myself for about the next 5 years believing that I had eaten lunch with the Pope.
At some point, when I was by far old enough to know better, we were having a class discussion about John Paul and the fact that he had been in our city. Ah yes, I remember that quite well. Really, my teacher says, you are in junior high in the early 2000s and you remember the 1970s? I have never been so embarrassed in my life.
I ate lunch with the bishop. Totally not as cool.
– for a while I was convinced I was going to be a priest – and was very angry when I found out girls can’t be priests.
– Turkish Delight is disgusting and not worth selling out your family for, Edmund Pevensie!
I’m going to Denver next week for a conference! Any chance any of you lovely people are going to ASHA? Are there any Toastie SLPs???
Toastie SLP-in-training! I’ve never been to an ASHA conference, and it’s right up there with Disneyland in terms of how desperate I am to go.
Somehow I didn’t see your reply before! I’m in a doctoral program, and I’m specializing in early literacy acquisition and reading disorders. Happy to find more SLP-type peoples here! 🙂
Oooohh that’s so cool! I’m a new graduate SLP but not in the US… keenly interested in anything coming out of the conference though. Enjoy!
I missed your comment before! Congrats on finishing your program! I’m in a doctoral program and I’m specializing in early literacy acquisition and reading disorders. What are your interests?
I’m currently working with adults with intellectual disability, not an area I thought I’d work in but a great opportunity came up in public services and I’m learning heaps. Early literacy and reading is such a great area, I would really like to work with young kids with reading issues – such a practical and worthwhile area to specialise in (although you could say that about most of speech pathology… seriously, we are so awesome and so needed haha). I’m also interested in working with kids with hearing impairment as that’s an issue that runs in my family… and/or bilingual kids, particularly Spanish speakers as I’m fluent.
Man, I sound like such an SP geek!
How far along are you in your program? And how was ASHA?
Toasties, I am weirdly happy about a super-last-minute project that has landed on my plate, because I get to play with the beautiful graphic assets for a soon-to-be-launched project and turn them into a postcard. It’s fun! It’s not asking too much of my design abilities! It means that I have Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator ALL OPEN AT ONCE!
Hooray for fun design projects! I’ve been a professional graphic designer for years and I can’t even remember the last time I had PSD, InD, and IL open all simultaneously, haha.
I am NOT a professional graphic designer. I am a communications person who has enough graphic design skill to know when something is beyond her ability. This is not! And it’s fun! And I should probably close one of those programs, it’s going to slow down my computer like crazy, but I’m pulling some vector images from an Illustrator file and tossing them into the other two.
Well then, WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE! And feel free to leave those programs open… even if it slows down your computer, as long as it makes you feel like a badass, it’s a-okay!
yay, welcome to my life! design is fun, isn’t it? i usually have all 3 open + acrobat too, because they take so long to re-open, and i’m always using all 3, they all do different things.
Quick hive mind job advice-y question.
A. Stay in current job – like the people, like the job, like the place BUT pay stinks.
B. Go for other job (currently being courted for) 20k more a year (I know) people seem nice, probably much the same in terms of job BUT in a kind of shit place. 3 hours from major city, somewhat rural, weather blows.
I value all Internet opinions because me, I have no freakin’ idea.
Is it the kind of a job/career path that you could take for a year or two, and then once you’ve saved up a bunch of money/paid of some debts/bought a pony/etc. you could find a new one?
See above – possibly, but lateral moves become fewer and farther between in academia the higher up you get…
Sounds like the Midwest, then? I’m 3-4 hours from Chicago, and it’s a good place to be. College towns tend to be the draw for their area (especially at a StateU) and there’s a lot that happens, if on a smaller scale. Also, you’d be amazed at what immigration has gotten up to – there’s quite a bit more quality ethnic food than you’d expect around here!
I feel like most college towns that are some distance from a big city are actually pretty cool. Like, I really like Missoula (though Montana is one of those delightfully weird states anyway). Such a brilliant college town and I want to go back so I can finally visit the Smoke Jumper museum.
Also I went to college outside Detroit (but NOT in Ann Arbor), and I loved my collegey area.
There are many awesome things to do in Missoula (and delicious ice cream, I stop there every time I drive through, regardless of time of year)!
Ditto on the food. When I was in grade school, my town was 99% descendants of the original Dutch immigrants from 100 years ago. When I came back summers when I was in college, there was an Indian grocery.
Not the Midwest – upstate New York. Can’t be too specific as we are in early stages and don’t want to dox myself. So 3 hours Philly/NYC. College town, apparently some ethnic food offerings but not a lot of ethnic diversity outside of the student body.
I’d like to think a person can buy a decent amount of happiness for $20k, but really, where you live has such an amazingly large impact on your life and the joy you find therein. You may in time come to love the terrible weather, or you may find yourself clawing your eyeballs out the second winter, and taking a job at Starbucks in Miami just to get away. Do you have any previous experience living in such a place, that you might be able to put a value to its inconveniences?
I grew up in warm metro area with lots of diversity. I have lived in places where it snows, and found it bearable, but never this kind of ‘shit gets real’ snow – where it is somewhat rural and would involve driving in snow, getting kids to and fro in snow, etc. I have no idea how to value it. Anyone want to take a guess? Where I am at now is not idyllic weather-wise either – summers you are essentially inside as it is too hot to do much.
I think it depends on a lot of factors – how much time do you spend driving in the first place, how well does your car deal with snow, how well and how quickly do they clear the roads, how cold is it, how well do you deal with cold, how short are the days in the winter, how well do you deal with getting less sunlight, are there enough things to do that you enjoy that are either indoors or snow compatible, is your house well-enough insulated, etc.
If you don’t mind indoor hobbies or you think you’d enjoy cross-country skiing, then I think the rest of it is probably stuff that can be dealt with. Like, if your car turns out to do poorly in snow, or it would be fine except that they don’t clear the roads well enough, then you buy a different car or put studded tires on the drive wheels in the winter or something like that.
Note that I grew up somewhere with mild winters and now live in Edmonton, Canada, but I don’t drive. So I have some experience with winter but the driving stuff I am mostly putting together from what my parents tell me. (They also live somewhere with snow now.)
It’s really very personal! Some people get into skiing or snowshoeing or building snow forts or whatever, and some people are content to sit inside and watch Netflix for a couple months, and some people just are not. You could probably spend Christmas breaks on a small tropical island if you had to, but it would be nice to know in advance if your mental health could take the weather, on years you might not be able to do something like that.
I will say, if they regularly get Real Snow, they probably have plenty of things like plows to deal with it, so getting around is probably not too terrible (though you might like to use some of your increased salary to buy a Subaru or something).
I guess I would complete my total transformation into Liberal Arts professor and buy a Subaru. I could TOTALLY spend 3 months inside watching Netflix. Howevah, my significant other is active and would probably need some activity. Plus my kids will get cabin fever-y. There must be indoor play areas right? Like if you get 10 feet of snow in the winter every winter?
Can you look up the city/town website and see what they have for recreation for kids? That might not include play areas in, like, malls and things, but it may tell you what some of the options are. You could also check for learn-to-snowshoe courses and such for your SO.
Playing outside in the snow was pretty much my FAVORITE childhood activity- as long as you come in to warm up sometimes you can spend vast quantities of time outside in winter as a kid.
I moved from the Sacramento, CA area to the upper Midwest for college, stayed, married, had kids, and have now been here more than half my life. The first few years were a learning experience!
If you’d like to chat privately, please feel free to send me a gmail/hangout message at ckoeppen.
Would you be leaving behind any closefriends or family or other beloveds? That would be my main reason for not moving from a place.
Moving from place with no family to another place with no family. Perhaps slightly more awkward to get to family from Option B. We have been here a few years and have a few close friends it would be a bummer to leave. But most of my friends are in different cities (or countries!) so that is less of a concern, but also slight tilt towards Option A. (Making friends is HARD…although we have kids so friend-making is somewhat assisted by school groups. etc.)
Do you have a spouse, or are you single? If a., can your spouse go with you? If b., will you be able to meet suitable/attractive people in the new place?
A friend of mine took option B when recently divorced, moving to a place that was not just rural but also very different culturally from what she was used to, and ended up leaving academia because everyone she knew was married with kids, she was single, and there was NOone (except students, obviously inappropiate) who was single or attractive to her in the town. So I would be wary of that, depending on how rural/diverse it is & how much you want companionship.
Posting under a burner because there’s only so much info I like to reveal to the Internet! So, I got an IUD a few weeks ago, and due to my anatomy I’ve only been able to feel the strings twice. How do I convince myself that I am not CONSTANTLY GETTIN’ PREGNANT?
(I’d prefer the answer not be “go back to using condoms.”)
I took a lot of pregnancy tests before I learned to be confident that my IUD was working. It’s not ideal, but ideal-er than going back to condoms.
I’m thinking that’s the best solution. And it’s funny, because logically I KNOW that the IUD is way more effective than condoms. But there’s a part of me that is like, BUT SPERM IS INSIDE ME, SURELY I AM THE MOST FERTILE WOMAN ON THE WORRRRRRLLLLLLDDDDD. This is because I am -crazy-.
(Though this kind of crazy has kept me unpregnant this far, so hey! Could be worse.)
This. I bought a five pack and every 2-3 months checked it. The Dr. cut my strings too short to really check, so that’s how I know. It’s cheaper than panty liners and tampons and condoms. It also feels kind of fun? It’s sciency
I was confused about the “cheaper than pantiliners and tampons” bit until I remembered the hormonal IUD’s.
I got the copper one! On purpose! Because I liked ovulating, and because it you can keep it in over twice as long, and because the failure rate is actually lower.
But my periods/PMS have become hellish enough that I”m reconsidering.
I bought a 25 pack from Amazon for super cheap! The brand is called Wondfo. You have to pee in a cup then dip the little paper in the cup, so it saves on having a giant plastic applicator. That’s why its cheap I guess, but also so much less garbage and plastic waste!
Work out when in your cycle your cervix is lowest and just check then? You can also get it checked after a month or so to make sure it’s sitting correctly, if you like. I’ve been using them on and off for four years, they’re fab. They are also very good at staying put, don’t worry.
Yeah, from most of what I’ve read online you would know if it fully expelled. Though of course there are those few exceptions… But then, in pretty at ease with checking and I’m also, like -in touch with my lady body- or whatever, so I think I’m probably ok in that department.
Did your doctor ask you to set up a return visit? Mine wanted me to come back in a few weeks so she could take a look and make sure my iud settled into place and everything was fine. Doctors are $$$ but if you’re super worried and having a doctor reassure you everything’s alright would help it might be worth it. (And even then ditching the condoms was WEIRD for me!)
Yes! I have one at the end of the month, and I called her about not finding the strings and she assured me that’s totally normal. Every symptom I have points to the IUD being in place, so i think I’m probably fine.
It’s almost like I’m having, like, weird guilt for having sex without having to pop a pill every day or use condoms? Like, it’s too easy, THERE MUST BE A CATCH.
Oh, I forgot to add! If I know I’m ovulating I will ask partner to wear a condom to be super sure. I stopped being able to tell/chart regularly after about a year of having my mirena but by then I had chilled out.
I’ve never been able to find the strings and my period stopped, so I really can’t tell. Eventually I just learned to not worry about it and it’s been six years (2 IUDs) with no pregnancy. Also, if it’s still there at the month mark it’s incredibly unlikely that it will move, so after that appointment you really shouldn’t worry (because that’s how brains work, right?).
Do you have an, erm, intimate partner who can check for you? Someone with longer fingers and a shared interest in your reproductive freedom?
I do! Fingers are not especially long, though, and he hasn’t felt them using, uh, other appendages. Honestly, I think the doctor just cut them really short. I’ve only felt them well once when my cervix was super low… and even then, they were just barely out enough to feel.
Enviro-Toasties?! Anyone else who’s thrilled about the Keystone XL Pipeline BEING REJECTED?!?!
Woo! So thrilled. And relieved.
Color me also thrilled. Loving lame duck Obama.
I hadn’t heard!! That’s such a huge relief.
Wait, WHAT?!!!! That’s amazing! 😀
Whoa! This is the first I’ve heard of it!
Wait, what? I heard the intended path was rejected but now they are at work devising a different path? Or maybe that’s another catastrophic pipeline? IDK.
Thrilled! Climate change is so frustrating and scary, any good news is welcome.
Hey. Anyone have experience/advice on dropping out of the job market and/or living as a couple on one income? My partner would like to start working as a full-time artist, which would mean earning very little money, and I make a middling non-profit salary. We have student debt and savings for a few months.
(I think what’s scarier than “how do two people live and maybe start a family like this?” is, “how do we talk about it with other people, since it sounds like such a bad idea in this society?”)
Why don’t you try setting a budget for a month or two that would be as if you only had your salary. How hard is it? What changes do you need to make? Can you still meet loan obligations? Would you need to move, how much money would it cost to move? If you know that it will work, it may make you feel more confident.
Ultimately, if it is something you both want, you will just have to try to quiet judgmental voices – people can be judgmental about almost everything
Came here to say this.
Also has the added benefit of being able to add a chunk of money to savings that you (hopefully) don’t spend during that period.
I really like this idea. Would it work without combining our finances, though? We’re about to do that, but haven’t yet, and I don’t know if he can really try out living on no money.
Sort of? I mean, you can very easily do it with each of you having your own bank accounts and such still, but you will need to agree on a set of shared priorities, so, little of column a little of column b?
I’d suggest something like- Figure out how much you’ll have with just your income. Agree on a budget of how that money gets spent (rent/food/etc). If you’ve had a high level of autonomy, consider having a set amount of “discretionary” money that doesn’t need to be justified in any way*. Do whatever you currently do in terms of whose account the money comes out of, just be WAY more detailed in keeping track, especially for anything paid for in cash. At the end of the month, see if it worked. Figure out where it didn’t work.
And honestly? It won’t work exactly. for example, If he’s going to be at home most of the day at least some days, it will be easier for the two of you to cut food costs by having him able to cook. He’ll probably have transportation costs during that month he might not have otherwise. If it’s not those things for the two of you, there’ll be something else.
Chances are it’s not going to be really easy or impossibly difficult. But by giving it a trial run, you get more info about what’s harder for the two of you.
*AND this may need to be a feature of the new budget. If he’s not expecting to make much, at least at the start, having a set amount where you can just SPEND IT without feeling guilty may avoid some arguments, may avoid overspending on stuff you can’t really afford AND avoid denying yourself a thing that you actually can afford out of fear/guilt.
Personally I’m a fan of YNAB (You Need A Budget) software–it’s basically high-tech envelope budgeting so it’s a good way to get a handle on how far your money will go. I’m using the student license but I think it’s pretty cheap.
YNAB changed my life! I used to have a kind of adversarial/anxious approach to money, and the system (which I learned from reading the blog, and then adapted to my own spreadsheet/mint tally by hand) made it possible for me to really get a grip on how much money I had and how much I could spend without digging myself into a hole. It was a lifesaver.
Done it – twice. Once, I went back to school and partner worked – approximately 3 years. We economized, he had just gotten a raise and moving in together had saved us money, so it all worked. My money went to my fun stuff and some groceries, his covered all bills for house. Second time, I got the job and I had just had 6 months at home with first child – he stayed at home, I worked. We got a joint checking account. This was 5 years ago. Took a little more time to get used to for him, and he still is pretty conscious of spending ‘my’ money. About 2 years ago he got a part time job, so he has some ‘fun’ money. It was the right decision for us. We have basically no discretionary cash, but I have a job I love as does he, and we get to have time with our kids, long holidays (cheap ones staying with my family or his) and generally it is fine. You do have to nip other peoples’ expectations as to your potential earning power in the bud. I have had people tell me, oh well, Mr. Period_eye COULD work and you could have more money. And then I say well, a. he does work – he takes care of a 1 year old and a 5 year old, does all housework and maintenance, and b. it is a decision we have made. You can always make money, you can’t earn back time.
The discretionary cash thing is so scary to me, because I grew up in a house of freelancers and our electricity got turned off more than once. But I’m very lucky to have a stable job, and my partner *could* work for money if he wanted to, so it’s not such a terrifying unknown as it seems right now. (Besides, I don’t totally believe all the money I’m putting into my 401(k) will still be there in 40 years, so what does it matter?)
You articulate your point about paid vs. unpaid labor so well! Thank you. In our case, it’s art instead of children (for now), but that seems worth putting into the world for its own sake as well. I think that in many discussions about childcare/homemaking as unpaid labor, there’s an assumption that someone in the family (usually the dude) IS making significant money, but so many (typically underrepresented) people make it worth otherwise.
This is similar to what my husband and I have done. We have a 3 year old ( and another on the way). I work in a public school (not a teacher) and he stays home. He has an Internet comic he puts out and also submits to companies a few times a year.
The thing I tell people who question us is is that we love this quality of life we have. I love that my daughter has gotten so much time at home where we could shield her from somethings (especially the “boys are like this, girls are like this” that you can get from older kids at daycare ). And my husband thinks she’s the coolest and loves being with her. Yes we could have more money if he worked too and we could go on cool vacations but we are happy with our small home and modest life.
ETA if you work in non profit you may be eligible for the public servant loan forgiveness program. I am and it also helps knowing if I don’t pay my unfortunately large student loan in ten years it will (fingers crossed no one changes this policy) be forgiven.
We sort of did this for a while – I told my partner that we’d do it for 18 months, and then see what happens. Turns out he didn’t love the freelancing artist life and set it up so he still does art stuff (paid) part time and made an entirely shocking but fulfilling career change shortly after. The main thing is though, he tried it, and a lot of the “what ifs” around his artistic career were settled. But it was really important to me to have a timeline on it, because we were talking about starting a family. I also wasn’t like, “you need to be a wild success in 18 months”, but “can you be self-sufficient and pay for health insurance and put some money aside and still be happy?” Going into it with clearly defined goals, I guess that’s what I’m talking about.
Guess who’s got a new IBS diagnosis! Super happy about this as I really needed another imaginary (i.e. invisible) issue since depression is pretty much gone. I mean come on, go to Urgent Care and pay $50 just to get told “I dunno lady your guts are just mad” BITCH THAT IS WHAT I JUST TOLD YOU
She gave me a medicine that helped, so there is that.
Hope everyone is hanging in there, health-wise. Let me know if you have any good stories of your lower intestines jumping out and trying to strangle you.
I have “IBS” haven’t found a treatment that seems to get to the root of the problem. Weirdly, mine seems to come and go for like 6 months at a time. For the past 6 months, I would eat almost anything very happily. Now even ‘safe’ foods seem to make me sick. I used to go to a gastroenterologist more regularly, but they just kept throwing random medications at me and it was expensive and never very successful, so now I just deal with it. Luckily mine isn’t as bad as others. The whole low FODMAP thing actually did help (not eliminate, but help) my symptoms, if you haven’t tried that!
I have IBS and it is sometimes the worst because it is so general/individualized that most doctors are like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “have you kept a food journal?”
I’m sending good thoughts/vibes in your direction!
Oh, I love it when I get another diagnosis! Isn’t that the best? Congratulations! I just found out I have a blood disorder last month! GOOD TIMES.
oooooh! Lucky!!
FYI, when I was on SSRIs the first time, I had IBS. It’s a known side effect.
Yes, I found that out when I literally shit myself– luckily it was just the first few weeks of being on that dosage that were a problem, my body adjusted.
However I’ve been off antidepressants completely for a few months now. Maybe that was the last of it leaving my system and deciding to go out with a bang.
Hey congratulations on stepping off meds. I’m sure you worked hard to get there.
IME it took roughly a year to off zoloft for my bowels to return to normal. Good luck. Ibs is rough.
I was re-scrolling through the OT to catch up and re-read this and laughed again. Super happy about this. I really needed another imaginary (i.e. invisible) issue.
bahaha “your guts are just mad” is my new favorite diagnosis. I’m pretty sure I’m also qualified to work at an urgent care now
Ooh, me! Just last week! Apparently it’s because my anxiety meds make my stomach too acidic! My guts have been trying to murder me for half a year. This new stomach med puts me up top 10 prescriptions, and I’m in my 30’s. Sometimes I just wish everything would stop.
Next week I’m taking the GRE! I’m not too nervous about the test itself; I test well and have a knack for BSing essays. I’ll take the weekend to refresh my memory on the math stuff, but other than that I feel okay.
Of course, taking the GRE means…applying to grad schools, something I’ve been putting off for two years. I’m nervous about it; mostly, the financial aspect. There are only two universities in my city with an LMFT program, both expensive, but that might just be the nature of American higher education. I know this will probably mean decades more of student loan debt for me, which sucks but…again, not much of a choice. I guess I’m mostly worried about my parents. They had to cosign a loan for my brother’s nursing program, I think they’re helping out with my sister’s mortgage, and I feel like I can’t ask them to help with this too.
I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. This is pretty much the only way to do the work I want to do, it’s just…gonna be a long road.
You can do it. Each new challenge feels like the hardest thing ever, but you can get through it. I cried when I saw my GRE scores, because I was so relieved that step was over! I wish you much good luck and brainpower!
No reading thread? What books are you all reading this week?
Last week I posted that I had begun Armada (Ernest Cline) and people were like, really, I heard it got bad reviews.
I am here to report that it is truly the worst book I have ever finished. I wanted to believe because Ready Player One was great. This was horrible from start to finish. There isn’t a single page that I don’t regret reading. It took the plot of Enders Game and added plot holes. The characters were less than one dimension deep. The writing was atrocious. The end.
Oh man, I didn’t speak up on last week’s thread but I read the first two chapters and noped out of there. Ready Player One was great, but Armada seemed bent on magnifying any and all of its problematic bits and I just could not. Sorry you suffered through the whole thing!
I just finished NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Kingdom, which was fantastic and I can’t wait to see what happens next, and now I’m on to the new Torin Kerr novel by Tanya Huff (An Ancient Peace). After which I’ll likely be re-reading all the previous Torin Kerr books.
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. It’s great and I can already tell when I’m done I’m going to feel that terrible sense of loss when you just want to keep reading the exact same book and nothing else you try will feel quite as engrossing.
What was the last book that made you feel like that, other toasties?
Station Eleven.
Lol, I have that feeling about the Hunger Games series right now. Last week I kept randomly looking sad and wistful, and my partner was like “…the Hunger Games again?”
A Civil Campaign, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Luckilly there’s a lot more to the series, but I think this particular novel was the apex for me.
I paired The Robber Bride with Helen Oyeyemi’s Mr. Fox, since they both deal with the same folk tale, and I thought it worked pretty well. At any rate, they were both books that I would have gladly lived in forever
I can’t tell you, because I don’t like The Robber Bride. 🙂
But! I did really like Station Eleven, and I think I’m going to feel that way about my current read, The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks’s latest.
The First Bad Man (Miranda July). Not engrossed in the world, but engrossed in the character. You… become her, by the end?
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis!
I just started Doomsday Book this week, and all I want is to finish it instantly (instead of like after another 20 hours of reading) so I can reread the rest of the series. And then start over.
To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of my ultimate good-feels book. Sometimes I need a little mental girding to reading Doomsday and Blackout/All Clear, but I can always, always read Ned and Verity and Cecil and Princess Arjumand. . .
For me, definitely Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. There’s a sequel now, which is lucky!
Of course, I also just finished re-reading Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon, and those books, always. 🙂
There’s two sequels now, yo!
the Neapolitan Novels. <3 I wish I could read them for the first time again
I just started A Wizard of Earthsea! my first Le Guin, believe it or not… I’m enjoying but not loving it (so far). I still have a ways to go still, though, so we’ll see how I feel at the end.
It is written in a slightly olde worlde portentous language which is a bit hard to get past – but it has an incredible psychological power and will lead you on to the next books where she drops some of the “legend feel” and becomes more immediate and exciting. The Tombs of Atuan (next book) is astounding.
Le Guin is a bit of a goddess to me if you hadn’t guessed. I love her sci-fi too.
Great reminder that I need to pick up the tombs of Atuan. I actually found the language of the first one totally engrossing even though I usually get squicked by ye olde worlde language.
It reminded me in a weird way of the sparrow. Have you read that? It’s scifi on a level with the left hand of darkness imo.
Yes, I think that’s exactly the problem I’m having with it right now – well, the language isn’t a PROBLEM, but it just takes some getting used to. it’s been a while since I’ve read fantasy like this, I guess!
The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin, because literally all I want to read about is people having romantical problems while wearing gorgeous clothes. Although after that I have stacked up a few depressing books to read, and I need to find a lightweight but long paperback for my work trip next week.
I’m reading The Library at Mount Char and I am really into it. It’s kinda reminiscent of American Gods, while also being its own weird, interesting thing.
I started The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) for the THIRD time. I’ve read a page or two of it in the past and found it too dense to keep going, but I’m determined now (and I have a long bus commute to strengthen my commitment).
That book is so dense. Watching the movie helped me with reading it later.
Excellent idea. I’ll do that. Added bonus of Connery always sticking to his native accent, regardless of role (see: Highlander).
I’ve tried and failed to read that one. At this point, it’s my nemesis.
Thank you for the validation. I’m going to give it my all for 50 pages, and if it still feels like labor to get through each paragraph, I’m moving on.
I also tried to read that and failed. I tried for a really long time too.
I absolutely adore that book, but I read it in the context of a medieval history class that talked a lot about monasticism and heresies. (I was blindsided by the Sherlock Holmes connection halfway through and utterly embarrassed that I didn’t notice it sooner.)
From blurbs, it sounds right up my alley, but something about the first 5 pages always exhausts me. I don’t like unread books sitting on my shelf, though, so I’m approaching it with stern determination this time. Once I get into the story and the flow of Eco’s language, I think it will be easier. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that Sherlock Holmes connection.
the thing about the name of the rose is that it’s all kind of like the beginning in terms of the writing? My best friend once described it to me as this total uphill battle that teaches you how to read it, but if it doesn’t immediately grab you it probably won’t ever work.
I realize this is super discouraging lol. If it makes you feel better my personal Everest is if on a winters night a traveler by italo calvino. I want to love it so bad but each time after I force my way through the first fifty pages I give up.
Yeah. I made it all the way through Foucault’s Pendulum, but for some reason can’t get through the beginning of The Name of the Rose. My friend said it was good. I may never know.
I listened to the audiobook a few years ago, that was engaging – I don’t think I could have managed the text by itself.
Just a reminder, anyone posting in here should definitely be a member of the Goodreads group: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/127766-the-t…
Or the LibraryThing group: https://www.librarything.com/groups/friendsofthet…
I really want to get my act together and get onto Goodreads, so I’m going to bookmark this and come back this weekend!
I just finished Ancillary Mercy (It’s great). And started Nexus for my work book club.
This is one my list, thanks to another Toastie I follow on tumblr. I think I will move it up in the queue.
Ancillary Mercy was amazing. I know some toasties had mixes feelings, but I think it is top 3 for final books in a trilogy I’ve ever read.
I do plan on reading Nexus too, Ramez Naam is a fascinating writer (I like his nonfiction).
I’m reading Mark Hodder’s A Red Sun Also Rises, which is a weird kind of surreal swords-and-planets steampunk novel. So far it’s entertaining but I’m suspicious of its treatment of colonialism. It may improve; we’ll see.
I’m finishing my re-read of all the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus books and I am sad because I find them so entirely delightful. Guess I’m going to have to give the Kane books a second shot.
Also, I read Cold-Hearted Rake last weekend (Lisa Kleypas’ newest) and it was SO GOOD and I may read it again this weekend and AHHHH I NEED THE NEXT ONE ASAP
THE FOLD by Peter Clines. It’s riveting on audiobook, I’m basically white-knuckling it during my bus commute. Plus, the MC is described as a “young Severus Snape”. YEAH!
I am reading Among Others by Jo Walton. It had been on my list for awhile, but then Rainbow Rowell mentioned it in her Toast interview and I knew it had to be my next book. I’m about halfway through and I love it! Creepy and sad and strange.
I just read that after seeing it recommended here and it was so good! I love when an author can make those kinds of everyday(ish) scenarios completely fascinating. I keep meaning to pick up her other book which is also supposed to be excellent.
Jo Walton has sooooo many other books and you should read them all, they’re great.
(The Just City is such toastie material, I swear – Apollo learns about consent by living in a city made up of a bunch of people drawn from history & our future who are trying to build Plato’s Republic. Actually, can we have a Toastie book club for that one?)
Tooth and Claw! Trollope with dragons!
I’m listing to My Antonia on my commute, and am reading AHP’s Scandals of Classic Hollywood, which I started last September, and for some reason stopped reading halfway through? So I’ve picked it back up to finish this week!
I also finished both The Secret History and Patti Smith’s M Train and am happy to talk about either of those if people were interested!
Oooooh, what recording of My Antonia are you listening to? It’s been on my to-read list for awhile and I love audio books but find that the narrator can really make or break a book for me.
It’s a Dreamscape Media recording, narrated by Nicholas Mondelli. I just grabbed the one that was on the shelf at my local library, so there might be other versions out there. I’m actually not loving the narrator (I agree, they can totally make or break a book!). He’s a bit mono-tone when he’s not doing dialogue, which is not great for a book that has a lot of descriptions of the sweeping prairie and such. The story itself is pretty good though!
I’m always happy to talk about The Secret History!
So I thought it was dark and atmospheric and a good read overall, but I also thought it dragged a bit in the middle. Like it wasn’t a “I couldn’t put it down” type of book for me, which it seems like it might have been for a lot of other people. I did enjoy the academic atmosphere though! I always appreciate a book that can make me romanticize the idea of going back to school and studying something completely impractical like Ancient Greek!
Yeah, I think I did race through it on my first read, but I know what you mean! Part of it I think might be that the time scale gets so slowed down from the–inciting incident to the end, which I think is only about five or six weeks? Also, they stop spending so much time together, and there is not nearly enough Camilla (in a five-person band type scenario, my reaction is pretty much always MORE SCENES WITH THE GIRL(S), and Camilla is so much more a mystery to Richard anyway she can feel underdeveloped), followed by not enough Henry. Richard just wandering about doing drugs and having nightmares is. . .a lot of Richard.
I did do a semester of Ancient Greek after I read it, but I’ve forgotten it all. 🙁
I love all the tactile/sensual detail, too–the food they eat and the clothes and the objets d’art and Julian’s classroom.
There was definitely not enough Camilla! You can’t just mention drama like that in passing and expect me to not want more! I do think that the parts when they were all apart was a lot of Richard, and not the stuff I cared about!
The descriptions of everything were excellent though, it really helped set the tone of everything and give places like the classroom kind of a weird other-worldly quality.
I’m jealous of your Ancient Greek, even if you’ve forgotten it all!
I would like to give M Train a go. I recently listened to the Just Kids audiobook (read by Patti herself) and I enjoyed it – someone on Goodreads described it as ‘easy to make fun of, but you don’t want to cause it’s so tender and sincere’, which sums it up pretty well I think. I’d be interested to hear how M Train compares – I heard it’s much more impressionistic, less linear,
I listened to the audio book of Just Kids too! I really enjoyed that one, especially narrated by Patti you could really tell how much it all meant to her, it was sweet!
I didn’t like M Train as much. It doesn’t have the linear structure, and it’s much less memoir and much more stream of consciousness about what’s been happening in Patti’s life over the past few years. It has points that jump back to her marriage and things like that, but the reflections were really surface level, I got the impression that she didn’t really want to talk about any of that, unlike in Just Kids which had a definite story she was wanting to tell about Robert and everything. It was still good, she’s a great writer, but I would have preferred something a little more structured!
I’m reading The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks. I love her books. This one is about King David. I have like a Sunday-School level of knowledge about most of David’s story, so it’s difficult for me to tell in many places where the Biblical story ends and Brooks’s embroidery begins, and TBH I love that so much. There’s plenty that is clearly not what I learned 30 years ago, but it’s all arranged so well that you just go along with it all.
Highly recommended!
I am reading:
The Knife Man by Wendy Moore (medical history, about the guy who basically pioneered surgery as we know it, and there are a lot of gross/wonderful details about operations and experiments)
All Alone in the World by Nell Bernstein (nonfiction, about kids whose parents are incarcerated, heartwrenchingly upsetting)
Sabriel by Garth Nix (because someone mentioned it in another Toast thread this morning and I realized it had been awhile since I’ve revisited those books)
I am reading the last two Fables comics (in collected form)–I’m not as enchanted, as it were, as I once was, but it does satisfy the completionist in me. I’m also reading Dead Clever, a Scarlett Thomas novel which I’d never heard of before, but which seems to predate PopCo et al–it has a lot of the wit, but is not so intensely philosophical, which is nice these days. I’m debating buying the British edition of a newish Sophie Hannah novel rather than waiting for it to shop up in America–she’s another person I’ve gone off a bit, but I reread The Wrong Mother and thought it held up, and her e-book short story collection had some clever and unsettling ones.
I also reread the Montmoray journals, which have kind of become my go-to comfort read, in the bath.
I’m still working on Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon, which is book two in Deed of Paksenarrion.
It is straight up a DnD campaign in book form, which gives me warm fuzzies (I’m a huge tabletop RPG nut) even while I giggle and roll my eyes about it sometimes.
I really like Moon’s ability to capture small interactions between characters. It makes them really come to life, even when I’m like, “Oh okay, he’s the Rogue, she’s the Paladin, he’s the Wizard…”
I wonder if that is why I got so aggravated with Paksenarrion? I like Moon’s other work a lot, including /iSpeed of Dark/ but had no luck liking that set.
Still working on Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Thompson. Great for an understanding of what goes on in the Middle East today.
“Animals” by Emma Jane Unsworth. I’m almost halfway through and I can’t decide what I think of it. Sometimes it feels like someone telling you boring stories of how wasted they got, and sometimes it feels like a really compelling story of friendship and trying to grow up.
I finished A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara last week and don’t quite feel emotionally ready to start something else yet. I loved it. It really made my heart ache – it’s really a real study on the limits of suffering and survival. I was so sad when it was over – halfway through I was already wishing it would never end.
Rereading CJ Cherryh’s Chanur series – LIONS IIN SPAAAAAAACE!!! which I love beyond reason and should read more often.
Also reading Frankenstein for book group, and balanced between love of it I have read here, and coping with excess language, and my daughter’s observation that the entire cast could be replaced with damp paper bags, and the hero with a fainting goat and it would read about the same. Not sure yet how I feel about it. Not entirely sure how I feel about book group, so.
Talk to me about fitness trackers, Toastfriends. I’m relatively un-active but I want to move more and I got it in my head that this would help. I like the looks of the Jawbone Up3 or whatever it’s called. Anyone have strong opinions Jawbone vs Fitbit? Did wearing the band motivate you to move/workout more? Should I just get a cheap pedometer and see if it motivates me and then make a bigger investment?
If you have a smart phone that will count your steps, I suggest trying that first! That’s what made me commit to getting a Fitbit. I really like goal-setting and tracking. When I found myself almost always hitting 10K steps a day I changed my tracker goal to 15K a day and my average steps/day have gone up by about 2K.
I chose a Fitbit because my health insurance has a points program where you earn gift cards and fitness items for doing prevention activities and I could cash in points for a Fitbit through that. I then used more points on an Amazon gift card that I used to purchase a cute Fitbit band that is the single most-complimented thing I own, unless you count my dogs and my hair.
i used to do pedometer, but got a fitbit when i saw all the things they said it tracked. turns out, it’s a glorified pedometer, unless you get the highest model. the whole sleep-tracking thing isn’t real, it’s mainly a motion tracker that tells you if you’re not moving [but maybe lying in bed awake] that you’re asleep. i have the flex, and i do wear it every day, whether or not i abide by it or worship it fluctuates.
another thing, as a person who mostly cooks vs. buying packaged food, the food tracker is a lot harder to fill out. being a virgo, i made a spreadsheet that adds calories from meals i make, but it’s a lot more work than i’m willing to do on a daily/ongoing basis. however, when i did do it and stayed within limits & hit step goals, i did see results.
and another thing: other than walking/running/hiking, you can’t really track exercises you do. or rather, you have to add them manually. i noticed when i was using myfitnesspal.com they had all kinds of exercises broken down by calories/time, so i manually imported the ones i was doing. if i’m going to put in calories eaten, i want credit for cleaning, cooking, yoga, all that stuff.
if you have a smartphone and don’t want to jump into this tracker business, myfitnesspal and mapmywalk [which maps biking too] are good apps. i haven’t done the health app on my iPhone, but i use mapmywalk for bike rides, which fitbit can’t really do, and it’s nice because they call out your milestones along the way.
so, bottom line is, you can get around this stuff if you want to. but i’m not really saying don’t get a tracker, because i actually like mine, i just feel like it’s a lot more data entry than i was ready to commit to, which isn’t apparent until you get it.
as a home cooker vs. packaged food eater, i have to say MFP For Life. i’ve enetered a lot of recipes and saved a lot of meals over the years. combine those with the “Recent” feature and i hardly ever have to search for anyhting anymore.
I got a Jawbone and I sooooo wish I had just gotten a cheap pedometer. I’ve stopped wearing it because it looked ugly with anything but long sleeves and all it taught me was “yes, you walk a lot, you already knew that.” The sleep thing was cool for like a month and then just stressed me out.
I had a Fitbit Flex, and now I have a Garmin Vivosmart. I was mostly happy with the Flex. It motivated me to move a lot more for about a month, and then after that it at least reassured me that I’m not as lazy as my doctors always seem to think. I liked the sleep tracking, I found it to be pretty accurate for me. The major downsides were that I had to replace the band every three to six months, and the charger stopped working unless it was propped up at a certain angle. The Vivosmart isn’t quite as good as a fitness tracker, but it has some very bare-bones smartwatch features, which I like. However, the band makes squelchy noises if it gets wet when I wash my hands, which is annoying.
If you just want step counting, and you have a smartphone, then it definitely makes sense to try that first. If your phone is Android, Google Fit is pretty good.
Last night I scheduled a job interview with a library in Washington. Honestly, I forgot I applied to this job last month. (Honestly, I drunk-applied to this job last month after having dinner at a pub and like four Guinnesses. I was not expecting it to go anywhere at all, especially because I typoed some dates of employment.) I’m not super unhappy at my current job right now, and this would probably be a pay cut if anything, but it would also be moving to a place with a much lower cost of living (than Outer Chicagoland) and would be a massive, massive change. Which. I really want, it turns out.
I’m trying really hard to manage these change feelings, because I’ve had more than two dozen library interviews and only ever gotten the one library job, so I cannot count on this happening. But oh boy do I want something different than what I have right now, and this would be great. Wish me luck next Thursday morning, and in the meantime, I’m gonna try to sublimate everything into my NaNo novel.
Good luck!
Metro-Detroit Toasties! I mentioned yesterday that I might plan a meetup, but alas I have been busy and did not plan anything! I will try to get on that soon, and keep you posted. I’d like to judge general interest – who would be willing to come?
I’d also like to get a (very) general idea of where people live so I can take that into consideration when selecting a location. North, south, east, and west should suffice.
Hello! You got burred and I missed this and I’m guessing others did too. I’m in Ann Arbor but will absolutely join/crash a metro-detroit meetup. I’m willing to drive wherever so don’t take me into account on geographically where you plan something but maybe somewhere that parking isn’t a total pain…
So I was lucky enough to see Helen MacDonald read and discuss H Is For Hawk this week! She was such a warm, thoughtful funny speaker, but she said one phrase that I think will stay with me for a long time: ‘We make other selves of ourselves to get through things that seem unendurable.’
I’ve just started reading the book, and it’s the most intensely human thing I’ve read in a long time – and her analysis of White is so perceptive and so very sad.
Anyone else have any Hawk/T.H White thoughts?
Loved the book, both Helen’s story and the T.H. White substory, harrowing as it was.
I loved H Is For Hawk! But I read it whlle I was feeling weirdly depressed and disconnected from the world around me, and it turns out reading a book about someone who is feeling depressed and disconnected from the world around her while you are experiencing similar feelings does not do anything to help with your mood, but just makes you feel like you’re losing your mind a bit. So that was fun.
I have an exercise question! How do you keep track of your progress? I lift weights and every time I write down the exercise and the number of reps/sets and the weight used, but part of me wonders if there’s some kind of app I could be using to make fun graphs so I can see how I’ve improved over time. Also, should I be tracking measurements or weight or anything else? My goals are a sort of combo of lose weight/be stronger/have fun/feel good, so it’s hard to figure out how I can keep track of all that (especially since when I say “lose weight” I really mean lose fat).
I haven’t been lifting for a few months but when I was I used the Fitocracy app. It tracks your weight/reps, is fairly easy to use, saves your routines for you, and gives you points and you level up when you have enough points, which is kind of fun.
Yeah I liked Fitocracy a LOT when I starting lifting. Now I’m back to notebook/pen but its nice because it remembers your PRs and sets little benchmarks for you, etc. “Gamified” I believe they call it.
I used to use Fitocracy a lot, but they did something weird to the interface and I had the hardest time using it after that. So now I’m back to pen and paper. But I would like to learn about Fitocracy-like apps that aren’t Fitocracy.
Board/card/tabletop game thread!
My obsession with Netrunner is fading to a more reasonable level, which is nice. I haven’t been playing much else, though, so this post is still going to be full of Netrunner. Skip the next paragraph if you’re tired of hearing about it.
I’ve given up on net-decking temporarily and made my own fairly basic decks to take Wednesday, and I did pretty well with them, which made me happy. I forgot to record my games this week so I can go back and look for patterns, but that’s ok, there will be more games to record next week. Opening Moves (an expansion) was finally back in stock and I bought it, which helped. I have almost finished planning what other expansions I will buy this month and next, and then I will send the list of what I have to my sister, who sees my Netrunner obsession as a thing that will make buying Christmas presents for me easier.
What have you been playing lately, Toasts?
I have not played anything new lately but for Halloween my boyfriend and I were Cards Against Humanity.
Those are excellent CAH costumes!
There is no reasonable level of Netrunner obsession. Regardless of current symptoms, the infection lies dormant, ready to rise again.
We got Codenames, which is the best if you talk in Russian accents and heckle the other team constantly and also have a brain like an aggressive spider.
And I cannot get over the dice version of The Cure, because I love having a team and because I read that David Quammen book on plague and the game is pretty accurate.
Yes, but I’m beginning to suspect that it’s one of those illnesses where the initial outbreak is usually the worst, so it’s probably good to have that winding down.
Both those games look very cool. I think they were already on my list of games to check out, but I may have to move them higher on the list.
I had an EXCELLENT gaming weekend last week. At a Halloween party on Saturday, I played a one-shot of InSpectres with a mixed group of people who had played it before and people who basically never play roleplaying/storytelling games, and we had a terrific time clearing gremlins out of a local high school. Then on Sunday my Castles & Crusades group met and also had a great session! We slew some impressively challenging enemies through the power of Tactics and Overconfidence! It was great all around.
That does sound like an excellent gaming weekend!
I AM HAVING A LOT OF JOANNA NEWSOM FEELINGS THIS WEEK. Does anyone want to talk about the new album? I like it a lot! But I miss the expansiveness of Have One On Me. I don’t think “I love how LONG it is” was the most popular opinion to have about Have One On Me, but I LOVED how long it was. I just wanted to lay down and roll around in it. I don’t quite feel that way about Divers! But Divers is still very good so far!
I love the new album, although I love all of her albums so much that I don’t think I could pick a favorite. I do know what you mean though, I also kind of wish there was a least one eleven minute song or such. The more you listen to Divers the better it is. Also, if you want to be nerdy about it, check out the lyrics page for the album at genius.com, it’s pretty amazing.
Well toasties, I am finally here in time to participate in the open thread. Last night I slept for 7 straight hours without waking up, which is a goddamn miracle. I get this muscle tension in my upper back where I carry stress, which leads me to stress about the stress, causing more pain. Really the only thing that helps is muscle relaxers, and I can’t take them because they interfere with my psych meds.
But in happier news, the weather has finally shifted from 90+ degrees every day and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Except that it gets dark at 5pm.
I’ve been reading Furiously Happy, which is a delight. It’s funny and also about depression, and I am relating so much.
What have you been reading/watching/doing, fellow toasties?
YMMV, but the exercises in this book really help with upper back/shoulder/neck tension for me: http://www.amazon.com/Pain-Free-Revolutionary-Sto…
Thanks, I will check that out.
BRUSSEL SPROUTS!!! i’m actually having grilled sprouts with balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese with dinner tomorrow *drool*
While I, as Rob Thomas once said, wish the real world would just stop hasslin’ me, I’m happy to report that you all made me feel so good about yesterday’s Stephen King list and my ability to write humorously in general. It got me thinking about how much more I could be doing, writing-wise, and that doesn’t happen very often, so thank you for being my friends.
I loved it! Most of those lists are genres or authors i’ve not read, so when I saw that, I was all AW YISS
Oh SHIT guys, today is Self Evaluation Day at work and my eval is due by 5pm PST and I officially can’t put it off any longer. Anybody want to commiserate/tell me what to write?
I always pull up my last evaluation to get me going, if that isn’t built into your organization’s self-eval process. Good luck! Tell them how wonderful you are and about all the kickass things you do.
That’s pretty much what I do every year – so far no one has caught on or complained…I think all of us here do that in one way or another! I mean, really – how much could it change from year to year?
i was just throwing away old files and found 2 consecutive reviews from a job that were near-identical. if they can do it, you can do it.
Self-evaluations are the worst. It helps if you’ve started or completed projects or joined new teams, so if you’re an ice-cream vendor you could write “Initiated project to develop new flavor – surveyed 500+ customers, organized flavor-tasting event, analyzed sales by weight, resulting ten million dollars in sales per month.” If you’ve got the sort of job where your duties mostly remain the same, you could still use statistics to indicate improvement.
Also, be sure to include stuff that you want to do and learn next year.
The “stuff to work on next year” bit is always so difficult!
“I’d like to learn more about emerging technologies as they relate to our puppy department”
Failing that, “I hope to improve my skills in Microsoft Access” is a staple of my self-evals.
My only real use for Excel is as a “skills improvement” scapegoat in my annual review.
“If I must be honest about myself, I have been fan-fucking-tastic! Thanks guys, have a great year!”
I HAVE been fan-fucking-tastic this year! If they want to know my honest opinion about myself, they are going to get it.
As a manager I always like when people put nice things about themselves in their self-evals, because it makes it easy for me to advocate for giving them a raise with the higher ups. That’s harder to do when they focus on their shortcomings, because then I have to argue against their self-assessment. “They are too hard on themselves, they really deserve more” isn’t a very successful argument.
Hate those. Haaaaaaate. What I do every year–and I always do it after the deadline because my boss hates them too and waits until the dean’s office complains that he’s late turning in his department’s evals and then he reminds us–is to take last year’s eval, where we list out everything we did the year before and what our goals for the coming year are, and copy it into a new document. Then I go through the goals and add notes like “This was done as expected,” “This was done after a delay because of X” and “This was not done because because of A, B, and C and was delayed until next year/we decided not to do it.”
Then I come up with a list of stuff we’d like to do in the near future and list that as my goals for the upcoming year. This is easier than it seems because for some weird reason we do evals 6 months after the end of the fiscal year, so I can put everything we did in the past 6 months down as a future goal.
I then take all of that and rewrite it into essay form for the evaluation part, and add in whatever random details about the projects that I can to bulk it out (grad school essay-BSing skillz FTW!), such as advantages we think it’ll bring to the library or things we needed to evaluate further before starting. My boss is pretty much fine without us doing anything more personnel-like, but occasionally I’ll add in something like “A weakness I have is failing to fill the timesheet in with details of the projects I am currently working on. I am planning to work on this in the coming year by doing a, b, and c.”
My boss compliments me on my eval each year, so it seems to work, and I go home and tell my husband that I fooled them for another year.
My friend has a 5k Bloody Mary walk planned for her birthday tomorrow, which sounds ridiculously fun. I’m totally jealous that I never came up with something like this and now I can never do it and act like I thought of it first. So now I’m sharing this idea with everyone here so you can claim it as your own!
I took the cat to the vet, which he (the cat) HATES, and he’s so pathetic and anxious and needy when we’re there, and I can’t protect him because he needs to get his goddamned teeth cleaned. Also he’s old af, and pretty much every vet visit there’s a non-trivial chance that they’ll be like “yup, so, soon your beloved pet will die.” and it is generally an anxiety-fest.
ALSO this last weekend two of my high school friends visited and at separate points they were like “Your cat is really old. ” which just, guys. Where do you expect that conversation to go?
i used to be SO proud of how old my cat was! she lived to be 19.5 years old, she was older than some of the people who worked at the pet store.
but i also did a lot of prep-crying about my fears about losing her. sometimes it’s all about how they go that helps you make sense of it. i had 2 cats that went into final stages of kidney failure, and while you never want a pet to go, when they are no longer themselves, it makes more sense that it’s the end.
with my oldest, she had all kinds of geriatric issues, all of which were medicated and stable at the time of death, but she developed anemia on top of it [common for cats with chronic illness] and gently reduced her diet and kind of floated away. rather than panic or try to force her to eat, i followed her lead, because she was fine and happy and just not eating much anymore. there isn’t much you can do with an anemic cat other than feed them blood strengthening foods and hope for the best [i am anti-transfusion for a 19yo cat]. so, it all made sense.
and in the end, on the other side, i was much less sad than i thought i’d be. all that prep-crying probably took care of it. plus there are a million cats out there to rescue and foster, so that’s what i do now. so, so many kitties out there.
I am going to whisper your cat’s stats into my cat’s ears when he gets back.
I can only start pre-greiving when there are symptoms? Like my childhood cat died a couple years ago, and it was less hard than I thought it would be because he clearly was not enjoying much of anything other than being adjacent to me, and that’s no way to live.
My cat died recently, and the prep-crying I did over the months leading up to it when she was going downhill definitely seemed to help with making me less sad than I feared I would be.
We adopted our cats when they were (estimated to be) 14 years old, and you wouldn’t believe how many people just came out and said “huh, but you know they might die soon, right?”
Anyway, they’ve been with us for over a year now, and they seem to still have plenty of energy (one of them still chases his tail on a regular basis!) So I say boo to all the naysayers.
I do get sad sometimes about them probably dying within a few years. But that just makes me want to cuddle with them more, so it’s not all bad.
That is pretty much my cat’s age and health level, bless his tiny reasonably healthy heart. He just gets sweeter and more affectionate as he ages – eventually our old cats will become the excellent cat singularity and micat inter omnes.
And there’s no guarantee with age! You can have a kitten who succumbs to something! Our palliative cat (with a congenital condition) managed to make it 5, but most with her illness only make it to 1.
I have a 17 year-old cat, and she is still full of energy. My parents bought her a new catnip mouse a few weeks ago in case she needed distraction from our other cat dying (they did not get on, but they thought the remaining cat still might be a bit distressed) and my dad posted a video on Facebook of her rolling around energetically trying to kill it. I went home just after the other cat died, and was standing by her grave while the remaining cat rolled around happily in the sunlight and pounced on discarded seagull feathers. 14 is super young,
My most geriatric cat lived to be 25. You might have a LOT more time with them. Cats–they do what they want, not what Puny Humans plan for them.
It’s snowing right now! It’s so pretty and I’m very glad I brought my lunch to work today so I don’t have to leave the building.
Any Toasties doing NaNo this month?
Kiiiind of. I’m putting a lot of effort into some fanfic I’ve had on the backburner, but am unlikely to hit 50k and don’t really care. What about you, what are you working on?
An idea I’d stalled out on over a year ago. I’m taking a fiction class and started thinking about it again and things started to click into place. It’s a, uh, paranormal road-trip buddy story (?)
So far, so good. I’ve got a wedding coming up next weekend and plans to visit family over US Thanksgiving, so I’m trying to get ahead on my word count.
Paranormal road-trip buddy story! That sounds so good.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (excuse me while I fall over and deal with the glee/shock of someone actually liking my idea)
Rest assured, I would read the hell out of that story.
I adore it. So glad you’re working on it!
😀
Me! I’m trying to write a haunted house novel and I have no idea of the ending yet. It’s kind of terrifying. I’m about a day behind, but that’s not unusual at this stage.
It is kind of terrifying, isn’t it? But thrilling.
I keep worrying that I’m going to annoy my (awesome, patient, supportive) husband with the daily word count updates.
As Chris Baty always says – remind him it’s only for a month? 😀
Hahaha so true
*highfive* Also trying to write a haunted house novel. (Albeit one I’ve been toying around with/outlining off and on for awhile, but I’m finally forcing myself to sit down and get started on something like a coherent first draft.)
And for me, anyway, it’s partially terrifying because I’m afraid it won’t end up being terrifying enough.
Terrifying is for the second draft! First draft is for figuring out what to do with a house haunted by a misogynist ghost! (Right? Right.)
My house also has a misogynist ghost! That I hope I can figure what to do with too!
And that is a good point, you’re right. I will try to focus on figuring out what needs to happen in the rough draft and then after that’s done, I can worry about how to make it do those things well.
I am! I have no idea where I’m going at this, and my original story idea seems flat and unfulfilling, and half of my wordcount is description of one character buying a dress, and yesterday my entire wordcount was reached by jumping into random side character’s viewpoints for a scene. But I have met wordcount every day so far, and I’ve decided that this month, my overall goal is just to convince myself that it’s okay, in fact necessary, to write garbage first drafts if I want to actually ever complete a novel.
yes! I’m just doing it to have a shitty first draft of something. So far this attitude is working for me.
my overall goal is just to convince myself that it’s okay, in fact necessary, to write garbage first drafts if I want to actually ever complete a novel.
That’s pretty much where I am too; I think it’s a pretty solid goal.
So even if I know in theory I’ll be tossing out a bunch of the scenes I’ve written later on down the line, I’m currently resisting my usual urge to edit heavily before I’ve actually finished writing anything.
Almost all of my word count yesterday (the first day I went over 2K) was a sex scene.
And garbage first drafts are invaluable because then when you don’t want to write something new, you get to say “Hey, I have that garbage first draft I can be editing, how about I focus on that instead of this crap I’m trying to write from scratch?”
I have never thought of it that way before! Thank you! I certainly have plenty of first drafts lying around. My problem is that whenever I start something, I can’t help thinking, “Okay, this is it. This is the one I’m gonna make my First Published Novel.” Which then puts so much pressure on it to be good from the start, or at least better than all my other half-completed first drafts, and then I get discouraged and distracted and move on to yet another first draft. I am SO bad at completing drafts.
I have found that actually finishing drafts started to make that “This Is It” feeling go away. The first one was sooooo painful, and the three after that have been fine.
(Now if someone can just teach me how to get motivated to rewrite and edit those shitty first drafts, that would be gr8.)
Yes. It’s not going that well, but also I haven’t been trying as hard as some years. It’ll be ok, though! I have lots of time to write this weekend, and I’ve arranged a write-in for Monday evening.
Medical Toasties! Do I have to see a dermatologist for what I’m pretty certain is some sort of eczema or can I just go to my PCP? I don’t currently have a derm & there are limited ones close by, so if I can avoid the hassle of vetting a new doc, I’d like to. But I also don’t want to shell out a copay just to have my doc refer me to someone…
Releatedly, any tips for choosing a derm? I lucked out with my PCP & finally found one who doesn’t immediately assign any health issues to my weight.
Depends on your PCP and what the condition is. My GP is perfectly happy to write me an rx to get rid of tinea, but that’s a pretty common and non-severe/acute thing.
I’d think you probably have to go to the PCP first anyway, to get a referral?
That’s how my annoying healthcare works, still, even though I have been going to the dermatologist for cancer screening thingies for the last 30 years now.
You might not *have* to, but it would probably make things a lot simpler.
My healthcare lets me see a specialist w/o a referral as long as they’re ‘in network’ which is nice. But the earliest appt the closest derm had for a new patient is 3 weeks out, so I’m probably starting with my PCP anyway who will fit me in next week.
Your PCP can likely make a good derm recommendation, too. Esp if you can give some parameters, like good listener, etc. I once asked for a ‘not crazy’ psychiatrist referral–that took a while.
I don’t think anyone else has posted about this, but:
Are any of y’all doing NaNoWriMo? How’s that going?
Is anyone working on any other writing they need to vent about?
Good luck to all the NaNo folks!
I’m not doing NaNo, but I have 90% of a novel written and I DON’T KNOW HOW IT ENDS. Argh.
Oh man! 90% is definitely an awesome place to be! And I have full faith that you’ll find the right ending and it will be amazing.
I’m not technically doing NaNo either, but November seems to have coincided with the point when all of the outlining and organizing random scraps has come together to me actually starting to write/compile my novel into a coherent whole, so the timing is kind of convenient, because it’s nice not being the only person I know spending a lot of time writing, at least for the next few weeks.
Thank you! I hope so because ugh. And good luck with your writing/compiling! That’s a very exciting place to be.
Me toooo! Well, probably like 85%–I wrote scenes out of order so now I have to try to fill in all the weird gaps.
Ha, I just posted about this!
Yeah, I’m working on an idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while. So far so good!
Has anyone gone to a meet-up or actual write -in? Are those worthwhile?
I’ve met with a friend where just two of us write, and we do the ‘half hour of complaints about how much writing sucks, half hour of writing, ten minutes of complaining, half hour of writing’ routine, but it gets words down.
There’s a Monday night write-in near me that I like, but I couldn’t go this week. That’s “sit down, watch other people type, refill the coffee, type more out of peer pressure, coffee, type, repeat” and it’s less fun but can be productive. It’s like – going to the gym because you know it’s a good for you, and you’ll be glad afterwards.
Makes sense. I may check one out later in the month when I need the kick in the ass.
Good luck with your project!
I’m grooving on Nano this year. Well, until last night. Today hasn’t been productive in the least, BUT I will get some done, and I’ll go over 10K today, and that’s a damn good thing for me.
This novel is starting to be a lot of fun to write, after too long of being the thing I ignored while I worked on other things. I revised & published an entirely different novel instead of writing it, and finished revisions on a novella, and developed a whole new series, all in the year I should have been finishing & editing & publishing it.
Hopefully my love affair with it will continue, and I’ll be done as soon as I think! Nano is definitely helping.
Good luck on y’alls work!
I’m doing AcWriMo, the academic writing equivalent. I’ve got an article halfway written that needs to be done and sent off by the end of the month, so I’m motivated — except yesterday I fell off the writing wagon and today my brain is like donwanna donwanna donwanna. Urgh.
Jem and the Holograms thread! Did anyone see it? I went with some ladyfriends on Wednesday and it was… not great, but not terrible either, and anyway we had a great time because
(1) Juliette Lewis is ahmahhhzing
(2) pretty girls in pretty makeup
(3) we were the only people in the theater except for a lone man, maybe in his thirties? Which sounds skeezy as I type it, but at the time we were more concerned that he’d get belligerent about our giggling and snarking. (e.g. we laughed so loud during Jurassic Park that A Man yelled across the packed theater for us to shut up.)
But instead the lone man also giggled and snarked, not like with us exactly but alongside us, and he laughed at our jokes and thanked us for a pleasant evening as he left the theater. So, that was sweet.
I feel bad for Jem absolutely flopping as a theatrical release but to be fair, it incorporates a lot of random YouTube videos and condescending commentary on Millenniels so I don’t know what they were expecting.
I really enjoyed the thread about budget gifts last week! I’d love to hear about the best gift you’ve ever given or received.
When I was 8 or 9 my younger brother was really into Pokemon but Pokemon had not completely hit the US yet. There were cards and maybe a few small plastic figurines but that was all the merchandise we had access to. My brother saw a stuffed Pikachu somewhere and wanted it terribly but no stuffed Pikachu could be found for purchase in our rural tri-state area and internet shopping had yet to take off. I sewed my brother a Pikachu with leftover yellow upholstery fabric. It was about 10 inches tall, we had to reinforce the tail with a safety pin, and Pikachu’s eyes, nose, and cheeks were all buttons from the spare button jar. It was crooked and adorable and my brother was so thrilled. I was really proud. My brother told me a few years ago he still has that Pikachu I made him. The enormous mass-produced one that he finally got the next year actually also still receives love but did not make the cut when my brother cleaned out his childhood bedroom – it’s in my husband’s office at work, hanging out on a shelf, waving a college banner.
I really need to see a pic of this Pikachu if possible.
Toasties, has everyone seen this picture of Chris Evans? Because I’m feeling personally victimized and need to Talk About It.
gah.
there’s a whole series that’s been floating around the tumblr recently from a shoot he did for a Chinese publication. I’m at work so I can’t link at the moment but they are just. too. much.
Oh my god that tiny flash of belly <3
and the Man Pain, and the forearms, and the stupid turtle neck and perfectly tailored trousers…basically everything about this photo screams tortured beat poet and I’m deeply into it
And it’s furry! It’s a crime that they make him wax his chest in the Marvel movies. A crime, I tell ya.
Lord mercy.
I just… he looks so Steve Jobs-y here to me!
I love this. But that Jobs vibe is kind of ruining it at the same time.
Curse steve jobs for ruining black turtlenecks for everyone!
But, actually I think the trousers/pants instead of jeans eliminates that problem for me
YEP
i fully admit to having this saved on my desktop and opening it once in a while to just gawk at it. i think what really does it is…that one strand of hair that falls forward? the tiny bit of midriff? his hairy arms? HELP
Well, that’s going into the rotation.
I can see the appeal but guys he looks like he is trying & failing to cast a spell on his junk.
These! Someone made behind the scenes gifs.
Aromaleigh thread!
I got my Red Dragon box on Wednesday (Dragon’s Kiss Dragon’s Kiss Dragon’s Kiss omg also Richard Armitage’s face), and I’m wearing the perfume now. I’ve figured out how to apply it subtly enough that I don’t smell…weird and like beeswax and patchouli? So I love it, but now the problem is that I can smell the perfume, and it is apparently a smell that I find deeply sexy, so I’m getting turned on by my own perfume. HALP.
Anybody else ever get distracted/aroused by their own perfume, or am I just a bit weird/wildly undersexed?
DAMN YOU I DIDN’T KNOW THIS PLACE EXISTED AND I DO NOT NEED TO SPEND MORE MONEY
SORRY NOT SORRY
Also, I’d just been planning to go back and edit out the bit about Richard Armitage, but now my fanpoodling must remain for the world to see, damn your eyes.
A fitting punishment for the future state of my bank account!
If it’s any consolation, the intensity of the eyeshadow means that each sample baggie lasts a really long time, plus you get free samples with every order, so you don’t actually have to spend a huge amount of money to get a ridiculous amount of makeup.
I also have never heard of this but now I have a deep need for samples. I am inordinately excited.
Be careful; I started with just a few samples at a time, and now I have baggies full of sparkly rainbows all over my bathroom vanity. Just vanity everywhere.
The Red Dragon box items are, I think, going to be realized into inventory before too terribly long; get yourself some Dragon’s Kiss lipgloss if you can. I put that on as soon as I got the delivery, and it’s hot.
Responding to the last question specifically – no, you are not. Talk to me sometime about my feelings towards Alien by Thierry Mugler. NGH. My only solution for it so far is to save it for occasions where that won’t be a Serious Issue, but that sucksssss because I want to wear it ALL THE TIME.
On the other hand, thank you for informing me about this place/god damn it I got paid today and did NOT need this temptation (no for real thank you so much).
I brought it to work today to get an opinion on it from a coworker, because my sinuses are terrible. Turns out that it smells like baby powder and patchouli when I put it on, but after I’ve been wearing it for a few minutes, it smells like a warm, comforting embrace from a sexy, sexy man. This further compounds the problem of the entire line being specifically based around Richard Armitage’s character on Hannibal, which means getting anything done today was…incredibly challenging.
And reading the whole post, it actually smells like a heartfelt snuggle from Chris Evans in the thread just above this one.
Any suggestions for what to do if you suspect your younger brother is only two steps removed from being a men’s rights activist? I mean, I know he’s already a Gamergater and if he cared about reading enough to pull himself away from video games for two seconds he’d probably be a Sadpuppy (or whatever the scifi ones were), but this downward spiral into the dregs of Internet people is the worst and I can’t not see it. He still lives at my parents’ house. There is no escape. I’m afraid he’ll either get super angry one day and rampage because someone makes fun of his pony t-shirt or that he’ll eventually just become that weird uncle who maybe gets glimpsed for an hour or so ever three Christmases when he eats, rambles about a few conspiracy theories, then disappears again. The last is the best case scenario and it’s breaking my heart.
No help, just empathy! My little brother has been saying things about women that concern me. Like why no girls like him and how they only like rich men because they’re all shallow, etc. LIL BROTHER WHAT HAPPENED!
Oh that’s so hard to see. My own younger brother is a surfer/works in the bush bro, and when he veers towards stupidity I call him out right to his face, and that seems to work. I’ve also had success with books, but it sounds like that wouldn’t work for you. Does he have interest in branching out into the wider world? Can you help him see that his current trajectory might not help with that?
Oh honey no. I got nothing short of an intervention which…probably wouldn’t help? Ugh. I’m so sorry.
empathy! i don’t have a brother and i would lose my mind if he needed this kind of talking-to. but the more i think about it, my parents wouldn’t put up with it either. what do your parents say about this? do they know how he feels or does he just come & go at their place? when you say he “still” lives there, does that mean he’s beyond the age where he should need to, or that he’s still young?
He is in his early twenties. Finished high school (a year or so late) and then just stalled. Has no desire to get a job. Has no desire to go to school. All he wants to do is game. For a while he was diagnosed on the spectrum which may be why the parents are a bit more (ok, a lot more) lenient with him. When I dropped out of college the first time it was straight into the active duty military within a month of going back to them. When my little sister decided she wanted to get married out of high school it was straight to Americorps (then college, then teaching and still no marriage, hallelujah). I don’t know how much is any mental thing and how much is him just not having any desire to engage or desires at all beyond eating wings and gaming, but then getting incredibly pissy when critiqued for anything.
I was told that most recently he sat there trying to explain to my mother why he should be allowed to wear a sword at all times in public. Right to bear arms.
This sounds SHOCKINGLY like my brother-in-law. He doesn’t want to work, he doesn’t want to go to school, he just wants to game. He is suffering from depression, and his mom is pretty supportive, but his dad is NOT and thinks he should Just Get His Act Together. Unfortunately, he’s totally unwilling to take any steps to help himself (like, say, take advantage of the excellent university student health and mental health system!), and would rather just sit around and game and complain about how the odds are stacked against him.
He also suffers a Lot from Why Can’t You Be Like Your Brother syndrome, because his brother (my husband) signed up with the military, finished four years of university while doing officer training AND working in the summers, and has been a rising star in his job, and married me, a MA graduate and successful adult. His parents harp on that A LOT, which is awful, but at the same time, he just has NO motivation. Also he’s been coddled his whole life and there’s a ton of weird family dynamics, but just…ugh. Ugh. SO hard.
man, that’s rough. but everyone is different, and with or without the men’s rights issues, your brother and parents have entered into a very difficult sorta co-dependent/co-enabled relationship. because let’s say he had great opinions on women, but still didn’t want to work and nobody is making him or looking into why, say, he might have an aversion to work or self-support, right? from the very limited info i have, it sounds like he’s manipulating a situation that’s playing right into his hand. all you can do is call him out on the offensive stuff he says, and make it clear to your parents that they are allowing the situation to continue and then … someone else in the group needs to make a move.
People of sound mind and body have desires. He’s avoiding the world, convincing himself that it’s dangerous and hostile out there what with all the haters, evil women, Slenderman (!), stupid laws and norms that are just impossible, etc. Not to Internet diagnose anyone, but this could be depression, an anxiety disorder or something like that. I think that maybe this needs to be handled like a minor emergency? Like, if he was getting physically weaker his family would probably drag him to the doctor. Maybe some therapy or a visit to a psychiatrist would be in order.
Ughgh I feel you. My brother in law is like this. He still lives at home with my in-laws and doesn’t work and has never worked for more than a month or so at a time, he failed his final term in university and needs to repeat it, he didn’t work all summer because he “didn’t want to,” and would rather stay in the basement playing League of Legends and sitting on 4chan and saying terrible shit about women and how the world is unfairly stacked against Asian men. We’re not close, and he is inexplicably afraid of me, but it’s infuriating on the rare occasions that I talk to him that he has some kind of bizarre internet-fueled idea that you can NOT shake from him.
I basically see his future as being Weird Uncle because he shows zero inclination to deal with his depression or anything else in his life, forever. It’s incredibly frustrating.
Bizarre internet-fueled ideas that you can NOT shake from him are what my brother specializes in. A few years ago he was convinced that slenderman was real. He was a fully functioning twenty-one year old adult at the time. And it didn’t matter how patiently or factually you tried to convince him otherwise. He was right and you were sheeple. Now he’s moved on to why Jimmy Kimmel is personally victimizing him or why the world is out to get video gamers and why bronies shall inherit the earth and an odd amount of things about ghosts and you can. not. argue with him. There is always a youtube video out there that reinforces his position and he clings to it like a drowning man.
It also doesn’t help that I am an impatient and argumentative person whose gut instinct when hearing dumbassery is to leap down the opposing party’s throat and it is so damn difficult to keep any semblance of calm or peace. I feel like the worst sister ever, but.
I don’t know how much this would help, but maybe you could give him games with well-written female characters for Christmas & his birthday? I guess it depends what kind of games he plays, though, and how his gamergaterness influences what he’s willing to play.
Seconding. I know that guy (but am not related to him, thank goodness) and unfortunately it seems like the only thing that works with that guy is for him to get the clue on his own, and the only way for that to happen is to surround him with the real world and wait for it to sink in. :\
Sigh, I think I kinda know how you feel.
My younger brother also lives at home, but he’s become a hardcore Tea Party conservative. Like silvery metal “Don’t Tread On Me” frames on his license plates levels of Tea Party conservative.
But it’s hard to reach him and tell him he didn’t use to be so narrow-minded and awful, because I’m the black sheep in my family and he lives in an environment that really praises and reinforces his beliefs. Plus he’s got that whole thing where he gets to be the handsome, athletic, successful, college-educated straight white* dude, so it’s hard to convince him he’s wrong about everything when the whole world is stacked to tell him he totally deserves everything he gets handed.
So I feel like I have to find a way to accept the fact that he’s kind of turned into this xenophobic/sexist/homophobic/transphobic person that I don’t even know how to navigate anymore, because everyone else in the room gives him a hearty pat on the back for those viewpoints.
Anyway, I wish I had some awesome advice on what you can do, but I guess all I can really offer is: I know how that feels and I know how much it sucks, trying to reconcile the kind of person someone is now with the person you love and watched grow up.
(* Technically, we’re both a quarter Japanese, but he looks super white, whereas I don’t necessarily. So we’ve had some different experiences growing up, where he’s not the sibling who’s ever been asked, “No, but where are you actually from?” And things like that.)
Oh no. For a bit of comfort, my older brother went through a stage where he was starting to sway to the Pick Up Artist style of interacting with women. Luckily he agreed that some of the worst of it was misogynistic but he was fully on board with a lot of it. Then he just kind of snapped out of it and now is so stridently feminist I occasionally end up telling him to tone it down a bit.
During that whole time, I just kept reminding myself that it made sense he’d find it appealing because he had trouble with social interactions in general and always preferred the idea that complex things can be distilled into physics-like equations so the idea that he could approach the confusing and frustrating world of dating like that would be appealing, no matter how wrong-headed it was. I get the impression that a lot of MRA-lite/Gamergate guys are not into that because they hate women and want an outlet for that hate, but that they are frustrated by their lives and the way the world is increasingly hostile to young people and changing social norms that make them feel useless and adrift and these movements channel those emotions into blaming and targeting women. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on for your brother, but maybe looking into WHY these things would appeal to him might give you comfort that he’s not a terrible human being and might get out of it if those issues are addressed.
This is a really nice analysis. I don’t have a brother but I am a teacher of young men and this is terrific insight.
You are a good sister. Your breaking heart is proof. I’m sorry.
Questions to ask yourself: 1. What does he want? And 2. What does he want from you?
Find a way to give him those things as a positive reinforcement for expanding his world.
Does he desire your approval or attention? Schedule time with him at venues that show him a wider swath of society. Take him to movies with characters demonstrating feminism. Ask him to work alongside you in a community clean-up day, and give him atta-boys when he interacts with others.
Or does he want extra spending money? Hire him to do small chores for you, chores that require human interaction. Like taking your car to get an oil change. Tell him there’s a bonus for asking questions and listening to others talk with him.
Is there some event he wishes he could attend? Offer to help with ticket purchase, contingent on him applying for 3 achievable jobs.
These may not fit your brother or your relationship with him. And he’s not your responsibility, in any case. It’s so hard to watch, though, isn’t it? Toasthugs.
These are such cool ideas!!! I love the idea for getting a bonus for asking other people questions.
I’m so so so sorry. The only thing I can think of is to be sympathetic and talk him out of it slowly, by really carefully explaining why it seems like women only like jerks and how harmful stereotypes work, with lots of personal examples, but this is A) not guaranteed to work, and B) a staggering amount of unpaid emotional labor. I will pray for you! and also for him. He’s joining my gamergater cousin and my confederate flag cousins on that particular prayer list, so, um, you’re not alone, if that helps?
Toasties, can I vent? My partner is super sick right now – like, can’t breathe for coughing, puking every two hours, sweating through the sheets twice a day SICK – and he has been for a week. I’m working double shifts since he’s obviously not working, and also doing laundry multiple times a day, getting him fluids, making soup, being a sympathetic cuddler, putting up with listening to his shitty cartoons all day or alternately not making a sound (not even typing) because he’s finally asleep for 15 minutes – I can’t leave the house because he’s basically helpless and by the time I get back from work in between shifts he already needs more soup and more water and clean blankets and an asprin. I also can’t sleep at all because his coughing, gross sweating and lunging out of bed to go puke is keeping me up. We have a tiny apartment with no living room and the kitchen is freezing cold, so I’m stuck in a 10×15 room with him all day (that smells like sick person) and I’m about to lose my MIND but I have to be cheerful and loving and attentive or he’ll get anxious and throw up more. AHhhhhhh! I finally convinced him to go to the hospital today and shoved him in a taxi, since he couldn’t even keep down water and had an even crazier fever. So now I’m home alone but the build up of dishes and pet-care is so much that I doubt I’ll be done by the time he gets back and AUGHHHHHHHH I feel like such a shitty person for being annoyed, but I’m so tired!
You poor thing! Bravo for having so much patience already! I hope your partner is okay and I’m glad you got him to go to the hospital. I’m not an expert in self-care, but my encouragement would be to find ways to take time for yourself and remember your own needs (sorry that I don’t have any better, more specific tips than this)
Thank you!
So frustrating!
<3
You are a SAINT! And you shouldn’t be ashamed of being overwhelmed, because any person with a vestige of self would. This is what I don’t get about some people (mostly MEN) who put off going to the doctor, because it is not that bad. For you? For the people around you? Man up and get thee to a purveyor of modern medicine.
Yeah, he’s been up and down, so one afternoon he’ll feel a bit better and think he’s on the mend and then wake up as sick as ever the next morning. I haven’t pushed him to go until now because I just had this flu, albeit not as intensely, and it was over in 48hrs, so we just kept thinking he was almost finished being sick… clearly that is not what is happening now though
Hey man, you’re allowed to be annoyed and overwhelmed. Probably not to HIM, as that might make you a shitty person, but you’re definitely allowed to be annoyed and overwhelmed to US.
Being a caregiver is hard and thankless work, and requires support, just like being sick does. You just have to get it elsewhere when the sick person’s needs are more acute.
Big hugs and I hope you get some TLC and respite soon.
You are a very good partner. You are entitled to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. When not sure what to do next, remember to attach your own oxygen mask before helping others. If you’re tired when you get time to yourself, sleep. Force yourself to drink a glass of water every time you give your partner fluids, or every time you pass through the kitchen. Cleaning is lowest priority, since it will just have to be done again.
Thanks, that’s good advice. I ended up having a cry and a nap. Since we know he’s not dangerously Ill now, I’m going out tonight and going to crash at a friends place so I can sleep without listening to his coughing
Oof, not fun. Can you get friends to rally round, help with the cleaning and care, listen to you rant, give you a chance for a break? Do things that save energy like get take out, and don’t be afraid to tell him that he needs to turn the cartoons off and let you sleep. I am severely disabled and need a lot of care, and I assure you that I can survive without watching something noisy all the time, especially if my partner is looking after me more than usual and needs a rest.
Thanks! I have called a couple of his friends so they’re going to help me out this weekend and we found the headphones with the long cord, so he can use them in bed. Also, just found out that he has pneumonia, and got some antibiotics and an inhaler, so he should start getting better soon.
Part of the problem is that he rarely gets sick, so when he is ill he doesn’t handle things super well :/ but it will be better soon
Hugs if you want them!
An interaction I have actually had with my husband when he was ill “I start coughing when I lay down on this pillow, but if I hold my head up (holds head up 2 inches higher) it stops.” “Husband, would another pillow hold your head up high enough?” (forlornely) “I guess that would help.” He is a very smart man, but he is terrible at figuring out how to make himself feel better.
Listening to my husband cough literally raises my heartrate, so if he has a cough I sleep on the couch, period. I cannot imagine the horror of not being able to escape the coughing- I hope he gets better soon!
Yeah, he’s a smart dude but turns into a bewildered 3 year old when sick. I feel for him, being sick sucks <3 but I did have to remind him several times to not try to talk while coughing and just lie down and drink water. Got him some nice electrolyte tablets and a hot curry soup and hopefully that will help make things more comfortable.
Is anyone knowledgeable about home improvement? I’d like to do some upgrades that are a little out of my comfort zone- switching out faucets and lighting fixtures- and I’m not sure if that will be beyond my handy-ness. I’m not a total n00b and I’m great at following directions and DIY but plumbing and electrical seem scary!
I’ve only lived in apartments, so I can’t say I’m a home improvement expert, but I’ve entirely disassembled and reassembled a faucet before, and it’s not too bad. There are so many YouTube videos on it!
Switching out faucets is NOT DIFFICULT. There are multiple youtube videos that break it down step by step. Electrical however, scares the crap out of me. I insource plumbing and outsource electrical, me.
Electrical is EASY.
Changing out switches and light fixtures is super-easy. The boxes and behind-the-wall stuff is all there already, it’s just a matter of taking out the old and putting in the new. Jumpstarting a car is harder than changing a switch.
Confession: if I’m changing out a switch or a plug, I don’t bother turning off the circuit breaker anymore. Once in a while I get a tiny shock, but I’ve done it often enough that I can generally just wriggle all the wires into place without worry.
For light fixtures, I have to turn off the breaker, because I need a second person to help me hold stuff, and that person is a worry-wart.
You can do it! I used to design home improvement books and the step-by-step stuff is not hard. You just want to make sure you have all your supplies and tools, and do it on a day when you have time to do a good job. You’ll invariably have to go to the hardware store twice, but just count on that and it won’t be that bad.
It is way easier than it seems, trust me. I had it a bit easier because my modus operandi as a child was to be my dad’s shadow as he went through his handyman phases (mandatory shop class in middle school was also a surprising help), but most is like caveman level. The This Old House website is a gift.
You can do this. Your best friends are Youtube and the people at the hardware store. Both are great for advice and how-to.
Thank you all for the votes of confidence! My dad is a contractor and I’ve had shop/electrical class (in the distant past) so I think I’m going to give it a shot! Original plan was for dad to do them when he came for tgiving but he ripped his rotator cuff and will be going in for surgery right after tgiving. I know that if I don’t get this stuff done before tgiving he’ll insist on doing it anyways. Dads.
You guys didn’t tell me how gross the drain and p trap would be! Ewwwwwww
if i’d been here sooner, i would’ve warned you. the grossest thing i’ve ever personally witnessed was what’s in a clogged p trap *dry heave*
Ahhh, Toasties, my main girls-friend group is going through a rough patch. I hope we survive it. It’s so, so difficult to find and maintain close friendships. I am worried for us. Details below because whinging.
One of my friends is in a TERRIBLE relationship with a man who is apparently made up, at the atomic level, of tiny red flags. She knows we’re concerned for her, but she’s firmly in “I love him” mode and there’s nothing we can do.
Another friend is unexpectedly (and mostly happily) pregnant, but that’s a huge change on the horizon.
And my other other friend has been acting a bit weird about me going on dates with ladies. Not sure if it’s jealousy or insecurity that she’s going to be “replaced” or what but it’s stressing me out big time.
Pretty much.
No advice, just hugs and commiseration.
My girl group (established c. 2004) has been successfully long distance for the last 5 years, but things are starting to change and I’m worried its going to fall apart. Similar issues. I feel you so hard on the “there’s nothing we can do” feeling re: a friend’s less-than-perfect SO. Of course, if anything bad actually happened to her, I’d do everything in my power to make it right, but at this point, it’s just a bad feeling that the rest of us share and it’s really hard to act on that. (Especially long distance.)
Hope things smooth out for you and yours soon!
I shouldn’t have laughed at your description of the terrible relationship man, but it was just so perfect. All the good thoughts for the friend group making it through this set of dark woods.
Please consider helping my kitten win a space on our local Humane Society’s 2016 calendar – each vote costs $1 and is a direct donation. https://www.360photocontest.com/page/viewInd/secu…
It’s for a good cause and how can you say no to this fluffball?
TAKE ALL MY MONEY…
OH MY GOSH I’M DEAD FROM CUTE
SWEET BABY!!
Also, I feel like Brussels sprouts are following me today. I just prepped a bunch this morning for my work lunches this weekend–balsamic roasted sprouts with delicata squash tossed with pasta, and shaved sprouts with carrot and radish as a sort of slaw.
Also, I dyed my hair pink. Very pink.
Nice!
Wow, that is some good pink! Well done!
I got all of my wisdom teeth out on wednesday (which went fine, all things considered) and my coworker told me his wisdom teeth surgery story which involves an oral surgeon CUTTING THE CORNERS OF HIS MOUTH OPEN to be able to open his mouth wide enough which is, just, the worst thing I’ve ever heard, and now I’m sharing it with you all.
that is all.
My former coworker got her wisdom teeth out & the sockets didn’t stop bleeding for, like, a month.
Apparently taking mine out took 4 hours, and they had to break them into bits. I was black and blue and green for a MONTH from ear to ear, like some weird joker. My stock boy at the time offered to go beat up the guy who did this to me. I was working retail as a store manager and had to hide in the back room the whole month. For this I paid $1200.
Except for the stock boy business, DITTO. And I didn’t have anyone to drive me home, so I had to be awake for the procedure instead of knocked out like a sane person.
It was kind of shit.
his wisdom teeth surgery story which involves an oral surgeon CUTTING THE CORNERS OF HIS MOUTH OPEN
If that wasn’t discussed prior to the surgery, I would sue so hard I’d never have to work another day of my life.
And here I was just thinking I need to make an appointment to have mine out. Maybe I will keep them instead.
I just got mine done on wednesday and I’m back to work on friday, no joker stitches or anything, and his oral surgeon sounded less than great. So let that balance out the horror story. Also vicodin is magic!
I will get it done. I have put it off for way too long (years too long) and contributed to my HSA just to pay for it. There is a good chance it will be awful, I have a small month and a bad gag reflex plus two of them are impacted but no matter how bad it is going to be it will be better in the long run.
I had mine out in less than an hour and was eating nachos the next day. My jaw was stiff the first night but no pain. I didn’t even end up using the pain killers they gave me.
I had all 5 of mine out at the same time my oral surgeon did bone and tissue grafting (from the wisdom tooth area) at the front of my mouth so he could drill a titanium post into it for an implant (I was born with a dead permanent tooth) I looked like a chipmunk on one side of my mouth for several weeks at the beginning of my first semester of college.
Mine were actually relatively not painful and I had almost no bruising, but the surgeon nicked one of the nerves in my jaw so for about a month I couldn’t feel one side of my jaw. Luckily he realized this was a strong possibility before I even went under so I was warned, but it was really really weird.
Toasts, I need haircut advice. I have no idea what sort of style I should do right now, so my hair is just kind of growing without any particular goal in mind. It doesn’t look bad but I really should get it cut or styled at some point.
Post inspirational photos of androgynous-ish haircuts? Right now my hair is about 2.5 inches on top and about 1 inch on the sides/back. I’m willing to grow it out a bit, but I hate having hair longer than my chin.
Not a clue, I personally hate having hair shorter than my waist so we have entirely problems, but does it help to include your face shape in searches? Hair type? Ethnicity? Have fun hunting, and I hope you find an awesome hairstyle! The nice thing about short hair, so they tell me, is that it doesn’t take too long if you decide to change to a different shape.
That’s me in my icon, so white with wavy hair that is fine but voluminous. My face shape is… oval? Rectangular? IDK.
The thing is I’m not even sure what style I want to go for. Should I go with a hawk, which I had for a while? A dapper short cut? Should I go longer and shaggier? I HAVE NO IDEA. I’m drawing a complete blank for even a starting point, except “short.”
I like these little razor cuts? Idk not a hair expert. Like Ruby Rose has:
I guess that counts as a dapper short cut. Maybe a shaggy version of that?
Guh Ruby Rose has the most perfect elf face and I can’t even deeeeaaaaal.
That is a very sharp haircut. Thank you for the suggestion!
Personally I am a fan of the Young Stalin look, which is an unfortunate name for a damn good haircut. On mobile so I can’t embed, but give it a google
Giggling about how many toasties are googling “young stalin” tonight.
I saw Suffragette at a free preview last night. And I really enjoyed it. That is all.
I saw it too and I liked it a lot!
H’m, this is heartening. I was very excited about it but then I read a lot about how white-washed it was. But maybe I’ll give it a chance.
I saw it a few weeks ago (at a local arthouse cinema with a Q&A from female politicans afterwards, woo) and enjoyed it a lot, although I am aware it has its shortcomings. Things I enjoyed about it the most were the way it showed how people become radicalised, the fact that it made it clear that “women’s work” is not easy, and the depressing but probably accurate message that you cannot trust men to have your back completely, even if you’re married to them.
HI toasties,
I realized I vent here a lot but until I get full-time work things are just going to suck and here is one of the only places people aren’t sick of me yet.
weekly work vent: not only is it my JOB to print the maps (and nobody here gets that I can do other things), but I’m not allowed to use the good plotter, I have to use the obsolete one, because oldladyofficebitchwithsamenameasme. So today I actually need to use the printer, and I.can’t.even.reach.it because she has used it (and the floor around it) to pile up giant rolls of plans/blueprints/shit she can’t be bothered to file.
Also, she uses a typewriter, I can hear it, true story, please kill me now.
For the past 6 years asshole has passive agressively gotten my kids for thanksgiving. You read that right. This year I finally figured out in Jan. what I had to do to have the kids for Thxgving. And College Boy has a football game the next day, so he probably won’t get to come home. I am considering buying the whole deal from a grocery store near the college and having us all drive there, but I am at the moment just sad. Also last week he came ‘home’ to his dad’s and didn’t even tell me. This sucks.
middle school girl’s musical opens tonight, I will be there. I asked what I should bring to the potluck (knowing that even though dad has her this weekend he won’t do shit) and thankfully she said, “buy hummus”, so I don’t have to bake for something on his time. I really hate him lately.
Highschool boy’s football team (both the boys are in marching band, not football) goes to the playoffs tonight, but I think he will be playing in the musical orchestra pit, if he got permission from the band director.
It’s crazy gorgeous out for november in ohio. I will try to get out for a bike ride. But the no real job thing is now over a year, and winter is coming, and it’s dark all the time, and I just screwed up my cable tv order so I can’t even watch tv and knit until tomorrow, and I just want to cry instead. The whole “you can’t move ever without either breaking the law or leaving your kids” thing is really killing my job-hunting mojo.
I love my kids but I’m ready to be able to have my weekend w/out them be my weekend, not full of some event where I have to navigate around the asshole and skip one of the 2 nights a month I actually have a dance or an even on my calendar. Seriously. I don’t have much of a social life but the kid things always overlap the one night I have plans. WTH?
I am going to eat chocolate.
that sounds really really hard and you have all my sympathy
Toasties! I missed the open thread last week because it was my 5th anniversary! Mr Thuja and I both took the day off of work and just spent it together. We took the cats to the vet for their yearly exams (so romantic), played video games, then went to the cider house and to a slightly fancy restaurant. It was lovely. Also, on Saturday at the Halloween party we attended, someone asked me if I was dressed as Miss Fisher! It was a banner weekend. This weekend has a lot to live up to.
Happy anniversary! Yay healthy kitties!
Congratulations!
Anyone else having problems with hot air in meetings this week? And one’s own inability to stem the tide?
This link to Lauryn Hill’s “Superstar” is for you.
https://open.spotify.com/track/0yqby64XNHe6ayGZNf…
My goal today is to actually write up some of the progress notes I keep avoiding, which means I need to stop reading the Cocktail Hour Thread. Boo.
Also, I would like some advice on how to drum up the Ability to Can consistently, especially at work. I have spurts of motivation and Doing Things Like an Adult, but then I get sidetracked and fall behind again. Like, I know that a lot of it is Just Do It, but how do I Just Do Things? All the time?
I feel like I’ve gotten away with slacker tendencies and last minute catch-ups most of life through grad school, and now that I’m settling into full time job life, I’m struggling more often than not. I mean, I’ve been in this position for a year! This is now my longest-running position ever! …and I’m not like, motivated most of the time (though I get to do some awesome work and I understand that the boring stuff has a role along side the not-boring stuff). I feel like I need something that I’m not getting, but I don’t know what exactly I’m not getting.
Bah. Ok. I feel like this is what I get for being one of those “smart kids” and “high achievers” through college. Flying by the seat of your pants and academically compatible brains isn’t a viable life-long strategy, which, like, sucks.
/end whinging. Thanks for listening. Advice is good.
I don’t have much in the way of advice, but I’m hoping someone else does, because I often have this same problem.
The notion that you need to love what you do for a living needs to die in a fire, IMO. If you’re not personally bothered by the lack of motivation, and you’re getting your work done and the bosses are happy, who cares? There’s nothing you’re not getting. Some jobs are just jobs! And that’s okay! Now, if you’re failing at completing tasks, that’s different and I’d remind you that willpower is a muscle. If you’re having problems making yourself do things, look at the irritating/unpleasant things in your life that you’re doing now. Do you really need to do them, or are you burdening yourself with socially and culturally ridiculous things? If you are, kick that shit to the curb and free up some of that willpower muscle for the stuff that matters. I’m getting ready to go offline for the rest of the day, so I hope this is the kind of thing you were asking for!
Ah, the joys of your SPN gifs. 😀
I’m ok with not exactly loving what I do, though I think I still battle that desire because I’m like, “I’ve got a job in my field! Doing the stuff I trained for! Holy shit!” So I think I’ve attached some motivational baggage to that. In a lot of ways (except the money, oh the money), I feel like I liked my “just a job” jobs more – the baking gig, cooking, baristaing – because they were things I did for the hours I was there and then I got to go home. Yay!
I will say, and thank you CleverManka, that so far people seem pretty happy with my output. Most times I’m sure I evaluate myself harder than everyone else, because I’m not sure if their apparent “ok-ness” with my performance is real or not. Imposter Syndrome to the nth degree for sure! Though to be honest, all three of us in my program team are definitely dealing with stuff coming down from above in terms of program goals and uncertainty with the level of support we’re given by the agency. And I know that’s impacting my levels of motivation as well.
Enjoy your time off the internet! I’m going to push through some more progress notes!
Whew! I’m back on the internet with more than just my phone finally. That’s great that people are happy with your performance and other people in your position are experiencing similar feelings, even if they aren’t the best feelings. I bet you’re actually doing just fine. Hope you feel good about your progress notes!
I feel like I liked my “just a job” jobs more – the baking gig, cooking, baristaing – because they were things I did for the hours I was there and then I got to go home.
Which is why I am still in my little ol’ secretarial job!
Oh, I was also working on progress notes this afternoon and hating them and hating myself for procrastinating. They are THE WORST. No matter how much you love patient care, no one likes progress notes. As one colleague said, “I have to RELIVE every visit!” My hope is someday to have a scribe. If you find out the answer please let me know. I suspect part of it is that 75% of people are hopelessly behind on some part of their jobs, but since people who write progress notes are generally highly conscientious people, it bugs us more.
“75% of people are hopelessly behind on some part of their jobs” – this is what I try to keep in mind when I start feeling like a Real Adult would have their shit together by now. Probably lots of people are flailing, but as long as they (and I) get the actual work done in a timely manner and without piling stress onto other people, the flailing is irrelevant.
This is a timely reminder. Thanks.
Also, yes. This makes me feel a bit better. Thank you!
Oh yes, let’s complain about progress notes! One of our funders has (from my POV) changed their minds on how we should be writing our service plans and progress notes at least 2 different times in the year since I started? Or at least we’ve had to change up how we do it in order to fit in with their desires, which means relearning how to write AND rewriting a bunch. I still haven’t rewritten a batch of service plans because it’s just so much. This is on top of their desire for us to act as if we work with all our clients on an individual basis, including our group clients. Which means MORE progress notes.
A scribe would be amazing. Until then, I keep telling myself to just write the damn thing after a session… which only works 1/4 of the time. My co-worker has it figured out somehow, but my supervisor and I… not so much. lol.
The joys of being a social worker, lol.
Keep progress notes templates? One of my healthcare providers shared this tip with me–I think some EMRs even let you store your own templates now.
I am pretty sure you are me! I have slacked/coasted my way through A LOT of things, with the result that I am just now learning things like “how to actually study for an exam” and “how to tackle a work problem with which you are unfamiliar.” Part of me insists that my strategy has historically served me well–avoiding stuff you don’t think is important/interesting frees you up to put your energy and effort into stuff you DO like–but part of me feels kind of bad and like I am setting myself up to crash and burn at some point.
Oh god yes. Absolutely with you on the feels here.
I feel you so hard. I wish I could bottle that “was that so hard to just DO it?” feeling once I’ve accomplished something after dicking around forever on it.
Practical strategies that have worked for me: mentally flipping my excuses of why I shouldn’t start on something yet into Tasks That I Can Do and Check Off My List; recognizing how much I really can get done in a short, set amount of time; reminding myself that I have no real proof that I am a flailing mess compared to everyone else when I see only their results and not their process.
Writing! Have you tried pomodoros? I use them to force myself to do grading sessions (not that I am working right now but shush. Anyway!)
Here is a website describing this and I also downloaded a little app called focustime. Dancing to extremely ridiculous songs in the 5 minute breaks works for me.
http://pomodorotechnique.com
Toasties, can I ask for job advice? When applying for a new job, is there a way to mention your current job but make sure that they don’t call your current employer? I saw an amazing opportunity but if my current employer learned I was shopping for a new job, he would FREAK and I can’t risk being unemployed right now. But my current job is really relevant experience.
Ask A Manager has some stuff about this! http://www.askamanager.org/2012/06/when-a-job-app… http://www.askamanager.org/2015/01/stop-saying-no…
Question 4 here: http://www.askamanager.org/2015/11/tickling-as-te…
That seems to run the gamut of possibilities.Tl;dr: AAM says most places will understand not to contact your current manager, and so not listing him as a reference won’t be a red flag or anything.
I always list my current employer without naming the company. Something like Retail Liquidator. If that’s too specific, if there is only one retail liquidator in your town, make it something like Client Services to Retail Industry.
I just accidentally denied a request from Hannah N. to join the Seattle toasts group. Sorry! Request again pls!
Hi Toast!
Can I ask for some good vibes? Because I just applied for a six month secondment to the OECD in Paris through my work and I am actually pretty qualified for it! But about 60 other people from my department are also applying because six months in Paris. So I’m not getting my hopes up too high, particularly because I’m lucky just to have the kind of job that brings these opportunities.
But I really want to go!
Also I saw ‘misandry is never a thing’ circus boy again on Thursday. We went to see Crimson Peak and he spent the whole movie leaning over to whisper ‘this is incredible. This movie is so beautiful!’ So on paper he is excellent and I enjoy spending time with him but he is not giving me any particular pantsfeelings so I don’t think this is going anywhere. Boo.
little late now but heads up for DC area folks to check out Artomatic up in New Carrollton if you’re looking for something to do this month, there’s some really good folks in it this year, and a lot more variety than Emerge or the other big art shows in town, but they did basically no promotion and nobody even knows it’s there. Opening night was pretty much all the artists hanging around with their friends trading pieces.
http://www.artomatic.org/
Can anyone recommend some good and fairly light animes that are available on Netflix?
So this doesn’t totally answer your question and you might know about this already, but I like to watch anime on Crunchyroll, which is similar to Hulu in that it’s free to watch most things but there are ads. Two I liked on there are Kids on the Slope and Usagi Drop.
How do you define “fairly light”? I like Ouran Social Club, which probably qualifies, but idk.
Seconding the recommendation for Crunchyroll. But, on Netflix streaming, they have Gurran Lagan, which is basically about giant robot anime being as ridiculous as possible. Ouran Host Club, mentioned above, is pretty fluffy, but sometimes with lots of FEELS. And Soul Eater is fun, though more action-oriented.
I don’t know if they took it off, but Princess Jellyfish was on Netflix a while ago and I highly recommend it!
If Fruits Basket is still on Netflix, I recommend that. Also I think they added Princess Tutu–could that be? I don’t have Netflix anymore so I don’t know.
I foolishly read this today and it made me very angry (lol, modern feminism just wants to rewrite history in the name of equality!). http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/dan-jon… I am just generally feeling really angry and sad right now, partly to do with some workplace issues (my department, a library, is not valued at all within the organisation, which is also depressingly elitist and privileged); the world just feels full of shitty things and fixing it all seems insurmountable.
This is my first semester as an adjunct (basic writing skills and composition 1) and I feel really conflicted and at sea. Have I been doing enough? I can see big leaps of progress in a handful, moderate in a few more, and then this group where it seems I’ve done nothing. (And the flipside, the ones who really just needed, like, a rule about how semi-colons work and were good to go.) Also, one girl is really playing me on an assignment she claims to have turned in and I’m really stress-level tummy sick about it.
I knew I wasn’t exactly going to get handholding, but I thought I would at least meet the other adjuncts or the people who hired me and no one’s ever there, except the department administrator, who seems really annoyed whenever I ask any questions (and in practice the office is only open from8:25 when I’m already teaching to 4:10 (when it’s hard to leave my pay-the-rent job that much earlier more than once a week). I had to scramble to figure out how to submit midterm grades, I’ve been paying out of pocket to make copies at the FedEx store, and “comma splice” no longer looks like a word with any meaning. And I feel shitty, like I’m shortchanging the students because I don’t know enough what I’m doing and it seems unfair for them to be guinea pigs. On the other hand, I tried to give an in-class essay to my basic class Thursday–I’d been mentioning it the last four class sessions, told them it would be compare/contrast, we’d go over the prompts, they’d have sixty minutes, I would be collecting them whether or not they were finished, I would give them reminders of how much time was passing–and it was pretty much a disaster. And I know I’ve been way too lax on accepting late assignments (which makes it hard to give stuff back, too–I don’t have anyplace I can just leave stuff) and especially a group that sits in the back (including the girl with the mysteriously missing paper.)
Ugh. I have no sense if I’ll be offered a contract for next semester–I applied to the humanities department too–or even what I want to do if it happens, because I don’t know how I AM doing, except worried and exhausted. (I definitely will NOT teach at 8:00 am again.)
On one level it’s a job. For which you are paid. To keep that money coming in, what is the minimum required? Likely it’s based on student evaluations at the end of the semester and on showing up on time and consistently. That’s your focus: attendance and student evals.
On another level it’s a commitment to students. What is the minimum you feel obligated to here? If your students all exit your class with a minimum of x, y, and z, will you feel you have served them well?
Let the rest go. Seriously. This is how to lose the worry. Or some of it, anyway. I hope you get some rest soon. It doesn’t seem you can count on any support or guidance from your employer, so please take good care of yourself.
Thank you! I tried to get some rest (and perspective) over the weekend, and I’m thinking about how I could answer the x, y, and z. I am very lucky in that I took these classes mostly for the experience–my (vaguely soul-crushing) other job pays the bills, so if I don’t get renewed, it’s not a crisis in that sense.
The main thing I can tell you is that the first year is the worst year. It simply always is. The project of planning and performing a system of learning is full of unimaginable challenges and detours, and while teachers absolutely should talk to each other (your department is really falling down on that), only time and experience will prepare you to anticipate and circumvent the situations that are giving you anxiety. So you can safely assume that while you are doing your best, you are also doing the worst you will ever do as an educator. That’s good news!
Also, you are not responsible for your students being “guinea pigs.” That is a product of the adjuncting system. All teachers are new at some point, but universities aren’t always very good about providing new teachers with resources and professional development, and that is not your fault.
So, either way, you’re going to be okay. If the precariousness and instability of the academic job market means that you aren’t offered a contract next semester, that might be a welcome break from these worries. And if you do get a contract for ext year, your worst semester has already passed. And you are writing down everything that didn’t work for you this time, so next time you’ll try something different there. So that’s great!
Thank you!
1) Get thee to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Forums. I’m a regular poster there. I’m not in Rhet/Comp, but lots of posters there are, and you need a community. Post a question in the “In the Classroom” forum. I’ve got a couple of really good friends in Rhet/Comp who post there regularly, and I will direct them to your question/s.
http://chronicle.com/forums/
2) Acquiring writing skills is a lengthy (even life-long) process. You are not going to see substantial improvement in most of your students. You are launching them on a 4-year journey, and it’s the folks who teach the upper-level courses who will see the fruits of your intro-level course efforts.
Your job is to introduce them to the basics (perhaps of genre, perhaps of argumentation, perhaps of citation styles — I don’t know what your particular department mandates). That’s creating a foundation for future learning through the practice of writing, and it is a Really Important Job. So hang in there. And I hope I see you over at The Chron.
Huh, I never even thought of CHE–I feel sort of outside of that. (I have an MFA, an MA in Humanities from another school, and have pretty much decided I don’t have it in me to go for a PhD.) I’ve been reading there now, though.
I think I’m actually not too bad with my 101 Comp class–it’s the Basic Skills class that I feel really flail-y about, in part because I’ve basically shredded my syllabus to keep covering other material that seems more urgent.
Hi! I’m also an adjunct teaching first-year comp, and I also took on an 8 in the morning class this semester. This is my fifth year adjuncting, and my first semester was about as bad as a first semester could be. I started two weeks into the semester to replace a teacher who had quit at the last minute, I had never taught or TAd before, and I had never taken a comp class so had no idea what i was doing.
But that’s the price the universities pay for hiring adjuncts and giving them no incentive to stay; they end up with a lot of people who are learning on the job. Often those people are grad students who don’t yet have the skills they’re meant to be teaching.
So bear in mind that though you will undoubtedly improve as a teacher, you are already miles better than many people who are teaching the exact same class. You know how to write, you are motivated to teach, and the benefit of being new is that you haven’t yet burned out. If you can see improvement in some of your students, that means you’re doing your job – you’re teaching them something, and the ones who are intelligent enough and motivated enough to learn are benefiting from it. Many intro comp students have exactly zero interest in writing, and there is only so much you can do about that.
I feel you on the student-claiming-to-have-turned-in-an-essay stress. This is why I now make all my students submit their essays by email. The essays are automatically timestamped and can’t be lost, and that relieves my mind enormously. I had to misplace quite a few essays, though – and deal with quite a few students claiming they turned in missing essays – before I figured out that I simply wasn’t organized to keep track of a stack of printed papers.
And don’t stress about the in-class essay. Part of your job, as an intro comp teacher, is to teach your students how to go to school. That means making them practice things that they’re not good at yet. If it was disastrous this time – well, that means it will be less disastrous when they have to do it in a higher-level class.
Also, it sounds like your department really sucks, if they don’t give you a key or have an assistant who could make the copies for you. You should definitely not have to spend your own money on copies. I don’t know what to suggest for that, though, as it’s not a problem I’ve had.
Thanks! I got hired the week classes had started, so there was literally four days before hiring to teaching–except that it took way, way longer to get actually hired by the city college system (rather than the English department) so for about three weeks I also couldn’t access e-mail, use Blackboard. . .I feel like that really put me at such a disadvantage in establishing classroom protocols and authority, because I so obviously was trying to figure out how the school worked.
I’m almost 100% sure I am being played by a student and haven’t lost her essay, but the idea that it would be OK to just do it all by e-mail would be a huge relief, especially because it would be a lot easier for me to give the detailed one on one feedback I think is my real strength. I will definitely consider that for the future!
Question about commenting on this here site: is it possible to get back to your own (or others’) comments directly? I seem to just get sent to the top of the thread, which isn’t useful when there’s hundreds of nested comments. Help, please, and thank you.
My experience is that whenever there are more than, like, twenty comments on a thing, the site or IntenseDebate or something just gives up on trying to load the direct links to comments and just sends you to the top of the page.
I usually just take a couple of unique words from the top level comment and cntrl-f
I had very very few deaths in my life until pretty recently. But the last 18 months… the deaths are just piling up. No one super close to me, but that only makes me paranoid.
It’s been mostly internet buddies (including someone I really wish I could meet again) or friends of friends or other people’s relatives. But with the exception of my partner’s parent, these are young people. And they aren’t dying of illnesses or natural causes. It’s all suicides or accidents, absolutely horrible tragedies. The last two weeks have seen one very bad suicide attempt (friend’s sister who has been through a LOT, she survived) and one death in a house fire (friend of my friends, never met her) – and today my 21yo cousin was found dead by mysterious causes. Six weeks ago, we were at our family’s first wedding in this generation, and the whole clan was together for the first time in ages, and his mother happily said “it’s a shame we only see each other at weddings and funerals”. Now she’ll have to bury her son. What is going on. I mean, this has mostly been happening around me, not TO me, but three people in two weeks is just too much, it’s unreasonable, it’s too many deaths.
Ugh, I’m so sorry. Hugs to you if you want them.
I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could say or do to make it easier but there isn’t. That is a lot to deal with. Please make sure you’re taking extra good care of yourself.
Does anyone have recommendations for fun coding/programming resources for kids? My niece is youngish (she’s a young 12) but very interested. She’s been using Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu) and enjoying it, but I feel like she’s ready for more.
Many many thanks for any tips!
This is a great, fun game! https://eraseallkittens.com/
cool, thank you!
My daughter loved scratch. We bought her an arduino kit to work on next, and she used some of her scratch to code the arduino robot she built out of spare stuff lying around the house. Microcenter has great beginner arduino or circuit beginning stuff that can add a tangible element to the coding. ( I only say microcenter because you can go look at the stuff in person, I like that).
Thank you. I will look into this for Christmas!
Also, there is https://www.codecademy.com/ for free online classes in HTML, Python, Ruby, etc. My kids really enjoy it.
We used to also have local coding/programming classes for kids. My son went to them for a while and really enjoyed the experience. He’s also down a summer camp at the local university. So, I would look into what may be available locally, too. (There are often specific programs for girls, as well.)
Look into Alice, which Carnegie Mellon designed for encouraging middle-school girls to code. It’s object-oriented programming, which I did not understand at all when I tried it, but if you start realizing that you’re supposed to feel more like you’re designing a game than like you’re writing mathematical code, it should make A LOT more sense.
I love my cat, but I have a migraine and can’t play right now, and she desperately wants to chase toys and I have such guilt.
Heya running toasts – anyone run in the winter? (I’m in Manitoba so I mean like WINTER winter.) What kind of gear is a MUST and what can I get away with not buying? I wear vibram toe shoes right now so I’m thinking I’ll have to get regular type running shoes – maybe trail runners? What about clothing? Help much appreciated, running in the gym just doesn’t give me the nice happy feels like running outside!
Here’s how I run in balmy Chicago winters: 2 layers of pants (one tight and close to the skin, another for warmth/protection against the wind); two shirts (ditto); one winter-appropriate jacket; one hat, possibly two if it’s in the single digits. I do not run out of doors below 0, but I’ll run outside at anything above that.
I don’t wear special shoes. I bought a set of Yak Trax and those slip over my running shoes. You can DIY this by inserting screws into your foam soles (Google it, it’s a very popular solution). Doing this to a pair of shoes *ahem* screws *ahem* them up permanently, so take that into consideration.
Also, there’s a great graphic to keep handy about this at http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=per…. I have it Pinned and refer back to it a couple of times a year.
I don’t run in the winter, but one of my friends does and I was talking to her about it recently (and we are in northern BC so I feel you on the WINTER winter). She said she felt like spiked shoes are a must unless you are blessed to run somewhere where they actually clear the sidewalks rather than remove about 1/3 of the snow and call it good enough. She just got spiked running shoes, but previous to that wore Yak Trax. I didn’t ask about clothes, but I suspect you’d want something similar to cross-country skiing gear if you do that.
I’m in Ottawa, so I relate on the winter thing. I wear FiveFingers most of the time, too. I have a pair of winter ones (http://bit.ly/1XWqaAA) that I wear with SmartWool toe socks and they work great. The caveats on the winter FiveFingers are that the ankle is not super flexible and it is hard to wiggle your foot in. Also, the sole is firmer (and thicker) than the ones I usually wear. I find them warm enough for any temperature I’ll willing to run in (down to about -20C).
Regarding clothing, I have winter-weight running tights and a thermal hooded shirt from MEC that I layer with, along with a good pair of gloves and a lightweight wool hat. It’s basically the same as I wear cross-country skiing or snowshoeing.
For me, super warm running gloves with mitten attachments completely made the difference last winter. If my hands are warm, the rest of me feels way less cold. I also started wearing my Patagonia fleece over 1-2 running shirts and then keeping my phone in the pocket with a hand warmer to keep it from freezing and shutting down so I could still listen to music and have my running app on!
My 8yo recently had Red Ribbon (anti-drug) Week at school, and is now being all judgemental about my wine consumption. The arguments that I’m over 21, it’s with dinner, and Jesus drank wine don’t work, because ALCOHOL IS A DRUG, MOMMY. YOU USE DRUGS.
AWESOME.
This is hilarious! Some kids (including my younger self) are really susceptible to the anti-drug brainwashing tactics.
I know! I was straightedge until 21, so I should have been prepared, but golly! It brings back all the guilt. And to think my tax dollars pay for this.
I found out 7th grader is in DARE. ha ha, they started it the week of the Ohio legalization vote!! she and her friends have had many lunch table debates.
Good girl, debating! At least y’all had a shot. I can’t see even just medical Marijuana coming up in VA, which is something I strongly believe in.
Is 8 too young to teach about the difference between choosing for oneself and judging others’ choices? How about the concept that there’s more than one correct choice? I’m not a parent and you’re a very good one. I trust you with your child.
I am beginning to wonder if I will spend some part of the holiday season as an inpatient, and I’m panicking about it. It’s stupid to worry over the impact on work… work = Titanic deck chairs right now. Yet, here I am, anxiety-ridden at the idea that I may need to take a week/two weeks/forever away from the office for self-care.
I didn’t want any of this.
You are going through a really hard time, and I don’t know the right things to say, but I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself now and yourself in the future, even if it means nudging one of your last sources of normalcy and security.
You’re going to be OK. You deserve to feel better than you do right now. And you will.
You wouldn’t think twice about closing a business temporarily for storm damage cleanup, for example. But you would feel some anxiety about it. Your self-care is so much more important. Any business or office is built on its personnel. Cleanup, repair, maintenance are taken for granted as important. Why not give upkeep of its people its due?
But I get it. I do. Anxiety can’t be reasoned away so easily. But you can let it pass over you, wash away. And let it be a flashing warning light that some inpatient time is worth considering.
You are wonderful. You deserve to feel *good*. Toasthugs.
Well, the kids were great in the musical.
I am an idiot. I was really really really trying to believe that my ex was all happy with his new “happy family” and new house etc and could stop controlling my life but I’m just stupid. Someone who controls you for 20 years doesn’t just quit.
It’s stupid shit like making sure at any kid event, even if I’m no where near the kids, he find me and smiles right in my face (sneaking up on me, not like he’s near anybody he is having a conversation with). If we park at opposite ends of the high school, he will wait however long he has to to follow me in and sit behind me. I thought I was over it but he’s getting more aggressive about the in-my-face stuff and it only just occurred to me tonight that him ruining my nights lately (I look up and there he is, at school, at karate, at plays, whereever) hasn’t been accidental. I know how this sounds, it sounds paranoid and over concerned with him and like I’m not living my own life, but that’s not it. I swear this guy is a smug charming psychopath but he only shows the pyscho to me in ways that nobody else will believe are actually disturbing. it’s been 5 years since the divorce, why won’t he leave me alone!!!!??? (I really wish I had a boyfriend, just so I could disabuse him of the notion that I’m pining away without him and he can still control me. That’s sad, but when I do get a boyfriend, all hell will break loose, I’m sure.) ugh. Please tell me this is real and I’m not just overreacting. I am so over this. This is why I want gone.
Of course this is real, of course this is happening. You have good judgement and your descriptions of other people are consistently reasonable and sympathetic. He’s terrible to only you – other people aren’t bound to him until the children are all adults, he has to be niceish to them so they stick around to be abused.
Echoing LeastBittern. This is REAL and we believe you.
I think what got me so upset last night was realizing that I’d let my guard down and had actually been expecting him to act like an ordinary person (new life new house new play mommy=who cares about ex), and I should know better. Now that I’ve come to my senses again, i’ll know the stalking (for lack of a better word) is coming no matter what, and it won’t take me by surprise. It’s only upsetting if I let him throw me off balance, so, guard back up, feet planted. I guess it shows that my “looking straight past him as if he’s invisible” must be getting to him, but really, I just want him to be invisible. I don’t care how what I do or don’t do affects him, I just want him to stop affecting me. I have to choose between “avert my eyes” (letting him think I’m afraid of him and can’t bear to make eye contact) or glaring (makes me look like a person who is holding grudges) or invisible. I want to perfect an ex-only “fuck with me and hell will open up and swallow you” look, but somehow I don’t think that’s a good direction to go! I will go to tai chi and talk to my black belt friends about the whole mess this morning.
This is a good set of plans.
Wishing I could hire an experienced bodyguard for you. About 6′ 4″, 250 lbs. Facial scars. The whole 9 yards.
totally real. totally sucks.
In my History of African-American Resistance class, we had a spirited debate about whether it would have been morally justified for blacks in the Jim Crow South to lynch white men who raped black women.
I said yes, since they absolutely could not rely on the courts for justice. IMO, extralegal violence as a last resort to protect the safety of black women from rape is totally different from extralegal violence ON TOP OF legal violence to protect the safety of White Womanhood from being winked at.
What do you all think? (Mallory, is this too controversial? Are we allowed to talk about justifying violence on the internet?)
I have an unexpected interview on Monday I could use well-wishes for, if I’m not too late. I started my job within a week of moving back to the US, I like it a lot, the people are NOT a bunch of toxic shitheads, and I’ve only been here for a couple of months…but…potential job pays more than triple for similar work, has room for growth, the company seem great, there’s travel (I kind of love seeing a new city for a few days alone), and it fell unexpectedly into my lap. I’m excited and nervous and worried and a lot of other anxious-adjacent feelings.
Oooh, good luck! I’ll pray for you! 🙂
How exciting! It will be a great interview. They’ll be even more impressed with you. You’ll make important new contacts which will lead to more good things.
Toasties! I am an obstetrician gynecologist and also queer, and I am going to give a grand rounds presentation to my department in a few weeks about LGBT cultural competency in ob/gyn. And I need your help / thoughts! I am in an area that is east coast, predominantly upper class / upper middle class academic white liberals, and the people I work with truly believe that they are doing a better job at taking care of sexual and gender minority communities than they are. I need some anonymous anecdotes with which to pepper my talk that will shed light on the way we physicians esp in ob/gyn do wrong by our LGBT patients. Or if you have a good anecdote of your doctor doing it right, that is super welcome, too. HELP.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend looking through the #TransHealthFail hashtag on Twitter! Lots and lots of horrifying anecdotes to peruse. Good luck either way, it’s so good that you’re doing this!
My friends who have vaginas and who sleep with same often get asked, persistently, what kind of birth control they use. Apparently “not having a penis in the room” is not something that some doctors can even hear.
I had a pretty great experience the last time I went to the ob/gyn. She asked the usual questions (are you sexually active, what kind of birth control) and absolutely did not blink when I was like “sexually active, no birth control because I don’t generally sleep with men.” Her only followup to that answer was “oh I see you’re wearing a ring, are you in a relationship” and when I said yes, “okay, are you thinking about kids? I can give a great referral to a fertility doc if that’s a thing you want.”
This was the first time I’d been asked something…proactive? Like, I’ve never had pushback from doctors or anything, but her actually offering new information was pretty surprising and appreciated. It was clear that I wasn’t her first queer patient, which was nice.
I’m a primary care doctor. One issue I have encountered is that no one teaches transgender women how to do self breast exams. I am no expert on LGBT patients, but I think that teaching trans patients about the medical aspects of their changing bodies is really important; they have not benefited from campaigns targeting their gender and need direct education from clinicians regarding screening and increased risk based on hormone profile.
Academic Toasties! This undergrad has a problem – I didn’t turn in an essay outline that was supposed to be graded two weeks ago. (not the full essay, but the outline that we were supposed to submit to get feedback on) Anyways, I literally just FORGOT to do the online submission thing. I have the word doc open, the webpage open, printed it out for peer reviews and stuff, got called away to deal with some family thing or the other, and just…forgot to actually hit submit.
It has been TWO WEEKS and I JUST noticed when I went to check if the prof had any feedback. It’s all so dumb and so absent-minded of me, and I feel awful, and I’m not sure? what to do?? Just email the prof and explain that whoops, sorry, I forgot how to hand something in for no real reason?
It sounds like the worst excuse ever when I try to write it out. Anyone has any advice?
Hi there! I’ve been a professor for a very, very long time now, and my advice is just to be honest. Note in your email that you feel very silly for forgetting to upload this important aspect of the assignment, and ask if it is possible to submit it now, even though it is after the deadline. That’s all. Don’t overthink it, and don’t fudge the truth.
Good luck! 🙂
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