Sansa was such a good puppy but now she is ded.
Oh, never mind, she is not ded, she is SLEEPT.
This fucking guy is STILL WINNING THE GOP NOMINATION RACE:
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump wants to bar all Muslims from entering the United States.
In a statement from his campaign, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States until elected leaders can “figure out what is going on.”
When asked by The Hill whether that would include Muslim-American citizens currently abroad, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks replied over email: “Mr. Trump says, ‘everyone.’”
I learned a lot about how Congress works from this piece, which was depressing:
“I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation,” Nunes said. “Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head.” The overwhelming majority of his constituent mail is now about the far-out ideas, and only a small portion is “based on something that is mostly true.” He added, “It’s dramatically changed politics and politicians, and what they’re doing.”
Toastie Amal sent in this picture of her dog for us:
who….would write this story and then decide to let the world read it, help:
These would be the same boys who, back when they were 4, were my best buds. During that rarefied period of my life, I was the most important girl (nay, human being) in their lives.
We shared numerous passions such as rock-collecting, dinosaurs, nature walks, Lego, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies, Star Wars, all things Lord of the Rings, as well as books. These are now only precious memories. Your brain already knows this all too well, but the heart still hurts when this irrefutable fact is hammered home with firm finality on your son’s wedding day.
Why Didn’t Anyone Stop Doctor Hardy? (HOLY SHIT)
The Globe found that, over three decades, more than a dozen people in positions of authority — college administrators, hospital supervisors, clinic owners, medical colleagues, and regulators — were told, with various degrees of specificity, of Hardy’s alleged sexual assaults and his inappropriate contact with patients, including some who were sedated.
From Hardy’s days at Princeton forward, the response to nearly every complaint was minimal or passive, an examination of state documents and interviews with dozens of Hardy’s classmates, colleagues, and patients shows. Sometimes, especially in his Princeton years, this was because his alleged victims were reluctant to go public with formal complaints. Sometimes, especially as Hardy built his practice, little or nothing was done because of reluctance by his peers or supervisors to move against an increasingly prominent physician who seemed to have a way to explain away each accusation.
Trust women, yo:
My general practitioner never once recommended that I see an ob/gyn for my unidentifiable pain, and my ob/gyn didn’t seem at all alarmed by my ER incident.
Having read about the procedure for diagnosing endometriosis, I practically demanded that my doctor prescribe it. After trying to argue with me, he begrudgingly scheduled for me for a transvaginal ultrasound that was necessary to rule out anything else before my diagnostic surgery.
Even though I got what I wanted, I was terrified. More than anything, I was worried that this surgery — my first ever — would be all for nothing. I would spend an absurd amount of money on an invasive procedure, only to find out that no, I didn’t have endometriosis. Instead, my doctors were right, and just I couldn’t handle my pain. I was exaggerating very normal symptoms. I was “fine.”
I am going to explain a lil comment moderation mechanism to you, bc it can happen to established Toasties who then feel a little hurt that a fairly inocuous comment got murdered! If you think a comment is inappropriate, and hit “report,” two things happen:
- I get an email with the info that said comment has been reported, at which point I can reply “approve” or “delete.”
- In the interim, the comment disappears and goes into moderation, where it will stay until I get to and deal with that email.
What this means is that the comment will appear in the moderation queue, and during that time will be indistinguishable from any comment left by a rando. Now, if an established Toastie were to say something like “oh, wow, I don’t really think this is funny” about something, we wouldn’t delete that (unless it was on a Two Monks post and I hadn’t had my coffee yet or was on my period or or whatever.) If a burner account said that, we would just delete it, because YOU’RE not funny, burner account.
THE CATCH BEING, right, that if an established Toastie says “oh, wow, I really don’t think this is funny,” and someone is all “FUCK YOU, IT’S FUNNY AS SHIT” and reports it (sometimes people report the strangest things, like “this person used swears in their comment”) and I don’t instantly see the report email and re-approve the comment, it would be easy for an admin to see that in moderation and cheerfully kill it and go on with their day, and then when I go to deal with it, IT IS GONE AS THOUGH IT NEVER EXISTED. And then the established Toastie is sad. Which makes ME sad, especially if the comment was mildly critical about my religious beliefs, and someone reported it out of concern for my feelings, because I am a big girl and you can be critical of my choices, so long as they are not dog or Hamilton-related.
So, basically, if a comment of yours is killed and you are a regular commenter, that is almost certainly what has happened, but you can also email me to find out.
Why the USWNT cancelled their game in Hawaii:
On Friday at practice, we lost a teammate, Megan Rapinoe, to an ACL injury. Megan’s injury took place while playing on a subpar training field. The grass on the training pitch itself was in bad shape. All along the pitch, sewer plates and plastic coverings were laying on the sidelines.
This decision wasn’t about “turf vs. grass.” This was about field conditions and player safety.
It wasn’t until we got to Aloha Stadium the next day — the day before the match against Trinidad and Tobago — that we finally saw, for the first time, how bad the stadium’s field truly was. The conditions were such that our coach shortened practice to a brief 30-minute training session so we wouldn’t risk injury before the game. There were sharp rocks ingrained all over the field. They were everywhere. The artificial turf was actually pulling up out of the ground, and the turf itself was both low-grade and aging. This was a playing surface that looked like it hadn’t been replaced in years.
A Toastie undergoing a breakup was directed to Autostraddle’s break-up advice piece, and it has a lot of staying power:
We are trained in this Republican sappy fuck of a society peppered with Sandra Bullock movies that somehow his haircut and not liking the things you like are superficial and all that matters is that you love each other. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Loving someone and making a life with them are separate spheres, they have nothing to do with each other. When you find someone where there is both, that’s when you win. But they’re not contingent qualities.
Speaking of Autostraddle:
After he cheated, I curled up on my friend’s couch. She was the first person I’d told I was queer. She had mixed feelings about it. I had mixed feelings about her — another straight girl in a long line of them. We got drunk on white Russians she’d made with rice milk and watched a Phillip Seymour Hoffman movie. He was still alive then. She said, “If I was even a little bit gay, I’d go out with you.” When she fell asleep, it was hard not to lean against her. Sitting up straight was uncomfortable, but I did it anyway.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GUY WHO SELLS THE AARON BURR UNDERWEAR (he mostly just makes cider):
Finally, what do you think Aaron Burr would think of having his signature across a lady’s behind?
Speaking of city elite, I think Aaron Burr would consider himself a sophisticated gentleman. I think he and Hamilton both had aspirations to grandeur and considered themselves “more honorable” than common men. Yet both of them had affairs and were obsessed with women. I’m sure Burr, the aristocrat, would be horrified to see his name on women’s panties, but as a desirous and egotistical man he would secretly be pleased as punch.
If you didn’t read yesterday’s piece about Mormon feminists on the brink, I would do so:
I say I left the church, but there’s leaving and then there’s leaving. I stopped attending. I told my parents I didn’t believe anymore. I drank coffee and alcohol and wore tank tops and let my friends gradually figure it out. But I never removed my name from the official rolls of the church. Every year, when they announce their membership numbers, I am still included. Next year that number will finally be one less.
Tyler Coates drew my attention to this Jingle Bell Rock Mean Girls dance tutorial, and I am pleased:
Here is Sansa sleeping on Steve:
Man, that Donald Trump thing pisses me off, because now all these other GOP motherfuckers are walking around like they’re not similarly despicable. Jeb Bush acting all self-righteous when two weeks ago he was talking about only letting in Christian refugees from Syria, John Kasich saying it’s deplorable when that motherfucker straight-up proposed a Department of Christianity to spread Christian values to the rest of the world. Dick Cheney — Dick Cheney as though there even exists an insult more offensive that his name — saying this is against everything we stand for, not like wars of conquest and drone strikes on innocent people, not like waterboarding, not like secret torture prisons and prisoners held without trial, not like stolen elections. How dare that putrid festering boil on the ass of humanity feel self-righteous about anything.
AND, while I am pleasantly but definitely suprised that the others decided that they should try to get the moral high ground from Trump instead of find a lower moral ground to occupy — I know that it’s only a matter of time before some unbelievably fucked up fascist positions and the GOPs promoting them are being considered “moderate” because, hey, at least it’s not as bad as Trump!
They are just jumping on him now because the circumstances are right for them to finally marginalize him. If Trump hadn’t been in this primary, Ted Cruz would have proposed the same fucking thing, to the same applause. The GOP doesn’t hate Trump because he’s a fascist, they hate him because he makes being a fascist look bad.
Yeah, but *I* hate Trump because he makes being a fascist look acceptable, as long as you aren’t a batshit-ly unsubtle fascist — although he’s showing that that is increasingly tenable, too.
I mean, maybe I’m naive (and forgetful of the last election cycle probably), but I honestly think that mainstream GOP candidates would not feel that they could engage in open hate speech with impunity if Trump weren’t also in the game.
They hate him because The Donald, being a businessman instead of a politician, has never been forced to cloak his bigotry in polite euphemism. Or offensive euphemism, come to that, but euphemism nonetheless. Donald Trump says what they’re all thinking, and then loudly asks them, in front of everyone and their cameras, why on earth they would disapprove of his candor.
Yeah, because Donald Trump’s advantage is that he doesn’t actually care if he wins the general election (in fact, he probably doesn’t even want to be IN the general election if he can avoid it).
There’s actually no way this can turn out badly for him, because he genuinely lives his life by the “no bad publicity” ethic.
I’m starting to think he actually wants to win because he’s convinced himself he can. The second he realizes he can’t, he’ll be like “guck politics, I never wanted it anyway.” And people will take him at face-value and report on him no matter what.
According to an expert on fascism, Donald Trump isn’t a fascist because fascists have a rigorous set of principles that they will enforce no matter what, whereas Trump just says whatever gets the most press. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/we-asked-a-fascis… Sounds like a great campaign slogan to me: “Donald Trump–not even principled enough to be a fascist.”
Also, here is a good paragraph from Teju Cole about this issue:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/67420919273…
I still think Trump is only in this at the behest of the Republican establishment to make the other candidates look good. Or at least look not-as-terrible.
The only reason I disagree with this is because of my inability to believe that Trump would ever do anything for someone else.
It’s backfiring, then, because he’s leading the polls and stomping the other guys.
MY BROTHER IN LAW THINKS HE’S GREAT.
In related news, I may never speak to my brother in law again.
REPUGNICANS. The lot of them.
And of course, Ann “Let’s Bomb All the Muslims and Convert Them to Christianity!” Crapper LOVES Icky Trump’s idea.
Can they all GTFO the planet now?
I literally cannot wrap my head around the concept that people think President Trump is a good idea. LITERALLY CANNOT DO IT.
I wa just watching the video of the latest shitshow interview and my mouth was just goldfishing. I’ve never can’t evened before but I think now might be the time.
Someone needs to make a table: critical points in the Nazis’ rise to power in the left column, Trump’s ascendancy on the right.
There was an article on Cracked that pretty much did that.
Sigh. God bless the Cracked people, but … it’s a joke, till it’s not.
It’s not really a joke article.
America’s Next Top Dictator
Cracked, like Buzzfeed, will occasionally blindside with really good reporting.
I should probably clarify that I am not knocking Cracked at all. Often it falls to the satirists to make the most important points.
I just have a feeling that most people, young and old, will take the comparison as a joke if an article in Cracked is the only source.
My Twitter feed is full of people who are deadly serious about the comparison. I retweet or share on Facebook judiciously. Why bother? The Trump supporters are mostly lost to delusion, I think. But maybe that person who’s on the fence and who might otherwise stay in on election night will get out and vote (in the GOP primary or in the main election) instead.
Come to think of it, I’m unenrolled, which means I can vote in either primary. Hmmm.
I read this article after a friend linked to it on Facebook. When I returned to the Facebook app, the “related articles” it suggested were the Wikipedia entry on Godwin’s Law and an article comparing Obama to Hitler. It really disturbed me…like, if you try to tell people about this connection, FB undercuts you in the name of some ~fair and balanced~ political ideal. It’s especially messed up considering how much news is distributed via FB.
This is one of the many reasons I use a completely separate browser for FB and drag the links into a second browser rather than click on them in FB. Don’t need Zuckerman’s algorithms thinking I’m a Trump supporter.
I have thought of sitting down with someone that I saw wearing a Trump T-shirt who was not obviously an idiot or an asshole and asking him straight out, why? But I’m a little afraid of the answer I might get.
You will get one or more of the following answers:
1. “He says the things other politicians are afraid to say! I’ve had enough of this PC bullshit!”
2. “We need a strong leader!”
3. “Someone’s gotta stand up to the [insert ethnic group here]!”
And that will tell you everything you already knew about the person speaking.
I have a relative who said all three…and, surprisingly, “I also won’t vote for anyone who’s not pro-choice.” So I had A Moment.
4. “He’ll get things done!” (a variant of 2, yes)
Does it matter what kind of things? Apparently not.
The answer you’ll get is, that person’s idiocy was not immediately obvious.
One of my coworkers has flat-out said that if it ends up being Hillary vs. Trump, he will vote for Trump. It breaks my heart that I might have less than 11 months left with him before I murder him and dump his body in the East River.
My own MOTHER said that. Granted it was several months ago, before the worst of Trump’s rhetoric, but she has always thought Hillary was the literal devil and will basically vote for anything but her.
Coming from a conservative background, I have heard nothing but mockery and despair about Trump from *everyone* I know.
Except one friend, who is a Trump supporter (and routinely gets mercilessly reamed out for it, though I literally cannot speak to him about it), the best I can tell, is it’s just a manifestation of the worst parts of him, it’s xenophobic fear + being stubbornly loyal to people over beliefs, & an unwillingness to back down once you’re wrong. “Ride or die” can be a great quality in the right places, but it’s awful when it’s attached to this.
I’m sad that for so many people on the right side of the spectrum (I won’t say conservative, my college poli-sci class showed me there’s a difference between ‘conservative’ and ‘Fox News (ugh kill it with fire)’), who are used to being yelled at from the news & opinion pieces about being wrong about *everything*, so they’re kinda deaf to when those cries are joined by even people on their side who are like “no but SERIOUSLY we really MEAN fascist this time!! This is not a drill!”
ala Alexandra Petri’s excellent “we’ve cried Hitler too often” op-ed on the ComPost blog.
Right? I’m a New Yorker and I keep watching his antics, thinking “he’s a REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER. This is what they DO. They’re LOUD and SELF-PROMOTING and just SAY SHIT to get ATTENTION because it’s all GOOD because they’re REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS.” Been seeing his nonsense since the 1980s when Spy Magazine called him a short-fingered vulgarian.
I mean, yeah, he qualifies as a fascist, but I still think “short-fingered vulgarian” sums it all up perfectly!
“Mean old hotel owner says ‘No room at the inn’ days before Christmas” lololol
Please allow Nate Silver to wrap you in the loving arms of mathematics and show you that only a very small percentage of Americans are super into Donald Trump, around the same number that are convinced the Moon Landings were faked (in fact, I’d say that Venn Diagram might be a circle.) http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dear-media-st…
I can’t deal with the sheer fuckery in the world right now, so I would like to kindly tell my fellow Toasties that both Tessa Dare and Courtney Milan have new novellas/books out today and you can get them both for less than $10 combined, and I’m reading Tessa’s novella right now and the heroine wrote a pamphlet about women knowing their value outside of marriage after she felt jilted by the boy next door and now they’re trapped together in a cottage on a snowy night.
What I’m saying is it’s okay to step away from Donald Trump and get yourself some excellent romance novels and ignore the world for a bit (I haven’t read Courtney’s yet but I know it will be amazing).
>Tessa Dare
*does that thing like in Scooby-Doo where they can’t get up enough momentum because they’re moving too fast, trips over a million coffee tables*
AND IT’S A SPINDLE COVE NOVELLA AND PAULINE AND MINERVA AND KATE AND SUSANNA AND THE BOYS ARE IN IT YAAAAAAY
I have never opened a tab to my library’s “request an e-book” page as fast as I just did. SPINDLE COVE 4 LYFE.
Aaaaaahhhhh thank you for this. I love Courtney Milan and finally picked up a couple by Tessa Dare a few weeks ago and really loved them, so of course I will be reading stories about people pining for each other whilst trapped in a snowy cottage.
I thought the Courtney Milan was out next week! I know what I’m doing tonight.
Guys, the hero just tried to rip the heroine’s bodice (for practical reasons) and couldn’t because of all the whalebone in the corset. I LOVE TESSA DARE SO MUCH.
This sounds amazing! I love that I can get bodice-ripper recs from The Toast! 😉
This made my morning
Ah! Why do I have to work! [/whine]
Thank you for providing this valuable service, this is exactly what I needed to know today.
Thank you. I am having a very bad mental health week. These will help.
This is the most important news I have received all day.
I just bought it yesterday but thank you for the reminder that I should do /that/ instead of mope on my couch and play 2048 this evening!!
Thank you thank you thank you so much. I just downloaded five novels and I’m going to read them all and enjoy them so much over Christmas break and not think about Republicans or guns or other sad things one little bit. I have really loved The Toast’s romance novel posts; I went back and read old ones posts for recommendations on what to download today. They’re so well-though-out and use romance novels to talk about so many issues, and “romance” as a genre (I feel like the term is often used reductively, and I do not mean it that way) is one I don’t explore enough, so I love having such excellent recommendations. I read Asking For Trouble by Tessa Bailey at The Toast’s recommendation, and yep, it was freakin great. So, thanks, Toasties!
Thank ye kindly.
I am happy to say that I read the new Courtney Milan instead of grading last night and today, and Milan is writing at the top of her form. The central couple is terrific.
OH GOOD I wasn’t a huge fan of Talk Sweetly To Me (though I loooved Trade Me), but I’m glad to hear she’s back on top.
Oh good I thought I was the only one who didn’t like “sweetly”.
Most people I’ve talked to didn’t enjoy it that much. It was a nice idea and the characters were fine, but it should have been a novel, tbh. Everything got rushed and it didn’t seem as natural as all her other books (even the early ones, which are great but definitely come from a less experienced writer).
ahh yay I’ve been waiting for the new Courtney Milan for so long! I’m not as into contemporary stuff so I skipped Trade Me, and I just finished finals so A++ timing!
That mother of the groom piece is A Lot.
It is super weird that these women (I’m including the commenters who agree with her) feel like they are losing their son to “some other woman” instead of welcoming a new family member into their family. Does there always have to be competition between the MIL and DIL? As someone who is about to meet their BF’s mom, this is slightly concerning (ok, majorly concerning).
I feel like that competition is enough of a cultural trope that it’s hard not to have it at least cross your mind, if you’re a M/DIL. And maybe you joke about it, or worry about it when conflicts come up. But like a lot of cultural tropes, it falls apart in the face of actual relationships between decent humans who know each other. (Or it’s exploited and doubled down on by narcissistic people like other commenters here are describing, but that’s not a majority.)
Ugh I have a cousin who is always re-posting those things like “My son is not your ATM; I am his mother and will always be most important to him.” I always find that stuff just as horrific and misogynist as dads posting “rules” for dating their daughters.
Fortunately, my bf’s mom is a wonderful woman who wants me to join their family so badly that she actually had me be in their Christmas card photo this year. So there are plenty of boy’s moms who are very nice and welcoming!
What is ATM??? The only thing I can think of Automated Teller Machine, and that just seems…so weird, like who he spends his money on is the most valuable to him? What?
America’s Top Model, clearly?
If it makes you feel any better my MIL is lovely and I adore her. I am wishing you luck in meeting your BF’s mom. Hopefully she is great and makes you feel welcome like my MIL did for me.
I’m in a long-term partnership but not married, and my mother-outlaw is *awesome*: supportive, appreciative, happy to see me and talk to me, kind, way better at boundaries than my own mom. Seriously, if the relationship I’m in ends– and that has been looking like a possibility lately– one of the things I’ll be most apprehensive about is whether I can find a non-awkward way to stay close with her.
Sending you warm wishes for meeting your BF’s mom– I hope that goes well for both of you.
Question about Steve’s attire: does the little exposed bit of skin between his detached sleeve and his shirt sleeve get cold?
(apologies if it is an injury related sleeve, but it also seems like it could just be some sort of free standing sleeve, because I do not understand modern sleeve technology).
I had a similar question re: Steve sleeve.
I too have questions about the sleeve- mainly where can I buy them? Googling “detached sleeve” brings up a lot of anime and cosplay… My dad will need to have his shoulder immobilized for several months so shirts with sleeve won’t really be possible but unfortunately anime is not really his style.
Try searching “runner’s sleeve” instead!
Thanks! I had no idea this was a thing, my dad’s arm will be much warmer!
Maybe this is actually a great opportunity for your dad to get into anime!
That is true! He will be spending a lot of quality time with Netflix, maybe I’ll sneak some into his queue.
I always say HI BUCKY! when he wears it.
He better be replying WHO THE HELL IS BUCKY
They look like Moeben running sleeves to me! Their website is moeben.com. They are pretty great – I have some and my sisters run in them and I even have a few pairs for my babies! (In the interest of full disclosure, part of my enthusiasm is because the creator is a friend of my dad’s and generally good people.)
Mr LF has some wool arm warmers for bicycling. I think they are just called arm warmers.
I don’t know how I didn’t make the connection that arm warmers exist. Like it literally never crossed my mind.
If there is a Korean grocery store near you, they will probably have them. I’ve bought several pairs there. Also, I just did a google search for “athletic arm sleeve” and got relevant results.
Also, they are useful for keeping the sun off your arms in the summertime, not just for keeping the cold off of you arm in the winter.
Or google “arm warmer,” cyclists use them a lot 🙂
It is a for a bicep tweak.
I now know more about detached sleeves than I ever thought I would!
They are arm warmers for running, I know that, but I don’t know why people like them instead of a long sleeved shirt. Easier to take off in the middle of the run?
Some people think they help with injury recovery/prevention and performance. It’s not really supported by evidence…unless you believe they help with recovery. (The human brain is wild and wonderful sometimes.)
Interesting. I instinctively started wearing knee sleeves on my upper arms (they rolled down my legs all the time & did nothing to help what turns out to be munched cartilage) for super-weird muscle pain. Helps some of the time, is snug and cozy all of the time, so I really appreciate them.
I’m a cyclist and to me, the appeal is that my jerseys are really nice but are all short-sleeved and sometimes it’s not quite cold enough to break out the long-sleeved jersey because you know you’ll wind up hot in the middle of your ride, so the arm warmers give you a little of that spring or fall flexibility when the weather’s weird.
Also, if you are too warm and take off the arm warmers, they can easily go in a pocket or pouch, whereas a jacket/hoodie/cardigan/etc. would be a lot more to haul around.
Laughing at that misspelled Hanukkah ad. Took me a minute to pinpoint where they went wrong, haha. My brain scanned it and was like “no that looks like Chag Chanukkah Sameach” […] “oh gosh they used Tav instead of Hey”. (If you don’t read Hebrew, the “T” sound and the “H” sound look vaguely similarish, but you know, also not. In that picture the middle word has the “H” sound on the end correctly [left of the word] and the ‘T’ sound on the beginning [right end of the word].) Basically instead of Chag Chanukkah Sameach is says… Tag Tanukkah Samaet.
I mean it’s the thought that counts, right?
This got posted on FB and people were like, “what a mean prank”, “they were trying to go viral”, etc. In that font, the chet and the taf look alike, and the mistake was repeated, so it seems like an honest mistake!
Yeah I highly doubt they did it on purpose. See my assumption was they looked up Hebrew letters for “Happy Hanukkah”, didn’t have any who spoke/read Hebrew to fact check it or the font, and just posted it.
Is it really the case in North America that the parents of the bride are supposed to pay for the wedding and help with the planning? I admit that a lot of my “knowledge” about the US (and Canada) is based on movies and TV shows, but this article also mentions that the mother of the groom isn’t supposed to help with anything.
I’ve never been to a wedding where only one pair of parents helped to pay and plan/host, and it just seems weird that this should be the default.
I think it’s a lot more likely that she was deliberately left out of the planning given that she’s the kind of person who writes an article like that…
Kind of like having a cornucopia at Thanksgiving or burning a Yule Log at Christmas, I think that the bride’s family paying for/planning the wedding is something that Americans recognize as “tradition” but basically no one actually follows– or they do follow it, but not because of tradition, rather because that’s just how finances/time work out in the particular couple. Pretty much everyone I know who’s gotten married has either self-funded the wedding or funded with gifts from both sides of the family, and I sincerely doubt that most families with daughters have a special fund saved up or anything.
I sincerely doubt that most families with daughters have a special fund saved up or anything.
My dad actually did, because that’s the kind of dad he is. Having said that, I actually used a lot of that money for grad school instead, although they did wind up paying for everything in our smallish wedding. My spouse’s mother died in 2006 and left no estate, and his family is pretty poor, plus he doesn’t really talk to them so much, so my family also handled the rehearsal dinner, which is traditionally handled by the groom’s family.
My parents have money saved for my eventual wedding as well, or they did at one point. They mentioned it frequently during my twenties and… have stopped mentioning it now that I’m in my thirties and am still unmarried.
My father likes to remind my sisters and I that he has gift certificates for the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas for all of us and it includes a champagne toast! I am 99% sure he is joking….
My parents expect to pay for my wedding (lol, right). When I introduced them to my ex they asked my sister if they should be kicking wedding saving up to high gear. I’d say that’s the norm for most of my friends.
“Tradition” is that the bride’s parents pay for the wedding and the groom’s parents cover the rehearsal dinner and the alcohol/bar tab at the wedding reception. But I feel this is a custom more honoured in breach than observance.
It’s certainly the case in some parts of the States. My mother-in-law, a delightful woman, told me this story from her wedding when her son and I were engaged: her mother-in-law was so upset about her son getting married in the bride’s hometown (another tradition, I think) that she brought her own priest to the wedding. I guess she thought he would just displace the priest the couple had chosen? IDK. Anyway, the priest she brought took her aside and said “[Name], you are the mother of the groom. Your job is to wear beige and shut up.” She never spoke to him again, but at least she stopped trying to hijack the wedding!
Oh my god BYOP is the best/worst thing EVER. Also, love your name and your profession!
I think it’s the starting point for a lot of people. I am not very traditional nor into manners and such, but it’s pretty much how it ended up working for us. My family did 95% of the prep work, along with paying for most of the wedding. His mom helped out with a little of the DIY/crafting (from 11 hours away) and they paid for the rehearsal dinner. I paid for the honeymoon (that is traditionally the groom’s family’s responsibility as well). It all depends on who has more money I guess.
Usually the groom’s family will pay for the rehearsal dinner, and that can be expensive since all of the wedding party and, often, many of the out-of-town guests will be there. But yeah, it’s not as expensive or as much work as the wedding. But not every family does it this way. A lot of brides and grooms pay for it themselves, or the grooms family will contribute.
Yup, at least as far as my family is concerned. When my sister got married, my parents paid for her entire wedding, and I think the groom’s parents paid for, like, the rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon? Which still doesn’t seem entirely fair to me, but I guess it all worked out.
Now that I’m engaged (to a woman), it’s both hilarious and actually kind of stressful to see them trying to reconcile the “tradition” of the bride’s family paying for everything…when there are two brides. And the two brides also want to pay for 50% of the wedding themselves.
When my brother got married, my parents split the cost with his wife’s parents, but my sister-in-law and her family had complete creative control, which resulted in the wedding being much more expensive than my parents had expected when they offered to split the cost.
In my family’s culture, this tradition stems from the role of daughters and wives as chattel. The bride’s family is marking the end of the expense of supporting the bride and the beginning of her being the groom’s expense. So of course her family pays for this event, in gratitude. Plus, the bride is too young and inexperienced to plan such an event on her own, at the age of 16 to 18.
Y’all know me well enough to know I *never* went along with this shit, not even as an isolated, conservative-by-ignorance child.
Mr. Rose and I were in our 30s when we married. We simply announced it to our parents, asking for their *blessing*, to forestall any notions of approval. When my parents had heard nothing more from us as the wedding date approached, they called me and asked what they could do to help. I said if my father remembered to wear dark socks with his suit, I’d be pleased. (My brother agreed to bring an extra pair and force him to change if necessary.)
“Are you sure we can’t do anything else? Do you need any … help?” I reminded them Mr. Rose and I had been self-supporting for a decade or more, that I had experience hosting large parties All. By. Myself. My parents ended that call sounding bewildered. A week later I received a check in the mail with a note from them, saying they wanted to help. I wrote a proper thank-you note and said I would tell everyone they paid for the flowers.
After the wedding, my parents sent me a letter praising the wedding and reception we hosted. And congratulating me on my new *status*. Oy!
Toastfriends, this was only 20 years ago.
That makes a lot of sense! It’s like giving a dowry without actually giving away stuff.
Your wedding experience sounds like an absolute DREAM!
There’s also this whole idea that it’s “the bride’s day”. Often the groom isn’t really expected to have much to say about the wedding, so why should his family be involved?
Thanks for all your replies! This has been very informative. I guess this practice is a transformation of the old tradition of dowries. RoseCamelia answer’s especially makes me think that this is the case.
It’s interesting that a lot of families in North America are still doing this – we obviously had the dowry tradition here in my part of Europe as well, but I’ve never heard of someone here who expected that only that bride’s family pay. But then again, I don’t know everyone.
I think I’ll retire from commenting for now because I have the feeling that I don’t know how to English today.
I support retreating for a rest if that’s what you need. But you should know: your English is quite good.
Thank you. I have been reading research papers all day, and I think this has somehow messed with my brain, so I couldn’t really tell anymore if what I was writing was correct. But dinner break has restored me now 🙂
“You find nothing. In fact, she is beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful, interesting and – let’s face it – she’s the perfect mate for your son. And yet you find this realization depressing.”
something tells me this lady is a lifelong subscriber to Motherboy magazine
can you imagine being her son (or daughter in law) and reading this???
Apparently she does not find the old adage, “you are gaining a daughter, not losing a son” particularly comforting, being an overage mean girl.
I DON’T GET THIS AT ALL. Why would that be depressing? Your kid found someone awesome, who finds your kid awesome. That’s basically the best validation you can get as a parent, isn’t it? You raised someone that other human beings like and admire and want to be around. Congratulations. You won at parenting.
Also — did she not meet this woman before the wedding? How is she only just now realizing this? UGH I HATE THIS WOMAN SO MUCH.
Right? My parents adore my brother’s wife, and also really like her parents. My dad explicitly stated this in his rehearsal dinner speech (while tearing up, because Dad). They’re thrilled that their son is an awesome person, and found an equally awesome person to spend his life with. Everybody wins!
This was the weirdest part to me, didn’t she have a rehearsal dinner to manage? is that not the tradition everywhere?
I would be scared to do otherwise. I’m a pretty big believer in the tenets that A. you’re marrying a family and B. you can never expect people to change.
SANSA YOU ARE SUCH A GOOD DOG
That mother-of-the-groom thing. What the actual fuck. Your son’s wedding is, pro tip, not actually about you
also, heh, MrChouffe and I both spoke at a City Commission meeting last night and the local paper decided that I should have the last word in the video they posted online and I might barf
You’re actually a chocolate cake? What a stunning surprise! (You do look quite delicious though)
A boozy one, at that. Sigh.
I didn’t sleep much (that is, at all) last night.
On the other hand, I have a bottle of honey moonshine at home that seems like it would be perfect for this cake. I’m thinking of making it tonight.
We are probably going to make it in lieu of a Christmas pudding. We have a Christmas cake already and it’s getting fed with bourbon so this is a natural fit.
yay boozy cakes, yay xmas
Hey, the link is for a chocolate cake recipe not a video where you slay some City Commissioners. Just in case you didn’t know? Maybe this chocolate cake recipe is the new Rick Astley?
I asked my dad what he wants for Christmas and his answer was: Polysporin and drugstore-brand gel insoles.
Toasties with particularly sharp memories might recall that this is exactly what he asked for last year as well.
I wish someone would get me some polysporin for Christmas, it’s been on my grocery list for years and I consistently forget about it and then suffer through my cat’s attacks unaided
He knows what he wants, I guess!
My mom always asks for hand soap, but this year she also asked for some packs of K-cups. I haven’t yet been able to indoctrinate her into the “Treat Yo Self” mentality.
At least you can get her like, the fancy hand soap from Williams-Sonoma or something?
Mine asked for two different sizes of Pyrex beakers. Sigh. At least we know that our Dads will be very happy come Christmas morning!
golldang, I’d take some Pyrex beakers for Christmas and be happy with ’em
(except I already have a full complement of Pyrex and also some extra, but you take my point, which is that Pyrex is the gift of happiness)
I second this emotion. Pyrex = happiness.
I asked my parents what they wanted for Christmas and they said they wanted me home. Which they are already getting. I also have lots of extra money on my FSA, so I am going to go shopping with them when I get there and buy all the band-aids and gel insoles they could want.
May I hijack this thread for potential FSA fund depletion ideas? I can rollover $500 but would rather not have to deal with it next year.
The shelters near me are asking for children’s and adult’s cold and cough medicine, as well as Tylenol, etc. I hadn’t ever really thought about it, but that stuff is pricey! If you can’t afford food and shelter, you probably also can’t afford to treat your poor sad baby’s miserable fever… So if you have a bunch to spend, and nothing you need, that would be a great way to spend it!
I just bought three pairs of glasses online (including a pair of Rx sunglasses) and some foldable canes for my parents (per their request). We also stocked up on condoms.
OTC meds require a prescription to use your FSA funds, but there are a lot of other things that are eligible. I would honestly suggest finding your program brochure and running through it to see what is and isn’t eligible and what you might need. There are a lot of things that are covered, and a lot of things that CAN be covered if you have the right paperwork from your doctor.
I got prescription sunglasses this year. I’m a glasses wearer 90% of the time and already wishing I’d bought them years ago. They’re totally awesome.
My Grandad tends to ask for stuff like DIY paintbrushes or a very cheap notebook.
Probably not practical, if polysporin has expiration dates:
I’d be tempted to get him a gross of each. Then wait to see what he asks for next year.
I wish my dad had an actual request. Both of my parents are currently at the stage of “We have too much crap anyway, don’t worry about presents”, and while I want to get them things, I don’t just want to go for something token that they don’t want. Your dad gets points for helpful communication.
Ugh, I’m so sad for Megan Rapinoe. Get your shit together, US Soccer, seriously.
I am so glad the Toast is covering this because everywhere else I’ve seen descends into “LOL WOMEN’S SPORTS” jokes.
You would think US Soccer could find them some well-maintained grass fields to play on…I’m wondering how many of the 3 games left on the schedule this year will actually be played.
The Equalizer does good, serious coverage of women’s soccer. The comments tend to be kind of banal, but at least people mostly refrain from the “LOL ALEX MORGAN GIVES ME ONE MILLION BONERS” sort of stuff.
I like their articles well enough but I cannot deal with their comments. Too many comments sections devolve into arguments over who the posters think should retire, which is sometimes everyone over the age of 26.
There’s also that one guy who posts CONSTANTLY with either total non sequiturs or creepy paternalistic comments about “young ladies” and “lasses.”
ugh, yes. Him, the guy who picks fights with him, and the random troll who pops up to bring GermanyWNT into everything.
In soccer news, I’m wondering which players take free kicks in Rio. Heath takes them sometimes, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a corner from someone other than Holiday/Rapinoe/Heath.
Hah, yep! What a strange bunch.
I wonder if Brian might start taking them, assuming she stays in that center mid position? She’s small, so probably not a huge asset in the box, and such a precise passer that I bet she’d be good at it.
Oh, Brian’s an interesting thought. I wonder if Klingenberg’s ever taken them. Her crosses are pretty cool.
I LOVE Klingenberg. I was not a fan when she first came on the scene, but she’s totally won me over. I’m not sure how it would work strategically for a left back to be taking corners, though — wouldn’t you risk exposing yourself to a counterattack? Kling is scrappy as heck, but she’s not the fastest player on the field.
I wonder if O’Hara could do it. I’d be really interested to see more of her at outside mid.
Queen of the Universe and Also My Heart Becky Sauerbrunn could probably take a flawless corner, because she is perfect in every way, but she’s never coming out of the back.
KLING! I think if they wanted her taking corners while O’Hara (or possibly Dunn? I hear she used to play D for her club team, but didn’t see it) was at left mid, they could switch positions until Kling can get back. Plus part of me wants them to put O’Hara, O’Reilly, Dunn, and Morgan in the same lineup and just run somebody to death.
Sauerbrunn is so underappreciated. I love the offensive runs Johnston makes, but she only gets to go up so often because she has a perfect sweeper covering for her. Another ridiculous thing about Sauerbrunn is that she took over for Rampone smoothly. (I love Rampone, and some of my favorite Sundhage-era highlights are Rampone chasing down forwards 10-15 years younger like some kind of Usain Bolt).
I just want to say that I’m from Australia and therefore not at all familiar with the USA women’s team, but I do love women’s soccer (watching and playing) and I love this thread so much.
“…just run somebody to death.” *prayer hands*
Sauerbrunn is criminally overlooked when it comes to the WNT. She’s like a majestic shieldmaiden, serenely watching over her brood.
Plus, like you said, she took over for Christie Rampone, Captain America IRL. To have no major missteps during the transition, which was in *during the friggen world cup* is baffling. Really don’t even get me started on Rampone. Her skill level should have sonnets written about it, her life story etched in the brick and mortar next to all men’s locker rooms so they always know they’re competing for silver *at best.* “…and soccer was her backup sport.”
Sauerbrunn should’ve won best player at the World Cup. Carli Lloyd had one good game, but Becky literally doesn’t make mistakes. And they didn’t even put her on the list!
Her first playing time a a world tournament was starting unexpectedly in the World Cup semifinals! And she was better than Buehler anyway! That is having ice in your veins.
<3 so many Frankendefense years of Rampone + rotating competent second defender + eek don’t look at the other two.
Jeopardy had a “Praise the Lloyd” category last night, and I immediately thought of Carli Lloyd, and there she was in the $600 question, and it was magical.
I tell you what, I will be so annoyed if the New Orleans game gets cancelled, since I’m flying three hours to get to it. Obviously it would be for safety, the greater good, etc etc, but I would still be SAD. I’m already sad that Pinoe won’t be there.
The problem is finding grass fields in stadiums large enough to support a victory-tour-size crowd. If I recall correctly, attendance easily tops 40-50K at these games, and there just aren’t very many stadiums in the US that can support those crowds AND have grass fields. Most MLS stadiums only hold around 20K, and a bunch of those are turf too. I’m counting 21 grass fields the size of Aloha Stadium or larger, and 5 of those are in California, 3 in Texas, and 3 in Florida. It’s hard to strike a good balance of geographical diversity with those numbers.
Anyway, to stop nerding out, I basically think that playing some exhibition games on well-kept turf is fine, but the players should absolutely have the right to declare the field unsafe, and there is no excuse whatsoever for the biggest tournament in the world to be played on turf at all.
Agreed, good turf can be perfectly fine, but it sounds like both the official field and practice field were a mess in this case. Though, I did just read that the men’s team hasn’t played on turf ONCE this year because US Soccer pays for temporary grass to be put down, so there really isn’t any excuse for any of this nonsense.
Found the article!
“The men played 20 matches in 2015, 19 of which were organized by U.S. Soccer or CONCACAF and they had a modicum of control over, and 15 of them were played in stadiums with natural grass surfaces. The other five, in stadiums with turf, saw natural grass laid down over the turf so Jurgen Klinsmann’s team played exclusively on grass this season, by U.S. Soccer’s choice.”
Okay yes that is terrible. US Soccer should step up and treat the teams equally to set a good example for FIFA (not least because the WNT is their actual star anyway).
It is also idiocy that no one inspects the fields beforehand. Like, that’s just basic common sense.
Seriously, the men have been DISMAL this year. I keep trying to watch their games and it is downright painful.
Also, check out the recent attendance numbers for the men vs the women. It’s almost like that old “but the men make more MONEY so it’s only FAIR that the women play on inferior surfaces that cause potentially career-ending injuries” argument is total bullshit!
I totally fail to understand how the federation keeps acting vaguely ashamed of the WNT. You know, the only team they have that’s ever won anything of note. If anywhere should be a misandrist paradise, it’s US Soccer. Brek Shea and whoever else should be carrying the women to the field on palaquins.
Gulati claiming all of the other fields were inspected, players aren’t ruling out skipping another game: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/sports/soccer/s…
Come on, Gulati. Fear the PR nightmare you’d be in if Alex Morgan reinjures herself at the Alamodome after all this.
That endometriosis article… So many times, I too have been told serious pain was “all in my head” and I just want to go stomping around breaking things like a giant misandrist Godzilla whenever I hear it.
Thank god for PP–someone at long last believed my words and told me that those blinding, debilitating headaches and those squiggly things I saw were migraines with aura. So, yeah, it was literally “all in my head,” but it was a real, obvious, and common thing, decade of doctors telling me to suck it up, and y’all are jerks.
Sweet cuppin’ cakes, they couldn’t recognize a migraine *with aura*, aka *with a festive bow and a prominent tag that says “HEY DOC THIS IS A MIGRAINE”*? I think this is in fact a job for misandrist Godzilla.
I mean really. It was so obvious, I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t figure it out myself.
Seriously. She spoke beautifully to that, and I was particularly taken with how she located that common experience within the greater problem of how women’s physical autonomy is treated in the States.
Why are we so hesitant to believe that women can and should be stewards of their own bodies? That they know when something’s wrong or what their bodies need? That they should have the autonomy to speak for their bodies and to make decisions that impact them?
< heart eyes >
Yup. I couldn’t get a doctor to diagnose my textbook migraines as migraines, several told me to suck it up, they were just headaches. So I went to a new doctor and told them I had already been diagnosed by my last doctor. The new doctor still did an exam before prescribing me anything and I definitely don’t recommend lying to your doctor but I was desperate.
This is actually a genius strategy in some ways. Like, I get that it is sneaky (and BTW how fucked is our healthcare system that it requires sneakiness?!) but on a scale of badness, being slightly sneaky to get the care you need is a minor transgression compared to denying help to someone in debilitating pain.
I am so grateful that, while I was stuck with one long migraine for pretty much all of puberty, literally every other woman in my family went through the same thing so I was believed and immediately carted off to a neurologist. Sadly, Imitrex came on the market just about too late for me.
It is mind boggling to me that they couldn’t diagnose migrane with aura. There are pictures of aura on Wikipedia! Just google it!
I just realized that I am old enough to say: the internet wasn’t A Thing for most people when my headaches first showed up, and Google wasn’t born until about the time I decided to suck it up, as advised, and not talk about it anymore.
I can’t even imagine a non-Googleable world, and I lived it, apparently! How did anyone even?!
Ugh, I’ve had chronic pain for years, been “borderline” for PCOS, and have recently started having the severe lower back pain/very specific nausea that used to be about three days before period at the opposite two weeks in the cycle, too. I’ve been putting off an ob/gyn visit FOREVER, and I’m so, so scared about getting this taken seriously without waiting another five years, and my pain doctor jumping on this as my going behind his back.
eta: one doctor did order a transvaginal ultrasound, which as a virgin who doesn’t even wear tampons comfortably, was pretty fucking traumatic. The nurse actually refused to continue on the grounds of being unwilling to cause so much distress for a non-emergent procedure–which the doctor took to mean the pain couldn’t be that severe, or I would have tolerated the ultrasound wand with less pain and more fortitude.
“which the doctor took to mean the pain couldn’t be that severe, or I would have tolerated the ultrasound wand with less pain and more fortitude.”
[burns everything down]
I still believe that if I hadn’t known about my family history of endo, my diagnosis would be “you need to lose weight.” Like it was the first two times I tried to tell a medical professional I had endo.
Between that and the Dr Hardy article it is time to burn the whole fucking medical establishment TO THE GROUND.
There also does not seem to be the clear fall-back guy the party will rally around when Trump…goes too far? Can that happen? I honestly do not know what could be “too far” if he has not already gone there.
But, seriously, you’ve got Carson/Cruz/Rubio, or whatever, all of whom are terrible, but NONE OF THEM is the “okay, let’s get serious now” guy.
No, Jeb was supposed to be the serious guy, but he turned out to be an embarrassing turd. My money’s on Rubio, as the least outlandishly ridiculous candidate, which is apparently the closest thing the GOP is going to get to “serious” this year.
I’m thinking Rubio too and I really hope not because he looks so goddamn reasonable and qualified compared to the rest of the circus and .. *screams into a pillow*
at least if it were Cruz everyone would just vote against him. but everyone except Ted Cruz knows that
Yeah, I think it’ll be okay though; Rubio looks good now, compared to the slavering monsters in the primary, but he’s going to collapse like an umbrella in high wind the second he meets anything like resistance. It really seems like the GOP has, whether they realize it or not, irrevocably poisoned the well against whoever wins the nomination.
I am so, so excited to see candidate Rubio run into Hillary Clinton in a debate, because while debates are meaningless and have no impact on the actual race, she’s going to gut him and put his head on a pike.
Yeah, I think even Sanders, whose strong suit is not the debate, would kind of roll over him, like, “Come on kid, this is a grownup discussion for serious people, put your nonsense aside.”
“The only thing I’ll be waving is your decapitated head on a stick in front of your weeping mother!”
I seriously miss Romney. I mean, I hated him in 2012, but the guy looks like Bernie Sanders Jr. next to this crop of clowns.
I’m half-expecting Romney to suddenly spring out of a closet mid-way through the election season, like Kato.
My money is on Rubio. He is alarmingly good at his job (well, job meaning seeming likeable and not like the actual devil, rather than actually passing legislation and not fucking over the country).
Ugh I know Trump is doing actual tangible harm to the world without even being in a position of (official) power, but I keep telling myself “the election is far away. the election is far away. the election is far away.” I can’t believe I’m actually wishing, a little bit, for a competent GOP candidate.
A competent Republican candidate would be excellent! The country NEEDS two (at least) competent parties, rather than the Democrat party and the terrifying monster the GOP has become. It means the Democrats are under no pressure to do more than present as human, and people vote for them just to avoid the apocalypse rather than because they’re actually passionate for the candidate (or worse, don’t turn out to vote at all). This reality is really sad.
I think it’s going to be Mitt Romney. I think he is waiting right now, not doing or saying anything, so if there’s no serious candidate, he can just walk in.
Biden was doing that for the Democrats up until two months ago, until everyone decided that Clinton wasn’t going to have another scandal, and at that point the will he/won’t he was distracting. But Mitt Romney doesn’t need to hint, because if he decides to run the GOP will be so relieved.
Eh, if Romney’s hoping to join the race, he’s going to be way, way behind on raising money even if the party is happy to see him. Iowa’s only a couple months away.
Yeah, I can’t see that happening. No ground game, no fundraising, he’s a former loser, and even when he ran, nobody really liked him, they just put up with him. Say what you want about Trump and Carson, the base is out for them right now. The base is mostly old white people, but they’ve got a lot of free time and money and they don’t like Romney.
He doesn’t want to. People keep asking him and he always says no. Big money donors are asking him, but he says no. It was hard on his family the last time, and this time is a circus (according to my uncle, who is a friend of his)
As a Canadian watching from somewhat afar, what is happening in American politics is horrifying. How did the US get to the point where people are like “No, but seriously, this guy is a fascist. We’re not just lazily throwing that accusation around any more.”
Interestingly, I saw (reading over someone’s shoulder today) that a local developer has suggested, in light of Trump’s comments, that his name should be removed from the new tower here in Vancouver.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/do…
Frankly, whether that gains any traction or not, I think I’ll just call it the Racist Asshole Tower.
The RAT. (For short.)
Exactly! Works both ways.
I just really have to believe that we are witnessing the Republican party cannibalize itself as the nauseating but inevitable end result of the Southern Strategy. Getting so I can’t even laugh at Nixon-in-a-jar on Futurama.
It is a really “reap what you sow” moment. Horrifying, oh god so horrifying, and yet a teeny tiny bit satisfying too. *sigh*
But the rest of us also have to reap what they sow, which is terrible.
Yeah, it really is.
This does give me a new historical perspective, though, as it leads me to wonder about the various reactions of the German people to Hitler’s political career. Like, how many people in 1937 were all, “was? Nein, er…was? Flammen…Flammen auf der Seite meines Gesichts.”
Totally agreed.
I don’t read German, but I know EXACTLY what you did there. Brava.
I looked it up on google translate, so be warned that while it’s technically accurate, it’s not particularly good.
Yeah, it really takes the fun out of schadenfreude. And living in a liberal state, I literally can’t vote the terrible people out, yet I’m affected by them nevertheless.
This is what struck me the other day–it may take carefully composed groups of people moving en masse to red states to tip the voter numbers in order to get out of this mess. Time to start setting up communes!
But so many people are just eating it up! And I feel like my fellow dems are going, “Yeah, the Republican party is dying,” while the Republican party continues to be powerful and hateful and get ever more extreme. 🙁
So I come from a place that basically has no functional Democratic party (and I’m registered Dem but only for primary voting purposes) – your choices are between far right and completely wackadoo far right. It’s an economically depressed place with very few social services and a truly horrifying level of income inequality, along with every -ism and -phobia you can think of. It’s getting worse all the time and I feel like when I look at hometown, I’m looking at the future of our country as the establishment Republicans become more and more radical. On the other hand, I’m legitimately not really certain how many people are actually that radical? How much of it is a matter of the noisiest people getting the most attention? What does that mean for the future? I really really don’t know.
This is how I felt about Kansas before I moved (about 4 months ago). I am worried that what’s happening there will eventually play out (probably less drastically, but still) at a national level.
NICOLE I am so scared that this country is going to vote President Trump into office and there’s nothing I can do about it WHAT IF IT HAPPENS
We are a long, long way from that reality. By “long way,” I mean the primaries have not taken place. If he wins Ohio and New Hampshire, then there will be a national discussion. Trust me, the country will find a way to fight him if he reaches the general. But I don’t think the RNC will even allow him to become a nominee…they’ll pull some delegate trickery, strike a backroom deal, something.
I really think that Trump will be the nominee. He says the things a lot of folks believe deep-down but won’t actually admit to.
Earlier today, I read a thing on Slate about how the GOP chairs in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have spoken against Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the country – but just a few weeks ago the governors of all three of those states declared they wouldn’t take Syrian refugees. About the same time, Jeb Bush proposed only allowing Christian refugees. Trump is saying similar things but louder and more crudely. Any disavowing from other Republicans at this point is maybe just indicative that the people in charge of the party recognize what a disaster he would be., even in relationship to their own interests. But at this point, I’m not sure that will make a difference to primary voters.
It’s not just the primary voters who will decide the nominee, though. There’s a lot of complicated stuff with delegate rules, and ultimately, I think, the RNC can do what it wants. I don’t think they’ll let him become the nominee. (Really hope so, anyway. I know the RNC doesn’t want that outcome either, probably as much as us.)
Sure, but then there’s the question of if the party is really prepared to face the backlash that would result from that kind of trickery. Not to mention, I think Trump will take a run as a third party candidate if he doesn’t get the nomination. Which might actually work out pretty great because I think it would divide the Republican base, but ick.
True. There are definitely plenty of scenarios to cause concern, I won’t deny that. I just try to tamper the “SHIT HE’S GONNA BE PRESIDENT ISN’T HE” presumptive panic.
So, I watched the first and second GOP debates and thought Kasich sounded reasonable at least in the first one. But he disappeared a while back, so now I’m just straight-up terrified and hiding in a hole until November.
I’m enjoying this very salty article this morning: http://www.avclub.com/article/least-essential-alb…
omg the shade thrown at the bronies, yes please give me more
OMG the Creed retrospective I CAN’T
Exclusively at Walmart!
I had to take a break from that article when I got to “Creed retrospective with 3 different versions of ‘With Arms Wide Open'” because how do you deal with that knowledge?
Official Toast Album of the Year.
By falling back into a sea of haters.
THREE SEAS OF HATERS!!
You fall backwards into a sea of haters 3 different ways: to string accompaniment, to acoustic soundtrack, and live with acoustic soundtrack.
Disaster update: thursday I have my first ob/gyn appt, presumably the one where they do lots of humiliating and painful things to you and you have a panic attack because needles and spend the rest of the day crying. (The appt last week I just saw an LPN and she established that yes, my life is indeed ruined.) Not looking forward to that but also wishing it would just hurry up and get over with.
What I want right now is to like re-establish some tiny amount of control over my body even though all of these hateful things are happening to me. My bras mostly don’t fit anymore. I’m making do with a sports bra but idk if they get any bigger that won’t fit either. My boobs hurt CONSTANTLY, and they hurt worse today/yesterday than they did last week. They hurt when I walk up stairs, or walk fast, or run. I was planning on starting up jogging again, but apparently not. Does anyone know of a good bra solution?
I know this is a stupid time to say something like this, but what I would really like is to lose 2-3 lbs. I know it’s just going to come back, but it would make me feel like my body is even a tiny bit mine and I really need that right now. I’m also thinking of starting yoga? IDK. I used to do martial arts and be a lifeguard and be in amazing shape, and over the last few months bc moving/unemployed I haven’t been doing either and now I feel like I’m a little fat. I’ve probably gained less than 5 lbs but what I really care about it how I feel, not the number.
If anyone has bra/exercise ideas I would love to hear them, thank you in advance!
Sending you internet hugs–hope the appointment is minimally stressful. You can get through it!
I don’t know your specific situation, but I will say I’m a big fan of yoga. It can be a surprisingly cardiovascular workout, in addition to the muscle strengthening and stretching you might associate with it. And best part: no sports bra needed! (I have no advice on sports bras; they all suck.) Look for a “gentle flow” or beginner’s class to start–I’ve been doing yoga for over a year and still go to those classes, since the slower pace allows me to get more out of each pose rather than sloppily hitting more poses in a faster flow. If you’re in the Boston or Milwaukee area, I could even recommend some instructors.
I hear Title Nine athletic wear has excellent sports bras of increasing boobular lock-down levels for a range of sizes. They are a bit pricey, but it might be worth it? Even yoga joggles the boobs a bit…
I get it, totally. I was a dancer for the first thirty years of my life and when I stopped it felt like I had a belly instantly and got winded climbing stairs. It was only about 5 pounds for me as well but it was also the loss of my flexibility and stamina and the security of knowing that I could make my body do what I wanted it to do without question.
I have been doing yoga through the Do Yoga With Me website for a little over a year and I really like it – dance classes cost and time wise aren’t an option at the moment and yoga comes the closest to approximating the way dance makes me feel. (I tend to skip the videos that get really into shakra talk but YMMV).
Yall are lovely <3 . The pregnancy is staying, I guess. My friends are mostly far away and I don’t want to tell any of them yet, I just want to hide this for as long as I can. There’s one friend who lives close by but she’s super busy right now and I don’t want to bother her. I like the idea of going and being alone for a bit though. Where I live now is not cold this time of year compared to places that I have lived recently, so I might drive an hour or so into the nearby national forest and go hiking alone. I don’t think that would like, solve anything, but a solid 4+ hours of walking can only improve things.
As someone who also struggles with the ‘I don’t want to bother them’ attitude when it comes to my friends and reaching out; do it, she would want to know!
I hope you find some peace and hiking/alone time helps
seconding this – I’m trying now (thanks, therapy!) to remember that when I say to myself ‘Oh I don’t want to bother my friends..” that is exactly the time when I need to contact them.
Seconding what Selma said! Your friends want to know!
If you’d like someone to talk to, Backline is a great counselling hotline (1-888-493-0092) for all aspects of pregnancy and pregnancy options. Also, if you’re religious (sorry, can’t quite recall) the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice offers clergy counselling for all of the pregnancy things (202) 628-7700. And for all outcomes and feelings there is the toast <3
Thirding! I encourage you to round up Team You. (This is a thing from Captain Awkward who is great.) This is a super stressful situation and you need supportive people around you. Toast folks are great but people who know you IRL are really important, especially if they’re local.
I know the chances are slim, but if you’re near SE Michigan you’re welcome to be alone in my guest room for a few days or a weekend or whatever you need. I’d be happy to make myself scarce or provide tea and soothing noises or anywhere in between.
Sorry I should clarify on the bra thing: I’m pregnant (1 month) and according to the stuff I’ve read online, these horrible things are going to continue to grow over the next 8 months. I already can’t wear almost all of my bras, and I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on new ones if I don’t have to because I REALLY hope they idk, deflate? to the size they were before this disaster started after its all over with.
They probably will keep growing at a fairly alarming rate. I made do with one of each size as they grew, and some of those have been somewhat useful as they go about the (really really slow) process of deflating (I am still breastfeeding at 20 months, and haven’t managed to loose any of my pregnancy weight (because I haven’t been trying mostly?) so YMMV).
Also there isn’t really a bra that will make them stop hurting, sorry.
Heyo, so I went back and read some of your previous comments, but I’m not sure if this pregnancy is staying or going, so I don’t want to make any assumptions about your choices.
On the premise of it staying re: boobs/bras: I feel you. I also jumped two cup sizes within eight weeks of conception, and it was a trial. It continued to be a trial right up until week 16, when it was like a switch flipped and they stopped aching. If you’re sticking with the pregnancy, investing in a couple new bras WILL make a difference in terms of comfort and support. If you have a specialist bra store near you, go in, tell them what’s up—including that you’re hating these new breasts—and allow them to fawn over you and get you into some support that you need. This was money well spent for me in my first trimester.
If you’re not sticking with the pregnancy, get a new bra anyway. The hormones don’t subside overnight, and being comfortable is better than being uncomfortable. Yoga will help, weight loss will eventually help, but your body right now is the one you can be supporting, not the one that will eventually come back to you.
In either path: you’re amazing, any amount of pregnancy is tough, and you go right ahead and feel those shitting feelings. <3
Specialty bra store hooked me up with a bra with stretchy cups and it was so helpful. The breasts still ached some, but the bra flexed with them.
If it’s any comfort, it’s very possible that not all of pregnancy will feel like that. I found that the first three and a half months was just my body feeling *weird*, in ways that were hard to put a finger on (plus being very sick which was very easy to put a finger on.) From about 16 weeks to 36 weeks I felt “normal but pregnant” – I mean, obviously I was getting bigger and occasionally it was uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel like my body was entirely the wrong shape for my body. So fingers crossed you have some good months too. (I also lost about a stone in early pregnancy because I was too sick to eat more than once a day, but I truly don’t recommend it.)
Yoga and swimming are both supposed to be great in pregnancy, and swimming would hopefully solve the bra issue? If you don’t have access to a pool, then you can just look up yoga stuff on YouTube to get started. Do a little, see how you go. Even just stretching out properly a couple of times a day can make a big difference to making your body feel like yours again.
Best of luck.
I’ve never been pregnant, but I do have ridiculous breasts. Just popping in to support the swimming option. And the most comfortable, supportive swimwear is your favorite everyday bra under a swim shirt.
Swimming is not only great when you feel like your body can’t handle gravity right now because there are parts of it in places you aren’t accustomed to, but it’s also very soothing.
I am sure someone has already mentioned this, but if you have the ability to talk to a good therapist (obviously marriage counseling would be great too, but I think a therapist for YOU right now is really important), please do it. Pregnancy is hard under the best of circumstances, and you do not want to be pregnant, and I am thinking about you a lot right now.
Motherfucking seconded, ok? You seem to be in a lot of distress, and I and a lot of other folks out here are concerned for you. Not your family, not your husband, not your pregnancy, you. Just you. I don’t know if this is an option, but is there a trusted friend you could stay with for a few days to think this all through?
We can also HELP, if you need that. Like if you needed money for a safe and legal procedure that you could lie about because your partner is truly not good to you right now and you DO NOT WANT this pregnancy, you can email me, nicole at the-toast dot net, from a burner email account, or if you needed money to see a therapist, same thing.
yes yes yes yes yes yes, thank you Nicole, we very much want to help you out here
I don’t want to sound pushy, though I definitely sound pushy, but you seem so unhappy about this, and early miscarriages are very, very common, and I just don’t want you to be staring down the barrel of this situation three, four months from now, when your options are so much more challenging. I have your email addy from the system, but I do not want to email you there bc I do not know how private it is, so if you want help or to talk, please please email me from a burner account.
It’s a pretty private email. (it’s my personal gmail account, so idk how private those are in general, but it’s not associated with a job or anything.) I’m not going to have an abortion, unfortunately. Whatever’s going to happen I guess is going to happen. I have an interview for a job in a different state tomorrow; if I get it then I can move away and avoid my family for the next 8 months. They would gloat horribly and I just can’t deal with that on top of everything.
Please try to see a therapist, though, if you can? I personally hate to burden my friends when I’m having a hard time in life, and it is SO NICE to have someone who is paid to help you talk through your troubles.
[ETA: Just to be clear, I’m not saying that talking to your friends WOULD be burdening them — quite the opposite, in fact — just that I know what it’s like to feel guilty about burdening people and a therapist is a great way to bypass that guilt and also maybe get help in worrying less about confiding in friends!]
ALSO (nesting all this down here): your OB/GYN is a place to start with mental health care. If you find a sympathetic-looking nurse or LP or doc or anything there today, lay it on ’em- just tell them how anxious and overwhelmed you are about this whole thing and that you really, really need a referral to a therapist. Because even at the best of times, this is a HUGE THING to happen to someone & it’s natural to want to talk it over!
Thinking of you. <3
Thirded, and I would also say that prenatal depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia is a horribly difficult challenge and you need support from various angles to help you. Been there twice. Do not white knuckle it. This goes for any woman out there.
💗
ALSO ALSO: because this is all Very Serious Business: here is a kitten cam to bring you smiles. http://explore.org/live-cams/player/kitten-rescue…
Kittens!
OMG, Kitten Rescue! I got my late, lamented Sophie from them!
Thirding what everyone has been saying. A lot of us are thinking of you and if we can do ANYTHING to help, please let us know.
Just piling on with the offers of help, The Toast is amazing because it really is a family and we will help you as best we can
And please talk to someone, your OB, a nurse, a therapist, someone who is outside of your life who can help you!
You do not have to do anything that you do not want to do (and that includes doing things for other people because you want to make them happy or that’s what they are expecting.)
You are a hero, ya know?
I’m happy to live in a world where you (and Mallory, etc.) made this space for community for us. Thanks.
Yes. Many, many, many of us are thinking of you. I’m sorry this is such a difficult time. I hope you can access the support you so clearly need. Please let us know if we can help in any way.
I have a variety of coping mechanisms for ob/gyn appointment stress, so I offer them as possible tactics that might work for you. Or not! Rich tapestry!
* Write a script or notes and bring them to the appointment. It’s useful to tell the LPN, the NP, the doc, the phlebotomist, et al. what stresses you out (needles? nakedness? being weighed?), what your health concerns are, and what you want to get out of the appointment. Doing this kind of prep helps me feel like I’m sure my concerns will at least be aired (and, if I’m anticipating being brushed off, I draft follow-up questions–I don’t usually need them, but chance favors the prepared mind and all that). I also write down the answers while the doc talks, which can quell fears that I’m misunderstanding or will be told later that I didn’t remember what they said.
* Drink a bit first. A shot or two of your favorite tipple in the half-hour before an ob/gyn appointment time can help relax tense muscles, especially the ones subject to speculumation. Obviously a nonstarter if you’re pregnant or in recovery.
* Plan a treat for yourself afterward. Personally, I favor pastry in the doughnut family, but whatever it is, remember that you’ve done a scary thing and that it’s okay to go be really nice to yourself as a reward.
Good luck.
Are you still in the first trimester (I’m guessing so since you just had your first appointment)? Disclaimer, I am not a doctor, but it’s actually pretty normal for women to lose some weight in the first trimester before starting to gain it back in the second. It’s usually due to lack of appetite/nausea/etc., and I know my doctor didn’t even bat an eye when even by my 16-week appointment, I hadn’t gained any weight. During the first tri, you *technically* aren’t sustaining the baby yet with your nutrients/etc., that happens when the placenta takes over. (Although you should definitely keep up with your prenatals, the folic acid is super-important even early on.)
So again, I’m not a doctor and you should definitely check with yours, but losing a couple of pounds in the first trimester is not a horrible thing as long as you aren’t purposely starving yourself or anything like that. And just in general, exercising during pregnancy (especially yoga) is a great thing!
Exercise idea- if you need to beat the ever loving shit out of something, martial arts may still be on the table- when I was talking hypothetically with my o.b. she was willing to entertain judo through the first trimester (even with the falling).
The r/abrathatfits subreddit can be very helpful on the bras front if Reddit is a thing you are okay with.
That mother of the groom is the worst and I feel compelled to say that that is not how you parent adult children.
Your son is not your property
Your son is not your boyfriend
His wife is not your competition.
I’ve come to the conclusion that big weddings are stupid and wasteful, everyone should just elope, they are one of our most sexist artifacts ever, ban weddings.
Teenage years: the long transition between childhood and adulthood for parents to come to those realizations. Those poor daughter-in-laws.
This article makes me so thankful for my MIL: she has four sons, and says about her daughters-in-law, “I had to wait a long time to get girls, but I finally got them!”
I love your MIL!
Mine was the monster in law who wrote the article.
Well, to be candid, the whole reason she had four boys is because she really really wanted a girl and kept trying. Not the best childhood for my husband as the third boy.
But, hey, she’s way better as a parent of adult children!
Great mother-in-laws thread! Mine collects vultures and always asks my husband what to get me for Christmas even though I always tell him I’m an adult and don’t need Christmas presents. Last year my in-laws bought me a terrific wallet that will last me for a long, long time. I love them.
She collects vultures? Stuffed or alive?? Either way, it sounds awesome.
More vulture-themed items. But yes, awesome!
I think my MIL likes me more than she does her son. Not loves me more, but is thrilled to meet a kindred spirit. I’m lucky.
My MIL definitely loves me more. Not necessarily in a good way, but I definitely meet more of her expectations.
Your son is not your property
Your son is not your boyfriend
His wife is not your competition.
Wish I had that mantra to embroider on a pillow and send it to my MIL when she was alive.
We eschewed the big wedding, went to the courthouse with immediate family, and used the wedding budget for the down payment on a house. A+ experience, would recommend.
This is exactly what I want it sounds just lovely.
I’ve been thinking to myself how lucky I am to have such a wonderful and kind mother-in-law…and then I read this and thought, I wish someone would replace “son” with “brother” and send it to my sister-in-law. I’ve been around for eight years and she just CANNOT STAND not being the center of everyone’s (especially my husband’s) attention anymore. It’s so icky.
Yep, have a family member like that. The (married) brother died suddenly and without a will, and his sister was shocked – SHOCKED, I tell you! – that the wife didn’t split the estate with her 50-50….because she was his sister, knew him longer than the wife and after all, they’d only been married a few years. It’s been several years and I still can’t talk any sense into the sister.
Devin Nunes and the other supposedly “moderate” Republicans were perfectly happy to dog-whistle as necessary and take the votes and money of the chemtrails/race war/Sharia law1!1!1 folks for decades. I have no sympathy for him and his ilk now. They made their bed, and they get to sleep in it. I’m scared for the country, because those people being in charge is going to cause a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.
Also, that Dr. Hardy story was aggressively depressing and infuriating, as was the endometriosis story, and now I want to be this dog:
This dog is adulting correctly.
Yeah, the truth is that the tinfoil-hat caucus makes a lot of noise, but they don’t usually get much done, because the rest of us know that their ideas are obviously ridiculous. Meanwhile, the “reasonable” people are out there cutting programs, giving handouts to their business buddies, overturning protections that benefit the average person– but since it’s all in the name of sober-minded “fiscal responsibility,” they don’t always get called out on it.
I got kind of bummed when I heard the Trump story last night (i am just so exhausted of Trump that I can’t even summon up the proper indignant emotional responses anymore), but then I remembered Sansa is home and Nicole would probably share another update in the morning and that cheered me right up.
That Hardy story.
When told about the Princeton alumna who says she spoke to him about Hardy’s misconduct, Onek raised the issue of memory recall from three decades ago.
“I’m sure you’re aware of the malleability of memory,” he said.
That is some next-level gaslighting, dude.
One of the named people in this article was contracted by my university a few years ago for an investigation of That Guy Who Thought He Could Fuck With Me. I met with her in a hot stuffy room in a campus building I’d never been to, I looked into her eyes, and I retold the whole awful story I’d been retelling for weeks already. I was painfully aware of how little he had done to me–no rape, no physical violence, so what could there be to complain about?–and how big a deal the investigation was by comparison.
I thought it was a big deal. He did get fired. But he got hired elsewhere right afterward, at another university, and his new employers never knew that anything had happened. It still fills me with rage.
I was cautious and unwilling to write anything down (I still am, which is why I’m being super vague here), but I told a lot of people at my school what he’d done. And I asked them to spread the word and USE MY NAME. Just so the people who knew him would think twice if they saw him again. There was nothing else I could do.
Still, I don’t know if anyone came before me and I don’t know if there has been anyone since. He’s handsome and he knows how to be charming. In thirty years, this article could be about him. How DO we stop this from happening?
I don’t even know. The obvious answer is “Believe women’s stories!” but that is just so much easier said than done. What’s striking and extra-horrible about the Hardy story is that even the people who DID believe women’s stories, like the college student who talked to Hardy’s ex-girlfriends, were still dismissed.
I’m sorry for the crap you had to go through, and for how it must gnaw at you that this guy is still out there, free to do his thing. Telling people about it was a brave move.
hey can we talk about the person who wrote in to aam today whose friend BLACKMAILED THEIR RACIST AND SEXIST BOSS SO THEY COULD STEAL WAGES FROM THEIR COWORKERS AND DOESN’T FIND THIS ABSOLUTELY DEPLORABLE?!?
I am seething, honestly.
WE SURE CAN!!!!!!!
Daveed Diggs whaaaattttttt
OH NO THEY SHOWED UP IN REPLIES. It’s their SISTER D:
!!!
0.o
ack i should have waited until after work to check in on the comments there!
Thank you thank you thank you for telling us. I’m going to go look in the replies.
Re: mother of the groom: can I make the case for eloping? I mean, obviously, if you have (or your partner has) been dreaming about their perfect wedding for ages: go for it! But if you have no particular dreams in that direction: you can just skip it.
We did that, even doubly. First of all: we went for the “registered partnership”, which was introduced as a separate-but-not-quite-equal marriage alternative for gay people before we got gay marriage in the Netherlands. It’s legally almost the same as marriage (aside from being a little easier to mutually dissolve), but it doesn’t have all those pesky traditional connotations. And then… we told almost nobody beforehand. I told my dad, telling him he couldn’t tell my mom – knowing that he would probably tell her but she wouldn’t be able to make a fuss because she wouldn’t be able to let me know that she knew. My partner didn’t tell his parents until almost a year later.
My “witness” was my friend who’s actively anti-marriage (as opposed to indifferent to the whole institution, like me), my partner’s “witness” was an irreverent friend who mostly saw it as a good excuse to get him really drunk the night before. The whole thing took 5 minutes at city hall (our waiting number was 666, which we took as a hilarious omen), and we spent the money that would otherwise have gone towards a stressful, overpriced party on paying off part of the mortgage (buying the house was the reason we got the registered partnership in the first place – it’s kind of handy for legal reasons).
We might do a big bash at some point. But so far, I’ve had absolutely no regrets on how we did it. My sister was a little peeved I cheated her out of an opportunity to be a bridesmaid, my MIL was a little sad (they had a really low key marriage and I think she regrets it a little), but overall it was low stress, cheap, and quick. The only drawback is that you can forget you did it. As in, six months later, in the middle of a twitter rant, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t technically having pre-marital sex any more. Oops. Guess I got respectable despite my best intentions.
Guess I got respectable despite my best intentions.
One day Gregor Samsa awoke and realized he’d turned into a square…
My mother frequently makes me promise to elope. It’s always been my dream, anyway, when I think about marriage at all. All I want is a pretty dress to do it in, and then Unlikely Putative Spouse and I will go on a train trip visiting people we love around the country and buying them dinner. Then we will come home and have our local friends over to our house for same.
I read recently that the actress Dilys Hamlett married her first husband ON HER LUNCH BREAK while she was at the Old Vic Theatre School. (She was a little late getting back to class.) #lifegoals #bossthespian
That sounds like a great alternative to the big party!
I also went back to work right after. The boy didn’t, because he was hella hungover.
One of our student workers just got married, and she took the day off and that was it.
My admiration for the students just grows and grows. And young-people-bashing is malarkey.
I technically got married in the morning before going to work one day, and then apologized for being late because the county clerk’s office was more crowded than I expected.
We had an actual ceremonial wedding and reception later, though, and we count that later date as our anniversary.
Yup, so happy with how we did it: courthouse, 6 other people in attendance, and a nice dinner. Then we went off to Barcelona for 10 days. Our only wedding type expenses were a photographer and a suit for me, and my wife got a very affordable non-wedding white dress.
Many thanks to everyone who recommended YA books yesterday. I picked up a few at the library last night, because obviously the best way for me to choose what book to give as a present is to read All The Books beforehand.
A nice stack of YA books will also come in handy as I’m recovering tonight. I’m getting a Paragard this afternoon and am rather nervous. Any words of comfort or advice would be appreciated!
You’ll be fine!! The insertion is a REALLY weird feeling (in my experience, less like normal pain, more like your body is going “???!??!??!??”), but it’s super quick and then you get to tell everybody about your robot vagina forever. You’ll probably have cramps after, so just make sure you have plenty of time to roll around on the couch and feel sorry for yourself (I had mine put in at like noon on a workday and tried to go back to the office, which I would not recommend).
Thank you! (And thank you MissSusan and ginkgotree!) I have planned plenty of time to lie around on the couch and do nothing, so I should be good there. I don’t have a hot water bottle or heating pad, though.
Heating pad is super helpful. Have some pads or pantiliners handy BEFORE you go; they will probably give you one at the office but stopping at the store right after suuuuucks, not that I have personal experience with that or anything.
I found that laying on the couch for the rest of the day and eating pizza was highly effective and in fact, made MrChouffe promise to find me the biggest, greasiest cheap pizza in the city for after my Mirena replacement this summer.
I do have pads, at least. Good idea on the food. I’ll have my boyfriend pick something up for me.
Sadly, I don’t think the argument “a cat would also make me feel better” will be quite as effective.
Please feel free to post reviews in comments threads!
Wait, is there a Toastie Goodreads group? THERE IS THERE IS!
My insertion experience (mirena) was a couple of minutes of mild/moderate discomfort, followed by about thirty seconds of pretty intense discomfort, followed by cramps that were about as bad as my worst period cramps for the rest of that day. catoclock’s description is totally accurate – it’s not painful so much as it is something your body’s just really not expecting. And definitely drop a couple bucks on some sort of heat device, even just some of those disposable pads from the drugstore.
my advice would be: make sure you have transportation home. i was living a 15-minute walk away from the doctor when i got mine and i went by myself and walking home afterwards almost killed me.
I hope it went / goes well! I got the Nexplanon implant this afternoon (very different procedure, but with the same results) and it went well. Good luck!
Thank you! I hope yours went well too.
Everything went well for me! The procedure itself was no fun, but since then, it’s been completely manageable pain. I did pick up a heating pad, which was an excellent decision. And I arrived home to find that the boyfriend had bought ice cream for me. So I’ve been reading Court of Fives and sitting with my heating pad for the past couple hours and feeling great.
I love IntenseDebate, but I do dislike how the “Report” button is so close to the “Like” button.
On my phone, I accidentally hit “Report” all the time when I’m trying to like the post below it. Thank goodness for the prompt window.
I am FASCINATED to hear that people have reported comments for swearing! Like. ???
me too! Every time I see a goodreads or similar review that’s like “two stars, because of all the swearing” I’m like…1) wait, what swearing? there was swearing? 2) huh, life is a rich tapestry.
I have a friend who was embarrassed when she went to kindergarten because she kept telling her friends not to say the “H-word” — “hate”, which her parents had taught her was a swear.
My whole Grade 2 classe believed that the F-word was “fired” as in laid-off.
It is.
I thought the “S-word” was “stupid” for way too long.
I also wasn’t allowed to read the book series “The Stupids”
I know I have accidentally hit report so many times on my phone. Seconding the thank goodness for the prompt window!
I said “thank goodness” rather than “thank god” because apparently language gets reported around here :p
Me too. And ditto, the “are you sure?” prompt is a lifesaver.
Donald TrumpmuttermuttermutterAssholemuttermuttermutterFascistmuttermutterNincompoopmuttermutter
MY DAD JUST TOLD MY SISTER HE AGREES WITH TRUMP. I feel like I’m going to barf. Every week we laugh together about what a crazy evil shit Trump is, but now all of a sudden he is going “he has a point on the Muslim thing though”. LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
Dear Fellow Reflective Canadians:
I feel like between the Mother of the Groom and Christmas Village Horrorshow; we have more than filled our quota of agonizing “keep those thoughts inside your head and/or therapist’s office” memoir pieces for this year.
Possibly for 2016 as well.
I’m neither Canadian nor particularly reflective, but I haven’t heard/read about the Christmas Village Horrorshow and am intensely interested in learning what it is/was.
OH MY GOD IT IS THE WORST AND HE IS THE WORST AND HE SHOULD BE FIRED INTO THE SUN WITH THAT VICTORIAN ASSHOLE.
Jesus, I went back and read some of it again to make sure, and KILL IT, KILL IT WITH FIRE.
oh man I had a great twitter conversation yesterday about our banner year of horrifying essays: https://twitter.com/erpurc/status/673979504700690… there are SO MANY and there is SO MUCH eye-widening wtf horror as people read that Christmas Village article.
I just read the subtitle “I sold my wife’s clothes to build a Christmas village in my parents’ basement” and did a Daveed Diggs in Hamilton-ian “Whaaaaat…”
“I sold my wife’s clothes, but also apparently gave her shit about the finances of going to New York on a trip and also act like a turd when people buy me the WRONG THINGS for my stupid village. Oh, which is housed at (and presumably taking over) my parents’ house.”
and am I reading it correctly that she is the only one who works?? and he just what? sits at home and thinks about his christmas village (and sells her clothes?!?!)??
As I ride the bus, I mentally scroll through the Rolodex of things Litia and I can cut in order to bank even more of our paycheque. Here, of course, I use the word our in its most liberal sense, since Litia is the only one who receives a salary.
FIRED.
OUT OF A CANNON.
INTO THE SUN.
Oh wow, I don’t even know what to say about this guy.
In his defense, the article is tagged with “addiction,” which suggests that at least somebody involved in the writing and editing is aware that he has a problem. But…. he doesn’t work?? uses his wife’s salary?? eliminates coffee cream from their budget??? uggghhhh.
I just read “my mother has already resigned herself to hosting next week’s dinner party for twelve around the kitchen counter” and NOPE-d right out of there, because the Victorian Douchebag was bad enough and I can’t unfortunately spend my entire work day as a little ball of rage again.
Wait. The Christmas Village piece wasn’t fiction? I was reading it trying to decide if it was real life or one of those uncomfortable not-real-but-feels-that-way fiction pieces.
Non fiction; and the Walrus tweeter swears it was fact checked.
oh my god canada, blink twice if you need to be rescued before you’re turned into a christmas village effigy
But what if there was a video of the Christmas Village dude dressed up in Victorian costume wandering around his village.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmwKlZogpWc
Fortunately, I already don’t believe in God, so this can’t shatter my belief in a supreme being.
I’m just… god, I don’t have a WORD for it? appalled? thunderstruck? at his palpable contempt for his wife.
I feel like I’ve discovered the horrifying edge of the universe and can’t stop staring into the abyss and wondering HOW!? WHAT!? WHY!?
But hey, now I know that Christmas villages are the source of existential horror, so there’s that.
In terms of journalism in that same vein, every year is overflowing with pieces from anti-feminist women like Margaret Wente, Barbara Kay, and Christie Blatchford.
There seems to be a trend of Canadian journalists named Barbara with incredibly douchey sons (Jon Kay, David Frum) …
Was there ever any sort of follow up to the Christmas Village Horrorshow? I feel like that story is only half told…
Let’s ask why the Globe and Mail and The Walrus decide to publish those pieces…
Because I keep clicking on it and hate-reading it over and over and over again. (But I have ad-blockers turned on over there and so am actively hastening the DEATH OF THE MEDIA.)
I used to have a Walrus subscription. I no longer have a Walrus subscription.
Was it Jonathan Kay? Because for me it was Jonathan Kay.
It was mostly Jonathan Kay. As soon as he took over, nearly all substance vanished. Don’t know if you listen/read Canadaland, but they also did a good piece about the ongoing shitty working conditions at the Walrus
someday…. someday… my sons will get married… married…
DUDE BOOK ME A TICKET TO THE BAHAMAS ONLY ~20 YEARS TO GO WOOOOOOOO
You don’t have to wait 20 years, those boys can learn make their own meals and do their own laundry by the time they’re, like, 12, right?
If kids in a Dickens story could do it, why can’t kids in the real world?
yes, but kid years are like dog years
– Trump’s latest brainstorm: have Bill Gates keep ISIS off the internet. No, really.
– I actually appreciate that mother-of-the-groom’s story quite a lot, because at least she’s being honest and open about how she feels. Think of all the in-law stories you’ve heard where they’re weird and creepy and infinitely passive-aggressive in their manipulations. Where they punish their children for daring to form families of their own by trying to take over the lives of their grandchildren. Plus, this potential future grandma is into Star Wars and LotR, and how cool is that?
– Sadly, I can believe the story about Hardy, because of the massive amounts of privilege expected by and extended to doctors.
I just got a letter from my mother-in-law where she was pouting because I’m rejecting her maternal-type love. She has also dropped like 100 comments about how SONS (which she has) are never there for their mothers, but daughters are! And wouldn’t it be great if she moved in with us? Hahaha just joking. What a hilarious joke! Soooooooo yeah. I wouldn’t want this essayist as a mother-in-law either, though.
A few years ago I started having really severe lower back pain, completely out of the blue. I went to the doctor, who didn’t even do any kind of examination before telling me I just needed to lose weight and hurrying me out of the room. I left sobbing, still in pain, and disgusted with my fat self.
Three years later, still suffering from intermittent severe back pain, I went back to the doctor. In the meantime, I had changed some eating habits and taken up running, and in the process I lost about 50 pounds. This time I got a full examination, and eventually got referred to a competent gyno who diagnosed the endometriosis I had been suffering from all along. I finally got the treatment I needed, but the only thing that had changed was that I wasn’t visibly fat anymore.
The way the “war on obesity” has become an excuse for lazy, crappy doctors to do no work at all is just stunning.
It was amazing to me recently to see how much “patient credibility” I gained in the eyes of a new doctor when I’d lost seven pounds between my first and second visits. (Due to a lot of life changes, I had previously not been observing my usual eating/exercise habits, and the first visit came shortly after I was returning to them, so I wasn’t losing to please her or anything. It was just a weird side effect.)
That is the most not ok thing I’ve heard today. (I mean, it’s only 10.30 here, but STILL.)
“In the late afternoon of October 29th, Boehner’s last day as Speaker, Labrador found him alone in his private office, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window at Washington’s monuments. Boehner’s office was cleared out, and his remaining personal effects were gathered on his desk. ‘This is all I got left, right here,’ Boehner said.”
I’m no fan of Boehner but I may have said “aww, poor dude” out loud at this part.
That whole piece: the Freedom caucus is Robespierre resurrected.
Nicole, this may get buried, but I’ve started eating meat after years of vegetarianism because: anemia, and my first meat dish made with my own hands (besides a roast chicken I made for family 5 years ago) was your 10-minute mini burger recipe (grass fed beef and all). My vegetarian spouse was very jealous because they were fucking amazing, and they were exactly what I need right now. Bless.
Edited to reflect: I am super scared of cooking meat but these were easy and tasty and might just be my primary iron delivery system (besides the pills) until I figure out another recipe.
I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You might also appreciate how my dog lost his GODDAMN MIND throughout the cooking process, and has suddenly stopped begging for carrot peels and kale and spinach scraps, now he knows what’s good. 🙂
I went back to eating meat a couple of years ago (my spouse is still lacto-ovo vegetarian, and I keep a mainly vegetarian kitchen and cook veggie most nights, but will eat meat a couple times a week), and I was at first scared of cooking meat as well. My trick is to do long braises, because there’s less to screw up 😀 So stuff like chicken thighs or chuck roast or short ribs were my go-to for a while. I’ve never tried making burgers or cooking a steak still!
Burgers you have to be a little more careful with, but steaks are actually surprisingly easy to cook; ~3 minutes on each side on a very hot grill or cast iron pan and you’re good. Pop it in the oven for another minute or two if you like it a little more done. Once you get the hang of it, you can knock out a great steak in less time than it takes to make a good sandwich.
Man, do you have any recipe or blog suggestions? I’m a very competent and adventurous vegetarian cook but the internet re: meat recipes basically makes me melt down in panic. Why so many steps? How do you buy meat? What are the different meats? How do you make your house not smell gross afterwards?
I use Cooks Illustrated recipes for just about all meat dishes. Santa Claus gets me a gift subscription every year, and I pay for web access to the recipes too. I really recommend the magazine, because knowing the science behind why recipes work has made me SUCH a better cook. Their 2015 year-end collection is out now, could be a great place to start!
Ohhhhhhhh you ANGEL. What a great idea!
Ohh do I ever! I am a cooking blog fanatic. For basic things, I really like thekitchn and Simply Recipes. So for instance, if I’m like “How do I poach chicken?” I just search for poach chicken thekitchn and something good usually comes up. I also like Serious Eats, particularly J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s foodlab column. In a similar vein, I think all the episodes of Alton Brown’s show, Good Eats, are on Netflix or Hulu and his Bill Nye-like approach to cooking is very good for basics. Beyond that, you can’t go wrong with Smitten Kitchen or Barefoot Contessa. In terms of particular recipes, is there anything you’d be excited to try? I could do the steps for a basic pot roast or stew if that’s helpful. I love sharing recipes!
This is great – thank you! I love Serious Eats for vegetarian/ vegan and gluten-free recipes but freaaaaked out when I looked at the meat stuff, mostly because of all the steps. So many steps, and part of the problem is that I like meat fine but am not like, crazy about it, so when I look at a picture of a pot roast it’s like :/ to me. But! I also like walking across rooms quickly, and sleeping through the night, and not having my hair fall out MUCH MORE so I’ll check these all out.
As for particular recipes, because of the super low energy, I’m mostly into the idea of using the slow cooker and/or other recipes like Nicole’s burgers that require very little effort up front. Do you have anything like that? And also thank you!! For providing suggestions and offering more recipes!
You could also check out Low Spoons Food.
Oh, dang, perfect – thank you!
I understand that; Kenji’s recipes can def be overwhelming sometimes and I usually go to him more for the background than the actual steps. In general, most roasts that you buy (read: beef or lamb) need to be cooked for a long time at a low temperature (as opposed to steaks, which you cook for a short time a high temperature). Even if it seems like a lot of steps, it’s hard to mess up a braise. Steps to make pot roast/beef stew:
Pick a roast. I generally don’t mess w/ that pre-cut stew meat; just get a chuck roast. It’s big, flat and looks like a giant steak. Most cuts will be 3 or 4 pounds. It might just say roast, but if it matches that description, you’re good.
If you just chop up all your stuff first, it will feel way less overwhelming. Chop an onion, some garlic, and some carrots. You’ll also need a can of tomatoes, a sprig of thyme (or rosemary or oregano), red wine, and a bay leaf is nice too.
Brown the meat. Season it generously with salt and pepper. Heat up some vegetable oil (don’t use olive oil; it will smoke). Get it nice and hot and put the meat in. Just let it sizzle for a few minutes on each side so it’s nice and brown. Take it out and turn down the heat. Add the onion, then the carrots, then wait a few and add the garlic. Cook it for a bit and then add a few glugs of wine. Let the wine cook for 10 minutes or so.
At this point, if you’re using a dutch oven, you can just cover it and put it in the oven on like 300 for 3 hours. If not, put it in the slow cooker. Check it. Can you pull the meat apart with a fork? It’ll be cooked through at this point; you’re just seeing if it’s tender. If it is, then you’re done. If not, cook it for another 30 min and check again. You could chuck in some potatoes towards the end, or you could just serve it in bowls over rice or barley.
I know that seems like a lot, but I promise, it’s super easy, plus it’ll serve a whole family, or last you all week. Hope that helps!
I would also recommend getting a “Joy of Cooking” or the like for basic meat stuff.
I have an older edition that falling apart at the seams, and it’s where I go for basic meat cooking instructions and info. You’re looking for one of those basic encyclopedic cookbooks, with “appetizers, soups, vegetables, poultry, meat” sections.
My other two recommendations are: Nigella Lawson and a crockpot cookbook.
Oh I have the old Joy of Cooking with the “how to skin a squirrel” picture! Clearly it never occurred to me to actually consult it for anything besides that picture and occasionally pudding, but this is a great reminder! Nigella + crockpots are great advice – thank you!
What about things like chili or pulled pork? You can slow-cook them in a crock pot, and they generally won’t get *over* cooked if you leave them in a little longer just to be sure. They’ll make your house smell, but maybe meat-chili and vegetarian-chili both mostly smell like chili powder? I don’t know, maybe it is more obvious to vegetarians (like how smokers lose their sense of smell, maybe I’ve lost my abiliy to smell beefs).
If you’re not married to using blogs only, I would not be the cook I am today without Food Network/Cooking Channel. Watching someone cook something helped me tremendously – I started with Rachael Ray, who I now think is a total hack, but she is very good at putting things in simple terms. A lot of cooking shows are available on Netflix too.
I am hear to preach the wonders of the meat thermometer! You can even get one that already knows the safe cooking temperature for every meat and will beep at you when it reaches that temp. I’m a very competent cook and regular meat-eater but I still love my thermometer.
Yes, good call!
Thermapen is love, Thermapen is life.
Ooh, do you have the link? I’m currently iron-deficient and the pills tend to bother my stomach, so I really need to step up my meat game.
I may have touted these before, but FeraMax has been a godsend for me – it’s a polysaccharide-iron complex pill and the GI side effects have been practically nil compared to the standard pills. Not to get in the way of stepping up your meat game though!
Oh no, thank you so much! I don’t really like meat–I’ll eat it if someone else cooks it for me, but if I’m making something myself then it’s legumes all the way. My doctor has been very unhelpful on the pill-suggestion front–I told her that the one kind of supplements I’d tried bother my stomach, and she was like, welp, guess you’ll have to get BLOOD INFUSIONS.
All of which is to say, I will be acquiring these post-haste.
What is it with unhelpful docs? So infuriating. FeraMax are OTC here in Canada and the website does list a few potential drug interactions to be aware of, but I hope they work for you!
Yesssss: http://the-toast.net/2015/05/15/my-favourite-mini… So easy! And super tasty. The spatter screen recommendation is extremely useful, btw – bought one expressly for this purpose and did not regret it.
The Mother of the Groom is really helpful to me as a new mom. Just last night I felt sad because I feel like we’re not as close now that he no longer lives inside of me (which is beyond, I know), and was reminding myself that my role as his mother is to raise him to be his own person independent of me. (With the obvious first step of not literally being attached to my body.) This article is a glimpse into a future I don’t want.
Every time I see Trump on TV (which is often, bc I’m living with my grandparents and they like to keep up with the news), I just want to throw something at him.
Preferably a tomato, so I can watch it drip off his combover while his face turns a really unattractive shade of puce.
HER FEETS, Sansa’s little feets ahhhhhhh I want to nom them
YES EXACTLY I checked my phone in bed and this picture popped up in my feed and her little FEETS and her FLOOF and it is I who are ded.
No way! Her fuzzbutt is clearly the most important part! I want to do that thing where you scritch it and wriggle it at the same time!
We chose our office holiday photo based on how good the office dog looks. I’m standing behind her scritching her butt, and she’s got the most blissed-out look on her face.
*magnanimously* Friend, who is to say you cannot scritch her fuzzbutt while nomming on the little feets? (Except, you know, Nicole. Hi Nicole your puppy is THE BEST)
As a queer someone who lived for several years just west of the UP border (and who now lives in Chicago), that Autostraddle essay really speaks to me.
I’m still not very good at telling girls that I like them. But I joined a queer choir so I’m surrounded by lovely queer ladies all the time, and I think that’s helping me. Maybe I’ll be able to speak up soon.
Reading this, I wanted to ensure yuo saw the Toast’s own queer girl pickup haikus: http://the-toast.net/2015/11/18/queer-girl-pick-u…
Yes! Hilariously, I replied to one of your comments on the post.
I’m actually friends with a friend of the author, because there are only three degrees of separation between every queer person ever.
Has Sansa grown since yesterday? I swear she looks about 20% bigger.
She was eleven pounds five ounces at the vet today, up from nine pounds seven less than a week ago!
WHOA. Good job on feeding her up! Do big-breed puppies take supplements for strong bones like racehorse colts do?
Unrelated to any of the links, but . . . My dude just called me and told me he just bought tickets for Hamilton on February 26.
I’m not entirely sure what to do with this information other than possibly weep at my desk?
That’s a good dude right there.
That seems like a completely fair reaction. It’d be mine for sure.
Yes to good Hamilton dudes! My dude bought tickets a while ago and we’re going on December 27. I was fine for a long time but now it’s so close I might not make it all the way there.
Pretty sure weeping at your desk is the only possible response.
After Trump was on all of the channels on my TV for quite some time last night (my roommate was watching, and I really needed to be in the kitchen so I could prepare food), I had to rewatch the “flames on the side of my face” Madeline Kahn Monday. It didn’t make everything better, but it at least gave me a way to communicate the true depths of my hatred and rage.
Oof, that endometriosis article is really scary. I don’t think I’ve ever received satisfactory OB/GYN care or GP care related to the weird pains I experience around my period and especially, specifically during sex. I really need to address it, but I always get really flustered in the doctor’s office, due to a combination of anxiety over past experiences and my general lack of confidence in describing my own pain. 🙁
P.S. spellcheck is telling me endometriosis isn’t even a word, geez
Same! Mine was diagnosed as a cervical ectropion and frozen off, but the symptoms came back almost straight away and the gynaecologist I saw last time was such an arsehole I haven’t had it checked out again.
A lot of doctors seem really shitty about women’s gynaecological pain, as if think we’re imagining it or something.
I’m super late responding here, but I wanted to recommend a book: “Healing Painful Sex” by Deborah Coady and Nancy Fish. It goes over a lot of things that can cause sexual or pelvic pain and gives you suggestions about questions to ask your doctor, relaxation methods, resources for finding a doctor who will actually listen to you, etc.
It’s really, really difficult to find the right person, and to keep trying when you’ve gotten a lot of unsatisfactory care. But you are not alone and there are people who can help you, and I hope that knowledge alone helps a little bit. I wish you the best of luck getting the care you need, and i’m happy to talk more about my specific experiences if you’re interested.
Wow, this is very kind of you. Thank you for the rec and advice! I will definitely read that book. I really appreciate it.
So, there were layoffs in my department last Friday. Including the guy who sits directly across from me and I didn’t realize I was professionally in love with, like we had the most perfect platonic working relationship (we weren’t even friends/confidants, but we bantered and got shit done and had a way of smiling at each other that signaled we were in on the joke that is work).
I literally saw him walking down the hall with his things in a CARDBOARD BOX, and it was so ludicrous that I stopped and MADE A JOKE to him about it, because it’s so absurd, he’s a great employee, why would the company lose its senses by throwing him out? And he just shrugged and smiled back at me and said they asked him to go.
I figured it out five minutes later, and chased him out into the parking lot, where I apologized a lot and told him how not okay this was and then I spent the rest of the afternoon struggling not to cry (and failing, a little) .
They also terminated one of the two guys who interviewed me, and I’m less upset about him.
But man, I’ve only been here seven months, and I was actually feeling so good and confident in my role, and now everything’s turned upside-down and unhappy. I’m just so devastated that I’m never going to see my work buddy again (we weren’t close enough to exchange numbers or personal email addresses, he’s not on LinkedIn), and I can’t believe they let him go three weeks before Christmas. He was such a good employee — regularly worked late, was such a soft-spoken guy, zero drama. What an ugly reminder of the power imbalance in capitalism and corporate America.
Ugh, that sucks. Especially during the holidays. Did the company say why they were laying off? As in, do you know if this was the only round, or if they’ll do it more? Hopefully not, and I’m sorry that this is happening.
Bad financial market, especially for our products. There was a bigger company-wide meeting this morning, which I couldn’t attend, but a coworker updated me — the CEO said there had been a variety of reasons for the recent firings (there’s been more than two, these just affected me the most), and managers can’t go into specifics about individuals.
As for whether there’ll be more, it’s all going to depend on how the market does and our sales. I feel safer than most, I guess, because I’m the only full-time tech writer and writing manuals is definitely a thing that needs to get done, and they already invested a lot of training in me. And I know I’ve been competent, at minimum, so far. But yeah, no room for complacency, and we’ve been specifically warned against complaining and negativity. Which is hard when you’re abruptly losing coworkers with no effort made for knowledge transition to make it easier or smoother.
I just really don’t want to lose the guy who’s now my best work friend. In the seven months I’ve been here, I’ve already lost five coworkers with whom I just felt I was making an especially good connection (all for different reasons; only this last guy was actually fired). I really will be devastated if my friend is dismissed (he’s pretty new, started a month after me).
Was he fired or laid off? Because those are different and you definitely don’t want to mix those up.
“their employment was terminated” read the announcement email, which doesn’t sound very good for them coming back when the market gets better. 🙁
I know, I tend to use “layoffs” in a general sense because that’s how I always hear it described when this is happening…e.g., “we’re experiencing layoffs” rather than “people are getting fired,” I dunno. I double-checked the definition just now and apparently it allows for temporary or permanent. Again, I have no idea if they did something, or it was just a financial decision. I know others in the company recently have been fired definitely for cause.
Toasties! I just found out yesterday that I passed my master’s comprehensive exam so mostly officially I now am the proud owner of a history M.A.! I know I’m not the most active person here (I read everything though), but you are all amazing and smart and supportive and I just wanted to post this for posterity somewhere where perhaps another historian would see it.
Whoooo congrats!
I am not a historian but I would like to extend my congratulations anyways!
Congratulations on your mastery!
Congratulations!!!!!
I am not a historian but I’ve always considered it as the fallback “if I win the lottery and wouldn’t have to worry about tuition this is what I’d go back to school for” thing and I am SO HAPPY for you!
Congratulations! Good job!
Oh my gosh, went for some errands and came back to this! Thank you, guys!
The Mountain Goats just released their tour schedule for 2016! Some happiness survives.
literally LAST NIGHT i was lying in bed listening to a recording of a show I went to a couple years ago and really wishing that they would announce tour dates soon, and I am SO PLEASED and excited and going to at least two dates.
I’m looking at the Chicago ones like…couldn’t I just, y’know, go to all of them?
I clicked this with SUCH HOPE that there woul dbe a Toronto date, but no, no Canada at all.
I love Mountain Goats so much that I overcame tremendous social anxiety to go see them BY MYSELF (because only 1 of my friends in town has any taste and she couldn’t go.)
Sadly, John Darnielle finds it difficult to travel to Canada: http://johndarnielle.tumblr.com/post/57789046062/…
Ugh, how horrible. Wtf, Canada?
Oh, I didn’t know that! I have seen him here twice. Maaaaybe the border crossing will be better now that we no longer have an evil overlord? I mean, if his arrests are for drugs (Note: I do not know that they are, I am theorizing) and our new PM is legalizing marijuana and has also expressed support for saje injection sites, I’d imagine that the border guards wouldn’t be quite so entitled to assholery.
I might be rose-coloured glassesing here, but I’m just so pleased with the changes so far.
Anyone who can go to the Bearsville one should because I love that space and I think they’ll be extraordinary in it.
I drove six hours to see Jeff Mangum there and it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done.
TOASTS, I DECLINED THE JOB THEY OFFERED ME. It was the right decision. It would have been a huge pay cut (because I’m currently being paid WAY above market rate, it turns out, instead of slightly above like I’d thought), it would have been a huge move, it would have been to a town that I disliked on sight and a manager I didn’t click with and a job that is 90% the thing I dislike most about my current job. I thought, when I applied, that I would stretch myself career-wise, that moving to a sub-optimal place closer to where I ultimately want to be would be okay, that the tradeoffs would be worth it, and I was wrong.
And, well… when I applied for this job I was really depressed. Since then I’ve switched medication and changed some things about my life and I’m much happier now. I no longer feel like anything would be better than where I am now.
I am kind of kicking myself for not somehow telepathically knowing all of these things without ever having met the manager or been to the town in question, while also being aware that it is silly to think that I would know everything from a single job posting. (And Alison at Ask a Manager says that interviewing is a two-way conversation and I am not obligated to accept an offer just because it’s been made, and I trust Alison.) But I am also massively, massively relieved that I don’t have to pack up my entire life and move cross-country and figure out an entirely new library system in an entirely new state.
Thank you for listening to me rant for the past two weeks, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled link roundup.
Maybe I’m misreading, but please don’t regret taking the interview(s) and meeting the manager. It’s always good to meet more people in your field. Always good to practice your interview skills.
And good for you, avoiding a manager who could not make themselves agreeable even in the short-term. And for refusing a pay cut. This is how women’s pay will increase, when those who can afford to do so insist on increases.
I trust your judgment. If you found the offered job wrong for you, then it was. And I’m happy you have improved your health. It all sounds like a win to me.
Oh, thank you so much for putting it that way: I was feeling a little shallow for being so disappointed by a lowball salary offer, but you’re absolutely right, it doesn’t help anyone – not me, and not the profession – for me to agree to discount four years’ worth of experience and raises.
This was really one of those situations where thinking about leaving convinced me I really didn’t want to after all. Such a relief.
Congratulations on not a new job!! With the job market like it is we all think of the application/interview process like they’re the ones evaluating you but really it should go both ways. They should also be trying to convince you that they’re the best fit for you too and this time they didn’t. Enjoy not-packing and not-moving!
I am SO HAPPY to be not moving (and not packing). AND THEN THEY ANNOUNCE THAT HAMILTON IS COMING TO CHICAGO. It’s like the universe has validated my decision right there.
YES WHAT YES YES YES
Oh my guarrrrd I am so jealous of you right now!
So glad things worked out! It sounds like this whole process was less of a mistake and more of a learning experience for you. And I know it doesn’t feel like it, but there will be other job offers! Better ones! Congrats on not having to move.
I need to know what kind of dog Amal has!!!! I want to snoogle it.
Also her shoes! (I want to know what kind they are. Not to snoogle them.)
Hmm I think those were just simple flats from Primark, which is discount store in the UK. They cost like 5 pounds so I always stock up when I’m there.
He’s a cockapoo called Baxter. Too adorable right?!
Aw, I got a little shoutout on the link round up! Minus the actual shouting, but that’s okay! For everyone who commented on my breakup ish yesterday, thank you, thank you, thank you. The I have read and re-read that thread about 10 times already, and it means so much to me. <3
There should be badges for this. Or, like, shimmery gold light and “acheivement unlocked” hovering around your head for some determined amount of time.
Hope today is slightly better!
avocadoavocat, I missed that post but went back and read through – I am so so sorry and you sound so wonderful and like I knew on some level that this kind of thing happened but now I feel like “oh, I recognize outlines of those feelings, I will not be totally blindsided and may even react half as well as avocadoavocat” and I am young and not wise and feel like I just got a master class on Things That Might Happen in the Future and How to Know They Will Be OK. Also what a conscientious person you are replying kindly to everybody who comments!
“These would be the same boys who, back when they were 4, were my best buds. During that rarefied period of my life, I was the most important girl (nay, human being) in their lives.”
Um. You were the most important person in his life for the same reason I am the most important person in my cat’s life – I feed them and make sure they don’t die.
“We shared numerous passions such as rock-collecting, dinosaurs, nature walks, Lego, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies, Star Wars, all things Lord of the Rings, as well as books.” UHM. You, as an adult, were passionate about TMNT? That… doesn’t sound right? I mean, I get being passionate about dinosaurs, especially if you are a paleontologist, but the rest of it is a weird list for an adult human to be passionate about.
I don’t have kids, so maybe I am not relating properly here, but this strikes me as obsessive. Like, yes, be interested in what your kids are interested in, that is great! But maybe don’t, like, subsume your interests to theirs?
I think what’s weirding me out about that whole “shared interests” thing is that she’s remembering them at age FOUR as having “shared interests.” That’s just not …. like…… developmentally appropriate? It’s cool that your kids thought some of what you liked to do was interesting, at age 4, but they aren’t your friends and you don’t share interests with them. It just strikes me as an incredibly inappropriate way to talk about hanging out with your kids?
Lord of the Rings isn’t that weird a thing for an adult human to like.
It does seem kind of weird for a four-year-old, though. Especially since the movies probably didn’t exist yet when her sons were four.
And that, too. The whole thing is weird and inappropriate, is what I’m saying I guess!
Yup, no problems with her liking LOTR (I picked TMNT and dinosaurs for a reason; the rest of her list is totally legit for adults to be into). But her 4 year old? I tried to read those books as a teen and got nowhere.
But. Google tells me that the first movie came out in 2001, which, if one of her kids was 4 at the time of the release of the film, means he was born in 1997. If this woman is my age (born 1977), and had her kids young (this is not entirely unpossible; i had a friend in uni who was 2 years older than me but in 1997 had a 3 year old), it is entirely possible that she became obsessed with LOTR and dragged her kids along with her.
And now I am going to weep quietly in a corner, because it is terrifying to me that, had life gone differently, I would currently have adult children. I can barely get myself out of the house.
But if he was four in 2001, he’d only be eighteen now. It’s possible that both her sons are getting married when the younger one is eighteen, and that the eighteen-year-old did all of his portion of the planning without asking a parent for help, but it doesn’t seem likely.
It would explain her feeling that they were still basically children until their weddings, though.
There are some parents at my kid’s school who are going to be completely lost when their kid leaves home for college for exactly this reason. They’ve lost themselves in their kids. It is super, super weird to see.
”
Um. You were the most important person in his life for the same reason I am the most important person in my cat’s life – I feed them and make sure they don’t die. ”
Ahahahaha, great point.
That breakup post…relevant. Got my heart broken last week, and I have NO freaking clue how to stitch it together. This was the first time, in a very long time, that I let my guard down. First time I was intimate with a guy since I was assaulted a few years ago. I have literally no idea how to function right now, but its a comfort knowing I’m not alone, I’m not the first to feel this, and it will go away, someday.
Man, that sucks and I am sorry. I wish I had something helpful to add that wasn’t already in that post! It definitely will get easier.
Samesies. A man I was dating for several months just ghosted on me with no warning whatsoever and I’m currently at work pretending that my inner monologue isn’t just a series of wounded animal noises. Solidarity with everyone holding it together today.
I am so, so sorry. I’m with you on this. Sending you love and support via Toastie waves!
There’s a lot of good advice about that in yesterday’s open thread, in addition to that link. Good luck! It will get better.
YOU GUYS, HAMILTON IS COMING TO CHICAGO!!!!!
Of course, Hamilton opens in Chicago three weeks after the show I bought NYC tickets for. So, do I sell my NYC Hamilton tickets and see it in Chicago? Do I see it in BOTH places?
I JUST SAW THAT AND AM ACTUALLY HYPERVENTILATING
SEE IT BOTH PLACES ARE YOU NUTS
See it both places! I saw it in NYC back in August, and you can bet I am going to see it again here in Chicago! Plus it’s an open-ended run, so you can have some breathing time.
It’s so much fun to compare casts/staging/all of that stuff, anyway!
I can get to Chicago! I have places to stay in Chicago! I am… slightly tearing up with joy?
also I totally know who you are on FB now because I am a creepy stalkist! 😀
Was coming here to post this! Yay for Chicago-area Toasties!
Sell them to me? (kidding/notkidding)
Midwest HamilToasts, #RiseUp
Open-ended run begins in Chicago next Sept 27
I am probably actually dying
I may have just shouted in my office.
Same. Same.
Will there be Chicago #Ham4Hams?
oooh I don’t know but there SHOULD be
I am dead. Actually dead.
My whole office just got back from lunch and I told them and they LOST IT as a whole, we are all on the ground
Wait, I take that back! I should have made the obligatory reference to how lucky we are to be alive right now!
this is a few days after my wedding #HAMILTONEYMOON
[tentative offer of couch for visiting Toasties to sleep on]
It literally just occurred to me that 9/27/16 is my first anniversary
AND MY BEST FRIEND AND HER HUSBAND’S THIRD ANNIVERSARY
I KNEW THERE WAS A LARGER PURPOSE TO HAVING THE SAME ANNIVERSARY OMG OMG OMG
#HAMMIVERSARY
A toast to the groom!
To the bride!
With absolutely no subtext about how it shoulda been me!
YET ANOTHER EXCELLENT REASON NOT TO MOVE.
/VIBRATING WITH EXCITEMENT
KATHERINE CHLOE CAHOOOOOOONNNNNNNN is back and better than ever.
Did she teach you how to meet European men? I will never not be obsessed with her.
The endometriosis article. I have endometriosis, and also migraines, and I am over 30. So I have to take a progestogen-only contraceptive if I want to take contraceptives, because a person with migraines in my age range isn’t supposed to take oral contraceptives. But I have to take them because it’s how the endometriosis stays under control. So that’s already interesting.
But what’s worse is that the direction of my gynecological care has suddenly shifted, within the past couple of years, to “You really need to get off those contraceptives and start trying NOW if you ever want to have a child, with your medical situation [ie, the endometriosis].” I’ve cried in my car after leaving the doctor twice because of this– because I want to have a child, but it isn’t a good time, and I hate being treated like a baby factory, especially a potentially defective baby factory.
Bullshit on the combined contraceptives. I’m 44 and the student health nurse was like, “well, if your migraines are a result of hormones, like you say you are, then taking the pill and not getting a period will keep you from having them. It’s much better to not have them at all, right?”
Anyway, what I’m saying is, get another opinion on that. Because I went on the continuous no period pill and had NOT ONE MIGRAINE FOR A YEAR.
AND very very improved cramping (I have adenomysosis which is a special kind of endo hell because it’s internally located between muscle fibers).
Go to a planned parenthood or health center near a university. They are MUCH more understanding of non-baby-mamas. Typical suburban OB’s just suck.
I’m on a continuous pill, but it’s progesterone-only, which is fine with me, if it weren’t for the “you really shouldn’t be on contraceptives because you need to start trying to get pregnant last year if you ever want to have a baby” thing. What I’ve been told is that I can’t get a pill with estrogen, because the risk of stroke is so high in women over 30 with migraines taking the combined-hormone pill. Is that not true? Either way, I’m fine with the pill I’m on (though I’ve gained weight, but whatever); I’m not fine with the implication that I’m playing Russian roulette with my fertility.
Well, I was going to link you to a bunch of articles, but then I realized I”m on a campus VPN and you probably can’t read them. My take away from what I’ve read of meta studies are these points:
The studies that most conclusively link aura and migraine were done on over-60 people? (at least that’s what a quick search just found, I could be missing a lot of studies)
The incidence of stroke goes up with smoking and heart disease.
The incidence of stroke goes us with migraines and estrogen containing OC’s, but the absolute risk is still small, and it’s much less than the risk of stroke from pregnancy.
The younger OC related strokes seem to be related to newer forms of progestin, so the older the better. (1st or 2nd gen progestin is best, I would steer clear of 3rd generation formulations). It’s also much higher for things like the nuva ring than pills.
Migraine itself is related to heart disease and so is stroke so the ties are complicated.
Relative risk of stroke doubles if you are a migraineur but absolute risk is still small.
Also, stroke is estrogen dose related, and estrogen levels are much, much, much lower in newer pills than the pills taken during the older studies.
My personal view is that if I have fewer migraines on the pill, then I’m lowering my stroke risk because I’m having fewer migraines. But that’s only my completely non scientific justification. Also, I’m taking fewer painkillers (nsaids), which they’ve proven cause heart disease. SO.
If you don’t smoke and have no heart disease it’s your call. I just feel that docs that serve students and non-housewife populations tend to be more liberal in their interpretation of the guidelines because they value the woman outside of her babymaking.
You can have complications of blood clotting short of stroke, though, and they’re still not very pleasant. It’s a tough call, but the doctor isn’t just being goofy, especially if the patient is otherwise happy with a non-combo pill.
My migraines got way worse on combined contraceptives, but only after three years of wonderful perfection. I just recently tried the progesterone-only pill and made it about two weeks before my spouse said he would rather split up than live with the uncontrolled rage beast I became. Bodies suck.
I’m in a similar boat – turning 33 in a few months, and only now feeling like we may be close to being ready to start trying. But I wasn’t diagnosed with endo until summer 2013 and I’m so worried that if we wait any longer, it’ll be too late. I call it “Schrödinger’s uterus,” and it sucks, and I’m sorry. I’m right there with you.
:hug: I’ve been told since I was 22 I should really get knocked up now IF I want a baby. . .I’m surrounded by real life people insisting it’s not impossible, but it’s definitely another factor in how much I Do Not Want to Go There.
I know this is not the point of the Hardy piece, but everything about the story so infuriating that I have to focus on a more minor irritant: I haaaaaaaaaaaaaate the term “coed.” HATE IT. (One of the women he assaulted in college is referred to as a coed, which I realize was a more common term back when the assault took place, but still.) It blows my mind that people still use the word in 2015. There are literally more women in college than men so if anyone should be referred to as “coeds” it’s dudes. Ugh. Thanks for listening, Toasts.
This is only sort of random, but it’s been a month since I got my Nexplanon (birth control implant in my arm!) and it’s been amazing so far! I just wanted to shout that out into an appreciative audience because it is great and barely hurt at all and is good for THREE YEARS.
Ahh synchronicity! I literally just got one today? It was totally amazing and painless going in and now I just have a slight ache in my arm. We will see how it goes, but I have high hopes. No more birth control pills after day, hurrah!!!
Yay!! I hope you love yours! I got so excited after I got mine I just showed it off and told everyone about it because three years of not having to worry about birth control! Ahhh
I have one toooo and it is a miracle. When I got it inserted, the doctor kept going on about “I don’t know how they do it, but this thing is so cool! How do they make it work? It’s really a mystery!” and I was like, yeah TRUE that’s exactly how I feel about it, but…maybe as a doctor you should fake a little more understanding? I have a good laugh every time I think about that appointment.
I CANNOT decide between the Nexplanon and a hormone IUD. I’m definitely getting one or the other in the next year, I need to make an official pro/con list.
I had The Birth Control Talk with a dude the other week and he had never heard of IUDs. I gave him the overview and he was basically speechless. I believe his exact words were “They put what? Where? For how long?” On one hand, science is amazing! On the other hand, wow it must be nice not to have to think about birth control.
RIGHT? I described to my BF how painful the IUD insertion was for a couple of people I know, and told him he has to come with me if I get one. He said “But…you’ll be in pain and I won’t be able to do anything!”, and I’m like WELP.
Personally? While I know that an IUD lasts a couple years longer I LOVED that this one has non-invasive, and didn’t have any immediate side effects (for me!) right after except a sore arm. I went straight from getting the implant to work and was fine (and have been!) since I got it. I’m a huge fan of it so far!
At this point I’m inclined to at least try the Nexplanon for a set minimum amount of time, 6 months maybe? If I have some of the bad side effects and they don’t even out after that amount of time I’ll feel like I gave it a chance.
I went with Mirena, because Nexplanon has more hormones, and I can’t handle the hormones in the pill. I loved it.
Steve looks so happy. Which only makes sense because he gets to cuddle the fuzzbutt. So fluffy!!
That tweet is excellent advice, Mallory. There is too much crap happening in the world right now and I have found a lot of peace recently by getting out of the “someone is wrong on the Internet” mindset. I may not see some of my fb friends again until after the election is over but honestly I don’t think I will miss all the “you aren’t a good enough liberal if you don’t ______” stuff.
Yeah, I’ve decided that if I’m going to be having petty arguments with my friends about Who Is More Problematic, I’m going to do it over beers or not at all. And if the person in question is not close enough for hang out with irl– why do I even have them added on social media?
Mine are from Internet moms groups. Our kids are roughly the same age and we generally have similar interests. Some of them are just really … bombastic when they get going.
Just a service-y announcement to let you all know that Bunheads is now appearing on ABC Family (at least on VOD, don’t know when it is schedule). That show is a gem.
have you seen the new ballet drama Flesh and Bone? i haven’t, and a bit spooked by its grim title
So this is super late, but I keep seeing the headline on Buzzfeed about the parents who surprised their daughters with the baby they had adopted under the Christmas tree. This is really fucked up and dehumanizing, right?
Suuuuper fucked up, I agree.
wat. no. wat?
Yessss. So fucked up but in ways that are hard to articulate? Like, you just don’t leave a human baby under a tree because a baby is not a present for older siblings?
I think that articulated it pretty well, actually!
I agree, and I also don’t think it’s fair to spring a huge life change on kids (like adopting another one) without talking it through with them first.
Maybe they read Kristy and the Mother’s Day Surprise as children and thought it was a good plan?
I was JUST coming to reference that. Even at age seven and still deep in Ann M. Martin thralldom, I knew that was HELLA fucked up.
(Also why Richard Spier and Sharon Schafer > Watson and Elizabeth. Richard wouldn’t be having with this at all. Honestly, I should have included him on the list of characters I inappropriately identify with.)
ETA: it looks like the idea of the adoption itself had been discussed, at least? I still think the Christmas present bit is pretty messed-up, but it does look like the girls knew there was an adoption situation going on, just not that the baby was actually there. In Kristy and the Mother’s Day Surprise, I tend to assume Watson must have bought Emily Michelle on the black market, since they clearly didn’t have any home inspections or anything. )
That was exactly what it reminded me of as well! It was a terrible decision when Watson and Elizabeth did it and it’s a terrible decision now.
*nods* VERY.
I had a sex dream about Justin Trudeau last night, and now they’re announcing an MMIW inquiry and actually using words like “racism” “sexism and “colonialism”, so while I’m very happy about that I’m afraid he’s going to be making more appearances in my sleep.
It’s ok. You’re not the only human to have sexy dreams about a Trudeau. And he is not the first Trudeau to have been dreamed about 😉
This is off topic, but has he addressed “nannygate” at all? I keep seeing articles about it but no one in my life cares at all, and respond to my elucidating the facts with “well of course he should use his household budget to support his family, they are part of his household, aren’t they?” I know that there are people who do not agree with this, but who are they?
The are People Who Are Wrong. And if The Trudes have not deigned to respond, that is well and good, for the complaints are spurious, misogynist, bullcrap.
(FTR, I do think the nannies should be paid more, and that he could have really made a point by hiring one who was a man.)
Agreed! I am surprised, tho, that he has not addressed the issue, what with the populist PM thing he’s got going on.
And Agreed again! My first take on this was “we should not be shaming the PM for using his budget for childcare. We should be shaming the PM for barely paying more than minimum wage, and _less_ during non-business hours”. I mean srsly, who gets paid LESS to work at night? If you are working when everyone else is relaxing, you deserve a premium. Period.
I’m late to the game but the MIL article responses gave me real weird feelings.
I appreciated TheclaandSeals’ response, especially as a parent, in that it’s not the healthiest feeling but also a tension that I would assume naturally comes from dedicating at least part of your life to the growth of a partly-formed person and then watch them necessarily deny you parts of their life in their new role as fully-formed person. The backlash on that article felt really intense, and I was like, IK that’s an unhealthy impulse to act on, but I can see parts of that inner turmoil in my mother and my mother-in-law and I don’t think that everyone who feels that initial gut response is a total whackjob/entirely dismiss-able. But maybe I’m off base? I feel in the minority here.
Edit: Maybe, now that I think about it, it’s the whole “AND NOW I SHALL WRITE A THINKPIECE” attitude that gets people, which I might have become numb to (which is sad to think about)
Edit edit: I appreciate TheclaandSeals’ response as THEY are a parent, not because I am a parent (I’m not) (the I is in all caps there but you can’t really tell)
“The two had sex, over the woman’s objections.”
I hate this phrasing so, so much.
I came here to say the exact same thing. Like, you know there’s a word for that, right? Gross.
I think it says a lot about how embedded in our culture this type of thinking is when it shows up in a “this is awful, how did this go on for so long?” article. Hint: that pervasiveness. That is how it went on for so long.
I had a minor Thanksgiving kerfuffle with my niece sighed wistfully about her nearly 14-year-old son some day “finding a woman who will replace me.” I announced that was the creepiest thing I’d ever heard her say, and was immediately verbally pounced upon by my two older sisters (who are also mothers, whereas I am not). “No, it’s not like that! No, you’re misunderstanding! No, it’s not that we GIVE the male children in our lives the responsibility of being ‘The Man Of The House,’ they just naturally ADOPT that!” I think I understood it perfectly well. Still the creepiest thing I’d ever heard her say.
I’m so glad you told her that out loud!
I’m just so glad I found other people who reacted the same way! I was starting to feel like a weirdo when my whole female family piled on me. At least now I feel more like the right kind of weirdo.
Serious question, is the ticket/performance calendar on the Hamilton website just mocking me? There are many clearly crossed out dates (for which ticketmaster does have outrageously priced resale tix) and there are yellow highlighted “best available” dates that are a thousand years from now, but there are also non-crossed, non-yellow, bold times listed…which when you click though show there to be no tickets from the venue (just more resale tickets). Why does it play with my heart like this?
Also, dammit Ticketmaster. There are so many reasons to hate you, but would it be so fucking difficult to have an option to enter how much you are willing to pay for a ticket, and then showing the dates and times with tickets available in that price range? Must we really click date by date by date? [grump]
rant: I really want to just submit my final grades and get this semester over with, and I can’t get/find the information on the actual paperwork/what the students need for advising/how to submit an incomplete. This is making me just want to tear my hair–it’s an ongoing topic in therapy that pretty much from the age of 4 I’ve been shaped by “you should know that already,” and I’m paranoid there was some super-clear explanation of all this I am too stupid/disorganized/incompetent to get. /rant
I don’t know if this is helpful at all, but in hopes of saving your hair have you asked the admin in your department? I assume you’re talking about university teaching (sorry if I’m wrong!) and I’m an admin at a university and we have the kind of paperwork you’re talking about up at the front desk. I know that every place is different but there’s a good chance that if you have an admin that they will know where to find the form and help make your life easier!
Heh, I did e-mail the admin, but she’s out of the office today and possibly tomorrow, which is. . .not great. It’s been kind of challenging in that I’m still working my normal day job, which means I spend a lot of time trying to get ahold of people who are on campus a very small part of the day. (Also, ha, I’m kind of scared of the admin.) But thank you! I guess if all else fails I can try the registrar, too–they are usually pretty nice.
sansa so pretty!
Has there ever been a Christmas edition of Dad Magazine? I feel like there must be some good Dads Doin' Christmas stories out there.
Argh that is so creepy! I'd love to reply to that kind of talk with 'So what you're saying is, you consider your son to be your boyfriend', just to see the look on their face. Because they might as well be saying that!!
The thing I hate most about that meme is the ugly possessiveness – claiming lifelong ownership of another person based on a really twisted (and inappropriate) application of romantic relationship ideas to a parent-child bond. The tone of those things just REVELS in the dependence an infant *has* to have on their parent, and uses it as a means of gratifying horrible narcissistic and borderline abusive tendencies. Puke puke puke.
DYING LAUGHING
YES
I think it depends on how you understand the wedding to be. I grew up in the Deep South, and there is the underlying assumption that the wedding is about the family. Someone is joining each family, and the two families are making a permanent connection. As part of that, the social networks on both sides come together.
In the Midwest, where I live now, weddings seem to be much more about the couple. What you seem to be hearing as overly controlling sounds to me like a different understanding of what a wedding is for.
You'd think medicine would have some evolutionary component, but neuro is certainly not infectious diseases, so.