Sansa and my daughter are good chums.
HOLY SHIT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN FLINT?
The Hurley Medical Center, in Flint, released a study in September that confirmed what many Flint parents had feared for over a year: The proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead in their blood has nearly doubled since the city switched from the Detroit water system to using the Flint River as its water source, in 2014.
The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency.
“The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” Weaver said in a declaratory statement.
Ashley C. Ford on her lifelong obsession with Grace Jones:
There are few things I’m more grateful for than the lack of censorship in my childhood. When the 1993 Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It? hit theaters, my grandmother and I saw it opening weekend. I was five years old. Two years later, I overheard my mother telling my aunt she couldn’t lend her our rented tape of Poetic Justice, since she’d promised me I could watch it the following day. Both of these movies were rated R, but I was permitted to watch them until I’d memorized entire scenes of dialogue. The only films or music I can remember being restricted involved some form of witchcraft, chanting, or mystical behavior my mother feared might bring the devil into her house. I harbored no such fear.
Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang had its share of colorful language and sex scenes, but at least none of the characters seemed to be pagans. My brother and I surrounded ourselves with blankets and pillows on our living room floor before popping it into the VCR. From the opening, I was hooked. I saw young, professionally successful, sexy, single, black people in a real city. I was too young to recognize that this particular depiction of black lives was rare, and much too young to appreciate the role reversal of gender stereotypes. In fact, the only thing I processed clearly was my immediate and fervent love for the woman on my screen named Strangé, played by the inimitable Grace Jones. She was ferocious, and I thought she could eat me alive if it meant I could get closer.
We watched Die Hard again instead of the debate, but this seems right:
My IRL bestie, Amelia Lester, is leaving me/The US/The New Yorker to take over Good Weekend, which is great news for residents of her beloved Australia and longform journalism enthusiasts everywhere, and has me moping and stress-eating. I only get to see her a few times a year anyway now that I’m in Utah, but she is my bosom friend, and one of the most talented women I have ever known, and Aussie Toasties can be assured that we’ll be devoting extra time to your nation’s writing going forward.
Amelia and I met in college and she is the only person I have ever lived with successfully in a small apartment and we can do a VERY passable rendition of Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue’s “Kids” duet and I am excited to watch her continue to take over everything she touches for the rest of her life, like a beautiful, Australian Alexander Hamilton, minus the personal hubris. She once said something gloriously cool and snide to Tony Abbott at a party, and is the wind beneath my wings and I named my daughter after her.
FEMALE FRIENDSHIP. CELEBRATE YOUR FRIENDS AND THEIR SUCCESSES AND MERITS IN THE COMMENTS.
settle in to longreads’ end-of-year lists!
Each doll is 15 pounds and 39 inches tall and they are anatomically correct. Or they are correct up to their tiny hand-sewn skirts. Beyond that, Judy Bowman, the museum’s administrator tells me, “No no no no no no no. They are not.” And she leaves it at that.
Her discomfort with the question might be due to the museum’s personal relationship with the dolls’ mysterious maker—Robert Smith, a farmer from Battle Creek, Iowa. Smith was born in 1916. He died in 2002. No one knows much about Smith and there are few who remember him. Both his wife, Bethany, and daughter, Isabella died in 2012. Smith left no heirs and no immediate family besides the 81 wooden women he liked to call his “Firewood Floozies.” But they are most often known as the Dollies.
The divine Pilot Viruet on The Year In Natural Hair:
There is no such thing as an unbreakable comb. I learned this early on, during one of the Sunday evenings when my mom struggled to wrangle and subdue my hair. Sundays were hair days in my house: My mom would sit on the couch and I would sit on the floor, her knees occasionally holding me still while I squirmed and yelped, as she combed, detangled, and twisted my hair into thick braids. She bought combs that were labeled “unbreakable,” but I’d sometimes find the teeth stuck in a thicket of my hair, or hear the comb snap in half completely. It was mostly a pointless exercise; the braids wouldn’t last more than two or three days before I haphazardly undid them during class, arriving home with a wild, nappy, sort-of-afro that would often collect fuzz and falling leaves.
During these Sundays, my mom quickly learned that one of the ways she could keep me relatively still was to make sure that the television was on and loud. Like any person who grew up with television as a babysitter, in adulthood I tend to turn to fictional characters during any change or big moments in my life. And in 2015, it was like natural hair was suddenly everywhere.
Muriel Rukeyser’s forgotten novel (ARCHIVISTS THIS IS FOR YOUUUUU):
And then, there is the one remaining draft of the novel Savage Coast, the pages yellowing, the revisions heavy, at times burdensome, a rejection letter hovering above the first pages. Written immediately upon her return from Spain in the autumn of 1936, the novel remained unpublished in her lifetime. It was brutally panned in her publisher’s rejection letter, from 1937, for being, among other things, “BAD” and “a waste of time,” with a protagonist who is “too abnormal for us to respect.” Rukeyser was strongly encouraged to abandon the novel for a “brief impressionistic sketch” of her experience in Spain and to continue working on her poetry. This is to say, the first critics of Savage Coastdiscouraged Rukeyser from writing the kind of large-scale, developmental, hybrid, modernist war narrative that she had begun—one that is sexually explicit, symbolically complex, politically radical, and aesthetically experimental—in favor of the gender-appropriate lyric poetry of her first book and the brevity of “small” personal narratives.
The exploitative scourge that is MLM (GET OFF FACEBOOK WITH YOUR JAMBERRYOILSHAKES) is, indeed, specifically pitching itself as a chill non-job that a certain segment of Christian stay-at-home moms can do without being a JOB-JOB:
“As long as MLMs are regarded by conservative Christians as a more honorable option for women than a normal part-time or full-time job, these organizations will continue to attract women within the church at significant rates,” says Jen Wilkin, a minister at the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, where she leads a citywide women’s Bible study.
Mallory does a good job explaining to this woman that polyamory comes in many forms, and also you can still adopt more cats if you want:
Q. Strange dating world: A friend and I are mutually interested in each other, but her girlfriend doesn’t want her to get involved with me. They’re in an open relationship, and the only reasoning she gave was that we were “close friends.” I don’t want to cause trouble for my friend and her girlfriend, but it seems like a weird double standard. I maybe am just confused by the whole poly queer dating scene altogether. Maybe I should just adopt more cats.
Thank you so much for indulging my wish to yell about Ted Kennedy yesterday, I really enjoyed it. How lovely to know that your conservative relatives can be right about something, even if for the wrong reasons, so if you are in an apocalypse bunker together someday, you can bond over it! I have also found that people’s conservative relatives often make really strong, excellent drinks, but YMMV.
Also, I finished the new Rosemary Kennedy biography yesterday, and I am filled with WHITE-HOT RAGE but will spare you the details.
Our beloved Tech Goth Marco had his top surgery yesterday, and it went GREAT, and he is happily in recovery being doted on by his super-hot and rad girlfriend, and all is well with our world.
Oh yeah, the Flint water crisis is beyond fucked up. I’m a Michigander and pretty much everyone with a heart is horrified. Michigan has an “emergency manager” law, which means that any city that is struggling financially can be taken over by officials appointed by the governor (replacing the authority of the elected Mayor and/or city commission). That happened in Flint, and the emergency manager decided to switch the water supply to cut costs. Which, clearly, they did without proper safety testing or regulation. It’s one of the scariest, most awful things that has happened in Michigan.
It really is. Flint’s had a really rough time of it over the last couple of decades as it is. So awful.
I was born in Flint and am going back there for Christmas. The water situation is horrible. Especially considering how poor the population is and how few people would have been able to access bottled water. It creates terrible health problems for children and furthers an already severe class divide.
It’s just so awful. Poor families and children now have a lifetime of health issues to deal with, and what help are they going to get? I really, really hope that there is a massive class action lawsuit against the state.
I am spitting mad about this whole thing. Is there anything an expat Michigander can do to help?
I just… yes, in the same boat as an expat Michigander. Going home for a visit next week, but over in the south-of-Lansing area.
I’ll happily t ake any suggestions as well!
I hope they can get that worked out…it’s just insane that they could have to deal with lead in the water for over a year. And it sounds like the residents noticed immediately and nobody bothered checking.
Also, I saw (brand new mayor) Karen Weaver’s interview on Maddow right after watching the Republican debate, and the difference between Weaver intelligently explaining her city’s crisis and Trump blustering about the borders was staggering.
It’s one of the scariest, most awful things that has happened in THIS COUNTRY. It’s a literal breakdown of civilization.
My boss is from just outside Flint, and we just spent some time talking about it. He compared Flint to Russia after the fall of the USSR: after the auto factories closed down, people were scared and poor and a bunch of predators came in and developed an effective oligarchy, and the place is just massively corrupt, all of which are contributing factors to the city’s financial problems, which led to the emergency managers, which led to this fucked-up short-sighted cost-saving plan of Flint River water that is now literally poisoning people as we speak.
If I had to choose the creepiest place to spend the night, that doll museum would be right at the top. Those things are TERRIFYING.
Also, super glad I’m not part of a church so I’ve been able to skip the whole MLM thing. A hidden benefit of being Jewish, apparently!
From the doll piece:
“And in 1977, when the dolls were first displayed, it seems the town of Battle Creek had a similar reaction. ‘No one liked them much,’ Bowman told me. ‘Some people just have a hard time with art,’ she explained.”
A hard time with art. Hm, yes, that must be it.
on the plus side, hopefully someone is developing this concept into a “loosely based on true events” horror movie. (Both his wife and daughter died the same year – coincidence, or horrible murder-by-doll?)
Ha, that’s the quote I was ready to share too. Although I barely made it that far once I saw the picture of him with his hand on the doll’s thigh. *full body shudder*
Ha, one of my parents’ motivators in joining a synagogue when I was little was to find community outside of the Amway cult that had engulfed their (mostly Christian) friends.
I’ve run into the MLM parties or invitations to them a few times, and never in a church context.
Dang you guys this is a week with a pall over it if ever there was one. I hope you guys have all got some good things going on in your lives, I got a feeling like I’d prefer to check into a local cave for the duration of the next ten or twenty years.
Is there room in this cave because I too would like to take a break for a smooth ten years.
yeah but you got to bring your own layer of hibernation fat
ON IT
SUPER won’t be an issue.
We really fucked up as a species when we got rid of hibernation.
I’m sorry you’re having such a crappy week. You can come to my birthday shindig on Friday if you want! If not, here’s this guy:
This guy is 1000% welcome in the cave. Or waiting outside to cheer us out of the cave, when the time comes to emerge.
aw that is a good panda
I like to think of them as Fancy Raccoons.
also, I am sorry but I cannot come to your birthday shindig on Friday, I am already spending too many nights away from home this week, and I cannot leave my wife alone with the baby any more until *next* week.
Ugh, MLM. My uncle is SO GOOD at MLM that he has developed his own very successful pyramid scheme from scratch. My dad’s Facebook account (and presumably my brother’s and uncle’s) are full of struggling people that really, truly believe that they are going to be able to achieve the kind of financial success and independence that my family have now. It drives me crazy to see them promoting sales technique videos to people that struggle with literacy and don’t have the public-speaking skills necessary to move up in this particular pyramid.
Abby Wambach retires today and I’m definitely going to cry during this game.
George Washington’s going ho-oo-oome
NICOLE
I definitely cried listening to her being interviewed on NPR this morning.
Did you read her teammates’ tributes? Waterworks.
http://www.ussoccer.com/womens-national-team/than…
I can’t even imagine how cool it must be for all the new players they’ve been bringing into camp lately. A lot of these girls are what, 21? 22? They’ve probably idolized Abby since they were little kids and now they’ve gotten a chance to play with her AND be there to send her off and I just can’t handle how great that is.
Yes! College kids and NWSL rookies. They must be flipping out.
(one more header, please, one last header against China even if it’ll make me cry forever)
I am DEEPLY annoyed that the game is on Fox Sports instead of ESPN (which I can actually access). I gotta find out if they’re still doing free 7-day trials!
Aww, man, I was just annoyed about the channel because it robbed us of Julie Foudy calling Wambach’s last match. Good luck finding a stream/channel!
FoxSports has a streaming app/website but you need a provider to log on. If you know someone with a subscription that is willing/able to give you their info?
There’s always a sports bar? Even a chain restaurant with a bar should have tv’s that you can turn to in a pinch.
Good luck!
ugh that photo of her and Rapinoe! “She’s got a million goals.” UGH ughhhhhh
THIS TWEET. A B B Y
https://twitter.com/AbbyWambach/status/6771413409…
jesus christ abby i don’t have time to cry at work today
Not gonna forget you this embarrassingly powerful crush has been around for such a long time that I think it’s cemented into life long adoration
What did it say? It seems she may have decided to retire from Twitter as well, her account appears to have been deactivated quite recently.
“Make them forget me.”
She posted “Make them forget me,” then there’s a video about it, then she deleted her social media.
I’m actually going to the game, and I’m a little worried that I might ugly cry in the Superdome and wind up on national television.
HAVE FUN!
Abby.
It’s from Sydney Leroux’s instagram because they are best friends.
I am definitely going to cry during the game, and also during the hours I will spend after the game watching best of Wambach youtubes.
Youtube has the entire Rapinoe-to-Wambach game! And it’s the Ian Darke/Julie Foudy broadcast team 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bodbWa5UJAs
I’m sure this reveals something shameful about me, but my favorite Wambach youtube highlight is that time she got sucker-punched by Lady Andrade.
“LOOK AT MY FUCKING EYE.”
I love that the editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald is called Goodsir. “What’s your name?” “Goodsir” “No, I didn’t ask how you were doing. Also, there’s no need to call me sir professor.”
And yay Marco!
This begs for an Aaron Burr, Sir parody.
OKAY. I have ranted many times about the scourge of MLM schemes but I don’t care, I’m going to do it again. The fact that it urges women to work “for their families” is just couching the desire for money in a family friendly way, and church women in particular with strong community ties (by which they mean of course, a large group of potential buyers) are exactly the correct market. It’s so insidious, too, because it tries to convince women that they Can Have It All, and they can do it without “working” because it’s just parties! It’s just fun hanging out with your friends! No pressure! And then bam, you’re out a couple thousand and have nothing to show for it but a stockpile of Scentsy wax or Jamberry wraps.
I truly loathe MLM schemes and they are a plague on women, but they really do not get half the ire they deserve because people see it as “oh it’s just a little hobby business” (which is true for some, but there are lots of women losing LOTS of money in these) and also, it’s mostly women. If there was a trend among men to sell crap to their friends and men were losing money like crazy? There would be class action suits against it. But it’s just women, and often women who are underemployed and undereducated, so who cares, right?
I never made the connection between Christian women and MLM before but I grew up in the Bible Belt and it is everywhere and has been since long before FB (a close family friend has been selling Avon for thirty years at least, I can remember at least two Girl Scout meetings when I was in junior high or older that were just our troop leader pitching us on MLM products). They have their hooks in my cousin now who so exactly fits the profile of the women who tend to be vulnerable to this and it makes me furious. (We don’t, unfortunately, have the kind of relationship where advice from me is going to get any weight, so there’s not much I can do.)
Amen, amen sister. They piss me off SO MUCH. I can’t see MLM companies as anything other than predatory, especially after I’ve seen lots of college friends get into one, harass the rest of us on fb, make no money, get into a different one…
You nailed it–it’s just women, so who cares.
My sister fits the profile in the article exactly and has recently started selling Norwex. I’m not sure how I feel about this or what, if anything, I should say to her, especially because right now, she IS making a little money each month and doesn’t seem to be in too deep. I know they can use the money right now. But is it going to come back around and bite her in the ass?
My concern would be that it’s easiest to get sales at the beginning when your friends are excited to help you out. But after a certain point those friends might get annoyed and not be interested in buying any more, and it is much, much tougher to sell to strangers. In fact, I would imagine that the initial flurry of sales every time a new, fresh-faced salesperson gets their friends to buy some product is the MLM companies’ actual bread and butter.
You are 100% correct on that.
Seriously. I wish people would ask themselves “Do the Girl Scouts make you buy an inventory of cookies to have in stock before you turn around and sell them to your neighbors? No? Then why do you think Mary Kay insists that it’s necessary?”
But then I remember that the whole thing is literally designed to never let you ask questions or have independent thoughts and I get furious all over again.
But… isn’t that how it’s done now? I haven’t seen a pre-order sheet in forever, and everyone I know buys Girl Scout cookies from girl scouts who have already bought a bunch of cookies, and set up tables at set locations around town. I assumed that the troop itself pre-orders what they think they’ll sell, and hope for the best.
Oh, maybe. When I was in Brownies back in the 80s you just took the orders and then delivered when they came in, but I have no idea how it works now.
It was like that twenty years ago in my day, too! It put an awful lot of pressure on scouts and their parents to sell those cookies or else. That’s why a lot of parents peddled cookies at work or whatever. I know we are all brainwashed into liking them now, but I cannot stand gs cookies and it’s because I think of it as a Girl’s First MLM.
I was in the pre-order generation, too, and totally resented my parents for being both self-employed which meant I couldn’t get all those “everyone at the office sales.”
But I think that sales model got way outsold by the “put cookies on a table at the grocery store,” model.
My mom never let me and my sister be girl scouts as kids because they did that to her when she was one (in the 60s?). She says it was all about the cookies, cookies this, cookies that, nothing like the boy scouts where you actually learn things, and she felt like she was just being used as cheap labor since obviously you can’t turn a profit selling them, only break even (at least… not legally). I’m not 100% sure she had to pre-buy and then resell to recoup costs or just hustle people on the Girl Scouts’ behalf, but neither scenario is a particularly good one.
It works both ways. Pre-orders and tables outside the HEB/Jewel/Winn-Dixie/regional grocery chain of choice.
And there’s another facet of it that is–at least on my FB–the “crunchy” MLM – I have a friend from childhood* who sells some sort of vegan macrobiotic(?) supplement system, and I’m definitely worried that she is poisoning all her customers because seriously, who knows what the F is in it.
Also, to the other 1,000 people who are selling really expensive face cream, seriously back off. This is not a “family,” this is a pyramid scheme.
*I haven’t blocked her, because she is entertainingly bonkers about alllllll sorts of things, but I am tempted at this point.
I am WITH you. They are the worst. I live in Utah, home to several large MLM headquarters and too many women falling prey to their nonsense. Nutraceuticals are a HUGE business here, with vitamin shops all over and everyone and their dog selling essential oils. There is no FDA oversight for nutraceuticals, thanks in large part to our very own senator Hatch, who is so funded by these things. Bah. How such a horrid man could raise such a lovely son (senator’s granddaughter is a good friend of my sister, I’m familiar with her dad, Hatch Jr) is completely beyond me.
That article was amazing. The one woman who was like “I wanted to know I could do something outside of being a mama”… You can do lots of things!!!!!!!!!! I have friends who are moms who are lawyers, doctors, law enforcement people, animal rescue leaders, teachers, social workers…
Also, a friend’s dad was REALLY pressuring her to join an MLM and I wanted to commit an act of violence. Luckily she did not give in.
I find the facebook friends (luckily largely acquaintances so I am not getting guilted into buying stuff) I have involved in MLMs to be a really fascinating cross-section of people – from going-through-terrible-divorce-single-mom-with-no-other-income to a woman with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology who alternates between working with people with PTSD and posting bizarre photos of herself accepting various sashes and crowns while wearing a formal gown at her MLM group’s yearly meeting… I’m consistently confused and highly interested in how very well-to-do women that are also highly educated get sucked into these things (but I can’t ask because then they will just try to sell me shakes and $600 face cream and encourage me to “get on their rocket ship”). And then I am of course sad about the vulnerable ones.
Also am fascinated by all the weird levels in all of them. Like having “Double Jewel Queen Empress in the Garnet Guild” listed as your occupation on your facebook page will immediately send me into a curiosity-fueled google spiral to try to figure out what the hell that actually means in terms of where you are in the pyramid.
Double Jewel Queen Empress in the Garnet Guild sounds like an *awesome* fantasy fiction title, though.
In the last season of America’s Next Top Model (yes I still watch don’t judge) Tyra Banks announced she was starting one of these schemes to sell her makeup line, instead of selling it through Ulta or Sephora like a normal makeup company. I was so pissed I almost knocked my laptop on the floor. She was going on and on in this episode about how her gross makeup pyramid scheme was going to “empower women” and how “feminist” it was and I just yelled “LIAR!” over and over at the screen.
TO TOP IT OFF, that episode also featured her flagrantly exploiting her modeling contestants by making them film a commercial for her products, featuring themselves, without compensation, as a condition of staying on the show (because they can’t say no if she calls it “this week’s challenge” unless they quit the contest entirely). She did the SAME thing last year where she had the models film a “teaser” for her new lipstick, before the MLM started, so this is her second time using the reality show she created to source free labor for her unrelated business endeavors.
It’s just so obvious that she’s exploiting the young teens and early-20somethings who aspire to be models by putting them in her professionally-produced commercials without paying them–what’s better than getting models for your ads for FREE, right?–while also banking on their popularity among viewers their age to try to sell the pyramid scheme bullshit to young women, and I am so pissed at Tyra you guys.
I gasped aloud when I read the first sentence and it just gets worse! You are absolutely right and nothing about this is ok!
My auntie calls them “Screw Your Friends” Parties and I think that’s a pretty apt description.
I first learned about Grace Jones when I was a small child watching the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special (if you will recall, she was delivered in a box and sang Little Drummer Boy while wearing a metal shirt). She is the greatest.
Also, Nicole’s daughter is very lucky to be pals with a small wolf.
+1 million for referencing PeeWee’s Playhouse Christmas Special
We watch it every Christmas. My mom always mentions that Grace Jone’s father was a pastor whenever she comes out of the box. Every. Time.
I rewatched that recently because it was linked from an article or something, and the first thing I thought was, “Now that’s the dress that I wish I had gotten married in.” That whole performance is just awesome.
I like the cut of Mallory’s sister’s jib.
Also, I need to dive fully into this Kennedy stuff. I always picked up whiffs of stuff that didn’t make sense to me given the royal standing enjoyed by the Kennedy’s in my old catholic-democrat family but I never really examined it. But you have emboldened me! Maybe this can be my Christmas vacation project.
I bought my Irish Catholic grandma the new Rosemary Kennedy bio on CD for Christmas and I CANNOT wait to see what kind of family discussions it sparks.
Wow you’re braver than I.
It’s always a weird experience to find out that someone your family massively admired is actually horrible
The number of people I unfriended this past small business saturday for pushing their MLMs as a way to buy local was really cathartic and I highly recommend it.
I have a pretty strong amount of apathy for MLMs in general but as soon as they start talking about how they’re a “small business” I just get filled with so much rage
That is not what “buying local” means holy crap. Good defriending.
I buy at my local 7-11! Which totally counts if MLMs do!
I have a very nice acquaintance who is into LEVEL, and I’m so sad I can’t read his FB page any longer. He used to post tons of gorgeous Eastern Washington photos and amusing stories about his dogs, and now it’s all MLM all the time. Poor guy.
Nicole – both your daughters, the human one and the non-human one, are very cute.
I AM HERE FOR ALL THE FEMALE FRIENDSHIP CHEERLEADING LET’S DO THISSSS.
(specific shoutout to my badass @britta_unfiltered for letting me be fake-jewish-aunt to her perfect and brilliant daughter, and also for putting up with the most horrible of Michael Scott bosses with flawless scorn and magically polite sass.)
share your stories of beloved friends heeeeeeeere!
I love the Burgomaster so much, but if anyone could be said to be my other half/part of me/soulmate, it would be my BFF. We’re so much alike in all the worst ways and it’s so important to see my traits society deems negative (at least in women) reflected in someone I love and admire so much. If you’re looking for some YA fiction with beautifully problematic characters and sometimes unlikeable women, please consider checking out her stuff.
My flawless roommate, literally an angel in human form, who I have GRAPPLED TO MY SOUL WITH HOOPS OF STEEL, who knows me better than anyone and still loves me and oh no I’m getting emotional, is a resident advisor at a small college, which is much like having a couple hundred infants who you have to nurture and feed and lose all your sleep over, and she is marvelous at it and I love her so much.
And my little sister, who is an RN and literally saves lives. You know, like a superhero. And when she can’t save them, she ushers them through to the other side and oh no I’m getting emotional again
BRB
getting ‘GRAPPLED TO MY SOUL WITH HOOPS’ printed on a novelty mug and cradling it to my bosom
I …did not see who this was at first, and was a little concerned by the shout out! I am so grateful to have found such a perfect friend in my grown up years ♥
#SORRYNOTSORRY
<3
This isn’t a story, exactly, but my two women friends of many years now are also the best writers, readers, co-drinkers, good-enough parents, and connoisseurs of male frailty that I ever hope to know. So generous, so tough, so loving. They raise the bar constantly for how women can support each other and learn from each other. I’m grateful for them every day.
And then there’s my oldest and dearest friend, who never fails to detect and point out when I’m bullshitting in the exact same way I’ve been bullshitting for 22 years, which is also how long we’ve been boosting each other’s aspirations, sharing reading recommendations and sex questions, and shrieking at each other with delight and frustration on the phone, (and occasionally in person, though we’ve never lived in the same place). I love her forever.
All my best friends are ladies. I moved across the globe this year and as the holidays approach I’m finding it really hard not to be with them. They are all so incredibly awesome! So self aware and kind and intelligent and badass. Two of them I’ve known since high school, one is more recent, but I love them all like pieces of my own heart. If I was at home I’d go skating and shopping and cafe-ing with them, but alas. All I can do is drunk text them while they are at work, and almost certainly not tipsy. Ah the pain of being across the date line.
My high school bestie took me to brunch last weekend. We have now known each other over two decades. I gave her a Dürer print that we both liked/were amused by in art history* together for Christmas and it was perfect.
*The angel in the Melancholia has such amazing Bitchface. Even the dog has Bitchface.
My friends are awesome and great and I should see them more but we support each other over Facebook when we can’t meet up. And every year, we make a trip to the same yearly festival with several hundred loyal regulars that my extended friendship circle formed around. Everyone’s there, and for an entire week, we all get to hang out together (not everyone can stay the week but most people manage to make an appearance). It’s a great opportunity to reconnect with long-lost friends, meet new people, meet a partner, level up acquaintances to actual friends, and (sometimes) to realise that someone needs to be dropped down to acquaintance…
Growing up, I almost never saw my parents meet or mention any friends. I thought real adults didn’t have friends, as if “having friends” is one of those kid things that you eventually grow out of. You stop wanting friends, you inevitably lose touch because of some law of nature, or you give up having friends when you meet a partner, get a job and have kids. Being really into having friends seemed childish, like being obsessed with candy. Most adults don’t enjoy sugar as much as kids do, and only rarely have candy for dinner because sensible adults realise that it’s just not that great. Real Mature Adults don’t have friends, they just hang out at home with their partner literally all the time they’re not at their jobs. Because… it’s childlike and silly to like someone and want to hang out with them and want them to like you??
Eventually I figured out that my parents have moved cities several times and are very shy and very very introverted, while people who make an EFFORT to stay in touch and meet new people actually seem to keep their old friends and make new ones (and enjoy it!) no matter their age. But childhood truths always feel kinda true, you know? I still have to stop myself from assuming that I’ll automatically lose my friends and never have a friend again unless I’m married to them.
So, it’s super reassuring to read everyone’s stories!
I know what you mean about growing up assuming that adults don’t have friends. In retrospect, I can see that my mom was busy raising me as a single mother, and got a lot of her social support from her family, and did have friends who I didn’t always see a lot of — but I definitely didn’t see a whole lot of grown-up friendship modeled when I was a kid. (OTOH, the “friends dropping off the map when they start having kids and get too busy to do anything social with other adults” thing is real, in my experience.)
Losing touch with certain friends because of life changes is real, of course. But the other way around (no adult having any friends at all because Life naturally means losing all your friends) isn’t, because not everyone has kids, some people stay in touch despite being busy, etc.
My besties from college are practically my sisters now. There are three of us, and the last one just got married three weeks ago (to a guy who is absolutely perfect for her) and there was a lot of crying and much more laughter.
We haven’t all lived in the same place since college, though, which is hard. So glad we have g-chat and texting and all that shit now!
I did get together with the recently married one this week for drinks and we got much drunker than we should on a Monday night and said a bunch of very nice things to each other in the way that drunk girlfriends do.
Also!!!! I mentioned plans to see the new Star Wars on xmas eve (we’re not doing the whole upstate tour to visit families this year as we’re prepping to move into a new apt) and she looked to see if there were still tix left so now we are seeing it TOGETHER! I always get a little misty not being able to see friends on actual holidays, but this year I get to have that! I’m more excited than I should be, tbh.
three besties and i have rented a COTTAGE on a FARM in WINE COUNTRY for two nights over new years, and i could not possibly be more excited. i’ve been living far away for the past six months, and the prospect of much wine + much cooking + laughter + a witchy reflection ritual with candles that i am going to insist upon with some humor but also some seriousness? BRING IT TO ME NOW. i have also obtained gold-patterned crowns for festivity.
That is The Most Perfect PLAN OMG
Please tell me more about how you get your besties to participate in witchy rituals with you!
i cannot tell if this posted or not!
step 1: have really good besties
step 2: remind besties that we all need jobs / are looking for some inspiration in these early years of our twenties
step 3: actually have no concept of witchiness?
step 4: promise candles and a sunrise and reflections on 2015 and intention-setting for 2016 while summoning some vague spirits
step 5: be a bully
I have some of the best friends, no lie. It is pretty much the thing that comforts me when I am feeling bad about myself, “No, I cannot be the most horrible selfish person ever because if I were then it would be impossible for my beautiful friends to love me as much as they do.”
Back when Mindy actually had female friends on the Mindy Project, she introduced someone as her best friend and when someone pointed out that someone else was her best friend, she said, “Best friend isn’t a person, it’s a tier.” Which I love because the last thing beautiful beautiful friendship needs to be is a competition. (God knows how jealous I would get in high school if one of my friends called another of our friends their “best friend.”)
It is pretty much one of my main life goals at this point to never live apart from my best friend ever again. (We met in college and since 2009 have only lived in separate cities for a little less than a year when I moved to NYC to try going to grad school after which I fled back to the area where we continue to live to this day.) The dream life is for us to live next door to each other and have a giant shared backyard to keep goats in so that we can milk them and make goat cheese and then eat as much goat cheese as we want for the rest of our lives.
THIS IS INDEED A DREAM– also the farm cottage has a goat named NUTMEG whose CHEESE i have been promised.
YES!!! I am honestly so happy for you right now!
Please post pictures of Nutmeg the Goat to the Toast after your lovely cottage time!
I met my best friend on the first day of high school freshman year, in Mrs. Saxe’s geometry class, 20 years ago as of September 2015! I walked in, she waved at me to sit by her, we exchanged a few words and instantly got each other. We’ve been in and out of touch at various points over the years but now we text all the time. We sadly do not live in the same town now, and I miss her constantly.
And she started her own very successful business and I am SO PROUD OF HER I can’t even deal. I don’t think I could express to her in words how proud I am although I attempt to do so fairly frequently.
I met my best friend in college–we became friends one morning over brunch in the dining hall raving about how much we loved Sex and The City. This summer I visited her and we marathoned a few seasons of SATC for old-time’s sake, but it was mostly hate-watching and yelling at the TV, and it was so nice to see how much we’ve grown and changed since we were moronic 19-year-olds.
Oh hey my bff is Jess Zimmerman, so I pretty much win life
My best friends and I regularly tell each other, “You are my angel, like, the proper kind, you are my flaming eight-eyed wheel dispensing divine justice.”
Creepy dolls! Pilot Viruet! MLM! Oh what a lovely (link roundup) day! Too bad I am staring down the barrel of a nasty, nasty bug at work and may not have time to read anything until later… Pardon me if I jump into discussions a few hours after they’re hot.
I do want to take a minute to celebrate my lady bestie, who has, after a long search, found a job that she loves. She had several false starts right out of college, and it was really stressful because not finding a job in a timely manner would have meant she had to move back with her parents, which would not be a healthy mental situation. But she stuck to the hustle and two years later she’s not just enjoying her job, she’s excelling at it. I’m so proud of her. I wish she didn’t live halfway across this big old country, but I get to see her next week so that’s good.
SHOULD I BUY TICKETS TO HAMILTON?? There are pretty good seats available during Canada Day weekend and I want to jump on them but they’d be $500 each and that is a lot of money, not even counting airfare and other weekend trip expenses, and I am lucky enough to be able to afford it without condemning myself to months of cup noodles for dinner but it’s still a lot of money. But on the other hand, HAMILTON.
email me
A. That is a lot of money but B. HAMILTON.
Go with what your heart would feel is right….
I am in THE SAME BOAT. HOW MUCH DO I WANT IT (actually quite a lot…)
I went though the same thought process, then was all “I’m doing* it!” Going in July! And it makes me happy just to anticipate it.
*after oking spending the egregious amount of money with Mr kirpunz.
Are these resale prices? If you’re adamant that it has to be a certain weekend and only resale tickets are available, then (still, wow, $500) email Nicole like she said. But if you’re not tethered to a certain date and don’t mind combing Ticketmaster/Telecharge repeatedly on different date/time combos, you can still get good seats for under $200.
The resale tickets for those dates are like… $1200+
*weak sobbing*
If $500 isn’t resale price, those tickets had better come with all the souvenirs included.
(I know they don’t, and I’m weeping with/for you.)
I want to see Hamilton SO BADLY but I also don’t want to go alone because I have people in my life who also love it and it seems like it should be a shared experience. I can juuuust barely justify spending the money on a ticket for myself, but I know my friends can’t and I can’t swing paying for additional tickets.
Are there less-expensive seats available during that time? The view from the balcony is very good!
Uhhhh $500 is literally a month’s rent for me, so I don’t know if I can super encourage you to drop that kind of lettuce on what I’m sure is a life-altering and amazing theatrical experience, but remains, at its heart, entertainment?
But I dunno. Maybe you just got a big raise or your family decided to do $20 gifts this year so you’re off the hook financially, and $500 feels about right. I dunno! If you, I hope it’s the best damn party of your liiiiiiife.
Same here – I spend probably an inordinate amount of time staring at the online calendar and clicking just to browse around at any potential open seats in the near future. I am NYC based, so travel isn’t an issue, but I’ve recently had an even higher increase in my student loans payments and just can’t quite justify the prices, even if it’s $450 to sit in the higher sections. BUT I WANT TO SEE IT SO BAD!
I’ve been debating this for months. I almost wanted to just dip into my savings and buy the $400 tickets for my fellow Hamilton-obsessed BFF and me, but her budget wouldn’t allow it and she’d be mortified if I tried to gift her that large of a gift (esp bc we both know how much we make–we work together). But we waited too long and now most April tickets are gone, and now most tickets through the summer are dwindling fast. So I think we’re just going to have to hope for a national tour to hit our city.
Ma’am, I am right there with you on the “should I? that is a gastly amount of money” bench. I’d thought about trying to go for my birthday (February) and then I found out how much tickets were running for. After I regained consciousness, I pretty much resigned myself to the land of probably not.
On the one hand, NYC is so close to Boston, I could maybe go there and try for the lottery. On the other hand, NYC isn’t *that* close to Boston, and the odds of the lottery are so long.
Someday. Someday.
Congrats Marco! Very happy for you.
Re: female friendships, omigosh there are so many I could choose from, for now I will mention my bestie who is a showrunner for a comedy club and has managed to get a creepy old comedian dude blacklisted from the club because he sexually harassed her. This guy’s been doing it for years (because he’s a creepy old comedian, go figure), but she completely destroyed him over it, and also spoke to her boss despite received wisdom that you don’t do that because it makes you look “overly sensitive”.
Also my friend who is a really amazing tattoo artist, and told me a while ago that I was the first person to ever tell her she was good at drawing when we were thirteen (she was already amazing at that stage). I’m so proud of her.
THE TOTES GOT DELIVERED TO MY HOUSE LAST NIGHT (either that or “several 300lb corpses,” as my husband opined while lugging them into the house out of the snow), so you can probably start ordering from our storefront while reading the site on your phone from your various food comas next week. I’ll put pics in tomorrow’s roundup!
Probably a silly question but where does one find said storefront? Like, is this a post that will come up later in the holiday season, or is it up already somewhere and I am just totally missing it?
(I need that misandry tote in my life.)
It will be linked off the front page in massive letters that say MERCH or BUY THE TOTES! And, again, next week.
Yay, okay, good to know. Thanks!
Oh no! I’m going somewhere without internet next week! Any chance they’ll be up on Monday?
You can buy them for weeks! I am not over-committing to Monday.
GOOD SELF CARE AND BOUNDARY SETTING NICOLE!!!
…. also i am glad they will be available for long enough that we don’t all have to freak out and buy instantly, because i had a moment there where i thought a link had already been posted, and i was freaking out because i’ve promised to make sure a few friends who want totes but aren’t *constantly* here get notified, and then i took a deep breath and said “it’s okay, they’ll be available for a while, it’s okay”.
Also very happy that the’ll be available when my post-holiday paycheck hits and I can treat myself for making it through!
Oh good! Thanks!
Well, either option there sounds great. I mean c’mon – the corpses might not be what you expected, but they might be creativity inspiring. New Toast series – ‘300 days of corpse disposal’!
Those dolls! what is the creepiest part? Is is that the wife “took a while to develop that sense of humour” that allowed her to cohabit with them? That he talked about inserting the spine as the only painful part of the proces? Or is it that “If you listen closely, you’ll notice that the museum plays “Hello Dolly” for them on loop.”?
My eyes just got bigger and bigger as I read that.
Vague comments about which parts are/aren’t anatomically correct…*shudder*.
I am very pleased about the vagueness. i really don’t want details. *shudders with you*
Yes, this is a good point, potentially an excellent point. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
That one of them always stayed home to keep the dolls company.
Tied with: Women don’t always know how to look their best.
Well. I mean. You don’t want them to be kidnapped.
As to the second, I found it more run-of-the-mill-patriarchy-level creepy and not side-eye-keep-an-eye-on-the-exits creepy. But yup. Creepy as hell.
That guy is definitely a serial killer, right? Those dolls are little versions of all his victims, no?
I will not be able to un-read that, so there’s that.
Those nips are way too lovingly crafted for him to have not jizzed all over them all the time.
My bestie is home for Christmas which means we are IN THE SAME CITY instead of on opposite coasts, and I literally just did a happy dance in my chair because I’m so excited to see her. My life has been bereft since she moved away.
Ughhhhhh MLM. My Events page on facebook is pretty much clogged with invites to ~virtual parties for Scentsy and Jamberry, mostly hosted by friends-of-friends I’ve never met. I’ve placed a blanket ignore on all of them, and if anyone thinks it’s rude, I have a special Rudeness Consultant starter package they may purchase for $400 to grow their own brand!
It’s rude to push your friends to be your source of income. Period.
Ugggh this! My brother was involved in a MLM (*cough pyramid scheme*) for awhile and although it was at least “good” in that you didn’t have to buy product up front (’cause there was no product!). It was pretty damaging to some of his personal relationships for this very reason. They sort of built this sense of community and then would spew this manipulative crap about how there’s no harm in asking! And you’re just trying to do them a favour by getting them in on this, if they somehow get mad about that, it’s not your fault! If simply talking to them about this important thing in your life and trying to them a FAVOUR upsets them, then clearly they weren’t good friends anyway! Nevermind that you use aggressive manipulation to ‘share’ this information and essentially get called stupid when you say no. Why would that make anyone
upset? Ahem, I maybe still have some feelings about this.
Haha! I get it though. They really do push people to basically manipulate and harass their friends. It’s awful.
The ones that really bother me right now are the weight loss ones. Selling to friends is bad enough, but the body shaming brings it to a whole new level.
lol “virtual parties”, aka sitting at home on the couch with the internet like we all do anyway.
Yeah what is the deal there? I mean, I bring a party wherever I go, sure, but I don’t feel like sitting on facebook counts as a party…
Yeeeeah, one of my friends (and I mean an actual face-to-face friend) started using her Facebook exclusively for pushing her diet-and-exercise MLM products (so the relentless sales pitch also comes with a hearty does of fat-shaming).
I feel NOT AT ALL guilty about hiding everything she posts, and I’m not going to feel guilty about unfriending her when I remember to do so — after all, she apparently doesn’t feel guilty about using friends as a revenue stream, or even about exploiting some of her friends’ body issues and crises of confidence to make us feel ashamed and therefore more vulnerable to her pitches.
Oh man, yeah, I had no idea there were fitness versions until a friend-of-a-friend from high school started relentlessly pushing one on Facebook. It’s some exercise DVD + gross pre-made shake thing and literally everything about it enrages me.
One of my highly intelligent and fiercely feminist friends from college has started pushing those body wraps via Facebook. I am heartbroken over it. 🙁
One real-life acquaintance is pushing Nerium, which is some sort of age-defying pseudoscientific lotion? We’re all hitting 30 so I can tell the posts about staying ‘youthful’ are starting. She’s already making claims that the products can prevent Alzheimer’s.
I think the time to defriend may be upon us.
ugh yes the worst. Weird manipulation of relationships, weird gender stuff… I am so here for that CT article even if it will take me all day to read.
Oooh, how do you ignore events? This has happened to me too and I just can’t.
I just don’t respond to the invite. I still get notifications and reminders that they’re coming, if those would bother you. I wish I knew an actual Ignore feature.
I moved a whole continent away from my bosom friends, and all I can say is, “Noooo don’t do it!” Does anyone remember when I was complaining about my upstairs neighbor who plays guitar? We last night he had a bunch of friends over and they stayed up past midnight playing Lady Gaga covers, and I wept because I remember when that was me and my bosom friends annoying our neighbors and playing guitar on the porch. My kingdom for my ladies and a bottle of wine and ridiculous covers of pop songs.
My friends refer to this as “acoustic karaoke”. I mourn your loss with you.
Muriel Rukeyser!
Waiting for Icarus
He said he would be back and we’d drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don’t cry
I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying: Inventors are like poets, a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added: Women who love such are the worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.
Yes, a Muriel Rukeyser thread is what we all need today! I can’t get over how the poem I’m about to post is so appropriate to 2015, even though Rukeyser published it in 1968.
Poem
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane,
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,
The news would pour out of various devices
Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.
I would call my friends on other devices;
They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
I lived in the first century of these wars.
My first contribution to The Toast was about Muriel!
http://the-toast.net/2013/11/01/muriel-rukeyser/
Oh good, you’re here. I was about to go alert you to this.
Of possible interest: the jury is currently deliberating in the trial of the first of the officers to be tried for the death of Freddie Gray. You can follow the liveblog here: http://live.baltimoresun.com/Event/Officer_Willia…
(Deliberations began on Monday afternoon, so the sentiment seems to be that we’ll see a verdict soonish?)
I am currently in the middle of the second Elena Ferrante book, so I’m having some complicated feelings about female friendship right now, tbh.
Ugh, MLMs. I sold something over a decade ago because I genuinely liked the product and thought it was better than the equivalent stuff sold in regular stores. I quickly learned what a scam it was for the sellers. As with nearly all MLMs, there was a minimum amount we needed to buy every quarter to keep selling. At first I had plenty of orders because a lot of people I knew wanted the kit, but once everyone you know had one you’re pretty much SOL. So then they counsel you to just go ahead and put the next order on your credit card, you’ll totally sell the stuff soon… I only did that once and I bought stuff I knew that I would at least use if I never sold it, but I know people who went a year or more continuing to rack up debt.
So many sales in things like Mary Kay are because the seller is pressured to keep stock and to place enough product orders to remain active. It’s messed up. Plus the whole thing where the only way to really make money is to rope other people into the scheme, which also diminishes your own product sales base.
Mm yes, in a way, it’s almost more frustrating when the products are actually good! The product is good, stop taking advantage of people to sell it!
I have two different trans buddies getting top surgery this month, and have been happily humming “they’re getting no-boobs for Christmas” to the tune of “We’re Getting a New Deal For Christmas” from the stage production of Annie while cooking.
When I read the Marco update, I started singing “He’ll have no boobies for Christ-maaaaas! Only a flat chest will doooo!” to the tune of “I Want A Hippopotamus.”
Well now I know what I will be singing to myself when I have top surgery.
The tune of “I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas” also works, and it makes the song Happy and Positive instead of Cutesy and Annoying!
Really? You’re just leaving “Alls I want for Christmas is my Two Boobs Gone” sitting there?
My two boobs gone
Yes, my two boobs gone!
(alternate: my new flat front!)
Since I’m a dirty, benighted pagan, I didn’t know about the connection between MLMs and the church, but I am not remotely surprised.
I DO know that I refuse all invitations to parties these days, after years of going “to support my friends”. The reason I stopped is because it finally (finally!) occurred to me that I had never EVER seen a man at any of these parties. And it hit me that lady-folk are specifically targeted as part of the business model because they are socialized to avoid saying no and to be polite and all that. And I don’t have room in my life for that shit anymore.
If you’re interested in the overlap between religious culture and MLM, check out this article specifically examining the connections between MLM and LDS that a few people linked to in the Roundup back in June. It’s an interesting subject!
Wow. Wow. I know soooooo many people who use Thrive, too. Ugh.
Yeah, that’s specifically the thing that I find so gross about them — I always knew they were a nonsensical idea for financial independence, but at some point it started to become clear that they exist entirely for the purpose of monetizing the human relationships that people (and women specifically) develop with each other and I guess I don’t know, I guess I think that some things should not be monetized.
some things should not be monetized
Truer words were never spoken.
(emphatic cultural but not religious) AMEN SISTER!
MY FRIENDS I LOVE BRAGGING ABOUT MY FRIENDS
in a world that frowns upon women bragging about themselves, I have found that bragging about my friends makes it that much easier to see myself in a brag-able light.
My best friend from college is an official lawyer now, like OFFICIALLY, and I’m so proud of her and happy that she has made it into the career of her choice and is doing great work as a clerk and is amazing. My other best friends (it’s a tier, not a person) are in grad school and doing consulting work in DC, respectively, and the grad school one is an amazing athlete and climbs like whoah, and the DC one is so kind and does volunteer work and when she was a white house intern she sent us all holiday packets once so I have a Bo coloring/activity book from her. ugh I love my friends so much
Your friends sound awesome!
One of my besties is an icu nurse and supreme cook/Polish vodka/painting enthusiast.
Another recently became a substitute teacher and she is KILLING it, which I’m so amazed by because I am teaching English right now and it. Is. Killing. Me. She is a serious rockstar.
And another totally found her calling: comedy, specifically improv. She’s always been fucking hilarious, so I find it quite gratifying that she’s got a audience now.
Bethany, Smith’s wife, was a little more tepid toward the dolls. She told the Ida County Pioneer Record, “You can’t view these dolls without a sense of humor. It took me a while to develop that sense of humor.”
[…]
“People leave notes in the [Plymouth County Historical Museum] guestbook saying they are weird or disturbing, but some people think the Renaissance paintings are inappropriate too.”
Those dolls are creep-tastic. How can you even compare them to Renaissance paintings, museum lady? They are way beyond 2 Monks territory.
Who loves their brother and also Scotch and wants to start the day in tears?
goddamnit
I’m sorry. 🙁
I’m an only child and I’m still crying at work.
This is bad, but between reading your warning, then reading the pablum underneath the video (marketing copy is the most soulless, useless writing on earth), and then picturing the Big Lebowski version of the ending, I not only didn’t really cry, but I actually giggled at the end of it.
Thank you, that’s lovely and I enjoyed it but noooo whyyy
Oh man, I guessed what was going to happen as soon as I read the copy and INSTANTLY started crying, I didn’t even need to watch the video (though I did). I would have never seen this without your rec and it was very lovely, so thank you.
Oh my god.
Didn’t know Ursula K. Le Guin was on imgur!
I have never heard of the term MLM before but I totally know those schemes from my childhood and I never thought about how insidious and weird they are. I remember my mom dragging me to her friends jewelry selling parties and all the jewelry was so so hideous.
Female friendship!!! I have a friend I met in 5th grade, we went to college in the same city and now live near each other, and is still my #1. I’ve said before that those stories where people meet their true love when they’re like, 12, and get married and live long happy lives and how nuts that they met when they were so young is us, minus the romance aspect which makes it 10x better tbh. I also brag about her many many accomplishments to my other friends because I LOVE BRAGGING ABOUT FRIENDS. I want a movie that’s basically The Notebook but with our friendship plus all of rachel mcadam’s dresses given to me. (also she reads the link roundup so hi!! if u see this!!)
My best friend and I have been close since middle school and lived across the street from each other as adults. MrChouffe and I got married two years to the day after she married her husband and we are planning a trip to Chicago to see Hamilton because it opens on our anniversary weekend. 🙂
That’s so adorable you are living the dream!!
http://tapastic.com/episode/210212
I have not watched any of the debates so I NEED TO KNOW: Is trump Gina Gershon or Jessie Spano? Don’t leave me hanging, toast!
I guess it’s action shot day! Here is Charlie Potato Hashbrowns riding a dangerous box beast and saving me from its predatory ways. He’s a hero!
For some reason I am surprised that Charlie Potato Hashbrowns has such long legs. I thought they would be small and stubby like a corgi’s.
(Keep the photos coming! Never too many puppy photos in the Link Roundup, that’s my motto.)
They look really long in that picture for some reason! Usually they seem so stubby and adorable.
*sigh* female friends. For various reason I don’t have a gang of girl friends from my youth, but I have managed to insert myself into a small gang from Uni, although I’m not that close with them (My own fault, I tend to move a lot and shed friends as I go)
However this year I have re-connected with my best friend from primary school; we both went very different directions as teenagers (well, we went in the same direction really, just at very different times), and then had a pretty bad falling out for reasons. Its been pretty nice catching up this year, I meet up with her when I’m home in Dublin and we talk all kinds of shit and I visited her in Berlin and she visited me in London and its been kind of fun. And its nice to hang out with someone who I’ve known for a long time, we have a lot of shared memories.
I’ve also been meeting a lot of really cool women through the London Toasties FB group! Yall are some good people!
Aww yes! I was just thinking about putting up a message to get something in the works for January, but I have to get over the whole shyness thing.
My usual approach to making new friends can be exactly summed up by this Sarah Scribbles cartoon:
(http://sarahcandersen.com/post/66469512199 ) But I am super interested in having another meet-up! And reclaiming my spoon!
I was thinking about suggesting Potter World, which I just learned is in or near London. Terrible idea? Should I just go take to the sea now?
Yeah that pretty much sums me up too. I have no idea how to make friends outside of a education setting (where you see the same people for a shared activity every day)! Especially since I made a rule about keeping work separate from personal life, so that pretty much rules out the only people I see regularly!
Potter world would be awesome! You may have noticed I have an aversion to any meet-up around an activity (don’t ask me why, I have no idea, probably because it involved buying tickets ahead which I hate doing for unknown reasons), but I may have to pull myself together.
I keep meaning to post because I’m attempting a new years party thing (v.v. low key) and Toasties are all welcome! (if you don’t have plans already)
A v. v. low key thing is exactly the new years plan of my dreams, but we hopped on an chance to go back to the States for Christmas and will be staying through the new year.
I also hate having to buy tickets with a group because I always have this panic that they’ll sell out right before I click the check-out button. Or while someone else still wants to go, etc. Buying tickets to things with assigned seating is similarly a nightmare of coordination. On the other hand, wands? And we can see which houses people sort themselves into, which is always fascinating to me.
Is it bad that I kind of want to be told I’m a Slytherin?
No, Slytherin is hella cool.
But I don’t think I’m hella cool enough for Slytherin.
I’m definitely not manipulative enough.
I totally get it! Slytherin has a lot of style and flair, that I, a homely Hufflepuff, can never even dream of achieving.
Aww yes! I was just thinking about putting up a message to get something in the works for January, but I have to get over the whole shyness thing.
As someone who has yet to even join the London Toast group due to shyness, you are doing better than me. (I will at some point! It’s just scary.)
Do it! There’s the added incentive of there maybe one day being a ‘Let’s go to Potterworld!’ post. Although I looked at ticket prices for Potterworld, and now am leaning towards ‘let’s maybe go see that “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” movie and then have pints after’.
As a bonus, I don’t think Fantastic Beasts comes out until sometime next year, so that gives us both plenty of time to work up the courage.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/435704426638315/
London Toasties FB group if anyone is looking for it 😉
I just want to throw down some solidarity for female friendships that were once My Everything and have ended badly for whatever reason. I used to have a little trio that I fondly believed I would grow old with, and I still have one of them and she is great and I miss her a lot. She is currently raising her baby and while I am an adult who fully understands that the first few years of a child’s life are insanely time-consuming and will wait patiently until the future date when she is capable of participating in this friendship again, right now she isn’t often available, and it makes me feel like I lost both these friends at the same time.
On the other hand – a truly epic gladiator of a circus performing artist storyteller friend is maybe moving RIGHT NEXT TO ME, and we used to live together and I love her deeply and I think her husband is the tits, so that’s pretty fucking great.
So I just wrote a big whiney thing about how I’ve always struggled to fit in with friends groups and blah and its probably for the best that it got eaten.
That’s pretty rad about your friend (I imagine circus parties are in your future and I’m well jealous). I have a friend from home moving in with me too soon which is actually pretty awesome!
I feel you with friends having babies and drifting away for awhile; I don’t have too many friends with babies, but my best friend at home had a baby at 20 and got married at 21, and its a bit weird now because our lives are so different now; and I know she’s happy and loves her kid, but this also wasn’t her plan (not that she really had a plan) and now she’s stuck at home just like her family always wanted. And I’m just totally bummed she can’t come live in London with me, cause that would have been amazing.
my first friend who got married disappeared and she doesn’t even have kids! I was/still am a bit hurt, but I decided to put my energy in friendships that to give me the time I need. And about ending friendships that meant a lot… almost 4 years ago someone I thought I would grow old with completely cut me off without explaining why and I’m still not really over it. It was harder than any romantic breakup and made me feel awful because I consider myself a great friend.
This is not really a surprise but I have to say that Mallory’s Dear Prudence answers are always so good, so on point. I will read a question and think “Oh gooooooood!?” and make weird faces but she always manages to give the most appropriate advice which in hindsight also seems very obvious.
Tl;dr I love reading Dear Prudence now, not just hate-reading it for people who are the worst.
Same!!! Frankly I don’t know how she does it in dealing with other commenters. Even the nice ones who are like “this is a good answer but YOU MISSED A VERY IMPORTANT PART” would have me curled up in an anxiety ball if I were Prudence. So, great job Mallory, you amaze and astonish.
I don’t read the comments!
Those posts get like 2-3 THOUSAND COMMENTS on the regular, I would not be able to do EITHER of my jobs, if I read them!
Oh, well then…whoever posts the follow-ups to your initial response? Those guys were who I meant!
I think those are live chat participants, and live chat comments are separate from article comments.
Yes! Thank you, that’s what it was. Apologies all around, I did not mean to suggest that Mallory is a reader or care-abouter of the actual comments section.
Oh, those! I don’t mind reading that! Those are perfectly polite and adding helpful context to my answers, I like those!
I KNEW YOU WERE SMART ENOUGH NOT TO READ THE COMMENTS. In addition to the “leaving no time to work” clause. But there is seriously nothing to be gained from reading the commenters’ critiquing you. There is a reason you got the job and they didn’t, end of story.
Basically they are still mad at her for being <30. It is a very upsetting time for 2% of the Prudie commentariat. They will, of course, get over it.
I grew up next door to my two best friends (they’re sisters, we’re all one year apart in age) but several years ago my mom sold the house and bought a condo about a mile away. WELL just a few months ago, their parents sold their house and bought a condo in the same complex as my mom! So we’re neighbors again and this Christmas we’ll all be visiting (with spouses and kids in tow) so we can run back and forth to each others’ houses just like we did when we were badass teens. We were all just texting about it this morning, confirming our Christmas plans. Can’t wait.
Chicago-area Toasties, can I solicit information/advice?
A friend of mine is struggling with depression and would like to see a therapist, but their health insurance is really shitty and won’t cover it. Their salary is too high to receive government assistance, but thanks to student loans etc. they don’t have a whole lot of spending money. Do you know of/recommend any low-cost therapists or mental health clinics in Chicago?
(Given the sorry fucking state of our city I understand there may not be anything out there but I figure it’s worth a shot.)
If your friend is a woman, the Womencare Counseling Center has a sliding scale… I know how hard it is when your income on paper looks higher than what is actually available – I have had various degrees of success explaining this to people. Good luck for your friend!
The Family Institute at Northwestern University has sliding-scale therapy treatments. I used them when I was unemployed and paid $10 a go.
Seconding this line of options! Lots of universities with counseling, psychology phd, family science, etc etc, programs have cheap therapy centers, often to help train the students. My friend went to one in another city and paid $5 a session. (And in training counselors are STILL GOOD, I don’t want that to scare off your friend.)
Is your friend’s workplace a big enough company to have an Employee Assistance Program?
I’ll ask, but I don’t think they have one. I mentioned my employer’s EAP in previous conversations, and I’m pretty sure my friend said their employer doesn’t have anything like that.
I don’t know if it is this way in Chicago, but here in New York the public hospitals have a sliding scale in their mental health clinics.
Sliding-scale counseling (and medical!) services are available at Howard Brown Health Center.
It looks like their sliding scale is based on the Federal Poverty Line, which my friend (on paper) is well above. Do you have any idea if they take into account personal debts (i.e. student loans) when determining a client’s ability to pay?
They may require additional documentation of any extenuating circumstances (e.g. student loan account statements), but you should call them to be sure. In my 10+ year experience they’re really good with that stuff.
Cornerstone Christian Counseling Center does a sliding scale. I don’t think they’re too pushy about the Christian part but you might want to check.
Live Oak is wonderful. They do sliding fee services and they also have groups, etc. They have a Loop office and one in Lakeview.
I told my therapist I just wanted to meet once a month for financial reasons and instead she got it approved (by whoever at her practice would need to approve it) to meet twice a month at a lower rate – I think a lot of places are pretty good about working with you on rates if needed if you just ask.
These female friendship posts are making me weepy! I moved to a new city in August, and while I have a good friend from college here, I constantly miss all my smart and funny friends from grad school. I was constantly in awe of them — for their scholarly and creative writing — and while I try to stay in touch, it’s vastly different than being in the classroom with them every day.
Any tips on how to make friends in a new city? I go to a barre studio, try to be chatty at work, but my social scene has really just been me+college friend (and my live-in gentleman) since August and I need MORE people. Central Ohio toasties, GET AT ME.
Seconding on the need for friend-making tips. I moved from East Coast to West Coast about six months ago and still haven’t really met anyone. Part of this is because I’m living near family now and they cover a lot of my socializing needs, but I also have no idea how to meet people my age and then actually stay in contact with them.
I am generally not great at this, but I think using meetup.com to see if there are groups gathering around common interests can be helpful. Then if you really like someone, be willing to follow up and set up drinks or hang out times. Also, I’ve met some great people through networking which is also good for your career, so seeking out networking events can be good too.
Is it my imagination, or is Sansa almost the same size as your daughter?
Soon Sansa will be even bigger, and then her daughter will probably get to ride Sansa like a fluffy little horse.
Oh goodness the poly thing.
That person sounds WAY WAY WAY too low information for that to go well. Like, there might be really good reasons why the love interest’s girlfriend isn’t excited about the new relationship, or there might be really bad ones, but a vague “she doesn’t want us dating because we’re friends” is not an explanation, and that lack of explanation is a BIG RED FLAG.
For example, one potential further explanation that would make a lot of sense:
“When you’ve gotten involved with friends in the past, it’s been really painful for you when things went bad. I’d like to encourage you to date outside of you friend group, or at least take things a LOT more slowly than you have in the past.”
Compare to a… not as good further explanation:
“I only let you date other people that I am personally not at all intimidated by, and if she’s your friend, you might develop an emotional connection to her, and that might take away from you feelings for me, so I am deciding that you are not allowed to date her because I don’t like it.”
Poly has the highest % of success when people know what they’re getting into, and it still sounds really attractive, even after all the conversations have happened. If you’re not even getting far enough to really understand the nature of the objections to you, consider it a blessing, because it was either a bad idea and you’re getting let down easy, or it was bound to be SUPER DRAMA FILLED and you’re avoiding a shitshow.
Hopefully the girlfriends talk to each other plenty and just don’t feel like they owe LW an explanation about why one of them won’t date her?
Right, *and* they think it’s a closed matter, rather than some sort of ongoing flirtation, and the love interest is treating the LW accordingly, and not sort of stringing the LW along.
Yeah agreed. Either LW’s love interest has communication problems, or knows that LW will think the reason is shady, or doesn’t know. None of these scream “healthy poly situation” to me.
I suppose it’s also possible that LW’s communication skills are lacking, or she’s ignoring things she doesn’t want to hear, or something else like that— but, again, agreed, still doesn’t scream “healthy poly situation”. Doesn’t matter where the communication breakdown is happening, it’s really obviously happening somewhere!!!!
Hmmm yeah “ignoring things she doesn’t want to hear” is definitely a possibility. I’ve often found that the perception of poly people can be “willing to date everyone no matter what,” and sometimes it can be hard to get the reality across.
YES! And “My girlfriend and I both think that dating you is a bad idea because you and I are friends” often gets watered down TWICE by the time it gets to the potential’s head– the person saying it often stresses “girlfriend thinks” over “I think”, and independently the potential often hears “girlfriend thinks” way louder than “I think”.
That MLM piece is so good. There was another interesting one a few months ago specifically about how they are huge in Utah, and a lot of it was because of the same reasons for Mormon women (can still be a stay at home mom, which according to a lot of Mormons is the only way to be a righteous woman). Interesting and infuriating stuff.
Yes. This quote from the article really summed it up: “But the concerning aspects of MLM—the overall lack of verifiable profit, the strain on relationships—raise the questions: Are women in the church pursuing MLM because it’s truly the best outlet for their gifts? Or are they pursuing MLM because it’s one of the only options available to them?”
MLM is a patriarchy-approved way for women to actually use their brains and it just sucks people in. It’s such a shame.
Each of those dolls contains the soul of a murder victim, yes? They are too creepy to be otherwise!
It seems like a poor decision to store all of his (flammable) horcruxes in one place.
Who says they are all in one place though? They could be everywhere.
I mean, like, I’ve seen the second season of Penny Dreadful! I know how this works!!
Female friends! My best friend is coming to visit me from London in January, and yesterday we talked on the phone for an hour about “plans”, which mostly was just about food we want to eat.
I’m then visiting her in London in February, so when she leaves, I’ll see her soon after. I am so excited, and so pleased that we still see each other a few times a year and talk on the phone at least once a week. I talk to other long-distance friends pretty often, but not in the same way, like one of us is just away for a long weekend.
I know both pretty darn well, but does anyone have any suggestions of things (foods) to do (eat) in New York and Boston, for someone who has never been to this side of the USA before? All I know right now is that when she gets off the plane, I am taking her to Jacob’s Pickles.
I am not super familiar with New York, so take my recommendations with a big old grain of salt, but I really enjoyed having a popsicle and going for a walk on the High Line while I was there. Also the National Museum of the American Indian had a cool exhibit on musicians while I was there and it looks like there’s a neat exhibit of art by Kay WalkingStick, which kinda makes me wish I had an excuse to visit New York myself.
In terms of Iconic New York Foods, you probably want to hit at least one old-school Jewish delis/appetizing store. I am partial to Russ & Daughters because I am a fiend for cured fish (they have a cafe now too, which is fun in a different way from the store), but Katz’s or Barney Greengrass are also acceptable.
Get some good pizza. There is good pizza everywhere, obviously, so do a little digging and find the best place in whatever neighborhood you happen to be in.
Other than that, maybe walk around Chinatown and get dim sum, or head out to Flushing and eat everything ever.
I grew up in NYC and moved to BOS after college, where I have lived since. In addition to strong recommendations above:
NYC – Central Park! weather permitting. Wander through, stop at The Boathouse to warm up and for a refreshing drink. For a nice pint and great raw bar, PJ Clarke’s on either the East or West side. West Side is right by Lincoln Center, which is lovely to see, but the East Side location is a NYC landmark and has amazing (and reasonably priced) homemade chips, french fries and burgers. JJohn’s Pizza is a classic NYC pizza joint if you’re down in the Villiage. If you want to do like a skyscraper thing, I recommend Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center over The Empire State building as less of a touristy PIA thing. Also, all the art deco public art of RC is amazing.
BOS – The Faneuil Hall market is yes, touristy, but it’s fun to stroll around, lots of great shops / pubs. Also, one of my favorites, Union Oyster House is right there. They serve the classic New England Clam Chowder. Newbury Street is a rather upscale shopping/dining district, but also has funky places like Newbury Comics, John Fleuvog shoes. It’s near the Prudential building, Boston’s tallest building, and my favorite steakhouse (spendy though) Grille 23. Delish, more casual, and reasonable is The Butcher Shop. And I’ve GOT to put a plug in for Wally’s for a standout local live music place.
Both cities are VERY pedestrian sight-seeing friendly – Boston in particular is small and most things are walking distance from each other.
I’m finding everything wicked annoying today (my coworker won’t stop stapling and it’s so loud, I know this is not her fault but jeebus why), and of course today is the day of our work holiday party. Hahahahahahahaha
But I love my friends so much, though. My best friend is a SCIENCE LADY (official title) who gets articles published in fancy journals and my other best friend is an art teacher who cries because she loves her students so much, and I am just a sour watermelon but where would I be without them????
I should add that they want me to get FRIENDSHIP TATTOOS and despite my multitude of anxieties around tattoos I’m actually considering it very strongly. That is how much I love them.
Possibly they love you because you are a delightfully sour watermelon who makes them laugh.
Re: excellent friend situations, I think this is going to come up in my future sometime.
That is a very, very cool little community, but the stupid scrolljacking JS on that page is driving me entirely insane. (I assume WordPress is to blame, because they’re the worst.)
ohmygod yes, that almost killed it for me
Help me wise ladies. My phone got dropped into a toilet last night. Now it appears to be a brick. Can burying it in rice still help at this stage,or am I screwed? (iPhone 6, relatively clean but still unspeakably gross to retrieve from loo)
If you have tried to use it before drying it out, probably it is boned; water in the circuits + electricity = fried electronics. http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/how-fix-r…
Burying it in rice will definitely not hurt it, so you may as well try? I’d leave it there for a day or so before you declare it dead for sure.
I’ve definitely had phones come back after a few days once they have completely dried out so it’s definitely worth a shot.
I dropped a phone in a port-a-potty once and it survived. So… anything is possible.
Uh. How did you retrieve it. No, never mind.
Glad to hear Marco is doing well! Best wishes for a speedy recovery!
HELLO does anyone want to read a long, riveting piece on a serial rapist, and why everyone should always, always believe women? (I am disgusted with the police in this story obviously – the male ones, the female ones and that one husband in the cop-couple seem great – but I am used to cops being terrible. I am SO ANGRY at both foster mothers.) https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/12/16/an-…
God I just finished reading that after seeing it on Metafilter and I am just beside myself and depressed and angry.
I just finished reading that after someone linked it on twitter and it made me so, so angry. I mean, not ONLY did they bully her into retracting her accusation, they sued her! Just disgusting.
Holy hell, that story. Literally everyone who was supposed to look out for that girl threw her under the bus. I hope the police officers and both her foster mothers BURST INTO FLAMES. Or at the very least, that the foster mothers get their licenses revoked, because they are clearly not safe to work with a vulnerable population.
“Oh she was unhappy with her apartment, maybe she made up the rape to get moved” SURE RIGHT OBVIOUSLY THAT’S IT, FUCK YOU FOSTER MOM.
I now have the worst rage headache. Those damn foster mothers.
so angry. Assuming a young woman who grew up in foster care is lying. Cops who are so poorly trained in how to handle rape cases.
And also infuriating is that she is LUCKY – lucky that there was actual, incontrovertible proof that she was indeed raped. Most people don’t get that, they never get their retraction, their apology, their 150 grand from suing the police force (which is not even close to enough – not that there is an “enough’ but man, she should have gotten way more than that.) Most people don’t even go to the cops because this is the treatment they know they’ll get. Most people know it will be he-said/she-said because the perpetrater is a husband/uncle/friend/etc so even if the cops wanted to believe you, there would be no proof.
I know. And “lucky” (I say that in quotes because she was still raped and treated horribly) that it was stranger rape, which police are more likely to believe, but as the article states, is like 13% of cases.
ETA: Clearly I was too annoyed to read the end of your comment to see you already said it. So frustrating.
Yes, quotation marks are appropriate, unfortunately it’s too late to edit but thanks for that.
YES. I HAVE BEEN SEETHING ABOUT THOSE FOSTER MOMS ALL MORNING. (Angry at the terrible cops too but that’s par for the course unfortunately)
I desperately want to send them hate mail.
Ugh, that piece. Heartbreaking. (Also, the Marshall Project has been absolutely killing it all year w/r/t criminal justice reporting, for those who aren’t familiar with it.)
I literally have a rage headache. I would like to say that I cannot believe that this shit happens, but tragically I can.
How is it that there is this prevailing ideology of “oh, woman is hysterical and thus getting details muddled, so she must be lying” existing right beside “oh, woman is really calm and anyone who is raped would be hysterical, so she must be lying!”????
The two female cops are awesome, though.
Right now one of the few redeeming features of where I live are my two best friends. I moved here 7 years ago on a Saturday. On the Tuesday, I went to a Stitch n Bitch meeting at a somewhat seedy pub. One of the women had the most amazing change purse that she had made to look like a vulva. Like pink satin lining, the works. So we went up to the bar to pay for our drinks with it and the bar flies were not rattled. At some point we discussed a knit along of these purses and everyone yelled out “Vaginas for everyone!” And I knew I was home. But honestly, they are just rad, unapologetic, amazing women. One drinks and smokes and swears and is super organized and excels at everything she decides to do (just buckets of grit and determination) and the other one is a hilarious storyteller and possibly the smartest person I have ever met. I feel like we hold each other up. There’s no jealousy, just amazing support like something out of an Amy Poehler inspirational quote.
I feel like I should be more weirded out by the Dollies, but I have friends that collect BJDs and absolutely nothing can terrify me now. (I stick to Monster High, they do not cost $1300 just for a HEAD).
What…..is a BJD? Should I google? I feel like I should not google.
Yeah I don’t know what this is either but it seems like a good way to accidentally look at Sex Things on your work computer.
BJD = ball-jointed doll, super poseable and lifelike dolls that cost thousands of dollars, basically. There’s a whole ‘scene’ for customizing them with tiny clothing and wigs and eye chips and painting different faces and MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with them is that doll owners tend to treat them like children (I have a friend who brought one in a baby carriage to the ren faire instead of her own living daughter) and I get like 5000% freaked out by them. Some are super tiny, others can be the size of toddlers, some even bigger than that. They can be gorgeous, but the subculture surrounding them kiiiiiiiiinda freaks me out.
tl;dr expensive doll people treat like children
MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY
Also, I fell down this particular rabbit hole last night. Imagine if Captain America had a diary comic wherein he explored fitting into a new world and PTSD. It’s really charming and sad and so good: http://americancaptaincomic.tumblr.com/tagged/com…
My best friend is moving to the Philippines FOR A YEAR in January. It’s such a cool adventure but I’m gonna miss them so much.
They’re super super cool though, for the last year they’ve been part of the Center for Gender Advocacy at Local University and they’ve been doing all kinds of excellent peer-support trainings and consent culture activism, AND they’re an excellent wilderness guide, so when they get back we’re going to hike one of the long trails together, probably the CDT
Totally off topic, but I finally broke down and bought bras that are the right size (one for the day and one bra-let thingy with no wire to sleep in) and I feel 1000% times better and actually like myself again.
YES. I’ve been thinking about you, and I’m glad to hear you’re giving yourself some support (har har har).
So pleased for you. You deserve to be comfortable, even in a non-ideal situation.
FEMALE FRIENDSHIP: Toasties, I am going to spend Christmas with one of my very favorite people in Virginia (along with her darling cat, and also her boyfriend who is pretty okay). When we talked last night, she suggested that we might sit around reading to one another from A Christmas Carol while I’m there, and I just wanted to hug her over the phone somehow.
I drive by Le Mars every summer on a family vacation road trip, next year I ASSURE YOU I will be stopping to see those dolls.
Maybe… Maybe you could post pictures?
Try and stop me!
yessssssssss………….
I am so happy to see that essay by Ashley Ford in the link roundup. I am a big Ashley Ford fangirl, to the point that I spotted her once in a bookstore and was too nervous to say hi.
There was a good interview with her posted today as well – http://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/ashley-c-…
wow: 1 in 7 households has someone involved in an MLM!
that sounds really high – and of course it would include people who tried it out for a month or something and never kept it up – but I would LOVE to see what it looks like on a map. or one of those network charts of facebook friendships. that number sounds crazy high to me but probably sounds super low in some communities like that article talks about.
Toasties, this brought me joy. Especially the expression on Daisy Ridley’s face. And the grumpily amused one on Harrison Ford’s fase too.
Also bringing me joy (yup, I’m bragging, for once we get a movie earlier than the US!): I’m seeing The Force Awakens in less than two hours. Concentrating on work is increasingly difficult.
Gosh darnit that was adorable!!!
I needed that today, thank you :). I’m also super jealous that you’re so close to getting to see TFA, but I do hope you have the best of all possible times!
Gwendolen! Lupita! AAAAAH
My taxi driver this morning told me that I don’t understand anything about my job and that everything I know is based on “nothing.” He concluded this after a 5 minute conversation with me. He knows he is right because he reads the newspapers and looks around him, and is “well educated for a taxi driver”.
No, dude, you know this because you are a man who feels insecure in his job and you think it will make you feel better to bring down a woman who is not insecure in hers.
I wish I knew what to say to people in this situation. Half of my brain was saying, “Ending this conversation is wise,” and the other half was yelling “The Patriarchy!@%*!!” I didn’t want to get in a real argument because it’s not worth it emotionally (plus he was driving), but I wish I knew how to open his eyes just a little bit.
I’ve adopted one of Mallory’s Twitter techniques for face-to-face conversations, too, and it works amazingly well: When A MAN starts assuring himself that HE KNOWS BETTER and that I AM WRONG, I say the flattest, most bored “okay” and nothing else. When in company, I engage in conversation with someone else; when alone with him, I redirect my attention elsewhere, even if it’s just staring out the window.
It drives a certain type of man to distraction to have a woman so flatly deny him the gratification he seeks, of either acknowledgement that he’s right (WHICH YEAH NO) or a continued opportunity for argument. I am not interested in arguing with these folks, and I’m not going to burn up my energy explaining why not. I don’t give a good goddamn if The Mansplainer General takes that “okay” as acquiescence (none have so far), or if he sees the clear disdain it expresses (they all have, so far). I just want to short-circuit his assurance that he has a platform to condescend to me, and this does that.
(Like all social tricks, and especially those that involve unseating Male Certainty, this one is only advisable when you’re reasonable confident you’re safe doing it, blah blah, I hate that this disclaimer is necessary but WE ALL KNOW IT IS.)
There is literally nothing you could have said to this dude to make him see sense. There just isn’t. It doesn’t matter what you do, or at what level you do that thing, that kind of dude will always think he’s right. So whatever you feel like doing is fine! I second Elsa is Emily’s suggestion of “okay.” I also like “sure” because it’s more dismissive but still shuts it down.
Not half as good as Elsa is Emily’s method, but I find this satisfying. Because my heart is dark and hard.
“You’re right.” [pause for 2 beats] “That’s what you need to hear, right?”
Said flatly, without affect. While staring out the window.
You are an ice goddess and I bow to you, my lady.
Grrr. Last week, I was talking neighborhoods and home-buying during a pretty long cab ride (the taxi driver had saved up enough driving a cab to buy a little house in our city and I am thinking of buying a little house). I was really curious about his experience, but all he did was lecture me about how I should live with a husband instead of roommates and only buy a house once I have a husband to put in it. (This from a man who isn’t married and shares the house he owns with a roommate!) I tried to point out that kicking out roommates (even friends!) is easier than divorcing and splitting assets, but you can guess how well that point was taken.
I feel your pain. The number of REALTORS who told me I shouldn’t buy a house without a man was unbelievable.
Ugh. I’m sorry you dealt with that! I’m feeling lucky that I immediately found an amazing realtor who came recommended from friends (one of whom had bought her house as a single lady) and never once questioned my wanting to buy a 3-br house on my own to fill with roommates.
female friendships!
I met my oldest friend in preschool. we were the first friend that we each chose for ourselves w/o parental involvement.
we never went to the same regular school but we went to the same hebrew school and played music together. she was basically the only friend I ever took the time to visit when i was in college and now she lives in DC (where we grew up) and we do lots of texting and visits when we can. she is a fantastic writer and when she wins all the big literary prizes I will get to say I knew her when 🙂
It delights but does not surprise me that the Toast is home to so many celebrants of female friendship. I am utterly grateful for the friends in my life, most of whom are women. All the more so because I don’t have siblings – friends ARE my family. And my mother is an only child, too, so her friends are my aunts. I’ve never, ever understood the trope that women can’t be friends with other women. My friendships, most of which are with other women, are the source of much of the pleasure, laughter, and love in my life. From my oldest friend, whom I’ve known since I was 3 days old and she was 10 days old (we’re now in our mid-30s), to my freshman roommate who sewed my wedding dress 13 years later, to my former grad school classmate, now living in Europe, with whom I exchange long emails about our lives, to the three anthropologists I somehow became friends with a few years ago and who have gone above and beyond to support me through my pregnancy and new motherhood – my life has been immeasurably enriched by these women and many others. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. They’re all wildly different from each other, and from me, but they have helped make me who I am.
Does anyone remember the episode of This American Life about the MLM called something like Get Right Now or Live Well Now although neither of those is exactly right? It was fascinating–seems like one that’s appealing to a younger, less female, more social-media-heavy group of people and is also really intense about the lifestyle they claim to be able to offer to their participants.
That was really interesting! I have some people tangentially in my life who are into MLM, but they are all men, and all a particular sort of game-the-system, car-salesman-y man.
I would love to gush about female friendships but right now my sister is having a shitty time at work (FOR THE FIFTH JOB IN A ROW, jesus she has bad luck with bosses) and I am bummed. 🙁
You seriously just articulated so many of the weird feelings I have about these schemes. One of my Facebook friends (we went to high school together, but were never actual friends) quit her full-time job to become a Beachbody “Coach” and she posts pretty frequently about how happy she is that she can be a full-time mom while still supporting her family through Beachbody. Which is great, or would be great if it were actually sustainable, but ultimately it’s hard to watch (though I admit to being weirdly engrossed by it) because these things tend to end in the same way and it feels like a disaster waiting to happen.
shout out to my female friends, who are lovely and whip-smart and give excellent advice and are there to laugh and cry with me, who are creative and analytical, who are honestly sometimes so sharp and beautiful and kind that i feel overwhelmed with how lucky i am to have them in my life!
i wish to steal this and write it in all new year’s cards!
Female friends!
Back in college, I fell in with a group of three other women who were both in my Chaucer class and, like me, were upperclass students in Intro to the English Major (we’d all done our degrees “in reverse”, taking all the other required literature classes before Intro, because…we could?). They were my lifeline over senior year, and part of some of the best memories I have from undergrad.
One of them is now a small-business owner of a resale clothing shop in Nebraska (are there Fremont-area Toasties? if yes, it is called The Wardrobe, please spend piles of money there), and has two of the smartest daughters in the entire world and I hope they both grow up to do great things. Another is an ex-professional ballet dancer who now teaches HS English (and ballet on the side) at a girl’s school (I am going to be in her neck of the woods in A WEEK and I’m hoping she’ll be free for a visit). The third is an amazing craftswoman who’s taken up almost every craft known to man–I think her latest is pottery (which involved her husband buying a pottery wheel and building a kiln in their backyard workshop), and I’m just waiting for the report that she’s into glassblowing or something equally as astonishing.
They were–and are–the most amazing people in my life, and I really need to be better about keeping in contact with them.
FEMALE FRIENDS. My female friends are BEAUTIFUL GENIUSES. They have LONG ARMS and WRITE POETRY and FICTION (what can I say, I have a lot of writer friends) LIKE GODDESSES and sometimes when we can assemble all together we make Skyline Chili dip and say we won’t eat it all until we get sick, but then of course we eat it all until we’re well and truly sick, but we don’t care, because we love each other.
Yes!
My best female friends are creatives, too: goddesses of textiles and sculpture and knitting and drawing and sciencing and writing. Artmakers and dreamers and lovers and pro-gin&tonic drinkers and excellent cooks and I would be lost without them, always.
My best friend is the first person I met in college (at the nearby bank, waiting to open an account too), and she just so happened to also be a Creative Writing major in the Honors program. We became roommates in sophomore year, and by senior year we spent 20 of 24 hours of a day together (same classes, same job) and never got sick of each other, except when we were traveling.
Now we’ve been out of college five years but we still talk nearly every day — mostly thanks to the massive, massive fanfic we write together, that has a really good following and one day we’ll go pro and maybe someday collaborate again, and my personal fantasy is that we’ll become so successful that we’ll go on tour and give interviews together, but I’ll always let her do most of the talking because she’s so much better at it (both speaking and being witty and charming), but we’ll always finish each other’s sentences.
But since graduation we’ve lived TOO FAR AWAY in different parts of the country, so I only get to see her once a year, and it is the woooooooorst.
I also believe in her talent and abilities ferociously, and I’ve been known to get super-protective of her when she’s vulnerable. Right before graduation, during finals, she was hospitalized with ovarian cysts (one of her ovaries was softball-sized! It had to be removed!), and I stayed with her overnight. When her parents arrived, her dad was gruffly joking with her and made to pull down the sheet to take a photo of the incision, I swooped in with “I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD DO THAT,” and he hastily backed off (he didn’t mean any harm, really, I was just feeling VERY PROTECTIVE with my friend defenseless on that bed).
What is this fanfic and can I read it? Always on the lookout for good stuff.
Ooooooh, thank you for expressing interest, but I must give you a ton of disclaimers now.
1) it’s an AU of the TV show Supernatural
2) lots of (though never gratuitous) hardcore child abuse content, especially in Part One. Including sexual abuse, coercion, prostitution. Our story is very definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. (what entices a lot of readers is that we promise to pay back — and have followed through on this — every ounce of hurt with comfort, over the course of the story. and we also unflinchingly deal with all of the trauma incurred. it’s a story of trauma recovery, really. basically we wanted to do what the show has so profoundly failed to do.)
If you’re still interested, the name of the story is “A Monster By Any Other Name” and it can be found on fanfictionDOTnet, AO3, and LiveJournal. I would recommend LJ, because that’s where all the fanart is posted also. The masterlist is pinned to the top of the comm: freac_camp.livejournal.com
Do what’s right for yooooou, please! (I will confess our story has gotten a very, very good reception, with more “this is the best thing I’ve ever read” comments than I can remember, but I still feel very anxious putting it forward to anyone)
This actually sounds very much up my alley, but I am not in the Supernatural fandom. However, my best friend is, so I will pass it along! She has expressed frustration with how the show deals with trauma, so she might really like it!
Okay, thanks! I should mention also that our story is enough of an AU that it’s not really dependent on any familiarity with the show — in fact, we’ve gotten a few readers who told us they don’t watch SPN (either never have or quit), but still really enjoyed the story. I hope your friend does — tell her to leave a comment when she’s done. 😀
THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. Ahem, sorry to allcaps, kind of excited. Is there banter?
😀 Yay! Happy to have found you!
Yes, there is banter and other humorous/light bits, we definitely did not want a 100% downer story, goodness. I am not especially good at banter (in my own evaluation, anyway), but my co-author certainly is.
It’s a very different kind of banter than you get in Show, of course… “Bitch/jerk” is horribly inappropriate for the boys as we’ve written them. But we really, really like the differences in their characters (okay, Dean’s character) due to the vastly different upbringing we’ve given them and the whole formation of their relationship. It actually gives them a HEALTHY relationship (and that’s why I had to stop watching Show in S9, because the cognitive dissonance was too awful, and I was losing all faith that the idea of them having a healthy relationship wasn’t laughably OOC).
Our Dean would kick Show!Dean’s ass.
Soooo, moving on from rape culture to genocide, the final Truth and Reconilitation Report was released yesterday and every Canadian should read it.
http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.p…
The discussion of best female friends is making me kind of sad. I had the same best friend from first grade up through about age 28 and after that her life really changed and now we don’t even talk more than a couple times a year even though we’re in the same city. And now she has a new best friend and it’s kind of tough because the new best friend is thin and blonde and outgoing and good with men and a night owl and pretty much all the things I’m not. I don’t mean this in a “my old best friend is now shallow” sort of way I mean that she needs a best friend who lives her life the same way she does which makes sense, it just, well, it aches.
Anyway, I know I’m not the only person who goes through this (and wakes up in the middle of the night worrying that we’re not friends anymore because I somehow hurt her and she’s been too nice to tell me) which actually helps a little. Thanks for letting me vent here Toasties!
I’m sad too. I’m the only one of any of my former friends that hasn’t gotten married and had babies (not that I wouldn’t want to, it just hasn’t happened) and they all dropped off the face of the earth. All my local friends have moved away. I do have lots of family (my 3 sisters are my best girl friends now), some of them nearby, but I still feel like I’m missing something.
i found out yesterday that my now-estranged (not dramatically, just sadly) high school bestie is apparently now working at our high school, and i have been so rattled and sad ever since!
All of the female friendship comments are lovely, but making me envious. I’ve never been very good at friendships; I know a lot of really great women, some of whom I always have a great time with and whose company I enjoy, but I’ve never really had a really close connection with a friend. When I was younger I was really close to my sister, and now I have my boyfriend, but I struggle to achieve the same thing with friendships. It’s generally just me and maybe one other person, which is fine, but I feel sad that I have never managed to form the sort of friendships other people seem to.
This is me, too. We moved a lot when I was a kid, I was awkward, etc. — any number of reasons really, but the end result is that I know a lot of folks, and I think there were probably even chances to have that kind of closeness, but I didn’t know it, or I didn’t know how to make it happen. Sometimes I feel lonely, and then other times I feel weird for not feeling more lonely. I don’t know. How do you emotions?? How do you friend???
Lauren, I’m so glad I can call you my friend. You get it. I’m so much like you, it’s uncanny. The best parts of me, that is.
<3 <3 <3
My friendships have changed over the years, and that is both sometimes sad* and completely okay.
*One of the hardest things that happened to me in this very hard year, and I say “to me” because it happened to her months before I randomly learned of it: I Googled a former friend — very very close friend since we were teenagers, but also a person I’d reluctantly disconnected from decade ago in an act of self-preservation. I wasn’t looking to reconnect with her; I guess I just hoped to find some social media traces suggesting she was doing well.
Instead, I found her obituary.
I still haven’t really recovered from that, or from the way that reverberates through all my feelings about absent or erstwhile friends. I’ve been making an effort to nurture some of my newer, less bedrock-level friendships, as well as an older one that went dormant, but it’s hard, even when “making friends” comes easily.
There are plenty of people I can grab coffee with, or invite over for dinner, or chatter with for hours. But there aren’t too many I feel safe with, or whom I make feel safe, no matter what. I can’t tell whether that’s something my older friendships once had but no longer do, or whether that’s something I didn’t know I needed when I was younger, but I do demand from close friendships now.
It is hard. I never moved as a child (lived in the same place from when I was born to when I went to university), but even lots of contact with the same people didn’t make me able to forge the sort of bonds other people seem to manage. (I suspect that it might have something to do with being a triplet – built-in companions means it feels like there’s no necessity to make friends elsewhere.)
How do you emotions, indeed. I hope you are not too lonely – I think you seem great, and people would be lucky to be friends with you.
Celebrating female friends! My best friend since forever just got a job teaching full time at a prestigious college! I AM SO EXCITED FOR HER YOU GUYS OMG.
I would also just like to put it out there in defense of religion that I have not once been asked through my years of being part of a church to participate in any form of sales pitch. Although I could definitely see how it could easily be done. I’m grateful that the religious communities I’ve been part of have not done that!
If anyone wants to talk about the Rosemary Kennedy biography, and how Joe Kennedy was an actual monster, then I am HERE.
I think the most haunting thing about that book were the “what ifs.” What if the midwife had been “screw it” and hadn’t waited for the doctor. What if WWII hadn’t happened and Rosemary had been able to stay in England with the nuns, and actually had a chance to be a teacher’s aide and be happy. Then of course, what if she’d been born today.
I’ve pretty much been thinking about Rosemary at least once a day ever since I’ve finished it, and how I want to invent a time machine to go back to 1918 and punch that doctor in the face. And Joe Kennedy, of course.
I feel incredibly lucky to have an incredibly close female friendship, we met in undergraduate and ended up (by chance!) going to the same program for graduate school. We have been friends for 7 years and living together for six. I would like to crow about her because she is probably going to be first author on a paper in Science very soon!!! This is basically the Most Excellent and if I fail out of graduate school I will live in her guest house because she is going to be The Best.
Female friendships!! I’m lucky to have three women in my life who are my best friends. I’ve known one since we’re were toddlers and we met the others in junior high/high school. Together, we’ve been friends for more than 20 years. They know all my secrets and they’re always the first to know any big news. I don’t live near them any more so we keep in touch by email and texting. Just tonight we had a delightful conversation that consisted mostly of puns on the word Uranus. I love those girls!
“Women don’t know when they look their best.”
NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE
I have been missing my lady friends so much lately, i’m currently planning a trip to NZ to see them again. They are tops. We used to have a regular sunday night date to get together, talk endlessly and watch korean dramas.
Thanks to the Toasties yesterday who mentioned a few nice places to live in Connecticut. Today, while I was taking break at work, I found both a lovely house that my husband is ready to put in an offer on from the pictures alone and also a great job that is an excellent match for my skills and qualifications.
I do find it hilarious that the handful of towns my husband mentioned as possible Places to Live are like 90+% white. All of them. This will be the least diverse place I have ever lived in my life.
Hooray for Marco!
My auntie calls them "Screw Your Friends" Parties and I think that's a pretty apt description.
Even working at Walmart is more fulfilling than joining an MLM. I hate my employer (on a corporate level) but I’ve seen my management help low confidence people blossom in their jobs.
MLMs make me sad and angry. You are worth more than MLM. Even if the product is great I won’t buy it.
Even working at Walmart is more fulfilling than joining an MLM. I hate my employer (on a corporate level) but I've seen my management help low confidence people blossom in their jobs.
MLMs make me sad and angry. You are worth more than MLM. Even if the product is great I won't buy it.
Thanks for the great post. For the person who dropped the phone….Someone told me you can "save" it by putting it in a glass of pure alcohol quickly afterwards to push out the water then let it dry. Anyone ever hear of this?