Happy New Year, dear Toasties! I hope it brings you light and truffles. Any resolutions broken yet? Open thread!
Cocktail Hour: Open Thread
Happy New Year, dear Toasties! I hope it brings you light and truffles. Any resolutions broken yet? Open thread!
Theoretically, of course, if one is not pregnant after months of trying, and works in an office with a woman who is six months pregnant and never fucking stops complaining about it, and also with a number of other people who keep saying incredibly stupid and unintentionally cruel things–at what point is it acceptable to tip your desk over and light it on fire while storming out?
Asking for a friend. A friend who is definitely not real and definitely did not have to hear “Oh, you’ll understand when you’re pregnant” five separate times this week.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? I wish I had a better response for you, but at this point I’m just going to have to agree with your desk flipping and lighting plans.
After that comment, it’s appropriate to go full scorched earth. Big hugs.
Now. Set fire to everything now.
Go listen to “Pregnant Women are Smug” by Garfunkel and Oates; it will help you channel your rage (and it’s hilarious).
Yesterday.
Yep, time for:
Yep, time for:
Ugh, people are terrible and assholes gonna asshole harder when they get preg. Blergh. Sending get-knocked-up vibes your way.
Short answer: right now.
1. Pour something flammable on desk.
2. Heave desk over.
3. Flick a lighted match at desk.
4. Draw sword and run out, screaming MISAAAAAAAAANDRY as you go.
5. Repeat as needed.
Now. It is appropriate now.
People who say “you’ll understand when you’re a parent” are almost–if not entirely–as annoying as non-parents giving you their parenting advice. Set fire to all their desks.
This is entirely true; they are like the yin and yang of infuriating, unanswerable commentary.
I bet they’re the same people at different time points.
👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽
Fire, and lots of it, to quote “The Simpsons.”
7 months pregnant here and I think you should light *HER* desk on fire and storm out.
I’m so so sorry about your experience. My husband and I were trying to get pregnant all year in 2015 and it took so so so much longer than we expected. It was incredibly disheartening, and yes — people can be SO thoughtless and honestly rude. People don’t realize how much it hurts every time another woman is pregnant and you aren’t, when it seems like everyone around you is having babies and you aren’t.
I hope that you find yourself pregnant soon, and regardless, I hope you find some peace.
Do the people in your office know that you’re TTC? Maybe dropping that information in a chill but firm manner would help them learn some sense of sensitivity? You shouldn’t HAVE to, but maybe they would cut down if they knew how much it hurt you? (If they do know, then, I’m so sorry again.)
The only person who knows is the pregnant woman herself, who creates most of the problems. Whomp Whomp. It makes me want to die inside slash cry at my desk all day long.
If I have to listen to one more woman tell me “oh my husband just looks at me and I get pregnant!” Or “I got pregnant first time off the bat! I wish we had had fun trying times!” I’m going to cry, in public.
She knows and she’s saying this? FIRE.
I’m so sorry.
Seriously, that moves her from ordinary jerk to full-on asshole. Keep your comments to the people who want to hear them and shut up the rest of the time, obnoxious pregnant lady.
Exactly.
I had a miscarriage last month, and I know a lot of people who are pregnant / recently gave birth. They have unfailingly been very solicitous about when and how they discuss it, and while I don’t need people to pretend around me that babies don’t exist, that kind of basic concern is really, really helpful.
I’m so sorry. That is terrible, and I’m glad you have kind people around you.
Thanks. It’s been pretty hard, but so is what you’re going through.
I continue to maintain that our current system for making new humans is EXTREMELY poorly designed.
This is such a tough situation. Good luck to you getting pregnant, and in calming down that little voice inside you that criticizes you for not being pregnant (at least, I had that voice).
Could you just tell her again, really explicitly? Like, “I’m really happy for you that you are going to have a baby, but at the same time, I’m struggling with my own difficulty in conceiving. It is hard for me to focus on my job when we talk about this subject all the time. Could we try to talk about other things?”
And if that doesn’t help, then definitely fire.
I want to do that! But I’m deathly afraid of crying, which I know would be not a big deal but tealistically I don’t want to do at work. I may when I’m feeling less fragile, though
Serious question: Are headphones an option? You don’t even have to play anything in them, just big ear-covering headphones. That sounds so frustrating, and I’m sorry you have to deal with that at all, much less at work.
I do this a lot, actually. I can’t do it all the time because I’m on the phone a lot, but man it does help.
Go ahead and cry in public and then DON’T feel bad about doing it — she’s the one who should feel bad.
If you can hold it together, very coldly saying “that is a problem I would love to have” and walking away seems appropriate, and possibly satisfying.
(Then go have a cathartic cry in the bathroom or a ranty walk with your work bestie or phone friend,)
Update: she is now telling me about how she has only two months left and she’s so excited and I’M GOING TO DUMP TRASH ON HER HEAD.
Tie her shoelaces together! She can’t see her feet, so boy will she be surprised when she falls into the pool of hot sauce that just *magically* appeared next to her.
I’m so sorry, she is inexcusably cruel and shitty and you should go ahead and say something and then poop on her desk.
I am deeply sorry that you’re struggling with conception. That’s such a big pain to carry around, and your co-worker sounds insensitive to the point of callousness. Big hearts to you, and you do and say whatever you want and need to make it clear that you’re not the right person to be listening in on her complaints. She needs to find a new audience, stat.
Yeah. That would make me blind with rage.
Good luck in your babyquest!
Your coworker sounds incredibly lacking in compassion, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this shit. Light the whole damn workplace on fire!
As a woman who is miserable while pregnant, I have been that jerkwad co-worker. I am sorry that you’re having to listen to it, though.
SAME.
I don’t know how you are dealing. I understand why you don’t want to cry at your work but I almost think that in a situation of such brutal insensitivity bursting into tears might be the most effective thing you could do.
Your coworker who knows is awful, and the others need to do their damn work.
Breakup thread?
always here to talk to the Toast about breakups – you people kept me from completely losing my shit at work last year when I got dumped
Same here. I’m sending you all the internet hugs, whollyword!
B and I have known each other since childhood, been close friends since high school, and were partners for 11 1/2 years.
He realized a couple of years ago that he is polyamorous. I am not. A few weeks ago, after hearing a horror story from a friend about just how bad festering unhappiness could get, I told him that I had been trying to cope with him dating other people, and that it wasn’t getting any easier. I told him that if we could find a genuinely mutually agreeable solution, great. But if we couldn’t, I was going to need to walk away.
He chose poly. He did not choose me. In the long run, it is probably the right move for both of us. We tried so hard to make it work. (At least, I tried so hard to make it work; I learned in the post mortem that some of the things where I thought Metamour had been the sticking point– like all three of us getting together to talk about what was hard / less hard for us respectively– B was actually the sticking point: he’d never asked for a meeting, even though I’d said, “I think I need this in order to be okay.”)
I have a lot of practical stuff to sort out, on top of the grieving: Where will I live? How the hell will I support myself in this incredibly expensive housing market? And friendship stuff: If I take time away from him in order to get some perspective and heal, will there be any space and time remaining in his life for me? And internal stuff: Why the hell did I respond to relationship stressors by indexing my own life to his so tightly, instead of behaving in more self-protective ways? (Short answer: I’m an abuse survivor, and at one point in my life, this would have been adaptive behavior. But still.)
I turned 40 on Monday. I’d been planning to throw a big party, but I do not feel like partying, and I feel considerably more ambivalent about this nice round number than I did a month ago. He apologized for “ruining my birthday,” but as I said, it’s not like there was going to be an easier time.
I’m sorry. That all sounds hard.
Part of me is inclined to advise the party. But in your shoes, I think I would be as anti-party as possible.
I know that birthday feel, too. My birthday is at the end of the month and I just want to spend it underneath my blankets and not talk to anyone. It doesn’t help that our anniversary is two days after my birthday. I am so sorry for the hurt you are going through, all my love and goodness to you.
I’m so sorry; and while it might feel like he chose being polyamorous over you; YOU chose your happiness over his convenience.
You chose happiness. So hard and so vital and, ultimately, I truly believe you will find it freeing.
This so much. And don’t worry too much right now about whether he’ll make space in his life for you afterwards – focus on yourself and regaining what you lost by trying to make yourself fit into this relationship.
Yes, this last point, 100% agreed.
Thank you for that. I’m going to work on remembering it.
I’m so sorry, that sounds like a lot of hurt. I went through a big break up last year, and a lovely Toast on the open thread recommended the book Live Alone and Like It by Marjorie Hillis to me. I adored it and have recommended it to several friends who have been through break ups since. It’s a lighthearted book, but I think it actually helped me quite a bit in learning how to tell a different story about myself post-break up, if that makes sense.
I hope things get easier soon.
*jots down title*
THANK you. Telling a different story about myself sounds like something to work on.
This is the book I always recommend to anyone going through a major life changing relationship: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Past-Your-Breakup-D…
It’s really good about going over how to fill in that hole that this kind of change creates, and how to maybe even find a lot of joy and meaning in that process, while also actually letting yourself grieve and process what happened.
Seconding this! This book, particularly the relationship inventory exercise, really helped me see the relationship for what it was and learn from it instead of falling into the trap of idealizing/romanticizing it. And I say this as someone who is NOT generally a fan of self-help books.
I’m sorry, it’s always rough. For what it’s worth I’m a big proponent of recognizing when it’s time to leave a relationship and having the strength to do so (even though it’s pretty much always the harder decision in the moment than staying and watching things get worse and worse and worse until you hit a breaking point and hate each other). I am very quick to insist on toasts to friends who make the touch decision and leave when it’s time and you 100% deserve a toast! When the work day is through and it’s wine time, I will be making one in your honor.
Good luck with all the messy logistical stuff, it’ll all fall into place.
Big virtual hugs. And a giant toast to you for taking care of yourself and being brave enough to do what you need.
Advice-ish, if you can stand it (or think of it as cosmic permission, if you need):
Give yourself permission to do EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED TO DO to get through this and be okay. Have a party, or don’t. Decide at the last minute. Spend your birthday at a bar drinking fancy cocktails alone (that’s where I spent my 41st birthday [which would have been my 15th wedding anniversary] post-divorce). Spend 3 days straight in your pajamas eating cheese omelets and ice cream. Don’t talk to him. Or scream at him. Go on a road trip with your friends. Organize your books. Paint your toenails. Start looking for housing. Let your friends help you.
Have we met before? 40th birthday, 19th anniversary, spent in vegas drinking with my sister, courtesy of my catholic mom.
Hi, birthday-drinking-divorcee friend I’ve never met! I did my drinking in the place I live, in convenient stumbling distance of home. But Vegas would have been fun…
My friends are being lovely. One of the first things I did after The Conversation was to write a letter to B, BCC-ing a bunch of friends (so they could see he’d seen the letter), explaining that we’d broken up and saying, “Here’s what I think I’m likely to need for support.” (Human contact, distraction, invitations to make dinner together, leads on housing, a heads-up if they were inviting both B and me to an event so I could make an informed decision, and good boundaries– i.e., offering only help that they could offer heathily.)
A good bit of the crying that I did in the first day and a half post breakup was over the responses from my friends. Two years ago, I was so despairing and ashamed about my situation that I was isolating myself. I really worked in the last year on building, rebuilding, and nurturing friendships, and I am so glad that I did. Because my friends are wonderful, caring people, and I am so grateful for them.
Good friends are the very best thing. I am glad you have them.
I have a couple of…not quite friends, so acquaintances I guess? Who are going through almost this exact same thing, except the non-poly partner is not getting herself out of the relationship, she’s hanging on as tightly as possible while remaining miserable and it’s very hard to watch. You are doing a brave thing in recognizing what you need and acting on it!
Thank you. For what it’s worth, I did the hanging on as tightly as possible thing for 2 1/2 years. I don’t regret trying hard, but I do regret losing myself as much as I did in the process, and I do regret limiting myself for so long to sources of support that were supportive of my staying.
A thing I’m realizing: I wish there were more breakup songs that were neither about someone being absolutely terrible nor about doing absolutely anything to resurrect the relationship.
There’s a lot of fun and cathartic music in the “you did something appalling, good riddance” genre (Ciara’s “I’m Out,” anyone?), but it isn’t ringing true precisely. “Getting under someone to get over someone” doesn’t work for me, and even if I’ve *thought* the word “home-wrecker” toward B’s sweetheart in my ugliest moments, Sweetheart didn’t develop feelings for B at me, and certainly didn’t force B to reciprocate them.
Nor is “get over yourself, dude, I’ll be dating someone else tomorrow” ringing true, no matter how much I like Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable.” I’m a slow healer, and the times I’ve rushed into another relationship after a breakup have been times when I felt I was medicating my loneliness, rather than thinking about what I liked about the person.
Nor is the abjection of Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games,” which I listened to on repeat a year and a half ago, while trying to figure out how to make myself and my needs smaller. NO MORE OF THAT, THANK YOU.
Regina Spektor’s “Apres Moi” is hitting the spot, and Melanie Doane’s “Adam’s Rib,” and Flying Lotus’s “Never Catch Me.” But I would love more songs in which the pain of breaking up doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, and if anyone has ideas, I’d be grateful.
About a month into a breakup in which nobody was at fault, and I’ve been listening to First Aid Kit’s “To a Poet” a LOT.
Thank you! I love their voices, and also *whispering* I am a poet.
I actually found it really difficult to listen to pretty much any music for a while after my last bad breakup – there were just too many emotions in the songs and I couldn’t handle them on top of my own. I listened to a lot of podcasts, audiobooks, classical music, and soothing nature sounds for a few months.
Along the Regina Spektor lines I would suggest “Two Birds.” Also “Ships with Holes Will Sink” or anything by We Were Promised Jetpacks.
The song I found myself turning to during my recent breakup was Tame Impala’s ‘Eventually.’ It’s not vindictive or angry at all, and there’s this line that repeats “I know that I’ll be happier/And I know you will, too/Eventually.” I needed that reminder.
So sorry to hear you’re going through such a tough time right now. My breakup was also a live-in situation, long-term partner and right before my birthday! A particular highlight was him happening to be at the house on my actual birthday, wishing me a happy birthday, and me promptly bursting into tears because it was emphatically NOT a happy birthday. So whatever you end up doing for your birthday, celebrate or not, hopefully you can avoid encountering the ex. Many, many hugs to you!
THIS SONG IS GORGEOUS. Thank you.
Forgot to say this earlier, but on Birthday Proper (we’ve always distinguished between Birthday Proper and Birthday Observed– B/P was this past Monday; B/O is whenever I can get critical mass of friends), B stopped by the house where I was cat-sitting while he knew I’d be out at choir, dropped off a bunch of tasty citrus, and left a card that did not have the words “Happy Birthday” on it, because he knew that “What is going on sucks, but I hope that we will both have a lot of happy days in front of us” would be a lot easier for me to handle.
I’m so sorry you had to deal with that cluelessness on your ex’s part. : /
Joni Mitchell’s Blue is just. The most gut wrenching but true breakup album in the world. “All I Want” is a great song about moving on from a relationship that wasn’t terrible, but wasn’t right, either. SO GOOD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq2jhs19_V8
“I love you when I forget about me” –> cold sweat of recognition
Beck “Sea Change” in its entirety.
Oh, God. “Baby, You’re a Lost Cause.” “I Guess I’m Doing Fine.”
*rips heart out of chest, uses it to play cornhole, wins prize*
That album got me through a couple of particularly vicious breakups; one was that horrible thing when you realize that you met someone one relationship too soon, and then he marries the next person he dates.
Ingrid Michaelson has some good break-up songs:
“Oh What a Day” (the most cheerful break-up song I know)
“Starting Now” (angry and hurt but not you-are-a-terrible-person)
“December Baby” (sad but not you-are-a-terrible-person)
“Starting Now” is so true and full of feeling, and aaagh her guitar playing is so beautiful it hurts.
“It’s my world, it’s not our world anymore.”
Time Machine is fun to sing along to, and as a bonus I like to watch the video and imagine that I didn’t choose the wrong career path and miss out on an opportunity to cast all my favourite male comedians in a music video myself.
ZOMG that video is a total delight. And she does the best “Seriously, dude?” face.
I went with The Mountain Goats Tallahassee, mainly. It covers most breakup feelings.
I also made myself a playlist full of conflicting emotions and named it Therapy.
This song played at the end of a Flashpoint episode and the line ‘a broken heart don’t mean a broken girl within’ was EXACTLY what I needed to hear at that time.
All the hugs during this tough time.
Stay or Leave, Trouble & Some Devil by Dave Matthews (his solo album so minus the Band) are three I listened to on repeat to soothe me during a break up.
Bartender, and also Samson by Regina Spektor.
During my break up of doom, my go to song was ‘Fight Song’ by Rachel Platten. I heard it on the radio while I was driving around with my mum looking at apartments ‘just for fun’ trying to decide if I was going to leave the relationship.
‘This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I’m alright song’
It was a perfect fit for trying to rediscover myself after years of trying to make myself smaller and smaller to fit into the box he’d created to me.
‘Scar’ by Missy Higgins is another great one along those lines – less pop more singer/song writers. Actually, a lot of her songs are good ‘we didn’t work and I’m sad’ songs. ‘Sweet Arms of a Tune’ is probably my favourite, as well as ’10 Days’ and ‘Stand Where I Stood’.
Woke Up New by the Mountain Goats is about feeling sad and lost, and also feeling like you are going to be better.
Jojo’s “Leave (Get Out)” did it for me when I got dumped for an ex!
The entirety of Bjork’s most recent album is about a breakup. It makes it a hard listen in places, but it’s beautiful.
Thank you– I’ve heard a couple songs from it, but not the whole thing yet.
I’m so sorry; this sounds so difficult. You seem to be really insightful about yourself and your emotions, and especially at a time of intense stress and change, that is really impressive! Understanding yourself is so important to choosing things in life that make you happy – and as difficult as it was, you already took the first step! I too recently got out of a long term partnership; it has been painful and disorienting, mixed with moments of relief and clarity. I sympathize with whatever crazy mix of emotions I’m sure you’re feeling, and just know that whatever they are, they are valid. Sending good thoughts your way!
I totally get not choosing to throw a party – in that situation, I wouldn’t feel up to it either. However, do something nice for yourself. Go for a weekend trip away somewhere; buy a package of massages; pick up an old hobby. Treat yourself with the utmost kindness in the next few months.
Ex’s parents, whom I was so worried about losing (but who told me they still think of me as a daughter), have gotten me a gift certificate for a massage, because they know I am cash-strapped and touch-hungry right now.
Working on accepting kindness, and also at trying to direct kind and loving feelings inward.
That is SUCH a thoughtful gift, what kind people.
You sound incredibly brave and I’m impressed with how you are sticking up for yourself here!
Also this part:
At least, I tried so hard to make it work; I learned in the post mortem that some of the things where I thought Metamour had been the sticking point– like all three of us getting together to talk about what was hard / less hard for us respectively– B was actually the sticking point: he’d never asked for a meeting, even though I’d said, “I think I need this in order to be okay.”
I am giving your ex SUCH a big sideye to this. It doesn’t sound like he chose poly over you, it sounds like he chose being lazy over being fair and nice and decent. When you’re ready to be angry at him, let me know because I am already there 🙂
Thank you so much. I (think I) know you from Shakesville, and if I’m right on that, you are among the people whose judgment about poly stuff I trust.
I have gotten some bits of anger– largely over feeling like his request to know what had been difficult for me was painfully belated / aimed mostly at making his future relationships better, and dammit, wasn’t I worth some work, too?– but I am in large measure sad. We have known each other for so long, and it aches that he can’t be the first person I tell everything anymore.
Yes, I’m over at Shakesville a fair amount, though not as much lately since STUPID DISQUS keeps logging me out for no reason all the time, and that’s if my iPad decides to even load the comments, grrr.
You ARE worth work, of course. I’m sorry he didn’t see that. If you are meant to stay friends, it’ll come eventually, organically, I think. But I think it’s also true that if that is meant to happen, a period of no contact needs to happen first, so you can honestly approach friendship with a clear heart. You sound like a really thoughtful, loving, decent person, and your friends sound terrific. You will start feeling better eventually, and I hope that day comes reasonably soon for you.
And…..just on the poly front, I don’t know if this helps, but if I was the metamour in this situation, I would be appalled, perhaps even to the point of breaking up with him. That is not my idea of an honest and workable poly situation.
I hope this isn’t weird, but– you sound like a metamour whom a poly-friendly person would be lucky to have. Thank you for caring about stuff like this.
Aw, thanks. Now if only I could find the motivation and time to date :-/
Hey. I don’t have more wisdom than what other people have said, but I went through something similar where I broke up with someone who was poly because I could not be happy. I’m still processing it, but I realized I was being SO hard on myself for not being more “open” or “evolved” and accepting all the poly stuff in order to be with someone I liked and who wanted to be with me. I’m still forgiving myself.
Other Toasties are right: YOU chose your happiness, and at this moment, it doesn’t include him and what he wants. You are taking care of yourself, which is so good and so hard.
I don’t know if this is you too, but I just want to throw out there: I also struggled with being “fair” to him in my head because I see poly as something you are, as much as something you do. But you can TOTALLY be uncharitable in your head, to us, to your friends, wherever you need to vent. Find the things you didn’t like about him, things you always didn’t like. It will help with the distancing. It’s so hard but time really does help.
*hugs* Best thoughts to you.
Thank you, gloriana, and I’m sorry you had that experience, too. I got so frustrated, while trying to make it work, that all the poly resources seemed to assume all parties were poly– I found it hard not to start pathologizing my own preferences and identity.
Part of why I was hoping to hang in there was to write a practical, useful book on poly/mono relationships, because there is a whole listserve of people I know who’d find it helpful. But. As Therapist said, “Stay in a relationship because you want to stay in the relationship, not because you think the side effects are going to be beneficial someday.”
I am here for this.
My sister and I, for shits and giggles, went to a psychic who sets up shop a few blocks from my apartment and does $10 readings. She told me “You’ve recently broken up with someone,” which y’know, women in super happy and great relationships probably don’t go to psychics very often? So I was like yeppp, and she was like, “he still loves you! you still love him too. He will be back in your life…but there will also be another man, and you’ll have to choose between them.” And I was like SOUNDS PRETTY GREAT.
And then she was like, for $30, I will do a cleansing ritual and give you sage and “BALANCE YOUR CHAKRAS” so that the obstacle keeping you from being together and that has blocked your love life from flourishing will be eliminated.
Reader, I gave it to her. This is the only place where I will admit so. I feel pretty much like an idiot burning the sage that she instructed me to burn every night for nine days, BUT WHATEVER OKAY I AM A VULNERABLE WOMAN IN A VULNERABLE TIME.
Worse comes to worse, I gave some money to an old lady small business owner who looks like Strega Nona?
If I had more money, I would give it to people just for looking like Strega Nona. Is that wrong?
If I’m wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Also here for giving money to people just for looking like Strega Nona. It’s a skill; it deserves rewards.
and yet burning sage every night sounds like a quiet and soothing ritual either way so GO YOU AND GO STREGA NONA.
I saw someone who strongly resembled Strega Nona at the farmers’ market this morning and had to quash the impulse to reach into my wallet.
Also, I picked up some sage (not from Strega Nona), because this thread has helped me realize that I am down for burning some shit.
I love this. May the Strega Nonas of the world live long and prosper.
My partner recently broke up with his other girlfriend. They’d been dating for about three years. They had an argument about what kind of future they each wanted, then she basically ghosted him (and me) for a few months before he was finally able to contact her and formally break it off.
He is heartbroken because he really loved her. She is not heartbroken, as far as I can tell, because she’s still with her other boyfriend. Even though he recently broke her heart because he couldn’t deal with being poly and dumped her, and my partner and I were left trying to console her. I guess as soon as things got tough she ran back to him for fuckall reason.
I’m really mad at her because she’s been behaving like a coward and a shithead. But I also still love her and I want to understand why the fuck she’s acting so out of character. (She had non-relationship-related life stressors going on too.) Even though I’m not the one broken up with I still feel like I’m dealing with breakup feelings, but I’m not really given the social script or space to acknowledge it. It sucks.
That sounds like such a mess, I’m sorry. It sucks not having a good script for this, but I think it’s totally normal to feel some of the breakup feels in your situation!
re:script – Yeah. I get that feeling.
In my case, I found myself in the position of being my new-to-my-city, lover-of-6-months’ main support person through their breakup with their (other, long-distance) partner of 3 years. There were aspects which were really scary – including “if you’re saying these terrible things about this lovely person, what will you be telling folks if you and I break up?”; an intense window of insight into the less-polished ways that folks move through the wold is witnessing them in heartbreak. I also found it challenging not to be overwhelmed by really uncomfortable jealous feelings… struggling to support a person with whom you’re newly in love with grief over love that seemed so much stronger, bigger, than that which they feel for you.
In retrospect, that experience should have been cut-and-run for me. In the end, it established some really awful relationship patterns for us. We never really recovered though we dated for 2.5 more years, and my partner was not able to hold emotional space for the things I was having trouble moving through which were directly influenced by my support role through their breakup. Emotional accountability doesn’t come easy to some people, and not everyone has the will to work on it.
Long sidenote by which to say – it is SO hard to not have a script, and to be experiencing a really intense situation which isn’t intelligible, support-wise, to friends/acquaintances/family/etc.
Good Luck!
It may sound silly but podcasts have been getting me through this one (in addition to excellent friends). All the podcasts all the time.
ME TOO. I listened to the “This is Your Brain on a Breakup” episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You (http://www.stuffmomnevertoldyou.com/podcasts/this-is-your-brain-on-a-breakup/), and I’ve been hooked on the podcast since then. So many great, relevant themes!
Can I tell you my breakup epiphany??
I got dumped right before Christmas. I don’t want to delve into too much about how hurt I was (although I really, really was), because I’m kind of sick of talking about this asshole.
Anyways. I was a pretty dedicated dancer all my life, but since joining the workforce (and my job was not backup dancer for Beyonce, sadly), I have been out of a formal dance class for a few years. I miss it terribly.
There is a fantastic dance studio in my city. It happens to be the best one in my state. I’ve been dying to start taking classes there, but here’s the catch – it is right next to Asshole’s apartment. Do you see how close the letters in this sentence are to one another? THATS how close his apartment is to the studio. I’m very much an out of sight, out of mind person, so I was scared the close proximity would send me into a grief bender and ruin my progress.
On Wednesday I faced my fear and went to dance class. It was AWESOME. I felt alive, and more like me than I have in a long time. As I was driving away, I allowed myself to actually look at his apartment building (I’d been trying to ignore it). Idk what overcame me, but I just screamed “BIIIITTTCCCHHHH” to no one but myself, and started cracking up. So like a lunatic, I kept doing it, and kept laughing. It was amazing. Idk why that felt so liberating, yelling bitch and laughing about it, but I feel like I took back my life with that expletive.
Makes no damn sense, but I’m happy about it. That dance studio is mine to enjoy. Hope all the other broken hearted toasties find peace and love. <3
In my last breakup I actually forced myself to take back all “our” spots as fast as I could. It made me nervous that I’d run into him, as some were literally downstairs from his apartment, but each time, it hurt a little less, and then after I went somewhere with a friend it felt sort of like I marked it, like a dog peeing on a tree. My friends and I called this “#mine” and we suggested that there should be a sticker. And after a breakup you could go around putting that sticker on places and your ex would know you were bouncing back just fine thanks and they didn’t get to ruin your favorite bar.
I’d now recommend this to people, like lean in. Avoid the person like the plague, but take every life thing you had in that relationship and put your paws all over it. Do it, because it gets easier each time and then you feel so badass. In fact the ultimate #mine is when you learn to like something they liked and you didn’t. There was a comedian I didn’t like that much when we dated and I found a new appreciation for her, and I thought how satisfying it might be to see him at one of her shows and have him be like, “what? You hated her” and I’d be like, “oh did I? I dunno I saw her on this tv show and I liked her I guess, oh well, sorry I couldn’t appreciate it when I was with you.”
I love this. I’m doing it.
This is so fucking impressive! Currently, I’ve drawn circles radiating out from the point in Brooklyn where he lives that mark Places I Will No Longer Go. I can’t look at my photos for our trip this summer (ahem, where I generously bought his plane ticket) because nonononono.
But. You are an inspiration. Not sure that I’ll be able to replicate it, but at least I know somewhere in the world, that is a possibility.
Ok, I would definitely not recommend leaning into mementos or photos of trips, I took everything that reminded me of him and stashed it or tossed it Gilmore Girls box style. But don’t let him have those places, especially not whole blocks! I mean, give him any you don’t care about, but if you had a magnificent crepe somewhere that he happened to introduce you to, give yourself that crepe. You might sniffle a bit but I think eventually the joy of a good crepe will soothe you. I think when you go through a breakup everything kind of reminds you, no matter where in the world you go, so you might as well rip that bandaid off. I got upset my friends ordered pizza one night right after because he liked pizza but now I live with my boyfriend who is a pizza chef…so….you know?
Definitely do what you need to do, but I will still strongly advocate for the virtue of going someplace that felt special, crying and then getting through it. It really really feels good, much better than taking the detour and walking the whole extra 5 blocks going, “damn it I won’t think about it”. Because once it doesn’t kill you, you get this little rush of “hell yeah, I’m staring into the storm and I’m living through it, and mm…yes, bring me seconds I’m eating two of “our” dessert because it’s all mine now”.
Ugh, I can’t even go to a yoga studio that’s in his neighborhood. But you’re awesome for facing that fear and kicking its butt.
You mean, you can’t go to YOUR yoga class that he HAPPENS to live near. HOW DARE HE LIVE NEAR YOUR YOGA CLASS!?
No one owns a neighborhood man, that’s common property, but probably you use that neighborhood better than he ever could.
You’re the best.
😉
Go, you, taking back your space! 🙂
Toasties hello!! Now that the No Good Very Bad Horrible 2015 is over, I am happy to say that I am going to be starting 2016 off right with a trip to Iceland! My partner and I are going for the first week of March, and we need your help! What should we do? Where should we go? What should we see? Where should we stay (BnBs, Airbnbs, cheap hotels)? What farm should we choose for riding Icelandic horses? Where is the best moderately difficult hiking? We only rented a 2WD car for the trip, so I’m not expecting that we’ll drive the ring road or anything; I bet we’ll just start out in Reykjavik and then go up the west coast after maybe doing the golden circle. I’d love to get your tips and tricks and stories and pictures and links and opinions!!
i have never been to iceland, but i recall from the “best food you’ve ever eaten” thread, MULTIPLE people mentioned some magical lobster soup they had there. have a lovely lovely time!
YESSS GIMME DAT SOUP
OMG I went to Iceland in 2013 and had that soup! It was AAAAAHMAZING. Incidentally, it was also attached to a beautiful, magical ICEBERG LAGOON complete with a ice-chunk covered black sand beach.
So depending on how long you’re in Iceland, it’s probably not fesable to do seafood soup AND ride horses mostly because horses are in the northwest and seafood soup is on the very farthest southeast point. But! do both if you can 🙂
ICELAND!!! I was there to hike the Laugavegurin a couple of years ago! If you’re looking for day hikes, I recommend the area around Thorsmork or Skogar, they’re easily accessible by bus. (If you do Skogar, don’t go all the way up the volcano without serious preparation… it’s SUPER COOL but more than “moderately difficult.)
Also, if this is your thing, a lot of Icelandic hostels do this thing where they let you rent space in their yard if you bring a tent. You can sleep in the tent, but use their bathrooms and kitchens, and it’s much cheaper than renting a room. There was one particularly neat hostel I stayed at in Selfoss where they let us do that and they had an outdoor hot tub so we could sit in the hot tub and watch the stars, and then roll out of the tub directly into our tent.
The golden circle is cool but extremely touristy. My favorite thing in that area was the Kerid crater, which also seemed to have the fewest visitors. But just driving around the Golden Circle is beautiful!
Also when driving around, keep in mind that weather can suddenly change, and people aren’t kidding when they say storms can get really intense. We tried to drive out to Vik and had to turn around because our tiny car almost got blown off the road in a day-long torrential rainstorm. Also, you will have to stop your car to let sheep cross the road. Probably more than once.
Hope that helps! Also happy to answer any additional questions!
Oh also I just reread your post, the weather in March is likely going to be really cold and a lot of bus routes and hiking trails further inland from the ring road will be closed. Do your research about what’s open ahead of time.
The camping you mentioned sounds pretty great! Not sure I would want to do the whole week that way but I’ll definitely look into it for a night or two. A hot tub under the stars is pretty much ideal…
The weather will definitely be interesting; we’re trying to be pretty conservative in our planning because of the “car getting blown off the road” possibility that you mentioned. I doubt we’ll try to forge inland very much because of how remote it can get, but if we want to go hiking on the west coast I’ll be sure to do my research.
I’ve heard that the golden circle is super touristy; we’re kinda trying to decide whether it’s worth it or not – thoughts?
“Super touristy” is relative. I mean, they’re sightseeing locations, no mistake about it. But it’s not like Times Square. And the sights ARE striking (glaciers, waterfalls, black sand beaches). Even getting to them is a mindtrip (lava fields of doom!). I could see swapping those days for days on some intense inland hike, but it doesn’t sound like you’re planning on that.
Make sure to stop on the way and get a hot dog from the chain of gas stations. I’m serious.
Selfoss (where the hot tub hostel was) is apparently one of the best accessible places to see the northern lights. We didn’t see them when we were there but we also went at the worst time to see them. You might have more luck in March!
I thought the golden circle was worth it because it was easy to do it all in one day and we had so much time in Iceland that it was fine, so it depends on how long you are staying and how much driving you’re okay with doing in one day. It may be less crowded in March because of colder weather. I think if you’re only there for a couple of days, you’ll maybe want to pick and choose which specific things you want to see along the golden circle.
One other thing I just thought of – there is a really good flea market in Reykjavik at the Kolaportið, iirc it’s only open on Sundays, but it’s definitely worth going to. They sell smaller quantities of a lot of Icelandic foods that you may want to try but don’t want to buy a ton of (like hákarl), and it’s also much cheaper if you want to buy one of those distinctive Scandanavian sweaters.
I’ll have to give the golden circle some thought, then, because we only have seven days and I feel like that’s not very long!
The flea market sounds perfect; I’ll add it to my list!
I will wave as our planes pass each other – I am going in the second week of March! You should: do a northern lights coach trip (they will keep taking you out nightly if you don’t see anything), and probably the golden circle, and whale watching. Last time I went we just went to the tourist office in central Reykjavik, picked up leaflets and told the very helpful lady what we wanted to do and she booked us stuff. And do the blue lagoon (almost typed black lagoon) on the way home, it’s halfway between Ryekjavik and the airport, so most of the hotels will do shuttles with a stop at the lagoon on the way.
What a coincidence!! I’ll be sure to wave back at you!
I really, really want to see the northern lights – we actually moved the trip dates by a week to try to up our chances, or else we’d be visiting at the same time!! Since we have the car I might look into some places we can drive to ourselves to avoid paying for the coach tour, but it might be the best option in the end. We’ll be sure to check out the tourist office in Reykjavik; they sound super helpful! Was the blue lagoon super crowded when you went? I’ve seen a couple of places that say to skip it because it’s so full of people all the time.
I don’t remember it being massively crowded – certainly not enough to put me off and I am vastly antisocial. We did a superjeep (v expensive but just the two of us and driver) for the golden circle – it was timed so we were alone everywhere. We are doing coach this time as my friend who I’m going with is stretching her budget so we can stay four nights, but it will still be amazing.
Perlan is lovely and worth walking over to.
And I had missed your call for pictures in my excitement at replying so here they are.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lebatihem/albums/72…
Great pictures! Thank you!
I did Blue Lagoon on the way in from the airport, because our flight was a red eye and nothing was open in town yet. It was great to decompress after a long flight, and the shuttle service stores your luggage there while you soak so whenever you’re ready to continue on you just let the next driver know.
Also, if you haven’t yet found the I Heart Reykjavik blog I would recommend it. She has a background working in tourism and leads walking tours in town, but also just has a bunch of helpful information and unbiased reviews of other tours, attractions, lodging, etc. from before she started her business a year or so ago.
A couple of people have recommended that blog – I’ll check it out! My partner and I aren’t normally swimming-type people anyway, so I’m not sure about paying admission to the blue lagoon. You all have certainly given me a lot to think about, which is exactly what I wanted!
It’s less swimming and more a hot bath. A bath in very, very stinky water; but your nose goes numb to sulfur pretty quick.
It’s a beautiful spot, and the water is really high not only in sulfur but in silica and a few other things. It’s really good for skin conditions like acne and psoriasis.
Also I’m going to have my “I liked it before anyone heard of it” moment and point out that when my family lived in Keflavik, the Blue Lagoon was literally a gravel parking lot and a couple of changing rooms and shower rooms that didn’t even have lockers, just shelves of baskets for your things, on either side of a “lounge” that sold fried food and beer. And now it’s a huge convention center and spa!
I have been to Iceland, the summer after I graduated college to visit my father while he was on a project there on the north-westish side of the island (near Eskifjordur, google maps tells me).
I did a tour of an aluminum smelting plant (cool, but probably not what you want to do with your time), had some truly fantastic lobster bisque at a tiny restaurant I know not where on the way to (or possibly from?) a glacier tour on the western side of the big glacier in the middle of the island, went Icelandic horseback riding (they are very wee, it is not like regular horseback riding) somewhere near the plant itself, saw some puffins nesting on a cliff, and definitely drove past a whole bunch of very lovely waterfalls.
I know, I know: I really wish 22 year-old jwhittz had taken better notes, too.
Even if 22-year-old you was not a copious note-taker, it sounds like you had a great time! I can’t wait to see some non-zoo puffins and get my tiny horse riding jam on.
Oh, I’m jealous! I’ve been to Iceland twice (once in June and once in February) and mostly stayed in the Reykjavik area, but I am dying to go back and explore more. I second the Thorsmork recommendation. I also highly recommend the hotdogs: http://www.bbp.is/information-in-english I’ve done horse riding at two different places and recommend this one: http://islenskihesturinn.is/ The people there were super nice and did a little intro talk before the ride, which was reassuring (I am not an experienced rider) and educational. Have a wonderful time!
Thanks so much for the links! I am an experienced rider but my partner is not, so that stable sounds just right. I have come across SO MUCH about the hot dogs in my research… it’s the most delightful thing I’ve learned about Iceland so far! Can’t wait to try them.
We are debating riding – we both have horses but the only icelandic horse I have ever ridden made me feel very seasick and she is 6 foot tall and refuses to come and ride my ponies because she is worried about feeling daft!
There’s so much obsession about the hot dogs not only because they’re supposedly tasty, but because they’re the only cheap food!
YES THE HOT DOGS
I went last March. It will still be frigid, the weather will still be borderline (snow, rain, sleet, hail, and sunshine all within the span of about half an hour) and gale-force winds are pretty likely. Dress extra warmly and try not to bring anything you can’t strap down. If you don’t have good snow/ice boots you may be better off with sneakers.
As far as what to see, large parts of the island may still be difficult or impossible to access, but I liked Snaefaellsness, Thingvellir, and Mt Hekla. The Viking Museum and the Aurora museum in Reykjavik can probably be skipped. Blue Lagoon has turned into a tourist trap but there are lots of smaller, more out of the way places you can visit instead.
In Reykjavik we stayed at a hotel on Thorsgata, which wasn’t cheap but had a nice view of the Hallgrimskirkja and convenient access to downtown. I don’t remember where else we stayed but it was nothing exceptional.
Hakarl (fermented shark meat) is a worth a try if you hate life.
This is great info, thank you! Especially since you went in March as well. It seems to be the month that no one talks about in the guide books or on the blogs. From the sound of it, the Snaefaellsness peninsula would be great for us, so I’m really excited to plan out our time there.
I don’t think I’ll be trying to shark meat… I’m a vegetarian who’s going to be eating fish and some meat for the trip, but that’s a bit too far beyond the pale.
Hakarl is the kind of food invented by a people who literally lost people to starvation every winter (which, they did, for a long time). The shark meat when fresh is poisonous! How desperate do you have to be to try burying it underground for a year and then trying to eat it again?!
Iceland is my favorite place! I only was there for a couple of days so I didn’t get to do as much as I wanted to do.
Blue lagoon is a must.
Golden circle is good, but you might want to go in your car if weather permits so you can control your own time. My bus spent forever at one stop and only 20 minutes at the national park.
I rode here: http://www.ishestar.is I felt very safe, they were very nice and knowledgable, there was food, and the park was gorgeous. They also split into two groups for the more experienced riders who wanted to go faster and the less experienced riders and matched you with your horse based on experience level.
Also the thing that has shot to the top of my bucket list is scuba diving in the continental divide in the lake in the park I can never remember the name of.
Have a blast!
Thank you! The stable’s website is excellent, thanks for the rec! My partner’s not a very experienced rider whereas I want to be left alone with a horse in the wilderness for the rest of my life, so a split-up ride could be exactly what we need.
Þingvellir aka Thingvellir
I think you can do the ring road with a 2wd! It was paved all the way, and it was SO GREAT. Also the Snaesfellsness peninsula had good roads! We used Blue Car for the rental- they rent out older cars that are a lot more affordable.
It’s starting to sound like the peninsula is the place for us! I’m not ready to tackle the ring road this trip – it seems you need 10+ days to really do it properly, plus then we’ve got an excuse to go back!
Oh, and our best day out of all the fantastic days on the trip was when we took the ferry to Heimaey in the Westman Islands- you can climb on a volcano with this amazing red earth that is still warm and climb up the sea cliffs surrounded by birds and wander over the lava fields that covered half the town in the 1970s.
That sounds wonderful!
So excited for you!
Eat at the Coocoo’s Nest! The pizza, drinks, and service were great, and the space is so charming: https://www.facebook.com/cafecoocoos/
Hotels in Reykjavik were a little lackluster. The nicest hotel we stayed in was in the northern capital, Akureyri, and it was affordable: http://www.icelandairhotels.com/en/hotels/akureyr…
You can take a cheap local flight from Reykjavik up over the mountains. Kaffi Ilmur (http://kaffiilmur.com/about/english/) was such a highlight. The whale-watching is great (if nothing else, you get a beautiful view of the fjords), and the hot springs nearby were wonderful (less crowded and much cleaner than the famous ones near the airport).
If you have time to get to the Faroe Islands, please come back and tell us all about it!
These are great resources; thank you! I hadn’t even considered the Faroe Islands… yet another thing I want to do!!! I love the idea of a hot spring in a more out of the way area, so I’ll have to see if doing a short flight makes sense.
I just got back from Iceland! It was AWESOME. My friends and I rented a flat via airbnb a couple blocks from Laugevager, the main drag & shopping street in Reykjavik. I can’t recommend this enough- we were able to walk to all sorts of cool places in the city, and we saved up our money for fancy cocktails and beer by using the flat’s kitchen for breakfast and lunch. Plus, we had a home base to relax in when we needed some down time.
We went to see the Northern Lights using Reykjavik excursions- they bus you outside of the city, and if you don’t see any lights, you can go again another night for free. The National History Museum is excellently done, and compact enough to get through in a morning or afternoon without exhausting you. Go to one of the city’s public pools instead of Blue Lagoon- Sundhollen, up by Hallgrimskirkja has outdoor hot tubs.
But really we spent most of our time eating and drinking. Places in the city I really enjoyed: Laundromat Cafe, which is cheap and delicious and has good vegetarian options; Cafe Loki for their “Icelandic Braveheart” dish (dried fish, rye bread, brennevin, and a bit of fermented shark). My friend had the most amazing seafood soup at Old Iceland Restaurant. If you drink, go to Mikkeller & Friends: Mikkeller has a huge selection of experimental and small-batch beers, while the “& Friends” is a nameless cocktail bar on the ground floor that creates works of art in cocktail form.
Yes Mikkeller! Did you eat pizza at that place? Very tasty.
Oooh, no, we didn’t- I found that they were not super good with providing non-drink menus, and besides, I wanted to save room in my belly for delicious, mezcal-based cocktails.
Did you do drinks at Mikkeller, beer or otherwise? I tried a coffee IPA that just about knocked my socks off. I want to go baaaaaaaack.
This is all such excellent info! Thank you! I’m having a lot of good luck with Airbnb so far, so I bet we’ll end up using that exclusively. I really hope we see the northern lights, too – just not sure yet how we’ll set that up. Thanks also for all the restaurant recs – I will save everything to my Master List!
Hooray! I thiiiiink that with Excursions, they will pick you up (maybe if you pay a bit extra?) in a mini bus and take you to the bus depot, where you would get on another bus to go to a good place to see the Lights. Maybe? I did not handle that part of our trip.
Tangentially, there is something amazing about the water in Reykjavik. The hot water smells of eggy farts, BUT my hair has never been so sleek, and my skin has never been so smooth and glowing as it was when we stayed there. YMMV.
I’ve never been, and so have no actually helpful suggestions, but a friend of mine has a few time now, and there’s a place you can go scuba diving between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates 😀
That’s what I’ve heard, too! Sounds incredible!!
I was in Iceland for two weeks at the end of September! It was fab! (I have posted about Iceland before, so sorry to any Toasts who are rereading my blather).
Horses! Week one of my trip was a horseback riding/sheep herding tour offered by IsHestar http://www.ishestar.is. They could not have been nicer and their horses were just fine with good gear and safety procedures. Slight tangent: there are reviews on places like TripAdvisor where people have had a bad time on their day trips, but I strongly suspect these are people with no riding experience who also acted like jackasses. Icelanders do not seem to suffer fools gladly but also will only give you the minimal information you need, so when they give you instructions, pay attention and do what they ask!
tl;dr Icelandic horses are lovely and very calm, so as long as you leave your common sense turned on, you should have a fun time riding.
Weather! Not as cold as Chicago in deep winter, but much less pleasant with all the spitty rain. Bring waterproof gear and warm stuff to go underneath it.
Driving! During our second week, we took day trips to the Blue Lagoon and the Golden Circle and then an overnight trip to Holmavik in the Westfjords. It did rain a lot off and on (be prepared for seeing more rainbows than you have ever seen in your life), and our little 2WD car was fine. As a safety precaution, we did not do any night driving out in the country; road signs are minimal, weather is unpredictable and people are sometimes few and far between. We took an actual, physical road map, which turned out to be a great idea since there were plenty of places with no cell coverage.
Lodging! Air BnB all the way, baby. You will get much better value. Everything there is SO EXPENSIVE and hotels are especially overpriced. The one night we did plan to stay in a hotel was in the Westfjords, but it was a disaster. The place was deserted when we arrived and apparently closed for the season, although we had made advance reservations. We ended up at a guesthouse in Holmavik, which was just fine and a bit cheaper anyway.
Blue Lagoon: bring a hat. The water may be warm, but the air above it may not be! Also, admission is cheaper if you bring your own towel.
Golden Circle: do it! It is “touristy” in the sense that you can buy countless souvenirs at each stop and everyone goes there, but, I mean. GIANT WATERFALL. GEYSIR. It’s the real deal and you shouldn’t miss it.
The hot dogs are amazing. Also, in Rejkjavik there is a waffle cart next to the Hallgrimskirkja, which you should be sure to visit. Finally, the Settlement Museum is neat if you have any interest in archaeology.
You’re the second one to recommend that stable for riding; I will definitely give it a good long look. It’s really hard to trust reviews about riding, isn’t it? I don’t really know much about TripAdvisor but I’m not very tempted to look there for my recs. That’s why I’ve got you guys!!
Thanks for the driving info – at the moment I’m not sure whether to upgrade our 2WD to 4WD or not. I’m going to have to do some research tonight into the pricing. Experiences seem split, and of course the weather is totally unpredictable.
I was leaning toward just doing Aribnb to begin with, and it sounds like that’s the way to go! Any specific places you liked?
My friend and I stayed at the Little Red House our first night in Rejkjavik https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2639503. The hosts were such nice people.
I went to Iceland last year and it was amazing! I really, really want to go back.
We stayed at Butterfly Guesthouse in Reykjavik, and it was wonderful. It’s not fancy, but breakfast is included and Jon was really nice to us. I also really like the guesthouse experience of getting to talk to all the other people staying there, but I’m pretty extroverted so your mileage may vary.
We took the south shore tour, and if you have a car I do recommend seeing the black pebble beaches. I have never seen anything like them.
The two fancy restaurants we went to were Resto and Fiskmarkadurinn. At Resto, everyone was wonderfully nice, the food was AMAZING and the owner came out and said hi. Fiskmarkadurinn is sort of expensive (you can pay 80 euro for the tasting menu, but it is like 7 courses and has the best desserts ever) but we really enjoyed it.
Eat all the lamb you can and go to Baejarins Beztu Pylsur for hot dogs, I don’t even like hot dogs and I’ve considered going back just for that. Also you can get two and a coke for 10 euro and I would eat them every day.
Seriously if you don’t do anything else please eat the hot dogs. (Unless you don’t eat meat, of course)
This is all great stuff! The restaurants sound great… I’ve never done a tasting menu before, but maybe now is the time for me to get ~fancy. I have seriously heard so much about the hot dogs – seems like we don’t have a choice but to go and try them!! I’ll check out the guesthouse too; I would say I’m a bit of an extrovert so it could work!
Just replying so I can come back to this later!
All of my advice is nearly twenty years old, as my family lived on the now-closed American military base in Keflavik from 1989 to 1991. But….definitely do the Blue Lagoon.
New Year, time for a new fanfic thread!!!
I’ve been mainlining all of blackglass’ podfics because they are the best and her Darcy voice is MY FAVORITE THING. Also it keeps me from freaking out about things so A+++
What have you been reading? Any Force Awakens OT3 fic recommendations would be welcome since I have yet to dive into the archive.
I discovered this series of Harry Potter “what if?” scenarios (what if Harry were sorted into Slytherin? What if the Dursleys refused to take Harry in? etc.) and I have not stopped crying
http://archiveofourown.org/series/285498
I just read those recently as well! They are so good. I love all of that author’s work.
Oh geez that author. I think I’ve read just about everything they’ve written in the fandoms I’m even adjacent to. I might have to plan a reread now.
Those are so good! And there’s so many of them that I still haven’t read.
Ooooh thank you I am going to be reading those
OMG. But I have to work! And now I want to read all of these! :\
Wait….podfics?!?! Tell me more. This a sounds very relevant to my interests
Yeeees, it’s basically people who read the fics and make them into audiobooks and I am IN LOVE. I’m a huge fan of blackglass, but there are soooo many of them out there. You just need to figure out what narrators you like best!
STOP THIS IS AMAZING. I love both fanfic and audiobooks in equal measure, and I mostly read JAFF bc I’m stuck in a rut but this may help me venture out. Thank you!
Go here: http://www.audiofic.jinjurly.com/ Say goodbye to your free time and any plans of being productive ever again.
oh…oh my. Bless you!
I’m still working my way through this year’s Yuletide fics, which of course led me down a wormhole of reading all the fics for various fandoms that I hadn’t previously known about.
My gift this year was an Agatha-hangs-out-with-her-dog masterpiece from Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On. It was a delight and I love Yuletide http://archiveofourown.org/works/5462777
I am the last person in the world to watch Buffy, so I’ve started to dip my toe in the vast world of Buffy fic. I haven’t actually finished the series yet, but I’m always curious about what older fandoms are like, so I couldn’t make myself wait any longer. Luckily Buffy people are excellent at indicating exactly where in time a fic is supposed to take place.
I don’t have any Force Awakens recs really, but damn if I’m not still riding high on Star Wars. I’ve been spending the past few days finding and rereading the fics of my youth and it is glorious. So much Obi-Wan. And Liam Neesons. But mostly Obi-Wan. Baby’s first slash fics.
*It’s All Coming Back To Me plays faintly in the distance*
I’m SO ASHAMED to admit it, but I read some really, really terrible Anakin/Padme fics when I was a teenager.
LOOK, ATTACK OF THE CLONES CAME OUT WHEN I WAS LIKE 14 AND SUPER INTO TRAGIC ROMANCES, YOU CAN’T JUDGE ME, ALL 14 YEAR OLDS MAKE MISTAKES
I’ve been too afraid to go back and see if they’re still on ff.net.
Same age, same story. Only with a lot of Obi-Wan too. Because I swear Ewan McGregor pretty much was my sexual awakening. That man. I don’t think there was a pairing I didn’t read if he was in it. Remember obidala? Oh yeah. I was there for that.
Oh thank god I’m not alone *weeps into your shoulder*
If you find some true gems, pls pass them along.
I will. So far a surprising amount of them have been tolerable if not good? I’m honestly a bit shocked.
I’m ashamed to admit how many times I saw that first crappy prequel Star Wars at the cinema for that very reason. I have no idea why the idea of Qui-Gon Jinn x Obi Wan appealed to my teen brain at the time, because god knows none of the characters had any chemistry at all in any of the prequels, but between my then best friend and I we just couldn’t get enough of them!
We used to sit on the floor of her bedroom and pass a notebook back and forth between us, writing a paragraph of shippy fic each.
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan was the best thing to come out of the prequels. I will fight anyone who says otherwise. And the entire series of 100% canon (at the time) Jedi Apprentice books? That only cemented it. I can’t even summon the energy to be embarrassed on behalf of my young self.
One of my fave fic authors of all time (emmagrant) started writing fic with the prequels, though I didn’t read any of her stuff until she was halfway through her second Harry/Draco novella.
I was browsing TFA fics the other day, and I found two of the best things I have ever read: a My Immortal crossover in which Kylo Ren murdres Enoby, and this ridiculous gem of a fic in which Poe Dameron has to explain to his girlfriend and boyfriend that he’s kind of a space princess. Just. Read it this second.
Oh my god that second fic, I need to have it encased in bronze and hung up on my wall. IT IS EVERYTHING I DREAM THAT THIS OT3 CAN BE
Everything that leupagus writes is golden. They’ve written literally one fic each for Captain America and Miss Fisher’s, and yet those fics are my gold standard for their character voices.
The one fic of theirs about Poe and his tree and Luke Skywalker and I can’t even type about it and maintain coherency. I literally scream every time I see that it’s updated.
to the sky without wings by leupagus is made of gold and dreams. If you have any feelings for Poe read it now.
Oh my god I just spent the last hour+ reading the four chapters of this that are up and it’s brilliant and well-crafted and incredibly hot in places and generally seems very in sync with the canon while still bringing new and interesting elements to the story, and all I can say is THANK YOU. I don’t know how I’m going to survive until the remaining chapters go up.
I KNOW RIGHT?
That fic had me in a gibbering wreck from the first chapter. Which I thought was a one off at the time. Then all of a sudden a day or two later there were two chapters and I almost exploded with sheer delight. If I could just find a way to concentrate its magic and then mainline it for the next two years or so I’d be completely good with waiting blind for Episode VIII. That fic hits ALL of my fannish buttons. Heck. I’m pretty sure it hits buttons I didn’t even know I had.
I had every intention of maybe casually browsing some Finn/Poe stuff until you mentioned this, but it turned out to be he fix I never knew I wanted.
No no no I was trying to get Things Done this weekend. Begone, evil temptress.
That second fic was SO CUTE
I do not have any Force Awakens recs.
Over Christmas I read a ton of thingswithwings’ fic, because she is wonderful and writes great stuff.
I have been watching Voyager while my other shows are on hiatus and I have a deep need for good Tom/B’Elanna fic and Chakotay/Janeway fic, because I am completely hearteyes about both of those ‘ships, 20 years after the original source material aired. (I watched some of the first seasons during the original run and it’s interesting which episodes I remember…) ETA: so far this season they Tom and B’Elanna have come within moments of “aliens made them do it” and “huddling together for warmth”, which is just UNFAIR
What kind of fanfiction are we talkin’ here, before I embarrass myself with my recommendations.
I will read literally anything at this point- smut, gen, crack, AU, whatever. I’m still exploring my TFA preferences.
Also, if you just mean sharing what you’re reading, this is a ~safe space~. Some of the fics in my past are…really not good
I don’t have any TFA recommendations I’m afraid, since it’s not something I really really cared to explore fandom-wise. But I do have some stellar Fury Road and Dragon Age bookmarks tucked away. I suppose it depends if you’re after the slash, or the het in that case. The Fury Road fandom has to have some of the best written het-smut I’ve ever read, which could be because it taps into my personal preference for strong woman getting all the taking care of. Dragon Age is full of fantastic writers in general, no matter your fancy.
GIVE ME ALL THE FURY ROAD HET RECS
Generally, I prefer het which I know is pretty unusual in fandom these days. And the only Fury Road fic I’ve read is that coffee shop AU that everyone was obsessed with (for good reason).
There is a lot of good Fury Road het! Most of it is Max/Furiosa, unsurprisingly (and I am very happy with that).
The Length and Breadth of Fury Road is wonderful. It’s Max/Furiosa, but very slow-burn – it’s now at 104 chapters and there’s still a lot of dancing around each other and not knowing how to get close without getting hurt, but it is amazingand will give you All The Feels. Lots of focus on dealing with PTSD and trying to rebuild a broken socity.
Orbit – Max/Furiosa, slowly getting close to each other; very sweet, excellent smut.
Burn It All Away. Nux/Capable; about trust and consent and learning how to be together (are you sensing a theme? There is a lot of this in Fury Road fandom, and I love it).
The Mountains Are the Same – long series from the author of Orbit and another (also great!) author, mainly dealing with the relationship between Furiosa and her War Rig crew, but there’s some Furiosa/Max, too.
battle_cat has written lots of great one-shots, predominently het and Max/Furiosa.
Seconding the rec for Orbit. Really, really good.
And I, of course, am always here for dragon age recs. Because my frigging subscription list isn’t long enough already…. sigh.
[*I’m super embarrassed to post this but have relevant information regarding your question* emoji]
Salmon_Pink on ao3 has a bunch of cute, short, smutty Poe/Finn ones
I don’t have any specific links, because I always forget titles, but I’ve been reading a lot of Thilbo fic lately. I feel slightly guilty, but I just can’t stop. Fortunately, the movies are sufficiently divorced from the book that I’m not killing my childhood.
I got all sad fanfic-wise this week, because I was feeling nostalgic for knights of the old republic what with all the star wars chat. I…read a LOT of KOTOR fic back in the day, and it’s all GOOONEE. kotorfanmedia.com is no more. There’s a bit on ao3 but it’s not the same.
That’s how I feel about some of the super old HP fics I used to read. I am KICKING myself for not downloading a copy of my beloved Mary Sue!Ginny fic before it was yanked from the interwebs
Is it too daft to suggest The Wayback Machine? Or have you already tried and failed to nab it?
Anyone else praying for a post-christmas special sherlock fic explosion?
ALSO my boss expressed an interest in sherlock fic, so I said I would send her some. But then realized I can’t send explicit sex scenes to my boss?
I mean, The Least of All Possible Mistakes isn’t too explicit. It’s basically your standard novel. Except, you know, better.
rageprufrock has left more than one unfinished Kingsman fic and is now writing Hannibal instead and I feel betrayed by this. (not really, pru, you’re great)
A rare confluence of events Toasties, it’s London tube stations having a meeting at the pub.
Also – I’ve been really interested in fandom’s take on Kyoko from Ex_Machina, and this one is an interesting read.
oh my god, I have been so busy at work this week but not too busy to completely lose myself in the OT3 goodness that is TFA.
I am def going to be late leaving work but I don’t caaaare
http://archiveofourown.org/works/5664871
http://archiveofourown.org/works/5483918
http://archiveofourown.org/works/5645242
yes i have a thing for ridiculously good-looking people who pine longingly, what of it
also, MORE STORMTROOPER DEFECTIONS PLEASE:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/5648131
Cats.
On Thursdays we stick one paw out and sit on something pink.
Seriously, this is the first time I’ve ever seen them cuddle or something close to it.
Sadly, Cloe knows she’ll never get to be a part of this.
OMG, the last pic and it’s caption made this go from “awwwww” to “morning coffee spit take”. Thank you for starting my day with a mighty guffaw!
Poor Chloe, though!
Poor Cloe. Only Casimir Pulaskitty will cuddle with her. Gomez only vaguely tolerates her presence.
CASMIR PULASKITTY! It just gets better! 😂
Is that a very dapper scarf Cloe is wearing?
It is. It was her mandatory Xmas cheer scarf, but now I’m too lazy to take it off.
My foster kitten is getting adopted tonight… My place is going to feel so empty (until the new, fresh cat or cats get here).
Aww. Good luck with the next one!
DO NOT WAKE ME UP, DOORBELL ON THE TV
I am not convinced I want to be your kindle-rest.
Those are A+ kitty grump faces.
The moustache!!
Continuing with the theme of adorable kitty nuzzles, I present Black Cat and Snowball (who only escaped being called White Cat because there has previously been a White Cat).
I would subscribe to Saffron’s blog.
This is helping heal my broken heart. I have to give my guy up for adoption or long-term fostering asap because my ex can’t handle having him around any more and I can’t have a cat in my current housing situation. Any Philly-area people interested in a teenage dirtbag cat? (He’s also playful and affectionate and adorable and chatty, but he’s definitely a teenage dirtbag). And how do you post pictures here?
I post them to imgur and then copy-paste the html code they provide.
Thanks!
Oliver was teeny
And had manga eyes
And didn’t like his cone one bit
Oliver is bigger now and loves the sun
gorgeous baby!
I have a friend in Philadelphia who has fostered before and loves cats. She has a housemate with two, so probably isn’t a good fit right now, but since she’s worked with foster organizations in the past, she may know of someone. I’ll ask her. Sorry you have to say goodbye. 🙁
Thanks for checking!
Okay, so the friend doesn’t know of anyone, but the program she’s fostered through is called City Kitties. They might be able to help you find him a new home. It’s a pretty great program.
I’m so sorry about your cat! I hope you find a long-term foster parent!
They are soooo cute!!
I moved a few months ago and my cat is taking a red-eye next week (!) by herself (!!) to join me and I’m stuck between elated and worried.
FULL BLEP.
Charlie has become quite the lap cat this winter.
Gertrude Queen of Denmark is seizing control of the couch territories.
THIS MINE.
attempted selfie with Clio–wanted to try again last night fresh from my haircut, but she was not interested.
She is, however, very interested in Larry Wilmore, I guess.
The wreckage from Christmas presents–catnip is everywhere now.
OMG my cat is too cute I had to take this just now.
Oliver loves laps, but doesn’t like bright lights while on laps.
haha that blanket looks familiar.
It is the softest and comfiest of blankets!
I am cat-sitting for a friend right now after not having cats for awhile and it is hilarious. One of them loves nothing more than to crawl entirely under a blanket, so that nothing remains but a vaguely cat-shaped lump. We have passed a very pleasant afternoon in this fashion.
Does she squeak when you poke her like Saffron does when she is in that situation?
I have no picture because I was just getting out of the shower, but this morning Feline Julie Andrews was in the bathroom, standing on her hind legs, and staring at the sink faucet as though it showed her all of the secrets of the universe.
She did not “snap out of it” for a full three minutes. I timed her.
My neighbor just had a baby so I’ve been taking care of her horses for the past week. I have yet to meet the baby but I’m spending at least 20% of my time in the barn befriending the two skittish barn cats. Thus far I have been sniffed several times and have petted one cat respectfully on the top of his head three times.
(To be fair, I do have a cold and I’m trying not to get mom or baby sick but I’m pretty ok with how this is working out so far.)
Patrick’s new favorite place to hang out:
I thought “aw, how cute, he’s doing it again” this afternoon & went to take a follow-up photo, and then I saw the partially dismembered rat he’d set beside him in the grass. D:
Your couch looks soooo cozy, I dig it.
In the second picture your Gomez looks a lot like my Bacardi (right down to the disdainful facial expession). Black cats are so lovely.
That pink couch is heaven, especially with that white Xmas tree next to it. And poor Chloe (I have a cat named Chloe) is adorbs in her scarf.
I have been thinking about what I want to make for dinner this weekend for the last half hour (instead of working) and I have concluded that what my heart/stomach desires is beef stew. I know I tried to make beef stew a few years ago and it came out shockingly flavorless, so does anyone have recipes to recommend?
I recommend adding alcohol to your beef stew, if that’s in your eating habits.
Like, a really healthy whopping glug glug glug of wine.
That is very much within my eating habits.
So, I don’t have a recipe, but I would do the following:
heat oil of your choosing (usually olive in my kitchen, could be bacon grease)
saute onions and garlic
add beef to brown it
add stock (I often make my own chicken stock, but store bought chicken/beef is fine) or water (but less flavour)
add veggies of you choice (caveat – if you are adding cabbage, I would braise it with the beef/onion mix before adding water to reduce boiled cabbage taste)
bring to a boil, turn down low to simmer simmer simmer for a while (an hour? 90 minutes)
add wine while simmering
salt/pepper/seasonings to taste
My mom often uses whole peppercorns in her soups/stews and bay leaf
You could also do the saute/braise step in a pan, and then transfer it to a slow cooker and add veggies/broth/wine
Good luck!
^ this is what i do too, and basically what thomas keller does, though he will say to make a delicious veggie stock and then add new veggies to the browned beef so you can get double veggie goodness.
another thing i do is add the wine first after browning the steak pieces, to deglaze any tasty bits before adding liquids.
and another thing you can do is caramelize onions by slow cooking to add to all this for even more flavor.
funny you post about this, i was planning to stop for stew pieces today to make the very same thing. perfect hearty winter food [for carnivores anyway].
Caramelized onions sound soooo gooooood.
and they’re so easy if you have a block of time! you can do them with butter or coconut oil, just low heat, slow cook, flip & move them around occasionally until they’re brown [a couple hours is good]. start with a lot and save some in a jar to add to … everything!
Yes, the more wine the better. The tannins in red wine mimic the iron-rich flavor of beef, which you lose when you stew it as the blood leaks out and cooks. I make my beef stew with a whole bottle of red wine and it is absolutely to die for.
Also: thyme. Lots and lots of thyme.
Do you have a favorite kind of red to cook with? I’m a wine fan but I drink more whites than reds, so I just sort of pick at random at the store.
The Clos du Bois Cabernet is usually cheap (but not paralyzing headache cheap – I don’t handle alcohol well, but this one treats me decently enough) and cooks well. Also, I would drink it if that was a thing I did. I use it for my beef stew and my red sauce in all its variations.
Do you have a crockpot? This is the recipe I use & love: http://www.familyfreshmeals.com/2013/10/best-croc…
Even without a crockpot, the basic principles of adding tomato paste (or sauce) and worchestershire sauce probably holds. (And I usually almost-double the garlic in everything, but that’s because I’m a garlic fiend and my husband is locked down so he has to deal with the breath 😛 )
I do have a crockpot! And I love Worcestershire sauce and garlic.
This is my favorite recipe (ignore the name): http://ravenouskitchen.com/2013/12/beef-stew-in-h…
Seconding adding wine. Also worcestershire sauce. If you’re using homemade broth add more salt than you think you need.
I was literally about to post that exact link.
And now I want to make some for dinner.
Me too. If only we hadn’t just bought a zillion pounds of chickens.
Worcestershire is the key to So Many Awesome Things, secretly. My mom also throws soy sauce in her beef stew and it works. I do not, and it also works. But it’s an idea to play with.
A can of dark beer is also a delightful addition to beef stew. Not WITH the wine though. Choose one. Also add some beef broth/bullion/etc instead of plain water. I use the Better than Bullion paste that you have to refrigerate after opening. You can use that with wine or beer.
Also, if you are making this on the stovetop, cook a couple slices of bacon in the pot you are going to use, then brown your beef in the bacon fat. Crumble the bacon and stir it into the stew as well.
You can add Worcestershire sauce, and red wine vinegar (together, even) if you don’t use either alcohol option suggested above.
Guinness stew is the only way I’ll make it any more; so delicious.
Somebody just reheated their bacon-containing lunch and it smells so bacony in here, so I will definitely do that.
Tips for beef stew:
you need a really good stock! Also wine.
Put potatoes in or serve with boiled potatoes (this is the true Irish way to do it and best imo.)
Before browing your beef: dice it and roll in seasoned flour. I don’t know why this helps but its how my granny did it and it works.
You need a really heavy cast iron casserole pot that can go in the oven. Or a pressure cooker will do in a pinch.
Try putting tomato puree in it if its still flavourless (ketchup also works)
Paprika in the flour mix adds so much flavor.
Oooh tasty!
I imagine a touch of cumin might go well with that too….
On the good stock bit here – this is a significant chunk of extra work, but when I do beef stew on a weekend I make my own stock on Saturday and then the stew on Sunday. I use Alton brown’s beef broth recipe here (only I don’t have a pressure cooker so I do it in the slow cooker for a longer time – ~6 hours):
ABs Beefy Broth
It only adds like an extra hour of active prep, and then on Sunday I just make the biggest possible batch of beef stew using all of it and freeze a bunch.
Best beef stew in the world.
http://www.foodland.com/recipe/local-style-beef-s…
When I do it, I do this.
Preheat oven to some kind of lowish heat.
Brown onions in a little puddle of olive oil.
Coat beef in flour and paprika, add it to the onions, brown the surface.
Add any other veg you are adding (I like tomatoes, aubergine, leeks, mushrooms), fry them a bit.
Add beef stock (I use kallo cubes as they are no MSG), a tin of tomatoes (if you want it tomatoey), some tomato puree, a fair whack of red wine, some soy sauce, some sweet chili sauce, some herby spicey stuff. I have a selection of mixes so I have a Hungarian one that makes it a bit stroganoffey, garlic Italian ones, Moroccan, Egyptian, Persian etc.
Simmer it on the hob until you can lean over and breathe in and not get wine-fumes in the back of your throat.
Put in the oven for half an hour.
Take out, taste, add whatever it needs – often more sweet chili (which is good in everything), soy sauce, herbs/spices. The soy sauce is instead of salt and zings it up a bit.
I normally add rice/pasta/dumplings at this point because I prefer them to potatoes.
Back in the oven for another half hour so whatever starch I added can cook without falling apart.
My favorite beef stew recipe includes a beer, 2 T of cocoa powder, and a cop of coffee. Sadly it has disappeared from the internet, but I remember most of it: 1 lb stew meat, 1lb ground beef, 2 cans of dice tomatoes, 4 cans of kidney beans, oregano, onion, garlic, I don’t think there were any veggies, and topped off with beef broth. if you feel like attempting something along those lines, I wish you good luck and godspeed.
EDIT OH SHIT I FOUND IT
My husband regularly makes this red lentil curry with stew beef added in, because we are heartless monsters. I think he fries up the beef in a separate pan and adds it after it’s cooked?
Fine Cooking had a choose your own adventure style stew recipe in an issue last year (i think) that produced some lovely results- plus it has lots of options to customize to your liking.
have not made this; only dream of making this: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/02/dijon-and-…
dang! pinning that, thank you!
I have made it! And… it wasn’t very good. Too mustardy. Which is weird because I love cooking with dijon mustard, I use it a lot!
The only departure I made was leaving out mushrooms (I dislike them), so perhaps that was key somehow.
Rolling the beef piece(s) in flour or other seasonings and browning (really brown! with sizzly bits) will make everything tastier. Remove beef, saute veg, then glug in wine or beer and scrape up tasty brown bits before low and slow stewing.
Strangely, a diced anchovy filet or two will also make your stew miraculously more delicious (and it won’t taste like fish, I promise).
Seconding the anchovy magic tip – but I do this with a teaspoon or two of fish sauce instead. It gives it a good sort of umami note but is undetectable as “fishy” in the overall soup/stew.
Here’s a tip for beef stew: instead of using flour as a thickening agent, use a food processor or mandoline to create really thin slices of potato, cook them with the rest of the veggies when you add them, and let them cook on in there. They’ll dissolve and thicken up your stew with their delicious starches!!!
The cut of meat you use has a lot to do with getting good results with stews and other long-cooked beef dishes. Chuck or bottom round are good cuts to use. I never buy the mystery stew meat packages because a. you never know what cuts they put in there, and 2. it’s way more work to trim the gristle out of a bunch of small pieces than it is to trim one large piece.
My beef stew is relatively boring/easy but super tasty. When in doubt, salt the living hell out of it.
Saute some garlic in oil. (Some people like onions, I loathe them and they are not allowed in my kitchen.)
Brown cubes of stew meat (London broil is good) in the oil after dredging them in flour.
Season them with salt and pepper. Like, go to town, because you will need to to make everything come together.
Throw in enough water to cover the meaty goodness with a couple of inches to space (depending on how many other goodies you intend to throw in and whether you want a thick stew or a soup stew).
If you have beef broth, you are a culinary goddess, and use that instead, otherwise, if you used water, throw in some OXO bouillon in lamb or beef.
This is also the time to toss in some beer or wine of your choosing.
My mom swears my soy sauce also, just a couple of tablespoons. Personally, I go for Worcestershire.
I also like thyme and bay leaves for seasoning but you can stick with salt and pepper if yo have a flavorful broth or used bouillon – up to you.
Give it about ninety minutes of simmering, then throw in cubed potatoes (fairly substantial pieces, in my opinion) and thick-sliced carrots.
If you want a thicker base, you can fake some roux with cornstarch and very small amount of water mixed separately then added in, but you’ll need to cook out the starchy flavor. Keep in mind that if you keep leftovers or make it and store it, the potatoes will also break down some and give thickness.
Do not recommend freezing – because, potatoes.
I am a fan of cornbread (not weird Yankee sweet cake cornbread, the savory Texas style, minus any heat) or crusty/chewy day-old baguette with this.
Ugh Toasties, it feels like I will never manage to get this IUD – we are now in Month Six of trying to make this happen. My appointment was supposed to be yesterday, but my OB/GYN requires you to be on your period at the time of the appointment, and my body refused to cooperate. I’m just crossing my fingers that things will actually work out on my rescheduled appointment date.
Did it take anyone else this long to get an IUD, or am I just lucky?
It sounds like your OB/GYN is setting the appointment for when you expect to be menstruating?
My appointment worked the other way – call us when you get your period, and we’ll fit you in.
Yeah, if I have to reschedule this appointment again, I may see if they’ll let me do that. The problem is that my OB/GYN’s only in this particular office two days a week, so her availability is limited.
It won’t help her availability any if you end up unexpectedly pregnant.
I don’t even know how to respond to this.
I’m joking, but also have a cousin whose existence was made possible by the re-scheduling of my uncle’s vasectomy.
I raise you an aunt who found out she was pregnant with my lovely younger cousin during her (rescheduled) tubal ligation appointment.
Could you go to whatever other office she is at on other days, just for this one appointment?
Her other office isn’t in the city, so it’s possible, but it would be tricky.
I was also supposed to be on my period (but wasn’t) at the time of the appointment. Since I really couldn’t reschedule, my gyno just went ‘fuck it’ and numbed my cervix. So the injections themselves hurt a bit, but otherwise, nothing.
Would your doctor be willing to try that?
I don’t know, but if this next appointment doesn’t work out, then I’ll ask!
Yeah, my gyn was basically like “we want you to be in your period, but if you’re not we’ll just roll with it!” I had an appointment for when I was supposed to be menstruating but my previous bc was messing with my cycle so I wasn’t, and everything was fine. She also mentioned that drugs for opening the cervix were an option. I do know some gyns are apparently firmer on the period thing.
i hadn’t heard of this “must be menstruating” practice but it sounds incredibly arbitrary and not-great for women who don’t have a predictable cycle.
my doctor numbed my cervix for both IUD insertions—it still didn’t feel great, but the numbing process was no big deal. YMMV obviously. good luck!
Yeah, my cycle was still on pause from hormonal birth control when I got mine in, so they were like “welp, come in whenever”. Having a blanket requirement seems weird.
Oh man, mine was late and they didn’t numb me. But still, it was over fast. It was the cramps the next day that were the really crappy part. (But I got a paragard and YMMV.)
I literally called Planned Parenthood and had an appointment for the next week. TBH I’m suspicious of your OBGYN, though I realize I’m only going off this one comment. It should not take six freakin’ months to get one. I was not on my period, it was never part of the discussion, really.
In fairness, it didn’t take six months to get the appointment. It was more like – called in August, got an appointment in September, heard back re: insurance coverage in October and had to fill out additional insurance paperwork, heard back re: paperwork in November and scheduled and appointment for January because nothing was available during my projected menstruating week in December.
(The reason for all the insurance, paperwork, etc. is that they want to make sure that the IUD is actually covered by your insurance, and what the cost to you will be. Then they call you, tell you the details, and then confirm with you that you still want to go ahead with it. Which I do actually appreciate!)
That’s good that they’re doing that, but Planned Parenthood did the same thing for me inside of a week.
Ugh. Dealing with insurance for that kind of thing is so frustrating. It used to be my job to verify insurance coverage for a women’s clinic and it can be such a serious hassle.
my doctor made no mention of me having to be on my period; might be worth it to see if anybody else can do it for you.
I had mine inserted when I wasn’t menstruating, and I do not recommend it. Everyone’s body is different, but mine was on the bad side. It was REALLY painful. I almost passed out and they had to sit with me for half an hour after the clinic closed and then pour me into a cab.
I say, trust the doctors.
This is interesting – I too got an IUD when I wasn’t on my period; there wasn’t even any mention about that being a possible consideration when we scheduled the insertion… Also had mad pain though – DID pass out – and asked the clinic to call my mom to pick me up and made them give me prescription pain killers before I left 🙁
It’s been many good years though and I’m glad I got it!
It might have something to do with it being a Paragard? I really like my OB/GYN, and anyway, they’ve already ordered the IUD.
mine was a paragard too; actually allanaaa’s comment reminded me that it was fairly painful afterwards; it’s been almost ten years though so the ROI has paid for the pain many times over. but if you had asked me right afterwards i probably would have had a different answer.
Oh, I was reading through this & freaking out & thinking “this must not be a mirena problem!” because I am on my second mirena, had no problems scheduling with either insertion, & to the best of my memory (in 2006 & 2011) neither time was I on my period. Best of luck! IUDs are the best!
I have had three IUDs placed (at different times, obvs) while not menstruating. It’s uncomfortable, but the discomfort passes very quickly.
Me too. Three different IUDs and none of them placed when I was menstruating. It was not the more fun thing I’ve ever done, but it was over quickly.
Yeah, I had mine in the middle of my cycle, and ye gods it was an ordeal. Took the doctor at least half a dozen tries and several tools to get it in. :/
Think the everyone’s different thing is key here; sounds like some other ladies had bad experiences. I was not on my period, my OB-GYN had me take my pill up until the day I got Mirena so there’d be no gap in hormones. I took four Advil beforehand, and for me it was just an uncomfortable pinch. Really not bad at all.
I felt a bit shaky after, so I ate an ice cream Sunday. Eent home, used a heating pad, took a nap and then went out that night. So YMMV!
I wasn’t getting my period on the pill I was on pre-IUD, so we couldn’t wait for my period, and it worked fine. Hurt to put in, but I hear it always does, and it wasn’t that bad. (Now I’m on the Mirena, which is *supposed* to eliminate periods for a large chunk of people, and my period is back. Ugggggh)
It took me six months but that’s because my PP chapter was being a dick about it, not because of period stuff. They never mentioned needing to be on my period. It was painful but I will always always always be convinced that the pain was entirely due to the clinician’s inexperience.
They also made me on my period. And when I had to reschedule, she said, if we miss your period by a few days WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT HAVE THE SEX. YOU MUST PROMISE ME ABSTINENCE. I think I was on the 3rd day the next time around, so that worked out. But I also practiced the abstinence just in case.
I think it took me 4 months from asking if it could be right for me, ordering the device, figuring out insurance, and two appointments.
That sucks. My period had come a bit early when I got mine inserted and was basically dried up by that time, but my doc was just like, oh well, it’s gonna be kinda painful. And it was but it was fine! I feel like they should have at least tried.
It’s not on them; I preemptively rescheduled.
Oh, it took me six (SIX!!!) months to finally get mine. Tried Mirena first, took a month to get cleared by insurance, got measured, seemed fine, got jabbed, got jabbed again, and after five agonizing minutes of jabbing me in the cervix, the doctor looks up at me and says, “It won’t fit.” IT WON’T FIT D:
Five months of jousting with the insurance company again, I got Skyla instead, and it fit. *sighs*
The not fitting! That’s the worst! I tried to get a Paraguard inserted in September and was told it couldn’t fit through my cervix. Two different OB/GYNs came in and took a crack at it to no avail. Apparently I have a fold in my cervix that the bendy sounding rod can slide past, but not an IUD? Ugh.
They told me I would probably need to be under anesthesia to have an IUD inserted, which I doubt my insurance would cover. For the time being, I’ve chosen to boycott men instead.
Also a very sound choice.
Hi, I’m a midwife and I put in a lot of IUDs. There’s actually no reason why it HAS to be while you’re menstruating. Reasons why a clinician might PREFER you to have your period at the time are a) ease of insertion (for both insert-ee and insert-er) and b) confidence that you are not pregnant.
I’ll try to schedule people for during their periods, but some people have irregular cycles, or gave birth recently, or just had an abortion or miscarriage, or are coming off a period-suppressing kind of birth control.
If you have a problem with your next rescheduled date, I would definitely recommend asking if you can have it inserted anyway. It’s inconvenient for you AND your doctor for you to have to reschedule this many times.
I hope this is comforting instead of a “ha! mine was terrible too!” statement, but while mine didn’t take six months, I had to go back and get poked in the cervix three times, because apparently that bitch didn’t want o open up.
2nd time they made me take some special drug, and 3rd time they asked me to stuff that lovely drug straight up into le vaj, and then it worked.
So I hope that you get it soon? Despite initial difficulties I am now in year 4 and it is GREAT.
My doctor didn’t require me to be on my period, she gave me a Valium and injected my cervix with something. Which, ouch, but the actual iud insertion didn’t hurt much after that.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Teaching thread?
I’m working as a teacher now, but sortof unofficially, and I would love to go back to school and get my master’s in teaching and a bilingual certificate. Can anyone tell me about going back to school a decade after getting your bachelor’s? Do you like teaching? Silliest things your students have said?
My mom was a special education teacher and she went back to school for her master’s about 20 years into her career! It was a great choice for her (even though I was the one who had to type up all her papers…) and it helped her get better pay and more control over the curriculum. So I’d say go for it!!!
It wasn’t quite a decade, but I did go for my master’s several years after my bachelors (and that was after going for my bachelors many years after high school) and I’ve never regretted it. I felt like I was motivated and got much more out of the classes since I was a little older. I taught at the college level and I really absolutely loved it (freshmen English ftw). Now I am an instruction librarian (ugh on higher ed politics and having to choose one specialty) and I get to teach without dealing with grading, which is amazing. I love getting the chance to inspire even one student or teach them something new /gushing
Thanks for sharing! I’m actually really interested in teaching freshman English at community colleges and trying to figure out how to get there!
I began teaching part-time at community college about 3 yr ago (100-level COM classes). If you know anyone who teaches at the cc near you, it can be really helpful to get inside scoop on what they look for in applicants. I enjoy the problem-solving aspect of teaching — I’m always tinkering with my classes and trying to think of new ways to get concepts across.
Most ridic thing a student has said/done may be the person who didn’t realize she needed to click on links after doing a Google search. Her “research” was all pulled from the tiny preview text. That was … unexpected.
Good luck to you!
Hahaha the Google thing is a great story! One time I had a student tell me his email address started with http://, because he genuinely believed that was how you indicated email addresses. How these people go through life, I do not know, but I love it and I want to teach them! Thanks for your tip!
I got my Master’s in English and was a TA, which gave me experience while I was still in school. It was really a fantastic, if busy and at times stressful, experience. If I hadn’t discovered my passion for information literacy and libraries on a college level I probably would still be teaching freshmen English. I love working with them at that stage!
Ottawa Toasts! Tentative meetup next Thursday! We’re discussing the details on the Google group — sign up for emails so you don’t have to check the forum page. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ottawa-to…
happy friday, toasties. give me loooove advice!
so, for the first time ever, i…really really like the guy i’m dating. sure, i’ve been in relationships (although none very long-term) before, but i always felt kind of lukewarm about the guys. this one? nope. i am IN IT. we’re hitting the 2 month mark, the point where i usually get bored and dump them, and instead i’m just liking him more every day.
the good: he’s super affectionate, both verbally and physically, in a way that makes me feel appreciated, rather than suffocated. like, he’s not withholding at all when it comes to telling me how he feels.
the bad: my low self-esteem is being a GIANT BAG OF CENTIPEDES.
the question: how do you get over the constant fear of “what if he changes his mind? what if he leaves me? what if he doesn’t like me anymore?” etc etc etc
This one’s tough but I guess I would say… trust him. I dealt with a lot of stuff like that at the beginning of my relationship ’cause I felt like my dude was too good for me. But he told me he wanted to stick around, so I just let him. Over time, if this guy is a good match for you, he’ll become a source of confidence and happiness and the voices will quiet themselves! For now, I would share your insecurities, have a lil’ conversation about it, then go about your business as an awesome person and let this guy prove to you that he’s for real.
this is…good advice.
i’ve already talked to him a little bit, also letting him know that i appreciate how often he voices and shows his feelings.
i’m just struggling with the divide between “he just told you that you’re amazing/incredible/beautiful/how much he likes you/how much he likes spending time with you/how excited he is to see you/etc etc etc” with my brain going “HA HA HA this is all a lie/why would anyone actually really think that about you/surely he’ll come to his senses soon”
it’s the good ol’ “i know it’s irrational but i can’t snap out of it”
This is really, really hard & I sympathise a lot. I do not do so that much about partner stuff but about other things I do, and it is awful.
For me what has helped is trying to figure out exactly what it is I am afraid of — like the really gritty part. I am not sure how to say this clearly, but a lot of the time I am putting things that are really mine to decide outside of myself — like I am afraid of someone judging me when really the only power they have to judge me is what I am giving them. Or I am afraid of losing someone because I feel like I couldn’t manage without them, but really of course I could if I had to. So when I go into the details of it and find out what I am afraid *will happen* and it comes down to ‘Then I will feel bad!’ — well yes I would feel bad in that situation and it would be awful, but then I could do X Y Z to make myself feel better, and also I know that I can survive feeling bad, even though it is no fun at all.
When it comes right do to it there are a lot of things in the world I cannot control at all, like whether or not our partner leaves us, or whether or not someone mocks my attempts at designing envelopes for a penpal letter or whatever. But I can try to keep myself from giving them the power to crush me. It is a very long road but it is what works so far.
thank you for sharing this. getting to that “well if it happens, it will suck but i will get through it” is important.
Well, I wish I could give you a solid answer for something that works for me. Honestly, even after all this time in relationships with various people, sometimes those thoughts still overrun my brain, and I spend a day or two completely overwhelmed with them. Other times, though, I can attack it from a logical perspective and have that dialogue with my inner Spock, something like “what if he changes his mind?” “well, then he changes his mind. And we split, and go our own ways, and find other things to make us happy, which I know to be possible because I’ve done it before.”
Also, too, as GreenGrasses says, over time within the relationship itself you may find those feelings wane. I know I’m less panicky now than I was at the outset almost two years ago.
thank you for this! trying to spock it up is a good way to go.
These two Ask Polly columns get at this in a way that I find really powerful:
1. http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/06/ask-polly-i-live-…
2. http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/10/ask-polly-how-do-…
Those are SO good and that first one in particular I think I am going to figure out how to apply to our six year old daughter — she is very high anxiety and she wants to ‘fix’ it by controlling the situations she’s in and maybe I could share with her that this is just something her body does and isn’t necessarily about what is happening around her.
thank you for this!
I don’t have useful advice, just chiming in to say I feel the same way often and it sort of waxes and wanes. I agree with the advice to just trust him, but also don’t give yourself a hard time for being squirrelly. Sometimes I catch myself in the fear cycle and then use that as a justification for said fear, if that makes sense (the fact that I think he’s too good proves that I am not worthy!!!!!) So try to trust what he tells you but don’t turn that back onto guilt for yourself.
I have a Jessica Jones question for Toasts who have watched through to the end of the series. I will put it in a reply to avoid spoling anyone.
So, like, do they keep showing that footage of Kilgrave being experimented on as a child over and over again or what? Last night I watched the episode where Jessica has Kilgrave in the locked room thing, with the footage projected onto the wall playing over and over, and I ended up “watching” most of the episode by listening to the dialogue whilst looking elsewhere. Is there more of that to come?
IIRC, no, that’s the last of it. I just finished the last 4 eps last weekend. It doesn’t exactly back off on the intensity though.
Thanks. I had been told it was pretty full on, and was failry steeled for the abuse/mind control/violence etc. The child experimentation just felt like too much, though, especially the way it was sort of on casually in the background.
I am really enjoying it, though! But I can only watch one episode a night, because I need time to decompress afterwards. Did you enjoy it?
I did! Same with the taking it slowly though. I’m glad netflix made the show, and I’m glad they tackled the issues they did head-on. I’ll definitely watch the next season.
Is there going to be a next season? I can’t wait!!
The internet news is uncertain. The initial plan by Netflix/Marvel was to make a series called “The Defenders” with JJ and Daredevil and would serve as The Avengers B-Team. However, they’ve already green-lit Daredevil season 2 because of its popularity and there was also talks of a Luke Cage spin-off. Given the internet buzz surrounding JJ it seems stuck in Schrodinger’s Inbox right now.
The Luke Cage series is definitely happening. There was a lot of casting news out about two months ago, so it’s probably in preproduction or early days of filming at this point. It’ll probably be out in the fall, since Netflix seems to be doing a two seasons a year thing.
There’s also supposedly an Iron Fist series after Luke Cage and before The Defenders. I think there was recent news of a showrunner being selected, but not much else so nobody’s really sure how concrete those plans are.
Interesting….ok! I thought there was. I am interested to see what they do.
No, I don’t think that footage comes up again. It was rough, huh? Very worth finishing the series though
Yes, I found it really viscerally disturbing, and it was on for, like, the whole episode! I will definitely finish the series – I am hooked.
No, but some of the graphic stuff like the CSF-drawing procedure is consensually done on an adult later in the series. Also, you learn that the original experimentation was for a less horrible purpose than Kilgrave makes it seem.
Oh man. Okay, thanks for the heads up – the fact it is (a) an adult and (b) consensual should make it much easier going, I hope.
Though obviously there be spoilers at the links, here is a post that links to several episode-by-episode trigger warning pages, including one for domestic/familial violence, if that helps.
In my opinion, that episode is the hardest to watch, but it’s such a dark and intense series that I think it’s very important for folks to have the tools to be able to decide when and how to engage with it!
Toasts! Somehow the unthinkable has happened and I’m actually going to see Hamilton!! The shock has almost worn off and now I’m in planning mode…I was wondering if anyone has any tips for airbnb stays in NYC that they’d recommend? Maybe a good experience you had staying somewhere? I’ve never used airbnb before and while my friend and I are hoping to crash with a friend for our time in the city, I like to be prepared with backup options. I trust your reviews and opinions a lot, so I thought I’d put it out there!
I’ve had nothing but A+ experienced with Airbnb (well okay there was one B+ for the folks who were so stoned they forgot that they’d told me I could use their bike, they even gave me the combo to the lock and everything) so I’m sure you can find a good place!
For whatever reason, my neighborhood of NYC has a GAZILLION AirBnB listings, and they are all quite cheap. It’s called Hamilton Heights (yes, that Hamilton) and is a lovely safe area about 15-20 minutes from midtown on the express train. I would recommend staying closer to St Nicholas Ave than Broadway for subway stop purposes, anywhere from 135th-155th St. You can make it thematic also, because Hamilton Grange (his house) is in St Nicholas Park at about 141st St.
Let me know if you have more questions about the area/NYC/AirBnB!
Ahhh that sounds awesome! I love themed everything, and making it a Hamilton trip in that aspect as well speaks to me. I’ll check out the area and see if my friend is on board! We’ll be there 4 nights so I’m hoping to maybe stay with a friend in Brooklyn 2 nights then AirBnB the other two. Thank you for your help! You may be hearing from me again 🙂
I have no advice, but as someone who spent all last night obsessing over the fact that I cannot afford the Hamilton tickets that are left I say AH! Congrats! Enjoy!
I had given up all hope on seeing it outside of a national tour one day, and then on a whim I decided to scan through the dates my friend and I had been hoping to go and there were a few tickets available resale that weren’t there last I looked! They were definitely expensive for Broadway but still sort of in our budget we’d set for ourselves a few months back when we’d hoped to buy them. I also saw someone similarly find cheapish front mezz tickets recently that were the same thing–checked back and suddenly there they were. So there may still be hope of someone deciding they need the cash ASAP and reduce their resale tickets in price! I just don’t know if you want to obsessively check back like I did lol. I am definitely the kind of person who can’t let anything go…it’s a blessing and a curse.
I have the winter blues and I want to spend all my money on a ticket to the Caribbean. Instead I will buy a travel magazine and make myself a piña colada. I don’t think I’ve seen the sun for like a month…
I keep having dreams of deep blue water. This time of the year is tough.
I’m reading this: http://www.cntraveller.com/recommended/itinerarie…
and depressing myself. Maybe I’ll win the lottery???? :D? :D?
Last winter I found rt tickets to the virgin islands for $280. I am cursed with finding budget tickets when I have no budget at all. The lottery would be nice but maybe I would settle for finding a job?
Getting Out of Debt Progress Thread!
My week’s numbers below the jump – someone suggested to me that money stuff can be triggering for folks, so I’ll keep it hidden in weeks to come.
My own progress:
I’ve been faithfully writing down everything I spend, and the results for this week are:
Income: $1,579.00
Expenses: $1,716.28
Not great, but expenses mostly includes my rent, and my income does not include my paycheck – this is money from freelance work. So I’m feeling okay about that.
What I’m not feeling great about is that my debt has gone up this week, from $19,445.85 to $20,674.07. This because I put half the rent on my credit card for complicated reasons – my bank account was overdrawn when the year began.
Feeling pretty solid overall? I am no longer at a negative balance, I spent pretty responsibly my first week of work, and my paycheck next week will allow me to pay back what I put on credit right away.
How are you doing, debt-having Toasties?
Cheering section, reporting in! Great job documenting and hurrah on the freelance income!!
Aw, thanks, cheering section! Come back every week, you’re great!
I have less than 2 years until total freedom! (Barring major catastrophe or a sudden decision to try and purchase real estate.)
It’s really hard and boring long term, so I try to focus on what life might be like when I HAVE the money I’m currently slinging at the credit card debt. I’m planning some serious travel.
Travel is my motivation, too. 🙂 Where are you going?
My Big Goal is Machu Picchu. I’ve wanted to go there since I was in 4th grade (that was a REALLY long time ago as I’m now 43). Other dreams include Hawaii, Scotland, Iceland. (Hawaii is maybe do-able in the nearer term future, since best friend and I have realized that we could do it together and save some $$ on lodging, and we know we travel together well.)
You?
Here’s another cheer, because yay you.
This week, I have finally paid off an 8 000 euros student loan! Not a proper student loan, just a regular bank loan, it got spent on living expenses and stuff, but you did have to be a student to get it (and the tasty, tasty 2% interest rate).
Congratulations!
I’m only an occasional Toast-poster so I haven’t been on this thread every week, but it is a great idea.
I paid off one of my credit cards entirely over the holiday, and the other one only has about $550 on it which I can knock out in the next month or so. This is, of course, just in time for my biannual car insurance payment to come due, so there will be more on the card soon, but with a much better plan in place to pay equal amounts each month. Student loans loom, unpaid but deferred, as always.
Boyfriend and I have had some more frank conversations about money recently. We’re living in a very expensive area and his take-home pay is significantly higher than mine, so he shoulders a lot of our expenses. He has a hard time understanding why I’ve got money/power/feelings so tangled up in my head, and keeps telling me to directly ask for what I need when I need help, but I am always worried about seeming entitled or anything less than completely grateful. This was precipitated by the fact that I’m not currently adjuncting (I knew the previous position would end) so my only income is a fellowship stipend from my university, which may require some adjustments in our division of expenses. BUT I just got a lead on some freelance work, so I may have a little more flexibility soon. Fingers crossed.
This is all really great progress, particularly discussing with your partner, which is hard on everyone. Good luck with the freelance work!
Ooh! My (well, my husband’s) debt is way too large for this to be a productive thread for me, but whenever budgeting or debt-paying comes up, I’m compelled to mention YNAB (You Need a Budget). It is literally life-changing.
Caveat: they did just do a major update and I’m not ~thrilled~ with it, but it’s still miles better than anything else I’ve found.
I’ll stop there but would gladly go on and on about it if anyone is interested!
Please do go on! I have tried using Mint and didn’t find it very useful, but tracking my own expenses with just a spreadsheet and force of will are not working very well for me right now.
So YNAB is basically a gussied up envelope budget: money comes in, you budget ALL of it into various categories, taking into account all true expenses, and then you track what you spend, moving money from category to category if you need to. Where it really helps is with the large expenses that we tend to forget about when we budget, like renewing memberships or saving for annual vet visits. Well, it helps with everything, but that’s where I’ve found it most helpful.
A major difference between it and Mint is that Mint requires you to predict the amount of money you’ll have and to budget based on that, rather than budgeting when you actually have the money in hand. With YNAB, you only budget the money you have, and you reconcile the amount in the program with the amount in your bank account. That way you ALWAYS know if you have enough money for something. When I first started using it, I was horrified to find out that we were consistently spending a few hundred dollars a month more than we were actually earning! Not any more 🙂
I’ve tried Mint (and spreadsheets) too, but it never stuck; I’ve been using YNAB religiously for almost year now. You do have to be diligent about tracking, although they’ve made it a bit easier in this update with automatic importing. YNAB also has awesome user forums. And a 34-day trial, so you can test it out throughout more than one pay period.
I’m not earning any money for saying all this; I honesty love the program that much 🙂
Interesting…I have been thinking about signing up for Mint over the last few weeks but didn’t manage to, so I wonder if I should try this instead? Does it pull info from your bank account, or do you have to do all of your own entries?
So we just switched to the internet bank Simple, and they allow you to do similar things right in your bank account with your actual money. I’m finding it SUPER SUPER helpful!!! Like, I have a very limited income due to me not working currently and my partner being the “breadwinner,” but I’ve nonetheless managed to save up around $50 over the past month (don’t laugh it’s a lot for me!). They way they do it is you set up “goals,” and you sort your money into them, and then you see your “safe to spend” balance, which kind of, like, hides your saved or allocated money from yourself? It sounds kinda silly but it works so well for me! Plus, it allows you to tag purchases so I’m, e.g., using it to monitor our pet food spending so I can see if buying online would be an easy and/or cost-effective solution for us.
So I’m really enjoying the “envelope” concept, which I had never tried before, and I am honestly surprised at how easy it has made money management for me, which is something that gives me hella anxiety usually.
In other debt news — we will have paid off our Really Bad Credit Card next June! I almost can’t even believe it is that close, it’s been SO LONG we’ve been paying this! On top of that, around that same point, both our cell phones will be paid off, so our cell phone bill will drop quite a bit. What even is this adulting I’m doing, I had pizza rolls for lunch at 3pm earlier this week.
CONGRATULATIONS on paying off the card, that’s such a good feeling!
And thanks for promoting Simple – my housemate recommended it too and I was meaning to check it out.
It’s really been great, plus customer service is REALLY responsive and friendly, and the debit card is really sexy (matte white ooooh yeah). Let me know if you have any questions or want an invite. I just signed up on their website, but I’m not sure if an invite makes the process go any quicker.
I just started the trial for YNAB this week. I’m still working out how I’m splitting up all the separate budgets and figuring out exactly how it works… but I’m tentatively excited?
Setting it up made me realize that I don’t have any particular savings goals for the money I’m socking away, aside from “at least 1 month of income saved” and “at this point I can get another tattoo maybe,” so I’m going to sit down this weekend and hopefully hammer all that out.
I was cranky when I found out YNAB requires a computer, but it turns out I’m getting a new laptop as a belated Christmas present from my family, so I’ll be able to use it after all! YESSSSSS.
Oh, can this be a General Money thread as well? I don’t have debts (well, I do, but luckily they’re under control) but my New Year resolution was to fix my spending habits, so!
To that end- my goal was to not spend on anything “unnecessary” in the month of January, and see where that left me. (I haven’t yet had to draw a hard line on what’s necessary or not, but I think I will have to make some decisions about that line soon.)
It’s been both easier and harder than I expected? Easier because I’m naturally kind of a homebody, and now that most of my friends are working 9-5 as well, it was pretty easy to explain “oh I’m trying to spend less money this month, can we do something at my house rather than go out for drinks?” and so far that’s been… okay. Harder because almost every day at work I think “oh, I should stop and pick up xyz [fancy juice, makeup, new book, etc] on my way home” before I have to remind myself, “no, I’m not doing that anymore” and that’s… kind of a bummer. But it’s what I wanted to experience with this experiment, basically, having to stop and actually think about the urge to go and get something new and shiny all the time.
In terms of actual $$, we had so much less work over the Christmas period that I ended up only working 2, maybe 2 and a half days a week the past two weeks. So my last paycheck and my next paycheck are going to be less than normal, which is stressful (I think this is a big part of what provoked my anxiety/decision to do something about it, actually). But my rent was mostly covered with the Xmas bonus I got.
So since Jan. 1st, Expenses were $1052 rent/toiletries/gas/credit card payment, and Income was… a $28 tax refund on some work I did early last year. Counting my Dec. 31st paycheck, income would be up to $777, hooray… but there’s not a lot I can do about either of those situations, rent is what it is and I was expecting the slashed paycheck. Ugh.
I have a similar spending resolution/goal! It helps that I’m in the process of packing up everything I own and I am realizing how many sweaters/pairs of jeans/pants/dresses/etc I have and that makes it easier to ignore holiday sales.
Right now the major expenses are moving related, and grocery related as I am definitely stress-eating a bit.
Yeah, I moved in September and it took SO MUCH extra $$. Partly because I was moving out of my parents’ house, so there was a ton of stuff I’d never needed to own before, like pots and pans and whatnot. My roommate and I are still buying things, like “oh you know what would help this be a functional household?? chairs in the living room!!”
Anyways, yes, I sympathize. Moving-related expenses are stressful because they feel so unavoidable.
It’s the little sneaky things that creep up on you: bubble wrap, tape .. more tape..
I made a similar goal too! I’m putting myself on a spending fast for 3 months – buying nothing but food, gas, and paying bills (and the birthday presents I have to buy family members whose birthdays come in these 3 months). And I knew it was the right thing to do because I was having minor little panicky moments about not being able to buy x, y, and z even though I don’t need them and they will all be for sale in April. I’m nervous, but I think it will be good for me.
So nice to see other people trying for similar things. *solidarity fist bump*
Yes of course! All General Money Resolutions welcome. Unless your goals are, like, ‘buy another yacht’, in which case you need to find others of your people to play with.
Jumping on the low-spend train! My wife and I spent the last 3 months of 2015 buying only groceries & gas. We cut out shopping-as-a-hobby AND anything that creates desire for stuff–no ~*lifestyle*~ instagram, no fashion tumblr, etc. Basically we resolved to cut shopping out of our imaginations, not just our activities. It was GREAT.
So we’re doing the same thing for 2016, but now we’re trying to make it sustainable. We have a generous cap of $500 for clothes this year, plus another $500 for household items. We’re allowed to buy stuff, but we have to declare intention to buy & then sit on it for like 3-4 weeks to see if we actually need it. Then, once it’s time to buy, the way we interact with stores will be different: No more browsing, no more idle wandering around, no more choosing a destination based on atmosphere. From now on shopping is a focused mission to get pre-determined item X, then immediately out.
This all started because, thanks to YNAB, we realized that we spent more on Stuff in 2015 than we did on travel–and we took 2 substantial trips and 4 smaller ones. I figure I sacrifice a great deal of my life to earn money, so I should really make sure that money goes toward important shit, not shoes.
Meanwhile one of my budget goals is to buy nicer-quality things instead of crap, so I’m buying no shoes at all with the idea of buying nicer shoes later.
Also because every pair of Payless shoes I’ve bought recently have been pretty much unwearable. Falling off, blisters, ugh.
Still no job but I had a screening interview over the phone yesterday. Fingers crossed.
Finally answered the phone when credit card company called. I agreed to make a smaller payment (a large payment for me) out of my almost empty savings to get me up-to-date. Will still need to make a payment on the 23rd of this month to stay current. But it was a conversation I was dreading and I’m so glad it’s over with, for now.
Sending you some sympathy and some thumbs up for answering the phone. Finally answering the phone when I was getting called five times a day by my student loan servicers was one of the hardest things I did last year. I’m glad I did, but I’m also horrified when that $600 gets automatically sucked out of my account every month. But at least I don’t have a panic attack every time my phone rings anymore.
This is hard and I am very proud of you for facing it.
thank you <3
I haven’t made any major progress, but I did set up a new savings rule using my online banking to automatically send $13 per paycheck to savings. Between that, and the $6 per week I’d already started, I’m at $50 a month, which feels comfortable so far.
I’ve also made a point to eat out for lunch less. I spent over $50 on groceries Monday, but that should be for over two weeks worth of lunches, so we’ll see if it makes much of an impact on my ‘eating out’ spending.
Thankfully, my online banking has all kinds of cool charts and shit that I just have to click on to track my spending, so I don’t have to itemize and tabulate and calculate all of this myself ;P
Hot soup in a thermos is the best homemade lunch ever and very inexpensive to make. Make a big batch on the weekend, and that’s half your lunch for the most or all weekdays!
This is great progress! Be proud!
Just wanna say thanks for posting the numbers under the jump 🙂 Not ready to deal with that stuff yet and my heart definitely races any time I see any mention of it.
Of course. Easy to do, glad it helps.
I have saved $22.36 toward my goal of $1000 by December 31st! I’m feeling vair smug right about now. I love the Digit app so far, and I want to thank the encouraging Toasties who were so nice to me about my meager goal on last week’s thread.
Yes! You are exactly on track and those of us with really ambitious goals can’t say that! Whatever motivates you most, I think it’s awesome.
I’m down to less than $5k in credit card debt. (Still recovering from an unemployment stint THREE YEARS AGO.) And I officially have more in my 401(k) than I owe in student loans! So that’s pretty cool.
The total cash in my money market account briefly topped $2K! That was exciting. I had to take some out a short while later to pay rent, but I think I’ll be able to pay myself back, as it were.
That’s awesome! You’re going to get that last bit this year, I know it.
Thanks for starting this!
I think the key is finding what works FOR YOU. I failed with both YNAB and Mint, but once I hit upon my magical solution (complex spreadsheet, gridded paper in wallet for all transactions), it just… worked. I’ve made progress on debt, and y’all? I haven’t overdrawn my checking account in almost a year!
True. Sometimes your system isn’t the ‘best’ one, it’s just the one you like. Which makes it the best.
I had my third interview for a great job yesterday, and I think it went okay! Everything might turn out all right…..?
Now I’m trying to write separate thank-yous to all 4 of the interviewers, which is giving me quite a bit of anxiety. I want to get them sent out before this afternoon; any tips? This is definitely worse than the actual interviewing process.
Short, sweet, and to the point. Done in a timely manner is better than perfect but late!
Alternate thank-you notes with small rewards? Like, write a note then play a round of a game you like?
Phew, all done!
That was rough, I was getting shaky and spaced out just thinking of it. Time to go reward myself with yummy ramen. Thank you for the tips!
Yay, sort of. I am close to getting a tiny studio apartment and I am glad about it, but the owner is confusing the hell out of me. He’s leaning my way but showing it to someone else, then he said if he picked me I’d need to move in at the beginning of next week. Now he says he’ll know for sure by the MIDDLE of next week, at which point I guess I’ll have to go back in time to move in on Monday?! Wish me luck with all this, but I’d also LOVE any tips for hiring a mover on zero notice (I was getting estimates but nobody can commit to a date that doesn’t exist yet) and how to super-streamline mail forwarding and all that jazz. I’m packing and I really think this might come through, but the back and forth is eating holes in my stomach.
I have no advice to offer but i am hope hope hoping this comes through for you!
ToastHopes seem to carry more weight than ordinary ones, so I am very glad for this!
Hiring movers quickly: you’ll want to look at the smaller companies in your area, which is admittedly a risk. (Tip: don’t read Yelp reviews of moving companies before you move. You’re better off not knowing.) There is a site that I found that reviews moving companies and has a list of recommended companies that are probably less likely to scam you. Unfortunately I do not remember what this site is, but it should be easy to find?
Mail forwarding: the post office will forward your mail for a whole year! But they do need some lead time. I overall found this process pretty smooth, though. Also, if you think that you will ever buy anything at all ever again, check off the “send me coupons” box when you do the forwarding thing, because I got some really excellent ones (15% off entire purchase at Target was the best one, I think.)
Thank you! I’ve been trying to find movers via Craigslist, but with one exception (who may ultimately work out) the level of basic English comprehension is really discouraging. I know down to inches the size truck I need someone to hire for this and people write to me offering to move me 70 miles…in a pickup with a short bed…during an El Nino season. Blargh. I’m very into the coupons that come when you move–coming down to Sonoma County I was able to buy a plunger for .01 at Ace Hardware with a USPS coupon, but going back to Ukiah I’ll be trying to furnish my place with a combination of thrift store crap and hopefully some super-amazing online coupon action!
I always do this “reverse packing” thing where I put everything I’ll need for one week in a suitcase (including the first day in the new place) and then pack absolutely everything else ASAP. Last time I did this I managed to be done packing a day early!
Also, because I am a Lazy Person instead of a Healthy Person, I ordered a ton of cheap chinese food like, two days before and lived off that crap so I could pack all my pots/pans/dishes. Won’t make you proud of yourself, but it is helpful.
Great ideas! I was going to go the PopTarts route, but I packed my toaster already, so takeout seems like a wise choice.
That’s very clever.
I moved too much in college and now I get a grim pleasure out of packing, more than any human should.
I suspect when he says “move in the beginning of next week” he means “you will be paying rent as of the beginning of next week” though I would debate whether he can charge you rent for days before you were informed that the place is yours so I would stand firm on when the actual beginning of the lease is. But once you’re paying rent on the place, it’s up to you when you actually begin residence. You can start moving things in as soon as you have the keys, but you don’t have to sleep there until you have movers bring your furniture in. As long as you’re paying the rent, it’s none of the landlord’s business whether you’re physically in the place yet.
Cosigning this but I have to say, a landlord who won’t tell you whether you’ve got the place but requires your rent ASAP if you’re accepted? Sounds shady as hell. Good luck.
Hmm, there may be regional differences in that–here in LA, you apply for a place, and when the landlord says “yes, you’ve got it,” you sign a lease and pay deposit and first month’s rent pronto, or there’s a good chance the landlord decides you’re not interested and moves on to the next person.
Responding to this whole subthread to clarify that the only serious issue with this is that it’s god-awfully frustrating. I think the guy is finishing a remodel and just misjudged the dates, but I have to hire movers who will take all my stuff and ME (who has no car) 70 miles north in one whack, so I can’t really wake up and teleport there. No furniture to speak of–it’s just going to be me and a crapload of boxes and hopefully enough room to roll out a sleeping bag. Furniture comes later. 🙂
I have not needed this trick, so investigate before committing.
Can you: Schedule movers as if you had a firm date. Then be ready to cancel them. Check how much cancellation notice they need. Check whether they insist on money in advance and how you can avoid losing it if you cancel.
Do NOT tell the movers it’s a tentative date.
Worst case: You cancel and those movers think you’re a flake and refuse to reschedule. But that’s OK, you just call up the next movers on your list, rinse and repeat. They don’t know you yet. They don’t need to know you’ve already cancelled once. They don’t need to know your move date is “flexible”.
So far folks I’ve talked to will only hold a date for a few days–the one I had tentatively lined up despite the expense being obscene (and that was the LOWEST estimate I could find) isn’t going to work out now that I’m being asked to wait until mid-week to hear back. Maybe I can find someone unprofessional but sober thru Facebook, it’s not like I own anything of value except my brain.
I don’t know if you live where TaskRabbit is a thing, but last time I moved I hired a uHaul (so I and my mom drove that) and then got two guys from Task Rabbit as my movers (under “heavy lifting” tasks). I had a very last minute thing move and I got two great guys the day before! I liked choosing them on there bc I could read reviews and both of them were really professional and treated my furniture so well (much nicer than any movers my friends have gotten from actual moving companies). We had been able to pack the truck up on the first end so they were there to unpack it, but you could always get help on both ends of your move!
Good luck to you whichever way you move!
I’ll look into this, but I need someone to drive my stuff and also me–maybe TaskRabbit with a sidecar! I always wanted to wear one of those leather helmets with the goggles.
This makes me think of a giant rabbit riding a motorcycle, with you* crammed into the sidecar with a ton of boxes, and you and rabbit wearing matching leather helmets and goggles. A+ mental image, thanks.
*Don’t worry, I have no idea what you actually look like. 🙂
Those goggles make me think of Rocky the flying squirrel. Maybe Bullwinkle can drive the truck! Hope springs eternal.
Toasties, I have acquired a crippling crush on pretty much every member of the Star Wars cast below the age of 70, which is warring with my crippling crush on literally every cast member of Hamilton.
What are your celebrity crushes, old and new?
Also, here is Oscar Isaac with a dog that looks just like my family dog.
Rey and Finn and Poe for life!! They were all so, so adorable and excellent.
Celebrity crushes–Natalie Dormer, Drew Barrymore (so cute in the 90s), Johnny Depp, and also a Japanese rockstar guy named Miyavi (I have been cultivating that crush since I was a 16 year old J-Rock nerd, and it warms my heart to see that he’s getting international attention these days). Also Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, bc she’s so awesomely weird)
i have an embarrassingly long list of celebrity crushes. oscar isaac is on that list.
Once upon a time I had no celebrity crushes, and now I have rather a lot, both in the “yeah I’d jump your bones” sense and the “you’re just so amazing and I think you’re a wonderful person” sense.
That dog wants to give him puppy kisses. You can tell.
I love Star Wars so much is has launched a journey into fan fic. I am currently obsessed with very gentle / tender / sexy Poe-Finn (or STORMpilot in some circles…) stories right now they are The Greatest.
Ah! This picture! Oh my ovaries.
Daisy Ridley officially bumped off Carey Mulligan as #1 of my heart after TFA although she was pretty much there leading up to it. Rounding up the final four are Andrew Garfield and Rami Malek, who although technically 3rd and 4th, are far enough behind that if this were a race of some kind Daisy and Carey would have already lapped them at least once already. #sports
ME TOOOO. I just learned that John Boyega and Daisy Ridley are younger than me. In fact, they are the same age as my little sister. Unacceptable.
They are older than my oldest younger brother. This eases my mind. It’s my main litmus test for crushability.
I have the same litmus test! I once interviewed Nicholas Hoult, but as soon as I found out he was one or two days younger than my baby brother, that was it.
He is about a week younger than me, so perfect crush material!
*Googles*
John Boyega and Daisy Ridley are 23 and Adam Driver is 32?!!
Daisy is younger enough than me that I think she’s adorable but I have zero sexy feelings.
But then I thought Adam Driver looked like a BABY and it turns out he’s only a few years younger than me. My boyfriend is younger than he is!
Well along with 90% of the male-attracted population Oscar Isaac is on my list now. But my most enduring celeb crush is Chiwetel Ejiofor.
You have good taste, toastfriend.
HOW VERY DARE YOU
Look, I’ve already mentioned celebrity crushes of mine twice in an Open Thread, and both times included a crush-with-puppy picture. It’s a tradition by now.
Oh my lordy Oscar Isaac completely undoes me, I swear. Phew, lordy. I would be crushing harder on John Boyega who is so adorable and charming and funny and charismatic but he’s three years younger than me (younger than my little sister) and somehow I feel vaguely wrong about that.
He’s a year younger than my younger brother (who is in turn nearly 6 years younger than me), so I feel your pain. He seems older than my brother, but now I can’t unknow his age, so I just platonically heart him.
Luckily Oscar Isaac is older than me…
Exactly! I heard “born in 1992” and was just like NOPE, not crushing, can’t, you are firmly in little bro/friend territory for me now, sorry, can’t control it, them’s the rules. But yes, he gets ALL of my platonic hearts.
Oscar on the other hand, yes. All day every day. Twice on Sundays. Like a screen door in a hurricane.
I have happily dated/slept with people the same as both my younger brothers.
But I can’t with people who were born when I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL.
See, here’s my problem: Oscar Isaac in TFA & in the various promotions thereof? Totes Adorbs (wait, are we still saying that in 2016?) Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina? The douchiest douche in all the Extended Douche-niverse.
My poor little brain just can’t handle the conflict, so smoke comes out of it like that episode of Star Trek.
He’s three years younger than me, as well! I feel okay about it, though, especially as my boyfriend is 24 (I am just over a year older, but we are in the weird period after my birthday and before his where it is like I am two years older), so John Boyega’s 23 is not that different.
Kiefer Sutherland (in Lost Boys – I was hitting puberty as it came out and I have never gotten over him)
Mike Patton from Faith No More. (Have been madly in love with him since I first saw them play aged 13 (me, not them) and it’s not going away.)
Channing Tatum (that is a recent one)
Faith and Spike from Buffy (the characters more than the actors)
Tom Hiddleston. (this materialised when I saw Coriolanus, had never appreciated him before that)
Iggy Pop (I know, even now)
My realization wrt Tom Hiddleston came with Only Lovers Left Alive. Didn’t get the whole Loki thing before that, and suddenly I was “OH I GET IT NOW OH MY”. Guess I gotta watch Coriolanus now!
Yes, yes you do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isu2xDuvxKY
Oh wow, this prompts both an intellectual AND sexy “NICE” from me!
Yeah, I didn’t get it as Loki AT ALL.
I blame the silly hair.
Current crushes: Lupita, Melissa Fumero, Chelsea Peretti, Jenny Slate, Jessica Chastain, Brit Marling, Emily Blunt, Lauren Lapkus, Anna Torv.
Forever crushes: Julia Louise Dreyfus, Lisa Kudrow and Paget Brewster.
I have far too many celebrity crushes, but I’m 100% at peace with that fact.
Oscar Isaac’s face is just really, really good. His cheekbones were SO SHARP in TFA. I just wanted to stare for hours.
Right now it’s absolutely Oscar Isaac, to the extent I dedicated an entire issue of my newsletter to him (I know, shameless self-promotion, but in my defense that newsletter includes some essential animated gifs).
I also have an enormous crush on Ben Whishaw, especially as Q. And yes, I know he’s gay, and that does nothing at all to discourage my loins. I’ve also really enjoyed Santino Fontana* in Craxy Ex-Girlfriend lately (especially in that B&W Settle For Me clip), and I’ll never be completely over Lee Pace.
*edited because I somehow confused him with a totally different actor, then looked it up because it was nagging at me
ben whishawwww
Santino Fontana, yessss. Settle For Me sold me 1000 percent on him. And Lee Pace always.
I have a crush on Ben Whishaw’s hair. It’s just so…full. And curly. Gahh.
Leeeeee Paceeeeeeeeee. If you have not seen him in The Fall (movie not TV show, just to be clear), I highly recommend it.
I think Ben Whishaw is objectively very attractive, but he only does it for me as Q, it’s very strange. Even when he costars opposite another crush, Hayley Atwell in a short film called Love Hate, it does nothing for me. My love is very Q-specific.
Late to this, but have you watched The Hour? He’s pretty Q-ey and crushworthy in that. Warning: they canceled it after two seasons on a pretty huge cliffhanger and that was just cruel.
Re: celebrity crushes, I just saw the movie Carol yesterday, and now I am trying to stop myself from watching every movie Cate Blanchett has ever done. She was UNREAL as Carol and I can feel myself becoming obsessed.
Gillian Anderson. Pretty much the entire cast of Sleepy Hollow and the Lost Girl (man, every once in a while there’s a show where me and the casting director are one the same page). Idris, of course.
Watching Hannibal this past year has, both disturbingly and predictably, given me a rather huge crush on Mads Mikkelsen. Just watched A Royal Affair on a long plane ride across the country, and currently trying to find Flame & Citron and Michael Kohlhaas.
My taste in men can probably best be described as “cold-blooded” or “reptilian” at this point. Gotta agree that both Oscar Isaac and John Boyega are cute as fuck, though!
You should watch After the Wedding! That gave me a crush on Mads.
*Googles trailer* Oh yeah, I’ll be watching this.
The internet also tells me he was in a Western with Eva Green in 2014?? So much Mads, so little time!
Yes, definitely After The Wedding! I watched it in a film class in 2009 and have subsequently felt like some kind of Mads Mikkelsen hipster. ‘I swooned over him before it was cool!’
Hannibal gave me a huge Hugh Dancy crush.
Hugh Dancy is an adorable stray dog boy and most eminently crush-worthy! My reaction to the show can mostly be described by this bit of tumblr fanart, though:
My favorite “cold-blooded/reptilian” crush is Burn Gorman – he was on Torchwood and the short-lived but wonderful Forever (RIP). One of my besties, who normally is totally on board with all my weird crushes (because we usually have the same crushes) was HORRIFIED.
I was just about to speak his name! My roommate said he had a frog face but it didn’t matter.
He DOES have a frog face. (Sorry, Mr Gorman. I’m sure you’re very nice.)
I’m pretty sure my current entrancement with Adam Driver is because when he’s in Kylo Ren mode, he looks like 90s Trent Reznor and hooooooooooooo boy, does that work well for me.
Since I’m bordering on 44, it’s probably easier to track my primary Imaginary Celebrity Boyfriends by decades:
1980s – 1990s: John Taylor of Duran Duran; Simon Gallup and Porl Thompson of The Cure
1990s – present: the aforementioned Trent Reznor
1990s – present: David Duchovny
Things were quiet in my imaginary undercarcass for a while, since life decided to have a giggle with me and provide me with an actual human boyfriend (and later husband); then, my husband decided “hey, let’s watch this ‘Sherlock’ thing”. Benedict Cumberbatch, it was ever thus.
Oscar Isaac is a treat, though. Mercy.
I like guys with unusual noses, and while I normally do not find Adam Driver attractive, I am one of those people who has unfortunately found herself a teensy bit attracted to him as Kylo Ren. Also now tumblr is unearthing clips/gifs of him speaking out for veterans (Arts for the Armed Forces I think?) and he is passionate and articulate and it hits a very small sweet spot of mine.
But Oscar Isaac is way ahead of him in line.
For all its flaws (and I understand that there are many), Kingsman more or less upended my life with Colin Firth and Taron Egerton in bespoke suits. They are both so adorable. Send help.
(There was already a Colin Firth Problem, of course, as one does, but it had more or less receded since college, but that fucking movie brought it back in full force.)
Also I had a dream that John Boyega was my boyfriend.
I have no qualms about crushing on tiny babies, apparently.
That picture is completely adorable, but I need to ask the Oscar Isaac-loving Toastie population a research question: have any of you seen Ex Machina?
Because I have. And I saw it before TFA and before I knew he was in TFA. And that means John Boyega and Harrison Ford are still my favorites from TFA. (I will always love him for Jack Trainer.)
I watched Ex Machina this week because I had only seen Oscar Isaac in TFA and I wanted to see more of his cute face. He was very good in Ex Machina but it was SO DIFFERENT from him in TFA. All the hair on his head was in the wrong place and his character was similarly topsy-turvy.
I saw Ex Machina when it was in theaters! I’ve been very good at separating his Ex Machina character from Oscar himself and from Poe, I think mainly because he’s SO DIFFERENT in EM that I genuinely have to remind myself that it was the same guy. So, it hasn’t really been a problem for me even though his character in EM was a douchebag creep anthill of a human.
On the other hand, though, I had a lot of affection for Hux in TFA because hey, it’s Bill Weasley/poor awkward Caleb from Ex Machina!
Yes, I will admit that both you and TheRenleigh are correct on that front — completely different characters. If I did not KNOW it was the same actor, I do not believe I would have ever put it together, even when hearing them speak.
And that is completely hilarious, because I HAD NO IDEA Hux was Caleb, even after reading that both actors were in both films. Hahahaha!
What are your favorite salad recipes? I don’t mean some weak-ass lettuce with a crouton. I mean your hearty salad dreams. My idea well is running low.
Spinach (or other dark leafy green) + sweet potato/butternut squash + red onion + pecans + goat cheese + vinaigrette of your choosing. This was my favorite at a lunch place where I used to live, and I’ve recreated it with modest success.
I think Trader Joe’s makes a variation on that.
this one is really tasty!
also, big fat garlicky croutons, hardboiled eggs, sunflower seeds, honey mustard dressing + whatever greens is delightful.
LYONNAISE.
Interesting greens (arugula, radicchio, etc, anything with a good deal of peppery flavor) as the base, a mustardy vinaigrette made from the fat of the crispy little bites of bacon you cooked up to go into the salad, some blanched green beans, and a soft-poached egg. Tuna fish if you’re feeling frisky. Basically this is what I eat all summer.
I’m doing a lot of spinach with fruit and nuts, and a drizzle of olive oil and apple cider vinegar. It feels lazy now.
It’s not hearty, but my signature salad is: Baby spinach + sliced strawberries + candied pecans (or walnuts) + poppyseed dressing.
Also not especially hearty, but easy to eat in huge volumes and very winter appropriate: julienned cabbage (the regular cheap light green globe kind, nothing fancy), thinly sliced on the diagonal green onions, cilantro, julienned cucumber, julienned carrots (buy them in a bag pre-cut if you want to save time, even better if you quick pickle them in sugar/water/vinegar). If you store the cucumber and the cilantro separately, you can keep it in the fridge all week without dressing and it will stay crunchy.
Dressing: soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, sesame oil, rice vinegar, minced ginger (I use the stuff in the tube).
Salads that are actually a meal are my jam. Lunch today: kale, shredded chicken tossed with barbecue sauce, black beans, corn, diced tomato, lime dressing (Newman’s Own makes a good one).
smitten kitchen’s carrot salad with harissa and feta is my usual go-to. my favorite thing about it is you say ‘carrot salad’ and people get this look, like, “that sounds so boring”, but it is amazing.
I love smitten kitchen and her many slaw recipes
We have just started eating a lot of what we are calling the plantain pile up. You cook up some plantains, then you pile taco salad like proteins and vegetables on top of it. Then you eat it and it is delicious. Piles so far have involved chipotle black beans, marinated fish, tomatoes, radishes, olives, avocados, cilantro, green onion, etc. etc.
Please tell me more about cooking plantains. I know nothing, beyond a vague notion that they are sometimes fried?
THAT SOUNDS SO GOOD
seriously I love plantains and need to learn to cook with them
Here for this.
I’m here for this thread! I’m allergic to spinach and dislike kale, so I am really easily shut out of a lot of salad recipes that are based on a nice heart spinach flavour, but I made a fantastic avocado chickpea feta salad this week. http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/chickpea-avocad…
I am lazy af so I roast a ton of vegetables (sweet potatoes! broccoli! brussels sprouts! cauliflower! green beans! whatever!), toss it on some salad with hummus and maybe canned corn, and top it off with a crispy egg.
There is probably nothing I will not eat with a crispy egg on top.
Smitten Kitchen’s crispy egg salad is so so so good
That does not seem lazy in the least
Taco salad is my forever fave. Chicken (I put mine in the crockpot with a packet of taco seasoning, then shred), avocado, monterey jack cheese and pico de gallo. Sour cream if I’ve committed to elastic-waist pants that day.
This week, I’ve been doing romaine, arugula, avocado, sprouts, tempeh and mushrooms drizzled with lemon, olive oil and tahini. You could probably toss in a hardboiled egg or some feta, but I’m enjoying keeping it vegan.
Also also also, the joy that can be found in a good Topopo salad cannot be overstated.
Avocado +cucumber + tomato + interesting greens + couscous cooked in veggie or chicken stock + vinegarette of your choice (or just a really good olive oil + lots of lemon (optional addition of chick peas/ cilantro / medium rare STEAK/ grated or shredded parmesan )
Giordano’s does this amazing harvest salad with spring greens and baby spinach, chicken, feta (or bleu cheese? can’t remember), pears (the nice crispy kind), pecans I think, and probably something else delicious I’m forgetting. Dried cranberries? Anyway, it’s amazing, and I sometimes want to go there just for the salad and skip the deep-dish pizza, but that seems wrong somehow.
I wish I could save this thread!
Mine is simple (perhaps weak-ass?) but it’s so, so goooooood. Arugula + lemon + olive oil + salt&pepper + parmesean cheese. All to your liking.
Those are some of my FAVORITE foods. And it’s so simple that it wouldn’t have occurred to me. Sounds delicious!
I have found that the Toast OT is such an incredible place for recommendations that I copy and paste my favorite stuff and put it all in one place so I have easy to access Toast hive brain. This thread will definitely end up there!
I make basically the same thing that I copied from the Cheesecake Factory menu (so it must be appealing): Arugula, lemon juice, olive oil, lots of black pepper, shaved parmesan and golden raisins.
Ohhhhhhhhhh, golden raisins! Will add those next time.
Berries and sliced banana with a maple or honey and lime dressing. Add a little grated ginger or cinnamon for kick.
Can I get specifically:
cheap
no ingredients that wilt in a week/need to be thrown out if I don’t use them entirely in a week
?
Not wilting in a week is a hard one for salad.
That being said, when I was single, I got frustrated because if I bought a big bunch of spinach or a bag of greens it would spoil. But then I figured out that you can fill a box with lettuce from the salad bar for less than $2. So I got small amount of greens that way, but I did not buy the toppings from the salad bar because they are what makes it expensive. So maybe buy a little bit of spinach/lettuce/kale every two days from the salad bar, and keep your house stocked with longer lasting things like carrots, eggs, dressings, nuts, dried fruit, croutons, etc
roasted veg will be good for you— you can roast a bunch at a time, freeze some of it, and then defrost as you want to eat those parts. Carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, tomatoes, mushrooms, cauliflower, etc etc etc etc. many of them are cheap, too! (at least some parts of the year, anyway)
If you are willing to call coleslaw a salad, here is my Very Favorite Thing:
Melinda’s Perfect Coleslaw
About 4-6 cups finely chopped cabbage (green, Napa, whatevs)
1 large carrot, grated
1 apple, finely chopped
about 1 tsp salt
1/4 c mayo
1/4 cup rice vinegar
sprinkle of sugar if you got carried away with the vinegar or are using a tart apple.
I like to assemble as follows:
Chop cabbage. Sprinkle with some salt and a bit of the vinegar. Refrigerate a while (overnight, or whatever you’ve got). Drain off any liquid.
Stir up mayo and vinegar. Adjust to taste. (I never measure these. I just eyeball. Modify balance for how creamy v. vinegary you like your slaw.)
Stir everything together. Taste and add a sprinkle of sugar if it’s too pickled for you. The flavors will meld considerably after it sits for a bit, but it will get runnier.
The assembled slaw will keep at least 5 days in the fridge. I like to make pulled pork in the slow cook, and then I eat this slaw and that pork together in various combinations (on tortillas, with potatoes, etc.)
beans & grains salads? Tabbouleh is pretty cheap and filling, though i don’t know how good the ingredients will be in wintertime.
or: black beans, corn, mango, bell peppers, make a dressing out of honey, lime juice & cumin. that’ll keep a nice long time and you can add greens or avocado when you eat it.
I posted it up thread, but: julienned cabbage (the regular cheap light green globe kind, nothing fancy), thinly sliced on the diagonal green onions, cilantro, julienned cucumber, julienned carrots (buy them in a bag pre-cut if you want to save time, even better if you quick pickle them in sugar/water/vinegar). If you store the cucumber and the cilantro separately, you can keep it in the fridge all week without dressing and it will stay crunchy.
Dressing: soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, sesame oil, rice vinegar, minced ginger (I use the stuff in the tube).
I like to eat mass quantities of these with white rice on the side and way fewer frozen dumplings than I’d normally eat. When I was unemployed, my boyfriend and I ate this meal ALL THE TIME. It is a testament to how much I love I that I still eat it now that I have a job and can afford groceries again.
A restaurant in boston (Flour) offers all or nearly all of their sandwiches with the option to have it as a salad. The one I make at home is the following:
Mixed greens, sliced up lunch meat roast beef, tomatoes, french-fried-onions (they make their own, i usually just buy a can), and a horseradish mayo dressing.
I also like the following:
Mixed greens, roasted sweet potatoes (can be fries!), pecans, apples, an orangey vinaigrette.
I made this awhile ago and it knocked my socks off. (I accidentally spilled all the chickpeas so had to use white beans instead, but it was still good.)
Lentil salad (get the steamed lentils from Trader Joe’s) with greens of choice, vinaigrette, pomegranate seeds, and goat cheese. Also works as a veggie side: take out the greens and dressing, add well-browned onions.
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/03/kale-and-q…
This is filling and really, really tasty. Feta works just as well as ricotta salata (and is easier to find). lemon zest and dill are nice but optional.
I just did a week of chopped romaine lettuce, chopped raw broccoli and apples and matchstick-cut carrots and shredded ginger generously doused with cider vinegar. I was feeling gross and logy after too much sugar and it really made my stomach happy to eat this.
My Standard Work Salad consists of:
Baby spinach, artichoke hearts, roasted beets, Trader Joe’s (already-cooked) rosemary chicken breast, red cabbage, walnuts, diced apples, and a hefty amount of goat cheese. Also pea shoots, if they’re available.
I’m not a huge dressing fan, so I just add a bit of balsamic vinegar.
Greek salad + giant scoop of Greek style potato salad on the bottom + homemade dressing of fresh lemon thyme, lemon juice, sugar, and olive oil. Truly my favorite thing. This is how I thought all Greek salads were made growing up, because this is how they are literally everywhere in my city (didn’t occur to me it was a regional thing). Imagine my disappointment when I ordered a Greek salad in NC and it was just lettuce and veggies instead of the hearty meal I was anticipating.
I am famous at work for my dedication to mason jar salads. These are the two I eat alllll the time (I have a dairy allergy but you could definitely cheese ’em up), from bottom to top:
– raspberry vinagrette + quinoa + walnuts + dried mango* + whatever greens (spinach/chard/kale/spring mix, WHO KNOWS)
– honey dijon dressing (lemon tahini also great here) + spelt + pumpkin seeds + grated/shaved carrot + whatever greens
*also great with dried apricot but that shit’s way more expensive
The salad pride tumblr has about a zillion hearty salad ideas (and also a book if that’s your sort of thing) We’ve made several and they did not disappoint.
Hi!
Remember when I said I was running a print-on-demand shop as a fundraiser and using a bunch of public-domain designs?
Turns out I really like dusting off those old unused Photoshop and Illustrator skills. I am completely in love with every design I’ve made and will probably singlehandedly pay for the diversity scholarship I’m fundraising for.
(More shameless self-promotion: https://society6.com/publicdemesne?promo=9CQY38G9… gets you free shipping today and this weekend. And also, check it:
SO GREAT)
I’m enjoying this so much I kinda lost track of, like, every other project I was gonna do this week. Also laundry. Ah well.
Urge to get…Irish Elk Skeleton duvet cover…strong…
(I am definitely going to buy something from this once I get a stable mailing address again in a week or so!)
This got emailed around my committee this week. Everyone thought it was very cool!
I am buying a tote bag at the minimum. So cool!
Drynuary check-in! It’s been a week – how are you all feeling? Also, I just noticed there are FIVE weekends within this Drynuary, so take that for what you will.
Hi! I haven’t really been Drynuary, quite. Our version is that we’re not *buying* alcohol, but we’ll drink a beer a night until what’s in the fridge is gone, and have some liquor at other times. Close enough? It’s going well for us, anyways.
All our socializing this month seems to be weekend brunches, so, that’s good. I’m taking in too much coffee, though, in an attempt to power through the backlog of shit that piled up over the holidays.
Close enough! One of my favorite benefits of Drynuary is saving money.
I nursed half a glass of wine for five hours last night so I’m calling that not-off-the-wagon. So far, so good!
Whatever Drynuary means to you! Nursing wine that long takes effort!
SOBER AS A JUDGE over here
You have apparently not met the same judges I have.
I survived 1) a night out with friends who all brought People I Don’t Know and 2) my hockey team trading one of my favorite players and I am still HOLDING STRONG, so suck it, Drynuary.
I don’t really drink that much or that often, but Drynuary has v. quickly revealed how much I rely on alcohol during social situations. I feel comfortable with how/what I drink normally, but it’s nice to be more aware of that in myself, I guess?
Oooo, staying strong through hockey drama is TOUGH.
I had a crazy week of our library branch being closed and working at other places and somehow managed not to desperately want a drink at the end of stressful days, so I’m calling week 1 a win.
Drynuary has made me realize i have actual substance abuse issues that I had previously attributed to “being in the Midwest” and “I’m single and still in my 20’s.” So, hurray for that. But also boo, change is hard and scary.
The alcohol bit has not been that difficult (though damn last night I wanted a glass of wine so bad), but the “other” bits have been really, really hard. They were my anti-anxiety medicine and now I have nothing but reality television and I’m sad to report that last night I felt the familiar tingle of withdrawal which I didn’t think I’d feel because I didn’t think it was that bad, but it is and my dreams were really wild as they usually are when I go through withdrawal (previously, an rx for oxycontin).
Soooooooo, in my search for a new therapist I have now added substance abuse counselor to the list, which made me feel really disappointed in myself that I let it get that bad, but at least I’m doing something about it.
So: Drynaury. Going fine.
A million hugs and props for looking for support!
You are brave and strong to look for support – I hope you find a good therapist.
After a week, I have kind of revised my Drynuary to allow lapses during weekly game night and/or after my weekly soccer games. Ideally I won’t use those allowances, but they are there.
I might also still do Dry February, which I did last year, if I feel like this version of Drynuary hasn’t accomplished what I want.
It’s been great! Every time I think about a drink, I perk up, though, which isn’t the idea. I think making it just until Saturday will already be pretty good for me. It’s so nice not to be hungover at work.
I read Sarah Hepola’s Blackout, so that helped confirm my purpose (although I haven’t drank to blackout in 15 years).
Recently, every time I’ve gone out, I’ve had several beers and shots at once (technically binge drinking). So I want a re-set.
My husband wonders why I can’t set an intention to just have 1 drink when I go out. But he doesn’t understand compulsive behaviour at all.
I don’t miss drinking yet. That being said, I have a social event tomorrow that may be interesting to be dry at. Last year, I had many shots of Fireball at said social event.
GUYS I HAVE HAD A HELL OF A DAY. I got chewed out (mostly deservedly) by someone very important over the phone and then got pulled into a meeting to brief someone else very important about something I’m working on and then got unexpectedly invited to a lunch meeting with the person who chewed me out this morning. I’m running on pure adrenaline and anxiety at this point and good god am I going to crash so hard tonight. Haven’t decided if I’m going to go to bed as soon as I get home or drink all of the bourbon in my house until the check liver light comes on.
drink all of the bourbon in my house until the check liver light comes on.
Sounds like a solid plan!
Yikes. This sounds like the kind of thing that would send one to the liquor cabinet. Can you take a break in the bathroom for 15 or so minutes at some point today?
Good luck with the lunch meeting!
I like to go home, have a stiff shot of bourbon, and then take a nap. It kinds of hits the reset button for me.
(Also, supportive back pats for the stress.)
Thanks for all the love guys! I’m grateful that I have great bosses and coworkers that have assured me that it’s all good and congratulated me on surviving my first chewing out by a client. I’m also thankful for you lovely anonymous internet friends. 🙂 🙂
Any Bay Area toasts have leads on rooms? My current roommates are making my life emotionally-drained hell, but the rent is so cheap for SF that I basically cannot leave. I’m obviously doing the craigslist thing and a few other leads but figure I would see if the lovely Toastfolk have any options. I can’t pay more than $800 (haha).
No leads, but commiseration. I am a Bay Area person in the throes of a breakup, and I am the one who is going to lose the rent-controlled apartment, and unless MAGIC happens, all I can afford is an SRO with no kitchen access and lead problems.
*offering broke-ass fistbump*
Everyone I know lives further out — can you go eastbay and brave the bridge traffic every morning?
I hate Bay Area rents. 🙁
I don’t know how to drive….lol. If it’s close to Bart I would happily live in the east bay
Someone sent me this when I was looking for housing awhile back https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/sfchalkboard/200…
I ended up living with some friends so didn’t use it in the end. It also leans towards the co-op/intentional living so not sure if that’s your thing. They also include other community announcements so number of postings can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.
Good luck!!
thanks, a coworker told me about this too–I will give it a peek!
Have you heard of listings project? You put in your info and they send out a weekly list of people who are looking for roommates or apartments for rent or people renting rooms, etc. It’s all carefully vetted so that they only post legit stuff. Might be useful?
Hmm, sounds good! If I just google listings project sf will it show up?
I think you just go to listings project, and when you sign up you put in your zip code and then they send you the list for your city.
No leads, but best of luck! I moved about a year ago and it was the worst. If it give you any hope, I somehow found a gigantic house that I love living in and I pay under $1000 for my room. It happens!
My only advice is to set up a Craigslist filter with your criteria and have automatic emails so you don’t have to constantly refresh. Also seconding the east bay suggestion – I live in the sunset and my dude lives in Rockridge, neither of us drive and we both pay pretty low rents. Good luck!!
May have a lead but not for a month or two, if you can wait that long.
I’m still in total flux and nothing is super decided yet, so I’d love to check in when you know for sure what’s up. IDK if comments will still be open on the open thread that far in the future?? I can give you my email address perhaps
I think comments stay open forever by default, but you can also give me your email address if you want!
my email is vanessapmartini at gmail dot com, if something does come up. Thanks fellow toastie!
Hey, Star Wars fans, if you feel like reading a point-by-point takedown of HuffPo’s ridiculous “40 Plot Holes” piece, I had a great time with this amazing article and I hope you will too.
The last line is definitely the kicker.
I almost cheered when I saw this getting shared on Facebook today!! This was pretty much me after rolling my ways through half the article, except instead of writing a take-down piece I channeled my rage towards an unhealthily large amount of pasta
I… I didn’t realize there was such a thing as that much pasta?
Some of those aren’t even plot holes in any sense! They’re just things that fly out of the mouth of your friend who you keep forgetting not to watch movies with!
EXACTLY YES
Right? Like by what stretch of the definition is the rift opening up between Rey and Kylo Ren a “plot hole”? It’s very clearly explained why that happened! Because the whole damn planet is blowing up!
I’d argue that basically none of the “plot holes” in that article are actually plot holes. Except for like two.
Well, it was at least a hole that happened in the course of the plot. The rest have no excuse.
RIGHT? Also, how is something that IS EXPLAINED RIGHT THERE IN THE MOVIE a “plot hole,” unless maybe you are a pretentious dildobrain?
The only thing I don’t like about it is how he starts off all “the HuffPo review was CLEARLY written by a whiny millennial” and then the after-the-credits twist ending is that he looks up the guy and it turns out he isn’t a millennial at all. Must we, dude? Must we?
Christ Toast. I am really struggling with being back in work.
That said, I am officially job hunting. I am done with my job and I want out of here before I really check out and start behaving badly (Asked for a raise two months ago and still crickets guys. Thats about £800 or more that they’ve kept from me.)
There’s a lot of other stuff going on that I don’t want to go into, but life is hard guys. I don’t ever remember agreeing to be an adult and I feel like it wasn’t really my choice.
Specific question: I HATE being called on the phone*, and now that I’m apply for jobs/talking to recruiters, they just LOVE calling first without any prior contact or warning. How can I subtly direct people to email me first? and after that is there any ways I can avoid talking on the phone as much as possible?
*I’m also still working in my job, so taking personal calls and calls about jobs is v. hard and awkward since my bosses sit across a desk from me and I think they’re starting to notice that I run out to take calls multiple times a day. So far I’ve taken to telling anyone who calls to email me, and explaining that I’m in the office and busy and might not be able to take a call, but if they email I’ll get to it as soon as I can.
Currently I’m waiting for someone to call about a job at a company I don’t even want to work for (agency is in the wrong industry but I only read the JD before I applied), he tried earlier without warning and I missed it, so organised by email for a call at 5 and I honestly have stomach pain from the anxiety about it and I’m just praying he doesn’t bother calling.
He hasn’t called. If he calls after now I’m just going to ignore it. RESPECT TIMED APPOINTMENTS.
When job-hunting, I have had good luck with simply telling people that I sit in a cubicle at work and cannot take sensitive calls, so email is the best contact method.
Ah perfect! Thank you!
It’s also fine to just not answer, and call people back. Or to answer and say ‘now’s not a good time, can I call you back at 1’. This is a perfectly professional and reasonable thing to do!
Toasties, I am about to start taking Topamax (aka, “dopamax”) tonight for my chronic migraines. I am moderately terrified. I know all medications have side effects, but the profile and likelihood with this drug are kind of daunting. I’m particularly worried about the cognitive effects. Like, I just started getting back into writing! I’ll probably be fine, right? Right?
For what it’s worth, I took Topamax for my chronic migraines and it really helped me. I was able to easily ween off of it after about a year of use recently. The side effects I experienced the most were weird tingly feelings in my hands and feet. I am unsure about its cognitive effects on me. (Sounds weird, I know). Like, I wasn’t able to directly attribute the drug’s impacts on any confusion I felt, but there were a couple of times when I thought it might have contributed. Good luck to you! The relief I feel from not having to go to the ER for pain was worth it, to me.
My husband takes Topamax for his chronic migraines, and I don’t think he’s had any major cognitive effects – or if he did, they were worth the trade-off for not having a migraine. Good luck!
You will most likely be fine! I have been taking generic Topamax for years and the effect on my migraines was like a dang miracle. The frequency went from a migraine almost every day down to just once a month with my period, which I can live with. I do have some side effects but they are not bad. I get tingling in my hands and feet and some appetite loss. My cognitive effects are pretty mild. Sometimes I will say the wrong word out loud from the same category (spoon when I mean fork). But it does not cause any problems with writing for me. When I have a migraine, sometimes I have trouble talking and feel “slow”, so it makes sense to me in a way. Everyone’s reaction will vary, of course, but that’s my experience.
Just try to remind yourself that side effects aren’t certain effects, and if you decide you can’t live with it, it’s ok. Chronic migraines are just the worst, so it’s understandable that the balance between “acceptable side effects” vs. “benefits to my life” is a little different than, say, birth control or something, but you’re allowed to make that calculation in any way that works for you. Best wishes!
i’ve taken topomax for years for migraines, and noticed no cognitive effects. The hand tingling went away after a little while. You’ll probably be fine, and you can always discontinue it if you want to.
I took it for a year for my migraines, which is about as long as many doctors are comfortable with prescribing it. I definitely did get the side effects–major word confusion and some short term memory issues, but I’m really prone to side effects with medication. My sister, who also gets migraines, was also on it for a while, and she also got some of that, but not quite as bad. My recommendation is avoid that and amitriptyline if possible. They both helped migraines, but the side effects were so severe that they absolutely were not worth it for me. (I’m currently on propranolol, which is a blood pressure medication, and that’s worked better than just about anything, and I have tried pretty much everything else.)
I was on propranolol for my thyroid for the time between diagnosis and getting it killed with radiation, and oh man I loved that stuff.
YEEESSS! I’ve been on propranolol for migraines for about 12 years, and it has made such an enormous difference. I wish it worked for everyone.
It’s one of three things I take for migraines and I only ever noticed the tingly fingers when I come in from outside when it’s cold. Otherwise it’s been totally fine! Good luck to you!
I think the most important part is to remember that you know your medical history. I was put on Topamax a second time by a neuro who told me, “Well, let’s just try it again to be sure.” Caused a major depressive episode where I was on med leave for 3 mos. All I’m saying is, just watch your symptoms and trust your gut. **I’ve been the proud recipient of Botox for chronic migraines for almost 7 years, and it changed my life.**
*high five in botox solidarity*
I was on Topamax for almost a year. For the first few months, the side effects were AWFUL, but that’s also when it worked best for me! It’ll likely be different for you; to each their own, medicine is not a science, etc. I hope it works out well enough.
It’s worth trying!! There are plenty of people who get one or two side effects that are TOTALLY MANAGEABLE (like tingling fingers), and it really helps.
My neuro really downplayed the side effects, which led me to ignore what was going on for me– massive brain fog, it DESTROYED my appetite, Acid Reflux like WHOA, and sent me into an episode of major depression. Also, it probably made my birth control less effective, which no one told me, but i was SUPER LUCKY and nothing unplanned happened. ALSO, it didn’t help my migraines, not at all.
In retrospect, none of that was subtle, not even a little, I just didn’t really realize that topamax could do all of that, so I thought it was just ME. Once I realized it was topamax, I tapered off, and all of the side effects went away quickly, including the major depression.
So, yeah, this could be really helpful, it could be a DISASTER. You can’t know until you take it. That’s scary. But even if you really don’t do well with it… you’ll just stop taking it, and it will be a bad time of things, but it will stop being terrible.
Oh Toasts, my family’s beloved dog and my son’s special friend passed away this morning with all of us there. He led a good, happy life, hampered only a little at the end with complications of diabetes. Please share the stories of dogs of your childhood/dogs you have loved.
So sorry your dog has passed and I’m glad he had a good life. My childhood dog was an outrageously beautiful springer spaniel, who was very chilled out and relaxed and even tolerated us children dressing him up in hats and scarves, but every now and then he liked to joyfully flip out and race around the garden in circles. He also liked to play the ‘am I going to give you the ball I just fetched??? HELL NO I’M NOT HEE HEE!’ *bum in air, tail wagging, races off gleefully*
Aw it makes me happy just to think of him and his ways. I’m sure you have just as many great memories of your pooch. <3
Aw, I’m sorry.
My first dog passed away while I was in grad school. His name was Wesley and he was… weird. Not special. Just weird. Liked to play fetch in the lake… with rocks.
Wesley liked to eat. He ate everything. He was the biggest puppy in the litter and basically wasn’t aggressive at all, he just sort of bowled everyone else out by being big and fat. Anyway, Wesley ate rocks. He also ate cigarette butts (but only specific brands). He chased and ate rabbits (ew). He ate rotting fish. If it was remotely edible, he ate it.
However, there was a limit. He liked pretzels, but only if they had this certain kind of mustard on them. If you gave him a plain one he’d mouth it and then spit it out and look at you like “REALLY? You know they HAVE to have mustard on them.”
He also really liked the mail man (he was a dude) and would follow him around the neighborhood on his rounds. And when he didn’t want to, he’d nap in the front yard and wait for him. And then he’d woof once, stay down and just wait for the mail man to come pet him, because he was lazy.
That was Wesley, who was a doofus.
I am so, so, so sorry. We had to put our beloved family pup to sleep 2 years ago (he had cancer) and it took a while to not be unbearably sad when we thought of him, but after some time the good memories, not the ones of him being sad and sick, are what we think of.
Bizarrely, I still find his dog hairs in my clothes. He died 2 years ago; we sold the house last year; WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM? Even in clothes that I wear and wash regularly, there are dog hairs.
In almost every picture of me from a newborn to the age of three, there is a Doberman somewhere in the composition. Sheba actually predated my arrival by six months or so. She was ostensibly gotten to be a security measure while my father was in the field (there was a serial rapist operating in Fayetteville at the time), but, beyond looking big, she was about as intimidating as a rose petal. But she still couldn’t come with us when we moved to Germany. Sweet or not, she was still pretty much the number one threatening dog breed of the eighties and the German landlord wasn’t having any of that.
Mckinley came when we moved back to the states. He was actually bred to be a show poodle and it showed. Massive, black, loud, too smart for his own good, and constantly in a war for ultimate dominance with my dad and every dog that crossed his path. He was a leader, a protector, a consummate watchdog, but with one fatal flaw. Socks. (And underwear.) He died a week before I was supposed to come home on my very first college Thanksgiving break. Stupid dog. But what a dog.
I can’t read the replies to this right now becuase everyday I’m waiting for the call from home to say that my 18ish year old terrier has passed. I mean I’ve been waiting since last summer and he’s so far skipped out on 3 different ‘final’ vet appointments by making a miraculous recovery (he’s not sick, just old so he has good days and bad days and it seems whenever he has a run of bad days and an appointment is booked he then has a spectacular day.) We all love him very dearly but he’s always been the worst little shit of a dog since I found him in 2002! So looks like he’s just continuing his life goal of being as difficult and inconvenient as possible, he’s the best.
So hugs for you and the family and I’m glad to hear that everyone was able to be there for him
My family’s first dog was a Boxer: Sonja. The best dog to ever live. She passed away about a year and a half ago, and I still cry about it sometimes.
They’ve also acquired a Boston Terrier and a Schipperke, and a few months ago they inherited another Boxer, Roxy, from a family who didn’t really have time for her and left her in her kennel for most of the day. As a result, she’s kind of like a feral child. She wants to snuggle, but she doesn’t really know how, so she climbs onto your bed and stands on you and mashes her paw into your face like “is this snuggling? am i doing it right? i love you so much human”
Toasthugs for you and your son. Your dog felt secure and absolutely certain of your love.
Someone, somewhere, must be cutting raw onions.
My beloved Yorkie died about a year and a half ago and it basically broke me. I’ve dealt with the death of close family members, but this was different – I felt the pressure of being the primary (only, really) one mourning him and remembering all his quirks.
He was a great cuddler. He would always sit next to the bath while I was bathing as though to keep an eye out for threats. He always stuck his tongue out a little. He was a comfort to me in difficult times and I very much felt the lack of not having him there for comfort when the difficult time I had to deal with was his death.
I’m so sorry for your loss and I hope you and your family are a great support to each other as you deal with it and can hold on to all the memories he gave you.
My family’s first dog was named Roly by my little brother and I, and we got him when I was five or six. He was a wheaten terrier mix and he was actually highly similar to my current potato- loving, outgoing, kind of nippy as a puppy.
The thing I remember most about Roly now is how much he loved to run. He would chase rabbits so he could run in circles around them, with no intention of catching them. When we lived out in the country, my siblings would sometimes camp out in the woods (I was a very anxious child and elected not to) and Roly would run back and forth and back and forth between the house and the campsite all night, barking his head off so you’d hear it fade out… and then back in and in the morning we’d be like ROLY WAS AT IT AGAIN DID YOU HEAR HIM ALL NIGHT HE’S SO FAST.
Also I’m so sorry for your loss. My dog Prince passed away five years ago and I still think about him (and dream about him). I am sure that you and your son made lots of special memories with your dog and that eventually they will make you smile instead of tear up, even if it takes a while.
I do not have dog stories, but one of my family’s cats went his own way on the 2nd (happy new year to us!) He was 14 and had a bad sinus infection that did not respond to treatment. I thought I’d have longer with him. So I nurse these feelings alongside you.
Also I happened upon a picture book today about a sad, scared kitten alone outside. LITERALLY WHO WRITES BOOKS ABOUT ANIMALS BEING SCARED AND ALONE OH MY GOD I’m going to the bathroom and looking at pictures of my cats
I’m sorry for your loss. My childhood dog was put down a few years ago. He was a Sheltie named Hermes; he was very introverted and really just wanted to hang out with Mom (and the rest of us), not other dogs or people. But he was very sweet and very smart, and loved to do tricks for us, and we could let him outside without a leash or a fence because he would never dream of straying too far from his pack. He was also hilariously prissy – hated getting his paws wet, very proud of his fur. He got along very well with the cats because he ignored them, for the most part.
A few years back I got a call that he was not doing well (he was thirteen or fourteen), and he may need to be put down soon. As chance would have it, I was already halfway between my home and my parents’ home for a party; I hitched a ride home with friends who lived in my hometown. The morning after I got home, we all gathered together with Hermes and took him to the vet, and we all stood with him as he was put down. It was heartbreaking. I’ll always have a spot in my heart reserved for him.
I’m sorry for your loss but glad that your doggie was loved and cared for and I’m sure he knew it and appreciated it too.
My first dog was a black Lab named R—–. He was part of the family before I was, and one of our first interactions was when I was teething and got hold of his ear and chomped mightily on it. His response was simply to put his head back and howl in pain–he would never have even thought of hurting or even snarling at a baby, because he had a good and gentle heart. He was quite an old man by the time I had passed kindergarten age and had to be put to sleep soon after, but I still remember him with great fondness, and a little guilt for that chomp.
My family’s dog had to be put down late in 2015. He was a rescue, literally found by the side of the road, when he was a small puppy. He had the run of my family’s farm, several neighbors’ yards, and my mom regularly made sausage gravy just for him. I was consoled by knowing that he had an awesome doggy life.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Chiaroscuromom, and I hope you take solace in remembering him.
Yay! I’ve been waiting for an Open Thread because I think Toasties might be able to help me- I am one of those Highly Sensitive People (although I find a lot of the HSP stuff pretty precious and kind of not-scientifically valid) who is easily overwhelmed by stimuli and that sort of thing. I also have an anxiety condition which may or may-not be related to that.
My request for help is that I hate driving. Hate it. My biggest fear came true last September and I ran a red light I didn’t see and hit a car. Luckily everyone is fine although the cars were not. But I decided then and there that I never want to drive again because there is no way to say that I’ll never be distracted again and what if I had hurt someone? I can’t face that. But obviously that’s not a real option. What kind of help out there is available for people with this kind of thing? I know that many people with autism are also highly-sensitive in much the same way (fall asleep in loud places with shiny lights like nightclubs and concerts) so maybe some of the advice or help for them would apply here? I’ve started with a new therapist and she’s helping but I’d like to see what else is available.
I don’t have much to offer but internet hugs, it sounds like we have quite similar personalities and I had a similar car accident a few years ago as well. Therapy is a good thing — I bet if I’d had a therapist at the time it would have been much better, but I was very shaken up for months afterward (like, crying if anyone did anything unpredictable on the road whatsoever). I also found writing about it to be helpful, and talking with friends who had had similar experiences. It’s natural to never want to drive again after an accident, and especially for those of us who are sensitive I think it may take longer, so just be very gentle with yourself and do whatever self-care and coping you need to do.
I have anxiety and depression and I was not ready to drive at all when I attempted to in high school. When I was finally ready to start again, about 7 years later, I looked specifically for schools that offer lessons for nervous drivers. Taking lessons with a teacher who’s sensitive to anxiety and nerves, etc. really helped me.
Maybe you could go back and take some lessons at a specialized driving school like that, not with the purpose of learning to drive, since you have your license, but with the idea that they might be able to make you more comfortable and have techniques to show you or advice to offer you to make you feel better while driving. Or even just to reinforce all of your good behaviors and weed out the bad habits.
I agree. I was nervous to learn to drive and ended up taking classes at a school that teaches mainly old people and rich high schoolers. If you are nervous to drive and have always been nervous to drive you probably avoid doing it, which probably makes it feel worse every time. I think you would benefit a lot from a regular appointment to drive every single week that you can’t get out of, with someone who has seen worse drivers than you, who also has a brake on their side of the car. Sign up for a lot of lessons too, like at least 10, or 20.
I haven’t completely lost my fear, but we drove across country and eventually I had to drive a lot and fast on the highway and keep changing lanes and everything that was my fear, and this thing happened where I was scared but still going and my driving partner was like, “you’ve got this, you are doing great” and so on and so on until there was this sort of “I made it!” exhilaration at the end that was rewarding. If you only ever have the “ahhh I’m driving this is so scary” feeling and have never gotten to the “oooh I’m doing it, go me, driving!” feeling, then I can understand why you don’t feel like you can be a safe driver. And a mistake can set you back big time.
I think it’s important to understand that your fear can be both reasonable and unreasonable at the same time. Driving is dangerous and also it’s normal. However your fear is perhaps lying to you about your own capability and that is actively blocking you from improving. You do, as someone said down thread, need to be clear about your own limits, but then you have to reach this sweet spot, push through, have the fear and survive it, and keep going and improve. Everyone does screw up in a car from time to time and it does sometimes cause accidents. People also trip on the sidewalk, or choke on their food and yet, you can’t give up walking or eating, you just go, oh shoot I need to eat more carefully and learn the heimlich. We all do dangerous things every day, and driving is only one of them. Your brain is focused on this particular dangerous thing because you don’t feel in control of it.
That said you can stop driving. Move to NYC, or decide how much money you want to spend on taxis, give up going out at night, take the bus, ride a bike, etc. But it is a bit limiting and you will give up a lot of spontaneity and time if you go down that path.
I also want to be careful how I frame this, but are you sure that you aren’t using HSP as a reason to cast yourself as a unchangeably terrible driver? I don’t want to argue with anyone’s limits, because I don’t want to downplay anything you struggle with, but I’m thinking specifically about this thing: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-… which says basically when a smart woman is bad at something you are more likely to say to yourself, “well I can never do this, I’m giving up”. And that’s what I thought to myself as I read the top part, you gave yourself a diagnosis of why you might never be good at driving, and now this accident confirms it. And I’m really familiar with this because I learned to drive so slowly and thought I might be terrible and worse than anyone else and basically broken and incapable. And what I really was, was scared that I was a terrible driver and stressed out and inexperienced and avoiding it as a result. The more I drive the better I get, the easier it gets the more I re-write this idea of myself in my head to say that I’m not necessarily bad at something as I am not practiced in it. HSP could also be a reason why you’d make a good driver, because you’d know enough about yourself to work with a therapist on how to manager yourself under stress and then you’d know you should never try and untangle your headphones or listen to the music loudly or drive during a storm, and you might end up driving more defensively than other people as a result. Again I apologize if I’m off base, I don’t want to tell someone they can do something when they legitimately can’t, and this is such a grey area, but I do think there are limits we sometimes put on ourselves that are hard to challenge and I want to just ask if that’s part of what is going on for you, because I know that was what driving was like for me, and sometimes still is.
No worries! That’s something I am prone to (see: not dating for 15 years) and I really don’t want to do that this time. If I could get hooked up to a bunch of sensors and do a series of simulations and prove it one way or another definitively I’d be much happier, but I always like quantitative data. It’s just such an important thing to be right about.
I may have once accused the various anti-drunk-driving campaigns of my youth and my driving class, where we watched 7 of the 8 iterations of Red Asphalt, for my anxiety over driving. When they’re designing the class for the typical teenager who thinks they are immortal they end up with a class that is not so hot for people like me.
I definitely said it was scarier to learn to drive at 30 than 16. But then again, I never learned to drive at 16, so how do I know?! Give yourself time, give yourself easy assignments, talk to your therapist, anything you need, just the thing that got me on the road was a breakup and a feeling like, “this is crazy! I can do so many things on my own, why is this my block?” and then I just learned to drive slowly. I didn’t tell anyone I was taking lessons because everyone has opinions (aahhaha, because I just gave you so many opinions) and I just did it quietly for me. But the one person I told said, “you’ll be fine. You have to practice, but dumber people than you drive every day, you’ll be fine.” And that’s something I truly believe. Yes, getting in a car is risky but it’s an everyday sort of risk, and I think nearly all adults are capable of it, because it’s really not significantly harder than riding a bike and I wish someone had said that to me. If you feel scared it’s because you are still wobbly on your wheels and the only thing that solves that is more practice, which of course is the number one thing you hate doing when you are wobbly. Keep trying driving schools, keep trying different instructors. Call up the places and say, “I’m a nervous driver and I want to buy a LOT of lessons, but only from a really nice, calm patient instructor. Who do you have like that?” They’re going to want you to spend the money, and they have definitely seen worse. I bet most driving instructors prefer a nervous driver to a cocky driver, because they can boost your confidence, but they can’t get someone who is being stupid to take things more seriously.
I wish you the best of luck and really truly believe this could be your year to kick this in the butt!
Thanks, I’ve been looking into that; so far it seems that around here most of the driving schools are for people who want to pretend they’re on Dukes of Hazard for the day.
PS totally get you on the not ready to drive at 16 thing. I ended up bursting into tears during my second time taking the exam because I just didn’t want to do it. I failed my first exam because I went 10 miles an hour below the speed limit the whole time. I finally got my license a week before I turned 22 and after I’d been on anti-anxiety meds for a year.
I am so glad you were not hurt, nor anyone else. Taking a break from driving is understandable. I love to drive and even I would take a break, in your shoes.
Your therapist can help you with strategies for achieving focus and controlling panic impulses behind the wheel. Good for you, getting professional help.
When you find you must return to driving, be ruthless about limiting distractions. I am also easily overwhelmed and I insist on some of the following for my own driving.
It’s OK to decide you’re never going to have a passenger, never eat or drink in the car, never look at the clock or anything other than the speedometer, never play music in the car, never listen to anything but the traffic and road noises.
It’s OK to decide you will stick to the same driving routes everywhere you go. Familiar = less stress. Are there 3 ways to get to your house? Pick one and stick to it, even if it means going a couple miles out of your way sometimes. Pick one route for all destinations in one particular direction. Select your routes by which ones provide the least stress, never mind how much longer they might be.
It’s OK to decide you will always drive in the slow lane, always set your speed 10 mph below the posted limit. This gives you more time to scan for and plan for hazards. Slower speed also encourages tailgaters to get away from you, which allows you to all but ignore what’s behind you.
I was just realizing after writing that that my accident happened because (I mean, after the sun in my eyes thing) because I had just gotten out from the Sing Along Sound of Music and I was already over stimulated. I think I need to accept that there will be times that if I want to do something like that I need to schedule in some decompression time afterward before driving.
I have used the Smith System (http://www.smith-system.com/training_solutions/on_the_road/) to teach other drivers and to improve my own driving. One of the basic premises is that drivers have much more control that one might believe. (Which may help alleviate some of the anxiety. )
Just #options
oooh! Thank you! I’d never seen this before!
You might consider a defensive driving course. I always kind of hated it, and ultimately ended up moving to a city where I don’t need to, but people used to recommend that to me, so maybe it would work for you?
sympathy–I had a terrible time learning to drive (absolutely could not as a teenager) and have now been in a city so long I’m nervous about doing it again! I don’t have any surefire advice, but lots of :hugs:
Toastrons, I have just gotten home from a fantastic trip to Russia but perhaps the most fantastic part was seeing this in person, completely unexpectedly- I screamed in the middle of the museum.
I would scream too!
BEHOLD HER IN ALL HER GLORY. Lucky you!!!
OH MY GOD IT IS REAL
YAYYYY!!! What a delightful surprise!!
Which museum hosts this embodiment of contentment?
It’s in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, which I thought was a million times better than the Hermitage! It had lots of role models, actually:
I want to go to there (there being where those three excellent ladies are at)
These are all great, but I definitely appreciate the “don’t you even think about fucking with me” expression on the face of the woman in the third painting.
“This dog is sleeping. I am happy. GOE AWAY”
OUR PATRON SAINT!
Ah, “The Businesswoman at Tea“.
*EXCITED FLAILING*
It’s beautiful. It makes me want to rip down the little ink jet printed copy I have in my office, hijack the poster printer in the basement and print out a full size one, buy a gaudy gold frame, and hang a proper representation of Our Lady of Contentment on the big empty wall in my office.
Do you have any advice/words of wisdom about planning a trip to Russia? I’ve done a bit of looking into it and have been totally overwhelmed.
Do you know yet what places you’d like to see, and/or how much time you have available? I’d start by buying a guidebook and flagging priorities. You can get train tickets online now in advance, which is really helpful. Saint Petersburg in my opinion is the easiest- all the major sights are in walking distance of each other, English seems pretty common, the pace is more laid back, the museums are wonderful- but it is also more European in feel. Moscow is a bit more challenging, but pretty much obligatory. I would also include at least one smaller town, even as a day trip (Sergiev Posad can be done as an easy day from Moscow, or we just did Vladimir and Suzdal as an overnight). Good guidebooks have a basic menu decoder, or you can always point at pictures, and a lot of restaurants will bring out an English menu. Some basic Russian phrases go a long way towards having people be friendly rather than seemingly-hostile. Once you have your locations fixed, Trip Advisor works well as a starting point for picking hotels.
I’d be happy to answer questions or weigh in on ideas! We’ve gone twice- the first time was nine years ago, and we went to Saint Petersburg and Moscow, then took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Irkutsk and spent a few days on Lake Baikal. This time we went to Saint Petersburg, Moscow, some small towns in the Golden Ring outside of Moscow, and Kaliningrad. We definitely plan to go back, next time to the Far East. I love planning trips, even vicariously, and would be really happy to be a sounding board for your ideas!
EDITED TO ADD: I’d also be happy to share my trip-planning spreadsheet/itinerary!
I can only take one week off from work at a time, so I’d be going for a week. Last year I went to Japan and tried to do three cities in a week (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka) and that was way too much. So I’d probably only do two, and I figured they’d be Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Basically, right when I got home from Japan I was all ‘travel is great! where can I go next?’ and started researching going to Russia. Then the travel sites talked about needing to get a visa and my research/planning petered out because it seemed like a lot of work. I was thinking vaguely about trying to go in the summer, July maybe, because I don’t want to plan to go in the spring and then have it accidentally still be winter (which I’ve done before for other travel). But even if I decide to do an easier trip this year (I’ve also been looking at Montreal), Russia’s at the top of the list of places I’d like to visit eventually.
The visa can be expensive ($275-$325 depending on number of entries), but it was really easy both times- we used a travel agency, sent them our stuff, and two weeks later they sent it back to us with visa complete, fully serviced (invitation, etc. all taken care of)! This time around we used gotorussia.com. Their website is a bit rough looking but they were very helpful. With a week I’d do Moscow and Petersburg, with a day trip to Sergiev Posad, and taking the train between places. Flying in to one city and home from the other can actually be cheaper than a normal round trip ticket, which gives you more time to spend on the ground as well. Good luck!
AHHH
did you feel a flush of self-actualization and fulfillment?
I did! With an ample dose of giddy disbelief that I was indeed in Her presence!
I really hate dating for the most part so I don’t do it much but I had a really good date this week and now I am in the awful position of liking someone and not being sure if I am being liked in return. Ugh! I am not used to giving a shit what men think of me, this is terrible.
Offering you ALL my sympathies because this is me on the very rare occasions I find myself with both the energy to date + a date I become smitten with. It is extremely unpleasant (but then sort of fun to have a crush, right?).
The bonus, I tell myself, is that we’ve spent so much time NOT caring what men think that when it happens, at least we are cognizant?
Toasties from the NYResolution thread – who’s sticking with Yoga Camp over at Yoga with Adriene? Are you liking the mantras? (I am sort of surprising myself by liking the mantras, frankly.)
Also, if you are like me and do not own a yoga block, what do you use instead? I use my Norton Anthology of English Lit because the shape is right, but ooof sort of heavy on Day Six’s figure eights.
I am! And thank you, thank you, thank you whoever mentioned it; this is exactly what I needed right now. (I did an extra video this morning after Day Seven because that didn’t feel like enough?? What is happening to me, is this what working out feels like????)
(I do not own a yoga block and my internet crapped out halfway through Day Six, so I did not do the figure eights. I was not looking forward to picking a book, though.)
I did an extra video too- that day that she had us sitting with our legs wide open for like 10 minutes was agony for me and folks in the comments were suggesting the hip openers video. Not that hip openers are very exercise-y but still weird for me! I’m hoping that makes up for cutting the 50 min video short.
I’ve been loving it so far! I’ve actually been looking forward to getting on the mat everyday which is weird. Also I thought I’d totally hate the mantras but they work for me so far.
I was a cheater and didn’t use anything in place of the yoga block, I just pantomimed it. That 50min video though, ain’t nobody got time for that!
HAHA I got through it on optimism and the fact I had no other plans of substance the day after New Year’s. That said, it’s definitely made the regular-length videos seem to fly by.
does this cost money? Is it too late to start? I’ve been looking for a good “restart your practice” series.
It’s cheap as free! Here’s is Yoga with Adriene’s youtube page- https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene
She’s adding 1 new yoga camp video per day this month so you can jump in or start at the beginning or whatever. If the mantras aren’t your thing she also has a similar 30 days of yoga series that can help ease you back in.
I definitely second the recommendation for her first 30 days of yoga set too! I did it last year (not… over 30 days in a row, but I did do all 30 videos more or less in order), and did not regret it. And both that one and Yoga Camp are very purposely set up to start whenever.
I’m not doing that one, but am doing a month long challenge (Yoga by Candace). Really liking it and somehow making time every morning before work.
“Protocoach, we’re running a demo for the actual clients of that feature you’ve been working on this afternoon at 2 PM. Do you need anything to be ready for that?”
“Ummm…more heads-up than three hours, because pieces still aren’t working?” he says in his head. “Nope, should be fine!” he says in his email, because he is Behind Schedule.
*ASSIDUOUSLY FAKES DATA AND PLANS PRESENTATION TO AVOID ANY AND ALL EDGE CASES THAT ARE STILL THROWING BUGS*
Hi toasties, love you all, this week has been crazy stressful and I am ready for it to be the weekend, bye toasties, have a great day.
Hahahahahahahaha, yeah. My spousal person is a software QA manager. This is his life. At this point he just fills in a developer’s/executive’s name in an exasperated bark from his office (he works from home) and I do the ranting for him on my way to the kitchen to prepare emergency tea (extra strong, Welsh).
May your weekend arrive swiftly.
Who likes BBC documentaries from the 70s, women artists telling their stories in their own words, and wild, raw punk music? Please enjoy this Arena episode from 1979 ‘Who is Poly Styrene?’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3VfugdCTTU
Be warned, there’s an unpleasant moment at the very end where, on finishing a gig, a bunch of scummy white men in the audience rush the stage, grope Poly, demand kisses, RUB HER HAIR (gaaah!) and generally act like entitled pieces of shit. Guys like them ruined punk for everyone else.
Prolly no coincidence 1979 was the same year she decided to disband X Ray Spex and peace out of live shows for a very long time. (I know there was mental illness too, but really, looking at that footage, it was a pretty rational decision even without that caveat).
I DO, I DO. 1st-wave punks (especially first-wave punk women) are among my most favorite topics.
THIS IS SO GREAT THANK YOU
Also you have inspired me to write an article comparing the original punk movement to modern-day Reddit, viz. how angry white dudes just need a place to vent, you know?
Pitch it to the Toast!
POLY STYRENE. I didn’t get punk at all until the first time I heard “Oh Bondage Up Yours!”. Of course punk should include saxophones and high notes that melt plastic, who could ever think differently?
I later found out that at some point my Dad (whose past is shrouded in mystery, also alcohol) tended bar in Chelsea at The Man in the Moon, where the X-Ray Spex were essentially a house band. He said he didn’t like those nights because he got spat on a lot.
Oh my god. Those guys again. I don’t care if it’s punk, it’s never ok to spit on people! It’s not rebellious or cathartic, just macho bullshit behaviour. Poly would never spit on a barman (or anyone!)
I feel you on the not ‘getting’ punk till OBUY. And Patti Smith ‘Horses’, though I believe that’s not ‘technically’ classified as punk.
Thank you speakingofcake! Love these docs.
I want to thank the people who, several weeks ago, responded to a post I made in a fit of anxiety over possibly having a male roommate. Your assurances and advice helped me calm down and stop obsessing over unknowns.
I met him, he seemed very nice, and he’s started moving in this week. My worries were mostly unfounded, though he has exhibited a propensity for using metal spoons on nonstick cookware, so he’s going to need a little training. I introduced him to Hamilton the other night, and I think it went over very well. I’m feeling pretty optimistic!
I once lived with a boy (by choice! he was a friend!) but for the first month, I dramatically announced to anyone who would listen that “I’m living with a boyyyyyyyy and it’s weeeeeeird!”
Lol! It is a bit weird. I lived with my last roommate for 4.5 years, so I’d gotten pretty lax about how clothed I was at any point in time. I wasn’t naked! But I also was not fit for polite company. Now I’m trying to strike a happy balance between physical comfort and not scandalizing the poor new guy.
——– Original message ——–
I live with a boy right now and I’m just constantly “ugh.”
I lived with a boy at my last place and it was good, so it’s really just this boy that has me all “ugh.” It’s nothing more than general incompatibility, so I’m waiting it out, buuuuuuut…
yes, living with boys is weird.
Congrats and good luck with the new roomie! He sounds good. 🙂
I am tired and hangry and don’t want to talk to any more people today.
Let’s go home and have wine and cheese by the fire and netflix. Or maybe just read.
Approved.
I feel this so much. TRULY all I want to do right now is go home and play cooking mama.
So I have already fallen down on my “write every day” resolution, but it’s only been one day missed so far. My other resolution–read while I eat dinner instead of watching TV, with the idea that I will then *continue* reading–has worked like a charm, and I’ve been reading books like the proverbial person in the desert who comes across an oasis. I’ve finished four books so far this year. My favorite was probably Scheherazade Goes West, which I read on Toastie recommendation and was FASCINATING. Thank you to whoever recommended it here. Anyone have any recommendations for similar books?
That may have been me? I think I mentioned Scheherazade Goes West a while ago, because it’s great. Not sure what you mean by “similar”, but you might enjoy Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi. She’s a professor of literature (I think?) and the book is about a secret book circle she held with her female students in her apartment (in Tehran, obvs), interspersed with chapters about the Iranian revolution and how the religious extremists managed to come out on top. Seriously like The Handmaid’s Tale IRL. It’s been a few years since I read it, but I think there were lots of smart opinions about books, social change and gender.
Also, The Storyteller’s Daughter by Saira Shah is awesome. She’s a British journalist with a father from Afghanistan, and the book is about her trips (for family and for reporting) and about what’s been going on in Afghanistan. It’s kind of similar to Scheherazade and Reading Lolita, in a way, because she too talks about Western views of the Islamic world and Islamic views of the West. But in another way it’s not really similar, because she’s a reporter (and an adventurous person) rather than an academic, and Afghanistan seems to be really different from Iran or Morocco. As a reporter she sees lots of misery and resilience, as a teenager off to meet distant family for the first time she meets a culture that’s new to her, and she always hangs out with droves of interesting people – she camps out in the mountains with guerrillas while dressed as a man, talks to men and women, visits valleys so remote they barely know or care that there’s a war on, and tells loads of historical accounts and stories and legends to show what there is to love about the incredibly rich history of Afghanistan.
I hate everything. My job is slowly killing me, grand boss made his periodic appearance to yell at us in our meeting about shit that isn’t our fault, I just spent 4 hours on a scanner issue that makes no goddamn sense when I could have been using my librarian skills to actually you know, HELP A PATRON or FIND THINGS or heaven forbid, do what’s in my job title and work as an archivist.
On top of that, I need to make a plan to get over my crippling fear of romantic relationships because heaven forbid people like me, let alone think I’m sexy or good looking (which I am, but no one else must realize this terrible secret).
I need a stiff drink. Or many not so stiff drinks since I am terrible at drinking.
YOU’RE SO GOOD LOOKING
You are sexy and awesome, how could you not be? You’re a librarian and Toast commentor.
Well. *I* like you, your boss is a jackass who probably has many ways in which his attitude boomerangs back to him so he pays for it, and if you would like a very benign and just-potent-enough champagne cocktail, feel free to stop by.
Toasties! I set foot in a gym and onto an exercise machine thingy yesterday.
Backstory: I hate exercise, basically. I get bored with it easily. In my mind, exercise is what my mother did to lose weight–she’s a yo-yo-er–not for “because it feels good & is good for you” reasons. So in my mind, there was never a reason to exercise unless you were trying to lose weight. My early 20s were hallmarked by the metabolism of a hummingbird, so I never thought about it, and I didn’t have an inactive lifestyle. But since getting a grownup deskjob that requires very long hours, fitting movement into my day felt Difficult. Over the hill of 26, my metabolism halted like a mack truck crashing into a wall. It doesn’t help that I find gym culture baffling & unpleasant & hostile & kind of psychotic, the soothing tones of rich white ladies in NYC yoga classes insufferable, and barre classes needlessly competitive. I did pilates for a year with an amazing teacher who really helped me, but there was no way I’ve tried doing my own matte regime in the morning, which lasted for 4 months until I was like, NOPES. SNOOZE. NEED SNOOZE.
I want badly to feel good in my body. I feel that exercise is a part of this. This is in very small part a weightloss thing (just the weight I gained from not exercising, but not like Lady Mag Weight Loss Shame weight loss). Mostly, I’m trying to make this a health initiative (I am healthy now, but I can see myself on the downward slope of not healthy if I don’t make a lifestyle change).
How do you Toasties do it?? How do you not get bored? What are your favorite exercises for creaky bones & a healthy heart? How do you approach the emotional baggage? How do you consistently make time for exercise when you work 11 hour days, have a 45 min -1 hr commute on top of that, and require a little down time and dinner time and spouse time?
When I am actually at the gym, I never do any one thing for more than five minutes? I have no idea if this is good technique, but mostly I just get bored and frustrated so quickly that I allow the goals themselves to be very small: “I will walk quickly uphill on this treadmill for 3 full minutes!” “I will do a wallsit for 40 seconds!”
Basically I realized that I am very good at setting up ways for myself to fail, but if I make the goals small enough, then I will actually meet and exceed them rather than stopping because I fail? So maybe just set baby-goals to start with?
I am realizing this was not your question and more just my own meditation on the 20 minutes I just spent at the gym, alas…
Always listen to music that you absolutely love and makes you want to move.
I really dislike the gym, I dislike exercising indoors. My best thing is if I can do something which happens to be physical. I like to cycle, but I find it hard to motivate myself to “go out for a bike ride”, so instead I just cycle to anything I need to go to within a certain mileage. So active and stimulating! Different conditions every day – different things to see, different people, even if I go to the same places. A different way of seeing the world.
Same with walking. I now walk as transport, as much as possible. I wanted to go there anyway – I will take slightly longer and walk. I know people that run their commute to work in London (they have changing facilities). It may take longer than public transport but it means you don’t have to spend an hour in the gym.
I don’t know where you live, you may be very urban and I am not, but I really believe in doing enjoyable things that happen to be physically active.
Time wise I have no idea.
Boredom: Good audio books.
Hi! Happy that you got to the gym. I can relate in the hatred for it, I never liked it either. I commute to NYC during the week and have along day. For me, the only thing that works is carving out early AM time to move my body. I know it sucks waking up early (I wake up at 5am, run or do yoga or hop on my elliptical and then take a 7:02am train into the city), but I have been doing it for so long that it is just a habit now and the physical and mental benefits drown out the waaaahhsss whyyyyyyyyy when my alarm goes off. I do go to bed relatively early (about 9ish), but my husband and kids are doing the same so we are just an early house. I get home about 6:30pm so it feels like enough time to sit and catch up/love everyone before we turn in for the night.
Obvs this doesn’t work if you HATE the mornings, but I think I’ve just trained my soul at this point and I feel good! That’s the most important thing, I can’t have exercise feel like punishment or a means to an end, it’s not good for me or anyone I think!
Good luck to you!
Yep, early-morning here, too. I will note that I work out completely at home, though — I have a treadmill (which is admittedly a great luxury), but I also have a small (okay large) library of exercise videos and hand weights. So I can do whatever I am feeling like on the really bad days: ready for weights? Weight video. No energy for weights? Cardio video. No energy for much of anything? Yoga video. Lots of variety, all workouts that I actually LIKE (I get rid of the workouts I find myself never doing).
You can find lots of used exercise videos on Amazon or Craigslist. And of course there are lots of online options, but I’m an old who still uses her favorite VHS workouts (carefully, dreading the day that my favorites break).
I work out at home too, I’m feeling pretty done with gym(s). I am very lucky that I have an elliptical/weights at home, it’s nice to be able to just roll out of bed and hit it.
I have always hated gyms because they make me feel weird. I realized finally that I’ve worked so hard to have perfect posture and all the trappings of Respectable Womanhood that allowing myself to be seen looking ridiculous was anathema to me. Luckily I got over that by working out in a gym when no-one else was there in a corner that I wasn’t seen very often and gradually being willing to move to the center. That was indoor rock climbing and it was amazing but my toenails started falling out all the time and I figured I shouldn’t do that anymore. I’m doing a Gentle Yoga/Pilates class now (because someone decided my lovely group weightlifting class should be a bootcamp with which I am not down.) So for me it was figuring out the Real Problem and working on that, as well as realizing I need to be in a class then accepting that no class is going to be exactly what I want.
As for the time thing- there’s a great episode of a BBC show about the effectiveness of High Intensity Interval Training and you might find it interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QKVKsUdeos
Seconding the High Intensity Interval Training thingy. I use Fitness Blender (they have a YouTube Channel) but I only get around to doing a video of theirs maybe twice a week? Three times if I’m lucky. They have some blessedly short but ass kicking HIIT videos that do the trick, IMHO.
I like Fitness Blender a lot! They sell (for very cheap) workout programs that they assemble from their collection of free videos. They include programs that they describe as “for busy people” and all the workouts are 30 minutes or less. Plus, you can work out in the privacy of your own home! Which saves both time and money since you can avoid going to a gym!
YES. Respectably Womanhood is a huge thing for me too. I went to a splendid, hilarious Pilates class for a year taught by the most amazing, eccentric, gentle, funny woman who was so good at teaching, not just expecting you to know stuff, but there is no way I’m going to leave the office in time with my current job. no way. But it’s just a class is a good way to get through it not being a perfect class.
“My early 20s were hallmarked by the metabolism of a hummingbird, so I never thought about it, and I didn’t have an inactive lifestyle. But since getting a grownup deskjob that requires very long hours, fitting movement into my day felt Difficult. Over the hill of 26, my metabolism halted like a mack truck crashing into a wall. It doesn’t help that I find gym culture baffling & unpleasant & hostile & kind of psychotic, the soothing tones of rich white ladies in NYC yoga classes insufferable, and barre classes needlessly competitive.”
IT ME
I made a small rule for myself, to make up for days when I can’t find the time and/or don’t feel like it dammit; I’m not allowed to plop myself in a chair for any length of time for any reason without first doing a few quick exercises. Pick your poison. Sometimes I switch it up, but I typically do 5 military style push ups, 10 squat jumps, and 30 jumping oblique twists. At work, this means that every time I get up to get coffee, use the restroom, got to a meeting, etc, I do this when I get back. I get up on average, about 12 times a day, so that’s actually not a bad work out in the end.
Of course, if I had a shared cubicle space, instead of a private office, suddenly dropping and doing push ups, then leaping up into the air like a frog/rugby player hybrid, would earn quite a bit of side eye from coworkers…
Haaaaaa, as a years-long open-office-plan victim myself, I absolutely pictured this in a communal setting. I was so flabbergasted, it took me a while to get to your final disclaimer.
LOL. It occurred to me at the last second. Then again, even at my last job with a huge open floor of hundreds of cubicles, I still would have done it, cause IDGAF. If I’m going to be the weird one (and I always am) might as well be the *fit* weird one.
“How do you consistently make time for exercise when you work 11 hour days, have a 45 min -1 hr commute on top of that, and require a little down time and dinner time and spouse time?” Oh god, this is my life.
Honestly, I get up at 5 am every day. It sucks, but eventually, you get used to it (sort of)? I pack lunch/breakfast/gym bag and lay out outfit the night before. I’ll usually pick one day per week where I know I can leave work early-ish and fit in a work out before dinner, so I can sleep in that day. I never do the same thing two days in a row! My schedule goes: run-bike-run-swim-run-yoga-swim. That helps with the monotony a lot!
I cannot recommend strength training enough, particularly if weight loss is a goal of some sort. I did the elliptical religiously for 5 months without noticeable results, and once I started strength training something clicked. Like, I would run my hands over my legs and find a muscle that wasn’t there before. Of course, it’s always good to do both cardio and strength, but I had never even considered going to the gym and not getting on a cardio machine before. Once you get comfortable with it, you can also turn it into HIIT (which I believe someone above mentioned.) And for me at least, there is no better stress reliever than throwing some heavy shit around with the meatheads. They will respect you more than you think! And sometimes give you an encouraging “Hell yeah!” when you finish a tough set. Here’s the program I started with: http://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/4-week-weig….
ETA: I reread your question about the mental obstacles and wanted to mention something. I always considered the weights part of the gym “off limits” because that’s where the dudebros are, and then I realized that I was internalizing a lot of gender stereotypes that I really hate to begin with. And that I pay exactly the same amount of money that they do to work out. I think that encroaching on a “male” space was really good for me mentally, and I was surprised at how much more confident I felt at the gym which in turn made me want to go more. Also I feel like this is the only space on the internet where I could make that observation and not be ridiculed, so go Toast!
I swim with an mp3 player and episodes of QI. Only way to not drown from boredom.
Dance-based exercise. I’ve been a bellydancer for more than 30 years, so that really isn’t a physical challenge any more, but in the last few years I’ve done Zumba, Bellyfit, and just started something called Afrovibe, and there’s enough aesthetic element in all of them that it really does feel like dancing as much as “exercising.”
What do you LIKE to do with your body? What do you ENJOY doing? and, if at all possible, does that overlap with what your spouse likes to do?
Take a walk after dinner. Join a rock climbing gym. Learn fencing, or curling, or squash. Take a dance class. Dodgeball league. Ultimate Frisbee pickup games via Meetup. If at all possible, do something on the list WITH your spouse.
Some people enjoy spending a half our on the treadmill (or equivalent) on a regular basis. Some people don’t enjoy it, but tolerate it perfectly fine.
But it sounds like given your dislikes and wants, finding something you genuinely enjoy will be WAY better for you, and way more likely to get you to stick with it, because then it can be at least part of your downtime/blowing off steam time. And potentially part of your spouse time. If you and spouse can be sharing a new experience with each other that happens to also be moving your bodies around in new and fun ways, that’s checking off about 18 different boxes in all of those “things we ought to be doing” lists.
At this point, I’d recommend not worrying AT ALL about exactly how many calories it would burn. I also don’t recommend trying to find The Perfect Thing. Maybe you take a 6 week class and discover that bellydance just isn’t for you, but then you try rock climbing and love it. If you concentrate on ENJOYING the thing, then chances are you’ll stick with it enough (and do it often enough and enthusiastically enough) that it will work out.
Emphatically second this. Combining “workout” time with “spouse time” is such a great idea, even if that is just taking a walk around the block together. Not only does it increase your chances of doing physical activity (both because of the extra support and just in terms of time management) it can make physical activity more a part of your life, rather than this odious thing that you have to make time for even if you hate it.
Do you have disc golf in your area? We’ve recently stumbled into that, and it is super fun. We’ve also done partner yoga, and while the class we went to had some somewhat hippie elements that made my husband giggle, it was tons of fun (no class necessary even! Just stretching together at home works too!).
Yeah, I mean not spouse time but what got me into the gym on a regular basis in the first place was that it was 45-60 minutes of hanging out with my friends. Which side note: strength training is excellent for that you take turns doing reps talk while you spot your friend/spouse then swap and make hilarious noises while you move heavy things.
I do martial arts, because numbers are boring and learning things and competing is fun. Also, a social aspect is good for me.
I am temporarily out of the dojo due to injury, so I am harassing a personal trainer into keeping me entertained, which I feel has been a healthy challenge for him (and keeps me active!)
The most beautiful, true to me thing I have read about exercise and moving your body I found last week following a link trail from another toastie, and it is beautiful and I highly recommend it: https://medium.com/matter/i-really-love-my-fat-bo…
Time is definitely super hard and can be the biggest challenge- sometimes if you choose a gym close to work you can wait out traffic and wind up with a shorter commute to make up for time in the gym- is that an option?
I also joined the gym and I hate it and it’s awful. I’m treating it as an experiment in doing things that I should do even though I don’t want to and they make me uncomfortable and they’re boring. This is something I need to work on in other areas of my life, anyway. It’s going OK. I still hate it, but I go, and I’m getting better at giving no fucks about sweating in front of other people.
One trick that seems to be working: I have a compelling tv show to watch but I can ONLY watch it when on treadmill/elliptical. If I want the next episode, I have to go to the gym.
Oh, this Netflix binge trick is something I can get behind! So far, I’ve tried going to the gym a few different times (I actually went on my lunch hour today b/c no client meetings to see what that’s all about! More naked women over 65+ rather than the model-y looking types from yesterday, which I can get behind). I have so far found that I don’t mind the elliptical/treadmill/stairclimbery/stationary bike, as long as I ignore my surroundings and focus on me. For me, I think it’s going to be about easing into feeling like I belong. So far, my mantra has been “no one knows that you feel uncomfortable here. so do it until this is just a place you go.”
“no one knows that you feel uncomfortable here. so do it until this is just a place you go.”
YES, totally. Fake it ’til you make it? I guess.
Ooh, similar: some mornings when I REALLY don’t want to get up to run, I remind myself that I have a fun episode of [whatever] up next and I will get to spend 40 minutes all by myself watching it! (I have a full-time job and a 4-year-old. Alone time with TV is a treat. Even when it is at 6:00 in the morning.)
(Probably should footnote that I have a treadmill at home; no WAY am I getting out of bed early enough to drive somewhere else for treadmill punishment.)
“Going to the gym” to “work out” really sends me into a spiral of dread and self-loathing, so I am all about functional fitness: I commute/do errands on my bike, walk to meet people, participate in a sport that feels like an activity and not exercise. And when I’m doing those things regularly, adding in the occasional treadmill run or yoga class or half hour of puttering around with free weights feels like “oh! another thing I do that makes me feel good” instead of a way of punishing myself for having a body.
I’m the same- dance classes, taking the stairs at work, doing squats while the hot water heats up for the shower. I had friends who were trying to get more active so we’d go for walks or bring out the Frisbee and catch up in the park rather than at a café. Anything beyond that is good but it’s ok if it doesn’t happen all the time.
I learned rock climbing in a gym. It is a tough, whole body workout, that requires balance, flexibility, and gives you very strong thighs/arms. You can also talk to people and learn together with them. To me, it didn’t feel like work, it felt like playing on the monkey bars. And the challenges are built right in.
Hi, I am also an NYC person who has discovered working out over the past couple of years. For me, the catalyst was playing an actual sport. I get super bored with running/other usual exercise also. Once I started playing soccer again after years away, the physical change was immediate, and I sought out other types of activity.
Four years later, I still play soccer with ZogSports and I’ve joined a more casual all-female league as well. I really like my gym (a branch of NYSC), which I think maybe doesn’t have a gym culture because I don’t recognize any of the traits you mention? It’s all older ladies walking on stairmasters and young guys lifting heavy stuff and everyone minding their own business.
If you are at all interested in soccer, come join Ladies’ Village Soccer? I don’t know what time/day we’ll be playing in the spring yet, but the Facebook page will be updated when they get field permits.
I joined an NYSC around the block from my office & am very into the older ladies and guys and the minding of one’s business. Much of my gym culture fear is from my sister in law, who is a competitive body builder, and I have heard her snide remarks about casual gym-goers among a lot of other alarming things. And the college gym, which I went to with a friend who made it terribly not fun (he was competitive, and I am…not.). LOL of LOLZ is that I spent some time editing “health” books, which required a lot research into “fitness stars” and the number of horrible people in that space was alarming to say the least. NYSC has so far been very helpful in getting past those experiences.
I love circuits! They’re fast and if you have a couple different freeweights and a skipping rope, you can do them at home. Although I wonder what my downstairs neighbor thinks of me doing burpees in the kitchen above their heads….
Philly area Toasties, what are your favorite cheap/free things to do in your city?? Also, your favorite FOOD locations?
I’m not much help for free/cheap, but as far as food goes, Reading Terminal Market can’t be beat for variety and quality. <3
This looks like my own personal heaven.
Oh yeah, the cajun place there is really good too, Beck’s Cafe.
If you want some cheap, good Chinese food, I definitely recommend Nan Zhou hand-drawn noodles on 10th and Race, you get like a giant bowl of noodles for eight dollars it’s pretty good.
RTM is amazing, but you need to time it right or you’ll be eaten by the crowds.
Within the market, I highly recommend Meltkraft (shmancy grilled cheese), Beiler’s doughnuts, and Termini (dessert). (There are a million more good places but I’m veg, so can’t rec them all.)
Other Philly food recs: Banana Leaf (10th and Arch, Malaysian, REALLY good, fast, and pretty cheap); Han Dynasty (couple locations, Chinese); Abyssinia (45th and Locust, Ethiopian, delish but don’t go if you’re in a hurry). I could go on. There is so much good food in this city.
Seconding Termini (their cannoli is to die for) and Han Dynasty; they’re two of my favorites.
Cannoooooooli.
Yes Beiler’s Doughnuts — I miss their blueberry fritters so so much. I don’t actually love the dougnuts at Federal Donuts, but their fried chicken sandwich is amazing and cheap. I’m a huge fan of Franklin Fountain for ice cream, which is near Penn’s Landing (and might still have a pop-up there, along with Federal Donuts? They do in the summers, it’s a great place to walk around for free!).
Han Dynasty is excellent slightly more expensive Chinese (spicy!), and Nan Zhou’s hand drawn noodles are another Chinese recommendation near RTM that I totally second. But really, Philly has a ton of amazing, amazing food. A lot of restaurants are BYO!
There’s a fun bluegrass night on Thursdays at Fiume. There’s also a lot of random free/cheap historical places (in addition to the big ones (liberty bell, independence hall – make sure to get tickets in advance if it’s a popular day).
Penn has some fun stuff, although campus is a bit out-of-the-way from most other things in the city.
Walk and people watch on the Schuylkill trail, grab a coffee and wander Center City, VISIT OUR AMAZING LIBRARIES! (sorry, have to self-promote), ummmm I can’t think of other free things right now (they exist, my brain is just dead).
I am not from Philly, but I have to say El Vez has some really fantastic Mexican and the decor is awesome!
I love the RiverRink at Penn’s Landing. So cute and cozy! Bring yr own booze though. I drove out to Wissahickon last weekend and had a nice hike.
My all-time favorite restaurants are:
Bud & Marilyn’s, for all it’s mid-century charm, American comfort food with a twist and it’s so pretty inside it makes me angry.
Barbuzzo, gotta have that budino.
Han Dynasty, spicy, absolutely delicious and the space is beautiful.
The 1st Sunday of every month from 10-5 and Wednesday evenings I think the Philadelphia Art Museum is free.
Also the Painted Bride Art Center does a lot of interesting stuff, a lot of that is free.
Some of the museums have Pay What You Wish days. The Rodin Museum is PWYW EVERY day! And there are often readings or lectures at the Free LIbrary downtown that don’t cost anything. Also there is a whole website dedicated to half-price tickets to things, when available.
Toasts, I am just returned from three and a half weeks in Chile – due to shenanigans and soft nos, we were joined there by 1.) my husband’s brother and extended family, who live in Chile and are so generally delightful I assume it must be taught in Chilean schools 2.) my husband’s parents, who are probably the reason Chilean schools decided they needed a curriculum of not being total dicks and 3.) my brother and parents.
Many things happened, because it was the holiday and also a long vacation in another country, but yesterday my mom was one turn ahead of us in the customs line and made a friend because that’s what she does. She waved at me, and I waved back, and she said “that’s my daughter, she’s such a princess”.
This is a common meme in my family, that I am spoiled and demanding, but I’m pretty irked to have heard it after we offered to pick them up and go to the airport with them, after I stood in line for fifteen minutes to buy my mom a sandwich for the flight, and offered to watch the luggage so she could duck off to get a last pisco sour in the airport, and also, you know, RAN LOGISTICS AND WRANGLED INVITATIONS (and also declined invitations, which is nearly impossible) AND TRANSLATED FOR THREE FUCKING WEEKS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY.
MOMS.
OTOH, our mature cat managed to gain like two pounds while we were gone, which should please our vet, and the cat is v. snuggly because he probably thought we were dead. Also I got to spend lots of time with my nieces, and they have a choreographed Nyan Cat dance that has a 100% chance of making me dissolve into giggles – which means they did it about ten times a day all vacation.
I’m sorry, but that was effing tacky of your mother.
PLEASE say you have a a video of said Nyan Cat dance!!
Tragically I do not: the first and best time they danced we were making gingerbread houses and I laughed so hard I sat on the floor and wheezed.
Toasties, the toilet rat has not returned and I got a surprise pay raise the following day so there’s a moral in this story somewhere, I guess.
So happy for you on both fronts!!!
Toilet rats are harbingers of good fortune?
I was going to go with “suffer a little and be rewarded” but I like yours better.
5/5 shamans agree.
This is the Money Toilet Rat
Reblog in 20 seconds for good luck!
The Pay Raise Fairy lives in a sewer, visits homes via toilets (like Santa and chimneys), and disguises herself as a furry rodent.
I have not stopped thinking of that story like, AT ALL, and I really hope you are doing ok oh my god
Oh no, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare so many people on here and on twitter, I was just shocked and needed to scream into the internet and then felt totally horrible seeing how many people I’d freaked out, aaah! I figured I would let everyone know it didn’t happen again, which doesn’t really undo the damage but maybe helped a little? Maybe?
I’m fine, other than keeping a shakespeare anthology on my toilet all week, which seems acceptable to me but may perhaps be considered neurotic by others? Who knows. At any rate, my bathroom now looks like it belongs to a very pretentious person who wants everyone to know that she reads shakespeare on the toilet, which is at least entertaining.
By far the worst part of this saga was that a coworker made a joke along the line of, “Haha, you might want to see a therapist for a stress disorder if you’re worried about toilets,” and I had to play it cool because she doesn’t know I was recently diagnosed with a stress disorder (totally unrelated to this incident) and that sure would have been an awkward conversation. HOORAY.
Just out of curiosity — have you talked to, like, an exterminator about this? Is there any way to …. prevent this happening? Maybe a screen or grate somewhere? Just you know, in case anything similar ever happens to me.
Also, sorry about your stress disorder, but I hope a diagnosis can help get you some good treatment and that you start feeling better some day!
There ARE supposed to be grates, but I live in a large city and apparently there is no way to check without a lot of red tape and my maintenance guy basically said, “oh hell no” when I asked him to look into it.
Apparently those little things you can stick under your toilet seat that shoot out cleaning products every once in a while are the best way to deter them, because if a rat is climbing up the empty pipe, the rat smells the cleaner and leaves because the water smells weird.
Ah, good info! Thanks!
I was thinking about that rat last night! Glad to know it has moved on to greener or garbage-ier pastures, whichever a rat would prefer.
Somehow this sounds like an I.B. Singer tale of the shtetl, which is just fine by me. Congrats on the pay raise!!
Toasties! My tickets for Allegiance have been cancelled what with the show ending before I get there. What tickets should I replace it with? I want to see a musical; I already have tickets for Hamilton and Fun Home. (I don’t want to see Les Miz/Wicked/Fiddler/something else I’ve already seen.)
I really really loved Beautiful, I know some feel jukebox musicals are wicked corny, but I just loved it. It is also one of those musicals that you stand up at the end and dance in your seat which really ups the fun factor for me.
Not that you asked, but I must say Fun Home was AMAZING, bring tissues. And YAY Hamilton, I’m going Jan 29th!!!
Broadway forever and ever amen.
Will Waitress be open by the time you go? My cousin saw it when it was touring/previewing/whatever it is shows do before they hit Broadway and she loved it. Based on the Keri Russel movie with music by Sara Bareilles
No, sadly, Waitress will not yet be open, I am about 2 weeks early.
On Your Feet! is supposed to be great.
Is pippin or a gentlemans guide still playing? They are the most fun I’ve ever had at a Broadway show.
Pippin closed quite a while ago and Gentleman’s Guide is closing next Sunday, the 17th.
Seen Pippin (it’s great!) and Gentleman’s Guide closes before I get there.
I reeeeeally want to see Something Rotten.
I saw it recently and it was amazing–it’s very witty and referential.
When are you coming? If you’d be into seeing something off-off Broadway, Dave Malloy’s wife, Eliza Bent, is doing a show called “Toilet Fire” (…) at The Brick on January 15 and 16. And Dave will be performing in it! I don’t know her work, but he’s always a pleasure to watch and, if he loves her work, I’m sure it’s fantastic.
Also, when “Great Comet” is on Broadway, you can say that you loved him in “Toilet Fire”.
The Lincoln Center revival of The King & I is gorgeous. That might fall into the “stuff you’ve already seen” category, though.
Depending on when you’re going, maybe the Roundabout revival of She Loves Me? Can’t go wrong with Laura Benanti.
I’ve also heard surprisingly good things about School of Rock, but I can’t quite force myself to believe it’s not terrible (thanks, ALW).
When will you be there? Waitress is opening in March I think! That’s at the top of my list.
Toasties! I’ve been MIA for a month while I packed and moved and conducted seasonally appropriate rituals and started my new job, but I’m glad to be back! We moved from Toronto to Vancouver and so far it is great. Everything is the best. Job is good, apartment is good, cats made it with only their pride injured. Now once our actual stuff arrives, we’ll be golden.
This is all to say – I miss you, friends.
I have nothing more to say than that I’m so glad your move went well. And your cats will get over it, there are still lots of boxes around I’m guessing.
(this makes me think we should try to have a Vancouver-ish meetup soon somewhere)
I have only been a tourist in Vancouver but it’s a beautiful city!
Guys, I’m planning the nerdiest Friday Night Friend Gathering for this evening. Did y’all have D.E.A.R. time in middle school? Drop Everything And Read? It was like a 20 minute, silent independent reading session?
Yeah, so I’m doing that. The plan is to have my friends come over to my apartment with a book, and silently read without talking to each other. There’s gonna be a fire in my fireplace, some Baileys and hot chocolate, and maybe even MARSHMALLOWS.
BEST NIGHT EVER.
I’m calling it D.E.A.R. FRIENDS.
(also my friend is Canadian and apparently the Canadian version of it in her school was S.Q.U.I.R.T. = “Sustained Quiet Uninterrupted Independent Reading Time.” So she insists on calling it my SQUIRT Party.)
This is amazing.
Your DEAR night sounds divine!! Have fun!! And please don’t allow your friend to call it your squirt party.
PLEASE invite me to this. Wherever you live. DEAR was my most favorite part of school, ever.
You are invited! Come to Brooklyn!
BEST IDEA. Friendly silence is so great with the right people.
I have this one really strong memory of DEAR time in 3rd grade, when I was reading On The Banks of Plum Creek and we had a dang fire drill just when I was getting to the good part about the leeches. [shakes head]
THAT SOUNDS WONDERFUL.
This is the best party I have ever heard of.
1. SQUIRT sounds hilarious.
2. Only 20 minutes? What if you get to a good part?
My least favorite part of D.E.A.R. was that it only lasted 20 minutes.
That sound delightful. There are few things I love more than just sitting in companionable silence with friends/family while everyone is absorbed in a book. Fair warning: I might just steal this idea.
Please do! Maybe there can even be a D.E.A.R. TOASTIES meetup.
GENIUS!
On the east coast of Canada in the early 90s, my 6th grade teacher called it USSR (UnSustained Silent Reading because reading sadly did not last forever, but happily neither did the political USSR), but SQUIRT is far better!
I want to go to this.
We technically had D.E.A.R., but I was more of a “read surreptitiously under the desk at all times” kind of a person, so it was a little redundant for me.
This is the best idea. I might steal it as well!
My elementary school thought it was cuter to call it R.A.T–read alone time.
I would totally go to this party.
We called it SQUIRT at my schools in California too
This is amazing! I have invited many people, both friends and lovers, to have reading dates, and it’s never actually worked out. I hope you have fun!
You are a genius.
I would love a party like this, where people are over and there is hot chocolate and then we do not actually have to Make Conversation. (The extroverts in this body disagree, but I am the one writing this comment.) You are a brilliant person.
We had DEAR time during Reading Awareness Weeks.
Toast! I had a rough week. Mostly because work stuff. But also:
My girlfriend is ready to get married. Like really, really ready. She sees herself “settling down” within a year.
I am not.
It’s not because she’s not The One, I know she is, but here are my reservations:
– We have been together for less than a year.
– My family hates her because homophobia. Which would be doable but she seems to be holding out hope they will accept us and I hate to break it to her but it’s not gonna happen anytime soon. We have fights about this. She seems to think I’m not standing up to them. I… don’t know what I can do with a pair of avowed homophobes who are and have been verbally and emotionally abusive to me since childhood.
– I am not where I want to be career-wise. Our combined income would be fine, more than fine even, but I would feel like I’m contributing less, you know? We have had ad nauseum discussions about this because I attach my personal worthiness to money and she’s said it doesn’t matter to her but it continues to matter to me and I don’t know how to change that.
We just spent a couple hours arguing about it last night, and I am tired. I love her and do not want to lose her.
[creed arms into a sea of emotional turbulence]
Can you pursue couples therapy and/or individual therapy? Seems to me she should respect your boundaries about your family, and that conversation might be better with a therapist. Also your stuff about attaching personal worth to money — while I totally understand — sounds like it’s holding you back, and if you don’t want it to, that is something you could work on in therapy, too.
Yeah! I am sort of thinking about pre-marital counseling at the least. I go to individual therapy for my family issues and so does she (different issues, but at least we are not alone in the wilderness of no therapy is what I’m trying to say.)
Last night I wrote a long letter to her about stuff I want to work on and I think the money thing can be fixed by therapy and also by me making some grown-up decisions about my career in the next year so I don’t feel so helpless about the whole thing. The sense of efficacy I could develop, independent of whatever $$ I make, is something I think will go a ways toward solving that one.
That sounds really tough! But it sounds like you have a pretty good foundation there and just need some help untangling your current and near-future plans, so it might be a good idea to see a couple’s counselor for a couple sessions? My spouse and I have been together for 20 years and have just recently been getting some couple’s counseling for a tricky issue that we needed some help getting through/untangling, and it’s been SO amazing. I’d be happy to answer any questions for you on the whole idea, if that would help. Otherwise, just remind yourself that this stuff is Big and Hard and it’s ok to not have it all figured out really easily, even when the rest of your relationship is pretty easy.
Thank you, hearing from someone with a 20-year track record means a lot.
When we go to counseling, and both of you already have therapists, do you think it’s a good idea to get a third therapist just to be on “neutral ground,” so to speak?
Thank you for the reminder because yes, it is Big and Hard and as much as both of us want it to be solved overnight, it’s not gonna be. But as you said, it’s ok. Thank you so much for your advice.
Yes, I definitely think you should have a separate counselor. A couple’s counselor is …. more like a counselor whose client is the relationship, rather than one person or the other, if that makes sense. Also I would specifically find a queer-friendly therapist for this, because a lot of this stuff is wrapped up in homophobia and also because you don’t want to have the experience that my lovely friends had, where their new therapist in their new, small, southern town was like “so…..which one of you is …. like…..the guy?” ::headdesk forever::
Yes! While some therapists are able to be objective having worked individually with one partner, a major tenet of couples therapy is that the relationship is the identified “client.” If a therapist has been treating one partner, it can be difficult for them to switch gears or avoid using previous information/content in their interventions. This can ultimately lead to conflict in the therapeutic relationship. I would recommend asking for a referral from your current provider!
That is tough 🙁
Re: point #3, I’ve actually had a really helpful conversation on the Toast before about that very thing. I make a lot less than my partner, and it is often a very difficult thing for me. Something that helps me, is to think about the ways I contribute non-monetarily to our relationship. Sure, that can be housekeeping stuff like….I cook more, I grocery shop more, etc. etc. But! And this I think can be even more important in terms of things like self-worth and creating a partnership, is to think about ALL the ways someone can contribute to a relationship….not just income and housekeeping, but also things like emotional support, coming up with fun things to do together, having a good sense of humor, etc. etc. It really helps me to take a step back and think of my contribution in terms of “are we both contributing equally financially” to “what are the values I bring to this relationship that AREN’T money.” I don’t know if that will help, and money issues run very very deep, but just something to think about.
Thanks! That is a helpful way to think of it because when I was a kid I always wanted to make more than my partner and it is kind of dispiriting to me that I am currently not.
But I am awesome at emotional support, never batted an eye when she listed out her psych diagnoses on our third date, I am good at playing with her daughter and she trusts me around her daughter, so there are things I can do besides money. Also, I like dishes and vaccuuming.
Yes yes yes! Those are all things that have enormous incredible value and are worth reminding yourself whenever you feel dispirited about the money thing.
TBH–you would have had me at “I like to do dishes.”
Emotional “labor” and unpaid “work” (listening, housework, childcare, being understanding about life things) are hugely important and have so much value in a relationship. Never underestimate those.
Also, if anecdotal evidence is helpful: I make about 40% less money than my partner, who knows that and yet would frankly prefer that we split most things 50/50ish, because at first glance that is how it is “fair” to split between two people… I finally managed to stand up for myself, in that while I would like to contribute equally financially, the current situation is what it is for now, and it is fairer that we contribute proportionally according to our incomes to our largest joint expenses. That way, you realize you can only purchase something that either of you feels comfortable spending 10% of your own paycheck on, not something that is 10% for one but 20% for another,, because that’s not fair.
This is interesting because you would be totally fine with your partner making less, and you would even prefer it, but in that scenario, wouldn’t your partner potentially feel the way you feel now? If you would be able to feel totally fine being with a partner who makes less than you do, can you understand why she feels ok with that too?
In a long relationship, you can each go back and forth from time to time. If you get married then one of you might get sick or one of you might win the lottery, etc. You might each have times of unemployment or getting big raises. Its not really possible to make exactly the same dollar amount in a relationship. If you knew now that in 3 years you’ll be making 2x what she makes, would you marry her right now?
I think it would be interesting for you to know why you feel like you want to be the bigger breadwinner. Is there an imbalance that you feel is between you that that would even out, like one of you has more education and one makes more money or one of you is older and the other is richer? If it comes from childhood, is it a safety thing, like you always want to know you’d be ok if the relationship ended? Is it a generosity/love languages thing, you like to be the caretaker and this makes you feel like the person being taken care of? I think if you ask yourself why you really feel this way and dig around you might learn something really amazing about yourself.
what a dilemma. i guess the first thing i would do is, rather than talk about where you want to be when you get married is, maybe talk about the fact that marriage just isn’t, uh, doesn’t … DO anything. i mean, sure, it’s a thing people do, but it’s not going to tie up loose ends or make anyone more happy or secure in the long run, it’s just a thing people do that has both benefits and drawbacks. i was with my partner 13 years before getting married, and would have stayed unmarried indefinitely, but then we bought a house and mixed all our money, and now that the stakes are higher, why not.
maybe ask her what settling down means for her? does that mean you confirm monogamy or start a family, or mix assets & finances? what are the things that marriage is solving for her that is making it so important? and then maybe you can talk about what actual effect marriage has on any of those things.
the other thing is, if homophobia is a problem in your family, and you don’t see that as changing, then honestly there’s no reason to get or not get married. they are going to hate any same sex partner you’re with. a question you might have for yourself is, if your family never changes, when are you going to be ready to take this step for yourself? in my mind, since i don’t care about marriage, i don’t really see what the difference is, you’re in a relationship with a person of a sex they don’t approve of, and that’s a reality. marriage doesn’t change that. marriage doesn’t confirm reality. in fact, in this whole scenario, marriage is the only fiction.
i guess it’s time to do a lot of philosophical talking. no arguing, just sharing ideas and feelings so you can see what you’re both thinking and if your desires can be aligned and if it’s all workable. good luck!
“[M]arriage is the only fiction” is one of the most elegant beautiful and truest phrases I’ve ever heard from someone on a comment board, so thank you. And I hope you write in some capacity because OMG you should.
Anyway. You’re right that marriage doesn’t “do” anything and reminding myself of that helps when I start to get into panic land over how my girlfriend and I are going to “do” being married. Like, we’re already doing it in a sense. Fortunately for her it doesn’t mean signing onto parenthood the minute we get married (she says this even for her daughter, who I am beginning to think of as my stepchild anyway) so I still have a few more years to think about that.
MMM. Homophobia. Knowing my parents they will freak out when I get married and then (probably) tune back in for the grandchild.
But that’s a lot to go through in the meantime. Sometimes I wish my GF and I could just elope without all the dramaaaa of a wedding. I am positive a wedding will bring out maximum drama from my family regardless of whether I’m an adult about it or not.
An elopement might ensure my parents weren’t going to gate-crash my wedding/ send my aunt to my apartment to start screaming about my life choices (since she lives in the same city as me and they do not) / drunk-dial me repeatedly about how horrible I am for marrying a woman.
My family is not quietly homophobic from a corner somewhere, they have a long and proud history of interfering dramatically in my life and I’ve only begun to successfully set boundaries around that in the last few years.
But I also want to give my GF a wedding. This is a lot of talking on your comment and I apologize. I really appreciate your thoughts. This comment helped me dig in a lot. Thank you.
Based on your additional comments, I feel VERY strongly that your girlfriend needs to gain a more complete understanding of this whole horrible nasty family dynamic and allow you to get the space and boundaries you need to move forward with your life. Maybe she would be ok with like…..an engagement to get engaged, or a clear commitment that marriage is On The Table, but that you need to deal with family stuff first?
Just want to underscore and highlight and pay a skywriter to quote this for all to see.
My wife’s family of origin is abusive in the same vocal, smothering, invasive ways you describe. As someone who married into it, I can attest that it’s CRITICAL for the girlfriend to be clear about what what’s going on and, more importantly, what you want and need.
If you haven’t already gone there, you may need to think about how the kid factors into this. Is your family a danger–physically or emotionally–to your girlfriend’s kid? Does your girlfriend know that? What’s the plan to draw & enforce boundaries?
i eloped. you can elope! anyone can elope! i get it though, if your girlfriend wants to get married, the actual wedding might be important to her.
so, wow about the parents and boundary problems. i can understand that can’t be solved overnight. and you’re right, if you’re suspecting maximum drama, it will probably happen, but if it stops you from doing what you want with your life, then they win with their control tactics. you can partially elope, maybe only invite those you want to be there, and not your family and just announce to them later? i know that’s not ideal, but neither is gate-crashing by homophobic relatives, ugh.
you may find, over time and boundary-setting with your family, that they just aren’t respectful of your right to not be harassed by a nearby yelling aunt or drunk phone calls. if you think of it in non-family terms, you might call the cops on someone who did that, if they weren’t “well-meaning” family, so consider that perhaps boundaries aren’t the final answer. but explain to your girlfriend that they are the step you are currently on with them. this is a big thing you’re working out, and simply standing up to them isn’t as simple as it sounds from the outside. however, if the threat of them showing up to berate you looms around every corner, that’s no way to live. maybe they need to not actually know what you’re doing & where.
my main advice from my whopping year-and-a-half on the other side is: you will bring everything from your unmarried life to your marriage. your life will basically be the same, though you may support each other more, you will have the same fights you have now. how you deal with problems will be the key to how you stay together. so, you get to try it out on these problems, congratulations!
and simply standing up to them isn’t as simple as it sounds from the outside.
This, and also — to people who have relatively “normal” families who aren’t abusive and manipulative, it can literally be hard to understand the depth of these issues. Again, this is where a trained therapist can help you both listen and understand the other’s points of view.
It’s perfectly okay to 1) Not invite your parents to the wedding. I nearly didn’t invite my mother to mine but had a last-minute change of heart. She behaved herself because I think she realized this was really her last chance. If you invite them, make very clear what is and is not acceptable and that if they are even close to being “unacceptable” before the wedding, you will ask them to stay home. 2) Not want to get married. As others have said, talk with your partner about what you can do to make her feel safe and “settled down” in the relationship. You may still very well get married. Or you may not.
you know, something i glossed over earlier is that you’re saying she has a child. this could mean that very likely she has a definition of what settling down means, for her anyway, and from her perspective it’s just not that big a deal to her as it might be to you and where you see yourself and what you wanted for yourself before you did the same. does that make sense?
and i wish i didn’t assume you were both, like, either young or non-parents, because i did in my first response. but maybe she was married before? or maybe she is just making a distinction between the times when she’s ready to nest vs. more on the go. regardless, i usually never think there’s any reason to rush into marriage, but maybe she’s just more experienced in this area and is just trying to say she wants to do these things with you. totally just a guess, obviously i don’t know either of you.
the income thing too, i would maybe ask yourself why you assumed you’d be making more than your partner. i could speculate a few reasons why, but they’d be completely presumptuous, so let’s just say regardless of my hetero-normative gender upbringing and the obvious dumb questions it implies, maybe you’re just a bit competitive in this area? please try to reconsider who should might be making more, and realize that in partnerships, that changes. and also, if she has a child, and has been a single mother for any length of time, she surely has secured the best income for that situation, so try not to take it personally. perhaps she has been a sole provider, and her income is simply the highest it could be considering the circumstances, and if you were in the position of making similar choices, you might be in this same place.
when i met my partner, he made half what i did. he didn’t like it and insisted on paying half, despite my suze orman training of percentage contributions. then we made the same. then i started a business and made half of what he does. i felt shitty about that, but i also realized he probably wanted a turn at being where he wanted to [and i didn’t mind him picking up the checks everywhere either]. now things are closer to equal and i got some great income boosts [self-employment = constant changes] and i have treated him and he honestly looks at me like WTF, so like. stuff changes. this is one of the benefits of true long-term partnership. you just cover each other, even if it feels weird or if you imagined always making more than your partner or if you pictured things separately because it’s all you’ve known. blending finances can be so liberating if you’re responsible with it and like-minded. this could be what your girlfriend is looking for.
i guess what i’m saying is, take the word marriage out of the conversation. describe the relationship you want without the fanfare and wedding and status [implied or otherwise]. what does it look like? what does every day look like? i can understand wanting the benefits of marriage in terms of health care or family credentials, and maybe that’s all it is. some people are far more emotional about this stuff and want to feel like family, and this is how they do it.
my wish for you is that, after a life of no boundaries with your family, you don’t make a decision that ignores what you want in the face of someone pushing for something. define who you are in all this–what do YOU want? and if you don’t see yourself getting married right now, talk about that. or talk about wtf marriage means to you. or talk about how much you love this woman but marriage is weird for you, but that doesn’t stop you from loving her and committing to her. something! i think there’s a lot of value in taking the word marriage off the table and saying: how would we do what we both want to live our lives? because, it may come down to concepts that just end up in a marriage catch-all. or not. and you will find out, i suppose!
ALL OF THIS. What does being married MEAN to her?
Oh yeah SUCH good questions. <3
I’m really sorry. I am no help on most of this except hugs.
I would echo the calls for counseling. Sometimes it’s easier to figure things out when there’s someone helping. And as for the money, that seems like something you probably talk through with a therapist. In or out of this relationship, it’s probably a good idea to get at the root of attaching your worth to your salary. Because your worth! Oh, your worth is so much more than your salary, even if your salary is a hundred million dollars a year! Your worth is immeasurable! It is immeasurable to the world, and I bet all I own that it is beyond immeasurable to your girlfriend.
That is lovely and true what you say there.
Awww! I am printing this out and framing it. This is really really sweet. I am sort of a trash can person and the idea of someone wanting to marry me is still hard for me to wrap my brain around, I guess. I mean I have good qualities like anyone. But I just… did not think I was worthy of marriage. Survivor of DV and childhood abuse and some other things I won’t go into here. Yeah. You’re a kind person, thanks.
Oh, I’m sorry, that’s so hard. It does not sound like you should be getting married right now. Homophobic family and income disparity are things that could be surmountable on their own, but if you’ve been together less than a year and are having big arguments about these major parts of life, that’s something that needs to be resolved before marriage plans. You are not responsible for your abusive parents’ attitudes and I really don’t like that your partner is blaming you for it. It also sounds like she is not making a big effort to understand where you are coming from on the career question, even if she disagrees.
It is so scary to risk losing someone you love, but this is not something you can really compromise on. Other people have been suggesting couples therapy, which is a good idea. Do you think you could ask to take marriage discussion off the table for 6 months? If marriage is too important to her to do that, then maybe your positions are too far apart. But I’m sure arguing until you either break up or get married out of exhaustion and fear of loss is not what either of you want.
in her defense she is going through some intense stuff right now (her mother is very sick) and I think it’s affecting her emotional bandwidth so that’s part of the reason the NOW NOW NOW stuff is coming up for her.
I think she can wait 6 months but that seems to be the upper end of her ability to wait.
It’s kind of heartbreaking. Well. Beyond kind of. We both have issues and never thought we’d find anybody to love us so it’s like… what do we have besides each other…
But! if this is true! and it is so clearly true, then WHY must you marry now? Does she want her mother to be there, is that any part of it? That fear of loss of life, and the fear of losing you, those must be disentangled, I think. Counseling – truly disinterested counseling focused squarely on the relationship – seems crucial in addition to the important work you are already both doing on your own.
I think that you do need to talk about the timeframe here. I understand very well how you can feel like you’ve found THE ONE and not want to wait to have a life together, but at the same time, less than a year together and already wanting to be married kind of sets up the alarm bells to me. It says, “I want this relationship anxiety and all the discussion and negotiation and uncertainty DONE, and I want someone to promise me we can skip ahead.” If you are together and you agree that its in the cards in the next 2 years, then this kind of fight so early on to me feels like a waste of the exciting endorphins and pleasures of early love. I can understand how with a kid and a sick mom maybe you want to be sure you aren’t wasting your time but…man.
I was ready before my partner. But…does she mean settling down in a year = actually getting married in 2016? Getting engaged? Planning to plan a wedding? Deciding that you are with the right person and engagement and party planning will follow? I would want to know how she’s thinking through timelines. When I was talking about being ready to marry, I meant that I was sure he was the guy for me, that I felt close to him, and that I wanted to make those promises in front of our community. What I did not mean was Must Marry Now. But I did need to say those things to him, and to talk about my heart being sure. (Pragmatic me was surprised at how emotional I felt about yeah I want to form a legal partnership with this person! I needed space to burble and chortle about it.) I would talk with her about what she needs and wants from you, and a good long think/feel about what you need and want for yourself.
I would also want to have a conversation along the lines of “what if the family situation never changes?” Cause I hope that they will, but…both Carolyn Hax and Captain Awkward caution people to think about what if those big desired changes and evolutions never happen? What if what you have is what you get?
The career/money stuff sounds like it’s bigger than marriage/partnership/settling down–personal worth attached to money can get tough over the long haul. Have you thought about why you think your value comes from your earning power? Follow the roots there, cause marriage is about so much more than money. What happens if one of you becomes disabled? Gets sick? Stays home with kids? How do your thoughts about marriage shift then?
And uh, good luck. Big Think topics here, for sure.
Getting engaged and moving in together seems to be the idea she has of our future for the next year. But sometimes she makes stray comments like, Oh it would be nice to get a house next year. And I’m like A HOUSE??????
So I really need her to say exactly what she means by “settling down,” but then I also need her to stick to it.
Do the couples counseling, do the talking, and keep doing it until you are both on the same page. My ex called things off a month before we were going to get married this past summer, and I wish so much that she had talked more about her reservations earlier, and that I had talked more about my worries earlier. You aren’t doing each other any favors by committing before you’re both ready, and it’s hard not to be on the same page now but so much worse down the line.
Ouch. I am so sorry. This is exactly the kind of scenario I am trying to avoid. For now (until March, which is when a lot of financial stuff happens for me) we are going to keep talking and keep communication open and just do what feels right for both of us and then probably in the next 3-6 months after that there will be major decisions made.
I’m pretty much looking at this through the lenses of my own life, so I don’t know how much of it may match up with you, but here goes anyway.
I’ve been with my (heterosexual) partner for almost six years, and I am the one who wants to get married soon. Logically, I know that right now doesn’t really make sense (financially, mostly) and it will make sense in the future, and it won’t really change anything really vital, but… I still want it. For me, feeling really unstable with my family and with grad school has made me really want a legally binding *thing,* something to hold up to the world and say, “we are a family, we have each other’s backs no matter what.”
Do you think there is some underlying issue that your girlfriend has? Is she feeling unstable in some way and trying to seek stability from your relationship exclusively? I do think that counseling is probably a good idea, so that you can figure out what underlying issues there may be, and also work on ascribing your own value to money.
The only other thing I would say is that for me, what really gets me is when the boyfriend and I talk about this (or I make a throw away comment) and he thinks that I mean, *do it right now, or else.* Your girlfriend might mean that, but she also might just want to talk about the future to assure herself that there is one.
Oh my god I know you feel your life might not relate but this is almost word for word what I’m hearing from my girlfriend.
The marriage discussions have kind of always been there in our relationship but the moment when those conversations shifted from, “Oh, that would be nice someday” to “I really want to settle down and I want to do it within a year” was when her mom got sick. Additionally, her brother went through a health scare too.
So I think you hit the nail on the head, it is about stability. It’s about family.
There’s another family issue for her, also possibly relevant: her ex treats her as the “lesser parent” in their coparenting of their daughter (for various reasons, some of which are valid-ish and most of which are complete bullshit) and my GF has not had the most stable romantic history since splitting up with her ex. So getting married to me might represent GF’s bid for respect from her ex, the other mother of her child. That’s not as big of a deal to her as her mom, but I see how it gets to her sometimes.
And yesterday she told me upfront how much she LONGS for a family, because her family is in another country and her mom is dying. I feel like she is hanging onto her sense of stability by a thread between her mom, her brother who has also had health issues, and her ex’s power plays.
It seems like you have a good handle on what’s going on. Sadly, since this seems a lot like my situation, there isn’t a lot that *you* can do. You can support her, you can assure her that you love her, but of course you can’t make her believe that.
I hope that it works out. For me, I realize how important my relationship is to me, and I have to work really hard to silence all the gremlins in my head. I hope that you two can do the same. 🙂
Those sound like dangerous reasons to get married quickly and I don’t blame you for being leery. Marriage doesn’t magically confer stability on a relationship. It just makes it hell to get out of if the problems turn out to be bigger than you thought.
I’m agreeing with Maryaed here — these are not good reasons to get married, although I certainly empathize with how they can make you feel like you MUST get married now now now. I really think a good couple’s counselor will be helpful in untangling what everyone actually WANTS, and what is a by-product of life being shitty right now.
“we are a family, we have each other’s backs no matter what.”
i find this really interesting and i ask this question with complete curiosity toward people who do feel that marriage = we have each other’s backs no matter what.
why do you feel like marriage does that? or alternately, why isn’t there the same confidence in a partner without a marriage commitment?
i ask honestly, i am a person who doesn’t understand what is more secure after marriage, especially in a world rampant with divorce. i don’t want to argue about it, i genuinely just want to hear what it means to other people.
I’m actually probably not the best person to answer this, because I actually don’t feel like marraige will make my relationship more secure (I am as sure as I will ever be that I’m going to be with this one person forever) but actually about society acknowledging that.
Maybe it’s because I live in the south US, but there is a definite respect for married partners in a way that there isn’t for unmarried. I don’t think that’s right, but I doubt it’s changing any time soon. And for my field, that actually matters, because you are expected to move around a lot for different positions and on a very difficult schedule, two or three years in one place, off to another, in a way that is not conducive to a lot of other people’s jobs. So I am highly anticipating in the next years having to say “I have to graduate now/ I have to move to this particular region” and “because boyfriend” does not work as a reason to do those things. Annoyingly, “because fiancé/husband” does. (This is the same for the reverse, so it’s not totally a sexism thing)
Seriously though, relationships where I live, people who dated for six months and have been married for a year are considered more stable relationships than mine. Which is ridiculous. Sometimes I feel like rebeling against the whole thing, but most of the time I just want to go ahead and get married because we are already really committed and this is not the hill I want to die on.
Personally, there are basically zero opportunities in modern life where you make a VOW in front of witnesses, and for me, it was a very powerful thing. And mutually engaging in a vow, as someone who wants their word to be their bond, did change things for me, personally.
As mentioned above, my partner and I have been together nearly 20 years now, and we didn’t get married until about three years ago, mainly due to graduation/job hunting/moving/health insurance reasons. So I’m probably not your key demographic for this, but as far as deciding WHY to marry at all… for us, it was about a sort of …. social or legal type of security, almost like “spouse” is a magic word.
Here’s an example — my partner and I had been together for about 10 years, and we were getting each other on our car insurances so if we had an accident while driving the other’s car we wouldn’t have all kinds of additional hassle. I called GEICO, and the lady I talked to was like “well we don’t advise covering boyfriends on your insurance.”
I will say this — a lot of people I spoke to, people who have much different ideas about marriage than I do (mainly family members) claimed that our relationship would change after we were married. It did not. Not even a little bit.
I was a marriage hold-out. For five years. While blaming my partner, somehow, for being the one holding out? Complicated emotional math.
Therapy was very helpful.
This stuff is stressful and complicated and turns your sanctuary into a tumultuous place, which I am sure is not what you or your partner wants. I can;t say enough good things about couples’ therapy, with someone you both like and feel you can trust. We split sessions between joint sessions and individual while we unraveled things to explore. Just having the external support from someone we both felt was on our side was such a relief.
Good luck to you.
Getting Healthy thread? (Numbers and weight loss discussion in comments, for those who’d like to avoid such things.)
After one week of planning all my meals in advance and only eating one cookie a day out of the massive break room supply of sweets, I am down six pounds. I know that’s within the normal hormonal cycle, but I am choosing to see it as a victory. I resisted tracking my weight for a long time because I didn’t want to be fixated on a number, but I realized last year that then all that happens is you have to go to the doctor anyway and they give you a number and then they get fixated on that one. And it turns out that watching that number go down is hugely motivating. So.
It turns out I am bad at counting calories because I cook by the “until it be enough” method and have not measured things since home ec class where you got docked if you didn’t, which makes it very difficult to estimate calories, even with Google’s handy calorie calculator. (“Like, a little bit of cheese, I guess? And some apples? Um.”) So I’ve been focusing on tracking *what* I eat this week; next week I’ll try to expand it into how much, and after that I can start fussing with calories. Still. This is incredibly tedious. I am reassured by the fact that at least I’m not stopping at McDonald’s twice a week, which in itself is probably doing me a world of good.
I’m so glad this is working for you. I’d like to know how. I’m a fairly healthful eater but have been gaining weight not out of a change in diet, but sedentary lifestyle that came with a few promotions & longer desk-hours. Every time I try to lose weight by being conscientious, I gain 5 lbs. Food tracking is a sure fire way to weight gain. Shoulds and should nots, guilt and anxiety. All of it leads to weight gain. Can you give some advice/more details on what about tracking is working for you? What about tracking is motivating and not stress-inducing?
I have definitely been in your place, and to be honest, I do not know why it’s motivating instead of stressful this time around. So here’s my best guesses –
1. I’m intentionally being as laid-back as I need to be about food tracking. That’s the part that stresses me out the most, so I don’t want to let it get me down. But having a longish list of “what I ate this week” that doesn’t include fast food or pizza turns out to be encouraging – I don’t want to let that creep onto the list.
2. I’m only checking my weight once a week. I know day-to-day fluctuations drive me crazy so every day would be too much, but once a week means I get to see even a little progress and want it to be better next week, without getting discouraged by every tenth of a pound.
3. The (much longer-term) realization that being less than honest with my tracking serves no one at all. This has been hard for me – I was that kid who always got straight A’s because I did work that was easy for me, and it’s taken me a lot of time to learn that a) anything less than perfection is okay, especially when you’re starting; and b) when you’re setting goals for yourself, there’s no system to game. The results you get are what you work for, not what the numbers look like. I have to remind myself of this every time I think “oh, this won’t count -” It does count, actually, so either I can do it and feel guilty about it or I can not do it and find something else I can do instead, but either way, it counts.
Er, which does not sound likely to decrease anxiety, on reflection. I think it’s one of those things you have to understand on your own, rather than trying to learn.
(I’ve also realized that I do a whole lot of eating out of boredom, or some sense of potential deprivation – I will eat when I’m not hungry because I thought of something that would be tasty and I can have it now so obviously I should. To curb this, I’m going through a whole lot of gum. It seems to be working for now.)
I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in forever. It was so much less stressful than I had anticipated and the antihistamine worked so I didn’t break out in hives (exercise induced urticaria is a bitch) after a minute of running! I also realized that I kind of have no idea what I’m doing. I know need to stick to low impact stuff because my SI joint is all kinds of fucked up, but beyond the elliptical/stationary bike I don’t really know what my options are.
I’ve done really well this week with smaller portions, more veggies/protein over carbs, and extra exercise. I am trying to be really mindful and not self-loathing because I’ve struggled with disordered eating and major body dysphoria (thanks, 20 years of intensive ballet study), but this is important to me. I’ve been gaining about 5 pounds a year in the last several years and want to keep it in check, but not make myself miserable in the process.
Anyone have a good resource for free workouts other than Pinterst? I am overwhelmed by the options. Looking for low impact stuff, as well as some interval training if possible.
I always recommend darebee.com as an excellent free fitness resource. Beautifully designed, great exercise, and bonus points for the fantasy/gamer/RPG/nerd influence.
Have you seen the Feel the Burn posts on the Toast? Those are great. In a similar thread here ages ago someone linked me to this site: http://darebee.com/workouts.html which has a ton of different, mostly body-weight, exercise routines.
Haha–I wonder if that was me!!! As evidenced above, I always mention Darebee!
I have used FitnessBlender vids on YouTube. They have guided workouts with weights which are really good.
Yes, I also recommend Fitness Blender. I mentioned it in the other fitness thread, too. They’re pretty awesome, and the vids they do together have a low impact and a high impact option that they trade off on. And you can do with or without weights.
Also, they seem pretty down to earth and reasonable, and they’re super cute and silly together. 😉
It’s weird, but I have been glomming onto the PopSugar fitness vids on youtube. There is a leeeeeetle bit of “get your body bikini-ready!” BS that I don’t care for, but it’s not too bad, and they’re always good about providing modifications if you aren’t ready for some of the more difficult moves.
As others mentioned, FitnessBlender is great. Their videos are all free on YouTube, but you can also go to their website (fitnessblender.com) and search their catalogue of videos with all kinds of categories, including “low impact,” etc.
I’ll play! A few open threads ago, I wrote to complain about my doctor being completely unhelpful on the weight-loss front and the toasties gave me all the lovely advice and support I had wanted from my health care professional. Because Toasties are AWESOME and health care in America is LAME.
So after reading all of what everyone here had to say, and combining it with lovely advice from the Awkward Army, I resolved to manage my stress better. I made a run at it last year by stepping back from some social/hobby obligations, but hadn’t done enough for myself yet.
So now I have a monthly massage scheduled forever (or until I move away and have to schedule it at some other place), which is relaxing and self-centered and also something to look forward to. All good things.
I also decided that I could handle having slightly less control over the way things are done in my household, and handed off some chores to my husband.
Speaking of husband, together we are working on a budget that treats his spotty/freelance earning as a permanent state instead of temporary and has us living more in our means.
These things are all contributing to calming me down, which helps because I am a self-soothing anxiety eater 100% all the way.
But on the specifically “what am I doing to lose weight” front, I’m doing medifast this month just to give myself a kick in the pants. It’s easy, it’s fast, I know it works, I don’t outright hate it. If it weren’t so expensive it’d be the perfect diet.
Oh, and just to keep this body positive, I should mention that my size isn’t the issue. I was/am having actual health problems related to obesity and the weight needs to come off. I’m trying to find non-surgical ways to do that, and all of the above are on that list.
I have stuck to eating well and doing at least some exercise each day since the 2nd. I even bundled up and walked outside yesterday morning which was actually kind of nice, but now that the electrical problem in my house is fixed I am back to C25King on the treadmill.
I am trying a protein shake starting this weekend. I’m not usually into that sort of thing, because I have vague notions about eating actual foods that look like foods. But I’m veggie and it’s winter and I’m totally slacking on getting enough veg and protein. This one has 20g protein per serving, but also like 6 servings worth of greens in it, and bunches of vitamins and lots of fiber, so I’m hoping it can make up for some of my diet deficiencies. I’m trying to get back into regular weight training, and need the extra protein for sure.
Working on getting my thyroid back in shape, though I won’t be able to get back on sythroid for a few weeks (don’t have a doctor at the moment). Focusing on getting more iodine in my diet and cutting back on processed sugar, grains and soy.
I had a surprise revelation this week: after many failed attempts to cut down on the meat/fish (a/k/a dead animals) in my diet, all of a sudden it seems to be going quite well. I wasn’t even trying to do this, it just happened.
For years I would start feeling anemic after two days with no meat. Today I hit day three and was quite fine, thank you very much. Have not cut out eggs/dairy.
I had some fish for lunch: if I could get the dead animal count down to twice a week I would consider it a huge win. We’ll see how it continues to go but I’m optimistic. The money savings will be enormous, not to mention the karmic savings if you believe in that sort of thing.
Things that are super-high in iron:
many lentils/beans
most dark leafy greens
fortified cereals, both cold ones like cheerios and hot ones like malt-o-meal, but read the labels.
Consuming vitamin C at the same meal as iron greatly increases absorption. And most fresh veggies have vitamin C in them to some extent. Beans and greens (like white beans and kale, for example, or garbanzo beans and spinach) with garlic and olive oil and canned tomatoes is a big fave of mine.
Too much dairy/calcium can make it harder to absorb iron. Which is likely why vegans, on average, have higher iron levels than vegetarians.
My iron levels have always been fine, except for after a bicycle crash where I injured my liver. But it turns out a lot of my fave foods are high in iron and I was doing much better pretty quickly.
who ran 5K this week? I RAN 5K this week. (Well, ‘ran’. I run very slowly. BUT I DID NOT STOP.) It was a new year’s resolution last year, but, eh, close enough. Have accepted I will never be a Morning Exercise Person and given up on the idea that I ever could be. Not sure I will be able to keep running regularly – I get bored of things very easily… :/
I weight myself once a month (which I find least crazy-making) and post-Crimbo, I have been worried about it, so decided I’ll do it soon and face the fear. Have been doing pretty well since I’ve been back at work – made lunch for myself 4 out of 5 days, and coped with the platter of free sandwiches and later a big birthday cake. I try not to eat lunch until 2, which seems to balance me out so that I don’t get starved by the time I get home (8pm+ usually). So, many of the good habits I was in last year have come back.
One thing I find handy is to write myself a guide to dealing with cravings in my work note book, every day, to remind myself that I know how to overcome them. Like –
– 5 deep breaths
– Water
– Give it 10 minutes
– Distract self with internet
etc
I accidentally picked up a trainer at the gym? He advised me on my form and it kinda snowballed from there. He def seems to know what he’s doing muscle-wise, but oh gods he’s so full of woo. My MS can be cured by healthy eating! (oh, word?) Alkaline diets apparently have their own page on RationalWiki, they’re so woo. And he revealed himself as anti-flouridation today!
I will have mockery fodder for months.
I’ve got just a little over a week until I move to Prague. I’m excited but also overwhelmed at night when I try to sleep and instead my brain wants to make me think about money and flights and visas and apartments. I’m trying to think of everything as just one giant list of things to do before I’m settled in Prague. It generally works, except for aforementioned panic times at bedtime. I may also get to see my Scotsman when I get to London (from Michigan, before Prague) which I’ll find out this week. So another thing I’m looking forward to that’s still up in the air.
Checked off this week: renewed passport
To be checked off next week:
Get bank letter verifying funds for my visa
Book my flight from London to Prague
Find a place to live? How?!
For places to live in Europe; Try Couchsurfing.com for short term solutions and then try to find the local equivalent of Gumtree/Craigslist for an apartment, or try the expat forums
Good luck!!
I would also recommend AirBnB if perchance you wanted to just get a nice + secure place to live for a month and then once you’re there you can really research (with a bit more knowledge/ ability to see stuff in person) for longer solutions!
Okay Toasties, my SO went above and beyond and bought me a brand new DSLR so I could take proper pictures of my artwork and get them uploaded onto an art hosting website for promotion, sales (oh man, just one sale would send me over the moon). I’m intimidated by the camera’s technology but wish me luck!!!!
And special thanks to the Toastie who helped me last week with the great advice! Much appreciated, and it was actually the driving force behind getting the camera!
That’s so awesome! DSLRs are the most fun, you’re gonna have a ball.
Are you at all interested in posting the link to your store? Or putting it into the Toastie google sheet?
Google sheets! Links! HYPERVENTILATING! I’m a total Luddite but could probably get some techno help when the time comes, which hopefully will be by the end of the month (I’m giving myself deadlines because this is a new year and no more jerking around, PonyAlong. 2016 is “do or die”). Is linking on The Toast OK, though? I’ll happily donate a Toast-themed image for Toast swag for the privilege.
FRIENDS
After talking it over with Houblonchoufe, and pursuant to respective New Years Resolutions, we have decided to go forward with this process of taking philosophy courses through MIT’s Opencourseware program!
it is very informal, especially just now, but we have got a bulletin board and everything! If you are interested in participating, go ahead and make an account at The Toast Academy HERE!
http://thetoastacademy.freeforums.net/
If you just have questions, I guess just ask me about them!
Or me! I can also answer questions! 🙂
So you’re (both?) taking two seminars concurrently? (THAT IS A LOT.) Is the concept that people sign up for the MIT class but don’t participate on their forums, assuming there are forums, just a private section for toasts? Or this is a supplemental bonus conversation area for enthusiasts?
They’re actually intro courses in the undergrad philosophy department, and having looked over the syllabi, it doesn’t seem like that much. (Houblonchouffe and I both feel pretty comfortable in the college environment).
With Open Courseware, you don’t really attend the class at all; they post all of the lecture notes and readings online, and then you get to go over them yourself at your leisure. So, right now the plan is that we, and whatever Toasts or other persons are interested in joining, will gather at the forum, assign ourselves reading and lecture notes, and then do an open-ended discussion on the material.
I guess we could assign each other assignments, too, if we wanted, I don’t know, we’re still working this out.
Ahh I see. I did actually look at one of them (on my telephone) and it seemed to have assignments & papers so I figured it was a timed semester. I guess they print the syllabus of the actual mit class, which you aren’t there for.
yeah, and it does have what the assignments are if you want to do them, but it’s otherwise wholly on your own.
Awesome! I finished a Coursera course over Christmas and have been missing it, so I think this is just what I need.
Hey Toast! What do you do when you’re done fighting with your sig other but you’re both still mad at each other but apologizing is DUMB because YOU WERE RIGHT GODDAMNIT and this week was so long and draining and why are we fighting anyway can we just move on BUT ALSO admit that you are being ridiculous…? Is that not a thing?
Hahaha I know this feel.
One of the things I learned from doing this with my partner OVER AND OVER is that it’s valuable to apologize even when you were right. Like, I always felt like “I’m sorry your feelings got hurt”-type apologies were a total cop out and worse than nothing at all, but my partner really needs to hear it sometimes. I’d get so caught up in the “YES I know you’re upset BUT HERE ARE ALL THE REASONS THAT MY ARGUMENT IS CORRECT” which is reasonable, but he needs me to say “I’m sorry you’re upset. I didn’t meant to upset you. Here are the reasons that my argument is correct.” (and then he needs to respond with his own apology)
“Honey, it was a long week and I was being ridiculous. In the future, though, can we [insert way to address the issue that caused the fight in a different way / agreement to take a break in the heat of an argument/ whatever else you think would help here]?”
As I’m dating a fellow Stubborn, when it gets to that point, we really do just have to move on and let it go, and stop waiting for/wanting the other person to say, “ok you were really right.” It neeevvver happens with us. Instead I just give myself an anger cooling off period and by the time that’s done, I’m well and fully over it!
It is totally a thing. When I’m feeling together, I usually just take some space, but usually what really happens is that we have a fake silly fight about something else (like about how I think How to Get Away With Murder is great and my boyfriend thinks it’s ridiculous) and that kind of takes the edge off the actual bad feelings and then we have drinks and make up. Maybe not a therapist-approved method but eh.
Something that I have found helpful — both with my significant other and also in my life in general — is trying to really closely consider how important it is that I’m the one who was right about something. Sometimes it IS important, obviously, but a lot of times I get to the end of it and it’s like, “yeah, but who cares though?” which makes it easier for me to apologize.
Sometimes when I just can’t bring myself to apologise because I AM RIGHT AND I HAVE NOTHING TO APOLOGISE FOR, just saying ‘Look, this is really silly. We love each other. Can we just move on and cuddle?’ sort of thing works.
Oh, man, THIS: we have a New System we are trying for 2016, which is we will both sit on the sofa, and we will have a cup of tea together, and both apologise for having upset the other one. Because, you know, I genuinely am ALWAYS sorry to have upset him, and if we’re fighting, he is upset. So: apology for UPSETTING (not for my reasons for fighting, which are always right, true, good and valid), and saying “I love you, and this is a stupid fight with no purpose”, and then just sitting, with the tea, not speaking if necessary. It seems to help! And then, after one cup of tea, trying to articulate how we can fix the problem. If we wind up fighting again, more tea, more silence. Repeat twice. (This is the most English advice I have ever given.)
If still no good, one of us goes to a café for, like, an hour, and then we miss each other, and are friends again, and must never bring up the subject.
i unfortunately have years of experience with this. unless it’s really bad and we have to have a tearful conversation after 2 days of not talking [that one was bad] we usually take a break from talking for a day, and then i make some food and offer him some and then we move on. or i bring him a cat who wants a hug. we just resume somehow. because eventually, regular shit has to be talked about, and we’ve been together for years, so we know there’s no “maybe this isn’t working” conversation anymore. just an “i was really fucking mad” one.
Is there a way to agree that you are both right/both wrong? In relationships I think there’s a thing where everyone can both be wrong/right? Like if you hate dirty dishes and he doesn’t care, no one is wrong, but no one is right either? if there’s a movie and for one of you it’s the BEST MOVIE and the other person has it as their personal WORST, thats hard to swallow but also true from both sides?
Can you see where your partner comes from on the issue and acknowledge that while still acknowledging yourself? Can you both talk about the both being right and both being wrong thing?
My boyfriend and I argued about where to put the knife rack, because I thought the ideal perfect spot was obvious and he was saying, “yeah but you can’t see them there” and I thought he was being ridiculous by saying that the knives needed to be SEEN, like who are we trying to impress, and if the counter is dark we can just get a light, but what he was actually saying when I stood on a step stool, was at his height, he literally couldn’t see which knife was which. I was totally wrong on that, but I was also still right, because for someone my height, the spot I picked out was perfect. I still don’t agree with where the silverware drawer is in our kitchen, but he’s exactly as right or wrong about that location as I am. This has been my revelation of this year. That I can be right from my perspective and still totally and completely wrong from the the other side of it.
Its a big deal in our relationship that we both step into the other person’s shoes as we make a point. If you get what the other person is saying, really get it, then disagree it’s fine because the other person feels heard. And then make sure everyone gets a turn. Like, do you mostly win most arguments? Does he? Is it a balance thing, like, oh man I realized that this thing doesn’t even matter, I’m just so used to winning I can’t cope if I don’t? Is he always getting things his way and I just have had it?
It is definitely a thing! We as a system have adopted the mantra ‘We would rather be happy than be right’ because life is just too short. Even though we often ARE right and our partner is WRONG. We can say sorry anyway!
That is a sucky way to feel. I sincerely hope it gets better.
Apologies have jack to do with “right”. Apologies are about recognizing that someone you love is upset or hurt by how you behaved. They probably feel just as misunderstood and disgruntled and, underneath it, hurt as you do. Comparing a sense of rightness to personal experience and feelings is not really ever going to work out. Even if you are angry about the issue, is there a way to acknowledge that you still care about how your mate feels and that you respect what they think? That could go a long way for both of you.
And let’s say you are unequivocally resoundingly “right” and your partner is being utterly absurd – maybe there’s a good reason, and they could use your help getting unstuck from that pattern or blocked spot. I’ve been there – no bueno. Everyone feels they are right, usually, and sometimes it takes some help and understanding and acceptance to get out of a space where it feels unsafe to be anything else.
There comes a point where you have to decide if being right is more valuable than being together. If you have a mutual value system that prioritizes treating one another well, figure out better communication so that there’s emotional space to be wrong sometimes, and to always have an eye towards being on the same side even if your opinions or perspectives differ.
Here’s my basic Clash of the Titans strategy:
1) Take twenty minutes. Go for a walk, have some water, breathe deeply, meditate. Do something that makes you feel safe and calm.
2) Take some time to genuinely stop and paraphrase/explain what your partner is trying to convey to you, and vice versa. Without sarcasm, without editorializing, without being condescending. You get to make sure the other person understands, everyone gets to feel heard, and it establishes that everyone’s position has value. It’s also a sneaky chance to outsmart yourself from being entrenched and actually make yourself hear them.
3) Stop and regroup – what is really important about what you are saying? Make sure you are not vortexing and drawing in a bunch of other stuff. One topic at a time. If you had to distill what is important here into a short thesis, could you? Both sides taking time to do this can get things on track. Decide together what the most important thing in the discussion is.
4) Making sure you and your partner are talking about the same thing, to the same end, is critical. Disagreements can be purely in the realm of reason, but, unless you are Spock, probably not. If you hit an emotional landmine half of what you are saying might just be getting translated into, “I don’t: care about how you feel/respect you/think your ideas are important/etc”.
5) As long as you maintain the sense of being right, things are unlikely to feel better. Stop trying to convince the other person you are right – take a step back and reform your thoughts and words into, “this is what I really hope you will understand about ___”.
I hope that’s some help. My partner and I put a lot of time and effort into developing healthier communication, and it’s been really, really rewarding.
I also hope things improve, and in the very least, that you get some relief and relaxation. Have an excellent weekend. Sending good thoughts…
You are getting great advice.
Keep in mind that Gottman (possibly only marriage guru worth listening to) says even very happy couples have the same fights over and over again, so you’re going to be doing this if you stay with the same person a long time. The point is to maintain the respect and connection despite the disagreements. (Keeping in mind that you can’t do this if people have been fighting dirty/if the disagreements are unsustainable. It’s not about putting up with someone being horrible/disrespectful/neglectful, but putting up with not ever agreeing on some stuff is par for the course.)
get tipsy together? Find something that you both think is hilarious and laugh together until your sides hurt – I think the key thing is shared laughing, it washes away a lot of the flavor of argueing
As with so many other things, this article on The Cut about internet boyfriends (http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/01/oscar-isaac-internet-boyfriend.html) made me turn into a crotchety old person talking about the internet in my day and these dagnabbit kids. LJ was a mess in many ways but I do think Tumblr is worse for the way it allows me to lock myself in a room with my people and my favorites. With ONTD I always knew who was happening in that moment. And also I had conversations with people, that was fun
+1 for the use of the word “dagnabbit” 🙂
I miss livejournal–I still can’t seem to get Tumblr.
I was really put off by that article (and the whole Oscar Isaac T-shirt SCANDAL.) I mean, I love the “If X were your boyfriend/girlfriend” columns here, but we wouldn’t all go into angry villager mode at the realization they are possibly not 100% accurate representations, right?
Something slightly weird and very unexpected happened to me this week and I’m still trying to sort out how to feel about it. My Nana basically estranged herself from me (and my siblings) a few years ago now because she felt we weren’t paying enough attention to her. She cut off all contact to my immediate family except for my dad (her son) who had to deal with her her saying things like “the idea of your children coming to my house makes me want to vomit” on the reg. This was obviously very hurtful, because we had been pretty close prior to the Great Freezeout (always on her terms, but close), and I didn’t really feel that there was a time where I ignored her for any significant length of time, so it was confusing and weird and made me realize some uncomfortable things about a person who previously had been pretty important in my life. BUT ANYWAYS she emailed me this week, completely out of the blue, and asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee or tea. I said yes, but I have to keep reminding myself to go into it cautiously. I doubt she’ll be confrontational but in some ways pretending nothing happened and all is fine might be more hurtful. She also hasn’t responded to my response suggesting times and dates to meet and it makes me worried I said something wrong, but I know if I did it isn’t my fault. (*Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting voice*) So that happened. Part of me knows the most reasonable response is probably NOT to meet up with her but dat Catholic guilt strikes again, I guess.
it is so stressful and disheartening when the Adults in your world dont act like it. Im’ still working out how to deal with situations like this, but it really just comes down to: (1) dealing with it being unfair and dumb and try to re-establish a connection on her terms (which will ALWAYS be on her terms), or; (2) Just Not Doing It Anymore.
Both options suck.
It really sucks. Right now I’m going with option 1 because she is Not Young and I don’t want this absurdity to affect how I feel about her after she dies (that’s morbid I know, but that’s what I’m thinking about). Considering her non-response to my email though it might not even matter how I feel! ha!!
If you decide to meet with her I strongly recommend squashing all hope and picturing it going as badly as possible. I’m pretty sure I read this technique on Ask Polly- you picture your grandmother acting terribly and yourself responding terribly because you already know that no matter what happens it’s not going to be perfect. So not only are you prepared for the worst but when you don’t handle everything perfectly you don’t beat yourself up. Because no matter what happens you handled everything the best way you could and it didn’t go as terribly as it could have.
Also you are allowed to change you mind and not have coffee with her at any point. Including when you’re already there! Giving myself permission leave whenever I get uncomfortable has gotten me through a great number of things!
Thanks, that actually is very helpful. I asked my parents for advice and they were just very confused over the fact that she emailed me. She does at least seem aware that the situation is uncomfortable, since she made a point of telling me that I could say no to the invitation if I wanted, but I’m still approaching it with a lot of wariness.
smrtcookie’s advice is very good. i think the idea that there is no resolution but a sudden invitation to meet is some kind of dramatic setup. i’d also imagine it going badly, since it sounds like the shut-out was already histrionic behavior.
there’s also the option to deal with it in the way YOU would prefer, rather than going with her invitation. if you feel it would be more sensible to say: “Nana, thank you for the invite. I would like to see you, but since it’s been so long and not on the greatest terms, I’m curious what you’d like to discuss. Maybe we can start an email dialog first.” and if that’s not your style, just think of what might be.
when i was 19 i had a falling out with my father that involved him shutting out my sister and mother as well [parents were 10 years divorced by then] and the person he appealed to first, with no apology, was my sister. she was absolutely blameless in this scenario, but lumped in with us, and i think he approached her because she’s oriented toward amicability. obviously it was a manipulative move, and i moved forward to resolve things where we actually discussed them [and things worked out, etc] but maybe the reason she is reaching out to you is because you’re the sweet one in the bunch, and maybe most likely to promote harmony with everyone else. is that a possibility?
That is almost definitely why she’s reaching out to me first, and my parents said something similar when we talked about it. I really like your email dialogue idea, and if she ever responds to me I might say something similar. Thank you!
Alzheimer’s can start very early, and one of the first symptoms my grandmother showed was getting even nastier than she ever was before (and that took trying, she was pretty bad). Anger and general meanness takes over. Is anyone caring for her that is aware of that? At least, you can tell yourself she’s not right in the head, which is probably true regardless.
Sadly according to my dad she’s kind of…always been like this. I will keep that in mind though, my dad and my uncle are pretty on top of things but if I do meet her and she seems drastically different from the last time I saw her in person I’ll definitely bring it up.
yeah, Alzheimer’s or something similar is what I immediately thought too. We don’t you your nana and could easily be wrong, of course, but a big personality change/odd behavior is very often be a sign of aging. In which case, even though it’s hard, good to not take any of this personally. Sending you warm vibes and warm wishes for whatever happens next.
If you decide to meet with her, maybe take along a friend?
That sounds crazy stressful and nervewracking. Do you have any idea about what your expectations are? maybe pre-arm yourself with examining those hopes and evaluate what is reasonable and what you can live with.
Do you have a fall-back plan if it goes to hell in a handbasket? Some friends lined up for moral support and the like?
And it has to be said: only go if YOU want to, and it’s right for you.
I’ve never been so excited to sleep in tomorrow. First week back at work after the holidays has been… not great. I had three hours on Monday of being content before a staff meeting took me back to ‘bitch eating crackers’ level with most of our staff, who want to complain about everything, but then don’t participate in solutions or opportunities for input. My boss & I are mostly just waiting out the worst of them, hoping they’ll be so miserable they’ll finally find new jobs. (Or hoping we all win the PowerBall pool…)
But it’s finally Friday and last night I successfully networked with ‘Young Professionals’ and maybe made a Happy Hour friend. Tonight I’m to going to see a 90s cover band and have many beers with friends, so there is a bright side!
Chicago! Would you like to get together with other Toasties to explore a cookbook together and have a potluck? I’m organizing a cookbook club meeting (cf Serious Eats) for sometime in January or February. If you’re interested, check out The Toast – Chicago Facebook group (closed, so apply for membership) or email me at my username at gmail and I’ll get you looped in!
Suddenly desperately wishing I lived in Chicago.
Copy this, it is the best idea ever! (And I can say that because it wasn’t mine!) I held one meeting already and it was SUCH a good time.
thanks for the reminder, I saw this on the FB group and totally forgot to follow up. Have voted now 🙂
a cookbook club potluck!???
THIS IS DIRECTLY IN LINE WITH ALL OF MY INTEREST BUT I DO NOT LIVE IN CHICAGOOOOO
DO IT, I hosted another one non-Toast-related and it was the best party ever.
I just moved away from Chicago 🙁 Have fun!
I’m planning to attend! I’m super excited about this.
what there IS a chicago toast facebook group?! i feel like i’ve been lurkingly waiting for someone to mention this for forever. chitoasties, get at me
The group name is “The Toast – Chicago” and you should be able to find it by searching! Happy to email an invite if you have any trouble.
i found it!! thanks. now just have to get up the courage to show myself irl if the opportunity arises D-:
I mean, you’re not one but two ogres. You’re definitely the most likely to eat anyone of all of us.
i don’t know, ogres are notoriously shy
Definitely come! I am super anxious, scared and shy in a meeting-new-people situation, too, and I’m really glad I’ve gone to the two meetups I’ve attended so far. (And I signed up for cookbook club, too!)
If any other DC people want to join a young adult book club, we just started it and it can be joined here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1490813317892530/
We’re reading Uprooted as our first book!
Uprooted is so good! As is the audiobook version!
Ahhh that sounds so amazing! And Uprooted is the best 🙂
So I don’t know if anyone has said, but what is the food in the picture and how does it happen to my mouth? I can’t quite work out if those are mushrooms on some kind of tomato bread or whether its some kind of but topped thing. It looks delicious though.
well, it looks to me like very thinly sliced truffles on top of some kind of tapenade and while I’ve never been in a position to eat truffles in any form, (only the fake-o “truffle” oil stuff) I am CERTAIN it’s incredibly delicious.
Thanks Amanita! I’ve never actually seen truffles in the flesh myself. I do love tapenade though. I think I’d like the whole picture to be real and right in front of me.
Fitness and/or gym goals thread!
What awesome things are you planning to do this year, fitness-wise, Toasties?
My own goals for the year are to finish rehab of my busted old bod, and then set meet PRs in all of my lifts (squat, bench, deadlift).
I have registered for a half marathon May 1st! Nothing like training in the dead of winter.
I am also going yoga on the regular via YogaGlo app, it is wonderful and I love that I can do it so conveniently. I just want to be super fly on my mat and in my life.
My goal is to engage in exercise that feels good and fun. So far yes on both counts!
We are fitness twins! I’m also running a half marathon on May 1st and trying to do yoga regularly with the help of the internet.
That’s awesome! Holla fitness twin! Any chance it is the Long Branch Half?
My goal is to find time to show up. Stay motivated. And learn to like it.
Also, to fit in my wedding dress, but this feels like a fringe benefit.
Any tips on achieving this? I need these tips.
Don’t count on wanting to go every day- go because that’s what you do, and ideally do some sort of workout you kind of like or find satisfaction in doing. But don’t wait to feel motivated to go- I usually try to avoid asking myself “do I want to go today” and just go because it’s Tuesday- saves on willpower.
Physically, you should start feeling more acclimated in a few weeks and be feeling pretty good in a few months- that part is always kind of sucky, but I’ve yet to find a shortcut- just have to get back into it.
My goal is to maintain the schedule of five workout classes a week that I had at my old gym now that I’m at a new gym and have to do those classes in the evening instead of the morning. Happy hours and dinners and shit gets in the way after work, but I really want to stick to it.
Also, as my resolution has been for like two years, I want to be someone who goes on long runs and bike rides on the weekend to up the amount of cardio I do.
I want to learn how to use the squat rack and some kettlebell exercises, and start lifting heavier weights. I scheduled an “express training” with a trainer next week to do this, so now I just need to stick to an actual weight lifting regimen — I don’t tend to push myself very hard when I’m working out alone, but hopefully with my new all-lady gym I’ll feel less self-conscious and more motivated.
This is my exact thing that I want. I am going to try to settle into a regular gym schedule and then look into doing a personal trainer session to go over proper form.
Marathon #2! I am running the Detroit Marathon in October if I can get my shit together enough to train. To this end, MrChouffe and I have done some finance-wrangling and I will be signing up for an 18-week program through the local running store to help get me accountable and back on my feet, AND I will also be taking barre/combo classes 2-3x/week for crosstraining. I expect a significantly better result than last time.
Well I saw that vine of Daisy Ridley lifting like 180 pounds and I was immediately like ‘but why can’t I???…oh wait.’.
I’ve been going to the gym regularly for most of my adult life, but I’ve been kind of stagnant without real results for a long time. My goal is to be able to lift more (currently at about 35 pounds, depending on the exercise), and maybe finally train myself to run for more than 30 second sprints.
A friend of mine told me that he was on some videogame forum where some bros were gatekeeping her deadlifts hardcore, saying that she “lost points” because she was using a double overhand grip (both palms facing down) vs. a mixed grip ( one hand faces palm down, and the other one faces palm up).
Of course, a double overhand grip is much harder. If the bros lifted, they’d know that. But not even knowing the basics of the subject at hand never stops bros on the internet from commenting.
PS: You can totally work up to that deadlift if you want! You just need to start deadlifting, and then try to improve a tiny amount every week. Lifting is all about the baby steps!
I am going to maintain a regular home yoga practice! So far so good, in that I have actually gotten up everyday this week to do it.
If anybody has any resources on practicing at home, I’m all ears. . . I’d love to find some good resources for poses and sequencing and putting together your own practices.
YogaGlo is an app that has streaming yoga classes, lots to choose from and you can filter based on what you are looking for. It is free for the first two weeks then $18 per month. I have been using it steadily for a few weeks and I really love it. Can stream on your smart tv, or IPad or computer.
Yoga with Adrienne on youtube! She has 30 day challenges that really motivate me to keep at it
I like Yoga by Candace (she has an app and youtube channel and the like) and also Yoga Download – I use their audio classes through my podcast player on my phone.
Less a goal and more just a fitness complain:
I did 200 bodyweight squats on Wednesday and I’m still sore from it. ;_;
(The exercise plan I was using called for 600 squats. I’m pretty sure that was a typo.)
Yikes, 200 sounds like no fun, much less 600. What is the goal with that many squats? Is this part of a larger program?
Yes, it was part of a nerdy bodyweight HIIT program called Age of Pandora. It’s a basic strength and endurance building program, for the most part. In this case, I had three “jobs” (i.e. exercises) to complete in the order of my choice over three days. The other two jobs were difficult, but still reasonable, so that’s why I’m wondering if the 600 number was a typo.
Yo, which job were you planning to do? Some of them are significantly harder (i.e. the 1000 push ups) but they are balanced by significantly more scraps. Also, depending on the job, you don’t have to do all the exercises at once and instead you can do them over multiple days (however you can’t progress to the next area until the job is done).
…actually wait, I now see which chapter you were talking about and agree that the 600 squats is seemingly a typo (as it makes no sense to 200 climber taps to be worth 4 times the value of 600 squats)
My goal for January has been to post at least 100 points on Fitocracy every day. So far so good! And once I get this gorram broken bone in my foot resolved, please o merciful heavens may it heal without surgery, I want to get back on the megaformer and back on the (literal) horse. Doing the C25K program again will wait until everything is back in proper working order.
TIL that the scary-looking Pilates rig is called a megaformer, which is the best gym equipment name since the power rack! Thanks, Rill!
Also, I hope your foot heals.
Also also, I’ve not been posting my workouts to Fitocracy forever. Time to start again. I’ll look you up on there!
The classic traction-inspired Pilates rig is the reformer, and of course someone decided that what Pilates needed was to be MORE difficult, so from that awful thought the megaformer was born. There’s a local business that uses them in classes–plank while the sliding, spring-loaded platform under your arms tries to pull back toward your toes! then do up-downs without letting the platform creep back! now do down dog to plank by contracting and releasing your core! pray for the sweet embrace of death for five! and four! and three! lunges next!–and the work is painful but unsettlingly addictive.
I’m 3penny on Fitocracy. Is it points-grubbing to post PT exercises? Eh, who cares.
I’m trying to take it easier on myself and enjoy the journey, not the destination! I’m not sure whether I’ll do the Crossfit Open this year (I’ve done it for 3 years, each year placing higher than the previous year, but it makes me stressed out and results-focussed.)
I’m also trying to branch out more in what it means to have worked out vs. “been active”. Like skipping lifting to go ice skating with friends. Or getting more into yoga. It’s all health, even if its not helping me lift heavier. Finding balance in my physical happiness, you know?
Those Open workouts are no dang joke! I like the “enjoy the journey” mindset, too. I’ve not settled on a competition schedule for the year yet, mainly because I’ll go right into that results-focused mode and that can be both good and bad, but you have to be ready to feel that way, you know?
exactly. And lately, I am not ready to be in that mindset. It’s like, added stakes, so when you miss a lift it feels like failure. Not having a competition lets the misses flow off me. I can shake it off and leave it at the gym! I’m sure I’ll be ready to compete again later this year. No rush!
I’ve decided I’m going to up my squat weight and bicep weight (in Bodypump class) by the end of January. This is going to be ouch, but I’ve been at the same weights for too long. I’m also going to go to the gym at least 3 times a week until I get a new job, in addition to playing soccer once a week.
The following few weeks are going to be quite hectic and up in the air so my goal is a minimum of 30 minutes of activity a day (anything counts: walks, hikes, bikes, yoga, weights) with an ideal goal of 45 minutes a day.
My goal is to learn to work out at home. I take a small group weightlifting class twice weekly, but I really want to add a third day. I know enough exercises and have enough equipment (kettlebell, medicine ball) that I CAN do it, I just need to make myself.
I want to get better at making time to do my physiotherapy exercises, now that I’m at the stage where the injury is not hurting anymore so doing them feels neutral even though I know they will help strengthen the muscles so I don’t hurt like that again.
And get back to swimming 2x a week, which I stopped when I got a sinus infection in December that made wearing the goggles painful and breathing difficult.
I know this is a small thing, but I decided today to download a Chrome extension that will take over my computer screen once every hour and a half so I will more consistently take breaks to stretch/walk/play with my dog/jump around a bit and get more movement into my day. I do walks with my dog in the morning and 30 min workouts about 4 times a week, but other than that I am always sitting or reclining and know exercise can only do so much to combat a sedentary lifestyle.
i got a vitamix last year and i’ve been blending up lots of veggie drinks [sometimes with one fruit, but sometimes full-on savory]. i have considered doing a whole30 to orient my cravings back to really healthy things, but i guess i’m kinda ramping down to it, since i am also having a huge salad every day, and trying to stick with less meat paleo + some dairy kinda eating. i’m trying to orient my bigger meal toward lunch, but i was disorganized this week, so i’ll try again next week.
i’m going to join a yoga studio in the neighborhood next week. i was walking a lot when the days were longer, but with few well-lit options on work days + el niño in southern california, i need a solid alternative. i always do pretty well with yoga, so i’m going to go obsess on their class schedule and all the times i could go.
My goal for the year is to find at least two more classes to attend regularly at my gym so I’d have classes three days a week. To help with this goal I promised myself I’d try at least two new classes this month. I’ve already gone to one and will absolutely not be going back because it’s not what I thought it would be (planks in a barre pilates fusion class is just cruel) but I’m proud of myself for trying.
I also want to be able to swim proper laps for an hour by the end of the year. Not worried about speed too much, but just swimming steadily for an hour. That one will take me a while.
Toasties! I am having RIDICULOUS problems with IntenseDebate. To sum up my problem, literally every single time I want to comment, I have to go through this ridiculous practice:
1.-go to intensedebate.com and log out.
2.-delete my browser history
3.-restart my browser
4.-go to the-toast.net, log into intense debate.
5.-the page refreshes, I am not logged in.
6.-log in to intense debate
7.-I am logged in! Post comment!
8.-try to post comment on same post, in reply to some lovely toastie
9.-“Your session has expired. Log in with IntenseDebate”
10.-Go back to step 1. consider curling into ball beneath desk and sobbing for an hour.
Please halp.
OH MY GOD, I LOGGED IN, TYPED THIS MESSAGE, AND MY SESSION EXPIRED IN THAT AMOUNT OF TIME I AM DEFINITELY JUST GOING TO SOB UNDER MY DESK THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE I WILL DIE ALONE AND NO ONE FROM THE INTERNET WILL HEAR MY CRIES.
Oh gawd that’s awful! Are you on mobile? have you tried different browsers? I have no problem on my laptop with firefox, but sometimes on my android the page jumps around on me. Do you have any sort of “do not track cookies” thing enabled that might be causing difficulties?
I am in Chrome, and I seem to have less of a problem on my phone. But my phone, it is so small; and my computer keyboard, it is so big! I don’t have a “do not track” setting enabled.
Possibly this a problem because I am on my work computer? Which, I suppose I shouldn’t be toasting at work, but….
have you tried a dif browser? I’ve been having problems at home (chrome) but not at work (firefox)
I’ll try using firefox or (egads!) Internet Explorer. I have to use IE for work, anyway, so I might as well. Thanks for the tip!
That sounds infuriating. I have problems when on my work computer – if I’m lucky I can post one comment on a post before it tells me my session has expired and I have to refresh the page – but not as bad as this. Good luck with magically fixing it.
This is sort of apropos of nothing, but I wanted to share this sweet poster I got for Christmas:
WHERE DO I GET ONE
Here! There are many other creatures, too! (I am so tempted by the Nessie one.)
These are so amazing! I had been contemplating getting one of those cryptid-skeleton-in-a-can things, but now I may have to reconsider.
I got postcards!!
That is beautiful and amazing!
DO WANT
The Jersey Devil! Tales of his evil deeds at a 5th grade overnight camping trip in nearby Bushkill State Park once kept me awake all night.
LOVE THIS and have sent it off not even pretending to be subtle about hinting for one for Valentine’s Day.
My only New Years resolutions were to have a bigger, more powerful bun than ever and to date fewer men with the optimal number being zero. So far my bun is a solid three inches today and I’ve been on three dates with two different women. Success!
There are so many possible interpretations for bun and I am enjoying all of them.
I am picturing a hair bun, a butt bun (singular of buns?), and a cheerful rabbit. All three interpretations please me. Go you!
Question for FL people- I am heading out on a service project in the Florida Everglades tomorrow, where I will be working with 12 college students and a coworker. I’m excited for the Everglades, and I like college students, but I’m a little apprehensive as this is not the kind of stuff I usually do. Thankfully 2 students are technically leading the trip so I intend to let them lead and obviously step in with my Wise Adult Ways if needed (hahahahaha yeah right).
If anyone has suggestions for cheap/free things to do with a pride of students near Ft Meyers, Naples, or the Everglades, I am ALL EARS.
This is probably the wrong part of the Everglades, but Fruit and Spice Park is really cool! There are all kinds of edible plants inside and you have free reign to wander and eat whatever is in season. Bring a hammer, awl, and machete for the coconuts if you can. Plus the nearby Knaus Berry Farms has INCREDIBLE sticky buns and you-pick strawberries.
I just looked it up and yeah, I’m not sure that we’ll make it to the Miami ish side but still THANK YOU because this park looks amazing and maybe I can try and go there another time! Picking bunches of different kinds of fruit and feeling like I’m foraging and eating random things?? Kind of a dream come true.
Also sticky buns and strawberries, yeessss.
Go out for Cuban food at some point. It’s pretty easy to find cheap, amazing Cuban food in Florida since the cultural influence is so strong there, particularly in the southern region. And considering how hard it can be to find anywhere else it’ll probably be a new experience for a lot of your students.
Toasts, I FINALLY started watching Luther, and while it’s addictive, it’s also led me into the beautiful world of Idris Elba appreciation. Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was a good lookin guy before watching, but I felt empty. No more. Toasties, I get it now. PRAISE BE, I get it. Hhhnhhhgnnghhhh.
Be warned, that shit gets daaarrk.
I watched the 2nd season about 2 weeks before I moved to London and managed to scare myself shitless.
Dude, yeah. I’m halfway through season 3 and had to go home on my own late at night from London to Brighton, and let’s just say I was mildly* paranoid.
*incredibly, very much, very very paranoid.
I don’t answer the front door of my house anymore thanks to that episode with the guy who drained women’s blood in chest freezers. Not joking at all, I will only open the door if I see a UPS/FedEx/etc. truck parked, and even then I usually just check later and hope the package didn’t need a signature.
He really is a marvelous physical actor and that’s something that can’t really be captured in still photos/isn’t always properly employed by directors. I also attribute some of it to that intense/wrong/weird/hot chemistry between Luther and Alice. Really missed her presence in the beginning of series 3 and even though she wasn’t in the two episode 4th series they did a good job of conjuring her presence.
Also: JUSTIN!! I was so upset.
i’m rewatching the wire, some good idris times on there!
I so want to like the wire; but even the few clips ive watched, I just cannot get with Idris Elba’s American accent.
His voice is so distinct and amazing and I feel like it looses something without the fick landan accent
It’s been ages since I’ve seen Luther, and I’ve still not finished it (the last two eps of S3 and the two-episode S4 are still unwatched, here).
But yeah. Idris.
Recipe suggestion thread? Yesterday I received a late Christmas present from a family member of 10 pounds of navel oranges. I can only deal with so much fresh squeezed orange juice, what shall I do with the rest?
Three day screwdriver/ mimosa bender?
– roasted beets with oranges and ginger
– winter salad: orange slices, minced red onion, Greek olives, assertively flavored salad greens, with vinegar, oil, and oregano
– this cake: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/02/blood-oran…
Supreming the citrus is a pain in the butt, but worth it: it keeps the membranes from getting bitter while baking.
Oooh, that smitten kitchen recipe looks amazing.
I make this cake a LOT in the winter.
Also, you can zest and put the zest in sugar to make Oranj Sugar, or spread it out on a cookie sheet and freeze and keep in a jar in the freezer for your zest needs, as well as juice and freeze the juice.
Marmalade?
You’re the second person to suggest that. My friend who brought it up first is going to send me her recipe.
Marmalade is indeed awesome! A bit of a time commitment, but pretty easily tailored to your own tastes.
Candy some of that peel!
That’s definitely one of my plans, along with freezing a bunch of orange zest.
Boiled orange cake!
I have had crazy success in a similar situation with this recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/332252/oven-dried-or…
What do you do with the dried slices? Put them in tea? Use them as room fresheners?
I have broken up dried citrus slices into little bits and put them in trail mix. You’d want to test them for bitterness before doing that, though.
Dried citrus does do a lovely job of scenting tea. You can make a riff on Constant Comment: whatever you like of cinnamon, clove, orange, coriander, and ginger.
Eat out of hand as a sweet but not-too-sweet snack mostly. My parents really, really liked when I did this with their kumquats because the bitter and sweet together was so much fun.
Not a recipe, but if you’re looking for a good natural (and cheap) cleaner, throw about 3-4 oranges worth of peel into a gallon of vinegar. I use it at church for cleaning the stuff in the nursery so I don’t have to worry about babies sucking on chemically things and now I use it around my house too and my mom uses it to clean the bathroom at her job since she’s allergic to a lot of cleaners.
There were orange trees in the backyard when I was a teen. We juiced all the fruit. Then froze the juice in ice cube trays. Then put the cubes of frozen juice in heavy plastic freezer bags. Thawed a bag every month or so. OJ is good in many recipes. Consider swapping OJ for simple syrup in cocktails. Adding OJ to a recipe can allow you to cut back on sugar. Etc.
Just had a strong flashback: Cube of frozen OJ into the blender with plain, unsweetened yogurt. Two cubes of OJ thawed and added to thin (not Greek) plain yogurt with allspice and nutmeg makes a lovely cold soup.
Frozen oj + vanilla yogurt also makes a great fake Orange Julius
I have three varieties of orangy citrus in the backyard and my girlfriend juices ALL of it and we freeze it in gallon bags– just freeze ’em flat then line ’em up like books. Defrost in the fridge when you’re ready. If you like smoothies in the summer it will absolutely keep until then. (We still have some from last year.)
Sometimes i think about reducing a cup of OJ until it’s syrup, then adding ginger, pepper, and soy sauce until it tastes like something I’d want to put some beef in. Never yet tried it though.
I bet your OJ reduction and spices would make a great seviche.
Coming in on this a bit late, but mojo pork. most recipes I’ve seen for it use a slow cooker, so it’s essentially just throwing a hunk of pork, some orange juice, and a few spices into a crock pot for the day and winding up with tender, delicious beauty.
Helloooo Toasts!
I am pretty sure it was on some open thread somewhere that someone recommended a waterproof Ipod shuffle for swimming laps. My parents got me one for Christmas and OH MY, the pool is the best place ever now. I actually don’t think about anything in the pool as opposed to thinking about every embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life, which is a lovely relief.
I do need to buy more music- I have three albums on Itunes- Beyonce, Hamilton and the latest Adele. I didn’t put Adele on there, because..no. But cycling through Hamilton and Beyonce on shuffle is QUITE the experience.
Relatedly- I’m trying to get better about eating after I swim in the mornings, and have been thinking smoothies might be the way to go. Anyone have any favorite filling but not overwhelming for someone with a pretty low morning appetite?
How much are these magic devices I need one now
It looks like it was around $150? I can’t say enough about how great it is.
Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now!
I also can’t eat much in the mornings so hopefully these will work for you!
Cranberry-Lime smoothie:
2 bananas
1/2 cup frozen cherries
3-4 tablespoons lime juice
Enough almond milk to cover the bananas and cherries
Coconut-nutmeg smoothie:
2 bananas
2 tablespoons agave (or honey or maple syrup or whatever)
3/4 tsp nutmeg
Enough coconut milk (from a carton) to cover the bananas
I also really like green smoothies, but unless you have a really good blender (which I do not), you may end up with uncomfortably large chunks of greens. http://chowdivine.com/green-goddess-smoothie/
I’ve tried to make green smoothies in other fits of healthy eating but no, my blender is not the best and..a lot of spinach chunks.
That cranberry lime one looks goooooood.
I just realized that I accidentally put cranberries in the title instead of cherries! It may also work with cranberries? but I have definitely only ever made it with cherries.
And I definitely know how you feel about the spinach chunks! The smoothie still tasted good, but it involved way more chewing than is comfortable.
I hate eating breakfast, always have, so my go to morning meal (usually eaten around ten thirty when I’m settled in at work) is a whole grain english muffin with natural peanut butter. Definitely do whole grain and definitely do natural peanut butter so you’re not just eating sugar. There should be enough protein and fiber to keep you full until lunch.
English muffin + PB is my fave quick breakfast, plus either a banana or an apple.
I have been wanting one of these for awhile now. Do you know where they got yours? I’ve looked around a bit but am hesitant to take the plunge*
*pun intended
This is the company they went with– it’s been a week and so far no complaints! The headphones can be a little finicky (on turns especially, I’ve noticed) but the sound is pretty amazing and listening to **Flawless while swimming is pretty bad ass.
**Love the pun well done.
Toasties! Today is a good day, for my hand is no longer in a cast. Four weeks from now will be an even better day, because then I will be allowed to throw people again.
How is your healing going, physical or otherwise?
I broke my arm (like, fucked it up reeeeaaallll bad) in August, and I still don’t have full flexion/extension in my elbow, but otherwise everything is going well, and I’m very very happy about that. (In particular – I broke it by falling on my hand, but my hand/wrist/fingers are all totally fine). I just have to get these last 15-20 degrees of extension and I’ll be all better!
I twisted my ankle really badly a month ago and the swelling/brusing is all gone and I can walk without limping now, but it still hurts and I can’t twist or rotate my ankle without pain. But its only been a month and it can take 6-8weeks to heal I’ve heard.
However I went to the doctor last night, for other reasons, and mentioned it and she said I might have slightly torn a ligament (I know exactly which one, its the only bit that hurts) and it could take 6 MONTHS to heal 🙁
Plus my mansplainy ex claimed that ligament don’t heal without surgery because there’s no bloody supply; not that I trust every thing he says, but it doesn’t mean I don’t worry about it.
Oh well its just another this to add to that list of things that are broken in my body (and at least this one has a cause I can point out to doctors instead of just genetics and a syndrome no one has ever heard of)
Brace, brace, brace forever! Brace at night, brace during day, have different braces for each. It helps with the pain and may help with healing inasmuch as you aren’t injuring it again. (maybe you’re already doing this and I’m sorry for giving you advice you don’t need.)
The doctor said don’t strap unless I’m going to be walking or standing alot because the ligaments can get weak from the extra support; I’ve heard this before but I believe it’s a rather outdated theory (a bit of cotton ain’t gonna do shit to your ligaments.), at least it is in horse sport circles (where I get all of my medical knowledge)
I’m pretty much out of the strap, unless it’s hurting or I’ll be walking; I need to get a proper sport brace to stop me rolling it again. I stand funny and tend to randomly go over on my ankles while standing, and I’ve done it once or twice since the injury and sweet Jesus it hurts, I nearly threw up. So yeah preventing that would be nice.
A fellow pronator perhaps? I think we hurt our ankles more than other people. I once sprained my foot & ankle tripping on a brick walk while running, it made this beautiful snapping sound and turned fuchsia so I thoughtit was broken. I’m not so sure that the weakening thing is wrong so much as the cons of weakening are way less than the pros of not re-injuring. Good luck!
Yes! How did you know! I’m very pigeon toed and pronate as I walk, I’m also hypermobile, so fun with twists and sprains all day everyday!
I sprained wrists and ankles constantly as a kid, but it seems to have stopped in the last few years (I’m not very active anymore) so its more structural knee/hip/back issues that I have to deal with!
Oh, I am sorry- ligament things are a super bummer! But if they can’t heal without surgery, my coworker needs, like, a whole new team of doctors, as they have her going the non surgical route.
Fingers crossed that your ankle heals up fast for you!
I tore my plantar fascia ligament (badly) and didn’t know it and walked around on it for a month. When my orthopedist saw it he was horrified. Three weeks in a boot and it was WONDERFUL. Now I get Plantar fasciitis if I’m not careful, but it healed up no problem.
Also, hip/knee/shoulder ligaments…the only one still giving me issues is the shoulder. Take huyaloronic acid capsules, that really helped me (I took 2 a day).
I will let everyone know at next week’s open thread after my surgery which HOPEFULLY will address Mystery Pain and get me some damn answers about my stupid body. For now, though, I’m popping Xanax and distracting myself with the interwebs. Glad yoru hand is better!
Slowly. Still bleeding a week after the miscarriage, have a dr appt Monday. Yesterday I walked 3 miles and today I carried my own suitcase at the airport and the consequences of both have been pain. Achy and frustrated and waiting out a layover. Hope yall are doing better.
The resting and treating my body with patience and kindness is always the hardest part- I very much like to fix things by doing something, and sometimes that’s just not how healing works. I forsee many mental self lectures in the next four weeks for me. Sending healing thoughts your way!
First week at the new job went great! Our next show is Disgraced, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer. http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/2015-2016…
Opening night is Wednesday; Boston Toasties – hit me up at djkomisar at gmail if you’re interested in discount tix.
DISGRACED IS SO GOOD. I saw it at the Goodman earlier this year. Wow, wow, wowowwwwwww.
Still so very happy about your new job, vicariously.
That’s awesome!
Today was kind of rubbish but I went to the doctor about a small health thing that has been causing Major Worry for a couple of months now. Might put it in a comment for anyone who wants to know.
I’m feeling really icky about this paper and it’s just not coming… However I have been in my pyjamas since 3pm and I am going to order takeaway later so it’s okay.
In other news! I have a crock pot! It is green! I made yummy beef short ribs this week! they were okay, the sauce was great but the meat was a little bland… What are your slow cooker tips/recipes?
Sooooo my mini pill isn’t doing its job and I’ve had daily, light bleeding pretty much non stop for 6 months or so. I’ve been on it for five years and never had any problems until about a year ago, when I suddenly started having periods and cramps again… I’ve been stupidly ignoring it until I totally lost my shit and had a panic attack this morning, got an emergency appointment and cried all over the nurse. This has been such a major anxiety causer for me…
I asked about tests/scans/wtf is happening, and apparently it is impossible to get a smear test if you’re under 25?!! WHAT IS THIS. But we figured out I had no other symptoms of unhappy ovaries/uterus tantrums, so she’s put me on a new pill for 3 months to see what happens. And then we can talk about a gyno referral.
Weirdest of all, I had to lie down while she felt my abdomen and poked my ovaries?! And apparently everything felt normal from the outside. I am not sure I trust her x-ray fingers but GOOD GRIEF she was digging around.
Yeah the smear test thing is standard; I’ve heard you can get one if you annoy them enough!
The nurse was probably just checking for cysts, which can sometimes be felt from the outside azd would be a common cause of bleeding.
You might just need a change of pill, sometimes that happens after awhile
Fell better!
What? That’s weird — in the US I believe the standard is to start getting pap smears at 21 unless there’s something else going on. I’m sure a pap smear would be part of a standard gynecological workup though if you go that route, along with stuff like STD testing and whatnot.
Poking your abdomen is pretty standard — my primary care doc feels my abdomen during my every six month visits to make sure my liver is ok (some of my meds can cause liver issues). If she had fingers inside your vagina during the poking, that’s called a bimanual exam and is a standard part of a gynecological pelvic exam. Either way, doctors are trained on how normal organs and things feel when palpated, so there’s no reason not to trust her 🙂
And hey — just so you know, bodies are weird and sometimes medications stop working or side effects develop for basically no reason. I was on a combined hormonal contraceptive for three or four years until my migraines started getting way worse, who knows why. There may not be anything actually “wrong,” as such. Hang in there.
Yeah, I was amazed. In Australia you start them when you’re sexually active or over 18, whichever comes first. Stupid UK.
It was entirely external poking which is why I was somewhat mystified by it…
Thank you! Her strongest theory was that my metabolism might have changed, in which case I might be processing my pill differently? Or hormones might just be shuffling around. I’m less worried now than I was, and I’m keen to see how this new pill goes, but I’ll probably still push for a referral to a gyno…?
Yeah, I’d say just go to the gynecologist and get a full workup. Maybe there’s something up, probably there’s not, but if there’s not then at least you have a baseline to compare with later!
I’ve actually gone and dug up my WP password to reply to you, because I’ve been dealing with this same thing on and off the past few years, right down to the first doc suggesting it was a metabolism thing. I eventually got to a second doc (both were gynos) who knew what it was, was very clear that it’s nothing to worry about, though on the other hand couldn’t do anything to make it better. According to doc #2, it has something to do with the estrogen/progestin imbalance caused by being on the minipill. If it makes you feel any better, mine did eventually stop (though still happens occasionally).
Aaaaaaaah thank you, for making the effort and being so reassuring. It’s really good to know this is a thing that happens, and I’m not going crazy… I ignored it for so long because it was still better than not being on the pill, so knowing it’s happened to other people makes such a difference. Thank you thank you!! I switched pills today and so far nothing crazy has happened, hopefully this will be an improvement? And I’m definitely getting a gyno even if it stops, I want to have that support from now on. Solidarity and love to you
I’m glad I could help! The actual diagnosis I got was “abnormal uterine bleeding.” Apparently more estrogen in my system would help, but I can’t take it (I’m on the minipill because of migraines). Doc #2 suggested eating more foods with naturally occurring estrogen, which I have half-assedly tried to do. Either way, this year’s bout has been MUCH less panic-attack-inducing than last year’s. (Last year was four months straight, this year was like… two actual periods and random spotting spread over two months.) And I definitely felt crazy and ignored it for a while too. I hope it improves for you soon!
Under the NHS, you’re only invited for smears once you reach 25, and then every three years after that (it’s to do with various calculations such as when people generally get cervical cancer, and how the younger you are the more likely there are to be false positives, as there are lots of normal developmental changes going on in the cervical cells that can be mistaken for abnormal ones).
That just seems awfully old to me, especially since HPV is so common and can even be spread without genital intercourse. Mind you, I started getting Pap smears when I was 17 at my first gyn appointment, back before the new rules were in place, so maybe I’m biased.
That sounds shit; I’m sorry. I’m on the combined pill (so, three weeks taking it, then one week without, which involves a withdrawal bleed/fake period), and decided to run my last two packs together. I’ve now got a week to go before my next break, but my body has apparently decided that 5-6 weeks without bleeding is too long and started bleeding/cramping for no apparent reason. It started at work, which was massively inconvenient, and it hurts and is just generally really annoying. Bodies reacting in unpredictable ways to hormones is really shit, and I hope your new pill helps.
I totally forgot to reply to the slow cooker part! Did you season the meat and sear it in a pan before slow cooking it? That helps a LOT. In addition, bear in mind that the long slow cooking can make some spices lose their oomph, so it may be that you need to add a little bit of something closer to the end, too. Something common in Indian cooking that could be helpful here is the idea of sizzling some spices in hot oil and adding them to the finished dish.
Yay slow cookers! I did, but I think I should have kicked the seasoning up, and I definitely could have seared it better (I crammed it all in one tiny pan so I would have less washing up because I am lazy). I love the idea of spicing at the end too, might have to give that a go. I’m using dried herbs – I’m currently making a bolognese sauce and I put a TON of oregano in, plus some thyme and bay. I do tend to be nervous with salt, I often underseason in the cooking process and add it later which I had to do with the ribs, and I think I’ll just have to get used to more enthusiastic seasoning? I honestly expected my first go to be a total failure so the fact that it turned out edible at all was worthy of celebration
So I’m a pretty good cook and also a cooking science enthusiast, and the two things that make your food taste way better are heat and salt. Don’t be afraid of smoking pans and really searing your meat, especially something collagen-y and fatty like short ribs or chuck roast, that you’re cooking for hours, since there’s no way they’ll get overcooked. Sear in a hot pan and then dump right into the cooker insert, no need to dirty anything additional! In fact, to make cleanup even easier, deglaze your skillet when you’re done and scrape all that brown goodness into the cooker. Also, if you cram the pan too tight, your meat will steam and not sear, which is not delicious. Don’t be afraid of salt, either! You do need more than you think almost always 🙂
The general underdoing was definitely caused by first time panic. And I have learnt my lesson! Today I properly browned my mince and seasoned with conviction. I’m pretty pleased with how this sauce has turned out. And I’m getting used to how my slow cooker works too.
Do you have any idea where I can find good recipes, or more advice? I’m usually an inventive cook but until I’m comfortable with this I’m not going to do that yet…
Cooks Illustrated has a slow cooker cookbook but it’s written for US audiences if that is something you might find annoying. Other than that,I’ve found recipes specifically for slow cookers to be the most useful,because they take into account the long cooking and how it can wash out flavors. Maybe also check out A Year of Slow Cooking.
Oh also as per seasoning at the end — with dried herbs like that you do want to give them a chance to hydrate, so maybe stir in fresh herbs and some acid at the end (wine or citrus or vinegar), or add them with an hour to go. Good luck! I’m glad your food was edible!
Hey Toasties – my plans for job hunting got kinda derailed this week by the company I was talking about way back when getting back to me and inviting me down for a chat. (I’m going to have to be vague about details because I feel there is some cross-over between them and Toast readers)
I’m a little shaken because the feedback was not great (and rightly so) and so I feel I’ve got a lot to prove, but I get to go to London and meet my dream company for a chat (and meet up with some old friends) and I’m both really nervous and really excited for next week and procrastinating from reworking some bits of my application.
Headed to Louisville for a girl’s weekend! Travel/seperation anxiety makes me nervous to be away from my husband but I’m also really looking forward to eating so delicious food at as many restaurants as possible (PHO!) and checking out cute boutiques and trying not to buy ALL THE BOOKS.
Toasts, there’s a whole bunch of little and not-so-little life stuff that I want to air to my Internet friends, but today I’ll limit myself to one: my husband for various reasons has been grumbling about our current living and working situations and has begun to suggest the long-term solution of moving to be near his (entire) family.
I can’t begin to enumerate the reasons I don’t want to do this, partly because none of them are especially good reasons and partly because I don’t want to sound like the asshole I am, but a lot of it is fundamental differences w/r/t childrearing, life choices, etc, etc. None–well, not too many–of their choices are BAD, they’re just … not mine, and I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life surrounded by someone else’s family, when I don’t really get along with or have much in common with them. I mean it’s too much to say I don’t get along with them; they’re perfectly nice! But the chasm, it’s large.
Unfortunately *my* parents–who provided extremely high quality child care to our first when she was a baby–now live in a lovely small city with practically no economy and my siblings live elsewhere. By contrast my husband’s entire family lives in a booming Western city, so it’s not really an even match if we’re thinking about proximity to family and jobs.
Ughhhhh.
No advice or anything, but sympathy. Moving is a very big deal, and if your heart’s not in it, well that’s it, your heart’s not in it.
I don’t have kids, but I live a few blocks away from my husband’s family and several thousand miles from mine. It’s not like his family is the opposite of me, it’s just their choices are… not mine. Exactly what you said. And…. it really wears on me. I’m already a very introverted person, and our forced closeness on “their” turf has made me even more reserved, with the result that they don’t really know me very well. I have constant panic attacks because I can never figure out what’s “right,” I always bring dessert when it’s not the right time and I show up empty handed when I should have brought dessert, etc. They’re super nice and generous with us, they’re just not my people.
This is a spectacularly unhelpful comment, sorry! I don’t really have any advice, except… don’t do it? If I could reverse my situation, I would. Or if you do do it, BOUNDARIES. My partner and I fought all. the. time. until we finally got to the point where I, and not his mom, was allowed to control exactly how much time I spend with them.
Good luck!
…… wait, there’s a wrong time for dessert? This is news to me.
Ughhh. I am lucky in that my husband and I are in total agreement as to whose family we would want to live near if that were how we were deciding where to live (my family, my family is the best). But we live with roommates who have a kid and live near one of their (huge) extended families and not the other.
I think, honestly, that it is wearing on the not-near-her-family partner at times, but also maybe she doesn’t have the huge differences with childrearing philosophy etc that you do? Because it seems like a lot of her conflict with his family is not an issue as long as they are not living in literally the same building (as we all were, this summer, due to issues with hazardous materials which were a Good Time For All).
Anyway, from watching that situation it seems like maybe the thing to ask yourself is just how surrounded you would be. Are they going to be in your house all the time without an invitation, or are you just going to be welcome to drop your kids off with grandparents or aunts and uncles for a morning when you want free childcare? Maybe your husband can have dinner at his parents’ weekly on a night you’re Very Busy With Other Things. Are they going to expect to be your best friends, or is it going to be fine if you want to develop a separate social life with people you do have stuff in common with? Are you the kind of person who can pretty easily do that in a new place, or is your current social circle something it would be really hard for you to replicate elsewhere? Are there any members of his family you aren’t comfortable having around your kids on a regular basis? Etc.
Because some of the ways you might answer these questions are Really Good Reasons to stay away! And if you do decide to move, it might be nice to set some ground rules beforehand, so you don’t have to confiscate the keys to your house your husband thought it was obvious you’d be happy for all his relatives to have.
Isn’t that how things in Gone Girl start going downhill?
This is very familiar! We could live near M. Siniichulok’s entire (literal) tribe, which I’m now even a member of, and have endless cousins and free childcare, and he goes through these bouts of let’s-move-to-my-country, but I know I would hate it. I would never be able to give my child endless chocolate cookies for breakfast or be OK with people dropping by unannounced (and the expectation that I drop everything and whip up a feast with the approved foods, because that’s the only hobby grown-up women are supposed to have). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway, your reasons of needing like-minded people around you are good reasons!
I’m feeling a but dejected and defeated. I made it my goal last year to get a new career ‘soon’ as I currently am very burnt out in my current one (retail) and I made no progress and it kinda sucks to have the same goal for this year, though my desire for a new career is still strong.
Problem is, I have had the same job (with many promotions, though) since high school, and as a result I’ve never had to do a ‘real job hunt.’
I have a degree. It is in history, and is nice for the ‘Hey, I did that thing’ but it doesn’t really have real life usefulness. Every time I end up looking for jobs I find myself looking at jobs I am wildly unqualified for or ones that are basic entry level and I would have to take a major pay cut were I to go for it. (Bills mean that isn’t really an option) And then I get incredibly dejected and feel like I’m looking in all the wrong places.
I sense that I am going about this in the wrong way, as I don’t seem to be making any progress at all. I feel I’m missing out on how to find the right ones somehow?
Tips? Advice?
General good wishes?
General good wishes! Tell me more about what you want to do?
The trick with job hunting is finding the places where your skills overlap with what they’re looking for. If you’re trying to break into, say, administration, where before you’ve only worked retail, highlight your amazing public-facing skills, you knack for systems and organization, your ability to keep cool in the face of pressure/deadlines/sales targets, your ability to works as a team member/leader, etc etc. You MAY have to take a pay cut, but you might not – see if you can arrange informational interviews with people who work in your career-field and see what they would do with someone of your skills and background. And ask them where your experience holes are, and how to plug them – courses? volunteering? networking events?
YOU WILL BE GREAT!
Ok, so the general problem is that I’ve never been one of those special people that just know what they want to do. I can tell you what I absolutely don’t want to do, but I’ve never been able to say ‘I want to be in this particular field.’ This indecision isn’t new. I settled on my history major because I was good at it and I didn’t know what else to do at school. After a certain point I figured itd be easier to just finish it than try to find another major and accrue even more debt. Even now, if I could go back for free I don’t know what I would pick.
I’ve tried looking into project management, but I don’t know if it’s the nature of my area, but most seem to be oriented more towards IT l, and I’ve never been computer/technology adept, nor do I have the relevant IT experience these listing were looking for.
I’m also fighting a lot of imposter syndrome feelings. I never realized how much my self worth feelings would be tied up into my job search. It’s been tough to work through.
Thanks for the tips/good feelings.
My dad worked as a project manager for years and years, and while he’s familiar with IT as a field, his skills were MUCH more aligned with managing people, managing timelines, being the HBIC, and getting stuff DONE. And project management is a skill set that transfers across multiple fields – theatrical stage managers are basically project managers by another name, for instance.
I am also not a person who feels a vocational calling, so I identify strongly with your sort of indecision on that. And working the same field for a long time (retail, or, in my case, office administration) has left me with a sort of “eh, what else is out there?” feeling. But over the past couple years, I’ve started to notice that I want certain things out of my work—a flatter hierarchy, for example; collaboration; small group projects and lots of independent work; flexibility in hours and work location—and have started looking at organizations that can offer me those things, rather than trying to define My Whole Damn Self by what I do/do not do for work.
No tips or advice, alas, as I am in a similar-ish boat, but ALL THE BEST WISHES.
No tips or advice, just sending positive vibes your way. My husband also has a history degree, which he loves, but it hasn’t been very helpful w/r/t career growth or opportunities, and has resulted in a lot of feelings of defeat in our household.
I hope 2016 brings positive changes for you!
I had a similar experience last year (But I found a new job last may!….and then got laid off in October…And then got my job back with a raise 3 weeks later!)
So, my advice/well wishing is: Don’t stop. I got my job because I made a couple follow up calls in frustration with my current job. I didn’t know anyone, and I wasn’t wildly overqualified. I just was persistent and frustrated.
Don’t look for miracles. This job is a much better situation, but it was still a roller coaster year.
Don’t sell yourself short. In retail you have probably developed skills employee management, project management, data processes, financial record-keeping, and massive skills is follow-through (calling, emailing, researching products, etc.) Sometimes it helps to talk to someone at a staffing agency to figure out how to present yourself and your skills well.
You might have this new career goal next year and the next until it works. (I hope not, and I think it can be achieved this year!) THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAILURE. Don’t feel bad that you have the same goal as last year. Career stuff takes a long time. You’re plugging away. Think of it like this: you have a full extra year of experience that you didn’t have last year. put that on your resume!
To include in your job hunt: a part-time entry-level gig you can work while still at your current job. It will allow you to claim “experience” in another industry. And it will help you see whether it’s a good industry for you. If it isn’t, swap it for another part-time gig in a different industry, while paying the bills with your current job.
You have my best wishes and Toasthugs if you want them.
I’ve been trying to find some sort of entry level stuff like that, but my retail schedule is variable and 40+ hours a week. Places have passed on me just because I couldn’t guarantee a specific day off during back to school/holiday.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Hey there, another history grad here. I ended up working in IT as a business analyst because a lot of the qualities that you need/acquire in your degree transfer really well into requirements gathering: investigating multiple angles, identifying common themes, clearly articulating what people need, etc. Research and being able to convey the results of that research as well as possible paths forward.
And if you like learning stuff (which is one of my drivers) then there’s always something new to learn.
Or if you are really organised and great at time management, you can look at project management. Both of these types of roles have a career path and you can get in as a Junior – people don’t expect junior BA or Project Coordinator to have much direct project experience but to have the personality and that you’ll pick up experience as you go.
So don’t think of your degree as not real and that you only have to apply for jobs that are related to retail. Look at the skills that you learned during your degree as well, see how you can leverage them along with your retail based years of dealing with people in difficult and stressful situations. That is great stuff right there.
Yes, thank you. This was the recommendation I clicked through to make, and I see that someone has arrived before me and made it already.
Loads of good wishes! I was in a similar place two years ago, and used to get panic attacks just looking at job sites.
Some of this might be of no use, but here’s some tips from an internet rando:
– see if you can do work experience in other depts of your current job – is there a marketing dept? Accounts? Ask to help out, you’ll at least get a feel for different responsibilities/possibilities
– I did a few short night classes in Excel, and not only did it boost my confidence, decent Excel skills (not even anything really fancy) made me way more employable
– I also did a free online qualification – Google Analytics certification – also good for my confidence, and taught me quite a bit about whole areas of work I knew little about
– Use your network – tell people you’re interested in moving fields, ask if they know anyone useful (this can mean many things, of course, depending on your situation). It’s a cliche but it can genuinely pay off. You don’t know how many jobs are just two handshakes away frm you right now
It’s tough. It’s worth it.
For the technical/ nitty gritty side of “how does one write a cover letter, exactly?” I highly recommend Ask a Manager- the blog was extremely helpful when I was job hunting.
She’s also great about helping people figure out what exactly to put on their resumes in the first place, especially when you have a job like retail where there aren’t the same kinds of goals as in other types of jobs.
Speaking of Ask A Manager, this post might have some good info for you, and definitely check out the comments! I hope the title of this doesn’t offend you, but this post may also help.
My spouse transitioned from being a college dropout working in retail, who used his hobbies and persistence to get a side gig in audio recording with a customer of his store. When the store closed, the side gig guy gave him a kind of crappy job at his electrical contracting business, which was very generous but still….kind of crappy 🙂 But! Both the side gig and contracting job gave him professional experience in what had been his hobby, which allowed him to apply for and get a job that a friend heard of at the local university doing advanced A/V work. He now makes really great money, was able to use remitted tuition to finish his degree, and even has his own office. You CAN do this!
Big ol’ thank you to the Toastie who recommended the Sawbones podcast the other day, because I have been listening to it a lot at work this week and learning so much!
Did you get to the amputation episode yet, with the world’s least successful surgery? That’s one of my favorite anecdotes to tell.
Yes!! I also enjoyed the one about medical cannibalism.
Medical cannibalism! Dammit, I didn’t need another podcast, but medical cannibalism!
(Highly recommended: Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, by Richard Sugg. Featuring some interesting passages on how the whole “cannibal natives” meme might have been a way to deflect discomfort about Europeans’ own cannibalistic tendencies.)
The self-experimentation episode still makes me literally start crying with laughter.
Yay I love those guys!
LOVE Sawbones. I listened to their whole back catalog over the course of a few months and I’m just chock full of gross medical anecdotes to disgust people with.
Also turned me on to The Knick, which is a little ridiculous but I love it nonetheless.
If you enjoy Sawbones, you might also dig Only Human. It’s not a comedy podcast, but it’s warm and thoughtful and informative.
Thanks for all your kind help about dealing with overwhelming anger in the Holiday Open Thread! The person who was hurt is fine, my pulse is back to normal and the person who did the bad thing will Face the Consequences of Hir Acts.
Is it reasonable to post some sort of Officially Coming Out status on social media because one has consumed one “evil secret gay person” piece of media too many? I’m pretty sure nobody would disown me over it, so I’m fortunate in that respect, and I’m pretty sure my friends have all already figured it out.
(It’s ridiculous to be having adolescent angst about things in one’s mid-thirties.)
It is not ridiculous. It is, instead, b.s. that queer people are pressured to figure out their identities (which, okay, sure that’s super easy) and also advertise them to the world so everyone can pick said identity apart.
But then, never advertise it in any way which might make a straight cis person uncomfortable. It’s exhausting. I’ve been completely out in all elements of my life for well over a decade and I still find it stressful and exhausting. I am also in my thirties and am disgusted with the amount of angst I have, but then I remember that angst is just actually living.
Good luck. Post whatever you want to post. Don’t post whatever you don’t want to post. I have your back.
Thanks <3
Well, did it (on a dull Saturday afternoon and burying my lede in snark) but still.
Might even talk to my parents about it, who knows!
Much sympathy – I only really admitted to myself/other people that I was bisexual about a year and a half ago and have spent a lot of time agonising over it and also feeling ridiculous about having adolescent angst (mid-twenties rather than thirties, but still). It is hard. I made a “coming out but not exactly” post on FB by posting a Bi Visibility day thing and adding a comment which made it clear that I included myself in this group, rather than making a big scary announcement.
Thanks- been THERE and done THAT, certainly! (“Oh, it’s just because I went to a women’s college/am a theater person/am closer to my female relatives than my male ones/went through a phase….” Or it’s just because all those feelings are part of me and have always been and are not going away.)
No reaction from the Catholic relatives, but no unfriendings so far!
Fresh out of the shower and wrapped in an electric blanket chanting “I don’t wanna go to the DMV.” Can I just go another week with an expired drivers licence?
But ask yourself, “Will there ever be a day when I wake up and say, ‘Today is a great day to go to the DMV!’ ?”
[The answer is no.]
I would counter that I’m imagining Friday being a particularly terrible day to go, so maybe if they have Saturday a.m. hours that would be better.
I did have a day like this: I’d just gotten an adorable haircut, was wearing clothes I liked, and knew I was going to be able to replace my last license photo, in which I looked on the verge of killing someone.
I had an appointment scheduled with them, but got there early and was out of there (and most of the way home, walking) before my actual appointment time came around.
Best of luck, whatever you decide.
Woof, I am NOT the person to ask about this hahahah, since I routinely waste time on my registration and inspection and oil changes and stuff like that.
I feel you. Having lived in 10 states, I have way too much experience at almost as many DMV offices. During business hours is the “best” time to go, with Friday being the least-best. (There is never a good time, just some times are worse than others, Saturday being the absolute worst.)
Think of it as time you can spend reading. It’s the only good thing about waiting for hours and hours. Just remember to check the Now Serving Number _____ sign when you read to the end of each page.
I moved out of state a year and a half ago, I was supposed to get car tags and new licence within three months… but here I am. I just went outside town to the remote dmv and got in and out pretty quick, so one thing down. Meanwhile my tags are expired and for a different state on my car. Since October.
But the title is in my dad’s name so I guess I have to do a transfer? Idk how that works so maybe I’ll pretend this problem doesn’t exist.
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 5 ACTIVE™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
——– Original message ——–
It’ll be OK. You won’t get in trouble at the DMV for being late. But you could get a ticket for further postponing the DMV torture.
You need your dad’s signature. Get him to give you a Bill of Sale that shows a reasonable price received for the car. (Even if the price is fiction – that’s just between you and your dad.) Some states require the Bill of Sale be notarized, so ask your dad to see a notary before sending you the BoS.
Take the BoS to the DMV and ask them what to do. Expect to pay tax on the reasonable price of the car. (If it’s not reasonable, you’ll pay more in fines for fraud, in some states.)
BTW, you will have a shorter wait if you go to a DMV office in a small town. I drove to a DMV an hour away and waited only 5 minutes. Mr Rose went to the one closest to our house, which was also the closest to the county seat, and waited 4 hours.
I’m a bit overwhelmed right now by all of the stuff I have to figure out in my both career (I’m hunting for a new job) and in my love life (I’m casually seeing a guy and a girl right now, and each situation has its own minor problems and major potential) but I have moved into a new apartment and it is just wonderful! Living on my own is the best thing I could do for myself right now, and even though it’s a temporary situation, it makes me ridiculously happy. It has somehow solved so many issues at once!
Now I just need to address my professional and romantic issues! Easy, right?
Toasties, have any of you moved back in with your parents in an early-twenties context? Any tips?
My father apparently went to the doctor and learned he has high cholesterol and also blood pressure and also is pre-diabetic… So I anticipate a lot of (necessary! important!) focus on food choices, but I fear they will be very hard for me to hear/manage without feeling all body-shamey.
Also, the thought of trying to date is horrifying? And I have secret stashes in my room? I feel like this is all what it might have been like to have a social life in high school.
Early 20s here! I was living with my parents for a year and a half before I moved out… a week ago.
Living at home worked out pretty well, but it was getting rough by the end. Something I wish I had done more was contribute around the house with chores and cooking. It was all too easy to revert back to my angsty, lazy teen persona.
I hid my secret stashes in accessible places but I think the weed at least was an open secret.
As for sex, I did that elsewhere. I basically lied about who I was going out with whenever I had dates, because the follow up questions were so annoying.
ha! this is very helpful and pretty much exactly how i am thinking about it… i do find myself getting snappy and angsty so easily! and i am trying to push back on that.
alas, no open secrets on my end, only living in fear of discovery.
I lived with my parents for three years after college, while I tried/failed/eventually succeeded in applying to graduate school, and worked part-time for my local paper and a couple retail jobs. Here’s what I would suggest:
– Pay rent, even if it is a pittance, because this helps establish the relationship between you and your parents. If they truly will not accept rent (or you really can’t manage it right now), sit down and determine what you will do instead (chores, errands, etc.).
– Consider finding work and moving out a part-time job, in addition to whatever else you’re doing. If you’re not working right now, consider it a full-time gig. Take a set amount of time to work on this each day, be it a few hours at a coffee shop or half the day at your desk. This will help you remember that the situation is temporary and that you are doing things to move forward.
– As to the focus on food choices, it may be helpful to look at it as “I am eating well in order to support my dad / form good adult habits” instead of “I must conform to these food choices.” Remember that at the same time, you are also allowed to have treats without feeling guilty, whether that means going out to eat sometimes or having a secret stash of candy in your room. If you like to cook, consider helping out with meals and/or grocery shopping, as this may help you feel like you have some ownership in the choices being made (“I made spinach salad! I support my dad’s food choices!”) rather than having those choices forced on you (“I have to eat spinach salad?”). If you do not like to cook, this may be a great time to start picking up some cooking skills and healthy recipes you can use when you move out.
– Have a life outside your house. I wish I had done more of this, myself. I was very anti-social, and it seemed as though all my friends were elsewhere, living their exciting lives. By the time I left I felt very alone and very much like a Failure at Life. Find other people doing things you like doing, and make new friends, or hook up with old ones.
The rest I can’t speak to as much, but maybe other Toasties will continue to chime in.
Spouse and I are taking a break from refined sugar with the result that all day long I dream about candy. In almost every permutation. Sweet, blissful candy. Though I will ALSO say I’ve been sleeping a lot better and in general feel pretty great so… :/
i applaud you but also cannot imagine such a world
We’re like… ok, just for one month. You can do anything for a month! But we both have been having some health issues and he had a couple of reactive hypoglycemic episodes over the holidays which were concerning, so it might be a longer term deal if we can possibly bear it. If you asked me before this how I felt about sugar I’d have said, “Oh, I like it fine, I guess?” No. No. I love it very deeply.
Same here! Just for January, basically a Drynuary except for sugar not liquor (we don’t drink anyway). I def feel less puffy which is so nice, but I do dream about that sweet sweet candy. I did not realize how much I was eating. I’m totally lying yes of course I did that’s why I am doing this. Onward to the 31st!
Honestly a little bit annoyed at how good I feel without sugar – I was really hoping it’d be like my caffeine-free experiment: fine, but no noticeable difference in my well being or energy levels. Still eating fruit, I’m not a maniac – but no honey or maple syrup or the like.
Samesies. I was just bitching to a friend how annoying it is that I feel better not eating so many sweets. Gah.
Also: sweet sweet candy. My first day back in the office and the kitchen was almost literally carpeted with ferraro rocher truffles. COME ON GUYS.
i did this when i did whole30, and i kept a bowl of fruit salad in the fridge for emergencies. it worked!
It may be a bit late for this already but crafty thread? I just started these gloves which I plan to make fingerless because I want them to be kind of like Jessica Jones’ gloves.
I also just discovered the concept of corner-to-corner crochet, and now I want to find some nerdy pixel art to turn into a blanket.
Those are so pretty! I just cast on this hat for a swap and I love the color and it’s going to be hard to give it away at the end of the month.
Cute! And yes, that is a drawback of knitting cute stuff for other people…
I really need to work on the dress I’m making my sister. For xmas. I’m a tiny bit behind and now I have no motivation. I decided to work with a fabric I haven’t sewn with before so now I’m dragging which is why I think I’m dragging my feet.
You can do it! I made my sister a dress for Christmas and spent about two hours on Christmas Eve hiding from my family and finishing it up.
You can do it! You’re also ahead of my mother, who still has fabric and patterns for pjs she “gave” me for Christmas in 1997
I am knitting an insane blanket. I have completed 6 / 24 hexagons and started #7! http://www.ravelry.com/projects/mkmorrow/persian-…
I’m also sewing, spinning, and weaving various things.
Holy crap! That blanket is GORGEOUS!
I’ve fallen in love with tunisian crochet like whoa. I made a hat that was too small on Christmas, so I’m making another hat with the same pattern. The previous one was just gifted to my co-worker for her daughter to wear, and this new one will go to a friend who just moved to Maine. So excited!
The current yarn is a llama/wool blend that feels like an absolute dream. I love it. I’ve gotten about 3 inches worked up now, so it’s about 1/3 done.
THOSE GLOOOOOOVES.
I’m working on a pair of socks right now. I’m 2/3 of the way through the second one. This is the first one:
I’m kind of disappointed because the second sock looks SO DIFFERENT than the first one! There is waaaay more blue in the second ball of yarn I’m using, even though it’s ostensibly the same colorway as the first one. Always check your dye lots, kids.
I’m also working on this cardigan. I just finished attaching the bottom garter border and am in the middle of picking up stitches for the front borders. I can’t wait to be finally DONE with this sweater! The pattern is easy – no tricky lace or cables or anything, and the shaping is minimal – so it’s good for TV knitting. But. But. I’m getting so impatient I want to wear it NOW.
I love the sock! Sorry about the dye lot disappointment. I don’t personally mind fraternal twins, but I different colors would be tough.
That is a super cool sweater. Pictures when you finish, please.
I loom knit some booties to try and use up yarn and reduce what I have to pack, but it didn’t use up nearly enough, so I made one flat (but acrylic, so perennially curly) and one tube scarf, too. One of my goals after unpacking and getting back into a work groove is to get off the looms and learn me up some needle skills. And get back into papier-mache. And decoupage. And origami. Oy, crafts.
I made a Very Large Life Decision, and I hate it and want to slide into the ocean.
Relatedly, how do I tell my job that I’ve somehow regressed to being less skilled/useful than when I was hired? I appear to have slid under the radar thus far due to the magic of working remotely and a previously stellar reputation, but I’ll be back in the office soon. Many of my hard skills and almost all of my soft skills have floated away in the wind. Being there in person might help, but it also might not! I cannot think of a good way to say “please manage me very intensively and possibly let me go through training again or else I will wreck absolutely everything I touch.”
First, read up on impostor syndrome! It is quite probable that your stellar reputation is not unfounded and that you are your own harshest critic!
Second, can you frame requests for training in terms of professional development? “Hi Boss, I found this webinar that would help reinforce and further develop my Skills That Floated Away” vs. “I will wreck everything I touch.” Also, moving from working remotely to being back in the office is a good opportunity for a discussion about how often you and Boss need to touch base.
Everything that LittlestOak said, plus: It is always okay to ask for a refresher from people in the office on how they do various things. It’s easy as long as you’re polite about it and give a vague reason. People like reasons and generally don’t care what it was as long as there is one. (“Can you show me how you do task XYZ? It’s been awhile since I’ve worked with so-and-so on them/I’m having a brain fart/the technology these days/etc, etc.”)
Alternatively, take to the sea! And become MermaidAddieJoy.
Florida and scuba toasties, I am thinking of going down to Florida this spring break- second week of March- to go scuba diving and beaching and warming up after winter. I would be staying in the west palm beach area because I have a few couches to crash on in that area. How is the diving in that area? How is the diving in March? Do you know any good dive shops? Should I just bag the diving in that area/during that time period because it’s not very good? Thoughts?
I grew up in Miami, and I don’t really know of good diving spots in West Palm, although I could be mistaken. The most popular spots are further south, in the Keys, to my knowledge. (You don’t have to go TOO far south: the northernmost key, Key Largo, has a really large state park called John Pennekamp that’s very popular for snorkeling and diving.) If you went a couple hours further north and inland, you could also catch some very nice cold springs, with manatees and otters and all that good stuff.
There are good diving spots around West Palm (although not as many in the Keys) – I don’t dive so I don’t know any off the top of my head (actually, I definitely remember seeing people diving near The Breakers!), but there seems to be a pretty good listing here: http://www.puravidadivers.com/palm-beach-county-d…
Toast I have a question. A few months ago (end of September) I contacted some former bosses for reference purposes. I got the job. Due to my newness in the working world, it did not occur to me to send a thank you for their time. Is it too late to do so now or should I still do it (while acknowledging how long it took me)?
My philosophy is that it’s never to late for thank yous? I think people are always happy to get them, regardless.
not too late! you can put it in terms of “here’s what I’ve been up to at new job,” to put a more positive/less apologetic spin on acknowledging the length of time.
Do it! All you need is a quick mention about how busy you’ve been adjusting to the new job and how much you appreciate them taking the time to help you get it. It’s also kind of nice to send one now since you’ve been in the position for a little while- if you can relate what you’re doing now to what you did when you worked for former bosses I think it would be extra well received.
Do it now! Happy new year and thanks so much, and some chat about the new job. And another thanks. Just do it, don’t make it a project.
Toasties, I’m having real trouble finding any motivation to get to my job. I’ve been looking for more interesting work for 10 months now, and not really finding anything (a few interviews that never followed up, haven’t been offered anything though).
I’m thinking about quitting and living off savings for a few months, which I can do. But I can’t do it for more than a few months, and really, based on the past year, there’s no reason to have confidence that I’ll suddenly find a new job in the next few months. I’m feeling so, so stuck here. Sometimes I cry on the way to work! (But as soon as the work day is over, I’m happy and motivated and loving life). Should I take a risk? Should I quit and live off savings for a while?
Yes! Do it. Do you have any new skills you want to work on? Take this time to refresh yourself, maybe do some volunteering in the area you want to work in. Good luck!
Oh god, feeling stuck is the worst. I’m in that place right now and to my mind, the only thing worse than this is being unemployed. I would never advise quitting; I did it to take care of my grandma and when it was time to find employment again, it was horrible and I was basically terrified I would be unemployed forever. I wasn’t– but if you doubt you’ll find another job, then quitting your current job is an even worse idea.
Can you ask for a leave of absence? Maybe just some vacation days? (I don’t know if you have that kind of job.) Can you trick yourself into getting to work every morning without losing your mind? (I’m working on this myself, maybe we can plan together?) I think your best bet might be a combination of brainstorming How To Keep It Together… and keep applying for jobs.
I actually switched to 75% full time (completely flex hours) last summer! It was really wonderful for a while and I always found myself having worked too much by the end of each month, needing to take a few days off.
But now I squander that extra 25%, mostly coming in late and leaving early each day. I think if I kept working full 8 hour days and then had actual days off, I’d be healthier for it. That’s one proactive step I can take. I also think if I got paid more, I’d eliminate one of the sources of bitterness (however, it’s tough to ask for a raise when my boss also knows I’m actively looking for other work).
The other factor at play is that I’d like to move cities in the fall, after my wedding. Maybe I just need to make it to May and then quit for the summer then?
What if you took the days off in the beginning of the month, then put your 75% in after that?
Maybe use some savings to get out of town a bit?<– depends on how you do at home, catching up on housekeeping is not my idea of a break but you do you.
Are you looking for work in the new city? Then if you get an offer before May, you could just go for it?
I think perhaps booked the whole last week of the month would be a good way to force myself out of this dilly-dally habit, but, for me, taking the first week off would cause me anxiety about feeling forced into full time for the rest of the month (like, paying back the debt of time off? weird mentality I know, but there we are)
I think about getting out of town for cheap! Maybe I need to do one of those Wild 3-month hikes? I know somebody who interned on a cargo ship for a few months.
That’s also a good point that I could just move to the new city early (if I get a job there, which is the goal) and come back for my wedding. I ran it by my partner, who says he would totally support me moving before him (he has commitments in current city all through the summer). That could totally work!! Wow I feel really hopeful and like I’ve got a couple options. How can I help you as much as you’ve helped me?
Quitting would open up more time to look for work, which should increase your chances (in theory at least), but it sounds like you might benefit from toughing it out a little longer and being hyper focused on saving so that if/when you do quit, you have a little longer to work with to find the next thing before you’re destitute.
One of the things I wanted to try in the New Year (not a resolution, exactly) was to try and get used to wearing lipstick and so far it is going pretty well. I have never gotten in the habit, since I have dry lips and a hard lipline to follow (misleading freckles along my top lipline and a bottom lipline that doesn’t follow the actual physical ridge of my lips – see Jennifer Garner for a similar example). But it’s been going okay so far. I got a duo from Bite (Tangerine and Lingonberry) which I like a lot!
Today though, I have a patch of red skin above my upper lip that’s the same shade as the Tangerine I have on my lips and I’m feeling really self conscious that it looks like I have smeared my lipstick onto my face.
Anyone else have any makeup triumphs/stories/mishaps to share?
Would it help to dot some concealer on the red patch? Sometimes I do that when I’ve messed up the line of my lipstick or when I have skin weirdness going on.
It would, and I will do that in the future! But I did not bring any concealer to work with me today, so I’m just kind of stuck with it.
I have that same problem with my lip’s color and topography not matching at the border. I wind up kind of winging it.
I only started getting into makeup the past year, following grad school and Peace Corps, now that I’m a big girl and have a Big Girl Job. I’ve come to L-O-V-E lipstick and wear all the garish reds I can because I feel like a badass and a professional lady when I do. I love Bite and the Sephora brand and Tarteist is pretty great too. I aspire to have Eyebrows of Excellence, so that is my next step.
I’ve had the most luck getting Eyebrows of Excellence by going to threading places. I think it’s because it’s slower and more precise than waxing, plus I have just a LOT of eyebrow and I think the women who do the threading are more used to seeing people with more and heavier facial hair.
There are so many great new eyebrow products right now! Nyx tinted brow mascara is my favorite thing on my face right now. It’s super easy and cheap and makes such a huge difference!
I just bought blush for the first time in years and while I love it (Clinique’s Roly Posy Rosy), I’m constantly worried I’m going to look like Bridget Jones in the back of the cab when I leave my dimly lit bathroom. Baby steps, I guess!
I am just getting into eye makeup. I’ve been wearing mascara for years but always thought that eyeshadow/eyeliner made me look way too raccoon-y. SPOILER: it doesn’t, but only because I am older now and actually know how to apply the stuff. Hooray!
I almost never wear lipstick, but when I do I have similar problems – freckles and patches of red, dry skin very close to my lips that make it look like the lipstick has smeared. It’s very annoying – sympathy.
I made an Android app! I have not yet worked out all the putting-it-in-the-Google-Play-store stuff, though.
I am thinking that it would make sense to set up, like, a business name and stuff, because if I ever get my more ambitious side projects off the ground I don’t think I’d want to have them all just under my actual name, and it seems like it would be good to have them all under the same umbrella. But then I think that maybe I am worrying about these things too much and I should just put the app up and see how it does. Advice on which way to go here would be very helpful.
Also I suck at naming things. I’ve been playing around with nonsense word generators and the like, and the best I’ve come up with so far for a business name is “Byteclemy,” which is either awesome or terrible.
(The app itself is a random number generator for Android: Netrunner players, so probably not interesting to most people here.)
Update: Ran nonsense word generator again, best results were “foologie” and “somedamazd.” Am now leaning towards Foologie, especially since most of my side project ideas are game related.
Toasts! I made a sex friend! He’s fun to hang out with, and also to have sex with, and neither of us wants more of a commitment than that and it’s great!
Hurrah! I have a sex friend who I think I do want more with, but in the meantime it’s nice to be reminded what great sex is like!
Right? [window into SarcasticFringehead’s previous relationship: it’s so nice to have sex with someone who’s not desperately trying to convince themselves they’re still attracted to you, while not having the ‘nads to actually talk to you about it.]
I’m certainly open to the idea of getting serious with someone again at some point, but right now I’m just loving being single and not having to carry the entire emotional burden of a relationship.
Yay! Sex friends are so great!
Ugh. Going to talk to someone about a post-graduation job now. Hopefully I won’t sign my life away during the first meeting. (Though I had a dream last night that I was doing it so that’s… good? …maybe? …money is good.)
Dear Toasties!
Travel advice please!
I’m going on a week long tour in Scotland this summer (to Shetland) and I want to do some traveling before and after (about 4-5 days on either side). Options are: scotland for both chunks OR scotland first, ireland after.
I’m a lazy traveller (don’t like cramming in a million things into one day, like seeing touristy things, museums, etc), so I feel like 4 days in Ireland isn’t enough to really see it, but being so close, it seems silly not to go. Help!
Scotland is great! I lived in Glasgow for a year a little while ago. No advice on Ireland, but here is my weather advice for Scotland: It will not be that warm even though it’s summer. I wore tights most days in Glasgow, even throughout the summer. A nice day is like 70 degrees. Bring a raincoat and/or umbrella because Scottish summer just means it’s not raining EVERY day. Unless you’re very lucky, there will still be rain.
But it’s a great and beautiful place and I’m sure you’ll have a great trip, whatever you decide.
Haha, yes! I’m not expecting a tropical vacation, that’s for sure. Thank you!
4 days in Ireland is plenty, especially if you stick to one city (Belfast or Dublin are the biggest and easiest to get to from Scotland, Cork and galway are also accessible through Shannon). You could even do two cities with two days each, or a 2 days in the city and a trip out of nthe city on two other days
I.e. it’s pretty easy to get anywhere from Dublin, but you can easily go out to either side of the bay by train and take the seaside towns. Greystones is the furthest south the DART goes (metro train), its about 45mins to an hour. Plus there’s Dun Laogahire (where I’m from), Dalkey, Killeney and Bray on the way out which are all pretty cute and nice to walk around. Howth is the same distance north, good walks and fish and chips.
And if you wanted to go further you can get to the likes of Wexford/Enniscourthy in an hour and a half.
Ireland is tiny!
This is great! Thank you. I’m so used to North America with every thing so spread out. An hour and half is a trip out to the suburbs here!
Ireland is *tiny* you won’t be able believe it until your there, its also empty; there’s only 4 million on the entire island (for comparison, the UK is about 60mil, with over 10mil in London alone.)
You can drive from the east coast to the west coast in less than 4 hours!
Have a great trip!
Also if you go to cities, I would strongly recommend Glasgow over Edinburgh. They’re close so you can see both, but if you only see one or plan on spending more time in one, Glasgow is the more interesting city (unless you plan on going in August and visiting the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh). I may be biased because Glasgow is where I lived and loved and made great friends, but I found Edinburgh to be just less vibrant and unique.
Oh that’s good to know! Thank you.
Oh I lived in Scotland for a year while I was doing my degree and traveled around quite a bit. The great thing about Scotland for lazy travelers (like meeee) is that there are such amazing train journeys you can take where you get to drink train tea and peer at things out the window.
Would highly recommend the West Highland line, which is supposedly one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world. Definitely DEFINITELY hop on the Jacobite steam line from Ft. William out to Mallaig. You can either go to Skye from there or just make the round trip. If you are a Harry Potter fan: this was the Hogwarts train, they just did it up in different livery.
Off the beaten path, but really worth the journey are Inverewe Gardens: a sub-tropical garden in the north of Scotland that owes its existence to a quirk of the Gulf Stream.
On the east coast, I really enjoyed Aberdeen as well (train trip takes you past Dunnottar Castle, which is a pretty nice ruin if you ask me). Saw Ladytron in The Tunnels there. A+ would visit again.
This is awesome! Thank you so much. I love the lazy train trips, drinking tea, and peering out at things. Aberdeen is definitely on my list since I need to catch the ferry from there to Lerwick. Those gardens sound amazing!
Dunnottar is spectacular, but be ready for a bit of climbing–there’s a reason it was so defensible, and they have yet to install a lift. There’s an hourly bus from Aberdeen that drops you right at the top of the lane that goes down to Dunnottar, and then if you want you can hike the two miles up the coast to Stonehaven and catch the bus back to the city.
If you’re considering riding horses in the Highlands, the Tomintoul Riding Center is a lovely option. Rosie is an utter delight and her horses are top notch.
This isn’t scotland-specific but I’ll put in a vote for doing more things in one place during short-term travel! I was in the UK for a semester, and on October break (so, like, 10 days) I had the choice to either hop around the mainland or take a trip to the lake district (with hiking and relaxing and some history stuff). I did the lake district thing and was SO happy I chose that; it made me feel a little bit more connected to England in a slightly deeper way than getting a shallower experience in a new country.
Yes, that’s my jam. I like camping out in one place rather than the quick and dirty “I visited 27 cities in 27 days”. Which is kind of what makes me want to stay in Scotland for the whole chunk.
I affirm your jam!
You can totally do some time in Ireland. I really liked Galway and it’s a good place to be for a couple of days for side trips. Another idea, and I’m not sure how feasible this is for you, but maybe London? I took a train from Edinburgh to London two summers ago. It’s a five hour train ride that is very lovely, and both of those are fun cities to just hang out in.
Thank you! Originally my plan was London, but I decided to rule it out this time. I think I want to see more countryside and less city!
4 days is worth a visit to Ireland! I would suggest basing yourself in Dublin because the transportation (rail and buses and tours) is all set up to/from there.
Thank you!
A few weeks ago I posted about how I had lost my beloved pet and how we were going to meet a new dog. Well, we’ve had New Dog for three weeks now and she is great. I still miss Old Dog (and always will), but the anxiety I felt during our dogless period is gone. New Dog is also tremendous buds with our 8yo, which is delightful to watch. Thanks for everyone ‘s encouragement.
Congrats! Kid/dog friendships are the BEST.
Can anyone recommend a good source for leggings? Thick, durable leggings?
One day in grade school (decades ago) the cheap pair of leggings I was wearing split wide at the crotch seams, but I didn’t notice it until hours later. The horrified stares from my classmates still haunt me to this day, and I have shied away from the new leggings trend as a result.
I’m done being afraid though, dammit! I’m ready to flaunt my vaguely leg-shaped legs in stretchy, eye-searingly patterned cloth!
I like American Apparel’s winter leggings for winter, and their “shiny nylon” leggings for working out. Both very opaque and high-wasted and I’ve had them since…2011? GOOD GOD.
Leggings can live this long?!?!?! My preferred brand is super soft and comfy, but can’t make it through more than one season. I thought leggings simply had the lifespan of fruit flies!
seconding the winter leggings. warm, and so durable they’ve hurt me more than i’ve hurt them.
I’ll check them out, thank you!
Thirding, I’ve had mine since 2012 and they’re getting a little worn out because I only have one pair, but they’re warm and they don’t have a single hole after 3 years so there ya go.
HUE.
Go about your business.
YES. HUE.
I really like the Danskin ones from Walmart.
Just checked out the Danskin website. Looks very promising! Thanks!
We Love Colors–51 colors, many, many sizes, and really tough.
Do you know how accurate their size chart is? I like the look of them, but the hip measurements of their largest size are way too small for me.
I am beyond the hip measurements of the largest size, and they work for me. Apple shape, if that makes any difference. And I love their tights with the fire of a 1000 suns.
Thanks! Unfortunately, I’m pretty pear-shaped so I don’t think these will work for me 🙁 If only Old Navy hadn’t changed their leggings! They were the only ones I could find where the waist was tight enough to actually keep the leggings up while I run.
Their knee-high socks! Whoa! Thanks 🙂
Weirdly, the No Nonsense ones I get at the supermarket are surprisingly durable (and high-waisted, which is good for dress wearing), but they only seem to come in black.
I really like Torrid’s leggings!
There’s a Torrid at my local mall! I love trying things out in person.
Not exactly leggings, but I love the sweater tights I got on sale from the Loft a few months ago. Very sturdy and cute.
Any other Reply-All listeners want to join me in sobbing quietly in a corner?
You made me nervous! I was afraid the podcast was ending, but then I looked up the latest episode description. Now I am relieved it’s just a sad episode.
You may react differently, but for me it was “just a sad episode” in way the moon is “just a big rock.”
Duly noted! I will wait until I’m at home to listen to this one instead of attempting it at work or while driving.
YEAH SO I was whining about the break and how long it had been and then I saw it pop up when I was making dinner last night and was like “OH YAY.”
NOT YAY.
I mean, yay, it was very beautiful. But oh my god.
I haven’t listened to this week’s yet, but I was definitely sobbing over the dog episode.
I adore R-A but took one look at the description and went, Not today.
Toasts, I suspect a friend might be trying to slow fade on me, but I’m not sure. There’s good evidence for it, but also evidence against it, though that’s outweighed. Have any of you ever been in this situation and just… asked the person about it? She’s allowed to end the friendship, of course, but all this wondering is driving me kinda nuts and is starting to get hurtful.
Asking seems kind of… aggressive, I guess, so I’d be very hesitant to do it, but maybe there’s a sort of “Hey, this is the vibe I’ve been getting, is it true?” way of getting it out there. Or maybe it could totally backfire. Is there any appropriate/gentle way of going about this? Should I just let it go?
“Hey, I’ve been missing you lately! Anything going on I should know about?”
Simple and considerate. I like it!
Are there any North Carolina Toasties in the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel HIll) area who would be interested in a meet up? We briefly discussed it on last weekend’s thread, but I don’t know how many people actually saw it.
Well I’m sort of in the Triangle (Rocky Mount, which is…out there, but if I want to do anything cool it always ends up being in Raleigh). So…maybe?
(I’m also super shy and new to commenting because of super shyness so…yeah…)
Me!
Ooh, I’m in Chapel Hill! (Is that info I should give out online? Oh well.)
Yes please! I’m in Raleigh and want to meet you all! How about the MLK weekend?
I’m in Carrboro and yes!
In a link roundup the other day I asked for advice regarding an article my boss asked us to read for staff meeting, about “intelligent disobedience” and creating a culture in which people are empowered to speak up when things are going wrong. I was worried that it was more “ladies, speak up” and not “men, listen” BS and I was preparing my rebuttal (y’all’s articles helped, thanks).
BUT. It turned out that he wanted us to read it because someone had been passive-aggressively taping up “how to run a successful meeting” shit in the kitchen, and apparently leaving out “how you know when your manager is a bad manager” articles lying around. And my boss wanted everyone to know to knock that shit off and just to say something, because he’s not the kind of boss that will punish you. (It’s not just wishful thinking on his part; we already have the kind of culture where we can question bosses. I had been shocked at the passive-aggressive kitchen shit because it’s totally not in keeping with the way we work.)
SO disaster averted. No gender lessons needed.
Ugh, Kitchen-Note-Leaver just made it harder for anyone else to speak up because now they’ll fear being perceived as Kitchen-Note-Leaver! THANKS PAL
Maybe it was a false flag operation and it was the boss all along!
Hi Toasts, I need cat advice! I adopted a 1 year old cat from a shelter about 6 months ago. He is often very cuddly and sweet, and will come up and lay on my chest or lap. He also sleeps nicely at the foot of the bed overnight. He is also extremely playful and energetic, and the problem is that he bites A LOT. It’s always in a playful way, but still hurts. For example, he will attack my feet and hands as though they were toys, with biting and grabbing with his paws and kicking. Also sometimes he will hide and then jump out at me and bite my leg or thigh. I’ve tried really hard to avoid ever playing with him with my hands and feet on purpose, and redirect him to a toy instead. However, I wish he wouldn’t bite me because it hurts and leaves scratches! Have any of you had cats like this? Any advice for how to discourage biting (I know I’ve read everywhere that spraying with water bottles is not recommended so I am not trying that).
Another suggestion: Next time he does that, first let your hand go limp or push it further towards his mouth – supposedly this is not what a cat would expect prey to do and they will release it (though I don’t know where i heard this, you may want to google for a reliable source). Also, immediately end the play session and walk away. It may help kitty realize that when he does the behavior you don’t like, he doesn’t get attention for it.
Thanks, I will have to try this. I am worried that he would be perfectly content to keep chewing on my limp hand! I have tried walking away and depending on his mood sometimes he just won’t give up and keeps following me, so that’s when the toy distraction works really well. I’ve done some clicker training with him and he seems to really like it so I am going to try to get back into that as well (I already taught him to jump up on his scratching post!).
so, this is an issue when kittens grow up alone, sometimes. when they are in groups, they learn to back off when other kittens yelp in pain, but when they’re young, their bites and scratches don’t hurt too much, and/or they bite toys and inanimate objects and never learn to tone it down.
the main thing you’ll want to do is get a cat tree [if you don’t already have one], and get some wand toys, and do some play therapy twice a day. kitties are tiny killers and they really miss killing stuff when they’re indoors and alone, so if they don’t have another kitty to play with for hours per day and nothing to kill, their pent up energy can result in surprise attacks like this. so, play him down to where he’s panting and tired, twice per day before meals, then feed him. this is on almost every episode of “my cat from hell” which is a great show with a terrible name about cat behavior. almost all bad behavior gets better with play therapy.
you could try an air can, sprayed into the air mainly for the sound, which mimics a hiss noise. i’ve also heard of people letting out an “ouch!” to try to train them when they bite. momma cats bite kitten’s ears to stop bad behavior, so sometimes pinching them works, but i can understand you might not want to do that. some people insert a toy into the situation and redirect the cat’s attention. you might find he likes real fur & feather toys that appeal to his carnivorous nature [my cats love them]. and finally, clip his nails. i understand he might fight you on this, but if you can start to handle your cat by curling up his back legs in your lap and securing his front paws, just clip the claw tips off and that will greatly reduce his ability to cause injury.
Thanks for this great advice! Maybe I should check out that tv show. He was already fully grown when I got him, and I don’t know anything about his kittenhood (the shelter said he was a stray that was picked up from the street in town a month before we got him). Based on his behavior scavenging for human food/garbage in my apartment, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been surviving on the street on his own. And he is a big strong cat! I just measured him this morning, and he is at least 24 inches long, not including tail, and 13 pounds. Luckily we already have a cat tree, and lots of toys, although I have been guilty of not playing as much lately due to being tired. I would hope we can get him to the point of not biting as much, because the way he is now I would be worried to have him around small children or other cats (this isn’t really an issue right now but could be in a few years).
My sister’s kitty had/has similar issues, stemming from rescue at 6 weeks, and never learning proper cat socialization. Getting another cat made a HUGE improvement. But you might not be up for that, for about a million good reasons. Heather’s advice above is excellent.
2 things to consider here: your cat was full-grown, but they mature around 2 years old, and kinda settle down a bit more then. He might tone down the behavior, but I definitely met a few cats at 5-7 years who were still playing too hard for their owners. I can almost guarantee that another cat will be a good addition if you are up for it. they will need lots of play therapy to dispel energy and get along [more episodes of my cat from hell], but your cat will have someone to play with all the time, and that’s more playing than a person could ever do.
i get what you mean about small children though. i would try the air can and hiss noises and play therapy and see how he improves. if you’re feeding kibble, i might switch to high-protein wet food [like wellness, merrick or tikicat] to give him more of a nourishing, settling meal that follows play time [you’re mimicking a hunt & kill there]. i can’t say this with certainty just for wet food, but when i got my last cats on raw food later in life, they were just so much more settled, happy, and satisfied by meals after that food. so a step up from the carbs the cat doesn’t need could improve things [sorry, i am big on cat nutrition after seeing the benefits].
good luck!
My husband’s cat is also a big guy who is a chronic, non-malicious biter and sometimes attacks without warning. While he is also a sweetheart, he compulsively bites when being petted. He was about 1 year old when he was adopted from the shelter, and apparently they made my husband sign a bunch of extra paperwork since they knew about the biting already.
He is about 5 years old now and has become significantly better behaved over the two years I have lived there. Part of it is simply calming down due to age, but I think part of it is also increased play activity when I moved in with my cat, who is also male and a bit more dominant. Now that he is receiving regular smackdowns from another cat, he is more cautious about launching random attacks against any of us. The biting is unfortunately still a thing, but at least I can usually see it coming and have learned the safer petting spots (top of the head is about the extent of it).
So, unless you can socialize him with a more dominant cat, I guess my advice is wear pants and wait it out?
I also have this problem with my orphan bottle baby kitten (now a year and a half old). My solution is sitting on my lap right now, purring his little brains out. Integrating them is turning out to be a slow process – bottle baby never learned to speak cat, and her manners suck – but she has already become less bitey, just because she is putting so much of her energy into figuring out how to deal with the other cat. Also – now I get to have two cats!
Toasties, I have a question about children’s reading.
So everyone is Deeply Concerned about my nephew’s reading speed. He is, like his aunt, a fast reader, and family members are worried that he isn’t actually comprehending what he’s reading. He can and does talk about what he’s read, so he’s obviously grasping enough for a 2nd grader.
I’m starting to get frustrated myself with all the handwringing, because seriously, I have always been a fast reader and the only real consequence was not always being able to answer super nitpicky questions about a character’s nonsymbolic eye color. But is there anything we should watch out for with my nephew? If only to set my sister’s mind at ease so I don’t have to hear any more about my reading speed?
My nephew does have ADHD and has struggled some with focusing on schoolwork in the past, if that makes a difference.
Oh my god, in seventh grade a classmate loaned me Warriors and then got mad when I read it too fast and madder when I failed to correctly answer her quiz about the character’s eye colors. I can’t contribute anything useful here, I’m just astounded that this has happened more than once in the world.
A couple of my English teachers in middle school and high school used to put questions like that on tests. Haaaaaated it. So much. My particularly loathed 10th grade English teacher asked about chapter titles. To what end? Nothing.
One of the more obnoxious English teachers did this for our summer reading–in the semester that began the following January. HUGE eyeroll.
I’m with you…geesh, if the kid has ADHD, he’s probably happy that there’s one thing about school that he can do well! encourage it! My answer would be, “buy the kid more advanced books”. Can you frame it to her as one of his personal successes and something she should be supportive of?
I see no problems. He can focus on reading. He’s good at it. Yay him! Mom, go worry about something else. Think of how large a vocabulary he’ll have.
Oh, my sister is 100% supportive of reading, just a bit concerned that he might be ingraining some kind of bad habit somewhere? My mother has said that she was a bit worried by my reading speed when I was that age, but obviously it’s all worked out fine with the exception of how I have 2 English degrees. I think he’ll be just fine, but better to ask, I suppose.
That seems like such a silly concern! It sounds like he can discuss what he read, so he’s not just literally skimming his eyes over the pages and pretending to read them. What is making them think he isn’t comprehending?
He does have this tendency to announce that now he’s on chapter/page X. That kinda weirds me out a bit too, but we’ve had discussions about books I know well that he’s read, so I know he’s taking it in.
The issue is really, I think, that I’m the only fast reader in the family besides my nephew and so half the family is at least partially convinced that no human being could possibly read that fast and understand. My sister is very happy that he’s a reader, just worried that he might be doing something in a quest for speed that might cause problems for him later. I obviously don’t think it’s a problem but I figured someone might know more about elementary school reading in general.
About him announcing his progress in terms of chapter/page number: Perhaps he wants acknowledgement and praise for his reading, and the numbers are an easy metric for how much he has accomplished?
When he says he’s gotten to chapter N, I wonder if it might be beneficial to reply by asking him about his favorite part of chapter N-1. What development did he find most surprising/unsurprising, which characters behaved most intriguingly, what does he think will happen in chapter N, or something of that nature. This sort of dialog will show him that not just his reading speed, but also his thoughts about what he is reading are valuable and worthy of acknowledgement.
I definitely don’t think there is anything wrong with your nephew, by the way. Happy reading to you both 🙂
Unfortunately, he usually announces it and then dives right back to hyperfocus on his book. I think he wants the acknowledgment, but maybe he’s just saying it for his own benefit most of the time. Hmm. Something to think about.
Eh, yeah, this sounds like A Thing Kids Do. Maybe it’s to seek praise, maybe he’s just saying it out loud because it was in his brain, maybe he’s just been quiet for too long and had to say something out loud, maybe he’s impressed with himself, who even knows.
My sister is very happy that he’s a reader, just worried that he might be doing something in a quest for speed that might cause problems for him later.
What problems does she speculate this could cause? Because this honestly seems like a non-issue to me, as long as he’s comprehending. Of course, I’m a fast reader too, sooooo 🙂
I think she’s worried about him struggling with reading assignments as he gets older, like needing to reread a lot because he was going too fast. Apparently he’s had some problems with reading assignments in school before, but that’s not necessarily a comprehension issue.
Ugh, those people. I’m a very fast reader and in summer day camp some kids and counselors noticed and wanted to time me, which they did. The difference is that they were impressed and didn’t think I was a liar.
Ha, in elementary school, a friend used to time me reading on the school bus. Quite impressed, she was – but in that case, I definitely wasn’t absorbing everything because I was trying for speed, so I get some of the concern.
WHAT. I have been a super fast reader all my life and I have never heard of people being worried about such a thing?? How in the world could this be a problem? He’s obviously not, like, faking reading if he can discuss the content. What other concern could there be?
I think the issue is that down the road there might be a problem? Like in high school. I do think that those are probably self-correcting problems (I had problems with details but I’ve learned to slow down and consciously pay attention as I got older), but just in case, I figured I’d ask.
Another fast reader here, and it is totally a self-correcting ‘problem.’ He’ll figure out to go slower if he needs to, as long as his love of reading isn’t squashed!
I sort of love reading too fast, because if I like a book, I come back to it a second time and catch all the good details without all the suspense of how it ends.
I know someone who coaches adult literacy. She’s got a heavy eye roll for this kind of concern. After working with adults who never learned to read, she just can’t take this kind of thing seriously. It could be so much worse. The kid is fine! Leave him alone.
Okay, good to know! I’m no literacy expert or even a literacy dabbler; I can extrapolate from my own experience but I was sorta wondering if there was some sort of ‘oh, yes, some kids experience X when they read fast, so be aware’ thing that I wouldn’t know about.
Better to be reading as a kid for sure.
If you wanted, you could teach him to start underlining his favorite words and sentences. It’s a great idea in general to do, good for writing skills etc., and it will slow him down in good ways. Normally I wouldn’t necessarily suggest something like that until middle school (when everybody should start underlining important, favorite, & confusing bits!), but he could start early if he’d like/if it seems warranted.
Being a fast reader is a great thing, but making sure he’s focusing on what’s interesting about what he reads vs. making is a mechanical thing is valid. Though often best self-correcting, as people have said.
I also was/am a fast reader and got a lot a grief for it in elementary/middle school. I am also a big re-reader, which allows me to get additional comprehension on things I might have missed- but I don’t tend to miss a lot, even at the speed I read.
I got grief for it from teachers when I was younger, but by the time I got to high school everyone pretty much left me alone? My parents never really thought much of it aside from “Man we buy her a lot of books.”
Reading is great! Yay reading!
Reading IS great! Even though sometimes I feel like I used up all my reading interest in elementary school and now struggle to find books that hold my attention. But that is an entirely different problem.
I heard this all the time when I was kid. “How can you understand what you’re reading when you read that fast?” I don’t read word-by-word. I read in chunks of words. I mean, if he’s missing questions on quizzes about his reading at school, then that’s a problem. Or if he’s flubbing tests/assignments because he’s not reading the instructions carefully, that’s an issue. If these things aren’t happening, then he’s just a fast reader. But honestly, my ability to switch between skim for gist and read for detail was a god send at university.
Not sure if his school using the Accelerated Reader (AR) program– it’s where a) each book is given a number that tells the kid/parent/teacher if the book is at the kid’s level or too high or too low. Obviously you want to stretch it a bit sometimes. Oh and b) there are comprehension quizzes for books. So assuming the school has a subscription, they know if the kid is comprehending well enough if they can pass the quiz. And I don’t think it’s “eye color” questions, it’s about what happened and grade-level appropriate for theme and whatnot.
Also, I mean, progress reports will show reading skills, including comprehension, won’t they? If it’s a question of the teacher’s awareness/competence, is there some tutoring center in town where he can get evaluated? And they’ll be able to give good advice about what to look out for, too.
The AR program was the first thing which came to mind for me — our daughter is a really fast reader too, and I honestly don’t know how much she is comprehending, but once she starts on AR next year I am figuring it will sort itself out.
They aren’t too worried about his actual reading level – at the beginning of the year, he tested ahead of grade level, and his teacher this year is much better than his teacher last year. I think it’s more of a preemptive concern, possibly connected to some of his ADHD symptoms that I don’t know enough about to talk about.
Sadly, I don’t think his school uses AR. My school did when I was growing up and it indeed was a pretty good measure of comprehension.
I do not understand the handwringing, but we have always been super fast readers and it was only in our 20s that we realised it is in part because we did just skim or outright skip all the parts of a book that did not interest us, which meant we would often just read dialogue and skip paragraphs of descriptions — we were reading lots of old children’s books which I have discovered have sometimes PAGES of description of the scenery. I have to skip them when I read them to my daughter too. 🙂
(Now we read the entire book unless it is terrible EFP that we are reading due to some fascination with the plot, but we try to avoid books like that at this point.)
Anyway, I think it is *a possibility* that he is reading that fast because he is skipping a lot. But so what? At the point that he needs to actually retain all the text, he can learn to slow down or take notes or whatever other skill will get him where he needs to be. I don’t think there is only one correct way to read!
I don’t think there is only one correct way to read!
QFT
I definitely agree.
I was a fast reader as a kid and my comprehension was awesome. This is probably an ADHD trait (I was just diagnosed a couple months ago): I would skim past long boring descriptive passages. So maybe I didn’t know what color someone’s dress was or just how the light hit the moors or whatever. I would go essentially “yeah yeah, she’s wearing clothes, light’s pretty, whatever, NEXT!”
But it never hurt my comprehension or enjoyment of the story, characters and themes, negatively impacted my schoolwork, anything like that. I was capable of slowing down and reading the detail bits if necessary, but I just didn’t wanna.
Wow, it seems like a lot of toasties are asking for advice this week. Add me to the list.
First, quick family update: College boy has done most of the work to withdraw. Is still living at dad’s but calls me when dad freaks over college stuff and starts yelling. He drives his girlfriend back to the dorm this Sunday and then we’ll see what happens.
High schooler has been puking, I kid you not, since he got back from dad’s Monday night. Has missed the entire first week of school.
Middle schooler is awesome. I just went to her school and recruited a bunch of kids for our lacrosse team, including lots of girls. Plus it’s nice having one kid that admits they are related to me “in public”
However, I suppose I have the morbs/shutters down/etc. I have missed a lot of work dealing with holidays, kid crises, doctor appointments (for psych meds for me), and when HS shared his germs. I also realize that if boy gets a full time job he’ll be making more than me. I have not heard about my grad school application so I’m going to assume that I’m not accepted for this semester (which starts in a week). So I’m still looking for full time work. I am overwhelmed by housework, which always makes me feel yucky, and, yeah, I’m on a gatorade and toast diet at the moment, thanks kid 🙁
Two questions: So I know that on Jan 4th the dept. got my application package. I was told by my advisor in Nov. that I should get in contact with the other prof who’s doing the research I want to get in on. However, I don’t know if I should right now, since he’s probably in the process of reviewing my application. What do I do? Email or not?
Second question (prefaced with, I’m getting my thyroid checked next wednesday and my psych is going to up my meds but the Rx hasn’t come through yet and I’m safe): Do the antidepressants ever get to the point where they work, all the time, and you don’t wake up in the morning full of existential despair? Because there are a lot of things I’d like to do in the mornings besides cry and sit next to a light box until the meds kick in, and I’m pretty sure trying to do anything before the meds kick in would be a bad idea. Is this just the way it is? Or will the dose ever get steady enough that I don’t cry every morning? Because this sucks.
My doc and I adjusted the timing of my antidepressant again and again. We were not changing the dose, as it was doing the job just fine, but I had those daily gaps like you describe. I took my single daily dose at bedtime for a week, then in the morning for a week, then with dinner for a week, making notes in my journal all the while. Then my doc helped me analyze the journal notes and we found the timing that was best for me.
But your daily weeping makes me wonder if your doc has you on a high enough dose. No harm in asking the doc to address possible changes to dose and to timing.
Toasthugs, friend. You’re doing a great job at parenting, coaching, and tending your own health. I know it can’t feel that way just now, but please take it on faith.
Right now I’m taking a big dose in the morning, half that in the late afternoon. And yesterday we decided to add half of that (so, a quarter of the morning dose) to bedtime-ish, so that I get some overlap and don’t wake up sweating horribly and depressed (apparently this med makes me sweat when it gets low, I hate it).
I just don’t have the extra meds to add that dose yet. I will keep trying and see if this does the trick.
Yes they do get to a point where they work all the time. (Usually, for most people. But odds are very high you will get there–esp if there is still dose tinkering in play.)
The waiting is hard and horrible. I’ll be thinking of you.
This is the dumbest thing I’ve read in a while and there is no one around me with which I can share my eye-rolling RUFKM feelings
(From the NYTimes “Meet the New York Bachelors Who Yearn for Something More”) http://nyti.ms/1mEskrI
““Are you single?” the Manhattan-based matchmaker Maria Avgitidis asked a reporter mid-interview, plunging him into a dark place. “And you are 40? Do you ever feel like all the really good girls that you would want to marry are taken?””
*GROAN*
Every time I try to make a coherent comment about this I wind up just sputtering and waving my hands around. If I was more technologically competent I’d post Clue .gif with Madeline Kahn going: “Flames… on the side of my face.. “
Is it because his mom did not call every week to ask if he was dating, and if not why not, and had he tried the church singles group, or a softball league, and why does he work so much, and that he was not going to be able to produce grandchildren if he did not start soon, and maybe if he would lose a teeny bit of weight and get a haircut, and that they have set him up with a blind date when he comes home for Christmas?
Well, I am not articulating my eye-rolling well, but it is happening. I know these men.
“Long hours in the club and at work have left these single men wondering what life is all about and whom they might like to share it with.”
Ah yes, long hours in the club. Much like in the salt mines…
“start painting or some shit.”
Hey, hey I re-read The Secret Garden the other day for the first time as an adult and I remembered that Jaya had written an article on it on The Toast so I went and read that after and I really want a discussion about it because I realised something odd and interesting. As I expected, Jaya mentions this bit and how terrible it is:
“She used the wrong Magic until she made him beat her. If she’d used the right Magic and had said something nice perhaps he wouldn’t have got as drunk as a lord and perhaps–perhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet.”
What I suddenly realised is that as well as being horrendous, this is also a bit weird because in The Making of a Marchioness also by Francis Hodgson-Burnett, there is a realistic depiction of a terrible marriage with a physically abusive husband and, as I recall, there is no horrible ‘she deserved it’ suggestion. In fact… SPOILER WARNING………..
it is heavily implied that the husband is murdered by the Indian maid (yes her depiction is predictably racist) and there is a strong suggestion that he totally had it coming, what a relief that she did that for her mistress and no-one is prosecuted for it.
I’ve also heard that Francis Hodgson-Burnett suffered from domestic violence herself. In fact, that is assumed to be why she got divorced. There is of course an ‘it’s my fault’ mentality that happens… Maybe what she wrote in The Secret Garden was when she was going through that and what she wrote in The Making of a Marchioness and its sequel was when she was fantasising about killing her brute of a husband?
Anyway I thought the contrast in attitude to domestic violence in these two novels were quite notable and ‘Hodgson-Burnett has horrendous victim-blaming views on domestic violence’ doesn’t show the whole picture.
That’s also a major part of the plot of Hodgson-Burnett’s The Shuttle, where a mousy young heiress marries a horrible English man who abuses her and cuts her off from her family. Her younger sister, when she grows up, goes over to England and rescues her sister. There’s also a killing off of the brute husband, so maybe that was a theme in her adult novels?
Ah! I did not know that! Will put it on my list to read.
Am quite liking the idea of re-casting the author of ‘A Little Princess’ and ‘The Secret Garden’ as the Fantastising-About-Murdering-Violent-Husbands Author.
My new year’s resolutions were 1. don’t be a hermit now that I moved to a new place where I don’t know anyone, and 2. get paid to take photos of someone’s pets. Are there any Palo Alto/Bay Area Toasties who would like to help with one or more resolution (no purchase necessary)?
I posted a couple of weeks ago about wanting to start Palo Altoasties, and did get one reply. I also posted about doing a room escape on xmas day, which was fun, even though we failed to escape in time, so I was wondering if anyone would be interested in attempting a Toast Room Escape. There are a bunch in San Jose and San Francisco. I was also going to suggest the Internet Cat Video Festival, but alas, it’s sold out already. Email me if you’re interested in an escape, or another kind of meetup: beckie at gmail.com.
For resolution #2, I’m still working on putting my website together, but I need some more practice with pets I don’t know. Would your pet like to be a model? I can trade 10-20 edited photo files for an hour of time with your pet and permission to use the photos in my portfolio. I probably should’ve waited until I had sample photos online for you to look at, but my photo was #2 in the Washington Post’s Squirrel Week photo album last year! You can email me for some pet samples, too (beckie at gmail.com).
If I end up moving there, I will definitely look you up. (Mr Rose is aiming for a Bay Area job just now. Fingers crossed.)
What I need, and what so many dog and cat guardians need, is good photos of *black* dogs and cats. It is all but impossible to get good photos of black pets.
“Which dog is that? Look, that’s her nose, so that has to be a foot pad. Yes, I know I could tell them apart by their collars, but their collars never show, with all that fluffy fur. What’s that bit there? Is that a corner of the white of her eye, or is it that tiny patch of gray fur she has on her cheek? No, that has to be the male dog. See? That’s my hand and I always hold him that way, not her.”
I recommend you advertise with breed-specific rescues and interest groups that you can provide portraits and action shots of *black* pets.
Thanks! did take some photos for a friend of my mum’s who said “there’s no point taking photos of the black dog, but you can try the cat” and was then surprised by the detail in the photos of the dog (although the shaggy fur meant I still didn’t get much of her eyes). Let me know if you do end up in the area. 🙂
For resolution #2, a good way to practice might be to volunteer your services at local pet rescues. They always need people to take appealing pictures of the animals for their websites and promotional materials.
I’ve sent off a couple of volunteer applications for animal shelters, but they sounded like they might be overwhelmed with volunteers. I should look for some smaller operations, too. Thanks!
Toasties! Hope you are all having wonderful Fridays. I just started watching Orphan Black and have no one to discuss it with. Have you seen it? Would you say it was great? Or feminist? I find its filing a role in my life that Buffy or Jessica Jones also did – awesome feminist action TV.
I have seen it and I think it is so great! Tatiana Maslany is magical.
I have watched it all to date and am anxiously awaiting the next season. It is definitely awesome feminist action TV and one of the things i love about it is how flawed the women are allowed to be but also that they work out how to use each other’s quite different strengths together
I watched the entire first season over the past few days and was not disappointed. I would say it is both great and feminist. Also, I am continually floored at how seamless all the scenes are where Tatiana Maslany is acting opposite herself–the amount of work and energy put in by her, the camera crew, her stunt double, the director, and the video editors is mind-boggling when you start to think about it.
I love this show so, so much. The next season starts in April, and April can’t get here soon enough.
It’s just such an entire world, you know? It’s amazing to get a show with one or two complex female characters, and here there’s like, approximately 1,798.
Love Orphan Black! Some of the bigger season-long arcs can be kind of a mess, but I love it for having so many varied, fully-rounded, totally amazing female characters, and I love it when Tatiana Maslany acts against three other versions of herself.
I would say it is great and feminist and the acting is amazeballs and I love the interactions between the characters in just about every possible iteration. And in addition to being smart and feminist it’s so successful at every type of entertainment it tries – comedy, action, horror, you name it. LOVE.
I absolutely love it and I have come to the conclusion I could probably watch Tatiana pick paint off a wall and come away thinking it was an Oscar worthy performance. I’m so excited for the next season.
I adore it! It’s pretty bonkers in later seasons, but Tatiana remains a compelling, transformative actor and sometimes I forget it’s her playing all these roles.
It’s really good, and Tatiana is AMAZING, but I think it could be better with regards to feminism.
There should be more women of colour at the forefront. Especially given one of the recurring themes of OB is bodily autonomy, and it is something women of colour — particularly black women and Native American women — are often denied. The important ones are fridged (both for white woman pain), and the very few that live are either too far in the background to become critical to the main plot or we’re supposed to hate them.
There’s also the matter of Cosima’s dreadlocks (hello, cultural appropriation!).
And the fact that they introduce a trans clone in S2 who isn’t even ACKNOWLEDGED by either the writers or even other Clone Clubbers in S3. (Also the fact Tat, a cis woman, plays said trans clone, all the research she did notwithstanding.)
And eventual bi erasure with regards to Delphine. (Another thing the writers and some Clone Clubbers ignore.)
And there’s another plot point I wish they’d done differently. (Those who’ve seen all the episodes to date may be able to guess what I mean.)
That all said, I still enjoy it. I also recommend the comic series (the five comics named for Sarah, Helena, Alison, Cosima, and Rachel). You could probably skip the Cosima one, though, as it doesn’t really give us anything new about her (it was a disappointment, IMO). My favourite is the Rachel one, which also sets up the currently-running OB comic series (Helsinki), as well as a clone to be introduced in S4.
The important ones are fridged (both for white woman pain)
Yeah, I was really disappointed in the way Sarah’s birth mother barely got any screen time or characterization, and then got killed off. I thought she might be developed into a major character, along the lines of Mrs. S. I can’t even think of the other woman of color character. Is it the woman Beth shoots while on duty? …OK, I googled. Maggie Chen? I don’t think we ever even see her alive… :/
Yeah, Maggie was pre-series fridged! Killed by Beth.
It would have been better if Maggie wasn’t mortally wounded, merely injured. She would have been so key to everything, given her position, scientist turned Prolethean.
Shelly, you bring up so many good points! I cringed at Cosima’s.hair not only because I like the character, but because I could totally see a west coast white girl choosing that hair. But the writers never addressed that, no one ever calls her on it. And Sarah’s birth mom – that story could have been so interesting! A black birth mother, a white foster mother to a white daughter could be such an interesting character dynamic, but they killed her off about two seconds later.
It still pisses me off about Amelia. If they had let her live, she would have been an amazing character. And SO MUCH YES about how cool it would have been to see Sarah navigate her relationships with Siobhan (Mrs. S) as the woman who raised her and Amelia as the woman who gave birth to her and gave her up to protect her.
They could have had Helena reject Amelia without killing her.
(I also maintain that all the birthmothers should have been women of colour, and I still headcanon all the birthmothers we’ve yet to meet as WOC.)
Hello, Toasties. I am new to this commenting thing, but I would like to share Therapy Success! I have been seeing a therapist for a couple months now, and I am finding it super helpful- with her help, I am identifying behavior patterns, working through some issues, and generally being better at not being so mean to myself. She is just The Tops.
I also just got back from vacation, and the space away from my normal routine has helped me realize that I need to make Changes in my living situation. I want to move away from my hectic house of many roommates and find a space of my own, quiet and clean and tidy and not too cluttered, where I can be comfortable. Maybe I’ll look into buying a place in a few years, but this year, so help me, I’m moving.
How about you all? Any great epiphanies or quiet successes? Hints about finding a new place?
Three cheers for awesome therapists! I think finding a space of your own is super rad, I know for myself I find lots of comfort in tidiness and order.
I had an epiphany last year that I do not deserve pain in order to receive love. It is so simple but it was such a part of my DNA, a result of my shitty upbringing (to put it mildly) and a constant reenactment of past traumas. I feel like I walked through and I am here and OK. I have been seeing the same therapist for five years and she was there through all of it.
That is a hell of an epiphany, and I can’t imagine how much work it must have taken to have that click into place.
I’m so glad to hear that therapy is working for you! What I loved about it was the “permission” I got from my therapist to deal with things in my own way. So freeing!!
If you can afford it, moving into your own place will make your life 100000% better, guaranteed!!!
Oh I bet- even if I do not move into a just-my-own place, I am definitely moving into a place with fewer roommates. And air conditioning- so much air conditioning.
Dear The Toast:
Anybody interested in being online writing accountability friends? I just discovered that I might be finishing my dissertation about 7 months earlier than anticipated and Oh My, that is so much writing to get done so quickly, and I’m already feeling kind of overwhelmed and horrified by it all. I would love to have someone (s) to check in with a few times a week either on twitter or some other venue!
This would probably be a good idea for me since I have to finish writing a paper that I have to present in just a few short months, so checking in/having someone check in on whether I’ve actually written anything that week would be probably a positive thing.
Yes! I definitely need some writing accountability friends.
OK! Well, if either of you want to find me, I’m the same name on twitter.
I’m in. Not that this is anything like a dissertation, but I just started a new blog and need a little extra boost to keep me posting regularly. I’ll find you on Twitter!
I will, if I can apply it to Finish the Fucking Novel.
Yes! *off to search for you on the twitter*
OK! #AccountabiliToast is go. Any writing welcome.
Toasties!
I can’t go see Hamilton solidarity post
I got my sister completely hooked on Hamilton when I was home for Christmas and we decided to go together, but we are both on tight budgets right now and I spent all last night clicking on every single performance hoping that there was something under 4 bajillion dollars and now I am bemoaning the fact that we won’t be able to go together.
I know there are many of us suffering from these same pangs, so I have come here for solace.
I am also tragically unable to see Hamilton. At some point it will play in other cities, for reasonable prices, right?
Same boat here! I’m holding out hope that A) it will come to DC and be halfway affordable or B) the stars will align properly for them to get it filmed with the original cast. Or, ideally, both.
SO LATE TO THIS, but: Today is my younger daughter’s birthday!!!! 🎂 She is 5. This seems…not right? The linear passage of time? Not okay. I am emotional about this, maybe because she’s my last kid, maybe because it’s been a strange and draining week anyway. (I fired up some of her newborn baby videos and had to stop. Why did I even take those videos??)
Here’s a picture of her and my oldest, with the cat photo-bombing like a creepy Gollum
It took me a good 15 seconds to find the cat and when I did I rocketed backwards out of my office chair! Good job cat!
same!
adorbs!
They are so sweet! The cat is perfect. This linear passage of time is ridiculous and needs to stop. I say this as my soon to be 12 year old girl is almost as tall as me and my 8 year old boy has become a huge man stop it you two.
My baby will be 5 years old in three weeks. I also cannot comprehend that this could possibly be so. And she’s my only kid, so I am also for some reason much more emotional than when she was turning 4. When I went back to work on Jan. 4 after the holidays, the first thing I thought was “5 years ago I didn’t come back to work in January as expected because I got put on bed rest over the holidays.” Why was that the first thought I had? No idea. Life is weird. I’m with you.
Look at those sister smiles!
Gollum cat is hilarious.
She is not 5 and she should stop being 5 right this instant. Why do they insist on growing so fast?
Happy 5th! They are delightful.
When my first turned 5 he got a Raffi CD and we were snuggling & listening at bedtime that night & he popped his eyes open and said, “I don’t wonder if I’m growing because I know I’m growing because I’m five” and then he fell asleep while my tears leaked onto his pillow.
(He is now 20 and in the midst of a campaign to convince us his girlfriend should share his room when she comes for a visit before they go back to college. Your daughters will not dare to grow up to such an egregious degree, though, I’m sure.)
Man, I am 35 years old and haven’t lived at home since I was 19 and my parents wouldn’t let me share a room with my serious boyfriend for the 2 nights we were at their house this Xmas – so I would be really jealous of your son if he got to share with his person 😉
He’s full of “times are changing” and “we shared a room when I stayed with her family” and so forth. I’m replying with “adversity builds character” and “I snuck around with my partners, you can too.” And then he’s all “this isn’t really even my home anymore so I don’t have to respect it” and them I’m all “BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” and he’s stalking off offended. It’s a lot of fun. And we’re only on round one! He just left to pick his brother up from high school / recruit him to his side. Little does he know what a prude his little brother is. 🙂
I am suddenly feeling very grateful for my parents, who have never batted an eye at partners sharing their children’s bedrooms (even when I was 19 and first brought my boyfriend home).
Same here! I don’t really get the ban on sharing bedrooms.
Happy belated birthday to your daughter! They both look smiley and adorable (but I have to admit my favourite participant in the photo is Gollum Cat).
Anyone ever do a capsule wardrobe? Since I’m in the process of putting everything I own in boxes, I’m working on separating out 25 pieces for non-work/recreation and 25 pieces for work.
I am so attracted to this idea and yet have never brought myself to do it! I somehow cannot get rid of my excess clothing, even though I mostly just want to wear black and charcoal leggings/jeggings + long tank + sweater everyday.
While I wear basically just the same 3 things everyday (jeans, tshirt, hoodie) I’m not planning to go full minimalism and get rid of my excess clothes. Rather my goal is to fit what I need for the next month (possibly 6 weeks) into 2 carry-on bags. The rest of my clothes will be packed in boxes and possibly in storage.
Here’s what I have so far (I don’t include intimates and socks in my counts):
Bag the First: Non-work clothes/gym clothes
2 pairs of pants
2 pairs of shorts (for the gym)
2 pairs of yoga pants
3 gym shirts/yoga tops
3 long-sleeve Ts
2 short-sleeve Ts
2 sweatshirts
2 sweaters
2 pairs of sneakers
2 pajama pants
2 pajama tops
Bag the Second: Work Clothes
2 pair work pants (1 black, 1 grey)
2 blazers (1 black, 1 grey)
2 dresses (1 black, 1 navy)
3 button down shirts
2 shells
3 work sweaters
2 pairs of work appropriate shoes
???
That seems like a level of capsule wardrobe I could actually handle!
Yes, I did one for my last job. I had about 4 pants/skirts, 2 dresses, and 6-8 shirts/sweaters. Capsule wardrobes are the best!
i do! i own less than thirty articles of clothing in all, not including shoes and undergarments and suchlike. what was helpful for me in the beginning was polyvore, so i could see what everything would look like all together.
i buy only neutral colors, mainly unpatterned with the occasional stripe or check, and only pieces i know for sure will go with at least 5 other items in my closet. classic silhouettes and pieces only! i think at current tally i have:
2 coats
4 jackets aka 1 leather, 1 wool, 2 denim
4 pairs of high waisted black jeans
4 pullover sweaters
5 button down shirts
5 or so t shirts
3 dresses
i work as a barista and a bartender, so i’m not required to own any “professional” office work type clothing, though i think if i did i would still ascribe to the same minimalist thang. i think having neutral pieces is super important because otherwise it becomes very obvious that you are recycling your wardrobe constantly, you know?
Reading thread? (I hope I didn’t miss it and start another one for no reason like I did a couple of weeks ago.)
After hitting 93 books on my Goodreads challenge (10 higher than my weirdly arbitrary goal) I’ve decided to aim for 100 this year (I count graphic novels/comics and children’s books, so it’s not quite as difficult as it sounds). I have gotten the year off to a bad start by reading basically nothing so far this year except for snippets of “Barrayar” by Lois McMaster Bujold on my kindle when I get the chance.
Reading Chernow’s Hamilton biography and the Sarah Vowell book about Lafayette AT THE SAME TIME. Also finally started A Little Life!
I’m also currently reading Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette book! I just started it, though, so am only maybe forty or fifty pages in. But am really enjoying it so far.
are you able to read it without periodically yell-singing lyrics from “Guns and Ships”?
I mean I know I certainly can, just concerned about everyone else
I make no promises. None whatsoever. 🙂
Last night she used the phrase “outgunned and outmanned” and I almost sat up in bed and yelled.
I just started the Hamilton biography and am really enjoying it so far!
I’m also reading an omnibus of Thor comics, just finished Andrew Lang’s Yellow Fairy Book, and am almost done with Agatha Christie’s A B C Murders. Oh also! am listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in my car (I am one of those hard core multi-book readers)
Oooh, I had the Orange Fairy Book when I was a kid and remember liking it; maybe I’ll pick up a new color. How was it as an adult?
I have a collection of all 12 of his Fairy books and they’re mainly just collections of fairy tales from all over the world. I’ve been enjoying them quite a bit, partly because I just love fairy tales and partly because I’ve been looking for likely ones to use for a YA retelling 🙂
I just finished the Sarah Vowell and am like halfway through the Hamilton! I think they compliment each other well, what with Chernow laying down the thorough, academically-stated facts and Vowell bringing the snarky observations.
I’m really enjoying the Hamilton bio thus far, but I CANNOT FORGET that someone asked Ron Chernow in an interview if he thinks LMM is a genius, and he was like: “Is he? I don’t know…He’s written a masterpiece. Now Alexander Hamilton, HE was a genius.” And that just struck me as a bit insufferable! like we’re allowed more than one genius per…era.
That is…yeah, a little insufferable. To counter it, I will say that I recently read another article where Chernow recounts being totally overwhelmed by the audience’s reaction when Anthony Ramos pointed him out during a stage door autograph session, and says how touched he is by how nice the cast is to him. I don’t know, it made me kind of like him.
let us say he is on probation, then, and watch him closely for more signs of Stuffy White Maleness
I enjoyed Chernow’s AHam book a lot more than I expected, but I’m really loving his biography of George Washington right now. I’m planning on reading Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette book next to continue my Hamilbinge!
I’m toying with trying to read my way through the Updated Esquire List that got linked to earlier this week. Mainly because as I was going through it I kept having that moment of, “oh, I’ve been meaning to read that…”
It’s 80 “serious” books and I’m not at all in the habit of reading a lot anymore, so I wouldn’t limit it to the calendar year. But that also means that it’s going to be really hard for me to get from the “oh, I should maybe do this” stage to the “I’m committing to taking this book out of the library and sitting down and reading it” stage. So, we’ll see.
I saved several recommendations, and all of Roxanne’s. (Cause if she says I should read I’m gonna take that advice.)
I’ve been toying with the idea of spending a good portion of this year reading/re-reading all of John Bellairs’s books (including the ones Brad Strickland wrote after Bellairs’s death). And probably documenting it in a weird blog that gives me an excuse to talk about YA lit and nostalgia reading and the horror genre, as well as documenting all the wide and varied historical/literary/occult/mythological references in the books.
This is probably what happens when someone with a BA in English and a soft spot for recreational research gets really nostalgic for the books they read when they were about eleven.
DO IT. I’ve been wanting to do the same thing for ages, and I would read the shit out of that blog.
Thanks 😀
This might be the excuse I need to actually finish an Anthony Monday book. (I feel only slightly bad that I never read any of his series. I collected the several Bellairs books from the boxes of my old books in my parents’ garage last weekend and they’re almost all Johnny Dixon.)
DO IT! And blog so we can talk about it!
I reread a handful I could borrow on my Kindle last autumn. DO IT.
ETA: In all seriousness, there’s a bit from the book about Rose Rita that has stuck with me for years, as a non-gross body horror evocation.
I am three-quarters of the way through an advance copy of Fellside, the new book by M.R. Carey (aka the guy who might have FINALLY gotten his career to take off with The Girl With All the Gifts) and it is SO GOOD. It’s…almost like if Orange is the New Black were a horror story. Almost. I think I’m going to start his Felix Castor series next – once I get through the rest of these advance copies. (Digital review copies are the worst thing ever to happen to my TBR list. But on the other hand, I have Smoke just sitting here waiting for me…)
I’m reading “After Alice,” by Gregory Maguire, which I knew someone would give me for Christmas. It’s okay (better than some of his others), but I am very, very picky about my Alice riffs. I’ve also suddenly gone on a Peter Pan rewrite splurge, with “Wendy Darling: A Novel” and going on to “Never Never,” because I seriously love takes on Peter Pan as the creepy story it is.
In the bathtub I’m rereading “Tam Lin.”
I listened to Seveneves all in one go over the holidays, and I enjoyed it so much and I hope Stephenson comes back and writes more in this universe because I would read the crap out of that.
Currently listening to Gilead by Maryanne Robinson. I like the recorded version much better than the paper.
Oh god, I am reading an obscure Judith Krantz novel (“Dazzle”) and it’s so bizarre. I’ve never read any Judith Krantz before. There is so much sex, and so much of it is so terrible wrt consent. It’s very research-dense but the writing is clunky and the combination makes it seem like an exposition-heavy scifi novel that happens to be set in real-life 1990. I will probably just abandon it without finishing when we leave this beach house but wow, who knew.
I’m afraid no one will see this because wow, so many comments, but here goes:
Science-minded and/or literary-minded Toasties:
My friend is writing a zombie story in which the zombie-ism is caused by prions (the badly folded proteins of mad cow disease fame). Mostly he has chosen this because I, as a biology undergrad major, told him that prions are the COOLEST. Because they are. But, we need to come up with a good vector! Because zombies bite and eat people (not necessarily just brains in his story), but prions IRL are spread by eating actual brain tissue of an infected person or animal. So, could prions conceivably get into the bloodstream? The saliva? What do you think?
I feel like prions lend themselves to a weird sort of reverse-zombie outbreak. Like instead of the zombies attempting to eat you and you then becoming a zombie, you eat the zombie’s brain and then become the zombie.
That would be an interesting twist!
Have you checked out chronic wasting disease (CWD)? It’s found in the deer family, not in humans, but it’s considered to be a prion disease, and can be transmitted from animal to animal via infected bodily fluids/tissues.
It also seems like it could be a cool zombie analogue–here’s the description of the symptoms pulled from the CWD wiki page:
The disease is progressive and always fatal. The most obvious and consistent clinical sign of CWD is weight loss over time. Behavioral changes also occur in the majority of cases, including decreased interactions with other animals, listlessness, lowering of the head, lethargy, repetitive walking in set patterns, and a smell like meat starting to rot. In elk, behavioral changes may also include hyperexcitability and nervousness […] Excessive salivation and grinding of the teeth also are observed.
100% fatality rate + repetitive walking + listlessness + rotting smell = zombie, IMHO.
Presumably, you could piece together some sort of scenario in which there’s a zoonotic CWD outbreak among humans, which is actually a fairly plausible thing (and seems like a possibility researchers have been considering). (I am reading Spillover by David Quammen right now, about exactly these kinds of events, and would recommend it for context on when and how diseases cross over from animals to human hosts.)
Ohh this sounds promising! Thank you so much!
Tears! Maybe not scientifically possible, but man, that could be some cool/weird storytelling.
I like it! I will pass it along.
A friend and former roommate of mine has actually done a lot of prion research. I’ll text her tonight and ask and make a note to get back to you on if prions have been found outside of nervous systems in the past.
Ohh that would be amazing! What a cool thing to study. Thank you!!
Prions are, in my opinion, partly so weird and terrifying because they can be spread in so many ways!! Have you ever read The Family That Couldn’t Sleep? At least according to that book, which I read like a decade ago, prions can be transmitted genetically (as in fatal familial insomnia) or through contamination of a specific area (as in scrapie, in sheep), as well as through the consumption of brain tissue. The Family That Couldn’t Sleep is an extremely interesting and memorable book, I recommend it to your friend as he works on his novel.
Oh god, Fatal Familial Insomnia. It sounds so terrifying.
I haven’t read it! It sounds morbidly fascinating. Thanks!
So, I haven’t watched the Downton premiere yet, and my desire to understand the “watching with an historian” posts are kind of my only motivation to bother with it at all. Somebody help me get excited about the creative output of Julian, Lord Fellowes?
Sorry, can’t help you. I gave up after s2 (or 3? dunno) and even our historian’s erudite commentary has not motivated me to watch more.
I watched the first season and pretty much disliked everyone and everything in it. I still read watching with the historian and read the fug girls’ reviews of it, just because I enjoy all their commentary, but that’s about as much as I need.
Somebody accidentally spoiled me for the season finale (because the US is a season behind the UK), and I don’t really feel like slogging through the entire season just for a few brief scenes of Maggie Smith being amazing.
It (the plotting) is dumb and frustrating! SO DUMB! But I still watch it and like it and look forward to new episodes. Same with the show Nashville. Reasons to watch it include: pretty people, gorgeous costumes, breathtaking scenery and interiors. It really depends on your enthusiasm for/patience with frustratingly plotted historical drama. And the Go Fug Yourself recaps are just everything, and you’ll enjoy them more if you put up with watching the actual show.
I just hate Mary and Lord Grantham so much! And discovering that Julian Fellowes has an inherited title not only explains his annoying fondness for the aristocracy, but makes me care about his ideas so, so much less.
Why Mary and Lord Grantham, specifically? I mean, they’re hate-able, but I guess I hate other characters more. Like Bates, for example. I hate him from his stupid face down to his gimpy leg. Speaking of which, what happened to Bates’s limp? So much a part of his beginnings on the show, but now it seems gone?
I guess I just have trouble remembering that Bates exists. He’s just so…bland. He annoys me, but I can’t find it in me to really care about him when he’s off-screen. Mary and Robert, however, are just dreadful people, but are adored by the peer writing them. Cousin Violet has the panache to get away with being terrible (because Maggie Smith can do anything), but Mary and Robert are just there to casually hate poor people while being blandly charitable, and to have historical biases, but not to be so committed to them that we might be tempted to really condemn them.
Also, Mary gets everything she wants, while her infinitely superior sisters are either dead, or just constantly shat upon by the universe.
God forgive me for this, but Anna and Bates were the most boring, cloyingly sweet couple ever, at least during the seasons I watched. There, I said it.
They really are. Which in real life would be great, and I’d be super-happy for them and their stable, devoted relationship. But in the show, the only way for Julian Fellowes to make them dramatically interesting is, apparently, to throw increasingly ridiculous (and/or incredibly upsetting and unnecessary) external conflicts at them.
^THIS
(btw, everything becomes terrible for Anna in later seasons, so it’s just as well for you you quit when you did.)
It’s frustrating. But Edith has a great gold dress in the season premiere, and I am hoping it’s a portent of great things to come for her character.
I do enjoy Edith, especially as she continues her gradual progress towards “fuck you guys, I have shit to do with my life, peace.”
Fellowes is not so good a writer, IMO, that he ought to be writing all the episodes. He repeats himself, and when he can’t figure out how to get out of a narrative bind, he kills someone. THIS IS LAZY.
Also, I can tell he has a nostalgia boner for the time period portrayed in the show, which … the female characters’ lives– upstairs, downstairs, makes no difference– basically make me grateful to live now. And I say this as someone who has always thought she would like to live in the 1920s, albeit in the expat community of Paris. My 1920s was Picasso, Matisse, and Gertrude Stein making gentle fun of Hemingway, not Sybil dying in childbirth because a bunch of men refused to listen to the one person present who’d actually experienced labor before.
It is interesting that the show is written by a Tory, designed to make the rebels (Tom) and progressives (Isabel) either toothless or silly, and watching it pretty much made me want to storm the Bastille and burn shit. I made it to season 3, and after that, I couldn’t even hate-watch it.
And he’s not even repeating good stuff. The meaningless problems of wealthy aristocrats can only sustain a drama for so long, and we don’t actually need to see Robert lose the family fortune, only to be saved at the last minute by an injection of capital, more than once. The downstairs storylines tend to be slightly less dull (but not necessarily by much), but they’re all accompanied by a vague smugness, as the nobility steps in to solve everything with a hearty dose of nobless oblige, and we all learn how wonderful the upper classes are, and how fortunate it is to be dependent on them.
Video game thread, eh?
Yes, yes.
I’m a bad gamer. I haven’t played much of anything in months.
I have been enjoying The Long Dark early access on Steam, though, since it’s one of the few games in my Steam library that will actually run on my work provided MacBook, and mostly I’ve been playing it on my lunch break. It soothed my cold-winter cravings during December, when it was basically still just soggy summer outside.
I think the last time we had a video game thread, I had just recently started playing Fallout 3 for the first time and was really enjoying it. But it ended so suddenly! I’m used to Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls games and level-grinding way up and putting off the main quest. In F3 I was just level 16 and all of the sudden I’m dying while staring at Thomas Jefferson’s statue of all people. Surprise!
I’m so glad I played after becoming obsessed with Hamilton. The quest in the national archive was extra hilarious since Stephen Colbert reintroduced us to Button Gwinett.
I thought about replaying or reloading but instead I went on to Fallout New Vegas, which I’m also enjoying, perhaps more given the relative scarcity of Super Mutants (my nemeses!) and relative complexity of main quest choices. I have no idea what I’m going to do with this platinum chip, actually. Not even sure what my character would do.
I GOT FALLOUT 3 for the holiday.
WHAT it ends at level 16? But I am almost 13 now!
it doesn’t have to end at 16! (Although I think the level cap is 20? Haven’t confirmed) I just ended up finishing unexpectedly because I was following the main quest and assumed that there’d be much more of it, given how low my level was. And, in my defense, I wasn’t as completionist about finishing side quests because they weren’t all listed in my Pipboy and I couldn’t remember who wanted what salvage. Against my defense, there are big chunks of the world I haven’t seen because I was always running low on stimpaks and terrified of mutants.
Anyway, fyi, when you finish the main quest it’s game over unless you make certain choices and have DLC.
My parents gave me Fallout: New Vegas for Christmas, and I am having a fun time with it. It is my very first foray into the Fallout series, and I’m enjoying how varied the world is. My character, Josie, has already thrown her lot in with the NCR after seeing the horrors of the Legion. I helped Boone with his quest for revenge, and afterwards I convinced him we can go raise hell for the Legion together. (They’ve already sent one assassin after us!)
I am very tempted! I am not buying the suggestion made by certain characters that the NCR is just as much of a threat to the Strip as the Legion. The Legion is terrible! Surely an NCR-run Mojave wouldn’t be bad?
Yeah, I’m not buying that line at all. As far as I can tell, choosing between the Legion and the NCR is choosing between brutal, violent tyranny and somewhat-ineffectual bureaucracy. Which. That’s not exactly a hard choice to make.
Yeah, the game so wanted me to think that the NCR was a case of “Both sides are bad!” I don’t buy that in real life, and I’m certainly not buying it when the Legion is on the other side in a game. I got qualms about the long-term stability of the other two good/neutral options, as well.
Also, I otherwise goddamn LOVE New Vegas and systematically dismantling (read: literally and figuratively blowing up) the Legion with Boone and Rex is one of my giddiest moments in a game.
BOONE
<3 <3 <3 <3
A friend of mine once commented that they left the game running idle in the background, and when they game back to their computer, Boone and Veronica had already capably finished the main quest on their own.
100% believable
I’m already slashing him and my character. Let me heal your emotional wounds with some ~sexual healing~!
I SAW HIM FIRST
DIBS
Excuse me friends, but it’s ARCADE GANNON SLASH BOONE 4EVAAA
I mean, come ON!:
My gaming PC is somewhere in a moving truck between Boston and California at the moment. :'( Between that, said move, and the imminent start of my job training program, I’ve been a terrible gamer recently and played nothing for over a month.
I do have both Shadowrun: Dragonfall and System Shock 2 installed on my work Macbook Pro, though, so hope springs eternal??
I’ve been lurking on the Toast for a while and have decided to bite the bullet and actually comment for once.
Essentially, it boils down to: I’m moving two hours away to a dorm and starting library school tomorrow. (School starts Monday, but same diff, yes?) I’m 23 and have never been away from home for more than a month before. I am feeling anxious because all of my roommates in graduate housing are 3,000 times more accomplished than me. This is not helped as I made an introductory posting for one of my courses and realized that I was the youngest person there (everyone else ranges from late forties to ”married for 40 years” age) and that they would all probably hate me. (I mean, I said, ”hey, I’m deaf, please text or send a message before you call, also here’s my extremely SJW-type research interests” and I’m worried they will all think i’m a spoiled entitled millenial with no sense of ‘reality’ blah blah blah…)
So I am scared because I don’t know how I will handle being on my own, and I am scared that all my classmates will hate me, and it’s great.
You will do great! I found that the wildly varying ages in library school didn’t really affect my developing of relationships. I fell kind of in the middle being in my 30s and the people I became closest to were both younger (fresh out of their BA) and older (40s/50s) and we got along well. I found that it came down more to shared interests than age.
I did do my courses online, so I wasn’t in the graduate housing situation like you are, but I definitely felt that imposter syndrome in my classes since I was in my 30s and felt overwhelmed by all the people who had been working in libraries for like 400 years and I had volunteered at my local library for a couple of summers. BUT when it came to the coursework, I found that the experience didn’t really seem to make a huge difference – not as much as actually reading and paying attention and following directions and, for the love of all that is good in this world, communicating with the professor and with the classmates (especially in group projects and not just falling off the face of the planet for a week while your group members begin to freak out and wonder if maybe you died, but you just went on vacation and didn’t tell anyone not that I’m bitter about such an event that may or may not have happened in a group I may or may not have been a part of).
tl;dr – be you. Enjoy the journey. If they’re like the library people I met age won’t matter. And if it’s only your age that makes them hate you, then you probably don’t want to be friends with them anyway.
Thank you. I’m trying to tell myself ”gosh, FitzEmpress, everyone so far seems nice and I’m sure nobody would have the bad manners to tell me the things I am thinking they will tell me on the class forum in the online thing,” but it really hasn’t worked yet.
Yeah, I went into my MLIS program straight out of undergrad, and I was pretty much the youngest person there. (September birthday — turned 23 just days before starting.) Definitely one of maybe three without professional work experience. It was fine. Nobody cared but me. You will do great, FitzEmpress!
Welcome! That all sounds incredibly intimidating! I think that people who are interested in being librarians are pretty good people, in general, like there are a lot of them here at The Toast Dot Net, though probably like any group there are jerks, though none of THOSE people are here of course. I think it’s entirely possible that you will be ok, if scared and wobbly at first. Being homesick SUCKS, though, I’m not gonna lie. The great thing about being a student is that there’s probably mental health resources available if you decide you need them. And if you do need them, go get them, even if THAT seems scary too. Good luck!
Thank you! I know I’m probably going to wander into the student counseling center at some point this semester. It probably should be sooner rather than later if I am not even actually in class yet and I am already freaking out over small things instead of stuff like ”oh gee what if the dorm laundry machines do not take quarters since everything is on a card now” or ”how do i access my meal plan” or ”did i bring enough batteries.”
Well, those also seem like kinda small things too 🙂 The dorm laundry machines probably do use swipes instead of quarters, at least that’s how it was when I was in undergrad back in the Middle Ages. And as per the meal plan — all our stuff was on our student ID — meal swipes, cash for the copy and laundry machines, building entry, it all lived on that magnetic stripe. For batteries — you’re not moving to the moon, if you run out of batteries I bet you can go to the bookstore or CVS or a Target and exchange money for some 😀
Really truly, this will be ok. If you have any other questions about what it’s like to live in dorms, or on campus, or how grad school usually works, as us! Many of us have been through it and if knowing more will help you feel more ready, I’m sure we are all ready to help!
It will be an adventure. Adventures are scary. (At least they are for me.)
The farther you get from high school, the less friend age matters–although lifestyle (kids, marriage, full time work, etc.) does shape the time people have available. I have good friends decades younger and decades older than I am.
Oh, that is SO true, the age thing.
Also, The Toast definitely has a high-quality array of geologic/geographic usernames. Just sayin.
Just imagine you’re in a classroom full of fellow Toast commenters. Even if it’s not actually true, I feel like the two groups probably have a lot in common.
It’ll probably take some time to find a social circle within your school, but until then, call home when you need to, set up phone dates/Skype sessions/in-person hangouts with existing friends when they’re available. If you’re comfortable enough, go to some new student meet-and-greet type of events, or try to find a study buddy in one of your classes. There are probably a LOT of amazing people you will meet in the next few weeks and months, and chances are a lot of them will think you are amazing too.
Spend a little time looking up Imposter Syndrome. You have it. It’s understandable. And you can vanquish it.
It’s natural to feel overwhelmed and anxious. But think of how your classmates will see you. Many of them will be younger. They will look up to you as More Experienced just because you have achieved the age of 23. With them, you have no pressure. They are already impressed.
The rest of your classmates are much like you. They like the same things you do. They’ve chosen the same field of study, after all, and an awesome one at that. They see you as their peer and therefore awesome. Really, they do. Even the middle-aged ones.
I’m middle-aged, and I see everyone over 21 as my peer. I know I do, because I am always surprised when one of my younger friends admits to having a new experience that is old hat to me. But it wasn’t when I was their age, I realize, once I stop and think about it.
::Toasthugs::
No one hates you! Being on your own is scary, but you can do it.
I truly believe that most people are inclined to like other people. Not everyone is meant to be Best Friends, but think about it, do you automatically hate a person that you’ve just met? Maybe sometimes, but I bet most of the time you are open to finding out whether you like them or not!
You read The Toast, so clearly you have good taste. I’m sure that you will be okay.
The older people are probably worried that you’ll think they’re old stuffy farts with nothing to say and that school is for young people. So they’ll be very reassured if you are friendly.
Good news! I met my roommates and they are all very nice and so far I have only lost my ID and nearly locked myself out once. Everything is great so far and hopefully tomorrow with the grad school orientation and meetings with a professor and stuff will be ok. Thank you all for all your advice!
I spent some time this week looking into Canadian train trips, surely a peak Toast vacation if there ever was one.
Trains! <3
OMG two of my favourite things – Train travel and CANADA*
*Have never been to Canada, but in my dreams it is magical
when you visit, definitely check out the provincial parks in british columbia.
have lived there, can verify it is magical and you should defs go for a vacation if you get the chance.
Spent ages 3-13 in the Maritime Provinces, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The Bay of Fundy is spectacular. Have visited PEI and Cape Breton. Would love to go to Newfoundland someday. I have been on the west coast of the US for over 25 years, but I am always a northern east coast girl at heart.
Has anyone been following the briefing in Whole Women’s Health v. Cole, the abortion case set to be argued in the US Supreme Court in March? A slew of amicus briefs were filed earlier this week, many of which tell the stories of actual, specific women who have had abortions and how it improved their lives. It’s glorious.
I saw that! A lot of them were very moving slash powerful stories of how abortion can influence women’s lives. I know enough about America to avoid being optimistic about the outcome of the actual case, but it sure is awesome that we’ve got these briefs in the public record.
I feel like I am running on sheer momentum at this point and can’t wait to get home tonight and crash. Which unfortunately will be later that I would like since both my dogs have ear infections and we are going to my parents’ every day for the next 12 days (and the last 2) since putting drops in the little guy’s ears is a two person job.
I had actually taken the big guy in to have his lumps checked out and the vet almost immediately recommended surgery, which caught me off-guard since he is an older dog. Apparently they are filled with fluid so a biopsy wouldn’t help. And he needs his teeth professionally cleaned. They included up to three extractions in the estimate. All in I am looking at between $1600 and $2000 for the surgery. On top of the bills that week from the ear stuff.
I’m getting a second opinion because yikes that’s a lot of money but I feel bad, like why am I letting my dog go around with these mysterious fluid filled lumps/cysts/whatever they are. But I think I would get a second opinion for myself before a surgery and besides, Thor is an older dog and the vet didn’t even mention that there is a risk to doing surgery. I really wasn’t expecting him to suggest that as the first and best option.
Most of my resolutions have been put on hold (this is not a good week). Work is crazy and I pretty much consider the first two weeks of any quarter to actually belong to the previous quarter since that is all the stuff I am dealing with. Next week might be better. Or maybe I will start my year in February.
That sounds trying, good thoughts for you and the pooches.
A second opinion seems like a good thought to me.
Definitely go for the second opinion. My chubby lab has a couple of lumps that the vet is fairly certain are lipomas (lumps of fat!). They’re harmless and only need to be removed if they interfere with her lifestyle. We may get one of them taken off in the spring because it’s near where her harness strap goes. May I recommend a country vet if that’s at all possible for you? They tend to be a bit more hands off. And cheaper. Example: old dog was allergic to grass pollen. City vet wanted to send him to a dermatologist and an allergist for a full work up. Country vet told us what dosage of human Benadryl was safe. (And also examined our vet-phobic old guy in the lobby, which the city vet refused to do.)
My boss gave his vet’s info so I will be calling today for an appointment. Unfortunately I am in a pretty urban area so I don’t think we can get to a country vet. Thor was informally examined by my aunt’s vet up in Utah a few years ago and I suppose he was a country vet. He was there to do something with the horses. He thought they were probably lipomas but one of them has started growing and is weirdly so maybe not.
I am feeling a lot better after the weekend (although I couldn’t login to The Toast!). A couple of good night’s sleep has done wonders for my outlook.
aw, dog friend :(. I have my fingers crossed that the second opinion gives you a different result with an easier solution! if he does end up needing surgery, I would call around to a bunch of different places–there’s a wonderful pet emergency center in my area that will work with a budget, and I’m sure there are many more!
good luck to you, and hugssssssssss <3
Thanks, I have the number for one other place and might dig up the number of the vet we took my childhood pets to if he hasn’t retired.
Second opinion! But I think you do have at least one surgery coming for your beloved dog. Best wishes for you and scritches for your dog.
Yeah, I think surgery is probably going to happen. It was less the recommendation and more the guy’s attitude that was bothering me. But second opinion for sure.
I vote for second opinion! I knew at least one dog who just had a bunch of cysts. They would come and go, and as near as I could tell, the dog never much cared, though people on the street were jerky about it. My sister’s dog had tumors when he was elderly and they opted not to operate because of his age, and he wound up living an extra, oh, three years than they thought he would, so you just never can tell.
People can be jerks. While we were waiting for the vet a guy walked over and just nodded and said “so that’s cancer, right?” Also my nephew asked where Thor got the lump but that was kind of cute. He was also confused about the little dog’s cone.
At least with cats, vets have somewhat recently developed a safer form of anesthesia, and they tend to schedule several things that require sedation to happen at the same time because anesthesia is expensive.
That is, our cat used to get abscesses often enough that the vet would just clean his teeth at the same time as installing the drains for the abscesses. When worst cat moved away, it took us nearly a year to realize our cat was not going to get a convenient abscess and that we’d have to schedule a teeth cleaning.
That’s good to know. My old cat had dental surgery when she broke a fang and came through fine. It makes sense to do multiple things together.
I work as a bookkeeper, and all of January is dealing with the previous year, so I usually consider February to be the new year as far as new habits, things to change, etc. goes. Of course if I get a jump on things in January, yay!, but it is my least favorite month, so if I am not as on top of things improving-wise as I would like, I have decided that is ok.
I’m at a financial planning firm and I usually end up thinking of the first two weeks of the new quarter as part of the last. More so at the end/beginning of the year.
My husband is interviewing in Connecticut this week, and has Fallen In Love with West Hartford. So, I guess that’s where we will be moving.
How do you feel about it? Any Connecticut-related vibes?
I have not been, but numerous internet Best Of lists assure me that it is a fine place to live. Apart from the fact that I will need to learn to get comfortable driving. Spending my entire adult life in Chicago has ill-prepared me for that.
Oh wow, that is a huge move! Maybe you could ask your husband to spend a weekend with you in West Hartford before he accepts the job, to make sure you will be OK with living there? (Not trying to discourage you, as I know zero about the area myself.)
West Hartford is adorable! Check out Bar Taco for some good margs/eats
Hi Toasties,
So you may notice I’ve been pretty chatty on here today. It’s mostly because my life is kind of falling apart here and it looks like I will be out of my apartment in 3 weeks and I have no idea what is going on with my security deposit.
Longer freakout in the reply, and advice/assurances/voodoo priestesses needed!
I’m subletting a place that has gone from a dream apartment to a nightmare. I never thought I would be here at the end of the lease because my plan was to stay a few months and move out. Plus, the girl who had the lease said she and her bf were going to take it over together next summer.
Instead, she moved out (illegally, as the leaseholder), I signed up all utilities, a new girl moved in December, I paid January rent and then the new girl decided this week to move in with friends, and the leaseholder decided to prematurely end the lease.
So now, I’m stuck not being able to say “use my security for the last month” which was my original plan after things got weird when she moved out. She’s being friendly over text but avoiding my security deposit questions.
I want to throw up over putting myself in this spot. I know all the points that landed me here: everything being lovely when I moved in and for the first 4 months, everything at work being BONKERS as she morphed into a new personality and decided to move out with the bf to a new place, my anxiety + depression leaving me to just try to work with what was happening.
I would take over the lease if I could but I also was planning to not stay in the city for another year bc I’ve had a lot of negative stuff happening and while I love living here, I’d rather live here when job and health aren’t also falling apart (plus I know when the lease switches the landlord will raise it regardless).
Do you have any sort of NYC housing law advice that I’m missing? The only option seems to be possible housing court if my deposit doesn’t come through/ she takes it. And that seems like another nightmare and I’m not sure if legally I can do anything bc I subletted.
I know they can’t kick me out in 3 weeks and since I have all the utilities it’s hard to prove I don’t live here. However, putting up a fight with everyone is not in my nature, and I tried to do that when she first moved out to no avail (bc I am terrible at it and just wound up taking charge of everything that she said she was going to do before moving out).
I feel like I’ve been played by someone who can switch from kind and honest to lying and deceitful whenever it suits, and I’m trying not to hate myself for it, but I do. I never thought I would be that girl sobbing on the phone at 9am in midtown and today I was. It just really sucks.
Last reply to add I hope I didn’t offend anyone with the voodoo priestess comment. I was actually looking for something like that in my most frustrating moments with this person, even though I’m trying not to be AHHH REVENGE!! which is my kneejerk reaction.
I had two horrible landlords in a row and both screwed me over the week before my kids started school. But this last one has been so great and understanding and somehow, I have to have faith, things will work out so that I can stay here. it’s coming up to where this is almost the longest I’ve been anywhere in 4 years. I don’t have any advice for you but somehow things will work out, because if they could work out for a grad student living on alimony who got evicted illegally and the ex went to jail on the same day, they can work out for anybody. I will send you good-rental-next-time mojo.
Oh my gosh that is QUITE un-fun. I’m glad you’ve moved past it and into a good spot.
Thank you for the good rental mojo!! I truly appreciate it 🙂
Ugh, so I think I said last week I was trying to do better with online dating, in terms of not getting notification I have a message, panicking, and ignoring it for two months. But ack.
1. I feel completely like shit whenever I’m in one of those “would you date this person” just based on a photo.
2. I actually have no full body pictures of myself and I am totally freaked out that I’m heavier than I look and it’s a whole thing.
3. Why is “what do you like to do?” such a freakishly impossible question for me to answer?
4. People (maybe someone here?) have told me to try tinder, but I downloaded it and I’m kind of scared of it. How do you tinder?
5. My therapist says my profile is cool. /Milhouse voice.
Just wanted to say I have been there and done all those thing (esp turning off notifications) and I just got a “what do you like to do?” the other day and panicked.
It’s such a BROAD question.
I’ve found that having snarky responses in my head helps me take it less seriously and get less invested. I try to get sassy as though it were a guy messaging my best friend (who it’s always so easy for me to stick up for) and what would I say to that if she were panicking?
Good luck to you!
My theory re: “what do you like to do” is that some people take the advice to ask open-ended questions to foster conversation Too Far, and you’re left with questions that are too broad to answer properly without authoring a detailed missive on the subject. My tactic in response is to mention a few things you are in the mood to chat about and see if they bite.
But also, if you’re like me, there is a fair amount in the mix of getting over the discomfort of talking about myself. 😐
I am so there with you. I’ve been on all of three okcupid dates, when I’ve had a profile up for years, and I wanted second dates with none of them. I’m thinking about this stuff because I have a new year burst of social energy.
I’m considering tinder just because I’m sick of okcupid, and it makes me feel shallow anyway so I might as well use the one where I’m supposed to be shallow. But I also don’t know how to do it. And don’t have much info on fb (some pics, no interests or anything), so it might not even work.
I also have no decent full body pictures of myself. And “what do you like to do?”! I must have interests of some kind, but I certainly can’t produce them upon request.
But! This is a super low-stakes activity. We have nothing to lose, and if we manage not to obsess over message-crafting, it takes very little time. So, might as well try! I guess.
In terms of the facebook issue, I preferred Bumble bc you sign up via facebook, but can use what photos you like from your phone. I also found there were better guys on there!!
Also I avoided Tinder and Bumble for a long time for the shallow thing but then I realized… hey I am only matching and talking with guys where we both instinctively thought the other attractive. And that is actually great, instead of hearing from guys you have no “click” with at all on okcupid.
The bad part is, on Bumble you have to start the convo, and that can be hard when a guy writes nothing in his bio and you just swiped right bc he was hot.
Ugh. The what do you like to do question is so lazy. Instead of actually answering that question I always replied with one or two interesting things I’ve done in the past week.
It has been awhile since I had my hat in the online dating ring, but I will say this: if you can, try asking a friend to take some full-length pictures of you. Maybe take pictures of each other; this is more fun and can help with self-consciousness. Do them in good light (outdoors on a cloudy day is preferable but at this time of year maybe indoors with big windows and ample natural light). Take a bunch; it can take a little time to loosen up and be comfortable in front of a camera, and sometimes you forget to stand up straight or you’re standing in a weird shadow and you have to take more.
The reason for this is not because you owe the internet some kind of full-disclosure photographic evidence of your body, but because if you don’t post a full-length picture while you’re already feeling a little sensitive about your body, then you are likely to wonder if your body is coming between you and any dates that don’t work out. (I say this because I was on OKC during a time of weight gain and poor self-image and no full-length pictures, and I wondered this every time a date didn’t work out.) On the other hand, if you’ve put yourself out there, you’re more likely to get messages from folks who actively appreciate what they see.
I feel like a jerk, posting on this open thread, when I never really comment on Toast articles (beyond the odd Dad Magazine appreciation comment). I just need to vent. It’s about a boy.
This dude was introduced to me through a friend of a friend (which is a new phenomenon for me – I’ve only ever met dudes online, with fair to middling success). He seemed so promising! We both like comedy podcasts and Van Morrison and re-reading our favourite books! And he’s cute and kind-hearted and has a nice deep voice (at odds with his slender frame and soulful eyes) and is creative and a thinker.
BUT (always a but) he’s got big-time social anxiety and depression issues which he deals with by self-medicating with weed. He’s had some “bad days” and has said that chatting with me makes him feel better.
We’ve only hung out twice since we started chatting at the beginning of December (our first date was doing an escape room, which was really amazing – I highly recommend them). The holidays put a damper on getting together, but we had plans to go to a friend’s low-key New Year’s party (just board games and music videos) and he bailed – which I was honestly kinda expecting – but was non-committal about setting up future plans. Maybe he felt kinda sheepish about cancelling at the last minute, but it kinda stung / disappointed me that it seems like he doesn’t seem to wanna hang out with me.
We’ve been chatting (via text and old-school on-the-phone talking) since and it’s been fine & fun, but I’m loathe to suggest getting together again because a) I want to gauge his interest, and more importantly b) I’m wondering if I should even get myself into this further. My previous LTR was with a dude who had mad social anxiety and I really let myself get closed off because of it. I don’t wanna go down that path again. I’m older and wiser, and I don’t think I’d let that happen to the same degree, but I can already feel myself getting more and more emotionally invested in current dude.
ARG. What should I do? My game plan as of now is to keep chatting and operating under the assumption that it’s just friendly (although: full disclosure: we totally did the no-pants dance on our second hang-out so there’s sex feelings involved too). But that could go on indefinitely with me just getting more attached. Again: ARG.
I had planned to make 2016 The Year of No Boys; maybe I should just stick with that resolution.
I think the ‘keep chatting and don’t press the issue of meeting up’ will (and you know this, before I even type it) only delay and elongate your confusion and upset. You’ve met all of twice. Bite the bullet, ask again. It’ll sting to do so, but pay attention to how you feel at his response: relieved, disappointed, elated… If you do meet up again and enjoy it, you can work on that, if he flakes, you can reconsider whether this is What You Need In Your Life, etc.
Because stringing it along it chats and IMs is going to be slow torture.
This, times a million.
BOYS.
It sounds like he’s leaning on you to do emotional labor for him by saying your chatting makes him feel better – is he doing emotional labor for you? Does he support you when you’re having a bad day or help you figure out how to achieve your dreams?
I used to get crushes on people I’d spent time supporting because I felt closer to them, but if it’s mostly one way early in the relationship, there’s no reason to think it’ll get better later.
Oh nooooo. Don’t keep chatting! Don’t do it! I get the real “innocent person taking the stairs to the second floor” vibe here.
I think he’s going to make you do all the work! And then he’ll tell you he’s too messed up to commit after a couple more half hearted sleepovers that you arrange. He knows you are interested. You made time for him, you got naked together, you’ve invited him to social occasions, you care about his day. He doesn’t need a diagram to figure this out. Let him go! I’ve been there, and it’s not going to get better.
Also I suspect I’m an older person than you so if I could go back to younger me and give her dating advice I’d tell her not to confuse shared interests with someone being a good match. You can totally come together over a hobby, but the flip side is you can find yourself saying, “but he likes this book! No one else likes this book! Sure he treats me terribly, but he’s got soul!” Ugh to that. After a long time of going on dates with people who shared a lot of my interests I came to the conclusion that the people I dated who like what I like are jerks! (but many of my platonic friends also like what I like and aren’t jerks) Liking Van Morrison and comedy podcasts and being creative, those are good things to appreciate in a friend for sure, and if he treated you well then they’d be pluses, but my Mom likes van Morrison, my dad is creative and this creepy guy I worked with had a deep voice in a skinny body and I don’t think you should go out with any of them either.
Is he kind? Does he show up when he says he will and call when he says he will? Has he ever done anything for you that cost him any time, effort or money? Does he take the time to ask about your day and ask you questions when you talk or do you do all the asking about his feelings?
Interests are all well and good but you can meet someone who never heard of Van Morrison and introduce them to him. You can marry someone who doesn’t like comedy podcasts but still brings you flowers. You know what I’m saying? Don’t get hung up on these clues that he’s like you, that he shares your tastes. Be with someone who really wants to be with you and makes it happen. He has exactly the same ability to make time with you as you have to make time with him, so if he’s not, then….he’s not doing it. Don’t think of men as a scarce resource that you have to make do with. I think we all do that from time to time, think, oh man, a good man is hard to find, I better jump on this workable piece of raw clay and see if I can mold it. Just don’t. Go be free to fall in love with someone better than this guy. Be the girl in Hotline Bling who moves on, not Drake sitting at home waiting for a call that doesn’t come.
TESTIFY.
You are most certainly not a jerk, and you’ve gotten some fantastic words of wisdom.
My only contribution is this: at worst, he’s not interested enough to make the effort, and at best, he might like to make the effort and can’t.
If you know yourself, and know you are inclined to get invested, it is on you to make sure you have the boundaries and clarity you need. It is is super disappointing when someone you like is Not Going to Work, but he just might not. Find out what’s up, and if it’s not what you want and need, you sound all kinds of interesting and awesome just from this one post, there will be so many other people out there who will appreciate you and be able/willing to reciprocate in a way that is so much more satisfying.
Best of luck.
Thanks, all of you, for your words of wisdom! I bit the bullet and suggested a hang-out, and he gave me a bunch of (what I took to be) bullshit reasons why he can’t so I told him I wasn’t gonna suggest hanging out with him again and leave it up to him, and he gave me more (what I took to be) bullshit reasons why his life is a mess right now and how he’s just a disappointment to everyone and he’s sorry that it’s effecting [sic] me. So I said thanks and good luck. I have my answer. It bums me out a little bit b/c I’m feeling that desperate never-gonna-meet-anyone-decent – but better footloose and fancy-free than shackled to a lukewarm man-child, right?
I really value all your input. You’re the best.
xoxoxo
Hello beloved Toasties! My open thread time this morning got cruelly stolen by someone else in my system wanting/needing to write an overdue letter to their girlfriend, but I made up for my disappointment by buying too much stationary from Daiso afterwards because I am trying this penpal thing again! Always before I have gotten penpals and then had a meltdown when I needed to actually *write them* and given up the entire notion, but now that I can name & recognise shame when I feel it I hope I will be able to actually write and send letters to people. I just finished the first one and it is going out today, hooray!
Today I discovered my infant colleagues didn’t know who Josephine Baker was, and scorned me for mildly protesting that she was important and interesting (the logic being that they didn’t know who she was, so how important could she be, right?)
I weep for the youth*.
*I know not all youth. Most youth great.
I am not sure how many people will see this, but I came across this article at my dermatologist’s office today and thought it might be of interest: Channing Tatum interviews Joseph Gordon-Levitt on his recent films. It ends with this delightful passage:
CT: My experience with you in New York has been uniquely interesting.
JGL: You mean the time you climbed up the space of my apartment, broke into my house, and surprised me when I was sleeping in order to prove that I should probably take better care to protect myself because if you were ill intentioned you could have murdered me? That time?
CT: Yes. That is exactly the one.
I REMEMBER this! It made the rounds on tumblr at some point because it’s so delightfully weird.
I have two weeks to find an 18th century Venetian costume (I’m in Paris, not Venice) that either 1.) doesn’t cost very much to purchase or 2.) is a rental that I’m not terrified of ruining and having to buy, but once I do, this is happening: http://venisesous.paris/#1445984603541-72de38ab-3… and I am SO EXCITED. They’re turning underground canals here into 18th century Venice for a weeks-long party. What I’m wearing needs to be of decent quality, but not terribly expensive. I’m seriously considering going in drag because menswear looks SO much easier….
For your mask, you could just get something at a craft store and paint/customize it? I saw some pretty elaborate ones at Rougier&Plé.
Maybe. I’ve found some decently-priced stuff on Amazon FR, too, but I’m a little overwhelmed with how ritzy the whole event is and not sure how cheap I can get away with going….
This sounds AMAZING please please pleeeeaaaase tell us all about it after you go!
As for the costume, I have no ideas except maybe try out some cool vintage shops? (Also that menswear could be so fun and easy!) I’m sure you will find something great regardless of what you do 🙂
Absolutely. I’m sure I’ll sort it out. I’m so freaking excited. It’s way out of my typical budget for a social event, (the tickets weren’t THAT expensive, but by the time I factor in the costuming costs, etc, they will be) but it’s going to be SO COOL.
I have to tell someone about this!!! Look at the ad this guy placed looking for a writer.
Or a theoretical writer. Just he wants a girl to ride around in his truck basically. http://tulsa.craigslist.org/wri/5382795594.html
“Idk why a girl who writes wouldn’t be all over this”
!
“Idk why a girl who writes wouldn’t be all over this.”
Oh my god. Maybe a girl is not into it because you sound like you’re trying to enlist for your mobile kidnapping service? I just…..”You don’t even have to write.” But….you want a writer….my head is blowing up.
What he wants is the self-mythology of a couple of traveling poets.
and also some road head.
Happy Friday night all! I was wondering if anyone has experience of periods mysteriously stopping for months at a time? (I am not pregnant)
Since May I have only had 1, in October. I have obviously googled extensively and will probably go to the doctor soon, but do you think should I be worried? My New Year’s resolution is to do something about it and stop enjoying the glorious lack of menses :/
Grateful for any input!
Well, a doctor is probably going to want to do an exam and run a blood panel, but are there any obvious things to rule out? Have you taken up running marathons or other ridiculously strenuous exercise, undergone a ridiculous amount of stress, had any other health complaints, had any sort of gynecological issues in your history or in your family medical history? I personally wouldn’t be over-worried about it unless something else is up, but a doctor is probably going to be your best bet on this one.
Hi, toastfriends. I have a social problem. I may or may not have fought with a friend, and now everything is very awkward.
It’s a long story, and I apologize for the wall of text. I’ll put it in a reply once the first comment is moderated.
(1/2, I hope these come out in the right order)
About a year ago, I told a very close friend something very personal–mentioning that the eating disorder I’d had trouble with in high school had raised its head again, but that I was recovering very well. I had never mentioned this to a single person before. She recommended I visit a doctor and then did not communicate with me for two weeks (the rest of our college’s winter break), despite the fact that every few days I sent her a querying text.
After that, I worried a lot about our relationship. I had almost always been the initiator, and that began to weigh on me; when she did not seem to want to talk to me I panicked and decided she must hate me or be upset with me somehow.
Over the next couple of months I tried to subtly ask if she was upset with me, or if I had done something wrong. She said, “no” each time, but did not initiate any social activity or seem to want to talk to me either. (I admit that my judgment may have been biased, but it honestly seemed like she was avoiding me.)
At the same time, I slipped back into the same eating disorder and was generally very unhappy. It was not fun.
After about three months, I made the (terrible in retrospect) decision to cut off all social contact with my friends in order to focus on my academics, which were going very poorly. It wasn’t fun, and while my health deteriorated somewhat and I lost a good deal of weight, my academics improved. I had very little contact with her during this time, except to organize the beginning of a long-term group project.
When I did inevitably run into her (we lived in the same area of the dorm and ate in the same dining hall) she did not appear to want to talk. I worried that by attempting to interact with her I was emotionally manipulating her. I convinced myself that I was a terrible person, and I had hurt her, and she hated me.
My memory of the end of the year is a little confused (finals were happening) but I don’t want to go back and read the messages again. The gist of it:
At the end of the school year, I messaged her to ask directly if she was upset, and apologized for anything I had done to upset her. I had spent almost six months tiptoeing around and worrying myself literally sick about this relationship, and I just wanted to apologize. She replied that she was not upset, and she did not mean to appear so. However, she said this by interrupting my apology and insisting that she, in fact, was the one solely in the wrong. Solely her fault!
This pushed every single one of my buttons. I felt bad about upsetting her and then never approaching her directly about it, instead . I felt terribly, terribly guilty. And she insisted on taking this guilt on herself, although in my opinion she was blameless; therefore I was only more at fault than before. I could not stand it.
This is what my mother does in order to make me feel guilty (I am so full of inherited Catholic guilt for someone who is only sort of Catholic), and here she was doing the same thing. Her apology made me only feel worse.
I sent about ten all-caps messages telling her NO NO NO and to NOT DO THAT, panicking. I intended this as “yelling.”
(cont)
(2/2)
A few days later, I apologized again, saying that I had never fought with a friend like this before (true) and that I didn’t know what to do to make it right, but that I was sorry I had upset her and then yelled at her.
She responded that when I implied she was upset it made her uncomfortable (her exact words), since she was not upset.
I said “wait, really?!” because I honestly thought she would be angry (in our last conversation I had just yelled at her!) but there was no further response.
We were both overseas at alternating times for six months, and there was no communication during that time. I was very, very angry and very sad.
I figured that once we were both back in the same building (living in apartments one on top of the other with a largish group of mutual friends) we would inevitably sort it out; I would see her regularly to work on the long-term mutual project anyways.
Although I didn’t contact her, I did socialize with our mutual friends, including her significant other, none of whom seemed to loathe me; I can assume this means she hasn’t told them anything along the lines of “Ziska is a manipulative, cowardly jerk and you should never talk to her again.” It gave me some hope.
I sent her several emails towards the end, asking about her progress on the project and reporting on mine. There was no response. I then found out that she had quit the project at least a month prior–by directly messaging a higher-up and informing them that she was no longer participating due to “personal reasons.” The rest of our group, myself included, found this out at least a month later from that higher-up. We scrambled to find someone to take her position, the counterpart of mine (the two of us had been chosen as a pair for our great cooperation and a history of very, very good results). It was a mess. This made me very angry. I had assumed that, despite our disagreement, we could at least work together. It appears she did not think so.
I thought about it in the weeks before we returned, and decided that my main goal was to not be angry—I don’t like being so angry. I don’t like that I keep thinking about it.
Now, we are both back in school and living in the same apartment building. I have run into her several times, and greeted her with a “hey!” and a smile. The other day I was sitting with a mutual friend in a public area when she approached, and had a conversation with our mutual friend. I made small talk, welcomed her back, etc; she responded with single words and would not make eye contact with me. The moment I added anything to the conversation, she stopped talking entirely.
Toasties, I don’t know what to do. I panic about running into her, jump whenever I see someone of her height and build out of the corner of my eye, and each encounter leaves me shaking with anxiety. I don’t think she is a bad person (I think she’s great!) but I don’t necessarily want to be friends again; I just want this terrible awkwardness to stop, so that I can stop being angry and worried and anxious all the time. I cannot avoid her: we live together and that will not change, and we have many very close friends in common.
I want to be able to invite all of the friends I live with to do things, but I can’t do that without inviting her along—and I know that if she refuses to do something, others will, too.
I just want to be able to exist in the same space as her without panicking! Argh. Help. 🙁
Dear Z—I am going to do some storytelling/projecting here, so please bear in mind that it may or may not be relevant to your situation. One of my very best friends in college had a mental health crisis our sophomore year–a big one. Another friend and I tried to support her through it, but we were young and appallingly over our heads, and the crisis escalated. She lived, but when we tried to pick up the pieces of the relationship afterwards, the dynamic was always weird, and our friendship never recovered.
Now, more than ten years later, I do not regret the loss of the friendship. You will end up losing so many friends, after all, just to the grind of time and distance. What I regret is the time we all spent wringing our hands instead of getting her the professional help she needed.
Dear Z, I hope you are in ongoing professional care, for both your physical and mental health. You should not be feeling angry and worried and anxious all the time, and nothing you do or do not say to this girl, and nothing she does or does not say to you, will help. Call whatever campus mental health resources exist and lean on them instead. Help and, I hope, healing will come to you, but not from your peers.
With best wishes.
I have unfortunately used up my free therapy sessions, but I think there are a few informal short counseling sessions I can take advantage of.
“Help and, I hope, healing will come to you, but not from your peers.” This is something I will think about. Thank you 🙂
I think it’s worthwhile to call the counseling center and ask what the next steps are if you’ve used your free sessions. You aren’t the first person to do so, and I’m certain they have a process for this.
Seconding this. Talk to a therapist. Sounds like maybe your ED story triggered something in your friend; whatever it is, it’s not your fault, but talk to a professional! If you’ve used up all your campus counselling, ask if they can refer you out to a free or low cost center off campus. I got two free years of high-quality counseling that way and it changed my life.
Oh, friend, I’m so sorry. This sounds really difficult.
I will say that her behavior, as you describe it, is … not what I’d expect from someone who’s coping well with whatever. It’s possible that she has her own emotional things going on that are causing her to behave this way. It sounds to me like you have been accommodating and welcoming, given what you can assume about the change in the friendship, while she is giving you nothing.
It does sound like you’re doing a good job of not internalizing her behavior and blaming yourself, which is good!
Do your mutual friends notice that things are weird? When she approached you and the friend the other day, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with you, and then clammed up entirely, did the friend say anything? Is your relationship with them such that you are able to ask, even like “yo what’s up with her, is she ok?”
Are you able to talk to a therapist or counselor at all? Maybe through the student health center? Even just a couple of sessions might give you resources for how to deal with the fact that you will continue to run into her.
I’m sorry 🙁 social circle drama can be so, so hard.
PS I hope you are healing from your eating disorder and I send you all the toasthugs.
thank you so much. The mutual friend did indeed notice that it was very awkward and weird–but said nothing besides “I’m sad that this rift has happened” and assuring me that I did not do anything wrong by staying when she arrived.
I’m not sure I can ask “hey, is she ok?” because, well, I’ve had basically no contact with her. Saying “she’s been weird for the past year or so, is she doing ok?” when every one of our mutual friends knows we haven’t been speaking… I just don’t see how that could be productive.
Part of my problem is that I am not sure I have been absolutely as “accommodating and welcoming” as I could be. What if I could have done more? Not been as petty as I was (I felt petty, and I am sure that must have shown). I know this is a bit irrational, but… argh. what if I hadn’t worded things the same way when I was upset? what if I had articulated more clearly why her weird apology was making me feel so terrible instead of just internet-shouting? she said she should get to apologize, too, which is fair. (fair, but her doing so still made me angry, which made me feel even more guilty!)
Unfortunately, I used up my free sessions at the university counseling center a while ago. There is a free informal short-session counseling program, though, now that I look.
Going to see A Professional about it makes it seem like a big deal, and I… don’t want to give it that weight? I’m not sure. That is silly, I think. I’ll try to get over that.
Thank you for your response; it’s just nice to talk about it with people who are not involved.
There aren’t any perfect words or set of behavior that will make everyone like you all of the time, I’m so sorry. It sounds like she was determined to distance herself from you, and different words or behaviors on your part would not likely have made any difference, because we can’t control how anyone but us reacts to stuff, yanno?
You sound like you could really use some more time with a therapist. Some of your “what if” thoughts, and especially the fact that you’re so fixated on this, sound a lot like what I’ve done in the past, and I found therapy really helpful for it. Do you have any exercises or readings from your previous sessions you could revisit until you can figure out how to source low cost mental health care?
Several people have told me that it “sounds like she was determined to distance herself no matter what,” and I think that sentiment is finally sinking in.
I *am* very fixated on it, and that annoys me so much! It feels like she’s “won.” (I know that’s unreasonable and not how it works, but it still does.) At this point I’m fixated on how fixated I am, even! It’s so ridiculous that another person can have this effect on me and that I’m having so much trouble stopping it.
Unfortunately the past therapy sessions were for something completely different, so I don’t have any resources. I found a campus group that I’m going to attend, though, and I’ll look around for some basic stuff online.
I am so late to this, but I am at a big-ass technology conference this week, and omg it is just an endless sea of dudes in jeans and blazers. Help. It is so exhausting. Please leave kind and encouraging words, if you can.
YOU CAN DO IT
May the space witches be with you! Also, this too shall pass. And there will be snacks at the end.
You are so fabulous and will gone home to your fabulous life after this conference and they will still be wearing jeans and blazers.
…
I just realized I wore jeans and a blazer to work today. But the blazer is green velvet, so…?
Fear not, I also wore jeans and a blazer to work today. But I also wore an awesome pair of boots, and also I am awesome, so I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure your fine too.
And yes, the conference is temporary, but your fabulousness will live on forever.
Ha! That is so true. Of course nothing wrong with jeans and a blazer. It’s just… a sea of thousands of entitled dudes in jeans and blazers is fairly challenging.
Are you at CES then?
I’ve been to tech conferences that are an endless sea of Old White Men. Oh god. So many. And they just keep coming and coming and MAKING THE SAME TERRIBLE JOKES OH MY GODDDD
THE JOKES ARE THE WORST
How do they ALL come up with the same joke???? They must have a newsletter.
I am. It is pretty terrible at times. Some people are lovely, of course, but UGH. So far my favorite thing that happened was yesterday afternoon. I was on the show floor, went to get a cup of coffee. The cashier was an older woman, and as I walked up to her a dude ™ barreled up next to me, phone in hand, and desperately asked the cashier “can I borrow a pen?!” Cashier *stunned look* “I can’t do that” even though there were pens sitting right out on the counter. Dude slunk off, I gave the cashier a knowing look of solidarity, and then I gave her one of my extra pens. She was most appreciative.
You are great and the tech bros are lucky to be near you.
You are awesome. The dudes shall not deplete you. They can learn from you or despair of ever achieving your level of serene confidence. The Toast is strong with you. Yes, it is exhausting just being among them, but the end is in sight. May the Toast be with you.
The conference will pass and the blazers will crumble to dust. You will make it!!
Making new friends in your 30s thread?
Specifically, making new friends in your 30s when:
You Loathe: bowling, intramural sports, contact sports, pub trivia, any trivia, bingo, fancy bars, frat bars, boardgames that don’t involve solving a fictitious murder and activities that involve spending buckets – nay even half pints – of money.
You Love: 19th and early 20th century books by women be they literary, travelogues or memoirs; biographies of women; arcane history and historical events; day trips to obscure historical sites; live music; boardgames – or anything else – that involves solving fictitious murders; Murder, She Wrote and visiting bars and restaurants that welcome dogs.
This…sounds like a lot Toast People I have met on Twitter and IRL. Have you considered finding a Toast meetup in your area? If you’re not on Twitter, that may be a great place to look first (I’m @MsJinxie ). I have met some very lovely people that way!
I know lots of people have perfectly excellent reasons to stay the hell off of it, but Facebook is a great way to meet people – you can find local groups (boardgames, history, day walks, dogs), and it’s a good way to finesse acquaintances into friends.
Twitter can be spottier depending on where you’re living, but great for book people.
YES HELLO FRIEND
and msjinxie has a good idea, also.
Meetup book club thingy might also be a thing. Or you could start one! You could host the meetup at a bar that welcomes dogs!
I wish I were good at naming groups! I have this inclination towards naming things after the activities we will be engaging in, like…Admire the Bronte sisters, Victorian mourning jewelry and my very handsome dog.
I think you are interesting and I would leap at the chance to get to know you better. And my dogs would ask for your attention. Here’s a suggestion, if it suits you.
Create your own Ideal Activity. Choose a strategy:
1. Invite lots of strangers, as many as possible, with no regard for whether they are suited to friendship with you. Then a month later, have a second session of this Ideal Activity, but invite only the people you enjoyed in the first session. Encourage the most delightful people to invite more people like themselves to the third session.
2. Invite only a few people to the first session, people you suspect are a good match for your personality. Continue monthly sessions, adding like-minded people as you meet them out in the wild. Encourage current group members to invite similar folk to subsequent sessions.
Mammogram update!
Doctor’s office called this afternoon. Everything is fine
Thanks to all you generous, caring folks who made this week less scary.
<3
Woo! Victory chest bump! (clearly the correct way to celebrate a clear mammogram)
So happy for you !! Awesome news.
Hooray! So glad to hear it.
Awesome!!
Very glad to hear that!!
This is way too late, but oh man, guys, I just saw Carol. What an unbelievably beautiful movie. Both as a movie, as a story, as phenomenal art, and HOLY SHIT THOSE COSTUMES OH MY GOD.
NOT TOO LATE. I am here for Carol, which I saw at 10 am on Saturday (so maybe we saw it the same day, maybe not…). The chemistry! the clothes! I listened to the score on repeat while working overtime immediately after seeing it. I want it to win all of the awards. And to see a movie-screen size Cate Blanchett smolder at me. I want them to have all the $$ so they will just keep making beautiful movies where women falling in love have a happy/optimistic ending. (As much as I love the period clothes, next up I want a movie where the conflict relates not at all to their sexuality…a girl can dream. And re-watch Carol.)
It’s SO GOOD!!! Cate Blanchett was absolute perfection, and I was completely shocked it ended so happily! I was terrified in the last scene. But yes, it would be awesome to have that movie where the conflict is entirely separate from their sexuality. Give me a 50s lesbian movie without the MORAL CLAUSE type drama. I don’t care about historical accuracy, I want it.
I had a door-opening incident going to the ATM at the bank this morning. But first let me link to one of my favourite posts on chivalry.
I’m opening the outside door leading into the ATM area at the same time Mr. Chivalry is opening the inside door going from the bank to the ATM area. We both swing our doors open, and he says, “go ahead.” I say, “no, no, you go”, partly because I am not going through the door he is holding open whereas he will be going through the door I am holding open, and partly just because. He says something that makes no sense, so this is my best guess, not exact wording, something like, “no, you go; I am already through.”
So I decide to stand there, holding the door open, to see what he’ll do. Immensely awkward, although I had stepped aside to let him through, and the brick wall meant I didn’t have to look at him. (Mr. C, OTOH, stood there blocking the path through the door he was holding open.) After about 10 or 20 seconds, long enough to establish that there was no way he was going to go through the door as long as a woman was holding it open, I went through my door and walked over to the ATMs. In retrospect, I regret not standing there longer. At least to the point where other people were entering or leaving the bank, or someone from inside the bank complained about us letting all the cold air in.
Argh! Agressive chivalry is the opposite of chivalry!! Just GO THROUGH THE DOOR, dude. (and also get over yourself, please).
A hahahah that is amazing.
your post has greatly improved the quality of my Monday. thank you <3
Dear toasties – some poetry for you, because love
http://awitin.likhain.net/2015/12/he-asked-me-whe…
I had an Amazon gift card from Christmas, so I ordered a huge bag of soybeans and yesterday, I successfully made my own tofu! It’s so fresh tasting and delicious! And not really very much harder than making fresh ricotta or paneer, although you do have to milk the soybeans yourself rather than buying milk that someone else has squeezed from a cow for you. Hooray!
Couldn’t sleep. Checked Facebook. Now my heart is broken.
Ok, Emily again! I saw I had a few more replies to this post. I wasn't sure how to go about organizing this? I made a gmail account for the Toast meet-up: [email protected].
If you want to meet up in the Triangle area, email that account and then I can create an email list so we can communicate set this up and not, you know, post private info on a public forum.
I know I was late to come back to this post, so I'll post this again in a newer one soon!