Toasties! Friends who make you beautiful meals are the best. Also making something lovely for oneself or someone else is grand. So is going out to eat. The Bartender doesn’t believe the blizzard is happening and so has made Plans. Wish us all luck. For all sorts of reasons. Open thread!
Thank you all so much for your Iceland recs last week! I have booked our riding trip with Ishestar and have a huge long list of places to go and things to see and hot dogs to eat! We have also booked a few days at an Airbnb cabin on the Snaefellsness peninsula, so I am supremely excited about that.
My next challenge is procuring a camera that will be worthy of the scenery. If anyone’s selling an oldie but goodie DSLR, get at me!
I have been making notes from that thread too!
Hello, beloveds!
I’m still recovering from the mountain of stuff I returned to after medical leave and prepping for a 4:00 meeting. Difficult when the report I’m generating isn’t showing half the data I need and nobody can tell me why.
I posted this on Tumblr yesterday and nobody said NO DON’T and I’m still kinda like I might want to chop off all my hair you guys. Winter’s a tough time for me and long hair. It seems like it would be warmer, and it is, but that’s no task a scarf can’t fulfill and I have to put up with dry hair, static, and all the bad parts of having long hair in the meantime. I WANT IT OFF. I’ll probably feel different come spring, though, so I’m gonna tough it out until then. Maybe.
Any other longhairs craving a short ‘do at the mo’?
Me! I want to get a pixie cut or whatever it is Jennifer Lawrence has! I haven’t had my hair that short for a decade, and now is the time for it to come off.
Jennifer Lawrence’s hair looks great lately, agreed. How long is yours, now? Mine’s nearly to my waist.
My hair is half-way down my back, but it’s extremely dry this year. Time to start over. Getting rid of the heaviness will be so freeing!
Somebody scheduled a meeting for 4 PM on a Friday?
For real. Academics, y’all.
CUT YOUR HAIR OFF! I have had a pixie cut for like 6 years now and it’s infinitely superior to long hair (no offense to long-haired babes). And if you don’t like it you can just grow it out again.
SO TEMPTING. The only part of the growing out stage I hated was the chin-to-shoulder length stage. The rest of it really wasn’t so bad. Or maybe that’s just the time talking and I’ve forgotten the pain…
I JUST got mine to my shoulders (grown out from about an inch) and I want to cut it all off again so hard but it was so boring and looked so bad for so long, do I really want to make all that for nothing, blah blah sunk cost fallacy. I think I will wait until spring to avoid coldhead but I should do it and so should you!
Chin to shoulder is the worst! I had short hair for so long because it would get to mid neck and I’d hack it all off again.
I’m an inch from shoulders now, and it’s the slowest-growing damn inch in the world. Give me PONYTAIL or I will CHOP you, HAIR.
I got a pixie last October and I love it and feel super-cute, but I know I’m eventually going to grow it out again, because getting it cut every six weeks is a hassle and expensive, but my hair grows so fast that six weeks or so is the maximum I can tolerate!
Also because my hair is so thick and straight that for the first week after I get it cut I have to glue it down with product or it’s all…..fluffy.
I always encourage the short-hair move, but I’ve been a short haired (bob, usually) lady for YEARS now. Can’t imagine letting my hair grow long again!
It wouldn’t be such a crisis if I didn’t get compliments on my hair all the time.
I think the hair gods do this on purpose. The most compliments I’ve gotten on my hair happened in a concentrated period of time right before I went for my first pixie cut. Strangers! My secret work crush! And then I betrayed them all! (It was worth it.)
It’s like our hair is trying to make a last stand or something.
Me, tired of frizzy brown hip-length waves that hold neither curls nor straightening: “I’ve been thinking about cutting my hair.”
Everyone I’ve ever met, including my stylist: “NOOOOO it’s so long and pretty, you can’t!!!”
As if I’m supposed to keep up the hour-long washes and endless protective styles and femme invisibility just because you like it.
NGL, if someone told me I couldn’t cut my hair, I’d shave it off right in front of them.
I cut my boob-length hair to chin length a few weeks ago because I couldn’t deal with the tangles of hat/scarf/coat collar season any longer. Winter gives me a perma-snarl on the back of my neck that no amount of brushing or conditioner can combat.
RIGHT? This morning as I was putting it up (yay for fancy hair sticks) I had a moment of “why am I keeping this?” again.
I love me some fancy hair sticks! Every time I cut my hair off, I miss my fancy hair sticks most of all.
That alone is a good reason to keep it. I have over $100 in fancy hair sticks. Jesus.
I’m jealous–my hair is so heavy/straight that there’s no way sticks can hold it up unless I twist my hair so tight it’s painful. I used to use these things called “spin pins” to hold up buns and that worked okay.
I cut 15 inches off last winter for this very reason, & have worn it chin-length since, but I gotta admit: I definitely am growing it out again. I don’t feel like myself!
But God, the winter snarl. 😩
Fellow long-hair identifier solidarity fistbump
I cut off my long long hair in january of last year after having the itch for a while and it’s great! No tangles! No giant back of hair nests! No hair getting caught in zippers! Hat and scarves keep you warm and once summer rolls around it’s almost luxurious having airflow around your neck. Do what feels right to you, but the boring cliche is true, hair does grow back 🙂
The comments to this are exactly the opposite of what I was hoping for which makes me laugh. It’s like a coin toss telling you what you really want when it lands wrong side up.
First of all, thanks for the follow back on tumblr! woo!
You should totally cut your hair. My pixie cut is my security blanket and I love it more than any other physical part of me.
I’ve been growing my hair out for 2, 2.5 years now?? and I’m just about ready to go back to Very Short, but part of me wants to stick it out because I feel like if I can just get it a few inches past my shoulders it’ll reach its true glory!!! but also, it’s so much to deal with right now!
either way I wouldn’t be cutting it til spring, so we’ll see what happens then.
I probably don’t need to be making any large decisions right now, TBH. I’m still ten seconds from finding my own apartment after being trapped in the house with the Burgomaster for six weeks with very little outside interactions. I mean I love him, but…
Yeah. Waiting til spring is the best idea for me, too, I think.
Going into my second winter with Very Short Hair and I don’t find that my head is less warm with less hair on it! Possibly warmer, since I can wrap up my head and neck in winter gear with static-free abandon.
It’s just so practical!
I am a former longhair if that counts – down to my thighs at the longest. I’ve migrated from a pixie to an androgynous side-part minipomp… Thing… and I’m so getting an undercut or fade at my next appointment.
FUCK YEAH POMPADOURS.
Also undercuts. And fades. Yes.
Not gonna lie, now I badly want to go make an appointment with a new hair stylist and get it done *now*. My current one gets confused by my boobs and keeps styling me in her best Midwestern Middle Aged Woman style and oh god no. I want queer hair that matches my age, dangit!
I have short hair and love it. I’ve been trying to grow it out (to my chin) but I’ve been getting an undercut for the past year on the sides and at my nape. It makes me feel like a badass but I can still braid it and put it into a pony tail. Life is too short to hate your hair, it grows back.
I don’t hate it, is the problem. I actually love my long hair. It’s just…I think I need a change in my life and hair is SO EASY to change.
Been there. Either way- whatever you choose, long or short, I’m sure it will be fabulous and glamorous!
I WANT TO CUT MY HAIR OFF TOO! I’ve been eyeing a jlaw pixie for awhile now: but I had short hair all through my teenaged years and I feel like I’ve only just gone back to long hair (even though it’s been 3 years or so) and I’m kind of enjoying it when I do put the effort in, but most of the time it’s wasted in a bun.
I got an under cut awhile ago (I have stupid amounts of hair, it didn’t make a dent) to see if that would stem the urge. It only worked a little
My god, you must have a ton of hair.
I really do. It’s insane. (It’s only a nape under cut anyways, I just took all the scraggly shit off)
I get so many more complements on my hair when its long, but I like it more short and its such a hard trade off (attention from people is life.)
I whacked 16 inches off my hair in January 3 years ago, from mid-back to pixie length, and I doubt I’ll ever go back! The only temperature difference I noticed was my ears, and that’s easily solved with hats, many of which look super cute on short hair. This haircut makes me feel like myself!
I want all the pixie cut Toasties to start a picture thread of their haircuts now.
I’m due for my annual chop-it-all-off and am resisting because my face is fuller than normal and I worry that a shorter ‘do would be much less flattering, but last year I got an amazing asymmetrical bob and it was so rad and I’m very very tempted to join you in the catharsis of shedding many inches.
SO FREEING
Good luck with your decision!
Oh man, my face always looks slimmer with short hair. I’m growing it out now and wondering if I should get it cut just for that because I’m feeling blah.
I have accidental/lazy long hair for the first time in years, and I can’t wait to chop it off. Problem is I’m new to the area and intimidated by the idea of trying a new place in such a big city. Anyone in Chicago want to give me recommendations? What I want is not complicated but I’ve had bad haircuts in the past that I do not want to experience again (dramatic layers, nope, not what I asked for – ugh ugh ugh).
I haven’t lived in Chicago for about five years, but I got some nice bangs at the Paul Mitchell school for pretty cheap once upon a time. You might want to look up a few more reviews (or just go to a nice salon if you don’t mind spending the $$$) before making an appointment, but I had a good experience.
cut off 18″ into a pixie 7 years ago. then spent a year growing it out into a bob and had it for a few months before being like FUCK THIS. i returned to my natural pixie form and i’m very happy with it.
Ngngnngngng ALL THIS PIXIE CUT TEMPTATION
I have been wanting to present as more androgynous lately, and since my hip/waist ratio is never going to do it for me, hair seems the next logical step. But I haven’t gotten an actual haircut since I was fifteen (when your hair gets past shoulder length why the fuck not just do it yourself) and I’m scared. I have no idea what my hair will do if I cut it short and it doesn’t have the weight pulling it down anymore! What if it’s terrible?
It’ll grow back is easy to say, but yeah…
how… how do you cut your own long hair? (besides scissors, i mean.) i have long hair, but that concept sounds sort of baffling and possibly disastrous to me?
I know someone who uses this method, but I’ve never tried it myself. I pay my money and take my chances at the local cosmetology school.
I used to do something very similar to that link CleverManka posted. I also used to have roommates help–I’d wash it and then sit in a straight-backed chair, and a roommate would sit behind me and cut it straight across, and then angled up slightly on each side. But I have really straight heavy hair, so it was easy, and when it was down to my waist I wore it in two braids most days anyway.
I’m not a real longhair — I’ve got a bob with a diagonal undercut (i.e. 1/2 of my head is buzzed). I had this notion that when I was ready to grow it out I’d do something swoopy and Claire Underwood-y but now I’m finding myself entranced by ponytails. I could go either way! I don’t know what to do with myself! Though if I grow it out I should probably actually start taking better care of my hair so it doesn’t break all over the place. Yeah I should probably just cut it all off.
It’s good to recognize your limits when it comes to hair care.
A 4pm meeting on a Friday…you have my sympathy.
I cut my longish hair to short last spring and have not regretted it. My hair is thick and thus heavy when long and does not lend itself to easy styling, so ‘ponytail’ was all I did with it. My only beef with short hair is the dramatic increase in salon appointments to keep it short (my hair grows fast) – a thing which introvert me tends to avoid unless absolutely necessary.
Oh god, I actually forgot about those hair appointments. That is a game changer. I only cut my hair twice a year now and that’s SUPER convenient.
Mine is straight and heavy, and when it was down to my ass I only had it cut twice a year (except for my bangs) and wore it a braid or two almost every day.
When I had a layered bob I could go two or three months. Now that I have a pixie it’s every six weeks.
oh god I have this long curly hair and sometimes I feel like I’m rocking the Homeschool look and I just need a few inches off.
Actually I love huge obnoxious earrings, which negates my otherwise Modest For The Lord wardrobe, so I think if I just remember to wear them, it’ll be okay
Ha ha ha ha! I’ve had long hair for most of my life and I totally looked homeschool fashion when I was in junior high. Once I started wearing combat boots with tight skirts, though, not so much.
I have problems combining long hair with giant earrings. My hair is just wavy enough to get all tangled in them. Boo.
I grew my hair out (mid-way down back) over the last year for my wedding this summer, partly because it was the right timeline to grow it out and a little bit because I loved having short hair so much I figured I might never have long hair again unless I gave myself a reason.
But now it’s been a year and I have 6 months left and I want so badly to chop it all off. My reward though is that I’m going to dye the ends purple and blue for a period after the wedding, and then I’ll just get a short bob again and live happily ever after forever without ever again needing an hour to shampoo/condition/detangle/blow dry my hair.
Oh, the dyed ends sound gorgeous! You’re two thirds of the way there! Don’t give up!
No! I’ve always had really long hair, past my bum for most of my life and mid-thigh for a good few years. Then three and a half years ago I was really ill, my then-partner suddenly up and left me, and as a result of those two things, I lopped off my hair. I was aiming for shoulder length, but the mobile hairdresser put in such appallingly uneven and peculiar layers that it had to be cut to chin length. I did my best to embrace it as a change, and it was fun in a way, but it didn’t really feel like me until it got to mid-back. It’s now at waist-length and I’ll probably keep it between waist and hip length.
As for all the people talking about relentless tangles and snarls, you know, I have always been strict about putting my hair up or plaiting it before going out, and wondered how all those other people with long hair managed to avoid hellish tangles. That answers that question. a) Put it up when you’re going out somewhere that’ll tangle it, and b) oil it! Mine is absolutely drinking in coconut oil in the dry air we’re getting from having the heating on in this cold weather.
I hear you on identifying as a long hair person. My mother says (and I believe her) my first sentence was “I want long hair.”
Oh! Have you tried Argan oil on your hair? Mine prefers that over coconut oil, which is what I used, too, up until just last year.
Me! I basically haven’t more than trimmed my hair in three years so it’s the longest it’s ever been. I love it, it’s red and has a side shave, but I am getting itchy. I plan on dying it back brown, getting bangs, and bleaching half of it for a dip dye in blue. Once I’ve killed half my hair I’m cutting it to my chin/maybe pixie.
Mmmm yes make your hair suffer for your beauty! I love it.
I chopped to a shoulder-length bob and it’s MAGICAL. I can still put it up but it’s so much less tangled, takes less long to dry, and it doesn’t get wrapped up in my scarves. Never going back.
I only wet my hair like every other week in the winter, so at least I don’t have to worry about the mess of letting it dry.
I love LOVE love pixie cuts but I think longer hairs flatter my face more. Therefore I am in constant solidarity with those who want to cut their hair. I eternally want to cut my hair.
About every other day I really REALLY want to cut it all off. Seriously the only thing stopping me from doing it right now is I cannot afford the maintenance on a short haircut, something I know from much experience. 🙁 I can only afford to get my hair cut professionally about once a year, which is not enough by far. :(:(
When I have Real Job (TM) I’m going to cut it off! I keep fantasizing about short hair and cute hats, etc.
I forgot about the time and money expense keeping up a short ‘do and yeah, that is a huge mark in the NO column.
Me! I have hair down to about the bathing suit tan line on my boobs, and I have been idly fantasizing about getting one of those cuts that is, like, mid-neck length in the very back but gets longer towards the front? I don’t know what it’s called. I have always my whole life been obsessed with having long hair, though, so it might be the same part of my brain that idly fantasizes about smashing fancy glass objects, jumping off buildings, and otherwise just lazily dwells on one’s innate power to fracture the world in small ways.
Also, I am overweight and have very thin hair and I suspect that having a lot of it is the only thing that balances my face out. Plus I keep seeing pictures of myself from 7-ish years ago, when my hair was down to my shoulders, and my initial reaction is always a mix of “UGH it’s so SHORT” and “Jeez it took SEVEN YEARS to grow from my shoulders to the top of my boobs?” so I’ll probably leave it where it is?
Wow, and I thought my hair grew slow. Yeah, that would be a huge deterrent to chopping it off for sure.
I go between long hair, down to my belly button if I can, and chin length. I’ll wear it one way for a year or two and then go the other way. Of course there is the miserable 8-9 months where it is too short to do anything with but not long enough to look good, but then all of a sudden I can have updos and I start having fun with it again.
Wow, your hair must grow fast!
I say go for it!
I had long hair as a teen, and it just hung in a ropey, lifeless mess (I have curly hair, but it forms ringlets and doesn’t have much bounce to it). Starting in university, I’ve been having my hair cut to a bob length, slightly below the chin, and letting it grow out to the shoulders before getting it cut again. It is MUCH more flattering, especially after I got bangs (SCREW THE BANGS-HATERS). Idk how attached you are to ponytails and buns, but I personally don’t really regret not being able to style my short hair. Then again, my hair texture looks bad in ponytails and I’m self-conscious of how my side profile looks with my hair back, so I wasn’t doing much of that to begin with.
Sometimes I wish I could have a pixie cut or an undercut, but with my limp curls and squishy cheeks, it would probably not be a good idea… If only I had straight/wavy hair, dammit! I’d have so much more freedom to decide between short and long hairstyles, and not have to cling to the one bob haircut that works. Sigh.
I kind of love ropey, messy hair? I’m not going to pretend I don’t appreciate my own hair texture, but did you see Only Lovers Left Alive? Tilda Swinton’s wig that movie is my dream hair texture (although I’ll keep my color).
I’m late to the party here, but I did a Christmas chop (long wavy bob). I miss my long hair a bit (though I did a first chop at the start of summer), but shorter hair is working out well for me. I actually style it! it looks okayish even when I do nothing much with it! I don’t just put it in a bun out of sheer frustration! So, I mean, maybe go for it and then it’ll be cute and longer by springtime.
I had a moment where I thought what is a Christmas chop, thinking it was a new style or something. HA!
Your hair is gorgeous! (Both long and short – I am sure it will look great whatever you decide to do with it.) I sympathise with the feelings of wanting to chop it off, though; I get that in summer, when it’s just so hot. (I have never had short hair and haven’t had a haircut of any kind in three years due to general incompetence when it comes to adulthood, but after I saw Fury Road I was seized with a very strong desire to shave it all off.)
Hah! I was tipsy when I saw Fury Road the second time, and if we’d had clippers at home I would have given myself a buzz that very night.
About a month or two later I got a pixie cut instead.
You were not alone in that inclination, let me tell you.
Furiosa just gave me a lot of feelings. (I strongly suspect that getting rid of all of my hair would not work for me at all – do I have Charlize Theron’s face? No, I do not), but the urge is most definitely there.)
Shameless self-promotion:
Toasts! I invented a party game. It’s really fun! So if you like parties, or fun, or games, check it out!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/711366505/pa…
Ooooh! I have friends who loves games and one who does game design (he’s involved in the gaming programming for this year’s World Con so excited for him!). Totes sending this to all of them. Thanks for the link and good luck!
Thank you, thank you!!
Drynuary check-in! I would say we’re in the homestretch, but we still have one more weekend of this thing. How are you feeling?
I’m going to see Hamilton on Wednesday with my mom, and then I’m supposed to hear back about a new job next week. The week will either be SUPER awesome or just pretty awesome. Either way, I will not be able to enjoy a wine lunch with my mom or be able to celebrate/drown my sorrows in old fashioneds. What other ways do you reward/console yourself when you’re not drinking?
We’ve been doing the one-a-night, one-night-a-week thing and it’s been amazing. I think we’re going to stick with it.
Best wishes for good news about the job!
I’m feeling obnoxiously proud of myself for not stopping by the liquor store to get my own bottle of scotch after breaking up with the man I thought I was spending my life with. However, the first weekend of February is already reserved for a gaggle of friends, whiskey and lots of talking.
I’ve been rewarding/consoling myself with exhausting exercise. I haven’t been able to sleep well and have been using that time to get out of the house for long walks.
Hugs, hugs, hugs. You will feel better even though it may feel like that day will never come. <3
Still smooth sailing. Way smoother than I expected tbh. Now I’m trying to figure out what kind of limits/rules I need so I don’t get bingey when I go back to drinking. Right now I’m thinking these: 2/day, 6/week max, keep no more than the daily max in the house (for beer), and drinking is for celebration/reward/social cohesion, NOT for stress/negative emotions.
What rules do you all use?
I think those are good rules! I’ve also been assessing how I’m going to improve my alcohol habits going forward; I don’t want to gain back the weight I’ve lost, and while I like being drunk, I like not being hungover a lot more. I think your numbers are very doable!
I also had a shit week last week, and I kept wanted some alcohol, but I knew I was because I was sad and alcohol would only exacerbate the situation. I think your idea of only drinking in positive situations is a great one.
I’m having a similar experience. I’m having a successful Drynuary but worried I won’t be able to make myself stick to limited drinking rules when it’s over. I have been using the app Drink Control for several months now and I really like it. It has a whole interface for keeping track of number of drink units (I’ve found that a pint of beer can actually count as 2-3 drink units 🙁 ) on a calendar and tells you whether you are staying within the recommended limits health-wise. My rule is that I have to be completely honest with it, since I’m the only one who can see it. However, I was feeling pretty disappointed in myself for averaging 40 drinks in 30 days, which is why I decided to commit to Drynuary in the first place. It has been SO satisfying to see the drink count drop off over the past few weeks.
I’ll have to try that out.
I’ve implemented the “buy no booze until the end of February” mandate with one purchasing exception per month, and it’s been ok so far except that the risotto I’m making this weekend calls for white wine and I had to hastily re-assess because there’s no way I’m using the super nice Riesling in the cupboard for cooking. And then I’ll have to drink the rest of the cheaper wine.
I’m not missing it! And I’m not sure when I’ll go back to drinking. Or if I will.
Toasties! Come here and bring your good things and you good news. I feel like hugging people and rejoicing today.
For me, I’m just thrilled that my shows are back, and that The 100 did not skimp on the gay in their premiere, and I’m going to see the USWNT play Ireland tomorrow! I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN!!!!
um….THERE WAS LESBIANISM IN CALL THE MIDWIFE! does that count?! Also Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allyne are having twins! …um… They fixed the fryers at my dining hall so I can have curly fries!
OH MY GOD I DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE HAVING BABIES I AM SO EXCITED FOR THEM AHHHH
i’ve missed you so much
I’m going to the game too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
good news- I’m giving myself permission to stop trying to learn the Tamil language. I’m excited to refocus that energy into further developing my Spanish skills.
We are super excited because our favourite gamified indie music website (http:/ /http://www.thesixtyone.com/) has come back from the dead! I have gotten an account under this username and am listening to tons of new-to-me music and loving it all. If anyone would like an invite let me know! (You do not NEED an invite but I do get extra website love for bringing people onboard, so…)
Oooh, I’ve been wanting more music lately! I would love an invite. 🙂
email me — brynplusplus at gmail — and I will send you one ASAP!
Oh hey, I just discovered there’s an invite URL I can share!
http://www.thesixtyone.com/?referred_by_username=…
This is so lovely. I’m under my username.
I’m always up for new music. My email is my username with mt at the end at gmail
Invite sent!
This week, the class creating their own original story at the place where I volunteer made up a character named Banana the banana who liked to eat bananas. First graders are wonderful creatures.
I just watched The 100 premiere! I love most of the directions they seem to be going! And I’m very pleased they didn’t skimp on the gay. (Can’t wait for Lexa to come back, though.)
Have fun at the game. I will be watching on TV mid-blizzard, being very jealous of southern CA weather.
And for my own good news – I just got a call from a company I interviewed with back in November, and they have an opening soon and I’m their first choice! I’m not counting on anything just yet, but it certainly sounds like I may be employed in the next few weeks.
I had an idea for a novel and wrote a bunch of it! I don’t know if anything will come of it, but it felt good to write like I was running out of time.
I have a phone screen for a data wrangling/support position at a social justice nonprofit on Monday. Working for any kind of nonprofit like this one is a decades-old wish of mine that has yet to materialize. I know enough not to think that working for a nonprofit is all puppies and kittens, but … yay. 🙂
I also have a second interview for a contract testing job at a really nice company in downtown Boston. It’s not often that the job market situation presents an apparent win-win conflict to me but it is happening now.
I told a friend that if my life were like this with regard to guys, I’d be all set… actually I would be hiding under the bed like Boo Radley’s ghost!
Helloooooooooo.
I am officially no longer in therapy! My 6 weeks of CBT are up, and I’m okay with it. I think I’ve got to the point where I have to tackle my anxiety myself, with my new CBT skills, or I’ll just bumble along to therapy every week forever…
My new history course at uni is great.
My tarot skills are rapidly improving and today I did a reading for my lovely friend who has been very down lately, and she was really pleased with it, it was very positive and true to her.
The new POP my doctor put me on seems good so far (I’m two weeks in).
I just made amazing blood orange marmalade.
And best of all, the minor fuckup (not my fault) that could have thrown the exhibition I’m working on off the rails is being dealt with by someone else!
I had a really good conversation with Mr. Thuja this week about how I felt about work and how I could be happier in the rest of my life and what we could do to spend more time together doing things that made us happy. We haven’t implemented anything yet, but just the conversation was a happy and positive thing.
I have been faffing about with a smallish, not very good harp my friends lent me (and also a 19 string wire-strung harp another friend lent me, but that’s a totally different animal in terms of sound, technique and repertoire), and have a proper 34 string rental harp arriving on Sunday! The plan is that this will give me a chance to play the proper repertoire and become more proficient, and also see what I think of the string type, before going to the Edinburgh Harp Festival in April and choosing which harp I will buy. Haaaaaaaaarp! Although the ones I am eyeing up for buying are much nicer than that, probably a Starfish Student. I am currently learning the first movement from Bernard’s Épices.
Any other harpers on the Toast?
I have a really simple harp (harpsicle! It’s cute and red) and I can play like three songs on it but it’s fun!
Yay harpsicles! Have fun with it.
Harpsicles are such a good idea. I remember when they first started making them; and my harp teacher (as I was taking lessons at the time) was excited that her students on a budget had an option other than those shitty rosewood ones with the celtic knotwork that were all over ebay and were really, really awful.
I mean, I wish I’d saved up longer and bought a Dusty Strings Ravenna. When I was playing all the time my dream harp was a Stoney End or Thormahlen!
But harpsicles are really good for the price. And so lightweight and easy to carry!
Yes hello! I played the harp as a kid, but gave it up in college because I just didn’t have room — the harp I(/my parents) have owned since childhood is a big one, a Salzedo. But now I have a house of my own, with enough extra space that just last week I reclaimed my harp! I’ve played a tiny bit since then, and discovered that most of the sheet music I still have is now too hard for me. I’m hoping to work my way back up to where I can play some of the pieces I loved as a student.
Ooh, impressive. I get that with piano, I was a really good pianist when I was at school, and then I got ill (ME.CFS), and generally life happened, and now I think I’m at the skill level I was at in my early teens. As for harp, I played for a couple of years when I was twelve and then turned into a percussionist, as you do. I’ve got enough general musicality still that I don’t have to trudge through the Three Blind Mice stage, thankfully. What sort of things do you play?
I also turned into a percussionist! How about that! (When I started high school, I didn’t want to take gym, so I tried to join the drill team, which would have excused me. But when I walked in to talk to the director of bands, there were some older kids in the room who heard me say “… drill team” and literally RAN over and said “NO SHE DOESN’T, she wants to — can you read music, by the way? GREAT, she wants to play the xylophone is what she wants” and thus I was drafted into the marching band, which also excused me from gym, so everyone came out a winner.)
The only sheet music I have at the moment that’s at my level is a book of early music and a book of Christmas carols, so at the moment I play a lot of medieval dances! This Corelli gigue is probably my first goal piece — I could stumble through it slowly right now, but it’ll take some practice to get to where I can play it at tempo again.
That’s rather nice. Is it playable on lever harp? And where do I find it?
I’ve dug up the sheet music! Unfortunately it doesn’t look playable on lever harp.
If you still want to find a copy, it’s the Giga from Sonata Op. 5 No. 9 by Arcangelo Corelli, and there are arrangements of it included in a couple of different harp books that I can find (one called The Baroque Harp: 18 Favorite Pieces, and the one I have, which is Solos for the Harp Player edited by Lucile Lawrence).
OH HEY YES.
I mean, I’m waaaaay out of practice. But I own a Sharpsicle–I wish I’d waited and bought a Dusty Strings Ravenna, but them’s the breaks.
MY PAPER IS GETTING PUBLISHED!
Found out today. It is especially nice because the revisions seemed really simple and then I spent four months trying to get one awful assay to work. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE EASY. So I’m really glad they didn’t ask for anything else.
Yessssss go you that is awesome! Being published is huge!
Omg so. I made an appointment with a primary care doc who is transpositive and I get to see her at the end of February! I mentioned this earlier this week on a daily thread but I still count it as the best thing ever.
And my husband is cheerfully helping me figure out how to afford reworking my work wardrobe so I’m no longer having to wear femme drag at work sometimes. I knew he was wonderful (it helps that he is agender) but omg yas. Dressin’ like a dude, getting queer hair, somewhat transitioning in plain sight while still being safe…
I got a job interview for an actual job with full time hours and decent pay! The first interview went well and I have a second one next Thursday. And in other news, one of my courier jobs instituted a wage floor during the winter snow storm, so I just today I am getting paid $40 to watch Netflix on my phone at a mall instead of hustling for commission work in -30 blizzard.
I have an interview coming up for a job I applied for last month – which is very fast turnaround time for the government.
This place looks great (a real library instead of 2 cubicles and a storage area in the basement! a collection with a much wider and more interesting scope!), it would be permanent, my commute would be a 45-minute walk through nice parts of town and passing by my favourite cafe (saving money on bus fare! low-impact exercise!), I’d have higher take-home pay due to working in Ontario instead of Quebec…
I’m trying not to get ahead of myself (or panic at the thought of an interview) but I want a new job so bad.
That sounds so fabulous! GO GET EM! HURRAH HURRAH! (cheer squad activate!)
High-five! You will kill it.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you! You’re gonna do great.
You’re going to rock it!
Good luck!!! You’ll be amazing!
Good luck!
You will do well. No doubts. Wishing you confidence.
Good luck!!!!!
YOU CAN DO IT!
Congratulations!! Fingers crossed for you.
What a great person you clearly are, to have gotten the interview! They are salivating about meeting you. They hope their coffee is good enough and their shelves dust-free enough to entice you to join them. They are having heated, whispered debates about bringing in the good pastries to offer you, so you’ll love them, or sticking with the normal selection so you don’t storm out, enraged, on your first day and shatter their dreams. Then that one guy frets you might be gluten-free and everyone dissolves into a puddle of uncertainly.
All the good wishes heading your way; you will SLAY IT.
Yay! Good luck!!
Good luck!
Good luck!
Toasties, I was watching Kinky Boots the other day (as I often am) and I had a revelation. This is the first time in my life that I might actually be able to buy myself, say, a well-made pair of shoes that lasts a lifetime, or a durable bag that can fit as many books as I need. But I have no idea who makes that stuff.
Where do you go to buy quality shoes, bags, and stuff?
Frye boots. Cost a fortune, but they will last for ever and ever and they’re super well made and comfortable. For snow and winter boots, La Canadienne, same.
Seconding Frye boots. I am a lucky lucky woman who has managed to buy two pairs (one in college when I had fewer expenses, one with a tax return) and they are THE BEST.
For Frye boots, I really recommend setting up an eBay notification. The styles are so classic they don’t change them much, so the particular size and style you want is likely to come up. I got a brand new pair for considerably less than new that way.
I got a pair of Frye boots for the holidays!
I was going through 1 pair/year because I wore my brown lace-up boots every single day for all of spring, fall, and early pre-snow Chicago winter; hopefully these will hold up for longer than the $80-$100 dollar pairs I’ve bought every spring the past few years…
However, I haven’t worn them yet. Mostly because there’s actually snow now, and a windchill of -25 degrees. I need the protection of my heavy-duty snowboots. However, there have been a few warm(er)+dry days where I’ve wanted to wear them but haven’t, because what if I ruin them?!?!?!
My question: how do I properly care for these boots? I sprayed them with a waterproofing spray, but that feels like flimsy armor when faced with the ravages of the elements. How do I make sure they last for years and years?
My best suggestion is to find a highly rated shoe repair place on Yelp, take your boots there and ask them to attach rubber soles so you don’t wear down the leather soles. When the rubber soles wear down, the shoe repair people can easily replace them, whereas resoling leather boots is expensive and could ruin them. You sacrifice the feeling of walking with leather soles for longevity.
My shoe repair guy recommends mink oil, but I don’t use it because I suspect it isn’t ethical. Yours may have a better recommendation.
I’ve heard there’s a cobbler in my college neighborhood, I’ll ask around to see if they’re any good! thank you!
I keep hearing good things about Frye boots, but I usually need wide width and extra wide calf (like 17-18 inches, when their wide boots are 15-16). How stretchable are they?
In my experience, not very – and the 15-16 inches is only just barely true (that’s my calf width; with the last pair I tried, I could get them on, but my legs looked like sausages). But I also have very short legs, so my calf muscle begins lower down than most people.
Oh man, La Canadienne! They got me through three long New England winters looking professional.
I have no idea who makes that stuff either, but I just want to say that I too was watching Kinky Boots the other day and was reminded how very much I enjoy that movie . . .
Frye for boots and shoes, Nisolo for boots, shoes, and handbags!
Moop!
They have lovely handmade waxed canvas bags. I have one of the messenger bags and I looovvveee it.
Zappos carries both and they have really high quality stuff on there.
My favorite sturdy well made handbag is actually a Coach bag that they apparently aren’t making anymore. It was a birthday present in 2012 from my mom – she wanted to buy me a “grown up” bag that I would use forever. It’s this one, and I bet you could find something similarly classic and sturdy and such in their current line.
I had that Coach bag in a beautiful reddish brown, from my mother out of her own closet, but it was stolen right out of from under my chair in a Starbucks in 2010, and I still think about it, sadly, like, a lot.
I’m a big fan of Born boots. I have a pair that’s held up for at least 7 years now.
In durables, I have had some great luck finding old school coach bags in thrift stores. Not the new ones but the real big leather ones. Then I take em to my shoe guy and get them spiffed up.
I find that Nordstrom sells some decent shoe brands. Off the top of my head Jeffrey Campbell, Steve Madden (a bit cheapie, but still sturdy), Seychelles, Frye, Born and Clarks are all shoes I’ve done well by in the past, oh and I have a pair of steve edleman booties that are the bees knees. I’d recommend going to a big mall with a lot of shoe stores and just wandering around handling the shoes. Good shoes have sturdy soles and thick leather or fabric.
The other thing though that I’d add is if you want lifetime shoes or bags, you have to be prepared to take them into the doctor from time to time. Shoes, even the best well made shoes are going to need new soles, bags will need cleaning etc. Step one of my adult revolution was buying new stuff, but step two was realizing that you could extend the life by caring for it. I know a shoe guy so good my friend had him cut her knee high boots down into ankle boots!I’ve had shoes resized so that they fit each foot perfectly, I’ve had shoes cleaned and re-soled, or had inserts added to shoes to keep the ankle from cutting. There’s so much you can do with a good pair of shoes to make it a perfect and irreplacable pair. This is an exciting journey!
I want to cut out this comment and mail it to myself for future reference. Taking care of things! So important! (I’m very early in the buy-actually-durable-stuff phase of my own adulthood, but it seems like advice you can never implement too soon)
Oh man it’s like christmas when you pay the shoe guy 75 bucks to fix half your shoes and then you go pick them up, and there are your favorites, all new again! Cheaper than buying new, and more satisfying for sure.
Seconding this! I recently took some ankle boots to the cobbler because the cap on one heel had fallen off and the backs of the heels were scuffed anyway. My coworkers were all, “Who goes to a cobbler anymore?! That’s so fancy!” But paying $25 to make unwearable, otherwise nice boots like new again is a lot cheaper and less wasteful than just wearing shoes into the ground. (Also, you look much more put together!) When I buy shoes, I usually look for entirely-leather uppers (more comfortable, wears better, easier to repair), thick/sturdy leather (gets stretched/holes much less easily), and heel material that can be repaired/replaced fairly easily. (For example, I’ve gotten my flat boots reheeled about 3x now because all the cobbler has to do is swap the outer layer of the heel and nail a new one on.)
I also keep saddle soap, leather protector (I have the LL Bean boot guard kind), and black shoe polish on hand and clean/repolish my shoes whenever they start looking really dirty or dried-out/cracked.
For giant bags, I recommend Queen Bee Creations: https://www.queenbee-creations.com/. My first bag from them lasted about six years (and still looked fantastic–the only reason I don’t have it any longer is because I got mugged); while they’re pretty expensive, they’re very, very durable. And spacious: I have used both my old and new bag from them to carry stacks of library books, a small grocery-shopping run, enough smuggled-in movie snacks for five people…you name it.
My Doc Martens just turned ten, and they’re still going strong.
I change out the insoles in them every few years, and I make sure the use boot polish. I need to get them resoled, but when I do that, they’ll probably last another ten years. I love them dearly!
Seconding doc martens! I just got a pair a couple weeks ago, but my housemate swears by them.
Now that Doc Martens have moved most of their manufacturing to China, I’d say Solovair (https://www.solovair-shoes.com/). They are the place that made Doc Martens when the production was still in the UK and still make the (more expensive) heritage line, but they also sell cheaper shoes under their own Solovair brand. Really great and sturdy boots. Both me and the boyfriend got a pair three years ago and you couldn’t tell by the looks of them that we have both been using them almost daily every winter since (and I live really north).
Not a recommendation, just something I want to share. I recently found out about a reddit sub called Buy It For Life that’s entirely about finding really really durable and good quality goods. It skews male, but there are some women on there talking about women’s clothing and things like how to find bed sheets that will last for decades has been so eye opening for me.
I just emailed that to myself to check later, because yes, hello, I want this information.
I like fossil bags. They’re pretty, fairly classic, they hold up well, and they have a good warranty.
I love Fossil bags too. And I know this is very location-dependent but I’ve always gotten great service at my local Fossil store – I had this purse and the little lock thingy broke off after a few months, and they replaced the purse even though I didn’t have my receipt anymore.
My local fossil is great too. My mom won a bag in some sort of raffle and it was bright pink. I took it to the store and they gave me store credit for the price on the bag, even though it wasn’t something they were currently selling and it wasn’t even still in their computer system!
Second the Fossil recommendation! I bought this bag back in 2012 & it’s still going strong as my daily bag.
Thirding the fossil rec! I’ve used their Sydney Shopper as my work bag for the last 4 years (three which were in places where I was out and about in all sorts of snowy weather) and it still looks great!
I like Miz Mooz for shoes and boots. And I had a stunning pair of Aquatalia boots that I wore and wore and wore and wore. They were $400 in 2007 – price has really jumped since then, though.
I have too many pairs of New Rock boots. And Ariat boots for when I am being more horsey and less gothy.
This depends entirely on your style, but for a durable bookbag I love my Freitag bag. Made from durable recycled materials, each one is unique & they can take a beating unlike anything else. Added bonus of being inherently waterproof! I bought mine at their flagship store in Zurich back in 2008, & it has since endured round-the-world trips & cargoes of books with hardly a scratch on it.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a destroyer of things. I rarely take the precautionary steps necessary to preserve things, and I’m rough with everything I touch because I have large hands and I’m clumsy. Even when I try to care for things I am miraculously able to destroy, destroy, destroy.
ANYWAY. The things that I have found that I endorse forever and ever and ever:
– Merrell hiking boots. I’m not even sure how long I have had them but they are old and beat up but they do what they’re supposed to do, in that they are sturdy and strong and allow me to hike.
– Fly London shoes. They are sooooooo comfortable, come in cute styles, and I love them.
– IIIbeca by Joy Gryson bags. Look, every single one of my purses has broken within a year. I shove too many things in it, I get the zipper caught on my coat, the strap can’t handle my fidgeting, etc. I have had my IIIbeca (pronounced Tribeca) for FIVE YEARS. It looks a bit beat up but it’s going strong. The purse will not quit, despite my closing doors on it, running it over with office chairs, etc, etc. It is my OG bag and I will probably be buried with it.
Seconding Fly London boots!
I love my Fly boots.
My grown-up professional bags are from Levenger. Going on a dozen years, and the one time a strap needed mending I took it to a professional cobbler, and voila it was easy. Levenger = recommended.
I really love the Michael Kors saffiano leather bags for durability and Carrying Ridiculous Amounts of Crap.
Toast: favourite nonalcoholic drink? Since I’ve kicked caffeine (and immensely improved my anxiety), I’m addicted to sparkling water. The stuff with only the tiniest hint of flavour, not the sweetened stuff.
If I can get Vernor’s, though, that is ALL I will drink. I love it and can’t get it here, it’s the only ginger ale worthy of the name. Or herbal tea, which I drink constantly at work, preferably anything with ginger in it because I’m a ginger fiend.
Sparkling water/club soda/seltzer with a dash of flavored balsamic vinegar
VERNOR’S OMG OMG YES
I do seltzer with flavored bitters- http://www.feebrothers.com and http://scrappysbitters.com/cocktails/ (lavender!)
F-yeah VERNORS!!!
If you like balsamic vinegar, have you yet discovered shrubs? I only recently found out about them and wondered where they had been all my life. Fruit infused vinegary goodness. Delicious with sparkling water or ginger ale.
YES. I looooove shrubs. There’s actually a little mom-and-pop outfit in town that does shrub sodas and they’re AMAZING.
Shrubs and drinking vinegars are the best things! I need to buy more, and soon.
I’ve recently fallen in love with celestial seasoning’s apple spice tea. I make a whole pot of it in the evenings and it makes me feel so cozy and warm. When I need a caffeine kick, I sub out some of the tea bags for chai instead, (usually 2 chai: 1 apple spice, because the spice is strong)
Lemonade. If I could afford it, I would always have a bottle of Simply Lemonade in my fridge.
That is the *best* lemonade. I tried making my own once and while it turned out fine, the cost of the lemons here meant that I’d be better off with some Simply Lemonade unless I just really wanted to experiment.
Seconded! Their orange juice is pretty great as well but the lemonade is to die for. It’s all I drink in the summer.
I’ve been doing a lot of seltzer topped with a few dashes of bitters, which is great, and you can get really fancy with the bitters and change up the flavors.
Jinx!
I find that seltzer and fancy bitters in a fancy glass almost (almost but not quite) satisfies the urge for a cocktail. The luxury of a fancy glass should not be underestimated.
Coca-cola + Angostura = so good.
I like Ginger Ale with Angostura. It takes like those weird coke bottle gummy candies ^_^
Bubbly water, limeade (hmmmmm with ginger? mind blown!) and just about any tea.
I like mixing sparkling water with a bit of fruit juice. It’s like pop, but not as sweet, and it’s probably better for you. (I choose to believe it is.)
Also: all the teas.
I do this too! Juice now tastes weird to me if it’s not at least half seltzer.
Pink grapefruit juice is the best.
Yesss. I’m also a fan of strawberry/kiwi.
My friend recently introduced me to Hal’s vanilla seltzer and it tastes like cream soda and is AMAZING.
New York Seltzer. Clearly Canadian.
Last summer I went through case after case of La Croix. If I’d had a car (instead of having to bungee them to the rear rack of a bicycle) I probably would have drank even more.
Usually we are picky (snobby?) about teas, but Celestial Seasonings Jammin Lemon Ginger is an awfully good lemon ginger tea! When not drinking way, way too much coffee we drink that, and the Bengal Spice, and sometimes Reed’s Ginger Brew.
Bengal Spice is delightful! It’s like a non-caffinated alternative to chai.
Yes! I drink it with sugar and soy cream and it is wonderful.
Bigelow has a vanilla chai decaf tea that works really well with this as well.
San Pellegrino aranciata 4 life!!
I also love the pompelmo (also delightful with gin if you want to make it boozy)
There are some low-sugar sodas at Whole Foods and like places that are super yummy… they come in flavors like blueberry and vanilla too.
I’ll basically drink lemonade all day if given the chance. Since it is so sugary, i restrain myself to only getting it every few weeks at panera.
Polar Seltzer is the BEST. One of the winter flavors is tart cherry lime. It’s on clearance sale right now, and I’m stocking up. The best year round flavors are lemon and grapefruit.
POLAR SELTZER FOR THE WIN!! The number one best thing about New England is the availability of Polar Seltzer. Now that I live in Texas, I have to resort to ordering it from Amazon, which just isn’t the same…
In the winter, tons of herbal tea. Celestial Seasonings’ Candy Cane Lane is my favorite (decaf green, with mint, vanilla and cinnamon). We stock up, because it also makes great iced tea.
I’m anti caffeine for the same reason. I swear by La Croix. It’s weirdly addicting as hell. For me I crave fizz more than the soda aspect, so I made a syrup using oranges and limes and sugar, reduced, and pour club soda or seltzer over it. Delicious.
I really like ginger beer!
I drink approximately a river of La Croix every day. Some flavors are definitely better than others, but “better” seems to be a matter of personal taste.
http://www.lacroixwater.com/
<3 La Croix, yesss
I love sparkling water with a hint of flavour and no sweetener and it is IMPOSSIBLE to find where I live 🙁 Pour out a La Croix for me, will ya?
“Dry Soda” (that’s the brand ) cucumber and rhubarb flavors. In winter I drink buckets of celestial seasonings herbal tea, especially Bengal Spice
Yes I love these guys. I also love cherry, and vanilla, but the lavender was a pass for me.
I am perpetually in love with Polar – it’s seltzer-y, no calories, and (depending on what flavors you get) is just mild enough to go with everything.
I’m kind of shocked no one has mentioned it, but Moxie is the greatest soda of all time. It’s gotta have something illegal in it because that shit cures headaches, clears your skin, and makes you more attractive (ok, maybe it only cures headaches).
I am a huge fan of Gerolsteiner. It tastes like chalk! which admittedly might not be to everyone’s taste.
It was to my taste in kindergarten (chalk, that is).
RISE rose & schizeranda kombucha, omg! The ginger flavour is good too. But the down side is they’re sooooo expensive. One of my partners used to work at the bottling plant and brought tons home all the time, but unfortunately she quit :/
I love kombucha so much that I’m strongly considering making it myself just to save money. Online tutorials lead me to believe it’s not that difficult, and the co-op a block from my house sells scobies.
It’s really really not, I used to have several gallons going. You can even grow your own mother from bottled kombucha, just leave about a cup and add sugar. I would also make super strong herbal tea to add after the fermentation period, for flavour.
Thanks to everyone last OT who talked me through my wanting to erase everything that reminds me of the bad years of my traumatic brain injury! I’m trying to find the joy in things again instead of just replacing things, and I’m slowing down and doing research. Your replies filled me with such happiness that I’m pretty sure a sun glow followed me around that day.
Sorry if I gave you bad advice? I just hate the doubting part of hypomania hypochondria.
Oh no, not at all. I actually wrote a reply to you that day, but it ended up being about 3 pages long so I got embarrassed and erased it. I, too, hate the self-doubt of bipolar disorder; and your comment was so empathetic that it brought out all kinds of FEELINGS. So I looked at my self-doubt (after reading your comment) and sat down to make a list of things I want to replace and thought about them, and then considered just how long I’ve been wanting those things. If I’d been looking at things more than 6 months, I put it down to “you really do want this”; and if it was for a few days, I put it on a Watch List of: keep track of this, review it in 6 months and if you still like the Thing, go ahead and buy it.
I don’t know about you, but I used to use my manias just for doing research; and then when I was in a “normal” mood I’d review the research and maybe buy something. But now, after the traumatic brain injury, the impulse buys are becoming more frequent. That scares me, but now I think I’ve found a way to slow things down with the Watch List.
It also feels really good that I know someone else is out there dealing with the same thing.
In other words, I loved your comment but Uff Dah on my 3 pages of FEELINGS and I hope you are doing well this winter when SAD is about.
Thank you, I am glad you found my response empathetic rather than full of denial. Because I don’t really have the spending symptom like some people do, it’s not a huge signal for me. I have a much harder time giving myself permission to feel good. This winter hasn’t been bad for me, which is really good because I still need to find a new-city psych. Spring is “my” season, so I better get things in place. It sounds like you did some very important work on this stuff after opening up to the Toast. I’m glad you were brave and smart enough to open up, and I’ll still be thinking of you.
Thank you, and I wish you good luck in finding a new psychiatrist.
<3
I’m glad to hear you’re doing better. A friend of mine had a TBI when she was 14, had a hellish time afterwards (it was a year before the doctors rewould believe that she had total amnesia), and she wrote a book about her experiences. In case you find it useful, it’s Cracked by Lynsey Calderwood. She’s in her late thirties now, doing much better, although she’s still disabled by the TBI. Has a lovely girlfriend, has been doing well as a writer for years, including teaching creative writing.
Oh my gosh, thank you. I think I’m finally at a point where I can read what someone else has been through and can find some meaning in it (because early years of TBI are just about getting through the days minutes hours)! I would love to read this book! Thank you for stopping by and telling me about it! (I’m curious to know whether the TBI spawned creativity in her, regarding her writing, or if she’d been a writer before … ) Anyway, can’t wait to read it.
I’m not sure. Her personality was completely different afterwards, she tells me that always happens with people with TBI who lose all their memories. I hope it’s useful. Apparently they’ve been using it for teaching neurology students about TBI, which is great.
Oh god food, you guys, FOOD.
What sort of things are you all stocking up on? Our freezer is jammed with pot pies, crab cakes, and jars of soup and chili.
I have a bunch of produce to get through from the January winter CSA box – a massive butternut squash, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, etc. So that’s going to be a lot of my snowstorm food! But the one thing I’m getting special for the snowstorm? A challah. My roommate and I don’t always bother getting a challah for Shabbas, but I am going to eat french toast during a snowstorm, damnit!
I am slowly cooking all the soups from the blog Lady and Pups.
I made Budget Bytes’ veggie chili mac this week. It makes a ton and it’s so good. I’ve had it for lunch every day this week and I’m sad that the batch is almost gone.
Oh man! I’ve been looking at that recipe and thinking about making it – I think you cinched it for me.
I love me some Budget Bytes! I made their vegetable polenta casserole last week and it was fantastic.
Budget Bytes is the BEST hands down. I feel like a lot of the recipes skew taco-flavored, but that’s okay. Cheap, easy meals ftw
We’re making chili tonight, unless I decide that I really want to take on a new exciting food, in which case I’m going to make a vegetable lasagna with bechamel. But what I’m most excited about is making a new kind of bread. I have all the different kinds of flower!
Nice thick vegetable-filled soups, risottos, and “tv dinners” – I put different leftovers in a little pyrex dish and that way can have a reasonable, single-person meal in a moments notice. Potatoes and green beans and protein, moussaka and pilaf and kale, curry and brown rice with lots of vegetables, things like that.
I finally made the first savory pie of this winter! Which is as good a clue as any that it’s been a mild winter. Did you know that there is such a thing as cheddar cheese crust? I learned this last night and my life has changed for the better.
you can put nearly anything in pie crust and once you realize that life really opens up
Sprouts has nearly all of their teas on sale right now, soooo…….
Wine.
I’m going to stretch my cooking a little bit and try to make a quiche for my lunches next week! I’m a little bit weirdly excited about it, tbh
I am picking up a roast beef on my way home tonight and eating a late dinner because I can’t think of anything other than ROAST BEEF.
I should really do a round of chili for the freezer. And another batch of vegan ‘chicken’ soup because it’s so damn tasty.
Last year my roommate and I started a tradition of snow day fondue, and that’s going to happen tonight.
My whole household is going to my parents’ this weekend, since the odds are good Snowpocalypse Jonas is going to knock out our power. I am going to try to make spaghetti carbonara!
It’s easier than it sounds! Godspeed 🙂
I’ve been trying to he healthy but we were super poor last week so I got a giant pork shoulder/butt and put it in a slow cooker all day. Everyday we have pork. Pork tacos, pork cheese and mac, pork sandwiches, pork, rice, and beans. Just shredded pork all the time. It was 10$.
YESSS PORK BUTT YESSS
This is my stock-up too! So much pulled pork with bbq sauce.
I did a similar thing, and ended up freezing in in batches (because I live alone and after about 4 days I have to eat something else). My favorite thing I’ve done with it is a pulled pork hash (in a cast iron skillet so it got CRISPY). Chop and parboil potatoes, fry in skillet, add in the pork. Beat some eggs with some sriracha, dump into eggs and pork. Stir in some cheddar. Stir a couple of times then allow to get crispy on the bottom. Yum.
Duck.
I’ve fried potatoes twice now blanching them in vinegared water and then letting them dry/freeze over night before frying them. GAME CHANGER. Next day I have off I’m going to do up a bunch of baggies full.
This sounds intriguing! How does it affect the taste? What made you do it this way?
Doesn’t affect the taste at all as far as I can tell and I started because of this quest to make the perfect fry I personally am too lazy to double fry but just the blanche and dry has definitely improved my outcomes. Plus even from frozen I feel like it’s taking less time when frying to get them to amazing uniform-golden-brown-with-some-crispy-bits.
I made a huge pot of Joy the Baker’s Spicy Lentil Soup and I’ll be working on eating that up for the foreseeable future. It is hearty and delicious. A+
I made a thing with chickpeas, tomatoes, ALL them icky fridgebottom carrots, and lots of delicious spices. Cinnamon, cardamom, ginger… It was lovely. I think I accidentally stumbled upon the flavor combination that MAKES the food at my favorite Indian restaurant, but HOW? Further experimentation is needed and I can’t wait.
I’m making chicken tinga because we have a bunch of chicken thighs. And some baked falafel. And waffle latkes. And boyf is making tiki drinks because he has an obsession.
What kind of tiki drinks? Daiquiris/pina coladas? Now I am really mad that I didn’t think of getting ingredients for tropical drinks to guzzle while watching the snow come down.
Mai tais, shark bites and some other things, he fell deep into a tiki research hole last week and went a litte crazy making and ordering historically accurate drinks. They’re not as sugary but my god, they are FULL of booze.
A giant vat of Smitten Kitchen’s tomato sausage risotto, which I will consume all by myself along with some no-knead bread.
Well first of all, everyone at the grocery store last night was acting like they’ve never seen a grocery store before, so that sucks… but I managed to get out with a bunch of salad (so I’m not JUST scarfing down snacks all weekend), probably enough ingredients for some sort of chicken/barley soup, and chili. I also grabbed a couple things that might let me make a mashed-potato/cauliflower dish or something like that. I have a huge plastic bag full of vegetable bits and chicken carcasses in my freezer, so I am making stock (for that barley soup) as well.
YOU GUYS if it doesn’t blizzard and I have to go DO things this weekend, and leave my apartment, I will be MOST PUT OUT. All I want to do is stay in and nest.
I am making a bolognese and homemade bread for our cozy snowed in Saturday!
Another doozy of a week, guys. I’m trying to focus on the positive and am going to seize the fuck out of this weekend, and maybe plan a staycation or mini-vacation to keep me sane until spring.
Want to share Little Things that are making our lives better, again? It was so gratifying to hear yours last week. Mine are:
1) The Mountain Goats cover of Boxcar
2) Sweet potatoes every day
3) Planning out gifts to send to my high school gang for Valentine’s day (suggestions for easily mailable gifts/DIYs welcome!)
What’s been making your life better in small but essential ways?
I’ve been baking cookies, and filling my apartment with the lovely smells of vanilla and cinnamon. The cookies make my daughter visit, so she can dunk cookies in milk and that’s a wonderful thing.
Everything should smell like vanilla and cinnamon in January. What a lovely way to make your apartment cozier.
The She & Him semi-French cover of Sunday Girl
My Sharpies in my embroidered Hamilton bag
“Embroidered Hamilton bag” –do tell??
my cousin made me a drawstring bag with the logo and my name embroidered on one side and “There’s a million things I haven’t done, just you wait” embroidered on the other. It has vintage floral bedsheet lining and is basically my favorite thing ever.
WHAT A COUSIN
one year i made little felt pizza slices and embroidered “it’s cheesy how much i like you” on the back.
Cute!!
Ahaha that’s adorable?? And I bet little felt pizzas would make super cute pins for tote bags and whatnot.
1. Listening to new-to-me music on The Sixtyone every day.
2. Instagram penpals
3. Pears. I now know how to tell if a pear is ripe; you pinch it up at the very top and if it gives, it is full of delicious juicy goodness. I am eating SO MANY PEARS.
(3) There is nothing better than a cold, juicy pear. Thanks for reminding me that it’s pear season!
1) I found a bunch of cheap, cute sweaters at Goodwill to keep me warm this winter
2) Finally got my car back from the mechanic’s! It was a $2000+ job, but the guys I got my car from (used, and with no warranty) covered most of it. It cost me $500 in the end, and I can drive to work again. It’s a 20-minute drive to work versus a one-hour bus ride filled with harassment.
3) I’m almost done training to volunteer at the local animal shelter. I’m gonna pet and walk so many dogs!
4) My bad haircut is finally growing out o_o. a little.
Love the Valentine’s Day gifts idea!!
(1) Goodwill sweaters are the best sweaters. I am currently wearing a Goodwill slouchy cardigan and it is a dang good choice for today.
(3) Good on you for volunteering at the shelter and enjoy the unlimited puppy love you will soon be receiving!
Miyazaki movies.
Re-reading Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley and being consistent about my skincare routine.
Re-reading a book is so wonderful. I used to do it all the time and I hope I can get back into it at some point, but I always feel like there’s so much else I have to read…
1. Cooking again. I made two curries this week; it was awesome.
2. Painting! So much fun, even when the result is meh.
3. The Toast. Seriously, you guys, Toast commenters are the greatest.
Yes to all 3! The one good thing about winter is that cooking suddenly kills two birds– you get tasty food, and you get to hang out in the warmest room in the apartment for a while.
1. Cleaning the kitchen! Makes my whole apartment look 10x better
2. I made a pretty cake for my dad
3. Taking the time to do my hair and make-up nicely
The new MG song “Foreign Object.” It’s been a week.
I missed open thread last week but I quite like the idea of Little Things:
1. I have been mixing lemon ginger tea with honey and bourbon. It’s warming, delicious, and feels vaguely medicinal in a good way.
2. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong trying to make hard boiled eggs and can now actually make them.
3. I got new bedding for Christmas and it still makes me happy.
ooooh, I am going to try that tea-honey-bourbon combo *tonight*
I bought three paperwhite bulbs and put them in a bowl with some rocks and now am staring at them every day watching them grow and it’s strangely soothing.
I FINALLY got Netflix this week, as the last person in the Western world, and it has greatly improved my quality of life. Bog-standard horror movies! Strangely moving documentaries about orcas! Friends episodes! I can now join the Toast consensus and assert that Ross is indeed the worst. I somehow remembered him as The Normal, Nice Guy, but every time he opens his mouth I get the douchechills? Anyway, Netflix is a good thing.
I’ve been watching the snow from my window and being nice and warm. Also, watching my cat encounter snow for the first time! She’s fascinated by it!
Missed this yesterday, but I just wanted to agree that the MG Boxcar cover is the gd best. It still gets stuck in my head for no apparent reason sometimes.
For me, life is improved by the new place down the road that sells Japanese rice triangles with yummy fillings.
Oh my goodness you guys I am so excited about college life.
On wednesday night, a school night, a bunch of friends and I took the Marta to a pretty seedy section of Atlanta to see a poetry reading and storytelling session for women and non binary folks. It was AMAZING. Everyone was smart and they got the most obscure literary references, there was a rep from PP there with a bowlful of condoms, and a book raffle, and it was EXHILARATING. Then we went to Waffle House at midnight. It was a good night.
I got my first zine there, and I’m loving it! Hopefully I’ll perform there next month.
Classes are good, the girlfriend is stressed but we’re good, we saw Book of Mormon and stage doored, it was great.
I’m part of the Student Recruiters and we have our Big Weekends for All Admitted Students coming up which is terrifying but exciting. I’m still best friends with the people I met at Scholar’s Weekend last year, so hopefully it will go well. We watched Mulan and yelled at the screen and played Cards Against Humanity and then I developed a huge crush on my now girlfriend, it was a great weekend. I’m pumped.
Stay safe you guys. Love you all.
The college is closed at 2 today but my last class was at 9:30 so what’s the point.
I forgot you were in Atlanta and now I’m sad I’m not going to 221B Con this year. We could have gone out for dinner together! Next year, if I go?
yaaassssss
Toasts, what are you reading? I’ve got the Rosemary Kennedy biography on CD, and it’s making me sad.
I just started The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd, which is this weird 1970s story about a woman at the turn of the century who goes to Hong Kong and has an illicit affair. It’s thrilling and so bizarre.
I read the new Lois McMaster Bujold novel (it’s a Vorkosigan story) last week and it wasn’t what I expected, but I sort of liked it anyway. It was sort of like low-key hanging out with an old friend. Meanwhile, I’ve been audio-booking some of the earlier Vorkosigan books.
Anyone else read the new one? Thoughts?
Ooh I just read it too. I thought it was pretty low-key too, aside from Cordelia realizing what her lifespan means in regards to her Barrayaran family. I also wish there had been more Mark and Ivan, but I definitely enjoyed it.
I thought it was cool and interesting to explore adults (real ones!) finding love and hashing out lives and relationships later in life. I guess I just wanted more…hijinks. I kept waiting for an invasion or spy plot, or some sort of major scientific crisis or discovery. Part of what I’ve always liked about the Vorkosigan books is smart people plotting their way out of tricky external situations.
Yeah, there wasn’t much conflict besides “should we tell them? I guess so.” Hopefully the next book will be the adventures of Aurelia, a couple of Miles’s kids, and maybe the Vorbarra and Vorpatril kids (assuming Ivan and Tej have any, there was a vague line about it in Red Queen). I would love the reactions if the kids put their parents through the same shit that their parents did.
I just finished Young Miles, and it was great! So now I am looking forward to sucking down the rest of the series, including the new one. I actually had Young Miles on my bookshelf for years, because despite great recommendations from a bookstore I trust and the Toast, I wasn’t feeling the cover. So stupid of me!
I too have been audiobooking the Vorkosigan series! In the last two weeks, I’ve done Shards of Honor, Barrayar, Ethan of Athos, and Warrior’s Apprentice. I need to set up some reservations for the next couple at the library… I am enjoying them much more now than I did when I was a teenager.
I haven’t read the new one, since it was somehow in my head that it wasn’t coming out at all until February (apparently that’s just the hardcover; kindle version is now purchased). Thank you, Toasties, for giving me the perfect thing to do as we settle in to the blizzard!
I just finished the latest Bryant & May and it was sad.
Truly. But since it is not the end of the series, as I understand, I’m really interested to see how this plays out. (Though I do also kind of want some flashback books to their earlier cases–1950s, 60’s, ’70s….)
Yes!! I revisited Full Dark House a couple of weeks ago and oh man, I’d kind of forgotten how awesome it was to read about their early exploits. The books so frequently refer to their old cases, TELL ME MORE ABOUT THEM
I kind of wonder if Bryant’s condition might become a way to introduce flash back–he seems somewhat unmoored in time as a result.
I’m halfway through Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower which is rough but beautiful. And i like this narrator’s voice more than the narrators in Kindred and Fledgling, which is a nice surprise. Not that I didn’t like those characters or books, but the narration felt a bit stilted to me, and it’s flowing better in this book.
The Parable books are my favorites, i think. I marvel at her different narrators and narrative voices.
Packs of wild dogs! Gated communities! Water stations on the highways rife with danger! Governments not being taken over in a coup but just sort of…losing effectiveness! So sad Butler was taken from us and wish she could have written on for many more years.
Agreed agreed agreed. She is the source of a great deal of my beliefs on social justice, and I’m grateful for the early exposure (via ooloi) to the idea of genders outside the binary. Even if ooloi are manipulative and kinda disturbingly bad at consent sometimes, as Lilith correctly and loudly identifies.
I want to read this series a lot! Definitely on my to-pick-up-soon list.
I ought to reread those. I plan to go through more of her work this year. She’s such an incredible writer.
David J. Peterson’s The Art of Language Invention. It makes me happy both as a linguist and as a nerd.
I just finished Persuasion. I’m now reading The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick – I’m getting into the story but the writing is a little too adjective-laden for me to really enjoy it.
I just read “A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers which was a fun little sci-fi romp. Not a ton of plot, but it was refreshing to read a book about people who like each other and get along.
My library doesn’t have it, so I have been deciding whether to bite the bullet and buy it. . . I try to reserve actual book purchases to stories I am sure I will read again. This one has such good reviews but I’m torn. An enjoyable read about people who like each other and get along does sound refreshing, though.
I just forced myself to finish Luna: New Moon, and I’m really not sure why people like it so much. It was. . . fine.
I’m reading the new Ruby Lang, yay Toasties!
Ohhhh, that bio is so damn sad.
I’ve been tearing through my to-read list and just got through a stack of historical romances of varying okay-ness (Julia Quinn, who’s been phoning it in recently, and Courtney Milan) so am rewarding myself with a re-read of Anya Seton’s Green Darkness.
It really is. What a pressure cooker of a family environment. It’s too bad she couldn’t have just stayed with those British nuns and helped as she was able with the younger students. In a family able to buy so much accommodation and privilege, it seems especially disappointing that they failed her.
It’s awful. She was doing so well over there. And everyone’s all trying to make excuses for her mother, but I came away from the book pretty much confirmed in my opinion on ol’ Joe and Rose.
I’m going to be snowed in for the weekend and I have 3 nonfiction books (including COME AS YOU ARE, which is wonderful) that I’m aiming to make progress on, and I’m hoping to start on Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.
Yay, thumbs up for Leviathan Wakes (and The Expanse on Syfy if you’re not watching it).
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, except it is so good we can only read a few pages at a time before we have to sit down and fan ourselves. So while fanning I’m reading Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed since she went to high school with someone I know and they gave it to me as an example of everything wrong with the people they grew up with, which is a bit… weird, since so far the main character seems like a pretty ordinary person. But I’m not very far into it, maybe the Wrong is yet to come.
I have A Brief History of Seven Killings but even just a few pages in I want to cry.
I looove Bring Up the Bodies but you have to keep reading is slowly because the sequel isn’t out yet and they have no idea when it’s going to come out :C
But at least I can read everything else Mantel has ever written while I’m waiting! I actually read An Experiment in Love the very first and oooooh.
Bring Up the Bodies was one of my fave books I read last year. So enthralling!!
Isn’t it? We are so weirdly the perfect audience for these books, we geeked out on Antonia Fraser’s “The Wives of Henry VIII” earlier in life and read a bunch of historical fiction about them all and general are well backgrounded but we had NEVER paid much attention to Cromwell.
I just finished The Enthusiast by Toast-adjacent Internet Person Josh Fruhlinger; it was so nerdy & fun!
I’ve been wanting to read that! I wish my library had it.
I’m slowly making my way through Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett. I really wish I liked it better than I do (or perhaps that it was written better than it is)! Even so, I’m stubborn enough to want to complete the trilogy anyway, and terrible historical fiction epics are one of my not-that-guilty pleasures, so I’m going to finish it.
I just finished “The Brides of Rollrock Island” and now I’m about a third of the way through “Tender Morsels,” both by Margo Lanagan.
Women, YA, a little creepy…all very much in my wheelhouse. And the Brides of Rollrock Island is about Selkies, which means a lot to me. If my username didn’t give that away…
ooooh I loved Brides! So creepy, but subtly creepy, and her voice is so great.
Her voice is WONDERFUL, I kept just re-reading passages and sighing contentedly.
I loved loved LOVED that book so much and still cannot stop thinking about it. Truly, truly wonderful. I love the sheer weirdness of the selkie women, and the overall misandry of it all (of course, of COURSE even the nicest guys would rather have a passive, melancholy sea bride if given the chance).
I’m making my way through Deborah Blum’s ‘The Poisoner’s Handbook’! I’ve only gone through chapter one but so far it’s a very clearly narrated case history of how toxicology came to be established in the early 1900s, focusing on the US. I’d recommend it for anyone who’s interested in this sort of thing!
I’ve watched a (PBS?) documentary on netflix based on the book; and it was ENTHRALLING
Oooh thanks for telling me about the documentary! True crime (and mystery narratives in general) is My Thing so I’m going to see if my regional Netflix has it too. 🙂
That’s one of my favorite books! I read it a few years ago, and just did a re-read. Fascinating look at what the federal government did during Prohibition, as well.
So far I’ve really enjoyed the cases Blum has focused on – she really doesn’t shy away from the grisly bits and it’s very enjoyable to dig one’s toes in, so to speak.
I love Deborah Blum! (Ghost Hunters is great, too, about the Society for Psychical Research.)
I picked up Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger to reread… and promptly put it back down. Way too creepy and also super sad… not a good look for me.
I did manage to inveigle some of my FB friends into reading it, though… or at least buying it. I really do like Sarah Waters but ugh, nothing heavy right now, please.
It is soooooo creepy, and does not improve as you go on.
I mean. I loved it, but fuck.
Amy Poehler’s ‘Yes Please’. I’m on a bit of an autobiography kick at the moment, having just finished Carrie Fisher’s ‘Wishful Drinking’.
I just watched her special on that and she’s so damned delightful.
Unbecoming. I am enthralled by it, so many little hints of crimes and lies that have yet to come to fruition yet. Grace is such a fun mess of a character.
Just finished up Seveneves last week and adored it. I especially loved the events in the third portion of the book and how they related to parts I & II. Looking it up on Goodreads I was surprised that so many people didn’t love that part. I could read another two or three books set in that setting. I am trying not to spoil anything so that’s why I am being so vague.
Just replying to say it is nice to find someone else who really enjoyed Seveneves. I can understand why some of that third part bothers people, but I was mostly just bothered that it ended so soon — really enjoyed it.
I also enjoyed Seveneves, and the third part. Although to me, truly, it felt like two books (one and two, three) published in one volume. I would love to see more in that third-part environment. I’ve heard rumors that survival stories for the folks who survived on Earth all those years will be forthcoming? I hope so!
They definitely left it wide open for a sequel and I for one welcome that!
I think it should have been two books because the third part (and the time between them) got short shrift and may have annoyed people less if the concepts had been explored more thoroughly.
Do you want to talk about it? I have been reluctant to discuss Seveneves anywhere because any criticism sends Stephenson fanboys running to tell you to shut it, but here feels like a safe space to be a feminist sci-fi reader. I am one of the people who was just ok with Part III.
The fanboys are terribly annoying, agreed. Most of them hate it because it isn’t Cryptonomicon or the Baroque cycle, but I much prefer Stephenson’s other type of work, anyway. (I really liked Reamde, which is never an okay thing to say around the fanboys.)
I liked it because I was fascinated by the survival aspect, and the concept of [spoiler!] women being the root of the survival of the species (or so they thought, anyway). I don’t think he did the best job with that concept, though, but I did enjoy it as a space adventure.
I haven’t read Seveneves yet; but LOVED Reamde.
I really liked the [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER} seal people!!! But I got annoyed by the genetics of the {SPOILERRRRRRR} different species being so insurmountable and also staying the same for 6000 years? Come ON. I was also sad that I thought the last part was going to be at least 90% female-narrated but {SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER} Kath spends most of it asleep? And also we don’t really get into her head beyond the first part? And also, god, it kind of felt like she was more a slave to her own genome than anyone else, which was kind of icky. I guess I just thought that he embraced the radical idea that women are people in part II only to revert a little? But maybe I missed things.
I don’t think you missed things. I agree that the women characters did not get the treatment in the third part that I was expecting based on the first and second, which is unfortunate because it was such a great setup (at least I thought it was). I think the sort of epic idea of that many years and what could happen to those separate groups of people (SPOILERS ALL OVER – space, ground, water) was fascinating. But also agree that the time frame during which we’re supposed to believe the selected genes developed in only one direction is odd. . . without the rest of the backstory that they continued engineering to cause it to be or something. That isn’t quite right but I can’t put it into words.
Unbecoming was really enjoyable, mostly because Grace is such a fun mess of a character! Unreliable narrators are often not my thing but she’s so unapologetic about it.
I am reading The Last Unicorn and I’m listening to Post Captain (the sequel to Master and Commander)
The Last Unicorn is delightful, Post Captain is well written on a sentence to sentence level but has absolutely no cohesive pace/arc/structure.
O’Brian is TOUGH reading. TOUGH. MrChouffe has read all 21.5 books of the Aubriad… not less than three times? I’ve only ever gotten through the first ten or so.
I am listening to them via Overdrive (the library ebook/media app) I don’t know if the same guy narrates all of them but these first two are pretty quick listens.
On the one hand they’re fascinating.
On the other hand they are horrifying in the casual brutality and cringe inducing in the medical treatment.
Simon Vance narrates all the Master & Commanders, and he is the voice I love the mostest, male narrator version.
(He narrates a lot of classics, too, so whenever a kid is assigned something for English class, I check to see if Vance has narrated it, so I can annoy my kid by listening along and talking tons more about the book than he wants.)
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who finds the Aubrey/Maturin books hard going! I like them a lot, but have only managed to get through about three because there’s so much Age of Sail terminology and so many characters and I have to work very hard to make sense of what’s going on.
I’m currently reading The Sundial by Shirley Jackson, because I’ve never read anything by her before (except The Lottery) and the Toast loves her! I’m enjoying reading it, but am not very far in so can’t make an informed judgment yet.
Also after the Aragorn post the other day my friend and I decided to re-read LOTR together, so that will start soon.
I’m reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. If I wasn’t reading it for book club I’d burn it to the ground and then spit on it.
((hugs)) why doesn’t anyone agree with me about this book?
I mean, I adore the sentence-level writing in a lot of cases, but I can’t keep these people in the mythic realm Groff wants. I keep turning them into humans and then yelling at them for their utter incompetence at being human.
I only got about 3 chapters in and couldn’t take it anymore. 🙁
I’m 84 pages in and hope all the characters die in 20 pages and then the rest of the 200 pages are just pictures of cats.
yessssssssss same
it is so bad! how did it get so many good reviews??? are one of lauren groff’s parents really important?
I’m not sure I hated the book so much as I HATED the characters.
And *spoiler alert*
I really didn’t need the entire breakdown of what the performance of the play looked like. That might have been the straw that broke the pretentious camel’s back for me.
I’m currently reading some of Austen’s early writing, and it’s all so wonderfully silly and charming. “Charles Adams was an amiable, accomplished and bewitching young man, of so dazzling a beauty that none but eagles could look him in the face.”
That sounds just like Mallory’s writing! WHO HERE BELIEVES IN REINCARNATION
Just finished The Goblin Emperor and enjoyed it very, very much. Now I’m reading Empire of Night, which is one of Kelley Armstrong’s fantasy books. For work, I just read The Complete Maus finally (and it blew me away completely) and am slowly reading Deborah Dwork and Robert Van Pelt’s Holocaust: A History. On my commutes, I am about 1/4 of the way through an audiobook of War and Peace (here to talk about it!).
I haven’t read W+P but I listened to about half the audio book of Anna Karenina?
I want to reread The Goblin Emperor all the time. I think it’s just because Maia is such a sweetie, you get to spend time in the mind of a really nice person. (And I want to see that model bridge.)
I am finally reading The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker – I’ve owned it for a few years but couldn’t bring myself to read it because then there would be no more new Kage Baker, but life is short and it’s time. Damn, I miss Kage Baker.
The Girl on the Train, I hate it but am determined to finish it for some reason.
I just read that! I’m not even sure why I read it at this point? It wanted to be Gone Girl soooo bad.
How can something with so much murder be so dull? I also might have enjoyed it if it instead of being set on a nice and fancy train, it committed to public transportation.
I recently started Shadow of the Wind (a Toastie rec!) and am really liking it. Very dude-centric so far, which loses it some points, but otherwise right up my alley.
I also started Wide Sargasso Sea a couple of days ago which does not have a dude centricity problem and is so far quite good. For my non-fiction, I’m reading God’s Secretaries which is about the writing/making of the King James Bible, because I’m docenting for a Shakespeare exhibit that has a bit about King James in it. I had no memory of reading it previously, but my copy has a bunch of lines underlined, so I guess I’m rereading it and just have a terrible memory.
I just finished The Masked Library, which was really fun, a caper with librarians and dragons and elves and alt-Venice.
There are a couple of publishers bringing out forgotten 20s and 30s mysteries and I’m on a bit of a roll with them. I think Ianthe Jerrold is the best writer I’ve found so far, but Mary Roberts Rinehart and E.R. Punshon were good too.
Oh, and the Queers Destroy Fantasy magazine special issue! I loved Shweta Narayan’s Mughal steampunk lesbian story and Cat Valente’s medieval poisoners.
Oh, I stumbled across those 20s-30s mysteries series, too. I just finished a bunch by Robin Forsythe, which were interesting chiefly, I think, because the author himself was a criminal (jailed for a kind of government fraud) and, um, it’s kind of noticeable how no-one ever actually gets arrested and convicted for any of their crimes. (Usually fortuitous death intervenes.) I will probably be delving into other authors in these series–I’ve already read a lot of Mary Roberts Rhinehart and like her a lot when I’m in the mood for old mysteries. She can get quite creepy.
I’m currently reading Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal. Saw someone recommend it here last week. I LOVE it so far. I have laughed out loud at least a handful of times.
I’ve been very slowly reading The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, which is annoying me to very little fault of its own, due to my mistaking it for her ghost book, and because it took the audiobook about two hours to get through what’s sixty pages in a 565 page book. I ended up picking up the hardback at the library. I’ve also been enjoying a collection of Oscar Wilde’s work.
I have two stacks of books from the library I hope to dig through during what’s left of the weekend.
This is probably a long shot but are there any Toasties out there who weave? Any type of loom: multi-shaft, rigid-heddle, inkle, tablet/card, etc. I work for a weaving magazine (I swear that is a real thing) and I’ve been happily tasked with finding new contributors outside of our normal demographic (white women of a certain age) including younger weavers. (Also if you have a passion for textiles but don’t make them but have a good idea for an article let me know!) I’d love to know if you weave, what you weave, and if you’d be interested in submitting projects to the magazine.
I weave on a rigid heddle, but I am a middle aged white lady (43 – which I guess is actually kind of younger than a lot of the weavers I meet).
I did do a fun spell of making silly tapestry pile rug coasters on rigid heddle. Email me at mkmorrow at yahoo dot come, or message me on Rav (where I am also mkmorrow) if interested. Or just to say hi as I always like meeting new crafty people.
Thanks! I’ll definitely email you! I’d love to see the pile rug coasters, too. That sounds like it was a really fun project! I’m going to be working on my first pile project pretty soon (a set of rigid-heddle face cloths with looped pile) so I might ask for some pointers.
I’d like to pass this info along to a friend who is the demographic of weaver you’re looking for – but don’t want to throw IRL details into the wind. Can you throw me an email? beachlass, gmail 🙂
An email will be thrown to you momentarily.
Thank you! I’ve sent it along. She does gorgeous work, including a couple of fabulous liturgical stoles for me.
My lovely friend and toast-reader (though not a commenter) weaves beautiful things from her homestead in Alaska, and writes with a lovely voice. My favorite of hers so far is a Goodnight Moon themed weave that she’s made into a baby-wearing wrap and a baby blanket: http://www.14milefarm.com/
Oh wow! That is such a sweet theme for a wrap and blanket. I’ll definitely show her work to my editor–I think the Goodnight Moon baby blanket would be right up our alley.
Um I am so excited that your mag is working on getting a more diverse cast of contributors!! I hate how homogenous fiber arts can be, so building diversity makes my heart grow my three sizes.
I’m really excited about all this, too! And my editor is 100% behind me to get in younger weavers and especially weavers of color. We do stories all the time about traditional weaving and fair-trade coops and textiles but I’d love to have more diverse stories about weavers of color and projects by them. We did a wonderful feature on Maximo Laura who does amazing tapestries in Peru and it was wonderful. I want more stories like that! As strange as it sounds, even finding more male weavers would be a nice change. We have a couple that we regularly publish but they are a rare species these days. (We had one who published a baby wrap he wove so he could carry around his grandson while he wore his regular button-up shirts and ties and it was the sweetest thing.) I think The Toast has definitely been an inspiration to seek out people because waiting for weavers to come to us isn’t an effective means of recruitment.
I know someone who I think fits the bill, send me a DM on twitter (@bindavisdraws) or an email, bindavisdraws, gmail.
Email has been sent. Thanks!
I am not into weaving YET, but I asked for a lesson for Christmas and my MIL got me one at WEBS (www.yarn.com), I haven’t been yet but I know they have younger weavers (mostly white probably, though, knowing Northampton?). Anyway it’d probably be worth your time to e-mail them asking if any of their employees or customers would be interested.
I’m a weaver (4 shaft floor loom!), but I don’t think I weave enough to submit anything.
I follow a few weavers on instagram that might fit what you’re looking for. I don’t have my phone right now but I can look them up and send them your way. email is regularthings at gmail.
Last winter I wove (and got paid in real live money) for http://www.pazindustrias.com/
The owner is from Peru and now lives in British Columbia. She mainly makes baby wraps, and has a really great eye for colour.
Damn, I missed all the fun here… I know a bunch of weavers (including one who works / teaches with antique jaquard looms, big as small cars), but sadly they’re all white, middle-aged ladies.
Toast friends:
We have a family friend who recently announced his legal transition from female to male. He sent out an email asking for any resources that we could recommend. His specific situation is that he is physically disabled and lives in Europe (so far France, Ireland, Iceland). Does anyone have any favorite websites/books/communities for disabled LGBT people? Does anyone recommend a European (especially French) community for trans people? I feel sure he must have looked into this himself, but since he asked for input I thought I would ask you. You guys are always full of so many good ideas. Thanks!
TENI is very active (and seemingly very friendly, though I don’t know them in real life) in Ireland: http://www.teni.ie/
In Boston, the Meeting Point does brilliant work around queerness & disability. They don’t have a lot of web resources, but it’s possible that your friend could e-mail them and get some useful ideas. http://themeetingpoint.org/
Good luck to him!
Ireland doesn’t have any organisations that would cover both groups and although TENI is great they wouldn’t have any resources for people with disabilities.
UK has some organisations and lots of local support groups.
I can maybe recommend specific resources depending on what your friend needs is it legal advice about changing identity markers or more social support, community group resources?
EEEEEEE, so does anybody have any Star Wars fanfic recs? I’ve been horning in on the Finn/Poe stuff (sidebar: it is an ODD experience reading fanfic about someone who homophonically shares my name) and have found a few super neat ones, but I bet there’s more that I haven’t found. Suggestions?
Last week’s issue of The Rec Center had a few if you’d like to check them out. I can’t vouch for any, tho.
Happy reading!
THAAAAANK YOOOOOU
Have you read To the Sky Without Wings (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5609887/chapters/12925093)? Not Finn/Poe, but it’s sooo good.
I’d be interested in hearing your Finn/Poe recs, if you have any. I’ve been casually reading, but haven’t love-loved anything.
This fic destroyed me – I went into it fully prepared for the movie canon to kick in and I still got gutpunched into next week.
This is the most recent Finn/Poe story I read, starring the most hilariously profane incarnation of BB8 ever: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5754172
That was oddly endearing for something that sweary 🙂
That was fantastic! BHAHAHAHAHAHHAA
I second your To The Sky Without Wings recommendation wholeheartedly! It’s the length of a small novel and it will probably destroy your heart, but it’s So. Damn. Good.
I devoured manic_intent’s Petrichor here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5570728/chapter…
I am, like, SO UNINFORMED about the Star Wars universe and really just have enjoyed the movies (and want to see Poe and Finn bump uglies in my mind’s eye — I mean, with good stories too) so I cannot really vouch for the worldbuilding, but I enjoyed it immensely. It has Badass Leia, too, which I love. I also liked the not-a-doormat!Finn. Plus I think Chapter 17 is deliciously smutty! 🙂
I am at work so I can’t post direct links, but all of these are on AO3:
“Step Out Into the Sun” by plutos – adorable accidental-marriage fic; I love love love this one, it’s so adorable I can’t stand it
“Something Borrowed” by the_dala – five times Finn and Poe borrowed each other’s clothes
“Storm Trooper Remedial Education” by florahart – storm troopers are not taught sex ed… luckily Poe shows up to help 😉 😉
“Ready for My Close Up, Mr Dameron” by AndreaLyn – AU where Poe is a movie star (duh) and Finn is oblivious to his fame so he accidentally starts falling in love with a movie star. Hilarious hijinks ensue.
Reading thread?
I’m reading Divergence at the moment, and I really like it! Although I sometimes feel like it’s competing with Twilight for the most problematic romanticisation of dangerous young men in a YA novel.
I just finished “Blood Bones and Butter” which is Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir. It was fine, but god am I bored by people who lived in NYC in the 70’s and the 80’s talking about how great it was and about how terrible everyone who lives in NYC now is. We geetttt itttttt you drank sewer water and ate rats after doing an 8 ball of coke. I would like to go to Prune now though.
I’m starting “The Secret History of Wonder Woman” by Jill Lepore now and I’m VERY excited about it.
That was my reaction to Patti Smith’s Just Kids – I had no patience for it.
I’m reading Repair, by Elizabeth Spelman – which uses the lens of repairing to look at different aspects of society. Just finished the chapter on restorative justice.
Looking forward to starting Lafayetter of the Somewhat United States on the weekend.
My wife and I are reading the Hunger Games trilogy aloud together! We are halfway through Catching Fire and it is delightful.
I am reading The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. I like it, but I’ve gotten to the part where the video game stuff isn’t happening anymore and that was my favourite so I’ve stalled.
I’m reading Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye. I used to be a monthly reader, but then the schedule was so unpredictable so I put that on the backburner, but now I’m finally catching up. Kate Bishop is just the best.
Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. Top 3 of 2015. (Space Opera, only not so plotty, mostly a charming, positive character study also aliens.)
Starting the first book of Discworld! I appreciate that it’s funny, but less aggressively funny than, say, Hitchhiker’s Guide.
Just finished “Girl Waits With Gun” by Amy Stewart, which is historical fiction about Constance Kopp: the first lady deputy sheriff in the US! It was a bit slow-going, but the story of her & her 2 sisters living on their own on a remote farmstead in New Jersey in the early 20th century was a wonderfully refreshing piece of history from a time period I don’t normally like to read about.
This is so good to hear! I received this for Christmas and have been quite excited to read it, so I’m glad to know that a fellow Toastie enjoyed it.
We read it for the first Toast book club – very well received.
The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandy Newman. It’s 600 pages long and written in a language that the author thought might develop in post-apocalyptic USA. I really like it so far, but it is something I can’t just read off and on, and I haven’t really had time to sit down and get into it.
Reviews seem to be if you like the language you like the book and if you don’t you absolutely hate it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many 5 star and 1 star reviews on GoodReads.
I am close to done with The Royal We, and it has been a delight.
If you’re liking Divergence, I recommend the “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” series by Laini Taylor. It’s not all that similar plot-wise, other than the “female protagonist realizes she is stronger than she seems, in a dystopian horror universe” brush strokes, but it’s got magic and a love story and lots of twists and turns. I’ve read the series twice and really enjoyed it both times.
That sounds awesome, thanks!
I just started reading When Marnie Was There (I saw the movie a few months ago, saw it was nominated, learned there was a book from the 60s) and OH MY GOD does it ever bring me back to being a kid:
“Anna spent a great deal of her time thinking about nothing these days. In fact it was partly because of her habit of thinking about nothing that she was travelling up to Norfolk now, to stay with Mr and Mrs Pegg. That – and other things. The other things were difficult to explain, they were so vague and indeterminate. There was the business of not having best friends at school like all the others, not particularly wanting to ask anyone home to tea, and not particularly caring that no-one asked her.
Mrs Preston just would not believe that Anna did not mind. She was always saying things like, “There now, what a shame! Do you mean to say they’ve all gone off to the ice rink and never asked you?” (Or the cinema, or the Zoo, or the nature ramble, or the treasure hunt.) – And, “Why don’t you ask them next time? Let them know you’d like to go too. Say something like, ‘If you’ve room for an extra one, how about me? I’d love to come.’ If you don’t look interested nobody’ll know you are.”
But Anna was not interested. Not any more. She knew perfectly well – though she could never have explained it to Mrs Preston – that things like parties and best friends and going to tea with people were fine for everyone else, because everyone else was ‘inside’ = inside some sort of invisible magic circle. But Ann herself was outside. And so these things had nothing to do with her. It was as simple as that.”
I just finished Cold Moon Over Babylon and the Body in the Belfry and am steeling myself to take on the looming horror of The Fountainhead, a) because I will have to someday and b) because I’m heavily procrastinating when I should be working frantically on a Meiji history paper. Sigh.
I read that series, I recommend not reading the sequels, especially not book 3. 🙂 I loved book 1 but then… Yeah…
Hello!
My dad got his reports back this very morning, and there is Zero Cancer in him now. Yay! That is the good part of this week.
The Chicago Hamiltoasts project is slowly getting off the ground. That is the other good part of this week.
My cat needs a feline friend, I have neither the space nor the money for two cats and feel terribly guilty over this.
I lost two work ID cards and need to replace them and ugh.
Work today is me doing things, and other people telling me I did the things wrong and to redo them, then coming back to me hours later and saying “whoops! You did them right the first time! Never mind!” I would like to similarly inconvenience them, but cannot. I am petty today.
This weekend, I have decided not to talk to anyone but my cat. I think that may help.
Also I am grateful for my neighbors who still have their Christmas trees up, because this week they are making me smile a bit.
Chicago Hamilton show? Is there a place to learn more?
The Hamilton FB page. The show will open on September 27. Group ticket sales are open at the moment. No date yet for individual ticket sales.
Officially interested in Chicago Hamiltoasts!
Ooh, just saw this! If you see this response: go to the FB page for The Toast in Chicago, and comment there about Hamilton. Then I’ll make sure you get the info.
Anywhere I can learn more about the Chicago Hamiltoasts project? Would love to get on board!
Ooh, just saw this! If you see this response: go to the FB page for The Toast in Chicago, and comment there about Hamilton. Then I’ll make sure you get the info.
Friends, I just started reading Order Of The Phoenix and I don’t want to finish it because I know how it ends, please comfort me with Gary Oldman alive-and-well gifs.
This seems like a good thread to share that yesterday my mom inexplicably emailed me “Can you explain what is the deal about Snape? I know it seems like he’s a bad guy but he isn’t really and I guess the backstory is heartbreaking, but what is it?”
… so I hope she enjoys the novel-length response titled The Totally Unbiased Saga Of How Snape Is Very Sad About Being Disliked By People He Was An Asshole To that will be arriving in her inbox this morning.
OMG, I love Snape in the movies but I completely abandoned the cult after he said that thing about Hermione’s teeth in the books. NOT OKAY.
Like, he is SO WAY WORSE in the books.
(I am listening to Witch Please, a podcast recommended by a friend, where they really dismantle all things Harry Potter, and it is so delightful. I haven’t made it to the end yet so I can’t link you to a Snape-backstory excerpt, but I bet it’s KILLER.)
OMG. Witch Please sound exactly like my kind of thing and I am lately in need of podcasts to listen to so thanks for this!
I just read Harry Potter this past Halloween in a huge binge read and I am VERY excited to find out about Witch Please, so thank you!
I point to that exact moment when people argue that he was a good guy. Good people do not use their position of authority to make tween girls feel bad about their appearance, especially for such amazing reasons as ‘she is friends with the son of a guy i hated 20 years ago’. And, hi, what does it say about a teacher that he is one of his student’s worst fears in the whole world? Blargh.
There’s also the scene when Harry is desperate to see Dumbledore because Barty Crouch is going insane on the grounds, and Snape just won’t let him in to the office, for fun. Like, clearly an emergency is happening, but I don’t like this kid’s dad so I’m just going to make sure that help does not arrive.
Also just generally being a terrible, terrible teacher.
Were you also very annoyed by all the “JK Rowling revealed the LAST BIG HARRY POTTER SECRET” articles last week, when all she had actually revealed was that she told Alan Rickman that Snape loved Lily early on on in the shooting before all the books were out? I feel like nobody wrote an article about that who actually understood what she was talking about.
SNAPE IS THE WORST AND I WILL NEVER FORGIVE HIM
*not so quietly sits here in her snape hate*
Oh my God he is THE. WORST. Actually as I’ve been thinking about this today, it’s started to cross over with the terrible pickup-artist/coffeeshop-owner story from (yesterday’s? the day before’s?) link roundup — as with that guy and his belief that apologies are magic incantations that erase your bad behavior, if I had ever gotten the sense “Snape regrets his past behavior” from the flashbacks and backstory content, I would be way more sympathetic to him, but I only ever got “Snape regrets the consequences of his past behavior,” and, like… that is not enough.
I also get major Nice Guy (TM) vibes from all the flashbacks of him and Lily. He doesn’t care about what she wants; he cares about her being his. He doesn’t listen to her when she talks, except as pertains to her interest in his rival. He tries to get Voldemort to spare her, despite the fact that Lily would never have wanted to live in exchange for the deaths of her husband and son.
If he had done all this as a teen/young adult, and she died and he spent the rest of his life truly comprehending his mistakes and working toward being a better person, then I understand the tragedy of his story. But he just…doubles down on childhood resentments and abuses his position as a teacher to bully children. Ok, I’m going to stop ranting. But, I will always hate him.
YEAH I can totally buy him as a morally complicated character in the big Good vs Evil scheme of things but in his everyday life he is so nasty and vicious and THAT COUNTS TOO.
i would like to see such a response!
I am so here for this.
now I’m working through fanfic possibilities of Sirius-Black-didn’t-die-he-just-fell-through-a-portal-and-became-this-character for each image. This is already my favourite.
YES.
SPEAKING OF, what is the Twitter tag for the HP read? I know I’m ahead but they’re WAY BETTER than I thought they would be and I can’t stop.
#HPRR1 (for the first book, HPRR2 for the second and so on)
Gonna read the first one this weekend, soooo exciiiited
thank you!
I’m reading Order of the Phoenix right now too! And I am also not looking forward to the ending, not just because it’s sad but because it’s honestly kind of lame. Like seriously, Sirius dies by falling through some weird vail, and we don’t even ever get an explanation of what it is or why it killed him??
< emerges from black hole of Gary Oldman gif searching with baby-faced long-haired Gary Oldman from over 20 years ago >
DUDE.
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.
Leaving for happy hour now, so . . . cheers!
Intersection of ADD and relationships in the reply.
hi Toasties. I’ve had A Week and could use some perspective from such a lovely group of people.
My beloved (someday formerly beloved?) and I broke up Tuesday night.
A significant reason he thinks we needed to end things was because he was plagued with worry about not seeing me “make measurable progress towards my personal goals.” I have ADD, I do not have a perfect set of coping strategies, but it is something I am working on. I want desperately to be able to check off certain typical life accomplishments, mainly my undergrad- this weighs heavily on me and I’m back in school full time working on it. Other life goals include living a connected, engaged, intentionally loving life and raising a family.
The fact that my deepest fear about myself, is what he couldn’t handle hurts, so much. Reading that ADHD article from earlier in the week makes me cry. So much of it resonates deeply with me- and right now, with those issues compounded by his explanation for breaking up just feels like another one of my colossal life failures.
It’s also a big part of my mother’s concerns for me. There were actually many parallels between him and my mother. The fact that this is a major concern for those who know & have loved me the most deeply, is really distressing. Like, I get it, this is an issue, I am trying my best- but sometimes that’s not enough, apparently.
So, my question is this: How have you processed/incorporated difficult, but also real information gleaned from break ups into your life?
Oof. I don’t think I can say anything helpful, just solidarity; ADD and relationships is tough.
Thanks
I don’t know if I can offer amazing advice, but maybe some solidarity. The last six months have been rough for me, and after my last major panic attack my SO sort of shut off and admitted to me that he sometimes worries he will be taking care of me for years to come in a way that isn’t healthy, and he also seemed to need to know I was trying to make progress towards doing things healthy and that make me happy. Obviously it hurt to hear those things, but it’s also difficult for others to see you trying or making small progress, especially when the SO seems to be whizzing past you in so many ways. At least that’s how I felt. I think what I found helps is vocalizing small victories. When I got my drivers licence, small victory. When I left the house for grocery shopping, victory. When I read articles instead of weeping under a blanket, victory. I think vocalizing and being proud of small things I accomplished helped others realize I was making progress, even if it wasn’t in the big tangible way they were looking for.
I hope this helps, but I also hope you find comfort. *hugs*
Well done on all your achievements. You’re right, they are all victories. <toasthugs>
Thanks for the solidarity and for sharing your experience. Voicing pride in the small victories is certainly something I can do in the future. I’m sure it would help me feel better too.
You sound thoughtful and wonderful and I hope you have a good semester of school!
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 5 ACTIVE™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
——– Original message ——–
So many Toastiehugs!
One potential issue feedback offered by well-meaning loved ones is that being close to you does not necessarily make them correct about what’s “right” for you.
My clinician often asks me to look at a piece of advice, and see how it resonates with me beyond the fear. If it feels generally like it will bring me peace or stability, I consider acting on it. If it clangs, I don’t. She recommends being a mirror, not a sponge.
I believe strongly that everyone has a pretty good internal map of what’s right and wrong for them, and it’s important to measure feedback against your own sensibilities. It can help you stay true to your own core values, and that alignment is super necessary for happiness, in my opinion.
This is wise and important to remember. Sometimes even well-meaning people can be guilty of bullying or abusive behaviour when your lived reality doesn’t match their deeply-held picture of you.
I think what I find so concerning about their feedback is that it DOES resonate with me as being true. I do appreciate the imagery of being a mirror and not a sponge.
Just because it resonates with what you fear about yourself and may be true for a given value of “progress” doesn’t mean that you have to take it on board as the story you tell yourself <3
That’s an ADHD thing, honestly. Especially if we’re diagnosed as adults, we’re so used to just seeing ourselves as fuck-ups, that if someone says “Hey, you’re a fuck-up” (even in much gentler words), we automatically think “Yeah, I’m a fuck-up.”
This is why Captain Awkward says never to ask why someone is breaking up with you! Also not to give reasons when you’re doing the breaking up or just asking for something, because it encourages the “what ifs” and negotiation.
I haven’t been in your situation, but I have been dealing with more and more rejection recently and the only suggestion I have is to reeeeeeaaaally take his stated reasons with a grain of salt. The story you tell yourself should be “it just didn’t work out. He wasn’t the right pants for me.” Your ADD is just a part of you, not something you can excise, and being in a relationship with you means accepting that. If someone can’t do that, they aren’t right for you! YOU DESERVE LOVE EVEN IN YOUR IMPERFECT STATE.
Also I’ve been listening to Männer sind Schweine a lot, it’s such a great song.
That’s become the sort of mantra I keep reminding myself of- “If he isn’t prepared to love and support me through my own progress, then he clearly isn’t the partner I actually want to have.”
I’ll have to look up Manner sind Schweine.
…I think it depends, re: giving reasons. When I broke up with my boyfriend of four and a half years, there were lots of reasons, but the biggest and incurable one was our difference in libidos. “There’s nothing wrong with you, there’s nothing wrong with me, but we’re a bad match, and that’s never ever going to change.” And he knew I was right, so he didn’t try to change my mind.
That said: Yeah, if someone can’t accept my ADHD, they can’t accept ME.
I think CA is talking about those situations where one person says “it isn’t working, I am sorry, let’s go our separate ways,” and the other person pushes and pushes for reasons because they want to either negotiate the breaker-upper out of their no, or because they think it’ll give them “closure” (can we send “closure” on the spaceship into the sun?), or somehow “win” by knowing that it’s all the other person’s fault? And what they’re going to hear when they push for that is a lot of nasty stuff. And when you’re the breaker-upper, it’s decent advice, IMO, to just not say that stuff despite being asked, because it’s not what they need to hear and can really mess with them, especially once you get to “bitch eating crackers” territory and EVERYTHING they do pisses you off.
I mean, sometimes it’s sound to say something simple that you both already know, for sure. That way you have an easy story all ready to go. But for less “this is the one issue” breakups, I think it’s just unlikely to yield anything but more hurt.
Also, I think people feel compelled to provide a narrative of why a relationship isn’t working. In reality, I have exes where it’s just like, “That’s a great person… for someone else.” But even if the other person doesn’t ask, the breaker upper might feel compelled to provide a reason during the breakup, or will be pushed to do so by friends and family.
I’ve never actually gotten useful feedback (particularly for a long relationship), so I don’t see the point.
*huuuugs*
Ever since I read this post this morning your words have been on my mind. This hits close to home for me too. FWIW your ex’s words do not sound particularly loving or concerned to me. To flip it around: HE may not have the maturity to be in a relationship with someone where he sets healthy boundaries for himself. And your mother may be substituting her personal anxieties to stand in for helpful advice. I don’t know how your relationship with your mother is– is she generally supportive or critical? Context is important around “feedback” like this.
Please be gentle to yourself. ADHD is a mental illness. Something that helps a lot for me in these situations is reaching out to others who have the same mental illness. Turns out lots of us have been stigmatized by others in our lives for having (just HAVING, not even “having and not working on” but HAVING) a mental illness. Ableism is a real, devastating form of prejudice and it often flies under the radar even in liberal circles.
Not everyone’s brains work the same way, nor should they have to. Not everyone is on the same schedule w/r/t the traditional “bachelor’s degree, full-time job, kids, house” path either. Some people don’t do those things at all. (Not that I think you fall in this category, you want those things and you both deserve them and deserve to pursue them, but I just thought I’d throw that out there.)
Society is a MFer about shaming people who don’t do The Things You’re Supposed to Do within a certain time table, or do those things the “right” way, and well-meaning people often back the status quo due to their own self-worth issues. Please be good to yourself and keep fighting for what you want. I believe in you. I’m sorry you are going through this.
thank you, thank you, thank you. Your reply has made me tear up- sure sign you’ve touched on some real stuff for me.
Ableism is VICIOUS. There’s something special about being seen as a person who doesn’t measure up, as if humans are supposed to be ISO certified. But we’re not, and no one is entitled to expect that other people ought to come with Official Standard Equipment.
There’s a Slack group for ADD Toasties. I think you can email justaddtoast at Gmail to ask to be added. Come hang out 🙂
As someone who once had all the spoons, then had about zero spoons, and has slowly regained to maybe 80% spoons, remember to be gentle with yourself. (No self-imposed ableism!) I found I was far harder on myself than I would have been on any other person in my situation. You have your own goals, you can take your own time to get there, there is no race (no matter what your fb newsfeed implies). Additionally, love doesn’t require always having unlimited spoons. <a href=”http://(http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/)” target=”_blank”>(http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/)
Also, I read this earlier in the week and it is a good reminder to remember that everyone can change (and ignore relationship “feedback” that reveals more about the other person than it does about you). I’m sure I have exes from five or ten years ago who would be stunned by the difference. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01…
Hmmmm I am super side-eyeing that reason and I’ll try to put into words why, but I’m not quite sure I can. Something about it seems to carry an unsaid addition — “you’re not making the progress I think you should be making.” It sounds like you’re making lots of progress, progress that is slow and not linear, like lots of progress, and I don’t like the way your partner isn’t looking at your accomplishments in the context of you (and is maybe substituting someone else’s context? His own? What he thinks “real adults” should do?).
yeah, imo he seems to have a boundary issue. Worrying about someone else’s “lack of progress” is a great way to avoid focusing on your own issues.
perhaps, I think this case maybe actually comes down to a difference in values.
yes, this is spot on. There are also several layers of cultural differences which inform our respective ideas about “legitimate life goals.” He’s been able to leave his home country and put himself through grad school and establish a professional career in the states using his obsessive planning skills. The nature of my progress and more intangible life goals simply didn’t seem real to him. UGH.
That sucks and is not fair to you. Your goals and progress are as real as everyone else’s. Lots more people have paths that stray from the usual “college, dating, graduation, job, engaged, married, house, kids” narrative these days. Maybe even a majority of people don’t take that path. Almost nobody I know has. And yet a lot of the people I know are pretty happy with how their lives are now. Some of them are still struggling with things, and many of them will struggle in the future, even the ones who took that societally-approved path and for whom it was easy. Hang in there, and I hope you will eventually look back on the things this person said to you and be able to add “yeah well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man” to the ends of them.
I have a number of Type A friends–the kind that are always working and feel guilty just relaxing. And they are lovely people, but I could never, EVER, date them. I require a lot of down time! I hate working! My life goals do not look like theirs.
Also with no advice, alas, just sympathy and thinky thoughts:
I know that my ADHD makes me a hassle to date and live with. I know that every person who’s ever been involved with me has had to put up with some irritating shit. And it’s party of why I was relieved to find out my current boyfriend is ASD. It’s hard to explain, but: we both have neurological quirks that can make us difficult people, and I think it makes us really forgiving of each other. He’s actually far more absent-minded than I am, to a degree that drives me BONKERS, but he also has to put up with me tuning out of conversations and abruptly changing the subject a lot.
I’ve dated other people with ADHD and that was a disaster, but my ADHD and his ASD get along far better than you’d expect.
I don’t think I have any useful advice, but I do have all the sympathy for you. Toastiehugs if you want them.
thanks
I am currently contemplating whether going to the theater in a blizzard is a crazy idea. I want to get rush tickets for King Charles III before it closes, and have a feeling that tomorrow’s 8pm performance will have rush tickets available pretty close to curtain. Crazy? Or BEST IDEA?
omg best idea, do this now for me because i can’t
Always go to the theater.
Well, I have tickets to The Glass Menagerie at Ford’s Theatre in DC tomorrow, so I am definitely going to brave a blizzard to go to the theatre. I say do it! Theatre is worth it.
Bad news, though: Tonight and tomorrow’s shows are closed. Seriously, DC people, stay home.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BA2U5UThxFA/
Everyone meet Ike. I have to go back for some dotwork shading in a few weeks; I’ll post a full picture then (and after I’ve managed to figure out a flattering angle for my thigh)
Tell me your healing routine for your tattoos! Every person and every shop has their own ideas
I love the shop I went to, if anyone needs a SE London recommendation I’ll be happy to pass it on. I’ve used bepathen before, but my artist said its just a,barrier cream it doesn’t actually heal, instead they recommend cling film wrapping for two days and using natural oils/creams for healing (we both agree that coconut oil is heaven sent, so I’m using that!). Apparently wrapping it for longer make it not scab or dry out and it heals better, I’m hoping that’s true, I’m the worst scab picker and the lines are so good I don’t want to fuck them up!
This is fantastic! I don’t have any tattoo advice but wanted to register my delight with your choice. Can’t wait to see the finished product!
Thanks, its such a hard thing to describe that I’ve just not bothered telling anyone about it, but the few people I’ve shown since yesterday (so two.) Have been really into it
my first couple, the artist told me to do nothing, just let it dry, and they consistently turned to garbage and had to be touched up. (i can’t leave anything alone, so that’s on me, but still.)
current/best-ever artist prescribes frequent, liberal application of A&D ointment, and every tattoo i’ve treated this way heals fantastically. 10/10, stuff is magick.
but more important: IKE IS GORGEOUS. omg.
Same. My first few were pretty dodgy anyway, but I was told to only keep it covered for a few hours and they all scabbed pretty bad and I messes them up! The last one before this one he said wrap it the first night and it did heal pretty well!
Thanks, Im always worried that I have stupid taste and it’ll look bad, but I’m pretty happy with this one, its right at the top of my thigh and I love the positioning
that’s the exact placement i want for my next one. i have one on the back of my thigh already but now i want another. [high five]
Back of the thigh is gnarly! His tail wraps around the back a bit and it definitely hurt more!
I really like it, I had originally intended for it to be lower, but it looked so good higher up
That is really bad advice from your first tattoo person! Goodness.
yeah, my tattoo artists told me to do nothing at all to it; it didn’t turn out bad, but now I’ve got a thing where periodically it itches a lot and sort of feels raised up? It’s probably some kind of tumor or something now, I don’t know, it stresses me out.
i get that sometimes …. i figure it’s just a side effect of it basically being scar tissue? instead of regular skin? or maybe it’s slowly killing you, who knows.
yeah, I don’t know, I’ve got a lot of other scars that don’t do that. But, tattoos definitely have stuff *in* the scar tissue; my thinking is that it’s some kind of occasional histamine reaction, like hives, but specifically for tattoo ink.
It doesn’t seem to be getting worse anyway, and I’ve had the tattoo for fifteen years now.
It might be nothing, but you might want to get that checked; i was told raised ink is a sign of shitty ink with impurities
uugggghhhhhhh I am going to get mercury poisoning from my tattoo it’s going to kill me like in that episode of House with LL Cool J when he went into the MRI machine
i did not realize until right now that that was LL Cool J. what even is life.
glad it’s not just me!
I’ve used A/D ointment and Badger Balm for tattoos for the first week or so, followed by unscented lotions or coconut oil, and it’s been fine. Although, A/D and Badger Balm are not vegan, if that’s a concern, and I know A/D has lanolin, which some people are sensitive to.
A/D also makes you smell like a hospital, which is suuuuuper glamorous.
Hello Ike!
I don’t clingfilm (mainly because I was never prepared to swathe my entire torso in it), I just bepanthen. Mine have all healed bang on the same time schedule, a week start to finish.
I totally get that! I was wondering how anyone could manage the after care on a back piece or similar! An assistant is definitely required! Luckily cling film is proving very practical for this particular tattoo, I’ve just wrapped around the whole leg, no tape needed!
I’m going roller blading now (I am *so* cool you guys) lets hope the cling film holds up
Luckily I am hypermobile so I can reach everywhere on my back. i did have to do it peering over my shoulder in a mirror so I knew I’d done all the bits.
One recommendation I really liked from my most recent tattoo was to use witch hazel to clean it if you’re out & about (in my case, I was leaving on an international trip a week after the appointment & I felt like washing it in a variety of public bathrooms might be worse than not washing it?). It’s anti-microbial/astringent, but actually pretty soothing, and much easier than trying to splash water everywhere.
In the midst of waiting for the major DC snow, I wanted to take this time to mention that I showed my dad the two monks the other night and he loves them SO MUCH! which is a lot more fun than the time I had to explain what Femslash was to my mom.
which is a lot more fun than the time I had to explain what Femslash was to my mom.
My mum listened to a Late Night Women’s Hour recently and told me she had learned about Alpha/Beta/Omega fanfic, and that I should listen to the programme because it sounded relevant to my interests.
Best mum.
I showed my dad Dad Magazine and then he wanted to explore the Toast and I think got confused by a Texts From post. It was adorable and dadly.
Toasts, did anything embarrassing happen to you this week? The other day, I got to work in the 15-degree weather to discover that I had dried snot all over the side of my nose. This was after a 30-minute train ride and a 10-minute walk through the city. I do not know how long the snot was there.
Well, I managed to lock myself out of my work computer this morning because I apparently forgot the password I’ve been using every day for the last five months. So that was great.
This just gave me a panicked flashback to high school, where I would occasionally completely blank on my locker combination, which I used multiple times every day for years!
this week, i was in the car with my boyfriend and suddenly had to pee SO BADLY that i simply couldn’t wait. he was trying to find parking in an underground parking garage and i climbed over the back seat, shrouded myself in a towel, pulled down my tights and peed in a coffee cup while he laughed at me and tried to take selfies of himself with my shameface in the background.
ok that’s kind of an amazing story though.
for the rest of the day he kept laughing to himself, “philz coffee cup” while i was like “NOOO STOP TALKING ABOUT IT” haha
i pride myself on my perfect aim though. in a moving car!
My bike ride into work was very slushy on Wednesday, and my ASS ITSELF got so salt-covered and wet that the pants I CHANGED INTO developed a massive salt stain on the back. It was AWFUL.
That sounds like a disaster and I’m sorry, but I can’t help but laugh a little about SALT ASS over here.
This is why fenders/mudguards were invented!
This morning I put on my leggings and a skirt and decided to wear a purple shirt. Instead I picked up a purple dress and thought, ok I’ll wear a dress today. I didn’t take off the skirt and didn’t realize it until I got to the office and sat at my desk. So I kind of shimmied out of the skirt under my desk. I drive to work but there were people in the courtyard when I got here and I don’t know if they saw me. The skirt was a good 6 inches longer than the dress.
I mean, if I saw that outfit I’d just assume you knew what you were doing. Purple! Layers! Of course some thought went into that. #fashionoblivious
I bet people thought it was a really fancy dress with two skirt-layers.
I tried one of those at-home hair remover chemical things, and as a result spent the week with a big red burn on my upper lip. The worst part was that nobody at work mentioned it which tells me it looked really, really bad.
oh nooo 🙁 I hope it feels better now!
I spent most of my teenage years with a slight chemical burn on my mustache. I know how much it sucks, and I’m sorry. Waxing/threading really is the best solution until/unless you have the money for laser hair removal. :/
Wait. . .do you mean you repeatedly used the chemical stuff so always had a burn on your lip, or did the burn on your lip from the first time take years to go away??
This was technically last week…but…I had a lovely protein shake for breakfast. Went to work, and didn’t realize I had a chocolate shake mustache until well after 10 am.
I explained safe words to my roommate over the weekend. That was fun.
I got all dressed up to go on a date last night, pulled into the parking lot, and was suddenly overcome by nausea. Ended up puking copiously into a snowbank in the parking lot in front of lots of horrified onlookers who probably assumed I was drunk.
My date was very nice about it…however I was and still am mortified.
(I somehow managed to make it home and spent all last night throwing up… 🙁 but am now feeling well enough to read the open thread, yay?)
noooooooooooooooooooooo
but i’m glad you’re feeling better now!
Much better now, thank you!
(Date came over to take care of me on Friday, laden with gatorade and saltines, it was very sweet and just what I needed.)
Slipped on ice and fell after teaching, slipped again when I got home. Ugh
I was checking my bank account, saw a transaction for $10.00 SUBWAY, assumed it was the restaurant Subway, assumed someone had stolen my debit card info for just the one meal, went to the bank to inform them about it, and figured out with the help of the very wonderful teller that actually, that $10 was the amount I put on my T card for the actual subway this past weekend.
Hah a similar thing happened with my credit card last weekend– there was a $75 charge on there that said BOSTON GLOBE and I was like NO, I do not subscribe to them, what is this! I was pretty upset about it until my husband helpfully pointed out that the travel show/beer festival that we’re going to is sponsored by the Globe.
Heh. I once called my cell phone company in high dudgeon because I’d been billed for a call to what seemed to be a Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas and I was positive I’d made no local calls while there. They amiably removed the charge….and then I had to call back sheepishly after realising that was the number we had in fact called to book tickets for a Cirque du Soleil show.
On Monday evening I came home to GentlemanX having beerz with a friend, so I joined them. Through the course of our conversation, it dropped that GentlemanX’s friend “had not used a condom in forever” and I was _horrified_ and was like “but last time we chatted you said you’d had casual sex with a colleauge! What did you dooooooooo?” and there was some shamefacedness on his side and mutterings of “well I know her well” and a lot of “AUGH NO YOU NEED PAPERS TO BE UNSHEATHED INSIDE OF ME AND EVEN THEN AUGH” on my side. I think I “glossed over” with “maybe I read too many internet horror stories?”
Probably I should have just let it slide. I just don’t understand straight boys.
Late to the thread but, to my eternal shame, I lost concentration and fell off the treadmill a few days ago. The entire top floor of the gym turned to watch me land flat on my butt.
My coccyx may never recover.
Unemployedies/Job Seekers Thread:
How’s your hunt going? If you are unemployed how is the time passing? Anyone have recent success or setbacks they need to celebrate/mourn?
For me, the unemployment game is going ok with a lot of ups and downs. I just found out earlier this week that I didn’t get the dream job I wanted. We’re also still super broke. It’s also very cold here, and I’m having trouble adjusting to the light withdrawal in winter after my sunny life LA. In ups, I love my unpaid internship so much, and I just got scheduled for an interview somewhere I’d like to work. And a friend gifted me some yoga classes.
Does anyone else feel like it’s easy to find jobs but the time that goes into the resume and cover letter is what kills you? I know I have a good resume and cover letter game but man, I can find 40 jobs to apply to, but it takes a while per each- at least 2 hours.
I feel the exact opposite. I feel resume/cover letters are super easy but finding jobs to apply for, that’s the hard part! And I’m currently in the purgatory of “I’ve applied for a round of jobs and am checking their statuses with the angsty determination of a lovelorn teenager.”
I vowed I would take a break from applying for awhile after this round since I keep getting discouraged that I’m applying and applying, but never get any responses. I’ve had my resume looked at and it all checks out, so I don’t really feel that is the problem.
:/
After I apply to a job I put it in a list under “jobs I applied to” and I number those, and put in the names of the people, the names of the position, a link to the job listing, the date I applied, etc. And then i don’t look back. Just keep adding.
I figure at the end when i have a job I’ll be like, ok, I applied to 60 jobs, got 6 interviews, one second interview and one job, and know a bit more about the kill rate.
But if you have applied to more than 10 or so jobs and not heard anything back, and it wasn’t during December (no one called me from November 20 to January 3), you might want to run your resume and cover letter set up by another person again, or dive deep into Ask A Manager, just to be sure. I feel like some minor tweaks to my formula led to a few more phone calls- I sent out applications using a few different styles of cover letters and resumes and then used the cover letters and resumes that got a response as my template for the next set of jobs. it does feel like I’m slowly getting a tiny bit better response rate.
OH PS, sorry wait, let me start with, it’s totally a mystery and it’s impossible to know if you have a perfect letter and resume and they’re all just positions hiring from within, and so it’s not like this necessarily means anything at all, I just heard nothing back in November and I made a few cover letter format tweaks and have had at least 3 calls in January.
I’m getting a lot more responses using the Pain Letter and Human Voiced Resume, by Liz Ryan.
Oh, I’m in the same boat! I’ve stepped up my job search this January, and I’m spending so much time on cover letters and resume revisions.
I’m managing okay financially, due a series of odd jobs and underemployment, but really want to get to the point of paying off debt, rather than increasing it.
I know the secret to finding a decent job is using one’s network, but I keep freezing every time I think about emailing connections.
I actually gave networking a bit of the boot this last month. I’d spent the first two months cultivating the crap out of all my connections and getting zero jobs, including at places where the person was like, “oooh you are a great fit let me talk to HR”. These last two months I’ve been applying without connections and I’ve had 3 interviews for jobs where I knew no one. So I’m not sure about networking. I guess it can work if the people you know are in a position of power to hire you?
I’ve actually gotten all my jobs through recruiting agencies in the past, so I’m not even sure how to activate my network. It’s reassuring to hear that you’re not finding them helpful!
I had a weird situation where my godfather was on the board of directors of an org where I really really wanted the job. And then I chickened out of talking to him about it because I didn’t want to put him in a compromising situation? Ah, well, opportunity lost.
I mean, I wouldn’t totally discount networking before you try it, because they do say it’s how a lot of people get jobs, but i’ve just found that of the 10-15 people I’ve networked with, I’ve gotten 0 job offers and one recommendation on a job I’d applied to independently, which didn’t get me to the interview stage.
If your godfather has connections at the organization maybe he’d just let you name drop and ask him about his thoughts? You could email the executive director with your resume and say, “hey, I know from My Godfather that you do excellent work and I’m interested in what you do and if there’s ever an opportunity to work at X foundation, I’d really like to know about it.” That kind of thing. But yeah, you’d have to be careful of the nepotism angle there.
The nepotism angle just makes me really uncomfortable, because, even if I did get the job, and even if I was the best person (I do meet all of the qualifications), I’d still feel like I hadn’t earned it, y’know? Even though I know that’s how tons of people get work. (I have been angsting so much about this this week).
It’s why I prefer using recruiting firms for work…
Same. I don’t like the nepotism, nor do I like burdening my network; every job I’ve had (except one, that did not work out almost right off the bat) was through cold-applying.
Also I feel like it’s sort of a false-hope situation. Lots of people will say “Oh I totally know something, let me hook you up” and then it doesn’t pan out because it was never really there and they wanted to give you hope. I went through this on the other side, when I had some temp jobs that needed filling — several friends asked if I could hook them up, and I said “Probably!” and then my hands ended up being totally tied as to who could be interviewed. I felt so bad about giving out false hope.
Yeah, it’s just time consuming. I’m only trying to network after I get an interview somewhere and then I figure it’s just research.
Hi! I’m mostly freelance, and spent all week revamping my website before an ad campaign goes live. But I still send out the occasional resume for part-time things that would be good experience, something I can juggle amongst my other stuff. (Multiple income streams ho!)
So I did like two job applications in the past two weeks and discovered that I am being kinda flippant about it! One had a writing and social-media component and I guess my brain was like “Better show them your cool informal voice!” I do not predict I will hear back, but it was sort of freeing just to do an application in a human style instead of a rigid formalized “Please consider my application” voice. Maybe people should throw a job app now and again just to loosen up?
/underdeveloped advice
Ha, I know what you mean. its kind of a toss up anyway. I did one flippantly because they were so flippant in their job listing. I’m really tired of those kind of job listings by the way “we’re a software company, but not like THOSE OTHER companies, we say fuck, oooooh! You should be nothing like a software engineer, and be super rad, but you know, have all the skills of a software engineer.”
Also I did phone in an interview where I just didn’t want the job that badly.
Once I went to an interview and could tell right off that I was not qualified. So I kinda stopped talking about myself, and just asked really pointed questions about their business model and industry and learn as much as I could while I had their attention.
There should be a punchline where they offered you the CEOship.
I think I might be leaving the unemployment situation soon! Found out on Tuesday that I didn’t get a position I thought was a good shot (a place I’d worked before), but just two hours ago I got a call from a company I interviewed with in November, and they have an opening coming up and I’m their first choice. I don’t know the timeline yet, but if this doesn’t fall out from under me (as potential jobs so often do), hooray for employment.
Now to watch all the Netflix in the meantime…
Fingers crossed! If you get it, please come back and touch everyone in this thread with your employed cooties.
Our market in my profession is so tight. I’ve been applying for jobs since last April with nothing. I whine to my mentor a lot to keep my sanity.
I’ve got an interview on Tuesday. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I didn’t get the dream job from my interview last month. Although they haven’t bothered to even send me a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ message, so they are jerks. I’m making ends meet by temping, but I need something really soon. Something with insurance, dammit. I’m down to my last pair of (disposable) contact lenses, so the insurance need is high.
I’m totally with you on the time spent on applying. I’ll find 5 jobs and, honestly, by the time I spend 90 min-2 hours applying for 1, and then another 90 min on another, I need a break for a few days. The worst is when they have you upload your resume and cover letter, but then ALSO want you to enter in all your info into their stupid web form. Just read the pdf you jerks! What century is this that I need to select things from dropdowns? AT LEAST AUTOPOPULATE! It feels like greek god level torture when I have to spend 30 minutes copying info over from my resume to their web form.
Oh man accepting the dream job loss is hard. I keep my fingers crossed that I was 2nd choice and first choice is going to bail on them after 1 month.
One job that looked great had an application format to send to a person on the listing, and then said, “also apply on this government webpage by searching for the title” which was something like, “program manager” and I searched and searched and couldn’t find the listing, but I did find a lot of listings very SIMILAR to that one. So I’ve only half applied. But whatever, that’s their loss, I’d be superb.
Yes, you would be superb. They do not deserve you, and you deserve better than they can offer.
I’m underemployed in a field where 3/4ths of the jobs require a Master’s that I don’t have. I’d like to work more before deciding to go to grad school but it’s been difficult to find jobs that don’t require a masters and are either full time or won’t conflict with my current position. I’d like to apply for grad school and see if a masters is feasible but the money side is a little difficult for me.
Is it a MA like social work? Where licensing goes hand in hand? Or is it a field where you could take practically all the classes in the hard skills, like coding? Because I stand firmly behind no paying full price for MAs. One sneaky trick is to apply to a PhD and walk with an MA at 4 years.
In early December I got contacted by a recruiter and went through with a really lovely interview at a great company all in one week. Then they said that their decision might happen slowly because of the holidays, but I’d hear back either way. I’ve had radio silence ever since, which I guess I should write off as a lost cause, but it’s so frustrating.
And I hear you on the resumes and cover letters! Personalizing each one to each individual job is exhausting.
arrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
About a month ago I got in touch with a person I know who is also unemployed to see if she wanted to team up as accountability partners. I didn’t know her super-well (we met on a camping trip organized by a mutual friend last year but only saw her a handful of times after that) but I got the sense that she was both incredibly positive and practical. It’s been incredibly helpful! We meet on Sundays at a coffee shop to discuss the past week and our goals for the next week. It’s great to have someone else to talk to about everything that’s going on in my job search and it also gives the week structure. I’ve started a mid-week check in as well where we email each other on Wednesdays to talk about how we’re coming along with the current week’s goals.
Hi guys! I just bought a ticket to visit my good friend who moved to Barcelona- I am very very very excited!! Do you have any things in Barcelona that you loved? I will be with my friend who has been there a while, so I’ll have her to help me out, but I want to have a list of things I’d like to do, especially more touristy but must do things. I love art and history and food, so, I like literally everything basically.
Parc Guell is amazing (really anything Gaudi built is amazing); I think it looks likes what Willy Wonka would build if he had to use non-candy materials. I’m not usually super into art museums, but the Pablo Picasso museum blew me away. Walking up to the castle gives you a pretty great view of the city (better than the view from the Columbus Column in my opinion). If you find yourself in George Orwell plaza, look for the 24 hour video surveillance sign if you enjoy irony. It was there in 2009 anyway.
As a side note, I didn’t drink when we visited Barcelona, so I convinced my friends to go pasty-hopping instead of bar-hopping and it was an excellent decision.
pasty hopping!! That is an incredible idea, thank you (and for your other suggestions!)
If you’re museum inclined, I loved the Museo d’Historia de Catalunya when I was there in October. It is a large, well-appointed, and very interesting. It’s actually so big that I didn’t get to finish, but it did give me (as a tourist just passing through) some better context for what’s going on with Catalan identity in Barcelona.
Thank you! I love museums that help me get a context of the place that I’m visiting, so that sounds great
See the Sagrada Familia, but buy tickets ahead of time. Also, the gothic quarter is amazing and there’s great little bars and restaurants hidden in there that were amazing.
yes to both! spending an afternoon getting lost and wandering around the barri gotic is one of my favorite things to do in BCN
Seconding all things Gaudi and Stuff You Missed in History Class just did a two parter on him not long ago if you want to learn all about him before the trip.
I also liked the Miro museum and it’s in a beautiful hilly area where you have great views of the city.
If you like beaches I would recommend skipping the ones in Barcelona which are super crowded and then take the metro to Badalona where it’s just chill Spanish families picnicking on the beach and you are not packed close together like sardines.
Tantarantana was my favorite restaurant, I think I ended up eating there three times when I visited because they food was good, the location was charming and the price was reasonable.
Enjoy your trip, it’s probably one of my favorite cities.
If you want a little bit of an adventure beyond the city there’s a monastery on a mountain called Montserrat. You get there by train and then funicular. The view is spectacular.
Also all the Gaudi and the gothic quarter. Have fun!
Everything Gaudi! The Magic Fountains! The Gothic Quarter was my favorite place. There is a tapas place there where everyone was really lovely and the food was tasty and interesting and they gave us lots of wine and cider (get the cider!) and even made gluten-free tapas for someone. It’s called Irati, http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187…
It has been a while since I’ve been, but I really enjoyed the botanic gardens- they’re up on a hill so there’s a neat view of the city, and I always liked to get some park time in to balance out the city time.
Ahhh! estoy celosa! I think everyone has already made great suggestions, but I would add the Picasso museo. It’s an interesting look at his development as an artist, I especially loved taking my father there- he has difficulty appreciating Picasso’s later works, but he was immensely impressed with his obvious classical skill.
I love Barcelona and I’ve been there a few times! Here’s my list of recommendations to get you a little away from the usual tourist sites. 1. The El Born District and the shopping district by the Santa Maria del Mar church. In front and behind the church are two courtyards full of cafes and shops and it’s a great place to hang out for a coffee or drink. The restaurants in the area are really nice too, and less touristy. If you can walk by the Palau de la Musica Catalana on your way there, you should try — it’s really beautiful.
2. If you feel like a nice walk in a park for a break, behind the El Born District is the Ciutadella Park with an amazing sculpture (the Cascada) by — once again — Gaudi. It’s at the northern corner.
3. Food. Try and eat at recommended spots as the regular tapas places can be kind of crappy and serve reheated frozen food (if you see the plastic cards out front with pictures of paella on them, you know this is one of the bad places). If you want to treat yourself to more elaborate tapas, we love Tapac 24, which is just up and off Passeig Gracia. It’s open all the time which is great, because you can go at a reasonable hour and not wait until 9 PM to eat. People really do wait until 9 to eat dinner in Barcelona. Cal Pep in El Born is amazing but expensive for high end seafood tapas — it’s really crowded so you want to be there before it opens to get a seat or be prepared to wait.
There are two kinds of tapas: Basque tapas, which are little sandwiches with toothpicks (not really for dinner but for pre-dinner snacks) and Catalan tapas, which come on serving plates and are for dinner. There are two places in El Born that are good: Taller de Tapas (it’s a small dependable chain) for real tapas and Sagardi is great for Basque tapas.
Things to skip: I never understood the appeal of Montjuic or Tibidabo and in any case it takes forever to get to either place.
Finally, just to emphasize (as I’m sure you’ve read in the guidebooks) that pickpocketing in Barcelona is AWFUL. I’ve had my wallet stolen and had people try to steal it several other times. Be careful not to wear a backpack with anything valuable in it and don’t put your purse/bag down on the floor when you sit down at a restaurant— keep your bag in your lap at all times. And the last time we were there someone tried to walk by and jostle my husband to steal his wallet at 2 PM on a busy street. It’s really crazy although better than it used to be.
I’m so excited for you! I’ve never been, but I just watched this travel vlog and now really want to go to Barcelona and more specifically the cocktail bar (skip to 6:11 for it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaQNw87itqM
[EDIT– just realized it’s not actually in Barcelona, aw too bad! Looks like it’s in a city about an hour away]
I finally saw Star Wars on Sunday and I have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS which I will put in a reply because everyone but me saw it ages ago and all the thoughts and feelings have been done to death by now 🙂
Okay, so in no particular order:
-REY. She is everything I wanted her to be and more. “I know how to run without you holding my hand!” = YES
-Could not avoid the Poe love splashed all over the internet prior to seeing the movie, but I am ‘meh’. He basically served as transportation (map to BB8, Finn to Jakku) and if he had died in the TIE fighter crash I (and the story) would not have missed him.
-R2D2 > BB8
-Leia knows more about Rey’s parentage than she let on. Also – more Leia please!
-Nice to see Han Solo again but there was too much of him. Thought for a while it was becoming the Han Solo Show and the new characters were relegated to the background too much in favour of him.
-The two gangs and the monster-fighting on the freighter was a waste of screen time. A couple of sentences could have established that Han is still his old smuggler self and always in deep shit with somebody. Then we could have had more Rey & Finn.
-Finn I like and want to see more of. I want him and Rey to be best-friend type partners and rule the galaxy together.
-KYLO REN. I was totally fascinated by him and want a nice deep backstory/movie on how and why Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren. Aside: I have not read any extended universe material so if such a thing exists please point me toward it. Because given the movies’ tendency to simplify stories in favour of MORE! ACTION!, I don’t think I’ll get this backstory in a future movie.
-Sticking with the British accents for the First Order military dudes is…old. And the Nazi-like Stormtroopers-in-the-square scene was overdone.
-About callbacks – someone in the Movie Yelling comments said they were too numerous and kind of heavy-handed and I pretty much agree. However, when Han says ‘Do you have a garbage chute?” me and some guy a few rows behind both laughed delightedly. If they had left out the next line (“Or a trash compactor?”) it would have been a perfect callback.
-Rey finding Luke and trying to give him the lightsabre…anticlimactic, maybe? I spent most of that scene trying to identify where it was filmed because it was so gorgeous. I hope Luke tells Rey to keep the lightsabre and start her takeover of the galaxy.
Overall verdict – really enjoyed, am happy with this new Star Wars.
if he had died in the TIE fighter crash I (and the story) would not have missed him.
That was actually how his character was originally written! Then, like partway through the film, they rewrote it to bring him back for ~reasons~. (My bet is on Teh Gay.)
I was convinced the Luke scene was in Scotland somewhere but I think it’s an Irish island.
My understanding of Star Wars is limited and heavily kotor influenced so I am much more willing to forgive Evil Jedis than a lot of people ’cause it feels like they just catch an Evil Infection and welp, evil now, oops! What can you do?
I kinda suspect that much of the Poe love is really, secretly Oscar Isaac love. I like the character quite a bit as far as those things go, but finding Rey-centric fic has been a bit of a trial.
My grandmother made us sit there til the end of the credits because ‘that’s Ireland, I just know it is.’ (It was.)
Skellig Michael! It’s the island in the last scene, and the structures are part of an early medieval monastery.
I thought the location with Luke at the end was gorgeous as well! I vaguely wondered about Iceland, but no, Ireland.
Warning: If you are uninterested or upset by American Democratic politics, look away now!
So, I don’t want to unnecessarily provoke anyone or be self-promoting here, but I want to see if I can get an idea to take off. I started a hashtag on twitter: https://twitter.com/hashtag/bernbetter?src=hash
I’m concerned that Bernie Sanders’s calls to bring “the people” together might really mean “bring together angry middle-class white men.” He has a decent record on race and gender issues, but I think he sees them as separate and secondary to economic justice issues. This seems short-sighted and overly simplistic to me; hierarchies of class, race, gender, sexuality, and nationality are inextricably enmeshed. If he’s unable to take an explicitly intersectional perspective (or is pressured not to in order to maintain the “unity” of his base), I think women and POC and other multiply-oppressed people could become collateral damage in his war against the economic/political “establishment.” Of course, economic reforms are also key to helping those groups; that’s why I prefer the strategy of pushing Sanders to improve rather than dismissing him entirely. Clinton is certainly far from being a perfect progressive candidate. Perhaps we can push back against the condescending berniebros(=/= all Sanders supporters) that have been harassing anyone who dissents, and open the Sanders movement to a more inclusive set of progressive voices? My (possibly futile, who knows?) goal is to provide respectful but firm constructive criticism to Sanders and his followers. If you think that’s at all reasonable, I’d love it if you could RT me or add your own questions/comments to the hashtag.
(I hope I’m not doing this all wrong! I’ve never really used Twitter, and I don’t have much of an activist history.)
As someone who lives in Vermont I could go on at length about Bernie. (Angry personal stories even!) But I’ve neither the time or energy to do so now. Thank god.
If you ever felt like doing so, I’m curious.
Me too! Though based on rumors I’ve heard, I can imagine why you don’t want to get into it.
Because this is the sort of oddly specific memory I have here’s the last time Bighair did: If this link doesn’t jump correctly scroll down to “gnashing my teeth”
So.
Coloneldad’s angry personal Sanders story: This one time, there was a bunch of Vermont National Guard higher ups (generals, colonels, etc) and two VT congressmen on a plane. Guess who the only one who flew first class was? (Hint. It was Bernie Sanders.) So his whole man of the people/I’m not like these other rich folks schtick grates a bit.
My angry personal Sanders story: This one time I was having a get ahold of your congressman cause this is bullshit type issue while I was in the military. Leahy and his office bent over backwards trying to help. Sanders essentially went ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I think you should probably introduce the whole concept. Because hashtags are shorthand for ideas, you want to say, “ok here’s my hashtag BernBetter” I’m challenging Sanders to dig deeper on progressive issues to consider race, class and gender.” Then probably have lots of examples. Also if you don’t have a huge twitter platform, you have to interact with people who have more followers than you do and get the ball rolling.
I’m strongly “meh” on Bernie Sanders. I don’t understand his cult of followers at all. Are you more interested in going down a substantive policy road to discuss the Bern himself or of pointing out the aggression of the bernie bros? Because one is about the way this conversation is happening, and the other is about what is being said by the dude himself. And if so you might need two hashtags? BernBetter for better Bernie, WokeBerners for people who want Bernie to care about social justice?
This is very good advice, thanks!
I think I’m trying to indirectly target the way the conversation happens by pretending like I only care about policy? As a form of strategic self-tone-policing? Maybe that doesn’t make sense. But if you directly criticize the berniebros, they just get madder and more insular. So maybe asking polite questions on the issues would make it harder for them to react superficially and defensively, while also getting them to think a bit more. I don’t actually expect Bernie to listen or change his message unless the audience starts doubting it first. Maybe having both hashtags would help?
hmm….I mean you could set a questions trap. It sounds like you want to use the socratic method to get people to ask more questions for themselves?
But also…don’t you think the bernie bros real problem is women and reality? I do. I think it’s a lot of people’s real problem with Hillary, and I say that even though she’s not progressive enough for me, and I worry about her hawkish nature and her cronies and her links back to older administrations. Even so I’m voting for her. I felt the same way about Obama by the way and I noticed everyone bought his schtick and then was disappointed he wasn’t Captain Close Gitmo/Sir Universal Payer, if you read his books it was clear he was a moderate at best. Obama was never the flaming liberal I wanted, but he got enough done to shore up some of the crumbling foundations of the American dream, and he’ll become a living symbol, and for me, that’s enough to ask for in one person. I mean, I voted for Jill Stein during the last election, obviously I don’t think Hillary is my dream first female president.
I think its like, “ARE YOU CRAZY?! HOW COULD YOU PICK THIS WOMAN OVER OUR GUY WHO IS SO SINCERE AND REAL?! HILLARY RIPS OFF HER FACE TO EATS HER FOOD LIKE A SNAKE IN THE BATHROOM!!! BERNIE CARES ABOUT STUFF AND IS A COOL GRANDPA!”
What can you say about Bernie to someone like that? What can you say about Hils? Here’s why I’m voting for her. For the last what…40 years everyone has hated her and you know what she did about that? She became first lady, a senator, secretary of state and helps run a foundation. She’s a freaking tidal wave. She gets shit done. She is our Titanium Lady. I don’t think we’re going to be able to become Sweden in our next election cycle. So I’d settle for a moderate who compromises, to get things done, and in so doing, gives us another 8 years of the republicans further destroying themselves from within. I believe in, “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
I like Bernie because he pushes Hils to the left. I hope he gets to be secretary of labor or commerce and he and Elizabeth Warren ride against the corporations and lobbies on a pale horse, with the specter of Unions and Regulations at their sides.
I dunno about the confrontation versus no confrontation. Anyone who will yell in caps at someone else on twitter, is probably pretty set in their worldview I think? If you want to talk about that tone, I’d just raise it. Be like, “Bern Better is about bernie talking about these issues, here’s a speech where he could have done it. But BernBetter is also about how this guy yelled at this woman who is picking hillary, about her face instead of about her ideas.”
AGREE
Yes, you are spot on about all of this. Clinton is a complete badass to have stuck around and accomplished so much. I will be thrilled to vote for her in the general election if that’s where we end up (as we probably will). If Sanders doesn’t change his tune, and do something like, I dunno, commit to a race and gender equal cabinet, or make a good VP nom, I will vote for Clinton in the primaries too. But I am FRUSTRATED at stupid people on the internet and at the fact that I have to choose between two compromise candidates. I know this is just how things are, and I should probably just let it go, but I want to do something! I will make my stupid little stand and then maybe I can relax a little.
Some of the bros are definitely out of touch with reality and just loathe women and minorities. I may be naive, but I hope that there’s a “silent majority” of Sanders supporters who are reasonable, but are just being blindly optimistic and uncritical. I’d like to make them think and defend the right side of things rather than let the ugly side take over. The socratic thing has worked among my carefully-curated set of irl friends who I talk politics with, but maybe Twitter is stupider and less nice. In any case, Sanders himself will probably disappear, but the bros might not, so I figure let’s yell at them a little while we can?
Yeah, I hear you on frustrated and I think it’s great that you want to wade into the middle of it. And if you are one of the team, maybe they’ll listen. What i think I’m saying, bear with me because I don’t always know what that is before I type it, is are you going to engage with the trolls and find out the deal or engage with the quiet majority to shut down the trolls? Make a stand! I stand for stands! I think what I’m hearing is that you should probably be like, “hey man am I crazy or should bernie do this to prove this thing he said? Who’s with me?” and then that kind of pulls to the silent majority/ engages with the bros.
My discerning college age boy and his friends have summed up my opinions on Bernie Sanders quite succinctly: “Bernie Sanders is that guy who runs for class president and promises that every day will be pizza day in the cafeteria if you elect him.”
The other day Trump told a kid he would put pizza back on school menus and I realized this is high school all over again. With much higher stakes.
That’s a good way to put it.
I read most of that Rolling Stone interview with him and just came away like:
This is what I would expect if you put a smart politically conscious progressive college student into power without any of the intervening real world experience of trying to actually make things work or ever having to deal with unintended consequences.
Wait, what? He was elected 4 times to be mayor of Burlington, the biggest city in Vermont, and he’s been a senator forever who has managed to wheel and deal with Democrats despite not being in their party.
It’s one thing to disagree with his positions, or not like him, that’s fine, but it’s simply not factually correct or reasonable to compare him to “a smart politically conscious progressive college student into power without any of the intervening real world experience of trying to actually make things work or ever having to deal with unintended consequences.”
And yet, when I read or hear him speak that’s the impression I get.
This sounds accurate. Your boy is very discerning indeed. 🙂
It was actually his artist friend, but they all agreed, and then relayed the idea to me.
I may not hear from my kid for days, weeks sometimes, since he lives with his dad…but then sometimes I get home and there he is, with friends, saying, “We want to watch the republican debate and see who we yell at the most”.
I wish Elizabeth Warren were running instead of Bernie Sanders, but that said, I am not entirely convinced that his supporters are any worse than Clinton’s were in 2008. I will always defend her against misogyny but I’m not sure Sanders is any less ethical.
Many Clinton supporters exploited the racist Jeremiah Wright panic and she did nothing to really stop them. She didn’t challenge Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about race either. Latoya Peterson at Racialicious followed that election very closely and her critiques of Hillary Clinton were really eye-opening for me in terms of the ugliness of white feminism. I would link to some of those pieces here but I have sadly discovered that my bookmarks are dead.
I also worry that in focusing on Sanders’ issues, we will ignore the fact that Clinton has the same problems when it comes to race, her economic advisors support disastrous economic policies, and her foreign policy is likely to make Obama’s drone program look tame.
I totally understand your comments. In ’08 I was an Obama supporter, but honestly, I wasn’t paying super close attention to the dynamics of the campaigns (I was a youngun), so you may be totally right. But my thoughts don’t have much to do with Clinton right now. I don’t think anyone in the world is saying she’s anything other than a corporate-linked, hawkish, white feminist. If I thought she were any better than Sanders, I would just go quietly vote for her. But Sanders is getting people excited in a way that Hillary’s campaign is not. I think the grassroots coalition he’s forming is more important, in some ways, than what he’d actually get done as president (if he should get there). I don’t want that coalition to be controlled by one sort of voice, or we’ll risk the progress we’re making on race and gender equality. Policy matters, but so does the popular discourse – things will only change if people change. (I also have some thoughts about how Clinton’s not as bad as she was/seems, and about how disappointing incremental change to the status quo is preferable to the wrong sort of dramatic changes, but those are not even fully convincing to me, so I’m not going to push there. But believe me, if she does get the nom, I’ll pressure her from the left too.)
Oooh, these are good points. I have largely ignored the grassroots coalition stuff because I think BLM is the most promising national social movement out there right now and I am hoping that any kind of leftist coalition will have to answer to them and whither away if it doesn’t engage with white supremacy on their terms. But that is probably wishful thinking. Everyone I know who supports Sanders has been circulating that article about his shitty stance on reparations, which is a good sign to me.
I guess part of my issue with people laying off Clinton right now is that this is the time to be critiquing both of those candidates from a leftist perspective. Once she is running against Trump or Rubio or Voldemort or whoever the GOP inflicts on us, it will be time to rally behind her and direct our energies toward the right.
I wish Warren could get the nomination, though I know she isn’t perfect. She would do a better job selling a viable policy of holding banks accountable etc. I’m not sure it’s fair to suggest that Bernie Sanders’s ‘fringe’ platform is any more ridiculous than those of Clinton or any of the GOP candidates. It is just as absurd to continue running the economy the way it is running. All of the discussions of his ‘crazy’ ideas are also opportunities to point out that the current system itself is no less crazy.
Gosh I hope Warren runs a few elections from now. In the meantime, I will vote for Bernie in the primaries in the hopes that his successes will push the Democratic party towards some actual progressivism, and then I’ll cheerfully vote for Clinton in the general election.
Y’all know Warren was a republican back in the day, right? Everything everyone is saying about Hillary they’ll throw at Warren if she ran for Prez. Personally I like her in the senate raising hell and i hope she becomes our better nancy pelosi and fosters a lot more women senators. A queen-maker if you will.
If you’re interested in some interesting reading on Bernie and intersectionality, I highly recommend Aphra Behn’s four-part “Looking For Bernie” series on Shakesville, which I just read this week and which has contributed to my disillusionment with the Sanders campaign pretty heavily. Part one here, the full series here.
I haven’t finished reading it, but I looked at part of it earlier this week. It’s really well done.
Alternately, #hilary2016
If she gets the nom (she probably will), no doubt! And I very well might vote for her in the primary. But the berniebros are going to stick around for at least a little while, so there’s no harm in yelling at them a bit (or being politlely critical, whichever).
All I’m sayin is you know Hillary is more fun at a party. Bernie Sanders tells you about the difference between hops and Hillary Clinton drinks dirty martinis out of a coffee mug. guaranteed.
To be fair I will also tell you about the difference between hops.
The northwest grows the best hops they are bright, floral and citrus-y and make IPAs that taste like grapefruit.
Don’t invite me to your party is what I am saying.
But you should totally invite H.C. because I bet she has a bootleg of the Wu Tang album.
I will. We’ll sample as many IPA’s as humanly possible. Maybe we’ll visit hop farms.
Bernie brings a 6 pack of microbrew and hides it in the back of the fridge. Hillary brings a handle of Jack Daniels and a 2 liter of RC cola.
#rodhamsrules2016
So. After the Dirtbag Hera comments, who’s with me for building a time machine and putting together a summer camp for all of our nerdy child selves to attend? Bitty me who didn’t actually make a real friend until twelve would’ve definitely been on board.
Ten-year-old me would have loved that, but it’s also possible that I would have been extremely obnoxious in an attempt to prove to everyone that I Am The Cleverest and know the most about Greek myths (almost certainly not true, but I dealt very badly as a child with feelings of inadequacy).
Hmm. Child me had all the interpersonal skills of a brick. (This is what happens when you move twelve times and go to eight different schools by age eleven.) Some sort of course in functioning in a group might be in order.
ARE YOU ME
(I was a Navy brat with undiagnosed ADHD. My social skills were appalling. I would not want to hang out with younger me, to be honest.)
This sounds like it would be a million times better than the actual summer camp I went to, which involved almost no crafts, too many non-pool-related fitness activities/sports, and ‘movie nights’ with the same two movies played on a loop (The Sandlot and Stand By Me).
Yes! Would you be up for listening to my 11-year-self go on about why all movie adaptations of books were highly inferior products made by people who Just Didn’t Understand It?
…are you me?
This is the precise exact face that I made also
I’m planning on doing a-camp this summer for pretty much this exact reason.
Can we still do this without the time machine? I feel like adult summer camp is a thing I need in my life.
My parents have a small farm. I’m willing to take it over for a week or so this summer for this purpose.
TOASTCAMP!!!
Yes, pleeeeeeease make this happen. I’ll help: rmcd 1974 at hotmail dot com
I can’t even imagine how great this would be.
If you do this, I want in.
I could host the west coast version.
This brings back memories of the most awesome time I ever had at soccer camp as a nerdy, only vaguely enthused about athleticism small child. There were two older girls in my group (they must have been 12, I was 10), and they insisted on naming our team after mythical creatures from Tamora Pierce books and beating the snot out of the boys. They were glorious, and I hope they have continued to lead magnificent, badass lives ever since.
this…literally could not be further from any experience i have ever had with organized sports and i’m immensely jealous of you
I think this means we need to join TOAST CAMP. You bring the falcon, I’ll bring the “Fighting Spidrens” t-shirts. (Slightly flat soccer ball totally optional.)
FIGHTING SPIDRENS
okay and we can all have our own darklings?
can i bring my imaginary falcon?
Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but… https://camp.nerdfitness.com/
I’m going this year, more tickets should open up soon, and I’m so excited!
(remembers the time that I brought Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” to YMCA summer camp)
Yes I would like to do this yes
I needed you in my childhood.
CTY already exists tho…
Anyone here good at finance things? I have a tiny baby 401k through my workplace (no match sadly) and I’ve been recently trying to figure out what the hell is going on there. It turns out all of my money is in a target-date retirement fund (T. Rowe Price). Is that a good idea? Also I can’t for the life of me figure out what the fees are.
I’ve heard that target-date retirement funds are good when you want someone to make the best type of allocation for where you are in your work-life, as long as you have the date reasonably estimated. Basically, it uses a riskier mix (more likely to earn more over the long term, but volatile in the short term) while you’re in the early stages, and as you get closer to retirement and need to lock those earnings down and not lose, it moves to a safer mix that earns less but has less annual variability. But that’s just what I heard in a seminar, I am in no way an expert!
I have heard these things also! And also I have heard that the fees are quite high, because there is a lot of futzing and re-balancing that happens. If the fees are bad, you should have a fund that mirrors the S&P 500 with a fairly low fee, and this is a pretty middle-of-the-road choice.
The fees are probably explained in your employee handbook, or on your employee intranet, or it’s possible that your employer picks up the fees (my current employer does, but the one I’ll be joining soon does not).
“also I have heard that the fees are quite high”
Not necessarily. The annual fee on a Vanguard target retirement fund is usually around 0.17%. Of course anyone can charge any fee that they can get away with. Just looking at random T Rowe Price target funds, the expenses are more like 0.66%–not fantastic, but within the limited universe of the options available through one’s 401(k), it may well be quite respectable. The rebalancing only takes place a couple of times a year.
An S&P 500 index as your only investment is NOT a middle-of-the-road choice, it is a fairly high-risk one. The stock market varies dramatically over time. People fight over the details, but you are better off in a portfolio that includes some bonds, which is one of the things a target-date fund will arrange for you. (Indexing is the way to go, though.)
Yes, an S&P 500 is very poorly diversified! I think the poster probably meant a total-market index fund, which tracks the whooooole market, not just 500 big companies.
If your job isn’t matching it, put your money in a Roth IRA. It won’t get taxed and it’s for retirement.
I have been led to believe that target date funds are great if you want your 401k to be very hands off, like I do.
I think the target date ones are great, especially if you want to be more hands off. And I haven’t noticed that the fees are significantly higher than in other funds.
I might recommend looking into a Roth IRA, since your company isn’t matching your 401k. It gives you the same tax benefits, but you get more control over your money. They have limits of $5500/year, but it’s a nice way to grow money.
The general advice I’ve seen (and follow) is thus:
1) Contribute to your 401k enough to get your employer’s full match (not a thing for you, but matches are good, free money when they are available)
2) If you have money beyond that, put it in a Roth IRA. Same tax savings, more control
3) If you have money beyond that, decide how liquid you want it to be. If you want access to it in 1-2 years, put it in a basic savings fund or money market. 5-10-20 years, put it in a mutual fund (more risk, more return). If you don’t want it until you retire, stick it in your 401k up to the max. Or break it up among these three categories depending on your savings goals.
As for fees, they tend to be a percentage, and they vary by company. I’ve found that Vanguard tends to have the lowest fees (~0.2%). They can get as high as 2%, which doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up. Especially if your portfolio is only earning ~3%. I’ve found that they tend to be higher in 401ks, since you don’t have a whole lot of choice there, which is why I’d recommend a Roth IRA. But the tax benefits of the 401k far outweigh the lower fees you might find in a mutual fund you sought out for yourself.
I don’t want to add too much complexity, but Roth IRA shouldn’t be the default choice over a traditional IRA. I was using a Roth for a couple years before I realized it wasn’t a very good tax strategy for my situation!
The short story is that if you expect to make less in retirement than you do now, traditional is better. If you expect to make more, Roth is better. More here if you’re interested!: http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/roth-tra…
Yes, damn, I always mix those two up. The one where you pay taxes later is better.
Agreed that a target-date fund is a good idea if a) you are not interested in doing a lot yourself/hiring a fee-only financial planner to do it for you and b) the fees are reasonable. Also seconding a Roth IRA as a supplement, especially if you suspect you’ll be making more money when you’re in your late 50s than you are now.
I also recommend poking around the blog Get Rich Slowly if you’re interested in the basics of investing. There’s a lot of solid, accessible writing and it’s a good introduction to a lot of concepts like asset allocation (your mix of stocks, bonds, etc.), how to evaluate mutual funds, and that kind of thing.
This is all really helpful, thanks! I’m actually making Roth payments to my 401k (which is a thing you can apparently do!) right now, though it seems like I should switch to an IRA once I leave this job. Mostly I went with the 401k because it’s easy–if I had to choose my investments myself I’d probably be too paralyzed by indecision to even start.
Choosing a target date fund counts as choosing your investments! And it’s a fine choice. A+ investing work!!
FYI, you can buy target-date funds through your IRA, so no worries if you invest outside of work (like, you can literally go to vanguard.com, open an IRA, click “buy,” and select a target date fund of choice)
Hi Toasties! I have been waiting for this open thread because I am in need of some advice, and I think this is the place to ask. (also sorry this turned out really long)
I have a good friend and co-worker who had a baby six months ago. She is about 10 years older than me, and she is the first close friend I’ve known to have kids. I know that it is fairly normal to be super stressed, which she is, and I would really like to do something nice for her, something in the vein of “time off to de-stress”, but I’m not quite sure what would be good or appropriate. I would just ask her, but she is the type to try to wave off any help, so I think it would be good if I could go to her with two or three concrete ideas at the least. Here is the situation:
She says her husband is great, but from the things she tells me he seems sort of clueless. Situations arise where she has worked all day and somehow ends up making dinner/washing all the dishes/ and taking care of the baby. Also last week he actually stayed home with the kid so that she could have a full day at work and then he called her asking if she could be home by 5:00 so he could get a beer with friends. This led to her saying something along the lines of how she hasn’t gotten to see some of her friends in months.
It worries me because she seems like she is having trouble being kind to herself. She judges herself for all kinds of decisions when I think she is really just doing the best that she can. I worry that this will keep her from doing anything really big (like a spa day).
Finally, I am absolutely not equipped to care for a baby alone, but I think I could recruit another friend (who is a mom and that first friend knows and trusts) and we could definitely babysit for a day or evening.
Do any moms out there have suggestions? Is it silly of me even to suggest this? Would she even appreciate this if it means being away from her kid for a day?
I was a single mom in university, and I really appreciated the following:
People who made plans with me that were flexible around baby-needs, and were daytime things like a coffee date that I could bring baby with – my girl had EXCELLENT restaurant manners by the time she could walk. (pro tip – asking for a couple of lemon or cucumber slices as soon as we sat down). City movieplexes have Moms and Tots matinees, with lowered sound, not quite blacked out theatres and changes tables.
People who came over, brought supper things, cooked, held the baby while I ate hot food omg, and washed up and brought a movie, and didn’t mind pausing it 300 times in 2 hours
Someone I trusted enough to call and say “I don’t trust myself not to hurt her COME RIGHT NOW”
A friend who babysat every Monday night, so I could go out, have a beer with other friends and listen to the house band at the local pub.
As with grief: be specific with offering help. Make it easy to accept. Saying “How about I come over Tuesday, with supper and a movie? Do you want lasagna or burgers?” is more effective than “Hey, lemme know if you need anything”
You sound like a great friend! I know I would have appreciated the offer as a new mom. It’s so hard to take/get a break from a newborn, but it’s so helpful for mental and physical well-being. If she doesn’t go for the babysitting offer, maybe delivering meals or doing some housecleaning?
Oh, it is definitely not silly for you to suggest it! It is very kind, and most moms would be very happy to take you up on the offer. You can also encourage her by just telling her that she is a good mom, that her baby appears so well loved and cared for, that you admire how hard she works at home and the office. You can be a good listener when she talks about baby things (because she probably knows it is not where you are right now, but it takes up SO MUCH of her mind).
Not sure if this applies in your friend’s situation, but she might appreciate you babysitting somewhere other than her home, so she can just take a long bath and sleep if that is what she wants to do. You could also offer to watch the baby at a non-traditional time, like 5-8pm (you pick up baby from caregiver), so she could leave work at her own pace and go shopping or something.
It is not silly of you at all, it is wonderful! You know your friend and what kind of person she is; for us, when our daughter was a baby (she is 6! now) we couldn’t have coped with letting someone babysit her, but with our son (now 3) we would’ve taken a trusted friend up on this offer immediately. 🙂 It just depends on her.
One thought is that if she is exhausted, she might not need a spa day, but rather a chance to lie around in pajamas and watch Netflix and eat chips and take a hot bath without being interrupted every twenty minutes by baby or awareness of chores to be done — one possibility might be to offer her a swap, where she could have the run of your place while you & Friend babysit? Or you could maybe arrange with her husband to have her friends over to her place — organise the food/drinks/whatever — and you and Friend babysit so she can just hang out with people in a low key way? (We would have LOVED this when our kids were infants.)
Other things you can do which are helpful are to try to mitigate some of the chores, especially if her husband is being an idiot about it — like make a bunch of food for her freezer, or get friends to pitch in to buy her one of those meal services, or come over and do all her dishes or laundry or whatever.
And lastly I think the absolute best thing you can do is just stick by her through the whole thing; it is a really stressful crazy time having a baby, and in our experience we had a LOT of help/support for about six weeks, then everyone sort of faded. So lots of kudos to you for being aware of how much stress she’s under!
I bought a massage with a good massage therapist I know for a friend of mine who has two young children and is exhausted, and she said it was lovely. I’m unable to babysit due to disability, so I tend to go in more for providing support online and generally cheering her on.
My baby is 7 months old and the best thing that someone can do for me is coming over and watching the wee babe while she plays and hold her and such. Often I’m there in the room, or just in the next room doing some chores but it’s just so nice to be able to rest the part of my mind that is constantly on alert to watch out, play and interact with the baby. Having that break recharges me for later.
Also, I second the idea of coming over, making food and then cleaning up. That is an awesome idea!
I found this Captain Awkward column a while back and as someone who is often in similar situations as you, I found it helpful: http://captainawkward.com/2015/09/08/743-how-can-…
I was coming to post that one too! Highly recommended.
Everyone has great ideas. And everyone’s right that you’re so thoughtful and good to be thinking this through for her.
* show up at work with a bag full of paper plates & bowls, disposable cutlery, cups, etc. You can get fancy/festive (when my sis was divorcing I got her all pinks & purples bc those were her daughter’s favorite colors) or bare-bones, but either way tell her to stop doing the dishes for a month. You could also hand over portion-sided homemade frozen meals.
* Offer (weather depending) to go on a walk with her & baby on a regular basis – thirty minutes to just stroll and chat and someone else being around to make sure the intersection is clear or pick up the thrown toy from the sidewalk (and more importantly to make sure she leaves the house) is great for brain recharging. It also can get you familiar enough with the baby that you might be comfortable saying “hey I’ll take kiddo to the pond and back while you chill for half an hour” down the line.
* Her husband is likely clueless, and she is likely so convinced she has to be perfect that she’s not finding good ways to let him know he’s clueless, and most of all, you’re a safe space away from home / family / their couple friends where she can vent about it. Your sympathetic shoulder is part of her self-care, even if it’s making you mad at her husband on her behalf. That said, giving her the resources her husband isn’t providing is important, because she’s having trouble putting herself first in any equation, and her husband, it seems, is not. She’s probably putting him ahead of herself, too. Husband will, ideally, learn to put her & baby above himself, but I’ve seen that happen “naturally” more often after baby’s a year or so than earlier in a baby’s life, especially for the first. The tendency is Mom cares for Baby, Dad cares for Mom, and then when Mom is back on a more routine track, Dad goes back to caring for Dad, and then when Baby starts throwing things at Dad, Dad cares for Baby, then Dad, then Mom, all the while Mom cares for Baby then Dad then Mom. (oversimplification! stereotyping! but… you know.)
I’m not a mom, but my husband and I have visited my sister a couple of times since she had a baby last September, and she and her husband really appreciate just having an extra pair of eyes or two in the house that can watch the baby while they catch up on things like showers, vacuuming, etc. We also babysat while they went out one night. Just being there can be a huge relief as long as your friend is comfortable asking you to help and doesn’t treat you like a guest that needs to be hosted.
Also get some new dads that don’t suck to yell at your friend’s husband, I guess?
Everyone’s suggestions are really good, I’d say any one of these will be hugely welcomed by your friend.
This conversation has also given me fresh motivation to try and figure out ways of helping a co-worker of mine. We’re friendly but not close, so not quite at the stage where I can say “I’m bringing dinner on Tuesday!” but she’s going through a very tough time with family illnesses and being stretched very thin, so I’m making a point of asking her how things are on a regular basis and giving her space to vent and offering hugs and the like. I’d like to do more, but even those small things are a start.
Offer to babysit at night,after the baby falls asleep. By 6 months, most babies have a stretch of at least 4-6 hours when they first go to sleep, even if they might still need to wake up and eat later in the night. Your friend will know her baby’s sleep habits by now and would know if this would work for her. It saves you from having to worry about doing hands-on baby care until/unless you’re more comfortable. And it relieves some of Mom’s worry about whether the baby is upset she’s gone. My husband and I have done this a bunch with my in-laws and it’s worked out well.
As for the issue of self-care, I can definitely relate to where your friend is at and I think it’s a really common issue for new Moms especially. My little guy is about 9 months old and it was really hard for me to ask for help, especially early on and even with simple stuff. I felt like I was the Mom, I should be able to handle this. It can be really hard to juggle a baby, work, your relationships all at the same time. It’s really great that she has you as someone she can vent to. The not-asking-for-help thing was not something I recognized about myself for a very long time, so I’m glad she has someone like you who is perceptive enough to see what’s happening with her.
Friends and snow monsters:
TWO awful things happened to me on snow monster eve (yesterday):
1. I maybe fractured my left patella by dropping the full weight of a human woman on it all at once (grape on waxed wood floor = slipperier than ice if you step on it barefoot). of note: I did not injure my injured back any more than it already was due to my terrible new fall reflexes which command me to keep my back straight and upright at all times no matter the cost to other breakable parts of my body, A, and B, I did not drop or even tip the full wine glass in my right hand during the falling, the impact, or the screaming afterward. give me a medal.
2. it was going to be ok because I was already going to be barricaded in my apartment hiding from the snow monsters for three solid days without plans to go anywhere and a fresh bought bottle of Cabin Fever brand maple whiskey to occupy me. but then the other terrible thing happened, which is: it isn’t maple flavored at all no matter what the label says. it is butterscotch flavored.
EDIT: has nobody started a giant SNOW PANIC discussion yet? can this be it? Can anyone tell me some garbage books to buy for my Kindle before I lose power? I am ready for the blizzard with a bushel of apples, three quarter-bottles of real whisky as well as my liar’s “maple” whiskey, and some wine. but I do not have nearly enough crap to read. I have good books a-plenty but this is not the time for those.
I’m here for your SNOW PANIC discussion! (and sympathy for broken/fractured body parts). I’m smack in the middle of the path of snowpacalypse: DC. I have a full fridge (that I wisely stocked on Tuesday before chaos reigned) and lots of whisky and knitting and tea and blankets and some things from work that I should really work on.
DC Toasts, I hear that the Snowball Fight Association is going to have a snowball fight and charity shoveling at Dupont Circle Park Sunday morning, which, given the metro closure, will be tricky to get to. But if you live in the District and can safely get there on foot, might be fun! I’m probably going to stay home, though. WE SHALL SEE.
me too! (DC)
Last snowpocalypse I was living on the SE edge of Capitol Hill, which I think is high-priority for emergency crews because of the proximiity of Important People and I never lost power, but now I”m up towards Brightwood/Takoma and I am DEFINITELY ABSOLUTELY going to lose power tonight or tomorrow. my cat will burrow all the way inside my body cavity when it drops below 60, it is a sure thing. aside from that I am incredibly excited.
EDIT: SNOWFLAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I am working from home because I have a work laptop and special privileges but my office is open and shows no sign of closing early. perhaps I will be the boss on Monday because everyone else HAS DIED.)
I was asked to telework today, and at noon my boss sent me a message “have to run snow errands, we can chat about the intern to hire when I get back” and she has yet to return. I feel chained to my computer now, when I wanted to skip off a bit early???
We have an inch of snow already.
What?!? False maple advertising? I mean, I love butterscotch, but it’d be like the time I bought a rose-scented body wash and they’d accidentally filled the jar with the ginger-lemongrass kind (which kind of smelled like Windex somehow.) Very uncool of them.
PS I thought you had dropped the full weight of a human woman who was not you on your knee and I was very interested to hear how that happened.
These are sort of like … quality garbage? I think? And none are new. Which means you might’ve read them already. With those caveats…
The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch (first one’s called Midnight Riot in the US)
The Graceling Realms books by Kristin Cashore (Graceling, Fire and Bitterblue)
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
(there’s no way you haven’t read these but) Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael mysteries
We’re not actually getting very much snow (2-4 inches) but I definitely grocery shopped today as though we were. Purchases include cheesy poofs, soy milk to make hot cocoa with, and ingredients for Ma Po Tofu, the most comforting of cold-weather foods, to be made by my genius husband. We also have plenty of popcorn and while we did our ceremonial Labyrinth rewatch last week, we have plans to settle down for Galaxy Quest this evening or next.
I hope you heal quickly. Also, please get that shit X-rayed if you haven’t already and if it’s financially and logistically possible.
thank you! but you are wrong, I never have read any Ellis Peters and maybe I should. My mom read nothing but mysteries for years so EPs were around the house but I never picked them up. and mysteries make me super nostalgic for childhood just because they were my mom’s genre, but the only ones I ever read on purpose and not just because they were there were Dorothy Sayers and Sarah Caudwell. anyway that is a good suggestion. as is the Frances Hardinge, which I have heard of but not read. I am nearly out of interesting children’s and young adult books I haven’t already read but I forgot about that one last time I went looking.
and I will definitely get the knee looked at if it still hurts on Monday, which it seems like it will. but I will be snowbound until then, public transit is shutting down hard in a couple hours and not re-opening for days. if it gives me too much trouble I will go put snow on it, or put it in snow
Oh good! I’m happy to be wrong about that! They’re kinda formulaic, but I may have only noticed that because I really mainlined them, 6 or 7 at a time.
Sayers and Caudwell both delight and frustrate me: so good and yet so few.
It sounds like you’ll have plenty of snow to put the knee in. Shovel none of it!
Sarah Caudwell dying young of cancer was my final proof that there is no God.
I’m glad there’s a SNOW PANIC thread! I’m just outside DC but grew up in the Midwest, so I feel like I mostly know what to do in a blizzard, but I’m a little concerned I may get completely stir-crazy by Sunday night. I’m hoping that the power stays on, but I’m keeping all my electronics charged and my candles nearby just in case.
New semester, new ethics class.
No dirtbag teaching it.
All is right with the world.
(Kinda. The original dirtbag is still there, but I’m working on correcting that.)
guys, seasonal blah hit me like a ton of bricks this week. every day i go home and strive to fall asleep as quickly as possible while watching old television. nothing is any good, even the things that are good. hibernation until the first muds of spring: who’s with me?
Saaame. I am trying to be positive but things keep piling on. January weather is relentless. Hope you make it through without developing a chocolate problem (like me, this is what I am currently doing to not-cope with things).
I’ve got the seasonal blahs despite this being my first winter in a place that doesn’t really get winter. How is that even possible? So yeah I’m right there with you.
I was with you a month ago – to the point of crying tantrums pretty regularly. I am now sitting in front of my new SAD lamp, which is great, and getting more exercise, which is great, and taking more vitamin D, which I guess is great? Anyway, I feel way better.
Hugs to you, because nothing being good SUCKS.
I started taking 5000 of D and it is like MAGIC. PURE MAGIC.
Oh, goodness, yes. My seasonal blahs are coinciding with unemployment, and I’m struggling so hard to be productive.
My resolution: walk outside, while there is sunshine, every day. It seems to be helping a little bit.
yeah, i’ve been making myself get out and move. the weather here isn’t bad, just kinda gray and wet. what’s weird is that it’s pretty easy to make myself get out, because i don’t care. may as well take a 30 minute walk and not care, and then go back to bed and continue not caring. junk food and healthy food taste the same, so may as well eat healthy. the other day i mixed myself a cocktail and then got tired of drinking it and put it in the freezer. BAH.
Yeah, I find I drink less when I’m really depressed because if everything is terrible, it’ll still be terrible when I’m drunk, so I might as well not expend the effort. At least it takes away one potential thing for me to beat myself up about? In conclusion, winter is terrible.
Ugh seriously. Everything sucks and it’s cold and dark and I hate it. Nothing is good.
I am so in.
Oh, I have a beauty-ish question for the hivemind:
What do you guys do with your eyebrows?? The last time I tried waxing was probably seven years ago and I ended up with a chunk missing in the middle… And mine have never been thick enough to need regular maintenance, but recently I’ve been using makeup more consistently and even when I’m happy with everything else, I just think they look… unfinished. Idk.
I cannot talk up the bbrowbar brow definer enough. It’s like, my splurge item with makeup because it’s the easiest brow pencil I’ve owned. My eyebrows are unruly, so I find it easier to tweese than wax because I feel like I have more control.
I use pencil to fill in the gaps (the hereditary eyebrow balding in my family is catching up with me) and then powder to make them look somewhat uniform. I also pluck the hairs that are way out of line, but I don’t bother with waxing because they grow super fast.
I finally caved and booked myself an appointment to get them done. I am hoping that solves All of My Various Eyebrow Problems.
I absolutely love getting my eyebrows threaded. My eyebrows are not very dark, though my hair is–they’re more sparse, and they just feel cleaned up when I get them threaded. The lines are clean, it’s just thread, and I usually go every other month (or…every 6 weeks.) When I lived in NYC there was a salon down the street from my office that had services for $6-7. Unfortunately in Ohio it’s more like $10-12, but…worth it.
upvoting the threading. I have thick, dark eyebrows that look wonderfully defined when i get them threaded; my mom has barely-there ones that have a lot more oomph when she’s had them done. Just getting the barely visible hairs out of the way to “edge” them makes a huge difference.
I can’t with eyebrow makeup, though. I tried for a while but I always rub them and smudge it all. over. my. face.
Haha I also can’t do the eyebrow powder–like you, it ends up everywhere on my face. But I will take an eyebrow pencil and draw/dot carefully backwards (for some reason, backwards is easier to blend???) and then blend with a brush or q-tip.
I get mine waxed and/or threaded occasionally, and do desultory maintenance with tweezers to keep my arches awesome (I love my eyebrows). For makeup my favourite is this Benefit eyebrow wax stuff, or otherwise this Origins pencil. While I’m not into tons of brow makeup a bit to fill them in and strengthen the shape makes me feel more finished on days when I want to look finished. I’m not crazy about powders – to me they make my eyebrows look too cartoonish.
Two things: 1) extending the outer line of my eyebrows just a little bit with makeup is AWESOME and somehow subtly adds so much drama and 2) when I want to look extra-intimidating in court, I focus on my eyebrows. Darker, bolder, and more emphasis on the inner halves than usual. It’s not pretty, exactly, although it’s not ugly. I really enjoy using makeup as war paint and not to seem more attractive. It feels subversive somehow.
Are you using makeup on your eyebrows, i.e. filling them in? This makes all the difference for me — I use some brown eyeshadow that’s about the same color as my eyebrows and try to highlight their natural shape/make them a bit darker and thicker. I had tried to shape them with Jane Marie’s How To Be a Girl on eyebrows but now I just kind of clean up any rogue hairs and let them be.
Mine are generally really well behaved so all I do is pluck the occasional weird hair that grows way lower than my eyebrow and use a little tinted gel. The gel makes them look much more “groomed” and makes them a tiny bit darker (which I like but ymmv). Plus it’s dead easy to apply. There are a million drugstore brow products coming out right now but I’ve been using the Nyx tinted brow mascara.
My brows are pretty easy to maintain, but I do get them waxed at the salon. Dior makes a great tool with a very fine pencil on one end and a brush on the other to distribute the color.
Done brows change your whole look to the point where all you may need otherwise is mascara and a touch of liner on the eyes.
I have red eyebrows that I’ve never plucked or done anything to (because they’re vaguely normal shaped, I don’t know, I just feel like they’re not dark enough to stand out at all) and I just brush them with a clean spoolie (you can snag these from Sephora or use an old mascara wand) and then use cheap clear mascara to keep them in place!
Benefit Gimme Brow is the shit. It’s like mascara for your brows and it is amazing how much better they look, even without doing anything else.
Oh yeah, the Nxy stuff I use is supposed to be a cheap Gimme Brow dupe. So easy! And such a big difference!
Brow powder is a nice way to play around and see what you think your eyebrows should do. I use a wet n wild eyeliner pencil in mink and do very short strokes then brush with an old toothbrush or the brush part of an eyelash brush. I have very sparse but very dark eyebrows so it makes them look a bit better grown in. Powder is supposed to be a bit easier to not overdo than pencil.
I hate that the advice you can read about in books and magazines and online really isn’t specific enough to be helpful. “See what works best for you!” – we all know that means “look pretty bonkers for the weeks in between trying something that doesn’t work waiting for your brows to grow in!” A good professional really is the best way to find a good brow shape- but I have no idea how you find one!
If you’re finding them a hassle, it can be worth letting them grow back to normal, stopping concentrating on them, and seeing if you turn out to be happy with them. I did that, after about two decades of thinking I had old man eyebrows and plucking them to half their usual thickness, and you know what? They are eyebrows! They look perfectly nice! I do pluck the few hairs that turn up in the middle, but that’s easy. The main problem had been staring at them and fretting about them.
I thread irregularly and tweeze in between. I have enough eyebrow that they would reach my hairline so I have plenty to work with. I would vote get them done by someone not massively cheap and be specific about what you want in terms of just tidying up, then you have a line to follow to maintain yourself.
I tweeze them a bit underneath, just to keep the arch nice and clean. Occasionally I will use a bit of brown eyeshadow to darken them, if I’m feeling saucy. Most of the time they’re hidden behind my glasses anyway so I’m pretty low-key about them.
I’ve only ever plucked the strays (my mother warned me passionately about the dangers of Over Plucking) and been generally happy with them
But I decided I’d try filling them in because i do kind of like the strong brow look that’s in now; I got a pretty light pencil and I just fill lightly, but ever then, I look very intense with them. And I’m finding it doesn’t really mean with my standard smokey/cat eye look and now I don’t know what to do with my face.
I’m very lazy when it comes to makeup, so I pluck mine into a shape that I like and fill them with a NYX brow pencil to make them look more “finished.” It’s a lifesaver, especially because I periodically get stressed or hyperfocused on something and come to an hour later to find I’ve pulled half my eyebrow out. Super attractive!
(when I was 18 I had a c o m p l e t e breakdown and, among other things, literally pulled out my entire eyebrows. Not a hair left. 100% gone. This was before I knew anything about makeup and before eyebrows became a ~thing~, so I used – wait for it – a black eyeliner pencil to draw my eyebrows on. Black, greasy, smudgy eyeliner. It’s not the worst thing I did during that time in my life, but it’s up there.)
I just started messing with my brows (nothing wacky, just some Rimmel kit) and they look ok but I definitely need some professional help. However! It’s rainy season here and since I walk a lot in said rain during my commute I am terrified of having my eyebrows dripping everywhere. Is this fear irrational? What do you all do about doing your eyebrows during Extreme Weather and/or sweatiness?
I commented in greater detail below before seeing this, but I can’t recommend Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade enough. It’s waterproof and smudgeproof!
I get mine threaded. It costs $12, takes 5 minutes, and I do it about every 4-6 weeks or whenever I happen to be downtown near the threading place. I also sometimes fill them in lightly with a pencil, which is just a light brown eyeliner I never used on my eyes. (My brows are light brown.) With the pencil I just make small little lines like I’m drawing on hairs, not any strong lines the length of the brow. It seems to look fine?
Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade is the the only thing you should be using! Hyperbole aside, here is why I love it: 1. It is waterproof and smudgeproof. 2. It has a waxy texture that is easy to manipulate into place with an angled brush. 3. It comes in a ton of shades. I have blond/invisible eyebrows, but I also cosplay, so it is important to me to have natural-looking colors that stay put and coordinate with all of my wigs. I have tried a variety of brow pencils and mascaras, but none of them were as easy to use as the Dipbrow and none looked as good.
And like many others, I get mine waxed periodically at the Benefit Brow Bar at the local Ulta store.
If it makes you feel better, I do absolutely nothing with my eyebrows, and nobody’s recoiled in horror yet. (I don’t wear make-up, though, so my experience may not be that helpful.)
Hi The Toast, I’m really excited for my weekend of DANCING and dissertating. This evening, there’s a live swing band in town, tomorrow I’ve got regular ballet class, and then Sunday I’m going to my very first Senegalese dance class. There is basically no better feeling than a really satisfying blues dance, or sweating through a killer adagio combination, and I can’t wait to discover what part of West African dance scratches that same itch. What sort of dancing do you all do?
For a sec I thought you meant you were gonna Dance Your Dissertation or whatever and I was gonna scream “LINK PLZ” at you.
I miss blues dancing. Not that I did it much, but my ex knew some folks so we occasionally engaged. My new partner is a way better dancer but we live in a different town so I don’t know any venues or events where we can do it. (You’ve inspired me to search for some, though.)
Believe me, a not-insignificant part of why I’m finishing my dissertation is so that I can corral my ballet friends into dancing my dissertation!
yessssssss
You are the best ever and have got to share once it’s ready! Dance Your Dissertation is my favorite thing on Youtube.
Spaz dancing. 🙂 Seriously, I just go to super fun raunchy shows (like Ty Segall coming up in March) and jump around/wag my ass. Partner dancing or very structured dancing with prescribed steps is NOT for me.
I used to bellydance, but retired with health issues got to be too much. I miss partner dancing SO MUCH. First, I broke up with my main lead, then I learned to lead and my main follow moved away, and the Burgomaster doesn’t do partner dancing at all and basically this comment is just to say SO JELIS.
I used to Lindy Hop, but I haven’t since I broke up with my dancing partner. Boo! I would like to get back into it; I’d particularly like to learn how to lead, since I think that would open up my dancing options more. Also I wanna learn more solo jazz/charleston moves.
ballroom and ballet! Where are you living that has adult ballet and Senegalese dance???
Columbus, OH! It’s much cooler than Central Ohio has any right to be!
**adds Columbus to the list of places that are great**
I love partner dancing, but I gave it up because UGH the men are mostly so terrible. Like, I’m not good enough at blues for the better dancers, but it’s hard to get better when you always have to dance with goons.
Bellydance Bellydance Bellydance will always be my true love, but I’ve recently also started something called Afrovibe which is conceptually kind of like Zumba but based in African dance rather than Latin American dance. It’s fabulous.
Late last summer I went Ceili dancing. I really enjoyed it, but didn’t take enough breaks or stretch enough and couldn’t walk for two days. Whoops.
I have a question about something | have been struggling with lately: how do you decide when you’re ill enough to take time off work? I have had a cold this week, and took yesterday off but came in today, which was, on balance, not the best idea. (Only 40 minutes to go, thankfully.) I am lucky in that my job gives me paid sick leave for up to 26 weeks in a year (thank you, UK), and I can take up to seven days in a row off without needing a doctor’s certificate, so the logistics of it are fine; I’m not at risk of losing money. And while I feel bad about letting people down, my job is not one where a sudden absence will cause massive problems (I am a library assistant). But I find it really difficult to decide, “Yes, I am too ill to go in, better stay home”. I think this is, in part, from my parents’ mindset when I was little; you Did Not stay home from school unless you were far too ill to go (which means vomiting or not being able to get out of bed), probably because they were a nurse and a police officer and couldn’t just take time off at short notice, and finding someone to look after us was similarly tricky. So I have a lot of guilt about staying at home, because in my head it’s only the very last resort for when you’re really ill. (Once I went to school with bronchitis. In my parents’ defence, none of us realised I had it and when I got home from school my dad marched me to the GP.) Part of me also worries that I am making myself out to be worse than I am just so I can have a day in bed (as I have found from my student years, I am fundamentally very lazy and would much rather stay in bed than do anything else); what if I’m just being lazy and kidding myself about how ill I am? Hence I hardly ever stay at home when I have a cold. But I know that this is not great, because spreading infection around is a problem, especially if there are immunocompromised people in the vicinity. Does anyone else struggle with this?
I used to, but now I just go home when I’m feeling sick (even just blah-under-the-weather) unless I have a mega-important deadline or meeting to attend. For two reasons: not getting my coworkers sick, which they seem to appreciate, and not making myself sicker (and hence missing more time overall) by trying to tough it out. Don’t martyr yourself!
Well, for one thing, don’t forget that if you have a cold and you go to work, you risk infecting all the other people you come into contact with. Part of the reason for “sick days” is for recovery, and another part is for self-quarantine and for public health reasons. So first, if you think you are actively infectious, I think you not only can stay home, but probably should.
Second, be gentle with yourself! Any which way you slice it! Sometimes in the morning you feel ok and it turns out you should have stayed home, and vice versa. Although you call yourself lazy, you sound very conscientious. And sometimes a cold IS an excuse to have a lazy day in bed. It can be two things.
I find it so hard to judge whether I’m infectious or not – I suspect that today I am, which is part of why I think I should have stayed at home (lots of sneezing/nose blowing, although I’m using tissues and trying to wash my hands a lot), but earlier this week I just had a sore throat, which I assumed was probably not infectious (but how do you know?). I don’t want to make anyone ill; it’s just tricky balancing something that seems theoretical (might infect someone else, but can’t know for sure) with something definite (not going to work means the work doesn’t get done).
(Also, I find it hard to deal with my conscience when it comes to staying at home ill and enjoying the lazy day in bed – it makes me feel very guilty, because if I’m enjoying myself then that’s clearly a sign of my moral failings and means I can’t be that ill after all. Again, I suspect my parents’ attitude towards sick days (no television, no fun, just staying in bed) has something to do with this.)
Oh my goodness, I hope you can shake that. I LOVE sick days for that very reason. Not the “I’m actually so sick I’m miserable” days, but you know when you’re actually super sick for a few days and the last day you start to feel ok but are still sick, and you can enjoy it? Those are the best days!
I actually think that my body get a bit sick to give me mental health days. I tend to work and work and work until I really need a day completely off, and then I do that.
But I have a whole different matrix, because I have a yearly billable target that doesn’t care if I’m sick or not, so when I take a day I’ll have to make it up some other way, so I don’t feel guilty. Just maybe anxious. So it does change things.
Anyway, you’re most contagious at the beginning of a cold, and when you’re sneezing and stuff, so if you have sore throat and feel crummy, it’s probably legit to stay home.
Yes!! I have struggled with this recently, when I got very sick and took two days off work before the weekend, so I was out four days in a row. I got it in my head that people would think I was slacking or taking a vacation somewhere!
But truly–if someone else in the office is sick, I *do not* want them there!
Your coworkers feel the same. It’s in your interest and their interest for you to stay home. Feeling okay with that is the hard part for me (former overachiever with tough parents here) and possibly speaks to other not-so-great self-care habits.
I think it is also okay to be lazy and have a personal day if you are just not feeling good. As long as it’s not a habit and you’ve shown yourself to be a reliable person!
I think it is also okay to be lazy and have a personal day if you are just not feeling good.
This is something I really struggle with – part of me worries that if I give myself permission to do that, I’d do it all the time (hello depression/general desire to spend my life in bed). Therefore, a blanket “go to work all the time rule” feels necessary. But that’s obviously not a sensible solution – I don’t want to make people ill.
I think everyone probably has a bit of guilt about this. Here’s my list that I run through:
1. is my sickness affecting my work? Can I concentrate, can I get through tasks, am I doing a good job? If not, I might as well be home or doing something simple.
2. Is my illness annoying or transmissible to other coworkers (i.e., am I impacting anyone else’s ability to do their work)? Just because I feel good to work doesn’t mean everyone wants to hear me cough and wheeze all day and they will not be able to avoid worrying about being sick.
3. Am I averaging about 1 or so sickdays a month for regular sickness? (For instance if I got hit by a bus and was in a body cast it doesn’t mean I can’t take time off for the next 3 years to make this average work). But if you take 2 days and then about 3 months go by and you take a half day and then a month later you are out for a day, that’s a pretty normal amount of sick time. You could also just ask, does this match up with the rest of my team? Are they taking about the same number of sickbays. that way you match up with your office culture.
But seriously, the not taking sickdays out of guilt thing is a race to the bottom. you have the time available to you to be used when you need it. It’s there because it’s more important that you not make other people sick than be at your desk.
Re. point 1, my brain tends to helpfully point out that even if my work is affected, I’m more productive there but not at full capacity than I would be if I were at home in bed. I realise this is not the point.
I do get immensely irritated by other people’s noises (one co-worker coughs a lot, so not wanting to irritate other people by coughing all over the place (infection risks aside) is definitely an argument I can get behind. I will try to remember this.
I am pretty sure I take fewer days off sick than my co-workers, in general (I started this job in August and this is my first sick day), so I am not doing badly on that front. I should let myself take the time to get better more often.
I don’t know that I agree with your brain regarding point one. There are those studies that find people who work more hours per week are less productive. I kind of feel like the same thing applies when you are sick. You might get half of something done, but I think that it might not be a useful half. If you stayed at work and did all of something poorly, you might spend the next day fixing parts of that work, and then that might actually work out to minus two days.
I also think that thinking that it’s essential that you be at the office on any given day, even at half mast is part of a cultural workaholic delusion, this idea that the work is so important and urgent and people who take a day Are Not Serious. There’s a message we’re all sending to each other when we stubbornly refuse to take time that we have available because, “I HAVE to do this by FRIDAY” etc. We’re all creating this expectation of availability and constant fidelity that I think sucks. It makes work less humane, more of a grind and it’s insidious. I know men who came back to work 2 days after their first children were born! TWO DAYS. And they had time. They just… I don’t even know what they thought was so important about local government you’d miss the 36th hour of your child’s life.
I hear that you have to wrestle with your “I don’t want to go to school” feelings, but isn’t that a vicious cycle? Feeling like you are always a slack person, who has to fight to come into the office, then hates yourself for taking time off…etc, it’s all creating this guilt loop, which makes work more of an obligation. I felt a lot guiltier about being sick when I hated my job. If you could just be like, “my health is more important than what I was going to do on Thursday, and I’m a reasonable person so I trust me to choose when that’s real. And I’ll be in tomorrow anyway.” There’s always more work than you can do in the world. There’s always a way to make a project need more hours (sometimes the converse is also true, not always). It gets done somehow, the essential stuff rises to the top, people prioritize or hustle in a pinch.
I also think that thinking that it’s essential that you be at the office on any given day, even at half mast is part of a cultural workaholic delusion, this idea that the work is so important and urgent and people who take a day Are Not Serious.
This is ridiculous, and the thought of people going back to work immediately after their child is born (if they don’t have to) is deeply depressing. Annoyingly, the nature of my job is one that requires me to be present – I work in a library and am on the enquiry desk every day, more than any other member of staff, so if I’m not there I know for certain that it will affect other people, because they will have to scramble to find someone to cover my shift. This is very minor, of course, but the fact that I know that my absence will definitely have consequences for other people makes me wary.
If you’re sick enough to be posting this, it probably means you’re sick enough that you should be home, you’ve just picked up guilt about it. We live in a massively ableist society that hugely stigmatises illness and tells us that if we pretend it’s not happening, it’ll magically go away. You’re not being lazy, and you’re not a student any more!
And speaking as someone severely disabled, yep, I really don’t want someone else’s cold. I’ve had far too many cases of my support workers struggling in to work when they are not remotely well enough, and it results in me having to look after them a bit, not getting all the help I need (although it’s still better than being completely stood up, which would mean no washing, getting dressed or getting fed), and having to worry about whether I am about to pick up a bug which they can shake off in a week but which would make me very ill for a month.
Ha, it’s only been a few months since I stopped being a student, so it’s hard to make the mental shift to full-time work. Getting there, but slowly.
I know how badly colds can affect friends who have chronic conditions, so would never want to pass stuff on to people who would suffer badly with it. It’s just so hard to shake off the mindset of not going in to work being a bad thing.
My rule (which I inherited from my mom) is:I get up, get dressed, and have breakfast. If I still feel crappy enough to want to call in sick then, I do. The advantage of this method is that it filters out the “but I don’t waaaaaaanna” feeling you can have when you’re still in bed and just want to go back to sleep.
I try to do this (especially as when I first wake up I find it really difficult to tell if I’m still ill or not; I need to be up and about for a bit before the symptoms are noticeable), but often fall into the trap of “I’m showered and dressed, why waste this effort by going back to bed?”. Which is probably not a very sensible mindset.
Here’s the thing: I’m struggling with this myself right now because I caught a cold last weekend, decided it was “just a cold” and “I don’t feel that bad” and so I went in to work at the beginning of the week. Because I was raised like that, too – I always had to go to school if I wasn’t actively throwing up. HOWEVER, I finally felt bad enough to take one sick day in the middle of the week …. and when I came back, I realized that I think I got the entire rest of the office sick because I didn’t take enough sick days to keep the cold to myself. And now I feel guilty for having gone in to work.
And, I mean, you have a crazy huge number of sick days! Feel free to use them! Don’t be thoughtless like me and make everybody else sick.
Ha, what I have may already be on its way round my workplace (two co-workers were off sick earlier in the week, and one of them was definitely not completely well again when she returned), so even if I had quarantined myself it would probably not have helped. But you are right, I don’t want to make anyone else ill; I should try to harness the “guilt over making others ill” feelings in order to overpower the “guilt over not going into work” ones.
1. Do you feel rotten enough that if you could pinpoint the person who had given you the cold, you’d be like “grrrrr!” at them?
IF YES -> stay at home!
You know, I don’t think I ever feel like that! I dislike being ill, but I see it more as “inescapable thing that happens sometimes” than “specific person’s fault”. Several people in my library were off sick this week (and our deputy librarian took one day off, but was definitely not back up to 100% when she was back in), so I may well have caught this from one of them, but I am not feeling any emnity towards them. Maybe I just have weird reactions to being ill.
Friends! Do any of you have resources for making my resume look super-swank? I’ve been freelancing for the past 7 years and now I’m looking for something full-time and I have no clue how to format my resume so that I look impressive.
It’s actually pretty helpful to just image-google “resume” because there are some really amazing graphic-design-y ones that pop up first. You might not want to go overboard on the icons and stuff (which you can get at thenounproject.com) but a few visual elements can really spiff you up.
If you’re in a field that will let you get creative with your resume, this recent post from Emily Henderson may help, and she mentions there are cool-looking resume “templates you can buy” — http://stylebyemilyhenderson.com/blog/dissecting-…
I actually found the book Knock ‘Em Dead Resumes to be super helpful when I was putting mine together (both for format and for organizing/wording content). I got it from my local library so FREE and it has a ton of sample resumes in the back.
Oooh, it is available at MY local library for free as well! I’ll have to pick it up the next time I’m there trying to find a Rainbow Magic Fairy book that my daughter hasn’t already read.
If you’re in an engineering or engineering-adjacent field, I’d be happy to send you a LaTeX template I developed that’s been pretty successful for me and a couple friends! And TeXing your resume totally gets you bonus points from some computer folk so it’s like a built in boost.
If not engineering, then I am of no help, but will say good luck!
I’ve been waiting all week for this, so here goes nothing…
Toasties, I have ADD and 2 weeks ago, decided on an art project that could help with focus, commitment and organization. Behold my Instagram account:
mydog.mylaundry.myself.
The rules are (1) dog must be photographed in my laundry (2) all photos must include a description of laundry (3) all photos must be accompanied with a personal thought or ascribed quote from a book source. No googling allowed, quotes must come from a book that I have in my house. (4) Monday to Friday only, no weekends. (5) photos must be taken every day, no exceptions.
This is a 30 day project. I started six days ago (I think? See what I mean about organizational skills?) and at month’s end, may choose my favourite five photos and turn them into art cards, sell them and donate 5% profit to an ADD/ADHD/Autism organization of my choosing.
PHEW! Wish me luck everyone!
Please alert us via a Friday open thread or contact me when I may purchase art cards: rmcd 1974 at hotmail dot com
Thank you!!!!
Thank you, I will!
Followed!! Good luck!
WOOT! Thank you!
Love those gif’s! Thank you!
Yes just followed you, this is awesome. crescentmelissa is my insta.
Just a quick “hi” to let you all know I moved safely, but AT&T botched ,my phone service so spectacularly I won’t be able to get my DSL hooke dup until some time next month. This stinks as far as work goes, but also I’ll miss you all. Sitting outside in winter waiting for people to let you in is no way to use wifi. 🙁
We will miss you too! I’m glad that the move is safely over and hopefully the DSL hookup happens as soon as can be.
Sorry about your phone service, but soooooo happy about your new home! I was thinking of you yesterday, wondering if everything went OK.
How does one drink tea if one really always wants coffee? I asked my tea-loving sister this and she wrote a great and funny blog post about it.
But seriously . . . tell me your ways tea people. What are your favorites? What should I immediately go out and buy, in order to ward off the cold winter chill?
Chai!!!!!!!! with a little bit of milk (i’m not a milk person, but love it with chai) is spicy and creamy and warm and love it for the winter.
I am a Coffee Person, but I like tea during various times of the day.
Lapsang Souchong is a strong smoky black tea with a lot of caffeine, good for cold days.
Earl Grey is Earl Grey. I like it in the afternoons.
Jasmine Green Tea in the early evening when I start thinking I should cut back on my caffeine intake.
I usually don’t drink three cups of tea a day plus coffee, I just like having a variety to choose from.
Absolutely seconding Lapsang Souchong. It smells like a horse barn but don’t be scared off – it’s so delicious and warm.
First I’ll say: I don’t drink fancy teas! I pretty much select from what is easily available at the grocery store in teabag format. So this may not be the level of fanciness that you’re looking for. But: for the winter chill, I like spice-flavored teas — I drink a lot of ginger tea and I’m not picky about brands, I LOVE Ahmad cardamom tea (and it’s very very good with sweets), and I also love all variations of “orange spice” (Bigelow Constant Comment, basically). I also drink a lot of Bigelow Sweet Dreams in the evenings; I like that specific one better than the other “sleepytime”/chamomile-heavy varieties I’ve tried.
Oooh–I love the taste of cardamom! I will have to try that in tea form.
I find it at grocery stores that have a well-stocked “international” aisle, usually in the Indian or British section. It’s very good by itself or with a little milk! (The Ahmad brand, at least, is also very dark and tends to stain, so be careful with your light-colored mugs if you treasure them and want to keep them light-colored.)
I like Darjeeling, Assam, and Russian Caravan/oolong types of teas (all black).
If you can get a good loose-leaf Darjeeling, it can be heavenly, but springtime/summer is the best time to get that.
Darjeeling is so hard! I thought I hated it until I finally had a cup that wasn’t oversteeped, and now I love it.
A nice malty Assam tea does it for me — it is not coffee but something about that malt flavour really hits the same notes.
I think you have something there with the maltiness….that is often what I feel I am missing in tea. I think I’m overcompensating with just trying to brew my tea for longer . . . rather than go out and just get better tea.
Adagio is a really good online tea shop which will send you cheap samples of stuff, and it has a lot of user reviews so I find it easy to get a sense of what the tea will actually be like. I like their Irish Breakfast for non-coffee mornings.
Also, do not drink tea from a cup you are used to drinking coffee from! Get a cup/mug/whatever that is *just for tea* so you are not confusing your brain. If we drink tea out of our usual coffee mugs *every single sip* is disappointing.
Samples! You’re speaking my language.
I love Adagio! Their samples were what got me into loose leaf tea. I like their Irish breakfast, but I love their English breakfast. I have it in a hilarious large bag as big as my head.
I’m a big fan of mint tea, especially when my stomach is upset. I also enjoy having chamomile at night, preferably while reading.
I also like a lot of black teas, but I feel like if you’re primarily a coffee person, your entry to tea should be through herbals, and at times when you wouldn’t normally have coffee. That lets you appreciate the tea for what it is, instead of being annoyed it’s not coffee.
I was just gonna say something to this effect! I love reaaally strong coffee, any I get irritated when people try to sell me tea as a coffee substitute. For my teas, I usually go for like, terrible Lemon Zinger or anything with a strong floral note. It helps me not get weirdly insulted by my cup of tea.
I like black teas with sugar and milk (which, incidentally, is also how I like my coffee). So a nice hearty English Breakfast, Tazo’s Awake, or an Earl Grey (again, Tazo has a nice one) are my primary choices.
But … if you prefer coffee, why not just drink that?
A combination of caffeine jitters + laziness. And I very much like the idea of drinking tea! So warm and cozy! But I’ve yet to find a tea that I really love.
Different brands have different sources and blend their teas differently, so if you’ve had something you sorta-like or mostly-like, maybe try that variety or blend from a different source and see how that grabs you?
Fr’instance, my daughter likes green tea, and she loves some blends of green tea with jasmine. But, through trial and error she’s determined that she prefers the jasmine to be fairly subtle. So if you were to greet her with a pot of very floral green jasmine, she would most likely politely decline.
I’m a tea snob and have no shame about it. I get tea leaves, because larger pieces of leaves impart more flavor than tea dust from teabags. That being said, you can get teabags with better quality tea in it. My favorites are blends like English breakfast and Irish breakfast. Add a bit of milk and it becomes so creamy and warming and lovely. Like a liquid hug.
If you get tea bags–make sure you get at least a mid-range brand. Look for larger pieces of tea in the bags, not just tea dust. Do not buy Liptons and expect to like tea.
And a big mistake people make with those little dunkable steepers for tea leaves is to overfill them. The tea needs room to expand in order to release its flavor.
When I’m trying to sucker someone into the tea lifestyle, I always buy them a fancy tea-steeping device so they can have proper loose-leaf tea without having to fight with washing leaves out of the pot. This one from Adagio is pleasingly gadgety; it looks like Teavana is no longer selling my very favorite glass mug with glass strainer, alas. The best, though, is to get a small Chinese clay teapot and cup. If you always use the same tea, the pot starts to take on the flavor, and it just gets more delicious and wonderful over time.
(Er, not replying to you because I think you don’t know these things, but to riff off your comment about proper tea-making technique.)
No, I totally agree. I have 2 of the Adagio kind. It’s glorious. Only maybe it wouldn’t work for people who are making a whole pot. But my bf and I like different kinds of tea, so we just steep separately.
I don’t have a fancy clay teapot. I don’t even have a teapot, to be honest. I just go steeper to mug. But I can see the appeal.
I used to have the Adagio ingenuitea (until somebody dropped it and the handle snapped off) and now I have one of their ceramic teapots and it is so cute. It’s purple and makes me feel fancy.
I was a coffee drinker since age six (yeah, thanks gramma) and then developed an allergy to it. Had to quit it completely about three years ago. I highly recommend Yorkshire Gold as the strongest, most mouth-feely tea you’ll ever find. You might also try putting several shakes of Dutch Processed cocoa powder (I prefer Penzey’s brand) into hot water with a bit of cream or milk. It’s delightful and doesn’t taste like cocoa all that much unless you sweeten it (I usually don’t). I’m also a fan of Republic of Tea’s Dandelion Tea which sounds awful (and sometimes is) but theirs is delicious with a bit of milk/cream. BTW, I’m allergic to dairy, so I use almond or coconut milk in all mine and they work just fine.
I am verrrry interested in this cocoa / hot water situation.
Getting Dutch Processed is crucial. The regular stuff just doesn’t dissolve as well.
I love coffee and tea and usually opt for coffee in the morning, but my FAVORITE is sitting down with lovely tea ware and a somewhat elaborate tea steeping method, it is the most calming thing I do for myself (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtWVkv_dw_c for an example).
Ripe puer tea is great for coffee lovers, and sometimes tastes like chocolate to me. A really good Chinese black tea is also wonderful brewed this way, nice and toasty. Whispering Pines tea has lovely blends, though they’re kind of expensive.
HOMEMADE CHAI! It is a dream.
The recipe I use is from the big ol Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, so it’s slightly different from what I linked to, but I couldn’t find it online. This is close enough. Probably still delicious. The maple syrup addition is weird and I’d omit it TBH. You don’t need to use Darjeeling specifically. My go-to is English Breakfast tea, which works great.
Also: mint. I enjoy just throwing a pinch of whole dried mint leaves into my teacup and pouring hot water over them. It’s especially satisfying when it’s mint that you grew and dried yourself.
In the winter, I drink black tea, and right now I’m on a tin of Fortnum & Mason’s Queen’s Blend tea. Black tea I like with a little soy milk and maybe a bit of sugar (can take or leave it). In the summer, I drink green tea without any accoutrements. In the spring, either green or herbal, and in the fall, I like chai and other spicy black teas.
But I still drink at least one cup of coffee a day. Why choose?
My favourite tea is a TieGuanYin oolong which goes down really smooth, but roasted teas like genmaicha or mugicha are closer to the smokiness of coffee? Mugicha (roasted barley tea) is actually a really coffee-like tea if you’re looking to take a break from caffeine. Genmaicha (roasted rice tea) is closer to sesame for me, but still full flavoured.
A good puerh tea might be harder to get a hold of, but steeps up into a rich heavy drink, if that’s what you’re into. There’re also lighter floral puerhs which you might enjoy too? My personal metric for beloved teas is how many times I can resteep them though, which puerh and oolong meet readily. Mugicha, however is definitely a top rec if you’re looking for coffee notes plus yield since the teabags are usually meant to be steeped in 2 litres of water.
I am a huge fan of Harney and Sons tea. You may be able to find the tea bags in some stores (I think Target usually carries it), and that will get you something immediate. But I highly recommend their website, where you can buy $2 sample packs of most of their loose leaf teas. They have some beautifully dark black teas – one of my favorites is Russian Country, which has a campfire smoke smell to it, and a slight smoke taste after brewing. If you do get loose leaf, I suggest a brewing basket (you can probably find this at a Target or similar store) or a very large tea ball, so the leaves can open up.
I love Harney and Sons! Their Earl Grey Supreme is fantastic, and their Florence blen has been my favorite black tea since I first tried it.
Oh yes, Florence is so good. One of my favorites.
Honestly, I don’t think they make a bad tea! I love their earl grey.
I’m afraid all I got out of that was “oh god don’t put MILK in Earl Grey!” (Seriously, it is not a strong flavour, it will jsut taste like hot milk)
If I’m having tea because I want a coffee – something spicy, like chai or ginger tea or peppermint (peppermint leaves IN black tea is a Thing of Beauty, try it if you even remotely like either mint or tea flavour.)
I grew up in a tea always/coffee for brunch household, so black tea with milk and sugar is pretty much it for me most days. great for warding off a sinus headache, mostly for temperature reasons.
Assam and Pu-erh are going to be the boldest black teas, you might like those. Pu-erh tea is suuuuper earthy tho so it’s kind of a love or hate situation. You may also like a roasted maté, esp if it’s blended with chai-type flavors. Maté is fairly high in caffeine, though it processes differently in the body than coffee caffeine so you don’t experience a high/crash. My favorite cold weather tea, however, is probably first flush Darjeeling. Its pretty light, so if bold teas are more your thing I recommend trying to find a second flush or autumn flush Darjeeling.
(I also work in a tea shop so if you want a link to our website to learn a bit more about various tea types or have further questions–let me know!)
Absolutely!!!
World travellers, please give me your wisdom! My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Japan in May – I’ve never gone any farther from the US than Canada, so I am like a tiny baby bird right now. Do you have recommendations for literally anything travel-related – sites to use, ways to handle money in a foreign country, walking shoes that aren’t completely hideous (this is v v important), Japan-specific things? I’m mostly excited but just enough of a nervous traveller that I’m having a hard time throwing myself into the fun of planning a big trip like this. Thank yoooou!
Yay! That’s so exciting! In regards to foreign money, it’s a good idea to order currency from your bank ahead of time instead of changing it at the airport. The fees will be a lot lower, and you can lock down a good exchange rate if the rate tends to fluctuate.
Tripadvisor is a great site for figuring out places to stay, based on recommendations from other travelers, but I always end up coming back to printed guidebooks for itinerary planning.
Universal Packing List is a great tool- you plug in some info about where/when you’re traveling, and it generates a packing list for you.
For money, what I’ve found to be the easiest way is just to bring my debit/credit cards, and use ATMs for cash in the local currency when needed. Trying to deal with exchange offices or travelers checks now is more of a pain than it’s worth, although you may want to have a few travelers checks or some cash stashed in your bra or another unlikely-to-be-robbed place just for emergencies. xe.com is a good site for conversions when looking at prices.
For stylish shoes that can handle lots of walking, I love Born boots, but I’ve also seen some pretty amazingly cute sneakers out there lately.
Have so much fun!!!
The problem with ATMs in Japan is they are unlikely to have English instructions!
7-11, which are on almost every corner in most urban parts of Japan, have ATMS that one can use their foreign bankcard and get cash, with English instructions. They are a dream to use. I live in Japan and get cash from my American bank account from the 7-11 ATMs. My bank charges a flat $5 fee every time I use it, with no fees on the 7-11 side. Alternately, the ATMs in post offices also have English menus and allow one to get cash with their foreign bank cards.
Japan is very much a cash-based society, although you can usually use your credit cards for hotels (but maybe not ryokan or smaller traditional inns) and department stores and most boutiques. Japanese people tend to carry large amounts of cash with them, something I had a hard time adjusting to, but its truly a very safe country.
People in Japan tend to be very helpful to tourists. Don’t let worry about not knowing the language limit where you travel to!
Re: money, I don’t know about Japan particularly as it didn’t come up when I was there, but in Europe, for example, there are partnerships of banks that work together to reduce fees. So like, if you have Bank of America you can get cash out at Deutsche Bank in Germany without international fees, and at Barclay’s in the UK. I usually just get cash from ATMs when I arrive abroad, but I know others (as suggested above) order currency ahead of time. I don’t like to use change bureaus because $$.
Japan is AMAZING! And that is so exciting for you. I loved visiting the many gorgous temples and shrines in Kamakura. Loved visiting Enoshima island even tho I couldn’t see Fuji. Tokyo is bonkers cool. Lonely Planet Japan was a good general guide. And now there are blogs and probably tons of online coverage of great things to do. And be brave! Find tiny restaurants, eat weird stuff, go to grocery stores, walk into funky stores, watch all the people, visit an arcade, have fun! Check for any matsuri (festivals) that are going on when you’re there. I got to visit the lantern festival in Kamakura and it was so neat. Just by googling what was going on in the area that week.
Tokyo subway system is wonderful, note that you pay by how many stops you’re going and often there is only kanji on the signs, but worry not! If you aren’t sure, make your best guess, and they have people to help you adjust your fare at the end (you put your ticket in at the beginning and the end, like in DC). A good guide book would have info on this stuff. I felt very safe in Japan alone, very low crime rate, always lots of people around, etc. and if I needed help, it was easy to find. People also loved to take pictures for me! Knowing a few terms (hello, thank you, excuse me) went a long way. Same with bowing and handing over/accepting things (credit card, shopping bag) with both hands. Just…jump in!
Shoes, I wore Keen mary janes while I was in Japan both times and they were totally comfortable without looking like American White Tennis Shoes. Note that dress there is more conservative, even when it’s hot.
ETA Tokyo things: Tsukiji fish market super early in the morning and sushi for breakfast, if you’re into that. I also stayed at the Mercure hotel in Ginza for a couple nights which was fairly affordable for a decent hotel, and one or two nights at the Keio Plaza for a special occasion which was great. But, for a longer trip consisting of more lodging (I was staying mostly with my ex) I don’t know about hotels/rooms/etc much. Going to the bar atop the Park Hyatt is fun if you’re a fan of Lost in Translation, there’s a cover fee, and I’d urge you to dress the part a bit, as it’s quite fancy and very very beautiful (OMG THE VIEW) but tempered by tourists who just want to see it. Awesome experience if you do it properly. (I went once on a date with my ex and it was lovely, and then the night ended badly and we went back to make it up, but weren’t dressed right and I just felt like clueless American – we really stuck out).
Mori tower (in Ebisu) has a great modern art museum at the top, again the view!!!!, highly recommended. Bauhaus is a fun rock club/bar in Roppongi with a house band that’s been there since my husband lived in Tokyo as a kid in the early 90s, it’s just an experience. I’ll add more if anything comes to me!
Seconded with getting money changed at the bank beforehand! Also, get some small bills, so you can handle small expenses, like snacks and tips, when you get off the plane and are completely jetlagged. Don’t get too much cash changed, you’ll be able to get more in Japan on the ground, and you don’t want to get stuck carrying around tons of cash. (I usually get around $200-$300 for the initial trip).
Call your credit card companies and your bank before you leave — let them know that you’ll be travelling, so they don’t freeze your cards when they see them used in Japan (and so you don’t have to try *calling* them from a foreign country, which is the worst).
Have photocopies of all your important documents: passports, travel itineraries, health insurance information, etc.
When you’re staying in the hotels, get a room with safe. Split up your cash, cards, and documents/photocopies. Leave half in your safe, take half with you. That way, if either you get robbed (or you forget your wallet in a bar somewhere), or your room gets robbed, you will still have access to some cash, some cards, and documents, rather than being completely out of luck.
And have an amazing trip! Relax, it will be fine!
I just traveled at Christmas and was DELIGHTED to learn that I did not have to call my bank or credit card – both let me put a “travel alert” on the account online!
A million times yes, call your credit card companies or put in the alert online.
Not helpful but my story I love to share — Over the course of 2 years (2007-09) I traveled to Japan twice (4 wks total), Germany twice (3 weeks total), and Sweden (8 weeks, during which I also went to Denmark and Germany). It never occurred to me to tell them I’d be using my card abroad.
They froze my card alright — during my LAST WEEK of that whole two years, “alerting” me my card had been used that morning in Sweden. Well you don’t say…..
My in-laws, however, consistently have their cards frozen when they visit us in NYC….from Chicago. And my mom had hers frozen visiting from Michigan. Just…what?
Regardless, it’s good, crucial advice. But geez, banks! Maybe they are better at it now.
I’ve had them freeze cards at the oddest times on trips. Like, after heavy usage in various countries, and they freeze it on Day 7. Or, another thing, if you’re travelling as a couple, and you have a shared account, you need to let them know for BOTH cards, just one won’t do it. Or, if you have multiple cards with one bank, again, need to let them know for all of the cards.
I MAY HAVE LEARNT ALL THIS THE HARD WAY
I know Japan pretty well! Which parts of it are you planning on visiting, and what things are you interested in? I may be able to give some specific recommendations. Also, although it may have improved by now, getting foreign money was a bit hard when I was in Japan — except at post offices. Almost all post offices have an ATM (the post office is the biggest bank in Japan, it’s complicated), and all those ATMs will take foreign credit cards. They have a flat fee, can’t remember exactly what, but remember that Japan is a cash and carry society — your credit card won’t be accepted most places. (Oh, and most of the post office ATMs have an English language option, too.)
Amazing, thank you all so much!
How exciting! My only experience with Japan has been a layover at Narita Airport, which is sad because I’ve been dying to visit Japan for years, but Narita is a great airport so??
Travel tips!
1: Use cash! Order a chunk of currency from your bank ahead of time. You’re in the US, so if you don’t have a credit card with a chip and a PIN it’s unlikely that it will be accepted in businesses outside the US. Also, if you have a chipped credit card, reserve it as the currency exchange rates that will be applied to your foreign purchases may hurt you on your bill a bit more than you anticipate. Also! Call your credit card company ahead of time to let them know you plan to travel to Japan so that they won’t flag any of your purchases in Japan as suspect & freeze your card by accident. Finally, divide your currency & stash a bit away in a hidden location in your suitcase or makeup bag for emergencies or in case anything gets stolen.
2: Check out maps & geography of the areas you plan to walk around ahead of time! I like to get my directional bearings before I head out into a new city, and establishing where my hotel is in relation to the places I want to visit ahead of time means I rarely get lost.
3: Use public transit! Japan has a notoriously well-run transit system that goes everywhere, & it can open up a lot of areas to explore for you.
4: Be wary of overpacking! No one but yourself will notice if you wear the same ensemble two days in a row when you travel, so stick to a couple of pieces you feel comfortable in and throw them in your suitcase. Roll your clothes to save space, & stick to a maximum of 2 pairs of shoes. The only thing I suggest to pack LOTS of is underwear, because you can never be too careful in that department. When it comes to shoes, walking sneakers like a pair of Nike’s can serve you well!
5: Keep at least one photocopy of your passport photo page & your birth certificate with you, either in your handbag or in your suitcase. I personally don’t recommend carrying your passport with you in your handbag when you’re sightseeing, but YMMV.
6: Keep a basic First Aid kit in your suitcase/handbag! You’ll probably never need it, but if you do you’ll be glad you have it. I always keep a fistful of fabric bandaids in many sizes, Neosporin/Polysporin, something for bug bites, a bottle of Advil, motion sickness pills, and aloe. If you or your boyfriend have a sensitive stomach or digestive tract, take some extra OTC meds for any potential digestive issues.
Have fun!!
Feed the deer at Nara Park! Bow to them and they will bow to you http://www.barclaycardtravel.com/t5/image/serverp…
How long will you be in Japan/where will you be? I’d buy a tourist rail pass ahead of time. It’s good for the airport transportation, the bullet train between cities, and transportation within Tokyo (less so for transportation within other cities). The trains in Tokyo have English signs and announcements, so it was super easy to get around. The hardest thing for me was the jet lag. I was there for a week last year, and I pretty much never got over the time difference. If you want to go to the fish market auction, the jet lag works in your favor, since you need to get there 3am-ish. (I skipped this.)
Keen shoes! They’re all comfy and some of them aren’t hideous.
I have lots of advice, but I am on my phone, so I will give you my full list later, but my top things are: earplugs! Always and forever. Also, you basically have to have a cell phone to navigate Tokyo. T- mobile has fantastic plans that cost very reasonable amounts money and work well in the US and in Japan. More later!
I mean, you *can* do it without a phone (I did in 2007 and 2008 before I ever had a smartphone or ability to have a phone abroad) but it requires planning ahead for what you want to do or at least general areas, a good map/a pen and paper, and just general awareness, as with all travel really. (And of course it def helps to have internet back wherever you’re staying to prep before you head out.) But regardless of whether a phone will be available to you, you can do it OP!
I agree that it is possible, but the barrier to entry to have smart phone & data access now versus even a few years ago is so vastly lower that I would really recommend the smart phone route unless budget is a completely limiting factor- when we went last year we did a month to month plan with T-mobile that was about $50 for the month (their “simple choice/ bring your own phone” plan- do need an unlocked phone with correct frequencies, which is findable used on Swappa for under $100, and resellable after the trip), with no additional charges for international, and it was worth every last dollar we spent.
After being there I’d probably pay at least double to have it. It just really reduced the organizational overhead of heading out for day and was extremely helpful for the “I know we have dinner plans here later but I am hungry now and there are no places to eat within eyesight/ I don’t want to eat that, I want to eat this other thing” travel “emergencies”. And the photograph translation apps are just awesome.
My husband was there working for four weeks before I got there, and he found that his local coworkers were pretty much as dependent on their smartphones for navigation as he was. Plus google maps is astoundingly good at doing the subway and rail system there. $50 plus Swappa shipping and depreciation on a phone is a steal for what you get in utility.
Oh totally! It’s crazy how far things have come in just a few short years — I just don’t have experience any other way! And know that it’s possible, if not easy. Sounds like the plan/phone was really helpful and of course we should use anything we possibly can to have safe, fun travels. (Also I just always took it as a foregone conclusion when in Japan that I couldn’t read anything? so much so that it never even occurred to me about using a phone for translation! And I am a translator, so..yeah that’s on me.)
I always use jalan for hotel bookings. If you are the type who likes hair and nails, get a perm, they are fabulous and cheaper than in America and there are more and healthier types. Get gel nails, they will last the whole trip and look so good–the shop I always go to is Avarice.
Absolutely tell your bank and get some cash before you leave. Rome2rio is a useful website for planning trips in general.
Hooray travel!
Okay, I was going to give you more Japan tips, but Japan is awesome and you will have an awesome time (eat all the food!) and probably there’s not much that I can tell you that you can’t find out on the internet anyways (Tokyu Hands was a delightful shopping trip and I did not purchase nearly enough pop up greeting cards, if you’re hauling a lot of crap around the lockers available at the subways and train stations are worth every dollar you’ll save in wearing yourself out carrying all your crap around).
However, when my sister was doing her very first major international trip as a tiny baby bird, I put together a whole set of checklists and random advice and paperwork that I like to bring with me in a google doc, so here is the links to that, because it will maybe be more useful on the nervous traveler front (these have been through iterations including trips to India, so some things are definitely overkill for Japan, but won’t hurt- I definitely lean towards over-prepared for this particular thing, and then I totally fly by the seat of my (carefully selected) pants when I get there): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D-QyHHFhsVtQQ…
Thank you all so much, this thread is super-helpful! Flights and hotel are booked – now for shoe-shopping and other minor details like getting a passport.
So my partner was scheduled for a phone interview for an awesome job opportunity, but they never called at the scheduled time! They were 100% supposed to call him and didn’t provide a number for him, and all communication so far has been through email. He sent an email following up basically stating that he didn’t have any missed calls and provided times that he was free next week, and that he is still interested in the interview. There is a supposed snowpocalypse today, and so we are hoping that the interviewer was just not in office, but we aren’t sure what is going on and I’m kind of irked that if thew snow kept them from office why wouldn’t they attempt to reschedule?
Anyone been in this situation? What should he do?
I’d just get drunk after the close of business today. That’s about what you can do. It’s them being disorganized or someone being out sick.
I think wait out the weekend and call if he hears nothing by the end of Monday. Sometimes offices don’t allow any telework and/or if they are closed you aren’t allowed to work (this is esp true of some federal govt offices if that’s the case). I think his email was 100% the right way to go, and now just give it a few days because of the weather. Sucks though, I’m sorry.
I think you’ve done enough so far with the e-mail, especially because of the snowpocalypse. I could easily see a situation where the people in the office were like “shoot, everything is going to be closed, we have to take care of ALL THE THINGS before the wekeend,” and in the chaos, his phone call got missed / forgotten. Alternately, as you say, the interviewer could have been out of the office and dealing with issues (car trouble, suddenly home with kids, etc.) and forgot to have someone inform him or reschedule. It sucks, majorly, but I’d try to not to worry too much about it. Give it some time – if they still haven’t contacted him by, say, 10 a.m. on Wednesday of next week, I would ring the office to try and get in touch with the person he was supposed to interview with. Good luck!
I’m in Prague! It’s very cold. I’ve done orientation at my job and start next week. I’m looking for a place to live now. I just saw a great apartment and of course other people are interested so I don’t know yet if I’ll get it. If I don’t, it’ll be the place I compare all others to.
Edit: as my friend pointed out I could also compare all the places I see to my former Russian apartment and then they’ll seem great.
Edit edit: I had to change Prague to Russian in the edit because otherwise it made NO sense.
I had to change Prague to Russian in the edit because otherwise it made NO sense.
Ha, I read your initial comment several times trying to work out why I couldn’t understand it. I assumed it was just me.
Enjoy Prague! It’s a beautiful city. I highly recommend Museum Kampa.
And um, if you run into a 32 year old Australian student whose name begins with C, be careful because it might be my charming but garbage ex (last seen ignoring emails from lawyers and trying to date 23 year old Czech girls) and nobody deserves to have their life in Prague spoiled like that.
PANCAKES: what do you like, what do you put in yours, what do you put on yours?
I am forever putting oats and cinnamon in mine. Although I could really go for some lemon poppyseed pancakes always.
My favorite pancakes are lemon ricotta pancakes, which a restaurant near me sells and which I am really hoping to make this snowpocalypse!
I put heated up raspberry jam (so it’s more syrupy) on mine. Or good ol’ maple syrup. Back when I could eat dairy, my favorite was pancakes made with orange juice, topped with jam and yogurt.
Damn you, you’ve just reminded me of the home made blueberry syrup we’d have in Alaska.
I live in Alaska! Home made blueberry syrup (based on a NYTimes historical blueberry vinegar recipe) is my OTHER favorite topping 🙂
Give me your recipe! Please! I am now determined to go buy some blueberries (frozen) and make syrup and pancakes.
Here it is! I just swapped in blueberries and cider vinegar. I love that it’s slightly more tart than a regular syrup. http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017634-raspbe…
I’m a big fan of just basic buttermilk pancakes. I then like to slather them in maple syrup or the coconut syrup my in-laws brought back from Hawaii.
Chocolate chips. I have the palate of a child.
Seconding. *high-five*
Blueberry pancakes with butter, or normal buttermilk pancakes with apricot jam or plum jam. THESE ARE THE ONLY CHOICES.
I love to put vanilla yogurt between layers of pancakes, covered with mashed warm raspberries, and a little maple syrup.
Over the long weekend, I made lemon poppyseed pancakes. Super easy to do (even if you’re using mix).
Just zest a lemon or two into a bowl of enough sugar to start extracting the oils and mix that into the batter. Add some poppyseeds and youre done!
I like to brag that I make the world’s best pancakes, because I emphasize the CAKE in pancake when making my batter & they come out thicker & fluffier than any other pancake I have or will ever eat. That said! I am super basic in my pancake topping preference, sticking with real maple syrup (from Québec, bien sûr) or my mom’s seedless raspberry jam.
I put cinnamon, a tablespoon of sugar, a bit of vanilla, and two tablespoons of orange juice into my pancakes. Super nummy. As for on, I put a bit of butter and nothing else! I keep a little thing of maple syrup on the side to dunk individual pieces of pancake in. I’m super super picky about soggy pancakes, so I make sure the syrup is on the pancake for the least amount of time possible before it’s in my mouth.
I like sourdough pancakes! I usually use the Serious Eats recipe here but I’m gonna try King Arthur Flour’s recipe this weekend because I have a ton of starter that needs to be used up (and BLIZZARD).
as of toppings, I usually go with yogurt and good ol’ maple syrup. 🙂
I’m glad somebody else saw this blizzard as an opportunity to make pancakes too
Butter pecan! Toast up a bunch of pecans in a bunch of butter until they smell amazing and add the whole mess in when you’re supposed to add fat into the recipe.
Gingerbread is a pretty good option, too.
We also make a lot of kaiserschmarrn, which is an excellent option if you’re wanting a bit more protein in your pancake experience.
Embed bananas in pancakes, spread butter and honey on top. Walnuts optional.
Or mash up the bananas so they spread evenly throughout the pancake. Both are excellent!
Whipped cream and SPRINKLES.
Oat cranberry pancakes FOREVER.
Objective best toppings:
Blueberries and sugar
Maple syrup
Bacon and sugar (I don’t actually eat this anymore, being a vegetarian-type person, but I remember it fondly when pancaketimes arrive and enjoy it vicariously when other people eat it)
and last but not least: MRA tears. Because I like to think this whole thread was inspired by that thing in the link roundup, the thing about FEMALES who stay IN and eat PANCAKES, thus demonstrating their LACK of AMBITION. I can be ambitious AND eat a stack of pancakes, tyvm.
Re: yesterday’s Link Roundup – a pancake-eating woman! Eeeeviill!!!
I hope that guy stumbles upon this thread and is so overwhelmed by the idea of hordes of women decadently eating pancakes rather than bettering themselves in ways he approves of that he builds himself a cabin in remotest Siberia (sorry Siberia) and never returns to society.
Coffee extract, vanilla and cinnamon. Soooooo gooooood.
Cornmeal pancakes with blueberries are *delightful* – they get this crispy texture.
Toasties we’ll be doing another round of our postcard exchange this spring!! I’ll be posting on Friday Open Threads like last time, but you can also follow @ToastiePost on twitter if you’re not always around on Fridays. There’s a few surveys about the last Toast Post on the twitter too that should be open for another day for you to answer too! I’m hoping to post the survey in early to mid February so keep your eyes peeled!
YES! I can’t wait!!!
YAY. I’m still exchanging cards with one of my pals from last time.
Hooray! All my new penpal supplies are at the ready and my shame-battling tools are also prepared!
This is so exciting!
Ooh I’d love to take part in this!
I’m not saying ToastPost that isn’t on Official Hamilton Postcards is a fail, but…
I’m so excited about this! I bought a lot of office supplies in an online auction last week and ended up with a box of completely ridiculous cards and postcards and 15! nightlights, so I now have postcards to send for the rest of my life!
I work at a gift store that has some A+ misandrist cards and I CANNOT WAIT to have people to send them to.
omg, this sounds amazing! *quickly shuffles over to ToastiePost*
YES, I am READY FOR THIS.
Ahh I’ve been saving up postcards in hopes of this! Thank you so so much for organizing.
Oh this sounds fun!
Thank you to everyone who offered advice two weeks ago about topamax. So far so good, although there have been some rough patches.
Fellow toasties who struggle with chronic illness, a friend posted this on Facebook last night and it provoked many Thoughts and Feelings: http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/si…
I’m curious to hear what others think. I like the ending, and her point that the current framing of “sick” vs. “well,” with “wellness” as the default state, makes nurture and caring into temporary issues rather than permanent needs.
I’m a bit too tired to read it all right now, but it looks interesting.
Just in case no one has warned you, if you decide to stop the topamax, stop it Very, Very Slowly. Doctors seem to think that anti-epileptics are easy to come off, and hah, no. I had a nightmare time of it coming off gabapentin. Don’t just take their word for it if they suggest a taper, go and read up on it on forums for people withdrawing from addictive drugs.
Toasties!! hope you all had a great (or at least normal) week! I was waiting this moment of the week to ask you all: What are your thoughts and experiences about travelling alone? I’m super afraid of doing it, but I think at this point in my life (I’ve never taken a significant risk, and I’ve got a steady but boring job) it’s something that I should do. Have you done it? If so, where? Also I’m not really shy, but I’m never the one who initiates a conversation with a stranger, will I make friends anyways?
I adore traveling alone. Honestly, in my experience, you will not make friends, but I’ve never seen that as a bad thing. I love the solitude of traveling alone. For me, there is a big hump of anxiety I have to get through at the beginning, which can be really terrible, but after I get past that, there’s nothing better. And FWIW, I’ve traveled alone to Boston, briefly in Paris and London, and in several places in Italy, and anywhere you know the language is vastly, vastly easier than anywhere you don’t. Kind of obvious but worth noting! Good luck, I am so excited for you!
Do you have friends or internet acquaintances in other cities you’re interested in visiting? I have travelled multiple times to LA by myself, as well as a trip to DC & Chicago that was solo. It was a blast, and I would absolutely do it again, but I did have people I could meet up with in all of those places when I felt like company.
Not at all, I’m thinking about going to the kind of place that is lousy with tourist like Southeast Asia and Australia.
I would really recommend starting your solo travels in a place where many folks speak English if you can. Traveling solo is a new thing to get used to, and trying to learn to travel solo at the same time you’re learning the skill of communicating with people who don’t speak the same language is a really difficult double whammy.
That said: I love traveling alone and have done it since I became an adult. Don’t worry about making friends, per se. You’re more likely to have pleasant one-off interactions that make you glad and happy to have met that person. Think of it more as collecting stories than friends, and I think you’ll have a wonderful time.
i’ve done it! mostly to europe (from the US), so “your culture is different than mine, neat right?” is a pretty easy conversation-starter. i also enjoy hanging out in bars, which is an easy/lazy way to make friends, so YMMV.
it’s scary, but it makes me feel incredibly independent and accomplished. like, reading signs and then following them, instead of knowing what to do beforehand. that terrifies me, i must always have a plan. but in practice, it’s really easy. airports/public transit/highways are made for people who have never been there before, so once i learned that, i relaxed quite a bit.
and, if you’re young and female, there’s nearly always someone happy to give you directions or advice. probably also if you’re not young and female, but that’s what i am, and it’s nice in that regard.
With travelling alone, I would suggest using HI or other trustworthy hostel systems, because with hostels you will DEFINITELY MEET PEOPLE, and you get the safety-in-numbers option as well as the screw-you-today-I’m-doing-whatever-I-want option.
Depending on where you go, there are definitely going to be dudes that approach you in the street. I had the good luck to actually meet a few really nice dudes that way. Be prepared, carry pepper spray, etc., but also there’s a good chance they’ll be totally human. (This was very true in Cuba, where people wanted to talk to a Canadian about politics so damn badly. YMMV.)
I would suggest a one- or two-week trip. Enough time in a single place to get your bearings, figure out the maps and currencies, stop freaking out and being paranoid (always the first 24 hours you will feel lost and alone and horrible), and then enjoy yourself for real.
Best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m SO glad I’ve done it, and I crave it still, and relish work trips so I can legit leave my partner at home. And I love him! I also just LOVE being by myself in a foreign place. It is by far the most powerful thing I have done to tap into what I actually want and what pleases ME as opposed to what I think will please others.
I’ve travelled to a bunch of North American cities alone, and Mexico, Thailand and London. All fabulous. You have to like, take precautions, and it was kind of crummy in Mexico to not go out at night, which I didn’t much, but it was also delicious to stay in and drink a beer and read in a cheap hotel in a beach town by myself.
There are weird moments – like eating lunch in a bar by myself in Mexico and the waiter silently drops off a photo album which turns out to be of female patrons flashing and naked and making out with each other. Which led me to feeling conflicted about whether to hang out at the beach near the bar or further along in a more secluded spot… you know? But it was all fine.
Do it! Fabulous! And I’m not much for making friends when I travel by myself, but lots of people are!
Joining in to all the yes sayers! Traveling by yourself is so much fun — bring an ereader, and you can spend the entire day just setting your own pace.
You probably won’t make best friends, but you can definitely find companions to do activities with, if you like. Hostels are good for that — I like long hikes, but if it’s super isolated, I want to bring a companion, and you can usually find someone who’s up for going.
Just jumping in to say yes to everything everyone else has said. Also, I feel better if I’ve given someone a copy of my passport and itinerary; it’s just nice to know that someone knows where you are if things get complicated.
yes, this! and it reminds me of the other great thing about traveling alone: writing emails to friends and family back home.
While doing my short trip by bicycle on the Oregon Coast, I pulled over to a gorgeous view, took a photo with my phone, noticed I had reception, and got on facebook to post the photo and crow about the perfect weather I was having that day. Best.
I have done a sort of half-step-down version of this a few times (though only in the US, not internationally), by tagging along with my fiancee/friends going to conferences in various cities. We share the cost of a hotel room, and then while they are off doing their conferencing things, I go out exploring on my own during the day. It’s helped that the times I’ve done this were in locations where there were lots of things to do and it was fairly easy to get around (Baltimore & DC).
Do it! if you like driving, this year I did a road trip with my partner and it made me realize that I would really also like to drive alone more places. It was fun and not scary driving across the US. We stayed in hotels, took a route from LA to New York (passing through new mexico, texas and up to Niagra falls) and I never once felt like there was a place where I would have felt unsafe by myself.
This is also something you can try on the weekends before you commit! Just go drive somewhere and stay the night. I really recommend Roadtrippers.com as a planning tool. If you like it domestically then you can try international if you think you need to do some baby steps.
I also think learning to like being alone can be great. If you want to make friends stay in bed and breakfasts or things like Air BnB where the owner lives there too. But solitude can be good for the soul.
I also love traveling alone! My inner child will never stop being thrilled that I’m an adult now and can go ANYWHERE I WANT IN THE WHOLE WORLD without asking anyone for permission. Tbh, my safety precaution is #misandry, so I may not be the person to ask about making international friends. But! I did meet up with a fantastic fellow Toastie this summer in Montreal— maybe when your plans solidify, you can post here and see if there are any Toasts in the area you could meet up with?
I still don’t like it as much as traveling with friends, even though I’ve done it more now than I had a couple of years ago. But one way to think of it: would it be worse to never visit this place or worse to visit it alone? Generally I’d say not seeing the world (whatever bit of the world you want to see) would be worse.
I’ve done it. There’s good and bad.
Good: You get to make your own itinerary. Do all the things you want to do and take day’s off from doing traveler stuff whenever you want with no guilt (which I always find necessary, feeling like you have to be constantly doing stuff gets exhausting).
AirBnB and hostels are probably your best bets for meeting people. Some AirBnB hosts are really friendly and helpful, and hostels tend to have a very social culture.
Downsides: I do find it really hard to meet people on my own, even with doing something like AirBnB, so you may have the same experience. When I spent 2 1/2 months in Europe traveling alone, most of that in Italy (my Italian is just ok), it felt on the whole pretty isolating. I’m more ok with that in general than most people (I work from home, sometimes go a week without leaving the house and an happy doing so), but after a month and a half it really started to get to me. Also, I wish I could say “it’s totally safe and you really shouldn’t worry,” but the one time I’ve been attacked by a man was on that trip, on a dark street in Sicily walking home. It wasn’t any more traumatic than just being a scary thing that happened because I yelled loud and he went away, but still, think about things like how crowded and well lit the areas you’ll be staying in are.
I honestly did not enjoy traveling alone as much as I thought I would. I think for some people it’s a super valuable experience to get out of your comfort zone and do something independent and I thought I was (or wanted to be) one of those people. I’m not, as it turns out, and probably won’t do it much again. If you find it’s not for you, that’s totally ok!
I love traveling alone! Like you, steady but boring job and traveling by myself is my small adventurous side. I went to France by myself for 2 weeks and I’ve done lots of work trips in Canada and the US by myself. And I’m going to Scotland for three weeks this summer alone.
For longer trips, I’m throw in things where I will meet people or stay at hostels. I’m doing a tour in the middle of my Scotland trip which will give me lots of human interaction!
My main tip would be to let someone know what your schedule is and check in every few days.
I did a short trip, five days, down the Oregon Coast alone by bicycle, a couple of years ago. I was staying in the state parks at night, in yurts because the weather was iffy and I could bring my bicycle in and charge my phone and the doors have deadlocks. I felt much safer/comfier that way and it was well worth the cost compared to tent camping.
I’m an experienced bicycle tourist and I’d even done that section of the coast before, so I wasn’t worried about the route or anything. And the Oregon coast is popular among bicycle tourists, so I never felt like I was the only one out there; and it gave me an “in” to chat with other bicycle tourists.
There were only a couple of people who expressed surprise and worry, mostly other women, especially as they got out of their cars while I was enjoying a view point or whatever. “Are you ALONE?”
I always had my charged phone within easy reach. Mostly for photos, but it did help with the feeling of safety. And I called my boyfriend every night–from the beach, where the reception was best!
Being able to stop, or not, whenever I wanted, was amazing. I really hope I get a chance to do it again.
(tw: family dysfunction, abuse I guess. It’s a hard tw. I am um… not doing well right now)
My parents are currently in the “Jekyll” phase of their Jekyll and Hide routine and it makes me want to throw something at them and shout “LIARS” like Reese Witherspoon does to the TV in Legally Blonde.
They are just shameless at gaslighting and as much as I try to remember this, they usually succeed in manipulating me into believing the facade. It’s just frustrating. I feel like a really dumb dog when I keep going back to them. But I can’t cut them off because for some reason I am convinced that they are TRYING to improve (when of course they’re probably not, they don’t care enough about our relationship to do that) and these ultra-nice periods are proof of that… and btw, when they’re being nice they act like it’s my fault that we’re not closer and they are the ones magnanimously humbling themselves to reach out to me… they just don’t remember telling me they considered me a failure, I guess, or when they said their own parenting efforts were a waste of time. Sometimes this stuff just gets to me because I’m the only one who remembers these things and acts like they actually happened. I feel like I’m going insane. Which I guess is the whole point of gaslighting. (And even now my brain is telling me it’s not real gaslighting they’re doing to me, which… ok thanks brain).
I feel like I’m on the edge of hysteria this morning, thanks for listening
toasthugs for you, friend.
Thanks Lauren. Writing this out helped, as do your hugs. Toasthugs to you too and hope you had a good week.
Breathe. Take one really deep breath and let it out, and then take another one like that, and let it out, and keep doing that. Feel the place you are in physically, the floor under your feet or whatever it is your are sitting on. Look around the room, find something that is a colour, think about what colour it is.
We are glad to listen.
That is indeed the whole point of gaslighting, and you are not dumb, you are a human person who loves your parents and is hungry for the love and respect and positive attention you deserve from them. This is normal.
It is not your job to behaviour-modify your parents, but maybe think about this: just like you do not reward little kids when they have been shits and then briefly stopped, it is better if you do not reward your parents for ‘trying’. If they are pretending that the bad stuff never happened, they are not actually going to change it, and giving them cookies when they are being ‘nice’ just tells them you are playing the game. Quit playing it and walk away. Yes, it is the hardest thing ever, and no judgement on you if you can’t or don’t want to, but — just like my daughter is not going to quit hitting her little brother to get my attention until she gets *absolutely no results* — your parents are not going to quit this see-saw of shit/praise/shit/praise until they get absolutely no results. (And sadly, maybe not even then, but if they ARE trying, the best way to encourage them is not to feed either side of the cycle.)
Many toasthugs to you!
You are all so very, very wise. Your children are fortunate.
I agree with this. Don’t let them slide.
I recently stood up to my parents’ (mostly my dad–my mom just lets him off the hook about it, which bugs me) gaslighting, because I’ve moved out of the house and don’t have to apologize to keep the peace.
I refused to talk until they would apologize, to the point where my brother called me to kind of mediate and set up a talk with them, and I told him I genuinely didn’t plan on speaking to them ever again unless they could apologize, and didn’t minimize my feelings or tell me I’m crazy for having my feelings. I also added a no-yelling clause.
So he passed on the message, and we set up a time for a phone call, and it actually worked out pretty well. My dad managed to stay calm and civil and genuinely seemed to listen to my points and the consensus seemed to be that we would all actively work on communicating in order to avoid these issues in the future.
But it only happened because I insisted on not cutting them any slack when they were treating me like crap.
Thank you so much. This is very good advice. I’ve tried behavior modification and you’re right, it doesn’t work… like you said it’s just alerting them to the fact I’m playing their game on their terms. Because really this strategy is working for them on some level, because under these terms they get to be nasty whenever they feel like it and then when I start calling them less because of it then they get to be the most loving parents ever and why am I not responding to their texts???
I guess I thought I was telling them “I will not engage with you unless you are being civil” but really I was telling them they could bribe me, with niceness, into talking to them. So yeah, that has not been a good use of my time and energy.
“Look around the room, find something that is a colour, think about what colour it is.” So nicely phrased. I could feel my heart rate going down when I read this. Thank you.
More Toasthugs. Bryn (Plus Others) are absolutely correct. Keep checking in here, please. Even if there’s no improvement. I really want to hear from you. You are a good person. You deserve kindness. Do not settle for less.
*hugs* Cutting off contact with my abusive family was the best decision of my life. I was happier once I’d done it, I was even nicer. And it turns out that loads of people do this, they just keep fairly quiet about it. So if you want to do that, go for it! It is absolutely wonderful not being gaslighted any more.
Secondly, there is a lot of really good reading on this subject at Issendai. If you happen across the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers forum or Light’s House, avoid both, <a href=”https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=banned+from+donm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=j3aiVu-QHcGmwgTSoYXwBw”>they’re dire.
These are great recommendations. I’m also going to add that there’s a whole community at reddit, /r/raisedbynarcissists, and I’ve had positive experiences with the group and all its related subgroups.
*hugs*! I’m glad you’ve found peace and happiness on the other side, and hope you have found a lovely chosen family or group of friends too. Thanks for the link. I’ve been reading around… this page on “all-or-nothing” behavior (http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/notes-all-or-nothing.html) really describes my parents to a T. They have no idea, or choose not to understand, what my hopes for their behavior are. It’s not niceness I’m after in my relationship with them, but honesty and direct communication. Unfortunately I am liable to fall for temporary niceness in the absence of real change.
I am so, so sorry. I’m right there with you, I have a similar thing going on with my parents – feeling like you’re going insane because of gaslighting, is it even real gaslighting, being convinced that they are trying to improve but it never actually does anything, etc.
You are sane. Your experiences are yours and someone else casting doubt on them does not make them any less real. You are not alone.
Thank you. I am sorry you’re going through this too. You are sane too, what is happening between you and your parents is real, and you are not imagining it. Hope things go better for you soon.
I am having similar exp. specifically with my maternal unit, however, she is legit mentally ill and has other issues so it used to feel like gaslighting but now I realize that it’s a combination of things, much of it tied to her brainstate, perhaps that is some of this w/ your parents? Psychological problems can have a nasty way of presenting to/at loved ones as really cruel statements. Not that that is reason to put up with being called names by any adult, much less parentals.
I
a) try not to take it personally
b) don’t engage in arguments when possible (at all, no matter the feels, regardless of veracity)
c) walk away when I feel like I will pop
d) have a glass of wine
e) look forward to my next therapy appointment
Lots of hugs to you. It sounds like you’re already approaching this with a strategy, but if you don’t mind a suggestion, I found the book Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward to be extremely helpful when dealing with a similar situation. It did a lot to help remind me of useful strategies for coping, and when I was going through a hard time I could re-read sections to remind myself that yes, this is what was going on. But, feel free to ignore me if you feel pretty set already! Sending you lots of good thoughts.
I’m so sorry that you have to go through that and would also like to offer an internet hug. Gaslighting parents are really tough to deal with and you’re a total bad ass, edge of hysteria and all
Both my parents are shameless gaslighters too and it’s tough as hell. I’m lucky that I barely see my mother and that I can stand up to my dad and tell him that his behaviour is gaslighting, it’s wrong and that he needs to stop immediately but that took a lot of time.
Exposure to gaslighting behaviour leading to self doubt and self doubt about being gaslighted is a symptom of dealing with gaslighting behaviour.
I really hope that it gets better for you. You’re not insane, your experiences are real and I really hope that it gets better for you.
Ugh, I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this.
Just remember that you don’t owe them anything. If you think it’s better for you to cut them out of your life completely, do it.
Any other Canadian toasties struggling with the low low loonie right now? Peppers are $6/lb at my grocery store and I really want to visit my bestie in Seattle 🙁
Yep, everything is insane and we are getting totally killed at work too.
We’re going to need a northern gardening/preserving thread and become more self sufficient.
No American travel for us this year. And I’m trying to plan a 2017 conference in Chicago and IDEK what to guess at for exchange rate.
That’s a good idea. I spoke at length with my mum about putting in cauliflower starts this spring, and, more generally, taking out more of her flower beds for food production.
For the conference, take the historic low point, and be surprised pleasantly if the loonie is above that? I’m bummed about having to cut back on American travel. We’re in the pnw, and there’s so much good stuff on the other side of the border.
My first recommendation for self sufficiency is kale – I’m in Ontario; and seem to be able to keep harvesting into Dec/Jan. Might look into building a cold box – I think I’ve got a window stored in the garage I could use.
We built one – pretty easy and we can get baby greens right into January (in the Okanagan)!
We moved into this place in November, but there’s a sort of mini-balcony/crow’s-nest thing that I totally want to enclose next summer into a sort of greenhouse. Maybe I’ll just container-plant with cold boxes instead? hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
It’s a good idea to ask a a local gardening center to see what vegetables like your climate the best. Brassicas (broccoli, kale, cauliflower), potatoes, and garlic grow like crazy where I am, but it turns out you need a greenhouse to grow tomatoes, cucumber, or corn because although our season is long enough, those all need sustained heat which we don’t get.
Oh, yes. I have to go to a bachelorette party in Nashville in May. I’m so worried about how much it’s going to cost … half the people going work in the states.
Cauliflower was $4 a head yesterday.
Only $4? I want to go to your grocery store! It’s $8 at all three grocery stores near me and it is making me so sad.
Me too! I didn’t know how much I liked it until it was prohibitively expensive
Ugh I bought flights to LA for the spring like “hooray! cheap flights!” and then reality set in…
Rob an American bank, I guess?
Not sure why I didn’t think of this earlier! Good tip 🙂
Yes and I am off to the US in March and just dreaaaaaaaading it.
Yesssss very much. I definitely see it in groceries the most clearly.
But like, I filled up my car at 63.9cents/L yesterday
WHAT! It’s still 97.9 where I am
Where are you? It’s about the same where I am. (North Eastern BC).
The Okanagan – taxes, I suppose (and which I am in support of!)
Same here in northwestern BC. It just dropped below a buck a litre two days ago.
Edmonton, where it hasn’t been above a dollar in a long, long time
Last week cauliflower was $6/lb at my local grocery store. And now I hear the Big 3 phone companies are all raising their mobile rates to compensate. Funny, I don’t remember them lowering their rates when the dollar was strong.
Ah! It’s driving me crazy. I need to purchase some not small things that I can only seem to find in US and the exchange is so much. And gas is still over a dollar. bah humbug.
Ugh, crowdsource with the Toast? Maybe we can help you out.
Yeah, it’s stuff for traveling and I’m being overly picky – a backpack and shoes. Thankfully I think I found the shoes from a Canadian retailer for not too much more. I think I’m just going to have to suck it up on the backpack. Plus I can hope that in the time it takes me to save the extra cash, the dollar might rebound just a bit? hahaha…ha…sigh.
Haha is it a 60L north face traveling backpack? … because I have one I am trying to sell 🙂
Have you tried the MEC gear swap online? I haven’t figured it out, but people swear by it
Toasties, has anyone else had the exquisite pleasure of seeing Her Story, the web series about trans women by trans women that has set my heart aflame? It’s on youtube waiting for you…
This is a significant part of my blizzard plans. I will be ready to discuss on Sunday!
It’s so amazing! I just watched it last night and I want there to be a second season immediately!
I know! And it’s so well written and directed! Everything about it is perfect, except for the fact that Lisa doesn’t get pelted with rotten vegetables.
Lisa is THE WORST!
I keep meaning to! I will try to watch over the blizzard.
Toasties, I am in a rut. Tell me your wildest dreams about a truly satisfying life- where you live, what kind of work you do, anything.
Art thief has always been my go-to fantasy career. They are the classiest and most interesting of thieves, and planning a heist would be my favorite thing. Plus, I want to be Audrey Hepburn in How to Steal a Million. (Hey, you said wildest dreams!!!) I’m in a rut too, so the dreams of running away from my boring life to become a glamorous art thief have been frequent lately. But as for something actually realistic and satisfying, I have no idea.
Oooh, that one is fabulous. All I know now is that I want to walk across the Isle of Skye, and then keep on going (and somehow still have my dogs and husband). Or write romance novels, successfully enough that I could easily stop working and still be financially secure. Do I want to move? I don’t know! Do I want a new job? I don’t know what I would do! Realistic and satisfying is completely beyond me right now.
Oh man, all of that sounds fantastic. Realism is overrated anyway.
I’m trying part 2 of that now. It’s a long haul, and I’m certainly not making money much yet, but damn it’s satisfying! Good luck with your writing / walking / dreams!
You sound like you would be interested in my fantasy writing project, a heist movie but with all ladies! I call it Lady Heist and it’s the best movie (n)ever made. I talk about Lady Heist a lot.
As an aside you might be interested in the book Hot Art. (It’s a real book.)
I would be VERY INTERESTED in Lady Heist, and you should probably make that happen, because it would be fantastic. I am one of the few people who is okay with the all-women Oceans 11 remake they’re considering. I need lady heists in my life.
And as long as you avoid killing anyone, the penalties are so much less severe! (How have years passed since I read the Vicki Bliss books, this must be remedied at once.)
In some of my daydreams, I live alone in a hotel. Not for a short stay, for always. I have a personal assistant who organizes all my shit and picks up after me, freeing me to make spreadsheets for grateful clients with clear goals who pay on time.
I’m sorry about your rut. Wishing you satisfying adventures.
Thank you! I love the glamour you guys are bringing to these dreams!
I dream of being a mystery novelist, either some sort of feminist cozies or children’s/YA, like more progressive up-to-date Cam Jansen/Nancy Drew type stuff.
I’d live somewhere in the upper Midwest with cold winters (I know) and temperate summers and lakes, but near enough a city we could see some art and eat good food pretty easily, with my husband and baby and any future kids, and some dogs I wouldn’t be allergic to anymore (SOB).
I just want to be with my people, have personal space and quiet (*shakes fist at NYC*), go swimming sometimes, have my dog back from my parents, and be the next Agatha Christie. Is that too much to ask? Also a dishwasher and someone to shovel snow during said cold winters. And a birdfeeder. Ok the end!
Oh, that is fantastic. I think deep down mine is very similar- writing genre fiction, by a northern coast, in a charming cottage that is rustic but still has things like running water and a dishwasher and washer and dryer, and taking a month or so each year to go walk long distances in foreign countries.
Also, I would totally buy and read your books. They sound like perfection!
CAM JANSEN!!!!!
that is all.
In a perfect world, I live in an isolated cottage in Ireland, where I own no clocks and spend all my time sleeping, writing, painting, and accepting unnaturally large shipments of books, art supplies and groceries. Once a week I walk into town to have lunch at the pub. Very occasionally, when the whim takes me, I fly to New York/Chicago/Jamaica and spend a week in a fancy hotel (all friends invited, of course).
Bliss.
I recently had this conversation:
Me: “I think my ideal job is like in a tv show where some people are all in a room together, and they have to solve some complicated problem by writing a lot on a whiteboard and eating Chinese food. Except everyone in the room needs to be a feminist.”
Sister: “Soooooo… your ideal job is a Toast think tank?”
Me: “YES.”
Brilliant!
I live in a cute little house in the Outer Banks and I take walks on the beach every day with my pup. I have the same job I do now, but I’m better at it, and I work remotely and only for about four hours a day.
I own a castle and run an academy of the sort I desperately needed as a teen and write books and travel a lot.
A car, gas money and no responsibilities.
There’s an exchange from The Ballad of Halo Jones:
Halo: I’m going out.
Rodice: Out? Out of where?
Halo: Out of everywhere.
Rodice: But, listen, the problems will still be here when we get back…
Halo: Who said anything about coming back?
After I win a $10m lottery, I move to a temperate climate where weed is 100% legal and I’m banging Tom Hiddleston. Who’s with me?
If Tom ever moves to Boulder I have good news for you.
I have played out that scenario in my head so many times. So, so many times.
I win the lottery (somewhere between a few million and a billion) and give one third of the money to my girlfriend’s sister, who is an amazing person who has lived one hellhole of a life, and half to my mom so she is not financially tied to my dad anymore.
I spend the rest paying off student loans, financing my girlfriend’s retirement, and going back to grad school to be a high school counselor. Eventually I sponsor a GSA and spend my free time talking to closeted HS kids. On summer breaks I can afford to not work and use the time to write instead.
This is nice, yes.
My dream world right now is a small sheep farm with a cottage for my cat and my books and an extra barn made into a fibre arts studio for my yarn and looms. I would have a right hand woman (or man I guess) for help with the farming tasks. Sheep would be for wool and I would sell my undyed wool to other fibre fanatics and just knit and weave the rest of the time. I am actively trying to make this a reality and it will probably take until the economy collapses and/or I win the lottery and I’m retired to afford said dream.
I live in a mid-size city where I don’t have to drive but I can steal away for a long drive in the woods if I want. I live in a little bungalow, and my boyfriend is there but he’s not allergic to cats anymore so my cat is there too. I can do only the kind of teaching that I really like — helping young people find their creativity and learn new skills. Maybe this is my full-time job, or maybe I get to do something cool and research-oriented and academic-y that’s not the tenure track grind. Everyone I interact with is smart and feminist. I get to see all my friends semi-regularly. There’s a really great all-women’s gym nearby.
I’ve had so many different fantasy futures, but the current one taking center stage is that I live part time in my hometown, part time in the south of Spain, my rusty Spanish is suddenly perfectly fluent like my father’s, and I own a wildly successful tea shop/bookstore that actually also is a speakeasy at night, complete with a false bookcase that leads to the speakeasy stairwell entrance. My lovely partner Oscar Isaac is very supportive of all my business ventures and also suddenly loves cats as much as I do.
So my 17-year old stepson got kicked out of his mom’s house and moved several states away to come live with us. This kid is so clearly traumatized by his mom that I feel bad for him but on the other hand, he drives me completely bonkers because I have nothing in common with him (and he’s a complete teenage male). I have no kids of my own, my husband (his dad) and I have not had kids living with us. Send help!
Mom of teenager here. Treat him like a person. Make sure he knows all the things he would need to know if you were considering him as a roommate. Politely indicate to him what your boundaries are. Get him a therapist used to teens. (I am on my phone so that is why I am blunt)
Yes, all of this! He is a person who is 17, not A Teenager. I am sure it is very hard, but do your best to treat him with respect. And decide right now — is he in your family or not? Because if not, don’t pretend he is. I mean that kindly, but having had a couple of people do that during our teens, I can attest to the damage it causes.
I don’t know about help, but if you’re collecting 17 year olds, I could send you mine?
Teenage boys are notoriously uncommunicative. It’s not just you.
They are a bit like stray cats: leave out food and water, be open with they sit their heads out, don’t try to pet them.
Maybe find something social he can do with kids his own age? Climbing gym, games night, join the rugby team at school?
Ask about what they are interested in, even if you don’t share the interest. What is news on reddit today? How is their progress in skyrim going?
Last tip: everyone I know with teenagers agrees that car time – especially one on one – is the BEST way to get them to talk. Drive them somewhere. Anywhere.
He has so many needs. I mention only one: He needs to feel useful. Make sure he is given responsibility for a few chores. He’s more likely to do them if he chooses them.
And when I taught high school, I got very, very good response from my students when I treated them as if they were adults. I just had to expect the occasional immature response.
I am the mom of an almost-16-year-old almost-adult son and I concur with my esteemed Toastie colleagues who have already weighed in on this topic.
My son likes to play tabletop games, and we have several modern euro-style boardgames in our home. Maybe you and your husband enjoy similar games, or cards, or solving jigsaw puzzles, or another quietly collaborative/friendly competitive pastime that you can invite your stepson to share with you after dinner or on a dull Saturday afternoon, or whatever? I find that inviting him to do “this thing” and then getting started with the set-up will often draw him when previous attempts at “do you want to do something today?” or “what do you want to do?” have failed.
And, I have observed that in general, there are not many people who can resist a jigsaw puzzle in-progress. If you have room in your main living area for a card table to be set up with a puzzle that people can tinker with at will, and doesn’t have to be moved for meals, that may draw him into spending time alongside you if not necessarily with you, if that makes sense.
Find a streaming show to watch with him. Something with several hours, just y’all sitting on the couch. My 16 year old is watching Deutschland 83 with us now, and Community with his dad, and Friday Night Lights with me, and a bunch of Twilight Zone on his own. His 20 year old brother is into all the HBO stuff. Doesn’t matter if it’s not totally your thing, but there’s something out there y’all can agree on and laughing at the same stupid jokes or dissing the same stupid characters is good bonding.
He’ll eat more than you can imagine. At weird times. Entire meals, twenty minutes before dinner. It’s okay, he’ll eat dinner, too. Or stick it in the fridge until later, as long as that doesn’t mess too much with your household-running brain. Does he drive? Give him grocery lists – don’t expect him to know where to find things in the store. (I ease them into this by sorting the list – and sometimes including pictures if I know they’ll never figure out ‘black bean paste’ on their own.) Ask him what things he wants to keep around for in-between meals (chicken pot pies, mac n cheese, yogurt, bananas/nutella/bread/peanut butter, all the granola bars, and don’t try for homemade ones, they just want prepackaged). His knowing he can feed himself, has the freedom of the kitchen (and the responsibility of unloading the dishwasher), and you won’t mind him rummaging in the fridge at midnight is good for his feeling welcome.
Point him towards a gym membership, or see if he has what he needs (bike, shoes, basketball) if he likes to be active. Point him towards a library, and the local game resale shop, and tell him he has $X for a clothing budget for the next X months. Give him spending money if you can. Check if he likes the sheets on his bed, tell him he can hang stuff on the walls, and tell him your rules / chores / curfew, but that you’re open to negotiating all of them if he wants to make a rational counteroffer.
You don’t have to have much in common with him. At 17, they can spend all but maybe 45 minutes a day, easy, not seeing anyone else in their household. They need security and responsibility and the sense that you respect him and will be there when he needs you.
And, of course, due to the trauma, he may need counseling and a safe space that’s not your home to work through his past.
Damn! No wonder your sons give me hope for the future.
My goodness, the eating. How could I have forgotten? Good call in letting him do the grocery run and select his preferred brand of snacks & etc.
Applause
Is this young man a senior in high school, or a junior? If he is a senior, please contact the school ASAP to learn ALL THE THINGS about graduation – not just whether his classes are transferring, but whether you need to order a cap and gown, invitations, that sort of thing. Also, what are the social aspects of graduation in your community that you as a previously child-free person may not have been aware of but may wish to put wheels in motion for your stepson, or at least communicate to him that this is A Thing That is Done Here and you are open to providing the means to do so? School staff may be able to help with this, or friends/coworkers/people you worship with who have kids of a similar age.
It’s fairly common here for families to have an open-house reception for their graduate, and then the kids travel in packs from one party to the next, so it’s important for close friends to team up for a joint party or have their parties on separate days over the 2-3 weekends surrounding graduation. Also, seniors finish classes and graduate a couple weeks earlier than the rest of the student body, which is a thing I still don’t understand.
And if he’s not graduating, and needing an extra year, and been having trouble at school, find your allies. Maybe his VP, or guidance counsellor.
Find out how the school tracks attendance. Will they call? Email? If he misses class. Do the teachers have websites with homework info? If he’s having trouble with Grades, what help is available. What alternatives does he have. Co op? Homework help?
I forget who recommended the show Person of Interest a few weeks ago, but I’ve made it to season 4 and OMG this show is amazing! Anyone else watching?
I just started watching this week–I’m maybe halfway through Season 1 and I’m really enjoying it! Although when I stop to deconstruct why, I can’t quite put a finger on what’s working for me.
It just gets better and better as the seasons go on!
YES. I’m on episode 8 of season 4 and starting to slow down because I don’t want it to end…
I just finished episode 11 of season 4. I think I need to start watching more slowly as well. I get so anxious every time they go on some seemingly impossible mission! I don’t want anyone to die!
YES. I’m so mad they moved season 5 from mid-season to summer. *shakes fist*
Wait, they did? I thought they were just being really awful about announcing the return date. Hmph.
I haven’t started yet, but it’s on the watchlist for this year!
YES. I talk about that show to people all the time and most people are like what are you talking about and then I ramble about the wonderfulness that is Michael Emerson and government conspiracies and they start to edge away.
Yes! I love it and I love that they’ve gone from a slightly-different procedural to straight-up weird. I also feel like it avoids doing the ubiquitous male gaze camera that is common in even woman-friendly shows. I can’t remember a single shot that seemed designed to let the audience oogle the female characters and the direction seems to try and make them look strong and powerful rather than sexy.
I LOVE THIS SHOW. where the hell is season five!!!!
You know what else, though, I’m watching some more of Season 1 and remembered that this show has great taste in music. The closing tune of every episode is either straight out of my music collection, or should be added to it.
it is so, so good.
So I’m currently doing a data science project where I maaaay have decided to use Tumblr for my dataset? Basically, I’m using natural language processing to predict posts that might be spoilers for stuff like Star War, Dragon Age, etc. Anywho, I thought you might all appreciate some examples of the word soup that gets made when I run a regular Tumblr post through a filter that takes out all the punctuation and common English words, and converts most plurals and tenses to a common base:
– “people seriously angry attacking john boyega making comment finn poe bromance sigh hundred year ”
– “tolkien ooh yes thanks lowkey otp mean fall unless ve gone looking fics gigolas frodo sam aragorn arwen etc barduil probably well highkey notp think one softly notp ve never gotten aragorn legolas like also like like kiliel relationship portrayed fanfic fanworks ”
– “show biggest queerbaiting cock teasing motherfucker ever watched love”
– “bf fancy mads motorcycle jacket ga omg omg saw scene driving take helmet mean come come bf pick piece plaidd suit motorcycle jacket pick motorcycle jacket ga oh yes sorry absolutely mean look look bryan gillian antipasto commentary ”
– “ooh please talk empathy really chalk hand learn always subtly refrained using word empathy talk special skill get ready started back realized thought sometimes went something like love clueless cocklebur empathy go thought dawned actually maybe never really empathetic felt like jostled pillar”
– “dk hard draw solas like sad sad egg suck drawing much maybe emotional attachment love egg”
– “hot hot damn”
Tumblr, please never ever change.
Amazing.
That is hilarious. The Hannibal “motorcycle jacket motorcycle jacket motorcycle jacket” one is my favorite. Also your project sounds really interesting!
Thanks! It’s interesting enough that I might keep playing with the data and model even after this program ends – I keep discovering cool stuff about the “universal language of spoilers”. If it goes well, I might try to write up some of the results into a little blog thingy.
some reaaaaaally good band names in here
also, this is off-topic, but I know you might be interested: did you see David Gaider is leaving BioWare?
WHAT
He announced it on twitter this morning. :-/
sad sad egg, indeed.
Sigh hundred year 🙁 🙁 🙁
Wow, that Solas one really accurately describes my entire DA:I experience.
Another Solas one:
“flirt relentlessly solas roll around floor”
Honestly it sounds like most regular tumblrspeak already does….what a cool project
ooh yes thanks lowkey otp!
Dress me up toast.
I’m a thirtysomething lady size 16 to 18, depending on brand and current nacho intake. Sadly, I’m not curvy at all. My boobs can not form cleavage, and my ass is slightly concave. My legs are pretty rocking though. Instead, my extra weight is in my midsection. Which means that all this fit and flare nonsense looks terrible on me.
I like your basic faux vintage stuff, but alas never know what to buy. Right now my uniform is dark wash jeans and long sleeve t shirts. Help me be moderately more fancy?
I’ve seen some gorgeous dresses/tunics that are billowy/flowy up top and snug through the butt/thighs, that might show off your rocking legs to advantage while having a cool silhuette? Sort of flare-and-fit rather than fit-and-flare.
Dark tights, boots, skirts whatever length you like, and something drapey on top, with a great scarf and a long necklace. That’s what makes me happy.
Like me you’ve probably had the experience of trying on a shirt and saying “Give me three more inches and I have a dress!” Maybe try popping one of those on over leggings. You’ll rock those legs, be stylish, and still be comfortable.
I’m a similar shape to you, with cleavage and probably less fabulous (but still perfectly nice) legs. I find that tunics and cardigans which flare out past the hips are great at giving the illusion of hips, and show off your legs nicely. The Chic Fashionista is good for learning about shapes and such.
I’m a 20-something 14-16, and all of my extra weight is in my midsection too (YAY for PCOS).
I personally like slimmer pants and then blouses that have some kind of seaming/structure that allows them to skim over my body. Things that cling are the enemy for me. As well as the seemingly popular sheer fabric that’s being used in everything now.
For example, I recently bought this blouse from Kohl’s in a few colors:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/07/81/d…
It’s not really available anymore but I think the cut is really flattering. The seams in the front let it skim over the stomach, but it also has little nips in at the waist so it doesn’t look shapeless, etc.
theeeeeeese!
http://www.asos.com/Pink-Clove/Pink-Clove-Long-Sl…
http://www.asos.com/ASOS-Curve/ASOS-CURVE-Wrap-Fr…
show off them gams!
All my weight is in my midsection too (I have been known to joke that I am curvy, it’s just that I’m shaped like parentheses) and I really like empire waists in my tops and dresses. The higher waist provides some shape but still allows the top to flow over my stomach. And then you could pair that with some nice leggings or tights or just a narrower cut of pants for your legs.
Although their style is more boho than vintage, Lucky Jeans leans towards the billowy, non-cleavagey style tops that I think would look great with your body type, and they have a plus size section.
We are about the same size!
Don’t try and change everything all at once. That has never gone well for me. I’d change things up very slowly, like one wardrobe piece at a time.
The most utilized item in my wardrobe right now other than jeans is a black denim skirt. A-line looks terrible on me, so my partner helped me tailor it a bit so that it’s narrower, almost but not quite a pencil skirt, and it comes right below the knee, which is my favorite length. Maybe get a new skirt and a couple of flattering shirts at a thrift store (it might also be a good idea to get a too-big shirt, maybe a men’s button-down shirt, and have it tailored to fit you at a dry-cleaner’s) and a layering piece like a sweater or a jacket, and see how you can incorporate them into your wardrobe?
Hello Toasties!
This is definitely the best place on the internet to ask this question. So, here goes!
Every winter I think, “This is the winter I will read Anna Karenina.” I’m not sure when/why I decided this; it just seems like a wintery novel and I tend to like Russian literature.
So! My well-read, uber literate Toasties, in terms of translations – what do you recommend? What is the best/most engaging translation out there?
Pevear/Volokhonsky!
Definitely Pevear/Volokhonsky!
Now that I know this perhaps I will also read Anna Karenina!
Agreed! I downloaded the free kindle translation (Constance Garnett) and I just could. not. So I shelled out a bit for Pevear/Volokhonsky and fell in love. I love this novel. Maybe this is the winter I read it again.
CORRECT. We had an Anna Karenina group read in writing grad school and someone brought a Russian PhD candidate who translated the climactic moment from the Russian and compared it to an older translation and to this one, and Pevear/Volokhonsky is vastly superior and more true to the sensibility of the Russian.
Recommended accompanying reading: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/03/30/slee…
Enjoy!
I chose randomly, and read the Pevear/Volokhonsky, and was happy with it!
THIS. Accept no substitutes. This is the translation that got me through Anna Karenina with joy, rather than slogging. They’re great at putting it into engaging English without taking away from the story, and it makes the book so much easier to read. Any of their translations of Russian literature are fantastic.
Agreed!
Thanks all!!! I knew Toasties would never steer me wrong.
They are the best Russian translators, I also heartily recommend their Brothers Karamazov!!
Their War and Peace is also fantastic!
Definitely Pevear & Volokhonsky. One word of warning about Tolstoy– the Russian scholars I know all say that his style in Russian is sometimes a little odd, he’ll do things (presumably on purpose) that don’t sound quite idiomatic in Russian, and most of the other translations try to smooth that out; P&V come closer to replicating what the original actually feels like to a Russian reader. And they’ve done huge amounts of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Master & Margarita, Dr Zhivago, etc, so they’re a whole Russian lit translation industry.
Big snowstorm tomorrow + early dismissal today = I AM SWARMED WITH HYPER KIDS. Also, my assistant is late so I’m hangry due to delayed lunch. Also, also, someone just farted. Nothing smells worse than 9-year-old kids’ farts.
My adorable, cuter than glittery buttons, little dog makes farts far worse than those kids. I don’t know how she does it. 12 pounds of dog should be too small for so much stink.
You have my sympathy, even though I am feeling competitive in my misery.
I would just like everyone to know that Mr. Thuja and I had lovely buttermilk pancakes for dinner last night. No mammoths were hunted and everyone was very happy.
Reading the Link Roundup, I realized that I’ve never walked out on a movie I bought tickets for. What movies have you walked out of?
Side note: I worked at a movie theater after high school and it was interesting seeing the reasons people walked out. Me & You & Everyone We Know: child porn! (“We’re not prudes,” the early-thirties couple assured me). Away from Her got a few walkouts too, but mostly residents of the local retirement home who found it too painful.
I walked out of Tropic Thunder. Pretty much just because I…really didn’t like it and wanted to do something else with my time. Not my brand of humour and boring to boot (at least to me). I went with some new acquaintances to see it otherwise I would never’ve gone.
I walked out of I Am Legend with my mom. It was just too stressful for us. We wandered into the next theater over and saw the last half of Enchanted and I have absolutely no regrets.
The ending was really terrible, anyway. It’s a crime they didn’t stick with the originally filmed ending. Those preview audiences who said it needed changed were flat wrong.
Was the original ending the one from the story? I mostly liked that movie fine, but the ending of the story is so good and powerful (and what the whole title is all about for fucksakes) that it was a disappointing letdown to me that they went in another direction.
You can watch it here. Still makes me cry from the emotional impact.
I’ve never walked out of anything either! I came kind of close recently while watching the new Macbeth movie because it was late and I was tired and I could not understand a goddamn word anyone was saying, but I waited it out in hope that Michael Fassbender would take his shirt off again.
I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of a movie, but my grandparents took me to see Uncle Buck when I was pretty young. My grandfather was mortified and kept reassuring me that we could leave if I wanted to but I was enjoying it.
I tend to just … take a nap, instead of leaving. I had some great sleeps to Lord of the Rings! (Don’t hate it, just bored)
I have never walked out of a movie, but I do vividly remember overhearing a woman arguing with the ticket seller that she should get a refund for Pan’s Labyrinth because it wasn’t like Lord of the Rings and she was not prepared for the violence even though every review and listing mentioned the whole, “graphic torture scene” thing. She did get her refund. We were going to see Pan’s Labyrinth and we ended up loving it so this has been a story we have told since then.
When I saw it, a bunch of people came with their kids (thinking it was a children’s film) and quietly left. Hopefully before their kids could be traumatized by the eyeball monster.
I suspect that probably happened in quite a few showings of that film…
I was convinced to go see “Hostel.” I spent the entire time covering my eyes and plugging my ears to block out everything. I was so upset with a) the guy who made me go and wouldn’t leave with me and b) myself for not just getting up and leaving anyway.
Ben Affleck’s Daredevil. It was awful, so I just saw The Two Towers for the third time instead. Also, I went to see Juno with my very conservative parents, which was a bad plan. They didn’t make it 10 minutes into the movie.
Transformers and the Mummy. I also fell asleep during that one with Gwyneth Paltrow and a train that I can’t remember the name of.
“Sliding Doors”? We showed it when I was working at the movies, and it was extremely un-memorable.
Years ago I walked out of that Star Wars sequel that introduced Jar Jar Binks. I could not believe how racist that character was. I am *still* vicariously embarrassed for George Lucas’ kids.
I guess I walked out of Star Trek: Into Darkness? Except walked out makes it sound more like a principled stand, whereas actually it was because I have nuclear-triggered PTSD and had been promised there was no nuclear in it but there was, MIKE. Oh well. Lousy movie anyway.
Age of Ultron
I was sorely tempted to do this.
I knew if I didn’t bail and bail soon, I would never be able to re-watch any of the previous films.
Oh my god, so did I. During the scene where Bruce and Tony are looking at the holograms of JARVIS’ and Ultron’s brains I suddenly realised I was having a panic attack about evil giant robots. I forgot that the reason I stopped watching Dr Who was the evil robots (cybermen, Daleks, yes i know they’re not technically robots). Evil robots terrify me, Tony Stark was making one and Bruce wasn’t stopping him, and therefore I had to bail.
I walked out shortly after they got to the farm because that was 100% bullshit for so many reasons.
My mom and I went to see Me & You & Everyone We Know since we know one of the guys in it (by the way, oof, what a movie to see with your mother when you are like 15) and the theater had a sign at the door with content warnings because so many people walked out.
I should have walked out because I hated every single thing about that movie. It’s beyond me how it got such great reviews.
I walked out of She’s So Lovely. That was many years ago so I really don’t remember the plot, but basically I believe some characters were very briefly introduced (with lots of Meaningful Glances) and then beat each other up. I just did not care enough to keep watching. I wish I would have walked out of several more when I was younger; The Astronaut’s Wife was so dumb, and with Four Brothers I no idea what was happening for the whole movie. I was on a date with a guy who didn’t speak English super well, and he kept asking me, “What’s going on?” and was like, “I don’t know;” I’m sure he thought I was just being stuck up.
Uggghhh, I went to go see The Talented Mr. Ripley with a friend in high school, and I was watching raptly and super liking it, and then halfway through she leaned over and whispered, “Ugh, this is terrible, can we leave?” I was just like, “Wat.” SO WE LEFT because the Gay Stuff was making her uncomfortable (we’re not friends anymore) and I’VE STILL NEVER SEEN THE END OF THAT MOVIE.
It’s so good! The ending is sad though.
Sounds like me and my best friend watching “Remains of the Day”. Sadly, she was NOT into repressed British servants denying their feelings.
When we were kids, we either walked out of, or almost walked out of All Dogs Go To Heaven. Everyone hated it so much that I seriously cannot remember if we actually walked out, or wished that we had.
In the side topic of “movies that are emphatically not what one expects” I worked one summer at a Blockbuster Video (during the Stone Age, obviously) where an older couple angrily returned a movie and insisted on a refund. They had rented Quills, no doubt expecting a charming period drama with beautiful costumes. Quills is about the Marquis de Sade.
what was wrong with ADGtH????????????????????
So, now that you ask . . . I now realize I have no idea! I have zero memory of the movie at all (I was pretty young), it has just gone down in family lore as the movie that prompted a we-are-leaving-or-thinking-about-leaving-this movie. And since it has become the bad movie of family legend, I have never rematched it and therefore it remains a mystery!
I’ve never walked out of the theater but I almost got thrown out for laughing so loudly at the sex scenes in 300.
I turned off Fury Road just over halfway through, but that has been extensively discussed.
i stayed out of the discussion re: fury road back in the day, because i just wasn’t very interested? but then i finally saw it about a week ago and i haaaated it. if i was not with friends, i would have turned it off. maybe i should go back and find those discussions.
This is tremendously reassuring to me. Thank you.
I just attempted to watch Fury Road last night with a group of friends and we got about halfway through and bailed once we realized that none of us gave a single solitary fuck about anything that was going on. I am also one of those people who would rather watch paint dry than watch a car chase, and although I knew that car chases featured prominently in Fury Road, I somehow did not realize quiiiiiite to what extent.
I have never walked out of a movie! My dad walked out of Phone Booth when my family went to see it together, not because it sucked (which it did) (but the rest of us stuck it out anyway) but because it had too much foul language.
I walked out of Remember Me with my best friend. We tried so hard to stick with it but ughhh it was miserable! Nothing good happened! Everyone was terrible and did terrible things! We went to get ice cream instead and looked up the ending on Wikipedia. That just convinced us we had made the correct decision.
Not “walking out” per se but my dad and I used to watch a lot of terrible sci fi together and we only turned off one movie– The Fifth Element. We were like, what is this shit? But then the next day we turned it back on because we were secretly so compelled and finished it, and I regret nothing, that movie is amazing.
I feel like I must have walked out of Star Wars Episode II because I can’t remember anything after the stupid meadow sequence. But I may have just blacked out the rest of the movie for being so boring. Even my love of Ewan McGregor couldn’t help me.
Prince of Persia with Jake Gyllenhaal. It was terrible, the movie started way too late, and I was with my friend and the dude she was banging, who I hate. No ragrets.
District 9. My friend and I were both so distressed by it, and somewhere around the dinner scene I finally said, “You know, we paid for tickets, we didn’t agree that we had to watch the whole film,” and she shot out of her seat like a rocket. No regrets.
I walked out of the Sex and the City movie after the scene where Carrie gives her assistant (played by Jennifer Hudson, not blaming her for the awful two-dimensional role that was written for her) a Louis Vuitton bag and this is portrayed as some amazing world-saving act of benevolence. Puke.
Someone else walked out earlier in the movie, from the front row, and they fell over on the way out, and the whole theatre erupted in laughter, which was mean, but I think it was because the film was so darn unfunny people took any excuse to laugh.
This was entirely the correct response to that movie.
Never walked out of a theater. I pretty much always go to movies at the Alamo Drafthouse, so even if it’s bad, I just get to keep drinking.
I worked at my college movie theater, so I saw MANY terrible films but couldn’t walk out because I was working.
We showed a silent film once called “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” for a children’s matinee, which is GORGEOUS– it was made by an artist called Lotte Reiniger out of laboriously hand-cut paper silhouettes.
One guy left early with his kids and angrily demanded a refund, because (I guess) there was too much Arabian Nights-style wooing. (I mean, it was just some paper cut-outs kissing a bit in profile! Come on…)
Oh, God, that’s such a beautiful movie! I saw it on Netflix Streaming.
I walked out of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close bc I was rubbed wrong by the opening (something about a child actor that was really bad at talking/given bad dialogue?) and then they revealed what I consider a HUGE plot twist like 3 minutes in when it was supposed to be one of the last things so I watched Wrestlemania at home with pizza.
I’ve never done that as I research everything, but I really wanted to with the first Hobbit movie. It was soooooo long and I was so bored, but as I’d been dragged there by family I couldn’t.
Long-time lurker, first-time commenter here!
It seems awfully selfish for my first post to be asking for advice, but y’all seem such good advice-givers.
I recently moved to Amsterdam after living with my dad for most of last years, and since I moved he keeps messaging me (multiple times a day sometimes) asking for me to get in contact with him. I’ve asked him to cut down on the messaging and he has a bit, but it’s still enough to stress me out. He’s one of those people with a knack for making you feel his emotions and he avoids all responsibility for engineering an actual conversation between us. All the conversation he ever has is about him being lonely, or vitriol about my mum and now I really need a break from that, and it’s making me feel guilty that i don’t want to talk with him every evening.
It all seems so petty when I write it out, but I suppose that it really boils down to: what should I do when what I need is very reduced contact but what he purports to need is daily skype chats? Not just in terms of ~getting what I need~ but feeling ok about it?
thanks <3
You have every right to need what you need. The fact that it conflicts with his needs is not your problem. Your needs are valid. The fact that they don’t align with his is not a failing on your part. Stand by your needs. They are not petty.
Good luck.
For your feelings: Take a survey of the adults in your circle. Ask everyone how often they communicate with their parents. Compile, calculate, memorize average.
For your dad: Put yourself on a diet. Mondays and Thursdays you check for messages, choose which ones to read. Never read all of them. Reward yourself for deleting as many as you can.
Then contact him at *your* convenience. Initially maybe every other day. After a week of that, cut back to twice a week, then cut back some more until you achieve that average you found among your adult friends. Better yet, cut back more than that, if dad’s communication is hard on you.
Do *not* explain this plan, or anything at all, ever, to your dad. You might consider silently rewarding him with greater frequency of contact if he ever learns to converse in a way that supports you. But you know people rarely change. Don’t look for it to happen.
I’m sorry your dad is not giving you what you need. You will create, if you haven’t already, a circle of friends who fill those interactive needs. Chosen family is the best.
you’re the smartest – yes, do all of this!
(fyi – I worked with my parents every day for 20 years, then we sold the place, and now I talk to them, um, sometimes? We go through spurts of texting or emailing several times a week, then silence for a couple of weeks, then maybe a call, etc. Average it out to weekly contact, for your data set.)
Hi Toasties I have a dentist question and I know that’s weird and slightly sad but I don’t have many people in my life who I can really ask about things so I am throwing it to the Toast!
I went to a new dentist yesterday who I just did not like. They seemed like OK people overall but the dude’s bedside manner was lacking, not much was explained to me directly, and the hygienist was noticeably bad (not painful-bad just not thorough). That said, I have several various developing cavities that I have put off for a while and I do believe it is time to deal with them- the dentist said as much and scheduled me for some fillings next week.
My question is- do I just get the most urgent fillings over with (since to change dentists again I’d need a first visit/more x-rays probably and I don’t think my insurance would cover it plus they have a $50 fee to send X-rays) and then peace out, OR do I nope out of the situation now and go through the trouble of finding a different dentist in my area?
basically how bad is it to get fillings done by someone I have deemed to be a mediocre at best dentist? do you guys have dentist stories? am I a horrible person for never having cavities as a kid and then suddenly becoming a cavity-creating MACHINE in my 20’s???? WHY IS MY MOUTH LIKE THIS.
I had PERFECT teeth until I was in my 20s too! And now suddenly I have like, 17 cavities every time I go. And I floss! EVERY NIGHT.
Anyways, I don’t have answers, but I sympathize.
THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT I AM IN THE SAME BOAT!!! the dentist was like “do you ever floss?” and I was like EFF YOU I FLOSS EVERY. NIGHT. whhhyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I feel much better knowing it’s not just me though, oh man.
drives me wild.
According to a (good, reliable, reputable) dentist I had once – this is TOTALLY NORMAL AND COMMON. It’s usually due to a mix of a) young people lacking insurance/money/time to see a dentist regularly and b) just plain time (mostly the latter). Dentist also theorized that the use of sealants on kids may contribute – the sealants wear off after about 10 years so if you had them done as a kid you’d be in your late teens, early 20’s – and at that point any damage that was happening UNDER the sealant is now visible and/or accelerated. (Or something – it sounded much more sciencey when she explained it to me.)
ohhhhh this makes so much sense, I wish I had heard this earlier instead of feeling suddenly morally and hygienically challenged once left college.
I would not get dental work done by someone you don’t think is going to do a good job; we have had to have fillings replaced because of that.
I am seconding this comment. I went to someone who I knew was a mediocre dentist for a couple of years because I couldn’t be bothered to find a new one. Eventually, I did, and I had a whole bunch of cavities due to their negligent cleaning and I also had to have fillings replaced.
thanks for these cautionary tales! I’m usually pretty lacking in opinions so I’m not used to putting my foot down but like dang I just disliked almost everything about this visit.
Thirding this! I went to a not-good dentist for a few years as a kid, and later had to have root canals partly due to the substandard fillings he gave me.
Thirding. Bad work can cost you more cavities and more work (and therefore more money) down the road.
I ALSO hate having to find new dentists, but there are so many out there and you don’t owe them anything — if you had a bad experience, you don’t even have to tell them why you’re leaving (although of course you can; I just hate confrontation so that always makes me nervous). Just “I’m canceling that appointment.”
Fourth-ing this comment.
A bad dentist actually filled a tooth that didn’t need filling! My awesome dentist was not pleased.
Cancel your appointment. Find a new dentist. Poorly done fillings need replacing in a few years. Do you really want to do it all over again so soon? Also, fillings are stressful and painful. Please suck up the extra exam and get a dentist with a better manner. Check for recommendations, personal or online.
::Toasthugs:: I hate dental work. I am cringing on your behalf.
Thank you! Thanks to everyone’s advice I have called my previous dentist who I liked a lot but was closer to my previous apt and even though I hated that commute I’ll suck up the drive to go to someone i feel more comfortable with (the receptionist remembered my name, which is impressive).
Nope out and find a new dentist. I went to a crappy dentist for a couple of years, and when I switched, they had to fix every single damn filling that guy had done.
Oh man, I’m pretty sure I’ve told some version of this story on some thread or another, but: Unless it’s a total emergency (ie, throbbing face pain, etc.) I’d cancel and find a new one. I once got something like 12 fillings over 2 weeks because my old dentist thought I needed them. This was the same guy who told me to stop eating all sugar because I had growing brown stains on my teeth. Like, he wanted to cut out literally everything–he said I must be drinking too much fruit juice and milk and needed to stop that immediately. I’m mildly lactose intolerant and was a broke theatre grad living in NYC. So. I wasn’t exactly buying tons of juice (though okay, maybe booze.)
I eventually got fed up with being treated like a child and went to a new dentist, who took one look inside my mouth and said, “Hm. What mouthwash are you using?” I told him, and he said, “Ah. Some people, like you, apparently, have porous teeth. It’s probably just a genetic thing, but: that mouthwash you’re using tends to settle in porous teeth, and then it gets exposed to oxygen and turns brown. Switch to ACT fluoride rinse and you should be fine.” And then he buffed away all of my brown stains, including a tiny one I’d had since I was 9. We’re not bff, but he’s a solid dentist.
So, TL;DR: If you’re having negative feelings about your provider, it’s probably worth it to find a new one. Also, floss regularly and use fluoride rinse!
If you live in a city with a medical university/dental school, my blanket suggestion is seeing if the school has a faculty practice. They obviously know their shit, are less expensive than private practices, and take insurance.
You NOPE the F out of there and find a new dentist. When I was young we had a dentist who was kind of awful – the people were not gentle, and would regularly shame you about your teeth (like “Oh I see you haven’t been taking care of your teeth” kind of shame). My parents would regularly tell my sisters and myself that we were over reacting, grow up, this was a good dentist. Fast forward to adulthood where I now cringe and cry at the very thought of going to the dentist and have actively avoided it for so long I’m ashamed to admit it. Don’t set yourself up for this. Finding a dentist who will treat you with respect and that you trust is a big deal, ESPECIALLY if they are going to be doing work like fillings on your teeth.
I’m seconding everything everyone else has said and also just letting you know that I go to a dentist that does spa treatments for free (last time was a paraffin hand wax) during each visit so good dentists are out there! Also sometimes mean dentists lie to you about all your cavities so a second opinion is always gr8.
I would go to a dentist who makes you comfortable and get new x-rays even with the expense. I went to a dentist and had much the same attitude problems you mention above. He claimed I needed fillings for some cavities and quoted a high price. I comparison shopped, went elsewhere, and when they examined me they said, “Look, uh… you don’t… have cavities. We think the other guy was wrong. You could stand to floss more, though.” (I now floss regularly and to this day I remain cavity-free.)
If you think the dentist is mediocre, go elsewhere. A filling (IF you need fillings) resides in your mouth for the long-term, right? You want to have confidence in the dentist’s work.
Short phone update: we do not have enough kids for a lacrosse team.
Older boy is waiting to hear back about jobs.
I am worried and believe it or not, I actually hate my ex EVEN MORE today.
Kids were at his house for the weekend. Friday HS boy falls hard on the ice in his work parking lot (he was still limping Monday). Saturday his dad had the boys schlepping boxes of xmas stuff up and down stairs. HS boy was in pain and lost his temper, shoving happened, boys each took a swing at each other. Both connected. Both are 6ft tall and have 6 years of karate(all of the discipline they apparently forgot).
Next day ex takes them sledding and HS boy surfs downhill on the tobaggan, wiping out spectacularly multiple times.
Guess whose hand is now broken?
Kid went to counselor last night, said what happened, said, “it was my fault for starting the fight”. Counselor thinks he has to report it to child services because older brother is technically an adult. He doesn’t need this shit. Ex deserves to be raked over the coals for making the injured kid carry things. But one kid is already suffering and god forbid cps reports the other kid. I really need NO MORE DRAMA!!!!!!!!!
Wow, they have to report it to child services? That seems extreme. It sounds like a huge pain in the butt for you. I hope your kid feels better!!
NYC Toasts! I know there is a Facebook group devoted to meetups, but I haven’t had a response to my email to join (if I remember correctly, a few other people have had this happen as well?) – and I’d love to go to the next one! My life is in a strange-but-overall good transitional period, and it feels like the perfect time to force myself out of my winter cocoon and meet some new ladies! Anyone have the details on when/where?
Semi-related, for Toasties from all locations! What do you do when you lose your concert-going partner(s)? Any tips on finding show-going buddies and/or working up the courage to go alone?
Following this thread because I would like to know as well! I never got a response to joining the Facebook group either.
I love going to shows alone. There are often better single tickets than pairs, and it’s not like you’re supposed to talk to anyone during the show. What kind of shows do you usually attend?
I have a very hard time doing things alone! Sometimes I push myself to, and it turns out well, but I’ve realized that I prefer shared experiences? (Although, I am great at hanging out at home alone with my cat – alas, cat cannot join me at concerts)
I usually like small-mid size venue shows, but really, most shows are fun! My tastes tend to veer towards indie/pop punk/lightly folksy ladies (Waxahatchee, Courtney Barnett, First Aid Kit), but I’m also down for fun dancey times (MIA, Yelle, Ratatat), grumpy man alt-country (Lucero), and self-serious whimsy (<3 Sufjan’s Planetarium).
I have found good show-going buddies through online dating – this is probably the most successful thing I’ve done with OKCupid. It’s a low pressure sort of activity that doesn’t require a lot of talking. Going alone is also a great option. For me the mental prep is required for the break between opener and main act, but if you know the venue well you can time this for your own needs. Also, totally fine to leave venue, get a snack, and come back.
I have not yet ventured into online dating (see: recently lost concert buddy = ex-boyfriend), but this may convince me! The PUA article in the LR yesterday has scared me away for at least another week, though.
Wait, there’s a facebook group? I want to go to there…
This week has been me telling people they are wrong. I need to focus and write about my FEELINGS about dating and call the doctor and dentist and vet.
Basically, I feel scattered and anxious…
And a friend (not a close one) from high school died this week of a blood cancer (I think). I feel simultaneously sad and super guilty that I’d lost track of her until I heard of her death.
No cats yet? Have cats! Mine have stolen my USB-powered heated yeti lapwarmer.
And a short video of them kissing on it.
<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/lebatihem/24430019196/in/photostream/” target=”_blank”>https://www.flickr.com/photos/lebatihem/24430019196/in/photostream/
Chetta is waiting patiently (but judgementally) for tummy rubs:
Oh my goodness that face!
That is a very hopeful face.
Oh that is the cutest thing ever!
Here is our girlie enjoying the hammock at the top of her new ceiling height cat tree, which appears to have turned her into Cthulu.
She was absolutely petrified when she was taken to the vet for her booster shots the other week, so we are planning to acclimatise her to it. So far I’ve been starting on clicker training (we are at “Sit” and “Come here”, it’s a bit vague but she’s getting somewhere), and on Monday will take her for her first desensitisation trip. We’ll just take her in, sit down for a few minutes, feed her a treat through the door of the cat carrier, and then go home. Next trip, the receptionist will say hello, then give her a treat, work up to the vet, and so forth. Has anyone else done anything like this?
We did it with our old dog. He had some very bad experiences at the vet, so with a new vet, we tried to make him feel better about it by taking him in for very low key visits (weigh ins, treats etc.). We got him to the point where he’d willingly submit to an exam and allow 1 needle, but it all had to be done in the lobby. So it kind of worked.
Asa would like to play some boardgames please.
LET HER PLAY
You know, she looks all cute and kind, but she would be the worst loser ever (plus I’m sure she’d cheat).
It was so cute when he was a kitten that I never tried to discipline him out of it. You reap what you sow, and now there’s 10+ pounds of cat ass on my poor laptop.
A+ picture of grumpy cat face there.
the boys remain in town
Yoga Campers! How was your week? Mine was weirdly really good! I hit 7/7! (Yesterday’s was not a fun one though. I really don’t like alternate nostril breathing.) Now that we have a little more than a week left, what are your plans for next month? I remember Adriene’s 30 days of yoga being a lot harder than yoga camp and I’m not looking for that big of a step up in intensity but I think a little bump would be good.
I loved 30-days but haven’t been keeping up with camp. The first couple of days were all soooo long (50 minutes!) and it just gives me an excuse not to fit it into my day. 30-days were all 15-25 minutes so I kept it up. Did Camp videos get shorter?
I think camp videos have been 20-30 mins. Maybe I will go back and try 30 days, if they’re that short I can handle it!
I am not doing said yoga camp, but I also hate alternate nostril breathing. I’m claustraphobic and also have trouble breathing through my nose (chronically inflamed sinuses) and so I sit it out, but I always feel like a pout-y child doing that.
I’ve been having weird cramps this week (armchair internet diagnosis: mild ovarian cyst) so I’m three days behind. I’m gonna do one tonight, though. I will steel myself for alternate nostril breathing, which I’ve never tried but has always seemed unpleasant at best.
Still plugging along! Last night was a near thing – definitely did it between 11 and 11:30 pm because I was determined not to break my streak.
I think next month I plan to work back through some older videos, maybe a mix of foundations and more flow-based stuff. But I should probably sit down and make a calendar so I’m not just trying to figure it out day by day. If anyone has good suggestions, though, please share!
This week was not my greatest, but I’m still plugging along and enjoying having some semblance of a home practice. I started going to a studio I like a couple months ago, but it’s really not feasible financially to go more than once or twice a week. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much doing just a couple more days a week has really helped maintain some more flexibility and strength
I missed one day this week (yesterday). I’ve been noticing some subtle changes in my posture and breathing in real life! Gotta get back on it.
What kind of weird comments have you heard while at the gyno? I ask because I love my new doctor, but she makes really weird sex jokes while feeling my lady parts. I think she’s trying to be the cool doctor, and it doesn’t make me uncomfortable or anything, it’s just weird.
Anyway any weird/funny stories during that once a year unpleasantness?
I knew I liked my first gyno because I was very anxious that she would be judgmental that I was sleeping with three different guys, so when she asked about number of partners I said “Three, which is unusual. . .” and she said “for YOU”.
I’m bisexual and a year and a half into a relationship with a lady and still get birth control lectures, because “you never know.” Um. Yes. I do know.
I made a “that’s what she said” joke during a horrific transvaginal ultrasound last year, but IMO that’s 100% the prerogative of the patient, not the doctor.
~nurse weighs me~
“wow you dont look like you weigh that much!”
Me: ummmmm, thanks?!?!??
I get that comment constantly! (Well, when people have reason to find out my weight, which is rare.) I get that they’re trying to give a complement, but seriously, no.
I had a doc at PP exclaim “Oh isn’t that lovely!” when she lifted the drape. As she continued talking it became evident she meant *healthy*, since she’d seen a lot of STD and other issues that week, but I will forever consider it a compliment of my vulva’s attractiveness from an expert in the genre.
My gyno talks about the weirdest things and I love her for it. The last time I was there she spent the whole time talking about the fetal big she dissected in high school biology class. I think her way of distracting a patient is “talk about the most unexpected thing possible.”
My gyno is definitely also in that camp. I’m a neuroscientist and she’s apparently taking an online neuro-pharmacology course and he keeps me updated on the minutia of what she’s learning. It’s weirdly soothing.
I knew my gyno was the One when, after asking me about sexual activity and partner(s), she clarified, “With a man or woman?”
No gyno had ever asked me that before – I really liked that she asked rather than just assuming.
I avoid the gyno like some people avoid the dentist, but a friend of mine actually had hers comment upon her vagina’s aesthetic properties. Nothing medical, just “wow, nice and symmetrical down there,” or something along those lines. It freaked her out and the doc couldn’t understand why.
One time I went in the middle of a long dry spell (for many different reasons) and on the form that asks “Have you been sexually active in the last 3 months?” or whatever I just put a sad face. I heard the nurse and gyno cracking up and when they called me in they said no one’s ever done anything similar before.
I had a former gyno describe to me – in great detail about at about 100 mph (she was a fast-talker) – the saga of how often she has to remove tampons from ladies who forget about them and leave ’em in there. I was lying there with my mouth agape because I’m disgusting and I love horrific stuff like that.
I said, “But what about Toxic Sh-”
“TSS? Please. I always get a blood test for these girls and in the 30 years I’ve been doing this I’ve never had a case. And I’ve been pulling tampons out of girls once a week or so for years. It’s SO rare.”
It was strangely…comforting?
During my last pelvic exam, the doctor said “oh there’s your cervix, it’s so nice and shallow!” I think it was a compliment?
I had a nurse practitioner once who was AMAZING and was like ‘hey! you wanna look at your cervix?’ and had a special speculum with a mirror and a light, and honestly it was the best.
My first pap smear at Planned Parenthood, the gyno had a hand mirror and asked me if I wanted to look while the speculum was in, and I was just SO PLEASED to be asked! Why yes I would!
I’ve been told my cervix is “cute.” Thank.. you?
So I’ve told this story before but at my previous gyn, who I didn’t like a ton, she asked if a med student could come in and give the exam. I said sure, I’m not shy about this stuff at all (I even have genital piercings), and when she had the speculum inserted and opened up, the doctor says to the student, “now don’t worry, these are much easier to close and you shouldn’t have any issue getting it out.” I asked, “um, did you get a speculum stuck in someone???” And the student was like “no….not stuck….I just couldn’t get it out,” and I sat up and was like “no, that is literally getting it stuck, are you kidding me?”
She got it out fine and all but really do not maybe tell those stories while you are actually speculum-ing a patient?
I let a student insert my IUD, which is one of my biggest regrets in my whole life. She had been struggling with the sound for like 2 minutes and I was almost wailing and finally the doc was like “oh I think you’re at the back of the uterus”. She was pushing on the back of my uterus for two whole minutes because she thought it should be bigger.
I have fired that doctor and that whole clinic and just FUCK THEM. My doc also always lectured me on my weight and drinking and always acted SO fucking weird about my sexual history and after I became monogamous would not quit with the “thank god” attitude. I fucking hate her.
ETA: TWICE she put me on hardcore anti-depressants during winter exams in law school. I now know I get SAD, especially when under stress, and I need some fucking exercise and a SAD lamp and maybe like 3 sleeping pills and someone to say “it’s winter and it’s law school exams and I know it’s hard”. Not “here’s an SSRI good luck to u!”.
Once I came to her to discuss my ADD-like symptoms, and she was like “oh here’s an anti-depressant!” and I was like “what kind I don’t really want to take an anti-depressant, and do you remember how I really hated the SSRI’s you tried to put me on? Twice?” and she didn’t know what kind. ARGGGHGHGHGAGASHDGASDG
Holy shit, that is awful.
ARGH I hate her so much.
The ADD story ended with her saying “I don’t think you know what you want here” and telling me to do more research which, um, that’s what I’m doing here at my doctor? You can’t tell me anything about any treatment/test/etc that isn’t an anti-depressant you can’t tell me anything about?
I’m 100% sure she thought I was drug-seeking for uppers. She told me she wouldn’t see me again until I did a stress test because the amphetamines prescribed for ADD require one to be sure my heart won’t give out. Ummm…. I didn’t ask for amphetamines.
I’m so sure that she prescribes tests punitively. Like when she made me get a fasting glucose test because she thought I was too fat. I know my sugars are fine. And they were 100% normal. I’m not even that fat! And even if I were, you would think I should have a symptom other than “30 and kind of fat” before you send me for a useless test! But you won’t even refer me to a mental health professional for mental health symptoms!
Yiiiiikes I’m so sorry.
Wow. That doctor was HORRIBLE. Her medical license ought to be fired out of a cannon into the sun.
The weirdest thing I’ve had happen was having a former primary care doctor kick my husband out of the room before a pelvic exam because “he doesn’t need to see you like this”. It was bizarrely sexualizing and baffling, honestly, since he’d checked my IUD strings a ton of times and I am very comfortable having him see me naked in non-sexual circumstances. She also knew he accompanies me to doctor appointments to help me manage PTSD symptoms, but did not care. Uh, this is a huge part of why she’s a FORMER doc.
As somebody from Australia, it’s so weird that in America it seems pretty normal that everybody has a gynaecologist! For us, general practitioners look after most things including STI testing, Pap smears etc. As per a cancer screening program Pap smears are done every 2 years currently , but in the near future they are going to be done every five years, given the slow rate of growth of most cervical cancers and the accuracy of new tests. Pelvic exams are also not the best at detecting early stage cancers.
It’s sort of interesting the way this sometimes invasive/uncomfortable examination becomes this annual thing, I wonder if there is any difference in when cancers are picked up between the US and Australia because of it.
The pap rules have changed here too, several times over the past few years so I don’t even know where they stand now. But I think it’s still standard to get a pelvic exam at least every other year unless you have other issues (ha ha ask me how many pelvic exams I’ve had over the past few years as we try to get to the bottom of this pain I’ve been having).
Following a birth control chat we were having in a link round-up earlier in the week – my husband had a vasectomy two years ago, and it was such a solid choice. Ask me questions, if you got em!
Really want my husband to have a vasectomy, but he’s squeamish about it. At the moment we use condoms because the Pill gives me migraines and IUDs make me squeamish… and we’ve had two kids with difficult births, so I feel like I have a better right to squeamishness now than he has.
So… how unpleasant is a vasectomy, exactly? Is this something I can sell him on? Are there different types of vasectomy, and, if so, which is preferable? Condoms are not ideal, but getting pregnant again would be pretty terrible for me.
My spouse had very little issue with his. It’s totally outpatient, he sat on a bag of frozen peas for a weekend, and was pain-free by Monday (our urologist only does them on Fridays). A slightly embarrassing physical reaction happened while the doc was feeling around for things, but a moment or two of awkward conversation calmed things down. He says “it’s not like being kicked in the balls, it’s like being kicked in the balls yesterday.”
My spouse was in the room with me when I had my IUD put in, and after his vasectomy he said it was less invasive and seemed to be less painful than my IUD insertion was.
I asked my spouse about this and he concurs!
Thank you!! Pep talk commencing…
Vasectomy=BEST MOTHER’S DAY GIFT EVER.
When we came into the office for my spouse’s vasectomy, the receptionist looked at me all smiling and happy and was like “I bet YOU’RE in a great mood today!” Lady, you have no idea.
Relatedly, the vasectomy vastly improved our sex life since I was no longer paranoidly worrying about pregnancy and I was able to be much more relaxed and have much more fun!
It’s so true.
I wish my boyfriend would get a vasectomy. He claims he never wants kids and won’t waver, and my IUD is due to be yanked in 2018 and I dunno if I want to get a new one.
It was the best choice we made, and my partner assures me it was less pain than I seemed to have during my IUD insertion (well and the months of pain after because of my tilted cervix, woe).
My Toasties! I’m so tired / excited.
My first not-self-published book is up for preorder today. It’s a twisted fairy tale, 4 fire-emoji heat index, novella. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting (self-pub books: hey, I’m done! Let’s publish! I’m spoiled.) And the “okay, here’s the final edits / here’s the galley / here’s the date / here’s the preorder” bit all happened in the past week, which I wasn’t expecting, and I’m a mite underprepared.
Anyhoooooo – if anyone just feels like clicking & criticizing today, I’d love feedback on my redesigned website – keeping in mind
* I’m getting a proper banner image designed, so the watercolor house (from the open access section of Nat’l Gallery of Art – love their Index of American Design stuff) is a placeholder
* SEO is a thing? And metadata? And header & footer codes. I’ve got to add those to the whole site
So (if you have time!) tell me all the places where the site looks dumb or useless or wrong or ugly. I was working on it until the small hours last night, so I know I was too fuzzy-headed and will need help. Thanks, clear-eyed, heartless friends, you’re the best.
Your website looks fantastic!
💚💚💚
Congrats on your new book! And website! You have a really great author photo btw! 🙂
I was looking at your site on an iPhone, so I’m not sure if it does the same thing on a desktop/tablet/etc, but the section that lists places where we can buy your books spans the entire width of the screen (i.e. It runs from the white section into the black). I’m not sure if this is intentional, but if not, that might be something to tweak.
Another thing to consider for mobile is reducing (or eliminating entirely) the amount of black on the right hand side.
I hope this was helpful! Best of luck to you!
Thanks – I hadn’t even looked at it on mobile yet! I want it to be responsive, so I’ll definitely get on that. Definitely helpful – I appreciate it!
My author photo story: I am not good at this stuff. So I scheduled an appointment with the beauty school for my hair, then a ‘free makeover’ (which involved more up-sold product than I’d planned to allow myself) at Sephora, and went to my friend who goes everywhere with her giant camera and wouldn’t let me give up after three minutes of posing. It was a full-day process, in the end, and I refuse to ever go through it again. When I’m 60, that’ll be my photo.
British Toasties / Hamiltoasties: Any help with this frivolous fancasting project?
Edited to add link, ack: http://kivrin.tumblr.com/post/137622892357/fancas…
My beautiful sasquatch Ichabod is currently suffering from a collapsed trachea. We’re at that horrible point where we don’t know why, how, if he’ll get better, if this is a chronic thing he’ll have to deal with for the rest of his life, etc. He’s really struggling to breathe & there’s nothing I can do but clutch him to my bosom and ask him if he’s ok over and over again.
The good thing is, except for his shortness of breath & coughing, he seems…pretty much the same. Wagging tail, all that. I keep telling myself that if he was REALLY not doing well, he’d show more signs of being in discomfort.
edit: sorry for the enormous photos!
nooooooo, poor lil sweetness. ((hugs for you, gentle pets for him))
thank you!
Oh no, I’m so sorry! Here’s hoping you get some answers soon, and he feels better.
Thank you!
<3
<3
Oh nooo! I don’t want to upvote this because it feels like upvoting the fact that he is sick. But give him all the scruffs and pets and treats (only if treats are medically responsible of course, collapsed trachea sounds like a hell of a thing). Poor little guy. Hugs 🙁
nooooo poor little guy! I hope he is okay.
I got a new job toasties! I’m soooo excited for it, it is perfect for me and I am perfect for it. They want me to start right away and so do I!
However, my current boss (who knows I’ve been looking for months, and who knew that I had an interview) told me that by giving “only” two weeks, I’m unprofessional and disrespectful and that I need to give at least 3 weeks. I’m sad to be called those things, and sad to feel like I’m leaving on bad terms, but I also can’t change my start date now, and I also don’t want to anyway! I also think that I can definitely wrap up all my projects well within 2 weeks. I’m not sure what I can do to fix things with him, any tips?
You aren’t being unprofessional or disrespectful. Unprofessional or disrespectful is walking out the door and never returning. You’re providing the standard acceptable notice. Some jobs request more than two weeks notice, but since notice is always voluntary unless there is a contract laying out otherwise, and at least in the US most of us don’t have contracts, you’re doing nothing wrong. You can’t fix things if he is choosing to be an asshole.
replying to re-emphasize that for almost everyone, NOTICE IS VOLUNTARY and is a COURTESY. you are doing them a FAVOR by giving any. sorry for the caps, but i hate when people try to make others feel bad for doing something that is actually nice and that they didn’t even need to do. congratulations on the new gig!
Do you really need to fix things with him? Two weeks is absolutely respectful and professional, unless you are like a senior VP or CEO or something with huge levels of responsibility. It sounds like he’s being a baby. If you haven’t already, maybe spell out your transition plan for him- here are my projects, here’s how I’ll wrap them up, here’s how I’ll ensure the next person is able to pick up easily.
I consider it likely Current Manager would be unhappy and would complain even if you had given 3 weeks’ notice. He seems the type to be impossible to satisfy, always finding reason for complaint.
Meet your own standards (2 weeks, wrap up projects), and walk away righteous. You deserve a better manager.
Two weeks’ notice is totally standard unless your contract states otherwise. Don’t let him get to you. Just be as professional and firm as you can and make sure to wrap up your projects and leave lots of notes for your replacement.
Thanks Toasties!
His response was unprofessional and disrespectful. You are fine. Two weeks is standard but it’s also a courtesy. You don’t have to stay the full two weeks if your boss pushes you out or if it just sucks too bad. If things are nasty next week, tell him you would like to work out your notice period but that it isn’t possible at this point and today will be your last day. And then take a couple days off and relax before starting new job refreshed and excited.
Yep. Chiming in to add to this voices that two weeks’ is 100% the standard and anyone who says otherwise has been misinformed somewhere along the way or is just being difficult because. You’re good. He’ll get over it.
Guys I got into a grad school! Not only does this reduce my stress level immensely, they have nominated me for a fellowship that could potentially pay for all of my current student loans! It isn’t my top choice but it gives me hope that my academic and financial future is going to be okay!
*wild applause*
Congrats!!!
(I went to my not-top-choice grad school even though I got into my top choice, because the other one gave me lots of money towards tuition. I am now education-debt-free and it turned out to be a good choice for me. Good luck weighing all your options and I wish you the best of luck! Grad school is an awesome place to meet other people who are all crazy about the same thing as you, which is its own kind of wonderful.)
I started my grad school applications this week! Well…one application, and all I really did was fill in my school information and email an old professor to ask for a letter of recommendation.
I’m very anxious about it. Not just about the possibility that I might not be accepted (there are only two schools in my area that offer the degree I want). i think I’m actually more anxious about how I’ll pay for it if I DO get in. I know financial aid can cover some of it, but what about the rest? I’m fortunate enough to have a full-time job, but it’s still more or less a paycheck-to-paycheck lyfe – it would be less so if I didn’t have such a weakness for Starbucks and whiskey, but even if I gave up my vices I still wouldn’t be able to save a substantial amount. My parents can’t help because they paid for my older brother’s nursing degree.
I haven’t had to think about this stuff since I was 17 and applying to college, and even then I mostly let my parents deal with it and had this mentality of “it’ll work out somehow.” Now it’s like…I might actually be stuck? I might actually just not be able to afford to go back to school? And there’s no way to do the work I want to do without a master’s or higher. This has been keeping me up at night and I haven’t even applied yet. Does anyone have comfort and/or advice?
Don’t pay for a graduate degree. If the school can’t give you at least partial funding, don’t do it. I’ve been working as a graduate student secretary for fifteen years and have yet to hear any faculty advisor contradict that. You might have to relocate to do so, but you might have to relocate for a job, anyway, so….
My concern is that I don’t think any school would pay for the degree I want? It’s not a doctorate or anything, and it’s not in a research field – it’s a Master’s in Family Therapy. As far as I know, that’s not the sort of thing that institutions pay for, but I could be wrong.
Do none of the programs have GTA or GRA positions? I guess if grad students aren’t utilized in a department, that would be different. I’ve never encountered such a program, though, even in my research for other institutions.
Could you share a little more about this? I applied to grad schools for next fall, and it’s a professional-type masters degree, typically not funded the way a PHD would/should be. All of the programs give partial tuition – though “partial” is a wide range – scholarships, so hopefully I could snag one. I’m also going to try my damn hardest to get any TA/GA position I can get my hands on. But I’ve been under the impression (from programs themselves and from talking to people I work with) that these degrees aren’t really ever fully funded unless you’re crazy exceptional and have very little/no money.
Ugh…yeah, professional degrees (like Business, etc.) are a different animal. I apologize for not clarifying that.
No problem! I was hoping maybe you knew a secret money grab strategy haha.
Here is a list of all the external funding sources our Grad Studies office lists on their website. Maybe something in there could at least give you a lead?
Thank you!!! I appreciate this a lot.
In case you miss the comment to thrice baked potato, here is a list of all the external funding opportunities our Grad Studies offices lists on their website.
Do we still need a MONEYS/DEBTS thread??
I’ll put numbers in replies, but I went to the bank yesterday and re-opened a savings account so for the first time in years I’m not just keeping all my earthly moneys in student checking. It felt very grown up! and I learned that after eight years TD still didn’t have my correct social security number! Which is also great!! but Actually Fixed this time, fingers crossed.
Expenses: $122, groceries/booze/subway/electric bill.
Income: nada til next Friday.
the booze was a TINY bit of a cheat on my self-imposed rules, bc although I had planned to incorporate some alcohol into the groceries fund, this purchase was specifically cheap wine that was for hanging-out time with some friends- which was worth it, obviously, but more to the spirit of my law than the letter of it. Otherwise I did very well this week, even though my electric bill was double what it’s been in previous months! Super frustrating.
Sorry! I’m slammed today and my debt thread will be late! Let’s use this one since you were so kindly on the ball.
oh no worries!! I just really wanted to brag!
I managed to pay myself back with my last paycheck, so my money market account (which I’m renaming the Fuck Off Fund) is back above 2K! And my savings account is larger than it usually is, too, which makes me happy. I think my new resolution is not to touch the Fuck Off Fund unless there’s a financial emergency (except for regular deposits, which I’ve set up to occur automatically). If it’s getting to the lean days right before my next paycheck, I can dip into savings, but the Fuck Off Fund is verboten!
I finally started a savings account! This is my adulting for like the whole month
I’ve been just barely hanging on but I got a month long contract job that started last week (after 7 months of being unemployed). Today I able to make a payment on a credit card just above the minimum (payment due TODAY). The job is low paying but there’s free lunch so that helps!
Update on my friend who recently left her abusive husband: she’s doing pretty well, though still ill and exhausted and so forth. She came to stay with us a week ago, and promptly crashed out with tonsillitis and slept a lot. Right now she is on her way to visit a good friend for the weekend, huzzah. Her husband is being his usual arsey self, but they did finally get her let off paying his mortgage today, and they’ve got through most of the financial disentangling by now. It’s been fairly stressful, I’ve got PTSD from an abusive relationship myself and that’s flared it up. My poor partner’s been sleeping really badly because apparently I keep waking him up shouting in my sleep. (Although on one occasion, I said, “Do you mind? I was going to eat that.”) It’s getting easier, though. No refuge space available at Women’s Aid yet, and it looks like the friends who are also looking for a flatmate aren’t going to be a good match for her (partly because the dogs are sheddy and she’s allergic, partly because of the location, and partly because the husband casually announced that he likes to play the guitar until midnight).
I am getting a rental harp on Sunday! So far I’ve been managing with the two harps friends have very kindly lent me. One is a 19 string wire harp, which is a totally different animal to lever or pedal harp, different technique and repertoire and so on, and which requires to be tuned practically every five minutes. The other was a lever harp, which would be great, except that it was a cheapie one, only has 25 strings, and isn’t in the best condition. I’ve got far enough with it to know that I want to try this properly, so a Camac Hermine with all 34 strings will be arriving on Sunday! Hopefully by the time the Edinburgh harp festival rolls around in April, I will be able to play well enough to try out the harps properly and figure out which one I want to buy. The top contender at the moment is a Starfish Student, and since I’m vegan, I am still trying to figure out which sort of synthetic strings will suit me best. I’m learning Andres’ Épices at the moment, just the first movement so far. Haaaaaaarp! Any other harpers on here?
Ohhhhh now I am feeling sad I haven’t touched my harp in so long! I will emphasize that I’ve never properly learned to play it – I can pick out a few tunes but I am barely literate with reading music and bass clef defeats me. But. I do have my mom’s Lyon & Healy Troubador sitting in my living room, quietly waiting for me to sit down (tune it again) and start playing.
*looks it up* Nifty. I can’t remember learning to read music any more than I can remember learning to read English a year or so earlier, but from seeing other people struggling with it, it does get easier with practise. Just work your way through loads of music, don’t worry about how good it sounds. My partner’s music-reading has come on massively since I’ve known him.
See, that’s always been my problem – I’ve never been dedicated enough to practice. 🙂 I’m working on my ability to stick with things right now, though, with some other ongoing projects…I think it will be time to go back to music & the harp soon.
Looove the harp! We just hired a harpist to play with our band for a concert and we all just kind of wanted to sit there and listen to her play rather than play ourselves.
I have a wee harp, and I used to play, but my motivation is just pathetic, so I haven’t touched it in years. I took lessons in high school, and rented a 34 string, but I now have a harpsicle, so it was at least easy to bring with me when I did a transatlantic move. Maybe I’ll get it out this weekend.
So a lot of people were talking about it in the comments for a Link Roundup recently but who else is suddenly super into Korean skincare and beauty products? (Like, I guess everybody who read that Slate article and then started reading blogs and finding out how sketch that article was?) Personally I’ve been so excited about how my face feels with snail slime all up on it, but I ordered some Shark Sauce and I know it’s supposed to be amazing but it seems kind of tingly and drying? I guess I need to take some before pictures so I can tell if it’s actually working?
I really want to try that seemingly disgusting foot peel thing that comes with the little booties!
I bought that foot peel, not really knowing what it was nor being able to read a lick of Korean. I just knew it had tiny sparkly baby feet on the package and I had to have it.
A day before my trip to Miami, I slather my rough winter feet in the stuff. After 45 minutes in the plastic booties, I wash it off and notice zero difference.
The next day, I’m chilling at the pool in a lounger, and I feel something stuck to my feet. I look at them and realize OH MY GOD there is dead skin hanging off my feet. I was so mortified, I wrapped them in a towel so that I would not subject the other guests to the sight of my monster feet any longer. (But not so mortified that I left the pool. It was really nice out.)
Anyway, my point is the stuff works! But maybe give yourself some lead time if there are open toed sandals in your near future.
I recently bought some Hollika Hollika BB cream that says it’s “clearing” and I’m in makeup love.
Mental health thread? How are people feeling?
So I’ve been having a bit of a rough time lately (I may have spent a little while lying on the floor of the room where I do experiments because standing up was too much for me in the moment) and this kind of came to a peak with the ADHD conversation in the link roundup. ADHD is one of those things that was kind of lurking in the back of my brain as something that might be relevant to me but I mostly ignored (because high achieving woman with lots of academic success, definitely not me, right) and then reading that article and people’s comments was a horrifying list of everything that I loathe about myself but I was never quite able to change.
I talked to my psychiatrist this morning and he was like “well, we can’t say anything definitive today, but I get what you’re coming from, I see the patterns you’re describing, and while this is not a diagnosis, I think it’s worth taking the next steps forward”, which is kind of terrifying but also soothing? I was both worried and hopeful that he would be like “nope, you’re just lazy and disorganized!” So we’ll see where this goes. Thank you for everyone who has commented on this lately, both to me directly and just in general threads – a lot of the experiences of people here really spoke to me and helped me take this more seriously.
You are a good person, as-is. I like you just as you are. No changes needed. I do want you to get relief from habits and conditions that make you unhappy. But those habits and conditions are not who you are. Who you are is just right.
It’s OK that you had to lie down for a bit. I wish I could sit on the floor next to you and offer comfort. Companionable silence, if that’s what you want. Or I’ll gently scratch your scalp or hold your hand. You decide. Or send me out to the hallway to guard the door. No one will even try to enter, once they see my posture and scowl.
Thank you.
(luckily, a door guard is not necessary because the door of said room has a very intimidating “DO NOT ENTER” sign. It’s meant more as “there are experiments happening” but works well for solitude too)
I’ve been having trouble sleeping for the past… two weeks? Which is super unusual for me. I haven’t really changed my routines at all, and I’m not super stressed about anything. The doc suggested melatonin, and it WORKS! Very excited. But after I took melatonin for two or three days, I decided to try going to sleep without it last night. And I fell asleep no problem, but then I woke up at some point in the middle of the night, ugh, and had a hard time falling asleep after that. I really don’t want to become dependent on melatonin for normal sleep. This sucks. I’m frustrated that I can’t pinpoint one particular source of my sleeplessness. Is it physical? Mental? Environmental? No fucking clue.
How do you take the melatonin? What dose? When? I’m a lifelong insomniac. My doc gave me sleeping pills that didn’t really work. They made me feel roofied, yet still awake. And also left a bitter taste in my mouth for days. She’s reluctant to try melatonin.
I take 3mg, I think. (one pill) I take it right before bed, so usually between 10:30 and 11:30. I’m frequently already sleepy by that point. But before I started taking melatonin, I’d be sleepy and still not be able to fall asleep because my brain would be stuck in a loop about something trivial. The melatonin seems to help turn my brain off.
i take melatonin pretty regularly. i started with 3mg capsules and now i take 10mg. there’s some tolerance-building but the sleep is worth it. i wonder at your doctor’s reluctance….it’s a pretty benign supplement, as supplements go. (in my non-medical-professional opinion, obv.)
I’ve been having the same problem lately. I just sleep terribly, or have really vivid dreams – which is fine as long as they aren’t horrifying. Waking up from a nightmare is the weirdest thing as an adult.
That’s all to say I’m curious about when and how much melatonin too.
One pill (3 mg I think), and literally right before I go to bed – I keep the bottle of melatonin on my nightstand and take one before tucking myself in. Maybe I’ll putter around for another minute or so after taking it, to fill up my humidifier or whatever, but it’s basically right at bedtime.
Melatonin gives me super vivid dreams, just a heads up.
I’m going to go with the potential benefits not outweighing the potential negatives then. Thank you for the heads up!
That’s great about the steps with ADHD. I’m so happy the psychiatrist responded in a positive way and I hope that you find a good way forward. Many of my friends (women in their 20s) got ADHD diagnoses late, like at the end of college or once they were out of school entirely. Knowing and figuring out how to cope and getting support makes a world of difference!
My therapist thinks my antidepressants aren’t working as well as they should be, and she wants me to bump up an appointment with my psychiatrist to talk about it. Bluhhhhh, after several months I’m still having some irritating but not life altering side effects. The prospect of adding more is not appealing.
I am feeling a bit overwhelmed because I have an editing project (my first freelance project and I just kind of stumbled into it) and also a lot of work for my fellowship and my coping mechanism thus far has been to…not do any of it? Which is not helpful. It’s noon so I’m going to suit up and take a walk in the rain and then get to work.
I have been not-awesome, which I think is mostly related to still being relatively new in a pretty soulless place and knowing very few people except my boyfriend, but may also be seasonal. I’ve tried my usual go-tos — making sure I get out of the house (I work from home, have no local colleagues), trying new things, etc. Still yesterday I found myself out at the coffee shop fighting through a crushing cloud of sadness trying to get work done, watching people filter in and out with their friends, feeling very lonely. Then I read about how there are 29 superfund sites in our area and I though “Oh, so living here is quite literally poisonous.” Today, thankfully, I’m feeling a little less dramatic. I know my anxiety is ratcheting up because I feel like every humiliating or shitty thing I’ve ever done is right under the surface of my consciousness. Bringing out my old bag of tricks from my previous therapist, but I honestly may see if she’s available for some phone appointments if things don’t get better soon.
I’ve got myself a fuck buddy I think, (yay! that’s a first) who I am seeing tomorrow after a night the other evening of wonderful sex. It’s scary, and exciting, and fun, and I am sexually frustrated, to have great sex with a decent, charming guy who makes good conversation. And I got my period today but what can you do…
I’m desperate to make the most of this and not fall hard (no relationships wanted) but it’s hard to follow my own advice. How does one not fall in love? Is it okay to fall a little bit, for the butterflies? It all works out so well in my head with regular mind-blowing sex but then I don’t know what I will actually feel when it comes down to it!
A difficult one- I don’t know if there is a way to stop it if it is going to happen. I have a FB of about two years, we try to catch up once a week. We usually only text each other once or twice a week, to keep things seperate. We do socialise by going for brunch, or dinner, but don’t interact with each other’s friends much.
I think you have to compartmentalise the relationship….
Plus we are both guys, both older (40s) both out of long term relationships and know that a serious living together relationship would probably be disastrous.
I don’t know if that is any help for you and I hope it didn’t get mansplainy ether! Good luck!
No mains planing at all, but very helpful
Yeah, I fell for and now have a decades long relationship with my FB, so, maybe not the best advice giver? But when we were doing the friends with benefits things, we were also colleagues, so we kinda just didn’t really plan anything and hooked up after work, which helped keep the relationship chill for a while.
For me, it was really important to acknowledge that _of course_ I have feelings for the guy, it is not every day that awesome ppl tell us that we are smart/sexy/awesome/desireable. But if you have an FB relationship, you can totally seek those out from other ppl, so maybe rampant flirting will help? And spending enough time in your head/heart to know when you hit the “we either have to up the ante here or stop because I am getting too attached” point will also be important. Because your (and his) lines will change throughout this relationship, I cannot emphasise how important it is to a) hash out the rules and b) keep having conversations about them. They will be awkward, but better that than one or the other of you making assumptions about the nature of your relationship and being proven wrong.
Glen’s advice is also great – maintain all of your normal relationships, because you don’t want this guy to become your go to for emotional as well as phsyical needs.
Good luck! And have fun 😉
What you say is very reasonable, I think I try to keep a good check-in on my feelings to see where they’re heading me. And if they stop aligning with his wants/expectations is when I’ll have to be careful. Luckily he seems to be willing to talk about feelings, so that’s a good start
Are there any online Toastie writing groups out there? Or general writer chat things? I’ve been meeting with a friend to write once a week which has been great and I’d love to do more of that kind of thing.
I would also love to get in on this kind of thing if you find out!
I’m not sure if you saw, but another commenter on this thread posted info about a group. Excited!
Hey there! There is a writing group! We hang out on a Slack Channel and submit work every couple of weeks and give feedback/share general goals, articles, tips, etc. We’d love to have you join. Just shoot me an email at meganlogan42 at gmail dot com and I’ll get you invited.
Same goes for anyone else that’s interested–everyone’s welcome!
That sounds awesome. I will email you, too.
Toasties, help me. I just want a pair of comfy black leggings that don’t show panty lines when I wear a normal bikini cut or hipster. Does this mythical beast actually exist?
You know, it might be your panties, not the leggings. I always buy panties just a little too big so the elastic doesn’t make a dent in my fabulously plushy hips.
Agreed. I have many varieties of black leggings, of varying materials and price points, and they ALL show panty line unless I am quite careful with knickers selection.
Alternately: long shirts.
I have less problems with hip dent than with cheek line, but I will try the next size up!
My favorite leggings show panty lines a little bit, but not much? I really love them.
Torrid or HUE leggings, Jockey shine + matte panties.
Very opaque leggings, no underwear, happy Robot.
Many companies make “laser-cut” undies that basically have no hem, the fabric just stops. Those work for me when I really don’t want an undie line.
Thicker leggings help, too. It’s been my experience that the more expensive brands just fit better and have more opaque material. Athleta has some really great ones.
But honestly, just deciding to care less helps more than anything.
Toasties! Any NOLA recs? I like food, music, walking, books, art/culture & drinking.
http://www.bacchanalwine.com/ (!!!!!)
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26418991
AHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA
Elizabeth’s in the Bywater. Always Elizabeth’s.
the pharmacy museum!
Beignets at Cafe du Monde
Depending on your budget: jazz brunch at Commander’s Palace
Drinking: Sazerac Bar, Kingfish, Carousel Bar
We did a cemetery tour that was great
For music: wander up and down Frenchman St and go in where you hear something you like
Unless you’re into hardcore, frat-boy-style drinking, I recommend staying off Bourbon St. The rest of the French Quarter is just lovely, though.
The Mardi Gras Indians are a super important part of New Orleans culture and a very uniquely American tradition. This museum is a great exploration: http://www.backstreetmuseum.org
I use chowhound.chow.com to look for places to eat. The threads are often answered by locals and you can search for a variety of food choices and budget options.
Enjoy your trip! It’s one of my favorite cities.
I second all this. Frenchman Street is the fucking BEST. It’s where most of the locals go and there is SO MUCH JAZZ. It’s amazing.
I think I’ve said this before, but there’s a restaurant called August that has a $20 3-course lunch special on Fridays and it is fancy and super delicious.
Hi Toasties! I could use some gynecological advice.
I haven’t been to the gyno in two years…which is not great, especially considering I have an IUD (Paragard). I’ve been underinsured, etc. Things happen. Now, I’ve made an appointment with a doc next Thursday, and I’m ready to go…but this week I’ve been having spotting and weird pain in that general region and it’s making me really scared, because it’s fairly odd and has never really happened to me before (I’m 30). Should I try to call the doc and schedule sooner? Should I be worried about the IUD falling out or puncturing something? Should I be worried about cancer? At this point needing to take IUD out at the doc’s is the least concerning of these things…but I’m not too happy, because while I love Paragard, the two month-long period I had at the beginning was NOT FUN, and I’m not into repeating that. However, a non-hormonal IUD is pretty much the only form of birth control that works for me.
Should I be worried about any of these things? Should I try to get an appointment earlier in the week?
Update: I might be having my period? But I’m very punctual usually and it would be a week and a half ahead of schedule. While this would be the best case scenario, I’m also wondering (if it turns out to be the case) whether or not I need to reschedule the gyno visit. One time I went in on the tale end of my period and was told that it invalidated the pap smear and other things (plus maybe was gross).
Eh, bodies aren’t machines and periods are finicky. Mine was two weeks early a couple months ago when it was SERIOUSLY inconvenient. I’d ask if they will have an issue with you bleeding during your appointment, but they a) may not depending on what you need, and b) won’t think of it as being gross. Gynecologists, and doctors in general, don’t really think “ew gross,” because they’ve been pretty much desensitized to whatever it is.
My spouse’s GI doctor, for example, LOVES colons. Talks about them all the time, and when he was worried that something gross would happen during his colonoscopy, she was like, “oh please, I’ve seen it all, it isn’t gross, also this thingy has a suction thingy on it don’t worry.”
Plus, your body isn’t gross. Or at least not any grosser than anyone else’s 🙂
That’s a good point! I get used to being very regular so when things are different I start to panic, but bodies do not, in fact, work like clockwork.
Thank you!
Sadly I don’t have an IUD so I can’t help you there, but having had plenty of experience with gynecological oddities, I would say you might as well call and see! There’s no harm in letting them know that you’d like to come in earlier if you can. They’ll probably ask you your symptoms and if you say you’re worried you might even be able to talk to a nurse or a NP.
Thank you! I’m calling today to figure that out!
Call the doc and see if they think that your symptoms merit moving up the appointment. There are a lot of potential reasons for spotting and pain, many of which aren’t particularly dire. But perforation is a real thing that can happen, so it would be wise to at least make the phone call and ask for advice. Good luck; I wish you a healthy uterus!
Thank you for the advice!
I would call and ask. My gynecologist has a “nurse line,” which has been a freaking sanity saver let me tell you. Your health insurance if you have it may also offer something like that.
Are you ovulating? I have a paragard (ten years now, even) and it’s either that or me getting older, but I spot and have cramps when I ovulate about one month out of every three.
I…might be? I know less about my body’s habits than I should.
If you have a smartphone, get the Clue app and start recording your data. It’s really helpful. Like: yes, my PMS etc. is so terrible because I’m nearly a week early this month. Why yes, that weird post-cycle spotting is a ovulation bleeding.
It also gives you something to show your doctor.
Also, I’ve only heard of IUD’s puncturing the uterus during insertion. If you’re two years in it’s really, really unlikely.
That’s good to hear!!
Kate Soper is featured at New Music Box this week and she is so great and I am so excited to see her perform in Chicago in a couple months! http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/kate-soper-re…
“Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say” is such an awesome piece. Any other fans out there?
I’ve been brainstorming about how to overhaul my 11th grade American Lit course for next year, and I realized that Toast readers are likely to have great thoughts and recommendations.
I have a lot of leeway in what texts will be included. I’d like the class readings to represent the diversity of our student body (in terms of politics, religion, race, economic background, gender & sexuality). We’re an independent, small, largely (but not entirely) progressive school in a medium midwestern city.
I am only a little interested in including excerpts or bits of Things Everyone Should Have Read. I am more interested in including a great variety of things that are excellent and challenging and thoughtful. I would love to hear any thoughts you might have!
Ooh, I just answered this question for a friend who teaches 12th grade. Here are some of the things I told him:
Jamaica Kincaid, “In History”
June Jordan, “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan”
Gloria Anzaldua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
Sherman Alexie, some of the stories from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
James Baldwin, “A Letter to My Nephew”
I haven’t read Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness but it seems like it might be excerptable for a high school class.
Imogen Binnie, Nevada (you may want to excerpt this as well)
Arabelle Sicardi’s writings on beauty, mostly online, are really interesting
Sarah Glidden, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less (a comic)
Pair some Phillis Wheatley poems with June Jordan’s essay “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America”
Joy Harjo’s poems are really great
Maybe, if you can, find some good journalistic coverage of an event that most of the class has heard about, so they can see what that’s like
Ummm… John Porcellino’s collected King-Cat Comics, or a recent issue of the comic (which comes out sporadically–check his website)
Some of the essays in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass might be cool
I’m sure there’s a million more, but that’s what I can think of right now
Thank you! So much good stuff that will new to me, which I will love to check out. And I appreciate all the nonfiction options especially!
If you think your kids are mature enough and want some Asian-American titles, I would recommend No No Boy, Snow Falling on Cedars, or A Gesture Life.
A Gesture Life in particular is really amazing in it’s use of an unreliable narrator, but I didn’t read it until college and I don’t know if I would have really understood it or taken its message if I hadn’t had a professor that really worked through it with us.
Oh oh oh and
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (excerptable)
le thi diem thuy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For
Awesome! I’m intrigued by A Gesture Life because I love narrators that are interesting — that will be fun to check out. Thank you!
I think, for excerpts, Sarah Vowell could be great. Any of her essays make for a short read and they basically all examine the intersection of pop culture, politics, and history. Tied up in a very American bow. I would think that, if you wanted to find an “in” to talk about American culture and attitudes for any particular time period, Bowl could be fun. Reading Scarlet Letter or Crucible? Blood to Drink from a Souvenir Shot Glass. Want to talk about American fatalism? End is Near, Nearer, Nearest. Etc, etc.
Thank you! We do in fact read Scarlet Letter (which might stick around), so that sounds like a great pairing.
If you’re able to use audio sources (and the irony of the title doesn’t bother you 🙂 ), the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class is fantastic! They do a lot of episodes that involve women, POC, and queer people, and they have an extensive backlog. Plus, the two hosts are women.
The title might bother our history department more than me. 🙂 Definitely sounds like I should check it out for some possibilities. Thanks!
Give them a challenge! As I Lay Dying. Full thing, no excerpts. I read it in 11th grade and loved it. I bet the kids might too — it’s raw enough, and they like that at that age.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between Me and the World is excellent and pretty short, too.
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home.
Also, diversity should also include diversity in historical time, I think. Give them a short story by Mark Twain — maybe the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County or Cannibalism in the Cars. Or Melville’s The Scrivener.
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.
I bet you’re right about As I Lay Dying, but I think that might be in our AP Lit curriculum currently. I wonder if the teacher would let me steal it…
Fun Home I worry a little about because I think some parents would freak out — it isn’t in my Graphic Novels class either, as a result. But I wish it were!
Thanks for the Twain suggestions. Currently we travel from Transcendentalists up to Toni Morrison, more or less chronologically, but those short stories might be great to add if we scrap Huck Finn…
maybe Farewell to Manzanar?
I’m sorry I’m late to the party! I have so many thoughts. In no particular order, and you may have some of these in other places in your school’s curricululm:
Sarah Vowell, essays
Zona Gale, stories
Margaret Fuller, stories/criticism
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Sarah Orne Jewett, stories
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath
Marge Pearcy, Woman on the Edge of Time
Willa Cather, My Antonia (or stories)
Garrison Keillor, stories
Martin Luther King Jr, Letters from a Birmingham Jail
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Barbara Kingsolver, Poisonwood Bible (or stories)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of a Slave
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
Sherman Alexie, stories
Gertrude Stein, essays
Elie Wiesel, Night
Edith Wharton, Age of Innocence
Emily Dickinson, poems
e. e. cummings, poems
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Anne Bradstreet, poems
Mary Rowlandson, narrative
Phyllis Wheatley, poems
Olandah Equiano, narrative
Benjamin Franklin, essays
Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Flannery O’Connor, stories
Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina
Louise Gluck, poems
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Maryanne Robinson, Gilead
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Mark Twain, stories (I prefer the stories to the novels)
Thank you, thank you! Some of this, yes, we have in some courses already, but there is plenty here that we don’t include.
I’m so excited to dip into some of the things I haven’t read or haven’t read in a while. This is great!
Kate Soper is featured at New Music Box this week and she is so great and I am so excited to see her perform in Chicago in a couple months! http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/kate-soper-re…
Any other fans? Her piece, “Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say” is so great! https://vimeo.com/50375211
I’m listening to the original-cast RENT soundtrack for the first time in a year or so. It is giving me feels and also oh my godddd it sounds so very 90s.
I am in the middle of a very circuitous public transit route because everything is shutting down due to the east coast snow. All I really want is to be holed up working on my paper, but no, I am taking fifty buses. 🙁
Workout thread!
Today I did 305 jumping jacks, and then ten sets of (20 high knees – 2 jump squats – 20 high knees – 2 side-to-side jumps).
I’ve noticed that my back/core is not as strong as it could be, so I’d like to work on improving that. Exercise suggestions in that vein are welcome!
Apparently deadlifts are THE exercise to do for this. I can not speak to experience! Just to what Ive heard
That is SO MANY jumping jacks, congratulations!
For back and core work, I cannot recommend pilates highly enough. Not the kind with the machines, the kind with just body weight. I think you could probably find some good video classes online, but I really love my gym’s class, so if you go to or know of an inexpensive gym with pilates classes, they could be great. For me, it’s improved my core strength just immeasurably.
Breaking Muscle is a great website for all sorts of focused training ideas. Their article search is surprisingly effective (unlike a lot of exercise sites). Good luck!
Thanks!
Yesterday I didn’t yet have a parking pass, so I had to hike the 1/4 mile trip uphill to my building and then three flights of stairs 4 times. Then my daughter melted down so we went to karate together. We did a lot of kicks on the bag. I can barely move my legs today!!
Hell yeah, that’s a leg workout! Kicking bags is a lot of fun. It’s so satisfying to feel the THUNK.
I started going to a barre class at the gym and I really kind of love it and hate it because I am so sore the following day. The teacher is great at working on core, so that might be something to look into if ballet conditioning is something that sounds interesting to you?
I’m doing a 30 day yoga challenge (not every day for 30 days, but 5x a week) and kept to that schedule for the first week. I also started up with the personal trainer at the gym, and she was SO supportive and really excited that I want to get stronger. I worked out with her and then ran through the circuit she gave me again yesterday. My quads are SUPER sore, so yoga today felt alternately amazing and torturous depending on the pose.
Wuf! Sore quads are tough. And they can be difficult to stretch properly, too. Good luck with your yoga challenge!
Planks (high and low), ab work (so, like, leg lifts and yoga bicycles and things). Yoga focuses a LOT on core work, so a good yoga blog might be worth following. AND if you are into fitness tumblrs, this is my favourite exercise site ever and i never ever thought I would say such a thing. http://the-exercist.tumblr.com/
Also. I don’t even know how you did that many jumping jacks. I don’t remember that last time i even did 1/100th of that many. Gratz!
I have a tattoo-related question for those in the know! I have no tattoos, but I would like one, but I don’t have a 100% clear idea of what it would look like. I have a basic idea/sketch from myself, and a poem that sketch is based on, and I would need to work with a tattoo artist to create it without a ton of reference images. I know that would be very expensive (and I would be happy to pay having saved up the money in a few months/years, I’m in no rush) but I don’t know if that’s something tattoo artists do. A few friends of mine have recently gotten tattoos and the artist has said they’ll only work with reference images. What are your experiences, tattooed toasties?
I don’t have any tattoos, but I’ve gone with multiple friends to meet artists and get tattoos, and there are definitely some artists who will work with your idea/sketch to flesh out the design.
The higher-quality parlors will definitely have artists willing to design tattoos with you, instead of just working from reference.
There are lots of artists who are very happy to work with the kind of ideas you have. When you see an artist whose style and portfolio you like, shoot them an email or give them a call saying exactly what you said here. If they say nah, move on. If they seem willing, meet them and see what they sketch. If you don’t like the sketch they can redo it or you can say “hey you know what, I might go with a different artist.” My personal opinion is that artists who do this tend to be better quality anyway–it’s really a piece of their art, not just a transference of a paper image onto your skin, which is not ideal.
Mine would, as would the other artists at his studio. I know some artists who will only do their own designs, and everything along that spectrum.
Thank you! This is really great to hear (as are others’ comments, I just don’t want to spam up the thread with thank yous). It’s something that’s pretty hard to tell from just internet research, so I appreciate the answer.
Depends on the artist, I’m sure, but mine absolutely did! She also comes from a more traditional studio art background, so that may be why she creates original art almost as if on commission.
But my process is a lot like what you are talking about. I took in a rough, horrible sketch I did, a few other pictures, and then my artist talked to me tons, did a rough sketch, and then started working on a final sketch. She didn’t require the pictures, they just helped her get my vision faster. If I had just an idea and could articulate it well, she would have drafted from there.
Anyway, once she set to work she created the idea from her own artistic imagination. I got to okay the final, but she basically took my vision and turned it into her own art that she then put on my chest.
The sketch she created (not mine, as I’m not that talented), not based on reference, but our collaboration:
The final tattoo:
Any Toasts going to be at Winter Institute this weekend? I would love to meet any fellow bookseller Toasties.
For those who are team “Kylo Ren Is Appealing And I Need to Prove This To My Friends”, Vice did a special on Adam Driver’s Arts in the Armed Forces and it’s actually really cool. Like in all seriousness, Driver seems like a legit cool guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHeNucM4zpE
Any curly haired toasts want to tell me about your hair routine? Mine has been a freakin disaster lately and I think it’s because my hair has gotten used to the products I was using (Deva Curl) and is rebelling. Does anybody have any product recs? I’m willing to buy expensive-ish stuff if it works!
My stylist recommended Kevin Murphy’s Easy Rider to me about a year ago, and I’ve loved it for defrizzing. It’s a little on the expensive side (I’ve seen it about $40 for 3.5 oz), but I use so little at a time that it lasts forever. It’s a leave-in for damp hair, though in a pinch you can mix it with a little water in your hand to smooth down flyaways.
(I use plain old drugstore OGX shampoo, but I am sure another toast has a fancier shampoo suggestion.)
Do you shampoo? I don’t and I use Accure brand conditioner for dry/curly hair, followed by a dollop of Deva Curl conditioner as a leave-in (sneaky, I use the cheaper stuff in larger quantities and the expensive stuff only a little). For days when I want my curls to look their best, I use
Living Proof’s style primer followed by Deva Curl gel (I also use the cheap Garnier gel when I’m not leaving the house but it dries my hair out a bit and doesn’t hold as well). Then I do the “plopping” thing where you plop your hair down onto a t shirt and wrap it around the base of your head. Leave that be for a while, then let it air dry for whatever, sixteen hours or whatever it takes 🙂
It’s a lot, but I’ve finally got the curls under control.
I use Devacurl and renpure cleansing conditioner and then whatever I have on hand (NYM Curl conditioner). Ouidad leave in works like a dream, and then like a hair oil (grapeseed).
Aloe gel. If I put it on when my hair’s wet, it defines my curls and tames frizz (and in high humidity, just makes my hair curlier as the day goes on). If I apply a fine, fine layer when my hair’s dry, then brush it, it just tames flyaways.
My hair’s incredibly light and fine, though, so ymmv.
I’m actually going through the opposite as I just started using DevaCurl since my hair got tired of what I had been doing. But for years I used KMS conditioner and curl goop and I really liked it — cut down on the frizz without leaving my hair greasy or crunchy. I did also try JessieCurl conditioner for a while and mostly liked it, but it was a little greasy/heavy for me.
Man, I think there’s clearly something wrong with me, because initially the news that there might be another snowstorm on the Exact Same Weekend that kicked off last year’s Boston Hellscape, well, let’s say I had some understandable trepidation.
But now that we’re only supposed to be getting 1-3 inches this far north, I’m disappointed. Secretly, even after all the trauma of last year, I still love snowstorms, and snowstorm prep, and staying indoors for three days straight. Why.
I am also secretly very disappointed. It was kind of wonderful when the T shuts down completely – no one expected you to go anywhere or do anything. I think it’s the allure of a no-guilt adult snowday.
that, plus I love the camaraderie of complaining about it?
That’s true. Plus it gave me a guaranteed excuse for about 3 months for anytime I would be late or in a bad mood, that’s only a good thing.
Same! I feel kinda bad saying that because I have the insane privilege (at least, insane for Boston) of a covered garage and the option to telecommute, but I was looking forward to a snow day. Glad to know I’m not alone.
But, between you and me… ours is definitely coming. Definitely.
ooh, a covered garage is The Dream.
I think I’m disappointed too! The snowfall up here on the north shore is gonna be like maaaaayyyybe 5 inches when all is said and done? And I kinda wanted an excuse to bake cookies all weekend?
Different update on the week:
I couldn’t TA on my first day because we were in the midst of getting 30 inches of snow on top of the 10 we already had. My advisor is used to this, though, so she didn’t mind.
I think I’m going to love my classes. I did manage to do a quick presentation in class on Thursday–I was rushed, my kid was getting an xray at the same time and I wasn’t there, and while giving the presentation I realized that they might not understand the vocab yet and thus stammered explanations–and then left in a rush because I had to refill my parking meter. I assumed that I’d made a really bad impression due to not being there the first day and then that–but later a student stopped me in the stairwell to say how much she loved my work!
That made my day.
I love being at school and using my brain again. I’m really excited about the Cambodia research. This is good.
Anyone want a Learned League invite? I’m in the same league as Nicole, coincidentally.
Also, I’m still looking for Silicon Valley/Peninsula/what is this area really called? Toasties to join Palo Altoasties!
Yes please, I would love an invite! Do you need an email address? llyfrgell at gmail.
I forgot how serious they are about only including people who are also serious. I will have to email you for some more information.
I’m super late to this open thread, but I’m in the South Bay and would love to meet more Toasties in the area. Feel free to contact me on twitter or gmail as onelittlefish.
I’m roasting butternut squash with onions, mushrooms, rosemary, and sage on top of my fireplace insert (because it projects just enough for a small pan or a foil packet of vegetables), and I’m hoping that I can make soup that way. We haven’t lost power, and making a good creamy soup would be hard without an immersion blender anyway, but I want to see just how much cooking I can get done using nothing but wood heat. I also got apples, so I’m going to bake those later in or on the insert.
I’ve never been to the grocery store right after a “buy all the milk and bread” rush, and omg. There were 3 cans of soup at Kroger. 3. It was amazing.
Also, A+ parenting: the 9-year old girl next door has shoveled our entire sidewalk, unprompted, twice (because the snow keeps on snowing). She plans to also do the driveway and the walk to the house unless she gets tired. I rewarded her with cocoa and praise.
Aw that’s great! A couple of years ago when we had a really terrible plow guy who never came, my neighbors and I and my spouse were all trying to shovel out the end of the driveway where plows had deposited about 4 feet of icy, packed snow. The kid across the street was shoveling his walk and came over to help. I gave him $10 that I just happened to have in my purse which was amazing since I never carry cash!
She really is a great kid. We hung out and drank cocoa and talked about our cats. She also wants to do the driveway of the neighbors across the street, since they’re elderly, and the husband fell and hurt himself last year while shoveling. I’m sure a significant part of her motivation is a desire for treats and praise, but if it keeps me from having to shovel my own sidewalk, I’m totally fine with it.
Some of you might remember me talking a few weeks ago in an open thread about possibly meeting up with my narcissist grandmother who’s been ignoring me for a few years? But it appears to be actually happening tomorrow and I would appreciate all of your good vibes. I’ve talked it over with my mom and we really doubt she’s going to be confrontational or even bring up the fact that we haven’t seen each other in years, but my mom is planning on being “in the area” to meet up with me after in case it goes horribly, so I think I’ll be ok. *prayer hands emoji*
Good luck! It sounds like you have a solid strategy in place!
You are handling this just right. And your mom is wonderful. Let us know how it goes.
good luck, and don’t go without an exit strategy if things go south!
Good luck! Your plan sounds good and I’m glad your mom has your back.
Masquerade ball tomorrow. YAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let us know how it goes! Details, details, details!
Will do. SO. EXCITED.
Ayyyy back with more questions for y’all!
So I look after the sweetest little girl who loves climbing on things and disney princesses and i was wondering if any of you guys could recommend movies in the vein of disney princesses where the princess/heroine does more than just wait around for the prince to kiss her? because as sweet as this kid is, she’s very into the idea that girls clean things and are kissed by boys, while boys go off and have adventures (Disney’s Cinderella is her favourite film can you tell?)
So far I’ve got The Princess And The Frog and Finding Nemo on the list, but any other recommendations would be much appreciated! Must be suitable for 5 year olds!
As Disney movies go Mulan might be a good fit for her. It’s not perfect, but Mulan is definitely more of an active participant.
Spirited Away and other Miyazaki films have great girl characters. My neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, (Princess Mononoke is NOT for kids), Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle.
Howl! I LOVE Howl’s moving castle (and all the others too, of course). Miyazaki for life!
Also, use it to get her into Diana Wynne Jones and never look back.
Yes yes yes YES. Perfect for a little girl who wants to be a girl but also maybe wants to have adventures but hasn’t figured it out yet.
Some of these titles are a bit much for age 5, IMO. Yes to: Kiki, Ponyo, Totoro. Wait til closer to 10 for Howl, Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky.
Not exactly princessy and my judgment of age appropriateness is debatable, but The Secret of Roan Inish is great for a little girl who Gets Things Done. Also A plus for Girls Clean House, But So Do Boys.
This might seem like a really dumb question, but…does she know about “Frozen”? Because building yourself a badass magic ice castle is just about the best adventure a girl can have. I also really liked “Brave,” but it might be too deep/scary.
Speaking as a preschool teacher, I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Young children tend to have ideas about gender that seem incredibly reductive, no matter how progressive their parents and caregivers are. She’ll figure things out eventually.
I liked Tangled for a strong princess, even though they had to go for the paired up ending. Also loved Brave.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has (for the 1990s) a surprisingly feminist protagonist in Belle. The scene with the menacing wolves is way too scary for many children, but I’m in the habit of showing such films and covering child eyes for those bits.
Home, the one with Rihanna voicing the lead is great and mostly applies. Definitely suitable for 5 year olds.
My sister, who’s a nanny, suggests:
– Shrek (maybe too old? watch it first)
– Wall-E
– Lilo and Stitch
– the book “The Princess and the Pony” by Kate Beaton
Toasties, I’ve been waiting all week to post this and now there are 1163 comments and I’m afraid I’ve missed the window, but here’s something I’d love feedback on.
For those of you who have fitness bands and get periods, does your band’s app allow you to track your period? I just got a Jawbone, it does not, and tech support confirms they have no plans to do so in the future. Granted that this is an incredibly privileged problem to have, I’m still ginning up a whole Feminist Rant about how Silicon Valley ignores the existence of people who have periods (because it’s certainly not like periods influence your sleep, mood or other things the band does track.) But maybe most of them do and I just picked the wrong one. Please let me know if you have thoughts on this!
I don’t know anything about fitness bands, but i know that you can track your period using the iPhone health app, and also sync this the app with your wearable, so at least you’d have all that info in one place?
I have the little clip-on Fitbit Zip but I assume it’s the same app regardless and no I don’t think it has period tracking (though I am a guy so it might just be hiding it from me).
I use the Clue app for period tracking–I really, really, REALLY love it. It does require that you put all the info in yourself every day.
Late again to the OT! By choice. I was here earlier and felt silly and kept deleting.
I’m costuming a show for a community theater group! I only intended to volunteer to help stitch or something, then I got an email asking me to costume design one of the spring shows. The perfectionism + never asking for help has equaled Very Bad Things, mentally, in the past, and jumping head first into a group I know exactly zero about is probably not the wisest choice, not to mention I’m beyond rusty when it comes to theater work. However, I’m literally not doing ANYTHING with my life or time at the moment, just housewifery, which, when one doesn’t have children, is freaking weird and demoralizing, and I need to rejoin the world somehow.
I’m hoping since I haven’t done any costume work since before I got diagnosed with ADHD that between the meds and my current, wonderful therapist (number 8, for my lifetime count) with whom I have the best rapport yet, and who is specifically trained for my brain issues, that I will be better equipped to handle this project. I used to average about three sleepless weeks per show in the build-up to opening night, what-with my brain never shutting the hell up about all the things I still had to do and all the ways in which it would never get done or go super wrong. I remember once one of the (very few) parent volunteers came into the dressing room where I had taped up my lists and charts and she was so impressed with how organized I was and I just wanted to cry. It wasn’t organized! It was visual panic!
So, it’s bringing up a lot of feels. I just keep reminding myself that I’m a volunteer, it’s a show whose intended audience is children, the budget is probably super tiny (haven’t met with anyone from this group yet), based on what I’ve seen online they’re not going to be demanding miracles and impossibilities, and it’s very likely that my worst critic and most pressuring force is, yet again, going to be myself. I have a picture in my head that I will never see onstage, and trying to walk it back to a realistic view is eluding me right now. Maybe I just need to get it out on paper (ha, my drawing skills have never been adequately developed) first and work from there.
Someone (I’m sorry I forgot who it was, but you are wondrous) brought up bullet journals a few weeks ago and I’m finding it very helpful in getting more things done during the day. An index page is a revelation! How much stuff I have lost by writing it down in one of many notebooks and never ever remembering it even existed just blows my mind. I think I might start another, slightly less elaborate version, for keeping stuff on track, show-wise. For all the nerves, I AM really excited to have a project that doesn’t involve me talking to my pets while I sand woodwork or paint walls in solitude, going quietly mad.
I hope everyone who might get the snow is ready for it! I bought firewood and I’m pretty sure we have enough food. I moved the car right to the edge of the driveway and put the wipers up, trying to minimize shoveling and such. I know it can be annoying and dangerous and deadly, but I really want it to snow so I can watch my dogs play in it.
I very rarely post here (read all the time, though) but I have spent the entire day so far lying in bed (with the exception of getting up to feed my cats and getting the door to get my food delivery) because 1) my girlfriend broke up with me at 7 am when I was still half asleep (have since confirmed it was not a bad dream) 2) I have terrible cramps 3) I cried so much that it triggered a migraine, which always happens to me when I cry a lot and is really the most unfair migraine trigger so basically the moral of the story is I really need something that involves very little effort to occupy my time and I ran out of things on Hulu to watch.
Can someone tell me if it’s weird to request to join the PDX Toasties Facebook group if I never actually comment? (Perhaps I’ll start commenting on everything right now and make up for lost time.)
Migraines suck! I hope yours goes away quickly, and hugs for all the rest of the stuff you are dealing with. For keeping yourself occupied, do you like coloring? If you don’t have anything in the house, there are plenty of printable pages, or even apps that are really quite good. And have you watched Agent Carter or Mythbusters? Both are on Hulu and might provide a distraction, if you find you like them.
Oh Agent Carter looks promising…it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me watch something Marvel but I did watch Jessica Jones and that was great.
Oh man, I am sorry to hear that you’ve had such a rough day. I have much recent break up empathy for you. I hear you.
It’s not weird to join the PDX toasties group! please do!
So sorry about your breakup. My also recentish break up is what got me commenting more often than I used to, so….there’s that?
I’m only a few weeks into figuring out how to be HAPPY AND SUCH again–but one of the best things I’ve done for myself is to sign up for a pottery class. It’s something I always wanted to try, and never did, and it’s an area of my life that has no associations with my former partner– because it is one of the few things that are post-him. Hugs and good feelings to you.
If you haven’t asked to join the group, please do! I’m the admin and I’ve been approving everyone who asks to join, and I don’t mind if you never comment.
Also if that was you that requested on Saturday, it took me a while to approve it only because I work night shifts on the weekend and I was asleep. 😀
Hello Toasties! I’ve been lurking for a while but this is my first time posting because I need some advice and y’all are pretty sensible people.
So I’m trying to get a creative writing MFA, finally pursuing my writing! I’ve got all my applications in…mostly. See, I applied to a couple of schools in the UK, and the process for at least one of their schools is to send out a conditional offer of acceptance first and then ask for recommendations. My first problem is that I’m worried about bothering my recommendation letter folk again because I’ve already asked them to send letters to what…nine other schools? And basically I just don’t like asking people for things and am feeling needless anxiety over the whole thing.
The other thing I’m worried about is this school. It’s called Kingston University London. I put in my application for this school at the same time as my other schools and they got back to me within about two weeks, offering me a place in their school! I wasn’t expecting that, I don’t hear back from all my other schools until March! They’re being cool and letting me defer my decision until I hear back from other schools, but I’m feeling weirdly skeeved out by the fact that this university replied to me so quick and were pressuring me to accept my spot there immediately. Is this a Bad and Sketchy Thing? Am I getting too worked up about it? Will I ever accept any good things happening in my life? I don’t know, but the whole deal is giving me some weird anxiety. Anyone willing to offer advice/help me process my feelings is welcome to reply.
Hey! I got my cw MFA three years ago, and thought I might try to offer a little advice. First, I don’t think it would be a huge problem to ask your recommendation writers to send letters to another school. Honestly, they’ll have written the letter already, and can just send it on. I would send them an e-mail now and say “listen, I’m sorry I didn’t mention this sooner, but I just found out this is the process for schools x y and z, would you be willing to send letters if they ask for them.” That way they can always say no if it turns out it would be a burden.
I don’t know much about UK programs since I mainly applied to USA programs, but the only thing I would be wary of is funding. I really, really don’t suggest you accept an offer unless it has some funding or an assistantship attached to it. Now, this may not be the case in the UK – their system may be quite different and it may turn out there is no funding for international students. But the main advice I got when applying was to not pay for your degree, and I would agree with that – unless you already have the resources, or you suddenly get into your dream school and the only way you can attend is by footing the bill. That said, you should decide what’s best for you in that area. I wound up going to a partially-funded program, and having to take on some debt for my first year / living expenses after that. That debt isn’t going to go away anytime soon, and continues to hang over my head. I enjoyed my program and I feel it was worth it, but that doesn’t get rid of that burden.
As for the quick reply, if you’ve already researched this university and they seem like a good fit for you, I would not be super concerned. Maybe their applications process is just different. But take them up on deferring your answer – they shouldn’t be weirded out by that, you can take time to hear your other responses and you shouldn’t feel pressured. They can’t just yank the offer away. Of course they want you to accept because then then have all their ducks in a row. But don’t let them rush you into a decision.
Hope that helps a little, congrats on your first acceptance, and good luck with the others! Let me know if you have any questions about a cw mfa in general – I’d be happy to help!
You’re right, thank you. The particular school I applied to has some funding/scholarships for students, but I agree with you that it’s better to get into a school that funds its students – not to mention the living expenses I’d have to deal with in London. Mostly I was just thrown into a tizzy because the school made me feel like I have to make this decision RIGHT NOW when I wasn’t prepared to think about decisions until March. I appreciate you talking me through it 🙂 If you still have energy to answer questions, I guess my big concerns would be a) what was your writing schedule like while you were in school and b) what’s it been like now that you’ve graduated. I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed your program!
Of course! My writing schedule during school was a little chaotic. Part of that was because while I had funding, it was a teaching assistantship, which was pretty time consuming and I often felt like I had to “fit writing in” around that and my other schoolwork. Part of it was also just that I was not terribly organized, and wasn’t good at forming a good writing habit. I usually did the “ignore the assignment before two weeks before workshop and then frantically finish” technique, which I don’t recommend.
After school my writing pretty much ground to a halt. Having a full time job, especially one as an editorial assistant where you’re working on other people’s writing all day, makes it tough to find time to put into your own work. On top of that, I had some self-esteem issues that stood in my way at school, and they didn’t get easier after graduation. So really, I’m not a good model for writing habits! But I’m slowly getting back into it, and learning that deadlines and having specific projects help me along. My best advice would be to try and establish a writing habit now. The more you can do that, the easier it will be to navigate keeping that a priority when you’re beset by classes and other obligations that are pressing on your time.
It’s INCREDIBLY unusual to get funding for postgraduate degrees in the arts and humanities in the UK, and most of the funding that is available is only available to UK residents. This means that the application process is frequently a lot quicker, as they are looking for “good enough to complete the degree, and pay us money to do so”, not “good enough that we will invest our limited resources in you.”
I don’t know if that is helpful or not. If you do need funding to be able to do the degree, I wouldn’t really recommend coming to the uk. That’s not how our postgraduate system works.
From my own experience (American who did an MSc in Scotland) and from what I remember of friends who also did degrees in the UK, it seems they process applications much quicker. I seem to remember my (EU, which may matter) friend applying for grad school in the summer before starting. My school’s cutoff application date for EU students was like August. Non-EU was a bit earlier, but that gives you an idea of how quickly they went through the process. So I’d say that alone is not enough to make the school sketchy.
I just saw The Incredibles for the first time and I might be a different person now. I am furious at everyone I met in the last decade for not showing it to me. What now? Do I become a Superhero Person? Do I watch all the Marvel films? (I’ve seen none, but am up to date on Disney/Pixar). Any ideas?
AGENT CARTER/JESSICA JONES/CAPTAIN AMERICA/ORPHAN BLACK. These are the shows I like about superheroes (some of these are a stretch).
I am settling in to the whole living away from home thing. And one of the dudes in my class looks like a young Oscar Isaac, so I really need to step up my appearance game in order to even pretend to have a chance with him.
But mostly today I am angry because we have to do this thing for one of my classes where we all post a mini paper and review someone else’s. I worked really hard on my assignment and put in a whole bunch of sources and had my roommate analyze it because i was worried it was an incoherent sack of garbage. I posted it and found that the only other person to have posted…did not follow directions. Like at all. And I am avoiding doing part two of the assignment because I know I can’t trust myself to not be snotty at her like ”did you read the directions?” and cause a fight because I’m both pissed that she didn’t do what we were asked and embarrassed because I now feel like I am putting way too much effort into my work. (I have another course with her, and this is so far really normal for her work. And I always feel like I am trying too hard because I have so much anxiety about fucking up school…)
The homework is not due until Sunday, but obviously I can’t put it aside forever and I feel like I am stepping on land mines if I ignore her posts and wait for someone else to post so I don’t, you know, insult her. (Not that I comment on her other posts for other classes if I can help it.)
I am not sure of the point of this comment. I think I need advice on how to behave like an adult here.
Here is my advice for consideration: First, try not to worry about trying too hard. You care about your work, and that is not a bad thing (assuming you don’t get too obsessive and make yourself crazy!). You did the assignment to the best of your ability and according to the directions. It’s done, don’t worry about it. Once you’ve gotten some feedback you can consider how to proceed with future assignments.
For the second part of the assignment, I’d encourage you to take a constructive tone in your response. Sure, the other person didn’t follow directions. But maybe she was really confused by the assignment and is currently freaking out over how she didn’t understand. Maybe she’s having a rough time this semester and dealing with issues you don’t know about. Maybe she would like to do better in her classes but doesn’t know how. There’s a thousand things that could be going on! So, a better approach might be to find something in her work that you can focus on and offer suggestions to move towards the assignment. For example, say the assignment is really to talk about character relationships in a short story and this person focused on symbolism. You might say something like “I think you have a good point here when you say that the apple in the story represents death, I think if you turn that kind of critical gaze onto the characters it would yield a lot.” That’s not a fantastic example, but hopefully you get my point. If you’re still worried about how you’re coming across, have a roommate read it. It’s also possible that a lot of people are going to do their assignment last minute – you have a chance to set the tone for the discussion here, and to get a point in before someone else takes the thing you were going to point out. Hope that gives you some help!
I feel bad that I didn’t think about how she could be struggling to adjust, too–I just let my bitchy snotty perfectionist teacher’s pet tendencies overrule me. I ultimately waited for someone else to post–and felt really vindicated because the other person also cited a whole bunch of sources and this helped me get off the ledge of ”i did too much and failed in the opposite direction, oh my god.” Although now I’m the only person to have commented on someone else’s work! I really need to work on being compassionate towards other people and for some reason this gets very hard for me.
With anxiety, I fid it’s hard to be kind to others if you’re not kind to yourself. Looks like you’re both finding challenges settling in to the work, in different ways. I bet you can find some good things about what she’s done, and practising looking for that will be useful for you too. Maybe you could share something about how you approached it- having a fresh set of eyes on it can be really helpful for a bunch of reasons.
Do you have any methods on how to make yourself not automatically jump to ”oh my god Other Student is such an idiot, oh my god maybe Other Student is the one in the right and I overworked this assignment” kind of thoughts? I am having a hard time finding good things about other people’s work–I think mine is a sack of garbage, but then I’ll get hung up over ”but that is not a valid source” or ”you totally misunderstood the point of the reading” or other mean and not useful comments. I don’t say them, because I was not raised by wolves, but I feel like this is going to cause problems interacting with the other students in my program if all I can think about are things like this.
(And of course I cannot be lenient with myself. That is 10000x harder than being lenient to other people, which is phenomenally hard.)
Have you done any kind of meditation before? Try looking into metta meditation– it’s focused on cultivating compassion for yourself and others in pretty concrete ways.
Nothing specific except practice. Maybe with that kind of exercise finding a list of things to assess something on- eg tone, sentence structure, referencing, how readable it is, how the argument is presented as well as the argument itself. Otherwise it can be easy to just immediately see the negative things that jump out.
I find it helpful to tell myself we’re all doing the best we can- there are heaps of reasons for doing things differently, there are lots of people coming from different perspectives and often the only foolproof way of seeing what is the right decision is through hindsight.
Plus online CBT is helpful just in general- I use Moodgym
I just joined Moodgym. I hope this works–I’ve tried online CBT stuff before (like an app that was for writing down my thoughts and then going through them and saying why they weren’t accurate) and I’ve had mixed results.
Secomding CBT and meditation. There’s a bunch of anxiety workbooks you can get, or go through MoodGym, which is online. Meditation focused on compassion and being less judging is also really nice and helpful. There’s a couple of free courses and videos and stuff online, and ones you pay for. I would say poke around free options until you find what you like and then find a course or program you don’t mind paying for.
How about framing it as, “It’s fine to jump to “Other Student is an idiot”, the important thing is not to post/say it out loud!”? I think that instead of beating yourself up for your first reaction, just accept that that is your first reaction, but that’s not a problem if you didn’t immediately jump to post “omg ur an idiot”.
Also, this is a hard assignment. Not just doing the work, but commenting on other people’s work in a constructive and helpful fashion. Giving good and useful feedback is a really useful skill, but it is a skill, and it’s one that takes practice and concentration to learn.
Has your tutor given you any guidance on giving feedback, or is that something that the student study skills centre provides? I think it’s a fantastic thing to get students to do, but it’s something that you should be *taught* to do, not just something that you’re expected to do with no guidance! Courses which make heavy use of peer feedback, like music, drama and art, usually spend a lot of time on teaching people how to do it well and effectively, and how to take feedback well too. If you haven’t been given any guidance, it might be worth asking for it.
TL;DR: If you finding it hard, that is because it IS hard, not because you haven’t got some innate ability that everyone else is born with.
Please recommend fun things for me to do while I’m traveling in California! I’ll be in San Diego Jan. 29-30, in LA Jan. 31-Feb.2, Monterey Feb 3-4, and San Francisco from Feb.5 through Feb. 10. Strictly for fun and sightseeing.
I want to find social occasions. Gotta make sure I don’t just run around alone and talk to no one, which is apt to be my default when traveling. I do have area friends whom I will visit, but I’d also like casual events where I can meet local folks.
Things I enjoy: dancing (blues, swing, contra, and other partner or improv dances are cool), singing (traditional music, shape note harmony, light opera are all good; I’m going to the chantey sing at the Hyde Street Pier!) riding my bike, and hiking/walking long distances.
Anyone want to recommend somewhere cheap and cheerful to stay for one midweek night in Monterey? The hostel is full.
I notice I’ll be in San Francisco during Chinese New Year. That looks great. How does one participate in that? Just go to the parade and cheer?
Restaurant recommendations also welcome. To guide your choices, I’m vegetarian, though not vegan, and don’t have a lot of money.
Burma Superstar in SF is really good Burmese food.
You need to spend a day at the Exploratorium (hands-on science museum) in SF. So much fun.
This is going to be way down at the bottom of Open Thread, but OMG my 5 yo, 6 mo old, and I are all sick, and possibly not even with the same thing? I’m been basically out of commission for the last 48 hours, so the house is a mess, the children have watched TV literally all day, even the baby, and I haven’t showered in I can’t remember. My husband had to take yesterday afternoon off to bring my 5 yo home from school and care for us, so he had to go into work today to catch up on some stuff. I am so jealous.
Oh god that sounds so hard! I hope they manage to coordinate naps so you get a little downtime.
I am so sorry! time to turn to the tv, chicken soup, and bathrobe way of life. All the tv the 5 year old will watch, while you semi-nap with the baby. I hope it ends soon!
Hey, so I need some advice. I went to see Star Wars with a friend, and afterwards we went out for drinks. After two drinks, I kissed him, because ???
I guess because I’ve always felt there was a bit of sexual tension between us. I lived with him last year and he was my first male friend.
We had a few kisses, then I went home.
I don’t feel attracted to him any more, now that we have actually kissed. He wasn’t that good of a kisser. I still love him as a friend.
Do I need to address this with him, or can I pretend like it never happened?
Oooof friend how very awkward. I’ve only had this happen when I was in high school, at which point I handled it………..badly (made out with his friend right in front of him), so I’m not sure what to tell you! My instinct is to give it a few days and if you sense he wants to make your book a kissing book, you will need to say something direct and kind and be prepared for a few weeks of awkwardness.
In a different story, which may be more helpful, my very best friend who is not my partner found out many years ago (before I met my spouse) that I harbored Feelings for him, and he kindly and directly rejected me, and we remain the very best of friends (after some weeks of awkwardness). So there are happy endings to be had!
Snowzilla dinner inspiration–Vegetarian Cabbage, Fennel, Caramelized Onion & Sausage Casserole (note: wasn’t it cool how in the old days recipes had names instead of just lists of ingredients?). very easy and tasty and cheap!