Baby Standing In a Scratching Post, Pursued By Dog
SO, Mallory and I are doing a talk at Cornell on the evening of the 7th (this Thursday!), but I get in the night of Wednesday the 6th (will be at the Statler Hotel circa 7:30pm) and was thinking it would be fun to hang out for a bit in the Regent Lounge at the Statler to meet some Toasties. It will be super chill, I am going to drop my stuff and just sit in the lounge and talk and hug whoever shows up, and I would love it if you came! Mallory may make a cameo, but I will not make promises on her behalf! I think we might also try to do something in the hours before the Shop Talk, but I will just do whatever Ithaca Toasties tell me to.
you can buy Adventure Time Doc Martens now (Mallory already has)
super interesting (to me, anyway!):
Occasionally, actors’ heads are even pasted back onto CG models of their own bodies, as one star’s was when he returned for reshoots of his big-budget action film a year later. “He was very happy to have a digital scan of his body for this movie,” says a producer, who asks to be identified only as “the friend of an international sex symbol,” “because he went through an intensive and pretty joyless diet and training regimen for six months before shooting.” Rather than hitting the gym yet again, the actor taped fresh footage of his face that was matched with animations of his body at its peak hotness.
Producers can also use effects to save precious shoot days instead of waiting for an actor to get ripped, gain weight, recover from an injury, learn a skill, or deliver a baby. Instead of forcing star Jack O’Connell to starve himself completely in Angelina Jolie’s prisoner-of-war biopic Unbroken, Lola finished the job with digital “emaciation.” Instead of waiting out Claire Danes’s pregnancy, the producers of Homeland would paste the torso of a skinny double onto hers.
your boyfriend is an abusive monster and needs to be hurled into the sun:
About a year and a half ago, I realized I was neither in love with nor physically attracted to my boyfriend any more, but being afraid I’d hurt him, I put off breaking up with him for another six months. By the time I mustered up the courage to talk to him about this, feelings had been hurt, he had got depressed and failed his thesis twice. He told me that I needed to stay in the relationship for another semester until he tries to graduate again, to undo the damage I had done, otherwise his life would be ruined. Knowing that I had made a terrible mistake by stringing him along, I agreed to it, but I now really wish I hadn’t, because the mess is bigger than ever. (Since I’m no longer attracted to him, sex feels bad and I turn cold whenever he touches me, which he is upset about and we argue all the time; I’m emotionally distant but he wants me to be loving and supportive, and while I’m nice and generally friendly towards him, it’s clearly not enough, etc.) The current situation is terrible for both of us, but especially for him – he’s going to fail his thesis again due to my insufficient support, he’s worse off emotionally because, as he said, “my life was fine until you entered it – now the train has gone off the rails and everyone on it is dead”. His career-to.be is the only thing he’s good at carreer-wise, and now I’ve taken that away from him. Had I known this was going to happen, I’d not have hesitated about the breakup.
I still care about him, and I don’t want his life ruined, but I don’t love him as a girlfriend any more, and I feel like pretending just hurts us. On the other hand, he insists I should stay and try harder. He doesn’t accept it when I say that I’m no longer attracted to him – I should either get into specifics / “be honest and say the real reason”, or it’s only a “politically correct bullshit excuse”. (I feel like we are not compatible emotionally, and my feelings have changed towards him – that is all to it.)
The New Yorker’s long piece on the lives of Filipina domestic workers in the United States who send money back to their own families was very, very good and hard to read. If I had a criticism to offer, it’s occasionally positioned as a “American women go to the gym or work while Filipina migrant workers raise their kids/look after their aging parents” in a way that elides the notion that…dads…might be involved in this transaction? This can come up a lot in “if she works, my wife’s salary wouldn’t even provide childcare, she might as well stay home!” as though childcare comes out of a woman’s salary and not out of the combined salaries of her and her partner. It is honestly a very small complaint about a very good, very well-done piece, and I do not want to prioritize my guilty feelings as a mom who has a (white US citizen, as it happens) nanny over the importance of having a piece that centers the stories of migrant workers facing unimaginably hard choices:
Emma and Nella found that in the eyes of many employers Filipinas were at the top of the ethnic hierarchy for domestic workers, as if their nationality had become synonymous with family duty and deference. Some two hundred thousand women are employed as domestic workers in New York State, a number that is expected to rise in the next decade, owing to the aging of the population, the entrance of more women into the workforce, and the lack of publicly funded services for the very young and old. A 2012 survey by the National Domestic Workers Alliance found that two-thirds of nannies, housekeepers, and home health aides were immigrants, half of whom were undocumented. Through their work, New Yorkers are free to have a public life, while the women working in their homes remain invisible: domestic workers spend long hours in private apartments, and are often paid off the books, with few of the legal protections afforded workers in other fields.
this may shock you but school testing procedures are a fucking motherfucking clusterfuck for disabled kids
okay then:
I am so confused by that Shaq picture. I had assumed that The Rock and Shaq were roughly the same size and now I’m just lost.
That picture has shaken my worldview.
SAME.
Same.
I didn’t even register it as The Rock! Now I am also lost, especially after seeing him tower over everyone on lipsync battle last night.
This is especially unsettling because I normally have this reaction when I see The Rock next to Vin Diesel in any of the Fasts. No one should be able to make a man who makes Vin look tiny look tiny!
I need more context. I need a picture of Shaq, The Rock, Vin Diesel, and an average sized person standing in a row.
Ok, I couldn’t find that pic but I did find this random blog post titled “Big Guys Next to Other Big Guys” which is something I think we all need today.
http://www.chillhour.com/big-guys-next-to-other-b…
THIS MAKES ME SO UNCOMFORTABLE WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF GIANTS
Oh man, Shaq makes The Rock look small, and Yao Ming makes Shaq look small?? This could just keep going forever and I want to climb all of them like trees.
this is my new favorite thing and I am sending it to everyone I know, thank you
SAME
From this site I conclude that Yao Ming could kick Schwarzenegger’s ass.
I am an average sized woman (5’4″) and once bumped into Shaq–my face hit around his elbow. He is MASSIVE.
(Google tells me she is 5’2″)
haha i love this because it looks like this picture is photoshopped when a rational part of me knows that it isn’t.
his shorts are longer than her legs
Where does he get his clothes? Do the big and tall stores go that big and tall?
The shorts are actually normal length men’s pants. He only owns shorts.
I think he has literally everything custom made at this point. Like, who carries socks that big?!
http://staugustine.com/stories/112605/spo_3479286…
Same height as me, so now I know what I’d look like next to him.
I love how this makes clear that his jorts would be pants on her and too long at that. Wow.
Imagine hugging Shaq. He must give amaaaazing hugs.
I’m the same height and bumping into Shaq was my dream, I’m so jealous! (now my dream is bumping into Shaq and The Rock at the same time)
When I was at school, our team was HUGE into basketball (like, our team was in the final game this Monday) and our star player was obv super tall, and sorta cute in a dopey way. My friends had this inside joke that if I ever ran into him at the club, I would be all up on him, but I am only 5 feet tall so I would have to back it up onto his knees. This was… not inaccurate.
Here I made a chart. Not as impressive without widths and heads and such, but it’s a start!
Now I need a pic of a toddler & Yao
Or, a regular person, with a toddler standing on top, both standing by Yao, being the same size!
Yao holding a toddler, who is holding a puppy.
a stack of puppies equal in height to Yao!
This doesn’t do much for perspective, but it’s amazing:
his face with the panda tho
neither of them looks terribly impressed by the other…
that’s okay, we can be impressed enough for them both
Here’s Shaq (7’1) , The Rock (6’5), Charles Barkley (6’6), and Mark Walberg (5’8):
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/28/8b/8…
(apologies if this is the original tweeted picture, I don’t have access to twitter at work to look)
Shaq is even huge by basketball standards. Vin Diesel is 6’0, if that helps.
I’m 5’8 and my brother is 6’5. Only time I feel tiny is standing next to him.
Also, when he was looking for a car I kept saying he should get whichever one Shaq shills for, and then if there isn’t enough head and leg room, he should sue for false advertising.
Whoa, my boyfriend is closer in height to Shaq than to The Rock… that’s a headfuck.
I was so shocked by that I had to show my boss?? Just like “Can you look at this photo it the nuttiest thing you will see today sorry I am not working yet.”
I have now sent this picture to everyone in my phone. OBVIOUSLY, I’m having a productive day
The Rock is so wee, I just want to put him in my pocket.
(Also I’m so used to The-Toast that I had to correct from The-Rock.)
My middle school music teacher had a picture of the palm of his hand. It took up most of an 8.5×11 sheet, portrait.
Right? They are Not.
That picture can enter the pantheon of Giant Dudes Being Dwarfed By Even Gianter Dudes, which until just now consisted only of this delightful picture of Wilt Chamberlain, Andre the Giant, and their tiny son Arnold:
(imgur is blocked at my work so I can’t actually see this, if it’s too big I apologize)
AHHHHHHHHH!
This is my everything.
My favorite SNL thing ever is Shaq rocking Will Ferrell (a tall dude in his own right) in his arms:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSuekL0nods
mo like Highrise and The Pebble
OH MY GOD, PEBBLE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5PlKZRQVgQ
God’s favorite mistake!
My goal is to be able to make The Rock look small. I’m 5’6″ so I just need my second…. and third…. and fourth growth spurts, I guess?
Oh no no, Shaq is above 7 ft tall.
I am delighted to see that the Rock can look so wee though. Also, I’m impressed at how big Charles Barkley is. I had lost sight after years of seeing him in the context of other basketball or football people.
Yeah Barkley took me by surprise too. I’m so used to him sitting behind a desk or standing by himself in front of a giant screen.
My brother once went to a basketball game in which Shaq was playing, this was probably at the height of Shaq’s powers in the mid-90s, during his Orlando Magic years. He said that even surrounded by other professional basketball players, guys who are not known for being short or small, Shaq just dwarfed everyone else out there. Dude is massive.
I think that the simplest version of this rule is “Shaq is bigger.” Like, they could do an Ant-Man sequel where he reverses the polarity of the Pym particles or something and he’s skyscraper-sized, and then there’s this sneaker that comes into view that itself is taller than Giant-Man, and a huge thunderous voice goes, “‘sup, it’s Shaq.”
Also, this gives me an excuse to post the Best GIF Ever:
That is, in fact, the best gif ever, and I thank you, am only surprised it took this long for it to show up in thread.
I will love this GIF always and forever.
I keep a link to this gif on my bookmarks bar in a folder called HAPPY. When I have a shit day I open it and watch this gif and webcams of puppies.
right click SAVE
My dad had season tickets in the 90s and he tried to make sure I saw each team at least once. Shaq is effing ENORMOUS. Barkley was always my favorite non-Sonics player and the man was a force of nature on the court. (Jordan was basically like watching God play basketball)
So today is the day I found out my boyfriend is almost as tall as the Rock (4 cm less). Though according to wikipedia, there’s only a 20cm difference between Shaq and the Rock, and that picture sure makes it look more like a ~30 cm difference.
Oh shit. I think I’m turning into one of those crazy celebrityheights people from the Mystery Show episode about Jack Gyllenhaal!
FYI the Celebheights folks agree that he’s probably more like 1.91 (wiki says 1.96) http://www.celebheights.com/s/Dwayne-Johnson-The-…
There’s no way back here, is there?
Here he is with a teeny tiny Steve Rogers.
I love how he’s so consistently paternal in every shot. Some big guys inspire fear or awe or challenge or whatever, but with Shaq, it’s all “dad! you’re such a good, goofy dad!”
One of my friends who is exceptionally tall and broad also does this: he is pretty frank that he knows he’s intimidating and models his body language to lessen that. I imagine if you’re Shaq you do the same thing but more.
My bf claims to be 6’8″ (but is probably pushing 7′ if he’s honest), and he does a similar thing. Although he’s a giant goofy golden retriever of a man, so it’s less paternal and more “awww, he thinks he’s a lapdog!”
(Also, I am the big spoon in our relationship and it’s adorably ridiculous. I’m not even short! He’s just huge!)
I remember when I was a kid and the Lakers were super big I thought Kobe Bryant was small because I was always seeing him with Shaq – and then I saw kobe next to a reporter or something and was like WOW nvmd
For some reason my brain read that as “saw kobe next to a refrigerator or something” and I was like yep, sounds about right.
When he was still with the Heat I got to go to a game with my then-boyfriend’s family. It was like watching a rhino stomp around in a herd of gazelles. He is a ridiculously oversized human being, but all his proportions are totally normal so you don’t really notice it until he stands next to someone else.
I am the biggest guy I know in daily life at work, but I hang out with a bunch of bigger dudes (other lifters, strongmen, etc.) often enough that I consider my self average-sized. When I say something to that effect, people sometimes react surprisingly strongly and jump to correct me. It weird.
Not quite the same thing, but I am used to hanging out with above-average sized dudes for the same reason (as you know!), and so I’m usually startled whenever I see someone who is taller/bigger than my husband (6’4″). Perhaps rudely so, e.g. unsubtle gawking.
This just gets funny whenevr I go, “oh, so and so isn’t really that big, is he?” and other people look at me as thought to say “uh, he’s 5’10 so he’s not small, and you are 5’2″ so why do you think he’s ‘not that big’?”
#lifterproblems
This is a good problem to have. Hanging out with huge people is great.
PS: 6’4″ is pretty damn huge IMO, especially if your husband lifts!
Dad is 6’9!
Friends say “you look so normal sized when you stand next to him!”
Anyway this is the second day in a row that I get to talk about tall people and it makes me very happy?
For the record, I’m myself not a Tall Person. I’m a Broad Person. I’m 5’9″, and walk around at about 245 lbs (I compete at 105 Kg/231 lbs)
I was married to a big 6’4″ dude for a long time – he would FREAK OUT whenever there was someone taller than him around, because it happened so rarely.
I (5’4″) just find myself very comfortable around tall people, because that was my default for so long… and I’m attracted to tall dudes 🙂
I’ve been with my enormous (6’8″ish and proportionate) bf for 2 years, and then I started also dating this guy who’s “only” 6’3″ and skinny. Boyfriend 2 was very confused when I told him he’s adorably tiny!
My favorite photo in the world:
OMFG OMFG OMFG
I might make this my phone background??
I’m definitely sharing this on FB, at the very least. Maybe I’ll turn it into my work desktop background too.
This is the best optical illusion in the world.
This is literally the best thing I’ve ever seen, thank you so much for sharing it.
In which Kevin Hart (for probably the first and last time) is all of us. The mind boggles.
Kevin Hart is still 2 inches taller than me! My god, I would just be a toddler standing next to either man.
omg. I just realized he’s 5’4″….yeah he’s 3 inches taller than me! ACK I feel so wee and hobbit-like now
Kevin Hart legitimately looks like a child there.
In which Shaq momentarily forgets to look out for the ant-people below him and Kevin Hart is almost trampled.
The only thing that could possibly make this photo better is if Kevin Hart had a picture of Shaq on his shirt (instead of that other superhuman I don’t recognize). Because it would blow my mind in the best way. I love how happy they all look. D’awww big guys, little guys, famous guys I will never meet. (Also, at 5’0″, I feel especially small this day.)
4’10”. I just wanted to tell you so you could feel tall for a second.
GUYS THIS PIC WAS A LIE
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post/_/id/1167581…
I’m devastated now. The three of them really need to pose together in a picture.
DAMMIT
noooooooooooooooo
That’s terrible, but that Yao/Roger Federer photo just made my day. Roger is looking up at Yao like, “Hey, Dad.” 😀
I just snorted green bean up my nose from laughing. Thank you.
Athletes are freaks and need to be banned. I have a 6’4″ cousin who spends all his time around college basketball players. He’s of the opinion that “really tall” is only 6’5″ and up.
Right? When The Rock is the smallest dude in the photo, that’s weird!
How has no one posted Jimmy Fallon and Shaq trading jackets??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIKeln-xbfk (starts around 0:50 in).
I cannot stop giggling over Shaq making The Rock look so very tiny. Like not just height-wise but also in overall bulk? The Rock is a swole dude and yet he looks skinny next to Shaq. It’s like the most enjoyable optical illusion of all time.
BMO BOOT BMO BOOT
I want this for my kiddo, but not badly enough to spend $95. But nearly! I myself sadly no longer live a lifestyle compatible with novelty Docs. (My sequined and floral pairs sit alone and sad in the corner of the closet.)
I am not a person who can pull off Docs, really. But all glory to BMO.
I have furry zebraprint ones but even though my lifestly is deliberately still compatible, I never want them to be trodden on and get dirty!
I had a boyfriend in college who was OUTRAGED that I would wear the sequined ones in the snow – he was all, you’ll ruin them! the sequins will come off! And I was all, I’ll glue more on! And now lo these 20 years later, indeed I have done just such a thing (Actually I patched them with glitter a few years back, but it works out the same. I feel smug every time I see them. Take that Mike!)
BMO is the best!
WHY WON’T MY TAX RETURN COME NOW SO I CAN BUY THE BMO BOOTS
WHAT IF IT DOESN’T COME IN TIME AND THEY SELL OUT
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
and MARCELINE!
They should have just named the big-budget action star Chris, because that wouldn’t narrow it down at all. (They’re all named Chris. That’s the joke.)
Although it’s probably Chris Evans, lbr.
Do we have any aero-astro engineering Toasts? Can we Kickstart a rocket launcher for monster boyfriends? Can we power it with the fire of misandry?
Willing to study engineering to make this happen.
Hey, the liberal arts are useful here, too. We’ve got development folks to raise funds, PR folks who will convince the world to support sun-launching, and a LOT of very persuasive people who are great at recognizing monstrous boyfriends. The technology is there; we just need to convince people to hand it over to us.
Oh, don’t I know it. What we need is a interdisciplinary coven… ahem… “symposium” to work out the details. #WomenInSTEAM #WomenOnSTEAMrollers
I love it, can’t wait for the annual conference. WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET — ahem, yes, it will be a productive session.
I’m too witches to not come.
I might be a bit late, I’ve got a hurly-burly to finish up, but I’m there.
Grant writer here, reporting for spellbinding…er, um, duty.
Librarian here, will contribute my research skills to the cause.
Yes, actually. Daily reader, very rare commenter. Masters degree in hypersonics, currently working in satellite navigation. It would be very easy to lure them onto the rocket, you see. I would tell them I designed it myself, but that I just couldn’t get it to start. They would be unable to stop themselves from climbing on board to troubleshoot the problem for me, regardless of their actual educational or professional background, and then I would just slam the door and light that candle.
Do you ever just go to parties and say “oh yeah I have a masters degree in hypersonics” and then just put on a pair of sunglasses and not say anything else because nothing more needs to be said?
I wish. Dudes always have *questions*. I have spent more parties than I would like to admit explaining how the engines on the SR-71 work. To be fair, that is not the worst way to spend a party.
Never fails. Buuwahahaha…
I AM HERE TO SUPPORT THIS
Where is your Kickstarter???
Perfect comment is perfect.
Software engineer, totally here for this.
Also when we’re ready, can someone help figure out which prison my ex is in? He’d be a great test subject.
I can probably help with that, I am conversant in using felony offender databases.
well, I do astrophysics, which (as I have explained many a time at many a party) is not rocket science or engineering of any sort.
that being said, I have some experience in large-scale telescope design and a good grasp of how gravity works (I’m sure I can apply general relativity to non-relativistic orbital mechanics problems after I remember how algebra works) so I can probably contribute something…
HERE for geeking out about all things Adventure Time and how much I have to have those Marceline boots. Mallory, if you’re reading this, which ones did you get?
I thought these were interesting – criticisms of the Melissa Gira Grant piece that was linked on the Toast earlier:
https://medium.com/@mistressmatisse/melissa-gira-…
https://medium.com/@belledejour_uk/ethics-in-sex-…
(I am not sure about the first article, since it seems to do an awful lot of “this is what Heather thinks”, “this is what we did for Heather” without it being all that clear that Heather has consented to this article either? And now I can’t tell whether MGG’s article is giving voice to a sex-worker, or performing giving voice a sex-worker, and whether it actually makes sense to require Mistress Matisse to at some point state that she has Heather’s support in writing this article, or to directly quote what Heather thinks. So I don’t know what an ethical way for Heather’s story to be presented would be at all.)
Oh, but as Brooke Magnanti says, you can still donate to Heather’s fundraiser: https://www.crowdrise.com/heatherisahero
It seems pretty clear from the facts I’ve seen that Heather just wants to be Left Alone.
It’s not as clear what the ethical obligations of various parties are, given that fact. :/
That Florida testing article…I am deep in a furious rage. Deliver us from ignorant bureaucracy.
People should lose their JOBS over this.
And their damn pensions, yes, I heartily agree.
Part of the reason I quit my teaching job in a Florida, public K-5 school was over testing. I taught Kindergarten and I had to test 5 year olds three(!) times a year on reading and math.
The helpful news ticker by the train told me about the paraprofessional in New York punching an 11 year old autistic boy because “he started it” and now I really can’t even anymore.
(YOU DO NOT PUNCH, TACKLE, TIE UP, OR PUT DUCT TAPE ON CHILDREN AS ‘DISCIPLINE’ WHY IS THIS IS A DIFFICULT CONCEPT?)
…
Ok, a of all, I know FIVE YEAR OLDS who know that “they started it” is not an excuse, and b of all, this kind of shit is why I have to regretfully agree with my boy Honest Lewis when he says some people need a painful reminder that they have knees. What in the actual gussied up fuck.
That Captain Awkward piece made me feel physically ill. 🙁
same
I am so angry on behalf of the LW. SO. ANGRY.
there is someone in the comments whose ex wanted a two page handwritten explanation of the reasons for breaking up with him
I’d have been so tempted to write in giant letters across two pages taped together–“BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT”
Most of the suggestions from commenters were variations on “FUCK YOU” that would take up two pages.
he hands it back with correction marks and a ‘see me after class’
Same here. I am really worried about the LW now and hope she is safe and with friends.
Yup.
“The current situation is terrible for both of us, but especially for him” – that broke my heart. The fact she lays all the pieces out so clearly but still thinks she ruined his life.
He’s gaslighted her into believing just that.
Exactly, it’s terrifying.
Yes, this is what disturbed me most. . . the fact that she internalized his manipulation that it is HER fault that he’s a douchecanoe. The poor thing, I hope she got away.
I just read it. Hoooollly crap.
That whole ‘I have to stay with him because its my fault his life is terrible’ AW HELL NO RUN WOMAN RUN.
I feel so bad for her that she has been maipulated so much by this cuntasourous.
Same. All the more so because I’ve been there, but thankfully had friends and family who finally made me pull myself out. Poor LW.
The LW left a comment to 1) thank everyone for their support and 2) to clarify that her terrible dumpster fire of a roommate/abusive bf didn’t fail his thesis twice, he only neglected to turn in what he had by deadline as if that is any better. I understand why she wants to clarify, but honey, please save your breath, he isn’t worth it.
Yikes. I hope she is swayed by words of support and logic and pointing out what a toxic evil monster this guy is, and quickly gets over needing to paint him in any kind of a forgiving light.
Where was that comment? I just scrolled through the post and didn’t see it?
She posted under “TW846.” Good luck finding it, it’s about 55-60% down the page.
Thank you!
“I don’t want to be in a relationship because I’m not attracted to you anymore.” “That’s a politically correct bullshit excuse!” <– SET. THIS. GUY. ON. FIRE. IMMEDIATELY.
(Further proof, if any were needed, that the phrase “politically correct” primarily means “I am a giant asshole.”)
Don’t you know? A woman not being attracted to a man is not a good enough reason for her to not date him/not fuck him/break up with him. I have genuinely had more than one conversation in my life where I was being interrogated for why I wouldn’t date a guy who wanted to date me and the answer “I’m not attracted to him” was just met with scoffs and disdain. Like, duh, women are allowed to consider that factor! Ever! A guy wanting to date you ALWAYS trumps any personal feelings you may have on the matter.
Also not being attracted to a man is a shallow reason not to date someone! Apparently. (It took me awhile to get over this myself.)
“Shallow.” UGH. That is one of the effing worst mind games society plays on women, trying to convince them that their preferences or sexual needs or whatever don’t matter and that their inability to see A Guy Who Wants to Fuck Them as “worthy” is somehow “shallow” and deviant and wrong. FUCK THAT NOISE.
(It took me a while to get over this, too.)
I am so sick of seeing “wants to be with her” held up as the criteria by which a man should be evaluated and accepted. That is like 1/20th of the basic qualifications to be in a relationship.
Well, it’s essential, as is ‘she wants to be with him.’ We need both.
The additional bullshit is, these same men think THEY are perfectly justified in being ‘shallow’. To the extent that if a woman they don’t think is attractive expresses interest in them, they will be ANGRY about it.
So I had a date with a guy last week, and he’s funny and we had a laugh, but I’m not attracted to him at all. And I think he’s quite into me because he’s texted me asking me out again already. And I feel like I’m being terribly rude because I’m just ignoring his texts. I don’t want to have to have the whole back and forth over me not being attracted to him. He seems like a nice guy, and he probably wouldn’t be like that, but I’m to cynical to really trust that he won’t require a thesis on why I’m not into him, or try the whole ‘lets be friends* anyway’ thing and I have to spend months beating him off with a stick.
*Which is actually annoying because I feel like we could actually be friends and have a lot of fun, but there’s no way for me initiate that without him thinking it will go somewhere that it won’t.
So yeah, men do not understand women not being attracted to them.
I definitely understand your reticence. I’ve been in that exact situation where I was like “I am not attracted to this dude and don’t want to date him, but we could still be friends (same friends group) and maybe he’ll be cool about it” and he was NOT cool about it. Rejecting him as a potential boyfriend but not as a friend led to the exact “spending months beating him off with a stick” scenario you’re predicting. With special bonuses: “unwanted groping,” “having to explain to everyone else in the friends group why I was getting increasingly pissed off at this dude,” and “having his parents basically call me garbage.”
Woo!
This is why the phrase “I just don’t feel a spark” was invented. Could mean “of sexual attraction,” could mean “of intellect coming from your wooden head,” can be repeated over and over again in a mystified way. “I don’t know, I just. . . ”
(I do think ghosting is rude.)
I think ghosting is rude if you’re doing it to a reasonable human being. Completely disappearing off the face of the earth can be a good tactic for getting away from people who exhibit abusive behavior, though. (Or maybe I’m just trying to justify the fact that I’ve recently ghosted an abusive friend.)
Did you see the “Hitlers of sex” thing on Twitter yesterday? https://twitter.com/coruscating/status/7166773422…
WOW.
Wow.
And yet, unsurprising.
Does he want her to detail every physical and personality flaw that makes her not want to be with him?
He wants exactly such a list so he can refute them individually, telling her why she’s wrong and dredging up contradictory “evidence” to make her see how illogical she’s being.
I wanted to not be friends with a guy, and he made me do this and so I did (I was in high school) and watched as he refuted every piece of evidence
In fairness to him, “I am not attracted to you” is kind of a soft-pedal in comparison to the fact that he is the actual worst person alive
I was in a fairly similar situation about 6 years ago and it’s taken forever to see it for what it was… this letter actually helped me get some outside perspective. Wish I could go back in time and show this post to my old self, so I didn’t feel so terrible about breaking up with him!
I was shaking and on the verge of tears by the time I finished it. That dude fucked with her head so completely and comprehensively it’s astounding, and it breaks my heart to think about how every woman is to some degree conditioned to accept and believe in the gaslighting bullshit that abusive men pull. She blames herself so thoroughly for his bad choices that she’s willing to give up her own will and sense of self and needs and desires out of guilt. No one ever, ever deserves to be manipulated into that kind of self-degrading submission and defeat. My skin was crawling reading about how sex with him feels awful to her, but he apparently browbeats her into it anyway. Yet somehow all of this is still the result of HER “terrible mistake”. And the awful truth about this type of emotional manipulation and abuse is that it can happen to anyone, especially women who are taught to ALWAYS put everyone else’s (especially their man’s) needs/wants before their own. I hope she gets out as soon as possible and is able to let go of her guilt and cut him out of her life completely – and I hope that man never traps anyone else into a relationship with him until he can unlearn being such an abusive shitlord (if that’s even possible).
A part of me actually feels some empathy for the awful boyfriend, because I remember times when I was younger when I too wouldn’t accept that someone had broken up with me/wasn’t interested in me. But at the same time, while I was dramatic and feelingsbomby and intense and creepy about it, I never engaged in *that* level of manipulation and cruelty. I definitely couldn’t conceive of trying to *force* someone to stay in a relationship. And, more importantly, I grew out of it, gained more empathy and became less self absorbed as I grew older. (Being on the other side of INTENSE! behaviour did a lot to help me gain perspective).
I *cringe* when I think of some of the stuff I did and said when I was younger, and how impossible I could be, but I’m thankful I managed to keep some semblance of decency and didn’t act like a complete entitled pig. So while I can have some empathy for where he’s coming from, I have no truck with it if he’s not willing to self-examine and change his ways. Which he is not, it appears.
(Gender is a big part of it too – while I was wrong to assume someone owed me something just because I had feelings for them, I probably wouldn’t have gone as far as this guy has in *demanding* affection, sex etc, because as a cis woman I wasn’t socialised to believe that I was owed a romantic partner just for existing.)
Poor little confused commenter. You are a sad, lonely person, aren’t you?
But, I can’t be racist! I’m ageist and a person can only be one -ist.
“Anyway, now that I’ve confessed my failings, should I expect my Certificate of Absolution and Forgiveness to arrive in the mail in, say, three to six weeks?”
Nope. Budget cutbacks have eliminated this service.
I would the worst actress of all time–there is no way I could jump and pretend to fly like Benedict does and not fall over laughing. No. Way. I am super excited for Doctor Strange, of course, and actually fairly happy with his casting as things have progressed. But yeah. No way I could do that.
My partner was once recording a song and needed a wolf howl for the recording, and I feel like I (or anyone, really) know how to howl like a wolf? So I offered to help. But as soon as he turned the mike on all I could produce was a weird, goofy “a-ooowooo!” sound. Like a cartoon wolf who sees a cute other wolf, or something. I completely forgot what an actual wolf howl would sound like. I just could NOT take my “role” seriously enough to do it. Ever since then I have had way more respect for actors who do comic book movies etc. It must take insane self-confidence to actually pretend you can fly and believe it’ll look okay on camera!
I think if you look closely, you can see that he kind of loses it a little bit after he lands, he turns and looks down away from the camera I think because he is trying not to laugh.
BUT this is a pretty good reason why people that have backgrounds in classical and Shakespearean acting are often better suited for Marvel nonsense movies than folks with backgrounds in more realistic forms — once you’ve spent sixteen hours practicing the Queen Mab speech, you can do basically any kind of tomfoolery that a superhero has to do.
It’s a good thing they can CGI any mirth off his face!
And now the question is, how much sharper are they going to make his cheekbones in post? 😉
It looks like they’ve already done drag queen levels of contouring on him so I don’t know how much sharper they could even get!
he’s got a dourness face-double, probably
Also, they’re used to giving SRS BZNS speeches while wearing silly costumes.
See also: Shakespearean actors on Star Trek.
I guess everyone was so pissed grumbling about the casting of Swinton and such that I missed that Mads was going to even be in this movie.
Excelsior!
I was excited, then I saw his makeup and busted out laughing. It is not good.
But y’know, if anybody can make that work, it’s Mads.
It’s very comic-booky; that black stuff around his eyes almost looks like Kirby Krackle.
I was in several high school plays, but was never a good actor. In one comedy I was in, I was supposed to faint, falling backwards and another actor would catch me and help me onto the couch–I literally could not do the scene without first glancing behind me to make sure the person was ready to catch me. No matter how many times we rehearsed and how many times we performed it. And then I had to spend the next ten minutes supposedly unconscious. Except in the pictures my parents took of that scene where I’m lying on the couch, I’m smiling and laughing at what was going on onstage. But at least I kept my eyes closed.
“Some two hundred thousand women are employed as domestic workers in New York State, a number that is expected to rise in the next decade, owing to the aging of the population, the entrance of more women into the workforce, and the lack of publicly funded services for the very young and old.”
Of those factors, it is number 3 that is the most significant, and the most easily resolved, if the political will was there.
I hope that will grows and becomes impossible to ignore. My family is constantly shocked by how little people get paid to do the incredibly intimate, physical, often dirty work of in-home care and how impossible it is for most families to afford.
My mom has been a CNA for about 15 years, and the only way she can survive is to make sure she does in-home care for wealthy people. If she worked at a nursing home she’d be making minimum wage.
If we want to open a new can of worms, we can talk about how she’s got the privilege of being a white woman who can use markers of class to her benefit and therefore be hired by people who are mind-blowingly rich (like “40 acres on puget sound” rich) to care for them.
This is so true. The CNA’s at the nursing home where I work only make about $11/hour to lift, toilet, bathe, dress and feed about 13 heavy-care people per shift. A lot of them try to moonlight in private duty or do home health aide work. Some families are awful, though, so it’s not like that’s much easier.
The Sun is too good for that dude. I like the sun. It doesn’t deserve that.
Let’s send him to Venus. That place is useless and sticky and I hate it.
[a vile cloud of poisonous methane envelops that dude, then spits him out in disgust]
[shortly before he dies, he says: “Ugh, rejected by Venus? If only my girlfriend had supported me more!” But in space, nobody can hear you complain]
Hey asshat, here’s a new girlfriend for ya:
in space, nobody can hear you complain
i snort-laughed at my desk, thank you thank you.
“useless and sticky” like too many dudes amirite
“This can come up a lot in “if she works, my wife’s salary wouldn’t even provide childcare, she might as well stay home!” as though childcare comes out of a woman’s salary and not out of the combined salaries of her and her partner. ”
OMG so much this! I have several friends who went this route who are now realizing that it is going to be nearly impossible for them to get back into the job market now that they have had a sizable break in their employment. Staying at home is great if that is what you want to do, but even if the second income does just cover childcare there are plenty of benefits to staying employed, especially if you are looking to have a “career” kind of job in the future.
The default that women will be the ones who stay home is irritating too. I am military, and have several dual military couples where the husband has stayed in despite having far less potential then his wife. All of these couples have ended up with the husband eventually getting out because his career progression stalled, the wife wishing she had stayed in, and everyone being generally miserable. Obviously couples need to do what works for them, but I feel like sometime people don’t really look at the situation in a critical way before making the choice.
Oh man. I am on the other side as a military wife and it also sucks on this side! I am in Canada where we have yearlong mat leave but I still hear ALL THE TIME “oh my pay won’t even pay for daycare so I’m just staying home” and it makes me want to scream because every year you work is a year you’re furthering your own career! Your kids will not be 2 forever and need you every minute of the day! It’s a short-term issue and leaving the workforce entirely is a long-term solution. If you want to be a SAHM you should, but I so frequently see it as a default because hey the money doesn’t go that far so….guess I’ll stay home and babysit for other people’s kids.
However it does really really suck to have to arrange childcare if you can’t rely on the other spouse being home (deployments or unpredictable shift work or whatever) so there is just no great solution and it is horrible for everyone even with long mat leaves.
It just seems so short-sighted. My employer puts 10% of my salary into my 401k. Even if my salary would barely covers daycare (currently don’t have kids so don’t actually know), that 10% is going to grow for the next 40 years!
Exactly this! Also as a child of divorce, growing up with other kids whose parents divorced, the risks there always seemed WAY too high for me. Too many stories about women who opted out and then had a hell of a time pulling their financial lives together post-divorce.
This too! My parents are still married, but their social circle (early 50s empty nesters) is going through a round of divorces and so many of the women went from suburban SAHM life to retail/mail room/bank teller because they couldn’t find professional jobs anymore and don’t have child support. They can’t afford their houses while their ex-husbands are driving BMWs because they profited off of having a wife who didn’t work.
I don’t know if I’m going to wind up having kids, but there have been times where I daydream about taking a year off from work to do all sorts of things, and the thing that always stops me is the fear that taking myself out of the job market for any extended period of time voluntarily would mean I’d never be able to find another job. Even if it makes financial sense to not have a job for a year or longer, it likely doesn’t make financial sense to never have a job again, and for a lot of fields, it seems basically impossible to rejoin after you quit.
I also think there is this ideal in some circles that being a SAHM is better for a woman and her kids, that staying home is making “a different kind of investment”, and that childcare is something that should only be sought if there is a compelling reason. My parents were disappointed that I went back to work after my son was born. I was not sure I was making the right decision, but now I think it is clear.
1. My son would be bored out of his mind at home, but he LOVES his daycare which is full of friends and fun activities. He gets so much good stimulation there.
2. Most of the SAHM moms I know are constantly looking for more stimulation for themselves, and having trouble finding it. This leads to getting intermittent (often costly) childcare so they can pursue adult interests, getting involved in those direct marketing businesses, becoming depressed, or becoming obsessed with their hobbies (essential oils? painting? organic paleo cooking and the acquisition of illegal raw milk?).
3. There is research that shows that kids of working moms are higher achievers.
4. As others point out, it can kill a career for a woman to leave the workforce for 3 years or 5 years or whatever. Thus she has to consider not only how much money she makes now vs childcare, but how much losing her career will impact future earning.
5. Working in general gets people out of their pajamas, gives people a sense of self worth, gives them some intellectual stimulation (more or less), provides them with an additional social arena, and keeps their minds sharper. It prevents depression. It also keeps women on a more or less equal footing with their working partners (shouldn’t be this way, but in my experience it is).
Okay, I hope this doesn’t sound too harsh on SAHMs, many of whom are wonderful. I just don’t think that being a SAHM should be held up as a superior moral choice. It is just a choice that has to be made based on economic and personal factors like any job, and families need to consider the realistic implications.
Ding ding ding this is all so smart and true to me. My mother was a SAHM and she did all of no.2 with the exception of the direct marketing. Even as a small kid it was obvious to me that she wasn’t happy. And in recent years it’s become even clearer to me how vulnerable she is and how dependent she is on my dad. Their marriage is OK, but even if it was a nightmare she would’ve been trapped because she was out of the workforce for so long – it would have been really difficult to get back in. Also I think being dependent for so long encouraged a kind of learned helplessness in her – she’d believe that she *couldn’t* work even if she wanted to.
And when they first married, she was actually earning more than him! But they were very old fashioned and dedicated to the middle-class ideal of the non-earning wife. She made the choice freely and I don’t want to speak for her and say she was totally wrong, but from my perspective I don’t feel I gained anything irreplaceable by having a SAHM, and I feel bad for her that she didn’t get to use her (many) skills and abilities as much as she could have. And that she didn’t get to enjoy financial independence after her mid-20s.
There’s a popular TV talk show host in Ireland who caused scandal in the 80s by saying that all married women, working or not, should have ‘running-away money’ – i.e. a fund that is entirely their own and not accessible to their husbands. Holy Ireland was horrified, but he touched a chord – everyone knew of wives who were trapped in abusive relationships due to their husband’s control of the finances. I think about that saying a lot when considering the working outside/inside home debate.
All of this^^^
Your comment needs to be shared far and wide. I’m not a mom, but I was struck when reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, which features a woman who’s been a stay-at-home since she got pregnant at 17. At the start of the story, she has two young student (one in pre-k, one infant).
What really struck me was how lonely she’s described as being, how much she misses talking to other adults. That had never occurred to me as a potential problem for stay-at-home moms.
WIth my first, I was in online graduate school and therefore was at home with him a lot, trying to study in between parenting. Going to work was the best thing I could have done because thank god, I could talk to adults about a variety of things besides household minutiae and think quickly on my feet.
My mother was a SAHM for ~6 years. She hosted a play group once a week, did all the home improvement she could (SHE SEWED HER OWN BED SKIRTS), and did a shitload of fitness and spiritual development, and she still headed back to work because she was going stir crazy. And while she had a solid career in local journalism before that, all she’s done since is positions like fitness instructor or class aide, with no real job security or advancement. She’s stuck in this weird middle ground between Working Mothers and Career Housewives, and women where she lives tend to pick just one and stick with it. All the advice on Should Women Work Or Not that I’ve seen ignores what happens then, when the kids are in college and the Stay-At-Home Mom is just sort of staying at home.
Economically it can be catastrophic for a woman to stay home, especially if there’s a divorce futher down the line- loss of income, loss of experience, raises, lifetime earning potential, no social security income during that time, no ability to contribute to employer or individual tax protected retirement plans- staying home is very, very expensive long term.
yeah, if you’re just looking at pragmatically maximizing family income, make the lower earning spouse quit her job. Of course, if you’re just looking at pragmatically maximizing income, take the kid out of care at age 7 and send it to work in a garment factory, right? Save on costs and turn a profit into the bargain! yet even without child labor laws, few fathers would favor this, because the child’s quality of life and their long-term prospects have some value, above and beyond the total cash that it’s worth. it’s understood that you don’t wreck a kid’s present and future for the family balance sheet.
but if you are a child who has aged and dwindled into a wife though, people don’t find it so instinctive to think about it that way anymore. for some reason.
Hm, I think this is oversimplifying. I’ve a few friends who gave up all (or nearly all) paid work when they had kids, and in most cases it was something they had to fight for, with their partners wanting to be jointly rather than single-handedly responsible for the family finances. I’ve got other friends who talk wistfully about giving up work but say their partners wouldn’t be happy with it. Me and my (female) partner split our maternity leave (I just wrote “my” maternity leave and had to go back and correct it!), and the universal response from other new mums was that they’d be incredibly unhappy to share their maternity leave with their partners. (We originally planned that I’d take six months off and then my partner would take three – you get nine months with some maternity pay and then three months without in the UK, so a year in total if you want to take it all – but once the baby came I burst into tears at the idea that I’d have to go back after only six months, so we compromised on me taking seven and a half and her taking three. And I still feel a bit resentful about the extra six weeks that one of us could have taken, but which really didn’t fit into the way her working year works.)
Sure, there’s all sorts of stuff about socialisation here, and whether or not the workplace supports men or women who want to take time out, go part-time or whatever. And if someone is forced out of the workplace because childcare is literally unaffordable, that’s awful. But I know an awful lot more people (and not just wealthy middle-class people) where the “but my salary doesn’t cover childcare, so…” is much more of a rationalisation of what they really want to do than it is a reason.
I’m in a crazy competitive field (public librarian) and if I left my job to stay home with my kids that’s basically setting my MLS on fire along with all that student loan debt. I went back to work a month after my kid was born to make sure I didn’t lose my substitute position, which ended up being my gateway to my permanent position. And yeah, I love and miss my kids, but you know what I also love? My $99 insurance premium per month, my employer’s matching 10% into my pension, and using my degree in a position I love where I can talk to adults about something besides godforsaken Paw Patrol. Sure, the income bump we get from my salary mostly covers the childcare costs, but our kids won’t always be tiny, and when they’re both in school, it’s going to be AMAZING.
I was already angry about standardized testing-related things this morning because last night my mom (a special ed teacher who will be spending the next 8 days administering state-mandated tests to her students) told me about a new test they’re piloting in her state for kindergarteners (have these people ever actually met a 5-year-old? who thought this would be a good idea?), and the article about disabled students and standardized testing has pushed me over the edge to furious.
They made a child WITHOUT A COMPLETE BRAIN take a test. What the fuck.
Do note that *all* children have incomplete brains; particularly prior to adolescence, the frontal lobe is quite late to develop. This is one reason why I look askance just how *early* the education system here in England (and as far as I can tell in America) begins to run children through tests.
(Not that I’m saying this situation isn’t utterly egregious, of course. Just that testing people without complete brains is the norm, rather than an exception.)
Obviously I was referring to the specific issue of forcing a child who lacked the ability to comprehend information and communicate in any meaningful way to take a state-mandated exam for no reason at all, but you do make a fair point. I do spend quite a lot of time with small children (I volunteer as a music teacher) and every time I’m with the kids I’m reminded that they are essentially just babies with language and improved motor skills. And then I think about the five-year-old students I know, who are wonderful and funny but also aren’t particularly equipped to sit still and pay attention for hours on end, and the thought of putting them through an hours-long test and forcing them to meet some adult’s arbitrary standards for what a child of that age should know makes me so sad, and you’re absolutely right that it’s unfair to them.
I disagree about the brains, though. Kids HAVE frontal lobes (except the few who actually don’t), they’re just immature. We wouldn’t say that all kids have incomplete bodies because they haven’t reached their adult height yet, because that’s totally different from missing a limb or an organ. Having to take a test when you physically lack important parts of your brain is more like having to take a PE test that you can’t succeed at because you’re in a wheelchair.
Nah, children’s brains aren’t incomplete. Our brains change throughout our entire lives, and not just the frontal lobes. Even infants’ tiny, unmyelinated brains are complete and adapted to their current circumstances.
I LOATHE standardized testing, and there was a whole piece on the CBC morning show in Toronto about it and math teaching so I was all enraged again even before seeing this.
Kids all learn in different ways. Teachers (in consultation with parents) are the experts who are professionally positioned to best assess each individual kids’ needs and help them learn. Forcing the same yardstick to measure each kid and requiring teachers to teach towards it hampers their ability to do their job and it undermines the tenets of education.
I’m privileged (& lucky, which is similar but not the same) enough that when my kid starts JK in September he is going to an alternative school where there is an understanding between parents and administration that no kid comes to school on standardized testing day. But since funding is tied to test results, they can only do that because parents who send their kids to alt school are really engaged and do lots of fundraising.
The thing is, standardized testing can be a useful tool, when it is used as one (small) piece of the overall assessment of a child’s understanding of the material. But NCLB and other laws have given it an outsized role in the assessment of student learning and teacher performance. And of course there is a huge standardized testing industry and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some of the for-profit companies lobby to keep the number of tests as high as they are. And I think many state governments like them because they have numbers that can be understood and it’s easy to pass laws about standardized testing and claim you’ve passed education reform laws without actually addressing any of the problems that face our public schools
I’ve opted my kids out but I am shocked that almost no one else does, even in hippie Portland, and that they’re allowing kindergarten to be taken over by this miserable nonsense. I’m selfishly relieved mine are past that age.
I just flash back to what they say in Finland, the country where children score the highest on PISA exams etc. etc.: the job of a child is to play. the job of a child is to play.
In Finland, children are required to have 15 min. of outdoor play for every single hour of classroom instruction. And they do things like, for PE, give children compasses, show them how to use it, and then take them a short way into the woods and have them find their way back out. For 8 yr olds. Things that are interesting and challenging and useful and unstructured and creative and not containable in scantron forms. Ugh. Considering having a child but so depressed by what there will be to push back against in the US.
I would have been DOWN for stuff like that in school. I had undiagnosed ADD for almost all of my, short, school career, so sitting in a chair learning about things I had no interest in was literally impossible for me. Running around the woods with a compass? Hell of a good time, and I would have learned something I might actually use one day.
No joke, I think about this all the time. Esp having a friend who spent her earliest years in the Finnish school system and is now like a mega-genius and outperforming men 10 years her senior in a male dominated field. Obvs causation/correlation blah blah blah, but I think whatever abundance of smarts she has was just enhanced by starting out her school life there.
I often wonder about the steps I could take to raise my (someday in the future) children in Finland, at least while they’re young. That’s how much I believe in their system, and feel so enraged by ours.
It sounds so Montessori! (We went to Montessori preschool–we actually lived right by a Montessori teacher training college–apparently I was someone’s thesis project at age 3) and I sometimes wonder how things might have been if my parents had decided to look for a Montessori or at least Montessori-esque alternative to our (highly ranked) public schools, at which my brother and I were both miserable in different ways.
There was also a fascinating article in the New Yorker last year about a handful of Waldorf schools in China, which is such a culture clash it’s almost mind-boggling. (I have some quibbles about Waldorf, personally, but that’s another story.)
Montessori seems cool. I especially like how they teach children how to do lots of little tasks, so that they can feel good about helping at home! Would that there were more of that in the culture (it makes kids feel competent, which we don’t do much of in the US!)
Forest School is also cool: dress kids up very well in the right clothes, have a few outdoor rain/snow shelters built, and then have them spend time outdoors in the park every day no matter what the weather is like. (Which they do in Finland too — and it gets a lot colder there and everybody is ok). A friend sent her child to Forest School in Prospect Park for a year and loved it.
Some years ago, I had a temp job grading standardized tests. (Don’t temp. It sucks your soul out through your ears.) Somehow I got shuffled into the group that was grading the tests administered to the special ed kids.
It was dreadful. The moderately disabled kids were bad enough, but the severely disabled kids, with profound CP, autism, etc were just heartbreaking. The teachers started with the tests administered to the mainstream kids as a baseline, and then on a case by case basis, scaled the test to the level the child could conceivably achieve, so things like “Recognizes this many sight words” became “responds to his name by turning his head” . . . and even then they sometimes failed it.
I was “grading” these and thinking “My god, this is horrific, both these kids and these teachers have so many better things to do than jump through these ludicrous hoops.” That was the moment I completely ceased to give any fucks whatsoever about Bush or his administration or NCLB.
FUCKING STANDARDIZED TESTING AND DISABILITIES. Did I ever rant about how my brother had to take standardized tests even IN THE SECOND GRADE when he was still in motor-skills therapy and his handwriting was illegible, while I ‘couldn’t possibly be autistic’ because of my excellent standardized test scores?
clearly the captain awkward letter writer needs to marry that guy and raise five children so he can finish his fucking thesis
It takes a village to write a thesis?
Maybe relevant to the discussion a little bit ago about raising boys: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/education/edlif…
Oh god, I read this yesterday and that opening paragraph made me feel ill. I have a tiny son, who I’m hoping will not grow into an entitled asshole, and not shouting the capacity to feel his own feelings out of him is high on my list of parenting strategies. Go ahead and cry! Let’s all cry! It’s crying o’clock, my dude!
“It’s crying o’clock, my dude!” would be the perfect title for a college orientation-for-dudes workshop.
My brother cries loads, if that helps!
Thanks for this!
Oh wow, this made me incredibly sad.
I like this piece a lot! I’m also really happy at the idea of teenage MRA’s going to college and majoring in Men’s Studies and not having a clue what its actually about.
Its really hard to watch people socialising their boys like this; so much of it is unconscious and fathers do it without realising. My nephew stopped crying properly at about 2 and now just does a horrible whimper-pant thing because he was shouted at to stop crying by his dad, who is just perpetrating behaviour that his father did to him without even realising it (I’m trying to get him to go to counselling, but he and his partner are very against the idea for some reason, I can see that having a son is bringing up loads of stuff for him around his father and being a man, but it all just comes out as aggression towards his son and he can’t see what’s happening and an innocent child suffers for it).
And it really worries me because depression and other issues run in our family, and if they don’t address this my nephew is going to grow up to have a really hard time and will feel like he can’t reach out or tell anyone because he’s supposed to be a man. What bullshit.
That’s depressing.
OTOH, now I feel like it was good parenting when my 20 year old son & I had an argument while his girlfriend was visiting and he & I both ended up crying? And then we went out to dinner and shared queso?
All sorrows are better with queso
That is good parenting.
I mean, any parenting that involves queso is likely to be good parenting. It’s a delicious crutch.
Ugh, I think I’ve seen the video mentioned in the first paragraph and it made me so sad. Shots hurt! Just let the kid cry!
I was at a friend’s party where she had two rambunctious dogs out in the yard, and another gal attending the party brought a couple of children. We took the older boy outside to play with the dogs and one of them knocked him over pretty hard. He was overwhelmed and scared and started crying. Apparently the boy’s father is from a culture where stoic masculinity is extra-prized, as the boy’s mother was reminding him not to cry because “you know how your father feels about it” or whatever and it broke my heart. I so wish I could have jumped in.
Not that I want to be too self-congratulatory, but this morning I was so proud of my two-year-old son for telling us he was sad, and I was proud of my husband and myself for letting him feel comfortable telling us that.
We’ve made emotional intelligence our priority in raising him–both my husband and I were “smart kids,” so we figure that the academic intellect will mostly happen on its own. We both really struggled with our emotions, though, so that’s why we want our son to have better strategies for coping with the world than we did.
I’ll often ask him how he’s feeling, and his answer is “Happy!” 90% of the time. I’m glad for that, but I’m very grateful that he’s able to express emotions other than happiness because it also reassures me that his “Happy!” answer isn’t forced–he’s allowed to express other emotions, too. (Last night, he said he was scared of bad dreams. It’s also important to express fear! I’m so proud of him! It almost feels wrong to be celebrating when he’s having bad-feeling emotions, but I’m just so glad that he can feel them and express them!)
That is AWESOME! I love your approach to this, and the frequent-yet-lighthearted check-ins are such a good idea.
I started responding to comments on that article, SOMEONE PLEASE SAVE ME
(Also, there’s a guy who thinks that jokes about “male tears” literally mean that women are mocking men for crying).
Today is a Shitty Day because I forgot my wallet, my water bottle burst all over my bag, no one can get ahold of my dad so of course everyone is hounding me, and the oldest and sweetest dog I know is very sick. He’s 17 and he’s having seizures and I’m just not feeling today, not at all.
Also, Florida public school vet here! My mother used to work at a charter school for students with disabilities, some of whom were profoundly intellectually disabled, and I remember being stunned at how many of the kids were still required to take the tests. It makes no sense, and the FSA is a total load of crap regularly. I think last (academic) year they didn’t have it graded until late summer? I’m just happy that I did reasonably well on its precursor, the FCAT, and that was a mess as well.
Virtual high fives! Hope your day gets better. One time I had a bottle of Cholula break in my bag and it did not get on anything, proving that miracles can happen.
Jeez, that IS a Shitty Day. I hope it turns around, or at least doesn’t continue on its course.
Yep. Today is today. They were supposed to finish up/make big progress on a reno that’s happening in my house and instead we hit a huge (expensive) snag (WHICH I HAD BEEN TRYING TO SUGGEST MIGHT BE AN ISSUE SINCE THE START OF THE PROJECT). I haven’t been able to get any work done because I’m stressed and anxious about it, as are my cats (I mean, probably more from having strange people in the house, but I choose to believe that they’re worried about the construction); and whoever bought the parcel of land next to our house sent a team to cut down a MASSIVE maple that lives there, so all I can do now is stare in mixed awe and horror at the giant pieces of tree just barely missing my garage every minute or two. Plus, the sound of chainsaws really does not help with already-existing anxiety!! D-:
sympathies and fellow-feeling, in short
Days like that are the worst. Hope it’s improved or at least stabilized by now.
Nicole beware! Cornell was perfectly lovely (that is, temps were getting above 40 degrees) at the end of March but this week everyone came back from Spring Break to find campus had been transformed into Narnia.
IT IS THE MOST DEPRESSING THING OF ALL TIME
It is the most Ithaca thing of all time, actually
(spent 6 years there. Late late snow was a tradition)
but…but I got to ski one last time yesterday! And it was lovely!
Nicole, I am very excited to meet you tomorrow!
greek peak?! Dang, that’s what I shld have done yesterday.
no, just cross-country on the golf course. I think Greek Peak skiing is closed for the season (sadly, but understandably).
Boston too. Happy April!
Toronto here, chiming in!
Oof, I’m so glad it’s not just us in Boston. All my friends in DC and south were happy about their 70-degree weather yesterday, while we were getting 6 inches of unwanted snow.
Last year I celebrated my birthday in Ithaca and it snowed. In mid-April.
Looks like it won’t be too bad on Thursday… if you don’t mind rain…
Oh, that looks a lot like Northern Michigan. We’re supposed to get another 4-8″ overnight!
Hi other ithaca toasties!! We should have a strong showing tomorrow because I feel like Ithaca is sort of a toastie haven. after many recommendations i also just bought the first elena ferrante book, so this is shaping up to be a very great week indeed!
April is indeed the cruelest month in upstate NY.
I want it. Send it to me. We just got a bunch of gross rain.
I remember growing up that it snowed on Mother’s Day a couple of times. Upstate: Eternal winter wonderland.
It has snowed on Mother’s Day for the last two years where I am, and that doesn’t look unlikely for this year.
Oh this is interesting. On the conservative origins of the ‘natural childbirth’ movement, and how it can make women’s lives unnecessarily hard: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/20…
Interesting that though the movement was spearheaded by men, some of its greatest defenders and shamers of mothers who don’t ‘comply’ are women – the article refers to some influential midwives and doulas. It’s comparable to how some of the leading voices in the current anti-choice movement are also women.
Also, it’s rather delicious that the author of the 1933 book Natural Childbirth, who “wanted wealthy white women to have more children”, was named Grantly Dick-Read.
I read that and I thought her points about the history of the natural childbirth movement were great.
Then she starts talking about the state of obstetrics TODAY and I had to nope out.
YES! I’ve read some Skeptical OB stuff in the past, and it seems like a lot of her arguments about problems with the natural childbirth movement are great. BUT she won’t acknowledge the real problems with the medical system that scare people and make them want an alternative, to the point where she kind of loses credibility, to me.
That is a major problem with Skeptical OB. There are structural reasons why people embrace the “natural childbirth” thing and obgyn has work to do to help defeat the reasons that are their fault.
Good point! I didn’t know that about her background. People within the medical world are often blind to how obtuse it can seem to patients.
it’s that there are many ways to raise children. To do it well, you only need to be sure of one thing: that the child is loved and the child knows it.
I think this is the main thing, it doesn’t matter what methods or belief system you buy into, be there for your child and let them know they’re loved and they will probably turn out fine.
We have certainly come a long way, but I think there’s still some work to be done on women being empowered and making their own decisions in childbirth in medical settings; I imagine it varies, but from what I’ve read and the birth stories I’ve been told, doctors often pay lip services to the woman’s wishes before the birth, but as soon as something goes outside the range of ‘normal’ (often based on characteristics set in the 19th/20th century) the doctors take over and any thought of the woman’s feelings or opinions are gone in the name of ‘safety’. (I’m not saying that doctors shouldn’t save the lives of women and babies anyway they can, its just that they often default to a very patriarchal paternalistic attitude when doing it.)
I’m an allopathic physician and I believe in what I do, but when it comes to childbirth I agree with you. It’s like you have to choose either to deliver your own baby at home with a primal scream or to go to the hospital and relinquish all your control.
So so true. The idea of ‘escalating interventions’ that natural birth advocates talk about terrify me, like you can’t get any pain relief without ending up strapped to the table for an unnecessary C-section. I have a lot of body horror around pregnancy and birth, which is mostly just my own issues, but it really seems to me like a lot of natural childbirth conversations say they’re empowering women, when they’re really just making them scared of different things.
Yup! In our natural childbirth class, the midwives warned that if we ended up having a c-section, we would and up tied to the table and unable to hold our babies. And it was like, “Obviously, none of us are signing up for that, since we’re in the natural childbirth class, so way to scare us about a possibly necessary medical procedure.”
When I ended up having a c-section after 80 hours of labour, you can bet your damn ass that I was pissed at the midwives for not recommending any pain relief in the first 78 hours.
I am so so sorry that a midwife said that to you. That is really crappy.
I’m terrified of a c-section, not because of being tied to a bed or anything, just that its major surgery where they cut into your abdomen and then you can’t sit up for 6 weeks. I’ve pulled ab muscles before and it was hellish, I cannot imagine being in even more pain and trying to care for a new baby.
Not that I’ve been through childbirth classes, but I feel like there’s only two narratives around c-section; either its completely painless and convenient and everyone should have them, or its abusive torture that will ruin your bond with your child. Personally, I’d like something in the middle? Like I’ll do everything I can to avoid a c-section, but if it becomes really necessary, its probably for the best so why don’t you tell me what exactly it involves and how healing/aftercare works and reassure me that I’m not going to be disabled afterwards (That last one is just a fun fantasy my anxiety likes to throw out there. I’m not even pregnant, but I worry about having a c-section.)
I had a c-section and found that I was able to sit up by myself easily within a week. I was able to sit up by myself not easily the entire time. I am sure experiences vary, but it wasn’t really a thing for me.
The childbirth class I took treated c-section exactly like the middle ground you described. The hardest thing for me, emotionally, post c-section was waiting for the trauma and emotional deprivation I had been promised by the wider culture to arrive. Like “am I a bad mother or somehow disengaged from my baby if I really don’t care that I had a c-section? Would I be a better parent if I was sad that I didn’t give birth vaginally?” That messed me up more than anything the nurses or doctors said or did. By miles.
It is somewhere in the middle! It’s not completely painless and convenient, but neither is it abusive torture (even with complications). And the idea that you can’t sit up for 6 weeks is ridiculous. They got me out of bed the day after my C-section, and while I wasn’t running marathons or doing pilates right away, the healing process was steady.
I had mine around noon and they had me get out of bed at like 8 or 9 that night. I was a little freaked out at the prospect, but it turned out to be really helpful and not that painful (I was still on some p. awesome drugs).
I think I started doing very gentle yoga about three weeks later? The teacher I had been studying with for years had a c-section, too, so she wrote up a big plan for me with healing in mind.
Yeah, YMMV, but I went for a big walk 11 days after my section, and was able to sit up and move around, albeit not without discomfort, pretty much right away. Ironically, the most painful thing was laughing, which made our re-watch of Brooklyn 99 a bittersweet experience.
I had not really considered the psychological side until Longest Shortest Time did an episode called “a man gets a c-section” which made me realize there’s a lot of small things about the procedure that can make it scarier in the actual moment- and really made me wish every birthing class did the c-section simulation they talked about, because it seemed like that would be really, really helpful.
This is exactly what my Natural Childbirth Trust antenatal class was like, so it does happen! It was obviously focuses towards lower intervention and understanding how safe places and active labour and so on can promote the hormonal changes that labour requires, but equally she was realistic about the fact that we might end up needing interventions so we all needed to understand the difference between a spinal and an epidural, just in case, and what would happen during a planned and an emergency caesarean and who would be there.
In the end, one of our group of eight had a planned c-section cos her baby was breech, and two had other interventions. I had to have an induction, which hurt like hell and massively restricted my movement, so I gave up on natural childbirth and had an epidural, which was just as well because I ended up consented for and emergency c-section, although forceps delivery worked so I didn’t need the c. Anyway, it was all very much not what I’d planned, but I understood everything that was going on and felt empowered to make decisions so good work NCT.
Also, I was terrified of a c-section but none of the women o know who had one were more disabled afterwards than I was after a forceps delivery and episiotomy, so I definitely feel less worried about that if I have a second child.
Yeah, I got some bullshit in my labor breathing class about how epidurals could interfere with bonding and breastfeeding. You know what? Both of my epidurals were DELIGHTFUL and I was able to nurse and love my children just fine. Medical innovation is amazing.
Thank you for saying that. It turns out that my kid wanted out so bad that by the time I got my epidural I probably could have just pushed her on out. . . but my post-epidural delivery was AWESOME. Me, my husband, my OB/GYN, a wonderful nurse, all chatting about dogs, then a little pushing, I was fully engaged in the process but no longer out of my mind from the back labor. . . it was pretty great.
ETA: I think my point was that I had been conditioned by my labor breathing class to treat the epidural as the very last resort only taken by those women not “tough enough” for no-drugs delivery. . . but I got an awesome delivery and an awesome kid out of it.
What does ‘allopathic’ mean here? Thx
Allopathic=just the regular kind. Western medicine and all that.
Do you read the science based medicine blog? I really like it, but lately all my online life has been toast-centric. I always start there for health info.
Hi, historian of feminism here! While she’s totally right about Grantley Dick-Read and the natural childbirth movement in the 50s, she tells a very self-serving version of what happened after that. The idea that the medical establishment was just like “Oh hey, good idea, y’all,” when feminists in the Women’s Health Movement brought critiques of their practices and attitudes is hilarious. It took a ton of fighting, both by activists outside the medical profession and by women physicians inside it, to get the changes she describes. Moreover, she acts like women had complete control over their births by the early 1980s, which is similarly hogwash. Many women today still get condescended to and disregarded during birth.
That said, I’m totally on board with critiques of the language and ideology of “natural” childbirth, since there’s a lot of “noble savage” and gender essentialism wrapped up in it.
It’s complicated, is what I’m saying.
Did you ever read Linda Gordon’s article in The Nation in which she says that Our Bodies, Ourselves is “the American left’s most valuable written contribution to the world”???
I mean, there’s a heap of problems with that book, and the problems (and the severity of the problems) change with each edition, but still. Still. I gotta go with Linda Gordon on this one!
Yes!!! Many years ago, when I was but a wee bright-eyed betsaroo, I wrote my senior honors thesis on Our Bodies, Ourselves. I spent a lot of time reading the BWHBC’s then-unsorted papers at the Schlesinger Library. They had doodles in their meeting minutes! I also got to interview two of the founders (in one of their kitchens!). It was a glorious time.
Yeah I thought she seemed to gloss over the whole ‘and then by the 80s everything was dandy!’ part. It wouldn’t take away from the article to point out the good work many natural birth advocates did, even if their motives weren’t always the best.
And they were a more diverse bunch than she suggests – though some were of the “women’s primary function is motherhood” ilk, many were passionate feminists whose motives were badass: democratizing knowledge of the body, empowering women as patients, diversifying medical practitioners, etc.
GRANTLY DICK-READ omg
i am here for every comment that just repeats this glorious(ly appropriate) name
Man my wife actually makes a lot more money than I do, so if we have a second kid then it’s my salary that isn’t going to cover childcare and I am probably going to have to stay home. I am kind of looking forward to this? Kids are exhausting, but sometimes they take a nap and when they do that I can take a nap and that is infinitely percent more naps than I can take at work.
Napping because you’ve been driven to it by your kids’ mania and drop off in sheer exhaustion is way different and not nearly as refreshing as “bored now, guess I’ll nap” naps.
Just for the record.
I know but actually I think I like it better? Napping when I’m bored just makes me tired for the rest of the day, but napping when I’m actually tired rejuvenates me.
My wife is a SAHM and I think the thing that would most drive me crazy about her job is how…. You can’t leave your job. At no point so you get to say “I’m going home, see you guys next week” or whatever. Gah!
well one thing that I don’t have a problem with is just asking my parents or her parents or our friends or someone to take the kids for a day when I need a day off. She doesn’t like it because she feels like she’s imposing, but since I don’t care about the feelings or needs of others, it’s very easy for me.
This is a definite advantage, and I salute you for taking it.
I managed to overcome a lot of social conditioning to not impose on others once I had kids. And that’s how I got my parents to agree to take them this weekend so I could go to comic con guilt-free. I’m only taking Mr Ipo for one of four days. Three days of me and glorious glorious nerdery.
Haha, you think that if you have two they will nap together?
We have one child at the moment and do pretty well, sleepwise, but I am prepared for all that to go to pot when we have two small ginger people with totally different sleep cycles to account for.
well, but one of them is going to be old enough soon that I can just leave him tied up in the yard during the day
“Listen, your job is verrrrrry important. You just have to sit here in the yard and count everything you see. I’ll be back in two hours for your numbers. Have fun!”
real-world job skills training
omg, dying, may save this for future babysitting or child-rearing adventures.
It’s a nice break from “hey, let’s find out how many push ups *you* can do!” which is one I learned from some friends who come from a family of athletes.
When she was little, maybe about 3, I had this amazing couple of days where I tricked my daughter into playing “the quiet game” with me. The person who stays quiet the longest wins. Got her down for a nap that way several times before she caught on.
I’m looking forward to the nice weather and the *very* shiny penny I can give my first born for every dandelion she bring in… 😀
Can I tell you about this guy I used to be related to? He & a pal whose kid is friends with his kid have the same custody schedule, and the kid (8) recently revealed that on custodial Sundays, the kids play together for hours while the dads nap on the sofas. It’s a play/nap date.
charming & clever, or paternal monsters? you decide!
HOLY SHIT. My husband will love this.
my mom would give me a bucket of water and a paintbrush and have me “paint” our unfinished wood deck. That woman is a genius.
haha mine too!
BEST ANSWER
Try one of those crate-training books
Yeah, I 100% take naps at work under my desk if I’m sleepy. My boss is totally fine with it. Then again, I have an office with a door I can close and lights that turn off if I stop moving, so. I guess I should check my nap privilege?
Backstory: My husband watches a lot of WWE.
So, I watched Wrestlemania on Sunday, and The Rock came out to do his Rock thing, and dude has slimmed DOWN. I guess it’s for the Baywatch movie but still! His arms are tree trunks, but his neck looked so tiny all of a sudden! WHO IS NOT FEEDING THE ROCK ENOUGH COD?!
Shaq was also a guest star and had a little showdown against The Big Show, who is a MASSIVE dude. I’m pretty sure Shaq a little height on him.
No, I’m ok, just doing my usual choking-on-my-own-saliva-trying-not-to-laugh-every-time-someone-mentions-The-Rock’s-cod-habit thing.
MORE COD FOR THE ROCK. WE NEED A KICKSTARTER OR A GOFUNDME TO ENSURE HE’S GETTING ENOUGH FOOD.
COD FOR THE COD GOD.
FISHBONES FOR THE BONE THRONE.
[totally not snickering at BONE THRONE]
Psssht, I’m snickering and I am OWNING UP TO IT.
I hate to burst your bubble, but the Rock stopped eating cod because he couldn’t stand the taste. I find this both hilarious and sad at the same time, but he is living his best life and not putting up with untasty food.
But surely the bottom is going to fall out of the Cod market now? WHO IS GOING TO BUY ALL THE SURPLUS COD!!
I’m still convinced “cod” is code for “steroids,” and his taste for them varies according to the needs of his next project.
I hope the “cod” look like little fish candies.
the title for that link!! “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson admits he ‘hates’ cod after eating 800 pounds of it in a year”
(eats 790 pounds of cod) I just need a LITTLE more to decide if I like it or not…
all I know about Wrestlemania is that Lin-Manuel Miranda was there with a banner about an inside joke from a podcast. https://twitter.com/taylordson/status/71679362923…
I know absolutely nothing about Hamilton except that it’s a Thing, but I definitely saw this sign, and thought nothing of it. Fans hold up the most bizarre signs or photos, including giant corgi heads, so anything goes!
Ohhh I love love love the CGI retouching/replacement piece. I think if I were an actor, I’d be really offended and grossed out by the whole thing (they’re retouching facial expressions and timing!) but as a techie, I think it’s awesome– retouching without entering uncanny valley, that is. (It seems like a lot of directors don’t know where that line is.) There’s a lot of grossness in the article, like implying that no one would ever want to see an “old” woman on screen, but there’s some positivity, too. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need our stories to be told by physically “flawless” specimens, but in the meantime, it would be cool if we could create those images digitally rather than through crash dieting, steroids, surgical procedures, etc. Actors can be allowed to grow soft and old like the rest of us without sacrificing their careers.
tbh from the technical end I just started thinking what a nightmare working for the ‘eh we’ll just fix everything in post’ director would be
So there’s an opinion going around that directors don’t plan their shots or visuals as much anymore because there’s so many options in post-production and that’s partly why practical effects aren’t as popular anymore.
To do a practical effect you have to almost know the exact shots you want from the beginning, and the props/models/robots are made to work for those shots at those angles and on the day that’s what you shoot. And the newer directors and studios aren’t used to working like that, they want to have options on the day in case they get a cool idea or the actor wants to improvise something, so its easier for them to go in with a rough idea, shoot what they want and more, and then put it all together and add in all the effects in post.
Personally I think its a bit lazy; George Miller had Fury Road story boarded down to exact shots years before shooting started, and it shows because every single shot in that movie has been planned and thought about and you feel it as a viewer (there’s a great video on youtube about how GM used eye-tracking in his shots to make sure the viewer is always looking where they need to be looking so they don’t get confused or lost), and thats the difference, to me, between watching and enjoying Fury Road, and getting a headache from a Micheal Bay movie.
I kinda hope that’s gonna fade away soon since there’s become a really noticeable disparity between the plenty of absolutely gorgeous CGI-heavy movies that also employ careful planning and pride in craftsmanship, and the stuff that’s just ‘throw a few million dollars at the render farm and get this heap out the door’, but yeah we’re definitely in a period of um irrational exuberance over cheap digital effects where a lot of high-budget directors think they’re a magic wand
This would explain why I enjoy the cinematics with practical effects so much – you HAVE to preplan and you can’t just lazy wing it. CGI is far more tolerant of lazy winging (but utterly gorgeous when preplanned too).
Yes, it took me ages to be able to articulate why I like some action movies and not others; I thought it was because of plot, I get bored during action scenes and I like thrillers/political movies that have a lot of deep plot to them. But actually its just that most action movies have boring action in them, its just explosions and people being pretend hit and grunting.
Fury Road has a bare bones plot, but that movie gets me going, I really feel the excitement and the tension, and its because a lot of care was put into planning the shots with the viewer in mind, whereas many other directors think that just blowing stuff up in frame counts as exciting action.
remember in The Running Man where they can’t kill Arnold Schwarzenegger so they have Jesse Venture kill some random guy and then photoshop Arnold’s face onto him?
The Running Man! How true! How prescient!
Ahhh I am so sorry to have to post this here, but I just got my match for Toast Post and have no idea what I should be sending my person?? A letter about me? Snacks? Crafts? Strange things I find in the shop with all the cats in it?
WHO WUT NOW? Toast Post! Toooaaasssttt Pooooossssstttt!!! The magical time! I want a match! Where is my match?!
ETA I have never done it before, but I am slightly excited.
I think the idea is postcards, since they’re easy and cheap to mail but have a lot of personality!
I haven’t gotten my matches yet but it’s fun to know that they’re coming 🙂
I was just thinking about Toast Post and wondering if it was still going ahead!
Yes, not to be demanding, but should I be concerned at all that I don’t have anything in terms of matches yet?
Probably not! PolkaStripes has a lot of toasts to match so i’m guessing it will be a slow roll out.
I was mulling over the same thing.
I generally do postcards or notecards! Whatever I have laying around that’s pretty/interesting! One time I was sent a magnet which was lovely but the vast majority of toast post I’ve received has also been postcards or notecards.
I have a terrible/wonderful habit of buying pretty much any card I think is cute/funny/cool, especially because I used to have more collaging/decoupaging ambitions, so in my recent Massive Decluttering I consolidated probably 150-200 cards and I am so excited to soon have Toasties to send them to!
I’m excited to buy some cool cards, like locally-made artisan stuff that I always see at craft fairs and indie stores but never have any reason to buy! My concern is – what do I write in it?
I’m just going to go stream of consciousness I think. Maybe say a little about me, and how I’m not sure what to write, blerg blerg blerg. I sent out holiday cards this past Christmas that I bought from Society6, which meant they are all blank insides, and some of my cards to FRIENDS went off the rails while I tried to fill up a blank page!
I got my match today! There is an app called Postagram, and it lets you send postcards with images from your phone. I had a funny pic of my dog and a little cartoon I found. I sent it off this morning and said absolutely nothing important. Hopefully it is not the most boring note in the world!
How many are we to send? Just however many strikes our fancy or is there a set number?
Ugh not sure how I missed this. How do I get involved!?
Postcards are standard but surprising random things and letters are wonderful too! Toast post is a wide open world of mailtime fun!
If you’re in the US, anything that weighs 13 ounces or less can be mailed through regular 1st class mail with stamps – no need for shipping boxes.
There are some really clever ideas here: https://www.pinterest.com/imamberlee/13-ounces-or… (Unfortunately, something has happened to this website, so almost all of the links are broken, but the ideas are still there!)
The Florida testing thing is just so appalling. It’s almost like that riddle with the fox, the goose, and the grain: the law dictates the dog handler must accompany the dog at all times. The student’s IEP dictates the dog must accompany the student at all times. The law dictates the IEP must be followed during testing. What do you do? HOW ABOUT the student, the dog, and the dog’s handler all remain in the room together during testing. Ta-da! Solved it. (Other acceptable solutions: ban all mandatory standardized testing.)
I don’t know if the fact that the official dog handler was the mom was causing the officials to be unable to compute or if they would have been weird about any dog handler being in the room with the student, but GOLLY this makes them look pretty bad.
I think it was that the rules state only school officials can be in the room with the child taking the test, and the child’s IEP says the dog must be in the room with him, but the law says the dog must have an adult handler and that’s what threw them over the edge, not really that she was the mother. She even agreed to leave, but had to bring the dog with her, which would go against the IEP, and its just all insane and ridiculous and sounds like someone involved hadn’t read all the rules properly and then doubled down to cover their mistake.
OT: This is a terrible week. and it started on Sunday and I had to work because of course.
Then last night dick student worker (who is a dick), was like “You don’t make as much as co-worker because you don’t have experience” I have more experience than said co-worker and do most of co-worker’s job. I also got blamed for not doing digital preservation on something that ended 2 years before I started working at the school.
The accreditors are coming tomorrow to interview the library and IT staff at the same time in front of our managers, because that’s the way to get honest answers about how the place runs and won’t lead us to bury information at all. Luckily, one of my very blunt co-workers got another job that starts on Monday so he’ll probably say a lot of impolitic things.
and on Thursday, I take many neuropsych tests and I might just take a whole sick day because it’ll take 4-5 hours with a lunch break and I probably won’t get answers until at least 2 weeks later because tests.
At some point, I’d launch myself into the sun, but it seems like there’s a lot of assholes headed out that way and I just don’t want to deal with more of them.
f my life.
You’ve got a lot going on. Hugs if you want ’em.
Thanks. I just really need a new job.
Neuropsych tests are EXHAUSTING. Prepare some serious self-care for testing day.
I’m probably just going to take the whole day off and then go hit people with swords.
Take the whole day for your tests. I took a whole day just for an hour of painful uterine imaging – you can DEFINITELY take a whole day for more than four hours of mind tests.
That is a large crap sandwich. Much sympathy. If you can take the whole day Thursday do it!! You are worth it.
You should try to get corn nuggets at The Nines while you’re in Ithaca. And Hot Truck.
I do not know what a corn nugget is, but I do know that I want to eat it.
I got to admit, you know, I have some special insight into the nature of shitty dudes, but I got to admit that the boyfriend in the Captain Awkward one kind of baffles me. How could you want someone to stay in a relationship with you when you know that they don’t really want it? Like…I mean, I get not wanting a relationship to be over, I get rejecting that idea, but if she is saying, “Dude, I don’t like you actually,” then how does, “well, stay here and pretend to like me until my thesis is finished” make any sense? She would just be pretending to like you. YOU KNOW that she is pretending, you asked her to do it!
Obviously, that guy is an abusive maniac and also the LW should just flat out leave him because he’s not entitled to even the pretense of friendship (though I think it’s pretty interesting how much responsibility for his bad behavior she takes, I think that’s an interesting phenomenon), but what even the hell man.
Ah, those dudes most certainly exist, and are commoner than you’d think. It doesn’t matter to them if the woman is pretending, because they don’t see her as a separate human with her own needs and desires anyway. He doesn’t care if she’s pretending, because he doesn’t care what she thinks or feels, as long as he gets sex, emotional support, housework done etc.
“though I think it’s pretty interesting how much responsibility for his bad behavior she takes, I think that’s an interesting phenomenon”
Interesting, and also very common, because women are socialised to doubt their instincts and make excuses for bad behaviour and smooth over difficulties in all types of relationships. Conditioning is a hard thing to unlearn.
THANK you for this.
YUUUUUUUUP
So he has someone to blame all his problems and shortcomings on (because she isn’t a good enough girlfriend) without having to go through the effort of finding a new girlfriend that actually likes him, because once he’s in a healthy relationship he’ll have to admit that maybe HE might be the problem? possibly? maybe?
Unless he avoids ever being in a healthy relationship by repeating the behaviors that turned this one unhealthy.
Oh that seems likely, I meant more like a relationship where the other person hasn’t repeatedly told him they want to break up. A relationship that both people want to be in! What a concept!
He just doesn’t want to have to start over and look for a whole new girlfriend and groom her to ignore her own wellbeing at all times. That takes work! And dude is, clearly, pretty lazy. And he’s got a lot on his plate with that dang thesis.
Yep, he’s got this one trained up just how he wants her. (Her actual dislike of him notwithstanding.) Takes a lot of work to start all over!
I think you’ve already put more organized thought into it than he ever will
Well, they’re still having sex. I’d imagine a big part of “stay and pretend to like me” is really “stay, continue to provide sex when I demand it and also performatively be supportive, by doing things I can’t be bothered to do like cook and clean, because I’m so busy ‘working’ on my thesis.”
And I know plenty of gross dudes who are more than happy to have sex with women without reference to whether or not the woman actually likes them. Given how much he blames her and how successfully she’s been convinced, I could even see him cheating on her and saying “well, because I know you don’t REALLY love me, I had to have sex with someone else to get the support you’re not providing, so in the end it’s your fault really and if you loved me enough I wouldn’t have had to.”
/end cynical misandry
yeah I guess I also don’t understand why they’re still having sex, either, but to a certain degree that confusion is for LW because…like, don’t have sex with that guy if you don’t want to? I am not trying to assign blame or anything, but definitely if you don’t want to have sex with a person, you shouldn’t have sex with them.
This dude strikes me as very gaslight-y so it makes total sense that the LW would think maybe she doesn’t want to have sex with him but she’s not sure and he definitely wants to have sex with her so he’s probably right and she’s sort of kind of still his girlfriend and it’s the least she can do after she ruined his life so she should want to have sex with him and thinking maybe she doesn’t want to have sex with him is selfish and wrong.
Which is to say things that seem clear and logic seem much less so when you’re being emotionally abused.
or, like, having sex with him is preferable to hearing “can we have sex? how about now?” until she does. I bet she knows exactly how many sex-free days can go by before he’ll make a move and she’ll have to decide between just going with it or arguing about it.
yeah no, i know that, it’s obviously much harder when you are inside the situation
I feel like this comment and your first one are kind of a bit off, and perilously close to, “well, why didn’t she just leave him the first time he hit her?” Like, I get that the logic of someone who is being abused sounds like insane troll logic to someone who is not being abused, but it’s incredibly common. If this sounds inexplicable and bizarre to you, that’s pretty definitely your ignorance of the dynamics of abuse talking?
No, I understand why she didn’t leave him intuitively — at an emotional and personal level I get why it is hard to do that. I guess it’s more accurate to say that I think that it’s true that you’ve got to kind of guard your right to have sex with whoever you want to, and I’m dismayed that a host of prevailing conditions make it so challenging for people to be able to do that in a way that would probably be healthier for them.
I genuinely don’t get how this guy is thinking though, even on an experiential level.
Women. And by “prevailing conditions” you mean patriarchy.
in this particular case, yes, and also, I suspect, generally
Because if you reject him sexually he will get hurt and angry and it will be A Thing that you have to deal with and sometimes it’s easier to just close your eyes and think of England.
(NB that this is not a healthy relationship & the reaction to “I don’t want to have sex with you” should not be pouting and whining and “why not?” that results in having to hold the rejected party’s hand, but it often DOES.)
This. Plus i think this dude’s reaction would be more than “why noooooooooooooot”. I think it would probably result in a rant about how she is ruining his life by not being a compliant sex robot and that she is a terrible person. So yeah, I’d maybe rather have awful sex I didn’t want than deal with that too. She clearly already has a bunch of horrible guilt and every time she says no to sex, more guilt would just get piled on.
Apparently there are some people in the world for which failure is not an option, for varying values of the word “failure.” My one brush with examples of the type was during a summer business program at Dartmouth. You can get into a headspace where the public perception of failure becomes all you care about. Definitely heard stories about people staying in obviously dead relationships because a breakup was a failure.
That place was terrifying and I left halfway through the program so I could drive around New England looking at things and taking pictures.
it sounds to me like you made the right decision
One thing that seems incredibly common among straight men that I will never understand is the desire to have sex with/be in a relationship with women who have no interest in them and have made that explicitly clear. If I realize that a woman isn’t interested in me I am out of there, mostly out of respect for her boundaries but also to avoid making a fool of myself. Why would I want to sleep with someone who isn’t attracted to me?
And yet dudes from sea to sea demand that women justify rejection, that they reconsider because maybe they are wrong about their own feelings, that they have sex with them out of pity and so on.
yeah I guess I know where it comes from, but ugh, still
And make no mistake, many women end up sleeping with dudes in cases like this because the alternative appears shittier (abuse, professional problems, problems in your delicate teenage social circle etc). I once had a classmate essentially stalk me for a semester, even though he knew I was a lesbian, and I remember feeling lucky about the fact that he didn’t have social power over me that might have pushed me to just give him what he wanted because maybe under different circumstances I would have eventually felt like I had no other choice.
I understand the impulse to tell women that they should just say no in cases like this, but like every other violation of women that comes at the hands of men (and yes, I know many queer people behave badly in this regard) I also wonder why no one bothers to lecture boys and men on why it is aggressive and pathetic to pursue people who aren’t interested in them, because you know, other people are human beings with their own needs and desires. This kind of aggression is a learned behaviour.
“This kind of aggression is a learned behaviour.” YES YES YES. Nothing ‘natural’ about it.
Where does it come from? Genuine question.
I guess “rape culture” is the short answer, but I suppose you could also point to that as being a particularly vile manifestation of a complex system of hierarchies that not only foster but thrive on abusive behaviors? Certainly the patriarchal mode is a huge part of fetishizing unwilling sexuality and encouraging men to treat boundaries as the beginnings of negotiations rather than as impermeable.
aaargh some of them actually *like* when a partner is unwilling that is so horrendous. I mean, I already knew that intellectually, but….argh.
I am going to be incredibly charitable and wonder if part of it might come from a desire to improve. If you know why you’re being rejected, you can then, in theory, change the thing that is causing it. E.g. if your dream job won’t hire you because you lack XYZ certification, you can get that certification and try again. So therefore if your dream woman rejects you because of XYZ trait, you can change that and then she’ll want you. Except that attraction and desire rarely work like that (except in movies) and if I give a guy a reason that I rejected him that doesn’t mean I will accept him if that reason no longer applies. But a lot of dudes seem to have a real hard time with “she’s just not into you”
ETA – I also think your comment about men not being taught to see other people has human beings with their own needs and desires is spot-on. I think it’s telling that the analogy I used is of getting a job, because I think there are men who don’t see women as independent human beings with their own agency and desires, but as things to be acquired, and that is a huge part of where this refusal to accept rejection comes from
I think the percentage of people who ask ‘why won’t you reciprocate my feelings/lust’ because they genuinely want to change bad traits is probably pretty low, and even then, we aren’t entitled to have those questions answered, especially with strangers or people we don’t know very well. I would never want to put someone in the position of having to outline all the reasons she wouldn’t want to go on a date etc.
It has always reminded me of when I was a kid and asked my mum why we couldn’t have candy when we went to the supermarket. I wasn’t looking for a logical reason, I was just whining.
Oh, it’s not a question that one is entitled to have answered, and I think most of the time if you do give reasons beyond “I’m not interested” that gives the rejected party an opportunity to try to argue you into dating them. Which again, makes no sense, but you see it all the time in fiction.
It’s also making me think of how when I give talks at kink spaces about asking people to play, we always say “‘No’ is a complete sentence” and that the correct response to that is not to argue or ask why not, but also we always say “if you mean ‘no’, say ‘no'”, because if you say “X isn’t really my thing” or “maybe some other time” you will get asked again by the same person, because women (generally) are conditioned to be “nice” and men are conditioned to be “persistent”. And this is a thing that I feel compelled to tell people who are legal adults, some of whom are older than I am and should know better
I think that the desire to improve is a reasonable (and reasonably charitable) and I’m sure it’s probably true in some cases, but considering how often people in general will say things like, “oh I’m going to get my shit together, I’m going to start going to the gym/giving up coffee/eating vegetables and then my life/job/relationship will be better”, it’s hard not to think that more often the idea that I’m doing it to improve eventually is just a rationalization for why I shouldn’t do something now OR alternately I guess it’s just an instinctive search for a negotiation point.
mmm, vegetables
“And yet dudes from sea to sea demand that women justify rejection, that they reconsider because maybe they are wrong about their own feelings, that they have sex with them out of pity and so on.”
ummm… have you been eavesdropping on the man I’m in the process of divorcing? This has been his script day in, day out since I dropped the news and I REALLY need it to stop.
There seem to be an awful lot of men who don’t mind women pretending to like them. Strip clubs are pretty much predicated on that premise. I (a woman) feel a little awkward with chumminess or flirting from any tipped employee, because I can’t shake the awareness that they are being paid to be pleasant to me, so I can’t relate, but it’s a widespread phenomenon. I wonder if it’s that the dudes have never been expected to differentiate between interior and exterior feelings (they feel angry, they show angry, they feel happy, they show happy) so the idea of pretending to be one thing while actually being another just doesn’t even occur to them.
Hmm, though, one of the major ways that patriarchy hurts men is by allowing them to display only certain emotions and in certain ways. I think a lot of men are actually pretty good at feeling one way (e.g., sad) while acting another way (e.g., stoic or angry). What they’re often less good at is empathy, because it’s not expected of them in the same ways it is for women.
If my husband and I each want to go to dinner at a place the other dislikes, there is no pleasure for me in winning that dispute because my knowing that he doesn’t want to be there poisons the whole experience. He does not feel this way at all.
“My knowing that he doesn’t want to be there poisons the whole experience.” Are you me? Because I relate to that so hard. See, my husband tends to feel the same way as us (that is, if I didn’t want to be there, the experience would be seriously diminished, if not poisoned), but he has a really hard time with the concept of pretending for the sake of politeness. For example, if we have to attend an event that we both dread, I will pretend to be glad to be there, and he just can’t or won’t. Of course, he is, like, cries-at-puppy-chow-commercials in touch with his feelings, so he doesn’t really fit with the stoic male model/stereotype. It’s good for me to remember that there are myriad distinct ways in which gendered expectations can fuck a person up, so thank you.
If my partner and I ever break up, I *know* it will be over choosing a restaurant.
I am definitely not trying to be like one of those guys who’s all “ugh can you believe this typical MALE behavior how gross I am not like THOSE guys” but I also don’t really get the appeal of strip clubs for precisely this same reason — i.e., I am constantly aware of the fact that the women there are only pretending to like me because they want money. (Which, reasonable, it is their job, I’m not trying to disparage that or anything.)
I think maybe part of it is that I already have a profound anxiety that everyone who seems like they like me is actually just pretending, so it’s harder for me to indulge in that kind of fantasy? I don’t know.
That’s exactly why I said an awful lot of men and not just MEN. Because I (happily) know plenty of guys like you. My dad’s theory is that there are simply people who have self-doubt and people who don’t and that you can’t change which group you’re in. His case-in-point is American Idol, for what it’s worth. I’m just saying the no-self-doubt group seems to have a suspiciously high proportion of dudes.
Oh man, that letter. It brought up some stuff.
My guess is that the guy hates himself (who could blame him?) and isn’t equipped to handle love. What he can handle and get some measure of fulfillment from is control and domination. It might be better for him that the LW doesn’t want to stay. This way, he gets the boosts from having his physical wants and needs attended to, plus he can feel like a big man by heaping abuse on the LW and knowing that she’ll stay, even though she doesn’t want to, because he has that much control over her.
I’ve read this whole thread and pretty sure nobody has mentioned: dudes like this enjoy the coercion aspect of it the relationship, and probably even sexually enjoying having sex when she doesn’t want to. Because you’re right, most people want to be in a relationship with + have sex with a person who also wants to have with them. But the other ones are out there too.
Yeah I considered that possibility, too — I guess it didn’t really read that way in the letter, like the guy sounds so self-importantly miserable that it’s hard to imagine him taking any kind of pleasure in coercion? But on the other hand 1) of course that’s how it would seem to the LW if he’s being manipulative about it, and 2) sometimes shit people have shit pleasures that they take, so.
also, people can be unaware of their own sexual preferences out of guilt or shame, and maybe rapists of this variety are no different? Not that it matters for the victim. (I have been in a relationship with a guy like this, so I am speaking from experience– he had a LOT of guilt and shame over sex. Again, not that that mattered to me in the sense that I ought to forgive him or stay with him or whatever. But it was true.)
Wow, that sounds awful. Do you think the guilt and shame came from the fact that the guy knew his preference was for coercive sex, or did the preference stem from the fact that he had guilt and shame about sex?
(No obligation to reply of course – I’m sure having to spend *any* time thinking about that ex isn’t pleasant for you)
I don’t really know. You’re right, it’s hard to think about, but also therapeutic to keep telling the story.
It seems to me, when someone is taught as a child that sex is dirty and shameful, then church teaches you that your impulses MUST be controlled or else, and then add in learning about sex from porn, and whatever other neuroses one might have, it seems inevitable that a powerful instinct like sex is going to squeeze out in secret, needy, and yeah maybe rapey ways. And because a person like this is already feeling so guilty about sex, they can’t face what is happening and what they are doing.
In my situation, because I was the wife, I was responsible for doing whatever sex he wanted, so of course it was my fault if his panic about sex wasn’t being managed. Probably my fault that he cheated, too.
Also of course I was asexual and hadn’t figured it out yet lol
What a strange, sad, perfect storm that all was.
He has a new wife now, sometimes I feel a little twinge of worry for her, and I don’t even know her.
Wow. What a horrible, scary situation. I’m very glad you you got out. I’d worry about the new wife too.
Hear me out, guys. Maybe that letter writer’s boyfriend’s thesis is about gaslighting and their whole relationship has been research!
Method Research – the new craze sweeping academe.
It’s like that terrible movie with Paul Rudd and Rachel Weisz where she uses him as her final “sculpture” project by making him wear nice clothes and be mean to his friends or whatever.
I HATED THAT MOVIE SO MUCH
what? does that movie actually exist? it sounds AMAZING
don’t worry, i know how to use imdb, my question is primarily rhetorical
answering my own rhetorical question for the edification of any other clueless consumers: IT DOES but it does look pretty terrible in like a if-heathers-were-in-no-way-satirical kind of way.
I saw that in play format on Broadway! (I also hated it).
Also, Paul Rudd and Rachel Weisz are both adorably teeny people in person.
IS THE BOYFRIEND DUSTIN HOFFMAN THO
IS THE GIRLFRIEND LAWRENCE OLIVIER
IS IT SAFE
(no, no it is not)
Like Wendy Watson’s boyfriend on Middleman!
mind BLOWN
It’s a social experiment! That should end with fire.
And his thesis conclusion is that she’ll murder him, so he’s failed twice now because she hasn’t done the deed! Set him on fire, LW, it’s the only way out!
I would love to see the IRB report on that study, damn!
My first thought was “that’s never getting past the IRB review board.”
Same.
Can someone please send me some good thoughts. I am having anxiety over all kinds of things happening to my distant family, and the latest is the news that my parents’ cat (the worlds loveliest cat, no joke, I will fight you) has to see a vet because her legs aren’t holding her up and she is falling over a lot. She’s only 10 and the most benign explanation is an ear infection, but of course my brain is spinning over all the other things it could be.
Please send internet hugs or stories of your lovely pets, if you have any to share.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfRe15UUkAAJ6KL.jpg
*hugs* for you! and *hugs* for your family’s cat!
Thank you! Vet says she’s probably fine. I really appreciate your hugs, it was just a very bad anxious day.
Hugs to you and your sweet kitty.
Thank you! All these internet hugs really helped me get through the couple of days of worry. She’s apparently fine and I was worrying for nothing 🙂
Internet hugs! And I’ll keep a good thought for your cat today and hope some ear drops bring her back to full health.
Thank you so much! Your good thought helped – she’s fine and I’m a worrywart.
aw, I’m sorry your cat is not doing well, but she is also like a fluffy cat sausage and that makes her awesome.
I’m sure she’ll be fine.
Thank you – the vet says she is. She is definitely an awesome fluffy cat sausage.
Everything crossed for a simple ear infection under the fluff!
Kitties have lots of weird balance issues because of simple things like their ears, tail, and whiskers. Sending lots of love to your adorable fluffy orange kitty and hoping it’s something benign.
Thank you! You were right – the vet couldn’t find anything wrong. I really appreciate your reassurance when I needed it!
We have a super lovely super smart aussie shepherd border collie cross who just turned 15. We had a scare 2 years ago when she suddenly stopped being able to walk properly and it turned out to be an inner ear thing and after a couple of days it came right and she was back to normal. Since then she has had some small bouts again but now she knows what is happening and there is a lot less distress all round.
Her newest trick is taking herself for a walk up the street to the puppy’s house where she can steal kibble. This seems to keep her happy.
Tl:dr it’s probably an ear infection which will get better and old pets can still have a pretty sweet life and be happy
This happened to one of our pugs when he was 10! Just woke up one morning unable to keep his balance, kept falling over, no distress on his part but just confused about what was going on; it was very scary though with rushing him to the emergency vet and them unable to give a conclusive answer as to what was going on. They gave us drops for his ears though and in a few days he was totally fine again – it’s happened a few times in the following years but he’s just had his 16th birthday (old man!) and is cheerful and happy thankfully 🙂
Thank you for this comment. I was just freaking out because middle-aged cat + being a long way from home + a lot of other important family stuff I’m missing out on/can’t help with. You were absolutely right and she is 100% okay, according to the vet, and her symptoms have gone away. I’m glad your dog is doing well – we’re currently checking out breeds we’d like to adopt some time soon and that sounds like an awesome cross!
The concept of care chains is so fucked up. Someone inevitably gets the short end of the stick and while they suffer most acutely, everyone loses in the end.
State testing is currently messing up my week because I can’t work with 2 of the 3 grades I usually do. Also they had to use my room for extra testing space so I’m working in an extra office/storage room with the few students I can actually see. It’s also different this year because tests are no longer timed, so there’s no way to know when my room will be free. Which is a good thing, since timed tests are extra stressful, but it creates a whole new host of problems since kids who are done can’t do anything else while waiting for their classmates to finish. They just have to sit there. But at least some of my ELL kids are exempt from ELA testing.
Sorry for this little kernel of bitterness in the face of joyful Ithaca appearances, but it’s kind of related news: I bought tickets a couple weeks ago to Not Your Mother’s Feminism at Brooklyn Historical Society tonight based on the fact that they were promoting Mallory as part of the panel. (Maybe other reasons, but mostly because I was secretly hoping for a partial spontaneous recitation of GRRM’s Redwall in that beautiful old building . . . ) Cut to this morning: they update ticket-buyers about a new person joining the panel and I noticed Mallory is no longer listed. Twitter stalking revealed that they *had* invited Mallory but never actually booked travel/made arrangements, which they had to have known by the time I purchased the ticket in late March. I like BHS, their events, their mission, etc., but this felt like a knowing bait-and-switch in a really unpleasant way.
Same. I’m still planning to go — it’s a rare night out for me and I miss discussions about feminism — but it’s a little weird.
Hard same. It turns out I can’t go anyway, just because I’m behind on freelance work, but I was really not pleased when I had to twitter stalk in order to find out Mallory wasn’t going. I probably would’t have been even that grumpy if they had just TOLD us rather than quietly removing her name and slipping it into a “we’re so excited you’re coming!” email.
I am distraught by that Shaq picture because I once shared a revolving door with Charles Barkley and was awed and intimidated by his size, and I’m 5’10. My brain is having a lot of trouble processing this new information. Help.
Hey! The Hairpin is posting again as of yesterday and Sylvia Killingsworth seems incredibly cool. http://thehairpin.com/
yelped with glee! thank you for alerting!
OMG yesssss thank youuuu
It’s aliiiiiive!!!!
I thought this link would be worth a share– it is really interesting critique of Hamilton, race, and public history. I *love* the musical (my boyfriend even proposed after we saw it with, “I am not throwing away my shot… will you marry me”)… and yet! I remember having a lot of thoughts when I realized that, for instance, Hercules Mulligan owned a slave named Cato who did a lot more of the actual spying– it seemed so weird to me to erase Cato from the story in the context of what Miranda seems to be trying to do! Anyway, worth a look! http://tph.ucpress.edu/content/38/1/89.full-text….
I have heard Lin address some of this, there is some evidence that Alexander and Eliza had a slave too, and Eliza’s family were slaveholders. A lot of it is addressed in the Ron Chernow bio that I am reading now. Lin said there wasn’t enough room for everything, there was even a song they wrote that may be released at a future date addressing Jefferson’s relationship (sorry it is a crappy way to describe it, I can’t think of a better word at the moment) with Sally Hemings. The show would have been too long to include absolutely everthing. It is a lot to grapple with. I love Hamilton too, but there is very little in our history’s triumphs that isn’t also problematic. Hamilton came from a country whose main economic engine was rooted in slavery. Reading the biography gives us so much to think about.
Yes, it is totally true that he couldn’t possibly fit all the complexity of the situation into the musical– and I think it is tough to hold him personally responsible for doing so! I do think, though, that the musical’s efforts to “tell the story” of Hamilton wind up doing so in a way that suggests, even if it doesn’t state, that he was basically a proto-modern abolitionist, and it concentrates its criticism for slavery onto Jefferson which (while apt, I mean, he doesn’t get off the hook) doesn’t seem fair. Anyway, as you say– it is so much to think about!
I love the musical dearly, but I’m also a bit put off at how much it ignores the very complicated relationships with various Native American tribes, and the roles some of the main characters had to different tribes. See: George Washington.
I think of the musical is a complicated love letter to the US and NYC from someone who strongly identifies or commiserates with immigrants but I think with that comes the additional and common baggage of taking Native American tribes out of the picture. Of course, this comes from my constantly evolving awareness of how ignorant I am of these histories vis a vis my own ID as 2nd gen USian so I am projecting a fair bit.
ETA: reading the article you linked to, I was also a little put off by the author arguing that Eliza (Phillippa Soo’s) songs and vocal styles were similar to that associated with white women (and the implicaton that of course it would be since she could theoretically pass as white), especially since Helpless is so clearly inspired by Beyonce’s song, Countdown. I’m not very musically inclined but 1) I love Countdown and 2) judging from the social media posts and everything, all three of the leading actresses’ singing styles draw from R&B and hiphop! I imagine that since they’re professionals they can sing in other styles too but there’s a pretty clear Beyonce and Destiny’s Child influences in their songs.
Yes, that is a really good point about Eliza/Destiny’s Child! The whole hierarchy of relative whiteness thing between Asian American and African American actresses seems really tricky to me.
I love the musical too, and I am so interested in the ways in reflects the complexity of race/history/America– but I agree that it does so at the expense of some other stories. I hadn’t even thought about the Native American context, but it is so interesting to consider.
I guess that I understand and agree with the premise of this article, but I don’t agree that the musical doesn’t acknowledge slavery. Laurens is all about abolitionism, and there is the line after the war when Washington says “Not yet.” Do I think that Hamilton could have dove deeper into race relations? Yes. But I also think that works of art can only tackle so many issues and still be accessible to broad audiences. Hmmm
Edit: Definitely made this comment before reading the entire article. I still stand by my final point though!
Totally off topic, but I need to complain for a second – I went for a lovely bike on Saturday, wearing some short pants and hit something (wasp? stinging nettle?) with my ankle and it is RED and SWOLLEN and HURTS and nothing is helping.
oh no! Feel better! maybe take some antihistamines, if you haven’t already?
Hard to imagine it was stinging nettle, because given your brief contact (you weren’t crushing them with your bare hands to make seven shirts for your seven brothers who have been turned into swans, to turn them back by the light of the full moon), it doesn’t seem like a stinging nettle burn would last this long. Probably an insect?
That’s what I thought too! My mum regularly harvests nettles, and she diagnosed me, though, and you gotta listen to your mum?
especially a mum who regularly harvests nettles!
(i wish i had my own wild nettle patch — nettle tea!)
Weirdly I’ve had a lot of luck with putting Purell or Purell-like-substances on my various contact dermatitis welts. It doesn’t help with minor cd rashes, but when it hits that itchy-then-painful-when-you-touch-it stage there’s something in the alcohol gel and the rest of it that seems to help.
HUH. That’s what everyone in my office said. I actually slapped an Aztec Secret Beauty Clay mask on it and it helped immensely.
Do any of them have any theories why? Because I am utterly clueless.
I think what bothers me about the FX article is how no one wants to give specifics on which movies/actors/studios have used those techniques. Makes it seem sketchy and deceptive.
(Although their techniques are not nearly as flawless as they like to think. There have been plenty of times when I thought, “Those tears are digital.”)
Re: Captain Awkward
Logically I know (I really, really do, and I’ve done it myself) that people in these relationships rationalize the things that their partners/family members/friends do, but I read these letters my emotional reaction is just like OMG OMG READ WHAT YOU HAVE JUST WRITTEN RUN NOW
I actually got really good at doing this to myself. I was on a board for ages where we’d kind of agony-aunt people, and I was pretty good at figuring out the bare essentials of a story and getting past all the excuses and “why in my particular case it’s different” and so on. I did actually get to the stage where I could compose letters to myself in my head and I’d be trying really hard to make a case for why I wanted to pursue Bad Course of Action and agony-aunt me would side-eye me and just not let me.
That’s my response to a lot of CA letters. I do love how frequently she gets linked over here. I like two neat worlds colliding.
The thing is, that the usual response to that is “no, I know, it sounds bad the way I’ve told it, but I’m explaining it wrong. The way Partner explains it makes way more sense.”
this comment is so accurate it made me close my eyes in pain and my heart hurt
My old roommate was dating a guy who was seriously bad news. Fortunately, his arrest (for a variety of things, including non-payment of child support) led to their breakup, and then she was able to hear me when I pointed out how often she’d said “I was really upset, but [boy] explained why I was being irrational.” Then I introduced her to Gaslight, and the rest is history.
I was thinking this morning that a feminist Big Sister organisation would be an amazing asset. I know when I was younger I would have benefited SO much from a wise older woman mentor, one who wasn’t in a position of authority over me, who could show me that all the crises I assumed were the End of the World were actually solvable and fine, and who could teach the all-important skill of recognising abusive traits in relationships. At a minimum, the traits of abusive relationships should be mandatory on sex and relationship curriculums in schools. So many people, often girls and women, fall into abusive relationships because they’ve been socialised to by patriarchy (some level of abuse and domination of women is the MO of patriarchy) and may need to be expressly *taught* how to avoid them.
My fantasy Big Sister wouldn’t just be required by girls and women of course. Basically I feel like a lot of young people could really do with life mentors – not parents or other figures of semi-authority, but people who can help and advise, but also be friends on an equal level.
My neighbors have a 9-year old daughter, and I try to be that for her.
Great idea. I wish high schools taught people how to get a protection order, how to recognize abuse, and what to do in an emergency like that.
I have been the person in need of mentorship, and I try to be an unobtrusive mentor/Big Sister to my younger friends and castmatrs when possible.
***be still my heart** Ithaca Toastie Meetup is a phrase I thought I would only ever hear in my dreams! I’ll be working (at a yoga studio, because #ithaca) until 7:30 but I will definitely drop by after! Any other Ithaca Toasties planning to come? Would LOVE to meet any/all!
I’ll be there! After my kid goes to bed!
I will be there!
This is relevant to Sasuke/Ninja Warrior-loving Toasties’ interests…
http://www.ramblingrican.com/2016/03/finding-mido…
So excited!!
– There are Doc Martens in toddler sizes? I had no idea.
– I found it striking that the article on digital retouching led with something from Brannon Braga, because he was one of the people who is generally held responsible for the collapse of the Star Trek TV franchise. He wasn’t on Voyager when it began, but his description of the digital replacement of a recast actor reminded me a bit of how Captain Janeway was recast (from Genevieve Bujold to Kate Mulgrew) after the pilot had started filming… and then the first few days of filming were scrapped again because someone in UPN didn’t like Janeway’s hairstyle.
– Holy crap, even if 90% of the uses of DTMFA are wrong, there has never been a better reason to use it than that grad school leech. I especially wish that I could send the last paragraph of CA’s response to myself about fifteen years ago.
– So everyone between 18 and 34 knows everything about modern gadgets? A surprising amount of my career says otherwise.
Can you imagine buying $100 boots for a TODDLER.
Like, if money were not an issue, sure, treat your baby to some Bubblegum boots, they would be the most precious thing in the entire world, but wow.
I will definitely be at any pre or post talk meetup in Ithaca Thrusday, alas I’m getting in late Wednesday night and will be immediately going to bed.
And this Twitter thread (I’m linking to the second tweet in it) is relevant w/r/t Dr. Strange…
https://twitter.com/ubeempress/status/71678262033…
totally OT again. about my new phone again.
someone please explain Instagram to me *sigh*
is The Toast there? are there Toasties there? is #thetoast for my beloved Toast???
if i remember correctly, there are many Toast Pets with their own pages (are they called pages?). please share all of those with me!
Hi! You can follow me @crescentmelissa
I have #Toastie in my bio, not sure if all the other Toastatrons have some notation on theirs. Always looking for cool peeps to follow on IG.
You need this in your life https://www.instagram.com/wolfgang2242/
If you like funny looking kitties you can follow my crew!
https://www.instagram.com/theconeycats/
Fellow Toasties,
May I have the honor of introducing to you the newest furry member of the Toast Club, Ragnar:
(He’s a very good boy! A little rambunctious but he’s two, so we’ll work to be on our best behavior.) He also doesn’t stay still long enough to photograph well.
He is lovely!
Nice job coordinating your pup with your couch. He’s cute!
aaaa that is a good dog
Hi Ragnar! You have excellent ears, good job sir
The half-staff ears are the cutest ears. This is objectively true. Like the ears were GOING to stand up straight but getting all the way straight is, like, really really hard so they just stopped in the middle of it.
He is sooooo glorious!
Oh what a cutie-pup! What a Good Boy!
He is so handsome! His markings look a little like a Plott… do you know what breed(s) he is?
Right on! The shelter lady advertised him as a “Plott Hound mix,” but that’s just a guess. We suspect there’s some pit bull in him from his build, but his brindle coat is very pretty.
This dog is an excellent dog.
Forgive me for using the Link Roundup as an open thread, but would someone please reassure me that the absolute worst conceivable thing that will happen when I send this email I’m stressing about is “someone you don’t work with very often will think you are somewhat disorganized, which is more or less accurate anyway”? Rationally I know this to be true but, y’know. Brains.
Trying to get better organized is not a bad thing in my book! As long as you are polite about it, I’m sure it will be fine.
Oh, that article about Filipina domestic workers…
yep, that was the Most Uncomfortable Conversation at Christmas this year- my Rich(er) Aunt and Uncle had a live-in nanny for my baby cousin who was a Filipina woman. I THINK she must have been working here legally- at least eventually- because she definitely traveled back and forth to the Philippines while she was also working for them, but honestly I have no idea. Anyways my aunt also hired Filipina workers to provide end-of-life care for her father.
& I’m not really criticizing her for it, because in both cases it’s a complicated situation and I don’t think “just don’t hire x group” is an entirely practical solution- but her reasoning was getting into some pretty hairy stereotyping (in the, “I recommend workers from the Philippines because they’re so much more CARING and NURTURING and DEDICATED than any others”) and I really had to leave the room before engaging with any of that. (like, that’s what you pay them for! that reputation is how they keep finding work! please tell me you weren’t taking advantage of them even if they were undocumented! jfc!)
Anyways I was really glad to read that article yesterday, because it confirmed a LOT of my suspicions about the general situation that my aunt had very breezily glossed over. && I appreciated the focus on how these women have often left their own families and children and are pretty much trapped in the States, and the impact that has.
The “caring, nurturing” stereotype as rationale is so strange to me when one could just use the rationale that they often are fluent speakers of English.
As a white North American person raised by three different wonderful women from the Philippines, I go into this article with baited breath and lots of feelings.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to successfully log in to Intense Debate on Chrome on iOS? It fails for me every time.
I know it is very late, but I encountered this National Post story and needed to share my frustration at it: http://news.nationalpost.com/health/patient-compl…
The story is mostly about a woman who was deeply frightened by her nurse’s tattoo, and had nightmares for two weeks, and now believes that there should be restrictions on visible tattoos for nurses. She is absolutely certain that the entire problem is that some tattoos can be too frightening for sick people. This is backed up by studies showing that some people disapprove of tattoos, and also patients in Italy think doctors shouldn’t have long hair.
Then, about 85% of the way through the article, it describes the medical treatment she was receiving when the tattoo frightened her: “Molloy was fitted with a full-face, bilevel positive airway pressure mask, then given the sedative Ketamine.”
Yup, definitely the tattoo itself was the entire problem here, certainly nothing else described there could have been a contributing factor at all.
I have the strongest sense of deja vu reading this.
Insert silly question here: how do I post photos? Do i need a photo hosting service and then link or am i missing something really obvious? (I have puppy photos and old dog photos!)
You’re going to my alma mater without me!!! Even when it’s covered in snow in April, Ithaca’s the best. Second going to the Nines, and also the Dairy Bar.
Ahhh this thread is bringing up all kinds of feelings from my first relationship ahhh ahhh