Ithaca: So Many Gorges
Why does “not required” apparently mean “but you’ll be demoted or fired”?
My company has just announced an overnight, all expenses paid corporate strategy meeting. The meeting begins Thursday at 7 a.m. and ends Friday at 5 p.m. Our regular hours are Monday-Friday 8-5.
I have a very small child, under 5 months, and I do not have child care after 6 p.m., nor do I feel comfortable leaving my child overnight.
I was told it is not required but strongly suggested that I go and stay overnight. If I do not, I will be replaced as the accounting manager, and either be demoted or fired. I am not allowed to bring my child to the meeting, and I would have to pay the difference to have my own room overnight with my child. (Again, no child care). Can my company do this? What options do I have?
If you’ve got a strong stomach (IT ME) settle in with Jezebel’s “What’s the Grossest Thing Your Body Has Ever Done?” roundup. Then tell me yours.
Husband of The Toast Matt Lubchansky contributes brilliance to The New Hairpin: When Bad Hats Happen To Good Actors
We haven’t really been covering the Panama Papers in link roundup because it’s pretty far out of our wheelhouse, but Fusion has a fantastic interactive introduction.
I am reading a deliciously trashy biography of Grace Kelly while I travel, and that woman was DTF and I am HERE FOR IT, get yours, Grace, your life will be short and troubled, so if you get the chance to hop on Gary Cooper’s dick, fuckin’ DO IT. #noregrets #exceptbingcrosbybchewasanabusivedad
How diving became soccer’s greatest crime:
Most of my American friends don’t understand why certain players fall at the slightest touch. The dive is something beyond their grasp. It involves two grave infringements of American morality in sport: a willingness to cheat, and the demonstration – perhaps the celebration – of physical weakness and self-pity. (The flop, basketball’s closest equivalent, is less dramatic and tends to be associated with foreign players.)
To be strong and athletic, full of skill, and then to break down once you reach the penalty area seems absurd. In many ways it is. But all sports have their own peculiar absurdities, and what determines a foul always carries a certain ambiguity. In tennis, there is the foot fault – a simple and literal crossing of the line. In American football, there is pass interference, committed when a defensive player holds or pushes a receiver, or deliberately obstructs his vision of the ball while not looking for the ball himself. Pass interference is full of ambiguity and therefore open to a referee’s interpretation. Even mighty American wide receivers, in the attempt to win the referee’s favour, have been known to exaggerate their falls.
The rise of Aboriginal hip-hop in Australia:
“We have an oral history, so telling stories, you know, is natural, it is part of our genetics,” said Adam Briggs, a Yorta Yorta man from the Victorian town of Shepparton, who is an accomplished rapper, actor and comedy writer.
Even at the age of 29, Briggs, his stage name, has the air of a hip hop veteran. When he speaks, people listen, and for him it is a golden opportunity to vent age-old grievances.
“The racism in Australia is just prevalent and it hasn’t been dealt with,” he told the BBC in the Waterloo district of Sydney. “The conflict of white and black Australia is every day. The kind of struggles and the conflicts exist in every song. I’ve got a great platform to use and I can’t afford to waste it.”
obviously you can care about many things at once, but probably you can care about better things than this:
Is it political correctness, or a shrewd way to clean the scales off an 82-year-old federal program? Will it secure more money for wildlife, or wreck one of the better things the United States government has going?
We speak of the duck stamp.
Essentially a national license for hunting migratory waterfowl, the stamp — now costing $25 and each year featuring a different painting of a duck, goose or swan — must be affixed to every hunter’s state permit. The proceeds are used to acquire new lands for a national archipelago of wildlife preserves, including this bird-rich stretch of tidal Delaware, 95 percent of which was purchased with duck-stamp money.
Now the Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed making the traditional waterfowl share space on the stamps with birds that are not hunted, like herons or hawks. The idea, officials say, is to drum up more interest in the stamps from birders while preserving the loyalty of duck hunters.
RIP, Merle Haggard:
Oh, boy, this is so unreasonable (and dangerous for Fred, too):
I wanted to share about my experience, so I wrote a Facebook post. It was overwhelmingly positive. Many people reached out to me to share their experiences as well, including an extremely distant acquaintance from high school. Call him Fred.
Fred has also had challenges with depression. From what I can gather, he’s having some challenges with drinking and drugs too. Ever since my post, he’s taken to checking in with me every couple of days.
At first I thought that was nice–people supporting people in their shared experience. But his check-ins have turned into demands. Call me! I’m triggered! Call me! I’m suicidal! Call me! I’m in trouble.
I know how hard it is to ask for help. I get that he’s not in a place where he’s going to be graceful at it. I would really like to be supportive. He’s in a lot of pain, and he’s isolated. However, he’s stressing me out.
When he contacts me, it’s with demands that I stop what I’m doing immediately and talk to him. We’re not on equal ground–he isn’t willing to schedule a call to talk to me at a time where I have time and energy to pay attention. And his check-ins aren’t about me, they’re about me asking how he is.
Last night I stayed up (far past my sleep time) trying to get a sense of the territory of his dilemma. Two hours in, I asked him a question to try to understand, and he responded, “Plz stop analyzing it. It’s not helping!!!! You can analyze on your own time.”
Memories from one of the original jurors in the OJ trial:
What was it like to be sequestered for that long? I remember hearing that you guys couldn’t watch TV, certain parts of the newspapers were cut out. You were pretty much isolated from the outside world even though you were right in the middle of Downtown L.A. How did that affect you psychologically?
If it had gone on for very much longer I think I would have had to ask to go home. You’re so close to home but you can’t go home. You’re constantly being guarded by sheriff’s deputies who are actually armed. So it was somewhat like you were a prisoner, but you didn’t commit a crime. Everything you did was watched. When we made phone calls it was in a telephone room. You would go in, and the deputy would call the person that you wanted to call. They would admonish them, letting them know that, “This was number 1233 calling … you can’t talk about the trial” and just sit there and listen. On Wednesday afternoons after court, you could have people come down to the courthouse to visit.
(image via)
Well, I never realized I was in the market for a Grossest Body Stories contest but I guess I am! Now I will settle in and read all of these with a nice mug of tea and maybe a snack because I am a monster (and also at work).
The Pissing Contests are probably my favorite thing about Jezebel. I could spend hours reading all the stories!
Oh man, same tho. It’s going to be my lunch reading.
Toasties, not Link Roundup, but I am HERE for discussion about the Rogue One trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wji-BZ0oCwg
I’ve watched the trailer like four times now already and I am either going to cry or start running around my office waving my hands in the air and making high-pitched noises.
I’m a walking exclamation point right now.
Yes, that’s a very good way of putting it.
Tell me they haven’t built another Death Star?
‘We do everything Vader did’
‘But Lord Ren, the death star project failed twice many years ago’
‘I SAID EVERYTHING’ *destructive hissy fit*
My understanding from the (tiny, tiny) amount of information that’s available on the internets suggests that this takes place before A New Hope, so it looks like we’re talking about the plans for the first Death Star?
Exactly – this is another Death Star-focused movie, but we know full well that, given its place in chronology, this movie can’t be about them blowing it up. Instead we get a Death Star heist movie! With what appears from the trailer to be some fairly dark character development, which I am absolutely on board for!
Ah I see; I avoid all movie details or news apart from trailers, so I have no idea whats going on! But it did occur to me that this movie is probably set before the latest one
It takes place before A New Hope (aka: Star Wars), so this is about the very first one!
I’m tentatively excited! The visuals in the trailer look lovely – I feel the same way about them as I did about the Force Awakens trailer; they’re doing that scuffed, dingy, non-neon Star Wars thing very well. I was hoping for a little more original music, since John Williams isn’t scoring this one and I’m curious to see whether Alexandre Desplat will choose to go Williams-esque or establish something new for this canon-but-not-core movie.
I read “Alexandre Desplat” pre-coffee as “Alexandre Despatie” and wondered when tiny Canadian diver transitioned into scoring movies.
OMG, I did, too!
Alexandre will not disappoint, whichever route he has gone.
I work in a cubefarm, so I have to internalize every high-pitched noise right now. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh goodness gracious I did not expect to be as excited as I am right now.
I love it. Love it. I didn’t think I’d be interested in it, although I felt the casting was wonderful, but now. Oh now. I need this movie to be out IMMEDIATELY.
I feel the same! I had only tangentially heard of this and admittedly kind of dismissed it as a spinoff movie. I was completely wrong and now I am so excited.
Yes and yes! I don’t know why I got it into my head that this was going to be dude-heavy spinoff that I wasn’t going to be interested. I’m glad, as always, that toasties can be relied upon to point out good stuff that’s off my radar for whatever reason.
There’s also going to be a Han Solo stand-alone movie, which presumably will be very much Dudes, but you never know.
You beat me to it. The TRAILER passes the Bechdel test. I could watch this on repeat for the next eight hours and feel no remorse WHATSOEVER. Am crying a little bit. MON MOTHMA.
MON MOTHMA!
…MON MOTHMA!
I am a puddle of sheer delight right now. No words, only glee.
I lied, I have words but they are mostly OMG LADIES, LADIES ARE THE FOCUS OF THIS TRAILER FOR A STAR WARS FILM AND THE PLURAL IS CORRECT BECAUSE THERE WERE TWO WOMEN TALKING ABOUT A BADASS MISSION THE OTHER WILL LEAD (I hope) AND LADIES IN THE BACKGROUND AND THE CAST IS SO DIVERSE!!!
YES YES YES. My middle-school self felt redeemed when I saw Rey on screen with Force Awakens. Now I just have too many feelings to even process.
We just need to make a club for our middle school selves at this point. Middle school me is so validated right now.
I wouldn’t have believed anyone that this could be happening–that the new Star Wars movies had such diverse casts and were literally about strong and interesting women. I would have laughed at you/my time traveling self. What a time to be alive.
Not to get to soppy, but I too am still in complete disbelief that this is happening.
There is a little girl that comes to my library that is obsessed with Star Wars. She can’t even read yet, but I have ordered in every single Star Wars picture book for her. Rey is her favourite character and she had a Star Wars party with Rey on her cake. And she gets to grow up with Star Wars films that have these interesting characters! She can see herself on screen, front and centre as a protagonist and in the background and as a secondary character and as a villain, instead of having to shrug at the One Designated Lady Character in the film and say “good enough, I guess!”
What a time to be alive indeed.
That is so beautiful!!!
I was ALREADY crying, you don’t need to pile on like this!
It makes me wonder what Star Wars Katie is thinking right now! (you all remember her, right?)
HEAVY BREATHING AND EXCITED NOISES
Work Husband sent me two emails this morning: “ROGUE ONE TRAILER” over and over again, followed by “AWESOME FEMALE LEAD” over and over again.
Hahaha, my actual husband was in the bathroom and was going to send me something, and then saw the trailer and literally ran up the stairs to his office to send me that instead. 🙂
I was never a big Star Wars fan but after TFA I am READY for this. (also ready for Diego Luna, let’s be honest here)
It’s incredible!!!
THANK YOU! This is making me so happy.
MON MOTHMA
MON
MOTHMA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
And (i think) they asked the same actress who played Mon Mothma in Episode III, but all of her scenes were cut out of the final movie, to come back! I’M SO HAPPY
omg omg omg omg OMG omg omg OMG omg
Hello. I have died. I am typing this to you from the afterlife. Don’t worry I went in a fit of nerdish glee. It’s what I wanted.
This exactly.
clap along if you feel like a room without a roof, people
i didn’t even go through today’s links i just went straight down here to bathe in everyone’s delight and maybe tear up a little more
I didn’t even know the trailer was out until right now but I AM SO FUCKING HERE FOR THIS
MON MOTHMA.
Sorry, excuse me, I mean, Mon Mothma. But MON MOTHMA.
Me joking to my mom about it this morning: “Oh, Rogue character, you’re such a rogue! We need your rebellious ways!”
My mother: “Shut up, I’m seeing this! I am there!”
LOL. Seriously, tho, I love the trailer. And it’s telling that my mom, who has always been blasé about this stuff, has been getting excited about these kinds of movies now that they’re not All White Dudes All The Time.
Do NOT read the youtube comments where three-quarters of them are about how terrible and forced it is to have a female lead. For many men, the natural state of affairs is to have male leads and it is only to pander to feminism that some movies recently have had female leads. Fuck me but we have a long ways to go in terms of gender equity.
I found a collection of some of the choicest comments from reddit. They are… Well, they’re exactly what you’d expect.
No words, just joy. So excited for this now.
Am I the only one who sees ~tension~ between Jyn Erso (the main character) and Mon Mothma? I am so queer, I see the queer everywhere.
The Ask A Manager link was giving me palpitations, imagining myself being required to stay away from my baby overnight this time last year, and then I got to the OJ Simpson link and it got EVEN WORSE. What do people with young children do in that situation? OMG panic.
In my experience, being the primary caregiver to a small child gets you out of jury duty. That may vary by jurisdiction, though.
I practice in Texas, and here it’s an exemption, which means someone can use that as a reason to get out if they want to, but it’s not mandatory. The cutoff for the child’s age is somewhere around 10-12, I think.
A coworker was called for jury duty at the end of the month, but since she’ll be having a baby on Saturday they gave her an exemption (we’re in Ohio). She said the person she called was very nice about it, like “well, of course you can’t be on a jury if you have an infant!”
I can relate to the carrot one! Once when I was young, my parents bought this amazing loaf of roasted garlic bread from Costco. Like, there were whole huge chunks of roasted garlic BAKED IN to the bread.
And then I ate the whole thing. Like, middle school Elyse, going to TOWN on this bread. And then it was gone, and I was sad.
The only problem was that I started to SMELL like garlic. Apparently, if you eat that much garlic, it starts to seep out through your pores? My skin smelled like garlic all over. My FEET smelled like garlic. It lasted the whole weekend because I simply ate that much garlic. I was so scared to go to school on Monday but it apparently subsided enough that I didn’t smell like every Olive Garden in the tri-state area combined anymore.
My roommate in college and her boyfriend actually did go to Olive Garden and apparently went nuts on the breadsticks – in the middle of the night I woke up to the awful garlic miasma that was seeping out of the two of them and had to go sleep on the couch.
The main character from Holes and his friend also eat a lot of garlic at the end of the story and smell very strongly. It also keeps the bad animals (snakes?) away. This is one of the only things I remember from this book.
Onions, yellow-spotted lizards, but yeah.
Oh. Turns out I apparently don’t remember the book at all. Thanks for the heads-up 🙂
You should read it again, or watch the movie! It’s great! The Holes movie is actually the top of my ‘accurate book movies’ list (it also may be the only one on that list, hmmm).
Isn’t garlic supposed to work on mosquitoes, too?
I WISH
I have an “Elephant Garlic Debacle” that still haunts me.
I was making a pizza at home, from a recipe, and it was garlic, ham and something else I don’t remember. I was at the store and saw elephant garlic, and thought, hey, the recipe calls for a head of roasted garlic – I love garlic so much, this is going to be great!
That pizza was so ungodly delicious, but it TORE ME UP FOR DAYS. So much gas and intestinal distress.
Ahahaha yes I remember in a fit of frustration with “roasted garlic lasagna” recipes that called for all of two cloves, I roasted up two heads of garlic and made a lasagna with an entire layer spread with roasted garlic. And a little more garlic in the sauce as well because why not. It’s for the best I lived alone at the time, but it was WORTH IT.
I might need to make that bread now…or that pizza…
Ah yes, head versus clove is probably something that a novice cook has done many a time. But for real, a recipe with “garlic” in its title that only includes TWO CLOVES? Give me a break.
Yeah, I am all for legislation requiring any recipe with “garlic” in the title to have some minimum percentage garlic. I’m prepared to do the policy research for what percentage (by weight or volume?) is a good minimum.
I think we want a cloves/heads per serving metric. I propose that our research should test the proposition that something with garlic in the title should have at least half a head per serving.
I did this with my first batch of pesto. It was….pungent. And honestly, your lasagna sounds delicious!
Yeah, multiple heads of *roasted* garlic is very different from doing the head/clove mixup with the *fresh* stuff!
My dearest husband, who is of stereotypical Long Island Italian descent, would always make a big pot of sauce when his sons come for the weekend and we all feast on it (spaghetti, stuffed shells, meatball subs, chicken/eggplant parmesean, etc etc). His ex put her foot down saying the kids stunk of garlic when we returned them to her and couldn’t we cook SOMETHING else when they came? Poor lady with stinky garlicky adolescent boys on her hands.
We have a lot more variety to eat now though…
My partner smells slightly garlicky a lot of the time. As I love garlic, this is fine with me.
TMI TIME
I once tried to treat a yeast infection by popping a clove of garlic up there. Within half an hour I could taste garlic in my mouth. Fuckin’ weird.
Because we were talking in the comments yesterday about the excellent writing of Skip Hollandsworth, and because Bernie Tiede is currently underway, here is Mr. Hollandsworth’s 1998 article about Bernie (which I think led to the movie): http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/midnight-…
Ooh, thanks for the link! I’m pretty sure the film cites the article as its basis and I have been meaning to read it. (And I had somehow missed the fact that it had been written by Skip Hollandsworth until just now.)
I did the same–I read the article a long time ago, and it was just in the last five years or so that I started really noticing his byline. Then I re-read the article last year, and it was the first time that I realized he was the person who had written it.
Edited because that was a really long sentence that I first wrote.
I’m realizing that I’ve read (and/or meant to read) a lot of things he’s written without ever making the connection that they were all the same man. (Then again, I am really really bad with names sometimes, so I’m not surprised it’s taking me this long to put two and two together here.)
Me, too!
That article is fascinating, and Bernie is an amazing movie.
I still haven’t seen it, which is terrible. It’s been in my Netflix list for too long. Maybe this will inspire me to do that this weekend.
I can’t even read that duck stamp article because of an all-encompassing need to rewatch Fargo
I didn’t know what DTF meant right away. I tried to glean from context, but it didn’t jump right out at me. Then I remembered a rule I had come up with in the early days of the internet. If it’s abbreviated and there’s an f in there, the f can only stand for one thing.
*immediate light bulb* Down to f—
Kids these days.
A while back, I tried to apply that same rule to FTW and was rather confused for months before I figured it out.
Yes, I had a short period of “Fuck This Week? But – you sound happy?” confusion.
My roommate was convinced it was Fuck the What, which is adorable
Same here.
Me too!
Fuck the windows. Obvs.
FTW – Fuck the windows
WTF – Windows the fuck
TFW – The fucking windows
Oh yes, the old F The What problem.
(I still read it like that for my own amusement.)
Initially I was certain FTW was Fuck The World because some days I just feel that way.
Heeey I also interpreted it that way for years!
I thought that was what it meant until Just Now, had to go visit urban dictionary. :/
If you’re in the San Fernando Valley (or also Seattle, now, I guess?), it also means Din Tai Fung, a popular and extremely delicious Shanghainese restaurant. But mostly it still means the other one. (But that’s why I’m still hoping they’ll start an ad campaign with the slogan We’re DTF. How about you?)
That slogan might get people in the door, but a) they may be a creepy clientele and b) it might lead to some very confused Yelp reviews.
“came for the glory holes, stayed for the xiaolongbao. also, could not find the glory holes. A++.”
There’s a Vietnamese place here called “What the Pho.” LOVE.
This just reminded me of the place in Toledo called Ipoh, which I always referred to as International Pancake of House.
“dtf?” / “yes, I’m starving!” is a running joke in my Asian-American friends group.
I assumed that it was Dump the Fucker, as a sort of abbreviated DTMFA.
I have a friend who used to lead a church youth group and thought “WTF” meant “way too far”. She used it multiple times in that context before being enlightened.
AND the New Hairpin has a finger wave tutorial! 🙂
One of my student workers has a shirt that says “ithaca is Gorges.” It always makes me grin. #dadlysenseofhumor
So, growing up within a reasonable distance of Ithaca, so many people had that shirt. SO MANY. But I literally did not get the joke until I was well into college. Like, my aversion to puns was so great that my brain just refused to comprehend it. I just thought it was just an odd way of saying that Ithaca has lots of gorges.
I love puns, but I tend to store words visually in my head (like, I stand way more chance of remembering an unfamiliar word or name if I know how to spell it), so I often don’t notice that things are homonyms if I’ve only seen them written, and sometimes even if I have heard them out loud. I *definitely* wouldn’t have understood that “Ithaca is Gorges” is a pun unless someone had told me!
i know, i know, i KNOW what a finger wave is AND YET. every time i read those words i think of a flirty person saying “ta ta” to someone with a wink and a little…wiggle of the fingers.
I bet La Goulue and all those other Montmartre ladies were ALL OVER THIS.
I apparently do *not* know what a finger wave is, because that’s exactly what I had been picturing…
it’s a hairstyle! think flappers and the silent film era. i think it came back into vogue after the Gatsby remake? google has a bunch of good images.
I was so excited when I saw Edith. And then I realized the new finger wave tutorial is actually the old finger wave tutorial and Edith isn’t actually back. But I’m still excited to see what the hairpin becomes in this reincarnation!
Oh. Sorry for getting your hopes up. But at least something’s going on!
Totally not on you! I was checking out the new ‘pin yesterday and there’s no easy way to tell what’s old and what’s new. I missed Matt’s completely because I assumed it was old!
My husband, who is a dad, has two of those shirts! The first one faded and so he had to buy another one. With stronger contrast and better printing. We love it there. Going back in a few weeks. He might get another!
Matt’s roundup is entirely confirming that I am not a hat person. Is your head cold? Hat. Is your hair too dirty for public viewing? Hat. Anything else – skip it. I welcome opposing photo evidence of pleasing hats, though!
My 18mo has learned to put on hats, and occasionally just appears wearing a hat she has found, looking pleased with herself. Sometimes it’s her hat! Sometimes it’s a grown-up sized woolly hat! Sometimes it’s a shower cap! It is delightful.
One of the most useful things I’ve learned through this site recently is the toddler-pleasing game of “Do You Like My Hat?” (You repeatedly put non-hat items on your head and ask the question, hilarity ensues.)
I do this one, too. The toddlers seem to give you extra points if you let the ungainly object slide slowly off your head while still smiling with pride about the beauty of your new hat.
oh how I want to post the pic of my kid when he was wee wearing the Slash (from Guns and Roses) hat I made for a Halloween costume once. alas, it is only on Facebook, which is blocked from my office.
No photos readily to hand, but when i was in HS in the late 80’s I rocked the shit out of some hats – The trick was to wear them on the back of my head and basically glue them to the back of my bangs with Aquanet.
90s kid here! And I rocked the big Blossom hats and I looked cute AF. Now? I wear a hat for the beach or when it is cold, but otherwise not for me anymore.
Oooo, i love this look and have been thinking of bringing it back. Good tip, ty, but I am not sure where Aquanet can be found in 2016 😉
I am a total hat person, I would wear them everywhere forever if I could get away with them.
Except for ball caps, which a) look stupid on me and b) look stupid on everyone (ok maybe not everyone but i really hate them and i especially really hate when people will not take them off at the dinner table).
This is one of my most irrationally strong peeves. Do you NEED to be wearing a hat right now? Does your job or religious affiliation require it? Are you seeking protection from the elements? If not, take it off. You look absolutely ridiculous.
I require a hat because I like hats. I don’t need another reason.
I have very thinning hair. Want to avoid sunburn when it’s hot out/the sun is blazing? Hat!
That’s the only reason I wear one 100% of the time in the Summer, and once I get to a place I don’t need to wear it (say, indoors) I won’t take it off because hat hair.
Also, in terms of fictional characters pulling off a hat, Dr. King from Django Unchained rocks this hat.
I’m going to talk about duck stamps here and then gtfo as I don’t want to hear about y’all’s gross bodies.
Duck stamps are great! The birder listserve I’m on organizes a bulk order every year. Because besides being required for hunters they also give free access to national wildlife refuges. Some national wildlife refuges are already free but are heavily used by birders so buying a stamp is a great way to directly support the system. Also wetlands are hella important.
Hunters pushing back against including non-game birds feels like #masculinitysofragile to me. Real men only buy required stamps when they feature animals they can kill? I just don’t understand.
Here for the duck stamps as well. I am a bird-spotter and will be purchasing. Having the stamps be about more than ducks seems lovely to me. Maybe duck hunters don’t want to admit that the gorgeous herons and egrets and such are part of the same family and if you wouldn’t shoot and eat a heron, why should you shoot and eat a duck/goose?
(That said, duck/goose is fucking delicious.)
I think there’s also an element of collector/ hobbyist weirdness- my grandpa probably hasn’t been hunting in 20 years, but he still buys those things where the stamp is framed next to a bigger version of the image. I don’t think that he in particular would care about which bird is on the stamp, but I can totally imagine some Comic Book Guy-esque freakout about how the new thing sucks and now my collection will never be truly complete! Or something.
Counterpoint: ducks are awesome, why bother with other birds?
I kid, but recently ducks have made up a huge portion of my birding activities so I sort of feel like Shrug to both sides of that debate as long as people buy duck stamps.
yeah, here for this too! My parents owned an art gallery/frame shop in the DC area and duck stamps were HUGE business. Like, you had Christmas, and you had duck stamp season. (Rabbit stamp season!) I got to go to some of the competitions and even as a kid I was blown away by how much realistic detail painters could fit in those teeny spaces. Plus all the constraints on species, what details must be in the image…I don’t know, I feel like the limits are what makes it so interesting. But new birds wouldn’t necessarily remove the most interesting limits.
“…duck stamp season (Rabbit stamp season!)…”
A million thumbs up for you!
Those who gave me internet hugs the other day for my parents’ cat, I am happy to say that the vet thinks she’s fine and in perfect nick for a 10 year old kitty. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I was in a bad, bad anxiety spin and you really helped me not feel alone.
She’s so pretty!
She’s also just the loveliest cat. That look she’s giving me in the photo is her requesting permission to curl up on my chest in bed and purr, after a long day spent following me around and sitting on me whenever my body parts happened to form a flattish surface.
I was so happy to hear she’s okay! Look at the little pooper getting ready to curl up all over you. Here’s to kitties.
Is it weird that I feel kind of proud just because the main impetus behind the Panama Papers is the newspaper I subscribe to?
(edited because grammar)
SZ subscribers high-five? I strangely enjoyed the fact that the leaks were offered to the Mr’s Obermaier and Obermayer. Such nice, sturdy Bavarian names.
Yeah, high-five!! I look forward to tomorrow, aka The Day I Won’t Be Able To Solve The Crossword Yet Again.
Obermaier and Obermayer. You just got to love them.
They did a fine job. I hope with the upcoming weekend, I can dig into that story, and not re-surface before Monday. What a weird world we live in.
No way, that is a bona-fide form of Civic Pride!
The hat piece is a perfect morning read; light and nourishing. Hats are a silly thing, and so few can pull them off, but I don’t think that should discourage anyone from trying. We can all fail together! (Also, was Oscar Isaac really that wee in 2015? Why does he look so young there? Is it the hat?)
I don’t think Leonardo Di Caprio’s hat is all that bad, though? I mean, most of the rest are truly appalling, but L d C’s is just, oh, bless you, middle-aged man in a middle-aged man hat.
I think DiCaprio’s hat makes him look douchey in that pic. It’s the whole sunglasses-hat-Van Dyke-pretentious actor combo, really.
Similarly, I don’t think Hugh Jackman looks bad in fedoras–and he’s a broadway guy at heart so who can begrudge him a desire to wear fedoras? The problem in that picture is that he’s wearing the fedora with a ski jacket and athletic pants.
The one that made me laugh hardest was Bob Odenkirk’s hat–it looks so tiny compared to his head. And it’s also just an ugly hat.
I actually kinda like Tom Hardy’s hat. It makes him look rather silly but that endears me to him.
OMG Daniel Day-Lewis WHY
I respect him as an actor especially because he is such a changeling, but oh no, just no. (And yes, I know that is not the correct definition of changeling, but I use it this way regardless.)
I find it entirely plausible that Daniel Day-Lewis walked off into the forest one day to live with the fairies and was replaced by a clone.
See that one crossed the line twice for me, from awful back into awesome? I cannot explain it. Maybe it’s just that DD-L’s charisma has that powerful of a hold on me.
Yes! I thought so too. He was going for a Look and achieving it. the Look is about being an Artist and not about looking attractive.
I think the last comment I made on this site was to date an Oscar Isaac photo based on (facial) hair so let me continue that trend to say that that looks like the sideburns + hairstyle he was rocking for In Secret, a truly terrible (but great to watch with a bottle of red wine) 2014 film set in the French…1800s? Don’t quote me. Anyway, I would put that picture at 2013 at the latest.
This has been your biweekly forensic analysis of Oscar Isaac’s ill-advised style choices.
Update to my complaint about Creepy Dude from yesterday:
I was wearing a skirt yesterday and, as one is bound to do, I had to lift it up and move it to the side so that the person sitting next to me on the bench (who happened to be Creepy Dude, because of course he was) wouldn’t sit on it. Today, we were about to go to lunch, I was waiting for the rest of the group to show up, he approaches me and says, “No skirt today?” Because that is absolutely the thing you say to a person who has in no way indicated that they like you at all.
We then went to the canteen, my friend and I sat down before the others who then didn’t see us and sat down somewhere else, and I practically begged my friend that we’d stay where we are so that I could have at least one peaceful lunch this week. I almost started crying, that’s how uncomfortable this situation is for me. And the thing is, he doesn’t really do anything, it’s just that I find him creepy.
Well, I’d say that remark is at least one thing he’s done that’s objectively creepy. My sympathies, in any case. This really sucks, and I’m sure he keeps it within the realm of plausible deniability so that you can’t call him out on it without sounding whiny 🙁
It’s such a gross Catch-22 that some dudes put you in.
He also makes a lot of not quite politically incorrect jokes, so yeah, plausible deniability is probably his thing.
Well, sure he’s doing something! He’s making you feel uncomfortable! You are perfectly in your rights to not want to hang out with someone. I am so sorry this is making your work environment so shitty and I hope you find a healthy way to deal with this soon. It sounds miserable and I am concerned for you.
Thank you. The good thing is that I’ll start an internship next month, so I won’t be around for lunch anymore. And these next few weeks – maybe I’ll just work at home instead of the library. I don’t really like studying/working from home, but I think it’s the best solution for the moment.
And I’m going to talk to my friends – I mean, I don’t think I can outright say, “Don’t invite him to any social gatherings of our group”, but I will tell them that he makes me feel uncomfortable. The only reason I haven’t talked to our main mutual friend (I don’t actually know if she considers him to be a friend of hers?) yet is that she’s taking her final exams next week and is so stressed that I thought I’ll wait until after she’s finished them.
Maybe you could study at a different library? Which wouldn’t give you people to have lunch with, but it’s another option since you don’t like studying at home.
Not really – I have a permanent locker here and the thing I’m working on is contained in a very heavy folder that I don’t want to bring with me everyday. And my professor’s office is here (I’m working on something for him), so if I need anything (or there’s something else to be done), it’s good to be close by. I brought all my stuff home with me today, and will try to work from here tomorrow; we’ll see how that goes.
He does do something: he creeps you out. You are quite right, “No skirt today?” is a weird thing to say to someone, and it is legit to be creeped out by it.
What your brain is picking up on is that he is not interacting with you normally: absolute best case scenario, he fancies you and is looking for the flimsiest of pretexts to talk to you, even though you are giving him no encouragement, so he’s more focussed on his fancying your and wanting to find excuses to talk than on your discomfort. Worst case scenario, he is aware of your discomfort, and is deliberately flouting it because he doesn’t care that you’re uncomfortable or actively enjoys making you uncomfortable.
Either way, your brain is responding completely rationally: when people are signalling that they don’t care about your comfort, it is completely rational to wonder what else they don’t care about. Maybe they also don’t care about hurting you! Or maybe they would be horrified at the idea of hurting you! The thing is, you don’t know, so your brain is sending signals to be cautious around him and that is what is making you uncomfortable. You can’t trust and relax around someone who is behaving in ways that make your brain go “bzzzzurrp! Possible danger here!”
We get loads of messages telling us to ignore that kind of thing, or that we’re being unfair, or that we have to give someone a chance, but they are incredibly important intuition telling us that someone is not respecting our boundaries and our comfort. You don’t have to make excuses or downplay it or wait for him to do something more obviously awful. (The only time I’d recommend downplaying it is if it helps you set boundaries, “Yeah, I know it sounds silly, but humour me, OK? I just don’t want to sit near him.” The important thing is the boundary, so if that helps, go for it!)
So. You are totally within your rights to avoid him, ask other people to help you avoid him, tell him that you don’t want to be friends – whatever you feel comfortable doing. If he was a Good Dude, he would get the message pretty quickly and accept it quietly. If he objects or pushes more boundaries, that is him signalling that he actively doesn’t care about your comfort.
Best of luck dealing with him, and I hope you have good friends who will back up your instincts and not tell you you’re overreacting.
ALso, Captain Awkward is super super good at Creepy Dude advice, wholeheartedly recommended! (http://captainawkward.com/category/creeps/)
Thank you, you’re so right. I really have to talk to my friends about this, and I hope they’ll understand and help me.
And I didn’t know Captain Awkward had a category called “creeps” 🙂
Well-said! Everything about this reminds us how society expects women to accommodate everyone’s discomfort but their own. We should be listening to our guts more. We are not stupid for paying attention to our brains’ and bodies’ responses. The OP is important enough to have a creep-free lunch experience!!
I’m sure somebody else has mentioned or will mention “The Gift of Fear.” The same dear friend that introduced me to The Toast gave me a copy of that book, and both things have been helpful for my sense of self and self-care.
Ugh, it’s Schroedinger’s Creeper. I know that feeling– guys that just give you the willies, but there’s no individual incident you can point to when describing why they creep you out. I work in a male-dominated field and this pops up a lot, and it’s so stressful! I used to feel bad, like I was being a “mean girl” if I just couldn’t stand to be around one of those guys, but lately, I just can’t find a fuck to give about it.
Sending you positive vibes. It’s a stressful situation and your feelings are valid. Trust your instincts, and if you can keep up a policy of avoidance, I think that’s a good idea. Maybe you could grab friend and go for lunches at irregular hours, or eat at your desk and then take an extended solo coffee break later?
Schroedinger’s Creeper. Brilliant! Will credit you when I use this in the future.
I’m 95% sure I stole it from Captain Awkward (100% sure I stole it from *somewhere*) since it is such an apt and useful phrase!
And I think it became Awkward-speak based on Phaedra Starling’s epic post at Shapely Prose. http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-s…
Schroedinger’s Creeper is the most apt description ever.
And I agree–trust your instincts. I read a book about neuropsychology that explained that our intuition is really just pattern recognition. Your brain is telling you “hey this seems creepy” because it’s similar to other instances of creepy behavior you’ve experienced.
I’ll probably just work from home these next few weeks – it’s thankfully not my workplace, just the library where I’m studying. It’s not ideal, but going to lunch sometime else doesn’t work, because my only friends who also study here always go together, at the same time, with this particular group.
Ugh, I just fear that my friends who are studying with him will invite him to our group things (that has happened before).
Dealing with creepy dudes (at work) is _the worst_. I recently had to deal with a creeper – a couple of flat looks and clear non-responses (like, he asked a question and instead of responding i stared him down for a couple of beats and then walked away) and he went away, but it was only to harass other women in the group so it is not like it solved the problem :S Big hugs if you want them.
Yes please, hugs are great! Thank you!
yeah no the fact that he gives you a creepy feeling is ENOUGH (there was once a dude in my office who I did not like solely for the reason that he never talked to me but I sometimes thought he stared at me; that was enough for me to never want to be in his presence b/c guess who doesn’t have to give the benefit of the doubt? me, in my interactions with men).
I mean what is required for “no skirt today?” comment? 1. dude notices your outfit enough to make a note of it. 2. dude is disappointed that a similar outfit choice was not made today (I think that’s the biggest thing, it’s weird for someone not close to you to CARE about your clothing choices). 3. dude voices that disappointment TO you, so now you KNOW all of those things. That is way more than enough to feel creeped out!
Yeah, you’re right. I should trust my instincts more (hello, old problem), because seeing it with someone else’s eyes – yes, definitely creepy.
“No skirt today?” DUDE, imagine if someone (anyone!) said to someone (anyone) else, “No pants today?” I mean, you can’t even read it without making a creepy face with creepy eyebrows, right? FFS.
Oh God, I hadn’t thought about this, you’re so right (as is everyone else on this thread, I’m so glad The Toast exists).
In my head you replied by saying, “no class today?”
Sorry he is gross.
As a friend of mine once pointed out, you almost never hear anyone say they wish they hadn’t listened to their instincts. Do what makes you feel safe.
Thank you <3
🙁 🙁 🙁
I am sorry this dude is wrecking your library experience for you.
(Not that I’ve ever stopped wearing shirts or dresses I loved because of the way certain guys at work said “I liiiike your shiiiirt,” or “That’s a greaaaaat dreeeeeess” or anything. It’s so frustrating because they’re not doing anything you could go to HR about but they’re poisoning your environment all the same.)
Ugh, that’s creepy. Why are men doing this? Why even are men??
The longer I live, the less I know.
Is it just the way they’re able to get away with things when they’re kids? Is it a surfeit of media where characters behaving this way are rewarded?
EXACTLY THREE LINES OF THE ROGUE ONE TRAILER CAME FROM A WHITE DUDE. THE REST WERE ALL WOMEN OR FOREST FUCKING WHITAKER
THIS IS GOOOOOD Y’ALL
yes!!!! I was like “did they just pass the Bechdel test.. in the trailer? Did that just happen?”
IT WAS SO GOOD SO HERE FOR IT
However, I note via IMDB that there are 24 named actors. Two seem to be women. (And both of them white women.)
I’m not ready to sprain my wrist patting the filmmakers on the back just yet.
Toronto Toasties–have you all read this (http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/04/07/dont-mistake-responses-to-violence-for-violence-itself-cole.html) from Desmond Cole and listened to this interview (https://soundcloud.com/newstalk1010/desmond-cole-discusses-tweet-by-blm-co-founder) from yesterday? He’s incredible, the organizers of BLMTO are incredible…do yourself a favour and check these out.
I am literally reading this right now! Thanks for the interview link 😀
This is wonderful, thanks for sharing.
Desmond Cole for Mayor!
My favourite thing I’ve read all day is a Chris tindal tweet: “John Tory is a bad mayor who only looks like a good mayor because you’re comparing him to the worst mayor.” (Regarding Tory’s comments on BLMTO, but also is generally true.)
Alas, other than my Daily Life as a Walking Health Disaster, I have no body horror stories of my own. But I am here for everyone’s body horror stories. My mom was an emergency room nurse before she became a CDC nurse (what a combo!) so this kind of thing was dinner table conversation. The Burgomaster is pretty squeamish, and obviously not a nurse, so I this sort of entertainment is sadly lacking in my life. BRING IT, TOASTIES.
My mom is a nurse and does not understand why nobody wants to hear hospital stories at dinner. Particularly ones about wound care. Or psych patients who painted on the walls with their poop.
But then she gets upset when my dad jokes at the dinner table about barbecuing the family dog (usually because the dog has successfully finagled some people food and my dad is saying “yeah, you’re a chubby girl…you’ll make some nice steaks,” etc. And he loves the dog and clearly would never do that. He’s just got a dark sense of humor).
It’s a very weird case of ultra-compartmentalizing.
My family joked about eating the family pets all the time, too! There were some that we used frequently enough I still remember them even though those animals have been gone for almost forty years. Buttered Cali Paws (my nana’s calico) and Haunch of Herbie (their dalmatian).
I agree with you it’s strange that the one side couldn’t see where the other was coming from. My family was (I guess?) egalitarian in our sick humor at the table.
My parents are both medical doctors so I grew up with no real concept of “that’s not dinner table conversation”. My best ever living situation was as a grad student when I shared a house with a friend who is a vet – she had the gross stories, I had the willingness to listen all night, it worked really well for both of us.
My evil aunt once told me moments before we were supposed to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner to not tell anyone, but my mom had ruined the turkey and had to cook my dog instead. Between the bouts of tears, attempts to sneak away to look out the window and make sure my dog was okay, and refusing to eat, I got spanked. Bitch just sat there enjoying it all (I was about the same age as her daughter and she was always trying to show off that she had the better kid). And she had told me not to tell so I didn’t even to not get spanked because you Must Obey Adults. I hate her to this day for everything she did to me during my childhood, birthday cards my mom apologized to me for and all, but that was the most unforgivable thing.
What a bizarre woman. I’m so sorry you had to deal with her- actually I think I’m sorry for anyone who has ever had to deal with her- she sounds like a nightmare.
She is a horrible witch who called me “Pigpen” throughout childhood and adolescence. My uncle and cousin (her daughter) are delightful and charming people. I don’t understand it to this day. Luckily I only see her on the rarest of occasions and now that she has a grandchild to fuss over she seems to have lost the need to torment me. But I remember.
As a fellow child-tormented-by-adults, sod. her. There is a special place in hell.
I live in hope. And in hope that she doesn’t turn on her grandchild when she’s no longer small and pliant.
I’m so glad her poor daughter turned out okay- I had kind of just assumed there was no hope for her. And I’m so glad for you that you don’t have to see her too much.
She has always, with the exception of that just hit puberty mean girl stage, been nice to me. It was all about my aunt competing with my mother over who had the better kid, and I was weird and bookish and awkward and had my feelings hurt easily/was easy to manipulate. The only reason I see my aunt at all is because I go to events my cousin throws for her little girl. Whrn I briefly lived in the same city as my aunt my mom was always trying to get me to make plans with her and I’m like “all the awesome uncle in the world is not enough for me to play nice with your sister, sorry not sorry, I’m too witches.”
O.o
Welcome to the dumpster fire I call my family.
That made me laugh out loud, but it was a laugh of sympathetic bitterness.
Hear you.
RAGE
♡
There are many good reasons to teach a child not to listen to adults who tell them to keep secrets from their parents. People like my aunt are some of the more tame but still damaging.
What. A. Fucking. Monster.
♡ It’s nice to have that reaffirmed. My mom is a rug sweeper and refuses to understand why I “hold onto these things.” I hold onto them because I won’t be gaslighted into believing she wasn’t that bad and we’re a happy happy Disney family.
If you want me to send you a postcard with something to help remind/reaffirm, send your mailing address to me at clevermanka68 at gmail. Because, yeah. That’s inexcusable. I am so sorry that happened to you.
I will. Thank you. ♡
Good for you. Because Jesus Christ.
♡♡♡
*validates the hell out of your feelings*
Ah mom nurses. My mom was a labour and delivery nurse, there are some gold stories there. But my favourite nurse story is from a childhood friend whose mom was an ER nurse. She told a story of a homeless man coming in to have his leg bandages (for frostbite) changed, and when they peeled them back, his legs were covered in maggots. The reason this is a great – and not a greatly upsetting – story is that said mom, when confronted with our horror, followed this up with “The maggots really helped the healing process, since they were eating the dead, frostbitten flesh, which helped prevent infection. We just changed the bandages and sent him on his way”
Ex-RN here, can confirm that sometimes we let the maggots stay around a little while. I have actually never seen maggots in any context other than hanging out in the wound of a patient.
There is green bin pickup in my city, and one of the things ppl complain about are the maggots. I, being veg, do not have this problem, but I understand it can be quite harrowing in the dog days of summer.
In the YMCA summer camp I went to, when I was counselor in training, one of our jobs was taking the organic waste out to the giant composter thing (I don’t think it was the special hermetically sealed kind you actually need to compost meat products, but I didn’t know that then) and it was my WORST THING. That was the summer I went vegetarian. And I still am, probably because my grandmother kept saying it was “just a phase.”
I need to learn turn off my imagination, because it keeps coming back to this and it makes me unhappy 🙁
I am vegetarian! My whole family is vegetarian! But our compostables bin (provided by the city and picked up twice/week for the municipal composting system) did have a wee population of maggots last summer (I didn’t get to see them; my wife told me about it).
hunh. Do you put cheese and eggs in there? Because cheese, for sure and certain, will attract maggots, but otherwise I am drawing a real blank.
They were probably fruit fly larvae! I’ve had that too. I keep my compost in the freezer in summer until the day I take it out to be green binned.
I love the practicality of nurses. Yes. Bless.
Oh jeez, you just hit my big red medical librarian button. I think that I may have linked to this book before, which has all kinds of fun stuff. Maggots have been used in the past in POW camps (such as Andersonville during the American Civil War) precisely to debride (remove) necrotic (gangrenous, dead and rotting) flesh; after the dead flesh was gone, the maggots were rinsed away with urine, since it’s sterile after the first second or so of urination rinses out the urethra. Look away, indeed.
a) I love that you use big words and then define them for lazy ppl like me, ty.
b) I have never seen that book before, but my eyes are dinner-plate sized. That looks most excellent.
c) farmers totally stick their hands in horse urine to help with dry, cracking hands – urea ftw!
The menopause hormone drug premarin is literally made from horse pee. Lady horse pee.
Pregnant lady horse pee. They impregnate the mares every year just so she’s pregnant with no regard for the breeding/quality of the horse they’re creating, which is one of the reasons why NA is over-run with low quality, practically useless* horses in slaughter auctions.
(*People have had good outcomes with ‘PMU’ (pregnant mare urine) horses, but since they’re largely left unhandled and untrained, as well as carelessly bred, a lot of them don’t have good lives.)
A lot of this makes me really unhappy. Wow. We are monsters.
That book looks fantastic.
Oh god yes, please bring all the Gross Body Stories. Jezebel is blocked at my work. My work is, as you know, pretty gross. (I have been known to exclaim to my patients while I’m examining their placenta, “I love how disgusting and awesome my job is!”) And before being a midwife I had a gross job as a surgical critical-care RN. But I have no gross stories of my own. I feel so left out. LET ME LIVE THROUGH YOUR GROSS STORIES pls
Ooh, I have some dinner-table grossness of my own. So I was in college in 2008, and there was a tattoo parlor near campus that was advertising a free piercing on election day for anyone wearing an I Voted sticker. So on a whim, and without any forethought to the type of care and upkeep it might require, I got my nose pierced. And like two weeks later– definitely not long enough for it to heal– I was at some kind of craft fair / hippie bullshit when I see the coolest nose ring EVER. It was really ornate and vaguely Indian and it involved an “emerald” surrounded by a half-circle of princess-cut “diamonds.” Which is to say that it was heavy, fake, and difficult to clean. It was that kind where the back of the jewelry is a wire that twists into your nostril to hold it in place.
So pretty quickly it starts to get irritated, and I go back to the tattoo shop to ask them what to do. The old pothead there is like “definitely don’t take it out til it stops swelling. Otherwise you’ll make it worse.” So I leave it in til it swells up to the point that my nostril closes up. Shit. I try to take it out but I can’t because it hurts so much to touch it. A few days pass like this and the swelling finally subsides to the point that I can get a look at it. I look up my nose and I can’t see the back of the jewelry– because my skin has swelled over it and healed that way. Hooooly shit.
I would have gone to the doctor but this was right before Thanksgiving so instead I just went home. My whole family is sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner when my mom starts talking about how I recently got my nose pierced. My aunt, a nurse, starts leaning in to look at it and she says it doesn’t look so good. Now her husband is a well-regarded surgeon, but he is also a socially inept weirdo. I am not sure I have ever heard him speak two sentences in a row. He wordlessly stands up, starts manhandling my face, and going “hmm.” Then he walks out of the room and returns with a little bag from which he produces a scalpel. He grabs my nose, slices the inside on my nostril, rips out my nose ring, and puts some peroxide or something on the cut. And still without saying a word, sits back down and keeps eating his turkey.
I love this and I think I love your aunt’s husband, too.
I love this story so much. My dream is to – someday, any day, please – be able to take the role of your aunt’s husband. And then sit down and pick up my fork again. DAMN.
AMAZE. This is the best story.
Also i got my nose pierced in September and changed the ring in February and still live in fear that this will happen to me.
I love that he did this all casual as fuck. Did you even have time to react, or was it more like, “Oh. Oh, that’s better now!”? Because I would think that if I didn’t know what was coming and it went really quick, it would hurt a lot less to have someone scalpel my nose.
My dad pulled that on me when I broke and displaced three toes on one foot, because we were so far from the hospital and he figured shockingly rapid reset was less painful than having them rebroken. Army dads.
I think I was like “what are you going to- OH SHIT” but it only took a second.
*has flashbacks to reading about Roald Dahl’s surprise adenoid removal*
I don’t really have gross body stuff (which is good, I guess, but means I don’t get to participate) but I do have LOTS of gross animal body stuff. Caring for horses full time gets disgusting at times.
One of my favorite that isn’t super gross, but was horrifying to me at the time; My yard had a horse that had broken her nose (which is a thing I didn’t know could happen to horses, but turns out it can.), this had happened before I started working there but she was still recovering and I tagged along to a check up at the vets with her. So we’re in the vet hospital, they dope the horse and take some xrays (I was holding the horse and got to wear full Dr Horrible lead lined apron and gloves) and the vet is talking about how she also broke some teeth in the accident and they had fixed it in surgery.
And then the vet stick his hand into the horses mouth up to his elbow as he’s talking and PULLS OUT A TOOTH. I nearly screamed because I wasn’t expecting it and was all ‘holy fucking shit why did you just pull out her tooth!’
Turns out it wasn’t actually a tooth, it was a plug they had put into her jaw during surgery and it was totally fine to pull out. Still gave me the collywobbles though.
Since then I have also had actual horse teeth fallout into my hands, but thats normal with baby horses. I also have many more, much grosser stories about wounds and warts and all kinds of mucus.
(Horse was totally fine, she was only 3 when the accident happened and went on to be a good little riding horse)
COLLYWOBBLES I love it.
Ooooo, I went to visit a friend whose mom has horses (she rescues them) and while we were there she was caring for a horse who had an open wound for some reason in the middle of its neck and she had to wash it out with saline in a pressure washer daily being careful not to aggravate the skin OR kill the maggots. Horses are gross.
For some reason, I have got an iron stomach when it comes to horses but I’m 100% a wimp when it comes to people. For example: I have reached into a horse’s butt to check for impaction, I have given multiple shots, cleaned many wounds, applied all sorts of ointments and salves to gross pussy swelly things, etc. But then when I had surgery myself and my partner was changing the bandage, I almost fainted when I saw all the blood. What gives??
I’m pretty iron stomached for everything (except weird skin stuff. CANNOT DEAL.) but I do have an tendency to use horse knowledge for people related first aid and health care. (Cold hosing broken fingers works. no lie)
I also have no problem with germs or dirt, if horses can have open wounds and live in a field and not die, I’m probably fine not washing my hands occasionally. (Or eating food I’ve dropped in a barn… ssshh)
Nurse moms are the best! My mom did home care, which meant that our car was always full of sharps containers and packaged bandages and catheters. I made sure to point out these features to any friends lucky enough to catch a ride with us.
Also sometimes when we were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, my mom would casually reach over, take my wrist, and start palpating it looking for veins. Just for fun and practice. 🙂
Yes! Mine did a stint as an office nurse for a GP and she would often store specimens in our fridge when she couldn’t make it to the main lab (in an office across town) for delivery. I understand there are businesses who do this sort of thing, now, and I feel sorry for the poor nurse-mom kids who don’t get to experience that WHAT’S IN THE FRIDGE TONIGHT excitement.
One of my mum’s first acts as Practice Manager at her GP practice was to insist on separate fridges for staff lunches and stool samples. (I worked there as a receptionist for a bit, and it was not fun when patients came in to hand over stool samples.)
She also instigated a clearout of the cupboards (it was a Victorian house which has been a surgery for over 100 years, so it has accumulated a lot of crap) and found a human foetus in a jar.
I love how casually you just toss out “human foetus in a jar”.
Seems to me it would require more formal disposal practices.
Excellent punning (and it did, in fact, due to regulations surrounding the disposal of human tissue. As there was no documentation and the provenance was completely unknown, disposing of it was almost impossible; she eventually passed it on to a museum with lots of human specimens, as they are accustomed to dealing with such things).
separate fridges for staff lunches and stool samples
Well where’s the fun in that?
When I was a teenager my mum (former midwife, nurse and health visitor, currently working as the manager of a GP practice) volunteered at a counselling centre for teenager. Our car boot was full of condoms.
When she started nursing again after a break, she practiced injections on apricots.
This is less “horrifying” and more “gross,” but hey, my mom was a nurse too so what do I care! A couple months ago I was having an oddly heavy period, and at work one day I went to the restroom just to pee, and my tampon – which had only been changed, like, 2 hours before? – shot out like a rocket and into the bowl. Luckily I had a liner on for backup so I didn’t get blood everywhere while slinking back to my desk… but then it happened again later that night! What the…
Wow. Your vagina was not on board with that month’s period, for sure.
Aaaaaaaah, speaking of vagina horror stories, this one made me side-eye my fur-babies for a while before deciding that the author should prolly just clean her sheets more: http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/my-gyneco…
RIGHT?!? It is so wrong in so many ways.
It is, however, a beautifully told revolting story.
Aaaaaaaaaaah, I was just talking about this thread last night and the friend i was chatting about it with told his own gross body story – of a friend who, upon heading back down south from the wilds of Northern Canada, picked up a lady of the night. Bush-typr people, right ? Kinda rough crew. But they’re both on board, doing the things that consenting adults do in bed, and he gets what he thinks is a nipple between his teeth except that upon biting on it turns out noooooooooo, is a BOIL. Which bursts. IN HIS MOUTH.
So enriching, this thread.
Removing a seed tick from right above the cleft of your vulva is something no one should ever have to do. I have done it.
You did it yourself?
I did! Living in my part of the world and also almost dying from a broken off tick head will breed serious tick removal skills. I was in college and wasn’t waiting until campus health could see me to get that bloodsucker gone. So I was Very Careful and got the job done myself.
Ooh and I forgot about the time I drunkenly hooked up with a dude (pro tip: if you are both drinking so much that one of you – ahem, me – covertly pukes in the bar bathroom, you should not hook up with them!!!!!!! oh, my mid-20s.) and THREE DAYS LATER I am at work and use the bathroom and out pops the condom. Aggghhhhhh. At that point I figured it was too late for the morning-after pill so I just fervently pray to all the saints that I am not pregnant. (I was not.)
Oh my god I thought I was the only one. Only it was 5 days in my case. That was the most joyous menstrual period I have ever had.
I was told a story of a friend of a friend (guy) who slept with a girl at uni and a few months later she saw him on the bus and started screaming at him that he ruined her life.
Why did he ruin her life? When they had sex the condom got stuck inside her and she didn’t find it for MONTHS. And in those months she’d had all sorts of terrible downstairs trouble and none of the doctors could figure out why (Trouble include a horrendous smell and discharge) until eventually a gyno stuck something up there and pulled out the condom.
YICK.
(I don’t know what this girl or her doctors were up to that no one thought to actually look in her vagina for a number of months. Being a first year student, she may have put off going to the doctors for a long time, I didn’t get all the details.)
I’ve read that Grace Kelly bio! 1) Her dad was a dick. 2) Clark Gable spurning her is like the real life version of her infuriating relationship with Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window (“A got young thing is throwing herself at me? How loathesome! “).
Wait, Grace Kelly was interested in Clark Gable? I’m twitching on so many levels.
Does anyone else think Clark Gable was weird-looking? And weird-sounding, too?
OMG I LOVE CLARK GABLE he is my #1 old actor crush and the main reason I really like George Clooney. My imaginary version of him is great, so I am 100% sure I don’t want to know about him IRL.
I TAKE YOUR #1 OLD TIMEY ACTOR CRUSH AND RAISE…….Gregory mother****ing Peck.
(drops chips on the table, leans back in chair with dead eyed stare)
Second this forever. Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday makes me legit swoon.
Gregory Peck didn’t really do it for me until I saw Spellbound recently. Now I’m team Gregory all the way.
Henry Fonda. I don’t even care.
Those are some ice blue eyes. See also Glenn Ford.
Cary Grant or GTFO. Although I also hold an eternal torch for Donald O’Connor and Danny Kaye, so.
Yes, Cary Grant is my #2. Much more His Girl Friday era than Older than Raisins era.
Agreed, though I wouldn’t kick his Charade self out of my bed.
Cary Grant indeed! Though for some reason I keep forgetting his name
I have to say my G-Peck lady boner died with Cape Fear. He was so… impotent.
Yes. He kind of looks like a frog. Not appealing. I hate the era’s hair oil obsession too.
I’ve enjoyed some of his performances, but yeah, not attractive.
yeh-but
I’ve gone completely off of Clark Gable since I found that he raped Loretta Young.
I always thought they had a secret affair, since it was common knowledge that they had a child out of wedlock (a big scandal at the time), but she reported that he actually assaulted her after they made a film together.
My uncle sounds exactly like Gable, and he (Clark) was notorious for having bad breath so… nah. But he was a charmer for sure!
Between this and AHP’s Loretta Young story, I have given up on Clark Gable. Sorry your dude was a bag of dicks, Carole Lombard.
Who wrote it? I love a good bio but no one has mentioned the author’s name or linked to the book.
Seconding this request! I need to know what this book is.
Grace Kelly: The Secret Life of a Princess is the one I read.
Do any Toasties have a good round-up/article about the junior doctors strike in the UK? It seems like the kind of thing I should know more about and would “enjoy” getting angry about.
I know that Friend of the Toast Ella Risbridger (she of the Bisto Legs) and her Tall Man John Underwood have written in support of the strike (here’s John: http://jmunderwood.com/2015/11/13/john-vs-cancer-… but it’s less of a roundup than a declaration.
Not a doctor, but I’ve been following it. Anything particular you want to know? If you want to know the junior doctors’ side, then look for press releases from the BMA, the doctors’ union and negotiator, particularly from Dr Johann Malawana, who is the elected leader of the junior doctors.
If you aren’t familiar with the BMA, the medical profession in the UK has absolutely staggering unity: over 80% of doctors are members of the same union, and around 14k junior doctors have joined in the last few months since industrial action began. The ballots for industrial action including strikes were held in November with over 98% of those who voted (around 70% of those balloted) voting for industrial action. I don’t even know when there was last a strike with that level of support.
The main barrier to a return to negotiations is that the government won’t lift its threat to impose a new contract. The BMA says that it is not a negotiation if it’s basically “agree to this or we’ll do it anyway.”
The main areas of disagreement that I think non-doctors should care about are:
– how night shifts and day shifts are calculated – eg. the new contract says that a shift that ends at any time up to 2am counts as a daytime shift (so you don’t get protected time afterwards to re-set your sleep patterns)
– they want to increase “ordinary working hours” from 7am-7pm Mon-Fri to 7-10pm Mon-Sat, meaning that late night shifts and Saturday shifts will no longer be protected time or carry a supplement
– there aren’t financial penalties for trusts which require doctors to work the longest hours. So, in the current contract, it is really expensive to make a doctor work 56-70 hours a week, or over 70 hours (if they’ve opted out of the EU WTD). On the whole, it works out as cheaper to just get a locum in to cover those extra shifts. The new contract bans excessive hours, but basically says “don’t do it because it’s naughty”, and junior doctors feel that employers under pressure will go, haha, yeah, you’re doing 75 hours, sssshhh, it’s fine, don’t tell anyone!
– it is LITERALLY NOT POSSIBLE to go to seven-day working without increasing the number of staff without overworking those you already have, or reducing the staff you have during the week. This seems like pretty basic maths, but they are trying to hide it!
This week, the equality impact assessment has been released, saying that the way that night and evening shifts are worked will have an impact on people with caring responsibilities, the majority of whom are women, and that this will impact lone parents (again, the majority of whom are women) disproportionately. But that’s OK because … because … um … look, seven day working! Patients! Something something!
The main problem now is that there is SO MUCH bad shit going on at the moment – the reductions to PIP and backlash, academisation of all schools, and now the Panama Papers, at a time when the government wants to put all its focus on the Euro referendum – that nobody has really got the energy to negotiate with the doctors. It seems to me that Jeremy Hunt is basically keeping his head down for now, and letting people like NHS employers and spokespeople from the Department of Health do the talking, and hoping that by continuing industrial action the doctors will lose public support.
So obviously I am pretty much on the doctors’ side, and think the government are being a) appalling and b) disingenuous. The one criticism that I have of the doctors is that they keep repeating things like, “The basic pay of a junior doctor is less than someone working in Aldi!” Well… 1. you get a lot more pay than just the basic pay (although to be fair that is because almost no junior doctors work 40 hour Mon-Fri weeks, but then I don’t ho) 2. that’s the basic pay in your first year, and it goes up pretty steeply from there, plus you still get supplements for working evenings and weekends 3. look, comparing your pay unfavourably with other workers, especially tube drivers who actually have a ton of responsibility for NOT KILLING PEOPLE, is not cool, don’t do that.
The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance has been hosting a blogcast about feminism and faith since Tuesday, and today is the last day to submit questions and participate! It’s featuring some amazing women leaders of all faiths:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=…
I feel like The Toast would appreciate this epic punnery in my office
https://www.instagram.com/p/BD5ty3phxGg/
You would be correct.
aha! I have finally figured out how to embed and Instagram image (get the direct link from facebook!)
I know that this is photoshopped, and deep down I’m sad that someone didn’t actually go out and dress up some lion statues.
I’m actually quite surprised by the quality of the photoshopping since I know the guy who did it! But yes, my urge to go out and dress up some lion statues is strong right now.
(Also, new halloween costume idea? Yes please.)
I clicked for the pun, I followed for the tiny baby kitties.
Oh my goodness I almost died they are so cute.
Baby kitty is not mine (yet), but I’m really hoping she pulls through so I can adopt her and have a glorious life, there’s still about 4 weeks to go before she’s out of the woods (she’s only about 3 weeks old, and has already lost her brother, they were found in a bin and still had their umbilicals so they think they were less than a week!)
This Buzzfeed listicle, “21 Things Women Can Finally Buy” reminded me of the epic “shrink and pink” discussion we had about athletic gear the other day:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/ask-your-h…
Oh my goddddddd, this is amazing. “CHICK BEER” makes me want to throw things.
(I would totally eat a pink camo cake, tho)
Monterey Jill (low fat) cheese is a good one tho
Lucerne Dairy is the store brand of the supermarket next door to me, and I have to say that I have never seen Monterey Jill cheese for sale there.
Ok, so i love a lot of these – the office supplies for ladies are particularly great – i feel like that much floral pattern is making my eyes bleed.
Guitars for ladies tho? That’s a legit thing (i mean, not as presented by Buzzfeed, but…) http://www.music-man.com/instruments/guitars/st-v… My favourite thing about it is that it is not being marketed as “for girls”, but I remember reading somewhere that it was designed to be lightweight and “have room for breasts”, because Annie Clark gets that not all ppl with breasts identify as women. ♥
But they’re not pink? How am I supposed to know they’re for ladies??????
You can tell because they don’t crush you under their manly weight 😉
If I played guitar, tho, I would totally play a lipstick red Flying V. Just sayin’
ugh SO glad we finally have pens, writing with lipstick was getting really old
“http… ask-your-husband-if-you-can-use-his-credit-card-first#”
Top quality URL-ing, Buzzfeed, well done.
Tools, though. I’ve no interest in buying tools in pink, or floral, especially if they are cheaply made with hard grips. But I would be ABSOLUTELY all about some good screwdrivers and wrenches and pliers with grips designed for my hand size rather than my dad’s. Petrol pumps, too. All of that kind of stuff has been designed for the ergonomics of the average male hand, and I would be 100% in favour of someone making it with my girly hand size in mind.
I am also in favour of coloured USB cables, and, in fact, of coloured cables in general. Super handy when you know the red one is the phone and the blue one is the dock and the green one is the monitor!
I know what you mean about pink tools, but occasionally if I need to get tools for a group situation (trade shows, for example) I sometimes buy the pink version for security’s sale. Because no dude is going to steal a pink tool.
This is how my house painter friend got men to stop walking off job sites with her tools.
All the pink tools ice seen have been super crap quality – like, screwdrivers with such hard plastic handles that you’ve got blisters after five minutes, pliers that twist too easily and so on. I’m not mega DIY-y, but I want the things I have to WORK and not hurt!
I hate that things made “for girls” are crappy quality. This applies to tools as well as the arts.
If they were decent quality tools, I have to admit that the neon pink looks a lot easier to see in dim light situations (which is inevitably where I need to hammer or screw something in).
I love that the Girl Guitars one doesn’t bring up an actual reason to stock a Girl Guitar, which is, was it made for kids with smaller hands? They’re just pink, and Adele exists.
Can I point out that the women’s “value size” laxative has ten pills less than the regular box? And the exact same dosage? Or is that just assumed at this point?
Nope, that is an excellent point, I wondered, other than the packaging, what was up with that.
I read the one about the bread and not letting your husband eat it lest he become pregnant, and I laughed until I cried. And then I remembered my husband about a month ago having eaten too much food and referring to himself as “mpreg”, and I laughed EVEN HARDER. OK sorry for this nonsensical interlude.
hahaha that is amazing
I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT HATS THEY ARE THE WORST I REAAAAALLY HATE HATS
this comment is brought to you by dissertation stress and no sleep, exacerbating preexisting hat rage
“Preexisting Hat Rage” is a good band name
I’m having one of those days where I wish there was like, a family version of HR in which I could just apply Ask a Manager principals to dealing with inlaws. And on my end, I have to stop myself from being the person who sends a 12 paragraph email about office supplies:
http://www.askamanager.org/2016/04/coworker-sent-…
“I had contact embarrassment from reading it.” A+ phrase
There is! http://community.babycenter.com/groups/a4725/dwil…
I have to stop myself from spending too much time there, but it makes me feel much better about my inlaws.
While there is some ridiculous toxicity on that board at times (the thread about “my relative is trying to spoil this event with their gender identity” made me want to throw things) it is my favorite Internet trainwreck.
What is happening with the Hairpin? I keep checking and it’s still 99% recycled content… I had heard it would be restarted. Is this still the case? Come on, I know there are some Hairpin Insiders here!
I feel like I’ve been asking ‘what’s happening with the Hairpin’ for like 6 years
It just restarted this week! They are still doing some recycled content for the moment, in part because the new person running it is also running the Awl.
I wish they had stopped recycling old posts for a few days so the actual new posts wouldn’t get lost, but here’s the announcement. http://thehairpin.com/2016/04/if-a-woman-clears-h…
Okay, but I like Johnny Depp’s hat in the first picture of that Hairpin post. Hugh Jackman’s would be okay if he was wearing like a pea coat instead of a puffy coat. Viggo Mortensen needs to go back to dark hair though.
I actually super love that look. Viggo is the only man who can look as scruffy/lost his horse in a desert five days ago and finally rolled into town and all he bought was this dumb hat/cowboy as possible and still have it work for me. It’s a talent.
Oh, yeah, I like the hat fine. I just like dark-haired Viggo more than blonde-ish Viggo.
I love that the LR has become like a secret Toast-only discussion forum for AAM and Captain Awkward. By the time I read their posts there are always like 200 comments and I have nothing non-redundant to add, but there’s always interesting conversation here.
I think one time I was the first comment on a CA post and I was SHOCKED.
I usually don’t read CA, but I read AAM religiously. Usually the comments there are quite good, but I enjoy getting a Toastie perspective, because things occasionally go off the rails and send me reeling– like the time all the commenters were clutching pearls over jeans being too sexy? It was good to come here and be like “ok, phew, I’m not a harlot temptres because I wear jeans in front of my married coworkers.”
OT but guys, I have been dealing with lots of days where I’m fatigued and miserable and my insurance is high-deductible so any trips to the doctor to try and figure out why and how to deal with it would be entirely out-of-pocket and every time I decide it’s gotten bad enough and call to find out what it would cost to set up an appointment I end up hearing the numbers, getting discouraged, and hanging up in tears figuring I’ll just have to deal with it.
What non-doctor options have you guys turned to to figure out/help solve health problems? I’ve suspected what I’m dealing with are allergies since a lot of people around here have them bad right now, but nothing OTC has helped much, which is now making me question that that’s what it is.
How are there still people in this country that are against universal healthcare? I mean my problems are still minimal in comparison to most and living with misery-making fatigue a few days a week right now is better than dealing with our healthcare system.
I stand by Chinese Medicine if you can find a good (well qualified) practitioner. I have an amazing acupuncturist and herbalist back home and he really helped me with stress related physical illness.
Other than that, try some supplements/vitamins and see if it helps (My families go to for any kind of ‘run-downess’ is a bottle of Floradix, its like an Irons/vitamins supplement)
My experiences with acupuncture have been good also. Especially you’re in a city, look for practices that have the word “community” in their name, and/or ask if the practitioner has a sliding scale of pay.
I have no experience in finding a practitioner since I’ve been seeing the same guy since I was a kid; When I was moving I asked him how to find a new person and all he said was to avoid the ‘Chinese Medical Center’ places, but YMMV
Will try Floradix and a good friend has been recommending acupuncture, so I’m officially setting up an appt now. Thank you!
Ugh, hon, I am so sorry you’re dealing with mysterious fatigue. I second trying acupuncture/TCM or seeing a holistic chiropractor or naturopath. I’ve been paying for my health care out of pocket (except for the recent surgery) and it means I have very little money at this point, but I feel like seeing doctors trained in something other than standard western medicine is at least helping me get on the right track. Best wishes to you.
Just set up an appointment with a acupuncturist/herbalist that is hundreds less than a doctor’s appointment would be. Hopefully it gets me somewhere. Thanks for the suggestions, guys.
Good luck, and I’m so glad you were able to find one that you can afford.
Trust your gut and pay attention to yourself–and if they make recommendations that seem extreme or weird to you, maybe do some research to check the precedent. Obviously don’t keep working with anyone who gives you a weird vibe. Probably this person will be fine, but I want to encourage you to leave them behind if they are not fine!
Please keep us updated. I hope you feel better soon.
I know that feel! (The allergy feel)… I thought I had a cold all week but my snot was clear and then I turned off my heat (hvac hasn’t been cleaned in ages probably. just bought my house) and the cold snap made the tree flowers less crazy and I feel sooo much better. I take zyrtec every day and I thought that helped but I guess that it actually does nothing.
I hope it’s just allergies for you!
In my state, naturopaths have to also attend regular medical school, and they are licensed by a state board. They can prescribe medications (with the exception of psychotropics), and therefore may be a more reasonably-priced option for some.
A basic visit with my naturopath, while not covered by my health insurance, is cheaper than a regular doctor here in town ($80/visit or so). I am not saying that amount is easily affordable by all, but it is reasonable enough that I have stayed with my naturopath as primary physician even though my insurance doesn’t pay for the visits. (Insurance does cover the blood tests she may order and prescriptions, etc.)
Ugh, I totally relate. I have a couple of weird nagging injuries (a thing with my foot and another thing with my hip). Neither of them are hugely impacting my daily life, but both are preventing me from going running and I’m really frustrated about it! I was working really hard to get in a better state of physical fitness and now it’s all unraveling. My work health insurance has a $1000 deductible so I could go for an office visit with just a copay, but I suspect that getting a firm diagnosis will require imaging and I cannot currently afford to pay for that out of pocket. So I’m stuck hoping the injuries get better but not even knowing what’s wrong or if they even can get better without surgery or something. Argh. I have no advice, just wanted to commiserate.
OK. Here’s my grossness!
I was with my parents over Thanksgiving and had a sore throat so bad that when I finally was dragged to the doctor, they wanted to put me on an IV drip because I was so dehydrated. They gave me antibiotics for strep throat and I got reasonably better by the time I got home. I was pretty weak and gross, but my brand-new boyfriend at the time convinced me to drive to DC with him and some friends for a big party. We were renting a hotel so he assured me he’d take care of me and bring me home as soon as I was tired and tuck me in. And he did!! But then I woke up around midnight like “Hm, think I’m gonna barf!” And I did. I don’t know what was wrong with me because I called the front desk like “Hey… I threw up in a garbage can…” and this poor night-shift guy was like “Ok………..” I asked for a new garbage bin liner but they didn’t have any! So I had to keep it in there. Because I continued to vomit. All night. And then I started pooping. All night. At the same time. On the toilet, head in a garbage can already full of puke, just shitting and vomiting my guts out. By morning, my shit was full of blood, likely because of the strain. I was massively dehydrated by the time my friends returned… to our hotel room with the shared bathroom, with a can full of a night’s worth of vomit. To top it off, my friends had the WORST night of their lives prior to returning to the hotel — one friend’s boyfriend cheated on her at the party, so she was a mess, sobbing all morning while I tried to console her from my deathbed, periodically leaving to vomit/poop. It was a mess. Other friends would show up and peek in the room like “heeyyy, friends… how ya doin?” It was a Very Public event. Everyone knew about my bowels in vivid detail.
Anyway. I’m not positive if this caused the puke/shit session, if it was bad timing & food poisoning or what, but it turns out my illness was not strep throat but rather… chlamydia, of the throat, lovingly given to me by my absolutely awful ex.
🙂
WAHHHHH
D:
O_o Wowzers. You are an amazonian warrior woman, wow. Mad props for surviving and somehow having a sense of humour about this!
OH MY GOD YOU POOR THING
That’s terrible, and I’m glad you came out OK. And I can’t really believe they didn’t have new liners for the bin!
DANG! This story is amazing. I wish I could go back in time and bring you Gatorade and trash-bin liners and soft baby wipes. Instead I will send you internet-stranger hugs and I will raise a glass (ummm…. my thermos of coffee) to this amazing memory.
My jaw dropped open at the last line. Geeeez.
Woo! That first Daniel Radcliffe hat was from when he was in Equus in London. My husband and I went on vacation and managed to get tickets for it. There was much “hee hee hee we’ve seen Harry Potter naked.”
Also, that Odenkirk hat cracks me up, it’s so tiny! And as ever, Daniel Day-Lewis, Hobo Clown.
I once saw Daniel Day-Lewis in the flesh in Soho, circa 1998. He was hot as blazes and about as far from being a hobo clown as you can get. He also wasn’t wearing a hat. COINCIDENCE?!?
My mum and brother went to see Daniel Radcliffe in Equus as well (my brother was doing it for Drama A Level).
me every time i see a fedora: you are not an adorable old man TAKE THAT FEDORA OFF RIGHT NOW
you too oscar isaac. it’s okay that picture was from a long time ago OH SHIT NO IT’S NOT
Yeah okay but every time I see him laboring under the results of an unfortunate fashion or facial hair choice I’m like, “But would I?” and the answer is still, “Like a screen door in a hurricane. Like a crooked nail. Like a tambourine. Like the initial instant of the cosmos.”
For a fedora not to be a dealbreaker for me shakes me to the very roots of my being, and yet.
(whispers) same
saaaaaaame
Oh man, the Freds of the world! Have we all had that friend—sorry, “friend”—who oversteps the boundaries of normal reciprocal friendship and makes it all.about.them.
Deescalating and disengaging from those types is such a gift to oneself. Fred is obviously on the far end of the continuum, but I have one—let’s call her Anne—who just flat-out does not ask me about myself, will launch into elaborate complaints about her dating life, show up uninvited to small social gatherings, and just can’t read a damn room.
Oh, Anne.
Disengagement is such a gift, especially when handled kindly. My Fred is a cousin who constantly moans about how I him all my attention because of family obligation and makes passive aggressive suicide threats. I honestly feel a great deal of pity for him and I don’t think he knows how to behave any differently but I have put up serious boundaries and I don’t regret it for a second.
I feel silly asking this, but can anyone explain to me how information leaks like the Panama Papers work? I heard that these organizations have had the data for over a year, and they’ve only just started publishing some of it? I mean, I get there was a lot to go through, and they probably had to do extra research, but it seems so strange to me that they’ve had it all this time and no one knew? How do they decide what to publish and when?
The articles I’ve read have mostly been concerned with the content of the documents, instead of how the leak happened in the first place.
This was a super piece about exactly that!: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473139196/panama-pa…
Thank you! That helps a lot. I seriously can’t believe they kept that many people in line for that long.
I love how that guy keeps talking about this Internet as “pipes”!
I love that this was uncovered and analyzed by a consortium. My journal has recently begun working as an editorial consortium to spread costs across multiple institutions, and although African art history isn’t going to be blowing open scandals like the Panama Papers, I really think that consortia are the way of the future for funding the kind of work–academic, journalistic–that single publications can’t support on their own.
I am HERE for gross body stuff. I once had norovirus, and it was the worst 24 hours of my life. I couldn’t even have ice chips in my mouth without barfing, and at the same time, I had to poop nonstop. I was a grown woman (mid-30s) with a husband and baby and had to call my mother to come take care of me (we were worried that my husband would catch it and then give it to the baby if he had to take care of us both). Anyway, at the peak of horribleness, I was pooping and then suddenly barfed so hard (into a trash can) that I blacked out. My mom, bless her, caught me as I fell forward off the toilet. I literally came to in her arms about six inches from breaking my nose on the sink in front of me. We called my doctor and told him this and he replied, and I quote, “yeah, that can happen.” Haha thanks!
Me, too! (The barfing so hard that I passed out. . . while on the toilet with nonstop poops.) Only, I was in a hotel room across the country from my home with no one there to catch me when I passed out and fell off the toilet! Recall waking up on the floor but I must not have hit very hard — no head cracking, thank goodness.
Alternative Spring Break trip to New Orleans in 2010. Group of 30ish college students got NORO virus.
Walking into the bathroom was like a warzone.
Bodies everywhere, people moaning in pain, sweaty.
The CDC came and interviewed us and took samples. Those people looked waaaay too happy to be handed specimen cups of explosive diarrhea.
I think we all know the true pinnacle of Jezebel’s Gross Body Stories: http://jezebel.com/here-it-is-jezebels-most-disgu…
The original was six years ago and it still haunts me.
I found this story a loooong time ago (possibly on Jez?) and it is one of the most horrifying things I have ever read. And I am very glad I live on my own now.
http://www.wyseguys.com/blag/shitty-roommate/
OK, just spent a good portion of my lunch break reading that (no adverse effect on lunch itself, oddly!). That can’t possibly be a real thing that happened on Earth, can it? I mean… it just can’t. (Can it??)
Dear Prudence podcast???? Dear Prudence PODCAST.
whaaaaaaaaaaaat
Announced in today’s column!
Okay, but can we talk about baby Chris Pratt in the hats link? I mean – WOW.
He’s like ten years old! *heart-eyes*
Yes! Let’s! Because he has serious under-eye circles and I’m worried he wasn’t feeling well when that picture was taken.
Nicole, just wanted to say I always appreciate your soccer links as I’m one of the Toasties who is a full-on fanatic. And I wanted to bring to your/everyone who’s into soccer attention that there is a new all women writers/artists soccer site: http://www.unusualefforts.com/
They are great & they just launched & I’m super excited about it.
Thanks for sharing that site! I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
This is partly due to my issues, but I want to grab Fred by the shoulders and shake him for 15 straight minutes and yell “NO”
There’s nothing like the revulsion you feel when you spot behavior in others that you yourself overcame or narrowly avoid, I know it well.
I just need to ask, is it okay for me to be shrieking with laughter reading all the horrible gross body stories? I feel like this isn’t the correct reaction, but I just. can’t. stop.
Great (probably intentionally hilarious) writing aside, I think your name absolves you.
I don’t even know what your glorious name absolves you from, since I dropped out of college in the middle of a Kierkegaard reading (I got better!), but it has to be something good.
Just a quick shout out “props” for linking to the New Hairpin; I’m really, really rooting for it. Yeah, I know it’s because of Matt L. but still, YAY!
I have a small head in proportion to my body and hats balance me out, so hats forever! On the other end of the spectrum, my horse bud has a little larger than average head and hats look goofy on him, hence, my theory of proportion stands.
Ooh, I have a tiny head; maybe I should see if hats help.
Toasties – today is the 3 year anniversary of busting my beautiful weird brave dog, Minie, out of the dog shelter. I have created an Instagram in her honour and will be filling it with photos of her fluffiness, her teeth, and her adventures: https://www.instagram.com/cartoonminie
If your dog has an Instagram, please post the link here and I will follow you.
Followed!
My instagram is about 75% dog. I’m considering starting a new account especially for him.
oh my god, she’s perfect
Her TEETH
Oh, mine is new, but the plan is a roughly 50/50 split between my dog & my new horse, so: https://www.instagram.com/celtadri/
Leo obviously did not get the memo about the white hats with blue bands.
Grossest thing my body has ever done: definitely the large skin-based tumor that grew in my ear for 20 years, devouring 2 of my ear bones & part of my skull (!!). By the end, it was giving me weekly infections, extraordinary pain, and bits of it would flake out when I went horseback riding or was otherwise rough-and-tumble. It looked like fibrous mother-of-pearl.
Fun endnote: when I had the mf’er removed, I woke up in the recovery room and the anesthesiologist was there to let me know the surgery was a success. But the FIRST thing he said was: “It was MUCH bigger than we thought it would be!”
Holy shit!! That sounds amazing(ly disgusting)!
“This was a triumph. I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.”
I really, really liked Captain Awkward’s reply, especially this bit: “If Fred calls you 37 times and you answer on the 38th time to tell him to stop it, you’ve taught him that it takes 38 calls to get your attention and you had to deal with the anxiety of all 38 of them as they rolled in.” I especially liked that one of the early responses was from a crisis hotline volunteer, since my time volunteering at one was one of the first things that I thought of when I read “Fred”‘s story.
I really appreciated how obviously pissed CA was at Fred, she’s usually so calm even with absolutely not okay behavior, but I felt like her irritation (anger, even!) at him came across in her answer. In a good way. All of the time is your time, LW!!
Kind of a gross body thing:
A few months after starting dating my first serious boyfriend I came down with a bad fever and was out of work for about a week. I was so sick I didn’t have the energy to even shower, and I was sweating everywhere. After five days of marinating in my own stew I called my boyfriend to come take me to the ER. I pull on clothes and we go. When we go back to see the doctor I get put in a hospital gown and hand my boyfriend my clothes. We’re waiting, he’s holding my clothes, I’m sick and sticky and just a mess of a human, he turns to me and says “your pants smell like tacos.” He meant my vagina. We were together for two years after that and I do not know why.
One of my dear friends rents my old house, the one bad feature of which is its tiny, tiny bathroom. She told me she knew her marriage was going to work when she and her husband, who is a big guy, both had a stomach bug and had to cram themselves in there and share access to the toilet for the horrible things coming out of both their bodies.
PERFECT
It's actually, I now realize, a huge part of America's cultural problem wrt taxes and the social safety net.
Oh, wow, thank you for telling me that! I was starting to doubt my mother's story about the staph infection because, when I was in my 30's, I saw a burn caused by boiling water. It was so horrific — the burned skin pulling away from the lower layers (epidermis and whatever the lower layers are called) and I thought, "what mother in their right mind wouldn't take her child to the doctor immediately when confronted with a burned-looking skin like that?" So I didn't believe that my mother could possibly be so … I can't even think of a good word. But now I know it's true. Wow. Gonna have to rethink some things.
I still can't eat pumpkin seeds.