hangin’ out
This is really sad, and it made me so angry that people would be so stupid and/or callous not to see that a “famous” black writer was buying a family home via an LLC BECAUSE THEY DO NOT WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE THEIR HOME ADDRESS AND PUT IT IN THE NEW YORK POST:
I was shocked at the royalties. But as soon as I saw them, I knew what I would do with them. I called my old buddy and asked him if anything was available in that neighborhood, in the Prospect Lefferts-Garden which we loved so much. I was thinking of finally being able to take all of our books out of storage. I was thinking of my mother, who would have a space of her own, and could come and stay for as long as she liked. I was thinking of my partner, who was by then my wife, and how much she had given me and made possible.
My friend found a house on Lincoln Road. He dubbed it “The Dream.” He told me my wife would love it. She did. I did. There was, by then, a storm around the book, people asking for crazy things, and offering crazier things, still. We thought we’d found a port in that storm. Unlike Park Slope, Fort Green, or Williamsburg, Prospect-Lefferts Garden had always been low-key. In our early years in New York, we felt like we were in on a secret.
But no one keep secrets in Brooklyn. A few weeks after we bought, another friend sent an item from a local blog gossiping about our possible purchase. We didn’t expect to live anonymously. We thought there might be some interest and we took some steps to dissuade that interest. Those steps failed. Last week the New York Post, and several other publications, reported on the purchase. They ran pictures of the house. They named my wife. They photoshopped me in the kitchen. They talked to the seller’s broker. The seller’s broker told them when we’d be moving in. The seller’s broker speculated on our plans for renovation. They rummaged through my kid’s instagram account. They published my home address.
Anthony Bourdain and I feel the same way about coffee:
What’s your coffee strategy on the road?
There are few things I care about less than coffee. I have two big cups every morning: light and sweet, preferably in cardboard cup. Any bodega will do. I don’t want to wait for my coffee. I don’t want some man-bun, Mumford and Son motherf*cker to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don’t want to wait for it, and I don’t want it with the cast of Friends. It’s a beverage; it’s not a lifestyle.
Toastie Rosie emailed me to draw our attention to the BBC putting Kenneth Williams’ 1970s reading of Cold Comfort Farm online, please make some tea and settle in!
Things are HAPPENING within the United Methodist Church right now (mainly, over a hundred clergy members coming out of the closet just before the UMC’s General Conference), and I’m loving it:
We come out, too, to provide hope for LGBTQI young people in hostile UMC churches. These young people are more at risk for suicide than their peers, in part, because of the condemnation they hear from the pulpits and pews of their churches. We come out to remind them that God’s love for them is immeasurable, and offers them a love that will never let them go, even when it feels like the church is willing to let them go.
We come out to invite them to listen for God’s still, small voice that will speak in the quiet places of their hearts, who will call them into leadership positions. We seek to create a pathway of hope into ministry for them, even when the church has tried to shut its doors on them, or overtly or indirectly condoned the persecution of LGBTQI persons.
We love you, dear church. Through you, we have stood on sacred ground and seen the face of God more clearly. Our prayer, as the church begins its time of discernment, is that you will remember that there are nameless ones around the world, hungry for a word of hope and healing. LGBTQI people and their families exist in every church in every continent of this denomination. They are seeking to remain in faithful relationship with you, even when you refuse, because they know God’s tender mercies and great faithfulness.
Lisa Hix on the brand of Walt Whitman:
Starting in the late 19th century and continuing today, Whitman’s name, image, and writing have been employed to sell a wide range of consumer products, from tobacco and whiskey to fighter planes, life insurance, and wax beans. The range of Whitman-themed marketing is even more surprising when you realize that in 1855, his self-published book, Leaves of Grass, was considered startlingly obscene and repugnant, flying in the face the prevailing buttoned-up Victorian mores of day. But thanks to smart personal brand management on the part of Whitman and his champions, within 30 years, public opinion of the poet made a 180.
When he was an elderly man disabled by stroke and disease in 1890, a handful of cigar manufacturers started to adopt his name and face for their cigar brands—without asking—even though Whitman didn’t even smoke. The iconoclast had also argued in favor of Temperance and Prohibition as a young man because his father was an alcoholic, but more than 100 years later, in 2016, Whitman appears on at least two brands of craft beer.
I am really excited to read Lindy’s book, and I liked the excerpt The Guardian just ran a whole lot:
When I look at photographs of my 22-year-old self, so convinced of her own defectiveness, I see a perfectly normal girl and I think about aliens. If an alien – a gaseous orb or a polyamorous cat person or whatever – came to Earth, it wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between me and Angelina Jolie, let alone rank us by hotness. It’d be like: “Uh, yeah, so those ones have the under-the-face fat sacks, and the other kind has that dangly pants nose. Fuck, these things are gross. I can’t wait to get back to the omnidirectional orgy gardens of Vlaxnoid.”
The “perfect body” is a lie. I believed in it for a long time, and I let it shape my life, and shrink it – my real life, populated by my real body. Don’t let fiction tell you what to do. In the omnidirectional orgy gardens of Vlaxnoid, no one cares about your arm flab.
Prince’s hairstylist of 28 years, Kim Berry, gives Allure an intimate look at the famously private musician.
“I was dating one of Prince’s bodyguards when his hairstylist quit—she’d taken a liking to me, and I was like, ‘Girl, you work for the biggest entertainer in the world!’ My dad said success is where opportunity meets preparedness, so the day she quit, I went up to Prince’s table at the nightclub and laid my portfolio out in front of him. He knew I had to be somebody because I’d gotten up to his table and that was unheard of.
“He called me an hour later and said, ‘Can you travel? Your flight leaves in an hour. We’re sending a car to come get you.’ I grabbed a curling iron and jumped on the plane—I didn’t even have a coat. I went to his house in Minnesota and did his brother’s hair—that was my audition—and Prince said, ‘You have the job, but you’ve got to leave those nails at home.’ I had long nails, and I chopped them off right there—pop, pop pop! Prince just started cracking up laughing. He said, ‘Yeah, you’re going to work out.’
HOW:
Anti-choice activist Angel Dillard did not intend to intimidate a Kansas physician with a 2011 letter warning that the doctor would be looking under her car every day for bombs, an eight-person jury decided in U.S. District Court on Friday.
there will always be a No Homers Club:
The Whitechapel Club was founded in 1889 by a group of young, bohemian, literary Chicago newspapermen, located in a Loop alley that now West Calhoun Place, between Wells and Lasalle. Equally a secret society and a press club, the organization was named after the area of London where Jack the Ripper contemporaneously prowled for victims. Jack the Ripper himself was named (absentee) president.
Chicago reporters often lived in a dark and macabre world in order to report the news, and the Whitechapel Club reflected these preoccupations and mocked them. Also called the Suicide Club, the group’s motto commanded members to “laugh in the face of death.” Although over half of the all-male members were journalists, like-minded men of other professions were allowed to join: bank presidents, police chiefs, and preachers mingling with fringe members of society, including magicians, psychics, and even convicted murderers. Other than journalists, only two men of each profession could belong at the same time. Women were strictly forbidden—Omene was the only female guest in the short, eight-year history of the club.
This is such a nightmare:
Kenya plans to close all of its refugee camps in a move that would displace more than 600,000 people.
The country’s government said it was shutting down the camps due to “very heavy” economic, security and environmental issues. Those due to close include Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world, home to more than 300,000 people on the Kenya-Somalia border.
Karanja Kibicho, Kenya’s secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, cited the influence of terror group Al-Shabaab as among the risks of keeping the camps open.
Rembert on The Larry Wilmore Incident:
The takes that came out in the days afterward were a reminder about who gets to draw the lines, make the rules, and declare what’s right and wrong, appropriate and disrespectful, when it comes to the use of that word. It’s a moment to acknowledge the effect eight years of a black president have had — both the things that have changed and those that remain the same. A moment in which there’s more black people with platforms than ever before, more ways for black opinions to be expressed aloud. A moment when you truly see the degree to which black people are not a monolith. A moment where the opinions are strong, passionate, and, in many cases, unwavering. And because of this, there are far more opportunities for black people to discuss, celebrate, and argue in public.
Black people discussing with other black people about how black people should talk to black people in front of white people. These are the moments you live for.
One of the dearest friends of The Toast ever to be a friend of The Toast, Matt Lubchansky, is Kickstartering, and I love him and I would love it if you gave him some money so I can read this stupid book.
Who feels so strongly about raccoons to write and submit a comment that includes “burn in hell” unless THEY are a raccoon?
Also: ban men from writing, oh my god.
Ban raccoons from commenting!
I think the possibility that the comment was left by an actual raccoon is something we should be taking pretty seriously. The fact is, no one really knows what kind of computer literacy level raccoons have; for all we know, it might be the raccoons that invented bitcoin.
Have we considered that all MRAs on the internet might actually be sentient raccoons?
Something to think about.
That is a pretty libellous thing to say about raccoons! Let’s not make them the escape goats of internet misogyny.
I nominate “escape goats” as my favorite typo of the year so far, (unless you actually meant that there are real escape goats, wearing teeny parachutes maybe, and goggles?).
I actually love the term “escape goat” to mean a fall guy that one has specifically chosen to allow for one’s own avoidance of blame.
I like the idea that Escape Goat is constantly getting blamed for things but always manages to get out of it anyway.
Donald Trump?
It’s a very deliberate Trailer Park Boys reference. If you enjoy escape goat you will love that show.
I was hoping it was a Community reference. https://vine.co/v/humDg0epOBa
But I think I need to watch Trailer Park Boys, too, everyone says it’s amazing.
the only reason I’m skeptical about this is because the MRA philosophy is a reactionary, delusional atavism, and raccoons don’t look to the past, they look to the future and the ultimate and inevitable dissolution of civilization.
Malevolent Raccoon Activists. Acronym checks out.
That would explain so much.
Their long clever fingers were clearly made for typing
perhaps raccoons are even better-adapted to computers than we are
Perhaps raccoons invented computers to distract their human foes.
R U Kidding? those are jazz hands if ever there was
for the raccoon, there is no line between Jazz Hands and Hacking Fingers
Excuse you, I believe they are spirit fingers.
THOSE are not spirit fingers…THESE are spirit fingers.
I do hold my hands in that exact position before I start typing anything sinister or nefarious or (redundant) delightful, so maybe they really can type.
This raccoon commenter was only doing her duty. There is a special place in hell for raccoons who don’t defend all of raccoonkind!
(There’s also a special place in hell, I’m sure, for people who condemn others to special places in hell, but that’s another matter entirely.)
This comment was no doubt written by a fierce Pawnee Raccoon.
Prince’s Hairstylist! What an interesting woman.
Of all the posts to generate a hell-burning wish, the raccoons? REALLY??
Huh. So that’s totally a raccoon commenting via someone’s “lost” iPad, right?
WE MUST TAKE A STAND AGAINST THE RACCOON MENACE
I sort of wish the raccoons that have taken to mating under my back porch would burn in hell, but that’s not really the same thing.
The “ban men from writing” tweet and image are locked, which is actually probably better for my blood pressure.
While I’m sure you’re right re: blood pressure, I’m Team Morbid Curiosity.
I saw it yesterday before it was locked, it was an excerpt from a book where a man had his female character awkwardly describing herself, including the line “my breasts are nicely separated”. I wish I could remember the rest.
I audibly LOL’d… “this is how women talk about their breasts, right?” IDK about other ladies, but as the owner of breasts, I pay about as much attention to them as my elbows.
I really like my boobs. They are fun and bouncy and soft and pleasant to hold onto. idk how separated they are, tho.
Also included the “…but I used to get made fun of for my looks!” trope. She’s a 9, not a 10, just to be clear!
Baaaaaarf.
I’m not _not_ on the banallmenfromwriting train. I just also really like my boobs 😉
I like mine too, but in the narration of my life, they’d be far more likely to come up in a scene like…”The diner booth was a little too narrow to accommodate my boobs. They were going to get into the syrup again, weren’t they.”
That’s one of the reasons I don’t like referring to boobs as “the girls.” If my boobs were women they’d be way more considerate.
my boobs are always getting into the syrup, like a couple of naughty raccoons.
Where are the novels casually mentioning how uncomfortably sweaty somebody’s breasts are in a sports bra?
I’m sure I’ve seen that extract before… or potentially another example of that exalted genre.
I was in a writing group with a young man whose female POV character spent a page looking at her naked body in the mirror and concluded, among other things, that her breasts were nicely ripe.
Needless to say, every woman in the group had a comment beginning with the phrase, “No woman ever–“
The idea of ripe breasts frankly alarms me, implying as it does that they’re about to start… rotting? Okay no that makes total sense in the context of patriarchal views of women’s bodies. 🙁
My breasts are ripe like durians.
(backs away slowly, breaks into a run)
*applause*
I honestly think it’s adorable that men think women think about their own breasts constantly. Idiotic, but adorable.
My guess: It’s because they think about their peens constantly, and we don’t have peens, so what else are we going to obsess about?
Or that they think about women’s breasts that much, and assume they same must be true for them.
Some awful combination of the two? Really, it is amazing that men manage to get anything done, what with the obsession about naughty bits
On the other hand, there’s a lot things in civilisation that were done to impress women – “the face that launched a thousand ships” and such. I think there’s a number of successful actors who started out in acting classes because there were plenty of girls there.
Clearly, we’ll never have equality until a female author has her male main character stare at himself naked in a mirror, and lovingly describe the “pillar of my masculinity, nicely resting on my well-seperated testes”
I feel like i would have read WAY more Harlequins if they had been written like this 😉
The Song of Solomon?
Ah yes, the slim everything. Someone retweeted that for me yesterday too, that’s what I figured it was.
This was one of a couple of things that absolutely killed Murakami’s 1Q84 for me, I wanted to blame it on translation problems, but I don’t think there is any language where women are that obsessed with their own boobs.
I don’t remember any boobs in that book! Just a LOT OF EARLOBES!
I love Murakami, but every book has boobsocks and these awful sex-scenes that are taken straight out of hentai.
I once made the mistake of trying to read two Murakami books in a row. That made how he feels about women a little too clear and I have not read any Murakami since. 🙁
I mean, once you’ve read 1Q84, or any two of his books really, you’ve heard all he has to say. Or at least seen all his character types and plot developments.
Also, I’m glad other people notice this about Murakami. No one ever talks about it, so I was afraid I was reading too far in
Thank you, you have given me permission not to read 1Q84 as I have hit my 2 book Murakami quota.
Thank you! The husband has around 17 of his books; I have read 2 and feel that I’ve covered off all the bases.
To be fair, I feel this way about a raft of other male writers, most particularly of the approaching, in or accelerating away from middle age
Murakami to me is: Man is unhappy with life, is weirdly obsessed with an underage girl, has some kind of off the wall experiences, there is a cat, in the end he learns nothing and goes back to the status quo, repeat.
Don’t forget the single obscure classical piece, and surface-level exploration of topic of the week! Also: exercise and masturbation. Occasionally jazz, but varies book to book.
My favorite line is when “she” goes off on a tangent about her face and starts the next paragraph, “Getting back to my body….”
Someone on Twitter pointed out that this would make an excellent non sequitur to use at parties.
Gist of the image: Woman describes herself via the male gaze for at least two paragraphs. Includes references to the spacing of her breasts and the length of her neck.
Also has the Phrase: “Getting back to my body…” which then continues to describe her body.
The voice of the narrator was so explicitly male that I didn’t realize it was a female narrator until well after the description of her hips. I actually thought to myself, “hm, interesting that a man is larger on the bottom than on the top.”
Ugh.
I thought that exact thing! It is actually a fairly creative description for a male character.
not just the length of her neck, but it was phrased something like “my neck ascends from my shoulders” which ????????
I’m picturing a sort of heavenly transfiguration from the neck up, leaving the rest of her lifeless body to slump to the ground once it’s been left behind.
i certainly imagined something similar! it reminded me of the Mannerism paintings of Holy Mary with the absurdly long neck that puts her head up in the sky, and then down on her body the perfectly spherical breasts.
a Rapturous neck!
I would actually be totally willing to have my coffee brought to me by Mumford and Sons, if only so they could occupy themselves with the pursuit of latte art or whatever and never create another travesty like their last album.
Their last album was so boring . If you’re going to change your musical style from acoustic to electric instruments at least compose some music that plays to that style. Argh, that album was so disappointing
YES. Like, their first two albums were consistently cheesy and had horrifically stupid lyrics and used banjos to do things that banjos maybe ought not be required to do, but they were also unabashedly fun to listen to every now and again. This new one? Not fun.
Heheh, this reminds me of one of my favorite tumblr posts:
who the f are the lumineers? what is this proto-mumford trend? why does everyone play banjos? what year is it? who won the civil war
I don’t know what I love more, banjos or making fun of banjos. BOTH ARE GREAT.
As an unapologetic banjo-player, I approve this comment. It is a very mockable instrument.
Man, I wish there were more banjos! All banjos, no ukeleles!
Ha! I second this, and I play the ukulele. But only the tenor one because the soprano one is too dinky for me. Overall, the uke is a terribly dinky instrument unless you’re one of the masters (which I not). Ohhh for larger hands!
But what of the…..banjolele?
I’ve heard that they’re returning to the acoustic style with the next album!
I liked the first song from this one (Believe, I think?) but the wolf song sounded like everything else on the radio at the time it came out and ehhh, didn’t really make me want to listen to the whole album.
Ha! Or so I could tell them to bring back the jangly banjos. I miss that!
Ha! I mean, I unabashedly loved Sigh No More – if that makes me tasteless and basic, so be it. BANJO BANJO BANJO.
Plus I give many many points to anyone who displays a sense of humor about themselves (see also: Josh Groban, Michael Bolton), and that Hopeless Wanderer music video was COMEDY GOLD.
I love banjos! Love them! I’m totally ok with people talking trash about them, but only if they secretly love them.
2012 was a year when “The Cave” meant a lot to me, as did numerous other songs on that album (“White Blank Page” still steals my breath sometimes). They’ve also done a really good cover of “The Boxer.” But yeah, I haven’t cared for the albums after it.
Agreed! I really like Sigh No More, and love that they aren’t overly serious about their banjoing. Plus, they gave us a video with Idris Elba, which makes up for all sorts of flaws.
Except replace “their last album” with “their music.”
I hope everyone* who has ever gone to a comment section and typed the words “I hope you burn in hell” burns in hell.
* I mean, except for me, for doing so just now.
You are the exception that proves the rule.
More Lindy West in today’s Guardian! I am enjoying the extracts a lot. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/…
That’s a great article. I look back on my young self having my first period, feeling so full of anxiety and shame, and I feel so sad for her, and angry on her behalf. Because of all the shame around it, I felt totally unprepared, and made it so much more difficult than it has to be. And moon goddess hippiefying is no better, in my opinion, because it still separates periods into this Other category, rather than a normal part of life. I hope it’s easier for young girls now, though I fear that often it’s harder :(*
*emotionally harder I mean, obviously (and unfortunately) it’s physically hard for many women who are not privileged/live in developed countries etc.
I was pretty excited when I got mine but that probably had to do with all the YA fiction I’d been reading, quite a lot of it about periods. I also think my mom* and health class in public school did a good job making sure I’d know what to expect. It didn’t take too long before I was like GOD this is a pain in the ass but I didn’t feel ashamed to have started menstruating.
* Probably the reason my mom made certain I knew what was happening is that her mom told her NOTHING. She didn’t even know periods were a thing until she started bleeding at the park one day and ran home crying because she thought she was dying. Jesus Christ.
You know, to this very day I don’t know the proper pronunciation of “menstruation”? I’ve never heard it said out loud.
(One piece by her about internet trolls was included in today’s paper but is not, apparently, online; it used the phease “Dalek thighs” and I have been pondering its meaning for several hours now. Is it a cellulite reference? Because my first thought, “like the thighs of a Dalek”, is clearly not it; they are pretty lacking in the thigh department.)
Even though it’s presumably meant to be an insult, ‘Dalek thighs’ sounds pretty cool, like they were robot thighs with laser beams coming out of them or something, that could kill a man at ten paces.
That’s a really disturbing image–thigh chafe in real life is bad enough, but if your thighs also have all those knobby protuberances all over? Ugh.
I guess I don’t really see the problem with that writing excerpt, I thought it was always pretty well understood that women spend a lot of time standing naked in front of a mirror, cataloging the ways in which they do not resemble parrots.
Ok I can’t see the writing excerpt as it is locked for followers only and now I am DYING to know.
Also it is true about the parrots.
oh man she probably started getting a bunch of flack for it and had to lock her feed down
dude you can’t reply to my comment and not say what the excerpt was about!!!
I mean, you can, and you did, but morally speaking pretty sure that is an unforgiveable Commenting Crime
I am trying to find it because it was an excerpt from a book and it’s just this huge paragraph that starts with
“I guess it’s time for me to explain what I look like” and then she stands naked in front of the mirror and talks about how sexy she is an in particular how she does NOT resemble a parrot the way that people said she used to.
It’s not…I guess, it’s not functionally bad, so much as it is relentlessly goofy.
nd then she stands naked in front of the mirror and talks about how sexy she is an in particular how she does NOT resemble a parrot the way that people said she used to
DAMMIT, women, which of us leaked this secret female habit to A Man?!
I know I thought it was very true to what I assume life is, but everyone is saying that it’s not! I guess I got to really reconsider what I know to be true about the Female Mind.
UGH my copy of the book omitted the “not” and now I have a beak.
no, it is also functionally bad.
oh god i forgot that part! the big about her big (hooked?) nose and how she definitely didn’t look like a parrot because underneath her nose was a pair of plump cushiony lips.
which.
i actually read a romance novel by a woman this weekend and it was f/f romance so i was really looking forward to something less…male gazey, and she used a similar description of one of the characters’ mouths and i was shocked that it wasn’t just a man-writer-porn-gaze thing. (though, to be fair, the author’s style was completely mechanical and utterly mediocre outside of the weird porn-style descriptions of the characters. i can’t recommend it, besides which the narrator is insufferably terrible)
“a romance novel by a woman” I’m gonna take a wild stab in the dark here and say that this novel was written by a man under a female pen name. It happens more than you think! Though why he would attempt to write f/f is beyond me.
I actually thought that might be the case from the first porn-like description. I looked up the author and the photo, bio, etc. don’t seem like something someone would fake, but what do i know? (Also, she has a YouTube where she speaks, and her books don’t sell THAT well so it’d be weird to hire an actor for that!)
anyway, the stronger argument is that the prose is so mechanical and lifeless that these weird descriptions and so on are just plugged in clichés. (it’s weird that there were two “looking at myself in the mirror” awkward early fanfiction style descriptions of the narrator, and they were slightly different!)
Someone REALLY needs to write a book in which a parrot stands naked in front of a mirror cataloging the ways in which it resembles a parrot. Nice talons, razor sharp beak, excellent plumage, etc.
“my nestmates used to say that I looked like a human girl, but now I think my beak is sharp and hooked, not soft and straight at all, and my complexion is more emerald feathers than bald pink skin”
Yes!! A+++
“Who’s a pretty bird? Who’s a pretty bird? Yes, YOU ARE, you’re a pretty bird!”
Toasties, did you see this about airlines letting dogs fly with their owners as they evacuate Ft. McMurray? My initial reaction was “Plane full of dogs! Look at the doofy dog who is just. so. excited. about going on a ride!”
And then I thought, “…cats. What on Earth would a plane full of cats be like. Oh, oh God, it’d be hell on Earth.”
And then I had to look at the doofy pup again.
you got to stock up on kitty-ativan and just drug the hell out of them, I think; the cats would be unhappy, but one day in a drug-induced stupor would probably be infinitely superior to a plane full of cats just freaking their shit out.
So, once I had to drive 12 hours with my cats and I drugged them and they still managed to yowl and I learned a lot about myself including the fact that 45 minutes into the trip I knew exactly which one of them peed and what pitch they needed to whine at to indicate that I needed to pull over and pet them and it was so stressful that I took hour-by-hour notes when I stopped to stretch my legs because it was just so absurd. And so even when thinking about drugging the cats, I just hear a plane full of yowls.
yeah I’m not saying it’s going to be a pleasure cruise, but maybe survivable compared to the alternative.
once we were taking my cat to the vet and she managed to escape from her carrier and got loose in the car. My wife was driving, so I managed to catch a hold of the cat who, after escaping, realized that she had no idea where the hell she was and what was happening, so she just froze with panic the whole ride.
Also she did this thing that cats do sometimes, where she was so scared she just started to emit a cloud of cat hair? It was like a cat-hair grenade went off in my lap.
My cat is always extra soft for a few days after he goes to the vet, because he always sheds his entire undercoat within the first two minutes he’s in the car. Here I thought that was just him.
(All the drooling might be just him, though.)
My cat drools too. It’s disgusting (but at least it keeps the dog owners away from us in the vet’s waiting room).
She seems to drool less when going straight, so I now know how to drive to the vet making only two left turns (not easy in my neighborhood of one-way streets).
That was my nightmare scenario when I was driving – they were definitely sedated, but I lived in terror of the moment the dumb, panicky one would panic his way right out of the crate.
Mine does that! And he’s normally a heavy shedder anyway. 🙁
The one time I had to take him on a plane, though, he was a perfect angel–which was exactly what I needed from him that day and for which I am still grateful.
I still remember a trip to the vet with the family cats when I was about 7 – the dumb half-feral cat punched her way out of the cardboard carrier and took up residence under a seat. We retrieved her, but a falconer’s glove would’ve made things less painful.
I’m very familiar with the hair grenade. I referred to it as molting, but I hair grenade is better sounding and more accurate.
Once my cat got loose and lodged himself under the brakes, and fooortunately I poked him out before I had to make an uncomfortable choice, but after that I was relentless about making sure the carrier was closed well.
He was the sweetest, gentlest, best cat, but he didn’t care for travel too much.
Having done several 9 hour car rides with my cats I can relate. I’ve noticed that once we are on the highway they tend to calm down. They hate acceleration and hills. If you throw a blanket over the carrier they tend to just go to sleep. Also they don’t get any food the day of because I made that mistake and it was unpleasant.
I cannot imaging flying with them. Takeoff and landing would be full of scrabbling enraged, pained cats because of ear pressure. Then again you could drug them and that is always hilarious.
When I brought my cat home from the shelter, she sobbed (it wasn’t even yowling, just really, incredibly distressed wailing) so much on the 20-minute ride that she was all hoarse by the time we got to the house. Then she hid in a kitchen cabinet, followed by under the kitchen table, fear-panting and shedding for the next 20 minutes.
I went on a five-day cross-country drive with my cats when moving to a new state — I got pretty lucky. They mewed sadly sometimes, but I crooned to them, and that was it. They were particularly freaked out the first night in a hotel — I brought in the carriers, opened the doors, and one of them went straight into his brother’s carrier, and there they stayed for an hour. But after that night they were like “okay, new place every night, we embrace the nomad life.”
I wouldn’t want to try a plane, though.
Considering how incredibly annoying my cats can be in merely the 5 minute drive to the vet’s office, just thinking about this has me almost breaking out into hives.
Urg–driving my cats from Eugene, Oregon to LA: while the car was moving, they were pretty chill, but as soon as I stopped for gas, Finn, in particular, would howl like nobody’s business: “HAAALLLLP! I’M BEING ABDUCTED! SOMEONE CALL 911! CAT ABUSE, RIGHT HERE! HAAAAALLLLLLP!” (Then, of course, we got to my new place in LA and the instant she was out of the carrier, she managed to open a crawl-space door that I had ascertained was painted shut with about 50 years worth of paint, and spent the next three days inside the walls. I loved that cat, but she was a challenge….)
On a multi-hour drive with my cat, I finally figured out that she would only stop yowling if we listened to an Emily Smith album, which I liked at first, but by the fifth play, I was sort of debating which was preferable – the yowling, Emily Smith, or just driving us all off of a ravine.
That and, you know, carrying cases. So long as the cat is contained the worst thing it’s likely to do is make noise.
Hahahahaha, “the worst thing”. There’s a small tiger in your car that has been practicing sounding like a human baby their whole life, and they wander the vocal range between “horrible monster bent on destroying all you love ” and “precious treasure in awful pain”. FOR HOURS, like some sort of virtuoso.
This is a work of absolute genius.
This is so perfect and so accurate and exactly why I hated moving with my cat.
I see you have met my Izzy.
And smells, don’t forget the smells. Though maybe if they fasted the day before some of that could be avoided.
It’s amazing how much more rank the fear pee smells.
Even just kitty anxiety medicine made our more anxious cat way more chill about the flight we took her on (cross-country move; would not do this for fun) than our normally calmer cat who refused to have any part of taking the damn pills. But it makes some cats more anxious, so a plane full of cats who had been given it for the first time would probably still be very un-fun.
Of course, about an hour from our destination they still both got very loud about how they needed a litter box which we could not supply. We’d gotten them to go before we left the house, but between the long flight and it having been delayed, it was not quite good enough and they were not at all pleased about that fact.
Kitty chill pills seem to operate more like kitty ecstasy on my cat – the one time I gave it to her, she was seeing THINGS, clearly.
I had a nice run of four or five straight plane trips where somebody in my immediate vicinity had brought a dog on board with them. Sometimes in a crate, sometimes not. It’s awesome. Much better than the egg salad sandwich munching and snoring aisle mates I’ve had on other flights.
If it weren’t for anxieties and allergies, I’d be strongly in favor of airlines using therapy dogs to help anxious flyers.
Oh man, I’d be all over that. I’m not the world’s worst flyer, but I’m not far off – some happy pup that would nose at my hands and be like “I’m just a happy little wigglebutt, please to pet me now” when I’m freaking out would be awesome.
I’ve always wanted to run a dog day care after I retire. If it goes well, maybe I’ll start an airline for dog lovers, too. I’m thinking saddle bagged golden retrievers distributing snacks. Half dozen therapy dogs running around making sure people are doing OK.
Hmm… I get the sentiment, but flying with my cat actually ramped up my anxiety because this was my precious baby and if the plane went down then I was murdering her because she was not there of her own volition and I couldn’t drug myself into a stupor in case I needed to quickly act in an emergency. I think I’d probably feel the same way if there was a happy puppy trotting around trying to make me feel better.
I also might actually be the world’s worst flyer though, so maybe people who don’t fly completely off the handle also don’t concoct elaborate death scenarios (I’m getting on a plane in less than 24 hours! I’m gonna die!)
See, to me having dogs on a plane sounds like hell on earth. Not that cats would be any better, but still!
Stuff the cushions with catnip. #stonercats
Oh man, that pup is SO doofy and excited!
Dog with a safety vest AND a jaunty scarf!
My truly wonderful husband drove cross country alone with our cat, including camping at Yellowstone with the cat and the cat litter in a tent, before flying to Europe WITH THE CAT. Everyone survived, though I will admit we have the most chill and adaptable cat in the universe (no drugging was necessary even).
My cat is silent when we fly. She orients herself so that she is not looking at me, make a loaf, and then is the most silent creature ever, waiting til we land to tear me a new one.
Dogs have always been so loud on flights a plane full of dogs sounds kind of hellish (except in this scenario where it is the best thing ever because the only thing that makes me happier than people being able to evacuate with their pets is people not being in situations they have to evacuate)
Your cat and I travel more or less the same way.
I flew my cat across the country on Christmas last year, which a) is a very strange way to spend Christmas and b) was far more traumatic for me than it seems to have been for her. I spent the entire time, from the minute we left my mom’s house in Virginia to the minute I let her out of her carrier in my bathroom in Los Angeles, worried about her. Meanwhile she was definitely scared and unhappy (I’m sure the fact that we were seated directly above the wheels didn’t help), but she didn’t pee in the carrier and she adjusted to her new environment without a single problem, the complete opposite of the experience I had driving her from New York to Virginia a few months before that.
That jaunty scarf is everything! Stories like this always make me a bit teary-eyed.
I took a 30 hour drive across the country with my cat! It’s hard to say if she enjoyed it, exactly, but she did not yowl or barf or pee on anything which is my usual metric for cat-success.
My cat is super prone to car sickness, but she handled the flight from SC to DC pretty well a couple of years ago. I always put a puppy pee pad down in her carrier, but she didn’t get sick or make a mess at all. She did meow the whole flight, which was probably not fun for the people around me.
Crying about Prince again and forever. Just…what an incredible person in so many of the ways a person can be incredible.
The tweet you linked to titled “Ban men from writing” is from a locked account. People who don’t follow that account (such as myself) won’t be able to see the picture.
it still works without context though
HERE FOR UNREAL. AND BARRACUDA.
Be still my heart
I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. There are a lot of people at General Conference this year hoping the progressives are going to vote themselves out of the church.
Some of this is the wages of colonial evangelism. The UMC in African countries, for example, is on the whole extremely (EXTREMELY) conservative on all sex and gender issues, which reflects the religious style of the fire-and-brimstone white missionaries who eagerly co-opted any and all patriarchal tropes in the local cultures that might help fill the pews.
If this were just a North America issue, we’d likely be far closer to full reconciliation, or at least to the far-right section seeing the writing on the wall. The progressive wing steadfastly refuses to divorce itself; the whole *point* is reconciliation and inclusion, so it’s been thirty years of insisting that we’re not going anywhere! I grew up marching in the Pride parade with the church choir (many of whom were HERE, QUEER, and READY TO SING SOME HANDEL FOR EASTER).
But it’s much harder for either side of the debate to just “walk away” from our denomination’s very mixed legacy abroad.
The UMC still does incredible mission work internationally (malaria prevention is huge), still has amazing congregants, but the cultural divide can really feel unbridgeable.
The conservative North American wing can sometimes see that divide as ammunition for a holy mandate to exclude LGBTQI, rather than a wound that we all need to work together to heal.
Whoops that got long. May the Methodist Quadrilateral of Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience be with you all. <3
HERE, QUEER, and READY TO SING SOME HANDEL FOR EASTER
*Heart eyes emoji* I need a church with these folks stat.
(Also, this is a great, thoughtful comment, but I just love that line.)
Ha! Well, if ever you’re on the hunt, you can start on the Reconciling Ministries Network website.
http://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/
Quality of the choral program not guaranteed, alas. 😉
Yeah, the one in my area is a great community, and they’re good people. But it’s very college-student oriented and their worship is basically let’s play Mumford & Sons or U2 with a band. I don’t *dislike* it, but it’s different…
Haha, if I walk into a church and see an amp, I am OUTTA THERE. Campus ministries never did it for me because it always felt like church camp for tweens. Add in contempo-rock or praise music and shit gets facile real fast.
Not that there aren’t some real fossilized turds in the UM Hymnal, but I’d…honestly rather sing something from the freaking Temperance Movement accompanied on an elderly upright piano than follow a bouncy ball or clap for a guy in jeans. :p
We’re having the exact same issues over here in the Anglican Communion, so I’m going to be suddenly paying a lot of attention to the UMC General Conference.
Yeah, I was proud of the Episcopal Church for being like, sorry, we’re gonna do this thang.
Although apparently, after the last General Convention, there was a task force…tasked…with talking to bishops throughout the rest of the Communion about how we could do this in a way that wasn’t just “America does what it wants, nuts to you guys.” The task force did not do that, and we just did what we wanted. After learning that, I gained a better understanding of why much of the rest of the Communion might be pissed.
But I was also still proud of us for actually taking a stand on something for once.
Scott Lively is being sued under the Alien Tort Claims Act by LGBT Ugandan activists for trying to incite crimes against humanity, and when he moved that the case be thrown out, the federal judge said nope. If that doesn’t say a lot about the activities of evangelical missionaries in various African countries, I don’t know what does.
I guess living in a conference where three of the poorest and most segregated cities in the US are located, along with a growing heroin epidemic and lead levels in the city where I work being as bad as Flint, MI, and seeing my conference not doing a whole hell of a lot about any of those things, treating LGBT issues like some kind of existential threat makes absolutely no sense to me, scripturally, morally, or ethically.
THE WESLEYAN QUADRILATERAL BE ALSO WITH YOU!
Yeah, it sometimes feels like we’re stuck trying to pass a kidney stone in the middle of a natural disaster. But if all people know about the LGBTQI community is that we’re all some variety of perverted child-molesters, then of course reconciliation seems insane. I mean, we’re still a dry church, and TEMPERANCE hasn’t been a thing since…you know….a while now? Yeesh.
My understanding is one of the challenges the UMC faces is that it’s an international denomination, with many African churches that are quite a bit more conservative than the U.S. contingent. Not to say that there aren’t plenty of anti-LGBT Methodist churches stateside, it’s just an additional factor that complicates moving toward full acceptance.
I’m not a Methodist, but I attended a very inclusive UMC church in Chicago for nearly a decade, and my former pastor and many other UMC ministers and leaders who are dear to me are signees on that statement. I’m so proud of them and I know it breaks their heart to have to keep fighting for full acknowledgement and acceptance in a denomination they think of as family.
Yeah, it really opens a question of whether we allow a different polity to happen, because the US centricity of the system creates problems even without the LGBT question.
It breaks my heart too…it’s like watching members of a family tell others they’re not really part of the family.
At the risk of showing up in the Deleted Comments, I hate Anthony Bourdain with a complete and perfect hate. “Any bodega will do” because he is TOO HIP AND COOL AND ALSO MANLY TO SAY “coffee shop.”
HE’S SO DOWN TO EARTH AND CONNECTED, I said, in a tone of voice that demonstrates that I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS AT ALL.
Yeah, the guy’s kind of a butt. There are non-butt ways to say “I don’t really like fancy coffee” or “I like to eat meat and I do not want to be a vegetarian,” but he seems incapable of stating a food preference without insulting everyone who does not share his preference.
Don’t get me started on the vegetarian thing. I like his shows generally, but I know that if he and I ever met, we would HATE EACH OTHER.
Also what this famous food personality just said was: I like good food, but I’m not willing to wait for it.
Fuck trying to claim that as a stance.
Also also also: Anthony bourdain almost certainly has people that get coffee for him. Mother fucker probably hasn’t seen a line in decade.
He’s such a perfect anti-hipster hipster.
THIS
Did you ever see the Archer with him as guest star? You’d probably like the ending of that episode.
O_o. *Rushes to find episode*
In case anybody else is interested and doesn’t want to search, Live and Let Dine, Season 4, Episode 7.
I’d love to see him magically imprisoned as the centerpiece of one of Sandra Lee’s tablescapes. The only way to be released from the enchantment would be to eat a single one of her doctored box-mix cupcakes (decorated to coordinate with his black t-shirt and blacker soul) and say “thank you, I enjoyed that.” But he never would.
I just fell in love with you.
I’ve generally been torn on him, but I just watched his Parts Unknown Jamaica episode and ohhhhhh god the RAGE. He was way too cavalier about the way the rich are buying out Jamaica and making the beaches all private. The show did really insincere lip service to how terrible it is that real Jamaicans are losing their culture & livelihood, and then was like MOOOOAR ANTHONY HAVING COCKTAILS WITH RICH PEOPLE.
Sorry, I have lots of feelings on this I guess.
My husband is from Vietnam and when we watched his Parts Unknown about Vietnam I thought he was going to have a rage stroke. “SO MUCH EATING RIDICULOUS FOOD WITH FUCKING RICH PEOPLE!” was I believe an exact quote along with a running dissertation about everything that was fucked up about it.
Similarly the one in Quebec was basically a long WHAT THE FUCK
Ugggggh. Well I’m glad he didn’t have a rage stroke because losing your husband over Anthony Bourdain’s douchebaggery would be a tragic, tragic waste.
Every time I watch an episode, I always find myself thinking more about the nature of privilege than about where he traveled or any of the food, so I think it’s time to slap a big NOPE across this series and never look back.
Same with the one on the “Mississippi Delta,” which took place mostly in Oxford and Jackson, neither of which are in the Delta. Lot of people I know were reeeeeal pissed about that one.
He came to Atlanta and took Alton Brown to the Clermont Lounge (a strip club). I don’t remember much else of the episode except that I’m pretty sure 3/4 of it took place in the suburbs.
Wait — that ::wasn’t:: a fever dream I had?
If I remember correctly, the only place he went to OTP was the Buford Hwy Farmer’s Market so you may have to give him a pass for that episode.
Also, if you live in Atlanta, that farmer’s market is magical place where ANYTHING you could ever dream of wanting will be found including handmade Korean dumplings made to order.
Maybe I mis-remember the episode, it’s been a while. It seemed like there was very little representation of the great food available in Atlanta and a lot Bourdain driving around in a convertible and shooting guns.
YES. That is exactly an episode of any Anthony Bourdain show.
I did kind of like the one where he goes to the Ozarks, because he’s specifically looking for hillbilly cuisine and all the people he meets are like “oh, we don’t actually eat like this, I’ve never had this before but you wanted to try it.” Actually I enjoy his show from time to time, especially ones where he gives screen time to interesting local chefs.
That one sounds like it has potential! I’ve not had great success with Parts Unknown, but I remember liking No Reservations just fine so I don’t know what the disconnect is… The chefs, and often his guides/people on his travels, are generally fascinating.
oh god he romanticises SO MANY THINGS. in the beirut episode, he gushes about how exciting political turmoil is!!!! and then eventually gets called out on it by someone he is dining with. i wanted to give the woman 100 high-fives
Yeah, he came down to Baja a while ago and we got about 2 minutes into the Tijuana section before we were both yelling THIS IS WHY EVERYONE HATES WHITE AMERICANS at the screen, and I *am* a white American, though one who has actually lived a good chunk of my adult life in Mexico, including Tijuana (Señor Negroni’s hometown) which I enjoy unironically because it’s an amazing, vibrant city, like Weimar-era Berlin and not because I’m so fundamentally insecure that I need to enact performative coolness by eating fried chicken gizzards within a hundred yards of sex workers.
Also, he came down to our little hidden jewel of a port city, went to one of our street carts and declared it “Le Bernardin quality seafood on the street” which it is, but we were still YES THANK YOU BE QUIET NOW. It’s hard enough for the people who actually live and work here to get by. We don’t need you turning it into the Austin of Mexico.
“performative coolness” is just so spot-on.
your user name. is spot on!!!!!! *heart eyes*
A) Street cart food is amazing, I practically live on it here on the weekends and I can only imagine how amazing it is in your town.
B) I would very much like to visit Tijuana now! Weimar-era Berlin, you say?? But much closer to America, and with a language I actually speak? Sold!
C) Performative coolness, yup, yup, yup, yup.
Tijuana is THE BEST. It can be kind of overwhelming, but once you get past the seamy stuff geared for tourists it’s a fantastic place with a ton of heart and sincerity but also a ton of genuinely interesting and cool people, especially young people, making incredible art in a variety of media, including food. The food is so freaking good. Plus the wine country is just an hour away and that’s like being in Tuscany with tacos.
If any toasties ever decide to visit, lmk and I’ll happily be your tour guide.
I’m also torn. I watched the Parts Unknown Okinawa episode mostly for the karate parts because I study traditional Okinawan karate, and watched the Punjab episode the other night and barely got past his “OMG I need to eat meat otherwise I’m gonna DIEEEEEEE.”
I find the show pretty darn interesting I just have a little request… Can there please be a Parts Unknown with 100% less white male privilege?
Everything I read about Bourdain makes me think I never want to meet him.
My dad was apparently mistaken for Anthony Bourdain recently at the grocery store, and he was concerned because he thought he must be aging really terribly. I reassured him he looks much better and does not have the appearance of someone who did drugs for years. Also, he looks nothing like the guy, aside from having salt and pepper hair.
He’s a fan of the show, but that one hurt.
Reading things *by* him is worse. Kitchen Confidential is 98.5% attitude and 1.5% gossip. If he hadn’t been at the front of the culinary-tell-all craze I don’t think he would ever have become A Thing. I’m with the anti-hipster hipster designation up there.
My dad went to culinary school with Bourdain and has…not nice things to say about him at that time. Like, he smokes so much–and always has–HE CAN”T TASTE ANYTHING. And Kitchen Confidential was just to sell out the industry, and it misrepresents a lot. As a food writer and host, he uses too many adjectives for non-food experiences, and his ONLY vocabulary for talking about what food tastes like is “Wow this is great!” or, “This is pretty gross!”
I’ll stand my the bodega comment though. Bodega coffee is specifically *not* coffee shop coffee.
The I don’t even own a television podcast has an episode on Kitchen Confidential. After listening to that, I don’t feel the need to read it.
Seconded re: Bodega coffee. I’m also partial to NYC coffee cart coffee in a similar vein.
My feelings on Bourdain are torn between jealous of his life (traveling and eating things professionally sounds like THE BEST) and loving that Rachael Ray trolled him with a fruit basket. Literally how do you like them apples? http://www.zimbio.com/Anthony+Bourdain/articles/1…
Yes, but he could have said “7-11” coffee, or gas station coffee, or cheap diner coffee.
In NYC it’s far more common to find a bodega on every corner than a 7-11 or even a diner (and as for gas stations, most people here don’t own cars). It’s the New York City equivalent.
As a New Yorker, those phrases mean nothing to me in terms of coffee. Well, maybe diner coffee. But bodega coffee has a very precise meaning here, and he’s from here.
Yep. Until recently Manhattan had only two seven-elevens, I think, and these days it barely has two gas stations and I doubt they make coffee. Nobody is hiking out to the west side highway for a coffee. And diner coffee, you have to sit in a booth and tip, it isn’t to-go.
Is anyone else sad about the disappearing “coffee shops” in Manhattan? The greasy spoon hole-in-a-walls that aren’t really diners, but close? You say coffee shop and now it’s conflated with “coffeehouse” or “cafe,” not places you can get a ham sandwich or burger and fries with counter service. Joe Jr. on 3rd ave is one of the few standing.
Stale, burnt, non-fancy coffee drinkers unite! (Though I *do* like a nice latte with smooth foam)
when I was a kid there was still chock full o nuts coffee shops, urban living at its finest. I guess eisenbergs or B&H are their near-cousins…. But yes, so few.
It does however have hundreds of dunkin donuts largely devoid of those horrifying youths.
Right but as a non-New York Citier I want to strangle people that can’t go two sentences without trying to use some NYC shibboleth.
Also while I’m in this thread: fuck hating on “man buns” would he rather his food service workers spend all day with their hair hanging loose? Also it’s just “men putting their hair up” but I guess that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well as “kids these days aint shit”. Also Also we don’t need to be fucking gendering ” putting your hair up” this is exactly how we ended up with bullshit like man-dals and manscaping.
Thank you, I’m wondering about the sort of collective hate of man buns I see floating out there in the interwebs. It very often (as here) seems to be used with a distinct layer of “look at those effeminate hipsters, why can’t they have MANLY MAN HAIR like me, Anthony Bourdain” or something. It seems to be part of a generally more androgynous aesthetic, which is apparently fine when it means women-type people wearing Converse and grandpa’s button-down shirts, but OH MY STARS AND BUTTONHOLES, that man-type person has a girly hairdo! This must be targeted by precision mockery, stat!
Also, I work at a food co-op with an organic fair trade coffee bar in it. You cannot tell me anything about hipster barista style. But you know what? Anyone in there with long hair is putting it up/pulling it back, and everyone in there is wearing a hat or bandana or something over whatever they have going on, hair-wise, because HEALTH CODE, people.
Fucking right? That hipster affectation of not getting the shop fined!
I was just ruminating on this earlier. I loooooathe the “man bun”. You nailed it with the androgynous aesthetic being acceptable for women, but not for men! (At least, not for straight, cis, “normal” men.) This is why I often think feminism will forever be a contentious thing until men really address and redefine their gender role. (NOT a Men’s Rights Movement, but like a Let’s-Chill-About-This-Performative-Masculinity movement? Rolls off the tongue…)
Do you loathe the hair style or do you loathe the term? It sounds like the latter, but so many hate on the former…
Oh yes, that wasn’t clear at all! I hate the term! I have no feelings whatsoever about the hairstyle, haha.
I mean I hate NYC-centrism too, but it’s just what those stores are called by the people who run them and the people who shop there. It’s not a shibboleth anymore than if I said “My neighbors are having a garage sale” and someone from New England got mad I didn’t call it a tag sale, as if that would be more Objectively Correct.
It seems kinda harsh to jump down people’s throats for talking like where they’re from. I definitely can’t speak for Bourdain (about whom I have basically no feelings one way or the other), but it would never occur to me to refer to 7-11 coffee instead of bodega coffee. It’s not an affectation, it’s just…how I talk.
Yeah I’m not even from NYC and I know the word. What is happening here?
Seriously let’s run away together. Seriously. I will leave my husband (but not my cat husband; that’s non-negotiable) and my life and you and I will just…figure it out. But we have SO MANY OF THE SAME VALUES.
I’ve never lived in NYC either, but “bodega” is definitely a real thing, not an affectation. I think a lot of what you’re calling shibboleths are just regionalisms.
Your dad isn’t the only one! in the book Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain has pretty much no time at all for his younger self: the arrogance and presumption he describes is pretty unsparing, and I found it very funny.
Hahahaha as a former line cook who also hates Bourdain, I would like to point out that MANY OF US smoke too much and that is definitely why your food is often under or over salted. It was a point of pride with us if we could consistently get it perfect, despite not actually being able to taste anything.
No but bodega coffee is Sui generis and not to be found elsewhere; “coffee shop coffee” would mean think or kaffee1668 or aroma or Starbucks and man-buns all around, bodega coffee is totally different, it’s the drip machine behind the bodega counter. And it costs seventy five cents, not four dollars. maybe outside New York there are “coffee shops” that serve bodega coffee but he is not confusing his terms.
Bodega/corner coffee cart coffee might actually be the number 1 thing I miss about New York.
Right, but if “bodega coffee” is an NY specific product, then “any bodega” is a shitty travel strategy for coffee. So he is maybe fibbing a bit.
Well, i didn’t mean it was only to be found in New York, just that here, you can’t buy it in a coffee shoppe. (You can also get it from the steel doughnut carts in the morning.). If I wanted bodega coffee while traveling, I’d go to…. A deli, I guess? Dunkin, in Boston maybe? The newsstand at the train station? It just means, strong black coffee that is already brewed and can be served in seconds, even if that may mean it’s quite stale.
I’ve lived in NYC and elsewhere and the notion that there’s some magical ineffable quality to bodega coffee that isn’t present in convenience stores across the country is just bogus. If you’re not caring about flavor, the one and only quality that matters is “how much caffeine does it have.”
That’s what I was saying, yes. Bodega coffee means “takeout brewed coffee from a pot that’s already made.” But in New York if I said “convenience store coffee” it would sound extremely twee, I’ve never in my life referred to a “convenience store”. (I say bodega even when it’s the Koreans, and I think the new owners of mine are actually Himalayan.).
Eh, sorry if I came off as a bit grumpy.
Neh, Bourdain clearly exists at the corner of “I love that guy” and “what a tool”, and then that quote brought out a particular rage of regional vocabulary that runs all up and down this thread — I don’t get it, but you were not alone. Probably because it was about coffee; I doubt there’d have been half as much vitriol if he said he wears sneakers. 😉
Yeah, a bodega is not another term for a coffee shop. It’s a corner store with overpriced groceries and terrible coffee that sits out for hours with only powdered creamer available, and I love them.
Good point. Bodega coffee + egg and cheese on a roll is one of the most heavenly combinations on earth.
If I had a last meal on earth, this would be it. With K/S/P, ketchup/salt/pepper.
So just, drip coffee then?
Yeah, but old and stale and bitter because the carafe has been sitting on the burner for god only knows how long.
Okay, that clears it up! Thanks!
Ugh I am having an outrageous sugar rush (I MADE BROWNIES I HAVE PMS AND NO SELF CONTROL) and this weirdo secret murder club is floating all my boats so much
I went to 5 below and bought ALL THE HARIBOU so basically sugar rush the entire weekend. I have 1 bag left.
omg where did I hide the giant tub of haribo my friend brought to our last party
This sounds like the best thing in the world right now. PMS brownies are exactly what I need.
Can recommend. But I did just have to lie in a dark room and watch asmr videos for half an hour until the inevitable sugar crash passed.
(Literally eating candy for lunch)
The DIY decor aspect of the club is tripping me out.
“Dr. John C. Spray, who acted as superintendent of a local asylum, donated his collection of patients’ skulls to the collection. The club’s decorator and chaplain, Chysostom “Tombstone” Thompson, sawed off the tops and added glass to the eye holes to create a succession of gas-lighting fixtures for the quarters. Goblets were fashioned from the skulls of local prostitutes—a special cup reserved for guests consisted of a skull lined entirely in silver, originally belonging to Waterford Jane, a well known figure of the local red-light district.”
Crafting!
(I mean, yes, it’s obviously disrespectful to the people whose bones they helped themselves to but I just have this image of these guys gazing around the dim room saying “Needs more skulls” and everyone clapping when the guy shyly presents his first skull goblet.)
Today in (Feminist) History! [Archive]
On this day in 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for president of the U.S., as a candidate for the Equal Rights Party (also known as the People’s Party, the Cosmo-Political Party and the National Radical Reformers). Her vice presidential candidate was Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist leader. Though she nominated him, he didn’t officially take part in the campaign, however his nomination caused controversy related to the “mixing” of races in public life, as well as miscegenation (ugh).
Victoria was an abolitionist and a suffragist, who fought for both women’s rights and labor rights. She appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify on behalf of woman’s suffrage, presenting the very simple argument that women already had the right to vote, because the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteed the protection of that right for all citizens. Though she was anti-abortion (and is often cited by pro-life people), she believed that abortion should not be necessary if women had more freedom and were not placed into the position of having an “unwished-for child”; she also was a proponent of sexual-education for women. She and her sister, Tennie Claflin, were the first women to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and they were also some of the first women to found their own newspaper; Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly. She was also known as an advocate of free love– by which she believed in the freedom to marry, have children, and/or divorce without interference by the government. A woman who had divorced her husband to end an unhappy marriage, and then married again, Victoria was a big supporter of her idea of “free love”; she railed against the idea of women being trapped into marriages, and of the way society stigmatized women who got divorced, but was so accepting of men who had mistresses and affairs.
“Yes, I am a Free Lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.” – Victoria Woodhall, November 20, 1871.
Her campaign was filled with sensational coverage, wherein she was lambasted for her views on free love, and accused of being a prostitute (of course). When a prominent minister named Henry Ward Beecher began to preach against her idea of “free love”, Victoria wrote and published an article about the fact that he was a married man having an affair with his parishioner, Elizabeth Tilton. Victoria’s account of the affair was meant to highlight the double-standard between men and women… and in a way, it did. Victoria’s article lead to the arrest of she, her husband, and her sister on charges of “publishing an obscene newspaper”, and though they were eventually acquitted on a technicality, Victoria was held in jail for months, preventing her from voting in the election.
Victoria tried several more times to be nominated for president, but never won. She eventually divorced her second husband, married a third, and ran a magazine called The Humanitarian with her daughter, Zula Woodhull. She retired after the death of her third husband, and passed away in 1927.
Holy hell, what an incredible person. I am constantly blown away by people who were that radical in the past.
Right??? I think we get in this weird state of assuming modern times are the most radical, but we’re only were we are now because of people who were radical like this in the past.
I HIGHLY recommend the book “Other Powers” which goes into detail about Woodhull’s relationship with spiritualism, clairvoyance, and faith healing — all as important to her as her political actions. She’s one of my favorite people. (http://www.amazon.com/Other-Powers-Suffrage-Spiritualism-Scandalous/dp/0060953322)
Ooh, thanks! I had a line or two in there about her spirtualism but it was getting really long, so I cut it. This is really interesting though!
What a cool person. And even though she was anti abortion, from the sounds of it I doubt very much she’d have any truck with modern ‘pro-lifers’. She may have personally objected to it, but I bet she was never anti-*choice*.
Yeah, I got the impression she’s more personally anti-abortion (she didn’t like the idea of killing what she saw as a child), however she essentially believed in creating a society where women never needed to get abortions, because there was sex-ed, more freedom and choice in marriage/relationships, etc. Which makes total sense. (And she never would have agreed with current pro-lifers, I think she especially would have hated all the current regulations being passed because she seems to have been very anti-government control over women’s rights/bodies/love/etc.)
I actually know a large number of people who are pro-life, but who are absolutely with me on a lot of social policies re: healthcare, contraception, education, etc. Because yes, they view that fetus as a person with an independent soul, so abortion makes them sad, but they know that just banning abortion won’t actually accomplish anything, so we need to make the world a better place to bring a child into. Plus, y’know, let people know how not to get pregnant.
Victoria Woodhull is so amazing, thank you for bringing her story up today so we can all bask in her glory.
Why is the Cosmo-Political Party not still an option
Bourdain is one of my favorite human beings.
He has been both one of my favourite and one of my least favourite since reading Kitchen Confidential. He’s great, but he can also be _really_ nasty.
Yeah, I feel like I enjoy him from a distance. He’s one of those people that I don’t know I would I actually enjoy hanging out with, but I’m glad he’s doing TV and writing things that I can appreciate. I’m glad I can discover the world and the world’s food vicariously through him.
This is pretty much my stance on him.
15 minutes. I give our meeting 15 minutes before it comes to blows. And if you are the gambling kind, I would NOT laying my money on an aging (recovered?) drug addict. *narrows eyes*
I actually haven’t read that; all (or most) of my Bourdain-related experience has been through the travel shows and seeing him give a talk a few years ago. I think he’s mellowed (?) with age-maybe? But I do want to read KC sometime.
I also haven’t read it but I think one of the thugs I love about him is how much I hate him. I also really appreciate him turning that snarkfire on the whole “eating local organic fairy dust will cure all the world’s ills” bs. I do think since he won awards for the Beruit show that Parts Unlnown has seemed to be consciously striving for more awards, which is kind of annoying. Although the Detroit show was terrific. Quebec was a garbage disaster what even was that how can one place have so much weird meat foodstuffs???
I mean, other than the Beirut thing the awards the show has been nominated for are mostly in technical/production areas, and I think deservedly so–the cinematography is usually stunning, and also pretty creative for a nonfiction series (in terms of focus, camera angles, visual style, etc.).
This is an incredible link roundup, thank you! I’ll slow-digest the Walt Whitman Brand and Chicago Murder Club (??) pieces over the course of the workday, I’m really looking forward to it.
I do like fancy coffee, but Anthony Bourdain’s quote has got me craving a cup with cream and sugar from my ex-city’s best Mexican food/bagel shop. Light and sweet and hot and dense. The only time I like sweetened coffee.
AUGH, that article about Angel Dillard, there is not enough keyboard mashing to express how awful I think this is. ESPECIALLY since I am firmly on the “intent don’t mean jack” side of the authorial intention/audience reception argument, and also, if you are leaving notes THREATENING TO BOMB PEOPLE THAT IS NOT AN EMOTIONAL/SPIRITUAL THREAT. Like, you’re not gonna bomb my soul to hell, you’re going to bomb my physical form to smithereens, how could that jury reach the verdict they did?
I am so, so angry that TNC can’t have nice things because people are horrible.
And then people have the nerve to snark at him over living in Paris much of the time. Seems painfully obvious why he might want to, doesn’t it?
Ugh, I’m so glad I’ve not encountered those people.
Agreed. And I know that I probably relate to it a little too much because I have some major issues when it comes to wanting a *home* and never quite feeling like I’ve got one, but it just hurts so much to think that he can’t even have that without people deciding he needs to be their story.
Reading that piece really broke my heart for him and his family.
Ugh, as I was clicking the link I was like “please let it not be TNC, please let it not be TNC” and then it was. (Obviously it would suck for anyone, I just really like him and he seems to have a lovely family.) What a horrible story.
That piece was so upsetting. What the FUCK, New York Post? (And the other unnamed publications). Publishing an article about where any famous person lives is not cool, unless possibly they’re moving into some sort of massive gated compound in Southern California. It is unconscionable when that famous person is a writer of color who writes about racism in a world full of fragile white egos, and is trying to live in a relatively normal neighborhood.
You would think that “don’t publish people’s home addresses” would be, like, pretty basic journalism these days? Have these people ever SEEN the Internet?
I KNOW. There should be some fucking consequences for that.
GAH, that was such a sad post. I really hope he’s able to make a home he loves in Paris and that people there don’t make him into a celebrity.
He also struck home by observing about how people only want prophets when talking about politics in an election year. I’d much prefer an exploration of the questions, and I hope he’s able to write that.
After reading this piece, I’m doubling down on my theory that the best way to acknowledge recognizing somebody famous you admire is to say to yourself – and maybe the person you’re with – “Hey, that’s [celebrity you admire].” Then let them carry on with their day undisturbed.
One of my close friends is Iranian and accustomed to top notch middle eastern coffees in a way where if I take him to a college coffee shop and he find the thing bitter, he won’t finish it and will toss it out with some light dramatics. I love this about him and tease him for it, because I’ve had very good coffee, and it’s objectively amazing. However. I am very Boston blue collar until the day I die and there’s nothing more calming to me than the ritual of pump-yer-own New England Coffee at the counter at a bodega with an egg-and-cheese on a roll– the kind your doctor advises you to stop eating if you want to have health cholesterol levels– or just a cheap, plain, crumbly donut. My friends from New Jersey understand. Trash. I love trash.
Growing up in NYC, there is nothing more soul-filling than a bacon/egg/cheese with ketchup/salt/pepper and a small coffee with one sugar and a touch of creamer. Any bodega will do, but it must be from a bodega or coffee cart.
That’s so charming, and I mean that in a completely unpatronizing, slightly jealous way. I grew up in an environment where good taste was The Most Important Thing and although it has served me well in a lot of ways, I feel like I missed out on so many accessible pleasures that require early exposure to appreciate and that my world is slightly less rich because of it. Thank you for letting me live vicariously through your cheap coffee love.
Did we ever figure out which man wrote that excerpt that got all men banned from writing?
Raymond Jean, I believe? Did some Twitter-digging yesterday before it went private.
Might just be the perfect novel? My eyes just bulged out of my head at that!
I was CONVINCED it was going to be satire and I was reading further and further down going “OK, it’s starting off pretending to be serious, this article is definitely going to start skewering this stupid-ass novel in the next couple of lines” and then it finished and no satire had happened and I was SO confused.
How about that, turns out raccoons are Baptists. I guess that makes sense, what with all the washing.
I just had a flashback to when I was 11 and a kid told me he was a Baptist, and I misheard and said “Buddhist?” He was so offended by my mistake. Thinking back, it was a weirdly disproportionate reaction, especially for a sixth-grader.
I highly, HIGHLY recommend the Walt Whitman episode of The Dead Authors podcast. It’s not the funniest episode, maybe, but James Adomian’s ability to spout Walt Whitman-esque poetry/nonsense off the top of his head for hours is amazing.
I discovered James Adomian recently on Pandora–he’s great. I listened to the Todd Glass show podcast someone linked to recently about Gentle on My Mind where the two of them are just riffing and it’s amazing.
I hadn’t heard of The Dead Authors podcast, but now I’ll have to check it out. I’m tempted to curse you for adding to my list of stuff to procrastinate with…
That is such a great episode! I agree, it isn’t the funniest (Marquis de Sade ftw!) but it’s just so damn…impressive.
I re-listen to this episode every few months. It’s incredible. I wrote a thesis paper on Whitman and unambiguously endorse James’s off-the-cuff pontification.
Oh man the only episode I’ve ever heard was the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John episode and I loved it. I should listen to more– I love everything PFT does.
I want to talk about that Dear Prudence letter from yesterday, with the woman whose husband is telling people she has BPD, and how there are so many commenters that are like “WELL MAYBE SHE DOES HAVE PROBLEMS SHE IS MAKING DRAAAAAAMAAAA” and now I want to light everything on fire ok?
Oh no I am glad I didn’t see the comments – that’s horrible. Mallory-Prudence (Maldence? Maldie? no) is the best, obviously, and I will continue to read it, but letters like that (and the OCD-family one) make me want to curl up and cry forever.
yeeaaaahhhhh all of Prudie is killing me, tbh
Aw, man, I just learned that there are comments on Dear Prudie. Ugh.
I’m mostly glad Slate refuses to open up its comment sections for me. I think I’m happier that way.
Well YES she has a problem. That husband. She’s got BPD by proxy.
I don’t always agree with Mallory’s answers but I like her so much better than the prior Prudence, who I thought was overly sarcastic sometimes. And there are a couple of Mallory’s answers that I think should be printed on index cards and handed out to people as they begin their dating lives.
I mostly just love how she reassures people that their feelings are valid/they are ok/the thing they want is normal because sometimes that seems to be what people need more than any other form of advice. But index advice cards would also be useful.
It makes it even better when she occasionally has to tell people that they are acting unreasonably, e.g that person felt entitled to answers from all the celebrities they tweeted, or that woman who was really concerned that people wouldn’t like her co-worker if they found out she listened to rap and wanted really badly to warn her, or that woman who was sure her employee’s hairstyle would make her go bald and really wanted to warn her.
She does have problems! The problems are her husband, her marriage, and her friends who are listening to her husband.
Ehhh even if she does have problems, she’s not the one driving drunk and telling people that other people have a condition that they’ve never been diagnosed with. Stupid commenters.
Speaking of MalloryPrudie, the question about someone trying to dump their partner without upsetting their roommate (?) was so goshdarn confusing it reminded me of Liz Lemon telling someone on the Dealbreakers show ‘This person is giving you sexually transmitted crazymouth: dealbreaker’
Yeah some of the letters are like … “I am not sure I understand what your problem is?” Those are always the ones where it seems like someone is trying SUPER HARD not to hurt any feelings and I do like Mallory’s advice there, which usually cuts to, you cannot go through life without hurting anyone’s feelings, unless you want to be a complete doormat, and you don’t want to do that, so go forth and acknowledge that feelings will be hurt while being as sensitive as you can about things.
It seems like lately, so many of the Dear Prudie letters have basically been like, “Someone in my life is hurting me/lying to me/making my life extremely difficult and I need permission to think this is Not OK.” And it makes me SO SAD!!! I’ve been in those shoes where I needed permission to cut toxic people out of my life and I hate that so many other people feel that way.
Basically my ex did that–i had an accident that left me in a rural neighborhood in a wheelchair, unable to cook or drive or dress myself, with three kids under 10, over the SUMMER. He went behind my back and told everyone I knew that i was just doing some soul-searching and needed to be left alone. No onw but my mom knew for THREE MONTHS that I was recovering from a accident that nearly killed me and trapped in my house. I thought all mt friends had just betrayed me.
Oh my God. How did you survive? And take care of 3 kids at the same time? Oh my God. I am so glad this person is your ex. I honestly can’t believe people do shit like that. I mean, I can understand hitting someone in anger [WHICH IS STILL UNBELIEVABLE FTR] more than I can understand that kind of calculated cruelty.
Percoset is good for keeping you from thinking too much. And I taught my 5 year old how to hook my bra and put my hair in a ponytail. Useful intel, if you ever need it: If your broken arm is stuck in a cast at a 90-angle, you can’t reach your head. I never knew that before!
Obviously this is nothing like your accident, but I found out about not being able to reach your head while your arm is casted from mid upper arm all the way down to your fingers. Yeah. It ain’t happening.
…I can’t remember how I managed to get my bra on and off, though..
Holy shit.
“Ex” is a good status for that person.
Oh my GOD. Your ex is unspeakably terrible.
I’m so glad I’ve stopped reading the Slate comments. They’re such a nasty, vicious lot (crossover company excluded, of course — hi, Mrs Peel).
Helloooooo!! 🙂
A lot of the Prudie regulars are very fun, but you do get some unpleasant people on Slate that ruin it for everyone else (especially on the non-Prudie articles). My blood pressure is much lower since I defected to the Toast.
Yeah, I’ve definitely been spoiled by the excellent people on The Toast. I just find it so jarring when Slate commenters are flippant about the super-serious stuff, like child abuse or mental illness, or reinforce ugly/shallow gender stereotypes.
I know, I find it kind of bewildering. I think because I’m reading Mallory, so I expect to be able to read comments that are Toast-like and then I go into them and…no. No, I’m just on the regular internet.
It’s jarring to realize that Mallory doesn’t just carry excellent comment sections with her wherever she goes.
The-Toast has spoiled much of the internet for me.
people are like “why are you so defensive?” and i’m all “WHY ARE YOU SO HORRIBLE?!?!”
*sets forums on fire *
Ahahaha, that’s a perfect response. Toasties should be setting internet fires in the comment sections everywhere we go, as a trademark of our presence and as a cleansing fire.
We need a ritual saying to post with it, so that everyone knows who is setting their forums on fire and why.
The UMC General Conference situation is so interesting to me. This weekend I met up with a few friends who are Methodist and they were explaining the conference to me and all the possibilities of different splits that could happen. They’re frustrated and saddened that a split could happen because, despite the many differences among the global Methodist community, these conferences provide opportunities for international discussion and compromise that otherwise might not happen.
It’s tough. Just wanted to say that Reconciling Ministries Network in particular is very worth supporting if that’s the sort of thing you’re inclined to. I attended a wedding a year and a half ago that the pastor was later suspended by the UMC for performing, and RMN stepped in and paid her salary for that period (as I understand it). So important.
That’s great to hear! I’ll have to look into RMN. I used to be involved in the Methodist church but am not any more (nothing related to this, just don’t consider myself very religious). One of my friends attended a mock global Methodist conference of young adults, and she said it was really interesting because one person from Russia was like “I don’t know why we’re even discussing this, it shouldn’t be a problem. LGBTQ people do not belong in the church” – whereas a person from Missouri was saying almost the exact same thing but that it shouldn’t be a discussion because LGBTQ people DO belong in the church.
Basically: Blehhhh. I hope for people involved in the UMC that this can be reconciled without a split, but it seems like it’s going to take a looooot of time and discussion.
From an Episcopalian who’s attending her first official, legal-type, liturgically-approved same-sex church wedding this Saturday: I think you guys will be ok. There’s almost certainly going to be some manner of split (we lost several breakaway congregations who are now the Anglican Church in North America, rather than the Episcopal Church of America), and it may feel like it’s taking forever to move forward, but I genuinely believe that this can make a church way, way stronger. You have to get everybody’s ugly feelings out in the open in order for real reconciliation and progress to occur.
I hope you are correct; I was raised Methodist (adult agnostic), and it has shocked me how much I care about this outcome–I need Methodists to be the “good guys.” Which feels weird, cause it’s not my fight anymore.
I like to think that justice and reconciliation are everyone’s fights. And it’s always upsetting when a group you used to be part of is now the “bad guys.”
This is the problem with the UMC: we never have schisms. Not because we are particularly harmonious, but just because everybody is terrified of putting ugly feelings out in the open. Or any feelings, really.
Methodism tries to brand itself as the chillest denomination: we won’t shout weird stuff about hell at you from the pulpit; we won’t make you sing at an audible volume; we won’t tell you to give up your pursuit of worldly goods (just leave 10% for us, please). But in return, you implicitly agree not to disturb the peace by having strong opinions about anything. That would violate the Principle of Methodist Chill, which is the most important tenet of our religion.
It turns out, though, that chill and cool are not the same thing. A cool person will fight for what’s right; a chill person can’t be bothered to.
Maybe this General Conference will finally rouse us from our chill.
It’s good to sometimes have moments of crisis that assail our chill (the Episcopal church is similarly afraid of feelings, but also more prone to taking its ball and going home). Sometimes you just have to flip some tables and beat the hell out of a capitalist or two, before returning to giving sermons about not throwing stones at people. I hope this works out for you guys, and I’ll keep you in my prayers. And you have all of my sympathies, because it’s an exhausting-as-hell process.
I was raised but am no longer a Methodist (or any religion) but this comment summed up my every experience, good and bad, with the church.
There was an interesting article in The Walrus recently about the United Church of Canada. It said that while they are Christian they also largely define themselves by their social activism, and have lost a lot of members for their support of LGBTQ rights – including ordaining them as ministers. They’re also working on reparations to residential school survivors. Both of which would make me want to JOIN, not leave, if I were a Christian which I’m not.
I am literally sick with anxiety and am getting nothing done at work today.
I don’t know what’s going to happen at GC this year, but absent a major act of the Spirit I don’t see any change to the Book of Discipline on marriage or ordination. With 40% of delegates coming from outside the US, the votes just aren’t there.
I just hope that we’re able to work together to address the other issues facing the denomination (global restructuring being the big one) even without a resolution on marriage equality and LGBT ordination.
As a bi queer kid who grew up in the Methodist church… I am taking my time reading that UMC link because it brings up a lot of memories. What a loving, merciful, understanding letter.
Nicole, I want to thank you for turning me on to UnREAL because ho-lee-shit that is some good/dark/twisted television.
Also, I have just put that Cold Comfort Farm recording on and his voice is just tremendous.
This is OT, but please bear with me, because my internship is making me really unhappy right now.
There isn’t a lot for me to do because it’s only my second week and I obviously don’t know most things yet. And because the others have a lot to do, there is not much time to explain things to me. And often they’re doing this terrible thing with overexplaining the obvious and not explaining the difficult things. And I already feel so stupid for having to ask about stuff but how could I possibly know what to do??
Thank God I was just given a task but this will take me maybe an hour at the most. And I have stuff to do at home, but instead I’m sitting here.
And the other interns/trainees didn’t pick me up for lunch today; that wasn’t on purpose and they apologised later, but it still stung, especially since being unpopular/forgotten & alone is basically my biggest fear.
I cried twice already today but thankfully not in front of other people.
It’s my birthday on Thursday and I’m beginning to fear that it will be the worst birthday ever. And I once had a car accident on my birthday, so you know how bad it is.
So sorry! Ugh. I supervise interns at my job and I wish I could help you and give you a hug if you want it.
Come back to LR on Thursday – you’ll receive birthday wishes and .gifs galore.
*Toasthugs*
Thank you! I wish you were my supervisor.
Oh my goodness… *hugs*
How much can you get away with the “looking busy” type of goofing off at your internship when people are refusing to give you tasks or answer your questions? If you can, I highly recommend opening a Google Doc and writing ridiculous fanfic.
I actually started writing my master’s applications today! But the problem is that my colleagues sometimes need stuff from the shelves behind me, so I don’t want to do this all the time.
And I still have hope that I’ll have more to do once I’m not brand new anymore.
Are there any source documents or files you can read? I started surfing our share drive when I started, and learned a few things that way. And it gave me more access to our jargon.
Good luck–this sounds hard. It will get better. (Being brand new is The. Worst.)
I’m not sure about that, but I’ll try to find out. Thanks for the tip!
Oh man, that “first two weeks” feeling. So familiar, so stressful. Sending you good vibes and internet hugs, first of all. Second, as long as it isn’t a truly toxic workplace (sounds like it isn’t?) it *will* get easier in time. The overexplaining the obvious/omitting the necessary thing happens to all new hires– people who have been there a few years start to forget what is and is not obvious, so it’s not that they think you’re stupid or that you don’t know obvious things. Learning how to phrase questions to get the answer you need is a hugely valuable skill you can practice at this internship.
The loose ends thing is also rough– if you’ve made a good-faith effort to request tasks and still don’t have much to do, that’s a good time to work on career development. Is there a piece of software or coding language that the company or industry uses that you could brush up on? Could you compile a guide of resources that you’ll need for later tasks, or come up with a way of automating the task you were just given?
I hope you have a lovely birthday and that things get easier soon at the internship. You are strong and you will get through this!
Thank you so much for the advice and the encouragement <3
My internship was very similar, I had maybe 3 weeks of having almost nothing to! And since it was a digital role, I couldn’t even do odd jobs like printing/office cleaning/errands. I just sat at a computer and tried to look busy.
I spent a lot of time poking around on company servers, reading documents that are common to a lot of projects (scope of work, function spec, project plans etc) to familiarize myself with them. And then I started doing tutorials on things like HTML/Javascript and photoshop.
Whats your software access like? If you have access to programs like photoshop and inDesign, have a play around with them, if not try things like codecadamy.com and learn some code!
Other than that, just keep asking questions, I know you’ll feel like you’re annoying people, but you’re not, unless you keep asking the same questions! Ask to help with things, see if there’s something you can suggest doing (even if its updating document templates on the intranet, or tidying up folders). The more annoying you feel, the better intern you’re being! I did a lot of weird things, like tidying up documents for my bosses as an intern, things like content matrixes and functional specs are easy to understand and structure by can be labour intensive to produce and everyone hates doing them, so if you can take them off someones plate they will love you for it!
It will get better! Don’t worry too much about the other interns, I had the same thing, I was often left out of group conversations and plans, it happens everywhere I go, eventually I just stopped letting it bother me. I hope you have a nice birthday, do something for yourself if you can, even if its just getting a nice lunch or your favourite take out for dinner. I went to ikea on my own for my birthday this year and it was lovely (and I spent far too much money of course!)
Good luck, and remember this too shall pass!
Thank you, that’s great advice.
It’s a publishing house, so I don’t have access to Photoshop and the like, but maybe I’ll look into learning to code!
It sucks to be left out. I have experienced it so often now that I think I should have learned to deal with it by now, but nope. Maybe someday.
Left out buddies! I’m convinced there’s something about me that just makes people forget I exist when I’m not physically there, so they’re not leaving me out on purpose, they just don’t think to invite me when they make plans because I’m not super social so I’m usually not there when the plan making happens, and I’m also not super texty, so I miss a lot. My mother does not understand this and just thinks everyone I know is extremely rude.
SO SAME. People also tend to forget my name, and my face.
You can easily fall down an Internet rabbit hole reading up on general issues in publishing these days–maybe you can find one to make your own and impress your supervisor with? Also, reading up on/practicing copy editing can come in useful. Or ask people if they need anything proof read.
*hug* Birthday FOMO is real and painful. My birthday is a week from Sunday, and I’ve been in “self-reflection” mode for a few weeks already.
Recent birthdays have gone as follows:
2011: Post-graduation funk about not being able to find jobs lead to not wanting to get out of bed. My mom enthusiastically bought me Gerber daisies, thinking I love them, when in fact they’re one of my least favorite flowers. This made me sadder. Cake was perfunctorily consumed.
2012: I was living with my grandmother at the time after a fight with my parents where my dad had threatened to call the police and have me evicted. I was also unwittingly having a reaction to generic medication that was making me sleep most of the time. I don’t remember what I did.
2013: I guess nothing much happened? Again, probably some perfunctory cake.
Edit: Oh wait, I just remembered–I had an interview scheduled last-minute for the day after, and my mom took me shopping to get interview clothes but ended up spending several hours before that in the bedding department picking out new sheets for my parents’ bedroom and ratcheting up my anxiety. Still, relatively not bad.
2014: Sitting in a Fed Ex crying at 9 at night because my senile old boss was impossible and any time I’d try to ask a legit question, he’d scream.
2015: Tried to have a nice normal family dinner, which somehow led to my brother and my mom getting into a screaming match culminating in my dad berating them for acting like trailer trash by fighting in front of the house where the neighbors could hear. Cake was uncomfortably consumed.
I know it probably sounds like I’m making this about me, but that’s not my intention at all.
What I really want to say is the best thing you can do for yourself is have no expectations. Don’t build up your birthday in your head. Relax, take stock, do something nice for yourself, get your birthday freebies, and treat it as a mental health day. This year I’m finally living on my own and I am not fussing over my birthday. I’m just going to treat it as a normal day and go on with life, because trying to pin all of one’s self-worth on whether you have a faboo birthday party, which society seems to be setting us up to do, is unhealthy.
I don’t think you’re making this about you! I’m actually glad someone else has a history of bad birthdays.
The thing is, I’m meeting my friends Thursday evening and I think this will be fine, but I’m afraid something bad will happen at work that’ll make me feel even more alien there, and I don’t want that, especially because of former difficult birthdays.
I remember feeling exactly this way during my own internships–and to be honest, still sometimes today. Would it help if I said it does get better, and you do eventually figure things out?
It does help to hear that I’m not the only one with this problem. Thank you.
I’m sorry you’re unhappy. Would you feel better if you felt in control of an event? Would it feel good to invite all the interns to join you for lunch on Thursday? You can tell them it’s your birthday after you all pay for your meals. Meanwhile, ::Toasthugs::
Yes, control would make me feel much better. But I really don’t want them to know it’s my birthday* and I’m also broke at the moment. Maybe I’ll just take comfort out of the fact that I “control” how my birthday is treated at work – that is, as non-existent?
*It’s customary there to bring cake on your birthday and if everyone knew I’d feel pressured to do so, even though I barely know these people.
Wait, they make you bring your own birthday cake? What kind of inhumane place is this?
It’s actually pretty normal here! I mean, not that I’ve ever worked in an office before, but at my father’s workplace the birthday haver provides food for the rest. They do get them a present, though.
I’m with you. I reserve my birthday for friends and family only, thankyouverymuch. When asked for my birthdate at a new job “so we can add you to the birthday list!” I always say 29 February. That is not my birthdate.
That’s a brilliant idea.
Hello, toasthugs to you.
As a survivor of a very shitty internship last year, ughhhhhhh. I had the same explain simple stuff and not difficult for months – though, my internship was gross. My supervisors could NOT spell and had ATROCIOUS grammar and syntax, but would insist on proofreading every email for the three months I was there. Also they called the intern before me on speaker while sitting next to me to scream for an hour about how much they missed her and tell her she was the best ever (yeah, not fun). I was also struggling with a ton of coursework at the time and started going home early when there was nothing to do. It was a total mismatch.
Seriously though, ask for help, or at least for some kind of manual? I want to say this is standard I’m-done-with-basic-training-now-give-me-some-freaking-responsibilities-before-I-burn-this-place-to-the-ground. It’ll pass, probably.
And if it doesn’t, quit? Life is too fucking short, and no internship is THAT important. You deserve amazing, not secret crying. I think a lot of places like interns in theory but in practice they don’t want to have to take the time to train them, or they don’t trust them to do stuff because they’re Just The Intern. No. That’s dumb. These places do not deserve your tears, or interns at all, but they especially don’t deserve Toast interns.
Let us know how you get on. And, happy birthday xx
Thank you, and I’m sorry you had to endure this. Toasthugs to you as well!
I think one of the problems in my case is actually that they forget that a new intern isn’t capable of working immediately at same level the old one did. And they don’t know how to handle someone who needs explaining again.
But today is much better, maybe I just needed to get this out of my system yesterday. And hearing so many nice words from all of you definitely helped <3
OOOHHHHHHHH this makes me so mad. <3 🙁 it’ll be your birthday in 13 minutes where i am, so happy early birthday!
Re: Bourdain and coffee – look, all I see is “light and sweet” and “any bodega” and I have the entire opening number of In the Heights playing in my head over and over.
Goooood morning, Usnavi!
My coworker has been making coffee in the office lately, and keeping a can of condensed milk in the fridge for it. Even SEEING the damn thing sets off the song.
It’s a nice change from Hamilton, anyway.
A change… from… Hamilton…? I don’t understand. Are we not all listening to Hamilton forever at all times? Haha but really, I went to a Hamilton Singalong last night and it was the best thing ever.
After six months of listening to literally nothing else, the earworms got kind of extreme. It’s still a source of delight, but I’m trying to change it up a bit.
SAME. i saw that tweet yesterday and immediately thought “one can of condensed milk!”
‘Cause it’s too darn hot, like my man Cole Porter
Or my gal Ann Miller (fans self)
Well, thank FUCK we’ve got brave souls like Bourdain around to police the appearance and perceived musical tastes of service industry employees.
*applauds*
I also love the implication that he will only drink 2 quick cups of coffee in the morning, possibly on his feet while running to his next IMPORTANT MAN TASK. All coffee should be good, but instantly appear in his hand without a service worker even having to reach for the cup!
HEAVEN FORFEND some of us want to grab a cup and SIT in a coffee shop that has SEATING and merely enjoy our coffee and the atmosphere. I’m sorry I actually know the names of the employees at my coffee shop and don’t just see them as faceless dispensers.
(Ugh, this really bugs me because in the last place I lived there was a coffee shop nearby that was really cool about hiring middle-aged and elderly trans* people and letting them dress however they wanted and I don’t care how fucking hipster the place was the coffee was good and the employees were great.)
Idk, I have definitely been in establishments that have prompted me to think “wow everyone who works here is very young and attractive and white, I wonder how their hiring process works.” I mean it’s not like I’m going to go up to the guy at the counter and tell him to get a haircut, but I don’t think it’s completely irrelevant that some employers expect their low-wage workers to embody a certain marketable aesthetic.
Ha ha, I have a fairly unhinged-in-its intensity comment lodged in the pending queue, because my phone logged me out, so this comment may end up semi-redundant.
Anyway, this week my colleagues and I (the actual cast of friends) are interviewing some of the dozens of candidates that applied for a job in our cafe. Nobody’s applying for this job for fun. As it happens, this time and in the future, we are using a different hiring process that takes more types of experience rather than just coffee experience into consideration, because of the youth and the whiteness that screening for coffee experience alone tends to bring. You’re not wrong on that count.
One of my other recurrent tasks in the shop is being the designated reader of online reviews and feedback. Reviewing staff appearance at my shop and everywhere is an extremely common thing that people do. At one of our employee’s last jobs, a manager held a staff meeting in the wake of an online review that said the employees laughed too much when talking to each other behind the counter, and wore too many hats. (They were wearing hats to comply with health codes, much as a guy with long hair might put it up so it doesn’t fall in people’s fucking food.)
So, maybe it’s social commentary about exclusionary hiring practices, but a more straightforward reading to me is that it is a punch down at Johnny Hypothetical, who dares to look whatever way in the presence of a rich guy who travels the world and eats for a living, while he himself is earning a low wage while working on his feet all day.
“it is a punch down at Johnny Hypothetical, who dares to look whatever way in the presence of a rich guy who travels the world and eats for a living”
nail on head, you have hit it
I feel this way about almost every restaurant and bar in Austin. Like does it specifically say in the job ads that you must be young and beautiful and have a certain style?
I’ll never totally understand the disdain for fancy coffee places. For one thing, lots of people who espouse it go to STARBUCKS instead, which is just as expensive, or more, and has terrible coffee. Fancy coffee is one thing that you can be really into without having to be fantastically wealthy; spending $3 a cup instead of $1 at the bodega is nothing compared to say, being a wine snob and only drinking $100 bottles. But somehow I can’t imagine Anthony Bourdain going “oh, I don’t need that fancy wine, I’ll just chug two bottles of yellowtail with dinner”.
I <3 Anthony Bourdain + light & sweet coffee and this just proves we are MEANT to be bffl’s (best friends forever in real life)(I learned this from a tween IDK why there arent enough letters in the acronym).
It’s pronounced “buffalos”.
This is definitely more of an open thread topic, but I’m feeling a lot of anxiety about it today for some reason and Toast wisdom is eternal!
How do you stop phoning it in? I have now gotten a few relatively “prestigious” jobs on the strength of like, being sharp and smart and having a few relevant skills and impressing key people into thinking I have a lot of potential. On the job, I’ve proceeded to do the bare minimum to meet expectations. I don’t know why I’m like this. I like working, but I also like relaxing, and as long as I’m getting positive feedback on what I AM doing I never feel motivated to go above and beyond. In the field I’m in, going the extra mile is REALLY required, especially in the long term. This results in me having periodic nervous breakdowns about how I don’t deserve the lucky breaks I’ve gotten, but somehow this never transforms me into the conscientious striver I need to be. I don’t think I have what it takes to succeed long term in this. There are a couple of fields I could transition into pretty easily, and I think I want to.
My question is: ARE there jobs where just cheerfully meeting expectations is fine? Or will I always feel guilty about getting away with not working very hard?
aaaargh, I am exactly like this at the moment. Hence me being here on the Toast right now! The infuriating thing is that I wasn’t like it in my last job, because I was genuinely passionate about the stuff I did. I mean, I still spent *mumble* hours on the internet each week, and got annoyed with myself every so often, but I also started new projects and had ideas and wanted to learn more. Here I’m just like, ugh, OK, I suppose I’ll do that then. I mean, I’m OK, but I’m barely meeting 6.5 out of 10 on my own personal scale of how hard I should work, and whilst I don’t particularly want to be 9/10, a solid 8 would make me a lot happier.
I am trying really hard to get back into a job like my old one, but it’ll almost certainly require a paycut in the short term, and since I’m also trying to get pregnant again I’ll probably want until after maternity leave (which means it could be at least two years until I’m in a job I love again, ugh.)
(Edit: this is not advice, just commiseration/moaning.)
Commiseration!
I don’t know how to describe my problem, really. I have plenty of ideas that I develop and implement. I have reasonably good stick-to-it-iveness and follow-through. I never MIND working hard. I pull my weight in collaborative projects. But occasionally when big What Have You Accomplished reckonings come around, it’s always “accomplished just enough, but not more than that.” And then I look back on all the times that I DIDN’T work late or moved a process along way too slowly or whatever, and am like…what is wrong with me.
*hug* Have you considered talking to a health professional about it? It sounds a little bit like one of the ways attention problems can manifest, and being sharp/smart/impressive can help those problems go unnoticed (or keep them from really affecting your life) until you’re an adult. This is just a thought, coming from a place of “this is exactly what I’m like and I’ve really hit a wall with it now that I am in a PhD program, which has led me to finally acknowledge that the way my brain works isn’t “normal” and does cause me problems and can be mitigated.” Obviously your situation could be totally different.
More to the point of your question, I have absolutely also thought “hmm maybe instead of trying to change myself into a striver I should accept myself the way I am and get a job where phoning it in is okay.” I still struggle with this – am I acquiescing to capitalism by trying so hard to chase fulfillment from work? Should I work on getting rid of my classist biases against more physical, less computer- and writing-based work and retrain as, like, a gardener or a childcare worker? Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any easy answers.
I think I just want a job with more clearly defined tasks than what I have currently. Like come in, check things off the list, go home. Within that context, I can kick ass. I can do demolish a to-do list. I can problem-solve the shit out of a clearly defined problem. It’s the more amorphous “do something valuable and make us proud” kind of problem where I tend to fall down. (At least, this is what I’m telling myself, in my current “I should change my job instead of trying to change myself” mindset. But I don’t think it’s totally false?)
By analogy, I was GREAT academically in high school. Homework assignments every night, weekly quizzes? Bam, on it. In college, where it was more like “learn a bunch of stuff for a big test at the end of the semester,” I reaaaaallllly struggled.
You just described my EXACT problem to a tee.
I have NO idea what to do about it but it’s the most frustrating part of my working life!
My job also wants us to do “more” but no one tells you what or how.
If I am given a task I can be fantastic! But it’s hard to just pull something out of nowhere.
So much this. I am exactly the same way. Give me a defined task and I will do it quicker and better than anyone. Make a vague request and you will never hear from me again.
Does it help you know you are normal? I mean, if you think about it, most jobs are like this, right? Like, white collar jobs exist so that people have jobs, mostly.
I think we’re pretty similar. One thing I’ve realized as I spend more and more time working is that very likely, every Toast commenter is a better employee than the vast majority of the population. Our “phoning it it,” (I do it too, and guilt about it too) is still thrilling to our bosses, because we’re getting things done and getting those things done well. That’s not to say you shouldn’t switch careers if you want to! But maybe try to accept that you’re getting good feedback and good opportunities because people are happy with your work, and if it doesn’t take 100% effort for you to please them, that’s a win-win.
Your original problem: IT ME.
I think this probably partially a personality thing, but also probably has something to do with the way school is structured. We, the smart, people-pleasing (ish, sometimes) achievers figure out pretty early what it takes to do really well and then do exactly no more. And we’re super well rewarded for it until the “real world” strikes. My problem, which probably isn’t yours, tends to be that I’m way too reliant on head-pats and external validations.
Which is to say, I commiserate, also school structure, also best of luck!
“ARE there jobs where just cheerfully meeting expectations is fine? ”
Yep, absolutely. But if your field depends on always going the extra mile, maybe consider expanding your field? (Sounds like that’s where you’re at.) It’s ok to not be that conscientious striver (I’m biased, so NOT a striver here.) My job is low pay compared to many at my institution, but it is also low stress–my work stays at work, and true crises are few and far in between. I’m smart and talented (she says modestly) but I want those qualities for myself, not my work. It has taken me an absurdly long time to learn that stressing about achievement doesn’t benefit me, and that just because I was a gold star kid/student doesn’t me I have to be a gold star employee.
This is so good to hear and is speaking to my heart. At any point did you have to actively “downshift” from a more high-stress achiever path? That is part of what’s currently stressing me out — I want to find a job that plays to my strengths, but I’m afraid it will involve a lot of explaining why I didn’t continue on the more high-status path I was performing mediocre-ly on.
Hi! Have had similar thoughts/experience myself.
My advice: Regardless of whether it’s a high-stress-uberachiever-job or low-stress-checklist-job – if the job does not cause you undue anxiety and enables you to live an acceptable ‘lifestyle’ (you can pay your rent, afford general things that you want/need, save some, etc), then it’s perfectly fine to have it! And be happy about it! And it’s okay to switch between more or less stressful jobs as you feel capable of handling them, as long as you’re still able to make the rest of your non-work life happen.
I went from a super-high-stress fancy job (soooooo stressful) to a menial admin one for awhile in the same general field, and actually loved it. It was almost like a work vacation. I knew how to do my job and could do it well, there weren’t many surprises.. and it still came with a paycheck! I eventually moved back to a more challenging “sink-or-swim” job, but didn’t mind having the admin one for awhile – I think it saved my sanity. Just have a plan B or C in mind if you’re going to purposefully down-shift, in case you change your mind in the future… if you go that route, I’d recommend finding a semi-related job so you don’t knock yourself out of work in your field longterm.
My “downshift” was less active, because I was failing at getting the higher prestige jobs, so what happened was that I decided that the job I had was, actually, the job I want, and not a stepping stone to something higher paid/more prestigious/more work.
(At some point I looked at myself and my choices and said, “If I wanted [more prestigious job], I’d be doing XYZ, but I’m not because I don’t want to do them. And if I did those things and succeeded, I’d be winning for myself the opportunity to do them all the time, forever, as my job.”)
Not enough here to know if my suspicion has any accuracy. Are you prone to black-and-white thinking regarding your emotions, attitudes, habits? Would it help to define for yourself a continuum of job effort, then find a midpoint? Or would it be helpful to make a gradual change? Maybe add one small increase of effort each week and reward yourself for it.
And yes, there are jobs where the minimum is gratefully accepted. Those jobs are found in nonprofits and pay poorly. This does not describe all nonprofit jobs. But the ones that have high turnover or cannot pay well enough to attract the well-qualified are among them.
I am pretty prone to black-and-white thinking, this is a good point. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been proud of myself. Just also many times when I wasn’t, and those seem to count more right now, for various reasons. Maybe “trying to improving my ratio of good moments to bad moments” is the better was of thinking about it than “trying to transform from a slacker to an achiever.” (it just seems like everyone around me is an achiever, straight-up.)
If you’re getting positive feedback on your work, who’s to say that it’s only “good enough?” It sounds like you’re anxious because you feel pressured to take on tasks that aren’t in your job description. If people are getting on your case about not doing these extra tasks, ask if your job description needs to be revised and if this would occasion a change to your title or pay.
And how many people do you know who got their jobs purely because they are the single most brilliant and hardworking person in the field? Most people have “lucky breaks” of some kind. Your employer needed someone to do what you do, and you were the best applicant. You show up every day and get it done. That’s fine.
It me!
I’ve gone through a number of jobs in different fields hoping that changing the work would change me. So far, no luck. But part of that was the previously-undiagnosed depression that is kicking my ass at the moment. Sincerely hoping that does not apply to you!
Cheerfully meeting expectations is more than enough for many jobs, as other commentators have pointed out. However, if you’re not meeting your own expectations, it might be time for a change. Smart and sharp and skilled people can get away with doing a lot less work than they’re capable of because their “phoning it in” can look like other people’s “working their ass off,” in my experience. But if it makes you feel bad, it’s time for a change (or so my therapist tells me. In my case, the change was finally talking to a psychiatrist about the medication I need to feel like myself again. In your case, it might be getting more challenges at work, a better-defined to-do list for those long term projects, or a new career track.).
But more importantly: your success is not a lucky break. Really. Your success is because you know how to get things done and have done the work to gain your skill set and to be as sharp and smart as impressive as you are. If you can, try not to let impostor syndrome overshadow the work you’ve done. Own how great you are! (You’re a Toastie, so you’re great. That applies to all of you.)
Good luck, QQQ.
I soooooo struggle with this. Part of it is impostor syndrome, so I leave that with whatever it is. For a long time, I felt like I was coasting, or doing very little, but then every employee feedback at every job I’ve ever had, my bosses have praised me for being not just good but exceptional. And I had a lot of anxiety about this because I mostly felt like a fuck-off and any day they’d learn the truth & I’d never work in this town again.
But my attitude about being…not productive…has changed a little based on a fresh self-assessment of my work. Maybe it will speak to you? My work patterns look like is a little different than most colleagues I’ve had, but I don’t think it’s uncommon either. I’m not a steady worker; nor am I a steady jogger at the gym. I warm up, sprint, slow down, pick up the pace, sprint, slow down, sprint… The sprinting through work requires me to relax my brain. What can feel like slacking off is often me thinking through problems. I noticed that one day, I’d do “nothing” but then then next, I would power through really tough stuff. Or approach something creatively and well. And then next day, back to being a mush. When I find myself getting into a hole of being bored and unproductive and feeling like a failure for not being able to self-start, I just do one mindless task so I can go home and say, “At least I did this little thing.” And that builds into bigger accomplishments. I’m mostly fighting the 9-5 quality, which is basically asking for consistent and present work during certain hours. But…I work late. I work on weekends when need be. I certainly check work emails remotely. I really crave flexible working hours, because I’d feel less guilt about slacking and be more productive in the long run.
But I also wonder: Were you a great student? Work culture demands such different things than student life, and you mentioned downpost being in an entry-level position. You might just be in the adjustment between how you worked at school vs. what office life requires. And being a really great student is kind of an always-striving space, and sometimes being a good worker is just slogging through stuff, sans enthusiasm/perfectionism. Just a thought.
I’d love it if you posted again in the open thread on Friday. I struggle a lot with this myself, and as I’m getting ready to take on a position with even more responsibility and a higher profile, I’d love to hear from more Toasties who’ve grappled with gaining some initiative in jobs after years of being conditioned to (and excelling at!) succeeding in the structured environment of the U.S. education system.
(But if you don’t, it sounds like there are a few people out there who know what you’re talking about–I certainly do!)
Thank you for this post! I have been struggling with this exact thing and it causes me so much guilt and anxiety. I have a really great job that I’m passionate about and am good at, but I find myself slacking off and feeling terrible about it. Reading that I am not the only one is a huge relief.
I love my milky, frothy lattes and I love a cappuccino with so much foam you can sprinkle sugar on the top and eat down layer by layer like a fucking coffee parfait and I love a well-poured espresso shot and fresh coffee and a fresh brewed, smooth cup of coffee that isn’t going to treat my digestive tract like drano and even if I have a tiny, inexplicable crush on Anthony Bourdain he can suuuuuuck ittttttt.
Every time I think of latte foam, I remember these brothers I used to know who would always order four (FOUR) cups of breve– which, by the way, is a shit ton of half-and-half– and then one of those cups would have espresso in the bottom.
Man those guys shoveled that foam down like it was their primary source of calories. Which in retrospect it probably was.
As someone whose breakfast usually consist of a breve coffee, I sympathize.
It me.
I do that too! With the sugar sprinkled on top and then eating it. So crunchy-tasty.
The thing that I like about Bourdain is that I know he knows he’s kind of a dick. Not in the sense that he expects that to excuse his behavior but rather it means that when you light into him for saying “oh I don’t care about my coffee all that much I just want it to be exactly like the coffee I remember from a very specific place/time of my life and any coffee other than that and particularly *wanting* any coffee other than that is a sign you are a Lesser Person in some indistinct indefinable way (not manly enough)” he won’t be upset.
Thank you for that Lindy article!! I went shopping (well, attempted to shop) for new clothes yesterday, and couldn’t find anything in my plus-size size that wasn’t tent-shaped 80s floral print. I’m realizing that while I love where I live, being a fat girl in a city that prides itself on fitness and health is really not so easy.
Solidarity, is what I’m saying.
I have a friend who is SUCH a snappy dresser, and I think she built 90% of her wardrobe from ASOS.
OT, but a few months ago a friend told me that she’d found out that a seminary classmate had physically abused his girlfriend, and she wanted to report him to the seminary board/the church but didn’t want to ruin his career because she thought he really had a great future in the ministry. I forget exactly what I said, but I’m pretty sure it was “No, report his ass, and help his girlfriend get out of there if you can.” And last night, she and were texting, and it turns out that SHE was girlfriend and the classmate was her (thankfully now ex-)fiance. “Holy shit,” I said, “I didn’t know, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s ok,” she said. “He only hit me the once. And besides, my dad used to hit me a lot harder.”
…yeah.
Also, it turns out she still hasn’t reported him because she knows he’ll know it was her, and even though they broke off the engagement in December they’re still living together because of rent issues (he’s moving out in the summer). She does plan to report him, she just…hasn’t yet. I tried to reiterate that she really, really needs to, and also that even though she’s “difficult to deal with,” that is 0% an excuse for abuse.
I’m still reeling from it the next day. I told her she’s the most resilient person I know and I admire her a lot, and I don’t think there’s anything else I could have done, is there? I’ve never been in this situation before and honestly I just hope I didn’t fuck it up.
You’re heart is in the right place but be careful not to pressure her to do “the right thing,” because if she’s still living with him, now she has two people probably telling her what to do instead of just one. I know it doesn’t seem rational but actually wait until she’s free of him, sit her down to a nice lunch on you, and ask her if there’s anything she needs to feel confident doing this. Can you help her fill out paperwork, go with her to an office, pick her up from it and take her out for “dumped the bastard” drinks after? Focus on what you can positively do to enable her own autonomy.
This.
There’s a book called “Anchor in the storm” about supporting abused people, its out of print but I got one used on Amazon. I’ll see if I have a spare copy if you want.
Edited bc phone upgraded and forgot how to put spaces between words..
This. If he’s hit her once, she knows that he’s capable of it, and it is absolutely reasonable not to want to incur someone’s wrath who has already assaulted you once and who you are living with, particularly if you have had an abusive past where you are acutely aware of what raising the wrath of an abusive person means.
O sweetie, this sounds terrible. I think you are right, she does need to report as soon as she can. Having had precisely one close friend in an abusive relationship, my only advice is: regardless of what she does, she’ll need your support. and it turns out hollering over and over again “why don’t you dump his ass?” is not support :S #lessonlearned. I’ll be thinking of you. ::hugs::
Ugh. UGH.
Do you think it might get through to her that, as a minister, he’s going to have authority over a lot of vulnerable people? Abusive people need to be nowhere near that job.
Sounds like you’re doing everything you can, FWIW. I’m sorry.
Can you or another friend offer her a temporary living situation? She should get out of their shared apartment as soon as possible. He’s only (only?!) hit her once but that is a bad precedent for any living situation. And she should absolutely not report him while still living in the same space as him unless reporting him would result in his immediate removal from that space. Otherwise she could very likely be further endangering herself.
Other than that, just keep letting her know that it isn’t her fault, hitting ones girlfriend or daughtee is neither normal or acceptable behavior that she should resign herself to or minimize, she has deserved exactly none of the abuse that she has endured, and that you and others are there to love and support her no matter what she chooses to do. And please, don’t pressure her to report him, just support her if she chooses too.
FWIW, my wife is familiar with the Episcopalian seminary process, and it apparently involves psych evals and the like. I hope this denomination does too. But if it’s reported while he’s a student, and there’s intervention / therapy / etc, he might have a much better career situation than if he’s already a minister.
You didn’t fuck it up. But she’s still living with him, and has to consider her safety. I would suggest that if she’s willing, you offer to help her plan for after he moves out–what can she afford, does she have concerns about him trying to retaliate or stalk her, is she professionally vulnerable if he stries to smear her. I mean, I don’t know the deets, but reporting the abuse isn’t the end of the situation, it’s the start of it.
Oh, honey. That’s awful.
There’s lots of good advice here, and obviously it’s up to her to do what she needs to do to feel safe. But…fuck his career in ministry. Seriously. I say that as a Christian who believes in callings and everything, but just, no. Someone like that should not be in ministry–or he needs to do a huge amount of work on himself before he can be.
Kelsey’s response is spot on. it might seem counterintuitive, but the last thing your friend needs right now is to be pressured about how she’s handling her business. But there are other ways to be supportive and caring, and maybe even to help your friend get away from her abuser. (But if she leaves, it will be on her terms and her schedule.)
Here’s a link that you might find helpful: http://www.thehotline.org/help/help-for-friends-a…
Oh, Christ, that excerpt. Ban all men from writing, indeed.
Thank you for your advice yesterday on looking at MFA programs. Follow-up question: um, if you’ve already started a writers’ group and there are only 3 of you who participate regularly and you want more of a writing community than that, how do you go about finding such a community? Google suggests the following:
1) Start a group. (Did that; due to member commitments it cannot meet regularly and now we’re all friends and I want people to beat my work with a stick to make the good stuff fall out.)
2) Take classes. (Not a possibility here, unless they’re scammy 2-day WRITE ANYTHING YOU WANT AND MAKE $$$ jobbies, or you’re an undergrad/MFA student, which I am not.)
3) Move. (I’m kidding, but only just.)
It’s frustrating to be told “just find your people!” when you live in the suburbs and work 9-5 and no one is making classes available outside of 45-minute-away universities and you desperately need the structure/expectations of a physical location and face-to-face interactions to keep being productive.
Anyone else been there? All my creative friends live in big cities with no student loan debt tying them to any one job, so I think I just need to hear from…literally anyone else at this point.
There’s a Toast writing group that seems to have a ton of members and people give really thoughtful feedback! I joined months ago and am a total lazybones and haven’t really participated yet, but it seems amazing!
Where can that Toast group be found?
It’s a slack channel. What’s your email? I can send a direct invite. (this goes for anyone looking to join!)
I’d like an invite! hawthorncrataegus AT gmx DOT com
(Alternately, email me for an invite since I don’t mind putting my email up here: jenwhttn AT gmail DOT you know the rest)
I’d like one too! lizzy_someone, yahoo.
I’m there right now. Graduated college last year, and I’ve gone from a lovely creative writing group full of my friends that I was president of for two years to nothing. And the local writer’s workshop that I want to join is full currently =/ and I just quit a shitty food-job so I would have time and energy to actually look for a career, so I don’t feel like I’m in a good place to go to a writing retreat.
Actually, going to a writer’s retreat might be a good option for you. Get out of the suburbs and meet people. Maybe there’s one near you that’s affordable, or offers aid for good writers.
But yeah, I’m jonesing hard for community. The closest I have is the beta readers for the novel I’ve spent the past 5 years writing and rewriting.
YUP. I was in a super awesome year-long program with 14 other writers, and I couldn’t really take advantage of it. The computer science major ate up my time and sanity in a bad way.
I am looking into writer’s retreats, yes! The South has several. I would have to arrange for pet care and time off work and all that, but I’m thinking it would be worth it. Any Toasts with retreat experience?
There exist online critique groups. I’ve never bothered to join one, but I have ended up reading about them for some reason. Usually they have some sort of system where people have to give critiques in order to get their work critiqued, and some kind of moderation to enforce whatever critique guidelines they have.
Of course, they can’t help with wanting face-to-face interactions.
What about finding a freelance editor? (Saying this as one and as somebody who knows what you’re going through.) A lot of my clients are in the same situation – they’re craving somebody who will tell them what’s what, but they struggle to either find (or find time for) a writing community. It’d be cheaper than grad school, non-scammy, and help you develop your writing.
In addition to the Toast group I have seen writing groups as well as the Shut Up And Write! Groups on Meetup (SUAW) might not count as “community” because you are not supposed to chat during the meetups after an opening check-in.
And I read yesterday’s comment on my phone and was too lazy to say: most writing programs are more about making money for the schools than really doing anything for the writers. Some are really good at the networking and connecting you need to make it out in the pro community — but if you are making your living from the coding then that would not be relevant to you.
I love the conflicted thoughts about Anthony Bourdain this brings out in Toasties. We are a House Divided.
Yeah, it’s weird though, my exposure to him has been virtually nil, yet I have the sense that I really dislike him, even though I too like to grab a quick cup of coffee and do man-tasks. It’s like his existence carries an aura of automatic polarization.
I like to think of us as a thoughtful, tolerant House, unified in allowing respectful dissent, careful of each others’ feelings.
I, too, have conflicted thoughts about Bourdain. I can appreciate his better moments while recoiling from some of his attitudes.
So far so good at least!
I both love and enjoy making fun of him to various degrees, so I’m enjoying both sides of this fence.
That’s how I feel about banjos!
I wonder if part of it is when and how one comes to know about him. I read Kitchen Confidential back in the day and loved the bitchy expose nature of it, because I read it as anti-dining-establishment. Now he is the establishment in lots of ways! I also cheerfully started watching No Reservations when it aired, like, ‘holy shit that book guy has a TV show now’! But if people are first exposed to his persona, or to the Cult of Bourdain following, I can see how that would be off-putting.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone from despairing rage to amusement so quickly as while reading that Lindy West except! I want to go back and shake everyone from her childhood that ever made her feel less-than about her size, and then our entire society for good measure, and then I want to sit with her and rip on female characterizations in Disney movies over a bottle of wine. And then we can burn down the Beauty Industrial Complex.
Jian Ghomeshi is not going to be tried again for sexual assault and Twitter is terrible and I want to set everything on fire.
GodDAMMIT
In a way it is understandable, given what happened in the other trial earlier this year. But at the same time, it’s like… I wish these women could receive some sort of restitution for what he did to them, what they’ve gone through in the last year-plus.
What.
Has Anthony Bourdain never flown United and tasted the pure delight that is the in-flight Stroopwafel???
Also “people just eat on planes because they’re bored” how about no it’s because we need food and also every inch of space in carry on luggage for things not provided free on the plane?
Right? Yes, airplane food is gross but a) how often do you actually get anything besides a bag of pretzels from an airline these days and b) so sue me for wanting a snack when I’m stuck inside an airborne tube for 10 hours?? Also, good luck convincing Ma Jinx you don’t want a Ma-made sandwich for your flight home. What, am I supposed to break my mother’s heart?
I can’t read the excerpt so I’m just approximating this response, but here:
“I suppose it’s time I told you what I look like. My balls are still firm–hairy and not too wrinkled with a firm separation between them so they don’t look like a single ball. I like to hold them sometimes to remind myself that they are the most important part of my anatomy, worthy of description so much more than my intelligence or my personality.
Favorite short fiction I read yesterday: Interstellar Biochocolate Mousse à la solitaire . . . For Two by Yoss.
That is really lovely.
Y’all, my DVR recorded a set of shorts called “The Faith Diaries” that I assume were promos for the upcoming UnREAL season, and they were surprising and incredible and I think you can watch them on lifetime’s website.
OT, guys, but one of my foster kittens is sick and the vet hasn’t gotten back to me and I’m at work worrying about her. She’s so little and so sniffly and all she wants to do is curl up on me and purr, and I’m not there.
She’s still eating and drinking so I hope she’s not really too sick, but she clearly doesn’t feel well and it’s so sad. I want to go hoooooome.
Ugh, that sucks. :/ I hope she is feeling better soon!
Oh you poor baby! Oh that poor baby kitten! Thinking good thoughts for you both!
Oh nooooo you’ve just illustrated why I couldn’t be a foster mom to kittens 🙁
My geriatric cats had respiratory infections last year and they were OK, it was like 5-7 days each? I didn’t even take them to the vet because they both kept eating and drinking just fine, they were just super snorty, sniffly, and sneezy, and slept a lot. A respiratory infection might be more concerning with a kitten, but I think you shouldn’t be particularly worried unless she gets extremely lethargic, is congested the point she’s having difficulty breathing, or if she stops eating/drinking.
Yeah, intellectually I know this, but she’s just SO little (barely 8 weeks old) and only just recovered from bad eye infections, and she has no wiggle room to lose any weight. If it were my adult cats I wouldn’t be very worried at all.
I’m also traumatized from having a foster kitten suddenly die from an undiagnosed condition five years ago. I know this is a different, much healthier kitten, but it’s hard to get over that.
checking to see if I can put that image up from the locked twitter account:
(I wouldn’t usually do this, but I know this was not locked before; I think that she started getting flack from people and locked it down, but I think it’s important that people know why men should not be allowed to write.)
TIL what a French pleat is! Because I was convinced it was a copyediting error for “plait.”
oh HUH. I thought it was just like the way a pretentious nerd says “ponytail”
Me too!
I think so, like a French braid.
The hairstyle that comes up when googling “french pleat” is what I would have called a “french twist.”
Same! I assumed “French pleat” was a French braid.
“Perhaps the time has come for me to describe myself”
“Getting back to my body”
“A wide stomach”
“My breasts are nicely separated – a little too copious for my chest, granted”
Oh, my, GAWD. Thank you for sharing! This is utterly ridiculous and no context could ever save it, I am delighted.
I really dig the subtle “how can I describe myself as being super hot but also retain the humility that hot chicks need to have by being down to earth” that underpins all the descriptions.
Like, he wants her to describe herself as hot, but she can’t THINK of herself as too hot.
Right?! God forbid she has fully come to like her body, OR has an body that isn’t conventionally attractive to the Male Gaze, OR WORST OF ALL, we don’t find out anything at all about how she looks. How would we know what to think of herrrrrrr?!
“this book was okay but I had a lot of problems connecting to the main character because I wasn’t sure if she was a babe”
“I guess I’m ok, I just have these annoyingly large breasts, and it’s terrible.”
This is exactly the formula that romance publishers recommend to their authors – the heroine must describe her appearance in a way that makes it clear that she is hot but the heroine herself does not realise it.
I can’t get over the separated breasts, either. Like, I have literally never heard anyone with breasts describe them as “nicely separated,” plus I cannot stop associating this with “mechanically separated chicken.”
Don’t even very large breasts always look separated when their owner is not wearing a bra? It’s the garment that squishes them together. Perhaps the author has seen women wearing sports bras and assumed they have uniboobs underneath?
Oh, good point! Or maybe he only encounters Renaissance Fair Pirate Bar Wenches and thinks that most women constantly have their boobs squished up under their chin?
Somehow I also assume he’d be horrified by the thing that many boobs do au natural where they point outward.
Outward…or downward, for those of us with very large droopers that mean I’ll never be a nudist for fear of what might happen at salad bars.
Yeah, I have very large breasts and if anything they’re too “nicely separated”. (I.e. if I lie on my back they point in completely different directions.)
“my breasts are nicely separated, unlike some other breasts which merge together into a huge amorphous blob in the center of the chest”
“My breasts are discrete units, each remaining firmly anchored to its particular place on my torso.”
Erotica Written By An Alien Pretending Not To Be Horrified At Being Trapped In A Human Female Body
“In addition to being a food source for any potential offspring I may birth and rear, the tissue surrounding my mammary glands serves as a source of erotic fascination for adult members of my species, which is not strange or off-putting in any way.”
“To get back to my body…” LOLOLOL
Oh! And she’s apparently slim all over except in her boobs and butt. You know, how most people are.
“So basically, male gazer, I am a drop dead gorgeous supermodel and the perfect subject of your gaze. Without any icky things you might not like, like thick arms or a protruding belly or a flat butt or something.”
Oh and just one more edit: I thought you were kidding about the parrot. Apparently naaaaaaoooot
This can’t possibly be real oh my god
Her hair is black but also auburn? How exactly would one’s complexion resemble feathers? Her upper body is slim but her boobs are “too copious”?
I am also weirdly annoyed that this woman is describing her general overall appearance and mentions the -specific- hairstyle she is wearing that day but not the length of her hair??? Maybe if she mentioned the length and said “currently” or “usually” drawn into a french pleat, it might make sense, but not as written.
man I wish I knew what book this was
Someone above guessed it was Raymond Jean, and of course it’s described as “the perfect novel.” But they even have the “Perhaps I should describe myself” quote.
yeah maybe though I’ll be disappointed just because this is the kind of stuff you already expect from the French
“Reader for Hire might be the perfect book – written with an elegance whose validity it also questions. Small in the hand, and big in the brain, it asks what books are for, how they substitute for our desires.”
Is it making fun of itself!? Is it parody? What is happening here?
“Small in the hand, and big in the brain,” slim in the waist, wider lower down, and nicely separated.
sausagedog revealed the likely culprit in a post above.
I wanna plug it into one of those “who do you write like?” text analyzers and see which ~classic~ man-author this guy thinks he is.
Just tried it (using iwl.me). Nabokov. Take from that what you will.
“my complexion is more like peaches than feathers”
this is such vital information, really
Peaches! Feh. My complexion is more like taco salad.
Finally, metaphors where my pizza face won’t stand out. Food-based complexions for everyone.
i mean
more like
~peaches~
than
~feathers~
my complexion is more like peanut butter than molten iron
My complexion is more like salmon than inkjet toner
But definitely not in the way where she might have any facial hair, I’m sure.
This is genuinely bad writing. It’s a published page, isn’t it? Not like an early proofing copy? God damn it.
I’ve never heard of “a wide stomach” before, but I’m strangely convinced the author means it’s an entirely flat wideness.
“Apparently they really suit me, according” is definitely the perfect cut-off point.
I don’t know what it is! I don’t even know what book it’s from!
But yeah, I got a real suspicion that “wide” here means “end-to-end”, not “all-the-way-around”, because even though she doesn’t realize it and is totally down to earth and cool, she is also hot.
PERHAPS THE TIME HAS COME FOR ME TO DESCRIBE MYSELF
I love how my classmates and I agonize over how to seamlessly insert details of our characters’ appearances into our narratives. This guy has CLEARLY figured it out! Just have them stand naked in front of a mirror and do the heavy lifting for you!
[tangent] I have a cat that I nicknamed Fluffernutter, fyi. He’s very soft and cuddly. I just wanted to share 🙂 [/tangent]
That’s awesome! I have never actually had a fluffernutter sandwich (though it seems like it would be delightful), I just adore the word. It is an A+ cat nickname!
Perhaps the time has come for Fluffernutter to describe himself?
I’m on the stout side, strong in my upper body, short lower down. I have brown tabby fur with patches of white, short overall but silky soft to the touch and very petable. Green eyes. A pointy, slightly sharp face which was described as adorable when I was a tiny kitten. I was left with an acute awareness that some people might think I look like a cat. Even if I do have a boopable pink nose outlined in black, I actually have a full, very cushiony muzzle, and I think my complexion is more like a toasted marshmallow than fur.
ilu Fluffernutter
This is terrific and now I want to read your book about your cat who is also a babe.
I’ve read so many lists of Things Fiction Writers Must Know that contain “don’t have your protagonist stare into a mirror and describe themself.” I always wondered why. Surely that wasn’t anything anyone actually DID?
Excuse me, I have a hat to eat.
haha, all those years of reading Baby-sitters Club books where they stopped the plot every chapter 2 to describe everyone’s hair and eye color, family situations, hobbies, fashion senses–before of course having to explain the concept of BABY-SITTING CLUB. There were some evil geniuses as Scholastic in those years, I tell ya.
FAVORITE PART. And there are a lot of gems.
“Dear Reader, I know you will be unable to comprehend my humanity without adequate descriptions of ALL MY BODILY DIMENSIONS, so let me tell you about my wide stomach, kherewego!”
:The time has come,” the Walrus said, :to talk of many things. Of beaks, and breasts, and birthing hips; of ebony and green; of why my butt is so damn good, and I totally don’t have wings.”
why does this comment not have more likes
I mean, I only made it like 5 minutes ago. I’m willing to give the adoring masses a bit of time.
Omg. Sheer, unmitigated perfection. *applauds you*
I’m not sure why IntenseDebate turned some of my quotations marks into colons, though.
The other bad qualities have been covered by other commenters, but I just want to add: this is so many adjectives. The adjective-to-noun ratio is ridiculous. Adverbs likewise. Every sentence feels like it’s ten years long. I’m mentally rewriting it to be less of a mess, and I don’t even WANT to. It’d still suck if it were competently written, but the urge to red-pen it is so strong…
AND I MEAN!
“I was left with an acute awareness that some people might think I look like a bird”
YOU DON’T EVEN NEED THIS SENTENCE! IT’S JUST BEEN ESTABLISHED THAT SOMEONE THOUGHT SHE LOOKED LIKE A BIRD AND SHE GOT UPSET ABOUT IT
I nearly rolled my eyes out of my head when we got to “I actually have full, very cushiony lips” JUST IN CASE I HAD ANY DOUBT LEFT A MAN WROTE THIS
And then, after the unforgettable “To get back to my body” — there’s “my neck rises tall above my shoulders.” WELL THANK GOD, I WAS IN SUCH SUSPENSE ABOUT THE PLACEMENT OF HER NECK
And also how she describes her boobs and ass as “assets,” because of course that’s how women think of those parts, as we’re ALWAYS using them to get what we want!
In conclusion, this dude has the same amount of talent as any twenty-year-old boy who’s mastered basic grammar.
I would argue that he hasn’t mastered basic grammar.
I need a Two Monks describe this guy article…
If the book is Reader for Hire, then I think the awkwardness may be due to bad translation from the French. The sentence “my neck rises tall above my shoulders” would be something like, “mon cou se leve au-dessus de mes epaules,” which is a weird thing to say, but sounds better.
Which makes me think “Your translation is very like Chater.”
I’ve read bad fanfiction that’s better than that. Hell, I’ve WRITTEN bad fanfiction that’s better than that.
I initially thought it was a riff on My Immortal, like the Kylo Ren or Suicide Squad!Joker ones that have popped up lately. But then it wasn’t
Right? I mean, to my teenage self’s credit, when I needed to describe my self-insert OCs I would at least have SOMEONE ELSE meet them for the first time and internally monologue about how hot they were.
I’m late to this party but just You Know Someone Is A Hack when they describe breasts particularly but any body part in general as “copious”. “Copious” is a word for describing how big of a scoop of mashed potatoes the diner gave you, that’s it.
Or, like, describing the number of tears shed by Margery Kempe as she contemplates her sinfulness.
Y’
ALL
HOW DOES THIS SHIT HAPPEN and how did AAM just manage to top the liver transplant letter??
I just saw that and I’m SO MAD.
HOW DOES ANYONE THINK THAT’S OK.
(Also I did not think AAM was going to top the omg factor of the “should I show up at HR’s office at a company that’s threatened to call the authorities on me?” letter from this morning quite so quickly, but…)
That’s the one I thought this link was going to be! “As a side note, they said they’d call the cops on me.” That one was good “Oh, honey, noooo” horror, this one is just sad and ragey.
That letter – how do you go from “threatened to call the cops if I email” to “Should I telephone or just show up in person?”
Oh my god. No joke, I really wonder if that’s the batshit applicant we dealt with all last month. I was TERRIFIED. When the home office lawyer finally sent him a cease-and-desist, he started calling her to explain that he wasn’t harassing us. Holy shit. It really could be him.
Mansplaining at its very very worst *runs away screaming*
No seriously, that’s horrific.
I linked the post to my work bestie, and he was HORRIFIED. We really think it could be the dude. Good lord. We actually had outside security for a few days after the c&d because we were THAT worried he might show up.
THAT IS BANANAS. What in the world!?
YES I CAME BACK TO THE LR SPECIFICALLY HOPING Y’ALL HAD SEEN THIS
ugh it’s so, so so so awful the whole way through.
The fact that the clinic keeps letting him in is super upsetting! The OP shows up later in the comments to mention that her manager even managed to corner her one time when she was curtained off for privacy! WTF
How is it not a HIPAA violation for them even to confirm that she is there? This whole thing is bonkers.
THIS. I thought everyone these days went overboard trying to comply with privacy law to avoid lawsuits. APPARENTLY NOT.
It absolutely is a violation. Even though HIPAA doesn’t apply to employers, the clinic can only release info to the employer with written authorization from the employee; and even then there are laws that state what information they have to give, and what information they can keep back. So with written authorization from the employee, the clinic could talk to an employer about doctor’s notes on absences or work restrictions. But letting an employer actually come back into a treatment room over a work emergency or because he wants to check she’s where she said she was? Again, after she has said she doesn’t want him in there? Absolutely not. If a patient is fully cognizant (not unconscious or not a minor), any medical facility needs to always check with the patient first before ever even letting anyone in the room. And if the patient says no, the clinic needs to make a note and put a procedure in place to make sure the creep never got back there again.
THAT IS TERRIBLE, I can’t believe this poor letter writer is in such an awful situation, also I’m pretty sure that the code names are all from Game of Thrones, which is maybe a reflection of how unethical and shitty this workplace is?
I think lots of LWs and Alison herself use GoT names a lot though so I wouldn’t read too much into that.
Oh, I didn’t know it was a theme! Makes sense though, if you’re looking for a pool of names to represent “crappy people to work for/with”.
Also for “I thought this couldn’t get any worse, but then it did”.
“I asked whose turn it was to bring donuts to the meeting, and now everybody’s dead.”
“The bank asked if we had a succession plan in place, and all hell broke loose.”
That one literally made my blood pressure raise and my heart race. The LW should also ask her employment lawyer to check stalking laws in her jurisdiction jfc.
That poor LW! Not nearly as bad, but I was duly horrified that my employer (a man) would follow me into the Ladies Room asking questions. I started getting on the elevator when I needed a bathroom and just using the Ladies at any *other* floor it happened to stop on. 25 floors = he can’t find me. This was the 1990s, so not relevant to current bathroom shenanigans by bigots.
*screams*
THIS IS WHY HEALTH INSURANCE SHOULD NOT BE DEPENDENT ON YOUR EMPLOYMENT
This poor LW can’t do what they really ought to do, and what the company deserves, by quitting on the spot, BECAUSE they’re on the hook for those health benefits which are A LITTLE BIT NECESSARY WHEN YOU HAVE CANCER.
God damn, American capitalism is a hellscape.
This, a million times. THAT ASSHOLE IN PARTICULAR AND HER COMPANY IN GENERAL ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE FACT THAT SHE NEEDS THEM IN ORDER TO GET LIFE-SAVING CARE.
My most favorite priest in the world (which, given the number of awesome priests I know, is saying something) is a former Methodist minister who was defrocked after she came out as gay (this was, quite naturally, incredibly traumatic for her). I will never stop being furious that her church did that to her, and smug that my Episcopal parish benefited from that hateful idiocy.
Can I just say how much I love Lindy West and want to be her best friend? I read that article at work yesterday and spent the entire time trying not to burst into tears because she is basically writing my life. God bless that woman.
I like good coffee though I rarely spring for it, and now I’m humming “but the less I seek my source for something Arabica, the closer I am to Fo-HOOOO-ol-ger’s yeeaaah,” so thanks for that.
the less I seek my source for some Arabica.
Brilliant. Thank you! Off to listen to the Indigo Girls…
So after that lengthy thread about leaving cabinets open, I went home to my left-open cabinets. Not only did I fail to close the cabinet doors, I proceeded to whack my head on one as I was loading the dishes. I then closed them.
Part of me is really hoping that Sansa ends up being the size of Clifford the Big Red Dog. She seems well on her way already.
Meanwhile, congrats to Matt for already passing his Kickstarter goal (nearly $5k raised as of this comment)!
Toasties, is cold brew the Snake Juice of coffees?
I think the buttered coffee thing (bullet coffee? bulletproof coffee?) is even more snake juicey!
Bulletproof coffee is total snakejuice.
No, cold brew is the champagne of coffees.
OMG yes. Idk why really, because I’ll happily drink several shots of plain/latte/cafe-au-lait style espresso (one summer in France and I am a Coffee Snob foooreverererer, it is terrible sorry) but cold brew, man!
I had unmentionable bottom trouble after a cup of cold brew. It is snake juice.
I can’t tell the difference between cold brew and coffee brewed hot and refrigerated overnight, but I am not a fancy person.
Cold brew is absolutely the BEST and also the EASIEST THING IN THE WORLD TO MAKE so the only snake juice-y thing is how much they charge for it.
I love both hot and cold coffee but coldbrew hurts my stomach less. So good
Don’t know if I’m putting this in too deep, but this June Diane Raphael interview is the best.
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/05/june-…
JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OT, but I can’t wait for the Open Thread. We just got an email from our interim rector that our amazing, wonderful church organist is moving to Indianapolis at the end of June, where his wife will be pursuing post-doctoral work.
He’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever met. In addition to accompanying on both the organ and piano, he does fantastic preludes and postludes (at two services, so one postlude and two different preludes), encompassing a huge range of styles and periods, he does recitals before our thrice-yearly choral Evensong (and occasional Evensongs at our church by other choirs), and organizes the Christmas pageant. He’s also the best solo accompanist I’ve ever worked with. If it’s a spiritual, I can just tell him to play whatever he thinks will work, while I take care of the melody line, and I have absolute faith that whatever he plays will be totally awesome. And he always has top-notch suggestions, which he offers with gracious humility and wonderful insight.
He’s been at the church for 10 years, as have I, so I never knew his predecessor. I genuinely can’t imagine the church without him. I’m sure we’ll get somebody awesome, but I’m kind of freaking out right now. By which I mean that I’m crying.
*sends hugs *
Seeing someone move on who is both a great musician and a genuine joy to work with and be around is hard.
I hope you find a way to stay in touch, and I hope the next person is awesome in their own way.
The previous organist was apparently amazingly talented as well, so I see no reason to think that the church won’t hire another wonderful organist, but he’s a really integral part of the worship experience for me.
This is also the time of year when all of the university students I’ve gotten to know over the last 4 years leave, so I’m feeling kind of abandoned.
*hugs*
We’re also in the middle of the search for a new Rector (the search process for the previous Rector had just started back when I began attending this church), and we’ve had a new Associate Rector an average of every two years. I cope poorly with change.
Oh man, that kind of change is such upheaval. A new rector can change the core and heart of a church, I don’t blame you for being upset. I hope it doesn’t go on much longer, and you get someone you like very much.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk about my body.
I’m slim-chested with flippers, though my hindquarters jut oddly.
My breasts are nicely separate; my hips have quite a swing,
My complexion is, I think, more like a cabbage than a king.”
::dies::
This is made three times worse by the fact that I watched TUSK on Saturday.
(The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of OH MY GOD NO NO MAKE IT STOP.)
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3
I don’t know if I’ll ever read that poem the same way again.
*high five*
Ugh, I know this is OT but I’ve been working on a proposal for a class to teach and I don’t know if I can finish it to submit tonight. This should not be a big crisis–I could submit it for the next session which has a June deadline, but as I’m trying to leave soul-crushing job 1 EVERYTHING has been due the same two weeks as administering and grading finals, overseeing marketing for my firm opening two new offices, and having to go to a meeting on a Saturday full of people making between 3 and 10 times as much money as I do and explain how we can use a LinkedIn company page and my head is full of dead wet leaves, I think.
I am right there with you. I probably only slept 12 hours (until last night, when I got 8) the entire week previous due to end-of-term projects and exams. I managed to turn one thing in late, and I still have a big project to finish by Friday and I have no idea where the time is going to come to do it, as we have three more lacrosse games this week.I am supposed to be doing it now….
Hang in there. I have decided not to coach next year because I can’t keep this up. But I’m so sad, I’d have the same kids again and next year they’re gonna be great! plus I was finally feeling like I knew what I was doing.
I hear you on the work situation too, I am also trapped. Hang in there and make sure you eat!
Hamiltoasts! Would you like to hear Daveed Diggs rap even faster than he does in “Guns and Ships” while wearing an intensely intriguing suit?
Of course you would! http://www.vulture.com/2016/05/hamiltons-daveed-d…
Unrelated but elections in the Philippines just ended, and our president is now a misogynistic murderer. Plus, very close to winning Vice-Presidency was the son of Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator who enacted Martial Law and killed and tortured thousands.
Obviously this is nothing like your accident, but I found out about not being able to reach your head while your arm is casted from mid upper arm all the way down to your fingers. Yeah. It ain't happening.
…I can't remember how I managed to get my bra on and off, though..
We need a ritual saying to post with it, so that everyone knows who is setting their forums on fire and why.