I am in DC today, and I do not know how Claire Underwood never seems to experience the effects of humidity.
Rodarte doesn’t even go here:
But Rodarte is not readily accessible. It is possible for an ordinary but well-heeled consumer to walk into a store or log into a website and make a Rodarte purchase — but doing so will be easier if that shopper is no larger than a size 4.
Rodarte tends to be sold by special order or through trunk shows. Nordstrom sells it only in its Seattle store. Neiman Marcus sells it solely in Beverly Hills. And instead of delivering four or more collections a year, as other brands do, Rodarte delivers two.
TNC:
When I started writing Between The World And Me, the only person’s permission I needed was black. He was my editor. He grew up like me. He understood where I was trying to go—even when I didn’t quite understand it myself. My father—who subsidized the self-published blog which is the seed of my presence here—read and critiqued the book before it was published. My mother—who taught me to read and write—did the same. The first stop on the book tour was West Baltimore. The next was Catonsville High School, where my mother works. The next was Howard University. Throughout the tour, we made a specific effort to be in black spaces, and pull in black bookstores. This was not a carefully laid plan to seduce white liberals. It was an attempt to be able to sleep at night. Writing a book from a black perspective is freeing. Seeing it constantly examined from a white perspective is depressing.
Atlas Obscura has like three great things about Canada-adjacent topics, here is the first:
When the linguists Martin Meissner and Stuart Philpott first started visiting sawmills in British Columbia in the 1970s, they thought they’d find workers communicating without speaking, probably with some simple gestures that contained technical information. There was a long history of such communication in the face of extreme noise: For centuries, American mill workers had used systems of hand signals to tell each other, across the unending roar of the saws, how to cut wood.
What they discovered, though, floored them. The researchers witnessed a sign language system complete enough that workers could call each other “you crazy old farmer,” tell a colleague that he was “full of crap,” or tell each other when the foreman was “fucking around over there.”
Considering the geographical, cultural, and economic closeness of our two countries, it’s almost perverse that Americans take so much pride in their ignorance about all things Canada. Drake? Dan Aykroyd? The new hot prime minister? Is that it? But everyone knows what Canadians are supposed to sound like: they are are a people who pronounce “about” as “aboot” and add “eh” to the ends of sentences.”
Unfortunately, that’s wrong. Like, linguistically incorrect. Canadians do not say “aboot.” What they do say is actually much weirder.
Canadian English, despite the gigantic size of the country, is nowhere near as diverse as American English; think of the vast differences between the accents of a Los Angeleno, a Bostonian, a Chicagoan, a Houstonian, and a New Yorker. In Canada, there are some weird pockets: Newfoundland and Labrador speak a sort of Irish-cockney-sounding dialect, and there are some unique characteristics in English-speaking Quebec. But otherwise, linguistically, the country is fairly consistent.
Here is the third! You already know about this if you have ever met me, because I tell people about French-Canadian swears constantly, so much so that we have an ex-Navy friend from Georgia who now says tabarnak when he stubs a toe:
Then there’s a phrase like this, which I saw on a friend’s neighbor’s front door once: “La doorbell est fuckée.” The word “fuck,” for the record, is fairly common in Québec, but isn’t really a swear; it’s a mutated form of an English, but it’s only barely rude, meaning “broken” or “messed up.”
Québec has few swears that you’d also find in France. Merde, maybe. I’ve heard enculer before, which means something like the verb “to fuck” and is usually paired with something else to enhance it. But the best swears are the sacres.
The sacres is the group of Catholic swears unique to Québec. There are many of them; the most popular are probably tabarnak (tabernacle), osti or hostie or estie (host, the bread used during communion), câlisse (chalice), ciboire (the container that holds the host), and sacrament (sacrament). These usually have some milder forms as well, slightly modified versions that lessen their blow. “For example, tabarnouche and tabarouette are non-vulgar versions of tabarnak, similar to ‘shoot’ and ‘darn’ in English,” says Polesello.
Though you can see migrating raptors soaring at altitudes well over 800 feet over the city during the day, most species of diurnal birds migrate after nightfall. It’s safer. Temperatures are cooler, and there are fewer predators around. Fewer, not none. Just before I arrived, Farnsworth saw a peregrine falcon drifting ominously around the building. Peregrines frequently hunt at night here. From high-rise lookout perches, they launch flights out into the darkness to grab birds and bats. In more natural habitats, falcons cache the bodies of birds they’ve killed among crevices in cliffs. The ones here tuck their kills into ledges on high-rises, including the Empire State. For a falcon, a skyscraper is simply a cliff: It brings the same prospects, the same high winds, the same opportunities to stash a takeout meal.
The original pho was a simple bowl of broth, noodles, and boiled beef. Then cooks began offering slices of rare beef as an optional add-on. In the late 1920s, people debated the merits of pho featuring Chinese five-spice, sesame oil, tofu, and ca cuong (a pear-scented water-beetle pheromone). Around 1930, pho xao don—pan-fried pho rice noodles topped with a saucy beef and vegetable stir-fry—was introduced and received well.
Things got heated in 1939, when pho restaurants began selling chicken pho (pho ga). It usually happened on Mondays and Fridays, and was likely due to the government forbidding the sale of beef in order to control the slaughtering of draft animals for food. Purists initially decried chicken pho as being un-pho-like, but in the end, itprevailed as a worthy and tasty preparation in its own right. In fact, some pho shops eventually decided to specialize in pho ga.
Scheduling conflicts seem to be a surprisingly common excuse for missing an event that was announced a year and a half ago. Others offered mushy noncommitments.
“Just as they’re firming up the schedule, it kind of looks like there’s a lot of stuff for me to do,” said Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, explaining why he probably couldn’t make it.
Asked if Mr. Trump had anything to do with his reluctance, Mr. Johnson, who is in a heated re-election campaign, broke into a big smile and said, “Oh, of course not.”
“I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. If you’re in business for yourself, I really think it’s a bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana,” Trump said.He said that he disliked hearing her “shouting on the phone” during contentious business deals.
“A softness disappeared. There was a great softness to Ivana, and she still has that softness, but during this period of time she became an executive not a wife,” Trump had said.
I’m just glad it’s finally Friday.
I’ll be the first one to admit that I thought that “Between the World and Me” was at least partially targeted toward white liberals. “The Beautiful Struggle” on the other hand, really seemed like he couldn’t care less if a white person ever read it (in a good way!). I think it was because “Between the World and Me” seemed to provide a lot of explanations for things that non-black people wouldn’t know, where as “The Beautiful Struggle” just assumed you knew what he was talking about (I didn’t, but I had a ton of fun Wikipedia-ing the various references he made). Did anyone else feel that way or am I the only one totally missing the bus?
Made the mistake of trying to teach The Beautiful Struggle to a mostly-white, all-suburban group of high school students, and also not in Baltimore. I worked REALLY hard to make it accessible, and I do think they mostly got it, with a lot of help, but mostly the initial reaction was “the FUCK is this?!”
So actually maybe it wasn’t a mistake, but it was very difficult work.
Maybe he’d like to reach white liberals–I don’t really know–but I don’t think he’s trying to get the approval of white liberals, which seems to be the critique he’s responding to.
I haven’t gotten to read BWM yet, but could it be possible that the explanations for “things that non-black people wouldn’t know” are targeted for nonblack POC?
Hi Toastfriends, I don’t know if I’ll be around for the open thread today.
I lost my job this morning, and I am at a loss. I don’t know what to do next. This job kind of fell into my lap back in November but just…didn’t end up working out.
I am willing to do anything at this point, provided I get necessary training. If you or anyone you know have any leads on anything in the central NJ area, and are willing to train someone who may be completely new to your industry, please, please let me know. I am trying really hard not to cry but it’s not working too good.
Also, unsolicited advice on switching careers when you don’t know what to do or you’re doing next is very, very welcome.
edit: I should specify that my training is in environmental remediation at current, with approximately 4 years experience.
Oh no, I’m so sorry. Toasthugs to you, if you want them <3
Oh, honey, oh no oh no
Oh that sucks! I’m so sorry. I’m not in NJ, so I can’t be of much practical help, but sending you a big pile of internet hugs.
Oh no, I’m so sorry. 🙁
Oh man. I’m so sorry.
Ugh, that’s terrible! I’m so sorry that happened to you.
I have no worthwhile advice, so interspecies hug instead?
I’m so sorry. It’s a horrible feeling.
Hey, I’m really sorry. And also recently laid off.
Please breathe and take care of yourself. A job is just a job, not a referendum on your worthiness. You will get another one. Don’t worry about career direction for at least a few days.
So sorry! Wish I could be more helpful other than saying sorry that sounds so hard.
Hug! I have a friend in northern NJ who fell into a good career after temping–she got a temp-to-perm position doing office work for an environmental company, actually. So perhaps a temp agency would help you test things out?
What my wife is doing to figure out what she wants to do is: considering what she actually wants and likes out of her work day. For instance, she doesn’t want to sit at a desk all day, and she wants a mix of public interaction and solo work time. Once she made her robust list, she thought about jobs that might facilitate that. She realized, for instance, that county government wouldn’t be good for her because she likes to work with more-motivated coworkers than most counties have. Once she had both lists, she started looking in a lot of places for jobs that might fit. And in the meantime, she’s looking for temp/contract work. (She is currently employed but looking to leave ASAP.)
All my career hops have happened when I didn’t know what I was doing. Only in retrospect do that patterns become visible to me.
HAve my fingers crossed for you.
I’m so sorry. All the love and luck to you in your search.
oh uh I have had real good luck signing up with the state civil service. This is in PA, and I know that NJ has been treating its civil service workers pretty badly, but a lot of states and municipalities have got environmental departments, and even have regular positions that a person can get if they just do all right on a test.
it’s probably not what you’re looking for in life, but it can be pretty steady work while you look for something else.
I’m sorry 🙁
If environmental remediation is your thing, I’d suggest searching EPA jobs. There are local and regional positions that may fit your background. Or a local/state enviro agency. Any chance you could stretch your experience to cover “sustainability”? There are positions around that in various businesses — even corporations need sustainability managers. Townships and cities, too. I don’t know specifically what your background is but google all the oil/shale gas companies around NJ and search through their jobs to see if anything fits. Otherwise, remediation consultants? If you don’t mind traveling…
I’m going to second temping if you can find a good agency. I found the Catholic job through the temp agency actually.
Actually speaking of that, you may want to look around for event planning types of jobs. That’s what I did for the Catholics and it turns out a lot of project management is just project management and it doesn’t much matter what the project is. I found it easy in many ways that a religion person would not and that’s why I managed to stay so long when people with degrees in like, youth ministry couldn’t manage. It’s pretty high-stress, but it was also a series of short term stresses and I found that kind of nice after projects that started out as “quick Phase I” and turned into “trying to remove a 5,000-gallon fuel oil tank that extends under a corner of the building.”
I am so sorry. No advice, unfortunately, but I hope you can find something that makes you happy.
I found this post from Ask a Manager really helpful right after I got fired, in a “don’t panic” kind of way: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voice…
I’m so sorry. Take good care of yourself, and don’t forget to breathe.
I’m so sorry. That has happened to me before, and it’s the strangest, most discombobulating feeling in the world. Luck to you in finding a new gig.
I am so sorry and hope you can find something that’s a good fit soon. What a rotten way to end your week.
Sorry to hear this! It is never a good feeling. One bit of wisdom I received from an employment counselor (and ignored to my detriment) was to take some conscious down-time before rushing into the application process. It might just be a three-day weekend, but focus on relaxing so you can come back at least mildly refreshed, and then be sure to reward yourself for each thing you do going forward. Wish I had a lead but I’m in application mode myself. 😛
I’m so sorry. I have no advice, but plenty of sympathy and good wishes.
I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m in the same field (I love remediation!), but in Alberta, and with the downturn in the oil price my job isn’t exactly secure either.
If you thinking of improving or expanding your skill set, there are free online courses through Coursera. I’ve done some in computer programming. Wishing the very best to you.
My advice would be to look around and see if there’s a job available related to something you enjoy/are passionate about. All of my big career changes have come about from me thinking, “Oh, this looks like fun. I’m not terribly qualified, but it can’t hurt to try.” I work now for a magazine company where we often have very niche subjects and the likelihood of finding somebody who is both an experienced editor and, say, good at making jewelry is pretty low. So they find somebody who knows the jewelry aspect and trains them in the rest.
Tailor your resume as much as you can to these jobs and have somebody you trust read it over and give you a good critique. Chances are you’re more qualified for a lot of these things than you think! Good luck and lots of Toast Hugs!
I’m so sorry. 🙁 Losing a job does horrible things to your mind. Please take good care of yourself.
Oh no! Hugs to you.
Aw man, I’m sorry.
I’ve switched directions several times. Mostly not on purpose. I found that casting a very wide net in what I looked for, and treating my skills and experience as “what things did this teach me how to do?” rather than as “I can specifically do X.”
man oh man. i’m so sorry. maybe not helpful but in a few days when you’re feeling up to it, maybe check out this search i did: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=environmental+remedi…
I moved from Massachusetts to D.C. just about four years ago and the humidity melts away all my hardy New England stoicism, leaving a sad puddle of misery from May through October every year. Who thought it was a good idea to build our nation’s capital on a swamp???
Alexander Hamilton, as far as I can tell from his show….
Jefferson. Wrong about SO MUCH.
I moved from New Hampshire to DC about two years ago and I just spend May through October very, very angry. Every couple of days I scream about hating the southern Founding Fathers for making the other FF put the capital here.
The only thing I love more than complaining about DC weather myself is hearing transplants and tourists complain about the weather. But you’d really think with all this swampyness we would have a better ice cream culture. But we mostly just stay inside talking about politics and waiting for the nuclear winter to finally cool us off.
YES, what is wrong with this area and its lack of ice cream stands? In Massachusetts (at least around the coast, where I grew up) you can’t throw a rock without hitting an ice cream stand (usually a family-owned one that’s been around for 30+ years). I have found NOTHING like that here. 🙁 🙁 🙁
There’s some fancy shmancy gelato/ice cream places around but most of them are pretty mediocre. There’s a new family-run tropical ice cream place in my neighborhood where they have their young children helping out and it is ADORABLE. There’s a couple other holes-in-the-wall kinda places hiding around but most are dead or dying.
But Maryland has an ice cream trail! Because unlike our neighbor to the south we still have a lot of dairy farms. I’ve only been to a few and they’re meh on ice cream artistry and full up on fun and nostalgia.
If you couldn’t tell I take my ice cream very seriously! So I mostly just make my own.
Where is this magical tropical ice cream place??
Wheaton! It’s called Yummy In My Tummy. I think the tropical flavors are better than their regular flavors, but they practically throw samples at you so taste as many as you can!
Yessssss. Thank you!
My roommates and I literally just had this conversation Wednesday. Like, comparing to the dime-a-dozen ice cream shops in MA and everything. This is like deja vu.
What you really need are popsicles. Perfect for humidity.
This is going to be my first full summer in DC, and dear god just let it all end now.
Oh you poor, poor dear. Just keep reminding yourself it’ll be over in October.
I’m from the Northeast, so I am used to the general wet blanket grossness, but DC is that turned up to, like, 100. It’s too much.
But really what makes me angry is that when it’s all over we don’t even get real winter! This city is bullshit.
YES, YOU ARE MY SOULMATE.
I’m a prolific knitter and the lack of real winter here is as cruel to me as the crushing summer. When can I wear my sweaters? It’s too hot here even in the winter and I hates it.
And, just as a gentle warning, it hasn’t even started yet. This is nothing compared to what summer will be.
I’ve been through three winters in DC and they’ve all been weird in their own unique way. At first I thought it was odd weather and I needed to give myself more time to learn DC winters but now I’m starting to think the thing to know is DC winters will always be weird an unpredictable.
I’m from the Buffalo snow belt, though, so I’ll never stop laughing at how bad this region is with snow.
I’m from Syracuse, and the amount of ranting I did this year about snow removal and management was probably obscene.
What are you even talking about, we had a blizzard. A blizzard! (I am from about 500 miles south of here, and my fiancé is from about the same distance north, and we have very different ideas about why the climate here is intolerable.)
(I’m from North Dakota by way of Cleveland. If you can see through it, it’s not a blizzard.)
Oh, dear. I am sorry. This summer has really scarcely begun. Personally I just resign myself to looking like a damp, sweaty mess for four months out of the year.
This was me during my 8 years there. No point in doing your hair! Have a sponge bath in the work bathroom after your morning walk to work. And forget about looking decent on a date.
I’m in central VA. I just gel my hair every day now, because then it just curls more in the increased humidity.
I just made a move the exact reverse of yours (DC to Massachusetts) and feel like a swamp monster rising from the muck, joyously shaking my fist, finally free of humidity thick enough to choke a person.
We went home to MA for two weeks last August and I remembered what it was like to actually *enjoy* being outside.
I lol’ed at that comment, ’cause I’ve lived in the DC ‘burbs for 10+ years now! Here’s how my husband, who grew up here, describes summer in DC: The moment you step outside, a large man slaps a wet sponge over your nose and mouth, and holds it there, walking around with you, until you go back inside. He’s not wrong.
I literally have to carry a handkerchief for when I walk to the bus stop (two blocks away) in the morning, otherwise my perspiration makes my glasses fog up.
I grew up in PG County and this is exactly how my family has always described it. Now I live in Missouri and try not to laugh when people complain about humidity, because that’s rude. But still, even right on the Missouri, it doesn’t feel that bad to me.
It’s nice today though! I mean, like, relatively. Because it’s actually still effing miserable. But today’s a good day to visit.
The Freemasons, duh. I grew up in the area, and moved to NE. Just staying overnight for a connecting flight on Monday was effing brutal. How did I live through 23 years of swamp misima?
it’s symbolic, sort of like how you never see it being a bright sunny day in Mordor
I jussst moved to DC from Texas, and watching other people complain about the heat here is making me feel INCREDIBLY smug.
Can’t wait to tell everyone at work about that summer in HS where I waited tables in 100+ degree temperatures on a patio next to a desiccated, mostly-empty lake! Yeah, I’m hardcore.
Oh uh. Hmm. I’m a DC native and– while I hope this doesn’t happen to you– I have seen many a Texan crumble by the end of July. If you JUST moved here, you may not know that we haven’t actually had a hot day yet this summer. We will have many days over 100F, too… and the humidity makes sure NOTHING is desiccated, just mildewy and smothering and covered in mosquitoes 🙁 Good luck with your smugness!!
Well, see, now my pride is on the line, so I’ll either stoically make it through to October or melt into a puddle of hairspray and regret halfway into the summer.
(Plus, even if I do survive, I AM spending part of this winter in Russia, and while I am generally confident in my ability to handle various types of hot weather, I am completely unable to deal with temperatures below 40 degrees. Catch me this February, trying to claw my way into the molten center of the Earth!)
having spent summers in the southwest, lol dry heat means nothing
you know how everything your body does to cool down relies on evaporation? yeah, about that
I do actually have experience with humidity (I lived in SE Asia before TX), and I know how thermoregulation works. That being said, the reactions to this comment make me think it didn’t come across the way I meant it to. I was trying to make a self-deprecating joke about weather-related smugness, but I think it sounds like me ACTUALLY being smug, and I’m sorry I didn’t word it better. So…um, I’m an idiot, I guess, but not an idiot who thinks I’m cool because I once lived through a debilitating multi-year drought? Yay?
I want to visit a college friend in DC, but I don’t want to go there in the summer. It’s the good time in terms of other stuff that’s going on, but DC in the summer is so miserable. And I grew up in Virginia, albeit in the mountains (aka we had reasonable weather), and now live in the Piedmont area of North Carolina.
I did have a laugh when coworkers who grew up elsewhere were talking about North Carolina was the only place where they had lived where it only got more humid and gross after a summer thunderstorm, instead of less humid and gross. It had not occurred to me that weather was supposed to be more pleasant after a summer thunderstorm.
RE:DC Humidity. When I lived in California, I had long straight hair.
When we moved to No. Virginia my hair suddenly changed into Hermione Granger hair.
Yep, my hair has completely changed character since moving here. I was home (back in MA) for a week in April and my hair was so nice and somehow foolishly I thought it was my new shampoo? How foolish of me.
Oh man I’ve spent the last 3 yrs living in DC but this summer I’m moving away and running back to the desert (bailing on the humidity, metro nonsense, my dumb job, AND the election all at once! hooray). When the heat hit this year after the month o rain my roommate and I spent two days lying on the floor languishing before we remembered we have this blessing called air conditioning.
I have been known to scream into the humidity, I AM NOT A FISH, I CANNOT BREATHE WATER
Hah. My whole life I’ve had thin baby hair, except for the years I lived in Virginia, when I had hair of a normal thickness.
That alone sounds like a legit reason to move there (please, hair, just do something for once…)
I just keep it in a blunt bob these days.
In California my hair gets really dry and floofy, in DC it just never dried and looked pretty great most of the time! The only problem I really had was the static; I’m very static-y at the best of times but in DC I would spark with the wall if I walked too close.
Yes! I moved from OR to NYC and my hair completely changed texture, it’s nuts.
My hair gets Dilbert lady frizz when there’s June gloom here in California. The second I leave the state (outside of Arizona or Nevada, I guess) it immediately goes into a ponytail because I just can’t deal with it.
every time i see one of those “no really, these are the products that will help you with you frizzy hair this summer!!!!” articles i have to resist the urge to scream ‘BUT HAVE YOU TESTED THESE IN THE DC SUMMER TIME? THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT” it’s fine everything is fine
Lin Manuel Miranda. I’m glad he is busy and doing things that he wants to do but as far as I’m concerned he “IS” Alexander so this is still a loss for me.
My tickets for Hamilton are for September. I mean, the fact that I have tickets at all means I shouldn’t complain… but I’m sad about how much of the original cast will be gone by then!
It’s going to be fine! It’s going to be fine!
No seriously. I’ve seen Lin in the role. I’ve also seen Javier Muñoz, who will be the replacement. And Javi is MIRACULOUS as well. Javi’s a better singer than Lin, maybe a touch weaker as a rapper, and absolutely a better actor. Javi will blow us all away.
I’m sad I’ll never get to see Lin live as A.Ham, but I’m actually excited about Javier Munoz taking over the role – everything I’ve heard about him has been nothing but complimentary.
And yeah, I definitely understand the sad feels. If I hadn’t been expecting this for a few months it would have hit me really hard (p.s. hey 2016 you’ve sucked so far shape up plz)
LMM is a good actor and singer, but that is not the core of his skillset. Things will be fine.
While we’re talking about reviews, I gotta give a shoutout to this one for Bumble, the app where women have to send the first message.
As an occasional online dater, this is the best review I’ve ever read. A+
“She is into the finer things.” What an odd thing to say. Unless you are some sort of sugar daddy that seems like a rather strange basis for a relationship. If it was worded as “adventurous and likes trying new foods” or something it would make sense, but “into the finer things” screams “I am kind of a douche.” Also, “is able to keep up with me athletically”; what is the metric for that? She can strike you out in softball? Out-shoot you from the 3pt line? Can sit and admire your 6’2″ self doing manly athletic things? What?
I think this man needs to be less emotional and more logical about this 😉
“is able to keep up with me athletically” = “is thin” and “won’t nag me when I’m watching the game with my bros”.
Any time i see a guy on Bumble whose profile says what i must be, it’s an automatic left swipe. He could be gorgeous and have tons of stuff in common with me (’cause that happens so often, ha) and it wouldn’t matter. The arrogance of it makes me so angry.
The only exception I make is “must not be allergic to cats”
Yeah, you need to know upfront if someone is allergic to or can’t deal with your pets. Better to avoid disaster.
I was just saying this! It also feels like a blanket neg to all women: “Can you keep up?” I don’t care! Can YOU keep up, asshole?
You just know he’d get pissy if she *outstripped* him athletically, though.
I think “the finer things” is (1) code for being financially secure, and more important (b) that he thinks of himself as that guy, the superior-taste guy, and among his friends is the one who lectures everyone about the correct water temp for pour over coffee, and is kind of a dick when they drink Sam Adams.
I think it means that he expects her to be duly impressed with his very refined tastes.
Yes, this. LOOK HOW CULTURED I AM, I LIKE SUSHI (like everyone else in America these days).
Well you can buy sushi at a gas station nowadays and I would pay money to the first woman to troll-date this guy and write a recap. Some ideas: Sushi at Costo washed down with a few Blue Moon beers, followed by a session at the battling cages to work on his form (imagine everything he would mansplain about and then say it first at him). Then coffee at Starbucks.
Somebody find him! I want to see this happen or at least read about the experience.
Too. Real.
My boyfriend drinks Pabst (non-ironically), and I love him for it.
Especially since the stuff he has identified as “finer” is so, so basic.
YES TO THIS!!!
Oh I’m so glad you said that. I was feeling pretty snobby for thinking that but, yes, most people like higher-quality beer and good sushi. That’s like saying she must like fruit from the farmers market more than from the average grocery store.
His “finer things” are just normal things. Sushi, coffee and craft beer are not strange delicacies. He might as well say he “likes music.”
Likes: hanging out
The first line of the next review is the crowning jewel of this monument to douchebaggery.
Sweetheart, it’s a feature, not a bug.
That’s great.
My face RN:
Is it not amazing how crashingly dull 97% of people appear to be?
It’s sweet that he still gave the app two stars though. He hasn’t given up completely!
no dudes messaged him and made him question everything about himself so that’s worth a star
“both from my fraternity days and current intramural leagues”
It’s a total mystery why women aren’t flocking to this 6’2″ gent with clearly so much to offer! He was not only in a fraternity in college six years ago, he was MVP of their basketball league! Six years ago! Ladies, what are you waiting for?!
Edited for missing word, stupid thumbs.
But wait….you mean he was in a FRATERNITY? And got MVP of the FRATERNITY basketball league…that’s probably FRATERNITIES playing other FRATERNITIES, do I have that correct?
You’re a fratdouche, my friend. No one is impressed.
He’s, like, the frattiest of the fratbros! He has an AWARD for it! Jesus this fucking guy.
who doesn’t want to date a 30 year old frat boy?
What a remarkable monument to Male Entitlement on so many levels. Relatively good-looking, but he should be matching with lots of beautiful women who just want to adore his athletic prowess and then listen to him explain craft beer to them over sushi.
Because Sam Adams is “craft beer.”
Or better yet, he wants to lecture you when you order a $5 Sam Adams instead of the $11 Trappist heffe that he’s drinking
Ughhhh not everyone wants their beer to taste like bananas.
Sometimes I do! And then sometimes I want to drink Miller High Life sans judgment.
This man, or at least his utter equivalent, is literally running for president of the United States.
This is my absolute favorite thing ever so far today. I am channeling my Texan grandmother. Oh, honey-pie ….
I actually crooned, “Oh, you sweet summer child, you.” Bless his heart.
This is the best thing I’ve seen this morning
THIS IS THE LOUDEST I’VE EVER ALLOWED MYSELF TO LAUGH AT WORK
He doesn’t have ANY problem meeting beautiful women without apps but like just thought he might write a several paragraph review to help them out a little
“Not that I have trouble doing that without apps, but the of being able to do so while doing dishes was intriguing.”
Gotta make sure that everyone knows he is the type of guy who does dishes! So important for people to know. He owns a sponge and also some dish soap. Isn’t that impressive?
Also, that’s sort of impractical? Wouldn’t your phone get wet?
This GIF is mesmerizing.
He only signed up for this app because he was ~intrigued~, folks. He’s normally hip-deep in beautiful women, but this was an experiment.
HAHAHAHAHAHA Day. Made. Here’s one I couldn’t left-swipe fast enough (but stopped to take a picture):
He was maybe 27. “I am seeking to be power couple” just tumbles through my brain now and again.
When I think of “hotelier” I think of Rafael Solano which is a definite right swipe, but I don’t know about being recruited to be in a power couple.
Isn’t world travel, like, part of being an actual hotelier? Have you created a small chain of boutique motels in North Carolina?!
Also, I like to pretend that he is ‘seeking’ to be a power couple BY HIMSELF. He didn’t say *in* a power couple, he just seeks to *be* it.
You would think a restaurateur could spell the word correctly, but maybe that’s why he’s not one anymore. (Grammarist says it’s not really a misspelling to include the n, but I just think all their sources misspelled it.)
This makes me wonder how a date would go if someone started it out by telling him that word is “restaurateur”.
“i have worked in the same shitty hotel since i was 16 as a cook, bartender, waiter, and now night manager. i am desperate to flee. seeking a woman who makes better decisions and has more money than me. halp!”
No Fatties
All I got out of this was that there’s another Toastie in Charlotte?
(That description is basically my experience with all guys here – over-inflated ego, underdeveloped personality)
Totally. We should meet up and compare notes!
someone I can take with me when I start traveling the world
Maybe it would be easier to find her if you didn’t talk about her like luggage? I mean, I would love to travel *with* somebody (j/k, I love being places but hate actually traveling, so no), but I’d rather not be brought along on somebody else’s adventure.
Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ha.
(Yes I considered trying to find the Channing Tatum email to copy and paste into this space).
Today in (Feminist) History! [Archive]
(This one is so long and I’m sorry but also not because WOW!)
On this day in 1906 was the birth of Josephine Baker, the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, and the first to become a world-famous entertainer. She was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri; the daughter of two vaudeville performers. Having started out cleaning houses and babysitting for white families at a young age, Josephine eventually dropped out of school; at one point she lived on the streets and made money dancing on street corners. At the age of 15 however, she was recruited into a vaudeville act and eventually headed to New York during the Harlem Renaissance. She performed at the Plantation Club, and two successful Broadway reviews where she was the last girl in the chorus line; this was a set role where the dancer would perform each dance comically, until the very end when she would suddenly show her true talent and dance not just correctly, but with more complexity than the regular steps. At the time, Josephine was billed as the “highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville”.
Her career really took off when she began to do blackface comedy at local clubs– she was already black, but would darken her face and perform comedy routines. (At the time, (racist) white audiences generally only wanted to see black performers if they were darker-skinned, so some black performers took advantage.) Her new role lead to her eventually touring in Paris, France. It was in France that she rose to fame, first doing musicals and then movies; she starred in Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934), and Princesse Tam Tam (1935). Around this same time, she became somewhat of a muse for numerous contemporary artists and authors, including Langston Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Christian Dior. However, Josephine never attained the same level of popularity in America and eventually gave up her American citizenship to become a French citizen.
During WW2, Josephine was recruited by the French Military Intelligence as an “honorable correspondent”, which meant she would go to parties and gatherings at ministries and embassies, gather information, and pass it along. Later she traveled around Europe, using her fame again as a cover to carry information about harbors, air fields, and German troops to the British. (Her notes were written in invisible ink on her sheet music!) Following the war, she received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance, and she was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.
In the 1950s, Josephine began to get involved in the Civil Right’s Movement after being refused stay at thirty six New York hotels for being black. She wrote about her treatment and began to speak out against segregation while traveling the Southern U.S. She refused to perform at segregated clubs, causing some to cave. In 1951, she accused the Stork Club of racism, alleging that they refused to serve her. (Actress Grace Kelly, then Princess Consort to Ranier III of Monaco, was there at the time, took Josephine’s arm, and swept out of the club with her, swearing she would never come back.) However in the aftermath, Josephine scolded a columnist she knew for not rising to her defense. He turned on her and accused her of being a communist. Her work visa was revoked, and she did not return to the U.S. for almost 10 years.
Despite that, she was still involved in the Civil Right’s Movement and was made a lifetime member of the NAACP. In 1963 (after she been allowed back to the U.S.), she spoke at the March on Washington right at Rev. Martin Luther King’s side; she was the only official female speaker that day. After MLK’s assassination, his widow apparently approached Josephine and asked if she would take over as the leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in his place; after several days of thinking it over, she refused– but only because, as she said, her children were “too young to lose their mother”. Josephine had four marriages through her life (her first at only age 13, her second at age 15), and twelve children; two daughters and ten sons, who she collectively referred to as “The Rainbow Tribe”. Her adopted son has since stated that Josephine was in fact bisexual; she had relationships with men and women, including Frida Kahlo (while both women were married).
In April of 1975, Josephine starred in a revue (financed by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis), celebrating her 50 years in show business. The show opened to rave reviews, and with an audience filled with celebrities. Four days after opening night, Josephine was found in bed, comatose from a cerebral hemorrhage, surrounded by newspapers with positive reviews of her performance. She died at that day at the age of 68, and was the only American-born woman ever to receive full French military honors at her funeral.
This was so long I had to cut some of it out because apparently there are comment length limits. (I feel so bad that it’s so long, idek why.) Anyway I had to cut it out, but during her career she was known as: “Black Pearl,” “Jazz Cleopatra”, “Bronze Venus”, and even the “Creole Goddess”. (I’m a fan of Jazz Cleopatra, tbh.)
No apologies necessary, IMO! Josephine Baker is the best.
I need a cartoon show of her having her spy adventures stat. Her cheetah should also be a character (I don’t care if the timeline doesn’t match up). How is this not a thing? There are at least 10 good movie ideas in that bio! (Also, go Grace Kelly! Way to be a class act). Also, I would give up one of my paychecks in cold, hard cash to see someone put her and Frida’s relationship on screen.
She was a bisexual, vaudeville dancing, movie star spy who fought for Civil Rights!!! Why is there not a movie about her??? Why are there not 10+ movies about her???
because we do not yet have enough Steve Jobs movies, apparently
This omg. This to infinity.
Yay Josephine Baker! I never knew that about her almost becoming the new MLK. She would’ve been amazing.
The columnist who accused her of communism – blergh. I’m listening to the Blacklist series on the You Must Remember This podcast and it’s been eye-opening. That was such an insane time in American history. Basically anyone who was in any way involved or cared about civil rights, social justice etc could be accused of being a communist and have their careers destroyed. HUAC was almost fascistic in its paranoia and rights-stomping.
A graphic novel of her life is in the works! http://comicsalliance.com/spike-trotman-black-pea…
There is a wonderful statue of her in the Missouri state capitol– the bust cuts off just low enough to let you know she’s definitely naked. It’s part of the “Hall of Famous Missourians,” and if I recall she’s positioned where she can give an icy stare towards the bust of Rush Limbaugh.
Oh my gosh I love that.
I love Josephine Baker and I had no idea she and Frida Kahlo had a thing!! This makes me so happy.
Like Helen Keller I think it’s terrible the way her accomplishments get narrowed down to the least interesting ones. (Also, every time someone says France/Europe doesn’t have the history with blackface that America does so it’s just fine when they do it I remember that that’s how Josephine Baker got her career started in Paris. “La Revue Nègre” according to her “official” website. The image search is educational.)
I’ve noticed that a lot with researching these. If we’ve heard of these women at ALL, then it’s in a very simplified version. It’s irritating.
Josephine Baker = amazing. Don’t apologise for length, I love these comments you’ve been making 🙂 And I’m glad that Josephine Baker gets one about her!
Will you be posting these somewhere else after That Event We Shall Not Speak Of Because It’s Too Sad?
Glad you enjoy them! I’m going to keep posting them at the wordpress blog, and I think I am also going to turn it into a tinyletter.
Oooh that is awesome. I’ll make sure to check your wordpress blog regularly 😀
On behalf of DC, I am sorry….I am currently hoping the giant sweat stain on my back is on-trend for summer.
Absolutely, but only if you match it with copious amounts of wild hair perpetually sweatglued to your forehead and an enchanting look of despair deep in your helpless eyes. Then you’re decked out in your swamptown best.
I heard the lead singer of Karkwa (a Quebecois band) yell “Qu’est-ce que fuck!?” at some sound guys once and it has been my go-to swear ever since.
Also, here is a clip from Bon Cop Bad Cop, the Most Canadian Film Ever Made, where you can see Quebecois swearing grammar explained while Patrick Huard and Colm Feore stuff a criminal into a trunk.
THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING. Thank you for brightening my day!
I am going to watch this movie soon. I can tell.
I love that movie more than I really should.
The only way to make it more Canadian would have been for the central crime to have been a maple syrup heist (which is a thing that actually happened and was a big deal).
oh gods this was our drunk movie of choice first year of college in my House. I cannot recommend it. I cannot NOT recommend it. Vive le Quebec libre!
Or maybe he was saying “phoque”, in reference to some nearby seals?
That is the most delightful Frenglish swear I have ever heard, and I am adopting it immediately.
Same here. Though I do use “tabernac” already.
My time in Marseille has left me with a lingering over-fondness for “putain” as my all-purpose French interjection, but “Qu’est-ce que fuck?!?” is just so much more satisfying to shout.
Aaaah Frenglish! I haven’t heard that one before…my sister and I call it “Franglais”
Karkwa!! Love that band.
I use that swear ALL the time since it became popular at my high school.
That is a fantastic swear!
For anyone who might want violent rabbits in medieval manuscripts, here is exactly that thing: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/05/violent-rab…
This is exactly what I needed.
That last gray bunny is just so cheerful about his ax.
…I misread that as “rabbis” and was strangely disappointed when it was bunnies instead.
Ah, that is completely understandable disappointment.
The last one, rabbit with a battleaxe, slayed me
The wide-eyed ones really remind me of Bongo, so it seems natural that they should be so surreal.
This is amazing, and so perfectly encapsulates so much of what i love about The Toast. Thank you!
My entire week has been made by the fact that the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python might be dramaturgically accurate.
same! i cannot wait to drop this deep cut Nerd Fact on my partner
*rubs hands togheter in glee*
they go with the snails in the marginalia!
UnReal got picked up for third season!
YESYESYESYESYES
*PTERODACTYL SCREAMING*
This show is SO GOOD.
I just started watching it and I can’t decide if I hate it with my whole soul or if I am really into it. It definitely evokes a lot of feelings.
This is OT, but Toast related, and I won’t be around later.
I was looking for something earlier at work, and found an old e-mail from a publishing house, telling us about the marketing campaign for a certain book. It was to be advertised in “all the womens magazines” (starting with Good Housekeeping), and directly below was “Online campaign” and the first website to be mentioned was The Toast!!
I have no idea if they ever actually placed the ad, and I’m not sure if they even got the demographics right (I haven’t read the book yet, but I think that maybe the audiences of Good Housekeeping and The Toast are not so similar, apart from being mostly women), but it was such a wonderful surprise!
And I realised yesterday that The Toast has been in my life much longer than I remembered – I only started commenting last summer, but I was here for The Best E-Mail Mallory Ever Received or Sent, for Nicole’s maternity leave, for the Butter launch… I think I first got here around the time Nikki was hired. And going through all the old articles, trying to find the first one I ever read, made me really sad again. Also the fact that The Toast is closing during the first time in years, if not ever, that I’m so busy I can’t even check in regularly. But I’m so thankful to have had this site and community in my life, and to be able to continue to be part of it due to all the things that popped up in the last few weeks!
Hmm, I’ve contributed here, but my very first paid writing credit was with Family Circle, so maybe I’m the place where the Venn circles overlap.
Oh, I’m sure they do overlap! I just couldn’t shake the feeling that the thought process was “oh, we’re advertising in all the ~womens magazines~ and also need a website catering towards women” – I just felt that maybe they didn’t really know what The Toast is. But that’s probably me being overly critically and ruining a nice thing with it.
(Sorry that took so long to respond.)
I’m going to DC this July, I am a naive young Canadian who’s not used to extreme humidity or heat, am I going to survive? Should I shellac my makeup on to make sure it doesn’t melt off my face?
I mean you are going to sweat, but its fine! I like warm weather though, and have lived here my entire life… no, I’m not biased or painfully acclimated to these summers.
I moved here from more northerly climes, and while there are definitely times when it gets a little uncomfortable (i.e. my landlord failing to take our AC unit out of storage until YESTERDAY), I’m mostly fine with it. The mild winters make up for it.
We still haven’t taken our air conditioners out of the basement and I am seriously going to exchange sex for air conditioner moving this weekend. (Not with my landlord. With a guy I like.)
Just forget about makeup and apply copious sunscreen.
Yeah, don’t wear makeup. Everyone looks a sweaty mess anyway. And try to only do outdoor things in the morning and evening.
I only wore mascara and lipstick- but I was used to not wearing a lot of makeup so I didn’t feel uncomfortable going out without my warpaint. This might be the best time to discover the waterproof mascara you like best too.
Oooh! My other suggestions- change socks in the middle of the day if you wear socks and rinse out your panty hose if you do not. It’s also a great time to try thigh-highs because they are so much less awful in the heat.
(I know most people would go bare-legged and I agree that’s the best way to go if you can, but DC is just Southern enough that a bunch of workplaces demand hose. Bless my Think Tank job, no hose there! It was the trade off they allowed for not allowing sneakers.)
I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’re going to melt and your makeup will melt with you. I would say, oddly, that you should try to become familiar with bus lines. They cover far more ground (and are just overall way better) than the Metro and are delightfully air-conditioned. Or just take uber/taxis everywhere. The summer is made far worse by the fact that inside of buildings are so flipping cold and the outside is quagmire of misery that most people get a summer cold.
Luckily, DC is known for its happy hours, so you can always drown your melting sorrow face in a glass of $5 terrible white wine. I’ll be doing that all July long. And August. And September.
(and June)
I HAVE ALWAYS AND WILL ALWAYS RANT AGAINST THE OVER-COOLING INSIDE IN SUMMER AND OVER-HEATING INSIDE IN WINTER, why not temperate year-round? It puts a bee in my bonnet is what I’m saying.
It’s a close call over which one upsets me more, but I hate HATE how friggin’ overheated buildings are in DC. The winters in DC are extremely mild and do not require the thermostat being turned up to 80 in March. Have some self-respect, DC. THE WINTER IS MILD.
I don’t know, this past winter was super mild but the two before that with their polar vortexes and historic cold temperatures were god awful (and I’m from upstate NY).
I wasn’t here during Polar Vortex (I was blissfully in Italy), but I didn’t even think that last winter was that bad. There were definitely some chilly weeks and it was a lot colder than this past winter. But I love the cold and am probably remembering it through a haze of humidity-induced rage/delirium so I dunno.
Buildings are still overheated, though. The heat went on in my apartment in October. That’s nuts.
Once I saw a comedian do a bit making fun of his girlfriend because they were somewhere that was hot during the day, and when they were going out at night, she asked if she should bring a jacket. He thought it was a ridiculous question. Has he never been to a desert area where it’s hot during the day but cool at night? And it must be nice to be a man who has never noticed that in warm places, the A/C gets cranked up so that it’s freezing inside. His whole bit was about what a stupid question that was, but he’s the one who looked stupid.
Also, the Metro has been effed for so long that they brought in a “fixer” as the new director and he’s firing people left and right and doing huge maintenance overhauls that have been put off for years so it’s a crapshoot at any given moment which trains are actually active.
(I mean, Metro DESPERATELY needs a massive overhaul, but I got stuck waiting for a train for AGES last weekend)
Yeah, I would recommend checking the WMATA website/app for info about which lines are working when and how often the trains are running – especially on the weekend.
And…yeah, your make up is going to melt off.
i stopped even keeping track of the state of the metro around when the orange line started catching fire roughly ever week, although checking back it still is
rule used to be ‘never drive inside the beltway’, now it’s just ‘do whatever just stay off the metro’
It’s almost like they’re trying their damnedest to be the worst transit line they can be. But that would imply effort and the real problem is just years and years of apathy.
Do the bars still have lemonade during happy hour? I always started with that. Sometimes that was all I wanted.
Seconding the Metro Bus suggestion although try not to think about the number of traffic laws they are breaking. It’s not their fault- they’re trying to deal with even crazier drivers around them.
Light cotton clothes and a sun hat! You’ll be fine! 🙂
I’m also going to dc in July. I live in Scotland and I now have Concerns.
At least buildings are air conditioned. UK in a heat wave is worse, I think.
Summers in DC, I try to embrace looks that don’t suffer too badly for getting a bit smudged (so smokey eyes instead of cat eyes, foundation that fades instead of running, etc.). For nights that I really want to do more elaborate makeup, setting powder or spray is crucial. I actually use hairspray as a setting spray when I go dancing nights because I read somewhere that it was an old drag queen trick. It works really well and doesn’t upset my acne-prone face, though using it more than once or twice a week might change that?
Bring good sunglasses if you’re planning on wandering around the marble buildings. Those things are blinding in the sun.
Minimal makeup, light clothes, a sunhat, a wrap for the AC, and a cute folding fan in your bag. Oh–and an umbrella: the default forecast is “hot, hazy, humid, chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening hours.”
You will survive! I did, although I wasn’t sure at first – it was basically 32C+ my whole trip there even though it was the end of September. I found it very hard to sleep, even with the a/c blasting straight at my head. Loose cotton clothing is your friend. Sun hat is probably a good idea. I spent a lot of time walking around the streets and should have had a hat, for sure.
As others said, I would skip makeup.
You will survive! I find that there’s only a few days each year where it’s painfully gross, and I say this as a person from a desert. To add to all the good advice: wear comfy shoes (I always find that cheap shoes+sweaty weather=blister city) and take a popsicle break at Pleasant Pops.
I feel like Rodarte clothes are the “Derelict” collection from Zoolander – why can’t anyone see how ugly they are???
Some of their earlier collections were gorgeous and every once in a while they still come up with something I like but for the most part I feel like they’ve lost the plot. I live in hope that someday they’ll get back to making stuff like the Fall 2011 collection.
I remember this dress!! It’s beautiful, and I would never in a million years have said it was Rodarte. Looks like Haider Ackerman to me, or a particularly restrained Valentino. Definitely makes me sad/confused when you compare this to some of their current stuff.
That collection, Spring 2009 and Spring 2011 are some of my favorite collections by any designer ever so their recent “everything but the kitchen sink” approach is so disheartening.
Also there was a point at which Valentino seemed to be directly ripping off Rodarte’s late ’00s draping styles, despite what that article might claim about them having no influence in the industry.
The reason Rodarte shouldn’t win Womenswear Designer of the Year isn’t that they don’t care enough about making money, it’s that their most recent collections are not very good.
All three of those Canada-adjacent articles are also linguistics-adjacent articles, which is just how I like to start my mornings. Also, this line is perfection:
Linguistics is turtles all the way down.
Everything is turtles all the way down! That is my all time favorite reference and it applies to literally everything.
Me, too! I’m always so happy to see it, like running into an old friend.
Man, when I first moved from CO to DC I had days where I really thought I might drown just walking around.
Wait… I did that move too! Colorado! Woohoo!
I love me some Canadian linguistics 101 articles.
For your amusement, I would like to point out that Canadian raising affects other words too. Ask your local Canadian to say height/hide, louse/lousy, writer/rider, price/prize, strife/strive; I could go on. You’ll hear a difference. 🙂
My favourite is writer/rider, because it’s evidence that changes happen in a particular order. Raising only happens before a voiceless consonant (like t/s/f instead of d/z/v), but although the t in writer is pronounced like a d, we still raise the vowel. So our brain first raises the vowel, then voices the t, and then we say it the way we say it, all without even thinking!
I would ALSO like to mention that ‘Canadian’ raising does occur in some parts of the the northeastern and midwestern US.
Wait, so my impression of a Canadian accent is that each pair of words has the *same* vowel. Am I right, or are they different?
For most Canadians, they’re different! The typical American accent uses the same vowel in these pairs, while the typical Canadian accent raises the vowel in the first word in each pair.
That said, some Canadians don’t raise, and some Americans do. 🙂
Oh ok, I see what you mean. I (upper Midwest American) raise only the first vowel in each pair except for louse/lousy (don’t raise either of those). I was actually thinking that maybe Canadians raised both, but I’m not great at hearing remembered sounds in my head!
Thanks for this! As a Canadian, I love it when people talk about our accent because it’s obviously one of those things that are not given much thought. It just is, you know. Also, it reflects the difference between Canadians and Americans which I feel sometimes is slowly disappearing.
As an aside, one time I was talking about my work with this Israeli guy who I guess hadn’t been in Canada very long. I was designing a roundabout, in an area that already had many roundabouts and he was laughing to the point of tears over my pronunciation of “roundabout.” He couldn’t believe the stereotype was true. It made his week for sure. Roooondaboooot
I’ve never been able to hear the difference myself but apparently that’s just me. While visiting family in Utah someone mentioned to me that they couldn’t tell I was Canadian. My sister told me to say “house”, so I did, and the American stared at me and said “oh, my God”. I couldn’t tell how I said it differently from her, but she did.
Fun fact: the particularly Canadian sound of “ou” is also found in older residents of central Virginia! It’s the Scots-Irish heritage that does it, I think.
Oh man! I’m originally from Maine and I do this- I had no idea it was regional or Canadian!
I am a Canadian who was raised with a lot of American television shows playing in the house, and I always believed that I sounded exactly like the Americans I was watching on t.v. Is television the reason why Canadians have adopted the “So-Cal” accent?
Growing up, I believed the only way to tell Canadians apart from Americans was the way we swore. (I was raised in an area outside Quebec with a large francophone population, so the sacres were a normal part of life.)
I have never heard any Canadian say ‘aboot’ outside of Lanark County, Ontario. Is it a more widespread phenomemon I just haven’t encountered in other provinces yet?
“I would ALSO like to mention that ‘Canadian’ raising does occur in some parts of the the northeastern and midwestern US.”
I’m originally from northern Minnesota, and my grandparents, who lived on the U.S. side of the New York / Ontario border, thought I sounded Canadian. So do many people who hear me when I’m tired, including an occasional actual Canadian.
We have a couple of Canadian vendors, and I love calling their offices. My whole family’s from that MN-MT strip of prairie, and I find Canadian accents very soothing.
Just wanted to repost this little poem:
“pear-scented water-beetle pheromone”
Of course, what else would you scent water beetle pheromones with?
Eau de pond.
Exactly. Boring people would expect something like water lily so you have to go for something unexpected.
You see, when tweedle beetles battle…
haha, the pear smell is naturally occurring. it has an acetate compound that gives it a fruity aroma.
I’m a Lucky Peach subscriber and the entire summer issue is about pho, which makes for some unexpectedly riveting reading. The history-of article was my favorite, though. Food history is world history!
I now want to pick up a copy of the summer issue!
As someone whose main exposure to Canadian linguistics is comparing the “aboots” of the various voices of Rocky in the children’s show Paw Patrol while my brain melts, I enjoyed that piece. It will give me something else to think about while my kid watches that show, beyond “Why has a socialist paradise like Canada turned over all its public ulitilies to a bunch of dogs?”
Apologies to the people without small kids for whom this comment is gibberish.
Oh, man, my nephew loooooves that show. Thank you for this comment, for I now also feel like I have something to do while watching it with him.
Paw Patrol is what would happen if Bruce Wayne loved dogs instead of feared bats. (Also if he had a supportive community structure encouraging him and his obviously genetically engineered dogs.)
One gift I have is picking out the secret Canadian actor on shows/movies. There will be just a slight touch of an accent, a speech pattern, or something that catches my ear and I’m almost always right.
Also! Canadians don’t throw the “eh” around carelessly like you hear in TV shows or movies. There’s a structure! For example, some show might have this as a sentence: “I’m gonna go down to the Tim Hortons, eh? And pick up a double-double.” This would be an incorrect usage of the word! Don’t go tossing it in the middle of sentences where it doesn’t make sense.
What I noticed during my college years in Canada is that “eh” would be used to solicit agreement, as in “This coffee is terrible, eh?” The above-mentioned Tim Horton’s example never really happened. It wasn’t just used at random.
Re: secret Canadian actors, I already knew Stana Katic was Canadian, but she never quite sounded like an NY detective. Nathan Fillion’s Canadian too, but he disguised it better, imo.
Americans, eh?
Yeah, it’s like a declarative question mark. The appropriate use is “You going to the TimHos, eh? Can you pick me up a double double?”
Also used when you don’t want to commit to something “Do you want to go to TimHo’s with me?” “Eh.” “Do you care what kind of donut you get?” “Eh, still a donut.”
Source: Minnesotan. We also use Eh.
I’m a Minnesotan too but I can’t think of a way to say “You going to Caribou, eh?” [to sub in the local coffee spot] that would sound remotely natural coming from me. The closest I can imagine is “Oh hey, are you going to Caribou?” where the “hey” is an attempt to sound casual when I’ve actually been debating asking the question for several minutes.
I think the key is you can’t add it to a sentence that is already a question… you take a declarative statement and add the “eh” at the end to turn it into a question, as in, “It’s raining priddy hard out there, eh?”
This is interesting because it’s just so clearly not part of my personal dialect. I just tried saying your example sentence out loud, and it sounded like I was trying to act friendly but didn’t mean it (which I guess is often what it sounds like when someone tries to use slang they don’t normally use).
So the key to the correct usage of “eh” is that it’s an attempt to make a declaration without actually suggesting that you’re declaring anything, but instead turning it into a sentence upon which everybody clearly already agrees. Declaring things is unnecessarily pushy.
Yes, it’s a soft declarative! “This fucking sucks, yeah/hey/hmm?”
Neat, you call it TimHos? In the Valley we call it Timmies. (Ottawa Valley, though I’ve heard it as Timmies in a lot of places through Ontario and Quebec)
I’m from northwestern Ontario, we call it Timmies and sometimes Tim’s. From my experience, these are pretty commonly used in Manitoba as well.
I’m a Maritimer and most people I know call it Tim’s! I’ve never heard it called Timmies around here, at least.
Is the Salvation Army called the Sally Ann anywhere other than rural central Ontario?
In a Rufus Wainwright song on his first album!
I call it Sally Ann’s and I’m in America! But from a west coast Canadian family, and have never heard another American call it Sally Ann. I thought it was generational. Maybe not!
I’m from Toronto and have only heard the Salvation Army referred to Sally Ann in Cape Breton when cleaning out my grandparents house.
I was sooo confused why a woman named Sally Ann would want all of their old furniture and knickknacks.
Comparative Commonwealth linguistics: it’s called the Sallies in NZ but the Salvos in Oz.
Timmies all around Ontario (yay, Ottawa Valley toasties!)
In Maine we called it TimmyHos!
I do this with Brits and Australians. Australians tend to be very good at the American accent, but some have tell-tell signs. Brits are usually (not always! but usually) easy to spot. The best way I can describe is to say that their American accent is too flat. It doesn’t quite sound like any actual American, it’s just a little off.
There are exceptions, of course. Marianne Jean-Baptiste was very convincing on Without A Trace, a show that also featured two Australians also playing Americans.
“Australians tend to be very good at the American accent, but some have tell-tell signs.”
My personal favorite example of this is anytime Portia de Rossi says “anything,” which somehow comes out sounding like “enneh-thing” and is delightful.
Holy shit I had no idea she was Australian
“Anything” Is my tell as well! I didn’t know the actress’s name was Camilla Luddington, which would have also been a give-away, but she definitely says “ennithin.”
I’ve always noticed her “anything”s!
Yes, EXACTLY that. I feel like we are in a club now. That word is her give away, every single time.
Yessss, secret club
AND a VM gif? *heart eyes emoji* *secret handshake*
This is the PERFECT situation to use the word ‘shibboleth’.
The 100 is fun for picking out the Aussies – three of their main actors are Australian. Apparently they have real trouble saying the title of the show correctly (it’s “the hundred,” not “the one hundred”), and Eliza Taylor had to do a million takes of the phrase “Unity Day” to get her accent out of it.
It’s funny because I always want to call the show the “one hundred” too, and when they do the title intro it bothers me (I’m American).
Yep, same here, on all points.
Ooo, I will have to start watching this now.
I have never watched this show, and I always assumed it was “the one hundred.” I think saying just “the hundred” would be hard for me to get used to, too, and I’m in the US.
Agree! It’s annoying. But it is technically the name of the show. (Also American.)
Is it really “the hundred”? Because I read it as “the hundred” but I keep seeing it written out as “the one hundred”. It never crossed my mind to watch interviews to check.
Yeah apparently it is! Even the cast can’t remember that though.
I’m pleasantly surprised by the fact that I got it right! Thanks!
Definitely agree–I’m always a little surprised at how often British actors are lauded for doing American accents when Australians tend to be better at it. The vast majority of British actors come across too nasally and flat and I can immediately tell they aren’t American. And they tend to be absolutely awful at attempting southern accents (although to be fair, even non-southern American actors struggle with that).
Yes! Too nasally, too flat. The type of accent that, if they were in the US takling to an American, the American might not think “this person is faking an American accent,” but they’d probably be uncomfortable without knowing exactly why. Even my beloved Daniel Craig, in the Tomb Raider movie, was not so great at it. [Yes, Americans have been butchering various British accents forever, but that’s pretty well acknowledged]
And OH MY YES on the Southern accent. And whenever someone on a British tv show is supposed to be from Texas and they trot out their generic Southern accent . . . it’s doesn’t really work. I mean, knock yourself out, it’s got to be cheaper than importing the real thing, I’d probably hire an American with a fake accent instead of a person really from the target county if it’s all I had time for/could afford. But don’t pat yourself on the back for sounding like the real thing, because you don’t.
The weirdest was in a BBC version of The Way We Live Now, Miranda Otto (pre-Lord of the Rings days) played a woman from Kentucky. So, they were able to import an Australian to play an American, but not the real thing? It was all the more egregious that she had one of the worst southern accents I’ve ever heard. Although she was slightly less bad than Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman in Judas Kiss http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/9-br…
That *is* weird. That kind of thing just really perplexes me. There are plenty of talented (and attractive, if that’s what you’re going for) actors in the UK who do perfectly passable American accents, so why not pick one? Like when American shows/movies pick someone to play a French person, and their French accent is atrocious. There has to be someone who would work just as well who is actually French or at least does a better job with the accent.
And their r’s are just a tiiiiiiiiiiny bit too distinct. Flat a’s and clear r’s, that’s how you spot the secret Commonwealth actors.
Ah yes, clear r’s, I hadn’t thought about that part of it, but you are so right.
Mainers use eh too. I often get confused for being Canadian when I say it. When I clarify that I’m from Maine, the people usually just say “close enough”.
I get so excited when I’m watching TV and I hear an actor say “sorry” in a way that leans just a little too close to “sore-y.” “CANADIAN! THAT PERSON IS CANADIAN!”
*I am not Canadian, I just have a close friend whose accent I adore
Now I’m curious: how do Americans pronounce ‘sorry’ if not ‘sore-y’?
Saaaahrry.
“sah-ry,” with less emphasis on the first syllable.
The “o” sound is more like the “o” in cot or bot — it’s more of an “ah.”
Sah-ree
It depends on where you are, but for me, the “sor” rhymes with “are”: sare-ry. Like how I would pronounce the word sari, I guess?
I said “sore-y” for years after moving from upper ND to just outside of Cleveland, until a 6th-grade classmate made fun of me for it, and I stopped.
Aw, that was mean. 🙁 I would be delighted if someone around me pronounced it that way. I really like regional differences in English.
Yes, but 12-year olds are terrible.
Ha! That is exactly what I do!
I have to say, not only to I play “spot the Canadian/Australia/Brit,” but I also always always always watch like a hawk to see if the person who is supposed to be a dead body is breathing. I’m always so delighted when I catch one. I point at the screen and say “BREATHING!”
Just last night I was watching an old episode of Midsomer Murders, and the guy who is now in Hinterland played a character who died, and I totally saw him take a breath. Made my day.
I think I’m maybe not fun to watch TV with.
That sounds fun to me! Catch them breathing scallywags
If you think that guy’s review of the casino that keeps taking his money is bad, wait’ll you see his stinging review of Powerball.
“Why do they give you the option to let the machine pick the numbers if they’re not going to be the right ones?!”
YES! French Canadian swearing! They are super fun to say, but don’t always convey to anglophones that they are REALLY BAD WORDS in french speaking parts of the country. The angrier you are, the more words you string together.
I knew two québecois students in university who learned the hard way that “fucké” has a much more offensive connotation in Ontario than in Quebec. Both used the word liberally and were surprised by the horrified look on other people’s faces.
Oh yeah, that word is not a big deal in Quebec at all and it’s a bit jarring. I’ll never forget the first time I heard someone casually telling her toddler that a broken toy was tout fucké.
I love using the France-French equivalents of the ‘shoots’ and ‘darns’ – punaise for putain and mercredi for merde.
I love these.
I also love that Putin is referred to as Vladimir Poutine because Vladimir Putain would be inappropriate.
Nothing could be more appropriate than Vladimir Putain 🙂
except maybe Trump Connâsse (sp?) of course but you know.
That works. Also, the verb “se tromper” sounds a lot like Trump and means to make a mistake…
That is so cute, in Spanish they also use miercoles for mierda.
My abuela used that one a lot. More Ecuadorian-specific, there’s “chispas” and “chísala” for “chucha” (essentially the F-dash-dash-dash word). The younger crowd says “chuta.”
That came up in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story we read in one of my college literature classes. The translator had blithely rendered it as “Wednesday”, and the professor, an elderly Finnish woman who likely knew less than nothing about Hispanophone swearing, gave us a complicated explanation involving the god Mercury and his role as psychopomp. The pieces didn’t fall into place for me until well after I graduated.
German has a good one too – instead of “Scheisse,” they’ll say “Schande” (basically “crap” instead of “shit”). They also say “shit” in English, or something like “schitte,” as a milder version.
So sweet. In Italian, it’s ‘cavolo!’ (cabbage) instead of ‘cazzo!’ (literally ‘dick’ but used like ‘damn!’).
Oh WEDNESDAY!
I hope you’re all ready to read about a band pretending to be the Zombies after the Zombies broke up, because it’s great: https://www.buzzfeed.com/danielralston/the-true-s…
As a Canadian, I feel like I know less about Quebecoise swearing than I should, but I do recall that most of our 7th grade French class revolved around discussions of baby seals (“phoques”)
Oh! And! On the topic of Quebec swears, can I just share this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBB6_l0FlRo
It is a wonderful sung example of Quebec swears using the Quebec accent.
(hostie: ustie instead of oh-stie, christ: kriss instead of kreest, tabarnacle: tabarnac instead of tabarnacle, calice: caw-liss instead of ka-leese, vierge: viarge instead of vierge)
Also amusing, there are multiple videos on Youtube of awful winter-weather set to this song, which perfectly encapsulate the feeling of a late March snowstorm. Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvR6-SQzqO8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0CGBc_PIbI
Yup, that’s pretty much how I felt about our early April snowstorm, but much less charming.
I’m free! HR let today be my last day, due my panic attacks. I just got home! It’s such a good feeling!
I should able to get more work done for the Toast Summer Care Package Exchange today.
Please give yourself a care package in the meantime. <3
Thanks! Believe me, I will. I have a lot of bath bombs and face masks to use up by the end of the summer, because I don’t want to have to move them. (I’m moving when my lease is up at the end of August.)
Speaking of, if I’m allowed to rec something on the LR: Moon’s Harvest bath bombs! They are huge and come in a wide variety of fun scents! I recently got my first order and I’m loving it.
I’m so glad that Japanese kid who got left in the woods is ok!
That’s one resourceful child.
OH THANK GOODNESS. That story got swept over by all the gorilla hubbub and I was so worried about him/felt so bad for his parents 🙁
I was really not thinking that was going to turn out okay and it did! I mean, the kid is still traumatized but he’s alive and he’s going to be fine.
Yes! I was not expecting good news at all. Those parents must be so relieved.
Dear Penthouse,
I’m a falcon from a small Midwestern college. I admit that I never thought your letters were real until it happened to me! Recently I was forced out of my native habitat by abnormal climate patterns and found myself in New York City. I was out innocently cruising for pigeons, when suddenly I had the feeling I was being watched!…
This is also where my mind went when I saw that headline! Hahaha.
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WIN AT COMMENTS
From the NYT article on Drumpf:
The coolness toward Mr. Trump amounts to a remarkable rebuke.
Uh… does it, though? Wouldn’t a “remarkable rebuke” be to go to the convention and then, you know, rebuke him publicly?
yeah definitely a more remarkable rebuke would be any kind of actual rebuke.
This sort of pandering, business-as-usual journalism is killing me. None of the TV pundits who interview Drumpf ever make a serious attempt at responding with ACTUAL FACTS after he says something wildly fantastical about I don’t know, women’s reproductive systems or how the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are ALL out to get us. DO YOUR JOB.
CNN has been doing this lately, but a good question is why weren’t they doing it the whole time?
http://media.salon.com/2016/06/CNN-chyron-620×412…
Cutting somebody socially only works on people with any awareness of subtlety. Politely refusing to talk to Donald Trump just gives him more air to fill with his own voice.
Seriously. So many Republicans have lost their immortal souls this election season, starting with Chris Christie and Paul Ryan.
I assume that when you refer to Chris Christie’s immortal soul you mean the one that was previously condemned to hell, before it ceased to exist entirely?
probably just referring to one of the many he had stockpiled in the Governor’s mansion in Jersey
it’s one of those things like from Dante’s Inferno where if you suck enough you skip ahead of the whole dying part and a demon tags in to drive your body around managing your earthly affairs for you
The Republicans are such a gutless lot.
Canadian accents! I am here all day for Canadian accents. My French studying, France visiting cousin was up here in Vermont visiting and got drawn into a conversation with a few of the little old Québécois ladies at church. The look on his face was priceless.
I grew up in an Ontario city with a large French-Canadian population. A Francophone friend told me when she went to France and spoke French there, they thought she was speaking English.
Me too! I remember the day I realized that my grandmother’s “depaiche-twai” was the “depeche-toi” I was writing out in French class and my head exploded. My francophone family lost its French over the generations so she just spoke to us in a mix of English and French that we learned by context. The French she spoke to me and the French I was learning in school just occupied totally different parts of my brain.
My fav Canadian accent is rural Franco-Ontarian accents — fascinating mix of English & French run together.
My boyfriend dumped me today after 3 years. How do you find yourself again after a long term relationship? I need some internet hugs.
Hugs! I’m so sorry. Be gentle with yourself, take good care of yourself. Let yourself grieve for a time, there’s no rush to be OK. 3 years is a long time and he was a big part of your life. Hope you can find some ice cream + Netflix + wine, or whatever your personal equivalent is!
Thank you. I’m going to watch ALL of the shows on Netflix!
Well, you’re not going to find yourself today, that’s the first thing. Be gentle to yourself, make good choices about food, sleep and grooming, and allow yourself to feel whatever you’re going to feel.
Thank you! I’ll try to remember this.
[[Jedi hugs]] And I don’t know, but scheduling lots of friend time (if you can) and trying new fun things I hadn’t taken the time for (more volunteer dog walking! Guitar class!) helped me. And getting new pillows for my bed helped make sleeping feel like a clean slate. Mostly, time and patience with yourself. I don’t think there are really shortcuts.
Thank you. It’s good to know that I’m not alone in this and that it gets better in time.
<3 *internet hugs* I’m sorry, that really sucks.
I don’t have much in the way of break up advice, but I’ve heard it helps to stay busy, make plans to see friends, put that extra time into hobbies or exercise or traveling – even just exploring new places or shops in your town might be good. Going no contact with him for a while might be a good idea too.
I have no doubt that it will really suck, but I also have no doubt that in time you will find joy in rediscovering parts of yourself and exploring new things.
Thank you <3
I’m keeping super busy so far, and I’m gonna keep as busy as I can moving forward. I’d like to try some new hobbies, learn some new languages and so on. I try to keep the contact to a minimum, but it’s hard because we lived together and have to figure that stuff out (but in about a week, I’ll move into my new place!). Thank you again <3
Also – give yourself the time/space/permission to have those sad moments when they creep up on you. Mourning a 3-year relationship is healthy.
Feathering your new nest is a kind of therapy. YOU get to decide what you want to be in your home, how you want it to look, feel, etc.
Signed,
Been There, Done That
You are in there somewhere. It’s okay to float in chocolate/wine/yoga/whatever is your comfort thing right now.
I can send you “good riddance” vibes if you want them. You have my encouragement to be as non-productive and self indulgent as you like this weekend.
I’ll float in popcorn, Coke and strawberries. And friends.
I think I need those “good riddance” vibes, because I’ve been denying aspects of myself for a while and wound myself in the process. I need to remember that I’m actually pretty awesome, and I shouldn’t need to deny myself for anyone else. Even if I long for him, I know that I can’t go back to that place of denial and self-doubt.
Aw I’m so sorry. Gif clueless but ((((hugs)))))
Thank you <3 Seriously.
I’m sorry, dearest. **giant bear hug**
Obviously staying busy, being with friends, and all that good stuff, is so important. Be nice to yourself. The most helpful thing for me has always been traveling alone, if you can swing it. You’re in a new place and you have to rely on yourself, which I think reminds you that you *can* do it. xoxo
Thank you. I’m playing the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt intro song on replay and imagining myself as Kimmy coming out of the bunker (relationship). That makes me feel better, like… strong as hell.
One of the first things I thought after the breakup was how much I want to travel, especially alone. I live in East-Asia, and I haven’t explored the area as much as I’d like. I will definitely start planning my summer vacation soon!
<3
I love this! Am definitely going to steal your “Unbreakable” theme song loop idea.
The only problem is, I can’t find a loop on youtube, so I’m just hitting replay every 30 seconds, haha. But yeah, it’s gonna be my theme song from now on!
I am really late to this thread, but when I first moved into my new place after breaking up with my boyfriend of 11 years, I binged on the first season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
That was 13 months ago and I still have ‘Unbreakable MyName MiddleName’ scrawled on my fridge. I think I wrote it because I it was the first thing that popped into my head when I was testing a whiteboard marker, but seeing it actually helped a lot so it’s still there.
(hugs)
<3 <3
You find yourself by giving yourself some time. It sucks, but that’s what it takes. Time, time, time. You can do this. You are amazing and wonderful and entirely brilliant all on your own. It’s okay to feel lonely and sad and bereft. Those feelings don’t make you any less beautifully, wonderfully you.
Thank you so much! As long as I can pass that time watching shows and talking obsessively with friends, I think I’ll manage. I think the scariest thing is that my brain is constantly telling me “danger, danger!” so I’m very afraid of my feelings. But I try to remind myself that this hellish feeling isn’t dangerous, it’s natural. I kind of wish I knew how long it’ll take to heal, so I could do a countdown or something.
I am so sorry! If there is anything he is allergic to or that you otherwise gave up/do less of because of him, I recommend embracing it – both as an opportunity, and as a reminder of things you had before him. (I loved my ex but I am still like F*CK YEAH I am wearing perfume and eating carbs!)
Yep! Shamelessly listening to terrible Top 40 pop music after dating the alt-rock nerd was epically satisfying.
Haha, in my case, stop pretending to like Korean rap music.
I will bathe in tomatoes, eggplants, mashed potatoes, apples and dust. And watch TV-shows (because somehow he doesn’t like TV SHOWS?) and read celebrity gossip. Oh, and I’ll stop pretending to give a fuck about Bernie Sanders!
See, these are the building blocks of a happy summer life. Nightshades 4ever!
I’m so sorry.
I’d be tempted to find a hotel room for the weekend and lounge, watch TV, and order room service.
Thank you. I’m actually so #blessed that I have a whole support system (even though I live in a foreign country far away from home). I went straight to my “family” (former host family) and they got drunk and badmouthed him so I didn’t have to <3
I’ll stay here for the weekend, then go to a friend’s place on Sunday. Then I move into a new place next Friday, because I’m so swift that I went and found a new apartment while I was still in a daze after the Conversation.
You’re amazing. This capability is very rare.
Time and space, and in particular, doing any and all of the things that my might not have done while/because you were in the relationship.
I also got a tattoo, but I don’t recommend that unless you were already considering a tattoo.
Thank you, I’m really focusing on doing the things I didn’t feel comfortable doing during the relationship. I don’t think I’ll get a tattoo (I live in Japan), but I’m thinking about trying new hairstyles and make up and things like that. Right now that cliché about changing oneself after a relationship rings so true to me.
SO MANY hugs.
You are a worthwhile person. What you want matters.
This is so true! <3 <3
Re: the Ehrlich link. My boyfriend discovered that earlier this week, and it has been the thing in our home all week. And now you guys too!! It’s everywhere I look!
“A nice piece of fish? Malls with simple layouts? Early Rock Hudson? Late Rock Hudson? …Rock Hudson in his prime?“
The political ones really got me rolling:
“Segregated water fountains. Socially acceptable racism. A bullish approach to letting women vote. Homosexuality being defined as insanity in the DSM *I*. “
The rhythm of Erlich’s eyebrow raises gives me so much joy
I love the little eyebrow twitch!
Does anyone else dissolve into giggles when you see the old English s’s that look like f’s and ftart reading the wordf aloud with a permanent fnaggletooth?
This made me giggle a lot.
I confess, I read every chapter name in that whole image as “The fubject continued”.
Especially when the word “succor” is coming up, because I am apparently 12.
abfolutely! alwayf…
Here’s a bilingual article that beautifully illustrates Quebec and Eastern Ontario’s bilingual tendencies. http://www.mtlblog.com/2016/05/dont-read-this-art…
because Claire is a perfect Goddess carved from stone and ice, about such trivial mortal concerns as “humidity”.
I’m…pretty sure that’s the actual answer.
I binge-watched all of Silicon Valley while on maternity leave and now I’m weirdly obsessed with it so finding it here on The Toast makes me delighted.
Right? I did not expect to like it as much as I do! But it is so stressful every time something goes wrong for them!
I love summer heat, even with the humidity. Surely I’m not the only one. (I’m from North Carolina. Every time I go to a city known as atrociously hot and humid in the summer, I get there and think, “this is pretty standard weather, isn’t it?”)
I’m also from NC and have that same reaction re: ‘standard summer weather’ but I still HATE it. I have fiery white skin and red hair and I just wasn’t cut out for this.
No, you are in fact the only one.
I love humidity but I have been a few places that tested me. I grew up somewhere fairly humid, currently live somewhere much more humid, and have traveled to extremely humid places. It’s the worst when you can’t sleep because you are still sweating in spite of a fan and minimal clothing.
As someone who has lived all her life in wintery northern states, I LOVE hot summer weather. I drink more water, I try to stay in the shade, and sometimes I’m uncomfortable. BUT IT ISN’T ACTIVELY TRYING TO KILL ME FOR EXISTING, in the same way it is in the winter. At least not in WI or MA. Bring it on.
Reading that table of contents another way:
STEP 1 HARNESS GOD
STEP 2 ???
STEP 3 PROFIT
(this link roundup is amazing and those Atlas Obscura articles are the best. I’m kind of sad to realise that I must be an official Westerner now that Quebecois swears have drifted out of my go-to cussification)
Speaking of Atlas Obscura and Canadians, here’s one about a woman with the best name in the world, Aloha Wanderwell, who sounds like a real-life Rose Bukater, minus the boat trip. The side links are to “Meet ‘Deadshot Mary,’ a 1930s Undercover Cop Superstar”, “The Female Ghost Buster Who Rooted Out Spiritual Fraud for Houdini”(suck it, dudebro haters!), and “New York’s First Female Crime Boss Started Her Own Crime School”. Well, there goes a big chunk of my morning.
I would really like to hear the story of Mother Mandelbaum’s last ten years in Canada with over a million dollars worth of cash and diamonds.
“Mandelbaum died in 1894, while still living in criminal exile. Her body was returned to New York to be buried, and a number of the mourners at her funeral reported being pickpocketed. Mandelbaum and her school may not have been on the right side of the law, but in her role empowering the women she trained and employed, she was on the right side of history.”
Best argument yet for keeping women barefoot in the kitchen. It’s not that women can’t compete with men in the marketplace, it’s just that, if women work, wherein will the men get The Softness?
Better repeal the 19th Amendment too: bet the ladies would be even softer if we couldn’t vote.
It also helps if ladies are home during the day so they can get all their shouting-on-the-phone out of their systems, and The Hard Men won’t have to hear it. Heavens to betsy!
It’s also a pretty good argument for misandry. Oh, what, you disliked hearing her “shouting on the phone” because it’s an unbecoming, “hard” quality? Oh well, if you don’t like it when she shouts, maybe consider not shouting yourself? Maybe it’s just a _generally_ unlikable trait, not like, a _gendered_ trait?
“wherein will the men get The Softness?”
By purchasing the right brands of paper products, both tissue and towel.
I’ve always described a Newfoundland accent as taking someone Irish and having them talk while holding a marble in their mouth. Also it can vary across the island or even among groups; in my Mom’s home town Protestants and Catholics pronounce certain words differently. As a western Canadian raised by Newfies my own accent is a weird mishmash of influences.
I love accents. I could talk about them all day. It makes me sad that so many of the regional American accents are dying away. Do you have time to give some examples of what you describe here? I’m quite curious.
In TV shows and movies, an actor who is not originally from the south but is playing someone from the South just uses “generic Southern accent,” even though there are regional differences. And there are definitely regional differences within in Texas, and when I moved here from Memphis, I stood out from everyone here. I tried to get rid of my accent (which I now regret), but it’s still hard for me to pronounce the middle “er” in hamburger. My coworker, from a small town several hours west of Fort Worth, pronounces “hill” as “heel,” but in a way that’s very different from how I would have said it growing up. I don’t the linguistic term for it, but it’s different. When my Italian-American aunt’s relatives came down from Staten Island for her wedding to my uncle, based on how my uncle said it, they thought “WhatABurger” was “water burger” until they saw the sign. 20+ years later, I still laugh when I see one of their signs.
Anyway, I don’t really have anything interesting to add, but I am here for discussions of regional accent differences in all parts of the world.
Which part do you want examples of?
Ooo, all of it, if you can!
1. “I’ve always described a Newfoundland accent as taking someone Irish and having them talk while holding a marble in their mouth.”
2. “in my Mom’s home town Protestants and Catholics pronounce certain words differently.”
3. “As a western Canadian raised by Newfies my own accent is a weird mishmash of influences.”
All three of those.
1. Okay, I’m not a linguist so this may be muddled, but: Irish accents and Newfoundland accents have enough in common that I’ve sometimes seen outsiders mistake one for another, and every time I’ve seen a movie in which non-Newfoundlanders are playing someone from the province (like The Shipping News) they end up doing an Irish accent, not a Canadian one. But to me Irish accents are much crisper. They have a similar lilt and they both speak fast, but there’s a sort of loosening (almost a mumbling?) in a Newfoundland accent. Vowel sounds are often shortened and sometimes syllables or letter sounds are dropped entirely from words. My relatives pronounce “three” like “tree”; “boy” sounds exactly like “bye” because the o essentially disappears. Thus my comparison to talking with a marble in your mouth. I don’t know what the real terminology for it is.
2. Protestants drop their h’s for one thing, especially at the beginnings of words. Catholics don’t. No idea why.
3. When my sister was a little girl she got made fun of by her friends for saying “room” and “broom” with a short o instead of the ‘oo’ sound. Almost sounds like rum and brum but not quite, because it is still an o rather than a u. I was always being told to slow down or speak ‘clearly’ when I was a kid by teachers. Also got my grammar ‘corrected’ a bunch. When I was in college I took linguistics – we learned how to spell phonetically and the prof had me come up to her desk and pronounce the words on our worksheet so she could hear for herself how I said them. Because what I was writing down wasn’t the same as what everyone else was doing. And I’ve picked up various Newfie expressions from my parents. Stuff like that. It’s not super obvious but it is noticeable.
Fun fact: Newfoundland is pronounced Newfinland. Or Newfinlan’, if you’re going to say it the way my Mom and Dad do.
Thanks, this was very interesting!
Central Virginia has a similar Scots-Irish/West Country influence, so older folks sound fairly Generic Southern until they say any word with “ow” or “ou” in it, and then they do the Canadian “ouuu” (I don’t even know how to render that sound in IPA, with the close to the “oo” part of the dipthong right away).
I’ve tried, after flattening out my words for years, to regain my original Upper Midwestern accent.
It’s hard, isn’t it? I listen to tapes of my from when I was a kid, and I think I won’t ever get that accent back unless I spend a lot of time with older Memphians.
I lived in Fort McMurray for years and now think of the Newfoundlander accent as the Fort Mac accent as a result!
Years ago Fort Mac was looking for a city slogan and someone suggested “Fort MacMurray, the largest city in Newfoundland”.
In Ireland itself (I think the Republic, but this may hold true for Northern Ireland as well), I believe there are pronunciations of words which differ between Catholics and Protestants. (For example, whether the letter H is pronounced “aitch” or “haitch”.)
the aitch vs. haitch thing is true for Newfoundland as well! If I remember right it’s the Protestants who say ‘haitch’. They also sometimes drop it from the beginning of words. I wonder if all that comes from Catholic vs. Public schools somehow…
I mean, in my head I ~know~ you weren’t raised by the world’s most perfectest fluffiest giantest black dogs, buuuuuut…
Where is the open thread? Did I miss an announcement?
I was wondering this myself! 🙁
SAME and GETTING NERVOUS. We’ve only got a few of these left and I’m already not happy about that…
Me too…
I just started posting here. Maybe some will follow?
OT comment here, in that case! I’m sorry about buying your bloomers and then cancelling! I thought I had money, but then I got my weekly account balance, and realized I didn’t.
That sucks, bb! Maybe they’ll still be around when your budget situation is better. *hugs*
I mean, my budget’s ok, but I definitely need to tighten my spending for a bit.
Did they leave Mallory in charge again?
The Nicoles are meeting up in D.C., so probably yes…
In all fairness Mallory seems to be the only person actually posting today. Has the Bartender been laid off? Are we to infer that Nicole and Nikki met in DC, got wasted, and are too hung over to have thought to put anything on the site for us?
I have too much faith in Nikki to believe that.
The missing OT has given me a flash of a post-Toast world, and I’m quite sad about that 🙁
Should we just go rogue and open it here? Would that work?
Anyone want to rage about this with me? College rapist gets off with six months because the (male, obvs) judge is worried about the “severe impact” prison would have on the poor, poor rapist. Article contains a description of the rape, so be careful.
SO MUCH RAGE.
Their reasoning is stunning.
1. No criminal record. A of all, he’s 20 so that’s not a lot of time to acquire one. B of all, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t raped before. It proves nothing really.
2. He seems remorseful. Oh, so he knows how to say the right things. Awesome for him.
3. A record of accomplishment. In other words, a middle class college kid’s crimes count for less because he plays sports and doesn’t work at a convenience store.
That poor woman he did this to.
BURN IT DOWN
Thank you for putting into words what I can’t right now because I’m still in the incoherently raging stage.
(Edit to say I’m sorry for the brutal phrasing but I feel it makes an important point.)
“Not a continued threat to the community”?!! He thought it was okay to stick things into an unconscious person!
Their “community” does not include women.
Nope! This wasn’t a misunderstanding! This wasn’t a grey-area “What’s unspoken consent? How drunk is too drunk?” situation! And How in the HELL did that columnist think that writing to urge leniency was a good thing for him to do with his time? I mean, it’s bad enough to feel that way, but to print it?!
He’s a sports columnist, and a man. That’s all the reason he needs.
<sighs, types “kittens” into the image search engine>
Exactly! He had to be forcibly removed, too! There are exactly zero grey areas in this case. She was unconscious. The crime occurred outdoors behind a dumpster. He had to be dragged off of her. There were multiple witnesses who were willing to intervene (thank god, because we all know how rare that is). A person who is willing to do that is 100% a continued threat to the community.
Bless those men for intervening. I remember five years ago there was a case where people were filming what they referred to as “people having sex in public” and I think it was a roommate of theirs who pointed out they had filmed a rape and needed to report it. (I’m probably mixing up my awful stories.) I’m hoping the massive internet shame fest of the filmers helped people realize that stepping in is 100% the right thing to do if you think you’re seeing rape. Worst case scenario? Girl tells you everything is fine and everyone is embarrassed. (okay fine, worst-worst-case-scenario is the people trying to help get hurt, which would suck, so be smart about it Good Samaritans!)
This is literally the textbook Stranger Rape, and the court still won’t hold him fully responsible.
BURN IT DOWN.
God I hope that judge has people in his life who will tell him off.
The Onion once did this satirical (obviously) story about a poor, poor athlete convicted of rape and how hard it was on him and his courageous struggle to Overcome Adversity. I couldn’t find it funny because it read like something a newspaper would actually write!
TW: graphic description of rape from the victim. It’s incredibly powerful, but hard to read.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-p…
Came back to fucking RAGE. This woman is a tower of strength and I have infinite respect and love for her. https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-p…
“And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining. Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you.”
She is amazing, and her statement is amazing, and that judge is a POS who has no business presiding over any sexual assault or rape case ever again.
Okay, but that birdwatching from skyscraper article was fascinating! Apparently I don’t pay enough attention to bylines because the language seemed familiar and I had to look at the author, and it’s Helen MacDonald! Who wrote H is for Hawk , which was a thoroughly enjoyable book. I love it when things intersect in the most random ways.
My peeps. Should we just start open threading here? I would like to talk about misandrist poems? Anyone around?
Let’s hear it!
My favourite is Christina Rossetti’s “No, Thank You, John, which never fails to make me squeal with delight. Here is the glorious thing:
I never said I loved you, John:
Why will you tease me day by day,
And wax a weariness to think upon
With always “do” and “pray”?
You Know I never loved you, John;
No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
As shows an hour-old ghost?
I dare say Meg or Moll would take
Pity upon you, if you’d ask:
And pray don’t remain single for my sake
Who can’t perform the task.
I have no heart?-Perhaps I have not;
But then you’re mad to take offence
That don’t give you what I have not got:
Use your common sense.
Let bygones be bygones:
Don’t call me false, who owed not to be true:
I’d rather answer “No” to fifty Johns
Than answer “Yes” to you.
Let’s mar our plesant days no more,
Song-birds of passage, days of youth:
Catch at today, forget the days before:
I’ll wink at your untruth.
Let us strike hands as hearty friends;
No more, no less; and friendship’s good:
Only don’t keep in veiw ulterior ends, And points not understood
In open treaty. Rise above
Quibbles and shuffling off and on:
Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love,-
No, thank you, John.
This is GLORIOUS!
“Don’t be so emotional, John. Take this logically.”
Yes, this is exactly what is great about it.
I’m taking it as a sign that the universe wants me to take this time to work on content for clevermanka.net so…
If people want to use my gifs in my absence today, they are, as always, right here.
Thank you for your brave work and for leaving your gifs with us.
Ok here’s another one. espriterrant posted it on Toastcrumbs reddit.
“He Tells Her”
He tells her that the Earth is flat—
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.
—Wendy Cope
I just sent my mom a copy of this, as we both have men in our lives who do this ad infinitum.
This is one of my favorite poems! Gah, so good.
I was saving this for the Open Thread, but there appears to not be one, so…
I leave v. early tomorrow morning to fly to Seattle (where I have never been) for a couple days, then LA (where I have also never been) for the rest of the week. I haven’t flown often, and flying itself doesn’t bother me, but…airports. I hate them. I am getting anxious as I type is how much I dread them. There are too many variables! Too many people! Um anyway so I would appreciate any encouragement or suggestions as I launch myself into this terrifying solo-travel adventure.
Sometimes it helps to look at a map of the airport online before you get there, so the layout is less mysterious and intimidating! The Seattle airport is quite pleasant, especially the food area, and there is a wine bar if you need help relaxing.
Second this. I am an inveterate airport-map-looker-at and – after leaving yourself lots of time to get through security – it is so helpful in reducing stress (often by helping me locate the nearest wine bar).
You got this!
I like to look up maps too but I always feel like locating the next place you’re going to (drop-off counter, security, boarding gate) before you do stuff like shopping or drinking or going to the bathroom helps too, since it gives you a better notion of what the distance is really like, how much time it takes you to get there, etc.
I too dislike them. I find that taking a moment to watch before getting thrust into a lineup, scan, or other invasive process can help. Like, instead of defensively going into my own head or phone when I’m in line, or before even getting into it, I watch what is ahead and get a picture of what is going on. Like, ok, basket is for shoes, take them off there, then walk to the scanner, ok I got this.
I do this too when I can so I agree.
I hate being rushed, and catching flights can be full of rushing about if you get caught in long check-in or security lines (which is more and more likely to happen, yay), so I try to get to the airport early. Especially early if it’s an unfamiliar airport. Then if I hit lineups it’s not as stressful. Also, make sure that your carry-on luggage and contents will meet airline standards – such a common-sense thing but so many travellers seem to lack that sense and that creates more line-waiting.
Once through security I immediately find my gate and then find an uncrowded area nearby to camp out in until flight time. If there’s still lots of time I might wander the nearby concourse, but just knowing that I’m in the right place for the right time eases so much airport stress for me!
Good luck on your journey!
Airports are awful! I would rather drive for 7 hours than deal with an airport for a 1 hr flight. Something about being in control of my own traveling self is important to me.
My only advice to mitigate the anxiety is to get there with a ton of extra time.
Recently, I arrived to the airport so early, I realized I could still get on an earlier plane. Which I ran up to the counter and arranged! Dropping my ID and credit card along the way. I got an extra patdown in security (cards weren’t found by then), 5 minutes before gates were supposed to close, and cried a little (a lot) when I finally got to my seat, but, it was a good lesson that Everything Works Out.
Hope your trip is wonderful and your travel is uneventful!
As a diehard “If I ever move anywhere it would be NYC” person, I was pleasantly surprised at how lovely LA was. I stayed in the city center in a very old expensive hotel (with 3 roommates and a student discount). There were bookstores, plural, though, so I really didn’t need anything else. (books, old hollywood memorabilia, really, what more is there?)
The Seattle airport is really pretty alright, although the light rail is about a million miles from the terminal. I’ve only ever connected through LAX, which was unpleasant, but I was also very, very jetlagged which did not help at all. The good news is that they will hopefully be a relatively tiny part of your trip that will also contain many much more fun things.
I feel your pain and I feel it acutely! It took me forever to realise and then confirm it but most of me pre-travel nerves are mostly due to airports.
I don’t know if I have many suggestions for dealing with airport nerves, other than some things that might make your life easier. Do you know the specific reasons why you’re anxious about airports?
Some of my suggestions that haven’t been recommended yet: take an obnoxious amount of time and effort to set up your handbag to make it easier on you when you’re checking in, going through security, boarding, etc. Not just checking which items you can carry but how easy it is to reach for the things you need. If you can (i.e. if you have a bag with multiple compartments), place things separately based on whether they’re things you’ll need to take out very fast (ID, boarding pass, electronics) or things you can take your sweet time finding.
If you’re going to use the same airport to go home, either leave on the same means of transportation you’ll be using to come back, or check in advance what that is like. For example, if a friend will pick you up but not drop you off, take some time to go see where the train/bus stop is and how far it is.
Remember that you’re not the only person in your flight. This doesn’t mean you should stall and go to your gate at the last minute, but it means that if you’re lost or stuck in a queue, you should rush as much as possible but you have a a few extra minutes because there will be other people boarding too (and depending on your airline, there may be people who have priority).
Keep an eye on those electronic boards, in case your boarding gate changes or the flight gets delayed.
Was saving this for the OT, but since it isn’t here yet, there’s kind of a link! Exactly one year since career-transitioning from editor to agent, I sold my first novel!!!!! (I was a nonfic editor & 80% nonfic agent, so this is new to me.) It’s by the first client I signed, Anna Moschovakis, a poet I have LOVED since college & am a total fangirl for. It’s called “The Rejection of the Progress of Love,” forthcoming from Coffee House, and will be very Relevant to Toastie Interests as a philosophical novel that overtly inhabits the female body. (Here’s a link behind a paywall: http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/dealmakers/d…
Also, Mr. Editor has a great review of a great book up in LitHub, for a brilliant & overlooked novel that Toasties would probably really like! http://lithub.com/seven-ways-to-hand-sell-a-lost-…
Books books books books!
Congratulations!!!
Open Thread reading recs?
This is an oddly specific reading recommendation request but does anyone have suggestions for fiction about people redeeming themselves from being terrible at their job? Not like “brilliant surgeon makes one terrible mistake!” or “bumbling new grad just starting out!” but like…just being shitty at stuff, due to character flaws, but then getting better so that they can be proud of themselves.
So much of my “learning to be a better human” is done through fiction but so much fiction about learning how to human centers around a person who is great at their job but terrible at relationships, whereas I have the opposite problem, and it’s making me unhappy, and I need fictional role models! (TV and film work too, I spose. But those depend too much on montage sequences and not on exploring inner lives, I feel.)
Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell? Don’t know how much of a role model, but it’s a beautiful portrait of failure.
Also, A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark?
Open threading here.
I feel like today was a success because I capitalized on my landlord showing up by washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen and clearing off the coffee table before breakfast and heading to work. This is my last kid-free time this month and I’m going to indulge. I bought a slice of cheesecake for later and I’m takiing the afternoon off from schoolwork (I think since I worked 3 days straight last weekend I can afford to). I’m going to plant things in a garden that hopefully the raccoons won’t get into,, builtd a twig lattice wall for my clematis so I don’t have to look at an ugly woodpile out my kitchen window, and start filling the pool. Since we have to fill it with well water this will be a several days of “on for an hour, off for an hour” hose filling and checking the water softener to make sure we haven’t run out of salt.
When I get too tired to garden I’ll come inside and knit. I may go out and “single girl shop” at trader joe’s this evening.
I may talk my landlady into ordering mulch.
I will definitely spoil myself and buy more garden dirt, lol. Big plans!
Nice dirt is such a good feeling. Have a great weekend!
Thank you! I was so happy this morning, because last year the raccoons and bunnies and squirrels just dug everything up for fun every night. This year I’ve put up fencing, and when I walked out this morning there was a red-tailed hawk sitting on the fence post. He can stay in my yard as long as he likes!
My mom used to watch the hawks hunting pigeons out the back window and yell “Go Hawks!”
Other hawk story! Last year when the neighbors had a lil vole digging in their front yard (we could see his lil tushie!) I mentioned that I thought there was a hawk nesting in the tree across the street so the vole would probably move on. And the little boy looked alarmed and told me not to talk so loud about the vole or the hawk might hear and come get it! I love little kids sometimes.
Sounds like you are living your best life!
Open thread time!
I was at a conference yesterday. My amazing former boss from my previous job was there too. We worked together 2 years ago at Govt Agency A, and we’ve since moved on to Govt Agency B (me, because my job at A was axed due to budget cuts) and Govt Agency C (her, moving up into a higher position). I told her how unhappy and unchallenged/bored I am at my current job and she said she’ll look into finding me a job in her department at Govt Agency C. She’s been there for about a year and she’s already brought on board 3 people we used to work with at Govt Agency A, so I know it wasn’t an empty promise and she’ll help me if she can.
I’m still waiting to hear back about that job I interviewed for back in February (at yet another government agency). Last week their HR person told me that “Management will start appointing shortly” but in the context of government staffing, “shortly” means “sometime between now and the heat death of the universe.” On Monday I applied for a job that opened up at amazing former boss’s current org (same department but not working directly under her). And now she’s looking for something for me too! I am filled with tentative hope for the future.
That is fantastic news! I really hope it works out for you. We’ll miss reading about the inane conversations of your colleagues, but A. that’s selfish and B. the Toast will so be no more!
All the good luck to you! It’s sounded like an intensely frustrating time and I hope you can move on to something much better.
I was saving this for Open Thread, but as it has not appeared… I desperately need your advice and encouragement, please, Toast.
(content note for discussion of non-graphic discussion of sex, possible pregnancy)
I am scared, Toasties, and I know what I have to do next but I can’t bring myself to do it. Although there is a low chance of me getting pregnant, I missed my period.
I’m a college student, and a few months ago I started dating a very lovely boy. This is my first real relationship, and it’s the first time I’ve done anything really sexual. While I’ve never had penetrative intercourse, we have done other things involving nakedness and semen and although we’ve been careful to wipe off hands, etc… there is the possibility we made a mistake. I had no fears until I realized last week that I was later than I ever had been before. Now, it’s been six weeks since my last period. The potential for pregnancy is so, so, so low–but I’ve never skipped a period before!
I bought a pregnancy test (and how incredible nerve-wracking THAT was), but I can’t bring myself to use it because what if I really AM pregnant?
If I am, I will (without hesitation, although probably with catholic-upbringing-induced guilt afterwards) get an abortion. The problem: it is finals week next week, I am in danger of failing a class so I desperately need to study, and after that I go home until October to a deep south state with basically no abortion access, and certainly none I could access without my conservative Catholic parents knowing. I would have to go in the next few days. My boyfriend would be supportive (no doubt there), but how would I tell him?
There is such a pathetically low chance of pregnancy, but I have missed my period. Am I that unlucky? I don’t know what to do. Well, I do know, but I can’t bring myself to do it. And I can’t do anything else (like study), either, because I am paralyzed by fear.
:'(
Sweetie. It will be OK. ((Hugs)) if you want ’em.
Oh, I’m feeling for you. Take the test. Chances are so so so so good that you’re not pregnant, and then you can relax. There are all kinds of things that can make you miss a period, including stress (hey there college!)
If you have a close friend that you trust, get her to wait outside the bathroom while you take it so just in case you get bad news, you have someone to freak out to, and someone to help you figure out your next steps.
(((Eloise)))
Take a few deep breaths, head to the pharmacy and get a test or two. Get yourself some peace of mind. And if the tests *don’t* bring you that peace of mind, is there a Planned Parenthood in your area you can get to?
Things will be okay, and you can’t do anything without knowing anything. Sometimes ignorance isn’t bliss, and now is one of those times. Information will help you with any potential decision-making processes. It really is better to know than not know, however scary it might seem right now.
Seconding ladyimogen’s suggestion to do it with a friend nearby, if you can.
Good luck. Keep us posted.
1) Look, it’s probably okay – finals are coming up, you’re probably a bit stressed, maybe your body got thrown. But. I got pregnant using the withdrawal method and I know he didn’t mess up and ejaculate inside me, so there is a risk. Take the test. Take it right away so you can get an appointment. Being paralyzed with fear isn’t helping you.
2) It is going to be okay even if you get bad news. You can figure this out. There are lots of people on here who will have advice or resource suggestions if you need them.
3) Put the “tell the boyfriend” problem on the back burner until you know you even have anything to tell him. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Thinking of you and really hoping for the best for you.
I had exactly the same thing happen to me. Went to university, started my first relationship, did not have sex immediately but did things that involved the presence of semen, and then had no period for three months. (It was especially unfortunate because I wanted to start the Pill, which you’re meant to begin taking on Day 1 of your period. My period vanished, which meant no contraception.) I still have no idea what had happened – stress, maybe? I took a test, and was not pregnant. I gave up and started the Pill anyway, and my period showed up (exceptionally heavy and painful) when I went on my first break from it. Bodies are weird.
It is scary and stressful, and I really feel for you. I can’t say if you’re pregnant or not (although as you say, the chances are low), but I can say that I had the same thing happen and it was fine.
I know how scary it is, but take the test. Whatever happens, it’s better to know. (I realise how paralysing the fear is, and you are in my thoughts.)
Regarding telling your boyfriend: assuming you’re not pregnant, I would recommend making time for a conversation at some point to discuss what you would do in the event of an unplanned pregnancy (if you haven’t done this already). I did this very near the beginning of my relationship with my boyfriend, ages before I was anywhere near ready to have sex – just a “If I get pregnant, I will have an abortion. If you are not happy with this, say so now, before we start having sex, as it is not something I can compromise on”. (Also a “have you had any sexual experience which might lead to STIs?” conversation.) It felt a lot better to get out all out in the open at the beginning and know we were on the same page, so if anything did happen I wouldn’t be dealing with an unwanted pregnancy AND having to have surprise arguments about the ethics of abortion with a partner. It meant sex itself, when it got to that stage, was less worry-inducing.
Yes. I fully believe this is the foundation of any beginner-adult relationship. If you have the conversation, you *can* deal with the consequences with a lot less surprise and stress.
I agree with everyone else: take the test. If you’re not pregnant, you can stop holding your breath and go study. If you are pregnant… you can take a deep breath and start figuring out your options ASAP.
I have to go now and I don’t have much time to type the rest of what I was going to say, but keep us updated (if you feel comfortable with that). I’m sure that if it turns out to not be just a scare, everyone will have advice if you need help sorting out what to do next.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you!
Oh honey, it will be ok, I promise. If you happen to be at college somewhere in Oregon and need support from outside your circle of friends, please email me at sneepsnake at gmail dot com. Hugs to you if you want them.
Knowledge is better than worry.
You can work with actual facts more easily than no facts.
We can probably find a Toastie near you if you require addition assistance.
All the hugs, and all the encouragement, and all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.
Thinking of you, and offering you support, no matter what.
Gentle hugs, if you would like them.
hello kind Toasties,
thank you for all the encouragement! I posted that, then took a nap because everything was too much to deal with. I read your replies, and while none of my roommates were around I wanted to get it over with, so I went and did the test (and re-read your replies while I waited).
It was negative, and I feel like I can breathe again.
I’m going to put the rest of the tests away and hope I don’t need them for a long time. (I bought eight? and a poster board and a poster markers, on the basis that maybe the cashier would judge me less if it looked like it was for some really weird project? IDEK!)
On that note, this was terrifying, and I am definitely going to look into birth control methods. Unfortunately, due to a blood mutation, I can’t use any hormone-based methods. I remember some weirder things being mentioned besides the pill and condoms in health class, though, so maybe one of those would work to alleviate these worries in the future. The thought of being stuck for four months in rural SC without abortion access is…. not good.
I’m so glad you let us know you’re ok, and so glad you aren’t pregnant. Definitely talk to your doctor about non-hormonal BC methods–you might be a candidate for a copper IUD. Good luck with your finals!
That’s great news! Best of luck with the hunt for suitable contraception. The copper IUD is meant to be good (I am thinking of getting one). Other non-hormonal methods include the cervical cap and the diaphragm, as well as male and female condoms.
My open thread question: Toast friends, what Instagram accounts do you follow? I’m just starting to really explore it. So far I’ve enjoyed hyper allergic (contemporary art), man repeller (fashion), National Geographic, European Space Agency, and a few other photographers and science organizations. I’m not really interested in celebrities’ accounts but all suggestions are welcome. You guys have good taste.
I have a friend, @timnatarr who makes flipping AMAZING quilts…
I follow some random combination of local friends and people who take interesting photos and various craft schools like Penland, Haystack and Arrowmount.
I don’t think I am very good at Instagram? In the same way I am not very good at Twitter or Pinterest, but I’m guessing you find what you like to look at, and see what they like and keep on branching out.
Books!
I’m about two-thirds of the way through Helen Simonson’s The Summer Before the War and I recommend it HEARTILY. It’s sweet, funny, and gripping.
I am a third of the way through reading Terry Pratchett’s Equal Rites for the first time and it is GREAT.
I also reading a paranormal romance novel for shits n giggles – it’s called Sweet Ruin and it is TERRIBLE. I don’t know what I expected. I have been reading it aloud at bed time to my boyfriend. Pretty much every other line gets a “*snort* REALLY?” from him, so it’s entertaining at least.
I just read Equal Rites a few months ago! I enjoyed it heartily.
Oh that looks excellent and right up my alley. I just checked and there are EIGHTEEN people who have reserved it at my library. 😳 So I am going to cultivate patience.
I am about t start Fangirl because of all the Toastie Rainbow Rowell love. I’m pretty psyched.
I just finished Sylvain Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants and it was…okay? There were a few things that got the side-eye (apparent authorial self-insertion; also, you’re going to name a bad-ass, bad-tempered pilot “Kara”, really? And very tired romantic triangle), but it was a relatively engaging read.
Now, on to Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart A Doorway. Hurray!
I am just getting around to reading The Handmaid’s Tale. I’ve been whipping through it, about halfway done and the plot is *thickening* and things are *happening* and I have no idea how it’s going to end. I usually have guesses, but I have nothing with this, so: onward!
I want to make a cake this weekend. Can you share your favorite cake recipes?
This one! This one!
http://blog.anthropologie.com/91079583199/
Every time I make this lemon blueberry cake, the eater takes a bite, their eyes grow wide, and then they stare at me, and then there’s some kind of comment like “What is this, what are you, I’m going to kidnap you and the rest of this cake.”
What I’m trying to say is that this recipe is the best cake recipe I have. It’s so wonderfully light and lemony. You could really eat the whole thing.
Creme fraiche in the cake, lemon cream cheese icing? *swoon*
::nods sagely:: yeah dude.
This red wine chocolate cake is my ride or die recipe.
For a classic yellow cake with chocolate icing, this is as good as it gets:
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/07/best-birth…
Her chocolate peanut butter layer cake is also amazing.
I can’t choose one favorite cake.
This is my favorite masterpiece (it is worth all the work):
http://www.askchefdennis.com/2011/10/pumpkin-crun…
I substitute ginger snaps for the vanilla wafers, which is over the top but perfect.
Nigella’s chocolate Guiness cake is dead simple to make and delicious, especially if you put Bailey’s in the cream cheese icing. https://www.nigella.com/recipes/chocolate-guinnes…
Or you can’t go wrong with any of the recipes in Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook.
I have my own recipe for chocolate stout cake but I can’t remember it and can’t find where i wrote it. This looks like a good version though:
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1875-chocolate…
Time intensive but amazing cake:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/tres-leches-ca…
One of my faves: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11432-red-velv…
It requires a shit ton of red food coloring because there’s way more cocoa than a standard red velvet, and the icing has a mascarpone/cream cheese/whipped cream ratio that is to die for.
As my husband so accurately stated, this is either my greatest dream from decades of murder mystery watching or my worst nightmare.
Why not both! (says another decades-long murder mystery reader & watcher)
Open Threading. The Toast is folding, I can’t find a job or enough freelance work to feel any security, and yesterday this booty-ass weather was so hot my heart monitor fell off–the glue is melting and migrating all over my body (I retaped it). So, kind of a bummer week. But looking forward, I’m wondering if anyone here would be interested in occasionally writing collaboratively for fun, like an Exquisite Corpse e-mail exchange or something (it could always become a ‘zine if we love it but I’m really just thinking in terms of stoking inspiration). Shoot an email to hlsegg at hotmail and let’s make a creative mess!
Just emailed you! This sounds like My Jam.
This woman is so impressive. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36434191
I think she came to my high school! It would have been in 1995 or 1996. It made a big impression on me.
GAH what her father said was so wretched. I am so grateful for this woman’s hard, brave & deeply personal work.
Her father’s reaction was so awful. I’m amazed at how brave she was – it sounds like it was a very difficult decision to speak out.
Boston Toasties! Super last minute, but I have two extra tickets to the Saturday 4:30pm Cirque du Soleil show at Suffolk Downs. This was going to be a roommate trip, but both had to cancel. Anyone interested in meeting up?
(Finally created an IntenseDebate account, but now can’t seem to log in. Also, if this is a duplicate post, sorry! I think I might have already tried to post this, but I just got off a 12 hour shift so I’m not sure of anything at the moment.)
I have been Cleaning House, which is a big deal for me because generally it stresses me out and makes me cry and I talk to myself and make up all kinds of (frankly ugly) rants in my head.
In an attempt to not get too unhappy while doing it this time, I have been addressing the process slowly. I work a while, I sit and internet a while. I go back and forth. Yesterday I swept and washed the floors. Which was both useful because they were filthy and oddly pointless because I didn’t move any of the crap around the edges, I just got what I could reach easily. They are better now, and I still hate housework, and I do NOT think the house is better now than it was, and I hate that having cleaned turns me into a shrieking harridan chasing people with a dustpan or mop to catch their spills when in other times I just kick shit under the table and have done with it.
This is confusing to me. How do you cope with cleaning anything, much less ALL THE THINGS (thank you, Hyperbole and Half, I love you so much)???
Tackle one thing at a time. Take lots of breaks. Reward yourself with a small treat when you complete a task. Put on fun music or an entertaining podcast while you work. And when you’re finished, take a step back and admire your hard work – having a tidy living space is so satisfying, even though sometimes it takes being up to your elbows in oven grease & despair to get to that point!
Oh, and Sunday is CLEAN ALL THE THINGS Day. Viewing it as just part of my weekly routine (like doing laundry, grocery shopping, &etc) makes it easier. I’m very task-oriented so this works for me, but YMMV.
And, honestly, you can stop if things get too stressful! Your mental health > having a spotless house.
If you haven’t read Jolie Kerr (Ask a Clean Person), I would check her out. The addition of humor to cleaning might help. She also deals with a lot of us who are NOT clean people sans judgment. Back in the day (on The Hairpin, I think), she had some pieces on easing into cleaning. Step one : make your bed!