Artist.
The Gore Vidal collection at Harvard is substantial; it includes 394 cartons of material that take up 367 linear feet. The library also holds a 1-carton archive of James Trimble III, which I requested during my visit along with the Vidal materials. Just a few minutes with the Trimble archive made it clear that it was not complied by Vidal, or by anyone who knew Vidal or Jimmie, but by an outsider, whom I will call Roger. Roger, I surmised as I leafed through documents, read Palimpsest, and then decided to find out everything he could about Jimmie Trimble’s life. Roger was not a professional researcher or an academic, but just a guy who wanted to know more about Vidal’s boyhood love.
I’m in need of your spot-on dating advice and I’ll get right to it. This evening, I went on my fourth online dating website “date” (which usually is just find a place to chat for a couple hours) and, like the previous three dates, I have realized that the girl that I’ve chatted with for a while online just doesn’t seem that interested in me. (She still could be, but I just got back from the date and I think it’s smart to take a break from texting – don’t want to overwhelm her/appear clingy.) One of the main indicators that she just wasn’t interested in me was the fact that she wasn’t really trying to establish any physical contact. Being an introverted geek, where dating doesn’t come naturally to me, I’ve read about “breaking the touch barrier” and trying to create a (even slight) sense of intimacy on the first date. No, this doesn’t necessarily mean “make out” on the first date, but I always introduce myself with a hug; establish eye contact whenever possible; and give occasional friendly taps on the shoulder to establish a welcoming persona.
Soon to be available for purchase, dog not included:
LGBT celebs on their first gay bar:
I first found my gay bar, my community, my refuge at Attitude Bar in St. Louis, Missouri in 1998. I can’t remember if it was an all-ages night, but somehow I got in even though I was under 21. I remember looking around at the literal rainbow of people—black, white, male, female, young, old, skinny, fat—and feeling a sense of calm. It felt like I was holding on to this weird anxiety that I couldn’t understand, and then all of a sudden it clicked, and the anxiety was gone, and finally I could stop hiding my Madonna CDs in Led Zeppelin CD cases.
I asked notable LGBTQ artists, writers, actors, and comedians about their first gay bar experience and the impact it had on their lives. Sometimes the story is good, sometimes it is bad, but one thing is for sure: everyone’s first gay bar experience is a story. And everyone has one. In sharing their stories, they are taking a stance against hate, and honoring every victim of violence based on hate.
Hero of The Toast, Constance Wu:
“Let’s talk about some race shit!” Constance Wu laughs, her lemonade-yellow dress spinning as she turns to give me a conspiratorial smirk. In many ways, Wu, who plays matriarch Jessica Huang on ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, is the actor Asian America has been waiting for: funny, bold, analytical, and outspoken about Asian-American representation in Hollywood. In two conversations, one by phone and the other over lunch, we talked about the show and tiger-mom tropes, as well as her recent controversial remarks about yellowface, Hollywood’s “It”-girl syndrome, and her decision to leave her last agency because of a racist interaction. By the end of the conversation, we were both in tears as she explained why she won’t sell herself out for a job. “I’d rather lose all my stuff than lose myself,” Wu says, “because I’ve done that before, and that feels way worse.”
If someone wants to start a Game of Thrones spoilers thread, I’m here for it, now that my pulse has gone back to normal.
Fiction by Friend of The Toast Jess Zimmerman:
The past is like a foreign country: They have weird McDonald’s specials there. Here, it’s a burger with olives and larks’ tongues; it’s called the McTrojan Deluxe, which makes it sound like there’s something sneaky hiding inside it, which if you hate olives is true. I hate olives. But they also serve wine, so I’m drinking lots of wine. It’s unpleasantly packed in the restaurant, but then, it’s packed everywhere.
The McDonald’s special in 5th-century Mongolia, where I went to a conference last month, is some kind of unspeakable meat patty. That’s what they call it—the UnMcSpeakable Meat Patty. To me it looked and tasted a lot like a regular McDonald’s burger, but maybe that’s the point. People don’t want to feel uncomfortable or out of place when they go on a trip, especially if they’re going for work; work trips should be easy and predictable, the same tastes and schedules and climate control smells and creepily stiff bed linens no matter what time period you’re in.
Long before the girls wearing “LaCroixs Over Boys” T-shirts this summer were even born, LaCroix was beloved by health-conscious, budget-wise women in middle America. They knew a good thing when they found it, and they were a loyal audience. But most trends trickle inward from the coasts to the Midwest, not the other way around, and so LaCroix’s first 30 years were spent under the radar.
Then sometime in 2015, LaCroix — lightly flavored, sugar-free carbonated water wrapped in a garish can — became an unlikely breakout hit. The New York Times published an essay raving about it. The Awl and Time Out New York ranked its flavors. If you say “LaCroix” to a youngish urban professional, be ready for a possible explosion of enthusiasm, as if you’d shaken up a can of carbonated water.
Obama is extremely proud of his résumé as a parent. He boasts of having read aloud with Malia all seven volumes of the Harry Potter series; in his first fall in office, he also managed to read all of Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” to Sasha. But performing as a head of household did not come easily to him. As this supremely self-confident man acknowledged in 2006, “It is in my capacities as a husband and a father that I entertain the most doubt.”
A profile of Hope Hicks, Trump’s press secretary:
Still, for all the grenades Hicks has to both jump on and lob, it’s a more quotidian skill set that seems to impress the boss. “If you see her phone going”—he raised both hands and mimicked Hicks answering several devices—“ ‘This is Hope. This is Hope. This is Hope.’ ” He hung up the make-believe phones. “She gets a call a minute, probably,” he said, seemingly pleased with this antiquated barometer of his own popularity.
“And just because you’re gay, I won’t turn you away”
Billy, that’s not how it works.
My memory is that is a statement of bisexuality.
Yeah but I like the idea of Billy Bragg presenting himself to some baffled lesbians in this manner.
Bless him, he tried. At least that was 1991 and not 2016.
Yes. I remember actually liking it when it came out. “Safe sex doesn’t mean no sex, it just means use your imagination.”
Lol. In a fit of enthusiasm for his (brilliant) cover of “Don’t Walk Away Renee” I bought the Billy Bragg collection on iTunes that includes about 100,000 songs and I still remember the shock, mirth, and dismay of listening to “Sexuality” for the first time. Erm, nice thought, Billy?
Most of them are really good! Ironically, for someone known for his politics, his non-political songs are way better than the political ones (which are mostly as awkward as Sexuality, barring maybe Waiting for the Great Leap Forward and From Red to Blue).
I love Billy Bragg and I agree re his best songs. His awkward attempts at love really resonated with teenage me. My favorite review of him (c 1990) referred to him as the socialist urban folksinger with the incredibly bad love life and I think that sums it up nicely.
Absolutely. “A New England” is another favorite. And it wasn’t his fault that I compared his “Sexuality” to kd lang’s. (Having typed that, I suppose it works on many levels.)
yeah, “A New England” is probably up there on my favorite songs ever list. it’s lovely.
I feel like this conversation really isn’t complete without the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liNnCKPeEv0
I hadn’t seen the video before, even though I listened to “The Acoustic Motorbike” and Meryn Cadell’s “Angel Food for Thought” on repeat the summer before I came out. It is every bit as goofy as I imagined.
Also, the presence of Kirsty MacColl rights many wrongs.
Ooh, Sexuality. One of the high school boyfriends sang that to me–also “Great Leap Forward” and “Sister Goldenhair”–and it was a panty-dropper at the time, I won’t lie.
I mean, “the time” was “the summer of 2000, the beach at Santa Barbara, and a hot guy with a British accent,” so, y’know, mitigating factors.
I always took as “I’m not going to get weird about you being gay, at a time when people generally did.” A low bar, but maybe unusual for the time?
I once saw a video about Captain Jack Harkness set to that song, it was epic.
GoT spoilers thread! When did you yell the loudest??
Not the loudest, but among my top 3 yells of the episode: “Zig-zag, Rickon, ZIG ZAG! Garrrrgh why are you running in a straight line??!”
SEPENTINE
SERPENTIIIINE
Yes! He’s almost certainly been trained a little in archery (even as a kid), he should know what’s up. He also could have turned and tried to reach one of the burning crosses to hide behind.
I saw a lot of people making this comment, but it felt a bit like a modern understanding of evasion strategy. I mean, Rickon is, at best, 8 years old, he’s been a prisoner for weeks, probably hasn’t seen the sun or been fed well in that time, and now he had a chance to go back to his big brother and sister? The kid’s just going to run as fast as he can, bless him.
Moreover, last season worked especially hard to establish Ramsay as an expert marksman and a ruthless hunter. He’s not going to miss a shot anyway, no matter how you run.
Yeah, I was just crying for the kid. I’d have been dead so fast.
The actor is 15, but character ages on GoT are asd;lkfjas;ldkfj so point taken. Also, looottta people are suddenly experts on being hunted like the Deadliest Game.
“Serpentine Shel, serpentine!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC0keDGobck
I got SO fed up with the ASOIAF subreddit, all claiming they would have better arrow evasion skills as an imprisoned tween. And the Sansa hate, but that’s typical.
that place is a garbage fire of idiots who’ve never left their mother’s basements. i tapped out because i couldn’t take it anymore.
If I see ONE MORE idiot pontificate on how flawless Book Stannis is (and how similar they, fanboy internet commenter/neckbeard, are to a fatally hardass general with No Time For Your Shit) I’m out.
Just kidding, I love the conspiracy theories too much to ever quit that misogynistic nightmare.
True. The conspiracy theory-lover in me has been itching to log on every single Monday morning to satisfy that need for deep cut predictions.
Wait. There are people who like Stannis?
It’s a whole thing. They call him “Stannis the Mannis” and insist that in the novels, there’s zero chance he’s responsible for the Shireen-B-Q (because the symbol of masculinity and duty could never possibly do anything wrong)
Uggggggghhhhhh.
Davos.
Well…. until recently.
I used to 🙁
Ugh, I had no idea people were being so shitty and nasty about this! I yell at pretty much everyone on this show so I definitely wasn’t singling him out as particularly yell-deserving.
But yeah, I just saw a comment on one of the gawker-spawn-sites calling Rickon a “fucking idiot, who threw away the chance for Ned Stark’s only legitimate, non-magic son to rule because he didn’t know how to run serpentine.”
Way, way harsh.
SERPENTINE!! ZIG-ZAG!!
Poor kids been living on the run for X years and didn’t learn any survival skills during that time? He practically lived in his wolf and didn’t pick up ANY how to evade a predator moves?
Bob and Weave you floppy-haired Stark boy! Bob. And. Weave!
I’m kiiinda OK with him getting shot. Not because of my disturbing crush on Iwan Rheon, but just so Rickon wouldn’t break his streak of not saying a word in the entire series.
I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mentioned it… yeah, it’s really interesting that he’s been a non-speaking characters but still done so much, it seems like?
That’s a weird way to run…
I had that exact same though! Make yourself hard to hit, boy! John, yelling that to him would be more useful than running toward him.
Sansa tearing into Jon for not taking her thoughts on Ramsay Bolton. GET IT GURL
Your words will disappear. Your name will disappear. Your house will disappear. All memory of you will disappear.
That’s my girl!!!
Way before he had his turn as Tywin Lannister, Charles Dance was in The Last Action Hero, a movie-that-should-have-been-better-than-it-was starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; Dance was the bad guy, Benedict, and had a great line regarding his guard dogs: “I snap my fingers again and some time tomorrow, you emerge from several canine rector.” That’s what I thought of when Sansa was talking to Ramsay.
His own dogs, too.
Now I’m so scared she’s pregnant with his child! There hasn’t been any ominous vomiting though. YET!
All the redheads gotta sass Jon. It’s the only reason he exists, to accept the sass of redheads.
One day he’ll actually listen when a redhead tells him he’s being an idiot.
See I was a bit annoyed at that, because it’s not like she offered any helpful suggestions. Also she was part of the war council. She was right there. In the war council. While they councilled about war.
Well, she told him not do do what Ramsey was going to manipulate him into doing. And he did it anyways. And she told him to accept that Rickon’s basically dead. And he didn’t. She gave him some good insights into Ramsey.
And he agreed with her. That’s what bothers me, because everyone is going ‘ah that was great smash the patriarchy’ but he was not in fact being patriarchal, and they both agreed that there was nothing else to do but wait for more guys, except as far as Jon knew there were no more guys. Also it’s Jon. He is not going to just let someone shoot his little brother in the back without losing his shit.
See I’m pissy about the whole thing because it reeks of manufactured family drama based on easily cleared up misconceptions just so D&D could get a cheap thrill with the Vale turning up. It is my least favourite plot device, it was OOC for both parties and it is NOT NEEDED at this point in the show. There are ice dudes and the walking dead and they’re in bed with littlefinger now, there is no reasonable reason to be sowing distrust between the only two Starks that know each other are alive. God fucking damnit.
Yeah I was not a fan of this story arc. Sansa sending 1,000s of people to the slaughter just so she could show up and be like “shoulda listened to me!” is just………
I think showing her conflict in calling on Littlefinger made sense. And her reluctance to mention it to Jon in the first place, but once there was a chance Littlefinger was coming? Hopefully they go into her motivations more in the next episode
Hopefully but I doubt they will. D&D are not great on believable characterisation and they seem determined to strip Sansa of any kindness she has left
I think they will talk more about Sansa’s reasons for not mentioning Littlefinger. The next-episode preview had Jon and Sansa saying something like “we’re all the family we have left, we HAVE to trust one another,” so I expect that conversation is coming.
I’m going to go out to the park and pray to some trees that this happens
It really seemed like it was written that way only to surprise the audience, most of whom all expected the Vale to show up and save the day ever since she wrote that letter. I’m hoping they let her have a coherent explanation of her mindset (she could very reasonably having trouble trusting anyone) next week.
Maybe she wasn’t sure they really would show up, and would have preferred to have a winning strategy with the army she knew they had, and then if the Vale arrived they would be bonus, not essential. She didn’t get an answer to that letter, did she? Or she did, and I forgot?
She didn’t, that we saw, and I think it is ENTIRELY FAIR for her to have trust issues at this point. Additionally, why should she (someone who has been ignored at war council) advise Jon to behave based on resources that a) she has reservations about using b) may never even come!
Am I literally the only person who doesn’t think she was ignored
I wish we’d gotten just one more scene of Jon and Sansa together, so we had a little more to go on to analyze their motives and relationship. She says she *felt* ignored, so I think that counts for something.
Ah I’m just super scared that they’re going to turn this into sibling rivalry and I just want them to hug and be besties and throw Littlefinger off the Wall. Its making me hysterical.
I’m not saying GRRM is the best at this, but I feel like now that the show is out of books territory, the level of ham-fisted plot devicing has escalated dramatically. As much as I’ve enjoyed this season the most so far, I’m still annoyed at the obviousness of the writing.
I agree, but I gotta admit I also really like how at least now every episode has a coherent episode-level plot arc. It was getting pretty dicey in there seasons 4-5 where we’d get several episodes in a row that just had wacky pacing.
…it would be great if we could have evenly-paced, subtle, nuanced storytelling underneath all the battles and dragonfire, though.
I can see that, but GRRM moves things along sooooo sloooooowly that I like that this season it seems like pieces are actually moving forward rather than sideways. Yara and Theon say they’re headed to Dany and BOOM, next episode they’re readying to head to Westeros and fight together.
I think I let out a very loud “THE QUEEN IN THE NORTH!” during the shot of the knights of The Vale cresting the hill behind Sansa.
That was definitely my moment of loudest yelling as well!
That little satisfied smile she had.
I also yelled during that scene, but it was more, “Sansa this is great and all but you might have mentioned the knights of the Vale earlier maybe, like when you were trying to convince Jon to wait til y’all had a bigger army, remember when he was all ‘we don’t have a bigger army,’ that was your cue to say ‘actually I pulled some strings and now we do, just wait like 24 hours,’ but you didn’t say that, and I’m not saying that the mosh pit of terror is your fault because it definitely, definitely isn’t, but maybe there could have been less terror, and more planning, if all pertinent army-related information, had been on the table, Sansa, you’re still great and I love you but there was maybe a better time to reveal your army”
FUCKIN A
YUUPPPPPP.
I started yelling “BOSWORTH” and my poor cat was so confused.
I yelled “ON THE THIRD DAY LOOK TO THE EAST!!!” and my SO told me “wrong movie. Nerd.”
I was pretty proud of myself.
I yelled a lot! Probably the most when we were all realized that Jon was pitching the whole battle plan out the window.
SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO SANSA, JON
my mom got angry at me shipping Dany and Yara.
“Not every tv character is gay. Maybe they are just strong women being good friends!”
“MOTHER She literally said SHE WOULD MARRY DANY”
Also she was having actual sex with a lady woman a few episodes ago. I mean that’s fairly gay.
JUST GALS BEIN’ PALS
I SCREAMED when I saw lesbian Yara but then I remembered the mortality rate of tv lesbians :///
Are your mother and my brother the same person? Because they say the exact same words.
Every TV character is gay if you dream big enough! I came out of this episode shipping Dany/Yara and Tormund/Davos.
I’m dreaming of a Dany/Yara/Sansa triad.
Three dragons, three queens?
YES GIVE THIS TO ME
Holy cow I didn’t even think of that.
Best possible ending. Maybe with Margaery in there somehow too?
BUT EVERYONE ELSE SAW DANY’S SURPRISED SMILE WHEN YARA SAID THAT, RIGHT???? not just me?
*very Tyrion voice* Our queen does so love ships *winks*
I actually yelped SANSA! at a couple points. So satisfying!
But also, OH MY GOD, SHARE VITAL BATTLEFIELD INFORMATION, GODDAMIT
Do we know if she even knew they would show up at that point? The Vale is a little ways away, and they’ve got to go through some possibly hostile territory to even get to Winterfell. Plus, Jon hates Littlefinger – if he’d known she sent for help, he may have sent a raven after her telling them to stand down.
Travel times in Westeros have really gone down since we spent several episodes on the Kingsroad.
Robert Baratheon had to stop every mile to drink, shoot, or screw. Stannis was the only Baratheon who traveled with any sort of efficiency.
The best thing that has happened this season is that no one is beholden to Martin’s terrible plot pacing anymore.
No, now we’re beholden to D&D’s.
Littlefinger has a TARDIS I thought we all knew this.
I have appreciated this. Whoever magically shortened the roads and seas gets serious points this season.
No he wouldn’t, because he’s not actually an idiot. There are ways to factor in possible reinforcements to a battle plan. And he might have waited, like Sansa wanted him to do, if she had given him a reason why waiting might be advantageous.
Um, Jon being trampled to near-death under a pile of the dead. Because that is ACTUALLY, LITERALLY, NON-EXAGGERATEDLY MY WORST NIGHTMARE
I was reading an interview with the director for that episode, and apparently that whole bit was done because they ran out of the time/money to shoot what was originally scripted. I’m very impressed; they took their limitations and turned them into a very intimate and intense battle scene.
Very nearly gave me a panic attack so it sure was effective
Same. Ever since seeing the documentary about the Hillsborough disaster, I’ve had a hard time being in crowds.
(If you don’t know what the Hillsborough disaster is, do not look it up. Not being cute.)
That’s exactly what I was thinking of.
In retrospect, that’s exactly what I was thinking of during that scene. JFC.
I never “got” claustrophobia until I saw that scene. Harrowing, powerful, nightmare-inducing stuff.
And it’s the total opposite of the Hero’s Death in Battle, while being realistically how people did die in battle. So while I hated it on a physiological level I’m glad they included it.
I definitely nearly had a panic attack during the “Jon is being trampled” scene. I was already sobbing, but this put me over the edge!
During that scene I calmly said “This is unpleasant to watch” out loud to myself, alone in my apartment.
From when Theon showed up in the pyramid I just watched raptly with my hand in front of my mouth. My post-analysis was limited to “fuuuuck.” That’s still pretty much where I am.
I may have yelled “Fucking finally!” when we got to see Dany riding Drogon while he incinerated some shit. I’ve been waiting for that since season 1!
I know they’re expensive, but all I want to do is look at dragons.
During the scene with the dragons I was just like, “Welp, I figured out where their budget for the season went!”
Me: BURN IT ALL DOWN MOTHERFUCKERS!
Mr. Ipo: Jesus, what’s your problem?
He hasn’t been invested in it like me, obviously.
At the end of every episode (recap… cuz I read but I don’t watch) when I yell “where the eff is Gendry????”
(I am so tired of Starks dying, I just sigh now).
I thought that with Brienne this time around. Did they explain where she was this ep?
Lady Lyanna Mormont has an A+ mean mug. 10/10, would watch again.
Mean mug is the perfect term for her face! Ha.
WHEN DAVOS FOUND THE DOLL :(((((((
JUSTICE FOR SHIREEN
SHE NEEDS TO BE AVENGED
THE UNBURNABLE DOLL!
“You haven’t fed them for seven days.”
This isn’t where I yelled the loudest, but when Gray Worm was deciding which of the Masters to kill, all I could think was, “The penitent man shall pass… the penitent man shall pass… the penitent man… KNEELS!”
Toasties, I can’t figure out how to embed this awesome pair of tweets from Meghan O’Keefe (@megsokay), below. It really taps into some of the interesting nuance from the books that I think we miss in the the maelstrom of violence.
“I do give Game of Thrones mad props for translating in the show how Jon Snow was the better warrior and Robb Stark was the better tactician. Jon’s strategic weakness is always underestimating the math and Robb’s was not getting that humanity was messier, more personal than math. “
Dont make me think about Robb I’ll cry
Grade A analysis.
When Jon stood in the middle of the battle for like 15 minutes DOING NOTHING. Otherwise I was not surprised by this episode at all.
I am 100% not willing to believe he isn’t being protected by the Lord of Light after the sheer number of times he ought to have been trampled to death.
What if R’hllor just has a crush on Jon Snow and is keeping him alive for eye candy?
Yeah, I actually assumed they were implying that he was protected there (esp after the conversation with Melisandre). It was SO over the top.
Him and Tormund and Davos. When T and D had their convo before the battle I thought for sure one of them was done for.
When the Stark banner came up at Winterfell. THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING.
Can’t wait to see the Stark sigil on Winterfell during next episode’s opening credits!
Can we talk about how no one we really like who is a kind of principle character died? I was fully expecting Tormund to get it in the shield-wall part.
I was sure Davos was going to die.
Yeah, I was very worried for Davos when I saw him charging in after claiming he wasn’t great at fighting.
Nooo, he can’t die without seeing Brienne again!!
What. What are you even saying.
WUN WUN.
Ha. Just said this in a comment above. It sure seemed like they were setting it up for Tormund or Davos to die. Honestly, I think I’d have rather lost one of them than the giant (although I like them both).
ACTUALLY probably when a horse rode by with a headless dude on it, and the stump was just spurting blood. Followed by hysterical laughter.
Don’t do the thing, Jon Snow! ARGH YOU’RE DOING THE THING. YOU’RE BAD AT THIS JON SNOW!
Haven’t read everyone else’s comments yet, but had to come here to say that Ramsey’s death would have been WAY BETTER if it had been Osha. Imagine if the writers who get shit for misogyny had taken the opportunity to let a badass woman have that role (I guess Sansa sort of semi got to, but really it was Jon + her + Littlefinger + dogs that Ramsey himself trained). Also it would have had a certain power for the big bad to go down via a smaller moment like <OLDASS THE WIRE SPOLER> well, now you know who if you watched the Wire, heh.
I may have missed something that was amply covered on the show, but where was Brienne during the battle?
I imagine traveling back from Riverrun still, since she is without Littlefinger’s army teleportation device!
Ah. Somehow she didn’t get the memo that trips take much less time now than they did in previous seasons.
En route. She and Pod just left the Riverlands and travel times are…iffy in Westeros.
Stole this from the Skimm, but I am all about #Hiddlesbum this morning *heart eyes*
https://www.yahoo.com/style/tom-hiddleston-wants-…
More Dad-bama https://www.buzzfeed.com/angelospagnolo/times-bar…
I am here for the Obama girls’ side-eye.
Obama losing his chill around kids is my favorite thing.
Ahhh the gym one!
How did this picture get left off?? http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/12/31/article…
I will miss him and Michelle and their gorgeous daughters so much, but I’m sure they’ll all be going on to greater things.
Without sexualising them, those girls have grown into stunning young women. I also imagine that they are very smart and educated, and I really hope they both go and do amazing things (because of course they will.)
Same. I adore them and I cannot wait to see what (I hope) a shining example they will be for generations of young women and young black women and all humans everywhere. I did not have this feeling about W’s daughters.
Heyyyy so I just found out about Toast Slack and I’d love to know how to get involved! Is there someone I should message?
ppyajunebug at gmail
ppyajunebug will send you an invite if you give her your email address.
(Yay Sulagna on Toastieslack!)
JOIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNN UUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS 😉
So if I already have a Slack account do I need to give her my user name or just my email or what? I’m trying it out for project coordination, and it’s…..fine. But now I have an account. IDK I’m old I don’t get it.
Email her so she can send you an invitation to join! We have a much better time than any work project. Tons of channels for various interests!
I’ll be the first to admit I was pretty clueless when I was dating. But I feel a little better about it since I never sat there on a first date thinking, “I need to figure out a way to touch her.”
I actually, physically shuddered when that guy (THAT guy) wrote his sad gambit was to “give occasional friendly taps on the shoulder”. That is a good way to get me to barf on you. Or punch you. Or punch-barf you.
Yup, if someone ambush hugged me I would be done. I do not like being touched by strangers in any way. Recently I’ve been getting antsy when people on the subway brush up against me unnecessarily (and by unnecessarily I mean they do not have to do a full body sway every time the train moves a little).
I very much enjoy hugging friends and family members, but there’s a comfort level there.
Yeah, I’ve never been comfortable being hugged by a guy on a date. Like, a handshake and air kisses would be better, and I in no way enjoy air kisses.
(I’ve had too many guys hug me as a way of introducing their penis to my hips. Not ok, dudes. Not ok.)
Or get my boobs against their chest. Exactly.
I ended up at a bonfire with a bunch of dude acquaintances over the weekend, and when it was time to go they all wanted a hug goodbye. Well, I didn’t wear a bra under my sundress that day because it was so hot.
You’re welcome, I thought as I embraced each one.
I’m getting a kick imagining their surprise and “be cool man” self-talk.
I’ve gotten fairly good at anticipating that and turning it into a handshake-and-bro-hug, which seems to throw them off balance.
That’s a good skill. Sometimes I manage to throw my fists up under my chin which works to block contact and express my displeasure, but sometimes I don’t move fast enough.
Your hand at the level of your eyes!
Oh my goodness that is it!!
Always the best defense against Creepers and Nice Guys.
The handshake-and-bro-hug is even better if you throw in one of those WE’RE DONE NOW hearty claps on the back.
Oh yeah, no, the violent pat on the back is super-important. That’s what makes it a real bro hug.
I recommend punching first, otherwise your hand could get sticky.
GOOD THINKING.
This is why I need The Toast! Better misandry through learning!
How on earth do you work in a casual shoulder-tap? Is he excusing himself from the table and then sneaking up behind his dates when he returns? Is he reaching over to tap the shoulder on the other side when they’re seated at a movie, and then saying “ha ha, made you look!”?
I was similarly confused. Is he playing it off like, oh lemme brush this dirt off your shoulder?
I’m also confused by the shoulder-tap thing. You get the feeling that this cluefree guy probably has his phone set to a tap timer at, oh, 10-minute intervals, and every time it vibrates he manages to find a way to tap. A (very small) part of me is sympathetic to his utter lack of skillz and the rest is sad/horrified for his poor dates who are subjected to the awkwardness of this fool rotating through his hug-tap-forced eye contact repertoire.
I imagine he means touches the shoulder. Or I imagine he read advice to touch the shoulder and instead of thinking, ‘okay, a gentle approach of physicality’ he interpreted it as an “excuse me, ma’am” tap and now does that.
I had a hard time with this, too, especially because I was imagining dates where they’d be sitting across a table from one another, which is pretty fucking standard.
Grab his hand. Bend his fingers back as if to break them.
“give occasional friendly taps on the shoulder to establish a welcoming persona”
Never tap my goddamn shoulder.
NGL I’m not a touchy feely person, unprovoked touching literally makes me jump and I have to build up to touching people in my head. But if I’m into someone, especially on a date, I make a deliberate effort to touch them during our conversations. I usually aim for the upper arm or knee, its non-sexual and non-committal, but shows you like them a bit more than normal.
Yeah, a lot of this pick-up-artisty dating advice comes from people who are not naturally good at flirting looking at what happens in a successful flirting interaction and trying to consciously mimic it. Which on the surface makes sense and has a lot of appeal! So it can be sold as a product to men who are worried about their dating abilities. But, really, in a successful flirting interaction the touching grows out of existing chemistry and mutual-attraction present in the conversation, it does not force those things into being out of thin air. And plenty of people flirt without any touching in early interactions.
Captain Awkward is so good at awkward dating advice.
Right! The problem is instructing people to somehow intentionally do what others are naturally doing, probably even unconsciously doing.
So, from comments here and there… is it Not Common to hug at the start of a date? I don’t initiate them (I’m not so big on hugging my friends hello, so it’s not a habit of mine), but it seems to happen more often than not, and I’m fine with it…..? Maybe the guys I go out with are more outgoing types? If it’s someone from online, normally he’ll recognize me, get up, and open his arms in a way that leads to a hug, which I always feel reduces some of the tension of the awkwardness of the situation… and since I’m not the worlds biggest hugger, I assumed this happened to everyone!
Dating is the weirdest.
I don’t think I would hug anyone at the beginning of a date (or any other situation where I’m meeting someone for the first time), but I think it’s normal at the end?
I feel weird when people I have literally just met want a hug, but I’m not a big hugger. I like handshakes a lot, not a business one but a nice hold. I guess I’m weird. But I would hug people at the end, especially if things have gone well.
I totally handshake dates when we first meet.
But I handshake everyone, especially in the first meeting, it was beaten into me by my mother and also avoids the awkward ‘do we hug or wave here’ situation.
I find that lampshading awkward situations helps to resolve them, so I pick neither hugging nor waving, settling instead for the casual fistbump.
I AM a big hugger, I hug my friends hello and goodbye, several of my friends and I are cuddly and snuggly, and my family is big into hugging, and I would definitely not ever hug someone I was just meeting in person for the first time. I am a handshake person in those circumstances.
(At the end of the date, yeah sure, if it went well.)
I am not into it. At all. But I have a very short list of people I’m comfortable touching me, soooo.
I think it’s becoming normal? I feel like people hug more on introductions than they did ten years ago, but it’s also possible that’s a social cue I always assumed didn’t apply to me.
It’s common here, but so is trying to kiss people without asking first if they want to be kissed.
I tend to ask ‘do you hug or shake hands?’ because it sets the tone for enthusiastic consent in a pretty low-key way. If they then try to make me feel uncomfortable for explicitly asking, that is an important data point.
My personal preference changes like a Rock Paper Scissors game according to some weird internal algorithm… Hug! Wave! Shake Hands!
I love the phrasing of the question! I always feel like the “should we or shouldn’t we” awkward moment is the hard part, not the hug or lack thereof. That’s such a great way to alleviate that tension.
If I have learned nothing else from going to nerd conventions where I see the same people over and over, it’s the phrase, “Are you a hugger?”
Sometimes the answer is no and then I just express happiness at meeting them/seeing them again. Sometimes the answer is “Yes!” and then there is enthusiastic hugging! Sometimes I already know that person is a hugger, and then we see each other from across the room and squee and run into each other’s arms.
The first time I met clevermanka in person she hugged me and picked me up off the ground. It was GLORIOUS.
I don’t hug people on meeting. Hell, mostly I don’t even hug people I know very well! But I think you do have to have a tolerance for awkward tension (which I’ve built) in order to ignore someone else’s hug cue.
I’m ok with leaning into the awkwardness of the situation. I’ll double down on it and offer a handshake while the dude still has his arms spread for the hug.
I think maybe it depends on how long you’ve been chatting online before you meet? If you’ve already established a texting/chatting relationship through whatever app you’re using, it seems to make sense to hug. If you’ve just matched on the app and immediately set a time and place, it would be weird.
Jodhpur clips! Don’t hate. They’re awesome for keeping your pant legs neatly tucked into tall boots.
ALSO – a reminder! Toast meetup/wake for Rochester Toasties at Butapub THIS FRIDAY at 7:30! Email me at my username [at] gmail [dot] com to let me know if you’d like to come. I need to make reservations because South Wedge + Friday night = Chaos.
In the seventh grade my friends dumped me and cited three massive social sins as the reason: my obsession with dragons and fantasy novels, my wardrobe of secondhand grandma sweaters, and my weird diet of vegetarian Mediterranean food and La Croix. The fact that those same girls are now yoga moms obsessed with Game of Thrones, “eco-conscious” living, and a vaguely hipster-esque devotion to flavored seltzer is baffling and beautiful.
Hey weird friend, you can sit next to me.
Seltzer, man, why is this a thing? It’s just scented bubbly water. The lack of flavor is infuriating to me. Also, I’ve always wanted to ask this: is it pronounced “la-croy” or “la qua” like the designer? (or alternately “la-croyx”?) I don’t want to be inadvertently pretentious when I disparage the uselessness of brand name seltzers.
LaCroy! Because Wisconsin French is a deeply rooted but not always correct thing.
OH MY GOD DON’T GET ME STARTED I moved to Wisconsin at 15 after spending my life in the Canadian French Immersion system and the St. Croix River and the foyer and Prairie du Chien and they didn’t know what sushi was and and and I couldn’t deal for the longest time.
I was constantly getting giggled at for I-knew-not-what because perfectly normal words to me were apparently pronounced completely different or just not used that way (looking at you, ‘phone’ as verb.)
But I phone all my friends!
Prayer du Shen!
American pronunciation of foreign words is such a fickle thing. I got yelled at for being “pretentious” in college by my NYC friends because I pronounced gyro “yee-ro” and they insisted that Americans only say it “jai-ro” and I was like I’m from WI I promise I’m not putting on airs??
Bicycle panniers. Is it “pan-yer” or “pan-yay”? I catch myself saying both.
Don’t forget Butte des Morts!
I don’t even want to imagine that one.
My favourite one that I forgot to mention was how they pronounced Fin du Monde, a Quebec beer, in a northern Minnesotan bar. Fin (as in a fish’s appendage)+due+mondee. It took me a few minutes to actually understand what they were saying.
I didn’t discover Fin du Monde beer until after I left home, so I pronounce it Frenchly, but can you give me any clue on how to pronounce the brewery name? I just say it “Unibrow” because I am a crass American.
Ha! I like unibrow. It’s “uni-brew”, like, Aussie-way-of-saying-University-shorthand, then brew.
But, but…La Croix is so tasty! I’m drinking the grapefruit flavor right now, actually.
I have a feeling it’s probably some unpronounceable-to-my-American-mouth thing, but I say “la-croy” and everyone seems to know what I mean. Although my friends and I who drink it just call it fizzy water and we’re not particular about brands although my favorite is Polar–they’re vanilla orange is pretty great.
Yes, fizzy water is what I call the name brand or any other option.
Pronouncing things super-Frenchy is totally my thing so I say La-crrrrwaaaaah, but that’s largely talking to myself as I poke in the fridge.
I lost my taste for sugar-y soda in high school so I am enjoying smug seltzer hipster feelings now. I TOLD YOU ALL IT WAS DELICIOUS!
Yep, “fizzy water” is all brands, all flavors.
(LaCroix coconut is the best though and suddenly my grocery store has started carrying it. This is a problem because I have a SodaStream and am not supposed to spend money on fizzy water.)
THEY MAKE COCONUT?! Now I’m sad we don’t have that. I was just happy to have pamplemousse. (I can’t spell and I’m not looking that up.)
One of my friends got me hooked on calling it Mom Water.
Whyyyyy doesn’t the trader joe’s fizzy water come in grapefruit?? That’s the only reason I keep buying La Croix! It comes in GRAPEFRUIT.
it’s like pop! but not sinfully sweet! (the highest praise i can give a dessert is “it’s good, it’s not too sweet”)
Those are not sins, they are virtues! You were way too cool for those girls and they felt intimidated.
I like you.
It sounds like you were too cool for them and ahead of the curve. (Perhaps too far ahead)
My friends dumped me in grade eight without giving any reasons; they just actively excluded me from all conversations and activities. 🙁
Yeeeeeep, this happened the summer to me before grade eight. No reason given either. I ended up chatting with my former best friend years later, and she was like, “Yeah idk, I think I just got annoyed one day.” What a insane, cruel power trip that must have been, to effectively cut someone out and be so blasé about it.
When I was about 14 I had a Nirvana poster on my wall (this was the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death; NME really went for it) and a friend of mine mocked it, saying that their music was crap and that Cobain “looked like a hobbit”. Within a year she was hugely into Nirvana and failed to acknowledge that any of this had happened.
Seventh grade is so cruel and arbitrary.
This is the source of most of my resentments and grudges in life, being mocked for something that becomes cool 2 or more years later (see also: the fabulous palazzo pants I wore in 4th grade).
I really hope you were reading Dealing with Dragons.
So what you’re saying is we would have been best friends in the 7th grade?
Ha, this is great.
Today in (Feminist) History! [Archive]
On this day in 1883 was the birth of Daisy Turner, an American poet and storyteller known for her oral histories of her family’s history from Africa and England to America. Her father Alec Turner was born into slavery and taught to read (despite it being illegal at the time) by the granddaughter of the plantation owner. Eventually he left the plantation and traveled to Vermont, where he could be a free man, and after serving in the Union Army, he eventually settled in Vermont and married his wife, Sally. Daisy was their ninth child, after their eighth died in infancy; her parents eventually had sixteen children.
Even as a child, Daisy was outspoken; one of the most popular stories about her (which became the subject of a children’s book), took place when she was about eight years old. Her teacher instructed her to carry a black doll and recite a poem about Africa in the school pageant, but instead she recited her own poem, made up on the spot. Her performance won her first prize. Another story involves her at age 16, confronting a man who had cheated her father until she returned with the money owed to him, and later at the age of 44 she brought suit for breach of promise against a white man when he broke off his engagement to her– and won the settlement. She was also known for being a “firecracker” in general, and used to walk around with her shotgun, supposedly enjoying her ability to make being a little uncomfortable.
But she truly became known only when she was in her 100s, and a Vermont historian reached out to her after seeing an article about her in the newspaper. Beck called Daisy on the phone, and after passing her test– “Are you a prejudiced woman?” “I don’t think so…” “Well, come anytime!”– she met Daisy and began to write down all the stories the elderly woman knew about her history. This included the story of her great-grandmother, who was shipwrecked on her honeymoon journey to Africa from England. She was saved by the son of an African chieftain and had a child with him, Alexander. Alexander was captured by a slave trader and brought to New Orleans, purchased by John Gouldin, and taken to a plantation in Virginia. It was here that his son Alec Turner, Daisy’s father, was born.
All of Daisy’s stories were recorded, and eventually formed a children’s book, a documentary film, and then finally a book, Daisy Turner’s Kin: An African American Family Saga. At the age of 104 (the same year she passed away), Daisy was also filmed in a Ken Burn’s historic Civil War series, telling her family stories.
I didn’t want to write about it because it’s an incredibly sad story (and I am not in the right head-space) but today in 1734 was also the death of Marie-Joseph Angélique (her given slave name, her birth name is not known), a Portuguese-born slave in New France (Canada), who was convicted and hanged for allegedly setting the fire that destroyed much of Old Montreal. However there is no proof she actually set the fire at all, the numerous people who testified against her only said they “thought she did it”. There wasn’t a single witness, nor even a single reason why she might have done it– except that she was black, and a slave, and considered a “troublemaker” because she had tried to escape before.
Daisy Turner is one of those people who makes me wish I believed in an afterlife because boy howdy she sounds like someone I’d want to party with.
Right??? Getting shit done, carrying around her shot-gun, calling it like it is and generally being awesome. I mean really:
ROLE MODEL.
Alexandra Petri should be showered with plaudits, kudos, and dubloons. “Waiting for Pivot.”
She’s so great; between her and their Trump coverage I’m now constantly in danger of running out of monthly Washington Post articles, which is a new phenomenon for me.
Everything of hers is better than the thing that came before, which was superlatively excellent in its own right. I want to quote my favorite lines, but I’d just wind up c&p’ing the entire thing.
Also, I think the Cavs victory was the universe’s way of giving Cleveland one positive thing to focus on before Republicans descend upon it this summer.
The only thing I’m looking forward to for the rest of the election is Petri’s take on the Clinton-Trump debates. Bring it, Alexandra.
Thank you…that is perfection.
I love how Nicole had to specify “dog not for sale” because you know 104 of us where about to comment CAN I HAVE THE PUPPY TOO?!?!?!
Ah, man. Were, not where. Too early. Need more coffee.
Sansa really is the perfect model for this job.
It’s brilliant marketing – I would buy literally ANYTHING modeled by Sansa!
She was such a good doggy!
Well, obviously we can’t all keep Sansa, but I assume she will deliver each tote bag herself.
If this is what finally gets me hammerbanned from the Toast, then that is my fate, but: LaCroix is some bullshit. I grew up in Wisconsin in the 90s, and let me tell you about the innocence-shattering experience that is going to a friend’s house and thinking you’re getting a soda and then getting one of those things. I didn’t try a new soda for years after that, I was so betrayed.
Not sure CA is SFW but I’m going to bring that up on my phone. “Breaking the touch barrier,” good god. I’m also picturing the Homestar Runner “Can you feel that?” under-the-table kicks.
I’ve never tried it, but sounds exactly like something I would not like.
LOL @ Homestarrunner under the table kicks.
My mother was a devoted Illinois drinker of LaCroix throughout the 1980s-90s. And there was no betrayal for painful than reaching for a glass of what you thought was water and encountering flat LaCroix instead. Vile, abominable stuff.
YES! Why do people think that this weird bubbly semi-flavored water is delicious? Why taunt me thusly with cans all lined up at the school lunch and not a single one of them as the requisite amount of sugar? I mean, honestly.
I have strong feelings of hatred toward sparkling water in general, flavored or no, due to the number of times I have taken a large swig of delicious, refreshing water only to find that it is sparkling water and I am basically pouring wet sand down my throat. You cannot re-hydrate yourself with that shit; it is, at best, a sipping distraction.
Also I live in Sweden now, and they hide real water amidst the sparkling with ZERO INDICATION of which is which. So I’ll go to the grocery after a run and suspiciously poke at and shake a bunch of bottles until I find one that says “natural” and does not froth when shaken, and I’ll buy it, and IT IS STILL SPARKLING WTF.
No, I’m with you. I live in MN now and someone was like here try this cherry lime LaCroix! And I was like ooh! And then immediately like UGH because it was just hyper-carbonated water. Too bubbly. I expected something else and I felt cheated.
On the other hand, I grew up in Wisconsin in the 80s-90s and I spent a lot of time drinking Cleary Canadian and LaCroix. And New York Seltzer, now that I think of it, which they sold at the deli next to where I worked for a few years.
I mean, we also drank our share of Jolly Good and Wildwood. I really miss Jolly Good.
Oh my gaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwd Clearly Canadian! I haven’t seen that in YEARS, but that brings back some fond childhood memories. However, I have never had LeCroix (*Cough* I had to look it up to see what it even was). It actually sounds like something I would like, so that makes it even slightly more odd. Is it not a thing in Canada maybe? Or do i just live under a rock?
Seconding, for whatever that’s worth, how awesome that Gore Vidal piece is.
Its so good. Cosigned.
Sansa looks so proud to be helping!
Also, Obama is Peak Dad (his turkey pardoning joke was amazing), and I feel like he would appreciate a copy of the “Dad Magazine” book. He looks like the kind of person who has Lots of Opinions about Twine and how Glue Used to have a Different Recipe.
Obama reminds me of my dad sometimes with his dad jokes, mom jeans, reading to his daughters, and his odd shoe choices with said jeans (my dad’s a big fan of old dress shoes + jeans).
Did you see how excited he got about the marshmallow cannon at the White House Science Fair a few years back? He totally has Opinions about Twine.
My nightmares involve Obama as my dad and him being “not angry, just disappointed” in that amazing voice of his. I think I would melt into a puddle of shame.
For that Toastie who was following along with my genetically mutated rose last week. I have more photos for you.
My rose is an Alien Rose after all: http://i1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah40/Avicenna…
Because apparently this is just what we do now. http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/AvicennaIpswich…
And I took a photo of the interior of the flower for you so you can see there are some stamens present, so it might not be two genetic mutations? I would have to compare with a normal Cecile Brunner, obviously. http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/AvicennaIpswich…
Now I’ll come back and edit whichever links didn’t work.
Have a great day!
So, when does that rose-beast achieve consciousness and begin its quest for garden domination?
I think it has already begun but just in case from now on I will make sure its fertiliser is vegetarian.
I missed your original post, but boy howdy that looks terrifying
Here’s the original head-scratcher. The eff. I might also point out that this time of year around here is when we’re supposed to be cutting our roses back. This Little Shop of Horrors is covered in buds, and so are two of my others (who are behaving normally) that I purchased at the same time. Global warming is real, kids. This day last year there was frost on my windows. Today I wore a wraparound skirt and sandals.
http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/AvicennaIpswich…
That is so strange but also kind of cool looking! Is it an extreme example of rose proliferation or just a super weird mutation?
I honestly do not know. The Toastie who knows her stuff sent me to this link last week – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_model_of_flower…
I’m not quite sure I’ve got my head around it just yet, personally. She thinks its two mutations. I think with the stamens present it might be one, but I would need to have a comparison to a healthy Cécile Brünner to count the stamens and be sure. The photos I’ve looked at aren’t informative. Petals in the way.
WOW. That is so weird and lovely.
So when I saw a previous post about your mutant rose, there either weren’t pics or I didn’t click the links, so I thought it sounded cool if more than a bit freaky. But it turns out that the pics actually make me feel really, really uncomfortable just looking at them.
So…kill it with fire? I regret my curiosity now! (Still kinda cool though.)
Kill it with fire was my response to that first pic, TBH
“for tidy legs” is an excellent slogan. A+ sloganing, Brits.
It seriously is. I laughed at first, and then I was like, “Well, I guess actually my legs could be tidier. Wouldn’t those be good for keeping your pants smooth inside boots?” And now I want a pair of jodhpur clips, so yeah, WELL PLAYED.
Someone sold that sweet summer child in the Captain Awkward column a bill of goods. Honey! Your dates can see you trying to calculate the timing of your ‘casual’ arm touches down to the millisecond. Stop trying to play them like a video game! You don’t have to live this way!
In more promising examples of masculinity: Dad Obama is the best Obama. I hope someday he writes a memoir on parenting as president, because I bet it would be great.
a friend of mine had a boyfriend in college who we all called “three hour arm trick” because it took him ALL of the Princess Bride to slooooooowly put an arm around her shoulders, in a room full of their friends.
That’s like when your dog sloooooowly gets on the couch, starting with a lean and then lifting one paw off the ground at a time. They might even leave the last leg on the ground because then it’s ok, right? They know they are doing something that crosses a boundary so maybe if they do it really really subtly and slowly it will be cool.
Like when they tell Louis not to get off the couch in Empire Records so he sneaks around the store holding a couch cushion.
Honestly, dating is bad enough, does there HAVE to be touching too?
*touch*
“Wellitwasnicemeetingyougottagohaveanicelife!”
My favorite part was when he talked about “establishing a welcoming persona,” like he’s an alien living among us and trying to pass for a normal human male.
http://www.tedcruzforhumanpresident.com/
I thought it could be successful to write a book about social cues for the awkward called something like “Social Behaviour For Mingling With The Humans” with a barely-subtext flavour “Really not a book for robots infiltrating human society in preparation for overthrowing the fleshlings, that’s just ridiculous.”
A+ only acceptable LaCroix usage.
Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Genuine question, is LaCroix the same as the LaCroix that Eddie is always on about in Ab Fab? Cause that is a slow burner of a joke if it is, but also hilarious.
Gif jinx!
I was very confused about Lacroix being favoured by health conscious budget-wise mums, as my only point of reference is Ab Fab. But it seems like Ab Fab Lacroix is designer Christiane Lacroix, and trendy LaCroix is pronounced La-croy and is fizzy water.
But maybe they should partner up.
Seriously it took me a moment to realise yours was a different comment. I was all ‘huh I don’t remember putting both gifs in’
I actually thought Lacroix was a designer that they made up for Ab Fab. I know dick all about fashion
Hilarious PSA thread? Here’s my favorite of all time: Fatal Floor.
“And to think, he’d only just come from the hospital…”
You link just took me back to the link roundup. Which, if links have to go somewhere, it’s not a bad place to be, but I want to see this Fatal Floor!
Me too.
Oh, heck! Here it is, with no fancy linking attempted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt016gTNp_k
MIGHT AS WELL SET A MAN-TRAP.
Wait. LaCroix is a Thing now?
It certainly would explain why there are now piles of it in the entrance of my supermarket.
Is that new? I guess I’m from the midwest and my mom has been stocking it for a few years, I think after Clearly Canadian became harder to find.
I’m near Philadelphia. I drank seltzer water growing up, but it was all store-brand stuff (I think). LaCroix is not something I’m familiar with!
Oh my god, Clearly Canadian. That’s a flashback to my childhood right there.
I didn’t know that either, but I mean, it’s in Target in NYC, so I’d assume its popularity is growing.
I’ve been enjoying it, but I am by no means someone you want to look to to figure out what’s trendy.
::whispers:: I don’t really see how it’s much better than the generic supermarket brands of seltzer water…
It tastes the same and I love that the popularity means supermarkets are gonna play weird flavor catch-up to capitalize on its popularity.
So I usually buy the cheap supermarket seltzers, but I prefer la croix because it has no sodium where the other ones usually do.
::whispers:: few things are better than their generic store brand, my health-conscious midwestern mother brought home crates upon crates of Sam’s brand flavored water when I was a kid, along with Malt-O-Meal cereal and and Wal-Tussin and day-old bread, and I suffered not.
I have always vaguely thought of it as one of the supermarket brands! It was certainly a cheaper variety of thing than Perrier or San Pellegrino. It’s weird to see all this prestige accruing to a brand that’s been around so long and doesn’t seem to be doing anything different. It’s like if everyone suddenly got excited about Land o’ Lakes butter.
Land o’ Lakes is the best supermarket butter, tho. I wouldn’t be surprised by the enthusiasm….
I don’t even know how it stacks up against other butter because it is the only kind I ever buy!
Wegmans seltzer water 4eva
Wegmans-brand anything is usually pretty reliable!
My husband likes to buy their lime mint, which I find disgusting and make him take to the office with him.
That does sound awful, but I would try it once for Science.
Think mojitos!
What I’ve noticed now is that supermarkets (and Walgreens) are making generic “sparkling water” but they’re adding sucralose or aspartame to it. They don’t make just regular, unsweetened seltzer. At least not from what I’ve seen recently, but I could be wrong.
It’s not, but the supermarket generics never ever come in grapefruit flavor.
can confirm that there is a very enthusiastic thread on my fb feed right now about grapefruit lacroix that has been going on all morning
it has been unequivocally A Thing for a couple of years almost in San Francisco….
I’m in Boston and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in my life.
Spendrift Seltzer, though, is currently EVERYWHERE here.
Also Polar, from Worcester (which I used to commute past and it had a giant inflatable polar bear on the roof in nice weather) – is everywhere.
Yes. Polar, and I also see Poland Springs everywhere. I think they have an iron grip on MIT.
I have a very distinct memory of an America’s next Top Model episode where the contestants had to try and pronounce all of these weird designer names and everyone said LaCroix like the beverage not the fancy clothes and that’s really all I know about LaCroix (of either variety).
That was so awkward. Didn’t one of them start crying?
Probably.
I remember an episode of “America’s Most Smartest Model” where they had to spell designer names and Blonde Rachel (as opposed to Aussie Rachel) spelt Tommy Hilfiger “Hilfinger”.
Oh god, I totally forgot America’s Most Smartest Model was a thing. But now it’s all rushing back to me.
(extremely Shirley Bassey voice) ♫ Hil-FINGAAAAAAAH ♫
oh gosh that show! I’d completely forgotten about it.
Once on actual America’s Next Top Model (I’ve only ever seen four or five episodes; no idea which cycle) they all had to do a “political issue” themed photo shoot–this one woman got something about anti-fur and during the judging they asked her what she thought and she said it’s okay when they only use animals that are already dead, like on the road.
Wait how do you say the fancy clothes one? I DO NOT KNOW!
Like “Luh-kwa,” I think??
ohhhhhhhh that poor CA writer. Man, I feel* you. I have Asperger’s and trying to figure out flirting was just AWFUL. It’s like learning a language phonetically, only by lip reading. Luckily I was coming at it from the female side, so there was less pressure to initiate things, but understanding someone else’s body language is really, really hard for some people. I ended up reading a book that helped me understand how to parse things that come naturally to basically everyone. I’m still terrible at flirting, but at least I know WHY I’m terrible at it.
*I don’t ACTUALLY feel you. Or touch you. Or make eye contact.
Coming at from the male side, I decided to give up on that stuff a long time ago. Flirting and dating seemed like things that required practice and I really felt like I had no right to make others uncomfortable just because I was a little lonely. Not that I’d recommend that to others or anything, (different strokes and all that) but I have a mortal dread of upsetting other people.
I’ll come sit beside you with my mortal dread of upsetting people. Here’s hoping that love happens in that comically accidental way advertised in all the movies.
I’ll join you two, too.
What book was that? I’d love to be even slightly less horrible at nonverbal communication.
THE TOAST TOTES HAVE MERMAIDS JESUS CHRIST YOU PEOPLE REALLY DO KNOW EVERYTHING I LOVE.
WHAT WILL I EVER DO WITHOUT YOU?????
(Also, I am REALLY EXCITED today because yesterday my bff asked my lovely roommate to MARRY her and they are WONDERFUL and love is GREAT and I CAN’T STOP CAPSLOCKING.)
I love everything in this comment.
MISANDRIST mermaids, even!
Am I the only person here who likes flavored seltzer? I started drinking it when I was a kid (my mom was a big fan) and I’ve never not liked it. I completely understand that tastebuds are weird and everybody tastes things different from one another, but someone please assure me I’m not the lone Toastie who loves flavored fizzy water?
I am 1000000% in. My parents didn’t want me and my brother to have soda, so we always had seltzer on hand (plain store-brand or Canada Dry since there weren’t fancy brands back then) and it was basically what I drank my entire life. Then these last few years, so many fancy seltzer brands have blown up! It’s AMAZING. I like LaCroix just fine, but my favorites are Polar and Boylan. I also like going to the fancy organic grocery store for the sole purpose of getting a single bottle of some stupidly expensive seltzer I’ve never tried.
Polar’s orange-vanilla is MY FAVORITE!
polar!!! my partner’s mom got me into seltzer in NY one summer because of polar. i found some randomly at a grocery store back home and as soon as i finished telling her about it she jumped in her car, drove across town, and bought out their entire stock i think.
I would probably do the same. My local grocery only stocks Polar in cans seasonally.
Grocery store brand plain seltzer for the win!
<raises hand> I do! A coworker got me into La Croix and I was kind of befuddled but also delighted to discover it is A Thing now. I hate soda for the most part, but love getting to drink something good that is not plain water. Sparkling water in general is also a good redirect from alcohol on a hot summer night, especially if you find out the alcohol is messing with your sleep.
Yep, the alcohol re-direct — I’m attempting to employ that right now to avoid a summer of too-much-wine mornings, and seltzer is my new best friend.
Meanwhile I love mixing flavored fizzy water with cheap wine.
NEW YORK SELTZER FOR EVER.
(So, no.)
Also, what happened to Clearly Canadian. I loved that shit.
I had a pretty significant fondness for Clearly Canadian in high school. I THINK I saw it somewhere in the last couple years, but it had a different design? So it it may still exist.
New York Seltzer is what my mom got hooked on! GOOD STUFF. I hadn’t even thought about Clearly Canadian in ages. A glance at their web site doesn’t instill hope for them distributing large-scale anytime soon.
Oh dear, that is a sad website. I loved Clearly Canadian as a kid. I always got it when we had lunch at the local bakery, that and a vanilla cupcake (and presumably a sandwich or something but I don’t remember that part).
As a kid I got to buy one Clearly Canadian a day on road trips (always blackberry) and I have never stopped looking for it in gas stations even though I haven’t seen it in years. It was the best.
O my gods, you guys, I didn’t even know that there were others like me out there. I almost cried when NY Seltzer stopped existing (my brother and i liked it so much we had t-shirts) and again when Clearly Canadian also stopped.
I make my own seltzer now (I use soda, is a little too frothy, don’t care). The latest experiment was rhubarb lemon. Good-not-great, must find a way to make it somehow rhubarbier and also less sweet and less tart at the same time.
Oh man — I haven’t thought about New York Seltzer in years, and being reminded of it just makes ME want to cry a little. I feel like my local supermarket only carried for a couple of months before it disappeared. (I don’t know why, but this inspired me to wistfully remember Hostess Pudding Cakes, but that’s a whole other deal.)
New York Seltzer is BACK, y’all – I even saw it recently in my local grocery store!
Clearly Canadian was the best! They were trying to bring it back via kickstarter a while ago but it came to naught.
I AM HERE FOR CLEARLY CANADIAN.
The blackberry was my absolute favorite. I miss it always.
I almost got into it right at the beginning of my pregnancy when I had to give up everything else. But it didn’t last long, and now I’m off carbonation anyway. I just prefer regular old water? My mom loves it, though, and refuses flat water at all.
I like carbonation way too much. I limit myself to one can a day or that’d be all I drank after my morning tea.
I like to mix flavored seltzers with juices from the grocery store that I find too sweet on their own. It’s like a little alcohol-free mixed drink and they’re usually pretty refreshing.
Newman’s Own pomegranate lemonade+ Polar Mandarin is my fave so far.
I do that, too! POM and Polar’s Orange Vanilla is my fave. I’ve never seen the Mandarin flavor–I’ll keep my eye out for it, thank you!
Orange juice plus lemon LaCroix is my dad’s go-to weekend-breakfast drink.
I love the lime LaCroix with cranberry juice for dinner. I call it my mocktail and it makes me feel fancy on nights where I don’t want to even think about drinking a glass of wine.
My new fave is grapefruit juice and seltzer. Just a little bitter! And my entire childhood the only beverage alternative to milk in the house was club soda and cranberry juice, so I have a fondness for it.
I do this too! Juices are was too sweet on their own. It’s like punch. I like mixed berry-cranberry juice & seltzer with a lime.
oooh, that’s a thought. I was mixing Honest Lemonade (which is low sugar) with TJ’s plain sparkling water when I had both and that was A+
I got into it a few years ago because I wanted to stop drinking soda but still craved something “fizzy.” I think it’s great! Sometimes I drink it on its own and sometimes I use it to “cut” fruit juice, especially something that’s too sweet like Ocean Spray.
You, me, and sourwatermelons seem to have this habit in common!
We know what’s up. 😉
Btw, neat summer trick: freeze melon balls to use as ice cubes instead of ice. Just set them on parchment paper on a tray, freeze ’em, then store them in some tupperware or a freezer bag to use as needed.
And me!
I do this, too! Sometimes I just like the fizzy water with barely-there taste, but more often I tend to mix it with fruit juice so I get a little more flavor, with fizziness and less sugar. I am trying to wean myself off of Coke Zero and this is what I use to get through the day.
For something pre-mixed, I also like the flavored San Pellegrino in a can. They’re part seltzer, part fruit juice. Blood orange is my fav. But they’re not terribly cheap, so I usually stick to mixing my own.
Love it, although I’m a late adopter, but I have shamelessly hooked the small childrens on it and told them it’s “soda” The look on boychild’s friends faces when he offers them one is pretty hilarious though.
Everyone I know is OBSESSED with flavored bubbles. I only got on board recently when I quit drinking (LaCroix is a v big thing amongst sobernauts).
WELCOME TO THE FIZZY FAMILY
May I ask you a question about this drink? I moved from Canada, and they think I’m slow, eh….
I am road tripping in the states a lot this summer, and this sounds like it could be rad! So by no sugar, do they mean no taste of sweetness? Is it just carbonated water with fruit flavour? Would the coconut flavour be neutral, or does it taste sugary through some weird artificial means? Thank you!
The coconut LaCroix is sweet, much more than the rest of the flavors. I drink the coconut when I want to pretend I’m having soda, and the lime or grapefruit when I want to have seltzer. Also: the grapefruit flavor is labeled as pamplemousse (at least where I live), which I extra love.
Yeah, there’s really no sweetness, which is what I think turns most people off. It smells like mango/raspberry/cherry so your mouth and nose are having vastly different experiences, which can be a little weird. None of them taste sugary at all, so if you take a sip expecting a typical sweetened soda, you’re going to have a surprise in store and not necessarily a pleasant one.
OH LET ME TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE COCONUT FLAVOR. It is really really really strange. I have a twelve-pack that’s lasted me about six months because only once in a while do I have a taste for it. I’m sure the people who like it love it, but it’s…something. I did make a lovely drink with it, some OJ, and coconut milk, but it wasn’t something I’d necessarily want on a road trip.
oh, oh, I forgot to mention the blackberry cucumber La Croix (Curate skinny can variety) is pretty much the best flavor in the history of ever. I love pamplemousse (grapefruit) and apricot and refuse to try coconut.
I don’t think they have that flavor here (I’ve never seen the skinny cans) and now I am distraught.
Here it’s only at Target? IDK.
I see your blackberry cucumber and raise you kiwi watermelon.
No sugar, no sodium, no calories, etc etc. La Croix, for example, is more about aroma that flavor. They basically flavor seltzer water with things like citrus oils so you get the essence of fruit without sweeteners and junk.
Mostly not flavored for me (with the exception of Clearly Canadian, gone but not forgotten). My midwestern fizzy water habit started early, though, and resulted in my parents buying cases of Mendota Springs (which I preferred to La Croix) until my boyfriend won the gift-giving contest with a very early SodaStream.
Someone gave me her old 90s selzer-maker. The CO2 cannister on this thing is HUGE. I need to see if I can find someone who’ll re-charge it for me.
Selzer-makers!
We got my dad a Sodastream for father’s day a few years ago, and it basically paid for itself in a couple of weeks. Since birth, my brothers and I were on constant bottle-return duty because of my parents’ Vintage brand seltzer obsession. We were not as cool or hard-core as our neighbors down the street who had glass-bottle delivery and pickup!
Also, it gave my dad the opportunity to pat himself on the back about how “Not even Jesus could turn water into Selzer.” Peak Dad.
OH DAD
On the recharging: often Army surplus stores will do this, or Dick’s sporting goods stores, but it depends on the store — some will tell you that their CO2 (meant for paintball guns) isn’t clean enough for consumption, but we researched this a little while back and it seems to be mostly rumor.
THANK YOU!
re: recharging CO2-
Check out homebrew supply places. They often will do cylinder exchanges, and carry fittings for the equipment. You could also go through restaurant supply places, but they are usually less user-friendly for the average non-commercial consumer. Or go direct to the source and find an industrial gas supplier.
Sorry… the talk of compressed gases just set me into dad-mode.
Or scuba/dive supply places.
Interesting! I wouldn’t have guessed that with CO2.
I’m a big fan of flavored seltzer, but I like to flavor it myself (mostly citrus). I also like it plain, though. Texture!
Rich Tapestry!
One of my very favorite things in hot weather (mental note to start this up again now that it’s appx Surface of Sun Degrees Out) is seltzer/club soda/fizzy water with a few drops of interestingly flavored vinegar in it as flavoring. Fustini’s makes a huge variety of flavored “balsamic” vinegars (and they ship everywhere, really) that are wonderful for this; I am partial to the Sicilian Lemon and the Grapefruit varieties.
THANK YOU Oh my gosh I had forgotten about this, too! Just discovered it last year and SO DELICIOUS
My pleasure, darling. <3
Club soda + a lemon or lime is my go-to airplane or bar-but-I’m-not-drinking beverage. But the flavored stuff is the best for regular ol at home drinking.
Ok, on Weird Regional Brands, is Mendota (Springs?) still a seltzer in Minnesota? I just had a sudden craving for their strawberry flavor.
I remember Mendota brand! We don’t have that one locally, anymore.
Mendota disappeared from Kansas, but the distributor has a pretty specific Minnesota coverage map, it looks like!
They still sell it in HyVee in Iowa, too
No, I love it. In my house growing up it was between that and caffeine-free diet Coke, so I chose the seltzer every time.
Also I’m only now learning this is a midwestern thing, it seems like such a basic foodstuff to me!
I absolutely loathe fizzy water on its own (it tastes so weird and wrong). When I was a child we would make our own fizzy drinks by mixing orange juice with fizzy water, which was quite nice (you couldn’t taste as much of the fizzy water as usual), but I definitely can’t describe myself as liking flavoured fizzy water in general – I tried Pret a Manger cucumber seltzer a while ago and it was horrible.
Even as someone who really likes flavoured fizzy water and misses being able to buy La Croix by the 12 pack – Pret’s cucumber seltzer is DEEPLY strange-tasting. It’s oddly sweet? But not sweet enough? It’s in some kind of soft drink uncanny valley.
Now I’m dying to try it.
i love plain seltzer, and i love putting cucumbers into my plain seltzer. but i need to back you up to saty that Pret’s cucumber seltzer is one of the worst things i’ve ever tasted.
Okay I have got to find this because it sounds terrible and I need to experience it for myself.
Nope, I love seltzer in almost all flavors, and Pret’s cucumber version is GROSS.
Really dying to try it.
Oh god I made the mistake of trying the Pret cucumber seltzer recently b/c the other things are all fruit sodas, and it was SO BAD. I thought it would be ever so slightly refreshing but it was like seltzer mixed with pickle juice. *shudder*
I LOVED New York Seltzer as a kid! It was a special treat I got when we visited my Minnesota relatives. We moved away from the US when I was relatively young, so it’s mostly a fond memory now, but I’m glad flavored seltzer water is making a comeback. I’d drink it if I had access to it (except not too much, because my stomach doesn’t like carbonation now).
I like plain fizzy water, but I’m very particular about bubble size. San Pelligrino is the only acceptable one.
Also ‘flavoured water’ is bullshit.
The only acceptable flavored water was the original version of Glaceau Fruitwater, which was just light fruit flavoring and no sweetener. Once they yanked it in favor of a sparkling sweetened version, I noped out.
I used to like orange and lemon-lime seltzer when I was a kid, but I lost my taste for it and now I only like plain seltzer.
My go-to is seltzer + rhubarb or grapefruit bitters.
Excuse me but I need to know where one can buy rhubarb bitters asap
If you don’t mind ordering online…
Oh that sounds interesting!
Yes! Someone else mentioned a dash of fancy-ass balsamic vinegar, which works pretty much just like bitters in seltzer. Delightful.
I’ve been sticking pretty closely to plain seltzer and/or fruit juice or lemonade cut with seltzer, but I think next time I do a grocery run I’ll have to pick up a flavor or two.
I’m digging La Croix’s mango and grapefruit right now.
I love it but I came late to the party – I distinctly remember avoiding all forms of carbonated water when I was living in Germany at age 17. I didn’t start liking it until I studied in the UK in college, and then I quit soda so it became practically all I drank. I can’t stand any artificial sugar, so it’s great for avoiding sneaky aspartame/splenda/stevia.
It’s hard to find LaCroix here, but I do love their weird-ass flavors. Most of the time I get the cheap Vintage brand or just use my damn SodaStream for boring unflavored water.
If you like the weird-ass flavors, try a dash of bitters or fancy-pants balsamic vinegar, like others have mentioned. There’s a store near me that sells black mission fig balsamic and a dash of that in plain seltzer is delicious.
I only just found out that carbonated fizzy water is different from ‘naturally sparkling’ fizzy water, and that one of them tastes like metal and death and the other is an acceptable alternative to teeth-rotting lemonade to make fizzy drinks with.
Huh. Either my tastebuds aren’t sensitive enough to tell the difference (very likely) or I’ve never tried the metal and death one.
I LOVE IT. My starter seltzer was New York Seltzer, which I liked to get at the mall with a piece of what I called “mall pizza” (basically . . Sbarro, or its like).
Now I mostly drink stuff I make at home with my SodaStream because I can’t like buying cans all the time (because I would go through ALOT). However, I have incredible nostalgia for those little New York Seltzer bottles, which are so charming.
Also, important PSA: you can find New York Seltzer today at World Market, if you’ve got one near you.
Ooo! Thanks on the World Market heads-up.
New York Seltzer and a chocolate chunk cookie was my work break snack when I was in middle school and working in my aunt’s resale clothing store.
Nope, flavored bubble water is the best!
GEROLSTEINER FTW!
I’ve never even heard of that one! I’ll look out for it.
I remember getting Gerolsteiner at Trader Joe’s I think. Plain, but a nice mouthfeel.
I should have specified that it’s unflavored mineral water, but it’s the best one imo with the most lovely carbonation. And yes, Trader Joe’s always seems to have it in nice large glass bottles, which is great. I like most flavored seltzers too but prefer citrus (tart) flavors.
I like to put cocktail bitters in plain fizzy water to make my own flavors. Best drink ever.
Uh. Best non-tea, non-alcoholic drink ever.
I grew up on it, at least since the mid-80s. I remember drinking so much Clearly Canadian for a while.
I did not appreciate it when younger but now will drink as much as makes itself available. La Croix is a little expensive for my enormous liquid capacity, but Kroger store brand is cheap and has expanded its flavor variety. Blackberry citrus A+.
Ooo! We have Kroger’s here…I’m gonna look for that flavor, thank you.
I love it. I regularly drink a 12 pack of cans of lemon-lime flavoured sparkling water a week. I apparently live under a Canadian rock though, as I have never heard of LeCroix until this link roundup.
Well, see what you’re missing out by not living in the American Mid-West? THIS AMAZING SELTZER WATER!
Real talk: I think the Obamas have done an amazing job as parents and they have modeled what ‘good’ parenting and co-parenting should be in the main stream media.
We need more high profile parents like them; they show us that you can be a hard worker and high achiever while also making time for your family and prioritizing being a parent.
I wonder what Michelle Obama is going to do now that she doesn’t have to play First Lady anymore and can have a career again?
I don’t know, but as much as I like him, I’m WAY more interested in the answer to your question.
I know right? I don’t actually know that much about Michelle Obama pre-presidency, apart from that she was a lawyer; and as much as I love their style of parenting and how open they are about it, there is the fact that she gave up her career so that he could do the president thing, and she has dutifully played the ‘Mom’ role of The First Lady (Kids! Schools! Healthy Eating! I’ll go on Kimmel and talk about raising the girls in the White House and not about policy or anything serious!)
So yeah, I’m kinda excited to see what she does next. That is, if she doesn’t agree to run with Hillary Clinton. ‘Cause that would be amazing.
#FLOTUSforVOTUS
HRC and MLRO would be an *unbeatable* team. Though I wouldn’t blame the Obamas if they said, “No, you nation of ungrateful, racist pricks, we are done with you for a while.”
“No, you nation of ungrateful, racist pricks, we are done with you for a while.” <3 <3
We should embroider that on a pillow and send it to them.
Is that even an option? That would be the best thing ever.
His Thanksgiving turkey pardoning speech, complete with lame dad joke (“the years have flown, unlike turkeys”) was amazing, and seeing his daughters crack up at it was ridiculously heartwarming. They seem like such a great family.
I am glad that the press seems to have learned their lesson after what they did to poor Chelsea Clinton, and they weren’t nearly as hard on the Bush and Obama girls (although really any commentary on kids is too much). It seems like they have come through the experience pretty well.
Yes, the press has been very respectful of the Obama girls, surprisingly so. Its possible that they learned their lesson, or there was a Bartlett style Come to Jesus in the press room about The Family and how they were to be talked about in the press. (Notice that most mentions of the Obama girls/family stuff comes from official sources and events. There aren’t even a whole lot of thinkpeices about them)
The other day I had NPR on while driving my 4 year old daughter home from daycare.
Kid: Hey! They said President Obama! Why didn’t they say Michelle Obama?
Me: They’re not talking about her right now.
Kid: Oh. I want them to talk about Michelle Obama.
Me: They’re talking about who is going to be our next president. President Obama isn’t going to be our president anymore next year.
Kid: Oh, ok. I want Michelle Obama to be our next president!
sigh. don’t we all. :heart eyes emoji:
Petition to make 18 the maximum, not minimum, voting age for a bit, just to see how that goes.
….actually, let’s try 8, not 18.
I really want her to be the new CEO of Girl Scouts because Anna Maria Chàvez just stepped down. I know it is not her thing and she hasn’t expressed any interest in scouting besides her obligatory duties as honorary head Girl Scout but pleeeeeeassseeeeee FLOTUS, please save the Girl Scouts.
(less late today) Just a reminder to all Toasties that the Spacewitch Retreat (formerly known as ToastieCon) is totally happening Summer 2017! The organizing committee is finalization dates and locations now, and keep an eye open for registration very very soon.
You can follow us on Twitter (@spacewitchcon) or join us on ToastieSlack (channel #space_witch_retreat) for more information!
It would be so, so cool if any techie toast people could put a simple website or something for those of us who are interested but not savvy with The Twitters or, worse, whatever A Slack is. Or is there some way to be apprised without those things?
We are putting together the website now and definitely will be announcing it in Link Roundups and Open Threads before July 1!
You toasties would know this: a friend is looking for books with queer characters, for a 10 year old with a high level of reading skills but a low level of interest in YA-style romance as such.
The 10 year old likes fantasy, but other recs are also welcome.
Tanya Huff has multiple queer characters in multiple books and I vaguely remember really liking her fantasy series about the Four Quarters? (goes off to research this on Goodreads)
Does Tanya Huff have books appropriate for a 10-year-old though? I love her radical approach to sexuality, but…the ones I’ve read might be a bit much for that age.
I cannot actually remember if her Four Quarters series would be appropriate or not? This is all reminding me that I am due a re-read of that one. It’s been since I was in college I think that I read them last but I don’t remember anything really eyebrow raising
I think it depends. Her books definitely all have sex in them, but it is always “fade to black” sex, as far as I recall, never anything explicit. If you have a mature 10 year old you should be fine, but some might not be ready for that at that age.
Also they might necessitate a “when cursing is appropriate” conversation.
Okay maybe my memory is skewed because I most recently read Enchantment Emporium and its sequel, which…I was hesitant to recommend them to my mom. Group sex and cousin incest, whee!
Ah, yes. I had forgotten about that… I think Sing the Four Quarters is okay, as far as I remember. But maybe stay away from some of the newer stuff!
The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce was a favorite of mine when I was in the 10-13 range. Lovely magic-school-friends-type books with some nice queer characters who don’t die. Romance takes a backseat to adventure.
Check out We Need Diverse Books: http://weneeddiversebooks.org/where-to-find-diver…
They’ve got some lists on there under the LGBTQIA heading (among other diverse book lists).
Grain of salt here cause I’ve only read Huntress, but Malinda Lo!
Lumberjanes is a comic book series that my 9 yo niece loves and she is a strong reader who is not into romance. It’s basically a smarter, feminist version of Scooby Do – it’s set at an all girls summer camp and a group of campers solve supernatural mysteries. There are queer characters and it’s very inclusive in a low key way.
Noelle Stevenson is so great.
That sounds great. I am going to put it on my eight year old’s birthday list.
If comics are a thing, I’d also recommend Princeless and possibly it’s spinoff, Raven: The Pirate Princess. Princeless only introduces queer characters in volume 3 (with Raven), and volume… 5, I think? has adorable lesbian dwarves (based off tumblr posts. I’m a bit behind.) It’s definitely aimed for 10ish year olds, and it’s super fun. The basic plot is that a princess is stuck in a tower by her father, and decides to go save herself and her sisters.
Raven is the main character in the spinoff. It’s aimed for more 14+, so might require some vetting, but Raven is the daughter of a pirate king whose brothers have taken over the family, so she puts together a crew of badass lady pirates to take it back. There’s at least 3 queer women in the cast, and I’m pretty sure more.
Tamora Pierce? I read basically all her stuff that had been published at the time when I was around that age. I can’t remember which series had queer characters, though.
The queers are (mostly) in the Emelan books- start with the Circle of Magic Quartet. When the kids are little, there’s no romance at all, and the queer and/or poly adults around them are there, but not talking about it, because it’s not relevant. As the kids get older, their sexualities and that of their mentors becomes somewhat more relevant and at that point, it makes it on the page, but it’s still not relationship heavy for ANYONE until something like 9 or 10 books in.
The Tortall books (starting with the Alanna books) do deal with gender roles, and the Becca Cooper books do have characters that are textually queer. But there’s comparatively less queerness, and more romance. (it’s fundamental canon for most of the queer women in my age group, so I still recommend it, just in this case I’d start with her other universe!)
I just finished I’ll Give you the Sun by Jandy Nelson. It was beautiful, though it might be a little heavy for a 10-year-old (the mom dies), but maybe not. There is love (and some vague sex), but it doesn’t really present as a “romance”. There are nice ghosts, and some magical realism.
If she likes comics, get her Nimona!
Like, I think all kids have at some point wanted to be unstoppable forces of chaos, or at least occasionally sharks.
Sharks with boobs!
Diane Duane’s Wizards series. Fantasy, two kids having adventures without romance (despite being a boy and a girl!). Interesting, compelling, there are a bunch of them. Two of their mentors are gay guys who are in a relationship– but their togetherness isn’t really relevant, so it’s not much commented on (which i really love, I love how making it totally not worthy of comment can make these things more normal for kids than making a big point of it!!!!).
I have never thought of that series when I’m trying to think of books with queer characters — probably because Tom and Carl’s relationship is completely normal to everyone in the book. Thank you for the reminder!
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe is a coming of age coming out story that’s aimed slightly older (characters are fifteen?) but only glancingly a love story, it’s mostly just about boys. Maybe if they’re still looking next year….
Mercedes Lackey has some good series with queer characters. The Last Herald-Mage trilogy is the only one with the protagonist who is a gay character.
I feel kind of weird recommending Lackey, because as an adult I can tell that some of her early works are really not the most well-written. But I loved them as a kid, that didn’t matter to me as much. If you’ve got a really advanced 10 year old they might not work, but they would might be worth a try.
I second both We Need Diverse Books and Tamora Pierce as a general go to recommendation for that age. Another good resource is this post: https://bitchmedia.org/post/how-do-you-find-femin… by Bitch Media. They include a few links that will send you down an internet rabbit hole of articles about inclusive books.
I’ve been slowly working my way through creating a list of “Socially Conscious Children’s Books” (working title for sure) by age group, but I’m still in the picture books.
Princeless by Jeremy Whitley–fantasy comic series, none of the characters have been explicitly said to be LGBTQIA yet (although supposedly one may be out in a future book), but there is some intense flirting that goes on between some of the main characters (all women). My 8 year old niece loves it.
Sara Farizan has written a couple about young Persian lesbians:
“If You Could Be Mine” is set in Iran.
“Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel” is set in the USA. I liked this one better.
Bruce Coville gets a lot of love in this household, and he seems to do well normalizing relationships while telling rollicking stories. The ones I like best are part of the Magic Shop books: Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, and Skull of Truth.
Have you all seen this one? All the feels, man.
https://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/mar…
This makes me want to give them all hugs and high-fives, and maybe shop at JC Penney.
I mean, more on the high-fives part, but good for JC Penney.
James has artism in his heart. He doesn’t need money.
Or pants
From the Captain Awkward: “Answer: Women are people, and we can’t be hacked.”
I almost audibly applauded (at my desk at work). YES.
My sense is the LW is perhaps more awkward than the average man but also, “Treating it like a game you are trying to win is alienating you from your dates and also alienating you from your own heart.” is EVERYTHING wrong with internet dating — the gamification is toxic no matter how suave or awkward one is, IMHO.
Let’s all revel in the dadliness of two of the North American leaders, ok?
Like, Trudeau goes for hikes with his kids and posts photos on Facebook and just looks like an all-around normal person spending time with his kids and it’s SUCH a delightful breath of fresh air from Shakes-His-Son’s-Hand Harper.
See: https://www.facebook.com/JustinPJTrudeau/posts/10…
(Also the mental image of his security team wading through the Lusk Caves trail, up to their ankles in water, gives me great delight. In my mind, they’re fully-uniformed red-suit-beige-hat Mounties.)
Alas, they are secret service types. But. I feel like full-suit, dress shoes, sunglasses and ear pieces are just as hilarious. Imagine the conversations they have about security.
*rustling in woods* “we need to chek 3 o’clock, sinister sounds over there”
“All good, just a woodchuck/gopher/beaver/moose”
Note: I am clearly not versed in secret security.
I’m imagining a lot of handguns trained very quickly on chipmunks.
Yesterday, Judith Butler gave an open lecture at the university. Her talk about grievability and self-defense was really great, HOWEVER, she delivered it in German, which I am sure a lot of folks appreciated, but I did not, because it ultimately made it pretty hard to follow.
I guess no one has the guts to tell an internationally renowned scholar that her pronunciation is clunky at best :C
“Judith Butler speaking clunky German” seems like the natural progression of Judith Butler. It’s hard enough to follow her in English!
oh, dear. I am giving a talk in the fall at a German-speaking university, and the organizer recently told me that since I “know German” I would be expected to give it in German. However, while I can navigate a city and read casual things in German, I do not think I can give a physics talk in German. I don’t know physics words! My whole lab works in English! I can guess at things (things like “sonnenneutrinos” are not hard to figure out) but I don’t think I can say them…
I once heard Judith Butler do the same in French and I truly could not understand her. Maybe native French-speakers could, I don’t know, but my French & my English are both pretty good and it was a wash for me! Plus afterwards she apologized for “speaking in the colonizer’s language” when admitting she had to do her q&a in English, and it was just like… you do realize you are talking to French people in Paris when you call it the colonizer’s language, right?
I did not know she is now talking about “grievability” and will have to look into that, though.
I prefer a full liter of Polar Seltzer–what’s better than a limited edition flavor, honestly–but that’s the New Englander in me.
Watermelon Margarita!! I’m sad I missed out on the April Fools Unicorn one, though.
Saaaaaaame! The black cherry and cherry pomegranate flavors are where it’s at for me in their regular line, but there’s always one or two limited edition flavors each season that I mourn when their time is up. I have been known to drive around town stockpiling the best ones at the end of each seasonal run.
Except for their winter/holiday food (as opposed to fruit)-based flavors, which almost always gross me out. Giant NOPE to eggnog/chocolate mint/gingerbread seltzers, Polar flavor gurus.
awwww yeah I have a liter of black cherry in my fridge RIGHT NOW, here I go to git it
Yes! Orange vanilla tastes like sherbet.
What IS it about New England and Polar Seltzer? Or seltzer in general? Why do we love it so?
I loved the bergamot stuff from the winter before last.
Yissss!!
In Los Angeles it’s all about Jarritos Mineragua. it’s SO delicious. Esp with reposado tequila and lime.
I mean, if I’m gonna drink flavored bubble water, I’m gonna drink Polar. Someone has to help keep the 290 inflatable polar bear decked out in fashionable-yet-seasonably-appropriate attire.
(My bro has a build-a-bear that is a thousand years old at this point, but it comes on every road trip to the mass pike just so that it can wave at the Polar bear as we go through Worcester)
290 inflatable polar bear! <3 We should start a fan club.
inflatable polar bear! <3 that bear…
Orson periodically gets pellet-gunned/etc, and deflates a bit. No joke, I’ve been known to get teary about it.
Polar forever, man.
I did not know his name was Orson! (which is shameful). I do know that the crab on top of the Sole Proprietor is Buster!
I am 100% sure that I possessed, at a point in the late 80s, a Culture Club 45 which had a cover of “Sexuality” as the B-side. I’m equally sure that Boy George made that song sound much less ridiculous.
one of my absolute favorite bits of Captain Awkward recurring advice is People Who Like You Will Act Like They Like You, and this letter is the perfect counterpart: if you like them, you will act like you like them. (However awkwardly.)
Here to say to La Croix fans who wish there was an alcoholic version: Spiked Seltzer!
I once mixed a lot of red wine with a lot of pomegranate seltzer and it was glorious
We dump LaCroix in booze all the time at my house!
Same, until I realized the work was already done for me! http://www.spikedseltzer.com/
(I’m not sure if I made it clear that it’s a product, not just a Thing I Like to Mix)
Is it any good? I’ve seen it in my grocery store but I’m a little scared of it.
You can’t taste the alcohol at all and they’re surprisingly strong. YMMV on whether that’s a good thing or not.
Ah, lovely!
I feel like seltzer could be used in place of club soda in a lot of drinks.
Geeky dude:
And here’s a link to my tumblr post with queer/liberation theology recommendations. I’ll try to keep it updated as I get new information, to set up an informal database of resources.
<a href=”http://unreadaethel.tumblr.com/post/146231086432/resources-for-queer-theologyexegesis” target=”_blank”>http://unreadaethel.tumblr.com/post/146231086432/resources-for-queer-theologyexegesis
I’m so glad somebody put this up.
The “no touching” gif, or the queer theology post? Either way, thanks!
Aw yiss theology recs. Thank you!
I’m really spoiled as regards well-educated queer/queer-friendly religious folks, so I thought I should share some of that wealth.
Thanks! I know the Althaus-Reid book, but am excited to check out the other stuff.
Every once in a while, I seem to have my finger right on the pulse of America. Out of the blue, one day, I said to my wife that with all our nostalgia, I was a little surprised New York Seltzer or something like it hadn’t made a comeback.
A week later, we went to my brother’s and my sister-in-law asked if we wanted a flavored seltzer water. My wife and I looked at each other like, “Whaaaat?!”
DTRJ fans, this made me smile and laugh a lot: The Rock eats candy for the first time since 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PzjIXixe24
That was so adorable. Also, good god does that man look good in a suit!
YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME SUCH BEAUTY
So, the job I was certain to hear about no later than yesterday, I have not heard about. I do not believe they’ve ghosted, just that it’s taking longer than they expected to decide amongst a number (unknown; ten or fewer) of well-qualified candidates… Of which I’m sure to be at the top! Or possibly bottom! Or maybe somewhere in the middle! There is only so long I can remain at the knife-edge of anticipation! But at least I have welding class tonight, so all is not lost.
When I was first out of college and waiting desperately to hear about what I was sure was my dream job (oh silly me), my dad told me, “It’s never as important for them as it is for you.” I tell myself that every time I’m job hunting now; when they say tomorrow and tomorrow passes…well, they got busy with something else, and they are not – like I am – just watching the clock until they can give me a job.
Best of luck on the gig!
That’s sound advice. Luckily, I”m out of adrenaline and practicing my “I didn’t want that smelly old job ANYWAY” face. (I still want it tho)
I have been wondering about you. Fingers and toes still crossed.
Don’t get a toe cramp!
Klarbrunn > LaCroix.
*crowdsurfs on your dissent*
I like them both.
I don’t know if this has been shared elsewhere already, but NPR Music has an hour-long piece about #EduHam, featuring pieces written by school kids inspired by HAMILTON and it is crushing me beneath a mountain of feels. These kids are KILLING it with their raps and poems and songs and it’s almost too much. I highly recommend you take a listen.
‘Hamilton’: A Story Of US
Thank you! I for one had not seen this!
A friend of mine said something to me last week that didn’t bother me too much at the time but it’s been niggling at me more and more. We’re both in our thirties and single, and we were walking around a festival in our town, and she mentioned there were couples there (of course there were? there were a lot of people), and said something like, “these people think we’re pathetic [because we’re single], but we’re picky and wouldn’t want to be married to them anyway.” I get that this was coming from her insecurities and I don’t think it actually has anything to do with me (which is why it didn’t bother me at first), but the more I think about it, what a shitty thing to say.
Ugh. I’m sad for her that she has that self-conception and bitterness, but it’s not cool for her to rope you onto her feelings.
You’re wise to recognize that it’s all stemming from her own issues, and she doesn’t actually think anything one way or another about your singleness, except that the fact of it allows her to co-opt you to make her feel less alone in her loneliness. Her misery loves company, but you have the right to withdraw from that dynamic unless she can keep from handing her baggage to you to carry.
That is annoying. It reminds me of when someone makes a comment about the type or amount of food on my plate — way more about their issues with food than anything to do with me. But that kind of hyper-insecurity is difficult to be around.
Thanks to both of you for your thoughtful responses!!!!
brb tearing up over the mention of Attitudes as someone’s first gay bar. The St. Louis love is strong today.
(it was absolutely not my first gay bar, in life or this city, but I appreciate how well it’s reached out to the younger 18+ queers when so many of the other bars are 21+)
If I wasn’t at work I would be openly sobbing over that first gay bar piece — thank you so much, Nicole, for linking it here. I have been sore over Orlando but this grabs me in such a raw and angry place. How monstrous to destroy these hard-won feelings of love and acceptance… to deny that sense of belonging to an entire generation in Florida… to annihilate that energy. So, so low and cowardly, so destructive and hateful it just burns and burns.
I’ve been to Attitudes and I don’t remember much about it (b/c drunk, duh) but it sticks out for me as a really great name for a bar. I feel like saying “Let’s go to this place called Attitudes” has to be a bold declaration of what kind of night you want to have.
If anyone needs a mid-morning break, I highly recommend the joyously unsubtle Sexuality music video.
The Hope Hicks profile has so many gems! “In her senior yearbook, she mistakenly attributed the words of Eleanor Roosevelt—“The future belongs to those who believe in the power of their dreams”—to Jimmy Buffett.”
I have many grouchy feels about the Hope Hicks profile. Many of them have to do with Trump being a monster. Many more of them have to do with class relations.
Off-topic, but thank you SO MUCH to the user who posted about unclaimed monies. I just got a check for $319. HALLELUJAH MONEY FROM HEAVEN.
I got $157! WEE RAMEKINS!
YAY RAMEKINS!
You guys, I am so glad I read the Link Roundup today! I am SO HAPPY that you guys got all them dollahs! Learning of your joy has made my day!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! I’ma have a dance party made entirely of GIFs!
(For anyone who doesn’t know what we’re talking about, check out this website to see if you have any unclaimed property.)
I finally went and looked! My sister has an undisclosed amount of money from an insurance company!
WOOHOO! Someone is about to have a very grateful siiiiiiiibliiiiiing!! (HINT: IT’S YOU. O_O)
Okay, but WHENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN do we get Toast totes? I am not buying Chicago Hamilton tickets, so I want my own rush-to-buy-freak-out-if-they-sell-out experience.
I’m currently refreshing for the third time for Chicago Hamilton tickets. I know I’m not getting them at this point, 43 minutes into it, but why the hell not, you know?
You might get ’em! I just got mine after sitting on the “Searching… sit tight” page for like fifty minutes.
I am three hours in this purgatory and I hope your luck is contagious to other Hamiltoasts.
I have used all the luck I need for the day so I will attempt to send the rest out into the universe!
I FINALLY GOT TICKETS! Limited seating, but this chart is so reassuring: https://blog.tickpick.com/bank-of-america-seating… I’m in Row P!!! And for a fantastic discount — actually the same price as the seats that were my first pick, in the third row of Dress Circle!
It took me 2 hours but I finally got them. Try the “Find tickets for you option” as that seemed work for me (although it took at least 40 minutes). You need excruciating patience. I almost gave up several times.
Sending the rest of my luck to you!
PAW Patrol takes place in a (Canadian) town called Adventure Bay that apparently has no functional fire department, police department, or local contractors. So whenever someone around town has a problem, they have to go crawling to a volunteer squad of seven puppies (not even grown dogs!) and one (Canadian) boy, all of whom work out of the town’s space needle. This is what libertarianism looks like, people. Think about that the next time you read an Ayn Rand book. http://adequateman.deadspin.com/why-your-children…
Dadspin is why I started reading Deadspin. I don’t have children, it is totally irrelevant to my life, but I love the way Drew writes about being a Dad (both when he’s being funny and when he’s being life-or-death serious) and the comments.
Thank you for this link. I love that series and can’t stand Paw Patrol. They have a girl rescue dog but she is pink. I argue about representation on children’s shows with my husband in front of my kids.
Dadspin gets me:
Skye: Girl dog. Has her own helicopter. Is likely paid less than the male puppies on staff. Her lack of character depth is highly problematic. ANSWER FOR YOUR GENDER IMBALANCES, CANADIAN ANIMATORS.
(Forgive my bad at html)
I thought there was another girl rescue dog who had a boat. That is what my daughter told me. It is entirely possible she may have been incorrect about the intended gender of the boat-owning rescue dog. I have never seen Paw Patrol and would like to keep it that way.
I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT PAW PATROL. I am so happy you posted this link.
My husband and I have an elaborate theory that Ryder is the son of a high-placed official in a military junta, and he’s been given a Potemkin village to do with what he pleases. The mayor is a political enemy of the junta, sentenced to a horrible farce of a life in which she must act like a blithering idiot and be perpetually humiliated by the child of her foe.
OTOH, the lure of Paw Patrol underwear potty-trained my daughter, so you live with it.
Late to the party but – omg can you tell me how you potty trained your daughter with Paw Patrol? Because my daughter loves it and I am hoping to potty train her soon.
(Also, my theory is that Ryder is an alternate universe’s Batman, who loves dogs instead of fears bats.)
That’s a pretty darn good antidote for Paw Patrol PTSD.
There was nearly a family crisis this Christmas once Everest toys came out. Grandma had to be a plush Everest for each of the grandkids, plus one for her own house.
> Imagine calling in a teacup poodle to solve the Syrian refugee crisis.
Okay but hold on a second here. They might be onto something.
This may not be the forum for me to celebrate being old. But here it is. Today I can access Medicare. Today I used the streetcar, got a 40 cent ticket with free transfer.
There are some benefits to hanging around.
this
Yay! (also happy birthday!)
of course it is a forum for celebrating!! Many happy returns!
thanks!
Hey guys. I’m dealing with some rough stuff right now, which is why I’m not posting under my regular username. I’m putting the rest of my comment in a reply, in case discussions of sexual harrassment are triggering to anyone.
So I’ve posted here a few times about this crappy relationship I was in over the winter- I met a guy through work who’s about nine years older than me (I’m twenty-four) and right away he started flirting/complimenting me/telling me how smart and talented and pretty I was. I was flattered and giddy, especially since I’ve never been in any kind of romantic/sexual relationship before (for a host of reasons, most of them having to do with past bullying/abuse that made me very reluctant to try and initiate new social ties) and all of a sudden this guy was treating me like I was special. Eventually he suggested to me that we start sleeping together so that I could see what sex was like, and I thought it was perfect- here was a chance for me to start exploring my sexuality with someone I liked and trusted and who didn’t have a ton of expectations of how good I should be in bed. The long and the short of it was that it wasn’t a good idea- he started telling me things like maybe I was gay or asexual because I hadn’t taken to the sex right away, he’d stop contacting me for weeks at a time, he’d bring dates with him to work parties without telling me beforehand and then refuse to talk to me about it afterwards, etc. Eventually things ended, but the whole experience really fucked me up because here was my first ever relationship, the person I lost my virginity to (and I know it’s a social construct and it shouldn’t matter to me, but it does) and if he found it so easy to treat me like that, didn’t it just prove that I was never worth being in a relationship to begin with? Isn’t that why I’d never been in one before? Didn’t it have to be true that I did or said something to make him act like this, since he was so different at first?
Anyway, I was at another work thing yesterday and happened to mention this guy’s name (our work is spread out among various social/political organizations, so we’re both on a bunch of different committees that sometimes overlap, but he wasn’t on this one.) I mentioned his name, the people I was talking to rolled their eyes, and all of a sudden all this stuff came spilling out. How he cheated on his last girlfriend with another co-worker. How he’s known for- and I’m quoting directly- “liking them young.” How he made weird comments about dating to teenagers volunteering with the organization (teenagers above the age of consent, but still- teenagers.) How he’s invited other co-workers (again, with a significant age gap) to go to bars with him one-on-one. How everyone who’s worked with him for more than a few months practically expects him to sleep with other people in the organization- that’s just Joe being Joe, of course he’s at it again. I was- I won’t say I was stunned, but I was horrified to realize that my relationship with this guy- the nice things he said to me early on, how much I’d trusted him, my feeling like I wasn’t good enough and that’s why he treated me like he did- none of it was ever real. I’m just the latest girl he’s done this to, and he’ll inevitably do it to other girls after me. I wasn’t forced into doing anything I didn’t want to, and I don’t want to set myself up like what I experienced was anything close to actual sexual violence, but I still feel disgusting and violated and like I don’t trust my own mind or body anymore. Like I said he didn’t technically do anything wrong- not legally wrong anyway, whatever you might think of his moral fibre- so it’s not like me telling people about our relationship would accomplish anything besides me looking like a bitter ex, but I also feel like I should be trying to put myself in between him and whatever twentysomething new kid he sets his sights on next. I feel almost like this is another Jian Ghomeshi situation in microcosm, where everybody knows this guy is a sleaze but no one says it in public, and what does that make us if he ever fully crosses the line? And in the meantime, how can I trust my judgement or my feelings ever again when I’ve had all of one relationship and it turned out to be a lie?
First and most importantly just because the one relationship you have had turned out to be a lie does not mean that your judgement is untrustworthy. Unfortunately most people have a relationship/sex experience (or many!) where they come to question their judgement. Honestly a lot of times even when there is not terrible behavior you question your judgement when a relationship ends. How did I end up thinking “the wrong” person was “the right” person is a common question. You can only be accountable for your own behavior and I ask you to be kind to yourself. What you can take out of this is one more step towards a better understanding of the kinds of qualities you might value in your next foray into the dating world. Each time you try you get an opportunity to learn a little bit more about yourself and what is important to you. I’m so sorry that your first relationship/sex experience turned out so horribly and angry that he tried to use lack of experience against you. When a partner is not “taking to” the kind of sex you are providing both of you should be working together to find out what kind of sex you (both) want or don’t want.
As for the predatory nature of his actions, I really appreciate the comparison you’ve drawn with Ghomeshi. I think too often we treat the situation as you have described, with everyone knowing that guy is sleaze but no one doing anything about it. The lecherous old man trope is old and I’m tired of everyone (including myself) rolling with it.
Oh, lizajane. All of your feelings are so legitimate, and I feel for you so much. That guy is such trash and he took advantage of your youth and inexperience, but that does NOT make you stupid or worthless or throw your judgment under suspicion.
You never deserved to be treated like this, but it wasn’t wrong for you to take his behavior at face value. You are wiser and stronger now, and worth so very much. <3
I totally understand your desire to save other women now — it’s a really positive instinct. And I would talk to any other female coworkers about your age, just to give them a briefest heads-up that this asshole is bad news and not to trust him on a personal level.
But please don’t blame or hate yourself, just as I’m sure you don’t blame his previous targets.
So much more ought to be said, but I don’t have all the words right now. But please, please know this does not affect your worth at all, you are amazing and so smart and will do wonderful things and be loved as you ought to be loved.
Hey lizajane. At the beginning of this year, I had an experience that was not entirely dissimilar, definitely had a similar outcome at least – I was left feeling like I couldn’t trust my instincts or my judgement of people – in the couple of weeks immediately after shit went down I felt so “””crazy”””* and distressed I could barely stand it. In a way, it felt like being gaslighted. (Gaslit? Idk the correct grammar on that one.)
Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that creeps and manipulators become GOOD at manipulating and taking advantage of vulnerabilities in people. It sounds like this guy’s been at his act for quite some time and using it on a lot of girls/women. And it doesn’t help that as girls and women we’re socialised to give dudes the benefit of the doubt. Being lonely or inexperienced doesn’t help – it gives us more incentive to overlook any little doubts we might harbour, makes us eager to believe that this guy’s honest and well-intentioned. And creeps like this guy know that, and use it.
I know it really sucks, though, that feeling of having been taken in. My ego has taken some bruises in this. The fact that I’m a pretty suspicious person, especially where men are concerned – I’ve really kicked myself for my naivete. But if you’re feeling any anger or disappointment in yourself over things, you’ll have to figure out how to let it go in the long term. It’ll do you no good, and it’s undeserved anyway – you engage with a person in good faith and they deliberately deceive you, it’s on them all the way.
With my situation, too, I wish I could know that my ex’s current girlfriend is alright, I wish I could somehow send a message like “here are some things you might wanna watch out for” – but I have no proof, nothing he did was ever “”that”” bad, etc – anything I could possibly say would likely be construed as “bitter, jealous ex.” It’s shit.
Anyway, if you want someone to talk to, or just someone who’ll listen without judgement and from a place of solidarity, you can email me. (Ignore the ridic email address) godsavestevemcqueen @ gmail dot com.
ALSO I highly recommend taking time to be self-indulgent (in whatever your own personal version of self-indulgence is) with wound-licking. Even if you feel like you ‘should’ be over things by now, or whatever. I spent several days as a lump under my duvet (although tbh that was also part of a depressive episode), then binge-read Lord of The Rings for the first time since I was a kid. Then downloaded and watched the extended versions of all the movies, and drank a lot of chocolate & banana smoothies, while completely ignoring my studies. It was actually pretty good.
I don’t think anyone really needs an excuse to do the above things, of course, but it was nice to be like “fuck this, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want for a bit”, even if that’s generally my attitude anyway. It was kind of “well, if no one else* is going to treat me gently then I will do it myself.”
You do not have to excuse you’re feeling hurt by commenting on what the experience wasn’t. Something can be awful without being physical sexual violence, so let yourself have those feelings without guilt.
I’m so, so sorry that one of your first brushes with sex/dating was with a douchecanoe. I wish the people around you both that clearly know that he’s a predator had known how to warn or protect you, but at the end of the day, the responsibility here is all his for being dishonesty and sleazy.
I think your best move right now is to forgive yourself, trust that the next person you’re with will be better, and be willing to speak up if you see him doing something sleazy with someone else (although that could well be awkward).
Now go treat yourself to something nice, because you deserve to feel so much better than you do right now.
Also, I think many of the women who hang out in the comments on the Toast (and probably anywhere else where women congregate) have had the experience of being treated in some way similar to this by a partner, especially those of us who date men.
As others have mentioned, believing people you care about and expecting the best of them is something that good people who have mostly encountered other good people in their lives do naturally. It’s a tough learning experience for us when you encounter someone for the first time who intentionally manipulates and mistreats us. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid, just that you want to trust people to be good and this guy’s done the great disservice of making you a little less trusting and open to the new people you encounter in this world. That’s really shitty of him and of all the other people that have done it to others of us. It’s not a reflection of you in the least.
That Hicks profile was a goldmine for batshittery. This was my favorite:
“Nunberg still seemed wounded eight months later, when we met. “Of course she ratfucked me, which makes me proud,” he told me. Nunberg maintains no feelings of warmth for Lewandowski. “I literally will suck the fucking blood out of his skull by the time I’m done with him,” he said like a screwball gangster. “
I got my Chicago Hamilton tickets and I’m kinda freaking out happy. Now to wait until November…
Congratulations!!! I’m still refreshing, hoping against hope that no one else wants to see Hamilton in Chicago in the middle of January.
ay that worked for me! Good luck!
I got mine too! Freaking out a little at how much I spent (I was so excited that something finally happened on ticketmaster that I just clicked “BUY” and accidentally got really good seats…) but the show is in February so I’ll forget how expensive they were by then, lol.
SO EXCITED!
I did the same thing! But I figure if I tried to go back and get cheaper ones I’d never get it to work again. Plus I would pay as much for one resold ticket as I did for all four today.
Yeah, now that I’m seeing resale values I’m feeling better about it. I was just able to get my dad some lower-cost ones as well so that’s a relief!
I got some for November too!
Yay! What day? I’m going the 17th.
My boyfriend and I were both there at 10:00… and ticketmaster toyed with our hearts for an hour and then broke them. I HAD THEM and then I clicked “buy” and then I got an error page and then they were gone.
🙁 🙁 foreverrrrrrr
Ticketmaster = killer of dreams 🙁 🙁
That’s so sad!!!!! I hope you can find some soon.
I’m so happy for you and the other Hamiltoasts! I’ve been in purgatory for nearly four hours now, losing all hope. 🙁
I got the ticketmaster app and bought my tickets through there – I recommend it if you’re able. The site was giving me all kinds of hell
Thank you! I finally got them through the website — limited view, but Row P, and this amazing seating chart is very reassuring: https://blog.tickpick.com/bank-of-america-seating…
Plus it’s the same price as the ones I originally picked out, but we’ll be much closer to the stage with a far better view of their faces!
It took nearly four hours but we got three tickets! Unfortunately there are four of us . . . but four tickets turned out to be an impossibility. I’m really disappointed in how awful the Ticketmaster process was; seems it was much easier for the resellers than for the people who actually want to go.
So some kid from the UK (who was staying here illegally) tried to steal a policeman’s gun so he could kill Trump over the weekend and no one is talking about it? Did the Secret Service ask them to keep it quiet so other people don’t try it too? I just want to say- please don’t do this people. There is already too much violence over this election. I really worry what would happen if someone really made a concerted assassination attempt at either or any candidate.
(and yes, I do get that it’s my white privilege that makes me not feel the need to go out and throw things at Trump supporters because they aren’t talking about me, but I’m not going to ever be okay with starting the violence. Please don’t ask me to be.)
The media is definitely talking about it in the UK, but much less than you’d expect. (And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not being okay with starting violence – however vile Trump’s views are, murder is not okay and I am relieved this guy was stopped.)
I will confess that my most effective reasons for not being ok with this idea are less and less “murder is always wrong” and more and more “his tin hat followers would martyr him and they are probably well-armed.” I have questioned my own morals more in the last year than in my entire life before this point.
My concern is that an attack on Trump will actually strengthen him if he survives or re-invigorate the Right if he does not. Also, given that there is a whole subset of people who think HRC had numerous people murdered, I can’t even imagine the rhetoric if Trump “conveniently” gets taken out.
I heard about it on CBS this morning — it’s getting attention. I’m with you on how assassination is not the answer.
It makes me feel that cold pit of fear in my stomach. If they shoot him and he survives NOTHING will stop him from winning. NOTHING.
I’m not okay with starting violence, either.
I don’t like him. I don’t trust him. I don’t want anything to do with him. I think he’d be a dangerous and terrible president. But I’m glad the Secret Service is doing their job.
I don’t wish pain or terror or harassment on him. For one thing, I’ve experienced those things, and they suck. For another, my own father is a narcissist prone to rage and not safe to be around, but every once in a while, I get a glimpse of the very frightened small person who’s inside that shell of hostility, and I feel sympathy for that small person, even as that small person’s adult persona is still not safe to be around.
I MET Constance Wu at a Elle magazine event (my company advertises with Elle) and she was LOVELY. In every meaning of the word. She had that whole super-polite-and-utterly-charming thing going on, which you knew was kind of an act, but didn’t actually SEEM like an act. I wanted to be like ‘you don’t have to be polite with me, you can literally TELL ME ANYTHING and i will still never judge you and always support you’ but didn’t want to be a creepy stranger, so we just chatted about dinner and the like. She was possibly one of the nicest people there, even though I only met 5 people.
The Jess Zimmerman piece is amazing! More of that sort of thing, please!
Ok, OT, and help required.
My husband and I are moving. We have bought a king-sized mattress (yay!) and are graduating out of the horrible queen-size that I bought 10 years ago at IKEA because it was the cheapest one. We have two large cats who like to sleep next to each of us respectively, and are not exactly petite ourselves, and anyway we are very excited.
BUT – how do you buy beds and bedding? Holy crap! This stuff is SO EXPENSIVE, especially if you are at all interested in not buying fast fashion. Like, is it either an IKEA fibreboard disposable bedframe and cotton bedding that surely was covered in pesticides when grown and sewn by exploited people and sold by scabs and strikebreakers* or literally thousands of dollars? We do not have thousands of dollars to spend on more bed items. Are there wise solutions?
*NOTE – I do not actually judge scabs and strikebreakers, or a I do, but I understand that there are serious economic pressures that make that a choice the people make, but anyway there was a union attempt at our local IKEA that DID NOT GO WELL.
We have purchased a king size matress from Costco. Two thumbs up!
Check out Brooklinen for bedding: https://www.brooklinen.com/
I bought a California King bed without realizing how expensive the frame/sheets/everything it was going to be be so please let me share my wisdom.
If you’re going to to invest big bucks, I’d put that money into a decent frame. I spent around $180 on a frame that I immediately hated and ended up gifting to my parents. If I waited and not done panic-shopping, I would have had the money put aside when I found the frame I really liked. Check places like Wayfair. Some of the stuff isn’t great but some of it is and is decently priced (they buy from some of the same suppliers my company gets stuff from, the Alpine furniture brands is one of my favorites and is what my headboard is).
For sheets, the sale section of Macys became my favorite hangout. The Martha Stewart brand has served me well when I can find it and snatch it up. They are always running specials so ask the people at the counter if they have any coupons you could use. If you stick to a King bed, you’ll get lots of great deals. Also check out Marshal’s but I’m a little more careful about the brands i buy there, I try to stick with the classics- DKNY, Ralph Lauren, etc.
Hope this provides some help! Yes it is annoying to have to pay extra compared to my old queen bed but man, now the dog and I can stretch out and sleep in peace!
If you have a Restoration Hardware outlet near you, I just bought 100% linen sheets there for about $130. They are about 4 times as expensive as any other sheets I have, but (1) that’s an incredible price for linen; and (2) they are amazing to sleep on.
Seconding the advice to get a good frame, and I’d suggest looking at places like Ross, Marshall’s and TJ Maxx for bedding.
I like to let a family member buy a mattress that they hate, and then take it.
Also my favorite sheets are the plain ones from Target. I keep trying to get fancier ones, and they keep sucking. Though sometimes TJ Maxx will come through.
Oh, I feel your pain, boy do I feel it. Unfortunately I’m just not confident the thing you want: well made, organic, first-world ethically made bedding exists at a price point you’re looking for (not counting unless you want to go second hand and are still willing to invest several hundred dollars. I think in this case it’s probably going to have to be enough to just Do The Best You Can.
I finally bit the bullet a few years ago with the same intent you did and replaced all my bedding. I did MONTHS of research. Really, I started researching around August and ended up buying in November. The total price for two sets of sheets, two specialty pillows (a body roll and a wedge) four buckwheat pillows and pillowcases, two cotton blankets and two down-alternative duvets was almost exactly $400.
It was painful at the time but five years out I have NO regrets and am now a strident believer in “spend your money where you spend your time.”
Here’s what I’ve bought. Everything here has stood the test of time for 5 years and is pretty much like new. The blankets and pillows get daily use and I’ll probably have to replace the blankets in another few years. But I have faith that everything else will last well past the 10 year mark. (continued in next comment)
Portuguese Flannel Sheets: Made in Portugal! So soft! No pilling even after five years! I’m a super hot sleeper and we have a memory foam mattress that sleeps a bit warm so sometimes they’re a leeettle too much for me on warm spring or fall nights, but they’re Sr Negroni’s favorites. They’re seriously great sheets with lasting power like whoa.
Percale Sheet Set: I love cool, crisp “grandma sheets” in the summer which means I needed percale. I sleep super hot and these keep me cool. I bought these when I couldn’t pull the trigger on percale grandma sheets that were like $90 for each piece. No regrets. They wrinkle but that’s what percale does. These are my ride or die sheets. Made in Pakistan.
All Season Cotton Thermal Blanket: My platonic ideal blanket –the blankets my grandmother put on my bed as a child– were cotton waffle/thermal weave blankets that somehow made it home from the hospital where she worked probably in the 60’s or 70’s. I looked EVERYWHERE to find originals or reproductions but no luck. I can’t say these are an exact reproduction, but they’re good blankets if you want a year-round blanket in a natural fiber and like the way waffle weave breathes. They do snag a bit which is typical for cotton thermal weave, and they’ll probably become a bit shabby in a few years (fine for us, but I wouldn’t put them out for company) but they’re well made and affordably priced. Unfortunately they are made in China and when it comes time to replace them I’ll consider repurchasing them only if I can’t find anything better.
Down-Alternative Duvet: I think this was my biggest pleasant surprise. I didn’t want to splash out too much on duvets because filled duvets and comforters tend to lose their loft and get lumpy pretty quickly especially when I have them because I am A Fat and also a serial duvet mangler. So as much as I prefer to buy investment pieces, I just didn’t want to spend $300 on a duvet I’d have to replace in a year. I picked up two of these in the queen size so the fella and I wouldn’t have to share, but it’s so large that just one covers our king bed perfectly. It’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer but most miraculously, it is just as fluffy as when I bought it five years ago with NO lumps. It IS made in China and that’s obviously not ideal, but between the two of them (I haven’t even opened the second one yet) I’m sure we’ll get 15 years out of them, so I’m going to count that as a partial win since it means I don’t have to buy from them again for another decade.
Japanese Organic Buckwheat Pillows (w/ cases) Hearteyes forever. I have a chronic pain disease and I’ll NEVER got back to regular pillows. I was worried about adjusting to small pillows but I shouldn’t have. Also you can keep them in the freezer if you’re in for a hot night and they stay cold for a good long while.
Oversize Body Pillow/Pregnancy Pillow: This body pillow does not play and I’ve turned multiple non-pregnant toasties onto it who love it, too. I bought a maternity pillow for another plus-size friend who could use a little breast/belly/thigh support while sleeping and she loooved it but it collapsed and got kinda wonky after a year, so I did a ton of research to find one that would stand up to my size and abuse. It’s filled -I think- with chunks of memory foam instead of fiberfill and has kept its shape really well and has seriously helped my chronic pain. Also, without veering into TMI territory, it has brought *a lot* of joy into our non-sleeping bed activity as well.
I’m not linking to the knee wedge last because I’m kinda meh about it and don’t use it that often, and I think I would’ve been better off finding a wedge that worked for back or knees, but if you’d like a rec I’d be glad to dig it up for you!
This is AMAZING! Thank you!
I don’t know if you have an Original Mattress Factory near you (I went to one in Ohio), but they have really good quality mattresses that are much cheaper than elsewhere. And very laid-back, non-horrible salespeople.
I buy pretty much all my furniture from secondhand or antique shops. (I got a good deal on a 1920s bed and dresser at the clearance section of an antique store). Architectural salvage type places sometimes have nice furniture. Craigslist is probably a good bet as well. Older stuff holds up much better than modern IKEA crap, in my experience.
Or you can just ask around among extended family and friends. Sometimes people have extra stuff they’re very eager to give away!
Re inappropriate touching: Does anyone have good strategies for shutting it down and feeling positive about the outcome? I always end up feeling crappy about the whole thing and coming up with a zillion ways I could have handled it better way after the fact.
I often tell touchy strangers that I feel a cold coming on and take a step back. Like, please don’t hug me, thx. Grrrr.
I might follow it up with theatrical nose-honking into a kleenex.
It TOTALLY sells it. HONK, sniff.
Remind yourself that you’re not creating the awkward, you’re just returning the awkwardness to sender.
What a great phrase!
It’s from Captain Awkward and it’s pretty great.
I just want to say that I encourage you to not feel like you have to “handle it better” – when someone is touching you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, that is their faux pas, and not yours. They made YOU feel crappy. that’s on them. While I’m only guessing that you are a woman, it is very common for women to feel guilty when other people have made them feel bad.
Otherwise, I find that generally, something like “oh haha I’m not a hugger with people I don’t know well!”, trying to use body language and positioning to convey that I am not open to touch (ie sit across the table from someone, lean out rather than in, noticeably start or look a bit taken aback if they do touch you), and initiating touch I am comfortable with in “touch moments” like greeting and saying goodbye (ie putting out my hand and keeping my body out of hugging zones) is effective. But I have a pretty assertive personality, and I’m tall and stuff, and I think people are a bit intimidated and are less likely to touch me than others.
Yes, I definitely have a problem with the female guilt issue and feeling like other people’s comfort is my responsibility. It’s something I have been trying to work on, with varying degrees of success.
I am short and have kind of a young-looking face, so I’m not very intimidating. The personal space bubble that I need to be comfortable isn’t even that big, and some people seem to take my willingness to engage in conversation or, say, to dance with them, as an invitation to touch me in ways that I’m not at all OK with.
I’ve had some success asking ‘wait – do you want to touch me?’ in a curious, non-judgy, and neutral way, while moving away slightly. If they answer in the affirmative, then I explain that I like to be asked first.
The whole touching without consent thing often happens because if the other person used their words, they would make themselves much more vulnerable to rejection. So they push that vulnerability onto you instead.
Explicitly asking if they want to touch you can help push their vulnerability back where it belongs.
Step back, hands up, awkward laugh, “Woah, (optional: haha) (Optional: sorry) not really a toucher.” (Optional: extend hand for high five, handshake, more intimate hand-graspy thing) warm smile (or face wrinkle conveying discomfort)
If it happens again, go straight to, “Please don’t touch me. I’m not a toucher. Thanks for understanding!”
“How are you?”
Oh, you know, giving myself an ulcer checking the ticket sales for the show I’m producing and hoping they turn around in time for me to not lose the nine hundred dollars I am currently set to lose, thanks!
oh may the audiences FLOCK to see your show!!! Good luck!
Thank you!
I’m going to be buying one VIP or 2 regular, just as soon as my guy decides if he wants to come with me Friday night or if I’m soloing on Saturday.
Thank you! I’m not trying to guilt anyone here about it, I just didn’t have a safe space to vent about this point in the show process anywhere else without appearing unprofessional, you know?
I didn’t feel guilted, honest. I just wanted to let you know that I was enthused and that you can remove $40 worth of investment from your worry fund.
You are too witches and very kind.
Just to confirm his status as TERRIBLE, Christopher from Gilmore Girls is now on the record as firmly Team Dean.
Ugh. He is the worst. Along with Dean.
I am pro Christopher but anti Dean. What does this mean for me??
Hi. I am going to OT rant because I got so mad I was shaking at work today.
I teach bear/rifle safety for my Federal Agency. The local radio station came out to the range with us to talk bear spray, rifles, and bear safety. It was nice!
Some guy (who showed up at a landslide talk I did and thinks we have a rapport now) emailed me about how my science was “wrong.”
He then sent emails he exchanged with some guy rather than actual journal articles. I follow bear safety science pretty closely and report findings, I do not go in for Opinion Science. Then, since I ignored his email, he got the guy he was talking to to call me and tell me how wrong I am.
It was an entirely different woman and man talking about the bear spray science in the radio spot. (And a state trooper who is a buddy of mine.) These two, older, white men did not contact them. Just me. One of the two women who talked on the radio and not the one who said the things they disagree with.
Burn it down.
WTF? Ban men.
Polar is a million times better then LaCroix. Them’s just the facts.
Sansa is the best tote bag model. She’s really working those ears.
I really enjoyed Jess Zimmerman’s story.
There was another story I read with the setting of “time travel doesn’t change the past, and now all of history is a tourist trap”. I liked the idea as a fictional world and wasn’t expecting to read a similar setup.
I actually think this would sell really well, you should do it! Also reminds me of "An Anthropologist on Mars," which is the story of Temple Grandin and her Mingling With The Humans on Earth.
YEAH ya did! 😀
And big swings in temperature make them very unhappy.
The dragons cost most of the CGI budget, which is why we see direwolves so infrequently 🙁 I guess they valued the three dragons this episode more than Ghost being in battle with Jon.
That's exactly how we read it at the time.
I mean, sure, it sounds a bit like "you might be queer, but I might fancy you anyway" now – thanks, Billy – but at the time, it felt like a big statement of acceptance from a pretty well-known musician.
Hah, I've been on "dates" where we most certainly didn't hug on greeting – we didn't know each other – but then mad sexing resulted before the date was over.
I'm much more comfortable hugging people I've had sex with, FWIW. Thankfully most of my friends fall into that category (and for the ones who don't, there are some who I hug, some I dither about, and some I don't).
Mmm, I wouldn't give the last book to a kid, not with the gratuitous and graphic rape scene dropped in with no warning. It freaked me out when I first read it, and I was well into my twenties.
"Colonising" the FRENCH? Give me strength.