My mom and I have a tradition when we visit that the night before one of us leaves, we pick a fight over something stupid so we can pretend to storm out of the room to avoid saying goodbye. Goodbyes make us cry. We have dubbed this an Irish-Canadian exit.
You nerds.
(Storms out)
I don’t know what to say.
When I was small I used to sit under the lemon tree in our backyard, which was very low to the ground and made a canopy overhead, and I’d read books and look up through the leaves pretend there were fairies. That under the lemon tree was a magic land where everyone understood me and we all laughed at the same things and agreed that mean people were mean and should be made to go away forever.
I wanted a place like this all my life. And for three years, I had it.
Thank you, Nicole and Mallory and Nicole and every single Toastie. It was magnificent.
Oh my goodness, I did this too. It was a poplar next to our apartment but SAME. Man, this place. Toast hugs to you.
because we were dreamers. that’s still in us, and we found community! i tooooooooosoooooooooo relate.
Okay, well, this was the one that made me tear up today. Congrats, you beat out HRC to make me cry. *hugs*
Oh my gosh I am crying – I had a tree like this too and you’ve just captured everything so wonderfully. Thank you.
That was perfect. Thank you!
SAME but with an apple tree.
*tears streaming down face*
omg me too
Me, too! Mee, too! (Crepe myrtle hedge in the side-yard)
This is beautiful.
Guys, magic is real. We made it. It existed.
I tried to post a reply to you, but it seems to have gotten lost in the outpouring of love. Just wanted to say that this was so beautifully put and made me tear up. If I wasn’t already lying down and eating chocolate…
Yes.
Mine was a wisteria bush. Not only was The Toast that magic place I dreamed about, but the place where I found so many people who had the same dream place, too.
Yes, exactly that.
I love this.
My tree was a magnolia in the side yard. When my parents sold my childhood home last summer I realized all I would really miss about the house were the enormous screened-in back porch and that magnolia.
Oh, Toast.
So lovely, and so perfect, and so true.
My brother and I used to play Midsummer Night’s Dream together out in our wild yard and my internal narrative was this.
Mine was a little cave inside a big evergreen bush.
I had a spot like this too, but my place was on top of the heating vent in the corner with a blanket. (What can I say, I was very indoorsy.) But it was the same, and The Toast is that warm cozy corner of the internet for me.
I had that spot, too. (And outside, when I wasn’t in the tree in the front yard, the spot in the backyard under the drier vent was absolutely excellent on laundry day.)
This made me cry because I never had a tree but, in class, we were made to imagine our safe place and I imagined a tree where I could read books and only my best friends would know how to find it. Finding The Toast was finding a place I had only ever built in my heart. That’s where The Toast lives.
You are all magic damn it.
Sounds to me like you knew exactly what to say. <3
Yes!! The Toast has always felt like the kind of place I dreamed of as a child, and … it became real.
My place was a little hollow in the bushes across from my backyard–there was a tree branch with a perfect dip in it for sitting, in summer there were blackberries, and a little creek ran through it at the back.
I’m glad we found this place, too.
I used to get into my wardrobe with my walkman and a duvet and read.
It was a weeping cherry for me. Pink blossoms on thin branches cascaded over a pink granite boulder that was just the right size to lean against. Daffodils bloomed around it in the spring and a tiny stream formed during storms.
Mine was the forsythia bush in our backyard that formed a cave big enough for children and too small for adults, in my part of New Hampshire they’re one of the first things to bloom in the spring.
I love this, thank you. Very teary today.
Mine was a Japanese threadleaf maple. When I bought my house, that was the first thing I planted.
Linette, this is so very lovely. As are you.
I can’t be the only one without a childhood tree. My childhood safe place was the public library. It was air-conditioned, which is important when one’s childhood is in Phoenix. The only adults with authority over me were librarians, all of whom were consistently kind to me. They knew to ignore me and let me escape into books without interruption until I surfaced to approach a desk and ask a quiet, polite question, with a please-and-thank-you.
You are lovely too, RoseCamelia! Here are other trees I had that were not trees:
A little triangle place under the stairs that had a bookcase shoved up against it. I piled a ton of blankets in there and hung one over the opening and read books by flashlight.
The bushes in Montclair park, which I think were junipers and definitely had little child-sized pockets all over the place that were ideal for hidings.
Those circular clothing racks they used to have (still have?) at Nordstrom’s and Macy’s and Mervyn’s, in the center of which was a nice empty child-sized space. My mother hated this; she lost me in department stores all the time.
Closet. It had a light.
Yes to all of this.
“Those circular clothing racks they used to have (still have?) at Nordstrom’s and Macy’s and Mervyn’s, in the center of which was a nice empty child-sized space. My mother hated this; she lost me in department stores all the time. ”
Mine were at J.C. Penney and Sears, but yes. I didn’t get lost. *Mom* did.
Criminy, tears. Real tears, everywhere.
Buckthorn tree in my front yard.
Yes to this. Mine was a dogwood tree (the only tree I ever really managed to climb).
Mine was a dogwood tree. Especially when those big white flowers were blooming and it was like sun shining through lace.
Mine was a circle of bushes in our back yard, where you could crawl inside and enter another world. Years later, in another yard, with no bushes but a tiny field and a tiny forest, I told my little sister stories of clover fairies. And now she is the one telling stories to me.
My Beloved Toasties – You’ve gotten me through good times and desperate times and for that I will be forever grateful. You’ve made this a safe place and I love you all!
Oh my gosh, that’s beautiful, thank you! Now I know I’m not gonna stop crying for the rest of the day.
<3 always and forever.
So I guess I actually have more to say. This site has been incredibly important to me, and even more important to my wife. I am going to be forever grateful that we both got to take part in this amazing community, and take part in it together. We have talked and yelled and laughed over many posts together, and I honestly think it has brought us closer together. There is nowhere else like it on the Internet, and we will truly miss it.
We love you all.
*Also come join us in the Toastie subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ToastCrumbs
Yes! I will be doing a Toast Retrospective daily starting Tuesday! I’m so excited to find all the cool stuff I missed!
I’m also looking forward to trawling through all the goodness I’ve missed, and I’ve missed a lot.
See you there!
Entirely selfishly motivated thread because I had a shirt made specially for today that I wanted to share with you all (pic in replies). But I really would love to see everyone else’s faces before we leave. Please share your goodbye selfies!
Glad I took this last night. I was worried about red eyes from crying at my desk today and I wasn’t wrong. I’m still flailing because HILLARY CLINTON BASICALLY TOLD ME GOOD LUCK ON STARTING MY WEBSITE I mean not me DIRECTLY but CLOSE ENOUGH.
I want one.
SAME
PERFECT
Your beautiful face. I’m too shy to post a pic but picture a red eyed but also sort of happy lady smiling at you.
That is beautiful and perfect.
Here am I, and my toastfeelings.
No, they were too big. Here you will find my toast feelings.
Tears in your eyes! 🙁 (Beautiful kittycat.)
MANKA 😭
Oh, also:
Saffron is in the way of seeing the Hamilton lyric on my tshirt. Which feels appropriate for the last photo I will ever post of my cat on this website.
(sorry for the double comment, the site is giving me a bit of trouble today!)
Me, too. Not surprised. Their servers must be struggling.
The shirt is amazing and you are amazing and our bodies are just our brain bags but your brain bag is very pretty, okay
Ugh. Where am I going to see such perfection of compliments when this is gone? So droll, so sweet.
I want one that says “I lurked” instead…
I Used To Be A Lurker On The Toast Until The Constant Positivity and Awesomeness of the Commentariat Got To Me and Then I Had a Blast
It would have to be a really big shirt to accommodate all that in the triumphant boldface font it deserves. A dress, maybe?
Nope. 30F here, there’s lots of room for that.
I Used to Be a Lurker On the Toast too!! having signed up last week, i’m wondering why the heck it took me so long to be open to the awesomeness of this space?!?! thank you all committed commenters!!
Yes, thank you!
Me too, I was a total lurker and am really, really shy. The closing has at least prompted me to post a few things!
that is PERFECT. <3
You look great and that t-shirt is amazing.
I took a sad picture, then I started giggling about the potato chip crumbs on my sweater, so:
href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/24499339@N03/27920238952/in/dateposted-public/” title=”selfie”>
Oh god want want want. Good luck with your website!
pls to be sending me a shirt k thx bai
I’m happy to send you the jpg image I used to have it printed at my local one-off screen print shop. Email me if you want [email protected].
Thank you, all of you, for helping me on my way, every day.
I love that shade of lipstick on you! It– and your hair– both really bring out your eyes.
You can’t ask for selfies when our eyes are all red and puffy!
FINE. HERE.
This one is even more beautiful.
“Portraits of Mourning Toasties, In Order of Bleak Witch-Queen-ness”
I would buy that calendar.
MANKA YOU SO PRETTY. <3
YOU DIVINE GIF WITCH YOU
YES. THIS IS HER.
This makes me want to be all, “Honey, I have tea and kleenex, and yes, you can absolutely wipe your nose on my t-shirt. It’s okay.”
COMMENTS ARE STILL OPEN?
As I was reading the HRC post I felt my face doing a thing so I took a selfie to find out what my heart-pounding, full-body-sweating JOY in the midst of SORROW face was and apparently:
Is this the right place to tell you that, long before I had an IntenseDebate account or commented or anything, back when I was so scared of my stalker that I was totally quiet everywhere online, I would visit this place and lift your gifs and appreciate you.
And then she watches this on a loop forever…
RIGHT BACK AT’CHA, I am an internet stranger but ilu and your gifs and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, I mean read your site when it goes live!
My PERSONAL Sherlock Holmes, thank YOU.
ETA: GRANADA HOLMES 5EVAH
All the other Holmes are just imitating.
Love your face feelings.
You’re lovely and that shirt is amazing.
my goodbye selfie comes with the doge whose house I am currently sitting in. Please imagine that I am me and doge is all of you. GOODBYE KISSES.
eta: whoa, huge pic
Puppy proxy kisses!
Apparently we have the cutest little fangs! Sending doge nuzzles back to you.
Today I am wearing a NWHL #bestkessel shirt and a HRC hoodie to celebrate the matriarchy, and my heart is so full of love for this place and for all of you.
You are awesome (and look kind of like a prettier Ygritte, btw), and thank you for alerting me to the WNHL! (<late to this, I know, but staying in the loop is hard)
This thread is full of lovely babes.
I have a hearty dislike of selfies and am currently at work. That’s my excuse. Also that’s how much I trust and like you guys.
A+ SHIRT, KIND OF APT
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
BUT NOT REALLY THANK GOD
Thank you! I’d listen to Aeroplane again (for the 900th time), but I would definitely break out into tears today.
It’s not too early for some goodbye champagne, right?
Dang it! I was going to leave before I became a mess at work and it didn’t work. I can’t do a selfie here, but here is my selfie on Cavendish beach. I love you all so much!
<script async src=”//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
TAKE TO THE SEA
I’m not prepared to put my face on the internet, but if I can paint you a mind-picture, right now I have the day off so I’m wearing a jumpsuit with no bra and eating toast with jam. Feels appropriate.
Turns out I don’t know how to not make my picture ENORMOUS. I will try this again . . .
fuck it, its the last day anyway
Awwww. You have a very good face!
Big of hair, big of grin too at all these lovely faces.
you are outdoing yourself CM with these amazingly apropos gifs!
You look like if joy was a person.
I tried to look appropriately wistful, but it’s hard when you’re secretly selfie-ing at work.
You guys made me feel witches, too witches.
this is GORGEOUS
It’s not a selfie, but a photographer friend took this picture of me and it is Too Witches to go unshared.
https://www.facebook.com/PhotographyBySB/photos/a…
I’d call that the perfect amount of witches.
I opened Photobooth to comply with your request and my cat instantly jumped in my lap, so here’s me and Mina saying goodbye:
Gonna miss you and your gifs, Manka. SO GLAD I got to know you.
This is me MySpace selfie-ing at an emo night. It is an accurate reflection of my feelings today.
HERE I AM SAD OKAY
I am attempting to post a link to a selfie, with handkerchief. (Hand-hemmed.) I will futz with it if it doesn’t work: https://www.flickr.com/photos/126310112@N02/27988…
you look like CJ in that picture
Here is a picture from a few weeks ago right after getting a haircut. (My hair is no longer this sleek and shiny.)
OHANA MEANS FAMILY
Thank you for adding a bright spot <3
omg. You are all babes. Manka, what a GREAT idea, also I am in love with your shirt.
this is called: “Me, working from home, forgetting the ‘multiple pics at a time’ setting was switched on in Photobooth.” Heart you all.
Even more curls! Excellent photobooth accident for all.
Biggish Hair, Some Heart, Reasonable Amount Of Sunburn.
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH, TOASTIES
Self -portrait, with Toast.
So, since I have several of this mug (a Christmas present from my dad that relates to some silliness in my childhood) and my husband just referred to my “post-Toasties” life, here you go. A post-Toasties toast to the Toast and the Toasties with a Post Toasties travel mug. (The mug is shaped like a spaceship to keep it on your dashboard…and for being a space witch.) (In the mug is Pussers British Navy Rum and orange juice. It seemed fitting.)
A willing foe and sea room!
what you cannot see is the furrow in my hair from attempting to make a point to my snarky teenager. I did not make my point.
I look ravaged today so here is an older picture of me with a stuffed elephant, taken with the singularly flattering camera of my late lamented (but not as lamented as the Toast) previous computer:
My sister authorialfuries and I just shared a late night toast to the Toast. Much love and good night. We will be seeing you all again.
Hello Toasts, for the last time in this forum! I want to make this count, but that’s a lofty goal and it is really hard to follow HRC herself. So here is a humble and disjointed note from sausagedog, your friend, now and always.
– Last minute book rec requests: any academic takes on Western Esotericism or New Age that manage scholarly analysis without being sexist or racist, any biographies of interesting women who were not necessarily morally reproachable or even morally upright, anything in the vein of Murakami but written by a woman?
– Last minute plug: my Toast-powered recipe exchange Tinyletter: http://tinyletter.com/spaghettidinner
– Last minute blubbering: I’m going to confess, I’ve always been a little too good at the clean break. It’s how I cope with loss. I just move on as quickly as I can. But I will not forget you guys or this place– hanging out here with you for two years has definitely changed my life, whether it was museums and restaurants I wouldn’t have visited, books I wouldn’t have read, risks I wouldn’t have taken, boundaries not set, viewpoints not challenged, or mistakes not corrected. I’m going to take that with me, and I’m going to remember the little things you said and did, even if the usernames fade away. Take care of yourselves the best you can, and if the earth ever gets to be too much, remember that you can always take to the sea. Love.
<3 sausagedog
Recipe exchanges are my jam, and also I’m so glad you have a newsletter I can literally subscribe to <3 *subscribes to your newsletter*
Heh, “jam.” I get it. Glad to have you join 🙂
I think the best biography I’ve ever read is Judith Thurman’s bio of Colette, who certainly qualifies to your desired specifications. Ran away from her controlling first husband to become a touring actress/ vagabond, had delicious affairs with both men and women, including her stepson, and one of the greatest French writers of the 20th century.
<3 <3 <3
RE: western esotericism / New Age — highly recommend Alex Owen’s work, particularly _The Darkened Room_. Randall Styers’ _Making Magic_ is excellent. Molly McGarry’s _Ghosts of Futures Past_ is solid as well. Hit me up on twitter @mpgPhD if you’re looking for something specific.
Sausagedog, your last bullet point echoes my own feelings very strongly, right down to the “too good at the clean break”. I am so fond of all of you and hope we meet again someday.
I’m glad to be with you, Toast, here at the end of all things.
oh god my hearrrrrt
unintelligible wailing
oh noooooooooo the part that makes me cry!
I was holding it together until your comment. Now I’m fighting tears at my desk.
I don’t know if it’s helpful or unhelpful to quote Gandalf right now, but: “I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.” <3
FINE then. I’ll just be crying more. Also possibly endlessly.
I’ll be right there with you.
gdi why 🙁
I was doing SO WELL.
<3 u, Scandy
Man these calligraphy things are really going to put me over the edge. 😪💔
Oh lord oh lord oh lord it’s so pretty it’s so pretty <3 <3 <3 <3
*cries forever*
LOVE YOU, SCANDY
LOVE YOU TOO, HIEU
From a fellow scandinavian, hej då/näkemiin!
Waving goodbye to Nicole, Nikki, Mallory and every toastie. (Change “haunt” to “witch” if you like!)
I am too witches. Olen liian noidat. <3
ToastWake Near You thread! If you are in CHICAGO, please join us at Parts & Labor in Logan Square ’round 6 PM tonight! We have so much to toast!!!!
LONDON TOAST WAKE
Zieferblat, Shoreditch. Tomorrow, 6pm.
DC Toasties! We’re meeting at the Portrait Gallery courtyard starting at 4:30.
Say hey to HRC for us!
I WILL BE THERE. DITCHING MY BABY SIS FOR THIS AND DON’T CARE. (much)
I’m assuming I just look for the witches and that’s how I’ll know I’ve found the right people?
I think someone is going to have a sign saying Toast Wake, but your method works too.
Oh jeez so early, I’ll still be at work.
But will Toast you all from here!
It just starts at 4:30, I’m sure we’ll be there until it closes at 7, and then will possibly move to a second location!
Shucks maybe I’ll try to make it! If you can, toss up here where the second location is if/when that happens.
Will do!
We’re cleaning things up at the Portrait Gallery and heading to Penn Social shortly. It’s a big group, you can’t miss us!
Please put up a second location – if comments here are disabled perhaps the Reddit (I have not yet conquered Slack)? I will try to make it in but will probably not before 7.
Bay Area ToastWake:
Saturday (tomorrow!) July 2nd
7PM at Mad Oak in Oakland (near both Lake Merritt and 12th Street BARTs)
+1s (Dogs and/or humans) welcome
I have never regretted leaving Chicago more than I do at this moment.
Same! I moved away a year ago and never have I wanted to go back more than this moment.
I’m sorry I won’t be able to make the Chicago one! I’ll toast you all long distance from Rogers Park.
Toasting you from the suburbs, Chicago Toasties; someone have a drink for me?
Fellow Chicago suburbanite waving from afar!
TORONTO ToastWake (sorta!). We were not organized to do something for this week, but next weekend, we’re doing a park hangout on Sunday, July 10 around 2:00 in High Park! Join our Facebook group for more info!
SEATTLE: 6pm, The Pine Box (cap hill)
TACOMA: 6:30pm, the Harmon on Pacific
That is my neighborhood! I will be at a concert tonight, but will raise an extra glass for y’all. Toast The Toast well.
Anything going on in the Twin Cities?
Aww, man – I can’t go to the Toastwake in Chicago tonight 🙁
Is there any chance of another event? I rarely commented here but I’m a longtime #toastietwitter-er. I’m @joysprick there. Also, I saw there’s a Chicago Toastie f*cebook group with a few members I recognize. Does anyone know if it’s active?
It is very active! Send a request 🙂
I just want to say I love you guys and everything you’ve done for me and all the wonderful people who frequent here. <3
MsHanny! I was just dropping a toast post to you because it is the last day and I wanted to be sure to send another one and also, I am including my return address this time doh!
Love everyone here. xoxoxo
Ahaha brilliant! I love penpals and look forward to receiving it and getting to send stuff back!
<3 <3
*giant heart eyes* THANK you xoxo
Can we talk about things The Toast got us through? I had some pretty terrible stuff happen to me about a month after I found The Toast and I eventually developed PTSD. The Toast was my haven when I couldn’t really feel safe anywhere else on the internet. I didn’t comment much and didn’t even get an Intense Debate account until after the announcement. But this space was crucial for me. I am doing really well now and I want to thank Nicole, Nikki, Mallory and all you beautiful queer librarians for making such a lovely place.
I lost a baby and went through the subsequent grief and depression train, in large part finding refuge here at the Toast in open threads where I felt like I could talk about it without feeling weird or judged or like I was ruining the mood of an entire room just by opening up about my feelings. I love this place. <3
Sending all the love. I’m sorry about your baby and I’m so glad you had this space.
Thank you <3
The Toast got me through my first post-college job in an industry where there are so, so few women. I said this on the HRC post but– there were a lot of days when you all were the only ladies I got to talk to! So thank you for keeping me sane and supported.
Same here!
I came to The Toast as I was slowly slowly recovering from a mental breakdown and dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Like you say, I felt safe here in a way that I didn’t elsewhere, and The Toast writers and the commentariat allowed me to engage with the parts of myself I thought I had lost.
I’m so glad that so many people found this place the haven I did, and I hope I was able to contribute in some small way to that too.
You did contribute to it! We were in it together somehow, even when I was too messed up to comment. It’s witch magic.
Sexual assault, big scary emergencies with two friends, the last two years of college and the begining of the rest of my life, and the shit show that has been 2016 has been made a lot easier to handle with The Toast. Thank you!
It HAS been a shitshow, hasn’t it? Yay to this place for helping us get through all of these terrible things. And I am incredibly sorry about your sexual assault and all you’ve experienced.
The Toast has gotten me through a sudden move to a strange place, buying a house, selling a house, and getting ready to move again. Through my dad’s diagnosis with terminal cancer. Through beginning to write publicly. Through loneliness and friend problems.
Most importantly, it has been a place where I always felt like “hey, my people”when I didn’t have that in real life where I lived. So important. So crucial. What a wonderful way for me to feel like I am not the weird one out and there are tons of people like me.
Yes! My people!
It got me through the first year of eating disorder recovery, the breakup of a four-year relationship, writing my first novel, and applying to grad school.
So thanks, The Toast. For all of that.
Wow. Good for you. Toast witch fist bump.
The Toast started at about the same time I was graduating, job hunting, and then moving across the country for a new job. Toasties are probably the reason I started therapy! It’s meant a lot to me, and I love you all.
We love you back.
I ended a five year relationship (which eventually got reconciled, but damn was that hard) and my best friend died after an emotionally and physically grueling fight with cancer. The Toast and all you lovely people helped keep me going through all of it.
As things got really bad with my best friend and then my grief, I commented less and less and withdrew from friends all around, but… just having a place I could read and still feel connected helped so much.
I am so sorry to hear about your best friend. And your other struggles. It’s amazing how healing reading the comments and articles can be. I felt the same way, even though I never commented much until very recently. Just reading the words of people treating each other nicely was incredibly important for me. Also the jokes.
My wedding. Which, obviously was a v joyful thing, but The Toast was my safe place to squee and vent and all.
The Toast has basically been one of the only things keeping me sane as everything collapses in my life, so I’m going to be feeling bereft without it (and so grateful for Toast Slack and knowing the Toasties will still be out there writing).
I mean, jobs losses, house loss, moving across country twice, turning 30, being unemployed for too long, being without a paycheck for longer, etc etc
Oh yes, and my grandma dying and all the drama around that. Yep.
We are all here for you and it is ok if you’re not yet through the things The Toast got (is getting?) you through.
I finally admitted my abusive mother was never going to give me any support, and cut off contact with her.
It got me through the aftermath of an abortion and a friend who stopped being my friend because she couldn’t handle my choice.
It got me through months of depression, being on antidepressants for the first time in my life.
It got me through the fears and anxieties of my first long-term relationship, which has lasted as long as the Toast has, and is the joy of my life.
And Toasties came with me on a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome, which I will always remember as one of the best adventures of my life.
I remember your posts about your pilgrimage–that remains one of the coolest things I’ve heard of, and I hope to one day follow in your footsteps.
If you do, I highly recommend the Lightfoot Guides and cannot countenance the Cicerone Guides by Alison Raju. The latter had five-star reviews and so I bought them and they got me horribly lost at least a dozen times in the first week.
You’re a god damned inspiration, girl.
You’re one of the first Toasties I followed on Twitter because I was so excited for your pilgrimage! I was intrigued by your Open Thread comments about it, and wanted to hear more. I was at a point in my life when I couldn’t travel much and the idea of taking time to walk across countries by myself was just heavenly. I lived vicariously through your Twitter for that trip and then went on to root for you as you found your strength to handle your mother. I don’t tweet much, but I think one of the many Toast-lessons is that I should say hi more often to folks I think are cool. So, hi!
Helllllooooo! Thank you so much for all those kind words. It has been a difficult three years but Toasties always made it better. I’m on toastieslack as Astrid (my actual name) and Twitter as @astridoverthere, come find me if you would like!
I had a parent become homeless and have to move in with me, major relationship upheavals, a bout with severe depression, and an awful year at work. This place and all of you have been my support network even before I made an account and I am eternally grateful.
Yes! See this is what I can’t explain to people. A support network even before you made an account. ME TOO.
And now I’m replying to almost everyone in this thread. And it is too much. Anywhere else it would be TOO MUCH. I would be TOO MUCH. But I just feel like me here.
The part when I got hit in the face with the reality that abused women with kids don’t ever get to leave, really, and he can go on living whatever life he wants while my life choices will always be bounded by where he wants our children. That still hurts, but this place kept me from giving up hope, and showed me how to keep some self respect and autonomy. I can’t see the future but I have a little more confidence that I can live my best life even under pretty rotten circumstances, and that came from this place here.
<3 ((laxmom))
Oh wow, that is rotten. I am angry for you but I know that you living your best life must be a sight to behold.
Sending so much love to everyone who’s had hard things happen in these last three years. I feel so lucky to have been here, part of a community that helps bring people peace and healing. <3
As for me, the Toast got me through a job that I hated, but which required a lot of emotional labor to the tune of pretending to love it (even when I was quitting my boss made me say it wasn’t because I didn’t like it!); the first two years of the hot self esteem eroding morass of grad school; and the general disjointed, lonely feeling of being in a new city where it’s taking a long time to make new friends and you start to wonder if maybe it’s you and you’re just not likeable. The Toast always made me feel likeable and valued and like I belonged and the things I felt were all okay.
You are!!!
I lost my favorite job ever and survived the following four months of unemployment mostly by getting up in time for the link roundup every day and refreshing the site as I worked on job applications. It was WORLDS better than the last time I was unemployed, when I got into a spiral of boredom, self-doubt, and loneliness. How could I be lonely with all of you to talk to?
And even though I have another job now, I still refresh the site throughout the day, and I’ll miss having all of you to talk to.
I spent a lot of time on LiveJournal during my last bout of unemployment, specifically in drama-type communities. Everything would have been so much better if I’d been on the Toast instead. And if the Toast had existed then.
I’m going to have a hard time remembering not to keep refreshing the site over and over. It’ll be like an American holiday I didn’t know about but forever.
The Toast has been here for me through job losses, depressive episodes, and most of all, raising a small root vegetable, which has been frustrating and rewarding and exhausting all the time, especially recently since we’ve been separated. It seems really small, but knowing that I can post pictures of him and get such a positive response (and advice if I need it!) has meant a lot to me. It always reminds me of the positive aspects of being a potato mother, so thank you all again.
There could never be too many pictures of the Potato! Thank you!
C.P. Hashbrowns is the best potato. Thank you for sharing him with us.
actual literal lol at “raising a small root vegetable,” so thanks for that
Snugs for CPH!
I barely knew anyone in my city when I started grad school, and I was lonely and hopeful and excited and nervous. The Toast, by posting great links and articles and humor pieces that I could then share, helped me turn my acquaintanceships with the cool women in my program into some of the strongest friendships I have today. I am so grateful for that.
That’s amazing
My previous work being horrible right as I left. An international move. A miscarriage. My marriage almost disentegrating. a new job.
<3
I was laid off two years ago (after 17 years at the same place) and that reactivated my ptsd (after 20+ plus years of treatment I had been doing really well, thank you very much). Suddenly I was in this crazy situation where being un/under-employed was really hurting my mental health, but my mental health made it much harder to look for work. I’d also realized that I’d accidentally erased my queer identity when I married a man in 2001 – and let me tell you, the idea of coming out a second time in my 40s seemed much more daunting than coming out at 21.
The Toast (along with Dear Author, AutoStraddle and Captain Awkward) accompanied me on this incredibly humbling journey of healing and rediscovery. The queer content, the comments by Toasties looking for work or freelancing, the opportunity to be a part of a community that values my encyclopedic knowledge of Anne of Green Gables and shape shifter romances, enthusiasm for objectively bad but subjective great movies, and ability to craft sarcastic but loving comments about classic books – all of these things helped me slowly find my feet.
Today I am still looking for work but thanks to grace, SSRIs and therapy, I am in a much better place mental health wise. After freelancing for 2ish years, I’m much more confident and know what kind of ft work I want. And I’m slowly becoming more visible – I marched in Pride this month with my church and my husband wearing a brand new bi-pride flag t-shirt. I belong to a couple different queer groups. I’m sure that the first open thread I ever posted in was about getting ready to go to my first ever queer book group – I was so afraid to go, but with the blessings of the Toasties, I went and I bravely (and semi casually) came out as both bi and married to a man and it went quite well.
Thank you all. (The needle is tooooo heavy).
<3
I don’t know you but I am super proud of you all the same.
Also it was startling to read about the reactivation of your PTSD after 20 years. I’m so sorry! But it’s also reassuring somehow since you are obviously healing and finding strength in yourself.
My trauma cracked me right open a year and a half ago and I’ve tried really hard to be like, well, you’re cracked open anyway, might as well do some housekeeping. And I feel like I’m getting to a place where I’m more vulnerable now but more fully me because of the things I discovered in that massive crack.
Thank you! I’m proud of you too! Thank you for starting this thread.
Trauma is weird. And recovering from it is weird – I can only speak from my own experience. I’m a survivor of CSA – I was 11 – and I repressed almost all of the emotions surrounding it (not the actual memories though – I always knew what happened, I just was numb and in denial about it).
I’ve had two big triggering events in my life where it honestly felt like some internal regulator said “oh good, you’re strong enough to deal with this now” and opened the emotional floodgates. The first time was when I was 20 and after that I honestly thought the worst was past me. But no, when I was laid off at age 44, it felt like the next level of floodgates opened and it was just as overwhelming as the first time.
The good news is that I had more than 20 years worth of healing to call on this time, so I did know how to weather it better. And as you say, it’s a good chance to do emotional housekeeping. The other good thing is that trauma treatment has improved *dramatically* in the last 25 years – trauma-informed treatment didn’t exist when I was 20 and it has helped me a lot in the past 10~15 years, and especially these last two.
Much love and strength to you as you heal.
I feel incredibly grateful for how good trauma treatment is right now. I mean, exposure therapy is a bitch but it has been incredibly effective for me. I feel so much for you dealing with CSA and having the impact of that resonate for years. Much love and strength to you too. I hope to see you on Slack or Reddit or clevermanka’s blog or somewhere.
<3
Weeks after The Toast opened I started college. Then I dropped out, started again, dropped out, transferred, hospitalized myself and dropped out. I was sexually assaulted. I came out to both of my parents. I was the happiest I’ve ever been, and the most depressed. I lived a half hour commute from my favorite city in the world for a summer. I moved out on my own to my favorite city in my state. I started writing, for real. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling like a failure or a fool but never here.
<3 <3
You are neither a failure nor a fool. You have been through a lot and are still kicking and it is a sight to behold.
The Toast got me through one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Dirtbag Ethics Professor. Like seriously through him. In through the chest cavity and out the other side.
You’re the best.
I wasn’t yet commenting back then but, can I just say, he was THE WORST.
He so was/is. And I’m giddy at the prospect that Ms. Clinton might know it as well.
Oh my word, that is the most AMAZING possibility. I believe.
I’m thinking of her judging Dirtbag Ethics Prof for being such an irresponsible ass with his position of authority, and it is fucking delightful.
I have a severely disabling illness. For three years The Toast has been my most reliable source of support when I needed it, of intelligent attention to the specific circumstances of being a disabled women, and probably most importantly, of distraction and cheer. Thank you all.
<3 <3
Yes! I learned a great deal from The Toast (and The Butter) about those living with disability and chronic illnesses. It makes me happy to know that you felt supported (and distracted and cheered).
I got so much support from this space when I was deciding to get my breast reduction, and it was so so so valuable to me. I wasn’t very comfortable talking about it with many people, and I was here. Thank you!
<3 <3
That’s amazing. Fist bump.
Oh my goodness, thank you! I mean, now I’m sobbing instead of just weeping lightly, but this feels like such a lovely gift. And you will definitely see me on Toastcrumbs.
I don’t like sharing my heavy stuff on the internet, so, thanks for being such a reliable distraction when one was needed.
And thanks for sharing YOUR heavy stuff, because I think I can safely speak for others beside myself when I say it helped me say the right things to friends in tough spots.
This is so true. And it also helped me articulate to others and myself why I was upset and what I needed when others said the wrong things.
My boss was arrested for solicitation of a minor (under the age of 15), and the police took our office server, which had our accounting software on it. While I was sorting out my reactions to that (he went to my church, his lawyer still goes to my church, his ex-wife goes to my church, everything was super-awkward), I realized I had PTSD from his ongoing verbal and emotional abuse of everybody in the office (and sexual harassment of one of my coworkers). Everybody here was amazing and supportive, and I had space to feel any way I needed to feel, process anything I needed to process, and be reminded that my feelings are and were legitimate, that I really was being treated poorly by him before his arrest, and that I was ultimately going to be ok. Work-related stuff was my only contribution to the Open Thread for months, and people always remembered where I was in the saga, and were genuinely pleased to get updates.
I’m so glad you commented. I remember your comments from when I was lurking and in the depths of trauma and you helped me feel like my feelings were legitimate. So thank you.
Oh wow, I’m glad
Oh wow, I’m really glad to hear that it helped you. That’s another amazing thing about how supportive the Toast has been; just observing the support other people get feels like support for oneself.
Toast Valkyries!
Yes, you helped me alot too. I have probably said it already. I hope I have. Here I am posting, a week later, feeling like I’m talking to the dead in a graveyard. But you’re all still here!
I’m still here! And opening my email to find an IntenseDebate notification was marvelous. I keep wanting to check the Toast at the office, then remembering that there won’t be anything new there. D:
On the plus side, this means I’m not missing any Toast content while my computer is in the shop.
Toast Valkyries! A willing foe, and…sky room?
I had just graduated college and had kind of a dead end, crappy job with a micromanaging boss and was pretty scared that that was going to be the next 40 years of my life. The Toast, the Toast commentariat, and links like Ask A Manager helped me not lose my mind. And now I have a great job that I’m actually interested in.
Yay!
I had a horrible few weeks last fall where my immune system went haywire and I kept going into anaphylaxis from the air, and The Toast Open Thread kept me supplied with webcomics and entertainment recommendations while I was continually stuck in emergency rooms. It was definitely a lifeline for keeping my sanity, and I really appreciated all the Toasties who helped me out! (And as an update, my immune system still stupidly thinks that much of the world is a threat, but I’ve managed to stay out of the ER for six months. Huzzah for that, at least.)
Huzzah for that! <3
My brother had ideopathic anaphylaxis and that was a terrifying time (he was only in the ER once, but that was enough). His went away after a couple/few years and hasn’t come back – according to his specialist that’s v common.
Good luck to you. Internet hugs if you want them.
So glad to hear that he’s doing better! That sounds scary. I at least know where it’s coming from – severe mold allergies, and there’s mold in the air most of the time – but I’m hoping it will go away for me too someday. 🙂
I came out properly to my friends and family because of the Toast, and everyone was so supportive of the dreary situation with my brother and my parents. To paraphrase Lina Lamont, you brought joy into my humdrum life. Bless you all!
Here’s to joy! A toast to you!
It got me through the loss of my grandmother and one of my closest friends. The stories of Toasties dealing with their mental health issues inspired me to seek help for mine for the first time in more than 20 years, I started antidepressants for the first time ever – I took my first pill half an hour before The Toast announced it was closing. I could not have done this without you all.
I’m sorry about your grandmother and friend and I congratulate you on being inspired to get the help you needed.
I held out but this thread is the second thing on this site to finally make me cry.
This site got me through grad school. Oof.
Also a friend was living in an isolated and fairly miserable place and I PRINTED and MAILED her like eight toast pieces. Because mail.
Oh wow. Your friend is really luck to have you!
Toast got me through my second miscarriage and later my first baby, I specifically saved ‘link round up’ until the 2am and 4 am food times so I could have something to look forward to and make me feel still connected to this crazy world! Love to all these beautiful people
Love back to you!
The Toast was there for me during grad school (and my summer work-study jobs), and in my unemployment, then when I got hired and subsequently promoted. I have grown a lot in a short time but The Toast has been there for me, like one of those sticks you tie to a tree to support it.
What a sweet, lovely analogy.
That image will stay with me. Thank you.
Not as huge as some of the above, but: Studying for the bar, six months of unemployment/living at home, moving back to a city where suddenly I didn’t know anyone anymore, leaving the Mormon church.
Those are huge!
I never dreamed, before discovering The Toast, that there were so many women so like me. I had just moved to a very conformist culture that has no use for the real, true, intense me.
And y’all got me through the saga of my 13- pound Incredible Uterine Hulk (fibroid, not referring to a baby) and the ridiculous lack of urgency I encountered here in the medical community here in Conformity Station.
You helped me when I was frantic about sudden, fast-spreading cancer in my beloved LittleBoyDog. Then you comforted me when I had to give him a gentle death in my arms.
I felt good here at The Toast. I felt understood, accepted as-is. That is rare and precious. I will be eternally grateful to all of you.
I’m remembering so many people’s stories as I read through this thread, but I had to stop at yours just to say thank you for the sensitive, caring advice you always gave in threads all over The Toast. I know I was on the receiving end a time or two, and I saw you always being so affirming and kind to so many others. Everyone in your offline life is lucky to have you on their side.
Thank you for your kind words. No thanks for the renewed tears, though, dammit.
I’m afraid you’re just going to have to deal, because I’m also jumping on this to thank you, once again, for keeping me moored when I felt like I was completely losing it, and couldn’t see a time when things would get better.
And I am eternally grateful for you <3
What thebellewitch said. I feel like you and I have similar points of view on life, but you are so much better at putting them into kind and gentle words. “Everyone in your offline life is lucky to have you on their side.” Yes.
Yes, you and I have many commonalities. But our paths here were significantly different. I wish I had been more like you sooner in my life. I hope to buy you a drink one day and expand on this subject. I want to know you better and maybe meet The Burgomaster.
I would LOVE that.
I have to second (or third?) thebellewitch’s comment. I’ve mostly ever lurked, but so often I’ve appreciated the words you had for someone else. You’ve so often been so warm and gentle here.
Agreed to all of the above. So many of these real intense women out here are grateful you were around.
This week has been really terrible for me– I’m back on the job market, for one– but the folks here have offered a lot of great advice and support. Thanks to everyone who had kind words over the years, when my dog died, when I was having trouble with my ADHD meds, and so on. It’s been so nice knowing that there are genuine and kind people on the internet.
Good luck on the job market! And yes just seeing this constant stream of intelligence and kindess was so good for my psyche.
The Toast helped me get through the first five months of the breakup of an 11.5-year-long relationship (and the two weeks before the breakup, when it became clear it was likely to happen).
You (plural from here on out) listened. You reminded me that there were other things going on in the world. You posted interesting links. You recommended books on grieving. You posted music recommendations. You said nice things to me, and about me, when I was feeling terribly sad. You shared verbal hugs and gif-al hugs. You helped me locate my anger. You reminded me that I was a person worth caring for and about.
THANK YOU.
That’s amazing. I’m sorry for your pain and I’m glad this site was here for you. <3
I’ve only been commenting since January, but I’ve been reading The Toast for a lot longer, since my first year of university as a fairly sheltered 22-year-old living on my own & encountering people of different backgrounds than me for the first time. University threw a lot at me in terms of learning acceptance and discerning which lessons my conservative upbringing taught me were good and which very, very toxic – and The Toast, through thoughtful and clever and funny and wonderful writing, helped me process it and be brave enough to leave fundie religion behind me. It was one of the first feminist spaces I felt like I could belong to, and I learned so, so much here.
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart, for showing me that love comes in all different forms, that feminism is great and not evil, and for making me laugh when I needed it most.
Congrats for making so many positive changes in your life and world view. That’s no easy feat.
I occasionally came to The Toast from the Friday Happy Hour link round-ups on A Practical Wedding. And then I got married and moved from Wisconsin to Boston and was…at sea, really. A long winter of being isolated by geography and record-breaking snows. A new job. Homesickness. Depression and anxiety. A great apartment made terrible by landlords. A house hunt and a second move.
And through this all I had started coming here more and more, and not just when directed by a link. I discovered the comments, though I didn’t comment myself, since I was annoyed at the fact that “Kayjayoh” was already taken. And finally, giving up, taking an underscore and slowly wading into the community…only months ago. I love you all. I’ll miss this place.
PTSD/PPD from a prolonged and bad medical experience; infertility starting immediately when I wanted to conceive, caused by stress from the former; the increasing stress of caring for a special-needs toddler with no available diagnosis or resources or help, more stress from the medical establishment’s failure to identify and treat the actual hormonal imbalance resulting from the stress instead of throwing expensive and ineffective meds at the wrong problem; general stresses of immigrant life; a horrifying incident where I found my special-needs toddler in a potentially life-threatening situation at his special-needs daycare and his teacher called Child Protective Services on me in retaliation when I brought it up to her politely the next day so we were investigated (the investigation came to nothing, but it was still harrowing and left me with lasting fear and stress); the stress of moving countries again. The Toast got me through it. After we took him out of the daycare, we couldn’t put him in another one because there were no spaces in the two and a half remaining overstuffed facilities in Toronto, and all of the other many, many daycares I called said faux-regretfully that they couldn’t accommodate a child with a diagnosis of autism (it’s against the law for them to do this because they were all licensed, but hey, the law is just a polite suggestion when it’s never enforced, so oh well, sucked to be us), and I basically never had time to comment on The Toast again because I just run after him nonstop and yank him out of the fridge and off the bookshelves and out of the toilet all day when he’s awake. But I read here and there whenever I could, and it saved my life!
I broke off an engagement and came out and moved across the country and started grad school and took a break from grad school and got diagnosed with ADHD and also, also, went through several many beloved haircuts that I was too afraid to try before I read this piece: http://the-toast.net/2014/07/25/shave-half-head-l… and *especially* THIS piece: http://the-toast.net/2014/04/07/care-keeping-shor… . I mostly only lurked, but I got so, so much from lurking. I saw that other people ended relationships that were bad for them and survived, that other people came out what felt awkwardly late and survived, that other people took big risks and broke open and re-formed beautifully, radiantly. There are so many things I might never have tried without seeing you all try them first, and support each other, and come out so much stronger and happier for it.
It got me through moving to a new house from my childhood home (which went on for way too looong, honestly) and all the subsequent bouts of depression and anxiety. I definitely needed something to rely on and help me make sense of all my feels.
Late to this because I’ve been traveling, but this question means a lot to me and I want to pay tribute to the Toast and this community on this day.
The past year has been NOT GREAT. (Well, the past three years, if we’re being honest.) I’ve had carpal tunnel for 18 months. I’ve had a lot of job issues, finally ending with unemployment to deal with the carpal tunnel. My boyfriend and I decided to break up a month after moving in with each other. I later moved in with my mom, who is challenging. All along, I was dealing with anxiety and depression and the realization that I had no idea what to do with my life.
I started reading the Toast every day to distract me at a toxic job with no HR where my man-child boss would frequently yell at and belittle me. I was constantly on edge, always bracing myself for a random outburst. I hated everything about the job and felt so trapped. This delightful oasis of kindness and misandry was the only nice part of so many sad days.
When I badly needed a creative outlet, I found out about the Iowa MOOC here and joined the Toastie group for it. The lovely Toasties there made learning the online format less overwhelming and sharing my work less scary.
More recently – and more happily – Toasties gave me tips to prepare for a move to NYC. This is a big positive change for me and I have no idea where else I would get to crowdsource genuinely great information from thoughtful people.
Even though I was never very active in the comments, I felt like I was part of this community. And this community made me feel like the world was sane, like I had value, and like things would be all right. I am so deeply grateful to all of the people who made this space so beautiful. Thank you, the Toast. No words can ever be enough.
At one point last year, there was a good chance that I’d end up in prison, and I just had no idea how to explain that to my children – or if I even should. Bear and the Toast community were there for me when I had no idea what to do, and nothing I say can accurately express how grateful I am for all of your help. I know I’ve said this before, but The Toast community has had a real, tangible effect on my life, and … how do you thank people for something like that? I can’t. I can’t thank you all enough, and I just want you all to know that.
We’ll miss you!
First of all, I for one deal with difficult transitions with music, and would like to know what songs will always remind you of the Toast. Please share!
B of all, I am particularly sad today because a hundred billion people never had the chance to be alive at the same time the Toast existed, and hopefully at least that many will come after us. It’s up to us, then, to try to take this special place with us, to be the Toast we want to see in the world… or something.
Finally of all, I want you all to know that I love you all, you are the wind beneath my wings, &c. Please come join the Slack group if you haven’t yet; it only has 1,200 members right now, which is obviously not nearly enough.
A willing foe…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ7pEL92qho
“Let people call you crazy for the choices that you made
Find limits past the limits
Jump in front of trains all day
And stay alive, just stay alive.”
Going to listen to what other people post and try not to cry at work!
I love that song so hard.
I made myself two posters of lyrics from that song. Here’s my “Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive” poster in situ on my ticket wall. The other one is “Play with matches if you think to need to play with matches,” which I think might be the best advice ever given.
Your wall is amazing!! Heart eyes emoji over here
OKAY BUT I just started listening to this album because I read this post and Harlem Roulette came on and when it got to “The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you’re never going to see again” I lost it aaaaaaaaah why did you do this to me
Just keep listening until you get to The Diaz Brothers and you’ll feel much better!!
(Fun parlor game, which MG album makes you cry the most? Mine is the life of the world to come!)
The Life of the World to Come, also the song “Black Pear Tree”.
I for one will be listening to The National’s “Don’t Swallow the Cap” all day and trying not to cry. *sniff*
My own Much-Too-Witches Anthem is “Night Watch” by Grrrl Prty. (Note for language.)
Heather Dale’s Joan all the way for me
THIS SONG
YEAH TOAST
https://youtu.be/kWgKcbeqUhY
I didn’t think anyone else in the world had ever heard this before. And honestly, it has (and always will) make me think the-hyphen-toast-dot-net.
Sigh. I’ve only just started commenting around here, and I’m so sad about that :/
FRENCH TOAST!!!
Feel like an eejit asking, but… how do you Toast slack?
Email ppyajunebug at gmail dot com to join!
July! July! seems extra appropriate today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfxtuZ6v9m8
Hamilton will always remind me of The Toast because this is where I first heard about it and then heard about it again. And again. And again. And then I listened to it and it became my life. <3
I have been listening to my Loreena McKennitt Pandora station for days now. I will have “Star of County Down” in my head for weeks but it is worth it.
💙💚💛💜
Peter Paul and Mary pandora station today. Just heard Rocky Mountain High and had to laugh thinking of the recent article eventhough I am filled with sadness today.
I listened to a song last night called “Motherfucker got Fucked Up” which was totally about #misandry and it made me think of all us beautiful tropical fish here at the Toast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpGGlLgS46s
I’ve never been one for goodbyes
So, till I meet you there, I’m singing
A traveling song to ease the ride and, so you know ,
Everywhere I roam
I’ll see you on the road
(and soulmates aren’t just lovers, you know)
uhhh, currently I am listening to “Whistle” by Flo Rida. Ridiculous goofy music against gloominess, always!
Last Open Thread means one last shout out for the SPACEWITCH RETREAT (a retreat for those of us formerly known as Toasties) in SUMMER 2017 (location tbd but either North Carolina or South California).
Follow us on Twitter at @spacewitchcon
Join our Slack Channel for updates at #Space_Witch_Retreat
We don’t have the website/registration/tinyletter up and running yet, but if you don’t use Twitter or Slack, you can submit your email here for email updates: http://goo.gl/forms/ZaY4uY1XcgQoWBjI3
I am going to miss every single one of you lovely misandrist librarians so much, but we want to see as many of you as possible next summer.
Here’s to the new days ahead.
Thanks for making an email update thingamajig!
New life goal: have some kind of paycheck coming in by summer 2017 so I can get to the Spacewitch Retreat
Same.
OMG OMG
I’m from NC originally and my parents live there still, I’m attending grad school in Southern California. Does this mean I can actually attend the SPACEWITCH RETREAT???
If I start saving now this might not be impossible…
Euro invasion to SpaceWitchCon anyone?
YES. There is a reason why we’re planning this far out!
I am on Twitter and Slack but I am TERRIBLE at both so am signing up for the email updates. Thank you for making that an option!
Me at 11:50 EST this morning: oh no oh no not everyone is on twitter and slack and we don’t have the site up and running yet and we need something quick and easy and …. oh, god bless Google forms.
You! I got your postcard just today! I’m definitely sending one back, also you made me tear up a tiny little bit in front of my neighbour and he looked at me strangely. Thanks <3
Oooh, yay!!! I was hoping my ToastPost would arrive on July 1! (and aww, your neighbour) And please send one back!
It was wonderfully fitting! I’ve already planned ahead and bought stamps today, now I just need to, uhm, write something smart on a piece of paper. That might take a while, but I swear I’ll get it done!
… I was two months late in sending mine so take all the time in the world!
JULY FOOLS!!!
You’re staying right? RIGHT???
Even though Nicole was VERY clear about this, I still woke up today hoping for a big “PSYCH we were just kidding losers, we’re staying”
Thank you for making this space for us. Thank you for being funny and insightful and inspiring. Thank you for making us felt like we mattered.
Does anyone else have a Toast Resolution? Something that they’re going to work on or focus on because of this community? Maybe it made you feel more brave, or more accepted than you realized?
For me… I’m going to write! It’s been a desire of mine my entire life but I’ve always felt inadequate. I’ve always worried that there are too many people with my goal to make any kind of impact, or to even achieve anything. And it feels like a silly, throw-away goal. But I don’t care! It’s something I enjoy doing! It brings me a lot of joy and I think now, more than ever, that’s really all that matters. The Toast posted something of mine (silly Game of Thrones fan theories) which was awesome, even though it wasn’t anything long-form. Some lovely commenters (OK maybe just one or two) asked me if I was a writer based on some super insane dreams I shared, and told me I should pursue it. I just love that this community exists, even if it won’t exist in the same fashion for much longer. You all make me feel like I matter and that we are all worth listening to!
If it is something you enjoy doing, it is never silly. Go for it!
My Toast Resolution is small, but it is to be proud of the things I like. I have always been a Secret Geek, but then I met you all and was so blown away by how you can like niche things, geeky things, and be true to yourself. It’s a step in the direction of self love and owning your choices and yeah. Sniffle. You guys are like the self-actualized cool big sister I never had.
That is not in any way small at all! The Toast showed me that there are people out there just as nerdy about literature and art and mythology and so many other random things as I am!
Between The Toast and The Mary Sue, I felt like I had truly found my people (though I felt much more welcome here). So I toast your Toast Resolution!
I’m going to take up space and not apologize – while still being kind to others. The-toast made me realize it wasn’t rude to be heard, only to not listen.
perfect
I’m gonna write a novel. It’s going to be crappy and I’m going to do it anyway. >:|
YESSS GO YOU YOU CAN DO IT
(I say this as someone who is procrastinating on recommitting to writing my own stuff, in part because I haven’t yet reconciled myself to the fact that the first draft is ALWAYS crappy)
I am so glad you asked this! I’m also going to start writing again.
But more importantly, I resolve to care for myself the way another Toastie would care for me–with great kindness and ferocity.
I am actually going to go to therapy, because everyone here encouraged me to and I now know it’s not shameful or scary or me being unable to cope. It’s just health for your brain <3
I’m going to try to speak up against injustice, particularly sexist/racist bullshit.
The Toast has taught me that a terrible status quo doesn’t have to stay that way.
You don’t understand how perfect this gif is for me.
Ahh this is mine too! While I’ve had so many smart, strong, vocal women who have been my friends offline, the hyphen Toast dot net (and Toasties, maybe even more!) are what made me feel like I could and should do my part when people (read: dudes) are being The Worst. So, THANK YOU EVERYONE.
I’m going to do this too! I’ve always been terrified of confrontation but y’all have reminded me sometimes it’s necessary.
Thank you for this! I am feeling super inspired this morning as well, between The Toast awesomeness and HRC’s post. I want to do more writing. I want to apply for that promotion at work. I want to get off this couch and get dressed! (once I stop reading comments, of course. 😉
I posted about this in a reply to someone below in this same thread, but if you’re into writing, we have a Toastie writing group! It’s on slack, we post prompts and do critiques of each other’s work. It’s been really helpful for me in terms of motivation, improving my skills, and feeling like it’s ok to take my writing seriously.
I am going to write.
I AM GOING to start lifting again.
I am going to speak up and let myself be honest sometimes instead of hiding.
I am going to talk to you all on Slack and maybe even start using Twitter again, wow.
I resolve to write and to make art, even if it is weird and I think no one will like it, and to find places to post it. I’m so afraid of everything, I’m so afraid of being vulnerable, but I’m going to get shit done and find a place for it.
I can’t wait to see a world with more of you in it.
My Toast resolution is to be louder and spikier, and to honor the message that I got from The Toast and all the wonderful people here that I am not Too Much in any way, shape, or form.
Aww, thank you for sharing this! Resolution 1) I am going to actually write and attempt to get published. 2) I am going to be more honest and open about who I am, and what I care about, with everyone in my life.
My New Year’s 2016 resolution was “Tweet More, Smile Less” and am doing a darn good job with that one *looks at how her tweet count quadrupled*
I am going to learn Slack.
breccia, I also started writing again thanks to the toast!! Looking forward to seeing what you write 🙂
When I can work up the nerve to ask one of the trainers at my gym for help with it, I want to try weightlifting. And I’m going to join Twitter.
I am going to actually mail my toast post that I have written and sitting on my dresser but lack stamps. post-toast-post!
Breccia, I have the same resolution! I always wanted to be published on The Toast but never got my shit together. No more excuses for me, I’m going to write and I’m going to start having things published!
I’m going to make sure that the young girls and women in my life can see me openly, unashamedly living my best life, even when I’m scared. I’m going to encourage their dreams, support them in feeling their feelings, and otherwise do my best to show them a world in which they don’t have to choose between being women and being people.
I found The Toast at the very beginning, when I was nineteen years old. It taught me that power and authority and joy, the right to *be* and the the right to speak, are things I can work towards claiming for myself, legitimately, as I go out in the world. They aren’t just things that belong to other people or other people’s gifts to me when they think I’ve done well. My resolution is to carry that feeling forward, develop it, and never forget it.
Toast Resolution: I am not just going to write, which I have been doing, but I am going to share my work in public, which is still scary to me, but OH WELL.
I had a handful of post ideas — one mostly written, the others more just ideas in my head — that I never got around to pitching. I am going to write those pieces up and see if anyone else will publish them, because life’s too short to hold off on writing things you enjoy. (Although I don’t know of anywhere else that does anything like Femslash Friday. Maybe Autostraddle?)
And maybe, if I get ambitious, I’ll also start write the lesbian historical romance novels I’d like to see in the world. Dedicated to the Toast commentariat, of course!
Actually work on my mental health.
Bimonthly visits to a counselor and a half dose of welbutrin for now. You guys and your openess were instrumental in getting me there. Particular shout out to Amphora for spotting the $0 copay category of my insurance plan. Even if it doesn’t end up covering the generic welbutrin it was still the moment that broke past the last of my excuses and got me to make an appointment.
I’m going to be reading a lot more queer theology and fiction.
I’m going to write more.
I’m going to try to be brave about having differing theological and ideological ideas than my parents and the community where I grew up, and try to stop being afraid of what people will think of me. Old habits are hard to break but I will get there.
I resolve to make more friends, to be more open, to be less afraid!
I’m going to finish my graphic novel and also try to be like Lena Dunham in this Instagram post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHPz5HuAqNl/
1. Write more often.
2. Read more often.
3. Speak my truth more often.
4. Learn more about myself and others.
5. Have more courage (especially to GET A DAMN JOB).
6. Be more creative and open-minded.
I’m feeling too emotional and wobbly right now, so I think I might have to come back to this final Toast Party later. Between losing The Toast and finding out that my therapist will be gone for a while from January, as well as her annual long break for August, I need a minute.
But to everyone: thank you. Thank you for making me laugh and cry and feel passionate and righteously angry and more confident than I ever have before. You’re the best and I wouldn’t have had this place be any other way.
May your hair be big and your seas filled with the tears of affronted White Men.
Farewell beautiful witches. *sobs forever*
No words. Part of my heart is always here.
this is beautiful
Incredibly lovely and perfect.
Beautiful
This is beautiful
Gorgeous! <3 <3 <3
This is amazing. And, I assume, hand made by you?
That is absolutely gorgeous, if you wanted to sell prints of it, I would buy one.
If you redbubbled it I’d buy it on a pillow or something to hug when I’m missing you guys.
oh, this is so lovely.
Gorgeous. So gorgeous.
Two monks invent feelings…
Woah! A perfect Toast art!
this is GORGEOUS!
Oh CAWENDAW. This and the manuscript thingy below are beautiful and you are beautiful and can I have a tshirt pretty please?
This reminds me of Nikki’s point yesterday about all of us and our weird beautiful intense interests and I appreciate you for this.
I’m doing as many comments as I can in calligraphy for the next ~3 hours, but I’m doing them as replies to the original comments. Click on my intensedebate name to see them, and I’ll probably post the whole page here when it’s full.
Wonderful!
This is beautiful. Thank you.
You are truly the Third Monk, transcribing and illuminating all this crazy shit, for the ages to read and learn.
That is the nicest…
Yeah. That is just the nicest. Thank you.
Intricate and lovely. Thank you for making it, and thank you for sharing it, Cawendaw. Your uncial d is giving me life right now.
Hooray, another letter geek! Wow, it’s great to know there’s more of us on the Toast. Hey, maybe in next week’s open thread we could…
Oh…
Right…
🙁
Do you fancy Slack? Toastcrumbs?
Surely there is someone else in this mighty crew who would join us for conversation about paleography / calligraphy / fonts!
Yes to both! Same screen name, even! I’m… probably gonna end up doing more toastcrumbs than Slack since it’s easier to pace myself and do portion control. Plus, on toastcrumbs I can take time to compose a text dump that hopefully actually has value. Whereas on Slack it seems like I tend to get more and more verbose in live chat even as each of my statements becomes more and more content-free and inane, until it’s basically just a bunch of empty pixels seeking validation.
Actually, I think I’m tentatively penciled in to do a Toast University thing on calligraphy/paleography in Toastcrumbs sometime this fall! Drop me a line over there, if you want to replace me/take the lead/collaborate/team teach/cheer on from the sidelines! Otherwise, I hope to see you in the comments!
I. Can I have a shirt of this? Can you make that and I throw my money at you?
And your hearts as well:
OH MY GOODNESSSS
May I commission calligraphy from you?
DM me on Instagram, where I’m @cawendaw.
I love all of you. That’s all. I will miss this place so much. I wish I could be more eloquent but alas, I am too witches and too emotions today.
YOU MADE ME CRY AGAIN.
I will miss your amazing Today in History comments.
You can still see them! I will be posting them at my WordPress blog every weekday!
I love you all.
Especially you, Secretly-the-Bartender-Hillary-Clinton-Probably.
Yes, I will 100% always believe this.
Now I will never be able to publish my findings: the Truth about Bartillary (Why The Bartender is a Time-Traveling Hillary Clinton).
*tear-stained gasp*
Yes yes yes!!!
I love this place, and everything we made of it. I know this is not the end. Go well, everyone, I love you all.
Oh my gooooooosh this is so beautiful. Thank you!
Sent from my iPhone
Thank you for everything.
(if you want to join the toastieslack, pls email my username @ gmail)
~ppyajunebug, phd
congratulations on defending!
phd!!!!
dr. ppyajunebug! congratulations!
wow I didn’t know a Ron Swanson gif could make me cry like that
A+ gif. Also, thank you so much for spearheading the Slack setup! It’s become an amazing platform for our community, and I’m really happy to be a part of it and glad we all can use it to keep the Spirit of The Toast alive.
Teeeeears. Congratulations!!!
Unaware that Ron Swanson could inspire these emotions even after the Woman of the Year episode. And I just started watching this show, so, you know, it feels very current and omg feeeeeeeellllssssssss.
DR. PPYAJUNEBUG! Amazing!!
Dr. Papaya Junebug, you have done so much for this community with the slack management and I am so grateful to you.
Goodbye all you sweet, tender cinnamon rolls. I’m happy we are all leaving together on a high note, but my heart hurts and I am going to be so lonely on Tuesday at 9 am EST. I hope we all find our own vines and fig trees and we can sit alone, knowing that we were once together in a happy, healthy place.
The Toast will forever shine on in my heart, and may it do so in all of yours too. Farewell and fare well, my loves.
Well said. Beautifully said. Yes.
Love and sunshine to you all.
May you always be too witches.
For obvious reasons, this lovely piece has been on my mind a lot, these last few weeks:
I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it’s about to end. … Maybe, if you’re with a group of friends who’ll never be together again, all your lights will shine at the same time and you’ll know, and then you can hold each other and whisper, “This was so good. Oh my God, this was so good.”
(“The Light That Shines When Things End,” Iain S. Thomas)
This was so good, Toasties, and I’m going to miss it so much — but I’m grateful that we got to have these last few weeks with our lights shining. And while I may never find another place quite like the Toast, I know I’ll always have the Toasties. If you want to find me post-Toast, I’m on Twitter, Tumblr, r/ToastCrumbs, and probably pretty soon Slack all under this same username. Thank you so much, you guys, for everything.
OKAY, now let’s talk about something that isn’t mourning! CRAFT THREAD! How are everyone’s craft projects going? I will share mine in the replies!
WHY YOU GOTTA DO ME LIKE THAT
I’M ALL WATERY EYED NOW
sniff. I’m knitting a shawl in stormy Malabrigo yarn, and I was just gifted a sewing machine and a six foot long table. I missed the window for toast totes, so I’m going to make my own.
This is where I teared up.
I embroidered a tea towel to send to a toastie, I really hope she likes it!
Also, that link has me sniffling sadly at my desk. Thank you for sharing it.
Ugh. This is brutal and beautiful. I worry about that moment, and I never really thought I’d have that moment with/about a website.
Oh, bless you for starting a non-sad thread! All my time’s been devoted to the site lately, but I did make the banner for it:
I promised to make a doll for my SIL’s new baby and now the baby is 3 months old and I’ve only just finished the doll’s head. So my crafting project is going really slowly, but also is going to look amazing when it’s done.
This sounds like exactly the pace my craft projects usually go at! I bet it will be the baby’s very favorite doll.
I am not a crier, but that made me tear up. Oh, how dare you.
I am making a paper cutting of my closest-thing-I-have-to-a-motto, “this too shall pass.” It seems awfully relevant right now.
That’s too good and too on point. I need more tissues and thank you and… augh.
I am ordering stuff to make my first quilt! Rose_camelia has been enlisted as a local textiles junkie know-how goddess type mentor, so we shall see what happens, It will be fun even if it is not perfect.
Encouraged by the Too Witches channel on slack, I decided to get more serious about my pet writing project, as well.
That sounds awesome! Rose_camelia will make an excellent mentor, I’m sure. Have you already chosen a design for your quilt? What will it be like?
Oh, that quote is beautiful and perfect.
Augh, that one really hit me in the feels as we recently moved and I’ve been unpacking a lot of pictures of friends that live elsewhere now.
Anyway, having recently moved I am currently plotting new curtains (we moved from an apartment with literally one window to one with at least one window in every room). I am waiting for my Spoonflower swatches to come so we can pick from a couple of options we are considering for the living room and office. Also I am hoping to maybe finally get my crafting space in order enough to finish up the wrap skirt I am handsewing from an Alabama Chanin pattern.
Well I don’t 100% know how to embed images, but I’m pretty proud of this one. 150 crocheted hexagons, and now all I have to do is stitch them together and weave in the ends… yes, just a little weaving in, not daunting or anything
Beautiful, I love it!
Oh wow, that’s beautiful! What gorgeous colors.
Wow! Good for you. I actively avoid anything that might involve any type of finishing other than blocking (i.e. stitching together) because I hate it so much. I currently have a “finished” sweater that’s in pieces for this very reason. But that is going to be loverly!
You’ve just inspired me–how do you think it would look as a scarf?
Probably awesome, I’m thinking teeny tiny hexagons? Ps. the yarn is from here http://www.texasyarnfarm.com/store/p397/ICE_Magic…
It’s so beautiful! I love the arrangement of the colors.
Well, it took me longer than I expected to get my photos ready! But here are my most recent polymer clay minis!
An assortment of small breads:
A halved Hostess Sno-Ball:
And perhaps my favorite, a comparison shot of two poppyseed kolaches:
The big one is one of my first projects. I’m still proud of it, but it’s not exactly a masterpiece; it’s made to no particular scale, the “poppyseeds” are basically life-size and not miniature at all, the dough color is not realistic. The smaller one is recent; it’s properly scaled for a 1/12 dollhouse, the “poppyseeds” are teeny-tiny bits of grated clay, the dough color is more realistic and uses chalk pastels to get the “baked” look, and overall it is an almost perfect teeny replica of a closed poppyseed kolache from Hruska’s. I’m super proud.
I KNOW I said this was the non-mourning portion of the thread, but I just want to say that the Toast is the first place I mentioned an interest in making miniatures, and Toasties encouraged me and gave me suggestions and complimented my work every step of the way, and it seems like such a small, silly thing but it’s made me very happy and I’m so glad I’ve had you guys in my corner.
Those are gorgeous!
Those are so cool!
Goddamn knit sweaters. Finish your damn selves.
That goes for you, too, second inadvisable Doctor Who scarf.
#scarvesaretheworst
I have only knitted maybe 3 and after the last one declared “No more!” Thus, whenever anyone asks for one, I go all Edna Mode on them and shout, “NO SCARVES!”
P.S. Is there, like, a Toast group or something on Ravelry?
Sure is! http://www.ravelry.com/groups/the-toast-fiber-gui…
Everyone please post more there! I want MOAR Toastie craftiness.
I’m finishing up a cat bed that’s mostly a way to use up my grandma’s stash of ugly acrylic yarn (and to keep the cat from getting her claws stuck in my nice afghan). I’m also working on a mixed-media peacock wall hanging, which I will actually finish at some point, for real, honest. I’ll post it to r/ToastCrumbs when I’m done.
(I almost said “I’ll post a picture when it’s done,” and then realized that I can’t do that here anymore. Fffffffffffffffffffffff)
Ugh, that is beautiful, damn you.
I am on my fourth(!!) knitted baby blanket this year, which I have declared Year of the Babes (not mine). I succeeded in finishing them all prior to baby coming, except for my current one. My sister had her daughter this morning (yay!), but I still have at least 10 inches to knit on the blanket (boo!). So, kick into extra high gear now. Luckily, this is my last one for a while. (No pics, though, I’m at work.)
Congratulations on your new niece and good luck on your hurried knitting! I’m super impressed that you have actually finished THREE blankets BEFORE their respective babies showed up! That’s the main reason I stopped trying to give crafts as gifts, I was always turning up in July like “Merry… two Christmases ago! Here’s your scarf!”
I am knitting my very first afghan, to give to my brother and his wife-to-be when they get married in the fall! I’m using bulky yarn and a Lion’s Yarn pattern and it’s secretly the first “lace” pattern I’ve ever knitted (“lace” is in quotes because it’s so bulky, it’s different from using actual laceweight yarn, but it’s still new to me). It looks really pretty and it’s knitting up quickly. I’m super pleased with it.
Elsaaaa I know we haven’t interacted much, but I will miss you comments and I hope to see you around on toastcrumbs and slack.
Crafts? Well, I’m making these:
Also, I am half a year into a project to do the Book of Ruth in calligraphy, and I am just rounding in to the home stretch! Starting chapter four of four!
Hm, instagram embedding isn’t working but I was trying to post the most recent pic on my insta account, same SN as here.
This is so beautiful! I saw that you lettered a bunch of comments and it looks like they’re all on one sheet — what’s the finished piece look like? Do you now have a beautiful Toastly poster for your wall?
I’ve finished a simple black linen dress and even wearing it right now, and I’m knitting a baby cardigan for a friend. I hate this cardigan, I ripped it about five times but I think I’ve settling on a pattern now (red with small white stripes). I’ll be happy when it’s finished, because then I’ll be allowed to sew something coordinating in the best fabric ever. It has tiny happy crocodiles on it.
OH MY GOD THAT SOUNDS SO CUTE
It’s disgustingly cute, I just can’t resist baby/kid’s fabrics. Look: http://imgur.com/EO5OOPk
I am knitting blankets, all the blankets. And a bag. They are all colorful and comforting.
(This is the only thing with a recent picture: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/mkmorrow/hue-shif… )
I love you all forever. This has been a wonderful place of support for me in a hard time. (aravisthequeen)
You can find my blogging forever at http://www.yahistoricalvault.com and on Twitter periodically at @dreamsincanada when I feel like it.
Thank you to all of the other excellent contributors. Thank you to the world’s most amazing trio of Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki. Thanks to everyone who read my articles on Canadian nonsense and LMM. Thanks to all the commenters and lurkers.
Good luck and Godspeed, vaya con dios, fair winds and following seas.
I always forget to comment on your blog (I’ll try to do better) but taking the chance to tell you that I love it a lot.
I’M GOING TO EAT TOAST AND DRINK GIN AND CRY AND I LOVE YOU ALL DON’T LEAVE ME
GIN. I’d love to invent some special cocktail de toast – but I think I’ll just take huge swigs of gin instead.
That is the cocktail. Straight gin, swigged directly from the bottle. It’s called “I’m Too Witches for Mixing.”
I will love this place forever <3 I’m just glad I got to be here the whole time
Oooh, while waiting for Open Thread I drafted this big long soppy post and now I want to do an Irish-Canadian exit. But this Ukrainian-Canadian is going to wax poetic instead…
The Toast hasn’t changed my life as much as it has for others, I haven’t started new careers, moved cities, changed relationships. I’m in much the same place, same friends, same job, same loves as I was in 2013.
But The Toast? The Toast and all of your Toasties taught me so much. Every week, the Toast would publish pieces that felt like they had been written specifically for me, and then pieces that would challenge and change how I view the world.
(The sheer combo of quality Tolkien, Sayers, Austen and L.M. Montgomery content would make 13-year-old me squeal with glee)
For me, it’s been the community that has been utterly transformational between Open Threads and #ToastieTwitter (and now ToastSlack) to have access 24/7 to a group of wonderful, warm, supportive, witty AF people is beyond incredible. It’s impossible to describe how life-changing it is to have that kind of community and support.
I’ve made real life friends via the Toastie community. I started creative writing again because of them. I met my writing partner because of Toasties. I met my girlfriend because of Toasties.
I love you all so very much. Thank you, Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki for bringing us together, and creating this vibrant and genuinely safe space for us to connect.
Thank you all for always being kind.
So much love to you all.
Ddid you do the Creative Writing MOOC? That was so helpful to me just to be writing again.
I started but got sidetracked by life stress!! I’m so glad it helped you!
I’m sorry for RL stress! How do did you get back to creative writing? If that isn’t prying, that is.
Oh, not at all! I started writing fanfic again, which led me to a really wonderful group of writers, which gave me the encouragement to start really working on my original stuff.
I’m with you on this. My outward life hasn’t changed a great deal, but The Toast has changed me. I hope that I’m more thoughtful, more willing to listen to viewpoints that I didn’t know existed before, and more cynical about mainstream societal stuff.
I will miss this so so much, but I’m glad that I had access to it for the time that I did.
I will miss you all so much. PUPPY HUGS
This.^^
BUT WHO WAS BARTENDER?
What if it was secretly HRC?
I really want to know.
Me too
Please Nicole, Nikki, Mallory. Please reveal this secret now or in the tell-all Toast memoir you three are working on together and will publish in a few years.
My guess is Esther Bloom, but I’m not positive.
Perhaps the real Bartender were the friends we made along the way.
And when there was only one set of footprints in the sand, it’s because The Bartender was carrying you.
Yeah, I had quite a few that night…
Perhaps the Bartender…was really in us all along.
I’m going to hope RBG until told otherwise, because the notion brings me joy.
It’s Sansa
BUT WHO WAS PHONE1?1?1
jk lol
I’m not very eloquent, but know that I will miss this place an awful lot. Thanks to all – but especially Nicole, Mallory, Roxane, and Nikki – for the laughs, the education, and the community.
Also, If anyone has some good Last Day of The Toast music recs so I stop listening to Patty Griffin’s “Top of the World” on repeat and being extremely melancholy, they’d be much appreciated!
https://youtu.be/0AIlz08fZos
Thank you for being a place that I quietly lurked, sent links to my friends of, and made me cry at my desk from laughing more times than I could count.
May we always be too witches for anything.
The best parting blessing one could hope for.
I’m going to miss this place so much. I will just be consistently refreshing the Toast wondering what funny and smart things are going on and then I shall remember. It’s basically me on a holiday weekend but only FOREVER.
I had never found such a perfect internet home before this place. At least there’s the slack.
I WAS JUST THINKING YOUR USERNAME WAS SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE OTTO CHRIEK
Also true story but I knew my college roommate and I were going to be BFFs without ever meeting her solely because she had a single Terry Pratchett book up on her bookshelf when I arrived at our dorm (nearly the first thing I did was throw open my suitcase and put my TEN DISCWORLD BOOKS up on my shelf)
I’M SO GLAD SOMEONE AT LAST SOMEONE NOTICED HERE ON THE LAST DAY OF THE TOAST!
(I deeply identify with Otto)
That is a delightful story and it took me two readings to realize you put them on YOUR shelf and that it was but one Pratchett book. I was deeply concerned for collections getting mixed up.
All the characters in The Truth are wonderful, but specifically for Otto I love love the way he both sets such high and hard goals for himself but also treats himself with kindness when he falters.
Now that I think about it, I feel like he would also be a Toastie 🙂
On the note of collections getting mixed up, that would never have been a concern xD My roommate was an international student, so she was always packing in a panic like 12 hours before me at the end of a quarter and leaving a sea of discarded papers and stuff behind, which I took care of because I loved her. I was always finding stuff she had left behind like AN EXPENSIVE HEIRLOOM CRYSTAL NECKLACE.
tldr; It would have been a-okay if she walked away with some of my books, she could have any of my books she wanted, she is the (platonic) love of my life
Replying to my own post to add that now I am a little sad you didn’t pretend to BE Otto Chriek and post in the link roundups asking for encouragement in your efforts to not bite people and hugs on the days you were TOO UBERWALD and freak people out.
You know, I was going to reply with something like, “I’ll have to remember that next time I use this username.” But then I remembered that funnily enough, I did once RP a vampire character on the Elfwood forums during my misspent youth. Those posts are lost to the ages but knowing my younger self they were probably deeply embarrassing.
i keep meaning to find a place for him in my present writings because he was one of my better ideas from then. A vampire of the Bela Lugosi breed trying to be a Lestat-type to impress girls (he didn’t read very far in “Interview”) and speaking French quite badly, is, in theory, absolutely hilarious.
I went with Octo because (a I love cephalopods and (b if I was concerned that if I used Otto, Toasties might think I was actually a dude. I always meant to post more here. Oh well.
Plus he gets so angry over injustices, and he is just such wonderful character.
I honestly have no idea why “The Truth” isn’t more popular than it is within the fandom. It has fantastic characters and topics that are never not relevant. I can see why it isn’t on the more rightwing side that hanfs out primarily on Facebook, but I have no idea why it’s not particularly popular with the leftwing side (which seems to be mainly on tumblr, though some might still be on LJ). I mean, not that the ever popular Rincewind isn’t fine and I’ve been known to enjoy some of those books, but there’s The Truth.
Oh geeze, I would die if someone left behind expensive jewelry. That is too much responsibility.
P.S. I’m octochriek on the toastiesslack too.
Love your name! I think I’m going to reread some Pratchett this weekend to cheer myself up. And The Truth is one of those books I’ll go back to because I kind of remember liking it and about 1/4 of the way in I’m remembering how amazing it is. See you on Slack!
There’s a rightwing side of Pratchett fandom? How dispiriting.
Yes, they are rather aggravatingly jolly and they tut about “political correctness gone too far” more than your average Gilbert and Sullivan society. They also don’t like it when people “can’t take a joke”.
After I read Neil Gaiman’s “Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry” I remember thinking, “Well, obviously. His anger seems to blister the very pages. It doesn’t need to be spelled out!” Having observed for some time these fans, I suspect Gaiman meant that peice for them rather than for me.
Yeah, you only need to read some stuff from the perspective of Sam Vimes (or Granny Weatherwax. Or Death. Etc. etc.) for it to become very clear that Pratchett is (rightly) furious about a lot of things. It’s part of what makes him so great! Those fans sound exhausting. (Although I suppose there are ones like that everywhere; a while ago, I learned that there are fans of Bujold’s Vorkosigan books who think that Jackson’s Whole – a terrifying society full of crime lords and slavery – is a libertarian paradise.)
Jackson’s Whole? Why would people be spending so much good money on complex plots to escape the place if it was a paradise?
Wasn’t there a big furor of her latest book? I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet and from from what I’ve heard I’m like, “I’m pretty sure she was always writing Aral like this.”
I don’t know why I’m still surprised at people’s ability to miss the point. After all I’ve know trekkies who only care about the military overtones and the green space babes, rather than the whole progressive outlook. Heck, Charles Dickens is the favorite author of several of my conservative family members.
But you can do whatever you like in Jackson’s Whole! Perfect freedom for the individual! (Let’s hope one of the things you like is “trying your very best not to displease the crime barons who run the place”, because you will definitely have to do some of that.)
i haven’t read it yet either, but was aware of the fuss about it. I was slightly disappointed in the last one, though (Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance), so am a bit apprehensive.
Also I feel really terrible for deleting that paragraph that you were replying to. I was like, “This is the last day of home for us, who besides you Octochriek, is going to want to talk about books.”
In times of sadness, talking about books and reading books is one of the most comforting things. I should reread some Discworld too. Seconding (thirding?) the statement that you have an A+ username.
You too have a fine user name, though I suspect you get that from everyone!
GO FORTH MY BEAUTIFUL LAND MERMAIDS! [it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you]
Kill it, gals.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows. (this is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
take to the fucking sea
The day I decided to stop lurking and start commenting, my life became better. Just like that. Thanks for all the wonderfulness of this site, both from the articles and the comments. I love you guys.
Since we are all crying anyway, what book or poem always makes you cry? Susanna Tomalin’s “Verses from My Room” always does it for me, especially the last verse, and it seems apt now, here at the end of all things:
When you coming looking I’ll be far away.
Will you be puzzled? What, I wonder, say
In your bewilderment? Will you know why
I went and didn’t wait to say good-bye?
Well, it’s technically a song, but I give you Icarus: http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=291…
“You tried to get me to go with you
You tried always to dare me
But I looked at the sky so blue
I thought the height would scare me
But I carried your wings for you
Up the path to the cliff face
Kissed you goodbye and watched your eyes
Already bright with sunlight”
The Once and Future King
I have been singing the end of Camelot to myself a lot lately.
OH. OH NO. Now you have me crying. I have technically never seen the end of Camelot because my eyes are so full of tears.
Technically I’ve never finished that book because I skip all the parts where Orkneys die.
Where the Red Fern Grows made me weep throughout my childhood, and The Book Thief made me ugly cry in the way no book has since I left the school that had a copy of Where the Red Fern Grows on its library shelves.
This is an awkward translation of a Russian song (itself based on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore), but:
Was it the wind that carried away my old name?
There’s no path back to the homeland I’ve left.
If you try to make me out in the distance,
You won’t be able to – farewell, my friend.
I’m sailing away and time is carrying me
from shore to shore, from shallows to shallows,
farewell, my friend.
I know that someday, from the far shore of the distant past,
the nighttime spring wind will bring you a sigh from me.
Look around, look around; isn’t there something left after me?
Ugh now I’m crying again, haha. (Here is the Russian song for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k98wVFVdnic)
Rilla of Ingleside makes me cry SO many times.
Also, The Bridge to Terabithia engenders the ugliest body sobs
Mid-Term Break
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were ‘sorry for my trouble’.
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four-foot box, a foot for every year.
– Seamus Heaney.
I found this so very sad when I first read it, as a 19 year old undergrad in English, but since I’ve had my own children, I cannot even THINK of it without wanting to weep.
Oh, my heart.
A Quoi Bon Dire by Charlotte Mew
Seventeen years ago you said
Something that sounded like Good-bye;
And everybody thinks that you are dead,
But I.
So I, as I grow stiff and cold
To this and that say Good-bye too;
And everybody sees that I am old
But you.
And one fine morning in a sunny lane
Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear
That nobody can love their way again
While over there
You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair.
And since it’s the centenary of the Battle of the Somme:
“The Summer before the War”, by Fairport Convention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC2UkIukydk
Tell the Bees
Sarah Lindsay
Tell the bees. They require news of the house;
they must know, lest they sicken
from the gap between their ignorance and our grief.
Speak in a whisper. Tie a black swatch
to a stick and attach the stick to their hive.
From the fortress of casseroles and desserts
built in the kitchen these past few weeks
as though hunger were the enemy, remove
a slice of cake and lay it where they can
slowly draw it in, making a mournful sound.
And tell the fly that has knocked on the window all day.
Tell the redbird that rammed the glass from outside
and stands too dazed to go. Tell the grass,
though it’s already guessed, and the ground clenched in furrows;
tell the water you spill on the ground,
then all the water will know.
And the last shrunken pearl of snow in its hiding place.
Tell the blighted elms, and the young oaks we plant instead.
The water bug, while it scribbles
a hundred lines that dissolve behind it.
The lichen, while it etches deeper
its single rune. The boulders, letting their fissures widen,
the pebbles, which have no more to lose,
the hills—they will be slightly smaller, as always,
when the bees fly out tomorrow to look for sweetness
and find their way
because nothing else has changed.
I love this.
I should have changed slice of cake to piece of toast, other than that, this is a perfect poem.
Two poems get me, for different reasons:
To Be of Use, by Marge Piercy, which ends this way:
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
(http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2006/09/04 for the full text)
And also, Ulysses, by Tennyson, because it reminds me of sheer foolishness and audacity, and that’s sometimes pretty awesome. Again, the end:
Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/alfredlord_tennyson/ulysses.html)
This one by Lucille Clifton, because it reminded me that everything is still possible always:
There is a girl inside.
She is randy as a wolf.
She will not walk away and leave these bones
to an old woman.
She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.
She is a greeen girl in a used poet.
She has waited patient as a nun
for the second coming,
when she can break through gray hairs
into blossom
and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
and the woods will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.
I cry more at songs than anything else, and if you want be to bawl: 110% “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof or any rendition of “What’ll I Do.” I also randomly burst into tears when I hear the Nutcracker Pas des Deux, which I attribute to a very specific childhood memory.
Mary Oliver’s In Blackwater Woods .
(Last few lines quite relevant right now, sigh.)
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.
Robert Frost’s “To Earthward”, these lines in particular:
“Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.”
I don’t really know how to process this day at all, but know that I am here and I am crying a little bit and grateful that all my colleagues are in meetings so I’m by myself. The Toast has been such a special corner of the internet. Thank you.
<3
The future President reads a website where I once convinced the editor to post a link about Boba Fett being a secret lesbian. What a time to be alive!!!
And somehow those two things aren’t at all incongruous!
That link roundup was how I found out that one of the writers of the Shoebox Project was kicking around the internet running the best tumblr of all time! I look at it every day now bless u
wait what where??
sashayed.tumblr.com!
She wrote this today and I love her.
“So Hillary Clinton writing a farewell to the Toast is an affirmation of that kind of space, of the validity and power of what women accomplish with each other, the serious work that gets done in unserious spaces. And maybe the idea of having a president who understands and has experienced that is very cool and exciting? “
She’s the best. Also her cat is a straight beauty queen.
tumblr user sashayed is a goddamn delight and her cat is an endless font of wisdom
Thank you for this information!
Toasties, thank you for being a light in my dark places. Mallory, Nicole, Nikki, and everyone else, thank you for my heroes and showing us what a place for people like me could look like. May I someday write something that would have been Toast worthy.
We will take to the sea but The Toast will never fade into the West. It is a bright constellation by which to guide our ships by.
Oh my gosh that is beautiful! I am tearing up all over again. You have such an excellent hand.
Thank you all, for everything. I wish I had something more eloquent to say, but this is all I have right now. It’s been lovely sharing this corner of the internet with y’all, and I look forward to many more smart, weird, funny, nerdy, Toastie conversations on slack.
I’ll miss you all. How can the Toast make the worst day, absolutely magical? Thank you for giving us a space.
Oh, how does that scene from that silly movie make me cry EVERY TIME?
i love all you magnificent bastards <3
Farewell, The Toast. Thanks for cultivating a space where my nerdiest, most compassionate, most feminist self could feel at home for three great years. See you all on the Slack—and at sea.
My first two attempts to click netted a 504 error. Congratulations on breaking the internet, my dearest witches.
Me too. It was like a preview of the Toast-less internet after today, and I did not care for it ONE BIT.
Me too! Its whole endealment, I DID NOT PRIZE.
I’ll leave it at that.
I’m not crying again. I’m not. Nope. Not.
*wailing*
No shut up you’re the crying one. 🙁
Ok, maybe I can’t leave it at that. I am so sad.
This helps. Thanks.
Maybe this will help.
Corgi smothers always help. Always.
salty water eyesssssss nooooOoooo
noooooooo too much
KITTEN GIFS ARE MY ONLY ANSWER TODAY.
OH MY GOD THIS ONE. WRAP THIS KITTEN UP AND BRING IT TO ME
NOOOOO I’M TEARING UP NOW
YOU ARE SUPPLYING US ALL WITH PERFECT GIF COMFORT. THANK YOU.
It is all I can do on this sad, sad day.
Fluffy. Kitten. Gifs.
Well, just when I was getting used to bursting into tears and sobbing, involuntary single whimper-cries showed up.
This will never not make me cry. Goddmaned sense of finality settling in.
omg
Thank MAUDE it is after 3p on the Friday of the holiday weekend, because while I was merely quietly sniffing before, THAT PIX SET ME TO BAWLING BUT NO ONE CAN HEAR!!!!!!!!!!
Nooooooooo ohmygodohmygodohmygod
( TT ___ TT )
You lovely person, you! *PURRRRRRRRRR* <3
Ah I needed this one. Thank you!
I think that’s the most beautiful toast to the Toast!
Seconded!
THESE ARE PROBABLY SISTER TIGER CUBS, I JUST KNOW IT.
ALSO PREPARE FOR WALLOWING AND CHEESE AND TOAST IN SEVERAL HOURS.
TOASTIE SISTER WALLOWING.
I HAVE TOAST AND CHEESE AND ICE CREAM
And if you choose today to start drinking . . . I can facilitate that.
Of all the things, this is what got me.
God I loved that strip. I had almost forgotten about that particular one.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LZgOdEkOW88
Let’s all take to the sea together.
Also, thanks to the Toasties who gave me many wonderful recommendations for my trip to London; I wasn’t able to hit them all, but I waited for an hour for a table at Dishoom and it was 1000% worth it.
May we always have a willing foe, and sea room. And monks to argue with.
And big hair.
And no heart.
An excess of witches.
And a sledge pulled by naked straight white men.
Is an “excess of witches” the collective noun for witches? Like a “murder of crows”?
I had to wear makeup today so I would not just cry all day. I woke up and started crying immediately.
HRC did not help with the not-crying.
There’s so much I want to say, but I don’t have the words. I have loved this safe space and I have loved you all. I’m so excited to see what we all do after this.
I feel like I’ve hit a place of like serene numbness regarding this Last Day of Toast, where I have felt all my feelings and I have none left to give. I will cherish you always, my friends.
<3 Hopefully we can do another Philly meet up at some point soon. I would love to not completely lose track of fellow Toast Persons in the metro area.
Yes yes yes! I’d love this too.
Hi, can we comfort ourselves by shouting our favorite Toast quotes at each other for awhile?
TOO WITCHES
i’m so tempted to get this https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/274214700/tilleys… bracelet and get ‘too witches’ engraved on the back.
Hwaetever
surprise, fucko
I DIDN’T FEEL LIKE BEING BORN REGULAR SO HERE I AM
laughing-sobbing.
well-played.
From the last Aunt Acid:
People talk about hearts being broken, but it can be more useful to think of your heart as a phoenix. In terrible moments, like the one you survived, your heart can burst into flames; but then, always, it’s born again from the ashes. Be patient with yourself, and be gentle with the scrawny, squawky baby bird in your chest. It will be strong again. It just needs time.
Oh gosh, if you check out my user name you will see how this one HIT ME RIGHT IN THE FEELS (in a good way).
<3
If you look at my avatar picture closely, i think you will find the same about me.
I LOOOOOVEEEEE IT
I hadn’t read the original post and when I read this I just sort of wailed and now I’m actually sobbing.
NOT THOSE
THOSE ARE MY CIGAR JAMMIES
I WANT MY WHISKEY JAMMIES
Best ever
Also, this is Hairpin but it’s Mallory and makes me feel happy-weepy to read every time, which seems right for today,
hey im gaunting you ok
https://thehairpin.com/text-messages-from-a-ghost… https://thehairpin.com/the-return-of-ghost-2a5adf… https://thehairpin.com/the-ghosting-of-ghost-52ef…
why did you have to bring up ghost :””(
This one is also the hairpin but it’s still my all-time favorite Mallory piece. https://thehairpin.com/a-wizard-has-stolen-your-h…
[I’M NOT CRYING!!]
This is the piece that made me resolve to follow Mallory wherever she ended up writing next. Also, “A wizard has stolen your heart” is tattooed onto my arm
oh ghost 🙁
Ghost made me burst into tears when i discovered it on the anniversary of my best friend/first loves death and happy weepy is the perfect description
is that not what you call them
I still like to call them candy babies, it confuses my kids but I don’t care
“FORSOOTH
I’M THE PRESIDENT
I CAN PUNCH ANYTHING”
please don’t ride me like a pony all the way to Manila
Jonathant
“He lit a cigarette. His cigarette lit a cigarette.”
oh god, this is one of my favorites and now I want to quote all of it.
Then when they walked together toward wherever it was they worked, the sun totally backlit them, so it looked crazy epic. He had on like sixteen skinny ties or a fucking cloak and shield and whatever.
It was fucking amazing.
“The sea respected him for it.”
*skateboards away*
DON’T PRETEND YOU HAVEN’T THOUGHT ABOUT IT. YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WILLOW AND DARK WILLOW IN DOPPELGANGLAND AND YOU THOUGHT ABOUT DARK LINK IN THE WATER TEMPLE.
Where’s this from?
The greatest post in Toast history!
Too late, I’m crowning
Also, more like crapitalism
WHY DON’T YOU MAKE LIKE THE RULING CLASS IN THE WAKE OF POPULAR UPRISINGS AND GET OFF MY BACK
ABSBRAHAM.
STIMOTHY
Thank you! My comment had no thumbs up for such a long time and I started to fear that that post wasn’t supposed to be funny at all…
little Jimeson
HEY LADIES
(i can’t narrow it down to one quote, it’s the all of them)
YOU SCRUBBLEMENT UP YOUR WITCH HANDS AND I DON’T TRUST IT, THAT IS A HUMAN ATTRIBUTE AND I WANT YOU TO LEAVE THAT TO US, STOP BEFORE-WASHING AND RUBBLE-SCRITCHING YOUR FUR-FINGERS, YOU MASHED-DOWN SMALLBEAR
A RACCOON IS THE CHILD OF A CAT AND A WIZARD AND IT WALKS IN TOO MANY WORLDS FOR IT TO BE ALLOWED TO STAY IN THIS ONE
The dogs that now are dead. Every single word from those posts.
“A bard is providing occasional comic relief; no one hired or invited him and his method of earning a living is unclear.”
Well, the entirety of How to Tell if You are in A High Fantasy Novel.
I just remembered Roxane’s piece on Magic Mike.
He is so earnest that I wanted to hug every part of him, with my mouth.
When I read that, there was loud hooting. It took a while to figure out it was coming from me.
BAN MEN
i guess its fine if you dont really care about flowers.
http://the-toast.net/2014/10/28/women-terrible-ti…
i’ll sit up when I see something worth sitting up for
The debate lives on, but the men do not.
None of my other boyfriends are riverbank corpses if that’s what you’re worried about.
If Julian of Norwich were your professor, she would be physically clumsy but mentally agile, constantly tripping over objects whilst offering incisive commentary on Augustine’s psychological analogy of the Trinity.
JULIAN OF NORWICH, that one made me happy-cry.
I knowwwww. Why isn’t real academia like Professor Julian and the Shrewsbury Senior Common Room and Homer and Mary Kelly’s Harvard?
Everything on the subject of DADS:
MONK #1: but what do
um
what do penises look like, mostly
i mean i know what mine looks like but like…idk if i’m regular
MONK #2: totally normal question
they look like horse tails
MONK #1: ok
horse tails
Poor, adorable Monk #1.
One of my first ever comments on The Toast (I was quite the late-bloomer) was, “Are you saying that Monk #2’s penis actually does look like a horse tail? Do ALL monk penises look like horse tails? Is that why they’re monks? IS NO ONE ELSE CONCERNED ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS ABOUT MONK PENISES IN THIS POST??”
This one has always stuck in my head more than anything else on The Toast, and I cannot honestly tell you why.
Carvell Wallace on how the body registers trauma, from “Letter to my Mother After Charleston”:
“My brain kept playing as though I were a regular teenager. But my body. My body ma. The body you gave me. My body knew the truth. My body locked the door from the inside without me even knowing it.”
Mallory on Flirting with Plausible Deniability:
“Just feel things very intensely. They’ll know what to do.”
Bear on learning to be happy:
“Brains are basically made of magic and can be taught a lot of things, Brave Correspondent. So teach yours to revel in pleasure and love and the warm sun of your sweetheart’s attention, as slowly and patiently as you taught it to cower in fear that no such thing would ever be possible.”
Life is a rich tapestry.
#creedarmsintoaseaofhaters
oh wow
flowers
the kind you get from the dirt, for free
how thoughtful
it’s the highest and purest form of love there is, Hank
the love of a woman for a train
you lack gravitas you assed hole
MY FULL ENTIRETY OF A REACTION TO YOU CAN BE SUMMED UP THUSLY AND FOLLOWING: SHAVEN’T, NOT AS IN SHAVE-ENT BUT RHYMES-WITH-HAVEN’T. SHAVEN’T. I SHAVEN’T YOU. SHAVEN’T. YOUR WHOLE ENDEALMENT, I DON’T PRIZE.
Tell everyone you know about the criticism, but in a way that makes it clear that you expect them to publicly find it ridiculous and assure you there’s not a shred of truth to it. Do this repeatedly, first while sober, then later after several glasses of wine on a Wednesday afternoon when no one else is really drinking except for you. “Can you believe it?” Ask them that repeatedly. “Can you believe that? About me?” Ask until no one will meet your eyes.
war is for light sandals
maybe a fancy hat
everyone knows that
why are all your friends so old
why are they all in the Army and so old
I can’t adequately sum it up.
I love you all.
So you’re telling me I have to deal with Brexit AND the end of The Toast in the same week…???
I can’t right now.
Same. Brexit, the departure of our church organist, and this. There are too many feelings happening to me right now.
Faaaaaaaaack! Ugh me too. Actually, not the church organist thing. My church organist is staying, but she is frankly substandard. Sob.
Ours is (was? he’s still amazing, but is now going to be amazing in Indianapolis) phenomenal. His postlude involved all 4 keyboards, with a complex pedal part that made it look like he was tapdancing. He usually does re-registration of the last verse of the opening hymn each Sunday, and it’s been a real treat to hear (also, he likes to sneak in major chords at the very end of Lenten hymns. Sneaky). I found organ music fairly boring before I started at this church (a few months after he did, in fact), but now I can appreciate the full breadth of expression that’s possible.
There’s entirely too much loss happening this week.
I have been listening to this today. I love you all.
In the years to come
Will you think about these moments that we shared
In the years to come
Are you gonna think it over
And how we lived each day with no regrets
Nothing lasts forever though we want it to
The road ahead holds different dreams for me and you
Sometimes goodbye though it hurts in your heart is the only way for destiny
Sometimes goodbye though it hurts is the only way now for you and me
Though its the hardest thing to say
I’ll miss your love in every way
So say goodbye
But don’t you cry
Because a true love never dies
“‘Dear old world’, she murmured, ‘you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
Thank you, Toasties, for making the world a lovelier place. I’m glad to be alive in this world with you.
A+ quote deployment
I’m gonna pretend this is a regular ol’ open thread and update on my situation from the last one. Thanks to y’all, I made myself call some psychiatrists and then one called back and I have an appointment! It’s not until late August because there are too many patients and not enough doctors in my community (grr), so I’m considering seeing if I can get in at my PCP sooner to start SSRIs and then follow up with the psych to adjust the dosage if needed or whatever. Is that a thing people do?
Okay, end of pretending. I’m so glad I had this community to cheer me on and make me feel less alone, and I’ll miss it terribly. So terribly I might even learn to tweet and Slack.
That’s an excellent self-care plan. Go for it
That’s definitely a thing people do! And exactly what I ended up doing with my GP. Well done for making the calls <3
Great job! I have only been seeing my PCP for my SSRIs, and it’s been fine.
That’s exactly what I did. GP got me started on SSRI, then psychiatrist monitored and adjusted. Go you!
I did this this week! Meds are important and inflexible, psychiatrists’ schedules are a *massive* pain, sometimes you need to just go ahead and see someone who can write you a prescription. PCPs are absolutely competent to do this.
That is awesome! Another thing that worked for me: I put myself on a list so I’d get called if there was a cancellation before my originally scheduled appointment. There was, and I did, and that meant starting meds a good six weeks earlier than I would have otherwise.
I hope you find a treatment plan that works well for you. <3
I have commented about my heart being all hot mess about the end of the Toast, but I want to go out more witches than that.
So, Toasties, what songs are making you feel too witches and full of space witchiness? I am loving Agnes Obel’s new single because instead of getting a man to sing the deep part she autotunes her voice because SHE DON’T NEED NO MAN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32kYH6XZrIo
Chasing Twisters for me
That song is powerfully witches. Thank you for sharing! I had never heard of Delta Rae.
I am all about Florence and the Machine’s 3 songs “How Big How Blue How Beautiful”, “Queen of Peace”, and “Which Witch” off her latest album.
So witches I had to GM a campaign about the story they made in my head.
When I saw the extended version of How Big… (which is such a good album overall) had a song with the word “witch” in the title I damn near lost my mind. It’s too perfect (and then it’s also a great song).
Florence and the Machine singing ANYTHING but especially Delilah.
I’M GOING TO BE FREE AND I’M GOING TO BE FINE
BUT MAYBE NOT TONIGHT
NEVER KNEW I WAS A DANCER
TIL DELILAH SHOWED ME HOW
(just substitute Toast for Delilah)
Oh word UP! Florence is the definition of Too Witches (her and Stevie Nicks).
I listened to Delilah, and then listened to the sad songs before and after it while reading some really lovely Toast comments and promptly burst into hysterical tears.
Well that’s exceptionally witches.
Marina and the Diamonds’ “How to Be a Heartbreaker”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKNcuTWzTVw
And Lily Allen’s “Hard Out Here”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0CazRHB0so
Too Witches, Valkyrie edition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBAzlNJonO8
See also anything ever that Karin Dreijer Andersson has done.
This seems especially on point today, plus, “history is a woman, man is a time zone”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkrs6PSWV90
Karen Dreijer Andersson is the love of my life and the fact that she wasn’t the first thing that popped into my head is SHAMEFUL. I feel like I have to demote myself from Grand High Witch to like, Sorceress, or something.
“One Girl Revolution” by Superchick
“Cleopatterer” by Wodehouse and Kern (“And when she tired, as girls will do, of Bill or Jack or Jim, the time had come, her friends all knew, to say goodbye to him. She could not stand by any means reproachful stormy farewell scenes. To such coarse stuff she would not stoop, so she just put poison in his soup.”
“The Old Maid in the Garrett” by Steeleye Span because the rendition undercuts the words.
Morgan le Fay’s “To Keep My Love Alive” by Rodgers and Hart.
Medusa by Heather Dale. Joan and Hero by her are also great. https://youtu.be/c4WCK8P-LHg?list=RDc4WCK8P-LHg
Also, many songs by S. J. Tucker amuse me to no end. I end up humming Ravens in the Library while pulling books.
I get unreasonably sad every time someone drops me off at the airport, so naturally I’m handling this SUPER GREAT.
For real though, thanks for everything.
Why are airports such vortices of sadness?
*hug*
Because love, actually, is all around.
I find airports to be vortices of complicated, strong, mixed emotions: people parting, people on their way to see each other, people feeling obligated, people feeling apprehensive about the job interview, people feeling hopeful …
They’re intense, in a way I feel as both beautiful and and painful. The stew of human experience, with the volume turned way up.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone here who has been so welcoming and fantastic. You’ve given me advice for my first half marathon, helped convince me to seek help for my mental (and physical) health difficulties, gave me great advice for trips abroad, listened to my excitement and complaining about wedding planning, provided me with the laughs I needed when I needed them most, and helped educate me on subjects where I didn’t even know how hopelessly uninformed I was.
This site has been something truly special, and I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who made it so. You are all lovely.
Thank you. Truly.
I’ve loved this place and this space and these people and I’m sad that it’s over but I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
Look at this dog instead.
This is a Good Dog.
Such a Good Dog
that is a VERY happy and VERY good pup with excellent ears nose eyes and bandana
(It’s a bow-tie.) (Because he’s at work with me. And is a business dog.)
So professional!
GOOD dog.
What a good boy!!!!
A+ dogging, 15/10 would hug and cry on again.
what an Excellent Dog. 10/10 A+
Oh what a Dog!
See also this Dog, who tackled a Possum, paraded it around the yard, and then had to be vigorously enscrubbled of Possum-stench.
A+++ dog, clearly sorrynotsorry bout that possum thing
My dog dressed herself in a tacky fake lei, then barked about it. She is too witches.
After tomorrow, I don’t know if I’ll even recognize my life anymore. My best friend of seventeen years died in February, I got engaged in May, I’m moving from Wisconsin to northern California (?!?!?) in September, and now the Toast is ending. With everything going on this year, I imagine a lot of people reading The Toast are dealing with far more upheaval than I am. You have my sympathy!
I’m not an isolated identity bundled up inside of this meatsuit. Everything I interact with touches me and has an impact on me, something I’ve been keenly aware of in a world without my best friend. And after this there will be a world without The Toast, without this cozy little place to gather and read and discuss.
I’ve met so many wonderful people through The Toast. Fellow writers, fellow commenters, even lurkers who popped up on #ToastieTwitter. Thank you, to all of you. Nikki, Nicole, Mallory, all the writers, the commenters, everyone. Every last person here was part of this thing called The Toast for me and I am so grateful for you all.
I’m @ceeemstone on Twitter and I’ve got an infrequently updated blog at ceeemstone.com and PLEASE DON’T ABANDON ME TOASTIES OGOD
Here for you!!! This corner of Toast is forever. @kittenzerg
(p.s. you will love NoCal. I miss it tremendously.)
Earlier I this week I caved and paid for Slate Plus in order to listen to the Mallory Dear Prudence podcast, and it is totally worth it. (In case anyone wants to be sure they get their Mallory fix in.)
Screw you, Nicole, you and your stupid website and your stupid beautiful dog and your stupid beautiful family.
Yeah. we were lying all those times we said we love this big useless community you built to make our lives better. Worse, I mean. Much worse.
Ugh. Who even cares about books or art or feminism anyway? Not me, that’s who.
hey nicole
all those times we said sansa was so big
we were LYING
SHE’S NOT BIG AT ALL
SMALLEST DOG
But not smol, tho. Not at all!
(btw, my bestie and I share The Importance of Being Earnest as one of our favorite movies and have champagne picnics and watch it whenever we are together, and therefore I love your name super lots of much.)
she’s NOT EVEN FLUFFY
these are life-giving.
Ok, so I am going to attempt to create an index of all Toast posts via computer script today, as promised in threads earlier this week where people were looking at compiling Toast post indexes by hand.
BUT
While I was thinking about things one might do with a Toast post index, it occurred to me that what I’d most like would actually be a working Toast comments search engine. Further investigation indicates that this might be technically possible. There are three barriers that come to mind:
1. I’m not sure if Toasties would actually want it? Possibly people have gotten used to Toast comments being annoyingly hard to find again, and would like comments they’ve made to continue to be hard to find?
2. Working around IntenseDebate’s broken permalinks would probably require a userscript (browser plugin-ish thing), which is not ideal. And also not exactly in my area of expertise, but I think I could manage something.
3. It’s probably a violation of IntenseDebate’s Terms of Service. But, I mean, it’s pretty nearly abandonware now, right? And the existence of the broken permalinks and this FAQ entry clearly indicate that they meant comments to be searchable.
What do you think, fellow Toastrons? Is a comment search tool a good idea or no?
I like the idea of a comment search tool!
I would love that!
As someone who recently read Bear and vividly remembered a lively discussion about Bear happening SOMEWHERE here on the Toast and was not able to find it, I would jump for joy at a searchable Toast comments archive.
BEAR! GAH BEAR.
I haven’t even read but have sat with enough people going through the process OF reading it.
All pro!
I’d be down too! Because I want to be able to search everything. Everything in the whole world.
I will throw my beloved at you if you want a second dev to workshop ideas. (I know y’all don’t workshop ideas, but, whatever it is that y’all do? that.)
I think I will post to the reddit if this goes ahead, to look for anyone else who wants to help. Can you point your beloved there?
I have the basic plan ready, but having someone else look over said plan would certainly be helpful.
A comment search tool definitely sounds like a good idea! But don’t worry about it if it’s too much hassle – just an index of posts would be great on its own.
Oh, it’s definitely a hassle, but it may well be a worthwhile hassle.
YES! I find myself searching for comments and threads about as often as posts (and one time a picture of puppy Sansa from a link roundup with the caption “her butt is so fluffins”), and neither the site’s search or Google is much use.
Right, it sounds like the consensus is pro-comment-search, so I’ll start making more concrete plans. I’ll post further news & questions & calls for help to the reddit, probably.
Tangentially, the first pass of the post index creation is now running.
Hey, Absotively. I love this project. Thanks so much for doing it. Is there anything you’d like to delegate? I love repetitive work like data entry and detail marshalling. I once did 8 weeks of full-time filing once piece of paper at a time from cardboard boxes to folders in a cabinet. And I loved it. So any part of this project that gets you down, consider delegating: [email protected]
I am hoping to avoid much manual repetitive work, but if some turns up, I will definitely keep you in mind!
Assuming, of course, that I can find this comment again before the hypothetical comment search tool is finished…
Yep, I don’t mind this either! If you need another sent of hands, Absotively, you can find me at fenixdawntoast @ gmail
First version of the post index, with some basic info about every post on The Toast: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w0DvYNHgc…
More detailed version, with tags and better multiple author handling, will follow. But that will take about fifteen times as long, because there are about fifteen times as many pages to get info from.
Update: I think I have the second pass working correctly. It is now grabbing the more detailed data from individual post pages. It should hopefully finish sometime tomorrow.
This is the best idea. Thank you.
Even today, I’ve gotten notifications of replies to comments I have posted and I’m been completely unable to reply back, since I can’t find what comment subthread and what page of multipage threads something was on.
I followed a link from Vox to Toast regarding a sparkling piece about the history of Miss Haversham just the day before yesterday, only to discover, in the same horrifying day, that Toast has crumbled.
I’ve tried and tried to find an index, archive list, tag list, anything to help me organize my trek through the site, but to no avail. That there isn’t one must be the reason. {“Lightbulb!”]
It must have been lovely to drift-hop from post to post while awaiting the next gem, but I now I am pressured to read all entries ASAP before the site closes down. Your help will be greatly appreciated.
You know how you say to people, “My friend told me” when you really mean you read it somewhere online? I feel like The Toast made that not really a lie because it was that friend.
Goodbye Toasties! I will see you on slack and toastcrumbs and in various oceans and libraries!
This! I always felt like Toasties were all my friends. I will miss that so, so much. <3
oh, yes.
Yeah, like every Friday night I’d be talking with my boyfriend over dinner and be like “I was talking with… friends about X topic” because of the Open Thread. :,)
VIA MY TWITTER but noone was awake:
Let’s list out some all purpose topic changers in conversations with men. Here are some starters:
1. “tell me more about vonnegut”
2. “what’s your gym routine”
3. “i don’t understand how gas gets from the earth to a kitchen”
4. “fight club? fight club.”
ok but can someone actually explain how gas gets from the earth to a kitchen
I usually just start complaining about how men’s sports uniforms aren’t tight or revealing enough and then get into some really specific objectification of male athletes.
But that’s when I want to make a man so uncomfortable that he leave me alone. It works pretty well.
Oh! If you really want to get them going call them “costumes.” I did this by accident when I was 13 in front of my brothers (I’m actually a big sports fan but I was also a dancer then and it was recital time). They have never let me live it down. (I mean I realize that’s the function of little brothers, but I suspect it would work well for general man-trolling if said man is into sports.)
SPORTS COSTUMES. What time is the performance starting on ESPN?
Yep. Stealing.
My brother did actually tell me a lot about Vonnegut when I saw him a while ago! But my brother is sweet and feminist and nerdy, so it was nice.
This was based on my saying #1 to my ex to get us to stop arguing about whether we watched the BSG finale together (we were broken up by then but we totally did (this was obviously over seven years ago)). Then we had nice Vonnegut chats instead.
Tell me more about how you *earned* all those privileges you enjoy.
what is the sort of feminism you like
My eternal gratitude for this astoundingly beautiful place.
Final Fallen London thread? There are so many things I would never have come across if it weren’t for The Toast; this game is one of them and not the least. Many thanks and salutations to all you Delicious Toastfriends who have so boldly loitered suspiciously, had coffee at Caligula’s, and exchanged confessions and glasses of teeth.
Sidebar: in her need to know All The Things, Theoretta Rizing has begun Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name – are there any other Toastie Seekers out there?
Is there a list of Fallen London Toasties somewhere? I’m thinking of busting out my old account, and it would be lovely to have new and extra-delicious friends to follow. 🙂
Yes, the Toast Google docs has a list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_26MiL9WN…
(I hope the link works)
A bunch of people posted their FL names in this open thread: http://the-toast.net/2014/09/12/cocktail-hour-ope…
It’s no guarantee they’re all playing but from a quick glance over it I know many still are!
I can’t believe that even in a game I’m working for the church.
Hahaha I recently started Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name, but I’m not willing to sacrifice everything (Connected: Masters of the Bazaar, and all my Dreams) to it yet so instead I burned through all my Peckishness and now life is just normal again.
I’ll get back to it eventually 🙂
I am Seeking and ready to head to Winking Isle and then NORTH, to render my character permanently unplayable–so exciting!
And I’m taking my Hesperidean Cider with me, so:
Cider party!
Send a social action of your choice to an_ocelot through July 4, with a note that it’s for Cider, and I’ll send you a sip.
(This will drop your Wounds slightly and give you 1 x A Taste of the Garden. Having that quality unlocks opportunity cards that will drop Wounds somewhat more, slightly increase Nightmares, provide an Extraordinary Implication, and consume the quality.)
Make sure to stay in the Fifth City until you accept your sip, though, because once I leave the Fifth City you won’t be able to accept.
(I’m making a new character to start over from scratch, I’m not abandoning the game.)
I thought you must be close to going NORTH, congratulations! (For values of congratulations that involve total character obliteration)
For values of! No, this is congratulations, I’m very excited–it’s beautiful writing and I figured out how to use the damn wiki (sort of) to help document it, plus I really have wanted to start over from scratch for a long time but can’t run two characters at once.
NORTH! How exciting. I’m trying to wring every bit of mystery out of the game as I seek, so it will be a long time coming. (And I want to get the Overgoat, first. All hail the Overgoat!)
I am also Seeking as I had nothing else really left to do.
I’m kinda sad that OFT (original fez tiger) is leaving Failbetter. I’ll be sure to follow whatever he does next.
Is it too late to join Fallen London? How does it even do?
Never too late! Join and send a us a calling card once you’re there so we can engage in social actions together! The Toastie Google docs has a sheet with Toastie Fallen Londoners.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_26MiL9WN…
I have been lazily seeking for a while. I ramp it up when I find that I’m not getting new and interesting content elsewhere in the game. It gives me a “well, I might as well set out to lose it all.”
Hi lovelies, I miss you all and I miss this extraordinary, singular place already.
Here is a Too Witches playlist to play us out: http://8tracks.com/totheisland/too-witches
(Trying not to cry at work!)
:O what a lovely gift! Love 8tracks, love you, love everyone here.
I hope you enjoyed it! I tried to make it mostly actually witchy and haunting, but also include women who are witchy in the Toast Witch sense.
Welp, I’m going to buy wine to cry into. Bye everyone!
This site has meant so much to me. I will miss you all so much! Love and godspeed, fellow Toasties!
I have loved The Toast so hard for so long, but have commented perhaps once. I don’t know what to say now that hasn’t already been said perfectly by others. Just this: thank you, The Toast. I love you. I will miss you so, so very much.
I love all you crazy weirdos SO DAMN MUCH! Hope to see you in meatspace, to be recognized by our totes. And snort laughing in art museums.
yes.
will tees of misandry ever be offered again for sale? because i am here for misandry.
Words fail me, so e.e., take it away:
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Perfect.
Also reminded me of the ‘How to tell you’re in an e.e. cummings poem’ piece that I never got round to writing!
This is the saddest goodbye poem ever. In college, my sorority sister read it to all of us as a last farewell and it was just as fitting then as it is now.
But why are you entering the cheat codes to make me cry, though
I regret posting mine online. Emotional hackers!
STOP MAKING ME CRY AGAIN SOME MORE.
My mom had someone read this poem at her wedding. My parents are divorced now.
Oh dear. You don’t suppose it’s cursed, do you? Cursed enough to cause the Toast to CLOSE?
No, no, of course not. That could never happen, I’m being silly.
Your heart is a tender and lovely place to be carried, thanks
OK, I’m crying. Just like I did when Cameron Diaz reads this to Toni Collette in In Her Shoes. I hope you feel good about yourself.
You know, I read this poem so much at one point in my life that I almost burned myself out on it. It stopped making me feel so strongly, and it started to feel cliched because I was seeing it everywhere, and so I put it away for years.
Reading it today, in this context, made me burst into tears. Thank you.
well NOW I’m crying
I’ve been holding back tears while reading this whole thread, but this one broke me. Rain. On my face.
I am going to miss The-Toast.net so much.
I suppose this will get buried, but this lovely post about a 10 year old girl who was accepted to a PhD fellowship gave me all the (good) feels on a day that is otherwise not quite happy, and I wanted to share it with you.
Letter to the 10 year old girl who applied to the Paris Summer Innovation Fellowship.
I saw that too! It made me so happy. It made me feel for the briefest moment that the world would be okay, as long as it had people like her in it.
this looks super cool! (but link won’t link.)
I’ve been trying to write this all day, between laugh/crying and clicking my refresh button. So here it is, a few thoughts at the end of all things.
Nicole and Mallory, you have built something weird and wonderful and great and I am so happy to have been a small part of that. You are both so smart and funny, but I can’t help but think that the real foundation of this site and its wonderful community is your obvious love and support of each other. And Nikki, your love and care shows in every single piece of writing you touched. I hope The Toast is a springboard to launch you all into something great, and I am excited to see where you land.
My dear lovely fellow Toastie witches, you are the very best. I am so grateful for the chance to get to know you all. Listening to so many different voices has helped me find my own, and taught me to be both kinder and more fierce. One of my huge life challenges is to value myself, and I’ve learned that if I treat myself with even a fraction of the love and kindness that Toasties have for each other, I will be ok in the world.
And, as hard as it is for me, and all of us, I’m actually glad Nicole and Mallory made the choice to go out on their own terms. Most of all, I’m glad that we were able to say goodbye together, and reflect upon what this space has meant to us. And I’m so glad it gave us a chance to create new communities where we can
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you all.
Take to the sea. I’ll see you there.
Ugh. Why must you be so articulate and amazing? Now I’m crying again.
YOU STOP IT NOW IM CRYING AGAIN TOO
(no, don’t stop it, thank you, that was very sweet)
AND I JUST REALIZED I WAS SO TORN UP I DIDN’T EVEN COMPLETE MY OWN SENTENCE DAMMIT.
new communities where we can find each again IS WHAT I MEANT TO SAY BUT I WAS TOO DISTRAUGHT FOR PROOFREADING.
actually being too distraught for proofreading and trailing off into thank yous and i love yous is probably exactly right
See you there, she sobbed incoherently.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. The Toast has been an integral part of my (ongoing!) transformation into a person who doesn’t give very many fucks what men think, and isn’t afraid to say it. My life is obviously much better for it. Also, thank you for making me almost pee my pants laughing so many times. <3
Part of me still hopes that you guys are hoarding a collection of best deleted comments and will one day publish the collection for us. Even if it’s years from now, when all comments have finally ceased, and all we can do is reminisce.
The best deleted comments are also the entire world, all around us, forever.
I too am holding on to this hope. Especially about the HRC post.
All of us, right now
Accurate.
Thank you this just made me laugh so hard and it helped counteract the crying. For a moment anyway
I feel you, my friend 🙁
Thank you. Lets fight the good fight and laugh with each other while doing it.
Laughing while punching is my favorite thing!
That’s totally not what you’re talking about though…
Pretty similar, though.
I posted this quote in the Link Roundup comments, but it says everything I want to say and I’m terribly unoriginal, so, here it goes again:
“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-Earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
I’m really going to miss these comments and this is the only website in the world I can say that about. I didn’t post much but every time I did you all made me feel really good about my bad jokes. You’re all great and in five years I’m sure Toast alumni, contributors and commenters will have taken over the world.
“The cure for everything is salt water – tears, sweat, or the sea.”
oh god. I’m crying. I’m crying at work.
I love you all, endlessly. The Toast has changed my life.
Out loud, to myself, through copious tears:
“But I wasn’t finished with our fellowship on Middle-earth!!!”
“At last the three companions turned away, and never again looking back they rode slowly homewards; and they spoke no word to one another until they came back to the Shire, but each had great comfort in his friends on the long grey road.”
We’re all right there with you, is what I’m trying to say. At least we’re all sad together.
Also, yes, I do keep The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings within reaching distance at all times.
SHAVEN’T
I just. Art and feminism and adoption and religion and LGBT Gilmore Girls and terrifying, terrifying children’s stories and and and…..just thank you. All of you.
Trying to glean some comfort from Dune and it’s almost working?
“‘Thufir, what’re you thinking?’ Paul asked.
Hawat looked at the boy. ‘I was thinking we’ll all be out of here soon and likely never see the place again.’
‘Does that make you sad?’
‘Sad? Nonsense! Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.'”
UGH though, this has been the most place-iest place I have ever wanted to be. But knowing that everyone is still out in the world and accessible eases the pain a little!
I wrote all my feelings in my Twitter @ EitherAda and will not write them twice. (The only thing worse than feelings is sharing them, amirite?) Even if you don’t want to read the Longest Tweetstorm, please follow me so I don’t lose you!
Okay, fuck it. I’ll get Slack.
right? I just made a Facebook account after actual decades of not giving a shit about that business, because it was that or lose touch with a bunch of people forever. now I have to go do the same damn thing all over again in another damn place for the same damn reason
i cheered.
I thought I wasn’t gonna cry.
I don’t really have anything to say apart from Thank You. The Toast has made me a better, more considerate person, I have learned about people and experiences I had never even thought about before. You have taught me to listen to people who do not always have voices, and go to the source for an opinion. Listen to people who write about their own experiences instead of people who write about the supposed experiences of others.
And to everyone who has responded to a comment of mine, or pulled me up on my stupid shit, thank you. You have been so kind and taught me so much. You have shown me amazing new things to be interested in, you have taught me about 100 million things I didn’t know.
I am so sad that its over, and that I won’t be able to share everything with my best friend, The Toast, anymore, but I am so happy I found you and that you were a part of my life.
I’m gonna go sob in the bathroom now. I have 20 minutes before I can leave.
I just love all you space witches so much.
I love you guys so much, thank you so much for everything. The Toast has changed my life and made me happier and better.
Let’s fight the willing foes who deserve it, and find peace in our sea rooms.
Going out on a high note
Much like HRC, L-MM loves Toasties!”
I love you all!
I saw him post that on Facebook yesterday and was like, “WHY IS SHE FAMILIAR?” Apparently I recognized you from your Toastie Avatar. That’s amazing, by the way!
That’s awesome! It was an astounding performance and every dream I’ve had since booking tickets last fall came true, basically.
Ahhh!!!!!!! So pleased for you!
I saw this last night and immediately knew it was you. I hoped you’d turn up today so I could be excited at you!
I’m going to miss this so much. I’m not a prolific commenter (I’ve been trying to make up for that since the closing announcement) but I read The Toast everyday and read pretty much every comment. Often I check the link roundup before work with my coffee and then again once I get into work to see everyone’s comments.
Everyone here has been so wonderful when I have needed support or advice. Next week I am giving notice at my job after over 9 years and going back to school to follow the dreams that younger Chel gave up because the people around her said they were impractical. Part of me is not sure how I am going to make this transition without all you lovely people.
Thank you Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki for building this community.
I will miss you all in this place but will hopefully see you on Twitter and Slack. I guess I have to learn how to use Slack now, don’t I?
Thanks, guys. I learned so much and though I was mostly a lurker, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the commentariat. So many amazing people are here with so many different perspectives. I’ll see you around, on Slack and/or Reddit, where I intend to participate more because I like you people and want to be friends.
And thanks to our fearless editors for everything. I really appreciate that you’re officially ending it, rather than just having it peter out or suddenly be gone. Grieving is hard, but I much prefer it this way.
May you all always have a willing foe and sea room.
Definitely the best way out, I think.
I’ve always come back to this post (http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/2014/03/the-light-that-shines-when-things-end.html) about a golden light that tells you when something is ending whenever I feel sad about things changing. There’s a part that goes: “Maybe, if you’re with a group of friends who’ll never be together again, all your lights will shine at the same time and you’ll know, and then you can hold each other and whisper, “This was so good. Oh my God, this was so good.”
This was so good, Mallory, Nicole, Nikki, every Toastie who has commented or read this site. Oh my God, this was so good.
If The Toast Were Your Parting Best Friend/Lover, let it Take To The Sea and cherish it like the unique Ronbledore it is forever
*runs sobbing away* Goodbye, my fellow witches
Damnit. I’d finally stopped crying for a minute. WHY IS RONBLDORE THE THING THAT BROKE ME
Well, I thought I would make some prepared remarks, but <throws away notecards> aw heck. I have been with the Toast since day one. I have laughed with you guys and cried with you guys. I got myself out of a stressful job in a city I’d grown to hate, moved halfway across the country, and started finding joy in my life again. Oh yeah, I also started getting treatment for depression. Along the way, I sought your advice and constantly imagined your input and cheers (we, uh, had a lot of imaginary conversations). Thank you so much to the Nicoles and Mallory for creating this place, and thank you so much to all the commenters for being the best ever. I FEEL PURE LOVE FOR ALL OF YOU AND HOPE YOU ARE COMPLETELY HAPPY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES!
I love you all but have too many feelings to participate in this open thread (and also I have to go to a meeting). I am curious if there’s a DC #ToastWake tonight though. Remember that you always have the option of taking to the sea. Thank you for everything. <3
Yes there is! Meeting at the Portrait Gallery courtyard starting at 4:30. The gallery closes at 7, but I imagine some of us will be up for a second location, so you should come even if you can’t get there until later.
Wait, ofTrebond, you are both in DC and a fan of Alanna? Because I’m in DC and a fan of Alanna.
Yes, I am both of those things! I’m only in DC for another month, but am always up for hanging out with Toasties!
Oh MOST excellent, thank you for the update! See you there! 😀
I keep thinking of my favourite Nigel Slater quote, which I’ve treasured for many years:
“It is impossible not to love someone who makes [T]oast for you.”
My heart is very full.
that is perfect for today
I love you all, Marta.
Guys I’m going to miss you all so I would like some last day recipe recommendations. What are you cooking? What do you love to cook? All recipes accepted! I want to have recipes that I can make and think fondly on The Toast when I make them. (Like that amazing cocktail somebody kept suggesting around the holidays that was cranberry juice, gin, and a sprig of rosemary–I will forever think of The Toast open thread when I make one of those.)
i just made this coleslaw (at the very bottom of the post) in the throes of Farm Share Panic and it’s amaaaaazing. Regular coleslaw can suck it but this is great. http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/04/chicken-je…
That slaw does look magnificent–chile and cilantro and not dripping in mayo? Thank you!
I hope @sausagedog sees this, she hosts a recipe exchange thingo that I don’t exactly understand the platform for. Look on page 1 of the comments for her message, if you’re interested in joining.
I saw that! I have signed up and am excited for years of Toastie recipes to come!
Ahh thanks for the shoutout 🙂 this is the signup link.
(BTW: tinyletter is just a non-corporate way to send newsletters, and people submit recipes by just replying to the previous week’s email, which Tinyletter sorts into a convenient inbox for me! I’m still new to the platform myself but I hope it seems like I know what I’m doing.)
Buttermilk Cornmeal Waffles, a recipe from my grandma and one of my favorite weekend breakfasts:
1 C flour
3/4 C cornmeal
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
1 1/2 C buttermilk
6 Tbsp oil
1/2 C water
Sift/mix dry ingredients together. Beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry. Combine beaten yolks, buttermilk, water, and oil. Stir into dry ingredients. Fold in whipped egg whites. Cook on a waffle iron.
That sounds wonderful–and waffles are pretty much a perfect sort of food. Thank you!
Me that was me I made that cocktail!
Sorry, I just really enjoy that someone out there in the internet associates something I did with The Toast open thread. I’m actually kind of thrilled.
Thank you thank you thank you! That cocktail is amazing, and it tastes like Christmas. It is forever in my cocktail repertoire.
Tomorrow, I’m making Martha Stewart’s flag cake, a dish of mac and cheese, and several rounds of this cocktail I made up to go with Mr. Ada’s pulled pork and collard greens.
The mac and cheese recipe is a secret I’ll take to my grave, but I’ll make it for anyone who asks.
Last night I made potato leek soup, which my mother always made and served cold in the summer. It is one of the easiest soup recipes I’ve ever made:
– Melt 2T butter in a soup-sized pot
– Add a chopped onion and two chopped leeks and cook together for fifteen minutes
– Add two chopped medium potatoes and three cups of broth (chicken or vegetable will both work)
– Bring to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are cooked. Add some salt and pepper, puree with an immersion blender if you feel like it.
– Eat delicious food.
I feel confident that a splash of white wine would be a nice addition to this if you have some around, but I made it without and it was delightful.
Cocktails and more cocktails, and maybe seasalt caramel brownies.
Going to riff off an Easy Tiger cocktail I love, which is Scotch, ginger beer, rosemary, lime juice, and soda. My version is going to be ginger ale, whiskey, rosemary, fresh ginger, frankincense bitters, and maybe some lemon peel/lemon juice.
I made these lovely grilled chicken thighs with asparagus and rice for lunch:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/gril…
It is a warm Canada Day and my husband and I toasted The Toast over a lovely meal. I might also have swallowed a few tears.
A dessert thing that not even I am allergic to: Grain-Free Chocolate Bread.
I deeply enjoy Smitten Kitchen’s recipes–I don’t cook much Western food but the SK recipes gave me a lot of confidence to try it.
(Make the chocolate sables. They’re finicky and the dough only comes together right 3 out of every 5 times I try to make them but when they happen they’re so, so good.)
Step 1: Layer, starting from the bottom:
1 slice green apple
Walnut butter or sesame paste
1 dollop horseradish
1 piece dried apple
Step 2: Eat in as close to one bite as possible.
You have eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of Wisdom. Please proceed as directed:
Step 3: Breathe deeply. Consider the following questions:
What do I observe?
What do I feel?
What do I think?
What do I celebrate?
What do I regret?
Step 3: Add at least one sentence to the Book of Wisdom.
Step 4: If you wish, you may snip off a piece of the Tree to take with you.
Step 5: If someone is near you, try to persuade them to take Steps 1 and 2.
I’ve spend 4, maybe 5 years of autumn living on these muffins. They’re like the perfect hug. Warm, smells good, feels like it might be good for you and really forgiving. And now my darlings, I share their magic with you.
Kittygoesroar’s Pumpkin Muffins, that unlike life will work pretty much no matter what you do
1. 2 eggs. Whisk them on up, like now. It’s the only must of the recipe. Sure, you’ll be mixing stuff up later, who cares about one little step? The yolks, the yolks care. Beat the hell out of them, with a fork if there’s one in your line of sight, a whisk if you’re fancy.
2. Throw in a can of pumpkin, like one of those normal sized ones. Or, if you got all excited and now have a giant can from Costco, throw in 1.5 cups. Or more. Pumpkin is what makes these feel healthy.
3. And a half cup of honey. The recipe this mutated from over the course of 4 years originally called for a cup and a half of sugar, which is absurd. Dear lord, it’s ok to taste things other than sugar. Just put in whatever of whatever. Let your conscience be your guide.
4. Now for the stuff that tricks you into thinking these taste like pumpkin, because no one actually eats pumpkin w/o the spice. teaspoon each of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Or, if you kind of ran out, just toss in more cinnamon, a fair bit of nutmeg, a little ginger and a dash of cloves. Throw in some more cinnamon, because who wants underspiced muffins? And vanilla. I don’t know how much, I just kind of drizzle. Call it a tsp? Half? Only the muffins know.
5. Add a 1/3 cup or so of whatever fat or fat substitute you like. I go for greek yogurt, but this time I had a little coconut oil left, so I threw some of that in too. These are so damn moist that it really doesn’t matter.
6. This is where I feel like a bowl saving genius. Don’t bother mixing the drys seperate, just toss them into the well mixed wet stuff, all nice and gentle like. I find that the floppy plastic whisk that is usually useless gets it all together. Dry stuff includes 1.5 cups of flour, whole wheat please, and extra points for being all hard core like me and hand grinding (twice!) the wheat berries from that giant 50lb pioneer style bag. You can mix up some white with that, but you won’t feel as good about it later. Don’t measure it with a 1/4 measuring cup, because you already got the 1/2 cup dirty. You will lose count. I have no idea how much flour actually ended up in this latest batch. Meh.
Oh, and 1 tsp baking powder, .5 tsp each of baking baking soda and salt. Don’t worry about being exact, in fact lean towards heaping. They’ll forgive you, and this is a recipe that thrives on improvisation. (Read: it started off as a real recipe, and I didn’t feel like doing the math to keep the ratios as I changed things up. The muffins didn’t care, so neither do I)
7. Heat up your oven, 350. Grease up those muffin tins. Pam will do, but if you love those muffins, get out your pastry brush and the butter and go to town. Wrap them up in buttery love. Maybe spread whats left on top. And then just spoon them out. There are two schools to this. You could carefully fill each cup up 2/3, 3/4 or whatever for as many muffins as that makes. I don’t feel like getting out another sheet, so it’s a dozen of randomly filled muffin cups for me. These don’t raise a ton, so it’s fine. Sprinkling on cinnamon sugar makes them look even prettier and tastes good, but does negate that healthy feeling. Your call.
8. 25 to 30 minutes latter stick something in the muffins, and if it comes out clean, take them out. Try to give them a chance to cool in the pan before eating, but a messy muffin won’t kill you if you can’t. I like these with butter and sometimes honey. I may initially undersugar them just so I can stuff my face with warm butterhoneypumpkinyum. They’re better warm, but that’s what 15 seconds in a microwave are for. Eat the muffins, all the muffins, any way you want. It’s what they want.
I don’t really have anything to say that hasn’t already been said, but I also don’t want to let the last OT go by without commenting. So I’ll just say thank you. To Nicole, Nikki, Mallory, Marco, and all you lovely toast commenters.
You know, I went into university a person raised in a conservative christian environment and was profoundly changed by the people I met there. The Toast has been the same. I have grown in ways I can see and I’m sure ways that I will never see. Thank you for making me a better person.
I quickly posted some toast-flavored cocktails on my blog for anyone who needs a #toastwake recipe: http://eatbiscuitdrinkflip.tumblr.com/
These sound delightful.
You are very kind.
Hello Toast. I am on mobile so I’m not sure this comment is showing under my username. This is radcatlady on intense debate/playpirates elsewhere.
If any St. Louis toasties want to mourn tonight I will be at the St. Louis Solidarity Economy screening of Lemonade at 2720 Cherokee at 8pm.
Thank you, Mallory, Nicole, Nikki, and all of the toasties.
I’m a little too good at endings but I don’t want a clean break this time.
Thank you. Thank you for your letters and mixed CDs and for making me laugh so hard I spit gallons of tea on my work computer’s keyboard. Thank you for your advice (on turning 30! on being a closeted atheist in Texas! on so many other topics). Thank you for your intensity, your fiery kindness, honesty, and passion. Thank you for making feel understood in the deepest way. For making me see again and again that I am not alone. I will cling to that knowledge and to the memory of this place. I hope to see you all around the internets (I will overcome my Slack fear someday!)
– evieskye (on toast related things) AKA amyofdoom (literally everywhere else)
Heidi Talbot’s Parting Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH_IwWxUrak
A toast to Mallory, Nicole, Nikki, Jaya, Roxane, Marco, and everyone else who made this site what it was:
A willing foe, and a sea room
I’ll see you all when we take to the sea.
I thought I would be a sobby, grieving mess today. But, I actually feel so wonderful and powerful. They did it you guys, they made a magic place.
We have so much power. We don’t have to listen to mean or cruel people – they can be banned just like the jerk face commentators! We deserve safe spaces! We can like what we like – loudly and enthusiastically! We can be supportive and good to each other! We can laugh at super serious important things that are ridiculous and never had us in mind! WE MATTER.
And none o this has to stop. This was special. But, it was also the kind of space that should have always existed. Let’s make the-toast the rule, not the exception. I think we can.
<3
All of this, inifinitely.
This is amazing. You are amazing. I feel like I could captain my own pirate ship now. Thank you.
This is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you! I hope we meet at sea.
Me too!
Oh wow ok goodbye The Toast! I’m not sure what to say! I’m so happy to have this wonderful place to visit and read things I missed the first time around and to read things for the thousandth time. This includes the brilliant and hilarious and thoughtful comments as well. I’ll miss it/you all but I’m glad the archives are here for the random occasions down the line when nothing but a willing foe and sea room will do. See you in slack/twitter/the future!
Oh geez. I’m not ready to deal with this yet. I’m just not. (And bringing Muppet Christmas Carol into it REALLY didn’t help.)
What am I going to do without all of you?
I mean, sure, there are probably other people out there that might be interested in the time my grandma was ready to fight an Antiques Roadshow appraiser or who might listen to me talk at length about Tolkien, but where am I going to find them all in one place and be sure they’re all too witches at the same time?
I’m not prepared for a post-Toast world.
Any DC Toasties out there that I can mourn with?
i think someone posted about a DC wake in the first page of comments? i think? edit: yes: ToastWake near you thread.
Thank you. In the ten minutes it took for me to post a comment the front page went from seven comments to full. The end times are upon us.
BUT MALLORY IS SHOOING USSSSSSS
MALLORY CAN LUMP IT
You are delightful! Thanks for the hugs, upthread. Backatcha.
I will miss this place fiercely. It gave me a home on the vast and often-terrifying Internet. It celebrated people like me — the smart ones, the weird ones, the funny ones, the marginalized ones, the passionate ones. It was a safe haven for me, a place where I knew I was not alone. But it gave me connections in my day-to-day life, too — sharing articles and links from The Toast became a bonding ritual, something that strengthened my relationships with my friends and loved ones. I will remember my favorite pieces (too numerous to even begin to count) fondly and return to them often in the years to come, I know. So much of this site and this community — from small phrases like “too witches” to huge ideas like “your voice matters and you can make a difference in the world” — is deeply rooted in my heart now. I go forward without The Toast knowing that I will still carry its lessons with me. I will not be afraid to keep learning, keep speaking up for what’s right. I will be braver and more compassionate. I am so glad I got to be a part of this place, and I am so indebted to the people who created it. I am grateful for this community. I love you all.
On this, our final Friday together, I raise one last toast:
“A willing foe, and sea room!”
Thank you, Toast universe, for being a place where it’s always okay to care really passionately about things, and for being such a wonderful community in so many ways. I am so happy to be taking to the sea with all of you!
My Too Witches tribute to the Toast: http://www.redbubble.com/people/katastrophy/colle…
This place has always been too good and beautiful.
I’m going to miss it so much.
I’ve never commented here before,even though I’ve been reading a long time, but since it’s the last day, I wanted to join in and feel like a toastie.
Welcome, dear aalces, and goodbye. You absolutely are a Toastie. This was a place for all of us, including the quiet ones, the listeners and watchers. You may not have commented, but your energy was a vital ingredient in the witches’ brew.
hear, hear.
See? You *are* a Toastie. You have a Manka gif to prove it.
My first post was yesterday. We are toasties too!
Alright Toasties, this place may be dying, but there are plenty of evil jerks trying to amass power, delightful animals cavorting throughout Western art, and very, very confused Medieval monks.
Let’s go to work.
I want to slay the dragon.
*cracks knuckles, sharpens nails on a whetstone made of owl skulls*
I’m pretty bad at goodbyes too, I’m realizing. Well, this isn’t goodbye, exactly. Just, au revoir.
Also, on last plug that you can buy that “If Oscar Isaac Were Your Boyfriend” zine I’m working on in PDF or print. Going to drawing out my broken heart next week, so I hope y’all are prepared for several beautiful yet bittersweet pictures of Oscar Isaac looking at you with those eyes.
(I might also do commissions for the other If X Were Your Y’s….)
Anyway, hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. PLEASE reach out. I’m a bit scatter brained but I love when y’all reach out.
I'm pretty bad at goodbyes too, I'm realizing. Well, this isn't goodbye, exactly. Just, au revoir.
Also, on last plug that you can buy that "If Oscar Isaac Were Your Boyfriend" zine I'm working on in PDF or print. Going to drawing out my broken heart next week, so I hope y'all are prepared for several beautiful yet bittersweet pictures of Oscar Isaac looking at you with those eyes.
(I might also do commissions for the other If X Were Your Y's….)
Anyway, hit me up on TwitterTwitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. PLEASE reach out. I'm a bit scatter brained but I love when y'all reach out.
Oh, and OCWut couldn't make it, but she made her first post exactly two years ago:
"Toasties, I think I might be trans.
…help? :/ "
And help her you did.
I found The Toast following a Kristen Stewart thread on the Internet. I remember having plans that day, but I never followed through. I stayed glued to the screen, your words, your lovely selves, and it felt like stumbling onto a secret. How were the articles so intelligent and funny and GOOD? How were the readers, and commenters, so kind and insightful? I can’t believe you existed, but I’m so proud to have been a part of it (even as a lurker). You became a home for me, someplace I visited everyday. Thank you for carving this space, celebrating all our weird voices, our disgust for owls, our voices.
I love you so much UGH. Nicole, Nikki, Mallory – thank you for EVERYTHING.
And, if there are any Toasties in the Philippines here, please show yourselves!
Thanks for being there when I needed you, The Toast. When I was sad, when I was happy, when I was angry about men, when I wanted some nerdy Art History humor, and when I needed people to shout about Dragon Age: Inquisition with. It’s been an honor.
Nothing left to do but take to the sea, I guess!
I just wanted to say that I love all of you, especially you lurkers who are just delurking to say goodbye, you all (nonlurkers and lurkers and writers and editors and randoms who stumbled on one perfect post that struck you just right) made this the best place in the internet to spend time not working. Thank you all.
Toasts. I don’t have anything to say that won’t be more eloquently said by others, but I can’t not say something. Toast hugs for you all in your mourning, and may we all always be much, much too witches.
Minie is ready.
TAKE TO THE SEA!
Goodbye dear Toasties. As I wrote a couple of months back, I hope we scatter across the entire Internet and also the entire offline world and create a zillion more spaces to replace this one. And I hope that every new space we create is as safe, funny, respectful, thought-provoking, and empowering as this one.
Also I will probably cave in a few weeks and join every single social media channel to find y’all. But until then, will follow any Toasties on Instagram – @cartoonminie for more pictures of the above dog.
Thank you to the editors, writers, tech peeps, and illustrators who made this such an incredible website. I hope you all find brilliant new jobs or lives of extravagant leisure, whichever most takes your fancy.
See you around!
Such a good sea dog. Best of luck on your adventures.
That is the furriest seal I have ever seen. I will have to follow her on Instagram.
*crying while Vitamin C plays in the background*
AND THEN YOU HAD TO GO AND REFERENCE THE PART OF A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL THAT MAKES ME CRY EVERY TIME HOW DARE YOU *storms off*
I love this place. It is the perfect marriage of whimsy and darkness and humor and realness, a place to lick our wounds and celebrate our triumphs as a collective and as individuals. It promised me that I was not alone if I chose to be myself, that it was wonderful and welcomed and magical. Conquering Imposter Syndrome is kind of a by-word for Toast magic, isn’t it? It has been a place where humor and wit and wisdom and empathy are celebrated, and being queer or being female or being non-white or non-binary or being smarter or more aware or more vocal than society has decided is acceptable for women are not targets on one’s back but normal and even celebrated. My gratitude, and my love, defy words.
It is a singular experience to be a Toastie. In adultful terms, coming to The Toast was simultaneously like coming in the door to a clean house, a perfectly mixed drink, and dropping your bra over the back of the couch while being swarmed by kittens, and showing up to your most Labyrinth-esque ballgown-adjacent magical fantasy except it’s in a library with every book that has ever or will ever exists is in pristine condition where you don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to but can just lounge and read, with David Bowie and Prince somewhere nearby spinning inifinite magic around you. In childhood terms, it reminds me of the endless days of childhood, when magic and fantasy and hope are around every tree and in the shape of every flower petal and the glimmer of every Christmas light in the gloaming and my dearest companion, my little brother, was the only other possessor of the secret and satisfying language of dreams.
It was (and is) astonishing to me that any place could have such a profound overlap with my humor and interests, but over time, what that space was and what it meant about what smart women with macabre senses of humor and sharp wit and big hair and no hearts could make meant so much more than a personal haven. When the world seems entirely dangerous, or too awful to contemplate, or I just forgot exactly how to calibrate my best self, there was The Toast. At first, it was just a unicorn amidst angry gamer forums and hateful news stories and terrifying comments that only confirmed that the world was secretly even worse than it seemed and people were the worst. But slowly, that haven of incredible links and news, opinions, wonderful humor, insightful, breathtaking writing and queer-friendly values became a new reality, a new possibility that the world could get better. The reality that in the great Out There existed not just one or two kindred spirits but an entire community of people who wanted the same kind of world that I did, and that I want so fiercely for my daughter, stopped being too good to look at directly and became the new mark by which I measured the world.
The Toast is a representation of best possible outcome, in which women’s voices are loud and strong and funny and compassionate and smart and ferocious, and never dumbed down to make themselves less of a target or quieted out of fear of risk to their safety. The Toast is the best possible future, and every article or comment or link or moment of behind-the-scenes work is an act of love and courage and liberty and creativity that builds a worthwhile world.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
All of you.
Thank you for everything.
Miss Catherine/kittenzerg
We love you too.
Love you too, sister. Can I save this? I’m saving this.
Save and re-read and write out and burn to fling to the four winds for luck and love and witchy goodness. Do whatever you want. *hugs tight*
I love you, too. Cried while reading this.
Thank YOU. I will be re-reading this many times.
That makes me very, very happy. It feels like a continuation of toastlove. So, so, so lovely of you to say.
I will never stop saying it: you’re a wonder.
This is so beautiful. Thank you.
Sooo sooo happy you are on Slack. *tight hug*
And I you! *tight hugs back*
This is beautiful and I want to memorize it, Miss Catherine. Thank you.
I’m so sad and I will miss this website so much. Also glad we have the slack and the reddit and the upcoming manka site and everywhere else we will end up.
To quote my favorite Toast piece: I will go with you all into the wild.
This weekend may you rest, and be thankful.
I told myself I was gonna be COOL about The Toast ending, SO CHILL, SO COOL, moving on is part of life but….the last three years have been really rough (really great! but really rough! in the way that life is). And The Toast was always here for me to escape to, where there was always something new to think about or laugh about or learn about, and oh gosh toastie twitter and toast post – both have made my life so full of wonderful people I can’t even imagine not knowing. My life is richer in so many ways for being part of this community, and I will be forever grateful to Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki for the space they cultivated here. Thank you three, and thank you commenters, and the writers, and the lurkers, everyone :* :*
Chill is overrated.
Thank you so much for organizing Toast Post! It was such a wonderful thing. Good luck with everything!!
Important Question:
What is the Most American drink option* for this 4th of July?
I bought Pimm’s to watch Wimbledon this weekend but I need something patriotic to balance it out.
*that isn’t light beer
Bourbon?
Applejack! Dates all the way back to George Washington!
I found some! thank you! I’m excited to drink to GW and also the Toast while singing One Last Time thru my tears!
I also have craft beer bc that’s my usual choice, and I’d been eyeing this blueberry hard cider bc they had the temerity to call it “brosé”, so I feel appropriately liquored up for this weekend \o/
Bourbon?
Craft beer seems to be having a renaissance?
Anything, as long as it’s from a red solo cup.
the tears of trump supporters?
Hard cider! A very old American tradition. I like JK’s Scrumpy.
Tea that you dump in a harbor instead of drinking?
Samuel Adams has so many varieties of beer. A very patriotic name for a very good beer (not that horrible American-style beer like C**rs or B*d).
Cranberries, juiced and sweetened with maple syrup?
Whatever you want, cause Americans are fiercely independent?
A dark and stormy! Proud drink of New England:
Ingredients: Goslings ginger beer + dark rum.
when I found you, the sun shone again. hope to see you in the stars shining brightly. Thank you for the brilliant wit and many belly laughs
I wished I could’ve been a larger part of this here community, because you all seem so lovely and smart and funny and truly wonderful. The Toast has been a comfort, a friend, and something to aspire to, and I will love and miss it for always. Thanks for everything, ladies.
I’m visiting family this weekend, and I’ve packed my favorite comfort read because summer is long and losing all of you is just too sad. Sad things are best saved for November.
Thank you for being the best older sister I never had. Thank you for being warm and wise and bitingly witty, for helping me see more of the people out in the world whose experiences and lives differ from mine, and being generous and encouraging throughout. Y’all are the best, and I wish I’d known you longer.
Before we all go, any great read recommendations? I’m wearing out my copy of Sunshine by Robin McKinley these past few years.
Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal
How did you know that I struggle to make real food when I get home from work each day and end up spending most of the week eating leftovers from the weekend? Thank you!
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.
I’ve seen that recommended here before, and my library has it! Guess I know what I’ll be doing on Tuesday.
If you haven’t already, my other favorites by Robin McKinley are Deerskin* and Chalice!
*Deerskin is at least in part about the main character recovering from a sexual assault, so…. heavy trigger warnings in that respect. That being said, it is also a beautifully quietly POWERFUL book, and I love love love it.
I read all of Chalice the evening it arrived at my door from Amazon, and Deerskin is next on the list to buy. Thanks for the warning.
Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing”, which I just read last week in one single enormous sitting and it blew me away.
Oooh, that looks so gorgeous and luscious. Reading the description reminded me a bit of Isabel Allende’s “The House of the Spirits”; definitely will be taking you up on this recommendation.
Tanya Huff’s Enchantment Emporium sounds like it is in the same vein and I have read them twice already this year. Jennifer Armintrout’s vampire series is much darker but really good.
I very much doubt that I Capture the Castle is news to you, but it seems like I should mention it anyway, here at the end of The Toast.
I can’t. I’m mourning this like the death of a friend. I love our slack, I understand why the site is ending, but I just can’t.
What a place to bring my whole self. The weird little kid in me sees the weird little kid in you; thank you all.
So beautiful. Yes.
This site taught me how to be an adult, a person, and how to be my own feminist hero. Because I carry this place in my heart, I have found the strength to allow others to sit with the discomfort they caused and to treat myself as kindly as I do others. I quit grad school, I am going back to grad school, I went to the dentist, I learned how to use bobby pins bumpy-side down, and I was a librarian for a while.
I cannot believe we’ve had the last three years — what a gift.
wait what bobby pins bumpy side down? i must google
I know I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said a hundred times upthread, but Toasts, I have loved you all. Thank you for being the kindest corner of the Internet and bringing so much joy into my dreary workdays. It was all too witches to last, I suppose, but I’m glad I got to share this place with all of you.
Farewell, Toast!
Much love.
Much Toasts.
Can’t wait to run into you all as we take to the sea.
Sliding in at the last minute to ask: Can people still join the Toast Slack? I haven’t commented much on this site (OK, I have only commented once) but I will miss seeing everyone’s life updates and puns and book recommendations when the comments are locked.
email ppyajunebug at gmail .com to ask for an invite!
Wait oh no are the comments not going to be visible anymore, or just locked so you can’t comment anymore? I still have so many book rec threads to trawl through!
*Is halfway through setting up a petition on https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ for outed Toastie HRC to draft Cliffe, Ortberg, and Chung into the military on day one and make the continued running of The Toast a matter of National Security in perpetuity; slowly realizes that if you love something, you let it go; also realizes that having your favorite writers impressed into the military isn’t particularly nice or Quakerly; settles for indulging in inappropriate day drinking and maudlin displays of sentimentality*
I’ll miss all you nerds! You have all been the mostess of a hostess, cupcakes!
It was a delight that defies description to find this lovely corner of the internet full of thoughtful hilarious people who had the best jokes and were the nicest internet strangers a dweeb could hope to happen upon. I very occasionally tweet @zeatons, and would love to find some of you wonderful folks on there.
ttfn!
THE END.
Thank you for everything, Toast and toasties. I’ve moved around quite a bit and recently found myself — for the first time — in a place where it was hard to find my people, the people who get me. But I’ve found you here and I am so very glad that I did. Go well.
Oh, and also, did everyone get their care package exchange matches? I never got one, and I would love to send things to a fellow Toast one last time!
I haven’t got one (yet?).
I was signed up, but I don’t think it happened. I get the sense that Real Life was interfering with the person who was setting it up. Hopefully she can still email out the matches after the dust settles!
Okay, that is good to know! I know some people got them (my housemate is a fellow toast and she’s sending hers out today), but maybe they’re just still going out over time?
I got matched, so definitely shoot the organizer an email? I forget her Toast username. :/
I got matched and have put together a package but haven’t sent it yet
I didn’t get matched either! I emailed to ask, but maybe it was Real Life. That’s okay.
This is a really stupid time to post my first ever comment but I didn’t want to let the moment go past without saying something. I’ve been lurking for a while and always intended to start posting, and now I’m not only sad it’s ending, but also sad I never got up the courage to get involved myself.
But even as a lurker, I got so much out of it – both the articles and the comments. I felt like I really belonged here. Other people had passionate feelings about Faramir being better than Aragorn, or Emilia being the true hero of Othello!
At a time when I have become a grown-up, stopped writing and feel that I’ve lost my creativity and imagination, it made me feel a little bit more like me.
Thank you all so much. I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better. I will be following Toastie Twitter in an attempt to compensate.
See you on Toastie Twitter, I hope (I really need to join),
Thank you! It was nice to get a Toastie reply before we go.
Are… are you teaching us how to say goodbye?
*cries forever*
This.
I want to drown my sorrows in wine tonight but I am on call for work and have to deal with my grief while stone cold sober. Life is not fair!
If there was any justice, this would be me btw:
Posting my favorite Mary Oliver poem for you all–be well and be wonderful! See you on Reddit and in slack!
“Wild Geese”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Thank you for this, I love this poem. 🙂
One of my favorite poems of all time! I’m thinking of having some wall art with it made for my new apartment, actually.
That is a beautiful poem. I’m going to have to find a printed copy of it.
I love this poem and it feels so Toast and right for another Toastie to post it. Of course someone else here loves it, too. Of course.
Oh god, I always pick a fight with my family right before leaving because I am upset about leaving (not on purpose, I am still a child).
Anyway, I made a wonderful IRL friend from The Hairpin comments, and we both moved to The Toast when it started, and we loved the misandry, and the movie yelling and the gorgeous writing and all the smart comments. Thank you for everything. I will be reading the archives over and over again forever. And I am hoping to make at least one new friend in the town that I just moved to with my bat signal (the Toast tote), when it arrives.
I’ve very (very!) rarely (barely?) posted but just wanted to add my own thanks to The Toast and Toasties. I started grad school right after The Toast began and only just finished my thesis last month–The Toast truly carried me through!
Just, just…thanks.
I don’t think I have ever loved a place so much, and I still can’t picture what my life will be like without it. Thank you so much for creating this magical little corner of the internet. I suspect that, for a very long time, I will automatically check for Toast updates to brighten my day, to make me think, to make me cry in the library, and my heart will break every time I remember that it’s over.
Now I’m going to go cry again and for the rest of the day probably until the Chicago wake tonight.
The full Toast (one for each day of the week):
To
Our ships at sea.
Our sailors.
Ourselves
A bloody war or a sickly season.
A willing foe and sea room.
Our families.
Absent friends.
See ya’ll on the other side (the slack).
*weeps*
GIRL. Making me cry AGAIN.
Our spouses and sweethearts, may they never meet.
I mean, unless everyone is into it. I’m not judging.
You have been the best Toasts you could be. I love you all. I will miss you so very, very much.
Thank you, Nicole, Nicole, Marco and Mallory, and thank you, Toast commentariat, for burning brighter than the sun.
Tonight, I toast you in Johannesburg, 12,000 kilometres from home. I can’t think of a better reason than this badass community to raise my glass.
Viva! Viva! Viva!
Love forever xxxxx
Thank you for this absolute marvel of a place. This site has gotten me through three formative and challenging years. While I was, to my eternal regret, a silent admirer, I can’t even begin to count the ways I’ve loved, treasured, and learned from the witty, kind, delightful, and nerdy as fuck people on here. I’m a better, smarter person because of you all. Crying at my desk & sending you all some very GROS BISOUS.
Goodbye all. See you on the other side.
(Slack)
I love you all.
I’m nowhere even close to The Toast’s demographic, but it was The Toast that kept me going through a rough two years. You saved my life and I’ll mourn you.
I’m so glad you were here with us!
The Toast demographic is anyone who gets the joke, and needed it. I’m glad you were here with us.
To my beloved Toasties,
You are all beautiful, fearsome, and inspired. Everyone who was a part of this small miracle: creators, contributors, readers — I love you, and fiercely. And I will carry you with me into the storm.
What a gorgeous send-off – I am saving this. It is perfection. I love you, too.
When I found out I had progressive MS I realized that I had better get going on my childhood goal to be a writer. I was already a technical writer, but I wanted to be more than that. I discovered Nicole via her Tumblr when I googled “two deaf mutes at a funeral” to check the quote and discovered that she was a kindred spirit. We had read all the same books! There were other people in the world who liked what I liked!
I’ve read the Toast from the very first day in a state of awe and delight. I never anticipated that one day I would write for this site and that would lead to writing at other places, but best of all I never anticipated getting to know my fellow Toasties. I’ve made real friends here and for that I cannot say thank you enough. Thank you, Mallory, for accepting my first piece and saying it was beautiful. You have no idea what that meant to me. Thank you, Nicole, for publishing my silly pieces and helping me impress my kids. Thank you, Nikki for telling me each finished piece was ” wonderful”, and editing my work so beautifully.
But most of all, thank all of you for making the world a better place for three years.
I can hardly wait to see what all of us do next.
Gah! To hell with this nonsense. I will never say goodbye. You hear me? NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!
Samesies.
You are all too perfect and too witches. Go forth and may the blessing of all Free Folk go with you.
May the stars shine upon your faces
I can’t write a lovely sendoff post like the rest of you so I’ll Irish-Canadian dirtbag-style skateboard off into the sea with both middle fingers raised. May your badly-concealed flasks always be filled and may your toast never burn.
I’m almost too witches and verklempt to hang out on the site today. But I know I will regret it if I don’t say goodbye. I am so so so fortunate to have known The Toast.
I love you all. <3
The Toast: *exits, pursued by bear hugs*
this is perfect
Toasties I am in the process of moving (and basically turning down what would have been a dream job opportunity had I stayed, but family is elsewhere), and The Toast is closing, and now Hillary Clinton posted here, and I have so many *feelings* and basically I just wanted to share that all with you. Thank you all for the amazing space that is The Toast. <3
Thank you everyone. I’ve mostly been a lurker here, but I honestly feel like reading the Toast has made me a better person and whenever I was having a shitty day I always knew if came here I would find something that would make it better – whether it was a whole article, a single comment or an expertly used gif from CleverManka.
You’re all too witches!
This is wonderful. It makes me happy.
Thank you Nicole, Nikki, & Mallory for making this the best place on the internet, the only place that catered exactly to my Henry VIII/Agatha Christie/politics/silliness needs while having comments that SHOULD be read and not avoided. I will forever be grateful.
Thank you, Toasts–I was an infrequent (if frequently silly) commenter here, but I loved every essay, every comment thread, every person I got to know just a little bit better both here and on #toastietwitter. We’ve done such good together, and as much as I wish we could have this place still, it’s time for us to spread our great and terrible wings and take to the skies, like something from a children’s story Mallory Made Horrific.
*deep breath* For my own part, tonight after I get home from work, I’m going to put in my application for a job that I’ve been hesitating on: an admissions counselor at a women’s college. I’m nervous, so nervous (can I really travel around talking to highschoolers and selling them on a college?), but if you Toasts have taught me anything, it’s that I’m more powerful than I know, and more accomplished than I feel. Wish me luck?
<3
You can do it!
All the luck
Good luck!!
(Also I lost the tracking number, did you get the care package or do I need to fight with the post office?)
I did! I thought about waiting until today to open it, but I was impatient. Thank you for everything, but most especially the toast rack–I’m trying to find something worthy of being held by it (perhaps my pulp novel postcards of scandalous women).
If you still want to fight the post office, though, you should–the one near me just lost a book I’ve been waiting for, so.
You will be wonderful! Oh, good, good luck, friend!
Have no fear. You are sufficient in who you are. Apply to that job. Apply to every job that calls to you, whether practical or not. Applications are not commitments. You are the best person for the job for the employers who can appreciate your special kind of power. Think of them competing for you and be brave.
All the luck, gripyfish! We are with you!
A million, billion thank yous to Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki for creating this amazing place and this amazing community. Thank you for your hard work, for your humor, your intelligence, your grace, your compassion, and your lightning-fast emails. Thank you for letting me be your Man in Middle-earth. It has been a literal dream come true.
And thank you to all the contributors and Toasties for making this the best place on the Internet. You all have my axe.
A WILLING FOE, AND SEA ROOM!
My dear, dear Toasties. My life will be quieter and less witches without your wit and wisdom. Like so many of us, I’ve grown stronger and more courageous with the support and advice of this community.
It’s rare enough to find one person who understands you, but to find a community made entirely of such people and to get to live with them online for three whole years is an impossibly wonderful gift. Thank you to Mallory, Nicole, Nikki, Roxane, and everyone who has written on The Toast either as a contributor or a commenter. The universe shines brighter for having you in it. I love you.
See you on the other shore.
Oh god I have to eat something and then do some work but I’ll be commenting at y’all until the sun goes down tonight and sending you good vibes as this raucous last hurrah slowly quiets. <3
Very important question- how do I join Toastie Slack?
email ppyajunebug at gmail for an invitation!
Thank you!
Toasties, my much-beloved roommate moved across the country this week; and I’m gearing up for my own move across the city later this month, and then across the world next year. So much is shifting, and the thought of doing it without art to laugh at and open threads to rant in feels fucking daunting.
I wish so much love and joy to the founders and staff and contributers and commenters. You have brought me so much over the last few years, and it means the world to me.
In his introduction to The Salmon of Doubt, the posthumous collection of Douglas Adams’s essays, Stephen Fry wrote:
“When you look at Velazquez, listen to Mozart, read Dickens or laugh at Billy Connolly, to take four names at random (it always takes a great deal of time and thought to take names at random for the purposes of argument), you are aware that what they do they do for the world and the results are, of course, magnificent. When you look at Blake, listen to Bach, read Douglas Adams or watch Eddie Izzard perform, you feel you are perhaps the only person in the world who really gets them. Just about everyone else admires them, of course, but no one really connects with them in the way you do.”
This is how I feel about The Toast. The Toast *connected*. It’s going to be a darker world without you all, but we’ll keep fighting on together apart. Be well; be strong; but most of all, be far too witches.
Great quote. Indeed. Siiiiigh.
Came so late to this place that I don’t feel I’ve entirely earned the right to feel this sad…but I do, and I will love you all quietly, and from afar.
My second-favorite hunter pet in WoW is named NerfHerder, and you are here, which I think makes you without question a contributing and valued Toastie who can feel all the feels. We love you, too.
Thank you for everything, all of you.
I just don’t know what to say, but I know I must say something.
I feel sort of teary and sad, and have been just-on-the-verge of actually crying since 9 when the first Last Day post went up with the Link Roundup. Now I’m trying to make the most of these last moments.
I’ll really, really miss this community. I’m on Slack and reddit, so hopefully many of the wonderful conversations here will be continued. However, there won’t be wonderful new content every day, and I don’t know what that will mean for its longevity. As a longtime fannish type person, I’m used to seeing online communities diminish, and then slowly fade into nothing, and then one day no longer really be there at all. I suspect that will happen to the Toast remnants, and that makes me very sad, but at least we’ll have that aspect for a little while longer.
I will miss the jokes and posts and thoughtful writing and beautiful stories. I will always regret not trying harder to have something published on the Toast. I will be so sorry to have Monday mornings come without the bright spot of the first Link Roundup.
I always had a hard time accepting myself. I’ve always felt like I was too weird, too different from other people. Here, I found others who were like me, who were thriving, who showed me not only that my interests were all right but other things that it was great to be nerdily passionate about. I think it’ll be a long time before I can read a good book without going “Can’t wait to discuss this on the Open Thread!”
But I guess I don’t feel the level of sad I expected to? The Toast was always a little too good for this world, a little too good for any of us, a space that was at once safe and challenging, that made me laugh and cry and think and feel connected to others and get to know myself. Maybe it has done what it has to do for each of us, and now it’s time for the Toast to go on.
It’s been so wonderful to know all of you. Thank you for everything. I’ll miss you all so much. Thank you especially to our tireless and compassionate editors, who have done so much for so little, and to every writer who brought us all so much joy, and to all of you.
I feel so much of this too. Having people to share things with was wonderful.
What you said about online communities is a very sad truth I have also experienced and am hanging tightly on to denial about with regard to the Toast crumbs.
Toasties, I had an allergic reaction last night while peeling an onion because of the little bits of mold that onions sometimes have under their outer skin, and I can’t even. Give me your suggestions of favorite comfort reading/watching while you’re stuck in bed?
(I love you all and I will miss this site terribly.)
Murder She Wrote while having toast and tea. This was the comfort of my childhood, and continues to the present day.
Say Yes to the Dress has 73 episodes on Hulu Plus right now! The most mindless and comforting of mindless comfort watches.
I just posted on ToastCrumbs at Reddit, but I wanted to come here to say, formally: thank you Mallory, and Nicole, and Nikki, and the Toasties everyone else who made this site wonderful over the past 3 years. I’ve been a daily reader for as far back as I can remember (so, like, 3 years-ish). You guys have done everything to reassure me that there are still smart, funny, wonderful, and kind people in this world. People who value knowledge and compassion and art. So I wanted to unlurk to say that I’ve enjoyed this website and its commentariat immensely, and I wish you (all) all the happiness in the world.
I love you all and your witchy magnificence. Thanks for being magic for a while, it really did mean the world to me.
I found this hat! Is it yours?
OH MY GOD YOU FOUND MY HAT! It’s a last day of The Toast miracle. Thank you, magical calligraphy witch fairy!
This is one of the best Toastie comment exchanges I ever saw and I’m so glad I paged through the comments one last time before I went to bed.
I am very glad that you all were around when Terry Pratchett died.
This!!!
And David Bowie, and Prince…
Yes, this.
I wish I had been part of this beautiful community. I wish I had reached out. You are all golden, and I have enjoyed so much looking and listening and reading and thinking alongside all of you. It’s been greater than words can say.
The looking and listening and reading and thinking is a deeply critical part. *hug* I’m glad you were here.
Yes, by reading etc you WERE and ARE part of this. All the witty commenters (and those less witty) wrote partly because they knew you were reading.
Bedtime in this timezone, my dears. Take care.
I wish I had been part of this beautiful community. I wish I had reached out.
How fortunate, then, that you were, and you did!
Man. I’ve loved this website, this community. The Toast (and The Hairpin) were really important to me. They were some of the first communities on the internet were I felt comfortable jumping in and talking. They’ve gotten me through those post college years. Gave me space to bitch about my interminable job search, and just a place to feel at home.
I love all y’all.
IMPORTANT REMINDER- The Great British Bake Off / British Baking Show is back on PBS tonight! Check your local listing and come hang out in #tvtalk.
I will definitely need lots of cake and alcohol to get through the rest of the day
Oh crap, I need to either bake or drag myself to the store. I didn’t plan this well…
OMG, thank you — I needed a little bit of good news! I must go make sure the DVR will find it. . . .
I just can’t. Thank you for everything and all the love.
Toast friends, I have little to say outside of what so many of you have already said so eloquently, but I just wanted to express how much this space has meant to me, and how sorry I will be to see it gone. You have all given me great hope in humanity, in women and in my personal religious views. I have felt less alone in my problems because of you guys, and I have so frequently seen myself reflected back at me in all of you, which is so enormously comforting. Thank you for all that you’ve done, and thank you so much to Mallory, Nicole and Nikki for their tireless work and good humor.
Giving you all my love! Please follow me on Twitter at interiorpocket. I would like to get a little slice of Toast there if possible 🙂
Thank you for this, I love this poem. 🙂
Despite reading for several years, I have never commented on a Toast article before, so maybe it’s fitting that my first comment is in the last open thread?? *sobs*
I love you guys. Thank you for creating a safe space on the Internet, and for being the haven of my early twenties. You told me it was okay for me to start talking about my biracial, Asian-American identity – something I’d always been afraid to do before now. You showed me that it’s possible to be a feminist AND a Christian, all while loving other humans well. Thank you for being the most majestic unicorn editor-writers the world has ever seen. <3
Awww. *supertighthugs*
One of my friends for whom “friend” is too small a word is moving away. Tomorrow, we’ll load up the truck and send her off, and I’m welling up every few hours and I’m not okay. I’m grateful, so grateful to live in a time when the internet exists and FaceTime exists and her moving halfway across the country doesn’t mean I’ll never see or talk to her again, but more than anything I just want her with me, want her shoulder to put my arm on at the movies, want to look in my rearview mirror and see her in the back seat curled around her kindle, want her hip to rest my head on when I’m watching Netflix or writing emails, want her body to dance around in the kitchen. And yes life is made up of meetings and partings (you should see my family sitting on the couch and sobbing in unison while watching MCC on Christmas Eve), but…there is a fundamental part of me that knows, all evidence to the contrary, that some things are supposed to last forever. And the fact that they don’t is the most painful part of being a human.
And here we are saying goodbye to the Toast, too. I am so grateful to have found this place, so astonishingly homelike and so full of wonderful people. Thank you, dear Toasties; thank you, Nicole and Nikki and Mallory.
“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
You people and that Tolkien quote are destroying me.
“there is a fundamental part of me that knows, all evidence to the contrary, that some things are supposed to last forever. And the fact that they don’t is the most painful part of being a human. ” – this.
For whatever it is worth, my dear, my two best friends are in San Francisco and Miami, and it is not the same and sometimes it just SUCKS, but it works and our love carries on and has new adventures to it.
Good bye, everyone. I haven’t been a frequent commenter but I have been a constant lurker since day one, and y’all feel like my sisters and best friends. Love and light.
Toast, I think I found a way to articulate what I love about y’all.
This isn’t the first place I’ve found where I can go, “Is this just me or….?” and have people say “Oh no, it’s me too.”
But it’s the first place where it felt like every article was a big “Is this just me or…?” and the comments all felt like a collective “Oh no, it’s me too.” Even when there was disagreement.
And it’s the first place where no jerk was permitted to pop up and say “Yeah, it’s just you. The real world definitely doesn’t work that way.”
See you tonight, if you’re a Chicago Toastie who can make it to the toastwake (Parts & Labor in Logan Square). Otherwise, I look forward to continuing the conversation on the slack or twitter.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Just so.
I dreamt this morning that it was the late 1800s and i went and signed up with the local suffragist organization. I think this is very much related to today.
Also i <3 you all and will try to get the hang of our new alternative spaces.
I dreamed I was a hit man in a Coen brothers movie, so I much prefer yours.
I posted this on twitter, but thinking a lot about my senior yearbook quote in the context of the toast. I am so glad this incredible community exists, I am so glad to be a part of it, long live the toast.
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
Oh, Toast community!
I haven’t been the most active commenter, but I’m a daily reader and have learned a lot from the content and commenters here. It’s not an exaggeration to say that between here and the old Hairpin, I’ve learned a different way to be a person. I was raised in a household with a lot of criticism and pretty much zero examples of healthy self-care, and y’all have taught me better than that. So thanks!
Now let us take to the sea!
Goodbye, you have been the best and will continue to be the best in your next adventures.
And you.
Wow, thank you, that is lovely.
Please forgive my sentimentality. So this is goodbye and I feel … sad, so very, very sad, but also hopeful and very much alive.
The Toast showed me that there are people out there who are with me in that strange liminal space between art history and doge speak. I have loved you, toastatrons and toasticles!
Maybe one thing I have learned: Since I am aware now of the glories of facial expressions in old art, I have overcome my fear of churches. I used to be scared of the suffering, violence and despair depicted in religious art, I was anxious in the huge dark halls of the churches I visited with my parents or later with school. I got panic attacks. I usually left as soon as I could.
Last week I went to two churches, and enjoyed myself. It was not scary. I did not panic. I had a good time.
Thank you, Toast, for giving me a way to enjoy something I have been afraid of as long as I can remember.
I will spare you that last overquoted line of a German poem about Endings and Beginnings that I now finally get but is waayyy to kitchy.
Thank you, Nicoles and Mallory, and Toastonians, for being such a huge part of my life.
See you in the slack!
I wish I had something extremely profound to say, but I do not. I’m good with science, not poetry, despite what my 13 year-old self thought. Therefore I will say a science-y good bye.
Like a female schistosome surrounded by the male, may you always have the spirit of the Toast around you.
I love you all, you weirdos. To the Slack!
This is perfect. <3 See you on Slack!!
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND WAS AMAZING
(I am refusing to say goodbye yet also I’m going to have to read all of these comments at home later where I can sob into my ice cream)
It was a literary pilgrimage and you all were so nice and helpful and there are so many Montgomery kindred spirits here, so I prepared a flickr album if you want to see a selection of my pictures.
ALSO I highly recommend the LM Montgomery conference to anyone and everyone. There were literary scholars and fans and casual researchers and some people who came just to listen to everything and it was quite literally one of the best experiences of my life because everyone at the conference was so warm and welcoming and we all immediately had things in common (because Maud obviously) and if you can you should come in 2018 because it’s going to be so much awesomeness.
Those were lovely! I went on a Montgomery pilgrimage of my own a few years ago (with my fiancee and one of our mutual friends) and I wish I had the time/money go back on the regular. 2018 seems like an excellent goal to shoot for, though…
I would give a nineth of my soul to go to a LMM#1 conference. Can someone please time travel and make her write some cyborgs into some of her books so I’d have an excuse to go and also maybe get funding?
I have finally broken into my P.E.I. Preserves Company Preserves that we bought on the Island back in October and gosh are they delicious! I shall eat blueberry/raspberry and champagne preserves on my scone and daydream about the rolling hills outside of Cavendish and how they gently rose out of the autumn morning mist. *sigh* Long live LMM.
The Lake of Shining Waters! Argh, it’s all so beautiful. (Also, looking at the picture of Anne’s room has made me realise that the room I pictured in my head was massive, for some reason.)
Here’s to the Toast and all of the great comments I’ve enjoyed reading here. Let’s all go out and make the world better.
OH GAMING TOASTIES
If anyone plays Overwatch on playstation 4, add me! I’m swevene there and I would love to drop the beat (I mainly play Lucio) with some toast pals.
This marks the second ever Toast post I’ve ever commented on (the first being that rad Redwall article a couple years ago) because everyone in the comments always seemed so cool that I got overwhelmed and just lurked.
ugh ugh ugh biggest regret of my life will be not getting to know y’all and not being an active participant, I went on this beautiful site every single day and will cherish it forever. much love to everyone here.
^same, and I love you.
All the loves to you. Silent Toasties count among us, the witches and rebels and healers and dreamers and mad scientists and librarians and wordwielders. Toast in your own way, always.
Toast in your own way, always.
I love that.
TOASTS I am terrible at goodbyes so I am probably not going to be around much today, but know that I love you all and will see you on reddit and Toast Slack and hopefully at SpaceWitchCon next year and I’m gonna go back to reading true crime stories now because they’re less likely to make me cry all over my desk
Dear The Toast:
THANK YOU for being a place and a people where I could be who I am, even when I wasn’t sure who or what that was. I’ve often felt like a strange alien creature, not sure where I fit, or what role I wanted, or what to say my gender was. And that was OKAY HERE. We have always been so generous towards the queer and the confused here.
TODAY, I want to say:
I’m a woman. And I’m a man. And I want to go back and qualify those terms in all the ways that I need to, but instead I will just say that The Toast was the first place I read the phrase “soft butch” and “soft butch” feels like HOME.
I’m queer, and genderqueer, and bisexual. I feel comfortable saying that out loud today, when I’ve mostly just alluded to it before in my sparse comments. I feel comfortable saying that today because I KNOW I AM OKAY, and NOT ALONE, and that’s due in no small part to all of you. (And to Blushingflwr for a particularly INCREDIBLE Captain America fic that she so kindly sent to my DMs when I needed something to process THE WORST KISS in Civil War.)
I know I’m coming to Open Thread real late and there’s no way of knowing who will see this, but I just wanted to say thanks for strengthening my magic, and encouraging my queerness, and for telling all the jokes that still resonate warmly all over my heart.
A willing foe, and sea room
Connor Joel / Flan
ALSO: I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to this lovely essay that helped me SO SO MUCH. It’s not even part of The Trans Series, but it cracked open the door just enough for me when I was 21 and alone, and I’ve always been grateful to it for existing. If the person who wrote it is here, I just want you to know that “I never said I wasn’t.” is TATTOOED ON MY SOUL’S HEART’S SOUL.
http://the-toast.net/2013/10/11/sailor-jupiter-ge…
OH LOVE. I’m so happy for you, and proud of you!!!
THANK YOU MY ANNA!!
Flan, I’m so glad you’ve been a part of this space. I’m so happy this space was here for you and you can be yourself with us. I’m so happy to know you. <3
LIz <3
💚
Oh, Flan, thank you for being you, and being wonderful.
I’m so glad to know you, to have gone on a ghost tour with you, and so glad you’re here.
ALSO I should note that I have picked back up my library school application to work on and hopefully, by THIS SPRING I will be on my way to achieving librarian spinsterhood and I LOVE YOU ALL FOR THE INSPIRATION.
So much love to you. This is so core Toast. You rock. TO THE SEA!
I’ve never posted here before, but I’ve been lurking and enjoying this site and its community immensely for a while now. Many, many others have already spoken to this more eloquently than I can, so I’ll just briefly say, thank you so, so much to all the writers, editors, illustrators and commenters for creating this site. It has hands-down been the smartest, funniest, fiercest and yet kindest place that I’ve ever seen on the Internet (and I’m an Old, so I’ve seen a few, heh.) Every time I visited, I’d find something that made me laugh, think, cry, or all of the above. I will miss it terribly, but I know its spirit will live on in other ways and in other places. Good luck to all of you, and thanks again for everything.
I’ll always be grateful that I had this space to laugh at white men and their book preferences.
Thank you, and Madame President bless us, every one.
I thought I was developing some immunity but, then, NO. Crying. More. Again. Still.
Exeunt.
I will miss you all, my darlings. I’ll see you on slack/reddit/the hairpin/our weekly coven meetings
My queerest, librarians,
With a comma after queerest
Laughing through sobbing was one of my favorite occasional emotions, but now I live here.
I don’t feelings well so I will just leave this for you all. It is “Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims and it glimmers with Toastiness.
My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing
Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.
Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers’ terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apopleptic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.
A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.
Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily in love’s unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.
Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.
That is delightfully Toast.
Breath-takingly delightful and wonderful and sweet and romantic and whimsical and perfect.
Okay, this poem always, always manages to make me cry even when I’m not already weltering in toastfeelings.
“Then, Frodo kissed Merry and Pippin, and last of all Sam, and went abroad; and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth; and the light of the glass of Galadrial that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost. And the ship went out into the High Sea on into the West, until at last on a night of rain, Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
But to Sam the evening deepened to darkness as he stood at the Haven; and as he looked at the grey sea he saw only a shadow on the waters that was soon lost in the West. There still he stood far into the night, hearing only the sigh and murmur of the waves on the shores of Middle-Earth, and the sound of them sank deep into his heart. Beside him stood Merry and Pippin, and they were silent.”
Ohhhh god this one hurts.
All of these LOTR ones are really getting me, esp things one!
Tolkien was such a bastard to write This Insufferably Good Stuff that would in the future make me cry so damn much. Jerk.
(Also, yes. *hug*)
I am late to this and nothing much to add to what’s been said above, but thank you for everything. This has been a daily read for me for a long time and I will miss it.
One day I opened the Link Roundup as I normally do (did? ugh). There was a link to an article about A Man who had acted like a dirtbag, with Nicole’s commentary basically calling him out on his dirtbaggery.
That man was my boss. Who indeed was a dirtbag. An especially terrible kind, who are kind and generous and sensitive to you on an interpersonal level but then go out and use their rich white male privilege for evvvuul, leaving you confused as to whether you’re understanding the situation correctly and maybe the problem is you.
You know how people say that you shouldn’t need external validation? Go forth and be confident and rely on nothing but your own strength and fortitude? Yeah, actually it turns out external validation is a hell of a thing, especially from here. Suddenly I had Official Proof that I wasn’t being too sensitive or reading too much into things or expected too much from people or didn’t understand how the world works, which is what people IRL had been telling me. It was a powerful moment for me. I’m really going to miss this place. <3
As someone whose fantasy life centers strongly on vindication, this story is Deeply Appealing.
I’m so glad you got your Official Proof!
I’ve never been a part of a group of people so wiling to laugh, learn and discuss tough (and sometimes very personal) issues in such a thoughtful and discerning way. I never realized just how much it was a part of my daily life; my feelings and opinions until I new that it was ending. I don’t have anything enlightening to say. Only that I will miss you all. And that I hope I can still find areas of the interwebs in which to commune with you in the future (@larocque_n on the Twitter). Toasties, you are the best people. Thank you.
Thank you Nicole, Mallory & Nikki. The Toast was a magical place.
You’re all my kindred spirits.
Late late, ever late, because losing The Toast is like eating an airplane, far too big to do all at one go. But here’s my encomium:
The Toast dealt with difficult topics without flinching but without bragging about its own bravery and tact; it never pretended to be above silliness or acted as though humor were the opposite of intelligent conversation. The wonderfully couth commentariat rose to the challenge of treating screenfolk as though they were people whose opinions deserved both attention and courtesy, even when there were disagreements (although we are naturally one massive unitary crow empress with a thousand heads focused on a single burning goal: #banmen). It was a party that, unlike so many real ones, didn’t leave introverted nerdy people feeling like only the cheese plate cared about their attention. The Toast taught me to be more forgiving about certain things and much flintier about others; it gave me more books to read and areas to explore and people to care about. I will miss it and I wish it and all its folks everything they deserve: A willing foe and, of course, sea room.
“one massive unitary crow empress with a thousand heads focused on a single burning goal: #banmen” – Toast tattoo idea anyone?
Eloquent, concise, and elegant. How beautiful and how true.
Coffee isn’t going to taste right to me after today. I’m getting so accustomed to the flavor of tears in it.
I hope Monk #1 will be all right.
Thank you so much for the best thing that I’ve ever been a part of on the Internet.
I worry about Monk #1.
Mallory and Nicole, thank you for hosting this party for us the last three years. It’s been such a delight, a truly unmatched experience anywhere. It will live in my heart forever, as will the friendships and relationships you’ve fostered. Time to pick up my coat and hat, see myself out, and take to the sea.
I didn’t comment as much as I’d have liked, but I did read everything, including the comments. This site, y’all. Thank you. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Oh, my darlings.
I admit, I was never really active in the comments. As such, I didn’t make any wonderful bonds like many of you have, and I’m feeling quite sad about that.
However, The Toast always, always brought me joy, made me laugh, made me cry. Made me jealous that I’ll never be as brilliant a writer as Mallory. Thank you for introducing me to Hamilton and Roxane Gay. Thank you for nurturing my inner misandrist. Thank you for reminding me it’s okay to be too witches sometimes.
And now, on the Slack group, I feel like I very well may befriend some lovely people, and I’m looking forward to keeping my heart wide open.
xoxo
Saltie
I am also sad about not making any deep bonds. But at least we had this.
I have nothing articulate to say, I just want to thank every person who’s contributed to this wonderful community, (editors, writers and commenters) for making me laugh and learn and think. It really was something extraordinary.
writing stuff here took me from having a lot of neurotic secret hubristic anxious confidence in my own words that no one must suspect all the way to being a golden god who apologizes to no one. and that’s just how I feel about my comments. The toast made me feel heard and understood when I posted my little clouds of nonsense and it wasn’t just a feeling, it was the truth. If I ever murder a man they will have to go to the toast logbook to collect a list of names cause there is no other community I know about where they could collect a jury of my peers.
farewell
I loved your little clouds of nonsense and am grateful to The Toast for letting me see them. <3
aw man, thanks
a) golden god, confirmed
2) definitely the truth
additionally) not guilty!
Good bye, good bye, good bye. I love you all. You will always be the X in my “If X Were Your Y.” Fair winds and following seas, friends.
I wanted to do something clever, rewrite “Funeral Blues” or quote all of the beautiful and hilarious things you all have said through the years that have made my corner of the universe a little bit brighter. When I was fighting with my parents, or having a rough time in school, or questioning whether I could ever be happy, you all were there, cheering me up and cheering me on. This place taught me that it’s okay and good and possible to be kind, and strong, and funny, and weird, even in this brave new world, and for that I will be forever grateful.
This ending comes at the same time as so many beginnings: possibly leaving for a new denomination, applying to PhD programs, moving to a new city to start the next chapter with the love of my life after two years of painful long distance. I feel small, and unprepared, and afraid, and though I am sure this comment will be buried, I have to ask:
What is one piece of advice that guides you through life?
Thank you, thank you, thank you, forever and always.
Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
I have so many things that I think on as I move through the world, mantras and reminders that keep me going. But in the Spirit of The Toast, I have basically a whole year’s worth of Madame Clairevoyant’s Virgo horoscopes saved, and here are some of the best lines:
“Hold on to the moments that feel most right. Hold on to the songs that echo in your skin. Hold on to the love that lives in your bones.”
“Living a life in this strange tangled world can be a heavy task, but you’re allowed to reach for goodness. You’re allowed to reach for joy. Your life belongs to you, and there’s so much that you can do.”
“When you feel trapped, when you feel stuck, when your time feels like a burden and not a gift, try to remember the future again. Try to live like the future is real, because it is, though it might not always feel that way.”
“You’re alive, and you’re bigger and stranger and stronger than you even know.”
My one, true guide: There is more than one correct answer.
Blessings, Toastfriend. It’s OK to feel afraid. You can feel fear while striding into novel situations as if full of confidence.
What is one piece of advice that guides you through life?
Whatever happens, I can choose to laugh or cry about it, and neither is ever the wrong choice.
When I’m finding change scary, I remind myself of this Angel quote (I know, not very highbrow, but it helps): “It’s like a song. Now, I can hold a note for a long time; actually, I can hold a note forever. But eventually that’s just noise. It’s the change we’re listening for. The note coming after, and the one after that. That’s what makes it music.”
What is one piece of advice that guides you through life?
“When you have a chance to do good, take it.”
“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.” – Sarah Bernhardt
I love this quote so much, and I try to remember its spirit whenever I feel lost, defeated, or apathetic.
My dears, I will miss you all so much. If we have spatted in the past over preferred composers of musicals or the like, I beg your pardon.
I can’t even think of anything poetic or pithy to say. Here is Sandy Denny singing “Farewell, Farewell” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69sLI4n674s
Dear Toast,
Thank you for being so awesome, for providing a safe space, for reminding me that it’s okay to be clever and funny and dorky and kind and wayy into memes.
I regret not being more active in this lovely community; I’m sorry I was such a lurker and that I took more than I gave to this community.
I will miss you.
xx
Goodbye glorious friends! I will be sending your CD and care package on Monday, because I missed the deadline because I had two beers at work yesterday instead of going to the post office. Thank you for being a wonderful resource and for making me feel the strength of the community behind me.
Last open thread? Time to post anon for some advice.
Thinking about the reasons for The Toast’s closing has made me wonder: at what point is it time to move on? I have a creative type career, and a day job. The creative stuff I do is all freelance, gig after gig. Over the past couple years, even though my skills are improving (so say other, qualified people) I am getting hired less. More than that, I am starting to feel like a lot of the creative work I do is just stuff I have to do for money or to keep the career alive. I feel like I’m putting in so much energy and not getting much out that renews my passion for this thing. More and more, the creative work I do doesn’t seem to have any value for me creatively, but the things I think might fuel my creativity don’t have any money in them.
Now I’m looking at a calendar that is totally empty and I just can’t find the motivation to look for new gigs, send out feelers etc. I’ve been in slumps like this before, but this time I just keep thinking, what is the point? I don’t hate my day job, but it’s not something that I want to do forever. I am feeling like my current situation is untenable, and yet it’s also hard to reconcile moving away from something that has been so important to me.
So, Toasties, how do you know it’s time to move on and do something different?
When the opportunity to do so presents itself. Until then, you can prepare.
That’s my method. But yours could be different.
The Toast closing was my final motivation to start the wheels turning on changing my life. I’m not even sure what it’s going to change into at this point, but something’s going to change and it’s going to be amazing.
Best wishes figuring out when it’s time for you to move on.
Exactly. When I read the closing announcement, where Nicole and Mallory talked about asking each other how long they wanted to keep doing this, I realized I needed to ask myself that question. Thanks for the hugs.
Sometimes the only way to know is to do it. Shelve it and take a break and promise yourself an actual calendar date on which you will revisit the idea/medium/experience/Thing You Do. You’ve been working two jobs and it soundsl ike neither of them are feeding you creatively the way you need. Being burned out seems pretty reasonable to me. Plus, factor in how much something you love changes when you transition from impassioned amateur to trying to make it in the big city.
Be kind to yourself. Take a structured breather. Give yourself permission to just chill for a while. Then come back to it and reevaluate.
If you were to decide you want your dayjob to be the dayjob and your otherness to be purely for whatever is joyful and satisfying to you, you would not be alone in having made that choice. Give yourself some space to feel what it is like to not feel obligated to produce unsatisfying creative work.
I have spent the last several weeks earnestly telling everybody who would sit still long enough about how much The Toast has meant to me and why it’s a goddamn national disaster that it’s ending, but now when I’m here and want to share it with all of you I’m without words.
When I found The Toast I found, at last, a true reflection of myself. Contradictory, messy, loving, rude, gentle, strong, brave, uncertain, smart as hell, unafraid of ignorance, nerdy, unashamed, angry, proud, dignified, awkward, compassionate. I have been transformed because of The Toast, but only into somebody more Myself.
I am so grateful, so grateful beyond words, for the wonderful gift you have given the world. Of course, Mallory and Nicole for starting it, but also all of you who made this a community (even if I was an erratic commenter.)
To Mallory. To Nicole. To me. To you. A WILLING FOE, AND SEA ROOM.
See you in the Slack
♥ @brookelet
Thank you. Just… thank you.
I never commented as much as I wanted to, even when I wasn’t quite as busy, and yet I’ve still made so many friends through this site. I’ve said a number of dumb things to Mallory every time I’ve been to a Toast event, but the first dumb thing I said is still true now: Thank you for a site where every day I want to read every single thing that is posted. I’m almost glad for the times I’ve missed posts over the last year in particular, since there is still Toast yet to read.
Thank you to everyone who read, wrote for, and commented on The Toast. You all are my people, and I didn’t know there were so many of you.
I could not love you more, Toasties. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWD_VPiMlso
Thank you for everything you’ve done for this site and for us. Nicole & Mallory could not have picked a better person for the job. I will have to start reading Catapult now!
You did such a lovely job here. Thank you so much.
(Also one time you rejected a pitch I submitted and it was the nicest thing in the world! I don’t know how you did it, because I’m usually at least a little stung by rejection, but I was just like “Yes! That makes total sense! Nikki is so wonderful!” and went happily about my day. It’s a rare skill to be actually able to let people down gently, and you have it in spades. You’re going to do so well at all your future ventures!)
Thanks for letting me know, and I’m glad you didn’t feel badly! No one should ever feel bad after doing something as brave as pitching. Lots of pieces we got were great, just not for us, but I genuinely appreciated all of them, because they showed me how much people liked and wanted to be part of The Toast! (Well, I genuinely appreciated all of them that weren’t racist or ableist or what have you.)
I learned the art of letting people down gently from THE BEST (Nicole Cliffe). The trick? You just have to care.
“She looked at them each carefully in the longish time it took them to reach her. She made herself walk in Sport’s shoes, feeling the holes in his socks rub against his ankles. She pretended she had an itchy nose when Janie put one abstracted hand up to scratch. She felt what it would be like to have freckles and yellow hair like Janie, then funny ears and skinny shoulders like Sport.
When they reached her they just stood there in front of her, each looking in a different direction. The wind was terribly cold. Harriet looked at their feet. They looked at her feet. Then they looked at their own feet.
Well, thought Harriet. She opened her notebook very carefully, watching their eyes as she did. They watched her back. She wrote :
OLE GOLLY WAS RIGHT. SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LIE.
She looked up at Sport and Janie. They didn’t look angry. They were just waiting for her to finish. She continued.
NOW THAT THINGS ARE BACK TO NORMAL, I CAN GET SOME REAL WORK DONE.
She slammed the book and stood up, The three of them turned, and walked along the river.”
This is a weekend of endings. By Monday, my student loans will be paid off (current balance is $.03 cause of interest earned while my check was in the mail – my $.04 check should hit at any moment). I’ll be finished with Infinite Jest (fucking finally). And the Toast will be no more (at least not publishing actively).
Some good, some bad. But definitely feels like one of those significant moments in adulthood of doors closing. We’ll see what this all opens up new space for next.
I’ll be drinking a Toast tonight to Nicole, Nicole, Mallory and the many #toowitches people that have made this space what it is.
Congrats on paying off the student loans!!!
You know that feeling you get, at the end of a really good concert, when you know it’s the last song? Everyone around you is holding up their lighters and phones and singing along, and there’s the knowledge that you’re all sharing this amazing moment together. And when the song’s over, you step outside but you take that moment with you, that experience of singing your hearts out as one.
That’s what the Toast was to me. I’m so grateful I could sing with you.
See you on the open water, fellow Toasties.
The Toast changed me life. It made me more confident, more feminist, more angry, more sad, more joyful, and more aware of all the light and dark spaces in the world around me. It’s been a constant in my life and a wonderful place on the Internet to come home to. Thank you for everyone who helped me in some way – advice on travel and surgery and dogs and everything else. I’m about to move across the US and essentially start a new life far from everyone I know, but I’ll always have this community to back me up. Thank you, and so much love to you all!
I’m trying not to cry, but here’s a little linked playlist about how I am feeling:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVx6QAFU43…
Feel free to add too it, if you are also feeling Too Witches to type. One Last Time.
Dear Toasties, I don’t know what to say. I’m not terribly eloquent on the best of days, but thank you for making this weird, wonderful, warm corner of the internet what it is (or, was): a home. It’s been an honor to spend the last three years with you and I truly love you all.
(I’m Ron.)
I never commented on the Toast, but I loved it. It was never afraid to be exactly itself, and itself was funny and kind and vicious and awesome and correct. It was the kind of space I wish I’d had back when the internet and I were babies together. I’m so glad it was born and lived and will live on. <3
Just yesterday, Slate published an article about lady pubes. I don’t need to tell you that it was dumb.
It reminded me of the first piece I ever read on The Toast, The Comment Section for Every Article Ever Written About Intimate Grooming. And god, what a sucker punch to realize that one of the few spaces where women could jump into a conversation that had progressed well past “defend your stance on what you do with your bush, go” – where #beauty had nothing to do with lipstick and everything to do with the earnest awe – was taking to the sea.
I will miss every last one of you glorious space witches. You are brilliant, magical beasts.
I don’t think I have ever loved a place so much, and I still can’t picture what my life will be like without it. Thank you so much for creating this magical little corner of the internet. I suspect that, for a very long time, I will automatically check for Toast updates to brighten my day, to make me think, to make me cry in the library, and my heart will break every time I remember that it’s over.
Taking to the sea <3
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I haven’t been around in a while, but quite literally just *knowing* that this beautiful community was here, and that I could always come back to it, and take solice in the fact that it even existed, was and always will be something for which I am deeply, deeply grateful. You poetic, noble land mermaids, til we meet again. Love.
you know, just the other day I was thinking “I wonder what happened to the commenter who would always post the SPORTS! threads in OT. I hope she’s living her best life”
indeed I still hope it!
And now Im crying again! You’re absolutely lovely for saying that.
I remember your SPORTS open threads! Thank you for being a sane person to talk about foobaw with, one who doesn’t get personally offended if I talk shit about Brady (cough everyone I work with cough) and who appreciates the nuances of being a sports fan when sports are so frequently Awful. You rule.
I liked a post of yours earlier based entirely on the fact that I saw your name and said “ahh its sausagedog!!!!”. I believe it had to do with Airbud. YOU rule!
(ps: speaking of sportsball, good lord is anyone watching Wimbledon, the tennis gods are cruel to you, dear sweet Sam Querry!)
Toasties, I love you all and will miss you, thanks for being such a great group of strangers to hang out with on the internet. This is, without exaggeration, a way worse graduation than high school or college ever was. Those people were great but I never had NEARLY as much in common with them as all of you, so. ;____;
In happier news, I cotched the kittens!!!!!!! The mom and two babies still remain at large but I’m hoping they may prove catchable as well. The three I did cotch are currently very tiny and scared, and inexplicably fans of my indoor plumbing.
However this shakes out, it looks like I’ll need to find a home for at least one kitten. If you can drive to New Haven CT and want to/are able to give a kitten a good home, let me know and we can correspond via email or something in whatever barren post-Toast landscape awaits us tomorrow.
ohhh kitties.
A+ encotchment
Wee ickle kits! I am glad you cotched them.
*offers snoogles, once they are out of the hiding phase*
Little cotchlets!
I’M GLAD YOU’RE GOING, YOU ALWAYS GAVE ME TOO MANY FEELINGS ANYWAY
TOAST: six months ago I got a little buzzed and signed up for an IntenseDebate account so I could finally comment. I never worked up that courage again, and now my first open thread is my last! I’ve been reading since the beginning, and that’s included comments too. I can’t think of any other place where the discussions are as thoughtful, as funny, and as evocative in so many ways as the published material.
Nicole, Nikki, Mallory, and all of the writers whose work I read here: thank you so much, and I can’t wait to read what you have to say in the future. Commenters: I’m going to take these Twitter-Slack-Reddit plunges, so maybe I’ll see you later?
I think I have to sign up for twitter now to fill Toast-related needs.
(oh my god, oh my god, an actual presidential nominee reflected on the Toast, oh my god)
It’s 1 am and even with something so monumental as The Last Open Thread, I still have to go to bed. I’ll come back and read over the weekend, but I wanted to say thank you for the laughs and the discussions and congratulations for making something so influential, important and valuable. You drew a line in the internet sand and I believe it’ll be a long time before it’s washed away. I think this was one of the first publications where I actually managed to get up the courage to send work, and it’s set me on a path which includes writing and editing for a living, while studying a degree in writing. How awesome is that?
I know it’s not goodbye because we’ll see you around, everyone, but the end of an era… it’s always pretty sad.
I’ve never been good at letting go of things and people that I love. I heard this incredibly irritating aphorism when I was a teenager: “don’t be sorry it’s over, be happy that it happened.”
Mostly, I say fuck that, I’ll be sad if I want to! But then my adult self intervenes and reminds me that I am happy this place existed, and happy to have met all of you, and happy that we will take The Toast out into the world with us.
“Mind how ye go, hag o’hags. Ye’ll be sore missed.” – Kelda Jeannie, The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett.
All the things have been said so many times above, but just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of thank yous and tears. I’m not a joiner and haven’t commentated much, but I have been here every day reading every post and cackling with glee for at least, oh, two or three years? TNC sent me over. And those years would have been so much less rich and beautiful without The Toast.
I am eternal lurker, but it feels wrong not to acknowledge, if only to myself, how much the toast means to me. This is the only place I felt safe making a comment about how a classic author’s colonialist perspective made me feel, and ask for commiseration while dealing with health issues. And was validated and listened to, which is rare on the internet. I will carry the toastie spirit with me wherever I go. Thank you, all of you, for this space.
Calling me a nerd is just a true statement, it’s not gonna start a fight.
I didn’t even realize until right this minute that I had toast for breakfast every day this week. It was like my subconscious was celebrating this last week with breakfast. I will miss you all.
Everyone is being so good and brave and I am endlessly impressed. I will miss this place so much – it was so funny, and so smart and weird, and had such great essays, too. A unique and unbeatable combination. I will miss open thread and hearing what’s up with my fellow toasties. I will miss all of it. Goodbye, The Toast.Net.
Thanks, everyone. You’ve been so lovely.
Oh, Toast. I’ve never commented before (sorry), but y’all gave me my first ever real-ass publication for a silly article on Nathaniel Hawthorne when I was a fresh-out-of-college-nobody. I can’t thank you guys enough.
Cheers!
Yesterday, in a New Jersey rest stop, someone had vandalized the bathroom stall with ” I love toast” and a drawing of a piece of toast. I re-vandalized it to “I love the-toast.net”. I will miss this place!! Living on in the Clara Barton!
Ha! I’ve been to that rest stop many times! I will have to find that graffiti next time I stop
Did I miss it, or was there no The Best Of Mallory Ortberg post?
Mallory did a best-of for each of her long-running serieses.
Because it was ALL the best
🙁
I had a picture of me and Mallory from when we met for a second and a half my OKCupid, it got many so many messages from girls who wanted to talk about the Toast.
Thank you for all the sex Mallory, I really appreciate it!
Oh my lord I do hope she sees this comment. Now that’s a legacy.
I literally gasp-laughed aloud. Best!
I went on a date during my lunch hour (he was very cute and it went well!), so I missed the beginning of the open thread, so this will be buried, but I am so grateful for this site and for the community that’s here.
I am a lurker in my heart and soul, so I’m just very glad this site was one that got me to be involved and to discuss and yell and be incredulous. You are all wonderful, the best witches.
Without you, I would be less feminist, less alive; I would be alone in this city if I’d even moved across the country at all; you made me brave, you made me laugh unashamedly at cleverness and nonsense, you frustrated me, you taught me, you listened to me; we spoke, we learned, and I am different now because of the work published here and the people it gathered to itself.
Thank you for changing me and altering my perception of the world. Thank you for the community you gave me.
Oh. I do so love The Muppets A Christmas Carol. It is really the most faithful adaptation in many ways. Goodbye the Toast!
Ok, now that I’ve made a snarky post can I just say the following:
1. There’s been a pretty wild amount of transition in my life over the past three years. Through breakups, law school, a move to a new city, career freakouts, life freakouts, parents splitting up: this community has been such a thoughtful, funny, and kind sounding board. Thank you all for being so, so lovely.
2. I’ve always ~had~ a pretty strong voice, but I really, really want to thank you all and this website for reminding me that… it’s good and worthy to love your weird obsessions, and passion is worthwhile, even if it means that you get kind of sweaty and goggle-eyed about 19th century Gothic novels while on a date.
3. I RESENT THE EDITORS FOR ENDING THIS WEBSITE, BECAUSE WHY SHOULD THEY NEED TO ~HAVE MONEY~ OR ~TIME WITH THEIR LOVED ONES~. An outrage, I tell you! But really, the fact that they made something this wonderful for this long is incredible.
4. This is literally the nerdiest humblebrag, but once Sara Miles complimented my hair while handing me communion, and I feel like this website is the one place on earth where others will appreciate this fact in the way it deserves to be appreciated.
MIDDLEMARCH OUT.
I only found about the Toast going away like last week and it was really a punch to the gut (even though I hadn’t checked it for like two months because life and no wifi BUT STILL). I’m going to miss all of you so much <3
I live at the actual fucking Grand Canyon now, so if anyone is coming up to visit, I’m totally up for meeting up! I can give you a couple of hike/sightseeing recommendations and also give you a Death in the Canyon tour because I apparently have a really morbid interest in knowing who has died at all of the sights I’m working at (there’s like, five at one of them. yikes).
I’m also lady_bane on Tumblr, so feel free to drop by and say hi if you want. Love you guys!
<3,
Lady_Bane
I cannot think of any vacation I would enjoy more than to be given a Death at the Canyon tour by a Toastie but I don’t know when I’ll have the time or money in the next three years to get out there.
Gonna miss you too!
“goomaly, come out of your room, let’s watch a movie”
*from inside, voice muffled*
No, I’m in the depths of despair
I am wearing my Toast necklace today. <3 Thank youuuu <3
Delurking to say how much I am going to miss this place. I discovered it relatively recently and was amazed to find that there was a website that had been written entirely for me.
I sent a friend of mine, who’s favorite subject is Feminist Vikings, a link to “How to Tell If You’re In a Viking Saga.” She said is was “The most brilliant thing I have ever read!” and that “The best part was people commenting at the end. It made me realize I am not alone in my love of Icelandic sagas. I usually am the person who doesn’t get literary references but apparently it is because folks don’t reference the right literature.”
That’s kind of exactly how I have felt about so many of the articles and comments here. References for me! I will miss it so much and want to go back and read everything I missed the first time.
Trite, but: trying not to be too wistful that The Toast is leaving, in favor of being grateful that there was ever The Toast at all. We’ll see how well I’m able to keep to that resolution when it’s actually gone next week.
Even though I’ve been reading The Toast from Day 1 I’ve rarely commented, and now that it’s the last day I’m not even sure what to say. I love you all and I feel so grateful that The Toast was here exactly when I needed it while I wandered aimlessly through life for these first few years after graduating. See you all at sea and may you always be too witches.
I would just like to let it be known that I just got two books I had reserved from the library that the Toast commentariat recommended and I can think of few better ways to celebrate/grieve the end of this wonderful website with wonderful people.
Thank-you so much Nicole, Mallory, Nikki, Marco, Jaya and Matt, Jane Marie. Roxane, and everybody else who worked for, with, contributed to, or supported The Toast. Thank-you to the always lovely commentariat. You all made the world a better place. You all made my life a better place, by your examples encouraging me to be a better and more whole person. I will miss this so, so, so much – I don’t even have the words. I love you all. <3
I’m so sad that everything is wrapping up, but thanks to everybody for affirming that I’m NOT alone in my weird interests. Many of y’all have given me joy with all your own works and writings, so I figured it would be appropriate to sign off with a nod to my own, a podcast on French history and culture: http://www.thelandofdesire.com SEE Y’ALL IN SLACK!
<3 a-hoy-hoy!
How does one explain to the plumber, when he shows up at one’s door, that everything is fine, really, but the best part of the internet seems to be ending?
I’M MAKING TOAST FOR BREAKFAST I DUNNO IF I’LL TAKE A PICTURE YET BUT I’LL PUT JAM ON IT.
that is my tribute.
Would that I could convert you all into real meatspace friends.
This is what SpaceWitchCon is for, right? I mean…that’s what I’m going to do there
Writers, editors, contributors, illustrators, commentators, lurkers, you have all been a part of something incredible and it has been a pleasure to feel all the feels alongside you. Toast Wake weekend in Atlanta!
I posted already on the Link Roundup, but another thank you and farewell to everyone! This has been the best.
My beloved Toast! How kind you all are. How smart. And funny. And beautiful. How radically wonderful it was to find dozens of kindred spirits here. I shall miss this place (it IS a place for it feels like home) dreadfully.
I began reading Nicole’s lovely, hilarious Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews years ago, and then continued to read her on The Hairpin. From there, I followed Nicole and Mallory to this totally unexpected place, The Toast. I start my mornings by bookmarking Nicole’s links, and at least one or twice each week, I read one of Mallory’s pieces aloud to my husband, both of us helpless with laughter. Then Nikki began to write about her experiences as an adoptee, which I know have helped me to be a better adoptive mother and will be a great benefit to my son in the future. This is an extraordinary place, and it will never be replicated. Thank you, heroes.
Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of it, and someone believed it, and look what it’s done so far…
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing, and what do we think we might see?
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection —
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.
All of us under its spell, we think that it’s probably magic…
💗
I rarely comment on Toast because often what I wanted to say has already been said… and this is the best thing about this site. Yesterday’s article about Lucy Maud Montgomery really hit home to me about how rare and wonderful this community is, and how like-minded (in the best way possible) people are. It gives me great comfort to know that I wasn’t the only child obsessed with history thanks to fiction (and that I wasn’t the only who started volunteering at a living history museum because of books).
I found the Toast two years ago (via a link for Liberal Dude Erotica) when I was frustrated and angry with the internet and people on it and this place has become such a safe haven for me. When I really got into this site, I spent probably 4 to 5 hours straight going through the over 50 tabs I had opened in ONE SITTING and I’ve been hooked ever since.
I really feel that that site has made me a better person, and has radically changed parts of myself, making me try to be both kinder and stronger (to paraphrase a previous Toasties’ comment). Thanks to the Toast and Toasties, I have learned of so many books, movies, TV shows, and music, many of which have become my favourites.
So… THANK YOU, The Toast, the Nicoles, Mallory, and all of you Toasties. You all have been too witches (and too wonderful)!
Delurking just to say thank you. This space has been such a gift. I know I received far more than I ever gave and I will always be grateful for how much I have been changed by you beautiful brilliant people. I have more love than I would have thought possible for people I have never met and I wish you all the best.
Another lurker delurking to say thank you to everyone here. I’ve been here every morning for the link roundup to start the day, and I always eagerly awaited the next If X Was Your Y, and Children’s Stories Made Horrific, and, and, and.
I will miss this place, but am forever glad that I was able to exist in the same part of the space-time continuum as The Toast, and all of you. <3
I never have been one to post often (too shy) but I love this place and all of you. This has been the best place on all of the internet.
Love you all. I will miss this place.
Until The Toast, I was a lonely anchorite. But today, I am a beguine among beguines. We shall sail the seas forever; this was but our first ship. I love you all.
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH
I have mostly been a lurker this whole time, but I miss the Tost and all the commenters who made me laugh and smile and feel things so much already. You are all wonderful people.
Also, I always intended to submit some writing to this site, but I was busy and took the site for granted. Do any toasties have suggestions for where I should submit now? I do poems, short stories, essays and journalism. This is also a request for sites I can read and love that could make me feel even an ounce of what this site has.
Nikki will now be working with Catapult.
Thanks. I’ll have to give it a look, by which I mean a long perusal, once I get off from work.
Also, I’m mortified I misspelled toast in my post. That’s what happens why I try to type from my e-reader.
Are any of your essays in the neighborhood of lit crit? If so, check out The Bee, about which I have good feelings.
Not lately, but I could be talked into getting back into it. By which I mean I loved to write lit crit in college and will take any excuse to do it again. I can’t find the site though. Google thinks I mean a restaurant? Or the Newtown Bee?
http://thebee.buzz/
Enjoy!
Thanks!!!
Thank you, The Toast. Thank you Nicoles, and thank you Mallory, and thank you everyone backstage. Thank you, all contributors, and thank you, Sansa.
Thank you, Commentariat.
1- Thank you for everything, dear Toast. I wish you were staying for a few more weeks to comfort me through literally the most difficult time in my life, but at least I can distract myself with old posts I have missed.
2- I posted about getting an abortion last week, and thanks to everyone for their advice. I went yesterday, and SURPRISE! I’m actually 15, almost 16 weeks pregnant. So, now I really have no idea what to do. It’s like, I just can’t process it enough to make a decision. Would I be stupid to have a baby at this point? I don’t know. Argh. Send me all the good vibes and decision-making skills you have. <3
Thanks again, Toast and Toasties for everything. I will really miss you.
You will make the right choice for yourself- trust your judgement. No one knows what’s right for you better than you do. Sending love and fortitude your way.
I missed last week’s post, so I don’t have the context, but just know that if you want to have the baby you can and if you don’t want to have the baby you can terminate and either is a good decision as long as it is the thing you want. We love you!
Whatever you decide to do, you can do. You’ve got this. Sending you the best of my best decision-making vibes.
Whichever thing you want is the right choice.
You will make the right decision for yourself. Whatever you choose, you can do it.
Wishing you all the best decision-making vibes. There is no stupid choice, only the choice that’s right for you.
I trust you to do what meets your needs best, Netshy, and I support you no matter what your decision is.
<3 <3 <3
You won’t be stupid, no matter what choice you make. Either option is scary, brave, and so very personal. All the support to you! I will be thinking of you in the weeks to come. *Toasthugs*
I haven’t commented all that often, but have been reading with Joy for the past three years.
I owe some folks some very belated Toast post and a Toast mix…so I guess my own procrastination is one way to keep the community alive!
Thanks all! It’s been fun!
I actually waited until now to send mine so they would get a little something from beyond the grave, as it were.
LOL. Some dude (elsewhere) was going on about who should be “allowed to” reproduce, and I pointed out how that type of thing has typically gone *very* poorly for women. He told me that I was belittling him and his opinion because he was a cisgender straight white male. Okay, dude. You caught me. Misandrist!!
And then I posted the picture of the Misandrist mermaid.
“I was belittling him and his opinion because he was a cisgender straight white male”
yes, and…?
I am lucky enough to have my best friend staying with me for the final week of Toast (coincidence? karma? who knows…), and now it’s her last day here.
We’re both Irish and can confirm Nicole’s strategy.
There’ll be one hell of a barney here later this evening, a donnybrook even.
Nah, there won’t – we do the “see ya in a while” instead of goodbye.
So, Nicole, see ya in a while?
Toast, see you anon.
Toasties, see ya in Slack.
Thank you again for three years of awesome, and long may you continue to rock.
Y’all. I am just a regretful lurker (whyyyy did I not get involved in the community the 8 times that I said I would? why???) but…I have a not-great confession to make about what the Toast, and specifically the community, means to me. I’m scared to admit it and scared to write it, but it’s also hugely important to me, so:
I have been unlearning some totally misguided and untrue lessons about women and femininity for several years now. Some of these were taught through abuse, some through general societal nonsense, but all of them have been actively harmful to me and my self-esteem (though I couldn’t see it at the time). I’ve always had trouble forming female friendships, because so often I stand next to these cool, beautiful, confident women (that’s all of them, btw) and feel inadequate, insecure, and intimidated. I felt like my worth as a person was judged entirely relative to the women around me, and I began to resent other women for it instead of resenting the jerks who pitted me against potential friends like we were cattle. I struggled with that for a long time. (Really, I still do.)
But I know that’s a toxic and shitty mindset, and I have been really, really trying to reframe my perspective and replace my feelings of jealousy or hesitation towards other ladies with feelings of admiration and happiness for their experiences. The Toast has been my greatest teacher. For over a year, I have daily visited a community of mostly-women (and some very respectful and lovely men) who are not only successful and beautiful and confident, but who are supportive and encouraging to each other’s success and confidence. I’ve seen women from so many different backgrounds and perspectives, and seen those women be loving and kind to each other even when they differed or disagreed. It’s amazing. Literally, it amazes me. I never dreamed that such a warm, caring place could exist for women to prop each other up, and I’m so glad I have this community as a model to emulate going forward. This all probably sounds really petty (“I learned to stop being a jerk!”) but seriously, this place has changed my life and bolstered my self-esteem in ways that I could never fully verbalize.
I know I’ve been incredibly lucky to have the Toast as a guiding light while I try to navigate my early twenties. I’m so sad that it’s over, but I’m also thankful for the strength and perspective I’ve gained from it. Because of the experiences and wisdom that each of you have shared here, I am miles closer to the person I want to be, and for that I am eternally grateful to this site.
You’re all amazing, and I hope everyone here finds unending happiness and achievement in your chosen pursuits! Hugs and love all around for anyone who wants it <3 <3 <3
tl;dr: my very sincerest thanks to all of you for showing me how empowering a community of women can be
</sad endless blubbering>
Hey, me too! There were a lot of toxic ideas that The Toast helped me unlearn. You’re not alone, and hurrah for you for making that progress! You can’t help the person you were taught to be, but you can shape the person you want to be and actively choose to be that person.
All of the hugs.
The Toast, and the community it has allowed me to access, has been really invaluable to me these last three years. When The Toast started, I had just begun a new job after 1.5 years of unemployment and being a little lost. I had been feeling really stagnant and overwhelmed.
I learned to listen more than I speak, but also that what I have to say is valuable and I should say it. I learned to be kind, but never bullshit people. I learned to embrace complexity while also holding some boundaries firm.
I also learned that men almost always deserve to be laughed at more often, and I learned how to take more joy and pride in my feminism. I learned how important it is to free myself from having to listen to men.
Most of all I learned that there are so many other strong, beautiful, brilliant, nerdy women in the world, and we are all really different but share so many things too. I’ve really enjoyed these last three years with you all and I look forward to finding you all again soon.
Men do deserve to be laughed at!
Also, this paragraph is perfection.
“I learned to listen more than I speak, but also that what I have to say is valuable and I should say it. I learned to be kind, but never bullshit people. I learned to embrace complexity while also holding some boundaries firm. “
I’m a serial lurker, and I am breaking with what has been up until this point a long and comfortable tradition to say thank you to all of you.
This site has brought me so much joy that it feels wrong not to say goodbye. Thank you for being wonderful, and thank you for restoring my faith in humanity, and thank you for making me feel like there was a place that my voice would be welcomed and valued, if I were to say something. The absence of The Toast is going to leave behind a void, one which I am going to try to fill with beer and an amazing tote bag, but I already know this is doomed to fail.
Y’all have been, and will always be, my friends.
If I say anything else I’m going to cry.
Ugh, I didn’t bookmark where dr. cat was telling us how to deal with loss by eating corn chips… Does anyone have that easily to hand?
http://sashayed.tumblr.com/post/144350658820/dr-e…
dr. elly 4ever.
thank you this soft cat doctor is exactly what I needed right now
http://sashayed.tumblr.com/post/144350658820/dr-e…
I was here when it was born. I remember my impatience when they had to add the hyphen due to technical issues. I’ve been here pretty much every week since. You’ll see me in the Toast Diaspora corners of the internet, but maybe it’ll finally be time for me to get my own corner going. if you want to find me at my own site it’s eghtelier.com. I will miss this place.
Toasties, how do I join you lovely people in Slack? I want to continue to participate in this community because I have a Toast-shaped hole in my heart
email ppyajunebug at gmail! (she has lots of requests though so it may be a bit)
Email ppyajunebug at gmail dot com and ask for an invite.
Shot in the dark way too late, but if you’re a Buffalo Toastie, I am meeting a friend at Remington Tavern at 4pm for a toast to The Toast.
Much love to all of you. You are the best folks anywhere, anytime.
So last night I had the most lovely, comforting dream and I realized this morning it was actually about The Toast closing so I have to share it: In it, I arrived at art school (note: I have no talent for art so have never been to such a place), unsure of myself and what I was doing there. I attended the welcome cocktail party and everyone seemed really cool and friendly but I didn’t talk to as many people as I wanted. Then I realized I didn’t have a dorm or a place to live. The campus was on a hill of sloping fields leading down to a river, with views and a mix of modern and historic buildings, and I asked the slightly eccentric-seeming registrar in her office if they had a room for me. She said she thought they did and not everyone would like it but it was available, and then led me to a big spacious room in its own standalone building, with all this gorgeous wood paneling like Oxford in Brideshead Revisited, but with more space and natural light and big bay windows to read in and views right to the river, and French doors where I could walk out in the morning and take a dip. It was a little dusty and spiderwebby at first but she cleaned it up immediately and the bed had crisp white sheets and I moved in with amazement and gratitude. I was still kind of baffled by what I was doing at art school so I asked her anxiously when and where I should sign up for classes, because I hadn’t done that, and she said, oh, we don’t really do that here, you just dip into what you are interested in and talk to the professors and your classmates. Or hang out in your room and sketch and just think, that’s OK too. So I settled into my big comfy room and thought, I guess this is a great opportunity to learn new stuff with people who totally seem like my people, and a lot of stress just melted away, but it all had that wistful, elegiac feel that hangs over some dreams.
It was all very Virginia Woolf AND this morning I realized that that school and that room were basically exactly a metaphor for The Toast. Thanks, Nicole and Mallory and Nikki, for creating such a great space and for the best virtual room of one’s own I’ve ever experienced. I wish I’d talked to more of you at the cocktail party. (And I hope to keep talking to more of you at the ongoing Twitter afterparty.)
This is beautiful. Thank you.
Cheers to every last one of you beautiful weird land mermaids and space witches and fellow librarians. May your toast never be burnt or underdone but always exactly as you like it.
I’m too emotional to spell two of these words right and also it collided with the previous one and the height is all over the place but hopefully the feeling comes through!
OMG. That is amazing! <3 <3 <3
My Toast was always exactly as I liked it. This Toast. This Toast right here. ::sob::
I’ve been almost exclusively a happy lurker on here for a LONG time now. So. Obviously I really regret that now.
As my little boy would say, while furiously pointing at his eyes, “Tears, get back in there!”
SAME.
Come to Slack. Or Reddit. Or all the places.
THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE. *HUGS*
<3 you all
Ah I’m so sad that this will be my last (last-ish?) chance to comment here! Goodbye Toast and thanks for everything – I’ve been reading since the beginning and I’ve loved every second!
My resolution is to be braver. I’ve been better about speaking up more as I progress through my 20s, and a lot of that growth recently has been in these comments and in the Slack. But as our future president has said, carving out my own spaces to speak is going to be important too, going forward into this new post-Toast world.
“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
my first Manka gif on the last day–way to make this wicked bittersweet, toast-friends.
FEELS AHEAD.
I will probably cry when I receive my misandrist mermaid in the mail, because there is nothing like the feeling of knowing that every day, no matter how great or terrible your day is, there are people like you who were here to talk about it with joy and kindness and understanding or just to distract you with hilarity or take you out of your own world with Thoughts about Important or Interesting Things that you never knew. I hope that if we see people out in the world with toast totes that we can capture that feeling again. The Toast was there for me through my last year of college and first few years of real adulthood, while I got and lost jobs, while I fell in love with someone & eventually moved in with him, and then through the breakup when I got forced out of our home, on days where I was overwhelmed with despair at the world, on days where I was overwhelmed with joy in the world, and now I’m for-real dating a woman for the first time in my life and I wish I could share that experience in this circle as it goes along too, but knowing that you were here when I needed you will have to be enough. There was nowhere in the world that accepted and supported my estrangement from my mother so fully without question, both directly and by sharing your own stories. The Toast changed my relationship to Christianity and religious people in general significantly for the better. Mallory’s Life is a Rich Tapestry mantra has made me a kinder and more accepting person. Seeing the relationships that people wrote about here that were both good and bad helped me define for myself what I want in life from a partner. On the worst days, knowing I could come here and find German Rocket Cats & Hey Ladies & Two Monks made everything brighter.
The Toast has changed my life, and the lives of so many others- and through that I hope that it has also changed the world a little bit for the better.
Thank you, to Mallory & Nicole & Nikki and all the rest who have made this the best place on the internet, and for captaining this ship into the sea better than we could ever have imagined. I will miss it so. (Also does anyone have the link to that google spreadsheet of everyone? I would love that so I can put you all into my tumblr dash.)
May your hair always be big, your hearts simultaneously cold and kind, and may you forever be too witches to spend any time listening to anyone who doesn’t deserve your time.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_26MiL9WN…
So, especially after HRC’s beautiful post, the end of The Toast feels more and more to me like a commencement. It’s like we’re graduating. Does anyone else feel like this? Really sad to leave the community, but kind of excited to take the lessons of The Toast into the rest of our lives (not that we haven’t been doing so, but).
Me too! Me too! And that makes it so much less sad, thank you!
I am coming out of a very dark time and this really does feel like a celebration of all the progress I’ve made and we’ve made together.
I mean…kind of? But really I’m pretty much over here, holding onto the doorjamb, kicking and screaming that I don’t want to go.
but . . . that’s how I felt about law school.
(For me at least, law school was so much more fun than being a lawyer, except for the money.)
Yes yes yes, exactly like that. Except with school I was DONE and here I would eagerly sign up for another 4 years.
Sadly, this is the first time I’ve commented on the Toast. But I couldn’t let you go without saying how much I love you and shall miss you. Goodbye Toast and Toasties. <3
I don’t even have the words for anything but I don’t want to NOT say anything so … I love you all. I will miss you all. This place has been so important to me. <3
I don’t drink, so I have to find some cake to cry into. I burst into tears earlier this week when a college radio DJ played this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8AOAap6_k4 and The Toast closing is a big reason why. “And the music don’t feel like it did when I felt it with you.” My Twitter handle is renjender for fellow Twitter addicts or folks who just want to keep in touch.
This is so totally unlikely but does anyone else play star trek online? add me! I’m purslane@laneyd.
This is my first, and I guess last, comment on The Toast. I’ve been happily reading articles on The Toast for years but my mad social anxiety kept me from becoming a member if the community. Even so, The Toast provided a space for me, felt like acceptance and home and friendship for me, and I thank you all for that. The humor has always, every single damn post, been exactly the weird humor my sister and I shared quietly at home that we never found anyone who shared that weirdness with in our youth and were so lucky and so grateful to find here. Love you all, thanks for everything, and maybe, hopefully, if there’s an Oakland meet up in the future I’ll be able to meet some of you. Gaah. I’m not crying, I’m allergic to typing.
Knowing that this was a place where I could find *MY* people has been an endless comfort these past three years. Thank you all for making me feel like I have kindred spirits out in every corner of the world, even if I don’t know them IRL (yet!), and for sharing in the joys and horrors of the world with kindness and wit. May monks and witches be with you always.
I’m so utterly late to this party but The Toast has meant so much to me and I don’t know what I’d do without it, and just thank you all so much for being a part of my life these last couple of years. I’m so grateful for this community.
Toasts, I never commented much but you all still made me feel much less lonely. Thank you.
I assume this will be on Page 69 of the comments (nice!), but… assuming everybody else will also be desperately reading everything, trying to squeeze out one last ounce of Toasty goodness…. I wanted to thank you all for being such a great, smart, funny community. You have gotten me through some tough times. You have been wise, witty, generous, and patient with each other. I will miss you commenters as much as I will miss The Toast dot Net itself. Take care of yourselves, ya’ hear?
I finally succeeded in posting an image here one week before the site went kaput, and I secretly thought I’d be getting a cake in the mail for it by now. No? Well, fine, you guys can all suck it.
If you’re on slack there was talk a cake exchange on the toastpost channel. It’s not too late for cake.
Okay, last time for real.
You’re both adorable, Manka and Heather.
Someday we will meet and you’ll know me because I will either be that horse or be riding that horse with hilarious toe beans. It has been an honor to be punked, or whatever this was, by your royal GIFness.
The last week of the Toast and I’m stranded in northern Michigan with no wifi. (Maybe it’s easier this way.)
Thank you for the Toast. Writing here changed my life, and reading the Toast has been a daily joy. I’m so happy to know that all of you are out there. And happy that the Toast will always be here, a light in the dark sea.
Love all you guys. I’m going to regret not being around so much more and more as time moves on.
I remember you. You were among the brighter blessings here.
Thank you 🙂
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you
I’m a lurker, but I’ve read the Toast almost every day since last September/October, and I have to say I’ve really, really enjoyed this intelligent, unpretentious, caring, uniquely-not-awful corner of the Internet. I was going through a lot last fall, and just being able to come here and read the Toast’s humorous posts would always lift my spirits and distract me. At the same time, I learned so much from more serious posts and all of you regular commenters.
It’s the place where commenters so frequently tempered my own quick judgments by offering more nuanced, thoughtful takes on current events in the LR comments. It’s a place where queer folks can sort out complicated feelings about God and religion. It’s the place that gave the world the phrase “too witches!” It’s the place that led me to discover Hamilton. The place where I can click through links to old posts, then keep clicking, and keep on clicking, then suddenly I’ve wasted two hours but I’ve just discovered the deleted comments roundup on books all white men own, and I’m cackling so hard that I forgot why I was feeling so down today.
Even as a lurker, I felt like part of a community here. Thanks to all the commenters, writers, Nikki, Mallory, and Nicole, for everything.
To a willing foe, and sea room!
Today is the late stageist of late stage capitalism.
I am going to miss The-Toast.net so much. Thanks for everything.
My friends, I am writing from Montreal, with a book in my lap, and fresh Quebec strawberries waiting for me.
I am so thankful for the Toast, in ways I’ve expressed not just since the news of its closure, but since Day One when it found me. Thank you, Nicole C, Mallory, Nicole S, Jaya, and everyone who has contributed to the Toast. And thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of that.
I will be astonished to my last day what extraordinary people have gathered here. Each full of love, passion, uncertainty, and beautiful humanity.
And please come find me on Twitter if it so pleases you (@gyip). I will suspect I will also participate on the Toast Crumbs subreddit. See you there.
It has been a privilege to listen to all your voices, and see you through your triumphs and travails.
Friend! I really can hardly express how beautiful this is. That you would use your wonderful ability and skill to make my words so lovely is a true honour. Thank you so much.
ALSO I just want to add I read every single one of your comments on the piece I wrote; I wasn’t sure if I’d comment on it myself, but I just want to say each filled me with love and appreciation. I am so honoured. Thank you so much.
You should be gone in winter, that Nature mourn
With me your anarch separation, call-
ing warmth all with you: as more poetical
Than to be left biting the dog-days, lorn
Alone when all else burgeons, brides are born,
Children yet (some) begotten, every wall
Clasped by its vine here . . crony alcohol
Comfort as random as the unicorn.
Listen, for poets are feigned to lie, and I
For you a liar am a thousand times,
Scars of these months blazon like a decree;
I would have you—a liner pulls the sky—
Trust when I mumble me. Than gin-&-limes
You are cooler, darling, O come back to me.
John Berryman
This website has meant so much to me and my weird, obscure-literature-loving feminist heart. Thank you guys for everything, and I really, really hope to see your collective genius spread across the galaxy.
I’m so sad The Toast is ending mere months after I scrounged up the courage to make an Intense Debate account and start commenting. I have loved this website so, so much: so many fantastic articles attuned specifically to/for my weird brain and heart, and some of the loveliest, funniest people I have Internet-met. Thank you for everything. <3333333
I lurked for a long time before I started commenting. I think I started reading the Toast my Junior year of high school. Thank you so much for giving me a space where it was more than ok to be a nerd. And thank you for your warmth, your humor, and your gentle acceptance.
In that spirit, I am currently in the midst of trying to understand men (particularly one man) and my reactions to them, so like the nerd that I am, I dove headfirst into database research. The first article that I found opened with a statement of the obvious: “worldwide, romantic love plays a key role in courtship, suggesting that it evolved as a primary aspect of the human mating system…”
If anybody knows why I get butterflies when he sends me a Snapchat, please let me know. My positive emotional response discomfits me. I seek to understand it and maybe send it off to grandma’s. What to do about reward systems???
You know, I have to say – today hasn’t been all bad.
The End of the Toast has coincided with a ton of stress about my job (see my sporadic posts on Link Roundups/Open Threads since May), and mostly getting burnt out on my specific job duties. I enjoy my job, it’s just time to move on, you know?
Anyway, last week I was so happy to learn that I was finally getting a promotion to a new role, and today I found out my compensation. I’m going to have $2,000 of take-home pay a month and I am so excited. it’s not a *lot* of money when you look at the Trumps of the world (wait, maybe it is, the amount of bankruptcy he’s had), but it is definitely enough to allow me to pay rent AND student loans at the same time, and also be able to maintain a lifestyle that includes enough self-indulgence to combat my depression. (also these 3 things are mutually exclusive with my current pay rate)
There are currently 7 pages of comments, so mine is buried, but I have to say thank you to everyone here, because I wouldn’t’ve got the gumption to ask for more or to feel confident in my abilities, or even some of the self-growth I’ve had over the last few years, without all the commenters and articles and advice here and also the links to Ask A Manager (which I wouldn’t have known about otherwise).
Also it’s probably a good thing that The Toast is closing up because now I won’t be distracted from work by long comment threads…
Hooray for you! I hope you do something that pleases you with your first increased paycheck–you’ve earned it! Literally, in this case. 😀
Thank you!
I’m going to be paying my student loans off ASAP, buuuut your comment made me think all afternoon about maybe a treat would be nice! I was planning to treat myself to a men’s messenger bag from Fossil that I’ve been coveting for years as a bribe/reward for going to the dentist in August, and why not add a little extra just because I haven’t bought anything expensive in a while?
So now I’m looking at watches so that I can have a shiny new one for work and also for my brother’s wedding in March, since my current “dress” watch is pink and my wedding tux is going to be deep teal. I can’t decide which I like best, but it’s going to be a few weeks before I head down to the Fossil store/place an order for the bag anyway. 😀
Yay!
The Toast was like a (healthy) internet version of the mirror erised for me: I visited it every day and it showed me all the weird, witty and wise articles and wonderful women/witches (and circa 10% men) that my heart desired.
Thank you, Mallory, Nicole, Nikki, Marco and all the contributors.
Thank you, toasties.
You have all been wonderfull and will be missed.
I wish you all a glorious future!
Thank you Nicole, Mallory & Nikki. The Toast was a magical place.
I have rarely commented here, but this community has meant so much to me. the delight in niches I never knew I needed, the vulnerable and powerful stories shared so bravely, and the gentle misandry. the most enjoyable comments section on the Internet—like the best house party filled with only the kindest, wisest, and most interesting people having interesting conversations about interesting things. .
when I started reading The Toast, I knew very little about feminism, had never given art history a second thought, and was struggling with reconciling my faith with the dim understanding that queer people deserved love and happiness too. now I know a little more about a lot of things, thanks to all of you, and I’m working on helping my family understand that I’m chill with dudes and ladies. even for a lurker, this place has made me better.
thank you Nicole, Nicole, and Mallory, and to all those who’ve helped create this space together.
This is a link to the song “I Love You All” from the weird (and I think wonderful) movie Frank. It is painfully obvious to post and yet I do it anyway. Apologies if 30 of you already had this idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOt6ppIBOd4
I can only wish I had found this place sooner. I will probably join the Slack group (maybe after my wedding when I have a life again)…I had just begun to feel safe here and I’d rather not lose that. Thank you people.
Also: HILLARY CLINTON !!!!!!!!
Thank you and good luck, lovelies. You got this.
Cheers to all of you. Thanks for sharing yourselves, and for helping me find myself and lose myself (all in good ways).
I sent my summer care packages! I did not send my CD, because the Internet was down at the post office and a) they couldn’t look something up and b) they were only taking cash and I ran out. But I will send it Tuesday!
I am commenting on my phone from the car, and I fear I can do no more without barfing. Goodbye my lovelies.
I know I’m one voice on Page Seven in a sea of voices, but I wanted to say thank you thank you thank you to Mallory and the Nicoles and all the writers and the wonderful community. (Particular shoutout to Nicole Cliffe for doing it uncompensated. She has literally given us the Gift of Toast for years, and that is such a big deal.) Like lots of people here, the Toast changed my life, and I am so grateful that it did. We are all the better for this.
Thank you.
This was a place where I found wonder and delight and laughter on a regular basis. I’m going to carry the shape of it inside me forever.
Thank you for everything we were together.
https://youtu.be/Q2Erl1wJQFI
Nicole, Mallory and Nikki – thank you. Thank you for creating this wonderful place for all these people to be together and be themselves. I have learned so much about myself and the world through The Toast and I honestly don’t know if there is anything that will match it. I will miss it everyday.
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
I haven’t been able to post much (fraught out–of-country move, care of energetic special-needs kid with no relief though there will be in a few weeks), but I just want to say in the parlance of my hometown (where I moved not too far away from) that I love yous. Thank you.
This is probably my last comment I’ll post on The Toast, I guess. Thank you to the editors for creating this space, and thank you to everyone else for making magic here. Somebody else said it first, but I thought it was so beautiful I’ll say it again too. We made magic here and it was real. Thank you, all of you.
Just want to say as a now because I won’t have another chance, this is the best website and I will miss it.
You are all amazing, all of you. I’ve been a short-term witness to the community here rather than a member of it, but your words and bravery and support for one another have been incredibly moving. May the time ahead for everyone be full of joy, important work, a sense of belonging when it’s needed, and the occasional dirtbag for purposes of amusement.
I will miss The Toast so very much. Thank you to Nicole, and Nicole, and Mallory for such a wonderful, safe space in what feels like a very angry and nasty Internet most of the time.
Diverse book recommendations, anyone? Adult, YA, and especially children’s books that don’t only contain a heteronormative white version of the world? I grew up only reading a super-white canon of books mostly written more than 50 years ago, it skewed my view of the world for years and I want to do better for my kids, when I have kids. Tell me what you love!
Ooh, right now I’m still in love with the books of Nigerian-American sci-fi/fantasy writer Nnedi Okorafor. Her world-building is AMAZING (she makes me sorry that I don’t live in post-apocolyptic Sudan or Niger), and she does do the Girl is the Chosen One thing, but it’s great that it’s always a GIRL, and always an African girl, and it’s done in an immensely refreshing and non-obnoxious way.
Check out The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer. It’s set in 2194 Zimbabwe, and has a really diverse cast with non-white heroes.
So this thing happened today, which I thought might be worth sharing.
I am currently a visiting instructor at a (male) friend’s dojo, taking care of his classes while he is out of town. After this morning’s class I was talking to one of the (male) senior students and the conversation kind of naturally drifted to the recent influx of women into the martial arts. And he said to me, “I just can’t stand to let a girl kick my ass.” My immediate reply was, “Honey, you better get used to it.” 😉
But that’s not the point of this story. I went away and changed, and continued to think about what he had said. When I went back out, I said to him, “Imagine a woman telling you, ‘I can’t stand to get my ass kicked by a man.’ You’d laugh at her, right? How different would the world be if you couldn’t take it for granted that you could kick any woman’s ass? And bro, how different would you be?”
I wish I could say that this guy was suddenly enlightened and understood what it’s like to be in my shoes (of course he got defensive) but I felt glad I had responded to him the way I did. And it was YOU GUYS–you all running the Toast, editing it, writing for it, and commenting on it–that gave me the perspective I needed to do it. For that moment, and a thousand others like it in the past and in the future, I am so, so grateful. You guys are the best.
PS Any ToastWakes going on in SoCal?
Los Angeles: Angel City Brewery near downtown, starting at 5pm, going until WHENEVER.
There was some talk on the #socal Slack channel about maybe an OC or SD meet up, too.
Cool, I am in LA so I will try to make it!
You’re my people and I love you
I want you all to know that here in Tucson the mother floodgate of all monsoons just opened overhead while I was doing writing consultations at the library (a…pretty Toastly activity) and drenched the earth until the whole 20 block radius was under two inches + of water, and this is God actually crying and celebrating at once (since here, in the desert, a summer flood is a temporary gift) for something as beautiful as this, dear Toast.
Hi fellow Tucson Toastie! I am taking weird comfort in our geographic proximity and shared love of a good monsoon storm. Happy desert summer to you, despite the loss of this very nice online place.
I feel like I need to do some housekeeping of my own, too, before all of this goes…to another place on the internet that has fewer monks (I will not say “goes away).
1) Is there a Boston Toastie meet up/farewell/bar crawl ANYTHING? I have seen other states mentioned, but not here.
2) Where are we going to go next week?? Reddit? Slack group? I don’t want to lose everything all at once…I would maybe even be willing to contribute to some form of group-submitted link roundup.
I will miss you all, Toasties.
reddit group at r/toastcrumbs, and email ppyajunebug at gmail for a slack invite!
There was a meet-up at The Friendly Toast in Kendall on Thursday. But I don’t see why there shouldn’t be more.
Ahhh I am SO LATE with this, but–
Thank you so so much to Nicole and Mallory for creating this place. I first discovered it in winter 2014, after sob-laughing at Mallory’s “Open Letter from Aaron Sorkin.” I lurked for a decent amount of time, and only started commenting this fall, but I am just so, so in awe of the community here. So many people have said this better than me, but this was a place where I read so many comments and thought “oh my god, I thought it was just me!” Comments about reenacting Boxcar Children in the backyard, and also comments about deeper things, but it was wonderful and validating. When I finally did have the courage to post about anxiety here, I never felt ashamed or like I couldn’t be completely honest. On the contrary, I felt incredibly supported and even loved.
I went to the Toastie Wake in Boston last night, and of course it was perfect. We enlisted A Man to take a group shot of us, then drank Sangria and shouted about books and Hamilton and misandry. As sad as I am about the Toast closing, I’m happy that it has given a reason to branch out and meet more people from the community.
So thank you, so, so much. Thank you to everyone who has given me advice, and talked with me about books, and life. From this site, I’ve even gained a new roommate for September (shout out to bundtpan), in a place that I am actually excited to move to. This place has been a haven for me on days I’ve been bored at work, bad days, and days that I just need a good laugh. This place has nurtured my misandry, and made me more of an unapologetic feminist. It made me find out about Hamilton, and introduced me to the wonders of Korean skin products.
I’m rambling now, but thank you, Toast, for truly being the nicest place on the Internet. <3 Hope to talk to all of you more on Twitter and Slack.
Thank you all for such wonderful support through the years. I will miss this quirky, loving, supportive, empowering community so much. You have helped me through some difficult times – either directly or indirectly lurking – and always I knew I had a community to turn to for advice/love/input/care/etc. Thank you!
I actually do have a question for all of you. I have to give a wedding toast for my childhood friend’s wedding in two weeks. Any of you have advice for me?
Thank you all once again. I will miss you greatly.
Speak louder than you think you should. Don’t have more than one drink (two at the very most) before you give the toast. If you’re a natural storyteller or funny person, lean into it, but don’t force it if you’re not. Your toast is one (though lovely) piece of a very big day, so I’d suggest short and sweet over elaborate or lengthy.
As much as “a willing foe, and sea room” seems like the perfect toast right now, maybe choose something else for the wedding.
Just printed out the track list to send with my last Toast mix CD. Sending love out to all of you, even if I can’t mail everyone a mix CD.
Dear toastfriends. Thank you for being you, all here together. Nowhere else on the internet was like the toast. It has been truly wonderful to be part of this community. I wish you all the best; come find me on twitter (I’m in the toastie google docs spreadsheet, look me up. I don’t want to post my twitter here and tie it to this username forever in the internet’s infallible memory…) You helped me work through some of the worst things that have ever happened to me and got me out the other side. I will always be thankful for your wisdom and tom hiddleston gifs. I think we’re all a little more misandrist thanks to our time here, and that can only be good for the world.
Go forth in peace to love and spread the matriarchy.
um.
I’m actually crying now.
Well.
To the very best of times.
CleverManka you just get me. (and get me crying again.)
Oh, toasties, you have meant so so so much to me.
I have been reading this website every single day since sometime in early 2014. I do not know what I will do now. My life has changed since, and much of the change has been positive, thanks to the Toast and its commentariat. You are encouraging and wonderful and it has been so good to see so many admirable people doing good things in the world.
I am on the younger side for this site (an undergraduate), and it means so much to me to see older women living imperfect yet amazing lives. I love seeing you have problems and solve them, and hearing stories from other people about how something went wrong but they fixed it (or they didn’t) and they kept living life and it was still good. It helps me feel less like every mistake I make could be the end of the world, and it lets me envision a joyfully nerdy life for myself beyond age 30. This place has helped me so much.
Thank you, all y’all, for a wonderful few years.
*raises glass while sitting* A willing foe, and sea room!
*shy lurker pokes head out*
At some point in the last couple of weeks, someone started a thread in a comments section about authors and websites that we read because we want to get out of our bubbles and learn more about other points of view, whether or not we agree with them. The Toast has often been that site for me. I’ve loved many articles here–I’ve strongly disagreed with others. But there have been very few that I haven’t read in the year since I discovered the site (and now I’ll go back and read the archives). On some topics, I’ve found new ways of considering things that make sense to me; on others, my opinions haven’t changed, but it was worthwhile to read other points of view.
Thanks. I’ll miss you all.
Thank you all so much for this. I felt alive here, I felt like a healthy living person for a while. I wish I had something to give you all, I wish I had really known you, near-friends. Everything goes away, but I think the world must still be a good place. I can’t see that most of the time, but sometimes I saw it here with you. Please keep seeing it for me. Keep making the world a good place with each other, as much as you can, for as long as you can. Goodbye all of you. This was such a good place, and I am so glad that we could share it for a little while. Goodbye.
Your comments have given us so much entertainment and joy; that’s more than enough.
Thank you, Toast. You were the first big place to ever publish me, and one of my favourite places to read, and I will always be so grateful.
I never felt like I had a place on the Internet until I found The Toast. I’m glad I was able to be part of such a wonderful community, even if it was a short while. Thank you for everything, and best of luck with all your future adventures. Goodbye!
CYMRU AM BYTH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
So, Wales won, then?
Yup! And I cannot emphasise enough how much I usually do not care one iota about football, but this is pretty exciting! Feeling particularly Welsh now.
A tiny ray of light in the vast gloom of a world without The Toast 🙁
All the best to Mallory, Nicole and Nikki. Looking forward to everything you will write and make and do next. Love to all you nerdy, passionate women out there. It’s good to know you’re out there.
My plan, so far: When I spot a Toast tote and, therefore, a likely Toastperson toting it, I will approach and say, “Excuse me. I think maybe I know you. A willing foe . . . ?” And then I will wait for the response. Does this seem a good way to spot each other in the wild?
That sounds excellent.
I will have to avoid my initial impulse to hug a complete stranger, who may not appreciate my exuberant advances.
I was going to whisper “Ronbledorrrrre” in their ear, but your way is far less creepy and invasive so I think I might try that instead!
YES YES YES
If enough Toasties are interested in MONTREAL, I propose a meetup/wake tomorrow, on July 2nd to mourn the death of a favourite website. If anyone’s interested, let’s meet at Kafein or Le Biftheque around 7pm. Comment if you’re coming!
I’m not crying, you’re crying. Oh wait, we’re all crying.
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
“Good night and joy be to you all!”
I’m so bad at hyperlinking, so here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcSqI1KZiLI
I’m too emotionally overwhelmed to say much, except that I love The Toast and every single person who’s been a part of it is awesome and and personally important to me, even if we’ve never directly interacted. The Toast has had such a huge impact on me that I’m not really ready to process what it means. So it’s time to take to the sea full of post-Toast social media, where I’ll be reading and loving what you post and say even if I don’t say much myself. And I’ll linger around what remains of The Toast site itself like a nostalgic ghost until the internet disappears. I’m so glad you were all here and that you’ll all be out there somewhere as witty, witchy, compassionate, misandric, and amazing Toast Crumbs. Thank you and good bye to each and every one of you.
WHATEVER
*whispers*
…I love you…
I know I’m late to this party but I just wanted to say thank you all.
I went to the Met today in an effort to dispel gloom with ART and lo and behold, there was “Monk-Scribe Astride a Wyvern” reminding me of you all!
Oh my god, that is magnificent.
And eventually, this leads to Wyveraries.
Thank you, Mallory, Nicole, and Nikki! Thank you to everyone who has ever written for The Toast, or modded here.
Thank you to my fellow commenters. I love your kindness and thoughtfulness. I love watching you play with deleted comments. I love your political commitment. I love your nerdiness and enthusiasm. I love your goofiness. I love your wicked wit. I love your voices and your stories, what you share of your successes and your struggles. I love your support for each other. I love your cute pet photos and your gif choices. I am not a big fan of parties, but if parties were more like this place, I would attend them all the time and never want to leave.
<3
May life be excellent to you! See you on Slack and Toastcrumbs!
*shakes fist at time zones for the last time*
Toasts! It’s already Saturday morning here, my kid is sick and had a terrible night so the Toast ending fits in with my mood.
I was never able to comment often where people would see it, but I was always around and I now follow lots of you lovely people on Twitter too.
This has been an amazing place, the one place on the internet where the comments just make the article better. I’ve learned so much from everyone here, laughed myself silly and sometimes cried.
Thank you to Mallory and Nicole and Nicole and all the contributors for this place. I fear we will not see anything like it again for a long time.
I will comfort myself in the knowledge that a sea tote is slowly making its way to me across the sea. Catch some of you late nighters over in slack and on Twitter! Australia, over and out *sob*
my kid is sick and had a terrible night so the Toast ending fits in with my mood.
or
Oh my god a Clever Manka gif just for meeee!! Toast highlight sneaking in right at the end.
I am looking forward to visiting your website!
I could only read the first page of comments before it became Too Much. Thank you, Toast, for being a comforting constant in my life for over two years. The woman I am today was shaped so much by the beautiful, funny, heart-breaking, and brilliant words I read here, and by the equally thoughtful, wonderful commenters and all they brought to this community. And now I will go listen to Judy Garland’s version of “What’ll I Do” and wallow for just a moment.
We are so lucky to have such a wonderful place to miss.
I have friends who cannot help but snark at art.
I have friends who love Stars Hallow and Avonlea in equal measure.
I have friends who are feminists.
I have friends who are queer librarians.
I have friends who debate Harry Potter plot points ad infinitum.
I have friends who are bitches who get stuff done.
I have friends who raved so much about Hamilton, I bought the soundtrack (and will see the national tour circa 2018).
I have friends who support and reassure me when I freak out.
I have friends who make clever jokes about English literature.
I have friends who introduce me to new perspectives and challenge my assumptions.
I have friends who cotch kittens.
I have friends who post more pictures of their dog than their human family members.
I have friends who love to tell endearingly dorky stories about their dads.
I have friends who are so brilliant and creative that it blows my mind.
I have people in my (non-internet) life who fit one to many of these descriptions, but somehow The Toast was like all my favorite friends combined. I will miss you all. Thanks for everything.
*Sniff Sniff*
I feel like that episode of Saved by the Bell, when Zack and Kelly broke up. “TELL ME HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE WITHOUT YOUUUUUUU!!!!!”
I just want to thank everyone for your intelligence and kindness and awesomeness. This site has helped me through so much. When I came out of my last relationship, it helped me to regain my sense of self. It continues to teach me and comfort me and let me feel known. It taught me that being my weird self is okay. Even wonderful. Thank you for being a place for the weirdos. To quote Being Human: “In this little enclave of the lost, I witnessed the very best of being human. We were safe here. While outside, the monsters prowled.”
Thank you for keeping the monsters at bay.
Thanks for having me :’)
So everybody has pretty much said this already, but I’m going to need to say it too: this site has been incredibly important to me. It was the space I didn’t know I needed. It was the beautiful, unexpected internet equivalent of suddenly finding yourselves in a group of people where you can relax, stretch out mentally, and just be YOU. You can be a bit dorky and maybe care too much about faith and Western art history – that’s just fine. And while you are marveling at that, the people around you will continually broaden your perspective on life by being insightful, kind, and witty.
Thank you, Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki for creating this space. I will miss The Toast enormously, deeply, and I can’t wait to see what you do next.
Let me join the chorus of long time lurkers, first time commenters. I first visited about six months ago on the advice of some anonymous comment on another site. They said I would not regret it and I never did. Thank you for this community of respectful, funny, intelligent people. It gives me faith in humanity. I can only hope that some place as great as this can pop up again.
O/T but….
Just kidding.
I used to hate the internet and tweeters and texters and people who surfed all day.
But The Toast took my hand and gently guided me to its golden shores. Ok Lady, I love you. Bye bye!
So I’ve spent way too much time (but only because it didn’t work) trying to post this gif of Balto and The White Wolf howling together http://giphy.com/gifs/snow-howl-howling-r5CbVrATh… with a comment about “I’d have been lost without you,” and I hate to imagine how much *less* my life would be if The Toast had never been. But I couldn’t even figure out how to share a pic of the cute little girl hugging Balto <a href=”http://(http://data.whicdn.com/images/11147932/large.jpg)” target=”_blank”> <a href=”http://(http://data.whicdn.com/images/11147932/large.jpg)” target=”_blank”>(http://data.whicdn.com/images/11147932/large.jpg). But please know that the thought was there.
(Also it reminded me of Carrie’s farewell dinner and “What if I’d never met you,” and I was all, better step away before I spend the rest of the evening on SATC gifs. Joke’s on me!)
You know when you meet some one and you’re just idly chatting and then there’s that moment when you realize that they just GET you in this weird intangible way of soul-connecting and you feel so happy and excited that there is some one who has the same thoughts as you? Yup. I don’t even know how to properly express what The Toast means to me and how happy I was to find so many wonderful people that are also amused by the same delightfully random, completely bizarre yet so perfectly RIGHT ramblings. Thank you so much for everything, The Toast. I didn’t comment all that much, but I always felt like this was a place where I completely belonged and that all of you were my people. This was the very best little corner of the internet and I will forever love it.
Thank you to Nicole, Mallory, Nikki, and all the contributors and commenters. I’m just a lurker, but I will miss this space and all of you terribly.
Keep trying to read comments. End up shaking head and repeating “I can’t I can’t I can’t” while holding back tears. Will take a moment to write instead of spectate…
THANK YOU, TOAST and TOASTIES:
– For confirming for me that someone I love had been sexually assaulted, and teaching me how to support her afterwards.
– For introducing me to transgender writers and commenters, unwittingly preparing me for an entire year to gracefully and lovingly applaud my dad in coming out as trans.
– For pointing me toward Captain Awkward, who taught me all about boundaries and emotional caretaking and how to look out for myself.
– For showing me how to be the kind of feminist I wanted to be.
– For the laughs.
– For the friends.
– For holding up a mirror and saying “you are strong and beautiful and silly and perfect just the way you are.”
<3
Literally almost added “For CleverManka and her Folder of Many GIFs,” so YOU are perfect.
I had to read every single comment before posting, despite how late it is. Ditto, all of it!
As I said on twitter, I will never stop missing The Toast.
Thank you so much for this wonderful website! The one place online where I always want to read the comments! I love all of you and look forward to knowingly smiling at you should we pass each other on the street with our totes.
<3
I’ve spent the better part of a month trying to think of how to say goodbye to The Toast. I’m gonna have to go with a quote from Virginia Woolf: “Words fail me.”
Seriously, there aren’t enough words in this or any language to say how much this site has meant to me (and to all of us Toasties). Thank you to each and every one of you: writers, commenters, lurkers, and of course our fabulous editors.
I love you all.
Okay, I don’t know if I’ll be able to say anything that hasn’t been said before (and it’ll probably get buried at the bottom of the thread, like always — serves me right for coming in late), but here goes:
I love this site like no other. It has always been a blessing to me. After Jez started going down the drain, I thought I could never find a place that could compare — and yet here I am! Here we all are! And what a wonderful place this has been! Before the Toast, I never thought I could learn so much about myself and other people (and books, cultures, politics, feminism, etc.). I feel like I gained so much knowledge about stuff like ADHD, ASD, and ableism in general. Through all the fantastic articles and stories from Toasties, I learned to see my past, myself, and the world around me in a whole new light. (Just the stuff about anxiety and depression alone has helped me to move forward so much!) Thanks to you guys, I’m now able to make more sense of the abuse — from peers and adults — that screwed me up so bad, and to undo at least some of the damage it caused.
On a lighter note, I also enjoyed all the fun (yet still thought-provoking) articles — Western Art HIstory! Two Monks! If X was Your Y! Movie Yelling! How to Tell If You Are In a X! Hey Ladies! And so on and so forth — too many to name. Another thing this site helped me to do — come to terms with my possibly being bisexual (I have yet to come out IRL tho). I learned so much, had so much fun, and gained so much more clarity and confidence in the past few years — and I owe it all to the great writers and editors here, as well as all the awesome members of the Toast community. Thank you guys for being here, and for creating this wonderful, truly safe space for all of us to flourish, creatively or otherwise. I don’t know where I’d be without you. (Probably a lot sadder, smaller, and confused, but there you go. Thank God that’s over.) My only regret is that I didn’t come out of my shell sooner to participate and have fun with you guys.
Goodbye everyone! *hugs and kisses* May we meet again.
The writing I did for this place in 2014 remains the single best work I’ve ever done and I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity and the thoughtful edit that changed the piece radically and made it better.
Och, my first comment anywhere, and perhaps my last! 🙂
Just want to let you all know, and say out loud, how wonderful it has been to come here every day and float in the warmth and wisdom and wit of The Toast and the Toasties. I’ve been very much the quiet girl in the back row who feels too exhausted to speak, but who is so nourished by your presence and so very grateful to be in a place where the compassion and kindness seem fathoms deep, deep enough to make me feel at home and accepted even if I never say a word. I came across this site while looking for some favourite bits of old art, hoping they would help me open myself out of the grip of grief and loss, and luckily I ended up here, where all the deep beauty of the human condition is alive and well and expresses itself anew every day, in every article and every thread! Without fail! It’s too witches indeed!
I’m sorry I haven’t commented before, but know that I am sending you all every good wish, and thank you for so generously shining so brightly here. XO
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
(I do believe I have been changed for the better)
And, because I knew you,
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good.
– Two Witches
<3
I made us a picture.
It is all of us, sailing away to a place where we can stay together forever.
*whispers* it’s beautiful
Also it was the very last comment when I came to the (at the moment) last page of this open thread, so when I scrolled the the bottom of the end of the last open thread, this was what greeted me. It was somehow as perfect as could possibly be.
That is beautiful. Thank you so much.
This is gorgeous!
This is lovely.
(Hops on board…)
Thank you so much for this. Wonderful.
Ohhhh. My heart.
You have made a lovely thing. Thank you.
That’s so beautiful.
I’ve always been a lurker here (literally always, this is my first comment), but. I’m gonna miss this place.
Another shy lurker here.
I actually am kind of mentally kicking myself for not posting here the day I learned about The Toast. Anyway: I think the first thing I read on here was one of the Women in Art History posts, and that was all it took. I’ve been coming back ever since. I don’t even remember which of my friends linked me to that post, but I will be forever grateful to them, and to everyone here. I have learned a lot just by reading what’s you’ve written, and had some good laughs. My days won’t be quite the same without you. I mean, the archives will be up so I can read everything I still haven’t read, but it’s not the same, is it?
Yes, still kicking myself (not exactly good since I’ve spent the week recovering from dental surgery), but know that I wish you all the the best and gods, I will forever imagine all the writers and editors as bad-ass pirates shouting “Take to the Sea!”
I’m working a late shift tonight, supervising doctors-in-training and taking care of patients. So i’m the only one in my office in the hospital and it just started thunderstorming. So I turned off all the lights and pulled up the shade as high as it would go so I can sit and enjoy the lightning. Too witches, indeed.
doing the same thing at my apartment!
I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to saying how much this website has meant to me over the last few years.
To the commentariat:
Thank you for being such a wonderful, weird, wicked smart, ridiculously kind and thoughtful bunch of phenomenal people. It has been a pleasure and an honor to get to interact with you guys in the comments (whenever I managed to push myself into unlurking, that is). Even just getting to read your wit and wisdom has helped make me into a better, more well-rounded person, and for that, I will forever be grateful. You guys led me to Toastie Twitter where I am now proud to call nearly 300 of you my friends. May you always stay too witches.
To Nicole Cliffe:
Thank you so much for all the time, money, and mental space you have devoted to The Toast. You truly created something precious and unique that has changed the lives of thousands of people. Your iron fist in comment moderating helped create a safe space for so many people to connect and delight in their love of everything from Anne of Green Gables to Gal Science. I always loved reading your articles and your dedication to spotlighting articles that featured women/girls with autism.
To Nicole Chung:
You’ve written some of my favorite articles on this site and I can’t wait to read your book! Your guiding hand as an editor and as a moderator are so greatly appreciated. It’s not easy to do mostly behind-the-scenes work and I can’t wait to see your influence on Catapult in the near future.
To Mallory Ortberg:
Mallory.
Mallory, Mallory, Mallory.
Sweet Mallory.
You’ve made me cry with laughter more times than I can count. My life would not nearly be as witches without the introduction to cheerful misandry your pieces gave it. I strive to be as unapologetic and bold as you are, as a writer. I’ll always buy any book you publish. You make me want to reread every classic lit book I’ve ever laid hands on and get a move on reading those I haven’t. Someday, I’d love to argue about theology with you. Stay classy, you magnificent animal!
*raises glass*
To a willing foe, and sea room!
I have been distracting myself with finicky little computer scripts all day rather than talking about The Toast, but I do want to say that I am sad that it’s ending and delighted that it existed and optimistic about its offshoots and excited to see what our head spacewitches do next.
I was a lurker, and this is my first (and last comment). I just wanted to tell you, the writers, and you, the commentariat, how much I loved this site, and how much it has meant to me for the short time that I’ve known about it.
Goodbye, good luck, and godspeed to you all.
The clock is nearing midnight, so I suppose that is a good time to post my final farewell comment on The Toast. Authorialfuries and I got together and shared one last toast to this, the fiercest, kindest, most beautiful place on the internet. Au revoir my fellow Toasties. I’ll see you on the other side.
Goodnight Toast.
Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki, thank you for creating and maintaining a haven on the internet full of insight and humor, where people could be as passionate as they wanted about any obscure thing. For making me laugh, cry, and think. For publishing amazing pieces that did the same. Nikki, thank you for the kindest rejection letter ever written–It convinced me, after ages and ages of doubting, that people may actually want to read what I write.
Fellow commenters, thank you. Everyone has said thank you more eloquently than I can right now, and “thank you” alone isn’t sufficient. For your wit, and kindness, and jokes, and advice. For showing me that people can disagree on a fundamental level and still be considerate of each other.
And because the Toast has been a place for all of us to be our truest selves, I’ll leave you with the words of my very favorite campfire song, “Shooting Star.”
Please won’t you catch a shooting star for me
And take it with you on your way
Though it seems that we’ve just met
You’re the one I won’t forget
Hope some kind wind blows you back my way
CHORUS
And I was thinkin’ maybe somewhere later down the road
After all our stories have been told
I’ll sit and think of you, the dear friend I once knew
Shot through my life like a shooting star
Sometimes I know that a part of you will show
Deep in my eyes or in my smile
There’ll always be a part of you deep inside my heart
And I’ll know just when to let it show
(Chorus)
You are so dear, you’re my light my shining star.
You brighten up each and every day.
You are so near, but soon you’ll be so far,
So why not hold my hand today?
(Chorus)
I love the image of all the toasties gathered around one last campfire, watching the embers.
I’ve been a longtime reader, but never commented—and I just wanted to say that The Toast has meant so much to me over the past few years. It’s such a great mix of humor and intersectional feminism; I love the pieces on transracial adoption, for example, as much as the women in Western art history posts. It’s emboldened me in my own work as a multiracial queer aspiring playwright, and I hope to be able to find or carve out my own Toast-like spaces in the future. Thank you so much for everything. <3
Before they shut down the comments…I’ll miss you all and that I’m so grateful to have spent this time with you here.
Goodnight clevermanka
Unrelated, just realized I never used this GIF before which seems wrong.
Night!
What is that from?
Brooklyn Nine-Nine! (Which I still need to see.)
I know that it’s late and few people will read this, but I didn’t want to let myself off the hook and end the day without acknowledging how much this site has meant to me. I spent the day traveling to visit family and I thought I would be okay without saying goodbye. I have mostly been a lurker here, but when I saw Sashayed’s post about HRC’s letter to us and my eyes immediately filled with tears I knew I had to formally say goodbye.
The Toast has been a daily part of my life for at least a year, and a source of joy before that. Even if I hardly spoke up please know that I read every post and all the comments — and often tried to like them twice. In fact, I made it a personal rule not to open the Link Roundup before 10:30 so there would be enough comments to enjoy.
So thank you Nicole, Mallory and Nikki and each and every one of you too witches for making me laugh, making me cry and perhaps most importantly of all making me consider ideas and points of view I would never have been brave enough to entertain on my own. I’m a better person because of this community, I believe that.
If anyone is so inclined, I’m justanotherbildungsroman on tumblr and if you ever see a petite girl with curly hair and a Take to the Sea tote bag in the wilds of the NYC subway system, please say hi!
Lastly, this is how I’m thinking of us going forward:
“I’ll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight.”
(The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman)
By hook or by crook, I’ll be last* in your book.
*Probably not
Is this an Ahlberg Jolly Postman reference? If so, I love you for it.
By pen or by paint
I’ll see that you ain’t.
The Toast means so much to me. I just started commenting here fairly recently, but I’ve been reading for years. The articles and the commenters are perfect and I’m going to miss it so much. Thank you, Mallory, Nicole, and Nikki, for all you’ve done for us.
I am so happy to have had the chance to get to see so much Too Witches by so many Too Witches people. This has been the absolute best.
Just imagine the lyrics to “What I Did for Love” from “A Chorus Line” here, OK? The sweetness and the sorrow, that is today. I love you all.
WON’T FORGET!
CAN’T REGRET!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-BB_2L2Dwg
Okay, Sunday morning and I *still* have to stop myself from bawling. That song. Always that song.
Love, and love, and love, and love, and love.
Thank you all so much.
Thank you, all of you, for helping me on my way, every day.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/7r0kDYZ.jpg">
Most of what I want to say has already been said, but I want to especially thank the editors and the commentariat for creating and maintaining a space that allows for mutually respectful discussion of religious belief and nonbelief. I think this is actually a unique occurrence in the history of the entire human species, so well done indeed. Like many, I have benefited from reading perspectives drastically unlike my own; I am a better person for the work that has been done here.
It has been an honour and a pleasure to be able to read the toast throughout the past few years. Godspeed and good health, all of you.
You were all wonderful and I will miss this sorely. Good-bye.
A little shameless self-promotion, but I’ll leave this here anyway. http://demiurgiclust.net/2016/07/02/goodbye-the-h…
A sleepless night I found the toast…a willing foe…desperately seeking a reason for being awake. I found that reason for being awake from Mallory Nicky and Roxanne. I’d fall asleep only after my cell battery was too hot to tap another subject.
Tonight was one of those nights and while I found my warm toast the news of the end stopped me cold. Like losing an old friend.
Thank you
I’m an Old. I still use email. I’m not constantly connected and always refused Facebook. I am so glad that you carved space for ideas and great commentary and kept out trolls. I hope that you will pop up somewhere else and I’ll find you and enjoy your writing anew. Stay shiny, don’t forget to be awesome, etc. Au revoir!
As per usual, I’m rocking up here at the last minute on Sunday night, but after reading through these comments and final posts, I have to chime in one last time. It still hasn’t sunk in that this is it for The Toast, at least as we know it, and I’ll be savoring reading the many final comments over the next couple of days. See you on the flip side, beautiful witch nerds. I love you.
Interstellar, I think?
<3
It’s been a delight from start to finish, The Toast. Godspeed! Godspeed to us all!
WELP. We were camping when this went up, so here I am, four days late. Have one last picture of my kids playing on a beach here in Hawaii
you nerds
Okay, so it’s WEDNESDAY July 6 and I’m finally starting to read the open thread because I think I’m ready but also I’m at work and five comments in I’m getting teary. SO NOT READY.
You all are fantastic. I will wield my Toast tote wherever I go, in hopes of someday, somewhere, causing a mini Toast meetup. xo
I love you gals and guys one and all, part and parcel through and through. It’s a deep meaningful abiding love that sits in the heart of who I am, like a squirrel nestled in hole for the winter. It’s a comfortable natural thing that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Be excellent to eachother.