This is the last Cocktail Hour hosted by our beloved Bartender, next week’s open thread will be from The Editors. We will miss her.
Dearest Toasties,
Thank you for being the kindest, cleverest, most wonderful people. The Bartender will miss pictures of all your animals, your advice, your brilliant hilarity, and the goodness and care you show one another. For the last picture I choose blueberry pancakes with sweetened condensed milk. Because it’s weird. And somewhat historical. And delicious. And The-Toast is more than just toast. Open thread like the gentle East wind of Mary Poppins. Love! The Bartender.
In the spirit of trying to keep things light on an otherwise pretty heavy day: What is the most hilarious misunderstanding of literature you have either had or heard? In my High School English class we read “Birthday Party” by Katherine Brush, and one kid passionately defended the idea that the woman in the story was attempting to tell her husband that she was pregnant, based entirely on the fact that the cake had a pink candle in it.
One Star Book Reviews, my go-to for this kind of thing, also had this gem about Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady which, sadly, can be applied to far too many writers:
“Judging by the way he writes his female characters, Henry James either was never actually exposed to women, or the ones he met were given lobotomies at age 7.”
So in 11th grade English we read My Ántonia, and the teacher tried to get a discussion going about the function of frame narrative about meeting Jim in the train years later and getting the memoir from him. And a girl (who happened to by my arch-nemesis) raised her hand and answered that it was probably because Willa Cather wanted to give credit to the real author of the book.
Given that it was my arch-nemesis who said it, it was actually a pretty great moment for me.
Oh man, high school is the only time when normal people have enemies. I’m so glad that’s over and done.
Or at least, mutual enemies. I, uh, still acquire nemeses but I don’t think that they know that they are my nemesis. That’s normal, right?
I certainly hope so.
When we read The Catcher in the Rye, everyone who hadn’t read it before seemed to agree that it was going to end with Holden committing mass murder, justified by that time toward the beginning when he throws his hat in the air and pretends to shoot it with his hands.
Were they aware of CitR’s relation to real-life murderers?
This is not literature, exactly, but one time my whole family was in the car, and the classic rock station was on. We listened companionably to an America song together for a few moments. One of my brothers was quiet in the back seat and seemed to be wrestling with some deep thought.
Finally, he says, “This song is ridiculous, it doesn’t make any sense. How could he go through the desert on a horse with no legs???”
Kevin. Kevin, we said. It’s a horse with no name.
Oh god. I can’t understand any song lyrics, ever. Perfect example: http://jezebel.com/where-were-you-when-you-figure…
I always thought that motown classic was about severe depression. You know the one – “Take me to the river, watch me drown.”
I think it is Bruce Springsteen who sings “thank heaven you’re freeze dried” ?
Tenth avenue freeze out! Though I did think the line in Blinded by the Light was wrapped up like a douche.
Me toooooooo. I still prefer it that way.
I always thought that Eurythmics song was saying that “sweet dreams are made of cheese.”
Of course, I saw nothing inaccurate about this.
Although it isn’t necessarily a misunderstanding, it took me like 25 years of listening regularly to Tori Amos’ Silent All These Years to realize the lines “Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon/How’s that thought for you,” meant she was waiting to find out if she was pregnant.
“Every time you go away, you take a piece of cheese with you”.
(What my 7th grade friend thought the song said, and also an A+ bit of life advice).
My dad misheard the end of “Night Moves” for years. Instead of “With autumn closing in,” he heard, “we saw them closing in.”
It’s such a dad thing to do. My dad misheard UB40s Ivory Madonna as ‘I’m a Prima Donna’ for years.
My mom managed to hear “Bombs over Baghdad” as “Mom’s had a bad day”
My best friend at school got sent out for arguing that the ‘lover’ in the poem Porphyria’s Lover could have been a woman? Reading it again it’s unlikely but not a sent-out-of-class-worthy comment.
In a college honors colloquium, we read _Haji Murad_, which is written in third-person but generally from Murad’s point of view (IIRC – it’s been a while). There’s a scene in which he’s at a party with a bunch of Russian aristocrats and is upset by the “half-naked women.”
One young woman in our class insisted that the women at the party literally had no clothes on above their waists.
TBF I’m pretty literal and nearly always picture that when someone uses the phrase “half naked”!
I sat next to a creepy guy in a lit class who claimed that The Yellow Wallpaper was a warning against the dangers of feminism.
It is almost impressive how much he managed to miss the point on that one.
Same guy also argued that the women of Lysistrata weren’t “as inspiring” as the Sabine women and that abducting women is a surefire way of ending political conflict.
At the end of term he asked me on a date despite the fact that I’d spent the entire class shooting down all of his comments as racist and misogynist. I didn’t mention I was gay because I didn’t want him to think he would have had a chance otherwise. He told me that my “boyfriend” was too old for me and revealed that he had twice followed me from class to lunch dates I had with MY DAD.
Errrrrrrgh what a creeper.
(I do love that he tried to show off his classical learnings and totally missed the single most fundamental lesson of ALL ancient literature, namely, that abducting women is how you START wars. Like, did he remember what the reason was for that war that the Sabine women stopped?)
O M G
Please tell me you set him on fire.
If you haven’t yet, there’s still time. I’ll lend you my flamethrower.
As a young’un, I read a book in which the character talks about getting her period and staining her dress. For a longish while as a child, I thought periods entailed bleeding from the nipples.
Me too! Same book maybe?
Jacob I Have Loved?
Oh my giddy God, Jacob Have I Loved! I have an extremely vivid memory of my cousin watching the movie of this instead of reading the book, and then the movie was only like, 45 minutes long. I don’t think she passed her assignment.
I was once in a college class in which a young woman was firmly of the opinion that the preface to Huck Finn was Twain’s way of weaseling out of any real responsibility for things he wrote.
Slightly off-topic, but I had a Sunday school teacher try to tell us that Song of Solomon, the book of the Bible, was about man’s love for God. Which, I mean, it could be, but really?
That is actually a very common biblical interpretation. Obviously the literal text is about a bride and groom, but it is often taken as a metaphor for the love between God and humanity
People argue that and then argue with the same breath that Genesis needs to be taken 100% literally.
people you clearly understand metaphors don’t pretend like you don’t
It’s more egregious than hilarious, but deeply stamped into my memory is the pseudonymous commenter on a friend’s LiveJournal (yes, that long ago) who insisted that Zelazny’s Lord of Light was an authoritative and accurate description of Hinduism.
If you’re unfamiliar with this book, it was marketed as SF, it takes place in the distant future on a distant colonized planet, and there are a number of characters who call themselves by the names of various Hindu gods and exhibit superpowers consistent with those identities. It is crystal clear, to a reader who’s paying attention, that these characters are in fact just as human as everyone else, their superpowers come from Sufficiently Advanced Technology, they originally adopted these identities to make it easier to rule the planet with an iron fist, and while some of them may well have come to believe their own hype, the narrative voice does not.
The charitable interpretation of the commenter’s position is that they were completely blind to narrative sarcasm. The uncharitable interpretation is that they believed actual real-world Hinduism was, and is, one gigantic long con on its adherents. Not just in the Marxist/atheist “all religion is a tool for the rulers to keep the masses down” sense, but a con perpetrated by the gods themselves.
As I said at the time, *head go splode*.
Not exactly a misunderstanding of literature, but someone I knew in college wrote a paper on Yeats but called him Keats all the way through.
I once wrote a paper on Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” in which I somehow entirely swapped two characters’ names throughout the entire thing. I did not conflate the two characters in any other respect, just their names. Still not sure how that happened.
Absolutely a legitimate thing!!
In my first term at university I wrote an essay about various Dickens novels and wrote Hard Times in several places where I meant Bleak House. My tutor had to politely ask if I had meant to do that.
Not literature, but worth mentioning:
One time I was in the car with my German Aunt, and “American Pie” came on the radio, and she asked me to explain what the phrase “I drove my chevy to the levy” meant. After explaining, she was even more confused and asked me “ok but what’s all that stuff about God?” She had thought that that phrase was the key to understanding that song.
Later on that same car ride I patiently explained the plot of “Billie Jean” to her.
I spend a lot of time explaining American pop culture to Europeans, which is hilarious because I am NOT “with it” at all.
Back in high school, my short story writing class read Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.” Somehow, absolutely none of us caught any whiff of the fascism metaphor. The entire class of kids was like, “well, his friends all seem pretty happy as rhinoceroses, and maybe that’s just a happier way to exist, you know? Like maybe the main character should let go of his troubles and be a happy rhino like his friends.”
I don’t know how this happened. We were smart kids, I swear!
We read Rhinoceros and the Madwoman of Chaillot in my AP English class, and they both went over our heads. Theater of the Absurd was too deep for my high school.
Have you seen the movie? Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder were amazing in it. It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I have to admit, the fascism metaphor went over my head, too.
Ok not about literature, but in a writing class a female student wrote a story about a woman who is attacked walking home from a party. In the story the character is described as checking over her shoulder, walking nervously, and being on edge.
A male student in the class critiqued the story saying “she wouldn’t be walking home nervously! She just came from a party she’s riding the high of having fun! This is unrealistic!” And the professor, all the women, and the one other dude in the class all made their best “wtf” face and tried to convince this kid that no, that part of the story is very realistic.
And my own personal shortcoming but I really expected “the rape of the lock” to be a poem about rudely unlocking doors and not hair.
I remember looking at the title of that poem with horror because… what? I think this was high school English and we probably hadn’t done much besides Shakespeare and Dickens.
Yea, the olde timey uses of “rape” and “molest” can be a little confusing, and for some reason my teacher never really bothered to point it out. There are tons of stories where a character is “molested” in the street, and I just thought London must have been a much scarier place than I ever knew.
Oh I remember reading Great Expectations in 8th grade and the line was “made love to Miss Havisham” and the teacher had to spend the rest of the class telling us that NO it did not mean THAT.
I think you could explain this all day and they would continue to misinterpret because it’s funnier. I remember taking Latin and even though we were told dozens of times that “molestus” does not mean what we thought it meant, we continued to giggle at every single sentence.
…And I just flashed back to that chapter of the Oxford Latin Course where Quintus gets followed around by an annoying guy. “Molestus” was my class’s favorite insult for about two months afterward.
We had a great time with “the slave girl pleases the master” which I can’t remember how to say in latin.
I do remember “canis est in via.”
Actually, how could I have forgotten the OLC line that got the most play? “Decimus asinus est.”
We could say it all the time and the teacher couldn’t stop us! Because it was in the textbook! 14-year-olds are such wits.
The film “Rebecca” always incites audience giggles where Laurence Olivier talks to Joan Fontaine about “making violent love to you against a palm tree”.
(I can’t remember if it’s also in the book).
Yep! It’s in the book too.
OMG, in the 70s when I was a teenager, I was standing in my backyard, having a conversation with my (male) cousin, and an elderly neighbor stuck his head over the fence and asked, with chummy condescension, “You two kids makin’ love back here?”
My cousin nearly stroked out with embarrassment, but I was both a lit nerd and old movie aficionado, so I understood what Elderly Neighbor was trying to insinuate. I calmly told the neighbor that that did not mean what he thought it meant: “’Making love’ doesn’t mean ‘pitching woo’ anymore,” I informed him, “It means ‘having sex’… unless you meant to ask us if we were having sex?” (Wednesday Addams had nothing on me,.) “OH GOD NO!” Elderly Neighbor said, and his red face was quickly yanked back to his side of the fence.
To this day, I have no sympathy: he was an adult trying to embarrass a couple of kids by insinuating Youthful Romance, but he went a little too far and was himself embarrassed instead. And in retrospect, Elderly Neighbor was probably younger than I am now.
Oh man, I have this conversation with my medieval history students all the time. Sure, sometimes “intercourse” means sex, but in the sources we’re reading it almost always means (disappointingly) “conversation” or “interaction.”
Yeah, people started using “intercourse” as an innocent and acceptable euphemism for sex that you could use in mixed company, but with language drift, the euphemism slowly became the not-so-innocent word it was replacing. The charming “Intercourse, Pennsylvania” becomes less charming and even embarrassing for the non-Amish people who live there. (Amish people are, like, “what’s your problem? It just means convivial conversation!”)
It goes the other way, too: “dirty” words can become acceptable for general use. You used to not be able to use the word “sucks” as a pejorative on television because of its association with oral sex (Michael O’Donohue had to say something he didn’t like “sucks rubber donkey ears” in a first-season SNL skit, and the movie “Love At First Bite” started out being called “Love Sucks” until the censors changed it.) Now it’s perfectly okay to say something sucks, even on a kids cartoon show.
In a college honors colloquium, we read _Haji Murad_, which is written in third-person but generally from Murad’s point of view (IIRC – it’s been a while). There’s a scene in which he’s at a party with a bunch of Russian aristocrats and is upset by the “half-naked women.”
I’ll cop to one of my own:
In a Pratchett novel (I think either Pyramids or Small Gods), there’s an aside about a philosopher who declares black is white, and white is black, and “got run over at the next zebra crossing”. As an American, I had no idea that Brits referred to crosswalks as zebra crossings, so for many, many years I assumed he meant the philosopher got trampled by a literal herd of zebras. Which made perfect sense in a Pratchett book, anyway.
… well, today I learned something new. Thank you!
I recall that gag appearing in one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novels. Pratchett could’ve used it too, of course.
Maybe it was Adams, the tone of those asides is so similar between the two that it’s easy to confuse them. And I definitely discovered Pratchett and Adams at the same time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I got it mixed up.
It was Adams.
I read Small Gods recently, and was just too flat-out delighted when he referenced “the voice of the turtle was heard in the land.” which is from the King James version of the Song of Solomon (later translated as tutledove, and as I just learned from Ye Olde Google, probably referred to frogs). It was the perfect confluence of over-educated and silly and I just adored it.
My coworker was talking about books her daughter enjoys reading, saying that she liked John Green and “what’s that one? Where they fight each other and then eat each other?”
She meant, of course, The Hunger Games.
I remember reading Of Mice and Men in high school and never being able to figure out why the one guy had a glove filled with vaseline, but also being too embarrassed to ask anyone about it (I thought it had something to do with masturbation).
(In fact, I’m still not completely sure what it is, and that it’s not something to do with masturbation.)
Same. I still do not Get It.
Right? Everyone is so disgusted by it and so it seems like it must be something completely pervy, but I don’t know!
When I was working food service my hands I developed some eczema on them and had to sleep with my hands slathered in a special ointment in little gloves. And Of Mice and Men was all I could think of.
Oooooh! Yeah, totally did not get that. Still don’t.
I remember there being some thing about him keeping that hand soft for his wife, so it was some creepy thing about that being his hand for touching his wife there, you know, in the bathing suit region. Which he then lords over the other guys with the obvious wearing of the glove.
I feel like it’s both creepy in the text and sort of creepy how Steinbeck uses it.
Oh hm yeah, the bathing suit region, I guess that makes sense.
Senior year in undergrad we had a paper to write and present. As I was patiently waiting for my turn, we had to endure a report on “the handmaid’s tale”, complete with a bonus movie scene. My head exploded when the girl criticized the book/movie “for such a negative and unpleasant description of the sex scenes”.
One of my English professors in college thought that The Sorrows of Young Werther was one of the most romantic depictions of true love that was ever written.
I laughed at his face in class.
Was he two hundred years old? I think that was a popular opinion at one time.
A statistically-significant group of my high-school students keep telling me that Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a poem about Santa Claus. Apparently they all had the same elementary teacher who didn’t give two fucks about textually-supported literary analysis.
I’ve been told that by a college professor, and looked it up, and at some point in the 60’s he was speaking to a group and said that it was about stopping on the way home, after making no money, looking out at his house in the distance and knowing he had no presents for his kids and it was xmas eve. It’s one of those, damn, the author admitted it kind of things.
But a person travelling home with no presents for his children still isn’t the same thing as “this is a poem about Santa Claus”.
See one of my high school teachers was convinced that it was about suicide and got quite annoyed at me for suggesting that maybe they were just pretty woods. No. The woods are death.
The first time I read the Lord of the Rings cycle (I guess I was about 13), I neglected to notice that “Sauron” and “Saruman” were two different characters. There were enough letters in common between the two names that I read them as the same. Mighty confusion!
I did this, too. I had them both in my head as S____n. Then the one died and the other didn’t and I was beyond confused.
It doesn’t help that every other character in that book has 5 or 6 names.
I do tend to think of all names as initials. I remember struggling to keep everyone in the Scottish Play straight, and vowing that if I ever wrote a play or a novel, everyone would get unique initials. It persists to this day, when I have two bosses whose names both start with J and I still get them mixed up. I mean, my BOSSES. I’m supposed to know their names.
Oh man, Shakespeare is so hard for me to read. I get so lulled by the rhythm of the language that I forget to pay attention to what’s actually happening and before i know it I’ve read five pages without retaining a bit of it. And then with plays in general I just have a hard time keeping who’s talking straight. The only was I can do it is buy a cheap Dover edition and go through each scene and highlight each character in a different color before I being reading. But they still take me forever to read, which always feels like a cheat because they tend to be ~100 pages long.
My mom used to be a middle school substitute teacher and once was supposed to teach a poetry unit to a bunch of eighth graders. She was looking for poems to present and my dad, an Air Force engineer with little interest or experience in poetry, recommended one of the few poems he knew, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. My mom presented it to the class and one of the girls immediately announced that it was about abortion. She was right. For years my dad had thought that it was literally about the death of a ball turret gunner, my mom assumed the same when she decided to teach it to the class, and it took what was apparently an amazingly perceptive thirteen-year-old for them to connect the dots.
Actually explaining would take like three paragraphs of setup, so I’ll spare you all that, but there was the time my 12th-grade English teacher very blatantly misunderstood what happened on the last page of a book she’d assigned us and professed to love. And no one had corrected her in any of the 5+ years she’d been teaching it.
(I corrected her, because I’m that asshole. We do not keep in touch.)
I’m going to imagine it was Villette and she thought they lived happily ever after.
Oh, I’ve got another one! I had something of a mental health crisis my second year of college. When I came home for the following summer, my stepmother saw me reading Candide: or, Optimism. “‘Optimism,'” she said. “That’s a very good thing for you to be studying. You’re too dramatic. You need to learn more optimism, and then everything will work out.”
I mean, that book did brighten my life, but not in that particular way.
Look honey, it’s the best of all possible worlds!
I’m sure my mom would have taken that at face value, bless her heart.
Technically not literature but there is this beautiful song called “Mi Unicornio Azul” which is widely regarded in Latin America as being as song about the end of childhood and all those feels.
A close family friend once passionately argued that it was definitely about the loss of the narrator’s favorite pair of blue jeans. She was not kidding. The look of horror/utter delight on my father’s face will stay with me forever.
This is reminding me of the super-corny Cat Stevens lines from “Oh Very Young” – LOVE the song otherwise.
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your daddy’s best jeans
Denim Blue fading up to the sky …
And the patches make the goodbye harder still
Just… so… sixties…
adjacent, but took place in AP English: we had a list of quotations from various Victorians and had to write a paper in response to one of our choice and present it to the class. In some case there were multiple quotes from the same people.
Me, listening to a seven-minute presentation on remarks made by Ibid. :/
When I was a kid I definitely thought Ibid was a giant anthology of quotes.
I once delivered an entire presentation on a book I knew and loved (Burney’s Camilla) for a seminar in which I called the main male character by the wrong name throughout (it’s Edgar. I was nervous and called him Edwin).
NO ONE INTERRUPTED TO CORRECT ME.
In a philosophy class, a student was presenting on Thomas Hobbes’s “Leviathan” and kept pronouncing it “levithian” and no one corrected her. It started to sound better that way, tbh.
For a college class, we had to read Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Afterward, the instructor asked, “So, just to make sure we’re all on the same page here, what’s the ‘operation’ the characters are discussing?”
Very confidently, one boy raised his hand and announced, “Rhinoplasty.”
I would read that story.
I first came to The Toast because of “Everything Like White Elephants”, so I will self-indulgently link it again now: http://the-toast.net/2014/05/14/everything-like-w…
Idk if you’d count this as literature but back in middle school when I first picked up Twilight, I legitimately thought that the vampire about to kill her in the prologue was Edward. This confused me, as I had heard it was a romance, but then I figured maybe he’d just turned on her because, you know, vampire. Truth be told I was kind of disappointed that this was not the case.
That would have been a much better book, honestly.
Oh my God, it was ME. This is so so embarrassing but, well…
We were reading The Sound and the Fury in high school, which I unabashedly loved. Still, when Quentin took his little trip to the hardware store, I must have absolutely misread/skimmed because I got to “tailor’s goose” I just thought ‘That’s weird, why is he buying a goose from a hardware store?’ Then he says they were too big and “got two six-pound little ones” instead.
I FOR REAL THOUGHT THIS BOY STUCK TWO TINY GOOSE CARCASSES IN HIS POCKETS.
UNTIL WE TALKED ABOUT IT IN CLASS, I BELIEVED THAT QUENTIN COMPSON WAS BORNE DOWN TO HIS WATERY GRAVE BY 12 LBS OF GOOSE FLESH.
There is really nothing else I can say about this monumental lapse in intelligence besides the fact that it makes for a delightful mental image.
I feel kind of miffed on behalf of Henry James, who was close friends with Edith Wharton. I adored Portrait of a Lady; it’s easy to scoff at Isabel’s choices, but the way she deals with the aftermath, and the ways she finds comfort, felt extremely real to me.
But here I’m grouching on your keeping-it-light post! I had a friend who read Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Like to See it Lap the Miles” as about a snake, instead of a train, and wrote a whole paper about that.
My favorite was my sophomore year English teacher, who made us read A Separate Peace, and then spent the better part of a month delivering speeches about how There Certainly Isn’t Any Homoerotic Subtext In This Book, No Sir, Definitely No Gay Stuff Going On Here At All. (She was super conservative and mostly wanted to talk about the biblical references; we were pretty much only interested in that one paragraph where Gene goes to great lengths to describe Thinly Veiled Gore Vidal’s awesome butt.)
ohhh we read that in sophomore english, too, and while I am a toast-qualified heavyduty reader, I cannot remember a blessed thing about that particular story, except for this:
1. our teacher had “separate” as a…spelling word…. on the exam.
My teacher also refused to admit to or discuss the homoerotic subtext. Tiny queer high school me was pissed.
In my freshman honors English class, our teacher was a complete moron. When we read Romeo and Juliet, he thought that in the first scene when Mercutio is talking about Cupid’s arrow they were actually under attack and arrows were being shot at them. We read the short story The Birds and he said a pram was a wagon. HONORS ENGLISH TEACHER. True story, in sophomore year his wife left him for his brother and he told us it was probably because every time she mentioned wanting to have kids he brought home another dog.
I had a grade school teacher who insisted that a seal was an amphibian–she argued with teeny-tiny me when I correctly asserted that a seal was a mammal. She was from Alabama and would often indignantly complain to her little class of Brooklyn-born 4th graders that we Northerners all seemed to think that all Southerners were stupid and didn’t wear shoes. I’d like to go back in time and tell her that, no, it was just her that we thought was stupid, no comment on the shoes, though.
Just want to say this thread is GIVING ME LIFE
This isn’t quite as entertaining as misinterpreting a whole work, but I still fondly remember the time we were reading Macbeth in English and the person reading the part of one of the murderers pronounced a line about “the jolts and buffets of life” as though they were talking about food-type buffets. I caught my teacher’s eye and we both had to desperately try to smother our laughter.
It’s not so much a misunderstanding as a very defiant and deliberate misinterpretation, but I got my only ever 4 (= a grade D) on a literature exam about love poems in 9th grade or so. We had to interpret a medieval (?) poem that featured a young woman handing a chalice with red wine to a knight (?), her hands trembling and eyes averted. It was very obviously a love poem, what with the entire lesson unit before being about love poems, but I was like, fuck that! This is about two feuding families and she’s trembling with rage! She can’t bear looking at his hateful face! The red wine represents BLOOD!
When we got our exams back I was super embarrassed to have sacrificed what would have been an easily achieved good grade out of spite, but thinking back on it now I can’t help but feel amused and a bit proud.
Hey Toast, it’s my birthday!
(UK, that’s not the present I wanted. Hope you kept the receipt).
Happy birthday! May you have many blessings to coming in the next year!
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday!!!!!! Have a birthday kitten on me!
(I am spreading all the kitten love I can while the Toast is still here!!)
Happy birthday!!
Wishing you a good year to come.
Happy birthday! I hope you do get presents you want.
Happy birthday, sorry about the mess!
Happy birthday!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday!
Here is some embroidered toast for you, because the internetz are kind to provide something like this.
http://jgklausner.com/work/toast-embroidery
It is the beginning of the End Times! Thank you, Bartender!!!! You’ve kept this Open Thread a safe and lovely space to be in.
Ever since the End was announced I’ve been thinking about an amazing episode of 99% Invisible about the closing down of The Sims Online and the users’ experiences of seeing their online world gradually fail and disappear. It’s a strange, sad listen, but one I thoroughly recommend: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/game-over/
In other news, it’s been over 3 weeks since my second round job interview and I have heard nothing. I sent two polite follow-up emails and still nothing. There are no current job listings I can apply for, and every other recent application has been met with silence. I’ve been doing a few freelance things, but I’d like the security of a job because I feel so insecure and unsure of myself right now. I’m trying not to let stress and depression get the best of me, but it’s hard, it’s really hard.
I went to see Belle & Sebastian play Tigermilk at the Royal Albert Hall though! And it was fantastic so things aren’t all bad *watery smile*
Wishing you a quick response! (I mean, it’s too late for that I guess, but quick from now!)
Thank you! I just want to know either way at this stage!!
Joining in to thank the Bartender! This was always such a lovely space to chat at the beginning of the weekend. I will miss it.
Also, I remember than 99% episode. It WAS sad. But I have hope that the Toast will have many descendants and offshoots and will remain in our hearts forever.
It’s such a good episode! So sad 🙁
Best of luck on the job front– the best advice is probably to keep applying places, but I don’t think 3 weeks is overlong and you may still be in the running, especially if it’s a big company. We were hiring an intern for the summer and learned that HR didn’t send out the offer packet until a month after we told them who we wanted to hire. We were furious! So following up is good but companies have weird perceptions of time.
Also that podcast episode sounds amazing, bookmarking to listen to later. Online ghost towns are of great personal poignancy to me.
Thank you!! They told me they’d let me know in a week, but it’s been 3 so I’m wavering between ‘I’ve definitely not got it and they’re just being cowardly’ and ‘they’re clearly disorganised/someone key is on holiday/they wanted to wait until after the referendum’.
I’m gonna keep looking for stuff, but there is so little around right now >.<
Oooh, good luck with the job search! I’m in a similar position and it is sooo stressful.
Also, yes, thank you to the bartender. This has been a wonderful safe space every Friday and we will miss it so much.
It is!!!!! Good luck to you too! I’m sad that The Toast won’t be here for me to vent to.
Good luck on the job front, job hunting is the absolute worst. And I’m so jealous about the Belle and Sebastian concert! I hope it was fantastic.
Oh, sweets, I am sorry about the job situation. How demoralizing. It *will* eventually work out.
That podcast sounds amazing. I am not sure I have the fortitude for it while sniffling my way through this post, but I am saving it for later. Thanks.
The job stuff sounds so frustrating. I hope you hear soon (and that it’s good news).
Hurrah for Tigermilk!
Ugh, job hunting is the WORST. I really hope you find something soon!! And don’t beat yourself up too much. It’s hard out there.
Also, I’m super jealous of the Belle & Sebastian concert. Definitely worth it, I’m sure.
Books?
I’m currently reading Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date by Katie Heaney, which hits a bit too close to home in some parts. Standing near a boy you like, not making eye contact, and waiting for him to declare his love: this the way it works, right?
I also just finished All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister, recommended by Toasties. It was very interesting and confirmed that I won’t necessarily die a spinster because I’m 29 and unmarried, but can if I want because fuck it, marriage isn’t so hot anyway.
I’m reading Rebecca! It might actually be creepier than the movie.
Ooooh, Rebecca is one of my all-time favorites and the book is definitely so much better than the movie! The older I get, the more I like to think of Rebecca as the actual hero though.
Oh totally! Book creepier and better, but I love the movie so much, and it’s so atmospheric and well-cast (IMHO), that I think it’s a perfect book to read AFTER seeing the movie, and take those images with you.
(When I was 12-ish watching for the first time, I fell head over heels for Larry Olivier, which…watching/reading as an adult Maxim is not really a Great Catch, but when he kisses his fingers and taps the window of the car I felt some Stirrings and have loved Olivier ever since #dreamboat)
Last night it was all rainy and dark and I had a serious craving to curl up in bed and read Rebecca. My favorite!
I read it this last year for the first time and LOVED it and couldn’t believe people hadn’t been recommending it to me for years. What’s with people?
I read The Girls and Homegoing, both of which were really good, but both of which had the same weakness: the modern day chapters just weren’t as good as the others. But still, both very much lived up to the hype!
definitely agree with you about The Girls! I’d have loved it if the whole book was the past chapters
*spoilers* I do like that she didn’t end up with a “happily ever after” kind of life at the end. The moment when she thinks that Suzanne might have more peace, even in jail, was pretty devastating.
I’m reading Jingo by Terry Pratchett! A little slow going for some reason; maybe I’m just not in the right headspace for Discworld right now. (or maybe I just want to read fanfiction. that might be it.)
My book club is reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman next, so that’s probably next on my list.
The farther away I get from The Magicians, the more I dislike it and wish I hadn’t wasted my time reading it. 🙁
I really liked The Magicians and sequels, but mileage varies a lot. 🙂
yeah that’s the impression I’ve been getting! should be interesting to discuss, especially if our book group ends up having vastly different opinions 🙂
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, which is excellent but also pretty harrowing, especially in combination with world events right now.
Also the Chernow biography of Hamilton, finally. I shouldn’t be surprised at how well-written it is, but it is and I am!
I read Parable of the Sower a few months ago, and it’s definitely harrowing and oddly prescient. But it ultimately gave me hope? Like, yeah, things suck a lot and they can certainly suck more, but this isn’t the actual end of the world, it’s something we can get through.
It’s definitely giving me bursts of hope in between the bursts of dread, which is part of why I keep pausing reading to go “this is really good. SHIT. this is REALLY good. WOW SUCH GOOD.” It’s so much more nuanced than other dystopian-future lit I’ve read.
Love, love, LOVE Octavia Butler, and Parable of the Sower is definitely on my list of top reads.
That is one of the next books I plan to buy when I get through the stack of books I’ve decided I must read before I’m allowed to buy more. It might be the one I’m most excited about. (Or tied with Who Fears Death).
Guess I need to get reading.
Yes! My favorite of hers. Such a page turner and yes, so harrowing! But it’s balanced so nicely with the spiritual verses! I’ve adopted saying “Change is God” to myself ever since reading it.
I’ve finally, following up on a long-ago Toast recommendation, nabbed an audiobook of Station Eleven. I should be finishing it on this evening’s commute. It is brilliant. Thank you to whichever one or several dozen of you put it on my radar.
Station Eleven is amazing, isn’t it? It was one of those books that hit so many of my random interests, I was in love!
SO MANY random interests! I was already on board with the general premise, and then there was a shout-out to Calvin and Hobbes, and then a bunch of casual Star Trek references, and it goes on.
It’s striking how… not only is this a good book on its own merits, but it seems to have been written by someone who shares much of my frame of reference. I’ve so rarely encountered any work of fiction that can do both things!
“a bunch of casual Star Trek references”
You sold me
Yes! It was such a good book, but the one passage that really blew me away and haunted me was the passage on all the inter-group rivalries in the traveling troupe. As a former band kid, it was one of the most realistic things I’ve ever read.
Out of everything I’ve read in the last year, Station Eleven is the book that has stayed with me the most. It still sort of haunts me.
Station Eleven fanclub, checking in! What a fantastic book.
Earlier this week I read John Dies at the End, which mostly made me mad.
Now I’m following up with the lovely Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword, which is proving to be an excellent palate cleanser.
I tried to read John Dies at the End a few years back and just could not get into it for even one second. Then I gave myself permission to stop reading it, which I don’t often do with books.
The best freedom! Gah it feels so good to do that, difficult as it is. You all have my permission to stop reading books you don’t like!
I do this often now, since there are so, so very many I want to read. It’s weirdly freeing.
Read Hero and the Crown afterwards! Excellent book.
I actually picked that one up at a library sale a couple of months ago. When I added it to my Goodreads shelf, I learned that I should read this one first. But that’s next in my queue.
they can go in either order, whatever makes you happy, also I named my daughter Aerin because Mr Crow would not countenance Angharad. sorry not sorry. She’s 22 now (YIKES!!!) and likes her name, so probably not sorry at all.
I read John Dies At the End /and/ the sequel for the same reason I read and watched a lot of things I didn’t really like, to appeal to a straight girl I had a crush on, and I”m so glad I have progressed past that point of my life.
I picked up The Blue Sword recently, because I’ve been reading Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books (which I like better than I thought I would – “Napoleon plus dragons” wasn’t really speaking to me but they’re quite clever) and her voice was really strongly reminding me of Robin McKinley. I wanted to look at the writing and see what it was that made it so similar (answer: mostly semicolon density, I think). But of course I wound up getting distracted and re-reading The Blue Sword. It holds up pretty well, I think.
I just finished reading Novik’s ‘Uprooted’ and it was really enjoyable! Definitely a fun read.
I’m reading The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney! Has anyone else read it?
I just finished Song of Achilles and was sobbing in bed at the end and had to be comforted by my partner. That almost never happens to me with books.
The thing with that book is that you go in knowing exactly what’s going to happen, and it still manages to devastate you.
Oh, totally. I got almost all the way through like, I know what’s coming, I can’t possibly imagine how she’s going to pull this off, I refuse to have my emotions manipulated by this book, etc. And then sobbing.
Currently reading two books: Grunt by Mary Roach and Leviathan Wakes by S.A. Corey. I’m loving Grunt of course and am not far enough to say anything about Leviathan Wakes. Next on the list is The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisen.
i am reading fifth season right now! so far i have:
* stayed up too late too many nights in a row reading it
* spent too many grumpy mornings on the metro seriously considering skipping work and staying in my seat the rest of the day to read it
I just finished Grunt! Mary Roach can do no wrong in my book, so I really enjoyed it. The end was maybe a little tonally discordant and abrupt, but I really liked the last line.
I didn’t know about the existence of that Mary Roach book, so thank you!
Many thanks and love back to the Bartender! I just finished Alwyn Hamilton’s Rebel of the Sands this week, about a sharp-tongued, sharp-shooting desert girl in the middle of a whole pile of magic, munitions, and revolution; the ending seems like a setup for a second novel which I will read in a hot second.
Currently reading Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, which is quite a stylistic pivot from the book I was reading before it but very engrossing.
I’m reading too many books rn (maybe I’m trying to read as much as i can before The End) but I just started The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Which, y’know, is a fucking party.
When I get home from work I’m going to finally finish the last hundred or so pages of Winter by Marissa Meyer and I presume all my faves will kiss all my other faves and it will be magical.
(Anyone else read the Lunar Chronicles? Can we please take a second to talk about how Cress and Thorne are the most adorable thing in the history of adorable things? No? Just me?)
It took me a while but I am with you now on adorable thing-ness – they are SO cute!
I just started “Her Fearful Symmetry” which I honestly only picked up because the title is a line from my favorite poem. So far not bad!
This week, I read Bernice L. McFadden’s The Book of Harlan, and it was beautiful and deceptively simple and felt like a real life. For all the awfulness it contained, the integration of so many different oppressions and hatreds and the forces of love (and music) that resist it all…it was comforting to read.
I also read the second book in Dave Hutchinson’s Fractured Europe sequence, and though I read it before the UK’s EU referendum, it feels very much TOO SOON, and now I’m just nauseous & furious again thinking about it. (Fascinating worldbuilding and complicated, fascinating geopolitical speculation, though.)
Never Have I Ever SPOILER: Did you know that Karie Heaney dates women now? That’s a pretty interesting part of the epilogue that I ran into in the link roundup or somewhere.
ALso a great book to read about marriage and stuff is Marriage A History. SO GOOD.
Well, that was the conclusion my destined-to-be-single self came to, as well.
I did not know that!
I’ve read that too! And Bachelor Girl, which she seems to cite pretty frequently in All the Single Ladies and which I enjoyed a lot.
I just googled her and saw the Buzzfeed article about dressing differently after coming out, which I had indeed read. I just hadn’t read the book yet!
Finished Emma a few days ago! Such hilarity, so many cringes. I didn’t know Clueless was based on the book until around half-way in, and discovering Josh in Mr. Knightley and Tai in Harriet while reading was exceedingly delightful!
Now I’m reading Oranges are not only Fruit which is great so far.
Okay, last chance to find out if any fellow Toasties share my obsession with Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai? (Ffffff… deleted a LONG comment, let’s do that again…)
It’s about parenthood, genius, and determining your own path and others’, about Academia and adventure, it’s about boredom, feeling trapped, and the necessity of fascination, about depression, art, sincerity, death, symbols and actual humans, it’s about science and language and ideas and movies and wanting to know more, it’s stories within stories, it’s about rewriting your narrative and about living in grand marvellous metaphors and about inescapable realities. It’s the reason, for better or worse, that I do what I do. It has the most marvellous voice. It is aspirational and very much a cautionary tale. It is challenging, complex, too clever by half, gently misandrist, and wildly funny.
I really like that book.
Do you?
I LOVE THE LAST SAMURAI. (Do you also have trouble recommending it because people are like “no thanks– ‘Dancing with Wolves’ novels really aren’t my thing” and you have to explain, that no, it’s not that novel at all; it’s a brilliant novel about being a woman and being bored and unfulfilled and trying to figure out how communication even works, one human to another.
YES YES YES except I have to explain that no, it’s Not The Tom Cruise Movie even though I do study Japanese history and then I try to explain what it IS about and then I get caught up in my own enthusiasm (see above) or try to explain A Real Samurai Will Parry The Blow which *really* doesn’t work out of context, or the Circle Line Death Sentence Hypothetical etc. – you can see how I would fail.
You’re the first person I’ve met who liked it without me nagging them to read it – we should totally be friends, right? <3
yes! we should be friends! (are you on toastie-slack?)
I am not, yet! Just because I haven’t understood what slack is / how it works, but I have every intention to learn 🙂 My twitter handle is riekeoka too though, if you’re on there?
I’m reading:
– Geek Love bc somehow I never did in the 90s
– The Princess Bride bc somehow I never did as a child
– Eight Million Ways to Die bc the hard-boiled detective protagonist and I are both trying to quit drinking (spoiler, the hard-boiled detective is having a much harder time with that than I am so far *knocks on all the wood*)
and I just ordered Fun Home and Syllabus (Lynda Barry) because I’m having a weird compulsion to journal in cartoons, so. We’ll see how that goes.
I love Lynda Barry so much <3 <3 <3
I just finished The Sellout. I was looking forward to it since it won the 2016 Tournament of Books, but Beatty’s writing style and pace got exhausting after a while. I liked how the actual plot was resolved, but it wasn’t a novel’s worth of plot there.
Now I’m on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Years of Rice and Salt, as the Toast turned me on to scifi and alternate-history novels. Although, this timeline goes off the idea that 99% of Europe was wiped out in the black plague, and Asia/The Middle East become the world’s superpowers. So I’m hoping the tone isn’t too ‘can you IMaGiNe??!?!?! China and India ruling the world!!!!!1’ We’ll see.
I didn’t get that kind of vibe on Years of Rice and Salt, but YMMV. I found it to be slower than I expected, and more meditative considering the quantity of swashing and buckling he wedged into it.
Version Control, by Dexter Palmer. So very, very good. Beautifully written, fascinating themes, interesting and diverse characters–and decent science. I should note I am NOT a physicist, or any variety of hard scientist.
The same Dexter Palmer who wrote The Dream of Perpetual Motion? If so, I miiiight need to put this on my list.
Has anybody read “Red Rising,” by Pierce Brown? I picked it up at Audible during a sale or something, and I strongly dislike it. It’s like someone read the Hunger Games and thought it could use a male protagonist and a woman in the refrigerator. Also, rape of women used to motivate the Gary Sue hero.
Yeah did not love Red Rising although I did read the sequel and will probably read the third one at some point. I guess found them engaging but. A) the main character’s wife literally fridges *herself* at the beginning so that he will be motivated to do the great things he is destined to do. B) overall it felt like the author read Hunger Games and was like: “insufficiently dark and edgy and not enough manpain. Also the classics references are insufficiently pretentious. Clearly a manly male author and protagonist are needed to show all these girly ya-dystopia writers how it’s done.”
(N.b. The author as a real human being might be a perfectly decent person, but the ‘author as constructed In an agonistic relationship to the genre in which the novel is written’ seemed annoying.)
Well, I looked him up, and he’s a white dude in his 20s with a punchable face.
Yes, she as literally fridged herself as possible without actually using a fridge!
I thought he significantly improved with depictions of women in book 2, so I’m willing to forgive him as a person for the failure to think critically about women’s depictions in fiction in the first book. But it makes me furious that we live in a society where twenty-something guys who seem like decent human beings willing to learn end up writing stories with such utter dreck because nobody’s ever given them a reason to think such things are not okay.
Hell, I’m MARRIED and I kind of want to die a spinster. I do so love being alone at home. (Note – I do in fact love my husband and I am happy we are married. But I also like it when he goes away. I feel like you all will understand that.)
Derp, forgot to mention that I really do want to read that book because of this.
I’m with you on this one. I have this vision of myself at the end of my life living alone in a smallish condo with a cat that is completely at odds with the fact that I would also very much like to grow old with my husband
I’m currently reading and loving Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana. Disclosure: the author is my former roommie. She’s also one of the most talented writers and thinkers I’ve ever come across, and every sentence is a delight. https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Sky-Aditi-Khorana-e…
I’m reading Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two and I’m really enjoying it! Speaks to my interests, though…
I just finished Magnificent Corpses by Anneli Rufus, which is about the author traveling through Europe to learn about various saints and their relics and it was fascinating and beautifully written and I thought would /definitely/ appeal to some people here
We have read all the Jaclyn Moriarty we had at hand and are waiting for more to arrive from the library. In the meantime we are rereading _Rebecca_ for the first time since high school and being blown away by all the class/social climbing parts we didn’t understand back then.
Just finished Home by Marilynne Robinson yesterday, and i loved it so much. Way more than I had anticipated. Highly recommended. My Goodreads review.
I’ve just begun The Summer Before The War and it seems a bit florid but perhaps worth pressing through, we shall see.
I have every intention of living for the rest of my life (and thus also dying as a spinster). But I find many books/articles on the subject still seem to posit wanting a partner as a natural state.
Apparently the book Spinster ends with the writer meeting her mate? Which, meh. Give that book deal to someone who means it when they claim the title!
IIIIIII really, really did not enjoy Spinster . I wanted to, especially because I was very intrigued by all the historical women she draws inspiration from, but I found her writing to be overly self indulgent and not hard-hitting at all.
I feel like that happens with a lot of “dating life” kind of memoirs and it annoys me. I don’t want a happily ever after! There are a million stories with that kind of ending out there already. I want to hear about dating or non-dating adventures and I want an ending where it’s okay to still be single. I’ve read books with that message but when the conclusion is that now they’ve got a boyfriend, I don’t feel inspired or anything. I feel annoyed that it’s another book where the happy ending is meeting a man.
I just read my first Wonder Woman comic/graphic novel: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-3-Iron/dp…
I usually hate reading series out of order, but the library only had this one and I didn’t want to wait. It’s amazing. WW has been my favorite superhero since forever, and I wanted to stop being a fake geek girl :p
I’m reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach and, you guys, it is like Key Toastie Material. I highly recommend it! You are all its target audience!
I loved Never Have I Ever and it also hit pretty close to home.
I’m currently reading Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier! I only just started but it’s so atmospherically creepy and I’m into it. (I’ve read Rebecca several times and love it as well)
Reading We Love You Charlie Freeman and lovin’ it so far!
I just finished reading Uprooted which is amazing (and by one of the cofounders of Archive of our Own!). I don’t usually enjoy fantasy that isn’t YA, since a lot of it is too tropey and sexist for me and sex scenes in books make me viscerally uncomfortable, but this book was a beautifully written delight that I highly recommend to everyone.
I also recently read and loved that book. It was such classic fantasy, but without the stuff that usually make me cringe. Well, almost anyway, but that was still well-written enough for me to be okay with it. But, is Naomi Novik seriously co-founder of AO3?! That makes me so happy! Thank you for spreading the word! (Or have I been living under a rock, maybe?)
I was in France recently and was reading vaguely connected things such as Proust (I finally made it past the madeleines! everyone should remember exactly where they were when they got to the madeleines in Swann’s Way) and the Temeraire books (I mean, Napoleon is in them). But then we were in the Louvre and I was reading wikipedia entries for paintings I liked, as one does, and I wound up getting totally sucked into the memoirs of Elisabeth Vigee Lebrun, who was a portraitist who fled Paris during the Revolution and wandered around Europe painting pictures of rich people and having wacky adventures. It’s all online here and I recommend it highly – how can you go wrong with chapter descriptions like:
Naples–A Sleepy Ambassadress–The Remarkable Life of Lady Hamilton–Being the Story of a Frivolous Flirt Fond of Beer–More Royal Models–Excursions to Posilippo–Mlle. Lebrun Writes a Novel at the Age of Nine–The Queen of Naples Sits to the Authoress–The Wedding of the Doge of Venice with the Sea
or
A Queen Who Refused to Be Painted–A Four-Course Dinner of Frogs, Frogs, Frogs and Frogs
I’ll miss the Open Thread book conversations – I have read so much great stuff because of suggestions in these threads – thank you all!!
I just finished Stoner by John Williams and I thought it was really good, and beautifully written (like everyone else…). It was sort of intense and melancholy, which suited my current mood. Oh, god, I can’t believe the end of Toast is so near!
I’d like to read Stoner! I DEVOURED Butcher’s Crossing, because it combines my two great loves of adventure stories and toxic masculinity going horribly awry. It is so good!
Oh, cool! I’ve put in on my want-to-read-list!
Ooh, I just picked up All the Single Ladies from the library today! (I’ve been on the wait list for months.)
Other new-to-me books to read: Mary-Louise Parker’s memoir “Dear Mr. You”; a collection of essays titled “Me, My Hair, and I” (on politics, presentation, gender, and self-adornment); Joan Chittister’s “The Rule of St. Benedict” (step 1 in figuring out if I could make it as a monk); and “The Highly Sensitive Person” (which I’m reading and discussing with a friend, and which has already explained some heretofore mysterious things about my brain).
So, I finished “Me, My Hair, and I,” which had a dismaying amount of self-deprecation in it. On the other hand, it also was my introduction to Honor Moore, and I’m now looking for more of her stuff to read.
I’m about 100 pages into Ancillary Justice. It took me a while to get into it, but I’m enjoying it a lot.
Apparently “soul gazing”, where you hold someone’s gaze for long periods in order to get them to fall in love with you, is a thing. It’s also a trick that swindlers and con men use to get their marks to trust them implicitly. So practice that eye contact and you’ll get that boy you like eating out of your hand! Assuming you want a boy eating out of your hand. 😉
Toasties, I have no idea when the Roundup is going up or if this is the last one, so I wrote this out last night in preparation. The good news is I finally got “Lesbian Movies and TV shows” as a Netflix recommendation (although I also got Gal Pal Movies, which, ???), and we all know the bad news happening next week. So I have a possibly-final 2-part Reading Thread!
First, what is the book (or books) you think embodies the spirit of the Toast, the one/s you want to shove at the commentariat and go “read this you’ll be so happy it’s like the site never even ended”? Mine is Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, and anything Mary Roach has ever written.
Second, what are some of the best comments you’ve ever written on this site? What witty turns of phrase and feats of GIF wizardry have been languishing in the back end of Intensedebate up until now? Here are some of my favorite comments I’ve ever made, brutally culled to exclude even the reason Catholics bless bees and the possibility that Amazons were stoner bisexuals. Images link to the pieces for context.
As Mallory might put it: I have loved you all, end of comment.
I shall always treasure the gif party-fight I shared with braak. That was So. Much. Fun. I’m sorry, I don’t feel like digging through my 6,000+ comments to find the post where it took place, but oh, such good times. Thanks, braak, that was great.
I remember reading your bra comment. I bet one of those likes is mine. A plus!
My top rated comment seems to be my Toilet Rat Saga, ouch.
Sometimes at night I still think I hear tiny paws on porcelain. You may have supplanted Children’s Stories Made Horrifying in my psyche.
I am so sorry but also kind of pleased to be remembered in such a terrifying manner.
Last week upon similar suggestion I named an early comment that gave me great pride (To Catch a Redditor) but I will also brag about two others.
a of all, on Mallory’s post desiring the “fancy deep greyish bluish violet” diamond my top-thumbed-up comment at +199 was the *not-fancy* diamond below:
second of b, my Chris Christie Prufrock retelling after he gritted his craven teeth endorsing Trump:
The Sorry Song of Chris Christie
Let us go then, Trump and I,
When the reckoning is spread out against the sky
Like my dignity etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through Super Tuesday states,
The bellowing decided-lates
Of constituencies in one-night hateful rallies
And trapped in math of voter-tallies:
Trump who makes a hideous argument
Of insidious intent
Must lead us to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “Who is it?”
This dark day marks our visit.
Just listen to this orange meanie
Talking of Mussolini.
And indeed there’s barely time
Time for you and time for me,
To witness his hundred indecisions,
And his hundred visions and revisions,
Before he takes the primary.
Just listen to this orange meanie
Talking of Mussolini.
And indeed there’s barely time
To wonder, “Does he dare?” and, “Does he dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the podium,
To disguise our odium —
(I still say: “How his hair defies gravity!”)
My somber suit can’t mask this stark depravity,
My necktie red as blood, my lapel with its flag pin —
(They will say: “But how his pretexts are thin!”)
It’s well past the time
I could defend these decisions and revisions which a minute has reversed.
I should have been a pair of rabid claws
Wresting votes from his wretched jaws.
No! I am not your President, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant shill, one that will do
To swell an ego, start a speech or two,
Advise the Donald; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, sad to be of use,
Impolitic, more cautious than meticulous;
The face of false conviction, if a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, ridiculous—
The bully playing the Fool.
It grows old … it grows old …
I care not if they see I’m bought and sold.
I have seen the voters voting, some for each,
And yet I know they did not vote for me.
I will never not be mourning the Toast. Love this merry band of misandrists till the end of endings.
I admire you with heat of a thousand suns for that Christie poem.
Thank you so much for writing this and letting me read it with my eyes
I got really paranoid last year and deleted tonnes of my comments, so I no longer have a lot of mine.
This comment did not get much love, but I’m still proud of it!
‘Bread. Alaska is full of bread people, that’s why we talk about Baked Alaskans.’
All the comments on that post are fantastic though.
I’m in the middle of The Voyage of the Basilisk right now, and I gotta say, a series about a nonconformist lady dragon scientist that borrows heavily from the author’s studies of anthropology is very Toast. I did also just read Emma Donoghue’s Landing which was actually about a queer archivist.
oooooh highly rated comments, a more fun pursuit than work right now.
Re: Ender’s Game: “also I really hope men come here to tell us how we didn’t understand the book. Of course I didn’t! I was twelve! That’s why I LIKED it instead of throwing it across the room!”
on the White People Food thread (god this one had SO MANY good comments):
“[guidebook contains map of ‘pop,’ ‘soda,’ and ‘coke’ regions] “Be careful to use the correct regional term when ordering a sugary, carbonated beverage. Americans have deeply held cultural traditions around these terms and are capable of arguing for hours about which is correct.””
The mansplaining Tom Swifites thread.
but my top comment ever, of which i will be eternally proud is this one, on the Deleted White Male Books Comments post. Any opportunity to link back to and reread that thread pleases me greatly.
I LOVED THIS DIAGRAM. And remember it fondly. Can I have this on a tote?
I always intended to redraw/scan/polish this up but never got around to it…it might have to happen now in a fit of Toastalgia…
I will happily buy whatever you want to put in on.
THAT DIAGRAM
I only have a laptop, but kind of want this on a mousepad?
Eh… my TOP RATED comment seems to be the first comment on the Deleted Comments From the White Dude Book List, but that seems like cheating.
But this one was surprisingly well received for something I tossed off in ten seconds and felt vaguely worried about being disrespectful:
As was my shameless White Knighting of apian women:
My books that encapsulate The Toast at its most heartbreaking best: “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel; “Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen” by Fay Weldon; and yes yes yes a thousand times yes to “Monstrous Regiment.”
I remain disproportionately pleased at the reactions I got on “How To Emotionally Devastate A Very Specific Type Of Person” from a comment suggesting that Michael Bay was tapped for the Black Widow movie. People were so angry, oh it was beautiful.
I love your comments. Those are wonderful, and a worthy remembrance, and now i am going to have to stalk through the comments of some of my favorite wordsmiths because now I realize you can do that.
Ugh. I just that the worst thought. I was happily thinking, “Oh, I will just go read the old comments of some of my favorite people once The Toast is gone and I miss that space in the world and it will be like… oh my god, like reading old letters after they/it are dead while sitting by their/its graves.” So at least I shan’t run short of melodrama or Feels anytime soon. No one panic; I’ve got this.
You are lovely.
Whoops… I did my shoving-and-yelling-“read this” in longlostlullaby’s book thread. Tl;dr: I am and have been for 13 years obsessed with Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai. Please please please give it a shot. It’s wonderful and even misandrist, in places
My top-rated comment is the story of Midlife Crisis Lying Man.
I got good responses on my “the time has come/the Walrus said/to talk of many things” riff on “perhaps the time has come for me to describe myself.” I don’t feel like digging through 6 pages of comments to find it, though. I’ll probably relive my greatest hits when I’m feeling down, but am less tired from work. I get high ratings for paraphrases of literature by better writers than I am, though, which is a consistent trend.
Your comments are always gems.
Thank you! And while we’re reminiscing and appreciating each other, I want to thank you for being so supportive when I was going through all that shit at work with ex!boss last year. It was a terrible experience, and a tough time working through the PTSD, and your comments always made me feel better about myself. *hug*
The good news is I finally got “Lesbian Movies and TV shows” as a Netflix recommendation
My boyfriend just got “Shows with Strong Female Leads” (or something along those lines).
Your family recipe from the old country made my weekend. I missed out the first time around and while I enjoy reading your comments that one especially slayed me
Oh, Bartender, I will miss you and your amazing food pics.
As The Toast draws to a close, I was thinking of putting together a Toast-themed reading list for myself that I can return to now and again. I’m thinking of books like Rebecca (Manderley LLC <3 ) and Gaudy Night and all things Wodehouse and basically just anything that is clearly Beloved and/or written about by The Toast.
So, I guess what I’m asking is: what books do you think of as Friends of the Toast?
I just got Gaudy Night from the library for basically this reason!
And now I have too!
“Lolly Willowes” by Sylvia Townsend Warner is about a spinster who is literally Too Witches
“A Rose for Emily” (when men disappoint you, just murder them)
Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend”
“Ida: a Sword among Lions” by Paula Giddings (it was in one of Mallory’s Holiday Gift Guides, I think)
I have to plus a million Lolly Willowes. It is LITERALLY Too Witches.
Gaudy Night is who is most like us.
Jane Eyre is our spirit animal.
Redwall is our childhood.
Anne of Green Gables
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (probably anything by Heyer, but there was a lot of Freddy love on a recent thread)
Anne of Green Gables gives me the same feeling as reading The Toast: There are people out there like me.
The feeling I get is there are people out there like me, but so much better.
Cold Comfort Farm, forever and always, amen.
I have been meaning to read this for at least as long as the Toast has existed due to recs by proto-Toasties so yes, it belongs on here. And I think I’m just going to give in and buy it and break my rule against buying books because I own way too many for someone who moves every year or so.
Despite never connecting with fans of hers here, everything written by Scarlett Thomas (especially PopCo) feeds the same part of me that The Toast feeds. Her latest never found a US publisher which is a goddamn crime, but I’m going to break down and get it soon anyway.
:waves: I’m a fan of Scarlett Thomas! And PopCo was the first one I read.
I knew you existed somewhere in the Toast-o-sphere, fellow fan! I ordered The Seed Collectors and Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment today in the interest of Licking My Wounds about pretty much everything.
It was the first one of hers I read as well! It’s still my favourite.
My sister was delineating the plot of a novel that sounded so incredibly perfectly Too Witches and I asked her what book it was, and she said “THE ONE I’M WRITING RIGHT NOW”
*whispers* 15,000 words in three days. Every single one… very witches. *proceeds to cackle into keyboard*
Seconding “My Brilliant Friend.” Lila is the definition of Too Witches.
Stone Butch Blues
Daughters of Eve
Once Is Not Enough
Anne of Green Gables, of course.
The Blue Castle.
Ballet Shoes.
Hild
by Nicola Griffith
Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
Oh, Poisonwood Bible, whew. I could stand to revisit.
YES all the Hild! So good and awesome and yes.
POISONWOOD. My husband is finally reading it as a way to understand the Fuckery that is My Family. Barbara Kingsolver is a Toastie at heart, I feel.
I Capture the Castle, definitely.
YESSSS, strongly seconding.
There are many, but no-one has mentioned Shirley Jackson yet, so I will say that I believe We have Always Lived in the Castle to be a most Toastie kind of book.
Also, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary trilogy and NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season because both of them broke the mold and are taking sci-fi and fantasy in wonderful, inclusive, and page-turningly riveting directions.
(I am currently reading The Inheritance Trilogy and had to force myself NOT TO START reading today because otherwise nothing would get done.)
Gaudy Night, of course.
The Blue Castle.
Code Name: Verity.
Everything ever by Barbara Pym. The curate always marries someone else, and the heroine is just fucking fine with it.
My dears, late to the thread but I’ll post in the off chance one of you sees:
I’ve collected your recommendations on The Toast’s Goodreads group, a shelf called “Friends of the Toast (Recs from the comment threads)”. Find it here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf/127766-…
Thank you! What a great idea!
Favorite Toast memories!
Mine is when I wrote a fan letter about Ronbledore and got a personal response from all the editors.
Mine is when I was thinking about running for office and Toasties gave me so much support and encouragement. I would never have done this without The Toast.
Mine is toastpost! I’m still exchanging letters with one of my original matches every six months or so and it’s so nice.
I love Toast Post! Now one of my great pleasures is keeping an eye out for suitably fun postcards to send my Toastie pen pals.
Mine is how much advice and encouragement I received from the Toasties over the months-long process when I was thinking about (and then actually getting) an IUD. And actually, all the advice and encouragement I’ve gotten from the Toasties in general. I love this group and will miss it so much.
I already mentioned this in grumblyqueer’s comment, above, but a gif exchange/duel I had with braak was one of the best things ever. Also every single time someone thanked me for a gif. Every time, y’all. God damn I’m gonna miss this place so much.
Mine is when I got all kinds of loving support in an open thread about a shitty dude situation involving sex; my therapist was on vacation and my best friends are too inexperienced about dating and getting physical, to want to hear and commiserate. The commentriat cheered me right up <3
I just scheduled my first fertility appointment, which I honestly don’t think I would have done without Toastie support. When I was on the phone and ready to hang up, I specifically thought of aravisthequeen saying she would hold me hand through it. You guys are the best.
Since there can be no secrets between us now that we are near the end, my fan letter mostly consisted of arguing that Gellert Grindelwald was a time traveling Draco Malfoy.
*slow claps*
OH MY GOD IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE
YES
There are a lot. But all of the Toastie spiritual content has been incredibly bright and felt and genuine. It can be so hard to carve out spaces–in real life and online–that make faith a safe subject. And I love how respectful Toasties are of our different beliefs and backgrounds. I’m sure our lit jokes and self care will go on, but I really don’t know where this ecumenical dialog will continue (slack aside).
Also, writing a super long ranty comment and being asked to do an interview! Like, a dream come true!
The first year the Toast was out I carved my Halloween jack-o-lantern to look like the logo. Too Witches indeed.
I have two! The first is when Matt drew one of my comments during that week that he and Jaya were chaperoning the Toast, and the second is the excitement of open threads!! I always used to look forward to coming here on Fridays to see what everyone’s up to and maybe get some advice. I will really miss it.
I emailed Nicole to signal boost a fundraiser in the early days of Hamilton fever – like, before they released the cast recordings and whatnot – and expressed my both my excitement that she got to go and my desire to procure a ticket and she responded, “SELL YOUR BLOOD.” And then I got a ticket for the next round of shows starting this fall AT RETAIL PRICE.
I mean, *besides* Deleted White Male Book List comments?
Every time (not that there were many) that I would post a comment to politely point out something not entirely cool that someone had said, and almost not do it because I worried that it would turn into a horrible internet argument, and then the person would respond graciously and apologize and promise to be more sensitive in the future, and the birds would begin singing and a rainbow would appear over the valley and a thousand daffodils bloom
Yessss I felt like such a buzzkill for at least 15 comments and then everyone was like “hrm yes your point I see it” and it was SO BEAUTIFUL.
All y’all begin horrified right along with me in the saga of my Incredible Uterine Hulk. Being denied appointments with surgeons in Small Town Texas. You all provided exactly the support I needed. I am so so so grateful.
I don’t have a favourite Toast memory, but gee whiz, the moment of finding this incredible, supportive community of “whip smart commenters” (as once was said) where it’s okay to embrace all of your interests and passions? Life-changing. Just life-changing.
Mine is when I was having a hellish time at my former job and the support from all of you was overwhelming, including when Nicole emailed me offering to pay for a consultation with her employment lawyer. Don’t know what I would have done without you guys. Or what I’ll do now. I’m not crying at all.
When a Toastie gave another Toastie a liver/kidney/bodypart???? out of the kindness of their heart and I cried for 30 minutes because i’d had a truly terrible day and could not believe how much authentic love and warmth and goodness still exists despite all the garbage shit the abyss throws at us.
1. The physically painful laughter at Mallory’s piece on Go Ask Alice and the first Misandrist Lullabies post. Like, complete ab torture laughing. And 2. I’ve been writing for over 20 years but almost never hear anything from anyone about it. This is fine and sometimes even good, but the response to pieces I placed here–a bunch of giant downers on a humor site, mind you–was both kind and constructive, and at best (and Toastiest) created a larger conversation. It changed the way I write and pitch and I’m grateful for that.
What an emotionally tumultuous Friday. I want to hug you each at the tightness level you’re comfortable with. Bartender, I will miss you, whoever you are! (I still think Nicole despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary)
Might repost this next week, but might also be too busy rending my hair and clothes and striking my breast to do so– just wanted to let you know where I’ll be in the After Times.
– Still got a little OT-inspired, Toast-fueld, recipe exchange tinyletter going. Letters go out once a week. Everyone is welcome to contribute! http://tinyletter.com/spaghettidinner
– Going to write some things for clevermanka.net! It will be fashion related! I’m very excited and nervous.
– I don’t like linking social media and this handle, but if you want to find me on pinterest or instagram, we can chat on slack
– Heading back to school to get a [redacted] degree. I’m scared but also excited and convinced this is the right decision for me.
Where will you be, online or IRL or mentally, after July 1? How are you going to carry toastness out into the world?
Thank you, bb! I promise I will look at the piece this weekend. This morning completely got away from me (I didn’t remember I was the only staff in the office today whooops).
IRL I am switching jobs on July 18th. The Toast has been such a delightful, welcoming, and comforting community as I’ve navigated through my current job. I’m hopeful that it’s a good sign that I will no longer have the Toast when I begin my new job — may I feel just as fulfilled IRL in my new job as I was/am online through the Toast
Yay good luck with the job switch! I hope it is lovely as well.
I have to thank you for your dress recommendations to someone else a while back, Sausagedog. I bought a white summer dress with stripes from Zara that I would never have seen otherwise and it is magically flattering on me — really a big (good) surprise. Thanks for pushing me in a new direction.
May I request at least one fashion round-up on mannish work clothes for women? Work menswear for women? Don’t quite know how to put that… the sort of thing that women who love oxfords instead of heels would want to wear to work?
Suggested title: Workwear for Women Who Love Menswear but Hate the Patriarchy.
It’s going to be a Q&A “advice” type fashion column, so I’ll cover whatever questions you want! (I don’t have an email set up for them yet, though, so… coming soon!)
It’s really fun to hear that the dress worked out 🙂
I have a friend who has started an online magazine and has requested some work from me. So (deep breath), I may be writing some things for public consumption with my legal name on them. If this comes to pass, I will post about it on toast crumbs and slack.
Congratulations! Any idea what you’ll be writing about yet, or is that still under wraps/consideration?
Still contemplating. Maybe something about hermits. Maybe something about Gertrude Stein, linguistic excess, and rationing in the years between the wars. Maybe something about gender and collaboration in language poetry.
Would read all these things
I will be dramatically attempting to follow every Toastie. Also, busy growing a brand new toastie, who will be raised purely on Misandrist Lullabies and Baby Yelling About Philosophy. I’m realllly hoping there’s enough in the archives to get us through to kindergarten.
Awww, a baby Toast! We should come up with a baby Toast reading list, with small-person-friendly Toast articles and misandrist/seaworthy/anodyne or horrifying picture books.
thissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
It takes a Toastie village to raise a baby toast!
Yes yes yes yes please!!!!!!!
I’ll poll the slack later about making an actual document, but if you think it would be appropriate, add this most Toastie book to your Amazon wishlist and I’ll send you a copy 🙂 Seriously, it’s about an old lady and her cat who live by the sea by themselves and fight a demon. It was my favorite book growing up. Or this, which I think there was actually a Toast article about? Also amazing.
Oh my gosh, amazing!
Ack, both links go to Paperbag Princess (my favorite!). What’s the title of the first one?
Oops, link fail. It’s called Do Not Open and it’s by Brinton Turkle
This looks SO GOOD.
There’s a slack booklist already, I have just learned! Maybe a tab there for children’s books? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kKI8YtBz0…
Moomins: anodyne or terrifying? Both / and?
I think I may cull the archives and construct a Toastie reading list and only read Toast recs for the foreseeable future (i.e. until I run out).
That is such a good idea!
And now I am having the lunatic idea of going through every single OT to write down every single book rec and then sharing them in some way so we can all access this glorious hypothetical document and never want for anything to read again.
Maybe a tab on the toast connections google sheet? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_26MiL9WN…
There’s also (pinned over in Slack) a Reading List spreadsheet – populated by people within Slack but you can add to it at will!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kKI8YtBz0…
This is so great!
spaghettidinner is such a bright spot in my inbox! I love the call and response on a theme, and also your food writing. So that’s one place I’ll be happy to be in the wasteland that lies before us.
🙂 It makes me so happy that people are enjoying it. I also enjoy having people’s responses, because even when I’m not enthusiastic about my own response, I’m enthusiastic about yours. I’ve already made some recipes people have suggested!
I want to crochet an afghan for my man. I think Making Things is my love language.
I’m also on twitter all the time. Follow my @eighty_lions just in time for me to yell about the Olympics a lot!
after years of dithering and the last month of mourning, I finally cotched myself a website at alulaauburn.com. There is literally no content yet but I am hoping to put it up this weekend and I would love to have along for the ride any Toasties–it will be a mix of book reviews, pop culture blathering, possibly some TV show rewatches or first watches, itty bits of fiction, cat pics, and who knows what else. But definitely inspired by the Toast to try blogging again.
I’m also alula_auburn (or variations thereof) on disqus, slack, reddit (gulp) and I successfully made that my twitter handle. And with a period instead of a _ is my gmail.
GOODBYE, BARTENDER!
Oh beloveds. What a day.
BUT, a small piece of good news (at least for me) I am launching clevermanka.net on schedule–ahead of schedule actually. Decided yesterday to use July 4 as a pre-release day. There won’t be much content, but it’s a chance to see if the site actually works. I have so little faith in my technological capabilities–so, so little faith. If you feel like stopping by to comment or just check it out after 10am US CST on the 4th, please do.
I know I’ve been clammoring about this a lot in Open Threads lately, sorry! I want to save next week for just gifs and goodbyes so this is the last OT I’m gonna mention it. Clevermanka.net! Opens July 4! Please don’t crash my friend’s server!
eeeeee <3
You’re amazing and I can’t wait to see what you build.
I’LL BE THERE.
YAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, Channing, you jiggle your pecs!
<3
“Please don’t crash my friend’s server!”
No promises.
The Cheat is grounded.
I’m legit terrified of that happening. She’s hosting it for free until I can estimate the amount of regular traffic I can expect and while her server is fairly…stalwart, I’m still nervous.
Let’s face it, I’m nervous about the whole damn thing right now.
you saw what happened with the totes, right? now you’ve just invited the entire toastariat to your friend’s server. PARTY AT MANKA’S FRIEND’S SERVER, YA’LL!!!!
I remember you saying that we needed to email you for something — updates maybe? Can we just access the site when it goes live or do we need any special sort of login?
I’m excited! It’s going to be great!
I’ll be emailing everyone who asked to be notified on the afternoon/evening of Sunday, July 3. If you want a reminder email, I’m happy to send one! Just let me know: [email protected].
SO EXCITED FOR CLEVERMANKA.NET good luck!!!
It is on my calendar! Thank you, thank you!
SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS. You are a true gift!
Or perhaps a true . . . gif-t.
* tries to stop self from making terrible pun on gif but CANNOT STOP HERSELF *
I STOPPED MYSELF AND IMMEDIATELY REGRETTED IT THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE HIT
Sometimes with a pun that bad, the only thing to do is just run towards it with open arms.
Truly, you are the hero we need.
#creedarmsintoaseaofhaters
[snorting loudly]
Sometimes with a pun that bad, the only thing to do is just run towards it with open arms.
100% correct. as per pun rule# 2 (from “a practical guide to becoming a true pun master”):
1. accept that no pun is actually Good, but that the true nature of a good pun is to be so terrible that it becomes good.
2. say every pun that occurs to you. i’m so serious about this, sometimes the most well received puns will be ones you considered not saying.
3. ALWAYS laugh at your own puns, even if nobody else is. (especially if nobody else is.)
4. know that you are hilarious. puns are a limitless resource and you have taken it as your duty to bring this gift to humanity. you are a hero.
This is everything that is good and true about the Pun.
This is also the moment where I should share that in order to boost my husband’s interest in our family D&D games I created him a character named Pun’isher, the gnome fighter whose primary love in life is punning. He now spends all game just brainstorming puns and it is great.
I could ALSO add that Pun’isher’s best friend is The Pebble, who is, as you might imagine, a comedic D&D version of The Rock and if it wasn’t clear how very pleased I am with myself over these creations let me say, I AM VERY PLEASED.
SO excited! I am really glad you’re doing this, CleverManka. Thank you.
Yesssss!! I can’t wait!
This stream of gifs is a joy to return to!
Looking forward to it!
apologies–there’s just only so few more opportunities, you know?
So excited to come see what wonderful wonders you do
Let’s all crash at CleverManka’s pad and cry for the demise of the Toast?
That’s the idea!
Toasties, since thou and I are wont to be parted, please give me your recommendations for your favorite non-fiction books about history/favorite historians to read. Currently am reading She-Wolves by Helen Castor on the advice of the Toast and wondering where on earth to get book recs now.
Barbara Tuchman forever. If you haven’t read her already. The Guns of August is a good place to start.
I read Battle Cry of Freedom while laid low by a stomach virus, and I was glad I did (on TNC’s recommendation).
Well…it’s history of medicine/science, but Holly Tucker’s Blood Work about the early days of blood transfusions was fascinating and amazing, and I am squeamish and usually not super interested in those types of things. I think about it all the time and in fact recommended it to my OB/GYN…DURING LABOR, so. Most highly recommended.
during labor?? that is so metal
“This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” by Drew Gilpin Faust is fantastic and insightful, all about how the massive casualties changed society’s attitudes and infrastructure as they related to death.
Judith Flanders’ “Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life” is cleverly structured and doesn’t get bogged down in her habit of listing everything ever.
“To End All Wars” by Adam Hochshild has some really fascinating views of British suffragettes around WWI.
This thread is my jam! For popular history: SPQR by Mary Beard, Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon, Ravensbruck by Sarah Helm, seconding This Republic of Suffering, Triangle the Fire that Changed America by David Von Drehle, Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder, Liar Temptress Soldier Spy by Karen Abbott, King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum
For more academic (aka DRY and REPETITIVE, sorry historians) history: Daughters of the Shtetl by Susan Glenn, Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America by Andrea Tone, Ladies of Labor Girls of Adventure by Nan Enstad, Love for Sale by Elizabeth Alice Clement, and basically anything in the Tenement Museum bookshop
Seconding King Leopold’s Ghost. As someone who was (and is) super into American colonial history, it was amazing (and educational) to learn about Dutch colonialism in Africa, something I (embarrassingly) didn’t know about until I read this book in college.
I love Sarah Vowell! and her most recent book “Lafayette in the Somewhat United States” is great for those who love Hamilton (and even if you do not)
RAGE. My fellow candidate was repeatedly called a “nice young girl” by her opponent’s campaign. read this for the full rage quotient and then commiserate with me, please. https://bottlemagazine.com/2016/06/21/have-you-he…
I was at this event – you see me and my baby at one point – and the candidate has always been nice and supportive to me. But I know how he really feels – Crystal is the same age as me, we have a baby the same age. I’m just a nice young girl with a baby, and he didn’t have the balls to stand up and say otherwise. I spent the rest of the night telling people who asked me about my campaign not to take me seriously because I’m just a nice young girl with a baby.
FUCK THIS WORLD
BAN MEN
A+++
Exactly what I would have done were it not behavior unbecoming of a candidate
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. What an asshole.
Gross. But can you make his calling other candidates/you “nice young girls” work against him, and show how out of touch he is?
Because I am sure it is not just people in your demographic who would find this a super-condescending way to refer to an electoral candidate who has a successful career, is married, is a mother.
I mean, even the words “nice young girl with a baby” don’t really compute for me as a concept.
Burn it to the ground. I think about you and your campaign a lot, even though I am nowhere near your area. How is it going? How will we get updates!? Are you on the toastie slack?
It is going pretty well! I marched in a parade this weekend which was terribly exciting, but I wore wedges, which was a terribly horrible idea and now my feet are paying the price. I have found two new Democrats in my district, which is pretty great!
I am not on the Toastie slack!! remind me of who I email to get in and I will finally do it? I have been putting it off as a method of denial of The End of The Toast.
yay! I believe it is ppyajunebug at the gmails – I’m sure someone will post it this Friday, or in one of the LRs this week. There’s a politics channel, so I hope to see you there!
ughhhhhhhh
Last week I went to a meeting (by myself! This was a big deal for me. I have been in this job for three years and have only gone to one other meeting outside the office ever) with our client (who happens to be a woman) and a city reviewer (a man). During the meeting he kept calling us girls. “Do you girls need anything?” “If you girls will follow me…” etc. THEN I had to call him the next day and I was like, “Hi, this is [katerkins] from [company], I’m following up on our meeting yesterday” and he said ” hi bella.” WTF WHO CALLS ANYONE BELLA IN A PROFESSIONAL SETTING. OMGG
wait…bella isn’t your actual name? YUCKYUCKYUCK
No, it’s not my name (which is Kate-i.e. not even close). it sounded like he caught himself saying it too late so I will pretend he was embarrassed. AS HE SHOULD BE
Argh, I saw that and tweeted about it! I’m riiiiiiiight next to Crystal’s district and am SO PISSED I don’t get the opportunity to vote for her. I’ve met her several times and she is awesome. I’m also the same age and have a baby about the same age, so…flames, ya know? Flames.
ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE, yes, I definitely know.
BUT STOP THE PRESSES. Another Toastie in Greene County?! Which district are you in?
honest to goodness just teared up rn
this month is too much.
I’m moving Sunday, plus Orlando, plus Brexit, plus trying to find a new job, plus this, it’s just Too Much.
Internet hugs <3
*pats adjacent spot on the couch* You sound like you could use a cup of tea and a rest.
It is so Too Much.
*gentle hug*
Just, one thign at a time. And be kind to yourself. And come find Toasties on Slack and Twitter and reddit so we can have your back.
I’ll do my best! I am a chronic Lurker in many zones of life, which works so well for open threads, but I think I’m gonna try this thing. I love you all too much not to.
I feel exactly the same I have no other (real) upheaval in my life besides this (and therapy). I hope you feel better soon and that your life settles down beautifully (if that’s a phrase that works in English).
I hope your move goes as smoothly as possible. Sending gentle thoughts, and what fortitude I can spare.
Hey all! I was at a 30 Rock themed bar trivia/pub quiz/quizzo/whatever they call it in your region last Sunday in Brooklyn and it was AMAZING. There were like 42 teams there and everyone was the most devoted, sweetest bunch of 30 Rock dweebs and there was a team that had made Frank hats for all of them to wear and I loved it so damn much. I straight up took a bus from DC after work on Sunday to make it there on time and I have no regrets (relating specifically to this one isolated decision, other than that I continue to be 76% regrets). It made me feel like I was justified in spending 4500 hours of my life rewatching 30 Rock episodes as I fall asleep.
It also occurred to me that it seemed unlikely there wasn’t at least a stray Toastie or two in the room cuz I figured there is some serious overlap between 30 Rock trivia set and The Toast demographic. Anyone? It was at Videology in Williamsburg.
Omg this is one of the only things that has made me regret that I moved out of Brooklyn. If I hadn’t, I so would have been there.
Hah right? I’ve so few regrets about leaving Brooklyn, but I am sometimes envious that it is one of the few places that has things like 30 Rock only quizzo.
Now I have fondness for Brooklyn again cuz it’s just a fun place I go to visit friends every once in a while instead of my-daily-lived-experience.
Yeah, I’ve lost 30 Rock trivia, but when the major trade-off is ‘living in an apartment that’s bigger than a dog house”.. .
I’ve never been so jealous of pub trivia before!
PAJAMARALWAYS
That scene where that actress tells Tracy that maybe she doesn’t want to be the mother of someone who recorded an anti-condom PSA to which Tracy responds by yelling “I saved a lot of kids from lame sex!” is still one of my favorite moments… along with 90% of the rest of the show.
The moms episodes are some of my favorites!
Also, judging from your comments that trivia sounded hard and has me questioning my 30 Rock prowess.
That sounds like heaven!!! I NEED a place to prove my devotion to 30 Rock in front of many strangers!!!
I feel you. And it was LEGIT. There were only a few softball questions and the rest were straight up ‘What was Liz’s apt #?’ or ‘In what country was Muffin Top a hit?’ and despite that after the first round there was a 13 way tie for second place and six way tie for first because there were like five casual fans in the room and 100 lunatics.
This sounds delightful! I love 30 Rock but I’ve only done 2 full watch-throughs and would probably be considered a casual fan compared to the others. Brooklyn is a slight hike for me (I’m in Queens), but I’m interested in trivia nights so this place sounds interesting.
OMG I just saw that they have Gilmore Girls trivia on July 31st. If any Toasties want to form a team, I would totally be up for that.
It depends on ones tolerance for Williamsburg-y things, but I think Videology is delightful. I lived in Brooklyn back when it was just in the process of finally converting itself from a mom-and-pop video rental store into a bar (although I believe they still have the inventory in the basement and you can still rent DVDs if you wish!) It’s got tasty movie-themed cocktails and a viewing room in the back where they screen stuff. Their regular Tuesday movie trivia is horrifyingly intense, only attend if you are super not competitive or a hardcore film buff. I went once or twice and just sat there blankly thinking ‘but… I’ve seen like a bunch of movies… I have seen movies, right?”
The friend I went to 30 Rock trivia with was similarly stoked about Gilmore Girls. I’m still in the process of working through the whole thing now that it’s on Netflix so I can be a Well Rounded Person.
I saw that they have weekly movie trivia but I’m much more well-versed in tv than movies. I know I wouldn’t be able to compete in movie trivia. There are a lot of classic and/or beloved movies I have yet to watch and people are quasi-horrified upon finding out that I haven’t seen them.
So my comment might be out of place, as I haven’t watched 30 Rock, BUT, I love Videology and agree that it could be a very Toast-y place. I was there for Arrested Development bingo on Wednesday! Sometimes they have Harry Potter trivia!
that sounds like a dream.
I love Videology and didn’t know they did this!
I will definitely try to attend the next one
I wasn’t there, but I think you’re my soulmate?
I’m sorry, I have an erection. I think it’s the sound of the skateboard.
I almost went but had something else going on! I love Videology and their TV trivia nights
Cat thread!
On this sad day, please enjoy the majestic floof of Illy the Formerly Hatey Cat
You don’t fool me, that is Crookshanks.
So much floof!!!
We cotched a lil kitten last night, of the tuxedo variety, here he is making oversized purrs on MrChouffe.
Sadly, the soon-to-be-named Right Honorable Bernard Whiskers, Q.C. proved to be something of an escape artist and climbed up the shower curtain in the spare bathroom and managed to lever himself out the window. We have crunches and water for him out on our back porch in desperate hope that he will choose Treats Over Streets.
Because I was going to post +1 million pictures of my kittens, I decided to make a collage instead. Here’s a summary of Janie and Pye, two very cute 1 year old cats. Their gotcha day is in a couple weeks and I can’t believe I’ve had them nearly a year!
I moved in April to a new place with a new roommate, and I swear, their personalities have blossomed so much more since then. They don’t hide when new people come around, enjoy company, and practically demand pets and belleh loving from my roommate. AND they get to enjoy super exciting cat TV now that we live on the first floor of a house with a much better view.
What a lovely squashed face! There does seem to be a teensy bit less hate in those gorgeous eyes.
My own floofster:
How is Sweetbitter? I heard the author on NPR and am intrigued.
I’m really into it so far, loving the writing. The main character is definitely not going to be for everyone though, she’s a bit passive, I guess.
That face is perfection.
I am ded from the floof and orange eyes. SO CUTE *thud*
I have enjoyed watching Hatey Cat’s progress over the last few weeks!
P.S. Hi, my cat is a pretzel:
HOW!?
such is the amazing power of Cat 😀
I have a very similar model, though mine is of the non-pretzel variety:
so so pretty!
Kitty Fantastic and I have been doing some A+ kitty and human cuddling lately. She’s also been very aggressive and herding me to the cuddle spots via meowing, walking a few paces, and meowing again to make sure I’m still following.
I like to complain about the aggressive kitty yelling, but its honestly some of the best moments of my day. i love being loved.
Mine does that! She’s not very affectionate other than that so it’s the sweetest heart-melt ingest thing.
While I’m glad for you and your cat that she is happier overall, I confess to kind of missing the rage face, since it so nicely sums up my feelings about today.
hello, this is my partner’s little diva:
she got a new penthouse recently! but is concerned it may not be up to code
she likes people food
and pretending to be a hooman
My Beast looks through the AC.
what fluff!
Chetta tried to get away from belly scrumbles the other night, remaining gorgeous while doing so:
I love how cat has gone from looking Full of Malice to just Mildly Perturbed.
Sorry for posting a link (still bad at embedding) but I feel like the Toasties may get some amusement out of my half cat half giraffe that currently lives with me –
https://www.instagram.com/p/BG-h6wHJgOR/?taken-by…
That is HYSTERICAL. That FACE.
Yes, yes that IS a catraffe. And a very fine specimen!
So we had a hole in the kitchen ceiling (not to the outside, just like pipes and such) because of a leak, so my cat, Cap (short for Captain America), took to climbing into said hole and exploring (because nothing says “fun” like pipes and drywall?). Well today we finally got someone to come in and fix it, which Cap was NOT there for. First he changed the lights NEAR the hole and Cap stared intently at him for a few minutes. Then we took her into a bathroom so that she wouldn’t try to climb up there while he was working (because we’re mean humans and didn’t want her to get stuck up there). Once he was done we let her out again and she went straight to the cabinet she always used to jump into the hole. She stared at, sniffed, and lightly rubbed against where the hole was like “b-b-but it was right here?? WHERE GO.” So then she laid down on the cabinet again, in either protest or surrender.
her whole cutey face is different now! this is a tremendous fluff, for sure!
I’m really trying not to let myself believe that the world is ending.
In better news I saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child part 1 last night and I’m going back for part 2 tonight and I’m very lucky and privileged to be able to see it before a lot of people. I only got the tickets last minute thanks to a fellow Toastie. I think we are the first Toasties to see it, so I was dropping in for updates on the slack channel last night.
Its really good and I know the fandom is going to love it; and the theatre production is just stunning. Like really really stunning and amazing.
(I haven’t seen any of the spoilers and I went in to pt1 completely fresh, I’d like to see pt 2 fresh as well, so no spoilers please? I will happily engage in a spoilerific quizfest afterwards if anyone wants it)
I read spoilers of both parts and honestly it sounds insane and sort of infuriating so I hope they were just inaccurate!
It is insane ngl. But I imagine you also loose a lot just reading the plot, its very much a stage show and a lot of the story is in the performances and the staging
ooooooooooOOOOOoooooo was it good?? Was Noma Dumezweni awesome?
Yes. Hermione is a queen.
i’m going in september – I got the cheap tickets and was accepting that it might be awful, but hoping that it would be good. I’m hiding from spoilers, but yay that it’s a great production :D.
What damage control is possible — does anyone know?
Is it possible that a second vote will be held, sort of an “are-you-really-sure”?
Or is it possible that the UK will work out an arrangement like Norway did, and be partly in still, partly out, still aligned with the EU?
oy.
Oy indeed. The Leave camp is like “I ain’t gonna be part of your system! I’m an aduuuult!”
That’s the best analogy for them I’ve seen yet.
The EU will defintely not be giving the UK a Norway style deal. They’ve basically said fuck off and leave then.
Ireland have had multiple referenda on the same issue until they get the right answer (Lisbon Treaty) but since they have a proper constitution I don’t know if it works in *exactly* the same way.
i just hope scotland finally becomes independent and is like “fuck you england we are joining the eu!!!!”*
* my understanding of UK politics is not v comprehensive, am not sure how realistic/likely this is
By the looks of things, very likely.
I think it would be the smart thing to do.
We’re trying. Sturgeon is being the only grown-up in sight about the whole subject and clearly Has A Plan. She’s much better-liked than Salmond, smart, and will have hopefully learned from the mistakes of the first referendum. Although that was basically torpedoed by the English press (who also pushed heavily for leaving the EU) running a campaign of lies, threats and broken promises. Hopefully the Scottish public, and in particular the pensioners (who don’t chatter much on social media but my god, do they vote), will understand better this time.
Ireland is talking about reunification, which could get messy.
Honestly we all just want to get the fuck away from England, as does the EU, which has told England to fuck off and behave and Scotland and Northern Ireland that they are welcome to join if they can. I’m English by birth, eighteen years there and now twenty years in Scotland, and I want to get the fuck away from it too.
The only problem with Scotland leaving the uk and joining the EU is that it opens the door for Catalonia to do the same and Spain are vehemently against that. Any country trying to join needs unanimous agreement from the current member states. I hope they get to secede but it may not be that easy thereafter
Nicola Sturgeon is so brilliant – if anyone can pull off keeping Scotland in the EU, it is she – she’s just handling it all so beautifully. Scotland is so fortunate to have all these super competent, level headed women in charge and never have I more longed to lug books, cat and (Scottish but London loving) husband north of the border.
I’M GONNA CRY, YOU GUYS.
Thank you, everyone, for making the last couple years so great. Thanks to everyone who chipped in to the Toast Tote scholarship fund. Thanks for making me laugh and think and reach out to people. Thanks for the amazing friendships and Hamilton and kittens and advice and and and and and. There has never been a place like the Toast.
Toasts! I do not post often but I would love to crowdsource your wisdom before we all move on.
I’m trying to follow the advice of Madeline Albright to read things that make me uncomfortable, to seek out opinions and beliefs I disagree with and approach them with curiosity and empathy rather than dismissal. This is difficult, but I feel it has been very valuable so far.
What books have you read that made you reconsider your views or at least find the value in opinions you disagree with? Who writes thoughtfully and compassionately about complicated subjects? I would be so grateful for your recommendations!
This is such a great goal. Thanks for articulating it and planting a seed in the minds of some of the rest of us, too.
This is probably not what you are looking for but The Economist is what does this for me, because they are much more rightwing than I would ever be but they are also very rational and give clear fair reasons for what they think. In books…. oh, any Hemingway novel, especially For Whom the Bell Tolls. Orwell’s Down and Out in London and Paris.
The Economist is an excellent idea, thank you!
I was primarily thinking of non-fiction books, but I love the idea of reading fiction authors who present different points of view! I suppose I should add Ayn Rand to that list haha.
The Orwell is non-fiction — it’s a memoir.
I enjoy his clear writing style, even though I think he was a bit of a tool in real life.
The Righteous Mind helped me understand other value systems and religion better, though it’s more of a meta take on the whole thing: <a> ;https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052FF7YM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
A student of mine gave me a copy of the Koran–I’m not anti-Muslim but I’m anti-religion–and I’m determined to at least try to read it this year. It seems only fair; I slogged my way through much of the King James Bible as part of my penance–er, cultural education.
Also, for fiction, John Updike has to be my favourite patriarchal old fart.
Yes! Reading/studying religious texts is very important in understanding cultural contexts, and it’s something I want to start doing a better job of.
I’m currently reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, one of the Christian writers Nicole has mentioned. It’s difficult, as I’ve never been religious and have leaned towards outright hostility when it comes to Christianity in particular. But I’m learning so much and am starting to understand why people believe and how their religion can be genuinely beneficial to them. It’s nice to let go of that kneejerk reaction. Even if I still disagree, at least now I can have a conversation rather than just ranting.
I have Islam and the Future of Tolerance by Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz up next in my religion list, which I think will be a very interesting and challenging read.
It’s not quite what you’re looking for, I think, but for a meta view I highly recommend On Immunity by Eula Biss. It’s a really beautifully done look at our relationships with vaccines and where some anti-vax sentiments come from. I think it definitely falls into the category of a writer approaching beliefs she doesn’t agree with with empathy rather than dismissal and was really useful to me to think about how I approach these things as well.
That’s perfect, thank you!
The real world is a terrible place right now, so let’s take a moment to appreciate our beloved community here. What are your favourite Toast community moments?
Mine:
When a Toastie donated a kidney to another Toastie. <3
And a small one that for some reason has stuck with me:
A long time ago, someone shared their own good news on the Open Thread and was so excited and happy that they wanted to give a like to every other comment, proclaiming “Infinite thumbs up!”. I have no idea who this was, but I remember it fondly because it just shows how kind this community is. I love you all.
A couple years ago, I was going through a very hard time and someone very kindly, but firmly, encouraged me to seek therapy. It was a small gesture (and one that has been echoed many times to many people in many open threads) but it really helped me a lot. I hope that others have felt that same kind of gentle but firm support.
Each and every time someone has reached out for comfort and reassurance during a difficult time and has been met with all of that and more. It makes me feel better about the world and this community each time it happens, and is what made me feel safe enough to seek that same comfort when I desperately needed it.
Thank you all <3
Oh my gosh, I forgot about the kidney donation thing. #forevertoastie
THE KIDNEYYYYYYYYYY * tears up *
Everytime someone would post something kind of thoughtless or microagressioney or otherwise not cool, and someone would point it out, and the first person would apologize and thank the pointerouter.
It was always like seeing an internet unicorn.
Yes, this is SO wonderful. Also polite disagreements and discussions. It is the type of civil discourse that I hear people talking about, and yet never really see. Except here.
I’ve been pulled up a few times by Toasties and every time it has been firm and intelligent and also respectful and has made me think and reconsider my position or how I express things.
When a Toastie admitted that the commentariat’s reaction to her tentative “this was not okay, right?” story about a significant other was so positive and kind and strong that it helped her get out of an abusive relationship. It was the Mad Max: Fury Road wives snapping each other’s chains even before we knew that movie was going to be a thing, and it was wonderful to see.
Okay, and the deleted comments on the Books Literally All White Men Own. I was almost bouncing in my seat waiting for that one.
Every friendly disagreement or pushback on a problematic comment. Every time you don’t see the 100 insulting, meaningless, condescending, or just plain cluttery comments that any other site with such active commenting doesn’t bother deleting.
oh my gosh, in looking back through my old comments I opened a post and saw a photo of the kitten Mallory cotched: http://the-toast.net/2015/05/26/link-roundup-340/…
Fond memories of being on the edge of our collective seat, and every time after that that a Toastie found a kitten in need of cotching.
<3
Kitty cotching time was the best of times!
The thread where someone posted a question about her sexual orientation and came back much later to thank another commenter for their response because it helped her to come out as a lesbian.
I love all the Peak Dad stories on the Dad magazine posts. I am always thrilled at the adorable and loving stories people have of their Dads (and Moms) doing such varied but ultimately perfectly Dad-ish things.
Toasties, how did you know you wanted/were ready to have kids? Did you always know? Did you not want kids and then change your mind? Does the biological clock actually exist?
I never thought I’d have any. Then I got in a great relationship and entered my late twenties and started feeling a little ambivalent. But my partner does not want kids, and my desire for offspring never rose above “maybe? just one?” we decided to not have any kids.
I did have to push for a discussion (my partner was just fine at just leaving it at “uuuuuh…. Not right now anyway!” and running in the opposite direction), since I was sure about one thing: I wanted it to be an actual decision, not something that happened due to not deciding.
Great way of putting it. My partner and I are in the same boat at the moment. We’re giving ourselves until the end of the year to have the discussion about actually making a decision, whatever way it goes.
I never wanted kids, until maybe 27 or 28? Then a switch flipped, and I had to find someone to mate with NOW NOW NOW! (Manged to mate at 34; now 37 and considering a second (worried everything has shriveled up and turned to dust).) Around 31, Mr. LF was waffling (we were not yet married), and I was readying myself to move in with my sister and buy sperm on the internet.
As far as ready goes, eh? It’s nice if you have some money in the bank. Ideally, you have acquired a bit of patience. A partner is handy, possibly two or three, cause damn those babies are a lot of work.
I was ambivalent for a long time. When I was 30 I decided it was make or break, and I talked to my favourite aunt about it, and said I might stick to animals (she is a huge animal lover, as am I) and she said, ‘Oh, you have to have kids!’ and I think that clinched it. Which is weird, because it’s not like I really ever feel like I should do what someone says when they say ‘you have to’.
And I wasn’t ever a child-loving person, either. I’d done a teaching degree by then and they started out the course saying, ‘if you want to be a teacher, you have to love kids’ (there’s that ‘have to’ again) and I discovered that you don’t have to love kids, you just have to love people, because children are people. And there are always some you don’t like, and that’s OK too.
Anyway, long story short, I sort of fell into it and now I have four. Heh. They’re hilarious and annoying and frustrating and loveable and honest and interesting and amazing and I’m so glad I did it. Most days.
“you don’t have to love kids, you just have to love people, because children are people. And there are always some you don’t like, and that’s OK too.”
YASSSS This children’s librarian heartily endorses this line of thinking. A friend of mine calls kids “new humans” with the mindset that they are working out this human-being thing and I love that way of thinking about it too.
I strongly wanted kids since I was about 12 and started baby-sitting. I felt like I was ready when I was 25, but my husband (boyfriend at the time) didn’t, so we agreed to wait until we were 30. I’ve often joked that I felt like I was hitting snooze on my biological clock. But now I’m pregnant and life is grand.
That was me – always wanted them. Had the first at 25, second just after I turned 30, and now they’re 20 & 16 & I’m loving that they’re just about grown and I’m still youngish myself. But Mr Daki & I are suuuuuuper ready to have grandkids (or great-nieces & nephews, that’d be great – he has lots of nieces/nephews in their 20s, it can’t be *too* much longer?)
We looooooooves the babies/toddlers of this world. Hand them over!
I did not want kids and would not have made them with my own body.
Then, six years ago, I met and fell in love with the woman who turned out to be like. The most steady and trustworthy person in the world, maybe? And it was like a flip switched and I said, yep, I was just kidding myself earlier, I totally want a kid. I just didn’t want one out of my own body -that has not changed!! -or with anyone other than my wife.
Years of therapy later, we’re having a kid.
So basically, I am REALLY SORRY to be an anecdotal case which supports that old “when you meet the right person” thing. I do NOT believe that is true for nearly as many people as hear it in their lives. I think a person who does not want kids does not want kids, and that is reasonable and understandable and I support it completely.
But I met the right person and realized I had always just been scared, not ambivalent. *hands*
I’ve had several friends realize in their mid-30s that if they wanted kids, they’d have to go it alone for at least a while. That helped sort out a lot of cultural expectations from actual desires. Would you do it alone (whether you’re partnered or not right now)? What does that mean to you? What do you imagine happening in 5, 10 years? If the answers to those questions push you in one direction or another, listen to yourself. You know best, no matter what.
Hey, it me, kinda.
I knew from a very young age that I did not want to have kids from my own body. I figured that meant I would probably just not have any, or maybe adopt if my partner felt very strongly. This is probably how it would have gone if I’d ended up with a man.
But then I married a woman who does want to have biological kids! And it turns out I am totally open to the idea of kids as long as I don’t have to carry them, so there we go.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted kids – I never had dolls or babysat, and I’m pretty uncomfortable around little kids, even though I am good with people generally. I’m 32, and have never had a time when I doubted my choice. I do get a bit weepy around puppies though!
I always wanted kids, to the point of being (as vladazhael said–same scenario) ready to leave the guy I thought I’d have kids with because he wasn’t ready, but ended up leaving him over something completely unrelated and staying with my best friend and his wife and two kids for a month while I sorted out my shit and found a new place, and I mean the kids were great and all but oh my GOD that month convinced me I absolutely did. not. want. kids. period. And MrChouffe has never wanted them so we’re in agreement there, thankfully.
Seconding the “meet the right person” thing while acknowledging how this is definitely not true for everyone. I was pretty staunchly in the no-kids-no-marriage camp through my 20s and early 30s, but when my long term relationship person (who also didn’t want kids or marriage) quite suddenly broke up with me, and I was figuring out what I wanted the rest of my life to look like, it started to occur to me that maybe I wanted kids (or a kid). Then I met a super steady, supportive, awesome person and decided that I needed to marry them and have at least one kid. 34 weeks preggo so I guess we’re really doing this…
I didn’t think I wanted any of my own, even though I have always liked and enjoyed kids in general. I had one or two brief urges in my early twenties after getting married, but they fizzled out when I thought about what I’d be trading (frequent travel, more dogs, evenings spent reading romance novels without interruption).
This spring I went to counseling because I felt like my life was sort of directionless- I like my job, we’ve travel a lot for fun (although now it feels slightly less special each time, because we have spoiled ourselves), not ready to buy a home, etc. And I kept repeating, as part of that litany, “And we don’t want kids.” So then I thought “Am I protesting too much?” and made a list of pros and cons, because I am a list maker, and asked husband what his intuition said, because he is an anti-list-maker, and it turns out we did in fact want to be parents. And now we’re pregnant. And it’s terrifying, but also exciting.
Anyway, it took me 10 years of marriage with a wonderful partner, and lots of getting adventures out of my system, before I was ready. Maybe there’s biological clockwork in there? I’m 31 now, he’s 35, we also decided if we ever wanted kids now was the time to go for it. We’re not remotely financially prepared.
for us it was sort of a logical progression: got married, spent a year in france, came back to US, got reliable job & a start to my career… I was 31. My husband is 5 years older and was the one to abandon his career in order to support mine and be the stay at home parent during the infant stage. It just worked out.
That said, I remember stressing about knowing whether it was “time,” and asking my professional colleagues who were also parents for advice. And the best advice I got was, there is no perfect time, there will always be something, so just go for it!
I’ve known I don’t want kids since I was 13. That was the first time anyone ever asked me about it. I mean, I WAS a kid and I knew I didn’t want them. That doesn’t really answer “how” or “why” I feel that way, but I’ve pretty much always felt it.
I’m thirty(cough) now and I still think about it often and I still feel the same way. So… if there is a “biological clock,” not everyone has it.
Likewise – I’m 26, and have never felt a desire to have children.
Same here. 38 and not so much as a murmur from my biological clock.
never wanted them, still don’t. i even met the right person and was still like “nah.” but also, i believe we are exactly the same age, so that might not be useful for you at all. 😉
I also was pretty sure I never wanted kids (though I had a few moments of ambivalence in my early 30’s) and then met “my person” and…am still pretty sure I don’t want kids – in case anyone wanted more backup that it’s totally possible to find your right person and not change your mind on children. I feel like Beardo and I could be good parents (and our children would be adorable, if very short), but the more time passes the more confident I am with our choice to be childfree.
My partner and I have been together for seven years, and I love him very much, but our relationship hasn’t made me change my mind about not wanting children one bit.
I always thought that all things being equal I’d enjoy having kids over not having them, met and married someone who felt the same way, got our careers and finances together and then decided that timeline wise now was the time to go for it.
I’m currently pregnant and still don’t have any sort of deep burning desire for children (and certainly no desire to actually be pregnant, although I’m not hating it or anything- but I’d totally use uterine replicators if they existed). Looking forward to meeting our new person and seeing how they turn out, though- watching and helping kids develop is so cool to me, so I think we’ll have a good time.
I have always been ambivalent about having kids, like I can imagine a perfectly good future both with and without them. My partner (male) really wanted one, so when I turned 33, I figured it was the time to start trying if we were going to do it. I have never ever had a strong urge for kids, though I kept expecting a switch to flip; even now, at 5 months pregnant, it still feels surreal.
For me, I always knew I wanted kids in an abstract “I want my life to include a multigenerational family” sort of sense. The decision on timing was harder and felt like a real leap, but essentially we had our ducks in a row and I wanted to get started by a certain age just because I knew I’d want more than one kid and figured we might need time to conceive, etc. I am not sure I felt “ready” so much as like if we were gonna do this, we’d better just do it.
Ironically, the decision on whether or not to have a third kid is harder for me than the decision on whether to have a first! (My second was an oops, so that was easy.)
I think I may have wanted kids for a very long time but recently changed my mind. I am not quite sure that my mind has changed… but I’m starting to think that a life with kids may not be the life for me (or my partner).
I thought I didn’t want kids a lot when I was younger. I did that whole kids are work and I won’t get stuck in those chains thing, and insisted I didn’t want them. But around 27-28 and I was fiscally secure and in a career and on top of my life game in general, I admitted to myself that I do actually want several conventional things- a monogamous marriage to a dude and 1-2 kiddos. And if I didn’t get them, that I think I’d probably adopt or foster slightly older children in my later 30s to 40s. I want people around me to love and live with, and this is one of the types I want.
I had to fight my own perception/branding of myself as the kind of woman who has a horror of kids to admit I actually like em. Kids are fun. Not all the time, but making it out like children are inherently dismal nighmares is unfair to who kids are as humans. Some of my friends had some pretty good kids, and I started volunteering with teens and preteens and I realized I was deeply charmed.
As for the biological clock, it can go fuck itself: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/10/f…
That is a fiction society invented. It’s real in the way bridezillas are real- which is to say if you create the vocabulary, the thing will come as everyone is finding ways to fit that label to themselves. But interestingly now that I know kind of my plan for kids, I’m not in a hectic rush, I just kind of know what my next steps are on that whole thing.
As stated above with that awesome link thanks to @eegghh, the biological clock is a myth (invented by a man, natch).
Buuuuuut the “clock feelings” I think are real for some. I always wanted kids when I was younger/through college. Then I graduated and all of a sudden my brain was like “wait, never do that” and I decided I didn’t even know if I wanted to be married or live anyone, let alone have children.
Now I’m at the tail end of my 20s and I’ve spent a good several months (post therapy) firmly ensconced in my acceptance that I want a mostly monogamous relationship for the rest of my life (if I could only find someone) and that I might want kids too. The kids part still ebbs and flows, but it really started up after I saw my friend have a baby and visited with her (she has the most chill baby of all time, so serious false advertising that I am FALLING FOR). I follow a ton of baby-focused instagrams now and find myself wondering about homebirth vs hospital and preschool philosophies.
*But* I’m still trying to figure it out because honestly, most of the time I think what I’m longing for is stability and that I’m feeling seriously “nest-y” to build a home (and I can’t right now) and I am asking myself if I just imprint kids in that picture because that’s what we are taught. And you know, instagrams of babies are great bc they are silent and cute.
I hope this answer *kind of* helped? I think I’m just a few steps up the questioning path from you, so at least you can see how I got “here”?
Two good friends of mine had babies, and it was the first time I’d seen someone like me – smart, ambitious, career-driven, kept their own last names upon marriage – become a mother. That’s what made it seem possible / attractive.
The biological clock was real for me. Didn’t want them until at least my late 20s. Couple of maybe years, then around 31 or 32 it became imperative to me. Am 35 now and have a baby. Very happy I did it.
I have always known biokids were not for me. And I am definitely an anomaly, in that I love kids, love hanging out with babies, talk to random kids in line at the store, can’t wait to be an aunt, etc. Edging towards 40, and no hint of a biological clock.
I’ve always liked kids and will almost certainly have some someday (I’m in my mid-twenties now, so no hurry), but for me it feels like the imperative comes partly from wanting to participate in the broader family unit? Like, I’m more excited about the idea of my parents getting to be grandparents (they’ll be such good grandparents! My mom works with kids all day and my grumpy old dad melts when you hand him a baby) than I am about getting to be a mom myself. But that might just be because this is all some years down the line for me and still feels petty abstract.
I didn’t want kids, at all, and then I met the husband and faced the difference between kids (other people’s kids) and wanting to have a specific person’s kids.
I heartily endorse everyone else’s points that this does not always apply, and in fact my mum still can’t believe I have two now.
I’m pretty realistic about it though; I obviously love them dearly but they represent the choice we made to massively compromise the life we have together. I always say there is definitely a version of us that doesn’t have kids, and those people are travelling, reading till 3am, going to the theatre on a whim and living it up and making risky life choices.
It’s a paradox that the thing you do with your favourite person can put distance between you.
You can definitely change your mind, but don’t worry if you don’t. I’d say that if you aren’t sure if you want kids, you shouldn’t have them. It’s not something you want to regret, it’s bloody hard work and it will change your life and your body and your mind forever.
I do wonder how it would feel to have wanted to do it younger though. I really felt my second pregnancy and can see some merit doing it with an, ahem, better physique.
Does everyone remember the Concrete Frog Murder story, which I first read about in the Toast back in May? A friend and I wrote a song about it, and we owe our inspiration to the Toast and you good folks. I’m at work now, so I’ll come back and post the words in a reply here this evening.
Song: The Concrete Frog Murder
Inspired By True Events Which Were First Drawn To Our Attention By The Toast*
Words: Teenybuffalo and Arrogantemu
Tune: Traditional (“Five Nights Drunk”)
While strolling out one evening
All to the church bazaar,
To see our friends and neighbors
And ask them how they are,
We met with Mrs. Johnson
A-sitting in the sun,
She said, “I’ve killed my husband,”
We said, “Pull the other one.”
CHORUS
“Oh no, you must believe me,
My husband Frank is dead,
I hit him with a concrete frog
And put him in the shed.”
When I went down the stylist’s
For a shampoo and set,
My hairdresser said to me,
“Have you heard the gossip yet?
Mrs. Johnson’s husband left her,
He must have gone away.”
“Well, that explains the tasteless joke
She made the other day.”
CHORUS
Mrs. Johnson lived all lonely
As the years went rolling on,
If you ask my opinion
She seemed glad that he was gone.
If Frank was ever mentioned
Down the pub on Friday night,
She’d always make the same sick joke–
We laughed to be polite.
CHORUS
Now amateur dramatics
Are a longtime love of mine,
I said, “I’m directing Hamlet,”
Mrs. Johnson said, “That’s fine,
I’ve got a skull that you can use,
It’s in the garden shed,
It belonged to my dead husband,”
“Not this again,” I said.
CHORUS
Now Mrs. Johnson passed away
Quite peacefully in bed,
We called a cleaning service
To clear out her garden shed,
They found a body in a tarp
All rolled up like a log,
And in the forehead was a dent
Shaped like a concrete frog.
FINAL CHORUS:
Whoever would have thought it?
She never even said!
That sweet old lady frogged poor Frank
And put him in the shed.
* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/19/accoun…
I feel like this kickstarter might be relevant to the Toast’s interests. (And I’m not at all motivated to spread the word because of wanting a discounted Saint Harridan suit, no…) The founder of Saint Harridan is trying to set up a gender-celebratory online clothing store. I’ve been a huge fan of Saint Harridan’s stuff, and I really do want this to succeed.
If nothing else, you should click through to check out the *fabulous* model for the Liquid top. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marygoing/ha…
I think that model is on Tumblr, doing motivational videos with some super fabulous makeup!
However I DO NOT AGREE with the sweatpants.
Yes, that’s Jeffrey! They have the most positive Vines.
Oh man, I just checked out their vine channel, and it’s amazing!
They go up to a woman’s US size 24 and a man’s US size 50. This is not a drill.
Me today.
Mr. Delperro decided to work from home, and although it’s summer and I DON’T WANNA I’m thisclose to fleeing to my office for some solitude.
Work related nonsense: I recently took a pay cut, because academia. I used to work as a German-English translator, and I was considering taking in some freelance work to help supplement my income. After last night’s news I’m wondering what the point is, because who wants to speak English anymore (I live in the us and have dual German-American citizenship).
In other news, if the world economy collapses, Mr. Delperro and I might actually be able to afford a house (we live in the SF bay area).
But on the bright side, it’s fucking negroni season.
I will miss you all terribly. This commentariat kept me sane through my European postdoc, the struggle of finding a TT job, book contract drama and the early phases of my marriage (which happened at the same time as all of the above). I can’t believe this is the penultimate open thread. I’ll see you all on Reddit or slack or the Hairpin (perhaps we can make Medium bend to our will)
END OF SEASON ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SPOILERS IN THE REPLY
THERE BE SPOILERS HERE
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I know that #LesbiansMorghulis is trending hard this year and I’ve gotten somewhat desensitized to it but the decision by a mostly white group of writers to kill off the show’s black androgynous heartthrob to ‘teach’ their audience about Black Lives Matter really disgusts me.
Way to kill off a beloved black lesbian in yet another ‘oh look this middle class white woman is a fish out of water’ story. I am so done with the notion that audiences need a white anchor to carry a series like this. Let’s prove that Black Lives Matter to us by making black people the centre of the fucking story instead of a backdrop for white characters. Piper is an insufferable narcissist and I don’t give a shit about her journey. The protagonist in this show should always have been Taystee (or Poussey, or Ruiz, or Red, or Suzanne, or Sophia, or Flaca or Gloria…) I would rather revisit the Ross and Rachel rollercoaster than spend another minute watching Piper and Alex reconnect. This is what white feminism looks like.
SPOILERS~~~~
I’M SO FUCKING MAD. I’m done with this show. I had a friend express a really similar sentiment: http://wearyourvoicemag.com/more/entertainment/or…
Thank you for sharing this, it touches on so much of what I resent about OITNB.
THIS. I was pretty appalled that this was explicity designed to represent the BLM movement. Like, the very sympathetic totally oblivious kiddo guard accidentally killing her? Ugh. Stephanie Jean put it very well in an article for blastingnews: “when you’re dealing with police brutality and black death, the illusion of nuance can also be very much dangerous”.
Really highlights to me how despite OINTB’s apparent inclusivity, it really isn’t by or for WoC or queer women. We need more shows written by these actual groups.
God I miss her character already. And also – fuck Judy King and that whole storyline.
Boooooo Judy King. Her only positive contribution was to be Poussey’s after-prison fairy godmother (although I’m slightly skeptical she would’ve done it) and NOPE, can’t do that anymore, no point to your existence Judy King.
I thought this season was *interesting*, but what scares me a little is that I didn’t even make the connection that killing off pretty much my favorite character on whom the emotional sun rose and set was supposed to be in reference to BLM. If that’s what they were going for it sailed right past this white feminist’s head, possibly because I was crying so hard. Far too often plots “ripped from today’s headlines” are not just tone-deaf but strikingly offensive.
I’ve been planning to start a podcast for a while now but as I gear up to actually do it I realize I know nothing about making a podcast. Does anybody have any tips?
There was a good episode of Call Your Girlfriend where they talk about the how of doing it. I think maybe it’s episode 15?
this doesn’t go into too much detail but might be a good starting point? http://bust.com/diy/15074-how-to-create-your-own-…
apparently transom is a great resource!
In one of those later episodes of Oh Witch Please, one of the ones where they’re live at a university (I’m at work so can’t look it up quickly), they talk a lot about making a podcast, with specifics about mics and software and editing and hosting… I have only slightly considered a podcast before and I found it fascinating.
I am very late to this thread, but if you’re looking for tips on audio media more generally This American Life has a ‘how to make a radio story’ pamphlet that seems like it might be a good resource.
Good luck 🙂
Hi everyone. At work, but quick question for the olds. Is the Reddit thing still happening? How do I Reddit?
Will slack distract me constantly?
I am looking forward to clevermanka’s site.
What are my options and tell me how to social media, please.
Slack will take over your life. You have been warned.
I’ve been waiting for the Toast to end (*quiet sobbing*) before really focusing on the Slack because I can casually peruse the Toast at work, but I have a feeling I will get sucked in by the Slack and not be able to get out.
Nervous about this too! Twitter is bad enough; this is why I haven’t joined instagram or tumblr…
Worth it, though, right?
(i find instagram to be a lovely little app and not much of a time-suck at all. this isn’t toast-related, but if you’re considering expanding your social media world but don’t want to fall into a wormhole, IG is nice and fine.)
a bunch of people found each other on instagram started by people last week. I think we all need to have a signature thing on there, some sort of signal so everyone knows where to find the friendly misandrists 🙂 There are lots of cute pets and small children and some talented crafty toasts that impress me immensely!
How do we find people on Instagram?
This. I have never Redditted nor Slacked in my life, but would still like to Toastwitch.
The subreddit is reddit.com/r/toastcrumbs. to Reddit you can just signup for an account. Slack will distract you constantly (as it has been doing me since I joined like… 3 days ago) and it is also amazing. You can email ppyajunebug for an invite.
ppyajunebug@. . .? I wants to join!
gmail
I have looked at toastcrumbs but not followed up. I have such an instilled mistrust of reddit.
Thank you! I hope my site can give you something!
I am terrible at social media, too (my twitter is just embarrassing) and the slack thing is overwhelming to me and I haven’t had time to figure out how to navigate it or the reddit but I know they’re active! Best wishes finding a space that works for you! I’m glad there are a few options out there to help us stay in touch.
Re: Slack, I am finding I can really only keep up with one really active channel (hey #workouts :D) and a few less active channels and the rest I just have to let pass me by 🙁
I didn’t realize there were smaller channels! GOOD TO KNOW. I’ll give it a spin in July, thank you!
We have channels for everything you could think of (and if not we can always make more). There is an Open Thread channel that is very busy, but most the others are much quieter and more focused.
Yeah, I can get obsessed with one or two channels but have to back out of the really busy ones – open thread and link roundup will always give me panics. It’s fun to get to know people a bit in the smaller channels and then see them pop up in the bigger ones, too.
I love that whatever I think of, there’s a channel for it. (And for everything I could never think of, too.)
Slack will distract you constantly.
Slack can distract you constantly BUT if you have multiple slack accounts you can pretty heavily change the notifications between different groups/channels (this may seem obvious, but at least for me I was super overwhelmed with the slack chat at first because it drowned out the notifications for my actual important work slack until I figured out how to way tone things down. Decreased notifications + some getting over my FOMO about it = it can now be completely consuming when I have nothing else to do but I’m better at ignoring it when I do have things to do). Slack’s default is definitely aggressive on the notifications and the settings are not always in the most intuitive place, but it’s definitely possible to get it to leave you alone.
Also, in a random but hopefully not too weird/creepy aside, I saw a lax mom bumper sticker (in SF, where there is not much lax) and thought of you the other day
I find getting over the FOMO really difficult. Anybody have any tips on dealing with that?
I’ve found it useful to think of it more as a live chat than something that is archived, especially with the big channels. For the smaller channels I scroll back and read through things I’ve missed, but for the really active ones I don’t even try even if I have the time, which has helped a bit.
I mostly don’t try to bother to catch up. You are able to mute channels which can help as well.
I just found out I’m pregnant (it’s a good, happy thing) and as happy as I am about it, I am still sad I will not have the Toast hive mind through the pregnancy. Y’all have helped me through so much and I love you.
So if you have any I will take your pregnancy advice, product suggestions, etc. so I can look at it in the post-Toast world.
Congratulations! Eat lots of protein to help mitigate morning sickness. Don’t bother reading too much about pregnancy – it’s gonna do what it’s gonna do – use your time to read up on babies: what they are for, how to tame them, whether they should be sold for cheese. If you even have the slightest notion that you might be having PPD or PPA, tell your doctor straight away, waiting around will only make things worse for everyone. The scissor kind of baby nail clippers are much easier to use than the clipper kind.
“What they are for, how to tame them, whether they should be sold for cheese.”
You are perfect.
There’s a pregnancy channel on the Toastie Slack for your hive-mind needs through the next many months 🙂
I keep putting off joining the slack (I think I’m still in denial), but it sounds like I absolutely need to join up!
Ooh did not know this, I’ve been resisting joining Toastie Slack so as not to totally tank my productivity at work, but productivity be damned!
Congrats!! My one pregnancy tip, and keep in mind that I am 6 months along for the first time so basically I know nothing Jon Snow, is that it is ok and normal to start showing in like, week 12, and it is ALSO ok and normal to be months along and not show at all. I got really freaked out around 20 weeks because I didn’t look any different, and I didn’t feel any different, and I couldn’t feel the baby move yet, and I kept wondering if I was having a hysterical pregnancy like Mary I, except… one that showed up on a scan? I dunno, pregnancy fears aren’t rational. But now I am 26 weeks and have a little bump AND I can feel the baby move all the time and it’s great.
that would be a very strong hysterical pregnancy!
This is actually really helpful! I’m obviously super early, but I have pretty much no symptoms–the few symptoms I do have are actually less pronounced than my typical PMS stuff. The only weird thing I have is I can feel something happening in my uterus. Like, it’s not cramping, it’s just like there’s something happening–kind of like when somebody touches unexpectedly you and then you can still kind of feel it after? Except in my uterus. It’s weird.
Of course, I might be tempting fate and I’ll wake up tomorrow and that’s when the morning sickness will hit. 🙂
I had absolutely no morning sickness, so sometimes it just doesn’t happen to. The first thing I noticed about my pregnancy was my chest expanding a cup size! This happened with the first couple weeks, even! I just figured it might have been due to my body getting used to no BC hormones after 16 years of use, but then when my period was didn’t happen, I finally put all those signs together.
Everyone will give you advice. If you like, listen to the people who you trust. But it is also fine to listen to just your doctor and yourself. Don’t let all the messages about what you have to do to have the most perfectest pregnancy and therefore perfectest child make you crazy — keep yourself as healthy and as happy as you can throughout the pregnancy.
Oh, and the first few months after the kid arrives are indeed really hard and don’t feel bad if you have a hard time. It really does get better.
Congratulations!
Here are things that were helpful during my pregnancy with #1. (Currently 23 weeks with #2 and everything is going great and yay, babies for everyone!)
– Expecting Better by Emily Oster
– Definitely not What to Expect, Girlfriend’s Guide, or Your Pregnancy Week by Week
– Alphamom’s pregnancy calendar
– Reading up a lot on the mechanics of labor so I knew what was happening and what was normal
Congrats! Generally, everything will be okay, and if things are not going to be okay there’s more or less fuck all you can actually do about it with your personal behavior, with the exception of not ingesting, like, actual poison, especially in the first trimester. You will be okay.
If you have the budget, for the love of all that is good buy maternity things and new bras when you are uncomfortable instead of suffering another month for no reason. But I would also buy a few things at a time rather than whole wardrobes since your body may change more or differently than you expect early on.
And apparently since there’s a toast slack channel for pregnancy, I’ll stop procrastinating on signing up for slack and see you over there…
I’m trying to go through as much as the summer as possible without buying anything beyond jersey skirts, but I have now gone up to cup sizes and have made some emergency purchases. I’ve started getting nursing ones so I don’t feel like I’m buying a bra for just a few months.
Nordstrom’s will convert nursing bras into regular ones for not too much money if you find normal ones you like better. I’m on my second round of new bras at 25 weeks- the comfort is more than worth the money for me, but it’s all so personal- I’m mostly pro doing what makes you comfy and anti unnecessary discomfort since there’s so much you have to put up with during pregnancy anyways! Also jersey skirts are the best.
That Nordstrom advice might be a game changer. Wow.
Sorry- regular bras into nursing bras (not sure why you’d do it the other way around?). It’s also a pretty easy DIY if you sew – just buy the clips and sew them in.
Ha, I didn’t even catch the mixed up bras. I just assumed regular into maternity.
I’m about 5 months right now, and I thought I’d have to do lots of pregnancy stuff, but it really kind of takes care of itself as long as you follow some basic rules about it (rules varying based on doctors and country of pregnancy but whatever).
I ended up getting one book: From the Hips by R. Odes & C. Morris. It’s colorful and mostly evidence-based and not full of bummers, but I mainly like it for the month-by-month breakdown. I’m sure lots of other books will give you the same information, though, so use your best judgement. I also kind of use the app Ovia Pregnancy which is also totally sufficient.
One major piece of advice, unless you have super specific questions, DO NOT GO ONTO RANDOM PREGNANCY FORUMS! Everything is terrible on those, and people use them instead of actual medical advice (“I’m too embarrassed to ask my doctor why I’m bleeding”), which terrifies me. I mean, I know there are total issues with the whole pregnancy/medical-industrial industry and not everyone can find a doctor who is accessible for a variety of reasons, but please for the love of anything ask your medical practitioner of your choice about things like BLOOD.
One more thing! If you’re thinking of looking for a doula (this might be super early to think about), which was highly, highly recommended to me for a variety of reasons, it can take a lot of time to find one. I went through interviews with 6 before finding someone who I felt comfortable with AND could work with my due date. I’m an evidence-based, over-researching scientist, and I learned that a lot of doulas just aren’t, which may or may not matter to you, so i was being pretty picky. I also live in a city but not a huge city, so that probably didn’t help.
Congrats! Don’t try to overload yourself with information or prepare for every eventuality. Take stuff as it comes, and when the going gets rough, remember that everything is temporary.
I liked the book “The Science of Mom” for evidence-based but very understanding and nonjudgmental infant advice.
Trumpette and Robeez are the only baby socks that stay on.
Thumbs up for Science of Mom.
When I was younger spacefem.com was my forum community of choice, and the site founder has a ton of fun stuff on her website (including a due date survey/statistics, because she’s an engineer!) as well as a pregnancy/parenting forum that I assume is full of lovely people: http://spacefem.com/pregnant/
Congrats! My little guy is more than 1 year old now but here are some things that made my pregnancy easier.
– A body pillow to support your changing body while sleeping. I really liked the Snoogle because it’s a C-shape and you can really wrap it around yourself. This thing was the only reason I slept during my last few weeks.
– Compression stockings. It’s normal for you to retain water and have swollen legs at the end of the day as you go on in pregnancy. Compression stockings help move the water back up your body so your legs don’t get as swollen and so they don’t ache as much at the end of the day. You can get a prescription from your doctor for them if your insurance will cover them, but they’re also sold at CVS-type places and look like regular stockings.
– If you are planning to breastfeed, I highly recommend taking a prenatal breastfeeding class if they are available in your area. Most hospitals offer classes after the baby is born, but I found it to be so helpful to already have some knowledge going in. You’re way less sleep-deprived and hormonal and stressed before you go through childbirth and so you’re way more likely to retain information.
Also, know that the first 6-8 weeks after they’re born are the hardest, but also know that you will get through it. At the end of that time, they start smiling at you, which is the best.
And finally, DON’T GOOGLE!! Googling is guaranteed to give you the absolute worst-case, most terrifying scenarios no matter what you search for. Ask your OB for websites she/he trusts that you can go to for questions about your pregnancy. After the baby is born, <a href=”http://www.healthychildren.org” target=”_blank”>www.healthychildren.org is run by the American Academy of Pediatrics and has excellent, plain-language, and non-judgemental explanations of normal child development as well as common concerns/illnesses. Good luck! You’ll be a great parent!
Congrats! Lots of great advice here already. Don’t worry if you don’t enjoy being pregnant but hopefully you will. Other people will be way more excited than you for the first 4 months because it will just seen a bit surreal. Then you’ll feel the baby move and it will be a bit different.
Spend time by yourself doing things that make you happy, as you’ll not have much time for yourself for a good while after the baby comes.
It’s been said, but don’t worry that the first part of really hard. Try not to over compare, though you inevitably will. You’ll either get a sleeper or you won’t; it’s neither your fault or your victory. There are advantages to both.
If a sling is your bag, my ergo is hands down the best thing I bought. It also helped me bond with my refluxey, grumpy baby.
Don’t buy stuff till you need it, apart from muslin cloths because you can use them for everything (when the baby gets older they are good for doll blankets or house cleaning too).
Look forward to losing your inhibitions and singing in public, making silly faces and exposing yourself accidentally and on purpose.
I hope everything goes really well for you!
I finally ditched all the book except 2 –
Jane Goodall’s Chimps of Gombe and all her follow on books gave me some idea of the organism I was going to be dealing with, and
Miss Manners Guide to Raising Perfect Children showed me the places I was aiming at.
Oh and I am a HUGE HUGE HUGE fan of How to Talk so kids will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk, which has some of the same ideas as Nonviolet Communication and is also the best management tool for actual work situations EVAR.
So there you have it: biological underpinnings, basic communication skills, and long term goals, in one short shelf of books.
Toasts! I’m looking for book recommendations by from non-white authors and non-Western (European/American/Australian) authors. I’m from India, but have lived in the US for the last 6 years, and there’s a distinct difference between Indian authors who write for Americans and Indian authors who write for Indians- I much prefer the latter.
I’m fairly familiar with any of the big name foreign authors who make it over to the US- so I have a good idea of the Nobel Prize Winners, Booker Prize winners e.g: so no Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Mohsin Hamid recommendations. I’m into all genres besides sci/fi.
Tell me what you like! Tell me what y’all read in school, or what you learned about in a weirdly specific world literature class 🙂
I loved Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (from Zimbabwe), and I never understood why it doesn’t get more love, it is a great book. I also just finished Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (from Ghana, but moved to the US) which totally lived up to all the hype it has been getting.
Just what I’m looking for, thank you!
edit: I’m OP, just remembered my username lol.
I just recommended Léonora Miano in the Toast Slack (and there’s a google doc with other wonderful recs) but as a N.B. or whatnot, there were some issues with the English translation of her work.
That is fine, thank you!! And how might I get google doc access?? Do I need to join Slack?
edit: I’m OP, just remembered my username lol.
For slack, you send an email to ppyajunebug [at] gmail [dot] com and that’s that! Then there’s a link with an invite. If you want to use an alternate email for privacy reasons, mention that I think.
I like Kamila Shamsie a lot. She’s Pakistani, now living in London I believe. The first book of hers I read was Broken Verses, which I loved in college, and then just recently I read and really enjoyed A God in Every Stone. They’re very different books thematically, but I really like her writing style and sense of place.
Wish I could remember more from my Persian Lit class! I’m old.
I’m OP, just remembered my username.
Replying to my own comment to give Indian fiction recommendations:
Written in English:
Aatish Taseer (but not Temple Goers, read the other ones)
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi- ( the Mirror of Beauty: a really long sprawling epic. He’s a baller who wrote this in urdu and did his own translations into Hindi and English)
Vikram Seth (warning, long)
Amitav Ghosh (Ibis Trilogy, Hungry Tide)
Manju Kumar
Siddharth Dhavanth Sanghvi
Anita Desai
Bharati Mukherjee
Rabindranath Tagore (old, but good)
Written in other languages, but good translations should be available:
Sadaat Hassan Manto (Bombay stories)- he also ended up being Pakistani after partition
Ismat Chughtai
KR Meera
Mahadevi Varma (kind of dated, but good)
I love Mariama Bâ.
Also you might like Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.
I really enjoyed Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera. It’s quite short and impressionistic and has a dreamlike quality. If you’re okay not knowing precisely what’s happening in a book at all times you might like it!
Are you interested in literature and human rights? If so, I strongly recommend:
Alicia Partnoy’s “The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina”
Edwige Danticat’s “The Farming of Bones”
Julia Alvarez’s “In the Time of the Butterflies”
Partnoy’s poetry collections (published as bilingual Spanish/English editions in the US) are excellent too — “Revenge of the Apple”, “Little Low Flying” and “Flowering Fires”.
I would also recommend:
NoViolet Bulawayo’s “We Need New Names”
Jackie Kay’s “Trumpet”
Laline Paull’s “The Bees”
Sandra Cisneros’ “Loose Woman” (poetry collection)
Su Tong’s “Raise the Red Lantern” (three novellas)
Jiang Rong’s “Wolf Totem”
Thanks for the Indian fiction recommendations.
Raising a glass (sadly of coffee and NOT a Negroni) to the wonderful Bartender! Come on down to NOLA and we will get frozen Negronis (this is a thing) and take pictures of fantastic food down here!
Frozen Negronis sound like the kind of thing that would prove dangerous for my life and limb also gimme all of them.
Strongly seconded.
Thirded–I made an actual, audible gasp as I read the words ‘frozen Negronis’.
NOLA represent!
Behold https://www.instagram.com/p/BGVHTwROLwK/
I’m coming! In September and again next June! I’ll be in touch. Though never again via the-toast. Sigh. Hope you got a tote!
Of course I got a tote. I abandoned my family to log on and secure a ship. Never doubt me.
Let me know the September dates asap, I am on a fellowship in the fall and only in town spo-rad-ic-ally (you need to say this in Tai from Clueless’s voice).
Yeah to frozen Negronis!
What a ride! You’ve helped me get my mental health in order, and made me feel less alone. I hope we will all meet up again somewhere.
And this weekend I will ready and mail my mixed CD and summer care package!!
have summer care package matches been made?
I got mine June 10th – maybe email [email protected] if you haven’t gotten yours yet?
Thanking you! I’m hoping I get matched soon–shopping and crying go together well.
Toasties, I seek advice about managing my mother’s expectations. My wife is pregnant, and my mom is over the moon (her reaction to my marrying a lady: “Two uteruses means I’m twice as likely to have a grandbaby!!”)
However, my mom also expects things I didn’t imagine. For example, she expected to go to an ultrasound with us. I wouldn’t mind but my wife does, so I gently told my mother no. She expects us to have a baby shower, but my wife hates baby showers, so I’ve told my mother that’s extremely unlikely to happen. She was more understanding of the ultrasound-no than the shower-no. :/ I’ve also had to tell my mom not to touch my wife’s belly, or tell Facebook before we make it public, sigh. The list goes on, but I’m starting to dread whatever lurks in the foggy future.
Basically, my wife is a private person and my mom, although sweet and kind, hates boundaries. The mom-boards probably have a lot of people who could advise me on boundary setting during pregnancy, but frankly I feel allergic to those boards and would rather ask you all. What tricky mom situations did you all navigate during pregnancy, either your own or a partner’s?
Also, do you have recs for ways to involve my mom, while emphasizing my support for my wife? That’s my strongest preference – I don’t care about showers or Facebook as much as I do about my wife’s bodily autonomy and emotional comfort, you know?
I didn’t really have any tricky mom situations, as I am very lucky! Good on you for helping to set boundaries now though – it will only get more critical when there is an actual baby to deal with. Hm, now that I think about it though, my dad told everyone he knew about my first pregnancy immediately (six or seven weeks I think?) and then when I miscarried at ten weeks, HE DIDN’T TELL ANYONE THAT so they all thought I was still pregnant, like for months, and boy wasn’t that exciting! We’ve had some lectures on the meaning of the word “secret” since then. He didn’t tell about the second (successful) pregnancy as far as I know.
One thing that occurs to me – your mom can have a shower, and invite her friends, but y’all don’t have to go! Your first priority is definitely keeping your wife safe, but if there are compromises that can make your mother feel loved and included, everyone wins.
Oh gosssh, having to tell people months later about the miscarriage sounds so hard. I’m sorry you experienced that, and I’m glad your dad was a little more low-key after that. It’s lovely that they’re excited and want to tell their people! But early pregnancy is a tough time that way.
I think some kind of party which is not a baby shower is probably the way to go, yeah. A way for my mom to express her excitement without our having to participate so directly sounds great! Thanks for the idea!
Would your wife be open to a special dinner with your mum, where you can show her the ultrasound pictures/video, so that she feels like she’s being involved but it doesn’t make for a huge event?
We’ve shown her the ultrasound photos as soon as we get them, yeah – she loves that. But a special, baby-centric dinner is a good idea. It makes me think about shopping, actually – maybe we can take my mom with us to shop for a crib or some other super exciting thing, then dinner after. I’ll bring that up – thanks!!
Moms love to shop for cribs, generally.
If a shower is a no-go (which I 100% get–those can be absolutely Hey Ladies levels of awful) would a party be off the table? Something for the both of you, friends, and family to celebrate with food and laughter and no terrible games. That way it can be as low key as you need it to be and still gives your mom a chance to enjoy a celebration of her grandbaby.
Of course, if a party like this is still too much for partner, maybe do a family get together–like a cookout or a day trip to a beach or park.
For the rest, my husband has taught his mother to ask permission of me for most things. Just hearing “Would it be OK if I ____” and being able to say “no, I’d prefer not” to or “yes, that would be fine” has helped immensely create good boundaries and encourage a relationship with good dialogue.
Yeah, we just went to a shower for a friend who is very Hey Ladies to begin with, and it was exactly…that. ALL that. So I think my wife’s discomfort has a recent enough reinforcement that anything like a traditional shower is off the table.
However, I’m definitely thinking now that some kind of non-shower party, no gifts and no group games, might fly. I know my wife would go for it – if I let my mom decorate, and maybe take her out for a special baby-related event beforehand, might be good. I don’t want to reject her excitement, you know? Just channel it.
I’ll work on getting my mom to ask my wife’s permission, too. She tends to ask AS she’s already doing the thing she wants to do. If I positively reinforce the behavior I want to see – hey that’s good practice for parenting, right?
I went to a baby-welcoming-party that was called “Hey Baby!” and was just a big party with nice food. People could bring presents if they wanted, and were thanked of course, but presents went on a table in another room with the lights switched off and no food in it, and the party was clearly happening elsewhere. I think there was one activity — you could collage on a big piece of fabric that was supposed to be decor for baby’s bedroom but never ended up that way — but otherwise it was just a party of the couple’s friends. And I think we were all grateful it was not a traditional cutesy shower, very much attendees included! Maybe a good compromise?
Maybe instead of a shower, you could enlist her to go shopping with you for nursery furniture or diapers or whatever you need to shop for? My mom is pretty good about giving me space, but she loves shopping with me around life changes (like dorm stuff for college, a suit for job interviews, etc.) and it’s maybe less overwhelming than a party. But I think you’re smart for prioritizing your wife’s comfort here, since (a) she’s pregnant and (b) your mom will probably be psyched about the baby whether or not she gets to throw it a party.
Good luck. (I’m not a mom but I have some boundary setting experience and I come from an extended family with many mothers without good boundaries so I’ve observed misc relatives go through this.)
Are there specific things that you and your mom can do together (that your wife doesn’t care about)? Like shopping for baby things or painting the nursery, etc? And are there things your mom could do that would help you/your wife that wouldn’t involve your wife? One of my relatives would ask her extremely overbearing mom to shop / clean etc so she could rest – she actually did need to rest (and to get a break from her mom) and her mom got to help out and feel needed.
Be really calm when setting boundaries – it’s not a problem, you just need your mom to do or not do X (and if she can’t respect that you’ll need to calmly cut back on contact).
Control the information you give her – try just telling her stuff on a need to know basis. I grew up telling my mom everything, so this one was hard for me to figure out – but I was so much happier once I realized I didn’t need to tell her minor things that would just worry her / drive me insane because of her worry.
And I second the suggestion re letting your mom throw a shower for the two of you that your wife doesn’t have to go to, that’s attended by her friends. The gifts will help you guys out and your mom will get to share her excitement with her peers.
The thing that has helped me most this pregnancy is keeping my husband firmly between me and my overly enthusiastic in-laws at all times, as pregnancy has not exactly increased my stores of patience and sweetness and light. And never assuming that my in laws will know where the boundaries are unless we tell them. If your wife very much just does not want to deal with your mom, then seeing yourself up to be the sacrificial lamb for boundary enforcing and pregnancy/ grandchild excitement is definitely the way to go.
The next hot button item is probably labor and delivery- what is your wife comfortable with in terms of visitors/ people in the room/calls & update frequency/ waiting in the waiting room vs. at home etc.? Not telling people until after delivery is a popular option. Visitor time & frequency after birth is another one.
Well, I rely on the white lie in these situations where possible. “Mom, it really triggers her morning sickness to have her belly touched.” And gentle requests for compromise, “Babe, mom is so happy; this is a dream for her. Maybe in place of a shower we could have a small, official, this-is-really-happening brunch?”
I am also a private person and was leery of what pregnancy would bring. I found most people would go with what I laid down as law without question. However, if you are looking to not disappoint your mom but also respect your wife’s desires, maybe compromise from all sides? Find out what your mom realyl wants and find a way to offer some version of some of it, find out what your wife really neeeds and find a way to protect some inviolable stuff. People just need to be specific about their “that will happen when pigs fly” “I would prefer not to deal with that” and “ugh, I guess” so all that can be negotiated.
I have found with clingy parents or people, that between being so damn excited, having a deep investment, and fearign that it will go away, if you can reassure them, the boundaries will be easier to make. Reassure your mom that she is loved and wanted and will have a space in the baby’s life but meanwhile you and your wife are figuring out what you need and want as parents and partners. She needs to understand that.
I am so sorry it has fallen on you to do so. Make sure you get some needs and wants here, too.
Honestly? Do the baby shower. For all of the shower silliness it is bringing you guys into the community of Moms. Those babies are a lot of work and expense. Let people in (including your Mom). They want to help, they want to love your whole family. You can’t make it as a parent with accepting the love and help of others. Start now.
My advice would be simply to stay on top of it and to listen to your wife’s concerns, and just be really thoughtful about the compromises you make. Your mom sounds like my MIL, but I didn’t really clue into the boundary-pushing until my oldest daughter was one and my in-laws were talking about moving a mile away, right next to my kid’s future school, and taking my kid before and after elementary school every day. (A of all, she was one! Second of B, I mommy-tracked myself to have a goddamn flexible schedule, do you really think I’m gonna outsource my kids to you? Anyway, luckily that fell through.)
Things you may deal with: Wanting to be in the delivery room. Endless begging to babysit or leave the baby overnight so you can “get away!” Buying all holiday/birthday/etc clothes (didn’t think I cared until I realized I occasionally want to dress my own kids). Overgifting in general.
If you set the boundaries and expectations before your wife’s resentment builds up, she’ll probably be much more likely to include your mom in things. Subsuming my ‘mom experience’ for my MIL’s ‘grandma experience’ for a year really damaged my attitude toward her, and it’s something I’m still working through.
Is this your mom’s first grandchild? If so, a Grandma Shower is your answer. I have seen such a thing and it is wonderful. All the friends of Grandma-to-Be give her gifts, all the stuff she’s gonna want so she can be the Best Grandma. Books about respect for baby’s parents’ boundaries can be included. 😉
I am *madly* in love with this idea, RoseCamelia. I can’t wait for one of my kids to become an expecting dad so I can invite you to my Grandma Shower!
I’ll be there with bells on, GrannyMel! But you will not need the book about boundaries. You could write one, given your experience raising stellar sons.
However, let’s not rush. Your sons are still too young, in my book, to be fathers.
But when the grandbabies come, please introduce me. I love other peoples’ babies.
The father-in-law of one of my friends was SO excited to become a grandfather that he had a grandfather shower when my friend had her first baby. It was great – all of his buddies got together and gave him stuff to be the best grandfather.
First of all, congratulations!
My life is awash in mom-boundary and mil-boundary troubles, and I sympathize greatly. Getting boundaries that you and your wife are comfortable with set and sticking to them even when others state that they are unreasonable is key. We live far from our parents (in part because of the boundary issues), so when we had our kids we imposed a week-long moratorium on out-of-town visitors so we could get settled into a routine without external pressure. The moms were furious, but our doc-friends thought it was a brilliant plan to maintain sanity, and we stuck with it. We still struggle with mom boundaries, but have learned to negotiate the waters around touchy (and well-meaning!) grandmothers in the 5 years (and 2 kids) since.
If your mom has boundary issues that affect your spouse, you are probably going to be the one who has to deal with them. The basic rule in my house is your family, your problem. I talk to my mom when she’s out of line, and Mr.ality deals with his. That way we present a united front, which is important.
If you want some support on this, please feel free to get in touch. I’m Kate at hoult dot ca and would happily help if you need it.
Last night the neighbors moved a historic house from a place where it was going to be destroyed into the yard next door.
The cat reacted to houses moving around next door pretty much exactly like he reacted to there being a bear next door. He woke me up and demanded that I look, and then when I sort of ambled away after a quick glance he wound around my legs, certain that I had not seen the house! Moving! Next! Door!
Human! Why are you not properly alarmed?!
is this my last chance to use the toast hivemind?? I’m going to be in Washington DC for a weekend in July – spending some time with a friend, but gonna have some days to myself. What is unmissable? And where should I eat? Is there a cake shop I Should Not Miss? Best Sandwich in the City worth spending all my now worthless british pounds on??
I am obsessed with the brunch at Le Diplomate, FWIW. Would highly recommend. That or the Farmers Fishers Bakers brunch.
YES to Le Diplomate. Get the bread basket and feel joy.
omg vanilla french toast…. (is it weird in the usa to have brunch by yourself?)
My experiences eating by myself in restaurants in the US is that the waiters will sometimes be surprised that you’re by yourself, but no one has ever been rude to me. So I’d say go for it. It’s SO good. I second thrice baked potato’s recommendation of the bread basket.
Brunch by myself is one of my great joys…
Also a lot of restaurants (even chi-chi places) serve their full menu at the bar, and solo diners at the bar are totally normal. Even at brunch.
The Spy Museum! Baked and Wired! Policy has happy hour and delicious fries or at least did the last time I was in DC!
Seconding Baked and Wired. We had their cupcakes for our wedding. It was A+
“Spy Camp is specifically designed for agents age 10 to 13”. Well FINE Spy Museum. Not like I wanted to go to Spy Camp or anything. 😉
You can do Spy at Night! Which I guess is now called Operation Spy, according to the website.
I used to work at B&W! So glad folks recommend it still!
The Spy Museum is so much fun! It’s super interactive and you can choose a cover identity!
If you’re still there on Sunday go to the Dupont Circle Farmers Market! Eat a Red Zebra Pizza, they are divine. Come by Firefly Farms (simply bonkers goat cheese) and eat a bunch of free samples.
I am biased cuz I work for both of those vendors, but they really are both superb and the market is generally lovely!
I will be there on sunday! and i do love cheese.
An old high school friend of mine works at Firefly Farms! Small world!
hah no way! A good place to work, especially for the access to cheese I could never, ever afford otherwise.
My favorite thing one summer was to take whole peaches, halved and pitted, and bake them in foil for a little while, then serve them with a dollop of Firefly almond/honey chevre in the space where the pit had been. Maybe a little finely julienned basil on top. All summer on a plate.
The Greek exhibit at the National Geographic Museum (unusually for DC, there’s an admission charge) is really worth a visit, and the Iron Gate Tavern and the Tabard Inn nearby are hidden oases for recharging if you’re tired from trekking around in the heat. The Cakeroom can satisfy a taste for sweets or coffee, but personally I’d go across the street to Jack Rose for the enormous selection of scotches. Not far away is Hank’s Oyster Bar, where the happy hour deals are pretty spectacular, as are the cocktails.
Stay hydrated! It’s likely to be hot enough that you can indulge in one of our signature treats, the rocket pop, a red white and blue ice pop sold at nearly every hot dog truck near the Mall. (Skip the hot dogs. Even Ben’s are overrated.)
I heartily second the advice to STAY HYDRATED. The only time I’ve ever nearly fainted from dehydration was during July in DC. I spend a lot of time outside in the summer, but DC is a crucible.
Wait, is a rocket pop really a DC thing? I’ve been in this area my entire life and they are just WHAT A POPSICLE IS to me.
To expand on the museums thing, because they’re air-conditioned, free, and full of good stuff, the rotunda of the National Gallery is a very beautiful place to sit for a while, and the cafe downstairs has a gorgeous fountain. Across the sunbleached hellscape of the Mall, you can brave the hordes of children at the National Air and Space museum for a chance to touch a moon rock and see various flying machineries.
I forgot to add that my favorite place for lunch not too far from Nat Geo is the unprepossessing CF Folks, a lunch-only place where the daily menu is Whatever The Chef/Owner Wants To Make; he leaves up a mood board that ranges from “Mean and Rough” to “We Are Victims Too” to “Fawning,” but while the service is definitely informal verging on familiar, it’s quite sweet, and the food is reliably good.
If you prefer to stroll in the shade and get away from large crowds, Rock Creek Park runs through the center of the city and has some underexplored treats, including a small nature center and lots of hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails. Take bug spray, of course, but you can get to it on most of the S bus lines or by walking onto it near P Street in Dupont.
Oh hey, I work at that museum! Hit me up if you are a visiting Toast (any of you!) and come to see the exhibit, I would love to say hi!
come eat our pupusas!!!!! there are lots of places eat them in columbia heights/adams morgan!!!
if you have time, try to get a bite at Thip Khao! Laotian food! also in columbia heights. ramen is A Thing people in DC like to stand in line for, Daikaya is “easier” to get seated at (also the bar across the street has a great happy hour for while you’re waiting) but Toki Underground (seats like 10 people) is my faaaave.
shake shack for fast food!
whatever museums the other toasties recommend!
Drink sangria in the sculpture garden next to the National Gallery while wearing a fabulous hat and acting mysterious.
This is very fun. If you’re there on a Friday, they have free jazz performances in the sculpture garden! (Plus the aforementioned sangria.)
i probably can’t pull off ‘mysterious’ – it’ll just be ‘overheated’, but I will give it a go 😉
Yes, do this! It is great fun!
It sounds really boring but the Postal Museum is extremely interesting and I was really amazed at how much I liked it! Plus, it’s a Smithsonian so it’s free!
On the recommendation of the Toast, I *paid admission* for the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and it was completely worth it. Great museum, tiny but every single thing in there was worth looking at.
Smithsonian-wise, the American Indian museum is great and also has a great cafeteria. It’s a little more expensive than your usual cafeteria food, but sooo so good. Get cheesy frybread and whatever agua fresca they’re serving that day.
I got some great recs from the toast when I went to DC a few months ago, but the best was to have dinner at rose’s luxury (budget permitting) . Best meal of life. There’s a line situation, but it’s worth it.
Cake/cupcakes at Sticky Fingers.
And seconding the Spy Museum.
I am fond of DC’s little botanical garden… it’s not as grand as some others, but they have an entire room of orchids AND one of those stinky corpse-plants.
Do you enjoy atmospheric paintings of 1920s lesbians? Check out the Romaine Brooks exhibit at the American Art Museum! http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/201…
(I am also planning a trip to DC sometime in July explicitly to see this exhibit, so I’m kind of one-track-mind-y about it right now)
“Do you enjoy atmospheric paintings of 1920s lesbians?”
Do you really even have to ask that on this site??
(God, I will miss this place…)
Go to Dangerously Delicious Pies on H Street. Get the Baltimore Bomb. It is the BEST PIE OF ALL TIME!
Hey, Angelan_! Sorry to ruin the surprise, but I am your Gift Exchanger! I haven’t sent said gift yet, but should I hold off? I don’t want it to languish on your doorstep while you’re in DC!
oh no that’s fine – i have flatmates so it will not languish (unless there’s perishables in there – in which case i’m away from the 11th-26th july). Thanks – I am excited to get it 😀
Depending upon what July weekend, you could be here for the Folklife Festival (this year’s looks particularly good and not just because I am semi-obsessed with Basque cider). DC Fringe is also going on all month in various spots across the city. Lots of musicals this year.
Ok! I live in DC and love it so this may be a bit ramble-y, apologies. Where will you be staying? If you’re staying with your friend, I’m sure they’ll have lots of great neighborhood specific recs.
FOOD: happy hour oysters at any Hank’s location (Dupont or Capitol Hill); Oki Bowl has amazing traditional and non-traditional ramen; great brisket/halfsmokes/BBQ at DCity Smokehouse, which is tied in my mind/heart with best sandwich in town at Simply Banh Mi in Georgetown. Amazing moles and other Mexican deliciousness at Espita Mescaleria. Awesome Japanese rice bowls at Donburi. Great El Salvadoran, Mexican, and Tex-Mex food to be found in Columbia Heights. And as someone else mentioned, get a rocket pop if you find yourself wandering around the Mall.
DRINK: eh, this city loves booze! Just about every bar will have happy hour with drinks running $3-7. A few of the places I love include Iron Horse, Maddy’s on Connecticut, Rebellion, Bar Charley, Chaplin’s, Urbana, the Big Hunt, Brookland’s Finest, the Board Room, Garden District.
TO DO: all the Smithsonian museums are free and spectacular, but my personal fave is the National Portrait Gallery (which is connected to the American Art Gallery). It is usually a calm place, with an amazing collection! The building has an amazing, tranquil courtyard. In the American Art Gallery section, there is the Luce center, which has some amazing folk and outsider art.
The monuments are cool, and I always find the Korean and Vietnam war memorials particularly moving. The MLK memorial is also very worth a visit.
Eastern Market is great – to buy crafts, snacks, and people watch! There’s a used bookstore across the street, which is my favorite in the city. Union Market is also a fun place to visit.
The National Arboretum and Rock Creek Park are great for walking and hiking and just having a nature respite in the midst of a huge city. If you like zoos, the National Zoo is pretty great – the otters and red pandas are my faves! And the elephants. Catch a show at the 9:30 Club or Black Cat or RocknRoll Hotel. The Washington Post, DCist, and BrightestYoungThings all put together weekend guides for goings-on, which you might find helpful in identifying fun and random things to do. Also! this city loves its outdoor movies, particularly in Columbia Heights and Storey Park (alas, Screen on the Green is no more).
Drink water, wear sunscreen/hat, and be sure to take it easy – it is HOT and HUMID here and may be a shock to the system coming from the more temperate British isles. And HAVE FUN!!!!
Best Sandwich: Bub & Pops!!!! I can’t even recommend anything because everything is amazing.
I always recommend a visit to the National Cathedral.
Goodbye, Bartender. I guess we will never know your true identity. Since we are talking about The End, I will remind Toast fans in the Boston area that on Thursday, June 30 we will be gathering at The Friendly Toast in Kendall Square for a Toast Wake at 6:15 (meet in front of the restaurant). So far we have 21 people coming according to the Facebook invite that you might not be able to see (if you don’t belong to the Boston Toastpin group) https://www.facebook.com/events/1247920101884830/ , but there’s room for more (I think the whole day-before-a-holiday-weekend thing will work in our favor). If you don’t know anyone who’s going, that’s fine! I will be making up icebreaker placeholders: you can choose your favorite “If X were your Y” and other people can tell you, “I wanted that one!” I will be in front of the restaurant starting at 6 and have silver short hair and very red lipstick. See you there!
I’ll be there! Thanks for doing this, Renjender!
I’m so bummed that I can’t make it, as I’m beholden to my company’s summer outing that afternoon/evening. Please eat pancakes and drink a strong drink on my behalf!
There is a Boston toast group?! I will definitely have to check that out.
This is the last time I’ll be able to make an OT I guess (Next week I’ll be on a plane.) So I just want to take a second to say thank you to everyone. To the editors, to the writers, to the commenters and the lurkers and everyone: thank you. I haven’t commented anywhere on the internet for years, because people are vicious and the internet is *mean*, but when I found the Toast it was a breath of fresh air. There are people out there who think like me! And have the same weird interests as me! And plenty of other people with different lived experiences and who don’t think like me but are still kind and funny and interesting and can teach me so many different things! And yeah, it’s just the internet, but it’s meant a lot to me. So thanks for giving me something to look forward to on my Friday afternoons. Thanks for making me laugh. Thanks for making me break a tiny way out of my shell. Thanks for being here.
*tight hug*
Second last open thread ever means SPACE WITCH RETREAT reminder! (I know I’ve been posting it a lot recently, but want to keep it in everyone’s minds)
It is going to be in Summer 2017 and will be AMAZING. Think unconference, think summer camp for adults, think a hundred librarians, archivists, and other wonderful folk in the same space at the same time. Friendship bracelets, quiet rooms, craft rooms, and lots and lots of more formal programming (want to do a panel discussion on ‘The Police Inspector Companion: a ranking from Charles Parker to Jack Robinson’? Here’s the space!).
The exec team is working hard to get the venue and dates sorted, and website and registration open as soon as possible, but if you want more updates, follow our twitter at @spacewitchcon or join the Toastie Slack channel at #space_witch_retreat.
I am so saving pennies for this. Thank you to everyone who’s organizing it!
I really really really want to go to this.
“think a hundred librarians”
So…. copious amounts of booze? I’m there!
want to do a panel discussion on ‘The Police Inspector Companion: a ranking from Charles Parker to Jack Robinson’?
MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. (I have some many feelings about the class issues!)
Question: how very weird would it be for a mostly -lurker to show up for SpaceWitching?? I came to The Toast a bit late, and have visions of not being able to sit with the cool kids… buy I really want to go!!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG YASSS
I’ll be quick: The Toast, and the Toast Commentariat, has been my lighthouse when life got stormy. Without going into details, I faced some raging, dark and terrible waves my friends, but by keeping my eyes upon that Toastie glow on the shore, I managed to ride ’em out.
Thank you Nicole and Mallory for a wonderful, funny, thought-provoking three years from the bottom of my mermaid heart.
I cannot. It is not fair, this world. I’m making lavender syrup and then I shall make lavender lemonade and then I shall combine it with vodka and cry and cry and cry. The-Toast leaving me at a spectacularly bad moment in my personal life is going to do me in. This weekend is for bingeing on meatballs and fancy drinks and sobbing. I have been MIA for months because my life is imploding, but I will miss this place so, so much. I love you all.
So many hugs, fellow (c)Kat. Can you join us on reddit, slack or facebook? <3
I will try eventually! Thank you for the hugs, so bummed out!
Is there a TOast FB group beyond the regional ones? I know it’s a hellhole but I use it more than all the other tentacles being grown.
How do we get added on Facebook?
I am so sorry things are going so badly for you!
Lavender lemonade sounds like a very good coping mechanism, and I am going out to buy supplie to make some as soon as I get off work. I will drink it while sending you all the good vibes i can muster.
Thank you so much. I hope your lemonade is delicious! I’m also going to marinate chicken in lime, yogurt, and mint and make kebabs on the grill. My husband is out of town this weekend, and I couldn’t get anyone to hang out, so it’s just me and my dogs and cats for the next few days. I start a new project on Sunday and that will be nice and distracting for months.
The granny in The Wedding Singer used meatballs as currency, so I think you can ingest some power by eating them, too.
Oof, thinking of you, and hoping you can connect with Toasties via reddit or slack or twitter- there will still be internet strangers who think your thoughts are fantastic and your jokes are amazing and you are fascinating and your drink recipes are A+++
Is–is that a trash panda petting a cat?! HOLY SHIT
My grade 12 biology class is writing their final exam as we speak and when they got to the first section (identify the vocabulary term that goes with these 45 definitions), they burst out laughing.
They were WARNED! It is I who shall laugh last!
Tell them to get used to it! I had a college-level bio exam fairly recently that had a similar section but *gasp* no word bank! During our next class some people tried to convince our professor that it was utterly unfair but she didn’t relent, which I think was the right thing. I hope you got some evil cackling in out of earshot!
I’m feeling very happy with my decision to take next Friday off. If we’re all like this today, it’s going to be so much worse in a week. Not sure how I’m going to work Monday-Thursday though.
I thought about taking Friday off but then realized I can’t afford to, PTO-wise. Ughghghgh it’s going to be terrible.
I’m very lucky to have the PTO. This is right at the start of our busy season so I know my boss would prefer I not take it off but it’s not like I would get any work done anyways.
I have the PTO, but there are too many people out of my (small) office for me to take the day at this point. I take small comfort in knowing that hopefully I’ll get to go home early because of the holiday.
I have to work late (only an hour late, but still). It is very annoying.
I saw this post, looked at my schedule, saw I started work at 1 and then adjusted it to come in at 3. In a week I will be pleased with this foresight.
Next Friday is a statutory holiday here for Canada Day. My plan: roll out of bed, make a giant pot of coffee and Baileys, read all of Nicole’s Canada posts while mournfully draped in a Canadian flag, then park myself on the open thread and sob with the rest of you.
Thank G-d I don’t have a shift scheduled, so I can stay at home and enjoy the Last Day of the Toast.
I have not commented much, but I have commented enough, including a few times when things were hard. You read my eulogy for my professor when I had nowhere else to say it and nobody else to say it to. I also posted under another name (which I embarrassingly can no longer remember) when I was waiting to go into a psych ward to deal with the never-ending aftermath of PTSD caused by living through the Fukushima earthquake, and I want everyone who was kind to me then to know that it’s still hard, but I am doing ok and will be going to Japan for a holiday in just a few weeks. Things are not alright, but they are getting there. It has been a pleasure and an honour to know you all.
I hope your trip is wonderful and healing.
On Wednesday I was rage-shopping in Target (because what else is a middle class white girl to do) because I wanted a gold and white shower curtain. They didn’t have it, so I bought a rice cooker instead.
What strange purchase have you made when the thing you really wanted was unavailable? Any good ones?
Couldn’t get a mortgage, impulse bought a snowboard instead.
This is A+, and also something I hope I never see in some internet thinkpiece about how millennials are hacking the system and flying down mountains instead of buying homes.
tbh the snowboard has probably brought me more joy than a house ever would, given These Uncertain Times.
Not me, but I saw a man in IKEA last week buy two lint rollers. That’s all. At IKEA. Did he go to IKEA specifically for the lint rollers? They’re not even that good. So I can only assume he went for something else, was disappointed, and figured he might as well pick up some lint rollers while he was there.
I can’t even think of any, because it happens so often. 3/4 of my house is probably filled with rageful substitute purchases.
I do this with concert tickets. If something I really wanted to see sells out, I go to the websites for my two favorite tiny venues and buy fucking everything.
…. “Oh, I like the one song, tickets are only $10, SOLD.”
…. “I think they toured with Metric, SOLD”
… “I remember seeing that name around in the early aughts. SOLD.”
Also, I ended up rage-Tindering and now I have a date on Monday that I’m generally apathetic towards even though we have a ton of common interests.
Rage Tinder is SO a thing.
It was probably my favourite kind of Tinder. I don’t even think I really want to date, I just wanted to swipe left a bunch.
I just like judging if men are worth my time based on a glimpse of their appearance!
OH HOW THE TURNTABLES, MEN
Went to Ikea, couldn’t decide on a dining room table, bought a large plush shark instead.
Living your best life.
Very much my experience, as well. Wanted a light fixture, bought Swedish snax. Take that, IKEA!
A++
Wanted to be an adult and put my extra money into ‘investments’ (whatever those are). Got a cat at the shelter instead.
Good choice
This is clearly the most adult choice.
I did the investment thing instead of getting a cat. You made the right choice
I heard that, once you take a cat off the lot, it immediately loses 50% of its value
Got dumped; purchased jumpsuit.
Post-dumping shopping is somehow the best. I marched to the nearest bookstore and got the Chernow Hamilton biography and the Hamiltome.
Before I opted for aggressive singlehood, I used to pierce something when I had a breakup. Somehow more satisfying than a haircut.
Went to Kohl’s to get a new black belt and they were all ugly so I went to Best Buy next door and bought a 42 inch tv instead. Did not buy a new belt for approximately six months after that.
“(because what else is a middle class white girl to do)” made me laugh.
I once impulse-bought a tiny Latios plushie from Target because I was having a shit day. I REGRET NOTHING.
I used to live a five-minute walk from the Pokemon Center in Sunshine City and it was my #1 “I’ve had a tough day” escape. Somehow, life is much better when you’re eating Pokemon-shaped macaroni for dinner.
I’ve gotten started on a fair number of comics because the new trades for the comics I already followed weren’t available and I refused to leave the store empty handed.
Every phone charger I own has been purchased in response to not being able to find something more important. Maybe I can’t fix the problems of my life, but by the gods, my phone will ALWAYS BE CHARGED.
Not quite the same, but I went to a coffeeshop once (merely to drink coffee) and impulse-purchased a painting of a giant squid attacking Saturn.
Money extremely well spent, IMO.
That seems like a highly successful coffee shop visit.
Two inflatable kayaks (plus life vests) when we got outbid IN CASH for a second house that seemed really perfect. Because we still didn’t have a garage to stow real kayaks.
A belly button ring when the piercist wouldn’t give me a tongue ring (veins in my tongue are too close together apparently). Never really wanted it and still have the hole in my belly 🙁
I spite-purchased several hundred dollars in art at a silent auction because I really disliked the conservative politician who had the top bid at the time. Plus, the painting is lovely. I smile to myself about thwarting him every time I look at it. 🙂
Yesterday I realized that I would be traveling during the last Toast OT. And I cried real tears. I love you all so very, very much. I de-lurked from The-Toast when life got terrible & you wonderful space witches really got me though it.
I want an Accomplishment Thread. What’s the thing that makes you proudest? What’s the thing you’ve overcome? What do you want to do next?
I am dyslexic and couldn’t read until I was 10 years old. I became an editor at a major publishing house by the time I was 24. On my 25th birthday, my book hit the NYT best seller list. At 26, my most beloved book was on Oprah. I worked my buutttttt off doing everything, and I’m looking to explore and find more joy. Rest more easily, be more creative. Take more care of my own projects.
I am proud to know you, diaryofamadeditor. You are damned impressive.
I am proud of 3 accomplishments (in chronological order): A of all, I convinced A Man to have his comb-over cut off and never to resurrect it. B of second, I taught a badly abused little dog not only to accept affection, but to *ask* for cuddle, too. Triple of C, I got an abusive manager fired after she had yanked employment away from dozens of others based on nothing but her whims.
these are are such wonderful accomplishments! getting an abusive manager fired takes a lot of strength & conviction, teaching an abused puppy love shows tremendous patience and goodness, and convincing a man to embrace baldness is Too Witches.
I am a dance teacher. I had a little 3-year-old in my class (truly, TINY) who Did Not Speak To Anyone Except Her Mom. That includes the rest of her family, such as her grandmother who they see all the time and lives close by. She didn’t speak in my class, either. But she did participate most of the time, once we got through the first few weeks of ‘oh shit mom’s gone from this room I’m gonna freak out now.’ I didn’t know about the no-talking thing, I just assumed she was shy and she’d talk when she felt like it.
Which turned out to be true, because one day her mom comes up to me after class and says, “I have to tell you this: A. has never spoken to her grandmother, who we see at least twice a week, and last night she was over for the evening and A. started telling her all about your class, showing her ‘This is how Miss F. says to do it,’ and reciting the plié poem, and by the end of the night her grandmother was in tears because she was so glad her granddaughter had finally talked and interacted with her after three years of her life, and it was all because of your class. Thank you so much.”
Reader, I cried too. A. started making friends in class and talking to me too. She still comes running up to hug me when she sees me in the building, a year later.
MY HEART YOU HAVE MY HEART
This made me tear up at work. That’s wonderful, and I’m so glad she was able to find her voice. Toasties truly are a wondrous and magical people <3
Maybe you have written it down somewhere else, but could you share how you became an editor? It’s a career path I and my fiancé have both considered but no idea how to get there.
The short answer is obscenely hard work, networking, and being really devoted to editorial specifically. Maybe we could chat about it in ToastieSlack publishing channel?
How did all of you discover The Toast? I actually found it via Texts From Jane Eyre, which I bought to be a prize in a book club raffle and then kept for myself. After finishing I thought “I must have more of this Mallory’s writing” so I checked out the website.
I read all of the “Please Consider My Applications” in class and was hooked.
One of my editor’s was trying to figure out ways to promote our Jane Austen knitting magazine and we were all looking at fun articles on anything Austen and I was sent “How To Tell If You Are In A Jane Austen Novel” I laughed until I cried and I was absolutely hooked from then on out.
Jane Austen knitting magazine?
Yes indeed! We did a few issues of a magazine called Jane Austen Knits (and also a few of Downton Abbey Knits, including one where I got to write a massive article on the British Suffragettes which was The Most Fun). It was a beautiful magazine, I don’t know (I work mostly on the weaving side of our business), but I definitely lusted after some of the projects.
Nicole’s Canadian Thanksgiving post was shared around Facebook and then … game over. Life changed.
I think through the Hairpin? I’ve definitely been here since the beginning, though I didn’t start commenting regularly right away.
Same, I lurked on the Hairpin and then migrated here in the beginning and lurked for… a year or so? And then started my sparse but beloved commenting habit.
Same, except I lurked for about 2 years here.
I was also through the Hairpin! It took me until that site fell off a cliff, but then The Toast quickly felt more like home than the Pin ever did.
Also through the Hairpin! I remember when Mallory was a commenter.
Same! I remember breathlessly waiting for the Toast to go live that summer. (It’s been better than I could have ever imagined. I just love this place so much.)
Same! I found the Hairpin in the last weeks of it’s previous glory, and followed Nicole and Mallory here. I commented (infrequently) as a guest for a long time before caving and creating and IntenseDebate account to comment (infrequently) under.
The Hairpin, too! I remember the Toast launched when I was on maternity leave with my first baby, and so I did a lot of reading (but not much commenting) on my phone while breastfeeding. It was a great postpartum distraction and I’ll always love it for that.
Woo hairpin migrators!
Through the Hairpin for me as well.
I can’t remember, which is actually making me sad now.
Same.
Neither. It was early on, because I only had 10 pages backlog to read after I found the first post* but how I got here I cannot remember
*and then it took me two years to create an acct and start commenting and now I regret that lost time.
I came straight over from the Hairpin at the very beginning. I guess I’ll go back now, and see if I can figure out Medium… Or maybe I’ll just take to the rails, and split my time between stalking Nicole and stalking Mallory. (I probably won’t do that.)
A very cultured and erudite acquaintance kept posting “How to Tell If You’re In a [Genre] Novel” links on Facebook, which I found utterly delightful, and I decided this place was worth seeking out.
Pretty sure I saw something on Tumblr. And then I foolishly lurked for several months before starting to comment. I try to avoid regrets, but I do wish I had started commenting earlier. This place was the best and I missed out on six or seven months of fantastic interactions.
This is exactly why I started commenting as soon as the-toast went live. I lurked at the hairpin for so long and then felt awkward joining the conversation and I missed out on so much. Best decision ever.
I had a feeling if I started I would never stop and WELP. I just didn’t realize why I’d be wrong about that.
I always wish I’d started commenting sooner too. Was so nervous about it at first. So many typed out and then deleted comments. Was very afraid everything I thought was so dumb people would be super mean to me, which was silly cuz y’all are the nicest group of humans.
Also: “This place was the best” was
*bursts into straight up diluvian level sobbing*
Yep, I just started getting my feet in the water of commenting when they announced that this place would close down. I barely got here and I’m going to miss it.
I lurked instead of commenting for along time because I was in a fit of pique that “kayjayoh” was already taken on IntenseDebate.
I know the feeling. Still pissed I couldn’t get clevermanka by itself on gmail and had to add stupid numbers to it.
high five from another member of Team Had To Add An Underscore.
My very best friend in the whole world (if you went to the Cornell talk she was there with me… she was the personable tall brunette one, and I was the awkward tall brunette one) used to send my hairpin articles when she missed me and I was living far away, and then when Mallory started the Toast she changed to sending me those and sometimes we would sit together in the same room and Toast simultaneously and it was all so wonderful.
I was a sporadic Hairpin commenter, and followed Nicole and Mallory over here when they started. it’s been a really great three years 🙁
I believe I saw it happening through the Hairpin…it feels like such a long time ago. I didn’t really start commenting with any sort of zeal until, like, three months ago. GOOD FUCKING TIMING ON MY PART.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though – I’m the kind of person where it takes me a good, oh, couple of years to realize things exist and/or are cool.
I came over from the Hairpin. I remember the first time I checked it out, Nicole had just done a whole week on sports and I wasn’t totally sure about this thing. But I checked back in soon, and was hooked.
I am pretty sure it was a Western Art History post and I was SOLD.
I think it was a Jezebel piece on feminist websites you should read or something. I remember I didn’t really get it for a little while
I was sent here by an editor at Book Riot and initially so, so confused! But since things too smart for me that thus force me to learn more are my favorite things, it was a good fit.
I actually first checked out The Toast when Friday Bargain Bin moved here from Jezebel (still a stupid, stupid move on Jezebel’s part to get rid of Millihelen). But then I fell down the rabbit hole. This place is perfect for little old eighteenth-century-literature-nerd-who-almost-went-into-art-history me. I have never laughed so hard at things I’ve read online, or at a worse time in my life. So thank you all.
Romance blogs! A couple I follow would link to The Toast articles in their regular links posts – I think Love in the Margins did this most regularly. I remember clicking through to read about how to fill out a survey for adopting a rescue dog (or fur human) and how to tell if you’re in a (blank) novel.
One of the first I shared was Mallory’s satire about HS students getting distracted by so called suggestive clothing (the yoga pants incident). I did not comment on it but I really wanted to – so I will share my carefully and lovingly composed comment now:
Hah. I’ve graded similar, non-satirical essays written by actual college freshmen. They all went kind of like this:
Something something art analysis. Something something use of design principles. In conclusion, I really liked this painting/sculpture because she had nice breasts / he had a six pack.
I think it was via either Captain Awkward or the Friends of Captain Awkward forum.
I was reading Jenny Crusie’s blog and she linked to Women in Western Art History and that was that. The Toast had me at “No, that’s bears” and I have no regrets.
Thank you, Nikki, Nicole, Mallory, Jaya, Matt, all the converts, artists, shoppers, Dad enthusiasts, ROXANE, and most of all Toastfriends. Sobbing in a pile of cats and rabbit (only one gets along with the cats) with warm dogs on my feet. I love you all fiercely and proudly. Will spend the rest of my days, like the Followers of the Kidnapped Christ, spinning around and glimpsing Toast totes out of the corner of my eye.
Oh hey – another Argh reader!
I discovered the Toast via Rookie, which was my internet hangout at the time. I think that the piece ‘Mother Of God’ was linked in a link roundup. I had never and have never still read anything that so well described my feelings about my family and my religion- most religion exit narratives I have encountered seemed to be quite different and I could never recognise myself in them. I subsequently discovered ‘Two Monks’. Thenceforth I read the Toast daily.
My sister used to read the Hairpin and so I guess she has known about the Toast from the beginning. She and I send links to each other through Twitter and I noticed that a lot of really great stuff came from the same place. So I decided to just visit on my own instead of waiting for her to send me stuff. I recently discovered that the first thing she sent me (that I remember) that I thought was from the Toast was actually from the Hairpin (it was Texts from Jane Eyre)
Someone linked to one of the Hey Ladies and I was instantly hooked. I will miss this site so, so much.
Ine early 2015 I was on a roleplay forum filled mostly with very funny very clever young women, who kept linking to Toast peices in the site’s cbox. After that rp site died, i kept coming back to the toast because a) it’s hilarious and b) I hoped some of those women might be recognisable umong the commenters here… I don’t think so
I can’t even remember now– probably through folks I know from the AV Club site. (Which also has, or had, a very tight-knit commenter community, albeit with more trolls and less moderation).
OMG you are THAT Ms Peel?! (You always have good stuff to say.)
Not to be weird. I just lurk a couple columns there.
I am indeed! 🙂 Very kind of you to say!
(Haven’t been around there much lately, but I was a regular for years).
My dad let me know about it! I was an avid Awl / Hairpin reader for a while but didn’t realize that Nicole and Mallory started their own site until my dad was sending me articles from here.
I don’t really remember, but I’m so glad I did. Maybe through Jezebel? some book-related Toast post.
I think mine was Dirtbag Hamlet! Though it took me a while after that to start commenting.
Thank you, Bartender. These open threads have been a joy, and we appreciate you! What a place, what a crowd.
This is a weird Friday. I bought my Toast Tote. I sit here with my morning coffee. Tomorrow I fly to Baltimore for the week. I will be on a plane coming back, all day on July 1 and thinking about this kind, intelligent, and witty beyond comprehension place. Reading the books you have all suggested. Plotting my Best Life, hopefully in a First Class upgrade. But not sitting next to a whack job.
The last time, I was in the air next to a man who kept asking me where I was from, and he wasn’t satisfied with the name of the city. Like he wanted to know WHERE I lived. And he wanted to know where I was going, and asked me 3-4 times. I then realized he sort of had Alzheimers or something. At the end of the flight he invited me to have breakfast in his airline club. I politely declined.
What are your worst people on planes experiences?
My worst flight ever: flying from Frankfurt to Riyadh, many many years ago, due to the combination of the following:
1) a middle-aged woman who started drinking the minute the beverage cart started going around, then started berating the flight attendants in Danish when they refused to serve her any longer
2) an entire amateur soccer team from Peru in the rows directly in front of me
3) a small child who kept running up and down the aisle, stopping every time he reached my seat to stare at me for an unnervingly long time
4) turbulence
I hope no flight ever beats it. I don’t think any flight ever could.
Yikes!
HEY we are going to have a Toast wake in Baltimore next week (June 29th at 6pm) and you are INVITED.
We are going to be at Teavolve. Earthgirl07 on the Toastie Slack is the one who has organized it, and you’re more than welcome to pop onto the Baltimore channel to say hi and ask questions about Charm City.
I totally want to go! But have a work-related event at the aquarium that night. 😞
Ah! You’ll be so close by! :/
Im an eternal lurker, but I’ll try my best to be at the wake. I hope its not too forward of me to invite myself 😉
Absolutely not! That’s why I posted about it on here. BTW, if you’d like, please join us on the ToastieSlack! We have a Bmore channel going as well.
Oh! I want* to go. I have been so reluctant to do the slack, because of denial.
*This is all bullshit. There is no need for a wake for a thing that will continue forever. I want no such thing.
Join us! <3 <3
much luck for your upgrade! may you not sit next to a whackjob.
worst single flight: sitting between two broest of broes who knew each other, would NOT switch seats, and talked/reached across me for 3 hrs straight.
worst total trip: long series of things, but the kicker was landing back in the states after almost 2 days awake and multiple problems, finding that half my luggage was now misplaced, and then getting stopped at the security checkpoint for “looking upset.” Could definitely have been worse, but I am not keen for a repeat performance.
Beloved Toasties!
I’ve lurked here for a long time, and seeing as this is probably my only chance to say it, thank you all for everything. I’m a high school student, and knowing that the world is filled, not just with Nigel Farages and Donald Trumps, but also queer librarians and female weightlifters and outdoorsy archivists and stay-at-home medievalists and other Toasties of all sorts has made growing up in these mad times much more bearable. You’ve taught me important lessons about allyship, feminism, adulthood, and life in general, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
On an entirely unrelated note, I was going to ask for advice come this October, when the college admissions process begins in full swing, but obviously that’s not very feasible. So, for now, has anyone had particularly good or bad experiences with QuestBridge? For those of you who attended college, what were the most important life lessons you learned? Should Rand-obsessed men who major in philosophy be drowned, shot into the sun, or ignored? Any other last-minute college-related advice? (And thank you, Nicole and Nicole, for your financial aid article of yore, which was wonderful and very helpful).
Thank you all, infinitely.
Rand-obsessed men who major in philosophy should be laughed at. They hate it when you don’t take them seriously.
As basically the only woman in the philosophy program at my college, I had plenty of opportunities to do this, and it was glorious. By the time I was a senior I just stopped even explaining why they were wrong. I had a particularly great professor who would sometimes do it for me.
Rand-obsessed man: [full of self importance] but imagine for a moment that we lived in a four dimensional universe…”
Bower_bird: [LAUGHING]
Philosophy professor: she’s laughing at you because we do live in a four dimensional universe.
This is excellent advice. It is my sincerest hope that I may laugh at many a libertarian man with the scorn of a thousand disdainful cats.
Go to a school where your teachers will be full-time professors, not adjuncts. Ask the admissions office about this. Don’t settle for anything less. This is important for your education not because adjuncts are bad teachers–most are wonderful teachers!– but because you deserve to be taught by people who will be around long enough to mentor you, to supervise your independent study or senior thesis, and to write letters of recommendation for you.
/rant.
Also, full-time professors are more likely to have the extra time to mentor and supervise you. Adjuncts are often working enough jobs in addition to their adjuncting that you will never see them outside of the classroom and whatever brief office hours they can squeeze into their hellish schedules.
This x 10000000000
I will be 100% sure to keep this at the forefront of my mind at all times. I’ve heard this advice in other contexts and knowing that Toasties are behind it is fantastic. Thank you so much x1000
If I had college to do over again, I would be kinder and more charitable to people I found annoying. I would make sure I was prioritizing my work in a way that built skills rather than using various kinds of razzle-dazzle and system-gaming to get good grades with low effort.
I would definitely do at least a year abroad. I would try to take advantage of all the resources a college has that a private citizen does not.
“If I had college to do over again, I would be kinder and more charitable to people I found annoying.”
This sounds so important and so difficult. (I mean, my username is JudgmentalFairy for a reason). Thank you for all your advice, and I promise that I will try to find some kind of healthy balance between kindheartedness and scornful laughter directed at Rand-bros.
“Do a year abroad” is such good advice! Mine (in Florence) was the best year of my life so far and I’ve had many good years since.
Rand-obsessed men should be shot into the sun and you should NEVER EVER kiss them, young padawan.
College was the best for me, and hopefully it will be great for you but not the best because it’s just a small sliver of your life. Talk to students, tour campuses, and follow your gut for what place feels like home. Feel free to turn down experimenting with things you aren’t comfortable with but don’t turn down the chance to meet new people and be a little sponge and soak up all that knowledge. And try to get summer internships/jobs that relate to where you want to go so you have more experience to put on your future resume than “10 years of retail”
Surely…surely there aren’t any gay Rand-bros in this world? The universe would never be that cruel to me? (No of course there are this world is garbage).
Anyway, I will be sure to keep all of your advice in mind (it is excellent and helpful and I thank you eternally for it), in particular your advice to never ever kiss Rand-men, which is one of the many important life lessons the Toast has imparted to me.
CleverManka!
I know this has been said before, but you (and your gifs) are one of the staples of this place, and I will miss you greatly. (Although I’m eagerly anticipating clevermanka.net, which I’m sure will be fantastic!)
Thank you, bb! And best wishes! You absolutely do not want my advice about college because I hated it, nearly got kicked out for bad grades and alcohol violations (twice), dropped out, and after some years eventually went back for a BA because I didn’t have anything better to do.
I AM SURE YOU WILL DO FANTASTIC THO
Thank you!
In the event that I hate college, I will take comfort in knowing that I am on the path to becoming an Internet Goddess / Maker of Bloomers, which is really a very good, very Toastie-like fate.
Oh man! The interning thing is a hustle, ya know? Sometimes it’s just not feasible to do work for no or little money. But sometimes you luck out. If I could do college over, I would have interned everywhere.
Best of luck though! My experience wasn’t everything I wanted (or needed), but I learned cool stuff and met great people. I suppose there are worse fates.
“I would have interned everywhere.”
Very useful advice; will attempt to follow; thank you kindly for it!
Never forget it is your own experience. You will carry it with you, and it belongs to you. Whenever you are tempted to compromise to be pleasant or give in because you want ot be amenable, make sure you are really reflecting how you feel and who you think you want to be, and not just beign accomodating becuase you were traiend to be or think you have to be, because of gender or age or any other reason. It is your education, and your experience. Always keep in mind that it is about the best possible spriingboard for you into the wild world to make your best life. Take advantage of every offer.
And good luck!!!!!!!
Come hang out at toast slack if you want cheerleading come October. I know I would love to hear about what you are up to and I am probably not alone.
Thank you!!! This is such meaningful advice; I know I’ll carry it with me throughout the next five years.
Make some space to try some random courses, because it may not seem like it, but university does in fact have more time to figure out what you like than work life. Apply for scholarships: you deserve them, that’s what they are there for, the application process is a skill that takes practice and will stand you in good stead later on, and there are sometimes fewer people applying than you would think. But also, don’t take rejection too personally because academic competition sometimes means you are still awesome but didn’t get the prize and should totally try again. Leave lots of extra time for forms because they are crazy-making and always take over twice the amount of time you think they should. And, if you can, just do that thing that is stressing you out. I didn’t figure this out until WAY after uni, but you will waste way more energy stressing about it than you would getting it done.
“you will waste way more energy stressing about it than you would getting it done.”
This is something I have realized in theory but have completely failed to put into practice. I’m glad to see it reiterated here, along with all of the rest of your advice, which is excellent and very helpful. Thank you!!!
Along these lines, it took me until law school to accept that I am a clutch performer and that is the only way I operate. If I sit down to write a paper (or now, as a lawyer, a brief) several days before it is due, I will stare at a blank screen for all but one of those days, and then write in a frantic (but sometimes brilliant?) sprint to the finish. Now that I have come to terms with this, I no longer waste those extra days staring at the screen.
TL;DR what works for you may not be what works for everyone. And that’s ok; you just need to find out how to make your way work.
Also, I spent a year abroad at Smith College (I’m Canadian) on an exchange scholarship called the Killam Fellowship that I highly recommend. And I learned the Smith student motto, which I still sometimes live by: “Done is better than good.”
A thing I learned in college was that the experience of *being* in college was more important to me in the long run than my actual degree. Learn how to learn, learn how to write and form an argument/communicate a point. Learn how to make and recover from mistakes. Learn how to be an adult-like person. The actual classes I took end up being beside the point, 20 years on.
Thank you!! I’ve adopted something approximating this mindset over the past few years, and it has made life (and school) so much more enjoyable and enriching. Seeing it articulated here is just fantastic.
Get as far away from where you grew up as you can afford to. Learn a new culture. That is possible within the US, BTW. Many, many disparate cultures within one large country.
Your first experiences outside your home culture will include mistakes; some will be embarrassing. Better those mistakes should happen in the forgiving, supportive world of a university than at your first job when job loss and damaged reputation are possible results.
Ask recruiters how many women are at the top levels of their university’s administration. Even if you have no intention of going to that school, ask anyway. Apply pressure.
Once at university, be sure to talk to strangers. Get to know people who are different from you and your family. Being together at the same school gives you easy conversation topics. This is the most valuable part of your education.
You will do well in college. I know this because you have the foresight to ask these questions. And because you value The Toast.
Thank you for your advice and affirmation! I live in a city that is very, very insular in its own beautiful, absurd, frustrating way (a class I was in once fell into stunned silence when a student asked for the definition of ‘quinoa,’ which is the staple food of like half the city’s population), so I’m eager to escape.
Also, it had not occurred to me to ask about women in high-level positions. I now fully intend to do so.
I would also make a point of asking about people of color in those positions, and out queer folk. Both of those things will tell you a great deal about a university. (For example, the uni i used to work at had quite a few women in high positions, but an astonishing dearth of POC and very few queers; the university priorities were about what you’d expect from that, i.e. it is NOT a place I would recommend to students with active minds, and certainly not to any students of color or queer students.)
Another thing I would suggest, given that it sounds like you are from a city that is relatively well to do, is to ask about how many students at a given university are first-generation college students. Class diversity is probably even more rare in college than racial diversity, and first-generation college stats are collected by nearly all universities & give you a sense of the class diversity you might find. When we’re talking about exploring other cultures within the US, different socioeconomic statuses can translate into vast cultural and experiential differences.
(Actually, I know nothing about your city; it sounds like you’re attending a school that’s got a fairly well-off population, based solely and entirely on the quinoa anecdote!)
No, you’re entirely correct, my city is absurdly wealthy and often uncomfortably classist as a result. So I’ll definitely be asking about income diversity, and also about POC and out queer people in positions of power/influence. (Again, I really ought to have considered this, and hadn’t, so thank you for pointing it out!)
As someone who transferred colleges hoping for a more typical college experience, I realized that there isn’t an ideal fit between student and college most of the time (bless my friends who went to super pricey tiny schools where they felt nurtured and known, that was not my experience/privilege). I place the most value in my time connecting to professors (even though it hasn’t been possible to maintain most of the relationships for various reasons), joining student groups like my college’s Wom*n’s Collective, having a radio show on our station, and also investing time in doing stuff outside of my college community. It’s valuable to have life outside of campus too.
Also, I cannot overstate how important it is to understand what your student debt will look like when you graduate. Calculate what your monthly payments will be and how much interest adds to that. Be wary of high interest loans (Parent Plus, for example). Know that you can ask for more aid from colleges if you need it. If your dream school is putting you in a position that saddles you with debt, that institution does not have their students’ best interests in heart, and that is certainly indicative of how you will be considered as a student there. I am very grateful to be in a position where my student loans feel affordable, but my very smart siblings were able to leverage set-ups where they graduated without loans.
Oh, and do talk to graduates from your possible future college/university when making your decision. Colleges can put you in touch, but it’s also valuable to ask around to get less pre-screened opinions (try your friends and family or ask your high school if any graduates ended up at those institutions).
Ah, yes, student debt.
*hurls entire US education system into the infinite void of outer space*
But seriously, all of your advice is very helpful and brings up many important considerations. Thank you x 1000
I just graduated from college. (BTW not eligible for QuestBridge myself but I had several friends who attend through the program and had v good experiences).
My minimal wisdom follows: think less about the college experience and more about what you want to study. It is very likely that you will have wonderful and transformative experiences wherever you go, but if you have an idea of what you would like to study, who you would like to study it with, or even what you might like to do with what you’ve learned, you may be able to get those things much better at one school than at another.
DO NOT spread yourself too thin. You can’t do every fun or important or enjoyable thing, it’s just not possible.
Appreciate the friends that you have. For me college was the time that I learned to accept that relationships could come and go and still be valuable.
Learn how to cook! It will make you popular and give you a convenient and delicious form of stress relief.
Make time for pleasure reading.
Oh my god, where to begin. Everything you wrote is so helpful and so practical. In particular, though, thank you for insisting on pleasure reading. It’s advice like this that reminds me why I love the Toast.
One point of inquiry: I’ve struggled with figuring out how to compare schools’ programs. I have semi-substantial ideas of what I want to study and where I want to go from there, but I have no way of knowing why, for instance, biology at School A is better/more desirable than bio at School B. What was your experience with this? How did you navigate it? Thanks so much!
I’m actually really good at that sort of “how to compare schools/programs?” thing. Email me at gavia dot immer dot immer at gmail dot com if you want to discuss!
Ooh, I believe I will take you up on that in the not-to-distant future. Thank you!
I’m so happy my random words were useful at all? I felt like I was just saying things.
I stopped pleasure reading in college because I was studying English and had to read so much anyway and let me tell you that was an Error.
I guess I would start by pulling up the course catalog (which you should be able to do online). See which school has more total courses in your subject, more interesting courses in your subject, and so on. You can also do some reading (lol apparently my sum total knowledge about life is “read stuff”) in your subject area, not necessarily Scary Academic Journals but just magazine articles that are relevant, and see which schools’ names come up again and again in research and writing that you like.
You can also email me at [email protected] and we can talk if you need advice during this (awful, stressful) process.
Perhaps you were just saying things, but those things happen to align quite neatly with my interests/worries, so.
Anyway, thanks for the offer of more advice! I have your email on file and will most likely contact you in the near-ish future.
My only bit of advice is: you can have a great college experience at any number of places. Keep your student loans as low as possible! (Also, that will give you many more options in life when you graduate).
Oh, and also:
Go to your professors’ office hours just to chat and get to know them! I’m very glad that I did that– a lot of mine are wonderful people, and we’re still in touch years later.
Thank you for reminding me that all colleges can offer great experiences, and also for reminding me to be less tortoise-like and socialize with lovely people! I do have a tendency to lose sight of both, so I’ll be sure to remember this advice in particular.
Everyone, including prestigious graduate programs, understands that one of the factors that determines college choices is finances. If you excel at what you do, and develop good mentoring relationships with professors (go to those office hours!), it doesn’t matter whether your undergrad institution is academically renowned or not. The major difference will be the overall atmosphere of the place, not your success once you’re done.
A good way to figure out what programs are good is to comb through the resumes / CVs of people who are doing what you want to be doing. Where did they go? Also, grad students tend to be very aware of the positive & negative qualities of various programs, so they’re a good resource if you know any… like say, people here!
Okay, this is technically general life advice, but college seems to particularly challenge it, so here you go. When I was in college, I thought of the following as the three legged stool which supported my entire college experience (and life generally): Sleep, healthy eating, and exercise. Sleep meaning sleeping the amount your body needs, ideally in something resembling a regular schedule, healthy eating meaning eating in a way that makes your body feel good and function well, and exercise meaning moving your body in a manner that makes you, on the whole, feel better having done it than not. You will be very tempted to let one if not all of the legs of this stool drop in the name of things like “free time” and “studying” and “deadlines.” But it turns out brains actually work a lot better if your stool is in good shape. So, as much as possible, keep all your stool legs in place. Midterms, maybe compromise on one leg, finals, maaaybe two, but only for a few days, max., as much as you can manage. You’ll actually get more done faster if your brain works and you feel good, plus your brain will work and you’ll feel good, which is on the whole a preferable state of being.
My personal best thing I did in college was join the judo club, which not only taught me how to throw people, including large men, but also gave me a community that I’ve tapped into again and again as I’ve moved around. Plus it was a very useful weedout tool for useless men, as they’d suddenly go from hitting on me to desperately needing to be somewhere else when I told them what I did for fun. It takes a specific sort of person to catch the judo bug, which you might or might not be. But finding your community, especially if it’s a community that supports one of the legs of your stool, is a great thing to do, if you can.
Haha, yeah, I figured out the Stool of General Health and Well-being this year by blatantly ignoring it, which was very much not fun but also a valuable life lesson.
That being said, I have seriously given thought to joining some kind of martial arts or dance group come college. (Which, given that I spend most of my time hiding in small corners of libraries, is a terrifying and thrilling idea). So hearing that you loved judo makes me very happy. Thank you so much for your advice and encouragement!
Groups of any sort are good, most especially if they include people not in your major! My judo clubs in undergrad and grad school had a good mix of undergrads, grad students, and a few faculty/ staff/ community members, which was a very good reminder that my particular (very demanding) program was not the same thing as the real world. Plus I got to spend time with people who weren’t stressed out or who at least were stressed about entirely different things than I was. Depending on your program of choice, you can wind up in a stress bubble (some quite toxic, some just not very good)- an outside reality check provides a lot of perspective.
Go to your professors’ office hours and form relationships with some of them. Try all the new hobbies and activities you want, and see which ones stick. Surround yourself with kind people you enjoy spending time with. Travel as much as possible. And don’t feel too much pressure to have your life 100% figured out by any particular date; make the best decisions you can as you go. Most of them are reversible or fixable.
“And don’t feel too much pressure to have your life 100% figured out by any particular date”
Ooh, this will be a challenge. Thank you for reminding me to keep things in perspective! I will try my utmost to remember this over the upcoming years.
Hello! Congrats on making it to your senior year! Also condolences for the madhouse that is college admissions. I just graduated college and while I’m happy with where I ended up, it was an uphill battle. May the acceptance rate be ever in your favor.
Oh boy, QuestBridge. As someone who used it and was among the percentage who was not accepted to any QB schools, I can offer you some advice. This is going to be a bit long-winded, but I want to give full disclosure so that you know what you’re getting into:
First of all, despite what the tone of this response may suggest, I can’t hate on QB completely. I won one of their prizes, getting invited to a conference, my junior year and went to said conference over the summer. It was a great experience because it taught me that big name private schools usually have big non-loan financial aid packages, so it was 100% feasible for someone in my circumstances to be able to attend such an institution. It was also great because it was located in the northeast, which is where I wanted to go to school; my mom and I turned the trip into a college tour and I ended up touring the college I just graduated from (and actually wound up befriending my tour guide when we had a class together my freshman year!). It was really great to actually see some of these places before I submitted an application.
THAT SAID, the actual QB application process was hell. The early decision deadline meant I was stressed earlier (and, since I didn’t get ED, much longer) than everyone else. Mind you, my school had a “design your own schedule” policy and I was an overachiever so I wound up having really long school days (got to school at 8, left at 4:30) which it made it difficult to complete all the applications in a short time frame, but your situation may not be that bad. When considering using QB, I would recommend that you take a minute to self assess.
1) What kind of person are you? I mean this in two different ways:
a) stress levels and how you handle stress. I took on way more than I could handle between those classes and this extensive application process — especially since, as I’m sure you know, it’s not wise to apply just to QuestBridge schools; you need safeties and “realistic” choices (put in quotations because there is an actual term for this but I can’t remember it) because QB affiliates are basically all “reach” schools. Also, the lack of application fees can make it seem like you can apply to more than you usually would. DO NOT DO THIS. A lot of the applications have supplemental essays, and they tend to craft them so that you can’t recycle them.
b) are you a Hamilton or a Burr? If you’re a Hamilton and you get off on productivity and are involved in 10 million different extracurriculars (i.e. one of those people who gets a news feature written about them because they do ALL THE REMARKABLE THINGS and no one understands how you have enough time in the day to do all of it), and therefore all of the QB schools are fairly safe bets for you, then this program may be for you. I’m more of a Burr, so between my small high schools not having many extracurriculars and my academic focus (which meant that I was usually more invested in school work than anything else — I was, and kind of still am, one of those people who doesn’t know how to respond when someone asks me what my hobbies are), I wasn’t terribly remarkable despite my good grades (compare to: girl who went to a rival high school who started her own charity). This ties in to my next point though.
2) Consider your privilege level. I’m worried that this is going to come off one of those idiotic “dur dur affirmative action is racist” type statements when that’s not what I mean at all. Basically, QB is for high-achieving low income students. Expect that high-achievers from the lowest possible brackets are going to be involved in this process, and examine your own situation accordingly. Take me for example. I come from a single parent household that does not receive child support and my mother is a teacher in the Florida public school system (which translates to “doesn’t make much money and is treated like shit by local politicians”), so I technically fell under the umbrella of “low income” (which is how they found me in the first place). That said, I had a fairly good support system from my family — they didn’t give us money regularly or anything, but I was never lacking the basic necessities (or even basic comforts) because my mom and I would live with family members to offset costs, and once we did finally live somewhere by ourselves, we had relatives nearby who would help us if the worst came to pass. In addition, I have white privilege going for me. This, combined with my being more of a Burr, meant that I didn’t have much of a bootstrap story to tell. Given the goal of the organization, which is to provide low income students access to elite universities, it makes sense that they’d be looking for one, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. Basically, I’m guessing that I was comparatively (when taking into account other applicants) privileged, and thus using QB didn’t do me any favors. I don’t mean to come across as angry or anything (I was upset at the time because, well, rejection sucks, but I turned out fine and got over it), nor am I lambasting this system. It makes sense that in this process, they would go with applicants who have more stacked against them (for example, a winner from the previous year didn’t have electricity and had to go to school a long way from where she lived because her local schools weren’t very good). Also, as mentioned, in hindsight, I wasn’t a terribly remarkable student apart from my grades, so between these two factors I’m sure the schools just decided “no thanks.” On the other hand, I got into every single non-QuestBridge school I applied to. Mind you, they had higher acceptance rates, and some of them were safeties, but I guess I want to dispel any illusions that acceptance is guaranteed (which they make it sound like). If you aren’t much of a Hamilton and your low income status is more like mine was, I would suggest you reconsider using QB and possibly just apply to the schools separately.
Also, apply to other schools that you would seriously enjoy attending in your geographical area(s) of interest. QB schools aren’t the only ones with generous financial aid packages, they’re just ones that happened to partner with the organization and can guarantee full financial aid. I ended up at a pretty good non-QB private university in the Boston area because I loved the city and looked into all of my options. I didn’t get a full ride per se but the amount I had to pay out of pocket wasn’t too bad when you consider the full tuition (again, it helped that my extended family was supportive of my academic endeavors) and in terms of debt and such, it was actually cheaper for me to attend my university than it would have been to stay local and go to the University of Florida instead.
College admissions advice: really sell yourself (it’s good practice for when you have to inevitably enter the working world) and don’t stretch yourself too thin. Choose a reasonable number of schools to apply to and stick to it.
College advice generally: this is more of a Debbie Downer piece of advice maybe, and it can’t quite prepare you completely for when it happens, but nonetheless I received this advice at the end of my freshman year and it helped to know what was going on: You don’t know who your friends really are until sophomore year. Freshman year is going to be an overwhelming smorgasbord of new experiences and people, and by all means (as long as you stay safe!), you should embrace that. Things change substantially your sophomore year, and your large group of friends and acquaintances will whittle down. Not necessarily because of drama, but just because life happens and as you get busier (which, odds are you will come sophomore year), your connections will be tested. And that is 100% OK and normal, even if it can be stressful in the moment. Also: usually the people who end up being your real friends aren’t the ones you’d expect.
Wow, that was rather long-winded, but I hope I was helpful regardless. Let me know if you have any other questions! College admissions is rough and I’m happy to help in any way I can.^^
Oh my goodness thank for everything you wrote. You actually addressed some of my major concerns about QB, and helped me sort out exactly why I’m hesitant about it. (Specifically, I’m a little skeptical of its value/utility compared to other available options, and worry, as someone who is comparatively privileged for a QB qualifier, about potentially diverting resources away from people who need them more than I do).
Anyway, I’m glad I understand my uneasiness more completely, and will be sure to discuss these concerns thoroughly with the various people my school has provided to help with navigating the college process. Thank you again!
This is a really dumb piece of advice comparative to all the other good advice about your studies and such, but if I could do college over again, aside from making sure I learned every single software program I thought sounded remotely interesting, I would not get in a serious relationship for at least the first 2 years and I definitely would not have let my freshman year boyfriend move into the same room with me when my two female friends and I rented a 3 bedroom place.
I think so many women come into their own in college, and there is so much time and space to be so free and play around, and I would not ever recommend anyone not fall madly in love during this time, but just leave a lot of space for yourself, remember that you get this time to figure out who you will be as an adult and that there will be PLENTY of time to get hitched up after school. I missed out on making out with a lotta people because I had a boyfriend by February of freshman year and we were practically living together for the next 3 years. I think if I knew then what I knew now, I would have made more lifelong friends, and done more social activities and really enjoyed dating. Being single can be such a joyous thing and it can live your life more fully as just yourself which is so good during college. Just….don’t take any classes because your partner wants you to take it with them, or go abroad to a country they want to go to, that sort of thing. Make no decisions in love that are hard to get out of, until you graduate.
Because when you are 27 and settling down with someone, you suddenly realize if this thing goes the way it’s supposed to, you might spend another 50 to 60 years with that same person!!! So really, there’s no rush. Be in love as often as it happens to you, but fall in love with yourself first.
“Be in love as often as it happens to you, but fall in love with yourself first.”
This is not dumb advice. I have literally zero experience with romantic relationships and any guidance is welcome. Staying out of serious ones for the first few years of college sounds like a pretty solid plan. My hope and expectation is that, being cis and male, I won’t encounter too much douchecanoery about marriage (except as it relates to being queer, which is another bunch of coconuts entirely), but in the event that I do, yours is the advice I will turn to.
That said, thank you so much for all of your advice. I’m definitely going to re-read this thread at about this time next year; it has so many helpful kernels of wisdom.
Also, out of curiosity: where did you begin when you started learning software programs? What first captured your interest? This is an area in which I have no experience and am looking to broaden my knowledge.
If I had college to do over again,I would sleep more. Seriously,you cannot learn anything on four hours of sleep.
Solid advice; will attempt to follow.
This might be more useful after your first year when you’ll know more people, but resist the urge to live with your best friend(s). That doesn’t mean squashing the urge completely, but at least ask yourselves basic lifestyle stuff like lights, cleaning, noise levels, and sleep cycles.
(I had friends who survived foolishly living together by literally putting string down halfway through their room and never crossing it. I also had friends whose friendship didn’t survive living together. Please don’t make yourself live this way if you don’t have to.)
I had not considered this, but now that you mention it, the idea of living with my best friends, whom I love dearly, sounds absolutely horrific. Thank you for pointing this out.
As a toastie, you probably don’t need to hear this, but there’s a good chance you’ll be paying for this education for a long time to come, so take advantage of it. Go to class. Do the work. I was shocked by how many people at my (very expensive) college would casually skip classes or not bother doing the reading assigned. But if the course/professor is good, it will be so worth it!
Also I realized only after graduation that I never made good use of the academic lirbary, so don’t make that mistake.
I wish I had been slightly lazier in college. I majored in business, and I put a lot of energy into my coursework and various extracirriculars involving being Future Businesspeople of America. But after you graduate, no one cares if you have a 3.8 or a 3.4, or if you were the Outstanding Graduate of the year. I got to travel (school subsidized) and meet a lot of people through my extracirrics, but I would have gotten to do that as a member. I didn’t have to be the vice president or treasurer. I wish had done less homework and organizing and spent more time sitting on the porch with my friends. You have your whole life to be an adult, enjoy your college experience.
I just finished my freshman year of college, so take these all with a grain of salt, but here’s some random thoughts so far!
I know this isn’t possible for everyone, but if you want to take a weird path to/through college, that is way more normal than you’d think. I took a few years off after HS to do a weird low-paying job, I definitely remember feeling like that was A Super Risky Decision. In retrospect, though, I only know like two people who’ve followed the traditional path? Almost everyone ends up switching majors or dropping out or transferring or whatever. Even the people in high school that seem super focused and like, definitely Ivy League bound, will mysteriously turn up at a junior college in Nova Scotia with zero explanations. This is pretty much just part of the process.
(Related: if you start to freak out about all the decisions that you have to make, remember that most of them are reversible. You can almost always leave a school or a major or a class if you realize that it’s just not working out.)
Pick up the school newspapers while you’re on campus tours! In my experience this is the easiest way to get a read on each school’s culture. It might be skewed a little by the students on the newspaper staff, but it was pretty much dead on for the school I chose.
(Also look up some of the school traditions and events – the weird stuff a school keeps doing every year can say a lot about the culture. A school that prides itself on its Juggling Convention and its Roving Shirtless Saxophone Man is probably going to be, uh, pretty much exactly what you’d expect.)
Don’t worry too much about the other incoming students you see on social media? It’s one thing if people are routinely prejudiced, obviously. I’m thinking more of the people who posted all the time on the Facebook groups and seemed inexplicably grating and nightmarish. It turned out that they were, like, three really loud people that I’ve never actually seen in real life.
Someone else mentioned this above, but you don’t have to do every single activity if it’s too much. I kind of picked one club to devote myself to, and then made myself go to enough meetings and events that I got over the Oh God I Don’t Know Anyone And This Is Terrible hump pretty quickly.
Do try to make it to one-off speakers if they’re even a little related to stuff you’re interested in! Some of them aren’t marketed all that well, but I’ve always really enjoyed them, especially when I’m burnt out on a subject and really need a fresh view of it.
If you have an idea of what you want to do as a career, maybe try finding forums or some kind of online meeting place where people in that field congregate. A lot of times they have good information about each school’s program & reputation that you won’t see anywhere else.
Also, if you don’t know what you want to do, it helped me a lot to dig around job boards & find specific goal jobs that I thought would suit me? I ended up in a really specific major that I’d never heard of because of this, actually – basically just found a few listings that sounded really great and then figured out what I’d need to do to be qualified for them. On the other hand, some majors I thought I would love turned out to be a little bit of a dead-end. It’s not a perfect method, obviously, but it really helped me narrow down what I wanted in a program, and I still go back to it sometimes when I need to decide what classes/projects to really focus on.
It sounds like you’re more level-headed than I am, but I’ll throw it out there anyways: it’s okay to pick a program that’s not the absolute most rigorous or highly rated! Yes, you want a good education, but you also have to live with that culture for a few years, and honestly some of the really high-pressure, high-status schools are not be the healthiest place for a lot of people. (You’ll do better in the program that will challenge you without causing constant meltdowns, basically.)
ETA: Oh jeeze, apparently I had a lot of thoughts on this topic. I’ll ramble more if you have any questions!
Hi friends, I’ve barely been around for a while now on account of I started a new job and then had knee surgery and then bought a house and then moved into said house while mostly unable to walk, but I didn’t want to ghost off into the ether without saying goodbye! I’ll miss you weirdos.
Also, I obviously only bought a house so I could get a dog, and I know THAT falls under the umbrella of Official Toast Interests. He’s a goofy dope and I love him a lot.
edit: am bad at pictures. just click on this idk https://imgur.com/a/tC7nc
omg look at that beautiful doofus. Them ears!
His ears omg! What a great mixture of handsome and goofy!
GOOD DOGE! Love that second action shot.
Ahhhh pupper!!! Congratulations!!!
Ahh! What a Good Dog!
what a sweet li’l pup! May you and he go on many adventures together, even if it’s just down the block to sniff that one weird tree or bark at a squirrel.
He is ADORABLE and I need to come over and squeeze him immmediately, if that works for his schedule.
Adorable Anubis-y dog! When I and my ex-husband bought our house ,we literally moved in, unpacked the kitchen, and drove to the municipal shelter.
oh he is SO CUTE.
SWEETIE. What a happy face!
Also, he could lift off in a stiff breeze with those ears. I love it.
I literally have been reading The Toast since its very first day on the Internet, and I’m going to miss you guys so much. When I first commented, I couldn’t have imagined how much I would care about and rely on this community, how many wonderful people I would meet in real life as a result of it, how much I would have learned. I’m so grateful to Nicole, Mallory, and Nikki for The Toast and to y’all for being so good. That’s all, I just figure I won’t have many more chances to be sappy.
I haven’t been around as much in the last year as I was in the first year but I just want to say how much I love you all. So so much. I’ve seen friends here get engaged and married, I’ve watched people leave toxic relationships. I’ve seen people overcome illnesses and find so much strength in this community. I’ll always be around if you want to chat, on twitter at liz_the_lemur and also over on tumblr (Liz-the-Lemur). <3 <3 to everyone.
And some of my Toast favorites: Foxcatcher, Hey Ladies, Ronbledore, Emotional Labor, Some Unorganized Mixed Race Thoughts, Misandrist Lullabies.
I like you all so much! I wil miss you. Toast hugs to those who want them.
Once I get back to my computer, I’ll post a breakup update in my reply.
It’s been not quite six months since the breakup, and not quite three months since going no-contact.
The last couple of weeks, I’ve been very much missing Being Held While Sad and Anxious. A lot has happened: Orlando, Father’s Day, Mom selling the house and preparing to leave the place where she has friends, imminent Toast Crumbling, and knowing that my own move-out date is approaching.
I keep needing to remind myself that Bex wasn’t actually very comforting to me– that he was willing to hold me for some amount of time, but that he wasn’t willing to say things that he didn’t KNOW would be true (which meant things like “You’re going to be okay” or “We’ll get through this together” were out of the question).
I can’t see him ever going to a vigil with me, the way my housemates did; I was on my own as far as events were concerned during Occupy. And I know activism is not everyone’s thing– the noise and crowd parts are definitely not my thing!– but it would have been nice if he’d been interested in *talking* with me about what I was doing and why.
So, I’m simultaneously aware that he wasn’t engaged / interested in some of the parts of my life that really mattered to me AND missing a form of physical comfort that I’m not getting these days, and don’t anticipate that I’ll have for quite some time. It takes feeling a particular kind of safe around someone to bring them my sad self. And it takes feeling a particular kind of safe around someone to be comfortable being held by them– that is a partner / Mom / maybe brother thing. (It was a Grandma thing, too, but she’s been gone a while now.)
I keep trying to visualize my wiser, older self scooping my current self up and giving me a hug, and it really doesn’t do the thing.
ah man I wish I could hug you so much right now.
Thank you– this really does help some.
My sewing skills are currently at the level of hemming handkerchiefs and pants, but I am toying with the idea of making muppet arms– think Grover proportions– out of some sort of fabric and stuffing them with rice or buckwheat, so I can be hugged when I need it most.
I know how hard and strange it is to miss what someone was supposed to be, rather than what they actually were. But in the end I’ve learned that it helps to know that they weren’t every truly the thing you miss- that good thing is still to come for you. <3
*nods*
I am trying not to beat my head against the wall of “How could I have not noticed [painful trait]?!” Because there is no such thing as a perfect fit, and I’d found a way for us to be a good-enough fit, but as Bex grew and changed, fitting took the form of ignoring parts of myself. That wasn’t good for me, and I can’t be with someone who is ok with me doing *so much* of the inevitable accommodation people in LTR make to each other.
Thank you for your hopefulness and encouragement– I can’t always find that in myself.
I just want to say that i have been so impressed by how you have dealt with this whole situation and focused on moving forward and building the life you want, and I really hope things continue to get better for you.
Thank you! Encouragement is in itself something that is pretty powerful and sweet to me.
I really appreciate it.
Sending you much internet love. The more distance you get and the more you talk about how your relationship was, the more I am really disliking the person you’re describing. It sounds like the community he found just enabled what was already a cruelly distant and disregarding person to be even more so. Please take care of yourself. I think it’s probable that the future is going to be amazing for you, especially because you’re so thoughtful and considerate as you process this whole thing. But also because there are good, kind, giving people out there who may well come into your life in all kinds of ways and make you feel so full of love you want to burst, and not take and take and take until you’re empty.
THANK you.
He does have virtues. It’s just– it doesn’t do me any good right now to enumerate them, let alone luxuriate in them. Reminding myself of the ways in which we weren’t good together is a thing I need to do, if I want to get to a point where less of my brain is devoted to missing him, or to wishing things were different.
Update on the roommate situation. They are actively trying to repress the fact they’re in love with me and that we are in a de facto relationship. We had sex once and it was amazing, but they don’t want to again because then it will be “a thing” even though we’re at such an intense level of emotional intimacy alone that it constitutes a relationship. It hasn’t even been three weeks of this yet, and everything has been progressing along the way, so I’m thinking they’ll be totally on board for this sooner than later.
Oof, that sounds complicated. Sometimes people do take a while to get their head around a relationship, but other times this sort of thing is a big red flag of “well I fancy you but I don’t actually want a relationship with you”. Maybe set a time limit for yourself, another three weeks perhaps, and if it’s still not getting anywhere by then, call it a day? They do sound rather like they’re saying No, though, and that always has to be respected no matter what emotions are going on.
Hi Toasties, Happy Friday! My life has been an emotional rollercoaster for the past 2 weeks (not to mention all the craziness going on in the world!). I found out I’m pregnant after separating from my husband…it was a huge shock and I just can’t believe I have such bad luck- we were trying for a long time but then decided to separate (for other reasons). Now there is just no way I can have a baby as everything has changed. I made the stupid mistake of telling him and we fought about it of course. I guess not keeping it will make me look selfish but so be it. I want to move on with my life and focus on me. So, my question is, does anyone have experience or advice about taking the abortion pill? Does anything really happen after you take the first pill or only after the second? Will I be down for the count the whole day or multiple days without being able to do anything? I was supposed to do a 4th of July picnic with my family but now I’m not sure how I will be feeling. Thanks for any advice you guys have. It feels good to write this out anyway because I don’t have many people I can talk to about this situation. <3
I don’t have any advice but just wanted to send you a hug over the inter-tubes. I’m sorry you are going through such a difficult situation. <3 I hope you feel well enough to have a lovely picnic.
Thank you 🙂
Hi there! I am glad you’re making the decision that is right for you. Re: taking the abortion pill, you will probably start to feel something a little while after taking the first one, and I think it’d be a safe bet to count yourself out for at least two days, but all bodies are different and you may need more/less than that. It also depends how far along you were in the pregnancy. Good luck!!
Thanks, it’s nice to have an idea of the timeline and be a little prepared at least!
If it makes you feel any better, the same thing happened to me vis-a-vis husbands and pregnancies. It didn’t stick, but I was going to make the same choice. I was so conflicted but in the end, very, very grateful.
I’m also conflicted, but I know it is the right choice right now. Thanks 🙂
Hugs, and it’s not selfish to not want to have a baby with a person you no longer love/trust/whatever. Best wishes to you.
Best wishes and hugs
ETA: hugs only if you want them of course
Here is Scarleteen’s page on abortion, which includes a section on what different options feel like. Maybe it will help? Also, you can maybe check out their forums to see if anyone has asked a similar question or shared their experience.
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/bodies/all_abou…
This is great, thanks so much!
Sorry about the situation, that’s rough on you to deal with his anger on top of everything else. I don’t have advice on the logistics, but give yourself permission to come down with a ‘stomach bug’ or to ‘not be up to socializing after the breakup’ or whatever you want to tell them if it’s healthier for your heart to skip the picnic. There will be other picnics, in less emotional and difficult years, and you will enjoy them even more if they’re not tainted by the memory of feeling bad at this year’s picnic.
Yes, I’m definitely rethinking my plans. Thanks for the advice 🙂
Hi, first of all, it sucks to be pregnant when you do not want to be. Especially with someone you don’t want to be tied to you for another 18 years plus the rest of a child’s life. It’s not at all selfish to not want to do that. If it makes you feel any better, I got pregnant with my then boyfriend when had sex the one time during an extremely long dry spell where we were not getting along that good, we used a condom, which broke, and I took plan B the next day which did not work, and you can imagine that I felt similarly about how the universe has a pretty fucked up sense of humor about these things.
I chose a medication induced abortion. I do not want to alarm you but the overall experience is not great. I think it might be affected by how many weeks along you are/ everybody is different, but lets just say if I were exactly the same amount of knocked up again and made the same choice again, I probably would pick a D&C instead, because my friends who did that seemed to not have as bad a time. When I picked pills, I chose it because it was more private and at home…but I think that was scarier actually in the end. This is of course your choice, and I’ve only had the one abortion so I can’t say for sure there aren’t bigger drawbacks from D&C that I don’t know about. But if it’s just, I want to be in my own house while this goes down, I’d say take the better drugs they have when you get the D&C, it’s not like you’ll be in your bed having a dainty period, its more, cramps in the shower muttering “oh god oww”
I didn’t particularly notice anything about taking the first pill. But pill 2…was intense. It kicked in about an hour? First I felt feverish, then a lot of stomach action, like food poisoning, then severe cramping. You’ll know it when you have gone through most of the miscarriage, because it gets worse and worse until it starts to die down pretty fast. That lasted for what felt like forever, but I think it was only a few hours tops. The painkillers did not help while this was going on. Afterwards the painkillers worked ok.
Day 2 afterwards, not great. Day 3…mostly normal, still felt a bit weird.
Actually the worst part is i found out at week…6? and then i went on vacation and i had to get to week 8 before I could do the pill. I tell you being secretly morning sick on a vacation with a pregnancy you aren’t going to keep…oh boy…
Anyway, my number one recommendation is find someone to be there with you. Not your ex. But someone. It really does make a difference. And 1 in 3 women are in our club, so if you put some discreet feelers out you might find someone who knows what you are going through. Take care of yourself. Welcome to the worst secret club ever.
Thanks so much for talking about your experience..my decision was based more on how far I would have to go for an in-clinic abortion because they don’t do it at the PP closest to me :-(. My sister will be home so hopefully she can help me get through it. Thanks for all the advice 🙂
Oh hon, you are not being selfish. You are being wise and sensible, and quite apart from the fact that this is your body and your choice, you are doing the best for everyone else too. It’s not surprising that it’s an emotional thing to deal with in the middle of a break-up, though. I hope the abortion is easy to access and goes well, and that everything settles down nicely with being single again.
Thank you 🙂 I’m feeling much better about it now.
Museum toasts! Tell me what to do with my future?
I’ve been working in museums for about two years (currently in Visitor Services, partially managing a group of about 10 people), and am now trying to figure out grad school things. I just took the GRE and am looking to start a grad program next fall (2017), but I kind of have no idea what I’m doing. I’m in DC, so I’m leaning toward either Public History at AU or Museum Studies at GW, but it’s hard to decide between the two types of programs, and I’m worried that I’m ignoring good programs elsewhere because of my desire to stay where I already live. Plus there’s the question of how the hell to pay for things and if I’m making a terrible mistake by yolking myself to a field where I’ll be poor forever. Any thoughts/advice/commiseration from the museum toasts out there?
I had a subletter in my group house who did the Smithsonian-George Mason History of Decorate Arts program and really loved it if you did want to stay in DC? I think that’s what it was called. I don’t know much about it at all, but it sounded cool!
But outside of that I know nothing about museums, I hope someone else can help out!
Oh, I’m not familiar with that one! My interest is a bit more history than art, but I’ll definitely look into it.
It’s not in DC, but New Mexico State University has an excellent Public History program focused on museums and national park work–the former chief historian of the National Parks is a professor in the program. I know multiple people who went through the program and are curators/museum professionals/park rangers around the country. I was in the program for a while, but got a job in editing and didn’t have the time/mental energy to keep going but it really was an excellent program. They even have a truly amazing conservator program where when you reach the final level you get to restore a retablo from the university collection. (I didn’t get to the final level, although I did get to break a terra cotta pot and put it back together again and learn how to make a new pieces to fit in where any were missing.)
Again, it’s not DC but Las Cruces is a great, cheap place to live. Although once summer starts and before monsoon season in July it is HOT. (It’s a dry heat, though…?) Feel free to email me at cmgarton at gmail dot com if you are interested in learning more/specifics.
Thanks for the input! I have heard great things about that program. The thought of up and moving to New Mexico might stop me from pursuing it, but given the much lower cost of living maybe it’s worth considering.
Commiseration! If you want to work in the Museum field, be prepared to not make enough money, to possibly work a second job for the rest of your days, and be forever paid in grant money leaving your job status up in the air indefinitely.
BUT, it can be incredibly rewarding, the people are almost universally lovely, thoughtful, intelligent human beings who just love what they do and want to make the world a better place through education/collections/preservation/development/etc.
One of the best MS programs in the country is the Cooperstown Graduate Program through SUNY Oneonta in NY. It leans more history/art but I know some people who went there/work there and it’s fabulous. Also, Cooperstown is a lovely area with the Baseball Hall of Fame and some great breweries! (Also, super cheap to live there, naturally)
I’ve heard good things about that program! My worry, like Amphora mentions below, is that it’ll be harder to make job connections if I don’t want to keep living in Cooperstown after graduation, but I may well at least apply to the program anyway.
CGP alum here! We have a very strong, well-connected alumni network throughout the country, so don’t let the fear of staying in Cooperstown keep you from researching the program and applying. CGP is an amazing experience, and the curriculum includes professional networking opportunities as well as internships (both in Cooperstown during the school year and throughout the country during the summer). When my class graduated, all 15 of us found jobs within the museum field within about six months – only 1 in Cooperstown, and that was by her choice. I’m in Oregon, and many of my colleagues here are familiar with and respect CGP. Plus cost of living in Cooperstown is super low, and CGP actively follows through on doing everything they can to help you get the financial aid you need (for example, I was 1 of 6 who received free tuition second year in exchange for 10 hours/week of museum-related work).
I could go on for awhile about my love for CGP as a generalist museum studies program, the experiences I had there, and the connections I made. (Next month, most of my class is attending a classmate’s wedding in Virginia!) In short, HIGHLY recommend.
I know quite a few folks who work in museums and film archives, and (pretty much universally) the pay is *terrible*. So you’re very right to be concerned, especially if you want to stay in a high-cost-of-living area like DC. I would be very, very leery about taking on any significant student debt to enter the field.
(When my boyfriend worked full-time as an archivist, he made less than my disabled mother who was living on Workers’ Comp. Just by way of example).
It sounds like you’re getting good practical experience now– you might want to keep working and hold off a little longer on school, until you research your options and decide if it’s really the field you want to stay in. Talk to some full-timers, too, if you can.
Yeah, that’s definitely my concern. I know lots of people in the field, especially young people, just from previous jobs and such, and I’ve seen examples on both sides. I know folks, some of whom went through the programs I’m looking into, who’ve managed to secure decently paid jobs that they like, even if the job hunt took a while. On the other hand, I know people who’ve been in a job like my current one for years and years, even after getting an MA. So there’s possibility out there, but it’s certainly not guaranteed.
There’s at least a slim chance of getting some funding/scholarship (the AU program, for example, offers fellowships), but if I have to pay full freight myself it’s going to be a lot harder to make a decision.
REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, part 1:
– It’s sunny (but not too hot)
– I booked tickets to see my bestie in Hong Kong in October! It’s 3 months away but luckily I sorted the flights before the bottom fell out of our currency?
– Dogs
– It’s Friday
– We still have 1 more week of Toast AND Toast totes
– Twitter
– Um… idk pizza?
Tell me yours.
My husband and I took the day off (because I work a lot of weekends). At 11:40, I turned to him and said: “if you are interested in any . . special activities . . you’ve got 20 minutes until Open Thread.” (priorities!)
Now I’m lounging on the porch with a beer while he gets lunch for us, and then we’re going to do some gardening, go to the pool, and then get peanut buster parfaits from Dairy Queen. Which is to say that I’m treasuring a nice day in my little corner of the world, even though my heart aches for our British friends across the pond.
Haaaa #relationshipgoals!
Any day off that combines beer, peanut butter, swimming and lounging are GOOD days off IMO. Hope you enjoy it!
To his enormous credit, afterwards he turns to me and he (proudly) whispers “are you going to tell your Toast friends this story.” bless him.
Men who support and encourage their partners in Toasting have a special place in my heart. My husband hates all social media but respects my embrace of it, mostly.
Sometimes men don’t *all* need to be banned. Sometimes.
They will be spared when the #misandrist revolution comes
Our next-door neighbor’s wild blueberry bush has grown over and through our fence in several places. Another week and I’ll have fresh blueberries for breakfast every morning!
My next-door neighbor’s fig tree always grows way over the fence line so I ate figs off the branches on my way to/from my car. I was really worried with the weird weather we had it wouldn’t have ripe fruit before I moved, but it did, and they were delicious, and I gorged on figs until my last day there (Tuesday.)
Neighbor fruit is the best fruit.
-Friday!
-I’m expecting so much great mail in the next couple weeks between toast post and toast totes!
-I mentioned wanting a margarita yesterday so my dude decided he’s making a taco and margarita feast tomorrow!
-My garden is growing!
Pizza sounds so good right now
My coworker brought in pain au chocolate.
Oooh! Ooh! Also! I got more than $50 in amazon credit from the e-books anti-trust settlement! Check your amazon accounts, e-book readers/buyers! It shows up in the gift card balance section.
This!! I somehow got $30 in Barnes and Noble e-book credit, which is an unexpected and happy bonus!
Does it actually say it came from the settlement? I have ~$8 that I’m assuming came from the settlement, but I actually have no clue.
No, it just shows up as a gift card, and the date is recent. I think there should be an email, but the email for my amazon account is my throwaway email that I never check.
My mother is staying with my sister, who had her hip replaced this week, so he and I have the house to ourselves and it is AMAZING how much of a better mood we’re both in. Clearly another sign that my buying our own space is a must-do.
More exciting (and rather shit-squeakingly terrifying) than that…going to my first comic-con thing in August…getting my picture taken with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. To say that “The X-Files” meant a lot to me…well, it’s the stuff of about 900,000 thinkpieces (that perhaps one day I will write about).
– Friday!
– About to buy tickets to a baseball game, with a friend who I haven’t seen in far too long
– I had some almost-ripe berries on the strawberry plant the other day, so maybe today they will be ripe!
– I’ve set up two Vina meetups in the next two weeks and I’m really excited!
I bought my dad VIP tickets to a Weird Al concert and I am very excited to a) have found out that one was happening near him, just in time, and b) be able to spring for the VIP option with the meet & greet that will hopefully be totally awesome.
I also bought myself tickets for the tour date near me, and am quite looking forward to that as well, as I hear he puts on a great show and I haven’t really listened to him in ages.
Oh nooooooooo, this dude: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/4…
I DESPERATELY want to know how this turns out.
Right?! What if she does all this worrying and he just got them as collector’s items? Though I believed her argument that he would have shown her immediately if that was the case. What does she do when he proposes? It sounds like she wants to marry him, I guess, but how do you not make a face once you’ve spent all this time dreading seeing the ring?
I don’t want to look at this ring and just think about him comparing me to his favourite video game.
Ohhhhh, honey. FLING HIM INTO THE SUN Talk to him I guess…?
Well, I’m pretty miffed about the whole Brexit thing. I don’t even know how it will affect us here in non-Britain (it will to some degree, apparently, trade something blah, blah, or so I’ve read) but I just find all the racist xenophobic bs that’s associating itself with the Leave side to be really concerning. Especially given that the vote was so close. Boo to this. I feel as though it’s split the union in such an ugly and ultimately unnecessary way.
Enough politics, though, I guess. I’m up past midnight, not only because I wanted to be a part of the end of the Toast, but also because I’m counting down deadline days and finishing a story, while also trying to complete a freelance job and my regular editing work. Plus I’m committed to sorting out my research question in the next few weeks. All of this brainwork is very interesting and stimulating and reminds me of being at uni 10-20 years ago (I spent a long time at uni), however, I’m discovering that uni in your 20s is a lot different to uni in your 40s, not least because there are children in the house now. If anything, it adds variety, I suppose?
Thank you, Bartender.
Thank you!!
Welp. The world is ending. Pity that.
So, maybe it’s the weird Mormon girl who grew up hearing about the last generation and saturdays warriors, the importance of food storage and stuff and such, but the end of the world still feels so very possible and oddly fascinating. What will we do when it’s 10 degrees hotter and we’ve voted away all government?
(Sidenote – as a kid I was obsessed with a very memorable cassette tape featuring a old school radio play dramatization of a family pretending that the end times has come – side A – the economy and everything falls apart and they all trek to Missouri to meet Jesus and form Zion. One of them dies while chopping wood and everyone sings. Side B – some really weird stuff about Israel)
Anyways, I’ve been daydreaming about the hardcore, Mad max style disintegration of society a lot lately and alternatively, the silver lining of what do I wish the future could be if we all just got our shit together. Both of my scenerios involve misandrist compounds.
I hope for a world where we can all build and find supportive communities, but not ones that are closed to and fearful of those outside them. I hope we can all keep lovingly nudging people to grow and learn and listen, while staying open to that ourselves. I hope Tamora Pierce books are read forever. I’m optimistic that cute pictures of cats and floofy dogs will somehow make this happen. I hope women keep getting louder and bigger and someday women listening in art history makes no sense.
What do you think/hope/fear the future holds?
What you said about Tamora Pierce books being read forever almost made me cry.
I imagine that food shortages/droughts could lead to some fascinating plant-worshipping new religions. Hopefully we’ll learn to respect whatever green spaces are left.
Well, I live in the Great Lakes area, so my plan includes stockpiling all the water I can fit in my basement and holding it for ransom.
I had a weird point yesterday where I was reading a zombie apocalypse book (The Girl With All The Gifts) and for the most part it was delightful and lovely, but there was a quick moment (an aside, really) where it was all “Oh, and if the scavengers find you they’ll use you for raping/breeding the next generation” and I completely shut down. I was so upset that this would be something worth mentioning in what was otherwise a perfectly acceptable dog-eat-dog scenario. Augh. So, I hope for a future in which the apocalypse doesn’t hold an imminent threat of rape, as naive as that may be.
Thank you, Bartender! I will miss your yummy food pics and kind comments that open the Cocktail Hour.
I’ll miss all of you tremendously.
You have been such a lovely and friendly presence around here. Thank you!
Toasties, posting under this name because IntenseDebate just won’t let me log in today, but I could use your advice. How to you adjust to moving in with your partner after living separately for all your relationship? We’re currently in her tiny place with us, two cats, stuff everywhere, and we are both going insane. My things go from my old apt. to storage this weekend, and we move into our new place in a little less than a month. I feel like I’ve had to give up all my systems – I’m at a new job, not in my apartment, with almost none of my stuff, in a new city with no people I know (besides my partner and one of her co-workers), and feel like my partner’s way of doing things is constantly prevailing, from little things like meal planning to larger things like finances, because her method is “more logical” or “more attuned to our goals.” Certainly this is true some of the time, but I’m left feeling more like a kid with a directive parent than a partner. I know I need to do more speaking up about my opinion – that’s something I’ve had trouble with for a long time, but besides that, how do you learn to live and compromise with someone without wanting to throw them out the window? We’ve been in a long-distance relationship for years before this, and I’m super happy about moving in and want it to work – but I feel completely uprooted, like I have no anchor (especially since The Toast is coming to a close, too), and this looks nothing like what I wanted. I’m terrified it means our relationship isn’t working out suddenly. As always, toasties, thank you for your support, and for any advice you might be able to provide.
I don’t have a lot of personal advice (my now-wife moved into my place, but it was big enough that she could take over the guest room as an introvert cave, which helped a ton.) But IME, generally, speaking up about shit sooner keeps me from building up the resentment that makes me want to throw them out the window. It’s terrifying but I promise you it’s worth it, and gets easier over time.
(Also, you’ve made unequal sacrifices to be together so far. IMO she needs to acknowledge and try to compensate somewhat. Losing your social network is HUGE.)
I was in a similar situation last summer. Moving into a new apartment helped SO MUCH, partly because it was larger, but also because of the clean slate factor.
We had been in MY place before moving, and my way of doing things prevailed because it was MY place and why would anyone ever put THAT thing THERE when it clearly goes HERE?
In the new place, we were able to compromise on initial organization and divvying up chores, and everything was much more harmonious. It also helped that the new place was a two bedroom, so the office was my work-from-home partner’s domain and the bedroom was mine to decorate and organize. Having ownership of a defined space was good for two pathologically independent people learning to live together after a lengthy long-distance stint.
Oh lord, yes, I did this. Moved in with my boyfriend, first time moving in with someone, and did it by moving across the world to Australia (worth it). Small spaces, especially when it means you have lost your retreat (which used to be my bedroom back in the family home and then was my whole beautiful tiny apartment when I lived alone) can be hella stressful. I cried in the kitchen a lot (which was also tiny). And I worried I had magically become a doormat because I kept letting him make decisions and plans because New Country, Suddenly didn’t know how the streets worked, and No Friend Circle. But he was incredibly supportive and understanding about the stresses, and the fact that it was hard and stressful had nothing to do with the strength of our relationship and was probably a useful test of how we coped together (we got married this month, five years later, so we survived it!). I would say talk about your fears and concerns, often it turns out the other person has similar ones too and knowing it isn’t just you helps. I would say find something familiar, such as a type of class you used to do that you can do in the new place (mine was yoga) or a coffee shop that can be your retreat until you can get a corner of the new place as yours.
It’s ok! It’s ok! I went through this this year and it was hard, although I need to be honest and tell you I’m the pushy partner with SO MANY OPINIONS about how things should be done and my boyfriend is the good sport who has to tell me to knock it off.
Ideas:
One, divide some of the things up and let yourselves keep your own ways. For instance we have 3 laundry baskets. One is his, one is mine and one is for the household linens. We each do our own laundry and take loads of the house laundry when it needs to go. Because I have a lot of particulars about my laundry this is much better than when he just wanted to shove it all in a bag and get it done but couldn’t because I needed to sort everything by wash method and then I resented him for making me do the laundry more, and he felt like I was holding him up and so on.
Two understand why each person likes the thing. There’s an equally good logic for every approach and your partner isn’t actually getting that when she says her way is “more logical”. All of these things are about feelings. I prefer auto-payments in my account because I’m not good at always remembering to pay my bills, but I am good at putting a system in place. My dude feels sketched out by auto pay. Thats how we each feel. Neither way is MORE logical, but you gotta pick one. Try focusing on both of you talking about the why behind the what. Why this drawer and not that one for the silverware? Etc. It takes a lot of work to become a team out of 2 people. We’re still really debating what our kitchen table should be like, because man, we have really different priorities for that furniture, and I have no idea what we’re going to end up agreeing on.
Three, some of this is just about moving. It sucks big time to move. Its been 6 months and I still whine about having no anchor. I needed a lot of support from my partner, a lot of room to whine. So make sure she gets that. She gets to keep her life. So maybe it’s ok for you to have the silverware drawer the way you’d like it to be? Let her know how you feel sometimes like she’s setting herself up as the boss at a time when you feel so lost in your own identity. A person who loves you would like to know that so it can be fixed, even if it’s kind of hard to hear.
Also my dude does not speak up when he’s annoyed and we’re still working on that, because that makes me crazy. We’ve had fights a few times where he feels like I steamrolled and steamrolled and he went along and I’m the jerk, but all he said to me was “ok” the whole time while I was outlining my ideas, and I got this weird vibe off him, but had no real way to know what was frustrating him.
So don’t be afraid to have disagreements. Its one thing if you both are holding your ground and refusing to compromise ever, but if what’s happening is your partner says, “I’d like to set it up like A” and you say, “or like B?” and she says “No A makes more sense because blah blah” and you say, “ok, fine”….I can’t blame her really. Hold your ground on some of it. Say, “I know it might seem illogical to you, but I really like doing this this way, or want this picture to be framed in this frame.” and see what happens.
It really does take time to become a team. You have to be really open about how it is feeling for you.
I’m only a little embarrassed that my advice is to sit in the middle of everything and cry like a crying thing.
You have changed everything about your life to be here, you deserve to have some space and affection and accommodations now that you are here, even if they are tiny things in a tiny apartment. You might get company weeping; your partner might be having other things going on especially along the lines of “I have wanted this person here forever and now it is hard and waaah” and from there you can maybe talk some about how to make everything easier on yourselves before you move.
Moving to bigger, new space to properly start the relationship is also good planning on both your parts.
tl:dr – crying helped me start talking about stuff that was important to the relationship when I couldn’t figure out how else to start.
My Dearests, Toasts! (with the comma after Dearests) I’m going to miss Open Threads so, so much, and I think we should all take a moment to celebrate ourselves for making them such a kind and clever space.
I also wanted to share my friend JC’s fundraising page to support her during recovery from surgery she’s having next month, when she’ll be mainly on unpaid leave (FMLA = FML!). She’s a stellar children’s librarian, edits a zine on the intersection of physical and mental illness – http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=collide+zines+jc… , and is one of the best ladies in my life. If you’d like to contribute and have some money to spare, or just want to send her some kind thoughts, it would mean so much to her and to me.
Toasties, I won’t be around to comment on the 1st for the OT, so I’ll say it now: Thank you SO MUCH for making and maintaining such a unique, kind, outstandingly brilliant community. Hanging out here for the pieces and the comments have genuinely kept me a much happier, more grounded person, especially on days like this, when it feels like the end is nigh. I transitioned over here from The Hairpin, and now that Toastie Slack is taking off and there’s a Space Witch Retreat around the bend, it feels like there is still so much to look forward to with you guys. Nicoles and Mallory, thank you, you magnificent, resplendent creatures. You’ve made me the soppy, misandrist sea witch of hot doom that I am today, and I love y’all (said with appropriate amounts of foreboding doom).
Some business to get out of the way real quick: i’m sorry I never figured out how to post pictures of my dogwalking dogs, and also that I am just sending out my Toast posts now!!
I love you, mystery bartender. And all of you. This site has changed my life, it sounds silly but it really has. I have tended to lean towards the curmudgeon side about technology (being raised by a microwave fearing, cell phone scorning mother will do that) and the way the internet affects us – but you, sweet Toast, have been a true home for me and my interweb schema is now entirely rearranged. God help me, I understand reddit!bros more now.
Thank you all for your sound advice, your pedantry, your dazzling wits, your kindness, your inclusivity, your weird beautiful niche interests and even more beautiful souls. You are all my kindred spirits and beautiful bosom friends. (Rereading Anne & her dramatic ways feel so appropriate for week of the Toast ending.)
<3
Between Brexit, the US elections, Congressional sit-ins, and the active-shooter training I attended at work this morning, I’m spending the day ordering romance novels for the library, because we could all use some more happy endings.
I teared up reading the Bartender’s farewell. We’ll always have The Sea.
My boss sent out an invite to an active-shooter training at his gym and I am so glad I declined. It may be useful but I just cannot handle it now.
We did ours online, and even that was incredibly upsetting, TBH
UMMM, so my wife is moving out this week? We are separating??????
We’re living apart for a while to work on some stuff independently, not as a step in the divorce process. But it’s scary??? And sad??? And also exciting??? And even though we are separating I am really excited to date my wife????? It is all very surreal.
Toasties, I have not been focusing on myself, on what I need and want. Shifting my focus onto myself feels GOOD. Also scary.
Talk to me about losing yourself in other people. Talk to me about codependency. Talk to me about your separations, no matter how they ended.
Well, I moved to Chicago in 1999 with my then-wife. We got married about a year after college, which was one of the dumber ideas I’ve followed through on. In any case, I knew nobody here, really, so my friends were really her friends, and I didn’t do much to develop my own network of supportive friends and loved ones (another poor decision by me!). After some time here, we acknowledged a lot of problems that are not particularly interesting this many years after the fact, and did a trial separation. I moved into the Saddest Hotel On Earth for a couple of weeks (an Extended Stay America, which I’m convinced was populated almost exclusively by other men who were separated). It was a pretty sad time, and for us the idea of dating one another and treating the separation as a sort of “reset button” didn’t work, but that’s because we were fundamentally incompatible and were pretty terrible to and for one another by that time.
Funny thing, about that relationship – I never would’ve moved to Chicago if we hadn’t been together, which means I wouldn’t have met my awesome friends, my loving partners, or the supportive community that I’ve found/developed as a result. These days I consider my first marriage as a very inefficient way of catching a ride to Chicago. 🙂
That is, indeed, as you say, a scary/sad/exciting/hopeful time. As someone who vacillates between a frantic desire for MAXIMUM CLOSENESS and a crippling terror of emotional intimacy/ intense independence and introversion, I am most sympathetic and hope everything goes well <3
(Some… kind-of-Freudian backstory here: I am a twin, with a complex and intense relationship with my twin. That has shaped every significant relationship I have tried to form since….birth.)
I moved out of the dorm room (yes, yes, I know >.>) that I shared with my college boyfriend, because living together had been a very bad idea. We dated for about another pleasant year after separating, and parted amicably in the end.
Another piece of anecdata: asexual lesbian couple, family friends of mine, moved out of the house that they shared for many, many years and into smaller, separate apartments. Quite a lot of time has passed, and everything seems to be going just fine for them.
I’m so glad you’re excited to date your wife! I think that’s a good sign. I’m so happy that focusing on yourself is happening, and that it feels good. It’s normal for it to be scary, too. You will learn to balance attending to yourself and to your relationship; I’m sure I can learn to do it too. I’m slowly learning already.
Oh, gosh. This is good. Painful and terrifying, but good and brave. Trust the part of you that is excited. It’s not the same situation exactly, but oh boy do I relate. After two years of living together my boyfriend and I just moved into separate places and it has been wonderful. Our issues haven’t melted away, but we have clarity, and senses of self that were really missing. We’ve been able to see our true selves again, which were hiding a bit under codependency and tears and fights; we can see the things that make us happy, and I think we’ve both been able to take more ownership of our own problems instead of flinging them at each other.
And he’s grown up A TON in the almost-month we’ve been living apart. I was starting to really lose hope that he was going to confront his anger and anxiety issues, but he is really (finally) making a start on that journey. In the long run, whether we make it or not, I’m proud of him and us for taking a really necessary step.
And I’m proud of you too.
I haven’t been in the same situation, since my partner and I never lived together, but we’ve had separate places for 12 years and I love it.
I think, for some couples, things just work better when you have your own separate spaces and you’re not on top of each other (picking up the other’s socks, etc.)
Some people need more personal space than others, and I’d be willing to bet that many introverted Toasties fit in the “needs WAY more space” category than the average person.
I wish you the best! For me, moving out on one another was the precursor to breaking up, in a way that ended up being desperately needed. I can’t speak to his perspective, but being on my own and having completely-alone time was the best thing for me.
OMG babies. I had babies 22 and 18 years ago, and they are leaving and then coming back and I am not really a parent anymore, but a deeply trusted adult and I cannot CANNOT figure out what to do or how to do it, and and these are (I guess) the beginnings of them flying. What I hope is that they journey far and safely and come home to tell me about it. That is a separation, yes? Only sort of a little bit about what you asked.
Today is just one heck of a day with things going on in the world and my personal life/living situation is just all screwed up and I have been very weepy at my desk today.
I’m sorry. Me too. Commiseration hugs offered.
Toasties, thank you for everything! I’m so happy that I had this community when I really needed it, and thank you to everyone who gave me such good advice during my recent breast reduction! I hope to be able to pay it forward on Reddit if anyone ever needs it!
Stay golden friends.
How is your recovery going!?
Really great, thank you! So happy! (but sad about the Toast)
Yay! Very glad to hear that.
Y’all. When will I stop being bummed about this place?
I haven’t been around as much for the last year or so, but I was over on the hairpin and then The Toast.
The world is bonkers and I’ll miss this place like all hell
Mallory, when you start binging on Joni Mitchell, I hope you think of some nerd guy just silently mouthing “I told you so” over and over before you flip over to side two of “Hissing Of Summer Lawns” or side one of “Hejira”
shan’t
And that’s why you’re the best.
My favorite little group that is on the verge of becoming a big group was on Jimmy Fallon last night. It’s a good song for Toasties. What music are you finding strength/solace in right now?
“They say
“You’d better give up
You’d better give up.”
I’ll be an army, no you’re
Not gonna stop me getting
Through
I’ll sing a marching song and
Stomp through the halls louder than
You
I could surrender but I’d
Just be pretending, no I’d
Rather be dead than live a lie
Burn the white flag
Burn the white flag”
Joseph – White Flag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coE3C_JNKeU
Bartender, please come join us at toastieslack.
EVERYONE, please come join us at toastieslack.
ppyajunebug [at] gmail [dot] com
I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING THIS IS JUST DUST IT’S A VERY DUSTY ROOM OK?
(sob)
I lurk a lot and post seldom and I just want to say I’m going to miss you, all of you.
The bartender could already be on toastieslack and WE WOULDN’T EVEN KNOW!!
Truth! (But I’m not yet)
Okay okay FINE but explain it to me like I’m 6 and I will
email as above. Follow the directions in the invitation email from slack. Play around for a bit in the different channels, ask questions in slack101, take concerns or requests to adminstuff.
It’s a bit easier to figure out from a computer than from mobile, so try on a computer first.
Email, join, leap into conversation at your heart’s content. Legitimately that easy.
I was terrified of slack, but basically it’s just a bunch of chat rooms.
JOOOIN US ON SLACK and between #ToastieTwitter and ToastieSlack your life will always be full.
Hey if I already have a slack account should I sign up for this group with the same email? I have it for work but hardly use it/ don’t really know how it works
It doesn’t matter which email you use – slack makes you use a different sign up for each ‘team’ you join. BUT it also lets you switch between teams within the Slack interface (mobile or desktop) without caring if you used different emails to access them to start with.
I’ve been holding off on Slack until this place is truly gone. I can only hold so many conversational threads while I am supposed to be working, and I’ve wanted to give all my attention here while I can. But I’m glad it is thriving.
I have nothing clever to say. I love you all, and will miss you.
What are everyone’s summer plans? I feel like this is the end of the school year so I need to know- Are you going to camp? Did you get a summer job and McDonalds? Are your parents dragging you on a family road trip?
I’m headed to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for a week of vacation/work right after the 4th of July which will be excellent timing to distract me. Other than that I have big plans to spruce up my yard/garden and do a bunch of sewing.
The UP is my parents’ favorite place to vacation because it has even fewer people than the rural area we’re from 🙂 I have lots of good memories up there including driving all over with a girl I didn’t realize I was in love with as a teen.
I looove the UP. The place I’m going is my favorite place in the world.
I went once when my bestie lived in Ann Arbor and it was so so beautiful (we went first weekend in October and it was unseasonably warm so we got both foliage and nice hiking weather).
My boyfriend and I went to Lake Placid last summer and it was similarly great (a bit more populated but also lots of great hiking), and now we want to make it more of a regular destination. Don’t know if we’ll be able to manage it this year but definitely an every couple of years kind of thing.
My family has a lake house that’s been around since 1903 (currently owned jointly by my dad and his siblings, will eventually pass to me, my sister, and our cousins) near the Traverse City area and I go up there every summer and it’s such a perfect place. I would love to visit the UP someday, except I can never really tear myself away from the lake long enough to do much of anything, ha.
I’m heading to Maine in August for 10 days, which is basically my definition of summer heaven. One of my best friends is getting married, I’m going to lie around on the beach I grew up on, I’m going to splash about in the ocean, maybe surf a bit, eat lobster rolls and italian sandwiches, see my folks, hug my brother, and breathe in salt air.
I’ll also be in Santa Barbara for a few days for a work trip! Any toasties have UCSB-adjacent recommendations?
Going to London for the second half of July, then coming home by way of friend reunion in GA, and then moving back to MI for the (hopefully) final year of my PhD.
UP backpacking in on my to-do list (have somehow never been!), but I’m not sure I’ll find time with everything else in the hopper.
I don’t have any specific plans for the summer, but I do want to live in the water as much as possible. Next weekend I’m going to try either kayaking or stand-up paddle boarding.
I’m going to visit my partner and my friends in Georgia! I’ll be meeting my partner’s parents for the first time, which is exciting but nerve-wracking, as that type of visit always is. But both weekends I’m there will have excellent dance events hosted by friends of mine, including a sci-fi themed blues dance party I’ll be helping to host. I’m going as Jadzia Dax so that I can be a recognizable character even when the Georgia heat forces me to remove clothing.
Excellent! Best wishes with distractions in Michigan! What’ll you be sewing?
Other than figuring out how to incorporate a daily website post into my life, I’m going to a teeny tiny little fan con in Vegas third weekend of July. Woo! And I’m staring one-on-one sessions with a Pilates coach to help rebuild some core strength before I start yoga teacher training in September. The rest of my summer is gonna be nuts. In a good way, but still.
My great-aunt gave me about 4 quilts worth of blocks that she made but never got turned into quilts. They are lovely and slightly intimidating.
OH MY GOSH YOU ARE SO BRAVE. I bet they will turn out gorgeous.
I’m visiting my parents over the 4th of July weekend, going to GenCon in early August, and going to ASIA at the end of August (holy crap I should ask for Toast recs for that trip).
Otherwise, I’m just trying to figure out my new job while also spending as much time on Governors Island as possible. Oh, and watching a ton of soccer.
-We’re planning on going… somewhere around Simcoe Day (the first Monday in August). Maybe Newfoundland? We’re open to suggestions
-My husband’s best friend moved from Amsterdam to Montreal earlier this year and since we’re in the same country again, we’re planning on going to see her in July for a weekend
– Next weekend is my grandma’s 100th birthday party. She was given 6 months to live when she was 50.
– i would like to take up a new hobby but I’m probably going to take until September to decide.
Have a wonderful time in the Upper Peninsula! I’ve heard it’s lovely
Not summer but I am GOING TO AUSTRALIA (primarily Melbourne) for three weeks in September and am SOOOOO excited.
*starts binge-watching Miss Fisher again to prepare*
In July I’m going to my partner’s uncle’s beach house for a weekend of sunsets, wine, walking their lab, reading, swimming, and calming my overactive brain. We’ve decided to sell our car in September (when I head off to do some traveling) and should hopefully be making lots of state park day trips as well. Other than that, basking in the company of my glorious sublet roommates and our adorable little lady house, writing a bunch, rediscovering my love of cooking, reading, and finally doing yoga classes. (Yay groupon! Yay candlelit evening yoga! I am so creaky and stiff.)
I’m heading to the UP at the end of July! Near the Pictured Rocks lakeshore, where I’ll spend a week in a cabin with my dog and spouse and not have to answer any emails (*cackles madly!!!*). Spouse and I are in Illinois while all our family are on East or West coasts, so taking a vacation where we have no relations feels delightfully self-indulgent.
I’ve never been to Michigan, and don’t really have plans beyond “explore rocks/lake/forest”. Toasts who are familiar with the area, anything I shouldn’t miss?
Yay! I don’t know that area super well but there’s a lot of nice hiking. Take a pictured rocks cruise. Even though it’s kinda expensive it’s the best way to see the rocks. General UP advice: eat a pastie. Pack head nets/ bug spray if you plan to be outside. I love Marquette and there are some really good restaurants- it’s pretty close to Munising but a hike if you’re staying on the Grand Marais side.
Eat. All. The. Cherries.
Feel free to email me at msse627 at yahoo and I maybe have some tips (native Yooper!) – off the top of my head near Munising: Pictured Rocks cruise, Grand Island, I believe there is good canoeing and birding to the west in Au Train (songbird trail? it’s been awhile!), dinner at the Brownstone Inn. Not sure how far you plan to stray from Munising area, but Marquette is about 45 minutes to the west and has some great dining options, food coop, etc., but is less of the solitude of a cabin. HAVE FUN!
ETA cell service can be spotty away from the bigger towns (i think there’s a dead zone btw Munising and MQT) so a road atlas or map is always a good idea, and a little bit of planning ahead!
I’m so excited to go on our annual family vacation in northern Michigan (including a road trip to wahn country in Leelanau) I just can’t stand it!
One million bajillion upvotes for everyone for the UP love! I am a native Yooper and just got back from bringing my baby there for the first time and also burying my stepmom near her family’s old farm, and gosh if I’m not getting a little choked up reading about how you guys love the UP? I need more coffee *sniff*
Friends, I’ll keep it brief because I am at a convention right now: as always, I love you, and owe so much to The Toast that they may never know. Except I’m telling everyone right now.
Also, if by chance any Toasties are at Too Many Games right now, please come find me because I’m sitting on the floor in the entryway hanging out and waiting for it to open.
I’ll miss you so much and will think of you every time I use the excited as fuck gif of you (which, tragically is not that often because I am rarely that excited but hey! who knows what the future holds).
I finally read Catherynne M. Valente’s “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making” which has been on my List of Books I Should Have Read Years Ago for a very, very long time.
Toasties, I think she spoke to us all when she wrote: “And besides, all witches must keep up a certain level of deviance in their personal lives, or we should be expelled from the union.”
What are your favorite fairy tale flavored stories, retellings or otherwise?
V. old school but Anne Sexton’s TRANSFORMATIONS is a poetry collection based on Grimms that never fails to both wreck and rebuild me.
Oh, I’m always looking for poetry recommendations. I will check this out. I read Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann recently. It’s a set of retellings aimed at teenage women.
I haven’t even read Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle yet, but I know I will love it.
How dare you think this isn’t on my shelf already… How dare you.
It is indeed, very good and very Gaiman. You should borrow it next time you are in town.
I WOULD NEVER SUGGEST SUCH A THING.
That was my non subtle way of telling you I needed to borrow it, kthx
Reading this book is how I deal with anxiety. That illustration under the tree and the line “Choices… there are always choices” is balm to my soul.
I’m one of those people who read Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin at just the right age to love it.
My fave quote from TGWCFiaSoHOM is “It’s the wonders I’m after, even if I have to bleed for them.” That’s what I want my life to be and I’m working really hard to live it.
That quote right there feels like the spirit of clevermanka.net
Thank you. Thank you. I hope to make it that, yes.
Pretty much all of Ursula Vernon (or T. Kingfisher, under which she publishes a lot of these). She’s written a lot of fairy tale retellings that give the lost princess/stablegirl her agency back, and a deep dose of practicality. I hightly recommmend either Toad Words, her short story collection, or The Raven and the Reindeer, a snow queen retelling with lots of awesome old ladies and also lesbians.
I found Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher via Toastie comments and immediately read everything she ever wrote. One of the best recommendations I’ve ever ever ever received.
The one that’s stuck with me the most is Aimee Bender’s short story “The Color Master”, which is sort of a retelling of Donkeyskin. In the original tale, the princess who is being courted by her father requests (or is given) three dresses – one the color of the sky, one the color of the moon, and one the color of the sun. The short story is about the person charged with making those dresses who must determine what those colors actually are and how to go about making the dyes. And throughout the whole thing, her dying master keeps telling her to infuse the dresses with anger, so that the princess will find the strength to leave, and so she has to figure out how to do that as well.
Reading this story is the only time I became so engrossed that I actually missed my metro stop and was late to work.
This sounds amazing!
Seconded to infinity
I don’t even know if it’s even still available bc I bought it at a garage sale years ago, but in the (ya?) fairy tale collection A Wolf at the Door (all of which is worth reading) is a modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel called Hansel’s Eyes, in which Gretel becomes the witch’s apprentice and saves her brother with the same magic the witch had taught her. I dunno how it holds up now because I lost the book ages ago but it’s also the standard to which I hold all fairytale retellings.
Not a fairy tale retelling, exactly, but a retelling of a myth, so…maybe that counts? Eric Burns-White wrote a retelling of the Persephone/Hades story some years ago that is really lovely. I tend to return to it once a year, usually when it gets really, really cold here.
http://banter-latte.annotations.com/2007/12/04/pr…
Uprooted!
The Book Smugglers published an anthology of diverse feminist retellings of fairytales called Retold: Six Fairytales Reimagined, and it was so excellent!
I just read Uprooted last week on the reccomendation of another toastie! I’m on a fairy tale reading rampage.
Retold looks good, I’m always up for feminist retellings.
Have you read any of Mercedes Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdoms books? They’re not so much fairy tales as the characters actively trying /not/ to be in fairy tales.
For the past few OTs I’ve thought “this will be the time I put this question before the Toast commentariat,” but I’ve backed off every time. But since this is my penultimate chance, I guess I better go for it:
Is there any way to disambiguate between “I don’t want to be viewed as a woman because my society is crap toward women and I don’t appreciate being considered less-than” and “I don’t want to be viewed as a woman because I’m not one”? Or how do you tell the difference between giving the middle finger to your prescribed gender roles and… giving the middle finger to having a gender in the first place?
I HAVE THIS AS WELL
I don’t feel differently-gendered, but neither do I feel “woman”
My sorting out of it came when I realized nonbinary/genderqueer/trans* folk feel actively like their gender and the trappings thereof are suffocatingly unidentifiable-with, like wearing a kangaroo outfit and trying to bounce around
at least, for me, the difference is I don’t hate my body or its appearance in the “this doesn’t feel like me at all” manner (although I do hate my body for general disability- and appearance- related reasons)
It is more “eh I don’t really care if this is what I look like while alone in my room, but people need to treat me better”
2) read The Female Man! TOTALLY addresses this point, albeit in a 70s sci-fi way
3)IF you feel comfortable doing so, you can make deliberate appearance choices that confuse and befuddle. Or just are more androgynous?
but you might not feel comfortable doing that OR you might feel (rightly) like this sort of can end up conflating “woman” with “femme” in a way that demeans “femme”
I think it’s the conflating “woman” with “femme” thing that I’m wrestling with the most. Like… okay, as neatly as I can distill it, my problem with society at large has the following elements:
1. Some activities and behaviors have been designated feminine
2. What is feminine has been designated as BAD, inferior to everything that isn’t
3. Women are required to be feminine
Intellectually, I know that points 2 and 3 are complete bullshit, and I think point 1 is also baffling and arbitrary. So, intellectually, that puts me in a place of “there’s no wrong way to be a woman. I’ll just keep on keeping on, shopping in the menswear department and being politely uninterested in 95% of the stereotypical pastimes for my general demographic. And of course, every woman who chooses differently than I have still deserves equal support.” And like you, I’m broadly okay with my physical appearance, at least in the sense of “yeah this is sufficiently ‘me.'”
But out there in the wild, when I actually have to interact with people (disclaimer: and it’s not a self-selected group of nerdy progressive weirdos), I run up against a wall of they think I’m a certain way and I’m NOT, they believe things about me because of my physiology that are IN MY CASE COMPLETELY FALSE and it does a number on my head.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s internalized misogyny? Maybe I am associating with shitty people? I have more thinking to do. Totally going to read The Female Man, either way, thanks for the rec.
Sometimes it feels like womanhood is such a very narrow tent that there’s no place for those who shop in the menswear department. I’m in that camp and I get the fear of internalized misogyny colouring the way you resist gender normativity. I’ve gotten a lot out of reading stuff by femme folks who reject the devaluation of femininity and it has saved me from falling into an anti-femme mentality even if I don’t identify that way.
Your last two paragraphs here really leap out at me. One of the shitty parts of our culture is that no matter how we identify, people are going to make false assumptions about us based on our bodies and clothes and choices etc. It’s sad to know that people confuse who we really are based on superficial signifiers. I try to take comfort in the fact that I know who I am regardless of that nonsense, and that there are people in the world with more nuanced understandings of gender, who are prepared to see us for who we are. Who are those people for you?
Thank you. Re: reading stuff by femme people, do you have any recommendations? Any particular blogs or books or something? I spent a pretty long time thinking “that’s not me, so either they’re wrong or I’m wrong,” and that’s something I’ve only been consciously fighting for the past few years.
…You’re right, though. However I end up resolving this question, I should be spending more time with self-selected groups of nerdy progressive weirdos, and less time with people who keep misreading me.
I hear re: ‘either they’re wrong or I’m wrong’. That seems like an inevitable phase if you’ve spent years being given the side eye by girls who wear makeup etc. I feel like the thing that really opened my eyes was when men started to tell me, as a form of compliment, that I’m not ‘like other women’ because other women are shallow/weak/vain/superficial etc. I want no part in that kind of misogyny even if I don’t wear skirts.
Here is a trove of articles covering a wide range of topics from transmisogyny to the myth that being femme automatically confers privilege. (I don’t believe in butch privilege either but that’s a whole other matter). It’s a list by and for queer femmes but I think a lot of points basically apply to all women who could fit somewhere on the femme spectrum. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DA32WZZH0SGOP…
I am impressed by how intelligently you are parsing all of this. From what you have said here,it sounds as though you would be comfortable continuing to identify as a woman if the people around you did not have such a narrow definition of womanhood as well as disdain for stereotypically female traits? Is that right? If so,then I suppose you are choosing between two views of identity. Is identity inside out? Who you are in your room gets expressed in the world? Then you are a woman and the world can just suck it up. Or is identity socially constituted? Then you might be a man or gender queer so the world can have a category for you that makes sense and allows you to be yourself without unnecessary pressure. Does that make sense? Hmm. I wonder if there is an in between?
Really good questions, thank you, and I’ll have to give them a good mulling-over. I’m not sure yet where I stand on how identity is constructed, but this has definitely helped clarify some of my thinking on the matter.
I feel very much the same way! I have thought of it as a three-way split between “I don’t feel like a woman because I don’t fit into my society’s narrow definition of womanhood” vs. “I don’t feel like a woman because I have internalized some stuff about womanhood = inferiority and don’t want to be/be viewed as inferior” vs. “I don’t feel like a woman because I’m not one, or not entirely one.”
Where I’ve settled for the moment is: I don’t feel truly bad about being viewed as a woman, just vaguely out of place, like… more like there’s a pebble in my shoe than like my shoe doesn’t fit at all and I can’t wait to take it off. I don’t dislike or feel uncomfortable with my body or appearance, and it doesn’t pain me to be called “she,” and there isn’t really a different gender that I DO feel like that I could sub in, so… idk. Basically, I still think I might come to identify as something else (agender? genderfluid?) later on, but for now I’m trying to see if, to go back to the ill-fitting shoes metaphor, maybe “woman” doesn’t fit QUITE right but I can make it work if I wear it with different pants or something. (This is a terrible metaphor, that’s not how shoes OR genders work, but I’m in too deep now, sorry.)
I feel like this comment is not that helpful overall, and I’m sorry. But I wanted to say: hi, I see you, I have the same uncertainty.
This is very helpful, actually, and thanks for the reply. To further mangle a metaphor, it kinda feels sometimes like there are so many moving parts and so many variables in play that figuring out exactly what’s wrong with these shoes would require a really high-end computer and a complicated mathematical model. And it’s like “maybe I can just deal with the ill-fitting shoes for now?” But at other times it’s like “who even bought these shoes for me in the first place and why do I still have them, this is incredibly annoying.”
Which is to say: solidarity.
Heh… I’ve been working on that for *years*, and have mostly come to the following conclusions for me:
1) I intellectually agree that women can and should do whatever the hell they want and are still equally womanly
2) Internalized misogyny is A Thing, and in hindsight a lot of my knee-jerk hatred of “girly” stuff as a kid/teen is directly due to that. I think I’ve managed to figure out where the boundaries of those are in myself and if not exorcise them, can identify and reject it on consideration.
3) Despite believing in points 1 and 2, there’s still *something* unhappy about being read as female, that has been actively happy on the like 3 occasions I’ve been read as male, and deliberately presenting masculinely makes me happy. So I’m starting to identify as transmasculine, which feels good in a way that’s hard to explain but seems right. I’m still figuring out what that means, though. (relatedly, wearing makeup and feminine formal clothes has always felt like a costume, but that would probably be true if I felt completely female but butch. I think.)
4) I would probably have gotten to 3 significantly sooner if I actually experienced physical dysphoria, and a lot of the fuzziness is because I don’t really have an issue with my nominally-female body, aside from it making it really hard to buy menswear that fits well and making it really unlikely I’ll consistently read as not-female anytime soon.
So, uh… it’s hard, and I think “fuck gender roles” vs. “fuck gender” really comes down to a sense of self determination that’s not always sharply defined. And I do think it *can be* context dependent. I’d probably feel more strongly transmasculine if I lived somewhere/when that had more stringent boundaries on gender expression, and less so in a hypothetically genderless society.
I’m glad you’ve found some conclusions that work for you and wish you luck in refining them! Maybe I’ll be going down the same road someday, who knows?
This aside in your comment – wearing makeup and feminine formal clothes has always felt like a costume – is familiar to me. As a kid I often felt weird when I had to get dolled up for formal occasions and stuff, like, “why am I dressing up as an adult? Doesn’t everyone know I’m not one?” And I never really examined it until recently, but the feeling has persisted in some form to this day. I put on a skirt or a dress and I still think “why am I pretending to be the kind of person who wears this stuff?” But I’ve never once gotten that feeling from putting on a men’s waistcoat. …I guess that doesn’t really clarify whether Not A Woman or just SUPER Not Femme, but it does suggest that I need more waistcoats. Maybe some ties.
Yes! Buy all the waistcoats! Buy all the ties! When I finally got a custom suit for a friend’s wedding, I got so excited I bought like 8 different bowties to go with. And then realized I should *probably* not have a 2:1 tie:dress shirt ratio. It really doesn’t answer the “Am I trans or just butch?” question, but it’s nice to have clothes that feel both Adult and Like Oneself.
I’m late to this thread, but that comment about dresses/women’s formalwear feeling like a costume just resonates with me so deeply. It’s not that I think I look bad I those outfits, it’s that I feel like I’m dressing up.
I was so excited when I managed to find an outfit for a friend’s upcoming wedding that hits many of my clothing comfort zones (trousers, androgynous leather shoes, shirts with buttons) while still being acceptably feminine (whatever that may mean).
Heyyyyy. That question is MY LIFE. Or was, anyway.
Turns out I’m nonbinary/genderqueer. It takes a while to tell the difference, in my experience.
The place where I finally figured it out: Despite my intense admiration for butch and masculine women, calling myself a woman or being called a woman still gives me hives. My body’s fine, if more top-heavy than I had planned on, but when it comes down to it, I have a knee-jerk NOPE NOPE NOPE NOT A LADY response that I can’t really explain–it’s just there.
Still. That line is thin. And everyone’s experience with gender is super subjective. Hope this helps.
This is something i struggle a lot with as well (not personally, but intellectually) – where is the line between “I do not feel like a woman because societal expectations of how woman should think/feel/act do not suit me” and “I do not feel like a woman because I’m not one”? I struggle with the idea of anything being inherently gendered, which means I sometimes find trans stuff difficult to get my head around – the idea of people having some inherent maleness or femaleness feels like it reinforces the gender binary and focuses on unnecessarily limiting ideas of what men and women are. But the trans people I know are hardly advocates for rigid gender roles, so I realise it’s more complicated than that, and that as a cis person the best thing I can do is stay quiet, be supportive and listen to what people who know more about it than me have to say.
friends, I’m taking next week off! Stay-cation! I’m going to get a haircut! Paint my nails! Watch OITNB! Go shopping! Eat lunch out every day! Roam the aisles of Target with my Starbucks in hand! I can’t waiiiiiiiiiiit!!
best life
yes this sounds diviiiiine! (also this season of oitnb is gutting, I hope you don’t mind me saying that I just felt a strong impulse to protect you and your beautiful staycation and make sure you had fair warning)
Seeing this is the end of ends, I wanted to say I love you all. This has been one of the only places I’ve felt safe on the internet. You are all kind, loving, smart, and thoughtful. I can’t wait to continue on in Slack and send Toast Post to my internet friends <3
I’m going to miss this place a lot, but am trying to find things to be mad about that will make the separation easier. For instance, I never knew about Muddy Buddies/puppy chow before reading about them here, and now I love them and they’re not healthy. So basically The Toast has ruined my life. Why don’t I feel better now?
Muddy buddies!!
I hadn’t had them since I could get dime bags of them at my elementary school’s bake sales, but then my SO made me a batch for my birthday this year. One glorious week of eating puppy chow for lunch dessert. Best birthday present ever.
Dude, I am so making a batch to console myself next week.
Send meeeeeee some!! (But don’t, actually, it’s gonna be like 90 degrees and they will hella melt.)
By the time it got to you it would be a soggy box of ants which would be a waste of perfectly good muddy buddies!
This is not something I normally keep in the house ever and yet I have a small bag of Muddy Buddies in the pantry right now that I just remembered and now I believe you have conjured them there with Toast Magic.
Conjure me some too pls
Why don’t I feel better now?
Eat more puppy chow. You’ll feel better eventually, or you will be distracted by a stomach-ache.
oh man you guys 🙁 I am going to miss this
and I have had a dumb week
a friend’s dad tried to kill himself and it really shook me, I was having a hard time dealing with it and also felt like I couldn’t talk to any of my friends about it like
How do you say “I am having a terrible day because of something that happened to someone else?”
So I decided to go to see The Lobster BIG MISTAKE HOW DO PEOPLE LIKE THAT MOVIE
and then my roommate was going on about how he loved it and I am just feeling
well
like I can’t talk to people about my feelings or reactions to things because
1)they are more intense than the situation warrants
2)they don’t make sense for me to have
3)I don’t know how to formulate a conversation-type-thing around having intense upset, urghh
Ugh, I’m so sorry for you, and I know the feeling. You can talk to us here!
thank you! much easier to type my feelings really so I appreciate the lent ear
Hey! It makes sense for you to have intense feelings! It may be hard to explain but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be feeling what you feel. I hope you have some outlet or opportunity for comfort.
For what it’s worth, my mother also hated The Lobster and had to recount three-quarters of the plot to me after she saw it, apparently just so she could share the WTF reaction she had.
it made me so angry that it was so bad, why didn’t it drown in a small Irish lake at a film festival where it came from. Your mom is like, one of the few people I have read who acknowledged it is bad, and I feel like everyone else must be pretending
Thank you for the validation re: sensicality of feelings! Eventually they fade…
Your feelings are your feelings, they are not more intense than warranted. I’m sorry you had a tough week.
aw, thank you! I guess I mean they are more intense than I want them to be? or more intense than I feel I can handle?
A friend of mine reads a lot of self-help books and they just put up a review of a book called The Highly Sensitive Person. Maybe you could check that out?
that review is rather convincing. I don’t feel I have the Introvert-Stereotype “EVERYTHING IS TOO LOUD” except if I haven’t slept enough (or am in physical pain) but I relate to other parts. Thanks for the link!
“they are more intense than the situation warrants” is me, 24/7. I cope by guardedly commenting in safe spaces, filtering news (Orlando+Yulin+Brexit=me hiding at home until Monday) and having happiness playlists, movie lists, activities. I also have a large furry family, which helps buffer THE FEELS tremendously.
I think your reaction to your friend’s dad’s trouble is absolutely valid, if that helps at all. My lovely counselor says “you can be upset about events which aren’t personal catastrophes, your feelings are never trivial.”
Oh my god, The Lobster. That was not at all what I expected. It was like someone drained all of the whimsy out of a Wes Anderson movie.
The Lobster was SO BAD.
I have really weird intense emotions also. I developed an eating disorder to numb the aforesaid weirdly intense emotions. So, y’know, don’t do that.
I’m going to be a cliché and recommend therapy instead. Especially if you feel like you need to talk about your feelings and reactions, therapy is a great place to process that (and if you’re already seeing a therapist who isn’t helping much, maybe see another one)
Anyone else listening to the new surprise album that Jenny Lewis dropped with her supergroup Nice As Fuck today? It’s streaming on Spotify and it’s sooo good!
Today is the first day I’ve had off with no plans whatsoever in months and I’m just going to spend it in bed eating pizza and drinking Lacroix and watching Orange Is The New Black.
Thank you so much, to all of you. I never would have realized I was bisexual if it weren’t for the Toast. I’m in my early twenties and this is literally the first community I’ve ever been a part of where I was able to see cool, smart, funny people I identified with, just being queer and comfortable with themselves, and where bisexuality was no big deal. That was what finally let me allow myself to acknowledge that part of myself. Commenting here was where I first got to explore being queer and poly in a safe space where I knew it wouldn’t be judged, and today I’m out to some of my friends, which I never thought would be possible. Thank you so much, for everything. I’m going to miss having this group to share things with!
Oh thanks for the heads up about Nice As Fuck on Spotify!
Thank you for all the Open Threads, Bartender!
Thank you!
This is my very first (and likely last, sniff) comment on The Toast, but I’ve been a reader/lurker since Day One and I just want to say THANK YOU. For everything. This site and this community are so fabulous. Much love to you all.
A+ user name
YESSS TURTLE WEXLER. Off to search for longreads about The Westing Game…
Awww, thank you for delurking and commenting! This site has really been something, hasn’t it?
Oh shoot I forgot I was going to ask you guys for advice!
I’m traveling to Toronto for a week in July for business– will be working, of course, but will have breakfasts and dinners to myself. What should I eat?? Where should I walk? Work and hotel are right downtown… kinda near the university, if I remember correctly?
!!! email meeee for speciiificccs Toronto is like, little bits of everything like NYC but smushed together in the middle then spread waayyy ouutt
so “it depends what you want” is the real answer
lsutula at gmail !
Definitely taking you up on that! I’m really excited to visit.
same: hit me up on twitter @allanaaaaaaa for recs – lots of foods for all sorts of tastes. <3
Bartender, thank you for setting a kind (and tasty) tone each week.
Thank you for being here!
Can anyone rec me a truly amazing scone recipe? I have buttermilk to use up. (I prefer no or minimal add-ins, these are to be a vehicle for jam and lemon curd and such.)
I really like how the King Arthur Flour recipe turns out, but it aligns with my deeply personal beliefs on proper scone consistency: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-sc…
This is my go-to recipe for scones: http://www.joyofbaking.com/scones.html. Also, it comes with a little story because this is a special recipe for me. When I was just out of college, living with my parents, and dealing with all the emotions that come with that plus applying to grad school plus generally feeling like a failure in life, a tiny teahouse opened in my town. It had comfy couches, well brewed tea, and the most amazing scones ever. I spent many hours there writing out grad school applications, recovering from hours at my retail job, and trying to find a space to relax in that was not my childhood bedroom. When I finally moved out, I asked the owner if she might share her scone recipe. “Well, it’s a bit of a secret,” she said. “I completely understand,” I said, which I did, her scones were part of her living, after all. Then she tilted her head and said, “but if you really wanted, the recipe on Joy of Baking for cream scones is pretty similar.” I thanked her profusely. Not even a year later the teahouse closed – I imagine it was too niche for the town to support (also it was in a rather inconvenient location, which I doubt helped). But I still make the scones often, and think of both the owner and the little shop that was a port in a storm for me. If you do make them, they are fantastic plain, and also a great vehicle for anything you may want to mix in (chocolate chips, raspberries, espresso, anything really).
Darn it, this story made me a little weepy at my desk. To be fair, everything is making me weepy. EOT (End Of Toast) = Peak Weepiness.
Here’s my favorite buttermilk dessert. Super forgiving, always amazing. I cut it into thin slices, spread with mascarpone sweetened with a little honey, top with fresh berries & mint. It’s my 100% A++ favorite dessert.
Yields 1 loaf
1.5 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1.5 cups white sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature
(First 3 ingredients are my preferences, but you can add whatever flavorings you want here.)
-Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour glass loaf pan (I’ve never tried using metal, and you might have to play around with bake time and temperature if you do.)
-Sift flour, baking soda, salt & set aside
-In a large mixing bowl, cream butter & sugar until light yellow & fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating before adding the next.
-stir in flavoring
-in thirds, alternate adding dry ingredients and buttermilk, fully incorporating between additions
-rest for 20 minutes at room temperature (cover with plastic wrap)
-pour batter into loaf pan & bake for 1hour to 90 minutes. Do NOT open the oven for the first hour. After the first hour, check for remaining bake time. It always takes my pan an hour and 15 minutes. It should be firm-ish, with a little spring/bounce to the touch and a knife/toothpick should come our clean. This cake is pretty forgiving to over-baking.
-rest until cool enough to handle. Invert & wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Freeze until you’re ready to eat.
Toasties, Bartender, Nicole, Nikki, Mallory, Everyone Who Has Ever Written For The Toast, thank you for everything. I love you all.
<3
I have nothing to say, I’m too sad, I WILL MISS YOU ALL, thank you for helping me make weirdly large life decisions like not moving to DC from Brooklyn and getting a Paragard IUD.
On a completely OT track: I’m visiting my mother in southern Vermont this week. Today we went into Manchester for lunch at a Turkish cafe, and at the table next to ours was Chris Kimball. He was not, however, having lunch with Old Henry.
This is amazing.^^^
Old Henry, however, was having lunch with him. That’s just how things are, here in the northern reaches, where the stone is cool even in the heat of summer, as though the gaze of the sun is a passing thing against the deep cold that lies below us all.
I love everything about this.
Toast is ending just as I have broken up with my first ever long-term boyfriend who owes me hundreds of dollars that I know he has and is dragging his feet about giving me, yet seems to have the funds to book a trip to Vegas.
He checked his work emails during our break up conversation, y’all.
Ohhhh man. Sympathy, but sure sounds like you dodged a bullet there.
Oh! I’m so sorry if you are experiencing the (almost always inevitable) post-break up pain, but I am so glad you dropped that sucker and you deserve to be incandescently happy. All the best. Toast hugs, if you’d like em
It’s terrible now and you have absolutely all of my sympathy. But realize he is giving you a gift by being such an unbelievable prat: many, many people will buy you a drink after hearing that damned email story. Probably enough to earn out whatever he owes you. Where are you? I’ll get the first round!
Hello, I just wanted to say that, even though I never posted that much, you always gave me excellent advise. The last time I looked for wisdom in you, toasties, was about my anxieties about traveling alone and you really gave me the confidence to leave my home and embark by myself, while being a woman. And here am I, just about to go to Laos from Thailand. So thank you guys, and if your around SEA, let’s have a drink!
Ahhh have such an amazing time!
In contradiction to all the shitty news: We might be getting our foster-to-adopt daughter next week (no warning!)!
Congrats! And aren’t you glad the Toast won’t be around to distract you from all the bonding? <3
I’m not ready.
I’m just not.
Off to buy a tote and hide my sorrow cause I’m visiting. At least the Roadshow’s tomorrow? But where will I write about it if there’s no Open Thread next week? Off to see about the slack and the reddit.
I think there will be an OT next week! That was the impression I got, anyway. Nicole (or…someone) said there would be content on the 1st, so I think (hope hope hope) we can all cry and sign each other’s yearbook’s next Friday.
I am trying valiantly to save the bulk of my feels and tears for The End, but, it is an effort, y’all.
I got my Toast tote and started reading this thread and felt… oddly like looking back into an empty house that you loved deeply, in which you made many memories, after everyone else is gone and the furniture is gone and even the dustbunnies are gone and you are the last one out and must turn our the lights. All that’s left is the scenes in your own head and the silence held gently by the walls and all the space filled with unseen marvels of existence playing in loops. The chaos of life of late, my own and the madness of the world at large, has felt like that kind of moving chaos – everything much too tumultuous while in progress to stop and reflect or even just stop and feel. It’s the silence when it catches up to you, and you must absorb all you can and all you will ever want out of those walls and that empty space, the moment when you collect the ephemera from the life you led there.
fox_inthesnow’s post about The Sims dying and final moments of the game reminded me a bit of a sci-fi novel about near death experiences, about how the brain is constructing narratives to try and explain to itself that things are going haywire and ending. It made me think of the first WoW guild I ever was a part of. They were super serious about their roleplay and to apply, you had to write a short story about your character. Their history or why they were fighting or some slice of life vingette. They had guild meetings in character, had roleplay events out in the world, and even sometimes raided in character. It being my first experience in such an immersive game meant that I formed a deep attachment to my character. She was so real to me, and her motivations mattered so much with regard to things I did in game.
I left the guild eventually because of shenanigans that were about raid roster, the guild leader was having an affair under her husband’s nose with the main tank, and how she would single out her daughter for things constantly… it was messy. I had a small group of cronies who left with me and we eventually became the core of a raiding group who, with my now-partner and babydaddy, were a US top 50 raid team. Without roleplay. And it was good. We made some deep, lasting friendships and had a wonderful time. But I grieved over the loss of that world, that initial magic imbued into a world that became much more pedestrian when it became about numbers and performance and recruitment and theorycrafting and raid-leading. I did eventually write a short story for that character that was her exit from the guild. In character, without bitterness or regret, just an in-character good-bye to her former battlemates and friends because she had other places she needed to be to do what she did. I remember feeling a similar sense of wonder and loss at her exit from that group in that story that I do now, thinking about The Toast being gone.
Some serious magic here, is the point. Magic and love and wisdom.
well I WASN’T crying
I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about, I can’t put it as well as you did but I was kind of joking about it yesterday– Neopets was the first online community I was a part of (I was 10! So small.) and it was such a wonderful world to be a part of for a while, but then I quit cold turkey when I decided I was “too old” for it (11….) and when I furtively made an account in later years, I looked at all the places I used to go and they were gone or changed beyond recognition.
I know the magic you’re talking about, and the feeling of leaving a place behind knowing you won’t be able to come back.
Anyways I love all you guys, and I will never forget you, even if I forget your usernames.
Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame. The collective wonderfulness of The Toast. Though I will confess I will come back for archives when I have sufficiently recovered and treasure every name.
I’m not crying. No, I’m not.
Me neither. It’s just raining. On my face. A lot. While in the house. What? That happens.
You are a magical creature, lady.
Crying again. Some more.
And you’d think I’d be cried out by this time or would be by next week, but, no. Apparently this is my superpower?
When my friend will be in touch in case you need website back-up or help assessing your server needs, by the way.
“And you’d think I’d be cried out by this time or would be by next week, but, no. Apparently this is my superpower?”
It really works for Sailor Moon, no?
*sending so many gentle hugs*
I was already crying. But I can no longer do so QUIETLY. And it’s all your fault for writing so lovingly.
The only possible solution is to come do so over here, where there are cats and hugs and tiny humans.
fox_inthesnow’s post about The Sims gave me memories, too, but I’m not sure I want to listen to the podcast. I played on the Star Wars Galaxies roleplay server. I had a lakeside house, a lab/library, a small collection of high-powered rifles and mind-altering drugs… a droid (Wylie), a kaddu (MeepMeep) (I was not the most serious roleplayer haha), and an old beater to fly around in. I quit before the game shut down, but it was different knowing that I couldn’t log in and sit around my house with my droid, crafting medicine. There are videos on youtube of players sitting outside the city with their pets, watching everyone set off fireworks, until the screen goes blank with the final “disconnected from server.”
Every once in awhile, I still miss everything and everybody.
And I wrote in-character stories regularly– started with EQ, carried over the character, then carried her on into WoW, but roleplayers were harder to find in Azeroth. I still have those stories around somewhere…
“There are videos on youtube of players sitting outside the city with their pets, watching everyone set off fireworks, until the screen goes blank with the final “disconnected from server.” ”
Ohhhhhhhh, too much to handle. Sobbing on the cat who thought my desk was a cool place to be? Yep. WITH THEIR PETS. I have been a hunter main in WoW since SIege of Orgrimmar. Losing my pets… geesh. It’s your own tiny apocalypse.
I would LOVE to read your stories and if you are in WoW still at all, there are a few of us there. effective_nancy and I have even scrabbled some time together to play a bit and will likely do so more when Legion happens. My bnet ID is kittenzerg#1459.
24 hours in Anchorage in July: what should I do…?
1. Rent a bike downtown and ride the Coastal Trail, watching out for moose!
2. If you like to hike and have access to a car, Flattop Mountain (amazing views of ANC and the coast)
3. The Rasmuson Museum
4. AK Native Heritage Center
5. Eat a reindeer sausage, if you are a meat-eater
6. Glacier Brewhouse is delicious
thanks for the recs! If I’d had more time to write up the ask I’d have mentioned that I will be hiking for a weekend, so looking more for cultural/museum-y/ places, plus maybe a sit in a park with a book spot, and of course places to breakfast and/or drink. will look into Rasmuson and Native Hertitage for sure.
Oooh Snow City Cafe, excellent breakfast/brunch. Middleway Cafe has good food too, I like it more for lunch, and it’s in the same plaza as the best bookstore in Alaska (Title Wave, ENORMOUS used book section).
I second all these recommendations. I’ll add Cafe Amsterdam for breakfast if in midtown.
For drinking – I don’t go out that much, and I’m insistent on hearing the people I’m with – so I suggest looking at Bernie’s Bungalow and the Bubbly Mermaid (mermaid themed champagne bar, what’s not to like?) If you are in search of Drinking Like a Fancy Person, the bars at the Captain Cook are ever so grown up and have dark wood paneling and deep booths and are perfect for intense thoughtful conversation or plotting takeovers. Also, the Whale’s Tale (at the top) has an awesome view.
My future just got pissed away on a racist protest vote and I’ll never be able to look at my grandparents without wondering if it’s on them.
This is not a good day. Not at all. God, everything just seems so bleak now.
I just want to thank the Toast Bartender and all the commenters for these lovely open threads!
Indeed!
Thank you!
How do you guys deal with overwhelming terrifying grief?
I haven’t been posting as much here because of it. A friend of mine who I loved dearly – possibly more than most of my family members who I love to begin with – was in a car accident and passed away late last month. She was 30 and I’m 34 and we have been friends since I was 18. I’m functioning, but barely. I keep in touch with her brother and her husband plus several mutual friends who I am also good friends with, but I can and do cry at the drop of a hat and anything and everything reminds me of her.
Any tips or GIFs or Internet hugs appreciated.
Therapy, if you can afford it. Giving yourself permission to do the absolute bare minimum and be okay with that. And, maybe most importantly, giving yourself permission to be happy or laugh if and when happiness finds you, even if it feels shallow or only lasts for a second happens very rarely.
I am so, so sorry for your loss.
I’m so, so sorry for your loss. That is horrible and tragic and sad, and my heart goes out to you and all your friend’s loved ones.
I don’t know how much unique advice I have to give, but my aunt (who was essentially a second mother to me) just passed away last fall very suddenly and unexpectedly, so I feel where you’re coming from. I will say that a month is nothing. Of course you’re still crying all the time. Of course everything reminds you of her. That is normal. That happened to me, too, and it was so fucking hard, and I’m so sorry this hurts so much right now. It felt so unachievable to get up and go to work every day and deal with her estate and make food for myself and talk to people like a normal human being, not some bottomless well of despair, not some shell filled with black and roiling grief. But…you just do it, because living has to be done. It’s not easy or enjoyable. It feels impossible. But I, you, we can do the impossible. I’m still here, still breathing, and you are too. It’s only been seven months for me, and it doesn’t hurt any less — but it does hurt less often. And I’m at a point where I know the pain will probably lessen, too, at some point in the future. Not now, not soon — but I can see it in the distance. Take the time to be loving to and gentle with yourself. Remember the rule of “comfort in, dump out.” Reach out to your support network and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Again, I’m so sorry. You can get through this. You’re not alone.
Oh, sweetie.
That sucks. It is awful. Nothing makes it less awful. Time makes it more bearable, and more manageable, but I won’t lie – it makes some things worse. The sense that every day takes you that much further from the last moment you had. But it also means grief begins to leave enough room to feel other things, and shapes itself into regret and sorrow and longing instead of heart-wrenching I-will-die-from-this pain. Time is the only healing, but loss remains. Ask for love and help and hugs to stay afloat until time does with it does.
Weirdly, in coping with my own grief, I found that Albus Dumbledore gave me the most healing and solace. Fully recommend reading the books and/or watching the movies. The King’s Cross station scene near the end of the series is pretty marvelous. It finally made me feel what I kept being told, that the person I thought i had lost would never be truly lost.
Keeo waking up every day. Keep breathing. Keep living. This will become part of you in a way that you can live with differently, eventually. Until then, you are still loved.
I am so sorry for your loss. I have no tips but I do have Internet hugs.
*hugs* I’m so sorry for your loss.
I don’t know that I have good care tips beyond the staples, but as someone who a few years ago lost a close-in-age cousin to suicide very suddenly, I whole-heartedly sympathize. Give yourself permission to cry, and to be reminded. Stay tight with your support system.
Can’t find a gif, but there’s a scene in one of the Star Trek reboots, in which Spock’s father tells him that “what is necessary is never unwise,” and it really resonated with me at the time. Take care of yourself, and trust that the rest will sort itself out. You are not alone. <3
I never learned how to post GIFS and I don’t have tips, but then you don’t need tips. You’re doing everything right. Grief like that is something you just live with, and through. Remember her, keep those ties with others who understand, and don’t feel like you have to do more than barely function right now.
I lost a friend young and suddenly and tragically and it was months before I didn’t cry every day, and probably two years before I didn’t think of her multiple times a day. It’s been 16 years and this is the first year I didn’t immediately notice the day of the anniversary of her death. I still think of her often, but time has made the sadness manageable. You know that already, of course, how people go on after the most horrific losses — just know that it’s entirely normal right now not to see how you’ll ever get there. I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
A very close friend of mine died suddenly a couple years ago. There is no way to deal, exactly. You just continue living, because that’s what your body is designed to do, and it sucks.
It sounds like you’re in touch with other people who are grieving for her. It is good to be able to talk about her, and to be with people who are in the same place you are, when you can’t believe how the outside world can just keep going on like before. I know I was frustrated by feeling that most people my age, most people I talked to, had never been through this. Find people who have, but also don’t be afraid to lean on people who care even if they don’t understand.
You’ve probably heard about the stages of grief–those aren’t real. Grief is a crazy zig-zag spiral. It’s a wound that never quite heals, but eventually scars over. There were times a couple weeks after his death when I was already bored with crying and momentarily energetic. There are still times, years out, when I get lost thinking about seeing him again. Over time the periods of desperate crying grow further apart. I’ve poked the wound enough that it’s not as sensitive; I still think of him, but can talk about him and the period of loss without crying. I make sure some of the people I spend time around know the back story, so I can talk about him.
Be patient with yourself. Don’t believe that you’re supposed to feel any particular way at any particular time. The other people who loved my friend and I each went through our own individual, different, grieving processes, with different focuses and periods of intensity. Feel your feelings as they come. Spend time with her memory; don’t let the pain scare you away from remembering your time together.
*hugs*
I’m so, so sorry. My dad passed away in a car crash 5 years ago, he was one of my favorite people in the world and I was also consumed with grief. What helped me, at least partially, was to buy a pretty notebook and to write in it when the sadness got to be too much or just around bedtime. getting the feelings out and on the page was cathartic for me and eventually I didn’t need the journal anymore.
Today I still have times when I break down and cry (his birthday, Fathers’ Day, other milestones) and I won’t say it’s better–because it never really gets all the way better–but it’s easier to manage. I try to combat the sadness on days when I know it will be rough by going hiking, focusing on a project, or simply by spending the day in self care.
Good luck and so much love and Toast Hugs sent your way.
I lost childhood friends. Twice. Each time it helped me to put my hands to work expressing my emotions through textiles. One time I tore up an old shirt, just ripped it apart with all the anger I felt. The next day I cut out pieces from the shirt scraps to sew together with other fabric. Sewing by hand gave me an outlet and kept me still long enough to slow my breathing and find a little calm.
Is there an artistic medium that helps you?
Books, mainly novels but occasionally the odd Bill Bryson or presidential biography. I am thinking of writing, which is a thing I haven’t done in earnest in ages and ages.
Copious internet hugs. I’m so sorry. People who have been that close to you for so long are PRECIOUS. It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling.
The best small, portable companion in grieving I’ve come across recently was Cheryl Strayed’s book “Tiny Beautiful Things. It was a series of small reminders that people *do* get through grief, slowly, in a variety of ways, all of which include remembering to breathe and remembering to ask for help when you need it.
May you be able to set down anything that you don’t *need* to be carrying right now. May you feel surrounded by the care of people who love you. May you and your friend’s other loved ones find sweetness in the memories you share.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the incredibly insightful and kind responses, everyone. I just love this site and its community so much.
Oh, honey. That is horrible. I am so, so sorry, and I hope that (very soon) the good memories and joy she brought to your life will outweigh the hurt of living without your friend. *hug*
The Toast helped me break out of ruts and be less afraid to try new things, to see hope and possibilities, instead of the same old life rolling out before me, even as an old. Found kindred spirits in the electric wonderland of social media and the internet. Prepared me for a wonderful relationship (as in, I gained confidence in what to ask for and had better tools for empathy and compromise).
Things which have occurred in this, my 40th year, for which I’m grateful for Toastie support:
– recognized that it’s never to late to start fresh
– quit my long-time, boring, not-a-good-fit job
– went to codeschool
– changed careers
– got a new job in a new town
– sold my house
I’m moving on 7/1 to the new town, to a new house, to a new job. And the Toast won’t be there anymore, but it will – in all the people and hearts and minds that I’ve been lucky enough to meet. So thank you Nicole and Mallory and Nicole and Maria and Toasties themselves.
This made me so happy to read.
This is truly wondrous. Go forth and witch your new life, filled with Toastlight.
GO GET ‘EM
Toasts, I am busy all today *and* busy all next Friday *and* have been swamped at work, so I have not gotten the chance to be here in comments nearly as much as I want to, this last month of the toast. In case I don’t get a chance to post something next week, thank you all for making this such a wonderful space and a new internet home for me.
Oh Toast, I have nothing to do at work today, so let me take a moment and say thank you for this space. You all (the editors, the writers, the commenters, ALL OF YOU) have encouraged me to try and live my best life and take better care of myself and reach out to people in lots of little ways and it’s been so important to me. This is the first place online I’ve been moved to and WILLING to post in in a long time, and that means a lot. Thank you <3
Yep. This.
Co-signed, thank you for putting that into words.
Oh shit, the last real Open Thread.
I am getting new foster kittens TOMORROW and I will somehow shower you all with photos in a link roundup or something.
Also, does anyone have recommendations for places to go/things to eat in Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong? I’ll be there at the end of August, with about 4 days in each city. My parents will be with me.
(Ugh I don’t WANT to say goodbye! But I guess everyone else is, so…goodbye, Toast, and thanks for everything.)
You are the first Toastie I ever met in person and I will always treasure that memory.
WHAT, how can I possibly have been the first??
I feel like I’ve met a celebrity because I met you, in addition to that being a lovely evening, and I will be following your exploits at clevermanka.net!
You were! You were the first one to arrive at the meetup, and I could tell you were a Toastie as soon as I saw you (at least I figured it was a good chance)! I look forward to keeping up with your adventures, too, bb.
Tokyo: Uoshin in Nogizaka (get the bone chips), Din Tai Fung at Shinjuku Takashimaya (shortest wait time of any DTF I go to)
I went to my second appt with my new counselor and after falling apart (it’s been a stressful week), she just looked and me and said, “this is what happens to women after abusive relationships”, and it felt SO good to be acknowledged IRL that although I’m doing my best I’m still trapped and yes, he is still controlling my life.
On that note….18 months plus with NO full time job openings, and FOUR perfect jobs have opened up in the past 2 months now that I’ve committed to my phd? The last one was sent to me by the head of the dept…it reads like it’s freakin’ MADE for me. I can’t even apply, it’s for a town 5 hours away and I’ll never get permission to take my kids. My rent went up and my car is falling apart and I just think, when am I supposed to know that the job is the one that will actually enable me to live as an adult and afford a life? Will it happen by the time I’m 50? Is going to school worth not getting (very underpaid, but full time) jobs? Do I have the right to choose this for my kids?
OTOH, everything school-based has been hitting me over the head with coincidences, good leads, exciting finds, and I am really feeling that this is a good step. Except when I have to let jobs go past.
I am so so so incredibly grateful to everyone here and I know I will fumble around a bit but eventually find most of you again, I hope.
How does one get on the facebook group?
I am now going to continue playing hooky this afternoon and drag my teenagers to the beach unwillingly, because it’s the last uninterrupted afternoon I have them until August and the weather is perfect, and it’s my job to make them do stuff that they’d rather be too lazy for.
Toasts! I’ll be away next weekend and will therefore miss both the last day of the Toast and the Boston ToastWake (boooo). I’m going to NYC for about two days to see long-distance pals I haven’t seen in a while, and then somehow getting to the Cape with my BFF to celebrate the 4th of July as our founding fathers would have wanted (drunk on a boat). I will miss you all! Time to actually join Toastie slack!
I have nothing particular for add, but thanks for listening to all my weird bullshit over the past 2 years. Please have this bird hug. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dn6tIJSbJKI/UNOog1lj4CI…
Good bird. Good hug.
many hugs, dear bird.
I hate to ask bc I know I should’ve done it ages ago but who do I email about the slack group again?
[email protected]!
I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL FOREVER AND EVER.
Not forever. It *is* awful. Your feelings aren’t wrong. But it’s not forever. I promise. It’s OK to think I’m wrong. Just remember my promise.
Hey RoseCamelia, in case I miss the chance during the craziness of the actual final open thread next week, I wanna say thanks now for all the advice and words of hope and encouragement you’ve given people here in the open thread. I think I can speak for a lot of Toasties when I say that I’ve benefited secondhand from your responses to other people’s O.T. posts more times than I can count. Your levelheaded way of looking at the world makes everything, even really nasty things, more bearable and manageable. And your above response is a prime example of that. So… thanks!
Thank you, Toft. You are very kind. I try to give others what I needed, or still need.
True story.
Hello, Toasts! I haven’t commented much but I’ve lurked for a while (and have been on Slack). I’m a recent college grad who has moved back home (Florida, hopefully temporarily) and I’m currently looking for jobs. One of my main issues is that I definitely want/need to relocate but I’m not sure WHERE. That’s obviously something only I can work out, but I’d love to know: Toasties, what made you choose your current respective locations?
Opportunity. My location is always due to following opportunity.
I highly recommend living in medium-sized cities with lower costs of living! (e.g., Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc.) There are usually great restaurants, bars, music, and so on, and you can have a great quality of life for a lot less money than in places like NYC or DC.
I live in Rochester, NY, mainly because my family is here, but it’s also just a really *easy* and pleasant place to be. There’s a lot going on in terms of arts and culture, food, and so on, and a lot of people can actually take advantage of it on fairly modest wages. And houses are a lot cheaper than almost anywhere else in the US.
Thanks for the advice! Smaller cities like that have been on my radar lately, I just tend to get overwhelmed when it comes time to make big decisions, especially if I’ve never been to a place before. ^^;; I also hate driving so I’ve been trying to figure out just how much I hate it so I know whether I’m limited to places with good public transit.
Thought I’d go to grad school here, wanted in state tuition (did not actually happen). Also in 2008 Texas was one of the few places with things like jobs, so that helped too.
I moved here for a job. I thought I’d stay for two or three years, then go somewhere better. I kinda forgot to move, and now I bought a house and I’m fairly stuck. Oops.
You guys! I adulted. I called the hair salon on my block and made an appointment for my first haircut in almost a year and my first in Boston. And I got my hair cut. And it was good and I look good. Yay!
I can’t cope with Brexit and #ToastWake within one week of each other. I have 10 beers remaining of the two six-packs I bought last week, and I’m not sure they’re going to be enough.
Be safe, Toastfriend. Don’t drink too much to be safe. Lots of water. Have some protein, too.
But I understand how you feel. Got all those feels over here, too.
Fortunately, being a Zoloft-induced lightweight means that I start to feel unpleasant quickly if I drink past the pleasantly buzzed stage, and if I haven’t eaten first, drinking at all is a miserable experience. It’s a helpful limiting factor.
There’s discussion of a Tacoma/South Sound meetup next Friday (with crying). Possibly at Harmon’s downtown. Hit us up on slack or in the FB group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/1389843721308618/ ) for details, or find me on twitter at laurenthknowing.
So I finally, after feeling for years like it would hang over me forever like an eternal cloud, reached the point about 2 years ago where I could see an end in sight for my student loans. And I determined this month, and this week more specifically, would be the week I pay them off. Yay!
Except…I make my payments by sending a check through my bank’s website. I swear for many, many years, the payment would hit within one day, two tops. But now that the end is right there within reach, it’s taking FOREVER for the final two checks to get there (I sent two payments within three days for no good reason – one yesterday, one Tuesday, just cause). Last month’s check took 6 days to hit and I’m logging in like every other hour to check on the status.
I’m so ready to be at the point where I never receive communication from, have to log into the sites of, or have any tangible connection to Sallie Mae or Navient ever again. Sooooo cloooose.
IT WILL HAPPEN!
I know. By this time next week it will be over. BUT RIGHT NOW THE WAITING FEELS ENDLESS.
Toasts, I love you and I like you. I will miss you all so much.
Lovely DMV Toasts (who I have somehow managed not to contact any other way), we are toastwaking potluck style in Malcolm X Park next Friday. Deets and RSVP opportunity are here.
ALSO, join our google group! It’s p. quiet so no one gets spammed to death (but we have a pretty solid IRL book club). If you were in the older group, this one is new because we couldn’t find anyone with admin privileges to add new people.
Thank you for sharing this! I tried to click the deets link but I’m just getting a login page for the event host, with no apparent way to create an account on the site. Is there a different link, perhaps?
You are all wonderful. I love you all and you have all made me feel welcome and more comfortable and happy with myself. It’s a good feeling knowing there are so many good people out in the world, when we so often hear only about the bad ones
BALTIMORE TOASTIES
We are having our Toast wake at 6pm next Wednesday, June 29, at Teavolve Cafe.
There is an inexpensive parking garage two blocks up on Eden Street, there’s also on street parking n the surrounding blocks. There’s also a couple of buses you could take to get there too if that strikes your fancy; I’ve done that a few times to get to that part of town and would be happy to give directions. Likewise about getting there during rush hour. (The key is to avoid Eastern Ave or Fleet Street as the way to get there, and take another east-west throughfare.)
OH NOES, GOODBYES
It’s really only sinking in now in this Open Thread that the Toast will no longer be active a week from now. I’m so deeply grateful to everyone, especially Nicole C., Mallory, and Nikki C., for keeping this going as long as you did, and giving me a space to both comment and formally share my musings about so much (race, sports, Baltimore, pop culture, politics, dark humor) on the website. You all have supported me through my admittedly mediocre recreational funtimes in strength sports, and even helped me raise 10x more money than I had expected last year for the Charm City Strongwoman and colon cancer research.
More importantly, I deeply appreciate getting to read the words of some many brilliant and thoughtful people on a whole range of issues. This website has really expanded my horizons and introduced me to a whole range of things (Hamilton, GBBO, Nightvale) that I’m not sure would’ve otherwise crossed my radar.
I’ll see you all on the other side of your choice, whatever that may be (Slack, Toastie Twitter.) I’m on the Twitter list; feel free to look me up.
<3 <3 <3
Awww crap, Manka, now I’m tearing up!
The Toast has gotten me through a miscarriage, a pregnancy, and my soon to be over maternity leave. Thanks to you all, the wonderful writers, editors, and this community, for being the smartest, funniest, must compassionate place on the web!
I’m mostly a lurker, but I’m going to miss this place so much. Especially the open threads. I hope there will be a way to see a random toast post or a way to read from the beginning; I’ve missed more than I care to admit, and will be rereading some of my favorites. I hope toastie twitter remains active as ever, and I really should get more into slack. You guys are the best. <3
My toast post matches will get their postcards soon!
Boo, I was busy today and mostly missed the last open thread. 🙁 I will miss this wonderful website but I am so glad for all the Toasties I’ve come to know!
I’ll be spending next week in Florida on a much-needed vacation that hopefully provides some much needed relaxation. This week I’ve been dealing with an employee that for some unfathomable reason, cancelled the non-refundable hotel room and decided to drive all 3 days to a conference, WITHOUT informing us. And now wants us to reimburse the travel time, parking, and mileage, plus, y’know, pay the $1000 for the hotel. It’s now in HR’s hands and I really hope they hammer him.
HELLO TOASTIES,
I am going to ask about happy things. So, I am studying abroad in Vienna next fall (provided I can cobble together the funds in the next few months…) and I would love some advice as to what to do while I am there. Where can I go that will not be full of tourists? Where can I go where I can speak moderately-shitty German to people without having them respond in English??? (help, I just want to practice!) Where can I go that is cheap and fun? And what are your favorite museums, cafes, and public spaces?
I need some things to look forward to as motivation to save all my money!
Vienna is a pretty good place for people speaking German back to you, not English. Just make sure you go places outside of the first district / 1. Bezirk.
Go on hikes! Order Apfelsaftgespritzt or Weissweingespritzt at the end of them! Go to cafes and order eine Melange. Vienna is wonderful so I feel like I can’t start listing places to go or I won’t stop… but you’ll find them.
Man, I sure wish the Toast wasn’t ending. I was just starting to settle into the community, or at least comment on things. Even though I’ve only been an avid Toastie for a few months, the Toast has been a ray of light in an often murky and baffling world/Bat Lord Interpersonal Life.
Here’s a beginning/ good news to counteract the not-so-pleasant: as of a few days ago, my crush of the past……year? and I are now dating. An end to the pining! A continuation to the relentless face-sucking that both of us worried the other didn’t think was romantic!
Dear Toasts, it was romantic.
I feel exactly the same way. I have always been a massive Toast reader since very early days, but only recently started commenting.
I will miss you all so much, and I’m very happy for your good news!
For the last open thread I am sorry to report: Nerterology your Toast Mix is not coming, my CD burner finally went to that big Best Buy in the sky ….
Reproduced below the jump is the tracklist, you asked for songs off the beaten path to drive to. I culled these from my monthly commuter lists (big playlists of songs I listen to on the way to/from work because if I let my iPod choose it just wants to play Sufjan Stevens’ “Carrie and Lowell” on repeat and I couldn’t keep showing up to the office a big teary mess)
Brill Bruisers-The New Pornographers
Voice Like Thunder-The Babies
Near Wild Heaven-R.E.M.
Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)-White Denim
All You’re Waiting for (feat. Nancy Whang)-Classixx
Major Tom (Coming Home)-Peter Schilling
Disparate Youth-Santigold
Aminals-Baths
What You See Is What You Get-LAKE
Dead Love (So Still)-Widowspeak
100,000 Fireflies-The Magnetic Fields
Adventures Close to Home-The Raincoats
Sunshine Soul-The Gerbils
Cindy Tells Me-Brian Eno
Fear of My Identity-Best Coast
Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings-Father John Misty
Kong-The Notwist
So It Goes-Nick Lowe
Strange Bath-Jon Brion
Cannonball-The Breeders
16_the frug-Rilo Kiley
Liar-Built To Spill
Kinder Blumen-Real Estate
Condolences on your CD burner, and thanks for posting the tracklist. There’s plenty on here that’s new to me, and it looks like I’m going to love it. I’ll give it a listen this weekend!
Thanks everyone for being super and encouraging and not impatient as I whined on about moving. I am moved! There are boxes and bags and who knows what everywhere, but I don’t care, because I leave in a few days to go see Hamilton (and then to go see my husband, who’s been taking care of his mom since mid-May, and I’m sure I’ll have bandwidth to miss him after Hamilton and after meeting some Toasties in NYC on the Last Day Of The Toast, Sob.
Possibly the final story about how great my sons are (because they deserve it after dealing with some of my snappier moments during this move.) On Monday the movers dropped our boxes/bags/furniture at the new house, and Tuesday I had to go to the old house to sweep up all the dog hair and gunk that had been hidden by our furniture, meet the renters, and await the final truck to pick up junk from the old house.
The boys said they’d start unpacking, but I wasn’t expecting too much because of how vast the job was. I came home hours later, and it was a home, not a pile of piles with a few chairs at the edges. Like, vases and photos and cushions and the dishes in cabinets and food in the pantry and music playing and everything! I could have cooked dinner! (I didn’t, obviously, ugh.)
Then on Wednesday morning my sister had to skip the country unexpectedly and dropped her 8 year old off with us for two nights, and while I spent the days putting books on shelves and trying to sort out my closet and bathroom stuff, they indulged her with board games and long walks and songs and silliness. She idolizes my 16 year old and he made it easy to have her with us in this rather chaotic time.
And in all this, I installed our gas dryer by myself, and even reversed the door on it so it opens against the wall properly.
Now my niece is gone, and my house is organized(ish), and I can focus on what’s important: hugging all y’all tight and never letting go, never ever ever.
You gotta bottle whatever it is that you put into your sons. Parents everywhere will pay a fortune for it.
I’ve been watching a lot of badly-filmed home video now that I digitized it all as part of the move, and it’s mostly me harassing the boys to be more performative while calling out to Mr Daki to bring anything I need / read stories / lead scavenger hunts / play with the puppy / make sure the kids don’t drown. So I’m suspecting that all my parenting success lies in having married Mr Daki in the first place, both for his calm acceptance of my demands and for his vast entertainment value to the kids.
And he’s worth a fortune, but he’s not for sale.
I CANT BELIEVE I LITERALLY JUST STRAIGHT UP FORGOT ABOUT THE LAST REAL OT
My brain is really fucking things up lately, like forgetting this and me being unbelievably clumsy and all the time anxious. Also, living at home with my parents for the summer is unbelievably stressful.
Don’t have an actual advice question, just, y’know, vague bitching.
Oh, Toasts. I will miss you all terribly. Thank you for writing, reading, commenting, and generally letting me know that my Tribe is out there, in force, full of strength and beauty. Love you all.
ALSO:
Visas for Russia and China have been Obtained (I picked up my Chinese visa today and apparently they gave me a multiple-entry visa which was unexpected but is nice). All train tickets have been booked and paid for. Most hostels have been reserved (will complete that task this weekend). So it seems that this trip (wandering from Japan to China to Mongolia to Siberia to Poland to Norway to France to Switzerland, with possibly some wanderings in between and after) is Really Happening! Thanks to everyone who pitched in last week with advice and support–it was a huge help!
I am going to try and keep a blog during my travels–once it is up and running (next week) I will post a link if anyone is interested in following. And I’ll try to check in on Reddit and/or ToastieSlack if I can figure those things out. And I will definitely be following CleverManka.net!!!!
Be well, y’all! Fortitude!
I come very, very late to the Open Thread, as Brexit has consumed my day and I haven’t been able to process yet that this is really the last one.
A short summary of Toast things I am thankful for:
a) introducing me to Hamilton via the NPR link almost a year ago
b) actually helping me GET Hamilton tickets (in Chicago this December), which I never would have bought without the ToastieSlack channel in which we encouraged each other and shared a link to the seating chart showing what “limited view” actually meant, which is the only reason I decided to buy.
c) a Kate Spade bag 75% off, which is my first name-brand bag I’ve ever bought (except a Coach bag from the ’80s that I found at a Goodwill, so I don’t think that counts)
d) the best online community and support group I’ve had in many, many years. I love you guys. May we continue on in Slack and Reddit.
Today has been… a day. Fair warning- following contains parent based anxiety spiral.
Tomorrow I head off with future in laws, pretty much just so they can meet my dad. My MIL has a conference in a city close to him, so we are going to fly up tomorrow and see him on Sunday. It will probably be fine. I keep telling myself this. My dad will probably be lovely and charming like he always is in small doses.
But the closer that I get to it, the more my anxiety is building. What if he starts in on me about my weight? What if he gets insulted by something I say and starts yelling at me in front of them? What if he says something that I know is a dig but no one else does and I react badly and I look like the worst daughter ever? What if he is great and I get the same crap I always do about “why don’t you get along better with your dad, he’s great!” Ugh the spiral ugh.
I love my SO’s family and I knew it was inevitable, but I really don’t want to show them this broken part of me.
Two glasses of wine is the solution for most small-dose parent interactions. Just enough to get you to that place where you can not give a fuck for a couple hours. Not giving a fuck is the only way to see yourself through.
Good luck. Godspeed.
Oh, bb. It will be okay, it will be okay. My suggestions:
What if he starts in on me about my weight?
Then your SO’s family will, I hope, judge the fuck out of him.
What if he says something that I know is a dig but no one else does and I react badly and I look like the worst daughter ever?
See above re: non-soberness. Your blowing off his nasty comment might be the best thing that could happen. And if he persists with it, repeating similar comments, trying to get you to say something, it will be noticeable and you can say something like “I feel like you’re trying to make a point, but I’m not sure I’m getting it?”
What if he is great and I get the same crap I always do about “why don’t you get along better with your dad, he’s great!”
Then you tell them exactly why, because they asked, well then by god they get to know!
You’ve got this. It will be okay.
Also that can’t be my last comment on the last real OT of the Toast, I LOVE YOU ALL EVEN THOUGH I DON’T KNOW YOU (but really I feel like I do).
Nicole, Nikki, Mallory- thank you so much. I’ll miss this place like whoa, but FLY FREE.
Late to post, but that’s ok since I was mostly a lurker. I’ve been thinking about why I love it here so much, and I finally figured it out. I’m older than most Toasties (55) and sharing this world has allowed me to see what my life might have been. So many of you have followed paths that feel like the real me, unhindered by the constraints from my life events. I cannot thank you all enough for this unexpected gift. The Toast has given me back to me.
I’m also an Old, and feel kind of hopeful that there are so many kind smart engaged younger women in the world. <3
P.S: I’m about to be the Doble Cinco! Do we get discounts now?!
Oh my dog, this made me cry, sbcardinal. I totally, completely empathize with you. What might have been, indeed.
I only started commenting recently, and I am so sad that The Toast is closing. Everyone is so kind and lovely and I ADORE all the writing. I don’t know where I’m going to go after this; I know about the reddit and I might make an account, and I’ve joined the slack, but it’s not the same. At least I got a tote. Hugs and love to everyone. <3
(Also I only started commenting on Jez right before Kinja started and things got ugly, so I’m worried that commenting on feminist sites means they will go away soon after.)
This is way too late, but hey. Please send good thoughts.
I’m in my third French city in as many days, trying to fly home. My camping holiday was lovely, but my flights back keep getting cancelled and the airline (rhymes with measley wet) can only get me flights leaving from different airports. And naturally I have to pay for transporting my family to each place, the airline will just pay me back later. I’m so tired. Happy feelings, good wishes, karma, whatever… please send it my way.
What’s up, chumps! I can comment ALL night, if I want. I am sorry that the world is ashes, and glad I got to hang around here. I appreciate the care everyone took with this site.
Bartender, will you ever reveal your identity to us??!!!! pleeease?
one day. when you least expect it. long after the-toast is gone. it’ll be in a byline somewhere. LET SOME MYSTERY REMAIN. <3
Are you…Margaret Atwood? Toni Morrison? Hillary Clinton using a private email server? Yoko Ono doing a performance piece? Lin Manuel Miranda?
I waited until tonight to read this whole thread so that I wouldn’t waste it 🙁
I also bought a pair of clogs and wore them and loved them. Oh, my toasts!
I’m a lurker but I just wanted to say thanks for everything, and also ask a question about post-Toast:
Is it weird/acceptable as a lurker to join the Toast slack? Because I probably wouldn’t comment too much anyway, but I would still love to *read* all the wonderful things that the commenters here are saying! I’m not on slack now so idk if that’s not in accordance with slack etiquette or what-have-you.
I probably would never have asked, but I saw some people saying the toast slack is very big now, so I was thinking it’s probably acceptable to just sneak in and read even if one wouldn’t plan on being active there!
I am a total lurker and just joined, pls do . ☺
Toasts, I am very very late to this thread because I’ve been at a conference all day, but I love you all. Thank you, Bartender. Thank you, commentariat. There’s no other place on the internet where I actually love reading the comments. I’m going to miss Open Thread so much (but I hope to see a bunch of you on the Toastie Slack in the future).
*buys a metaphorical round for everyone in the bar*
Is there going to be a Bay Area toastwake? Maybe at the Golden Bull, in homage to the meetup held there oh so long ago?
I was pretty late to the Toast game but the commentariat hath cheered and encouraged me past all reason…so many posts that were yet to be written….so many songs never to be sung in THE GREAT FEMINIST MEAD HALL OF THE-TOAST…alas, it passed into the Grey Havens and was gone…yet may it be that, looking up the slopes to the fiery mountain, we shall see a single star glint even in the face of the might of the Orange Doom…the Elven-light of Mallorn-tree and Nicole-cliff, sung into being by the Eldar…
*snif* Can anyone add me to the PDX Facebook group or tell me how I may join?
I started reading The Devil in the White City this week. Is it wrong that I’m just all over irritated with the chapters about How Hard It Was, Building A World’s Fair In a Cow Swamp and all excited about the alternating chapters about MURDER, JUST STRAIGHT UP MURDER AND THIS CREEPY GUY AND HIS CREEPY HOUSE AND MURDER. I am sorry, Toast, I’ve been reading for years and had nothing to comment until you were nearly gone.
I alternated chapters. Read the murder story and then went back to skim World’s Fair. Just because somebody (in this case case, the author) presents the story 1 way, doesn’t mean that you as a reader are locked into that. Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar taught me that many years ago.
I’m sitting here at the little fragment of salaried work I have left and I AM GOING TO MISS YOU GUYS SO MUCH :((((((
I’m trying to figure out Slack now because I don’t wanna lose you all.
That’s so cool! My sister’s initials are MMC.
Hey the Toast. I missed out on Toast totes because they went up AND sold out during a 2 hour flight but right now I am enjoying the Berkshires for the very first time and drinking some delicious American craft beer and enjoying the long sunshiney days so that is nice.
In the saddest of news, my poor Kobo dropped onto the slate floor this morning and has entered the Big Sleep, leaving me bereft of reading devices for the entirety of my trip AND the 20 hours transit time to eventually get back to Australia.
But i love you Toast!
Oh Toast
Oh toasties
I have loved it here
I will find some of you elsewhere
and we will be happy there too
and sing songs of the Toast
there by the willows
You guys. I forgot to post earlier that I’m marching in Chicago’s pride parade. With my church. And my husband. In my brand new bi pride t-shirt do no one mistakes me for straight.
The Toast has helped me slowly become more visibly queer and be more comfortable claiming my bi identity. I think the first time I posted on an OT was right before I went to my first queer book club meeting.
Thank you all.
<3
Yay for marching! Yay for bi visibility! (I showed off my toenails at church today, which I painted to resemble the bi pride flag. The pianist crowed in delight.)
*flings biodegradable confetti*
That’s awesome!
It was really fun to wear my shirt. I was hoping to see more bi pride flags/colors but I got to high five, thumbs up and/or hug pretty much every person I saw wearing them.
The first person I saw was this teenager wearing a bi pride flag like a cape, before the parade started, and we just grinned at each other and then high-fived.
The Penultimate Open Thread. I do not like this, Toasties.
Be the kindest, softest rock you can be.
I will do my utmost. Thank you for reminding me of my responsibilities as a friend and human being.
Oh, cool! I've put in on my want-to-read-list!