Sansa is my best friend and my co-pilot.
A Toastie sent me this video about how they made the Crimson Peak house (magic, mostly. Magic and blood.)
The Nib Lives, It Dies, It Lives Again!
Texas Monthly has the best true crime writing out there, and everyone is recirculating this piece about the 1960 murder of Irene Garza now that the priest who heard her last confession has been arrested for it:
Nearly all cold cases stay cold: Witnesses die, memories fade, evidence languishes or is eventually thrown away. Only a fraction of them are ever revisited. What small number of unsolved crimes that happen to spark the interest of detectives have no guarantee of ever being solved. The odds that the key witness in a cold case would decide to contact law enforcement 42 years after the fact was extraordinary enough. That the case was being actively investigated at that same moment—in the city where the witness mistakenly thought the crime had taken place—was beyond anything that its seasoned detectives had ever experienced. “There were times when I felt that Irene was pointing us in the right direction,” Jaramillo says.
Oof, what a terrible situation:
Two months ago at the company holiday party, I got blackout drunk and made a fool of myself. Nothing fireable, but I was literally falling-over drunk. I did some embarrassing drunk dancing, inappropriate joking around, and a LOT of cursing (not AT anyone, just in my speech, when I’m usually very buttoned-up at work).
I am so deeply ashamed and horrified at my behavior. I realized that I have a drinking problem and I need help. It’s been painful and difficult for me as I try to grapple with sobriety and confront my inner demons.
Meanwhile at work, no one will let it go. People love to quote the stupid things I said at me, or re-enact some of my stupid jokes. I knew I deserve teasing so I was braced for it, but it’s been two months and it’s not letting up. They do it publicly in our company-wide chat program and in meetings when I’m presenting a project I’ve worked hard on. I guess since I was a happy drunk, they think it’s harmless, but it makes me feel nauseous with shame. I’ve left work crying on multiple occasions. This is just a really hard time for me and I am constantly being reminded of my mistakes. My manager thinks it’s funny, so it’s not directly threatening my job, but how can they take me seriously when they’ve just been reminded how much of a mess I can be?
In other advice news, Mallory continues to win everything:
Q. Masseuses: My 26-year-old son is engaged to a 27-year-old “massage therapist.” She goes to clients’ homes to provide her services. I am 58 years old, and unless a masseuse is affiliated with an athletic team or training facility, a masseuse is a near prostitute. Remember Chuck Robb? And a massage parlor in my neighborhood was just shut down for this reason. My son is not concerned about this. I realize they are adults, and having expressed my views, I now need to back off. However, the thought of my future daughter-in-law fondling naked men, or other women, creeps me out.
A: I do not remember Chuck Robb. Masseuses often pay clients in-house visits. You are behaving absurdly. Stop imagining your daughter-in-law fondling naked men, and all your troubles will be over.
I am in SO FREAKING DEEP to The People Vs. OJ Simpson, also, Pilot Viruet is a great TV writer:
Once again, however, it’s the smaller exchanges that stick around after the episode is over. Almost as interesting as the chase itself is the impact it had on the world around it. Everything and everyone seemed to stop. “The Run Of His Life” shows these effects, ranging from the breaking news live feed interrupting a basketball game to how the chase resulted in boosting Domino sales. There were the prepared eulogies just in case, and Cochran’s live commentary that put these preparations into context: “Whenever I see a black man being chased by armed officers, my guard goes up. … The police shoot first and offer sloppy apologies afterward.”
In one scene, Christopher chats with his (fellow black) neighbors and expresses the popular sentiment about how O.J. should barely be considered black considering the fact that he bailed on his home and background in favor of yukking it up with the rich and famous (and white, and employed as police officers), and that he didn’t exactly try to give back to the community. “Once O.J. made his money, he split and never came back. He became white,” Christopher says. “Well, he’s got the cops chasing him,” a neighbor retorts, “He’s black now.”
SECRET SUPERMODEL SNOWPOCALYPSE:
The SUV came to an abrupt stop.
It was July of 1977. A crew from Neiman Marcus had come to the Andes mountains, near the border of Chile and Argentina, to scout locations for a fur catalog shoot. As the SUV climbed farther and farther up the mountain, snow started to fall, blanketing the road. The passengers, including a young Jerry Hall—sitting in the backseat, draped in a fur coat and fresh off her first runway show in Paris—began to panic. A Neiman Marcus executive peered out the window, trying to get his bearings. Visibility was close to zero when the driver threw the car into reverse, desperately trying to turn around. What he didn’t know was that the SUV’s rear wheels had stopped just two inches from the edge of the cliff.
The SUV now dangled precariously off the side of the mountain.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Luvvie on white fragility:
I get these types of emails once every couple of months. If you are somebody white, who thought you should be sending me an email telling me “I haven’t been promoting love with my words”, delete that email. In fact, report it as spam and don’t send that shit to me because no.
Just a stray observation that Toasties seem pretty evenly split on Bernie v. Hillary, and I really appreciate how chill and respectful you’ve kept your discussions. I’m hoping we can maintain that chill all the way through primary season, and then you can go HAM before the general election.
Since the FLDS started losing ground to the apostates, it shuttered almost all church-owned businesses, especially those open to the public, which included the pizza place and the only grocery store in town. While I could have patronized any of those places as a “gentile,” or nonbeliever, they were off-limits to apostates, who could be threatened with arrest for trespassing if they so much as walked through the door. Now, only FLDS members can enter the few remaining church-owned shops in town, and they must call ahead and use a password. To further limit contact with outsiders, the church had also selected a small number of men who were allowed to drive to a nearby Costco to stock up on food and deliver it to members.
I stop at the apostate-owned Merry Wives Cafe, which is one of the few places in town to get a cup of coffee, to meet Isaac Wyler. Other than Jessop, Wyler may be the most hated man in town among the FLDS. A farmer with a ruddy complexion, he grew up here in the FLDS, although, like many in the lower echelons, he never took more than one wife. He was always wary of Jeffs, but the last straw came when he heard his prophet pray for the execution of his neighbor Jason Williams. Not long afterward, Wyler says, Williams’ truck blew up in his driveway. Wyler went online, started researching the church and began secretly recording Jeffs’ sermons and leaking them to law enforcement. In 2004, Wyler was kicked out for reasons that were never explained to him. He was told to leave his property and hand over his farm. He refused and says he has since suffered constant harassment: His fences were torn down, his tires slashed nearly every week.
I’m always wary of Heartwarming Asperger’s Tales, especially when they really play up savant abilities, but this short documentary (it’s like 18 minutes!) about a boy who loves dogs and charms a bunch of Best in Show types with his knowledge and enthusiasm was indeed very, very sweet.
Embarrassing organizations in public continues to be one of the few things that works:
This deleted commenter sure knows the way to Mallory’s heart:
“I really appreciate how chill and respectful you’ve kept your discussions. ”
Seconded. I’m about to give up on the internet because everyone is just spitting vitriol at each other. Toasties, you are my safe haven and this is the only place I can respectfully discuss politics, Harry Potter, lovable pets, and DC restaurants without my blood pressure rising. You’re keeping me sane.
There are some days when I’m feeling shitty that I read Toast comments and breath a sigh of relief. I honestly think I have stumbled across the best place on the internet.
Was just going to say this. My carefully curated social media feeds are becoming wildly stressful and disheartening to look at due to vitriol between smug Bernie and Hillary supporters, and between that and the GOP fuckery already present even on British tv (NO ESCAPE), I have nooooo time for that mess, and The Toast is, unsurprisingly, a haven. <3 u Toastadas!
SERIOUSLY. Most of my internets are really, really unpleasant at this point.
Thirded! When I started that post-NH thread yesterday I knew it was pretty much the only place on the internet I knew it would yield a constructive and reasonable discussion instead of a shitstorm of ridiculousness. Including (especially) my facebook wall. Love you guys.
Came here to say the same thing! I think it’s just wonderful that we can discuss something as divisive as a presidential election in an instructive and constructive way. I feel like I’ve learned a lot. Even though I’m burnt out on the election already, as I’m inundated with news of it on social media, I’m eager to learn of fellow Toasties interesting and informed opinions.
The Toast is such a safe haven on the internet; I’m so thankful I happened upon this community!
Me too. There’s this weird tendency to assume that if someone supports a different candidate she must be either dumb or acting in bad faith. I really appreciate that people here can disagree intelligently and respectfully. (And yay for comment moderation!)
Yes, this is p. much the only place I feel safe talking about the primaries, online or in the meatspace, so thank you guys. The unfortunate side effect is that reading all your intelligent thoughts and arguments has just made me more split on who to vote for, but that’s a pretty good problem to have I suppose.
I love how civil and respectful the discussions are, but I also love how interesting they all are. I’m getting so much more food for thought from comments here than any articles I’ve read on any news sites (and let’s just forget the kind of crap on social media).
Thirded. I hope we can all keep this going when other contentious issues come up in the future.
Seriously. My Lenten vow this year is no Facebook on my phone or at work, mostly because I have realized how terrible I feel every time I scroll through my (usually pretty okay) newsfeed. There will be no such restrictions on the Toast.
Yes, this. Especially after having two guys show up on friends’ feeds yesterday telling the rest of us How to Feminism Right.
Men were mansplaining feminism? That is a truly spectacular demonstration of zero self awareness.
I’ve been thinking lately about how much all of this is underscoring how many of us internet-educated-about-feminism millennials tend to see the definition of the term so differently. And how much of that (although not all of that) boils down to second-wave-y vs third-wave-y thinking.
So, it really sucks when second-wave thinkers try to use “solidarity” or any of the other stuff to silence, minimize or reject WOCs and trans* folks and all of that complete shittery. But people (that I have seen) accusing Secretary Albright of being Bad at Feminism seem to be coming from a point of view that takes third-wave’s emphasis on individualism very much for granted. Which, I also see a lot of folks, at least in mostly-anonymous spaces like Toast, continuing to place stock in The Personal is Political and other aspects of second-wave-ness.
Which leads to so many threads of people trying to explain very different definitions of “feminism” right past each other.
I thought this editorial did a nice job of explaining why that solidarity guilt-trip is nonsense: http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2016/02/10/…
I dunno, I have just enough second-waver in my (millennial) bones that I have more sympathy for the solidarity worldview (when it isn’t being transphobic or racist, etc) than that editorial does.
I think having a female president in my lifetime is likely, but not “inevitable”. If and when we make it there, it will be because of millions of moments where other women (and not women) clenched there jaws and confronted the powerful and demanded their own power. And I’m much more skeptical of reaching a day when 50.9% of POTUSes are women. I recognize my individual self in the author’s point about being “born… confident of (my) equality”, but that doesn’t mean the fight to open the workplace, the boardroom or electoral politics is in any way over or done.
I see a lot of parallels to the days after Obergefell. My social media was abuzz with folks challenging the limits of marriage equality as a goal, and choosing to find ways to turn their profile pictures to the trans* pride flag or other symbols rather than accepting FB’s embrace of the rainbow. But even as a queer-identified person, I’ve never seen the push for marriage as belonging to me; it belonged to people dying in hospitals that hated them in the decade before I was born. It was a joyful thing to celebrate that moment for a time even as it is still time to pick up the next flag and carry the fight farther.
I look forward to supporting the third or fourth woman president as she works to build a US more dedicated to supporting every single human living here. But she won’t have gotten there without the (eugenics-supporting) suffragettes, or the (transphobic) housewives-turned-scholars, or Hillary Clinton. The fight for Hillary is a part of the fight to permanently change “FLOTUS” to “FSOTUS”, and for all the woman presidents to (hopefully, but not inevitably) come.
(And this is all an aside from the ways that Marx-derived ‘coalitions’ have plenty of their own problems with using solidarity-as-erasure.)
I’ve been a comment lurker on multiple sites for years and YEARS. This is the first site I’ve ever felt comfortable enough to actually participate in. I just started and it’s already very rewarding. It’s so relaxing to go to a page and know that you won’t be bombarded by vitriol or aggressive commenters. An oasis on the internet!
I know! Toast comments are the only place where I enjoy reading the opinions of a stranger on the Internet.
Wait who gave Sansa permission to be so BIG she is still a puppy
She has got the most regal face I’ve ever seen on a pup.
Sansa’s enormous size and fluffy, fluffy ears make me reliably happy in every link roundup.
I love that I can scroll down through The Jam category AND WATCH HER GO BACK IN TIME TO A TINY FLUFF BABBY
I must have missed a couple crucial link roundups last week or something, because she appears to have quadrupled in size while I was momentarily distracted. What are dogs?
We just don’t know…
It is crazy to see this picture and right below it is “Introducing Sansa, a Puppy” and that was only a little over 2 months ago! Nicole what is she weighing in at these days? We need stats!
I am addicted to true crime longreads and Texas Monthly is the best. Can confirm. Weirdly, I’m not a big mystery or thriller person, nor do I read much book length true crime, but I will read true crime longreads for DAYS.
Agreed, Texas Monthly is tops in this department. All you have to do to get me to read one of their stories is say, “this is a link to a Texas monthly story about a true crime” and I will click on the link immediately.
People intrigued by Serial season 1, Making a Murderer, and other stories where law enforcement/the justice department didn’t do what they were supposed to (regardless of whether Adnan or Avery are innocent) might also enjoy the Texas Monthly write up of the Michael Morton story. http://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/the-innocent…
I just spent an hour reading this instead of getting ready for work.
I should have included a warning! I did the same thing when I read it.
I made the mistake of starting to read this while at work…not my most productive day…
Yeah, even if the blurb is meh, if I see Texas Monthly (or quite often, Boston Magazine), I’m THERE.
When my parents moved to Texas I was immediately like “YOU GUYS NEED TO GET TEXAS MONTHLY, JUST TRUST ME” and they have not regretted it.
I preordered The Midnight Assassin both for me and my library the minute I saw Skip Hollandsworth’s name. I am so addicted to Texas Monthly true crime.
Oh! I just read that for work and as a generally not-true-crime-y person I was completely blown away. So apparently I need to get on the Texas Monthly train, too. Thank you for connecting those dots!
I’m addicted to true crime longreads and I agree with this, including preferring longreads over book length.
I have no idea why they’re so addictive, but I could happily read a book of true crime longreads, but I can count on one hand the actual true crime books I’ve read. (Two. The Stranger Beside Me, and one about Russell Williams.) Why is it that they’re so fascinatingly addictive but books leave me cold?
I’m getting a kick out of how the dramatis personae descriptions in the supermodel snowpocalypse article describe the guys as “male models” but the women are just models. Unmarked case flip!
I just wish that would spread to other professions. “A male electrician came and fixed my wiring today. He was actually pretty competent! Isn’t the 21st century something!”
I think it is kind of the standard for professions that are coded as feminine. “Male nurse” springs to mind.
“But why male models?”
“The idea that anyone would cast a vote because of how I am casting my vote makes my skin crawl.”
GUYS why is Ta-Nehisi so good do we deserve him I feel like we don’t??
http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/02/against-…
We don’t really. Ta-Nehisi is a gift to all humans.
The fact that SO MANY sites framed that as “Coates flips on Sanders” was just terrifying… Do you not have basic reading abilities? Like, following TNC on Twitter, it’s clear that people in general don’t, but you guys theoretically should be better than this!
Guys, that “seed bearers” thing from the FLDS is (a) the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard and (b) straight out of A Handmaid’s Tale. I realize it’s unconfirmed, but, honestly, I’m not sure that it’s that much weirder than other things we know they are doing – from the United Order to raping little girls.
I just read the whole article, and now have goosebumps.
I am completely fascinated by the FLDS, but I am just now realizing I keep reading these articles as if they are dystopian fiction, not *reality* and that is terrifying.
It makes me feel a little bit bad about how much I roll my eyes at most of the exemplars of the current spate of and dystopia and dystopia-lite YA novels where arranged marriage and cartoonish patriarchy figure… Or maybe it doesn’t, because the FLDS is way way creepier and bizarre than a lot of these fictional set-ups.
(Also: did anyone else find themselves reading First Order instead of United Order?)
the seed bearer “ritual” is some TRULY elaborate kink
I did a project about that cult in college. 10 years later I am frightened by how much worse it has gotten. I wonder if they all have orders to commit suicide if Jeffs dies in prison. He is an evil evil man.
About 10 years ago, I was heavily following LJ’s dark_christian community and DogEmperor on DailyKOS and one of the reasons they shut down the comm and DE stopped writing so heavily was that it seemed like a lot of the issues we were concerned about were becoming mainstream so the purpose of getting together and talking about these things was less vital, and also DE had some major PTSD that they were struggling with. Anyway, in the last year or two, I’ve been really wishing the community were still around and DE were still doing excellent research and thread-following because you’re right: it’s got worse. All over. And a lot of the links and such on the old blogs from 2006, 2007 are dead or the linkrot has meant the orgs they were critical of have taken over.
I got a request to send a donation to one org that I remembered clearly had been in the news for child abuse even though they’re supposed to be an anti-drug christian rehab org, but all of the old blogs and articles (with evidence!) are gone, so I couldn’t give a hard No And This Is Why. All the dog-whistles are still on their websites, though, and they admit straight up that they’re not accredited nor do they have licensed medical professionals at the rehab centers, only Christian counselors (bad, bad idea with drug rehab!). It was really frustrating, also that I only recognized the badness of the language because of DE, Homeschoolers Anonymous, and now a bit of FreeJinger (except that I find it difficult to get through the bickering and reality tv stuff sometimes)
Are you familiar with the internet wayback machine? It trawls the internet and takes snapshots of webpages. I know some websites/blogs have script prohibiting it, but for the most part it’s really helpful when dealing when linkrot.
Oh, yes, but sometimes you really need current sites, or something that’s attached to an actively maintained site, because if it’s 5 years old, maybe they’ve changed or no one can prove it. :/
Oh, true! Thanks to everyone nattering on about the new Cassie Clare lawsuit, I was in a “the original evidence was deleted so I need to find a backup to prove it happened” mindset.
That’s really scary that this stuff is still happening, but no one is talking about it.
Oh my god not to derail but reading the complaint in that lawsuit made me laugh SO HARD yesterday. Can’t wait to see where that whole thing goes.
Cassie Clare lawsuit??? this is why i need The Toast, to keep me up to date on these things since JF went to the great beyond.
She finally got nailed for plagiarism!! Hallelujah.
I just saw the first part of the legal document that Courtney Milan uploaded. I’m awful with legalese, though, so I’m going to have to search around!
It’s the same damn thing, even. Exact same plagiarism, probably the same “inspiration journal” excuse, too.
Seriously??? I found the document that Courtney Milan uploaded, but the thing I saw didn’t have a lot of commentary. Is it the stuff everyone was talking about 6 years ago with the Mortal Instruments…….. wait, actually, I just skimmed a little further in the document and “n 2006, PLAINTIFF was alerted by some of her distressed fans of the potential publication by CLARE of a work that incorporated PLAINTIFF’s Dark-Hunter Marks. PLAINTIFF demanded that the term “darkhunter” and the Dark-Hunter Marks be removed from CLARE’s work. “
SO APPARENTLY I was wrong and it wasn’t 6 years ago, it was 10 years ago, and holy shit it really is the same exact stuff we were talking about then.
ETA: oh geeeeeez
The Dark-Hunter Series and the Shadowhunter Series are so simil
ar that CLARE’S own publisher mistakenly printed 100,000 copies of a Shadowhunter Book referencing the Dark-Hunter Mark on the cover. Upon written demand by PLAINTIFF, CLARE’s publisher destroyed tens of thousands of the Shadowhunter Book that contained PLAINTIFF’s Dark-Hunter Mark on its cover. Despite the destruction of tens of thousands of copies of this Shadowhunter Book,
thousands of Shadowhunter Books including the Dark Hunter Marks on the cover have now been sold and substantial commercial confusion has resulted.
how much more am i going to find as i wade through this thing. That’s only point 13 of 50! (I think 50? 30? A LOT, ANYWAY)
I mean, she faced precisely zero real-world consequences before, and it’s not as if anybody from the fanfiction world exists in the real world, right? She changed the spelling of her name and everything!
AH I AM DYING OVER HERE
Literally on page 21 and 22, the complaint says STRAIGHT UP that the quality of Shadowhunters Series is frankly shitty.
98. Consumers are likely influenced into reading or viewing the DEFENDANTS works by their false belief that the works are connected to, or produced by, the PLAINTIFF. In the alternative, consumers are less likely to read the Dark-Hunter Series or purchase Dark-Hunter Series merchandise because they incorrectly associate the poor quality of the DEFENDANTS work or works with the Dark-Hunter Series.
and
the value of the Dark-Hunter Series is reduced by the incorrect association with a work or works that are of inferior quality or present plots and characters that are perceived as being inconsistent with the universe created in the Dark-Hunter Series.
These are both under the heading “False Advertising and Unfair Competition”. Some of the points made about certain similarities look like they’re basic Trademark defense and not necessarily intentional but it sure is sketchy that those similarities are so similar considering how many there are, but this bit here is beautiful.
It’s times like these I really miss bad_penny. I could spend hours re-reading the glorious wanks of yore. They don’t make them like that anymore, these days.
Patheos’s no longer quivering blog (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/) might be a good current website for that sort of information. They have an associated website as well I think
They are a decent start, yes! I had to stop following them a few years ago, but I forget why. I think the focus was off or one of their regulars turned out to be lying? I should go check them out again.
Quiverful people are usually some kind of fundie Baptist as opposed to LDS/Mormon, but there’s some striking similarities.
I do know the difference as I grew up in an LDS heavy community but the commenter I was responding to was talking about websites that documented abusive practices in christian communities in the U.S.
Although No Longer Quivering was started by someone who was part of the quiverful movement her support group and her blog often extend beyond that. The support group is described as “a safe place to discuss and process our experiences with high-control, high-demand religious groups.” of which FLDS definitely qualifies.
This comment may come off as defensive but I just wanted to clear up the misunderstanding
Not defensive at all! I didn’t know that No Longer Quivering included other religious groups, but it makes a lot of sense.
I think part of the reason it has continued to get worse is because these types of groups have gotten a lot of people into government who are friendly with them and discourage government interference. All the scandals regarding church financial fraud and the prosperity gospel back in 2006? They won’t be getting in any more trouble because they bought off senators who keep the government from investigating. It’s terrible and also a good reason to keep your eyes on local and state legislators.
The weirdest thing to me is that the Utah state gov’t just…ignored them for so many years. It’s a really isolated area, I know, but the legislature is trying to declare pornography a public health crisis right now ffs, it’s not like they’re overwhelmed with real issues. The LDS church is one of the biggest anti-polygamy organizations, and their influence over the government is so strong, I’m surprised that the FLDS weren’t a bigger issue.
Though they are ignoring the actual public health issue (the air is EPA-certified “unhealthy”), so maybe no one feels like dealing with actual problems.
It seemed like they didn’t come right out and say it in the article (unless I missed it) but part of the problem is that the Utah/Arizona state line runs directly through the middle of Short Creek. Technically it’s two different towns, Colorado City and Hildale, I think. So they would send Utah cops or investigators and whomever they were looking for would just step over the line into Arizona and be out of the jurisdiction and vice versa.
Part of it is with the LDS church’s own history when federal law made polygamy illegal and before they gave it up. Families had to be split up with wives and children abandoned, men in jail for bigamy (including most of the leaders of the church for a while), people who refused to give up spouses were in hiding for years, etc. So they may be anti-polygamy, but they have been loathe to inflict the same punishment of jail or breaking up families that was once inflicted on them. And then although bigamy is against the law, most places it’s moved from being seen as a public moral outrage we need to prosecute people for to something more seen as a private issue and not really the public’s concern (the FLDS and other polygamous sects have towns in Canada and Mexico, and they’ve largely been left alone in those countries too).
Add to that, unless it’s taken on at the state or even federal level, local authorities really don’t have the resources to go after all the issues, which inevitably come up with a huge array of things like abuse, welfare and tax fraud, incest, abandonment (the “lost boys” that are often literally left on the side of the road miles from the community and told never to return home once they reach about 11 years old [usually for trumped up charges over the boy having sinned in some way], all so that the older men will have fewer rivals for marriageable women), etc. Then local officials want to keep on the polygamists’ good side as these are their constituents too and could vote them out. Plus, victims often won’t testify or provide evidence, whether through being silenced from intimidation or through the years of blind obedience required from them by their leaders.
Arizona and Utah tried large-scale raids like that on Colorado City/Short Creek back in the 1950s, and in Utah’s case, a judge ended up ruling all the children back home and the men only got probation; in Arizona, similar thing were nothing changed, and the public was outraged over the children taken from their families, so the governor ended up losing at reelection. And once Utah saw the shitstorm that went on in Texas after the much more recent raid on the YFZ Ranch there (416 children taken from the ranch, cost TX millions of dollars, they were unprepared with personnel, homes, and resources, and then the FLDS leaders used the media to get public opinion against the state, in the end 2/3rds of the kids went right back to their homes and nothing really changed), they likely had even less interest in dealing with it.
My introduction to FLDS was Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. (If you haven’t, read it). I go back and forth between being fascinated and repulsed by these people. But I keep reading about it
Excellent book.
If it’s *not* true, it’s so much just the sort of thing it seems like Jeffs would do, that when he hears of the rumor, he’ll probably think, Hey, that’s a pretty good idea!
Holy shit, I hadn’t realised Big Love was a documentary.
Edit: OK, actually WORSE than Big Love. HOLY SHIT.
Didn’t a lot of former FLDS members consult on that show?
There was one LJ poster whose name I forget who had decided to write a book about her family, who were related to Jeffers and them, who used to analyze each week of Big Love and how closely it matched actual facts or the “feel” of being in one of those families. I’ve been wondering recently if her book got published, but I can’t remmeber her username. 🙁
I can no longer find her LJ, but here’s her blog (assuming I’m thinking of the same person): http://laura-stone.com/
http://laura-stone.com/category/blog/mormon-monda…
http://heydontjudgeme.com/tag/big-love/
Thank you, that is most definitely her! I’m not sure how many bloggers there are who pointed out how closely Big Love matched their family history AND are actors/master gardeners. Now I have to go see what’s up since I lost track, check out her books and such. Thank you!
She’s stoneyboboney on tumblr, Stoney321 on LJ. I don’t think that book ever got published, no, but she’s published several others, and she still posts about her family’s connections and her FLDS childhood pretty regularly.
thank you for posting that! I used to have her bookmarked, but lost it in computer transitions over the years. it’s good to go back and see what’s happening. thank you!
OH MAN. I remember reading her long series on Twilight and laughing until I almost cried.
The FLDS aren’t the only Mormon-ish folk that practice polygyny; they’re just the biggest and most egregious. Some people are a lot more consensual about it. My sister had classmates (in Utah) whose (formerly) mainstream Mormon parents had up and decided it was for them. It’s totally a thing.
And if it’s done by consenting adults all around I don’t think it’s a problem, at all, anymore than my friends’ polyamory. It’s when they coerce the people involved, “marry” girls too young to consent, make it nearly impossible to leave, and kick out boys that don’t fall in line….THAT is a problem.
Does anyone need to look at something pretty today? Here’s Perfect Human Misty Copeland recreating Degas: http://www.mycoloures.com/2016/02/misty-copeland-…
This is lovely, thank you! She is just the best.
gorgeous! I love how soft the paintings are, and then in the photos you can see all the dang muscles it takes to do that work.
I’m teaching myself to draw, and I’ve noticed in drawing it’s often a shorthand to draw calves as a kind of triangle shape below the knee, when in reality it’s a bit softer on most people. Her calves are actually triangles!
Lovely, thank you! Always upvote Misty.
Stereotypical story – I loved the discipline and beauty of ballet, but finally quit dancing senior year of high school, hating that I was never quite the archetypal ballerina build, and I was making myself miserable trying to achieve it. Always loved seeing the extraordinarily talented Misty, so much more ‘robust’ than the waifs, and she always looks AMAZING!!
I quit shortly after graduating to pointe, because I am a sturdy, Viking-type lady with weak ankles. I could only stand en pointe by holding on to the barre frantically, and it was embarrassing.
Oh, wow, thanks. She looks amazing, and I also loved her quote on why she loves ballet.
Funny story: this morning I thought I had a really heinous flu but it turns out to be Period Day Numero Uno: Crimson Hell. Tried to convince my kid that yes, Mommy needs to lie on the floor and watch Moonstruck, but no dice. Send help/ludicrous gifs?
My accupuncturist’s magic cure: Get yourself into a comfy spot. Take a wad of paper towels, and pour a dollop of castor oil on. Slap that on bare skin where it hurts. Replace clothing, etc. Put a hot water bottle on top. (I usually have to protect my legs or wherever the paper towels aren’t with a towel). Relax and read a book. I don’t know HOW or WHY it works, but it’s SO SOOTHING.
I will try it, and thank you kindly!
Oil conducts and holds heat very well, so I imagine that it’s just helping the heat go straight to the places that need to unclench the most. (Sorry if that was rhetorical!)
That makes sense!
Oh god I’m so sorry. Mine was horrible last week and I really resented having to leave my bed, much less talk to people.
Maybe it’s Let’s Read Books Together In Bed day? And Order in Pizza For Lunch?
I like your plan much better, but mine turned out to be Toddler Group Sing-along (with a group of shell-shocked mums singing backup), followed by All the Cheese Lunch, Nonstop Netflix featuring Peppa Pig, and Microwave Curry Dinner. Now we are going out in the dark to a nearby construction site because there might be a bulldozer there, but mostly because there are no walls to draw on with crayon.
Oh dear, that sounds like fun for the children but not so much for you.
Have you ever tried those stick-on heating pads from the drugstore? When I was working retail, they were integral to my ability to function. I’d stick one on my lower abdomen (directly against the skin because i liked to live dangerously and ignore warnings of potential burns) and it soothed the muscles for the few hours i couldn’t be lying in bed with a proper electric heating pad. Sometimes I wore on on my lower back, too. My sdad used to use them (he’s a mail carrier), which is how I discovered them.
I still have some nonstick ones from when I did marching band in school. That was some time ago, so I think I’ll buy new ones! Thanks for the tip!
Those little hand warmers you get in packs of 10 for $1 or whatever at the drugstore in winter ALSO work but they can get too hot and it’s hard to hold them in place. Also, theyre kind of small?
But in case you have some of them on hand. 🙂
This. The onea that are for shoulder /upper back are nicely curved to lower abdomen shape and only have a small sticky bit at either end so it doesn’t hurt too much to remove. It’s basically the only way I survive my first two days if I am unable to stay on the couch all day.
I played the game “PMS or actual illness?” last night and won: turns out it’s PMS AND an actual illness.
jackpot!
This game makes everybody a winner!
… My phone autocorrected ‘winner’ to ‘wino’ just then, but I suppose either is true.
I don’t drink but current period has me alternately talking about strategies for getting my new (trans friendly!!! Still not over the bliss of a trans-literate doc) to get me a hysterectomy, and contemplating experimenting with booze because 800mg ibu is barely anything.
Congrats on finding a good doc! A lot of times I think they’re covering their asses re: banning alcohol whilst taking meds, but the idea of some drug interaction damaging my liver forever freaks me out.
I was seriously feeling like some red wine earlier but somehow I’m drinking peppermint tea. Ah, sweet mystery of life.
Yeeeeah, I thought it was an overreaction on my old meds, then I got ridiculously tipsy off about 2 tbsp of a margarita. My partner still teases me about having to take me home from his birthday dinner because I had a big sip of his drink. XD or the time I got tipsy from breathing the alcohol steam from wine simmering for fondue. Oh, Lyrica.
Commiserations!! Have you tried those Thermacare disposable heating pads that you can stick in your clothes? I have horrible cramps, and they’ve been a game-changer for me.
I haven’t but I definitely will now! Thanks so much for the suggestion!
I’m wearing them right now!! (twirls around)
Also, my mom (who’s a nurse) gave me a good tip that you can safely take ibuprofen and Tylenol at the same time, since one is absorbed by the kidneys and the other by the liver. (As long as you don’t exceed the recommended daily dose of either).
Oh god I love those, and I was so happy when the weather cooled off enough that I could use them again. I can’t wear them in the summer, because I would be so miserably hot that it would offset all the benefits of the cramp reduction.
YASSSSS http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyufiwUbte1qa0njk….
Crimson Peak was so stunningly beautiful but wow was I unprepared for the violence that happened in that film. I expected ghosts (the noises they made, gah), but I came away with a newfound terror of letter openers/small thin knives. At the same time I could not stop drinking in the imagery.
I’ve watched it twice more since getting the Bluray on tuesday night. I want everything in that movie to be in my house. But I’ll settle for a faux velvet couch, because I feel like that might be attainable.
Right? The ghosts didn’t scare me nearly as much as i expected (showing the scary thing early on makes it less terrifying than just hinting at the scary thing all through the movie), but I had to watch the scenes of physical violence through my fingers. GAH.
I expected the ghosts, but that one peeking out from the cabinet where Edith found the recordings still scared the shit out of me.
And an ENORMOUS thank you to the Toast moderators, who maintain the beautiful chillness of this commentariat. I can only imagine how much shit you have to shovel on an hourly basis.
ETA: Reflecting on how much I appreciate this place and how much work it takes to maintain it, in fact, spurred me to finally make a donation.
EARRRRR FLUFFFFFFF
I read that FLDS piece after Nicole linked to it on twitter yesterday and I was unable to concentrate for the rest of the afternoon. It’s just so fully, completely nuts. And creepy? And disturbing? But some parts of it are pretty funny, too?
OT but I gotta find out if anyone here relates to being what I called an ‘extrovert-presenting introvert’?? I’m seriously struggling with human interaction lately even with old friends and family – not in the sense that I can’t interact, but the impulse to mirror and validate others, even when I strongly disagree with them, is really starting to wear me out. It’s OK when I meet new people cos they don’t have a pre-existing expectation, but for those I’ve known years it’s like changing any part of the dynamic now will just lead to exhausting drama. Does this make sense to anyone else??
It totally relate. A personality test I took when applying for my job categorized me as very extroverted. Other people agree, because I’m fairly sociable and open and not someone who holds things close to the vest. But I tend to think of the introvert/extrovert distinction as more a question of energy, and socializing, while fun, takes a lot out of me, and I need to recharge after with alone time, which is why I tend to classify myself as an introvert despite my extrovert exterior.
I don’t know what test you did, but that’s exactly the definition of introvert/extrovert that Myers-Briggs uses.
Same! When I tell people I’m an introvert they’re always like ‘Really? nahhh’ and I have to explain the energy thing. I love people and am not shy, but I do need me time in order to not burn out.
Yeah, there’s a lot of conflation of introversion and shyness, which aren’t the same thing, even though they co-occur a lot of the time. I’ve been trying to tease that out in my own personality, especially because I feel like my shyness is something I might be able to “fix” (I feel like it can hold me back in professional situations) by, for example, going to meetups or practicing small talk or whatever. Introversion, on the other hand, I don’t feel like is something I can change about myself (I do think people may shift where they are in the spectrum over their lifetime; I just don’t think it’s something you can do deliberately), so separating it from the shyness lets me see it as its own, neutral thing.
You can totally move on the spectrum over time. As I get older I’ve become a little less extroverted, which was a surprise and hard to get used to when I first noticed it. Especially since my depressive episodes are often kicked off by my not wanting to go out much!
But I’ve just become pickier about who I spend my time with, and found that I do need more alone time than previously or I’m exhausted.
Type of social time matters. Being on while networking or at a big party (which just isn’t something I do anymore) are scenarios that will leave me way more exhausted than watching a movie with a couple of friends or grabbing a drink with someone I’m close to. So yeah, friend time counts differently than acquaintance/stranger time for sure.
This.
Once every couple days, when I’ve planned to go out that night or whatever, I can present as pretty extroverted: lively, talkative, etc. Sometimes with friends, or once in a great while with strangers, I can even be unexpectedly social and enjoy it. But I need at least four days a week to be just me and my Netflix, and I can get pretty damn grumpy if people intrude on that without good reason.*
* “If I wanted to drop everything and change my focus every time someone wanted attention, I’d date and at least save on rent.”
I’m not in exactly the same position, but I’ve been having sort of related feelings lately. I’ve always been introverted, but lately I’ve just been tired and extra introverted, and it’s starting to cause problems with my roommate, who I’m very close to. I still like her, I just don’t want to be around her because I don’t want to be around anyone. I’ve been working on just saying “I’m hungry and tired; I don’t have energy to have a conversation yet,” but I don’t know that it’s helping that much.
I wouldn’t try to fib around it–it’s too exhausting and will probably make your roommate paranoid. Just say what you’ve said here. For some reason you’re feeling particularly drained lately, and you need a lot of “me time” to recharge, but it’s not personal at all.
This comment just made something click for me. I’d been thinking I WAS being perfectly clear in my feelings, but what I consider direct and what other people consider direct are not the same. I’m good at reading between the lines and picking up vibes, so there are things I consider completely obvious that other people had no idea were happening. So even though I thought I was saying what I said here through my actions and other words, I should just come out and say exactly what I mean, as plainly as I can, even though it feels weird to me.
(I would’ve done so well in ye olden tymes, what with all the meaningful glances and smirking behind fans and decoding flowers.)
I feel like even in ye olden tymes, I would have been the one worried that my coded flower bouquet was TOO blunt, and make excessive use of any flower that meant, “But that’s only a suggestion,” “If you’re okay with that, of course,” or “Pardon me.”
When you say validate others, do you mean validating their opinions and feelings? ’cause you don’t have to do that, introverted or not. Sounds like you just have some friends who are Hard Work.
I would say I’m an extreme introvert who convincingly pretends to be an extrovert when in company; I can talk and party and do the group social thing, but I find it completely exhausting and need be alone quite a lot, and its not my preferred way of socialising (give me a one-to-one with tea and I’m happy out!). That doesn’t mean I’m not myself when doing the social thing, and I have no problem calling people out and expressing my own opinions, even if they differ from the group (In fact, some people *might* describe me as ‘argumentative’, I have no idea why.)
By validation, I mean that someone might be telling me about an issue they’re having with another person/people, and as they’re describing it I’m seeing that they’re contributing to the problem, but I feel/know from past experience that they just want me to agree with their interpretation. Whereas I might actually be thinking: ‘yeah, your boss is being kinda shitty, but you could have given a bit more notice that you were planning to leave a high-paced job where they need people and it takes time to find a replacement’, or ‘yeah, your husband doesn’t help out enough, but you being really dismissive of all the things he cares about isn’t exactly helping’, or ‘yeah, I get you’re anxious about long-term commitment, but listing all the ways your perfectly lovely fiance isn’t “good enough” for you makes you sound like a giant asshole’ or ‘hey, I get the people in your art collective are flaky, but you have a serious case of playing the martyr here and you have form in that regard’, or ‘hey, saying “sorry I’m demanding” doesn’t give you a free pass to keep being demanding’ Etc etc etc.
I dunno, maybe people in my life are Hard Work, or maybe I remember everything unpleasant because I never say what I think, and it ends up colouring my entire view of them. I know that people are not horrible, just flawed (like me!) and I want to be more forgiving, but I feel like that can only come when I feel able to be more authentic around them. I don’t want to be ‘I’m Just Being Honest’ Asshole, but I feel like I can’t take being the nodding-doll validator any more! Is there a place in the middle?
I think those are all totally valid things to think, and I totally understand not saying them for the sake of avoiding drama; but OTOH the picture you paint does make it seem like these people are Hard Work, and are also possibly just using you to vent their problems without considering you or your feelings. Maybe take stock of who you actually enjoy spending time with, and focus on them (family members may prove tricky, but I’ve managed to disentangle myself from most of mine, who are all toxic, terrible people, and the few that aren’t, are still Hard Work)
I don’t know if I can offer a solution; but my instinct says there must be a middle ground here! Have you tried changing the topic of conversation onto something more neutral (this may not work, some people will twist themselves in knots to continue talking about their life)? or just being straight with them, ‘hey lets talk about something else because we’ve been talking about this for ages’ (and if you’re feeling brave tack on ‘and I’m tired of hearing about it.’)
Personally I have a scorched earth policy with friends and family, if the time we spend together isn’t enjoyable (for both of us, but my concern is me obviously) then what’s the point? And I’d happily vocalise all of your above thoughts to people if I felt it was true, it doesn’t have to be harsh, you can just say ‘Hey have thought about what the other person might be feeling about your behaviour in situation X?’
Changing the subject is good for a while, but some people do, like you say, keep bringing it back to Their Thing. Also I find myself remembering the Thing the person said and wishing I’d been brave enough to challenge it. (I don’t mean ‘brave’ because the people in my life would be abusive if I challenged them, most wouldn’t – it’s more my pathological fear of conflict that tells my CNS that Another Person Not Being Happy = Danger! Danger! – which is hard to shake.) So it stays with me.
Also there’s been times when I have tried to disagree or counter someone’s narrative and they’ve gone thermonuclear and it was horribly traumatising. I know those people were just being awful but it’s spooked me from challenging anyone, ever, and makes me equate a common-or-garden defensive response to All The Rage.
I find with people who are asking for validation but are also in the wrong, saying “I definitely see where you’re coming from, and you’re not wrong, but I can understand both sides of the story,” will sometimes stop them from continuing.
I’m not sure if it’s because they realize they’re making you uncomfortable by putting you in the middle, or because they want to stop you from explaining why the other side might not be completely wrong as it will bring down their self-righteousness. But it might be a tactic that’s worth exploring.
That’s tough; I have friends who are similar, very much ‘people pleasers’ who’ll do anything to avoid a conflict, and my constant advice to them is just let yourself be an asshole more. You’ll soon discover how much fun it is!
People’s problems and anger is not your burden, and in these situations its also not your fault that they are upset/angry/exploding. You’re not responsible for anyone’s happiness except your own. You don’t need to be forgiving to people who are assholes.
I can definitely see how this is exhausting, and would prevent you from socialising with these people; I would suggest trying to let go of the things that stay with you from these encounters (which is hard, I know, I still cringe about things I said or didn’t say years ago), you’re not responsible for keeping these people happy, but you’re also not responsible for fixing their lives either.
Again, I’d suggest taking stock of who you enjoy being with; unless there is a professional or family commitment that means you have to be around them (and even then), there’s no reason to be there unless you enjoy it. I’m so introverted at this point, and seeing people is such an effort for me, that I will only give my energy to people where I feel like it’s worth it; leaving the house, travelling somewhere, and being in public is not worth it for me if I’m just going to have someone dump all their shit on me and then get angry if I disagree with them. (I’m sorry if this comes across as harsh, that’s not my intention, you might have really valid reasons for spending time with these people and that’s fine, this is just what has worked for me). In recent years I have realised that shared childhoods/school/locations is no reason to continue spending time with people I don’t like anymore and I find it very freeing.
I don’t know if any of this is helpful, I’m no use with the conflict avoidance because I will happily shout people down when they’re wrong and being an asshole (but that creates its own set of problems) and my solution to these situations are always either ‘dump them they’re an asshole’ or ‘fuck them they’re an asshole and I’m going to tell them’ (I usually just dump them tbh, I don’t have many friends anymore…)
Haha! I do actually want to keep these people in my life, they’re mostly great. I just want to feel more listened to and understood. And I can’t do that when I don’t tell people how I feel! Argh why is peopling so hard.
Peopling is hard! And my response to pretty much everything is ‘fuck them, I’m leaving’, which is probably not the healthiest attitude to carry through life!
I hope you find what you’re looking for!
Thank you!
Do you know what want out of the situation? Do you want to spend time with those people without them telling you all about their terrible day (that they were instrumental in causing!)? Do you want to feel braver? Do you want different friends who don’t seem like hard work? There are different strategies you can use here, but it depends on what endpoint you’re trying to get to.
I think my endpoint is enjoying my friendships more by feeling authentic and more understood.
It does. And it is exhausting.
Yes! No one ever believes me! And when I explain that it’s socially and professional beneficial for people to see me as friendly and outgoing (and so that’s how I act), I end up sounding like a sociopath.
I have baffled untold therapists with the question of whether I am an outgoing introvert or a shy extravert. But it seems your issue is maybe less with this and more with feeling compelled to do highly social forms of emotional labor.
Yes, it really does feel like emotional labour. But I am contributing to the problem by inadvertently expecting people to mind-read, which as we all know is *not* how you Get What You Want
You know what, I think I can explain that! As far as I know, shyness and extraversion are two different traits. In the five-factor model of personality (that’s where the word “extraversion” lives in today’s psychology), you get five different spectrums of traits. Shyness doesn’t belong on the Extraversion scale, but on the Neuroticism scale. Your level of Extraversion describes how externally oriented you are, and Neuroticism describes the tendency to threat detection, fear and negative emotions. So, people should totally be able to have a high level of extraversion, but still be shy or fearful, because they’re not opposites but two different traits. (I guess you could also have a social phobia unrelated to your personality, but if it feels like a personality trait to you, let’s assume that’s what it is.)
I’ve long thought my mom was a shy extrovert. I think that may actually be the hardest of the three categories to be–needing to draw energy from activities she’s intimidated by.
Shy extrovert checking in. I always get coded as an introvert on those personality tests because of all the questions about liking to be the center of attention/hang out in large groups, but even though I hate those particular things, I really like being around people and meeting new ones, and I don’t need that much alone time. My partner, on the other hand, is a classic performer-type who comes off as super outgoing, but she’d happily spend days alone with video games.
Being introverted isn’t really about needing alone time or enjoying meeting people, it actually is about outgoingness. But then the media or something turned it into a weird loner stereotype. You can totally be an introverted person who likes people and prefers company!
I have to be extroverted on the job. Then I go home and have to be face-down on my couch.
my “bedtime” is 7pm because if i have to do anything more than watch movies, knit, or blather nonsense at twitter while horizontal in bed, i am so useless. everyone at work wants to go for drinks after late events (ending 8-9pm) and i’m like naaaah that’s cool but i need my pillow now.
everyone’s like “keri we know you aren’t asleep because you’re texting us at 11pm why do you insist on saying 7pm bedtime” and i’m like you do realize that after 7pm i can either be social or i can be coherent which do you want. (that one time i didn’t follow my rule and fell asleep head-down at the pizza parlour after work because it was too much social with my entire family around i literally shut down)
Yes, definitely! I am by nature an introvert but by necessity mimic extrovert behaviors, which definitely gets people to misread me as an extrovert.
I want to throw some psychology into this discussion. The popular image of introversion-extraversion does not match up with the science (such as it is – personality is HARD and mostly statistics). Facts get mixed up with metaphor.
What the culture says:
– introversion and extraversion is a dichotomy, you’ll be more similar to one type than to the other
– introversion/extraversion is about where you get your energy from
– introversion-extraversion is a social thing, it’s how you prefer to interact with others
What the field of differential psychology says (they are the ones who study personality):
– extraversion is a spectrum, not different categories
– the thing about “where you get your energy from” is never used at all, I’m not sure it exists as a concept
– your level of extraversion isn’t only about social interaction, it’s more like your general pattern of how much you orient yourself towards external experiences and actions
I’ve been taught that Extraversion includes your tendency to feel positive emotion, your attraction to exciting physical experiences, tendency to social domination, gregariousness, etc. Basically, it’s about how intensely you engage with and involve yourself in the immediate physical world around you. It’s about your general pattern of behaviour. I mean, it’s probably related to how rewarding external experiences feel for you (IIRC, people high in extraversion experience rewards more strongly than other people), but there’s nothing qualitative to it, nothing about how you “get energy”. EVERYBODY is externally oriented to some degree, otherwise we’d just lie limp on our beds, never taking any action at all…
Does that help? I thought it sounded weird at first, but when I got used to it, it really did explain more than the “get energy from people / get energy from being alone” dichotomy.
The dichotomy thing and the where you get your energy from thing are how extrovert/introvert is defined in the Myers-Briggs too..
The thing is that the Myers-Briggs isn’t a validated test. It likes to pretend it’s scientific, but if you throw the math at it, it doesn’t pass. There’s just no relation between what the Myers-Briggs says and the test results. Myers-Briggs was based on Jung’s ideas, so it’s basically as scientific as Freud. The inventor of the test just thought that these pairs of opposites would make sense, designed some questions and called it a day. Modern personality tests are based on statistics (factor analysis, where you find the underlying concepts in a huge mountain of data), and that’s way better for actually describing personality.
I know! I’m just saying, that’s where those two ideas come from.
Yup. I’m a introvert who is on the path to becoming either a litigator or prosecutor and it can be a bear. I mean, law is a profession that kind of requires you to be an extrovert-presenting introvert, as you interact a LOT with clients going through all sorts of intense emotional stuff, but the substance of your job involves reading a tonnnnn of documents and churning out a high volume of writing.
Anyway, I feel like this dynamic explains like 70% of why there are such high rates of depression among lawyers. I have a pretty solid self-care routine and worked for a while before going back to school, so I know what I’m getting into. But a lot of my colleagues… well. I’m just saying that, as a betting woman, there are a lot of budding alcoholics in my cohort.
I highly recommend administrative law for introverts! I spend 99% of my time alone in my office with the door shut, and participate in all my Lawyer Stuff via telephone.
(I also work on the government side of things, so I don’t really deal with clients as such).
It’s funny, I’ve actually become a lot more of an ambivert since starting school! I thought I’d be pure ~door shut, legal research~, but I’ve found that I like clients more than I expected! I’m thinking government labor/employment stuff could be a good fit. Just enough human interaction, but also writing a whoooooole lotta motions.
But, yes. Definitely learned that child advocacy is Not For Me in the long run.
Hi! another government-employed admin lawyer introvert here! Love it.
(quiet high five)
Ah, but the thing is that many of the interactions a litigator goes through (at least once you become more senior, and when you’re junior you don’t much talk to clients and no one really cares about you anyway) will be in some way scripted or guided by formal expectations. Once you figure out the rules, they are relatively easy to get through.
I relate both to the extrovert-presenting introvert idea AND to the intense impulse to be/do/say whatever people seem to be needing. I’d never really thought of those as connected before, other than in the “I’m really good at pretending, and at pretending to be OK”.
I am also very quick to assess what people are looking for and provide it instinctively, and very very slow to figure out what I want. By then, the moment has often passed. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about whether this is childhood training, or boarding school (i.e. living on Constant Alert).
Reading through some of the responses, I’d say that all combined it’s definitely given me more tolerance for loved ones who are Hard Work, but it’s also made good relationships more Work than they needed to be. Real friends want you to be honest, want to hear what’s up with you – but, that doesn’t always mean that they’ll think to follow up too hard. Especially not when I’ve needed people to ask (“how you doing?”) and then ask again (“you’ve seemed kind of quiet lately, is something wrong?”). They’re mostly thinking about themselves, and that’s something we can learn from.
It’s hard to pipe up, and I’ve definitely trailered those moments with ‘I need to talk about something, can we get coffee?’ How loved ones respond to those moments let you know what sort of people they are.
Totally relate, and appreciate the way you articulated the phenomenon, too! I have a bartender-type personality which makes me pretty good at retail sales, but the energy involved in reflecting people back to themselves eventually makes me feel like a mirror with all the paint rubbed off and I end up in a spiraling depression. It’s such a default state that I tend to blow it with new acquaintances and deepen the groove even further. No fun at all.
That mirror analogy is amazing, so perfectly describes that feeling. Wow.
Yes! My people! I am an extrovert-presenting introvert. I have developed extrovert ways of interacting with people for professional reasons/as a survival tactic, but in actuality hanging out with people makes me tired most of the time.
A Toronto city councillor wants to ban Beyoncé and I really hope some enterprising local feminists will bring a boom box to blast non-stop Bey hits outside his office.
Oh, I think a life-size cutout in a window directly across the street from his office is in order!
what? i guess that guy does not like free speech?
Interestingly enough, I’ve had several oddly political conversations about Beyonce this week after the Formation video dropped (I live in Nola.) In short, a lot of people feel like she’s appropriating a hugely traumatic event without acknowledging the circumstances behind it.
Here’s a pretty good summation: “Even in showing me how down with the struggle you might be, you are still dredging up images of Black suffering without forewarning an audience that continues to be marginalized in both their city and country or following through by critically engaging with those images. Your anthem doesn’t match your outfit. You might get me to turn up at a party, but you’ll only find me in formation when your words and actions line up.”
source: http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2016/02/dear-be…
Also, she left New Orleans out of her tour dates which people are taking pretty personally although I think she’s probably going to do Essence Fest or something of that nature.
Wow, we finally have a valid criticism of Formation that didn’t come from racist curmudgeons! As a white Canadian I’m going to stay in my own lane, but that’s obviously an important conversation to be had.
Colorlines also had an interesting article about the colorism present in Formation http://www.colorlines.com/articles/jackson-five-n…
Also (and not Beyonce’s fault!) the song is getting so appropriated by my fellow white women! Katie Holmes doing the dance on late night, ML Marketers saying “let’s get information and sell it works!” ughhhh.
I am into it. I love Beyonce. I plan on spending a lot of money to go to her tour. That song is still not for me!
Those are some really excellent words about how painful it is to see a life-defining tragedy turned into entertainment for people who weren’t directly impacted by it.
Speaking of Luvvie, a friend linked this on FB a few weeks ago and I laughed till I cried.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2016/01/stacey-das…
OMG, this is amazing – and the screen cap of BET’s tweet is just incredible.
I will read literally anything about the FLDS church/any cult really because I am OBSESSED. BRING ME YOUR FAVORITE PIECES ABOUT CULTS there’s a good chance I’ve read them already but if I haven’t, I will be SO HAPPY
Me too but I feel guilty about the fascination.
Same and I am SHOCKED that Willie Jessop is the one who flipped. Although I am with Brower – he absolutely knew what was going on.
Well this one isn’t about the FLDS but it is from Texas Monthly: http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/sinners-in-t…
Ooooooh yes, did you read the follow-up piece? SO FASCINATING.
Yes! The whole thing is nuts. I periodically google them just to see if anyone has brought legal action against them/ make sure nobody has died.
Just finished this one. Being a lapsed Catholic, most of this interpretation of Christianity is as foreign to me as Babylonian cuneiform. The last paragraph from the minister in this small town described the situation “Luellen has spent a lot of time pondering how the story will end. “I’ve studied up on cults a lot because of this, and there’s not any good that comes from it,” he told me. “It can end in many ways, and most aren’t very good. Our prayer is that they would all, and especially the elders, see the light and turn to the truth of God’s word.” Luellen furrowed his brow in thought. “It would be easy for us to say they should leave town, but I wouldn’t wish them on anybody else. I want them to come to the Lord truthfully.”
He wouldn’t wish them on anybody else.
You’ve probably already read it but I’m pretty obsessed with this article about a man who saves people from cults. http://harpers.org/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-sa…
SAME what are your favorite pieces, please share. I did a paper on the Family International/Children of God for a class in college and I know I read some really interesting stuff then but I think I found a lot of it through academic searches I no longer have access to.
But even just going through this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religio… is really fascinating.
Well, the Rolling Stone article from 1978 about Jonestown is a classic, but it’s a really tough read and has pictures, so be forewarned. I also love this one about a utopian German colony in Chile that ended up a torture site under Pinochet. And of course, this epic series on the Rajneeshee commune in Oregon.
oh my god YES thank you for these
The Chilean cult story is incredible/horrifying. I read about a few years ago, but still remember the part where they stage Santa’s assassination. The whole thing is incredibly sad, but well worth a read.
And another one. Warning: sad http://www.phillymag.com/articles/schaibles-let-c…
An excellent story about JPUSA – http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessehyde/bringing-down-a…
I haven’t read this yet, but I have read some about JPUSA and it is always so weird to me that this place is in Chicago, and especially the neighborhood its in. I passed by it so often before I knew about JPUSA and it was just such a weird shock.
Have you read Stella Forstner’s series on growing up in Scientology over on The Hairpin? Fascinating stuff!
Elissa Wall wrote a book called Stolen Innocence all about her escape from the FLDS – I bought it in an airport as a teenager and so can’t vouch for its quality but I remember being completely fascinated & appalled.
I just read Elissa Wall’s book two months ago! You’re right – it’s utterly compelling. Well worth reading; I passed it on to my mom, and my sister-in-law read it in the three days she visited them, too.
There’s another book I read recently that’s written by a woman who was with the LeBaron clan (another FLDS offshoot) (WHY DO I KNOW THIS WHY DOES THIS FASCINATE ME) in Mexico; she’s a generation older, and it’s fascinating to contrast the two. Lemme find the title… Ah!
It’s called “Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife,” by Irene Spencer. It’s a really different story from Elissa Wall’s – she is the one to decide who she’s marrying, she’s a true believer at first, and she is in many ways very empowered, whereas what really marks Elissa’s story is how disempowered she is – and it’s also a very compelling read.
Ooh, I’ve never heard of that one. Definitely going on the list
And now I shall spend my evening reading all the articles linked here.
YOU GUYS how am I supposed to get any work done today, you know I can’t resist all these tasty links.
Carolyn Jessop’s excellent memoir Escape is one of my favorites. She not only got herself out of Short Creek and the FLDS, but her eight children as well (one of whom had pretty profound medical issues). Just mindboggling what goes on there.
I remember reading that one as well! She’s an incredible woman
I just read the book “Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite” by Suki Kim. She, as a (South) Korean-American woman, taught in North Korea for 6 months and the cultish aspects of the society she describes are FASCINATING.
I knew North Korea was messed up, but hadn’t really understood the extent of the brainwashing happening. I read the book in one sitting it was so well-written and gripping.
Did you read Barbara Demick’s book about North Korea, Nothing to Envy? It was incredibly eye-opening for me. I’m going to have to look up Without You, There is No Us now!
Oooh! Putting it on my list now. Thanks!
I read “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” about life the N Korean gulag, and what’s amazing is that people *in the prison camps* still believe all of the regime’s propaganda. They’ve been branded as wrongdoers, they’re living under the most horrible conditions in North Korea (which is saying something), and they are STILL convinced that Dear Leader is godlike and benevolent, and that they truly have failed him. It’s a powerful, powerful cult.
One of the (IMO) eeriest and saddest Unsolved Mysteries cases I’ve seen is about a professor who got mixed up in a cult and went missing. He’s never been found.
http://unsolved.com/archives/charles-southern http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Charles_S….
Oh, also if you’re into this kind of thing you should check out the podcast Oh No Ross & Carrie, they go investigate culty religious groups and new agey psuedoscience stuff. Their couple of episodes on the Atheirus Society were really good & now they’re doing Scientology.
-Daughter of the Saints by Doroth Allred Solomon–her father was prophet of their polygamist sect, and he was murdered by the leader of another sect (she’s also written a few other books about growing up in polygamy)
-The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner–this one about the sect whose leader murdered the guy in the above book (he also murdered his own brother who had been his own sect’s leader)
-Pilgrim’s Wilderness by Tom Kizzia–although this cult only extended to one immediate family, they moved to a section of the Denali national park, there’s battles with the national park service, with the town, etc
-The Rajneesh Chronicles by Win McCormack–a cult in central Oregon in the early 1980s that deliberately laced restaurant salad bars with salmonella (after previous attempts at lacing grocery produce or doorknobs at the courthouse failed) so they could incapacitate voters and then they take over the county government. 751 people were poisoned, 45 hospitalized, no fatalities.
Oh oh wait, I forgot one, and I think it’s *really* worth reading because it is really fucking wonderful!! It’s called “My Teenage FLDS Diary,” and it’s a blog by a woman (Jessica Rohbock, she’s been quoted in a few articles) who’s now in her early 20s and ex-FLDS, and she is putting up, piece by piece, the diary she kept as an FLDS teen. She comments on some of it and explains some of it, and it’s just so fascinating because you can see, on the one hand, all the completely ordinary teen stuff (conflict with parents! thinking someone is cute!), and on the other hand, all of what is completely normal and ordinary for her and is so outlandish for the rest of us — conflict with dad’s other wife, having to move out in the middle of the night and hide, watching a cousin get cast out (that is a super tragic one). I think it’s compelling because you see how things that seem so strange are so mundane in her world… but she’s out now, so she is questioning or has questioned all of it, and it’s seriously good to see that she has gotten out and still has a sense of humor. She talks about how utterly shitty the FLDS “education” is, so she’s a bit insecure about her writing sometimes, so give her some love if you read it, too.
Also, she explains how to do the hair, which I didn’t even realize I wanted to know but found fascinating! 🙂
https://myfldsdiary.wordpress.com/
If you want to start at the beginning, the first page is here:
https://myfldsdiary.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/this…
Really, really worth it.
Guys, my upstairs neighbors just adopted a dog maybe a week ago, and she cries when they aren’t home. I don’t know them super-well, but they’re nice, twenty-something ladies. Do you think it would be too weird/forward if I offer to let Phoebe (the pup) visit downstairs during the day, since I work from home?
Don’t know anything about dog etiquette, but that sounds like a nice thing to do and not weird/forward.
As a long time dog owner I would be thrilled if someone wanted to hang out with my dog during the day! That’s really nice of you, and I’m sure they will be open to it.
Also don’t know anything about dog etiquette, but if someone in my building told me my cats were upset during the day and offered to let them hang out I would be SO HAPPY, both because the cats would be happy and also because anyone else who likes animals enough to let another person’s animal stay with them must be a pretty cool person.
I can’t answer for your neighbors but anyone who offered to do something so nice for my dog would be my friend for life.
I spend most of my work day wondering if my cat is okay at home by himself, so that actually sounds like an awesome idea.
OK, awesome. I will suggest it!
I think it’s a great idea! I told my upstairs neighbors years ago that their dog sounded unhappy when they were gone, so they changed up their crating habits somehow. They were thankful for the head’s up (but we were already fairly friendly at that point, so ymmv).
Might frame it to your neighbors as more of a free dog-letting-out favor, than “I want to have your dog in my apartment during the day,” even if the outcome is the same thing. 🙂
We rescued a VERY emotionally mangled Cocker Spaniel who would cry and destroy things for EIGHT FULL HOURS while we were at work (even with training and prep!), and would regress every time we moved. We took to putting up notes for our new neighbors begging them to let us know if he was upset and bothering them, because we had no other way to know. We would have been THRILLED for someone to keep him company. The point is: maybe they don’t know! And it is helpful information and not at all creepy, even if they don’t take you up on it.
Edited to say: seven years later is he MUCH better and has mellowed into a chill old curmudgeon who is happy to watch squirrels out the window all day.
Update! My neighbor was also home today for the morning, so I suggested it, and she thought it was an awesome idea – she often can take her to work with her, but said she’d knock or text if ever she couldn’t, and would love to have someone keep Phoebe company. So, yay for helping me get over my weird nervousness, and hooray for pup snuggles!
Hooray!
Maybe someone else has already written this. Tell them that the dog feels lonely, vocalizes, and if you can and want to offer dog-sitting. Approach as a neighbor, tell them that you like dogs too.
From that Texas Monthly article:
Priests were viewed as literal men of God, absent of moral failings, not the subjects of criminal inquiries. “The feeling was that if you wanted to remain a Catholic, you’d better not discuss it,” remembered a friend of Irene’s who asked not to be named for fear, she said half-jokingly, of “excommunication.” She recalled attending Sunday mass after Irene’s funeral, at which parishioners were sternly warned not to bear false witness against any member of the clergy. “The priest at Our Lady of Sorrows said he knew that rumors were going around about a priest being involved in Irene’s murder,” she said. “He told us, ‘It is impossible that a priest would commit a crime like this. Don’t speak of it. Don’t even let yourselves think it.’”
phew, good thing that attitude didn’t cause any problems, huh
“Let’s see, what-a problems canna we solve? Problem 1…NO.”
Excellent John Mulaney reference. 🙂
Off-topic but I think my interview yesterday went well! Of course the moment I walked out the door I remembered roughly 39472 things I should have said, but overall I acquitted myself honourably. Past experience leads me to conclude that how well or poorly I think I did has little bearing on whether or not I get the job, so I will try not to think about it. They do have 5 vacancies, though. My interview panel was really nice and they made it sound like a great place to work. They said they anticipate start dates between end of March and June so I should be hearing back within a month.
In much more important news, yesterday was Tiny Nephew’s first birthday! It’s so strange to think that a year ago he was a terrifyingly small 10-week-early preemie and now he’s a totally healthy baby who can climb stairs and babble very loudly and do all sorts of fun and exciting things. I get to watch this kid grow up, how cool is that!
Good luck! Fingers crossed!
I like your attitude! “…how well or poorly I think I did has little bearing on whether or not I get the job, so I will try not to think about it.”
You deserve the best. May all your Toastwishes come true.
Congrats for getting through it, and good luck with the outcome!
Happy birthday to your Tiny Nephew too! My boyfriend’s niece, who was also premature, is turning one in a couple of weeks. She looks rather like a portly chairman of the board sometimes – you’d never guess she was teeny tiny when she arrived.
*o/*
I have NFI why the backslash keeps disappearing. Grr.
On the Crimson Peak discs, Tom Hiddleston gives a tour of the house and is delightfully excited about it.
Just sayin’.
SIGH ok, ok, I’m buying the DVD. Sheesh. (I will still close my eyes doing the knife/Tom’s-face-scene though.)
I watch through my fingers, squirming and saying “eeeewwwwwww no, just leave it”, because that scene grosses me out.
I watch not at all, whimpering “nonono his face not his beautiful face”.
I used to live fairly close to the FLDS compound in El Dorado when all of their 2008 craziness went down. Every now and then I’d see them in town. Can confirm. It’s some hella weird shit.
Guys my disappearing trashcan mystery from yesterday has been solved! I found it later that afternoon in the completely wrong place – across the office from my cube, next to the filing cabinets. Part of me wishes I’d looked there soon, as a few months ago my trash can walked away and I found it on top of the filing cabinets. Next step: in the filing cabinets??
I read too fast and the proximity of the words “office” and “cube” made me think the trash can was found FILLED WITH ICE CUBES WHAT
The office is right off of the building lobby/atrium, which is often used for catered events, so honestly I might have been less confused if the trash can had been appropriated as an ice cube container.
I worked as a temp in an Admissions office for a while. There were three separate instances where someone stole our little bin that was filled with paper clips. And we NEVER found them. Like…who steals 300 paper clips? Multiple times?!? And the bin they came in? #coldcase
Someone who’s making an epic paper clip chain, I guess?
Office poltergeist perhaps?
The Mysterious Case of the Traveling Trashcan
Filed under b for bin, or t for trash?
Re: short creek, the other week a copy of Warren Jeffs’ beliefs/manifesto thing was sent to our office and my first thought was that the paper quality really sucked.
I always really love learning about relatively recent historical/new-worthy events that happened either when I was a child, or slightly before I was born — things that I grew up hearing about but didn’t possess the maturity or cultural understanding to really comprehend. The OJ Simpson case is one of those — I was eight or so when this was actually happening, so while I remember hearing about it, I know I didn’t really understand what was going on at all. I love shows like this because not only does it make me interested and give me starting information (I’m not gonna pretend I think every single detail in the show is correct.) — it makes me want to read every article or book I can get my hands on.
The end result is me being really interested and fascinated by things most people were done discussing ten or twenty years ago — that oral history of the Challenger in a link round-up last week or the week before was another. I keep going around like, “No, but did you guys know about the Challenger O-rings?” “Get this about OJ, did you know – ” and everyone else is like, “Yes, dear, we know. We know already.” 🙂
I’m picturing Kimmy from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 😀
Haha! Not far off. If only I had such good catch phrases and sense of style!
Yes, People vs. OJ is so great because of this. I watched the first episode with my parents, and my dad said 5 minutes in “I already knows what happens” and promptly fell asleep. But I know nothing!
Yes! In my public policy class last semester we had an interesting discussion about the knowledge gap that everyone seems to end up having around events that happened before you were around/aware of them, but recently enough that they haven’t made their way into history books/lessons yet. So like…the late 80s/early 90s are a weird blurry area for me.
“I do not remember Chuck Robb” is so delightfully chilly and dismissive without being outright insulting. A+
my favorite part!
The internet tells me the Chuck Robb masseuse/prostitute scandal happened in ’91! ’91! 25 years ago. Why would that be anybody’s go-to for masseuse-is-code-for-prostitute, especially when Craigslist Causal Encounters is right there offering up hundreds of examples a day?
eta: Is Mallory even 25?
Mallory is…28? 29? So she probably was not paying too much attention to political scandals in 1991.
I HOPE Mallory’s 25+, or else I’m about to feel deeply inadequate about what I’ve accomplished so far in life.
I am 26 and I believe Mallory is a couple of years older than me. I have no idea who Chuck Robb is.
I am 35 and I am too young to know who Chuck Robb is. I don’t think the letter writer did the math on how many current adults would have been too young to have a prostitution scandal discussed in front of them.
I mean I’m basically 30 which would have made me 5 when it happened. I would not have been paying attention who under the age of like 20 at the time would have been paying attention.
Ohhhhhh. That actually makes the “I’m 58” thing make a little sense. My first thought reading that was “my grandmother was a masseuse, what does your age have to do with anything?” But if they were trying to say they’re old enough to have imprinted or something on a particular scandal (quick math time: I would have been 13, which is a pretty good age for hearing about scandal, but nope, no memory of this incident), okay then. I guess.
Toasties! Two things:
1) I am being a Fancy Lady and making all sorts of good food today (I had a veggie frittata this morning and I’m making some wizardry delicious looking chicken thing I saw on Proper Tasty tonight). I feel like an adult, even though I can only do all this because I’m currently unemployed. But whatever! Fancy things make me feel less awful.
2) The People v. OJ Simpson is amaaaaazing. Also, having been 8 when the Bronco chase happened and totally unaware of things, my mom and I were talking about the Super Bowl and Cam Newton (we live in NC) and she was like, “So, you know how loved Cam is? THAT is how people felt about OJ.” Talk about a revelation. I honestly never quite realised how loved somebody would have to be for the whole country to stop for the trial. It finally clicked for me why people could want him to be found innocent, which means I’ve been watching this show with this kind of bizarre fascination/hurt mixture that I’m not sure what to do with.
I was around 8 when the trial happened so I was not very aware of it. When I was around 13 and loved the Naked Gun movies, I was very upset to discover that Norberg was the same OJ Simpson. I can kind of understand why he was so adored–I don’t know anything about his sports career but he’s a good actor, and I know that if Terry Crews ever went on trial for anything I’d be devastated.
THE NIB IS BACK THE NIB IS BACK I’M SO HAPPY
Dear Prudie’s “Feminist dating nonfeminist” LW: this has like -100% to do with the issue of feminism and 170% with the boyfriend being a horrible person and I’m glad Mallory shut it down very quickly.
Yes, also I appreciated a woman in the comments basically “I am a South Asian woman, do not believe this guy, run.”
Ladies of the world, don’t believe it when a dude’s “in my culture we don’t have feminists/do feminism” because there are women everywhere fighting for their political rights. It may not always look the same or fit an understanding of cis-gendered, heterosexual, middle class white western feminism, but expecting to be respected as an equal partner is a real thing.
Applauding this (silently from my work cube)
AND HE’S A DOCTOR. “women are just hormonal.” WHAAAAAAAAAT. You know this isn’t true, sir, or at least you would if you’d listened to your med school professors instead of doodling “I hate crazy bitches” all over your notebooks!!
The Link Roundup is always good, but it’s exceptional today! Which is kind of bad because I need to get stuff done.
Man, that Prudie letter about the boyfriend suicide was a tough one. Mallory handled it so well. That poor LW.
There might be another Battlestar movie 😀
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
I spent a few months as volunteer in a women’s jail library. Those ladies loved their true crime paperbacks.
At first, I’d expect they’d like something more escapist (ahem), but I suppose they’re as interested in true crime as the rest of its audience.
At my last bookstore gig we would mail a lot of Sidney Sheldon to the jail, but once the inmate went through those it was always true crime.
I was still young and hadn’t even heard of “true crime” as a genre until the jail internship, so it was just a little too hilarious for me.
I like to push back against writing advice to replace phrases like “I think” and “I believe” with phrases that suggest more confidence like “I expect” and “I know”.
That said, if you are not willing to commit to stronger language than “i think i want to marry u”, I don’t think you are ready.
Maybe that commenter was just quoting Bruno Mars.
Bruno Mars needs to commit to stronger language or no one will take him seriously in the workplace.
“I expect I want to marry you” would leave me hilariously confused. You … do?
“I suppose I’ll be falling in love now, what a damn nuisance.”
I have struggled in vain, I can bear it no longer.
thaaaaaaank you for this one
Hee! Well, honestly, the moment of realization that I was in love with a guy was never bluebirds-and-rainbows so much as “…well, *fuck*.” Like getting gum in your hair: one minute you’re just having fun, chilling out, and now everything’s all sticky and can’t be resolved without pain and/or a dramatic haircut.
I wish I had this comment 10, no, 15 years ago.
I love this comment. “Oh, shit. Now I’m deep into this mess.”
You could imagine it as a buttoned-up upper-class English man from the 19th/20th century in a clipped accent. “I expect I will want to marry you. My mother will make such a fuss, and it will all be such a big event. I do so hate all the circus that attends these things.”
The Ghomeshi trial. Ugh. But one positive (?) is that at least the Canadian media has been running extremely thoughtful pieces about the issues around reporting and prosecuting sexual assault. And then there’s this black comic piece by Heather Mallick: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/02…
Yeah, there’s some really great writing out there about this. This one is not funny, but is soso good: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-stewart/2…
I hate hate hate the general consensus that yes, he abuses women, and no, it does not matter, he will walk anyway.
Stacey May Fowles’ Canadaland article on accompanying Lucy Coutere is also excellent, and harrowing.
http://canadalandshow.com/article/when-your-frien…
I have a strong impulse to send Heather Mallick flowers for the piece you linked.
On Tuesday my team at work had lunch together and the trial came up. These two women (women!) were ripping Lucy to shreds saying how her emails afterward proved she was lying, that she was just doing it for the fame, etc. I started countering by saying how normalizing the situation a really common thing women do afterward, especially if they knew they would have to see their attackers again, as they would, both being in the Canadian entertainment industry, but they kept going and then I burst into tears and ran away.
When I returned to my desk a very conciliatory colleague, who had been there but hadn’t been one of the 2 I was arguing with, came to me and was very understanding and she said our manager had to go to a meeting but he suggested I go home for the day and she had cab chits so I didn’t have to go on TTC. And my manager also sent me a follow up email saying, well, nice things. SO – great manager BUT now I’m so anxious at work all the time, thinking that everybody is looking at me like a basketcase, like they have to walk on eggshells around me – like an SA victim.
Sorry to make this about me, but I haven’t told anyone yet and it’s weighing on me. (I gave a brief rundown to my partner but she’s got SO MUCH SHIT right now I can’t burden her with much more.)
It’s OK. You’re safe here. It’s OK to ask us for what you need. It’s OK to be anxious. It will pass, and we’re here to help. ::Toasthugs::
(My definition of Toasthugs: form chosen by recipient, any place on continuum from firm physical embrace conveying protection and comfort to silent, solemn nod from across the room)
Thanks both. It’s also this weird “these people I’ve worked with for under a year now know something about me that most of my friends don’t” thing. So awkward.
It is awkward, but you didn’t make it so.
Sending warm supportive thoughts your way. Remember, there is no “right” way to survive and self care, and it sounds like you are doing an awesome job of both.
My work has been super duper supportive (in that i only talk about this with one person who I know agrees with me), and i am still crying by the time I get home every day, i cannot even imagine what getting the side-eye from colleagues would be like on top of it.
On the other hand, they DO have to walk on eggshells, because you never know who is surviving what. It is not your fault that they have not had this driven home to them before.
You are an amazonian warrior and this too shall pass.
Also, seconding everything RoseCamelia said. ::Toasthugs::
Ug, the Toronto Star! Fighting to publish a photo of one of the complainants in a bikini, because apparently SHE’S the one on trial.
The SAME publication that investigated the sexual assaults and harassments in the first place, I may add. The SAME publication the first women who came forward believed they could trust.
That makes it even more heinous.
Absolutely. And people wonder why victims are reluctant to report to police.
Has anyone else checked out @femscriptintros on Twitter? The Frisky has a pretty good overview:
“As a film producer, you’re going to come across all sorts of scripts — the good, the bad, the ugly but mostly the slightly-charming-and-cringe-worthy. Ross Putnam is a film producer who’s decided to share snippets of these hilariously awful scripts with people in the form of a Twitter dedicated to nauseating descriptions of “female leads.””
I always sort of knew that most of what Hollywood produces isn’t really FOR me but it’s rare to see it quite so starkly.
“His wife JANE is making dinner and watching CNN on a small TV. She was model pretty once, but living an actual life has taken its toll.”
Related to the deleted comment: self-professed film guys continue to be the worst. They like the same 3-5 directors, assume anything they’ve never heard of must be inferior, and have a hard time shutting up once they get on a tear. I walked out of a date with one of them once because he wouldn’t stop talking about Polanski even though I said I didn’t want to talk about him. It was a while ago now, but I’m pretty sure I called Polanski a garbage monster, threw down some money, and left.
I 100% agree about film guys. They can be the ultimate mansplainers. As a corollary, if you express any opinions or observations, they hear you only as if you were one of the adults on Peanuts: “mwha mwha vrah vuv.”
I started trolling the Polanski dude once it became clear that the only thing he wanted to talk about at length was ~films (seriously, I tried MULTIPLE other topics only to be met by short answers like it was the world’s most boring Q&A interview because I really do not want to talk about films with film dudes from the internet).
Once he opined that Scorsese held the shot of the cream swirling in Travis Bickle’s coffee for the “perfect” amount of time I knew that was a Definite Sign that I no longer had to be polite to this chucklefuck. I countered that, well, art is subjective so there’s really no such thing as a “perfect” anything: “For example, I find Kubrick’s movies really slow and boring.”
I regret nothing.
“I find Kubrick’s movies really slow and boring.”
High five, soulmate!
Lol at the shot of cream thing. Because also, like, editing, you know?
I wonder if those guys know that many famous editors are……… women ??? You could blow their minds.
Also, film nerd chiming in: didn’t Godard do that cream-in-coffee shot first anyway?
Meeee toooo on Kubrick I used to be embarrassed to admit this (also feel the same about Altman).
Film bros, ugh. Also bros who think women will be charmed by hearing we’re not like those other girls. Deleted commenter has it all!
#banmen
I really like film criticism so I keep trying to read it and I keep running facefirst into a wall of FILM BRO. Can we make a rule that men can’t talk about movies anymore?
I would be on board for that. A lot of the film critique stuff I read tends to be horror-focused because a) I enjoy horror movies and b) there is a comparative wealth of feminist analysis available. It’s been a while, but I remember liking Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.
I would love to read some feminist horror film critique because that sounds like everything I adore in one package. I’ll have to look up Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.
I can also recommend Stacie Ponder’s blog, Final Girl. She’s more into traditional slashers than I am, but I always enjoy reading what she has to say (more snarky/funny, less staid academic).
You might want to check out House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films. Didn’t always agree with the arguments, but the form of the book (horror movies as a mode of reflective comfort) was fascinating.
Ooooh, I will definitely have to check that out. Thanks!
(I’s say that my taste in horror tends to less the traditional slasher films either, but at the same time, the big three–Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street–all hold a sorta special place in my heart.)
House of Psychotic Women has been on my wishlist for a while and I have got to get on that.
I really loved House of Psychotic Women! And I actually met the author, she’s fascinating. Like you, I didn’t always agree with her take on the films, but they were always thought-provoking, and that book has led me to many great films.
Men can talk about movies all they want. Just not in *my* hearing. They can talk over there, in their sad, isolated, dark corner where no one listens, just a bunch of men competing to be heard.
I always sort of knew that most of what Hollywood produces isn’t really FOR me but it’s rare to see it quite so starkly
Yesssss. Had a rant the other day about how not watching media written by, directed by, produced by, and starring white men with (usually white) women as mere ancillary characters was not only putting my money where my mouth is in terms of hoping for more diversity in the film industry, but also an act of self-care. @femscriptintros confirms that, and it’s awful.
This is exactly what I’m doing this year! I won’t see anything in the theatre unless it’s directed by a POC/woman/trans* person, and/or if the protagonist is part of one of those groups.
No, but see, you probably don’t understand that Tarantino is the best director because you just don’t understand how FILM works.
The Bernie/Hillary vitriol all over the internet is even more frustrating and annoying to me because I’m not voting for either of them anyway.
Go Green Party! Jill Stein 2016!
Jill! Jill! Jill! Jill! Jill!
YES! Jill’s platform is amazing. It’s just too bad that more people don’t know about her, that she’s not invited to discuss what she stands for, and all of that.
” You have a terrible boyfriend who acts like a jerk substantially more than 5 percent of the time, and you should dump him. Save the therapy for afterward, and go by yourself.” I <3 Mallory.
I think my favourite part of Mallory as Prudie is how often she tells people to just mind their own business. Best advice ever.
This is more an OT comment but I wanna whine now because uuuuuuuuuugh I’m siiiiiiiiiick and still struggling with on-again, off-again insomnia and blaaaaaaaah. Someone pamper me. :C
You are a darling, and may your tea always be perfectly steeped.
This thing about “job requirement creep” is interesting, but honestly, I was a sincere job-seeker for more than 2 years, and the VAST majority of job listings are completely bonkers. I don’t know who writes these things, if this is what they teach in HR school, or what. Another job-seeking friend and I started a blog just to catalog the most egregious offenders. And this is why, when one is looking for a job, one feels almost forced to just apply to EVERYTHING, even if one feels (“feels”) she may not be 100% qualified. (Or, shit, 65%.)
I have a job now, happily, a job for which I was specifically sought out and contacted by my manager. And even in THIS job, the original listing (which I only saw after having been made the offer) was madness, and I’m not sure I would even have applied, even though it’s exactly the same job I had previous to my layoff.
tl;dr: Job postings are nuts and don’t seem to be written by human beings.
This is an issue for me, since I’m basically just starting out in my career and every time I would look at job postings I would balk at the requirements (especially if they were called requirements and not like “ideal qualifications”). People have had to remind me repeatedly that it’s just a wish list.
Maybe some of that was looking for reasons not to apply to jobs I didn’t really want, or just being burn out from writing BS cover letters. But in general I get really insecure when applying to stuff for that reason.
I’m on an advisory board for a local college and other members were listing off all the stuff a graduate of the program should now so they can be hired with these members’ companies. And I said (in these exact words): “You are asking for unicorns. And you’re going to give them pony pay. You have to accept that graduates will have the fundamentals and you will need to train them in your specifics. No one in their right mind is going to take on student loans and bust their ass to become a unicorn to just to work for pony pay. You won’t retain your new hires.”
I like you.
YES
I graduated from college in May and had this problem while job searching. “entry level position, mostly filing, must have ten years of experience + PHD/MD”
Please make a tumblr of these egregious job postings! We will all like your posts and cry into our LinkedIn profiles.
When I was still in academic administration, our job postings were so strictly controlled by HR that it was nearly impossible to describe the job accurately. For example if you were hiring for a non-manager position you could not use “manage” or “oversee” anywhere even if it was something (say, student workers or the copier) that it was perfectly normal for that position to be in charge of. So things ended up being described in such vague terms you really couldn’t tell what anyone really wanted.
Add in the departments that decided not to fuss with HR approval for new language (which could take months) and just kept posting the same listing for years even when the actual position had changed dramatically and its a miracle we ever found quality candidates at all.
I am disturbed that our government agencies are so besotted with religion that they allow child-abuse – from both the Catholic and FLDS churches – to continue practically unchecked. There is obviously something deeply rotten in the governance of these churches, but no one in charge wants to be seen as anti-religion. Jeffers is in prison but apparently still running things from his cell. It’s sickening.
What astonishes me is that the US was created with a specific separation of Church and State, but the media and the population continue to allow the government and the various churches to bring religion into governing. Has no one read your constitution recently?
A lot of bad shit went down in Ireland and a lot of misogynistic, abusive and discriminatory laws were created, because we didn’t have separation of church and state (and still don’t) and the Catholic Church heavily influenced the government and ran the schools and hospitals; Americans are lucky they already have it, but are happily pissing it away because of rhetoric and lunatics.
It’s been with us forever, but I think it got really bad during the cold war. Patriotism and religion got mixed up together and we’ve never recovered.
I know it’s not good for me but I am OBSESSED with the FLDS. Part of me wants to run away to help start an underground railroad to get those people out of there.
I’m with you. But let’s start with rescuing the women and girls.
So what if she even was a prostitute? I mean, it’s not like she’s in P.R. for a weapons manufacturer or something. Jeez.
I was gonna say! Maybe your son *does* have a knowledgeable, consenting LTR with a sex worker, and they’re both happy, in which case: grats, mazeltov, and butt the fuck out, dad.
What I like about Mallory’s advice is that it works perfectly well if the daughter-in-law is a sex-worker. You still don’t need to think about it, letter-writer!
Just wanted to leap in a little off-topic and say that I can now confirm, in case anyone wondered, that Jaya’s blondies recipe is delicious.
YES I made them with butterscotch chips and they were wonderful! Going to make them again for my Galentine’s Day party on Saturday.
I made them with a mixture of chocolate and butterscotch chips. Also a delight!
I made them too! Overbaked them slightly (I was a bit distracted when doing the toothpick check and didn’t realize that what made it come out not clean the first time was just melted chocolate), but they were still really tasty, and my grandma was raving about them.
This toastie is evenly split within herself between Clinton and Sanders.
/waves
same
I wouldn’t even call it a split, myself. I feel unified in how completely I support both of them.
Me too, though I’m not American so it’s pretty academic.
“Dear Prudence, my son is engaged to a private chef who often travels to clients’ homes. Recently, a restaurant near me was shut down for being a mafia front*, so I have no choice but to believe that my future daughter-in-law is a mob enforcer. The thought of her beating up strange men (and other women) creeps me out. How do I let this go?”
*this actually happened to a frites stand I lived near in college (at least, according to the grapevine)
Man, I would have thought a frites stand near a college dorm would be doing well enough on its own not to need mafia backing.
A high-volume cash business makes a great money-laundering front!
Does that mean the vape stores popping up everywhere are all fronts?
I would totally buy into that theory.
I actually think some of them *are* in my neighborhood, a lot of those window displays are suspiciously sparse
There’s always money in the Banana Stand.
A restaurant in my home town got shut down because the owner was running a heroin ring out of it, so I guess I have to believe that she’s dealing.
Would it be poor form to start responding to political vitriol online with lyrics from #Hamilton? Asking for a friend.
I doubt this crowd would turn down Hamilton quotes for any situation. (I suspect you knew that when asking.)
Oh, there’s no vitriol here – for which I am extremely grateful! I was thinking more generally, like on Facebook and things.
I didn’t mean vitriol either, I was thinking that Toasties would say “Of course you should use Hamilton quotes in political conversations! And when thinking about what to have for dinner, or ordering coffee, or during intimate moments in bed! HAMILTON IS LIFE.”
This might be the thing that saves my sanity.
To meet the vitriol head on or calm? If it is to calm I don’t think Hamilton is your (right hand) man, he was not known to shy from a fight.
excellent idea, please report back with how it goes! My personal favorite thing right now is to include hamilton lyrics in conversations and not bother to explain that I’m quoting something. It’s a very small and satisfying and odd.
me too!
(The other day I was supervising my 5-year-old kid as he brushed his teeth and when he put the brush down I said “You spit, I’m a sit” and felt so proud of myself and haven’t been able to brag about it irl.)
Parenting done right.
Probably much more polite than Dowager Duchess Grantham gifs.
GUYS THEY OBSERVED GRAVITATIONAL WAVES HOLY SHIT. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ligo-gravitatio…
Here’s the main peer reviewed paper. I will eat my hat if this doesn’t win a Nobel.
Yup. Old Einstein was right after all. Mindboggling.
Oh, thank you! Passing this to the Burgomaster.
It sounds so awesome, and I haven’t even looked into the details yet.
Wow, very cool!
(discreet coughing) Uh, could someone please explain for those of us who’ve weaseled out of taking science classes since 10th grade…?
AHA never mind
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/science/ligo-gr…
Something I really like about announcements about space probes and particle accelerators and esoteric science is the way the room goes:
“We can confirm a result that the general public can hardly understand.”
“WOOO! YEAH! APPLAUSE AND HUGS ALL ROUND!”
My favorite part about this is that when they first built the things they hadn’t figured out how to filter out normal ground vibrations so anytime a truck drove by it looked like Jupiter had suddenly vanished.
They’ve come very far.
Podcast-inclined people: please listen to the latest Judge John Hodgman, if only for the purest commentary in the world: “No, I think she’s too good for you.”
I admit I’m not a podcast-inclined person but i listened to it and while it was WAY too long, I did enjoy the Hamilton-based dénouement.
Ahh a male coworker mansplained term insurance to me. He’s an attorney. I’m training to be an actuary. He doesn’t understand why I’m so freaking insulted.
I tried to explain the concept of white male privilege to two white males and failed miserably. I think I need lessons in mansplaining.
Surely to gods there is some straight cis het white dude out there who can help you out 😉
No, that is the perfect feint! One of them will look it up on Wikipedia and come back and mansplain it to you and your work will be done!
I really feel for the person who got drunk at the holiday party and now has to deal with coworkers that won’t let it go. The advice from AaM is generally good, but I think that there’s also something weird and wrong with a work situation where coworkers make “jokes” about it “in meetings when [they’re] presenting a project [they’ve] worked hard on.” That is grossly unprofessional and way more offensive than someone getting drunk at a company function where alcohol is served. Maybe the coworkers really don’t have a clue and will back off once they’re given one, but lawyering up may not be out of the question here.
Yeah, I feel like making jokes at the presenter’s expense about anything in a meeting is out of line, much less something that could undermine someone’s authority like that.
I’m probably lucky that I’m a public service employee so my work never ever has boozey parties.
So agree! In my office, it’s often like the happy hour/party/whatever didn’t even happen. Nobody talks during work hours about what was discussed or how people acted at the event . At first I thought it was kind of weird but now I really appreciate it.
Super delayed reply to old post but…finally got around to watching that video of the Aspergers’ dude trying LSD and it was very interesting. As a dude with Aspergers who spent a good 15 (before he knew he had Aspergers…) years trying and failing to find LSD, this was encouraging.
Now I’m perhaps temporarily too old, or at least too-with-many-small-children-to-care-for-to-have-time-to-get-high, to try such a thing, but it did encourage me to see that perhaps my quest wasn’t pointless.
Does anyone have recommendations of nonpartisan articles / facts lists / etc. laying out the positions / pros and cons to Bernie and Hillary? I’m kind of embarrassed to ask, but I haven’t been following the politics as well as I should and would love a “dummy’s version” to feel caught up. All of my friends are either SO vehemently Bernie or Hillary, almost to the point where they seem to be blinded by their allegiance and can’t be objective anymore…and that makes me uncomfortable. I want to find out for myself how I feel without risking their rage.
I would highly recommend the Ta-Nehisi Coates articles about their respective attitudes toward reparations/the Dunning school. I know that he has come out in favour of Sanders, but he is not a Bernie bro and doesn’t seem to have the kind of illusions that the bros do.
I am unimpressed with both of them after hearing that Clinton hired the guy who smeared Anita Hill and Sanders has softened his stance on Israeli state violence.
The League of Women Voters puts together non-partisan guides on the issues for all candidates. You can personalize their report to get information on anyone that you’re eligible to vote for: http://www.vote411.org/
I actually found the quiz at isidewith.com to be pretty helpful–it doesn’t cover absolutely everything, but it allows you to indicate which issues you feel the most strongly about (and in which direction) and adjusts accordingly, then gives you an overall score of how much you agree with each candidate. Then you can look through for specifics as to where you and each candidate agree/disagree, and what their stances are.
I like On The Issues. http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm
I was having similar thoughts the other day and here is what I and some of my less spitting-mad Facebook friends came up with (mostly because I’m sick of it all and just Shut It Down at this point when anyone wants to spit political venom at this point in my general vicinity):
1. http://presidential-candidates.insidegov.com/comp…
2. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/electi…
3. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/electi…
4. http://www.isidewith.com/
Thanks so much, all! I read several articles and took a quiz and am feeling a lot better in my knowledge.
Just wanted to say I am here for the Asperger’s video and will commence getting charmed and probably weepy in 3…2…1…
ETA what a beautiful short film. Sharing it everywhere, thank you Nicole for introducing it to LR. Dammit, now I got tears everywhere and it’s not even noon yet.
I have checked out Colorado City, AZ on Google street view, and I can verify it is no place you’d want to live UNLESS you were in a cult.
Harry Potter ambient noise generator: http://harry-potter-sounds.ambient-mixer.com/huff…
They have other fandoms too (be on the bridge of the Enterprise or the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon!). I found it via Toastie Twitter. The Hufflepuff common room includes a purring cat and is very soothing.
I am here for ambient cat noises…
This is really great.
Man the FLDS + the priest articles are making me feel actually physically ill.
It’s a good thing I’m not an American citizen because I keep thinking “how could you vote for a guy named Bernie to be President?” But I have some baggage with the name.
A guy I know used to assist a prominent fashion photographer. They had just arrived for a shoot in the Hamptons when the planes hit on 9/11. Everyone (everyone!) stayed and completed the shoot.
I begged him to show me the photos (which were published). He refused. I should have played it cooler. I want to see them so bad.
This comment is meant to be somehow in reference to the model snowpacalypse story.