Hang in there, Ally. And yes, GET THAT NEW PHONE. Restrict him to email. Also, a personal suggestion: if you absolutely must read his correspondence, have katz do it first. It gives you a barrier between him and you, and also lets you reality-check yourself. Remember: JUST KEEP RUNNING.

I’m still available if you need me, plus got my lawyer friend ready for advice if you do want the restraining order or some other ideas. Stay safe!

Wow, guys.
Howard, congrats!
Breakfast man, good luck on the job hunt.
Marie, hope the eye gets better.
Pineapplecookies, I don’t have any good advice, but I wish you the best.
Plausible flight, that sucks. I’m sorry.
Snowpickle, sorry you’re having health/pain issues. Hope things get better soon.
Ally, yikes much. Please be safe (Katz too). Agree w/everyone on the prepaid card. Also (& this may be paranoid of me), but you may want to disguise your number for a while too if you call anyone whose phone your dad could access somehow: http://www.spoofcard.com/?mobile_site=false
Sam-I-was, adding internet hugs to the box

Posting because I like this song and I like cats. I particularly like the image at 1:19:

Ah, the love of a nice kitty. :)

Oh wow – it’s almost enough here to make me believe my silly way-to-into-astrology-ex-room-mate about this month. I was having an absolute shit day and figured y’alls furrinati and other stories would be a fun pick-me-up, but it looks like everyone else’s life is falling to bits in one way or another too. SO MANY HUGS for those who want them.

Ally, please be safe. Scary stalker families are no good, and I really hope you are mentally and physically insulated from him( them?) in the future. Katz too. I’m not entirely appraised of the situation, but it sounds unsettling for you both.

Pinapplecookies – I can’t contribute much that hasn’t already been said, but know that lots of us have been there, and you have a right to talk about it as much or little as you need.

Auggz – No wall-breathing for me, but sometimes if I stop paying attention tiled/patterned floors look like they’re crawling out of the corner of my eye. It’s unnerving.

Well, I’m pretty sure I just got my ass rejected from the last PhD program I had applied to this round thanks to a nasty cascade of events that led to one of the people that was supposed to write me a letter rather pettily failing to and then only informing me of this and why I deserve it after the fact (today, when recruitment in our department was going and I was wondering about not being informed). I am infuriated, and worse, I work with this person, so I had to play nice with her all day…
On the bright side, my lack of emotional breakdown about my now more-or-less-rudderless future proves that my new anxiety meds are more than up to the challenge that is my brain #_#.
This is not at all the healthy response, but I think I may go drink a bit now.

On the bright side Ally and Tawney are adorable, as is the war capybara.

@chimisaur, yeah I’m in NZ but not going to mention what university I’m going to as that could ID me. The system you’re describing is way more formal than I have experienced here (I ended up starting the PhD with the second university I contacted, the first one didn’t have the decency to respond back to my research proposal, even after I had met face-to-face with the person who would have been my primary supervisor). Here, the universities just care about whether you’ll finish a PhD, and they don’t care if you’ve taken time out for work or raising a family or anything. I’d hate to be where you are, it sounds really snobbish / elitist.

From the fact that you mentioned a lab, I assume that you’re going to need to be physically in the university in order to do your PhD so a distance/extramural PhD is out of the question? :(

And I love hearing about what others are up to, so I didn’t find it boring at all. :)

@auggziliary

Does anyone get hallucinations where stuff “breathes”? It always looks like the walls/buildings are breathing to me. Also sometimes pictures look alive and 3d.

Could you be experiencing eye tricks? Are you feeling extremely anxious, or do you get panic attacks? It’s pretty normal for this to happen if you’re having a panic attack, or even just normally. :(

My life… well I’ll focus on the positives. I’m alive, and I’m grateful for all the people and good in my life. I WAS going to go back to school this month, but as usual everything has to go wrong at once. Oh well. I was actually planning on completely changing my direction in life; does anyone here work as a Nurse/CNA? Figure that if I’m going to have to deal with asshats, that I might as well make a real difference in how well someone’s feeling. :)

@chimisaur, The University of Auckland is in Auckland, along with AUT and one campus of Massey University. I have made the assumption that your PI went to the first, as the main science parts of Massey aren’t in Auckland, and I’m not sure about AUT. Auckland is touted as (one of) the best universities in NZ, so I had assumed that given your PI had immigrated into NZ, they probably went to University of Auckland. So I could have explained myself better in my reply.

I wish I had advice to give for your situation, but I’ve never had to experience anything like it so I have no suggestions. :( All I can do is say I hope that things pick up. Hopefully the technicality can be resolved easily enough and you’ll get in for the next intake.

@chimisaur: LOL about the babies comment, but you’re right on the money. It’s impossible to tell the sexes apart when they are fully clothed, when they are only months old. :) Anyone that says they can has relied on clothing and toy clues.

@chimisaur: http://www.autumnmakesanddoes.com/2013/10/17/pistachio-chia-pudding/

I dunno where you’d get pistachio milk, though, unless you made it yourself.

So, I’ve been cleaning out some old files and came across a bunch of exercises I was doing a few years ago to help me stop bouncing off the walls of my life like a paramecium. One thing I found (in retrospect) to be really helpful was to write down what I want.

The actual assignment was, write down everything you want, no matter how far-fetched, in this format: “I want ______ because _________”

Like, I want to make more money because I can’t afford mid-winter tropical vacations on my current salary. I want to slim down because I want to be able to fit in an airplane seat. I want to change jobs because I hate my current one.

When I read over the list when I was done, the patterns became very obvious, and it helped me figure out what I needed to focus on. Looking at it again 5 years later, I’m pleasantly shocked by how many of those “I wants” I’ve achieved. Except for the time-travel one. Haven’t pulled that off yet.

Anyway, I thought I’d put it out there, because a lot of people seem to be having life-stall issues. You’re welcome to try it out and see if it helps.

And lest you think I’m all self-actualized or whatnot, one of the major patterns that appeared on my list was “because I want to be sexy”. WAY more often than, I want to be healthy. Not quite as often as, I want to be happy.

Yay, I went to bed and came back to find a wall of positives. :) :) :)

@chimisaur: babies can be hideously ugly too, although not as ugly as baby birds. I was only going to breed if I could have a litter of kittens instead. At least kittens are cute from birth.

@auggz: I watched this yesterday and had the same feelings. I thought the ending was particularly well done.

I realize that my problems are not very serious… but depression has hit quite hard and I haven’t been able to get out of bed for almost two weeks now.

I know it’s probably partly the depression telling you this is no big deal, but I promise: being too sick to get out of bed is not a minor problem! And yes, being depressed = being sick (if you find it helpful to frame it that way; if not, don’t. It helps me because if I blame myself for being depressed, I just get more depressed, whereas thinking of myself as being sick makes it not my fault. Does that make sense?)

Also, I can’t remember where you live, but if it’s winter where you are or it rains a lot, you might consider investing in one of those solar-spectrum lamps. My depression gets worse in winter and in cloudy weather, and that lamp makes a big diifference.

Ally, I’m sending up thoughts to you in the universe that you stay safe. Remember that abusers are very good at exploiting any weakness they see so he will probably try to make you feel guilty about your family and how you are making him feel.

Indeed, I assumed the whole “I could have been shot!” thing was an attempt to curry sympathy. OTOH, he could have a legitimate fear of racist violence.

@Plausibleflight, your partner is being kind of an asshole right now. That can’t be helpful on top of getting laid off. *hugs* if you want them.

I’m pretty sure he was going on about that mysterious, extra, inhabited planet in eccentric orbit around our sun.

Nibiru?

Dude, that DVD sounds awesome. I love conspiracy stuff. It’s hilarious.

@chimisaur

::offers internet hugs::

So, I guess I get some kind of (hopefully non-service-industry, although with the unemployment rates in my city and field I am not very hopeful) job and wait for the next round of fall apps.

Good luck + best wishes from me. (and you aren’t taking over the thread, don’t worry :))

@AIT

glad to hear things are going well at work. :3

@Ally

No bad or scary news today. Hooray! /unintentional rhyme

yay! :D

@LBT

Glad to hear you got your disability stuff hammered out :) And good luck with the health insurance and food stamps.

@Chimisaur

I will take all the hugs, Marie, and any more of the ladytype eye-candy pictures you got

Well, in that case, Lupita Nyong’o is always pretty. :D

Oh yeah. And here is a hug.