I know a lot of Man Boobz regulars have been dealing with a lot of rough stuff lately, so I’m opening this thread up to provide a (relatively) safe space to discuss them. No trolls allowed; any trolls who post here will be put on moderation and possibly banned. (Please notify me by email (my last name at well dot com) if there are inaproppriate comments; I get behind in reading comments here.)
@kittehs: cat poop. def cat poop.
@eli: you may have to hold an infant. careful with the boy, he tends to jerk his head to one side and the rest of him’s not heavy enough to resist, and just follows along. i think he’s read life, the universe and everything and is trying to learn how to fly.
Thank you, ella!
eli, I agree. I’d love to see the open thread as a regular feature, though I know that means more moderating for David. Much easier than keeping up on the forum, which seems terribly quiet these days.
Ella,
love the video. thanks for the brain bleach. and very meta.
(WARNING: gross)
Falconer – I just mentioned the merits of baby vs cat poo to my boss, and he said when his daughter was a baby she had terrible diarrhoea, and a few nappies got, ah, composted, rather than washed. Return to nature, the bio-organic way!
Jedi hugs to all of my fellow sufferers of back/chronic pain. I went through a lot of hell last year around this time dealing with issues around pain medication and depression; it was bad and it brought up all kinds of issues around family and boundaries.
I’m going through my own struggle with trying to find a new position and it looks like I might be on the right track with two opportunities but both of them would require relocating a large way away. The idea of trying to sell my house in this market makes me a little ill and I’ve been suffering some pretty severe panic attacks when considering how to tell my overbearing, narcissistic mother about the need to relocate and the fact that my contract with the lumber controls company ended. I’m a grown-ass woman, and trying to deal with her makes me feel like I’m seven again dealing with trying to survive all the silence and anger. A huge part of me that I’m a bit ashamed of is pretty relived at the thought of being far away (I ran 3000 mile across country to college for the chance to grow up and apart so I really feel for @Aaliyah recent struggles). I found Manboobz while working on the lumber gig, and while I just lurked you guys really helped me keep a sense of humor about my time there and the crap I had to go through as a woman engineer with more experience than her all male co-workers who really wanted a yes-person or a faint hearted flower to protect from the scary menz and machines. It sucks having to find something new, but it’s awesome to be out of there.
And to wrap-up, here’s something a bit frivolous that I dealt with last week. I flew to Boston for a 7 hour interview with an amazing company and decided to stay and look up an old “maybe more than just a friend.” This is someone I’ve thought about a lot over the last five years or so, but they were on the other side of the country and it never worked out. He’s lead in a band, and I knew he had a performance, so I sucked it up, went and said “hey.” We reconnected, talked, and there’s a chance that it might become more if I get the job and move but at the same time I was able to deal with the reality of my long lived crush and realize that he’s just a person who sucks at communicating and I can let go.
As for Tylenol, be careful of liver damage. While NSAIDs are harmful as well, they are less likely to cause long lasting damage if managed carefully and consumed with food. My 2 cents. And thank y’all being an awesome group of people
@robotarmygeneral
Sorry about your mom. Good luck dealing with her, though i don’t have any advice. :/ And Internet hugs from me, if you want any.
Robotarmygeneral, good luck with the jobs! My two cents: nothing to be ashamed of about being glad of the chance to get away from anyone – parent, sibling, friend, whoever – who is being a shiteater. They’re not keeping up their end of the relationship, are they? Why should it all fall to you?
Re your house – would it be any good to rent it out when you relocate? What’s the rental market like where you are and where you’d be going, do you know?
@everyone who needs/wants them, Jedi hugs. I am so sorry that you all are dealing with all that pain.
@Fade, FWIW I did the GED to community college route initially. I wound up getting all my prereqs done at CC in one year, then transferred to a university to finish my degree. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re struggling with high school. The GED in my state was only like $30 (more if you wanted prep classes, but still pretty cheap, I just don’t know because I didn’t take them), and community college is nice because you will be able to choose your own workload. Mine was also very willing to work with students who needed special accommodations due to medical issues or whatever, and the majority of the teachers actually also taught at the university down the road–seriously, I had at least 3 again after I transferred. There was no difference in the quality of education. I don’t know if that’s universally true, but if you pick the right school it might be a great option for you.
I’m doing pretty well now, my knee is healing very nicely and I’ve been cleared for limited activity with a brace. Biggest change is that I’m officially cleared to work my search dog again which is so nice. I still have to be careful about where I work her (no steep hills or rough terrain or anything) but at least we’re working again.
@AK.
Yay for your knee healing nice! 😀
About the house, most likely I’ll lease it through an agency. It’s good for tax purposes if nothing else, and where I am right now is where I’d like to end up when I’m done with working. As for my Mom, it’s hard to get over all the conditioning to be a good daughter and make her life easier. But I’m willing to do it and I think living away will help in the long run. I look at what my life was like pre vs. post college and its a huge improvement (which is a grim testament to just how bad it was). Another break would give us the chance to reset things again.
Hi everyone – I’m still on vacation and internet access is spotty, but I saw this thread and fired up the intertubes to send ALL THE HUGS to the non-trolls. Sorry things are rough for lots of my favorite people!
I’ll leave you with the words of my favorite 5-year old, ad libbing new lyrics for a recycling song she learned at school: “Don’t throw explosives at trees.” Words of wisdom, and she made us giggle.
All the power to you, Robotarmygeneral! I hope it goes well.
Love your tiger avatar, btw. Think I’ve said that before, but eh.
@cloudiah
“I’ll leave you with the words of my favorite 5-year old, ad libbing new lyrics for a recycling song she learned at school: “Don’t throw explosives at trees.” Words of wisdom, and she made us giggle.”
Wise words indeed XD
@robotarmygeneral
Good luck getting away from your mom. I hope things go well for you.
The tiger is new. Glad you like it! It’s one of my favorites, getting up that close to the tiger to take it was kind of awe inspiring. I was very appreciative of the chain link fence that day
Life is actually pretty good right now other than being insanely busy. But, one thing that has gotten me down is the growing number of misogynist blogs, especially those written by woman.
Why would a woman choose to be a misogynist? Yesterday on Sunshine Mary’s new blog, sunshinemaryandthedragon.wordpress.com she had a post, “Man up! Fulfill your obligation to rape and stalk us” in which she stated that women really want that kind of negative treatment and that they make false rape claims when they don’t get it.
Today in one of her comments under a post “The Role of Female Physical Appearance” she argues that women really want to be objectified by men and they turn into bitches when men don’t treat them this way. The entire post is about how it’s unfair for women to judge men just b/c they all want women with big boobs, long legs and tight butts. Men want want they want. It’s biology, stupid! She has over 200 comments from men (and women) who agree with her misogynist message.
We don’t need men to oppress us when women like Sunshine are willing to do just that and to make women feel guilty about wanting equal rights and opportunities.
Eh, Internalized misogyny. I’m actually a little more forgiving towards women w/ internalized misogyny than men w/ normal misogyny, though I don’t know why.
I’m not very forgiving towards either, though. 😉
A thread for venting? Excellent…
So my day’s gone from shitty to terrible. Here I thought it was bad spending 40 min on hold with the state because some asshole cut my welfare because I failed to complete a review that no one told me about. Yeah, fun times. Then the POD from my grandfather’s gets here and apparently there’s nothing in there I would want (I packed the damned thing, there damned well is)…house sold last week btw, setting up an estate to go towards his health care.
Which is currently being used as he’s back in the hospital — trouble breathing and a larger than usual dose of delirium. I really want to be back on hold.
Dentist day after tommorow, haven’t been in, oh, a decade, give or take. I have um, issues with people sticking things in my mouth (like, um, OH HAI rapetastic flashbacks) — I am so not looking forward to this. And then new-and-just-as-stupid-psych Thursday. Where I truly look forward to explaining that my Monday was a string of “oh just have the damned panic attack and get it over with” because no you stupid fucking…yeah sure no one likes the dentist, but I’m petrified. Versus my brother having his wisdom teeth out tomorrow and his big concern being if he should be worried that he accidentally chewed on of his pre-surgery anti-inflammation pills (oh genius one can’t swallow pills so he took them with a pickle)
That’s really the only bright point in today. He took them with a pickle. Also, he’s spent most of a decade teasing me about having mine out preventatively…and then he broke one and now needs proper oral surgery instead of a quick pop-em-out removal. His concern is the money though, he’s uninsured, so other than the hit to his wallet he’ll be fine (and oh fuck yes will I be teasing him about his for years to come)
And in utterly small in comparison things, I lost one of my clown loaches over the weekend.
/rant
Hugs to the rest of the thread. Falconer I’ll even hold both of them if you make cookies (yes I’ve held a pair of infants before, older than yours, but not by much…ah the days of working the nursery during family camp [if I never have a tornado warning while in charge of car seat sized kids again…])
@fade
I’m mor forgiving to women with internalized misogyny bc all that crap affects them too. Not that the patriarchy doesn’t hurt men, just less.
Funny, sunshinesoutofherarsemary pretends to be such a good little Christian, yet thinks men should be out there raping?
Does not compute.
Robotarmygeneral, wow! at getting that photo!
@argenti
All the hugs if you want them. 🙁 sounds like a terrible day.
@Argenti
Jedi hugs. All of those sound like super shitty circumstances to be in 1 at a time, let alone all at once.
Welfare is kind of a joke in my state. My mom was talking about how she was applying for financial assistence, and the government wanted to make sure she was working or w/e so they gave her meaningless tasks to do 40 hours a week… for 10 dollars a month. Needless to say, she decided she could live w/o that assisstence, though I can’t imagine how desperate things would be if she needed it so much she had to take it.
All the non-physical hugs, Argenti! 🙁
I had an experience eerily similar to the Mr. Perfect-Until-Friday-Night story a bit over a year ago. Almost makes me wonder if we met the same guy. It’s actually one of the reasons I started looking at these kind of anti-misogyny spaces on the Internet – I was so upset about being seen as nothing more than a sexual convenience. I’ve spent a year working on the aftermath of that “relationship” with the help of a good therapist. I do feel better know, although I still have a lot of trust problems. I went on a date again for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think it’s going to lead to anything (although I’m still chatting with the guy via Facebook, etc.) but going on a date at all was a huge step for me. All I can really tell you is that I feel better now than I did, and I’m starting to think I don’t have to run and hide in a convent after all.
Hugs to Argenti, dentistry sucks.
Kittehserf and anyone who wants some brain bleach – here’s the full size tiger photo. http://tinyurl.com/bvs92c2
Oh my gosh, that is the most beautiful photo!