An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.
As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
So today in Blue Collar Nerd’s “Adventures in Toxic Masculinity” I was working on a precast pier cap of a future bridge (Blue Collar Nerd is a Reinforcing Iron-worker) and I was ordered to get some steel bands from a neighboring pier cap, 20 feet off of the ground, with no fall protection, with an active highway on one side and a concrete floor on the other.
Blue Collar Nerd was not impressed with his foreman’s order to risk his only whole skin or his foreman’s taunting when I demanded proper safety gear for such an operation. It really irked me the way my manhood was called into question because I was unwilling to risk my life for a bag of steel bands so I sent some photos to my Union President and business manager and all of a sudden low and behold the safety gear I needed just appeared!
Here is the pic of the bag of bands, it looks minor but falling from there would have been life or career ending, and I plan on retiring one day, not dying because people expect me to be “man enough” to needlessly risk my health.
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Thanks, Serrana!
Just learned that comedian Joan Rivers died. She had been very ill. I know she had many fans and started out in comedy when women really were not encouraged to be comedians. She was had a certain type of sarcastic wit but she did put a lot smiles on peoples faces. Rest in Peace Joan.
@Dvärghundspossen, When is election night? Please keep us posted! It would be so cool to toss the right-wingers out on their asses!
I figure this is a good thread for a sick kitty update; The vets still haven’t made a conclusive diagnosis, but Penny’s steadily getting better, so either the antibiotics did the trick or it wasn’t anything serious and she’s recovering on her own. She’s not entirely back to her old self; she still spends all day lying in one spot, but she’s grooming herself, eating like a horse, and rolling on her back for belly rubs. She’s also getting better at spitting out her pills, though, but last night she ate cat food that had the pill contents mixed in, so hopefully we can just do that from now on.
@PoM
I love the Darwath trilogy and Silicon Mage books. They were some of my earliest (post-Tolkien) fantasy reading.
The main issue was the initial separating the threads into the colours. Three of them were a single shade apart, and it took a lot of comparing under various lights and counting to sort out 😛
The cross stitch I am currently (off and on) working on is the opposite. It’s a story keep (wide bookmark) showing a valkyrie on a horse, and uses about 60 colours. Sewing with two strands in the needle on 22 count is tiring on the eyes!
Bit woozy tonight. I’m on 90mg of my current anti-depressant meds, 60 in the morning, 30 in the evening, and yesterday i forgot the evening one.
Decrease in meds yesterday + normal dose today + glass of wine at lunchtime(father insisted) = woozy gilshalos.
I’ve managed to finish the new Wen Spencer book, fun but not at all what I was expecting!
And talking of inspiration/writing, I was recently reminded it’s only 2 months to NaNoWriMo, anyone else doing it this year?
Argle, and please ignore my punctuation; clearly, I am being punished for posting when I should be working.
Yay for COTB’s kitty!
Woodsprites is out? WOOT! See you in a day or two 🙂
Um, I’m thinking about nano, but I completely failed last year, and I’m a little overscheduled this year.
Yes. All years every year, I flail words at the computer screen. It’s fun.
Hmm. If we start a Mammoth group on nano, that would be quite motivating for me. Anyone else interested?
Cloudiah, election night is on September 14. According to the latest polls, the right-wing government parties taken together will get 37 % of the votes. The social democrats, the environmental party and the left party will get 48 % of the votes. And according to the very latest poll, it looks like the Feminist Party is gonna get 4 %. In the Swedish system, you need at least 4 % to get any seats in the parliament, so that’s like a magic limit. If the Feminist Party does get into parliament, the social democrats (the biggest of the left wing parties) will plausibly form a government together with the greens, the lefts and the feminists, because if they do that, the government will control the majority of the seats in parliament, which is obviously advantageous.
Also, the Swedish Democrats, which is a racist party that was actually formed out of a nazi organisation once upon a time, will probably get about 10 %. Which is pretty sickening, I know. However, they’ll have no influence on politics at all if we end up having a left-wing government that controls the parliament, so I really hope that’s how it’s gonna end up.
Last night I discovered that I get stones in not just my palastine tonsils but my lingual ones as well. The rest may be mild TMI.
For about the last couple days I’ve been getting really sharp pains when I swallow and I’ve been poking around my palastine tonsils but haven’t gotten anything out. Last night the squeezing sensation got a lot worse after dinner, and I woke up at 4am after a restless night choking and it felt like one popped out, but not from the usual spot on the side of my throat. So I did some weird tongue manuvers while sucking hard and sure enough I felt a big pop at the base of my tongue and coughed a series of disgusting stones up. I still have a sensation that something’s stuck at the base of my tongue, and my tonsils are still swollen up huge, but at least my throat doesn’t feel a bit like it has a pin stuck in it anymore. I really need to see an ENT, but alas, I have no health insurance. YAY ME.
The moral of the story is, if any of you have weird throat sensations, check to make sure you don’t have stones before you let multiple doctors tell you it’s “just anxiety” for years like they did for me. Because girls are totally crazy, amirite? /s
I always say I’m going to do NaNoWriMo and then I don’t. I would like some motivation! Writing writing writing. Hugs of congrats for the good, hugs of condolence for the bad. Cloudiah, what sort of work do you do? (Museum exhibit is le cool anyway.)
I am in school again and it’s getting paid for yeaaaaaaaaah! Also reconnected with an old friend. But my anxiety is rocketing up, booooooo. (GO TO CLASS! but I’m scared of outside there might be danger! GO ANYWAY.) Stupid arguments with myself. I really want my psychiatrist to prescribe me more than one month’s of meds at a time, but he keeps wanting to meet with me. Not like I’m going to sell them, I need them, I get really sick without them.
Le Boyfriend and I have befriended a stray cat which is grey and white and of indeterminate gender. I wish to buy it some cat food because it is skinny and because I am allergic to cats and therefore can’t take it home with me but I still wish to be close with this cat because I enjoy them. Anyone have a cat food rec that isn’t too expensive?
I’ve done NaNoWriMo a few times, although I eventually got to the point where I didn’t really need it to motivate me any more, and I preferred writing my novels at other times of the year. The second time I did NaNoWriMo did result in the best novel I think I’ve written so far, so I must thank it for that.
Speaking of fantasy books, I’m just finishing up reading the full Chronicles of Prydain for the first time since I was in sixth grade. Those were my early pre-Tolkien fantasy loves. It’s been a wonderful trip back, but I still agree with sixth-grade me that the second book, The Black Cauldron, is the best.
@ J.J One trick I’ve tried when I’ve found it difficult to go outside, is to get ready early. Then I sit there feeling sicker and worse and worse till I decide I can’t do it. I’m sick. Valid excuse. So, I let myself off going out (without removing shoes etc) and relax and do something, till, when I am feeling better and off my guard, I grab my bag and leave the house and get a bit away before my brain has time to kick in.
It sometimes worked when I was being treated for agoraphobia, anyhow, so I hope it helps!
Also, YAY and YAY again for paid for school!
I haven’t been here for a while but I want to post a picture of a woman 50+ years old who is a Crossfit athlete.
http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t586/ralmcg/Games2013_TheSeason_Masters_zpsf14ff00c.jpg
It’s something that the manosphere wouldn’t like since they believe that women over a certain age (40+) are shrivelled and no good.
Blue collar construction worker:
You totally did the right thing. Yay for another shot at surviving to retire! No yays for the “be a man and get yourself killed” foreman.
Disappointed face for him. And an internal rant:
“DUDE! Your job is to 1) Keep your crew alive and safe and 2) Make sure the job happens in as timely and high quality fashion as you can without violating job component 1. WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SKIP 1!!!!”
*blue collar nerd, who is a reinforcing iron worker.
My apologies for typing fail!
@ Nitram, I did not answer your question.
I did try Abilify.
it did nothing good for the increasing suicidal ideation I was having-I think it increased it a bit. It did not help me get motivated to do anything useful. Instead I just started randomly screaming and/or smacking myself in the face with a 3-ring binder to try and cope with the feeling.
But some people love Abilify. YMMV.
Speaking of teh crazee…today I realized I had lost my socks for the third time as I was trying to get out the door to go see the therapist.
“Okay, who’s making me lose the socks, and why?”
“I don’t wanna go, I’m scared!” says one of the kids in my head…
One thing myself and some other dissociative-disordered peeps noticed…we can lose stuff amazingly well.
Thanks Contrapangloss! One of the many reasons for my contempt for the man babies of the mens rights “movement” is their utter lack of any sign that they have any intention of doing anything but blaming women (feminists first, but eventually all women get tossed in that volcano…) to solve even the issues they have that might actually be real.
For me, November will be National Take A Break After Pitch Wars month, but if anyone else wants to do it, I’m a four-time alumnus (same general pattern as Cassie’s Major Domo) and will gladly come kick you all in the pants until you finish.