An Open Thread for Personal Stuff. As always, Open Threads are CLOSED to MRAs/trolls, etc.
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Open Thread for Personal Stuff: Sept. 2015 “Kate, Meet Cat; Cat, Meet Kate” Edition
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
@Paradoxical Intention
You can probably find a really good lotion and so on at your local natural foods store or else online. Check out the list of ingredients, because a product can have both organic or natural ingredients along with unpronounceable ones.
The Environmental Working Group rates the safety of personal care products:
ewg.org
Thanks to everyone who has weighed in on my friend’s situation.
@ Kat
Good point about the ego boost. That is sort of what I’ve been telling her, but I didn’t put it in quite those terms. I’ll try again with your formulation, maybe it’ll be more helpful.
@ AltoFronto
I don’t agree with that. There’s a pretty clear difference in how not communicating affects parties with different hopes and expectations. The one who has more feelings invested is in a weaker position both in terms of how they are able to negotiate, and they invariably get more hurt. They’re the only one with skin in the game. The person who has no feelings is more capable of conducting themselves in a responsible manner, so they should.
@ A.A.
I don’t think my friend could have had time to change her mind about what she wanted during the course of the ”relationship”. As far as I understand the guy completely lost interest immediately after they had sex. I’m not clear on the details.
There is no plausible deniability. In these situations, due diligence entails making a sincere effort to find out about any possible feelings. He doesn’t need to have positive evidence of her feelings to take advantage of them and manipulate her.
Hey, just want to say a quick Happy New Year to anyone celebrating it. Really hoping the next year will be better than this one (personal stuff I don’t want to go into), but one thing I am glad about is discovering this blog – even though I usually just read, rather than participate in the discussion, it’s still usually a delight, so thanks all.
Whenever one of these personal threads rolls around I get all excited–like: “time to stop lurking and make some new friends ^.^”.
But then I get some combination of busy/shy and don’t follow up >.<
Hey Katherine XII! I hear you, I don’t post much either. This will likely be my post of the month. For whatever reason I’m more shy here than on other sites.
I just typed three or four different sentences and deleted each one. Meh, I will work on that eventually!
@Katherine XII:
I know those feelings. I’m very shy in real life, so this sort of text-only interface makes it a lot easier. If you’ve read the site for a while, then you probably know us all moderately well; and if you haven’t left in disgust at the sort of people we are, then that probably means we’ll like you too.
@Katherine XII
I used to post pics of my cross-stitch every month, basically without comment. I made a lot of new friends that way!
(for anyone who cares, I haven’t worked on it in ages so … no point in new pics, but SOON …. MAYBE)
Who has two thumbs, was supposed to get paid today, didn’t and so now has less than a dollar to feed himself for the foreseeable future? This guy! *points at himself* 🙁
I have some muesli and a little yoghurt to go with it, so I’m not entirely without food, and of course I have all the water I can drink. Let’s hope that I get my money tomorrow…
Woow so much going on here! Hugs to all shy people out there (my womanly self is pretty social and outgoing, my masculine self, not so much).
And Monzach, I’m sorry you’re going through that and hope it gets better soon!!
I know this thread went a bit cold already but anyways… I’m writing a series of articles for my professional blog, analyzing the responses from men to the protest #NiUnaMenos (against violence towards women).
I chose two articles, one from an academic/philosopher in a left-leaning newspaper, and one from a mediocre writer who quoted GirlWritesWhat and Warren WTF Farrell in a national right-wing (as in, really, really far right we’re-not-sure-human-rights-are-all-that-good right) newspaper.
There was so much wrong all over the place I decided one article wouldn’t be enough, and now I’m using those two articles as raw material for an analysis of the new misogyny (defined as the strategies of traditional misogyny to blend into the equality discourses).
I’m outlining a few basic rules, and then pulling examples from the texts being analyzed, such as “don’t talk to women” “violence is unavoidable” “reverse-feminism” “sexist stereotypes” etc.
It’s taking some time but I feel it’s worth it, since there isn’t a lot of information in Spanish on how to spot the most common antifeminist tropes, and most extreme antifeminism is only becoming noticed because of the protest #NiUnaMenos. So it’s sort of the ideal time to put my thoughts out there.
Of course it’s most likely I won’t be featured in a national newspaper, but that’s also sort of my argument to begin with ????
I’m also using every chance I get to quote David and Miguel Lorente, the Spanish dude who was quoted here regarding the video “violence is violence”.
All those days reading WHTM for hours on end are finally paying off!!
(I wonder if I will need to make a post about memes, since there are plenty of antifeminist memes in Spanish, and they are equally disturbing, confusing and hilarious as their English counterparts)
I don’t know how to deal with the fact that my boyfriend is something in the realm of an MRA/gamegater/anti-feminist. I know of a blog he hasn’t actively hid from me but also has not told me about, and he reblogs lots of “Oh lol those SJWs and PC police and tumblrinas and feminists” shit. He’s privileged enough to be far removed from all this. It’s sort of an intellectual game to him, I guess, these camps of internet hate and rhetoric. His blog reads like a parody of a reddit was built as an AI.
There’s good odds he may be moving for work in the next few months, so part of me wants to do nothing about this and just let him drift away the and say good riddance without ever bringing it up.
Still though, look at the level of shittiness here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2383368/redacted.tumblr.com/redacted.tumblr.com/index.html I can’t stop visiting and fixating on how much awful shit he’s unthinkingly endorsing. He’s college educated and dropped out of grad school. Him being into this MRA/GG shit just seems like intellectual laziness, like he’s found a movement that questions as few as the assumptions he was raised with as possible.
Gentle internet hugs for all of the shy folk out there. I think I’m one of those people that intimidate you; I’ve been told as much about three times in my life and it always surprises me! I get a bit shy in new social situations, although repeated exposure brings me out of my shell pretty fast. Anyway, I’m trying to be more sensitive about shy people…
RoscoeTCat: If you’re still out there – No, I don’t work at a grocery (although I kinda wish I did; it’d be cooler) I work at a U.S. based fabric and craft chain and we take competitor coupons as well as our own.
It’s kind of amazing (if I think about it) how many people are kind of bad at working their smartphones! I’m not even counting the older people who have had one foisted on them by their children (sometimes against their will.)
I’m happy to report that I did, in fact, get paid today. It happened later than usual, true, but it did happen. I’m just very glad that I decided to go check my account status on the ATM during my outing today. I was quite happy to cut my walk a bit short and go grocery shopping instead. 🙂 And don’t worry, I did manage to finish my walk as well, a bit later. 😀
Hopefully everyone else has a lovely Monday, wherever you may be. 🙂
Internet hugs to all that wish to have some.
I’m not sure if this belongs in this open thread or the other one but I wanted to make sure people could see this job posting.
If you are in the Croyden area and looking to write for a video gaming site, videogamer.com is looking for a new employee.
http://www.videogamer.com/news/come_and_work_at_videogamer_com.html
So I just had yet another panic attack. This one woke my boyfriend up. He panicked and raised his voice, trying to get me to lie back down so I could breathe, but his reaction was scaring me even more, and I had to go off to myself and talk myself down (I have way too much experience with this) before I fucking hyperventilated to death. He got mad, we fought, and now I feel worse.
The nightmare was about him trying to kill me. I know this would never happen, but everything felt real–from the punches to the mix of betrayal and terror that was the same as what I used to feel when my ex would hurt me or scream at me.
I tried to Google it for him, but he barely glanced at the info and went back to saying he didn’t understand, and I shouldn’t have expected him to in that moment. I get it–and I didn’t expect that, which is partially why I went off on my own for a bit to calm down. Now I’m feeling defensive, because although I get that he doesn’t understand, I wish he’d try. This is obviously not something that’s just going to go away. He did the same with my Bipolar Disorder, telling me to just explain things rather than reading the books/articles I gave him (he’s an avid reader and especially loves non-Fiction). How? How do I just explain something that took me years to understand myself?
I feel weird and off-putting and tired and alone.
Rough news: one of my family’s cats probably won’t make it another 24 hours.
Tiger, one of our shorthaired tabbies, is fifteen years old and has had some kind of nerve damage to his hindquarters and maybe a broken tail; we don’t know what happened, but all we know is that his tail is at a permanent crook near its base.
He’s been a source of grief–pestering Lightning, the (now four years gone) queen of the household, pooping on new carpet and forcing us to confine him and his brother from the same litter to the main rooms of the house, and needing to be fed pumpkin to prevent constipation.
He has also been a source of love and joy: he didn’t purr much until about a year or two back, but when he did it was a deep, soporific rumble that could put you to rest or convince you to nap with him. He would hop up onto the sofa if you were lying down and start kneading and purring, maybe settling down on or beside you for a nap if you were still enough.He even had a routine with my sister when we lived at home: she would wake up in the mornings, sometimes/often with him beside her head. He would then follow her into her bathroom and wait for her to wash her face, after which he would hop up onto the bathroom counter to lick the water left behind on the sink. You could also find him stretched out under sun beams or on our screen porch during the summer.
Age was getting to him, though. He wasn’t as active as he used to be, and he started losing weight. We really noticed his turn for the worse a few weeks ago: he wasn’t eating as much and losing weight, he was having trouble hopping up onto chairs or our sofa, and he couldn’t really sit down, possibly because his hind legs were growing weaker or were getting arthritic.
Now the end is near. He’s hardly moving about, has to ease himself down like an old man sitting in a chair as he lies down; he hardly eats or drinks, and can’t hold down what he consumes; and it seems he barely responds to our touch. Tonight, though, he purred faintly when my sister and I were saying our goodbyes, and he mustered the strength to go down a few stairs to see us off.
He might be put down tomorrow. It will be traumatic to take him to the vet when he’s so weak and confused, but I hope that we can secure a peaceful passing for him instead of letting death steal him away in bits and parts.
I’m sorry that I have to drag other people into my troubles, particularly since I’m an infrequent commenter at best on WHTM. It’s just hard to go it alone.
@Biot
🙁 Many hugs and much support. There are few things worse than seeing a cat in that state. Best of luck with everything.
Blot, all the hugs.
We can be pet grievers together: My parents called this weekend to tell me they had to put Bailey (my pup with bone cancer from past open threads) down, because they weren’t able to control his pain anymore.
I could use a hug, too.
Also, funny in bad way. I made the mistake of coming to work at the University today instead of calling in sick, and promptly locked my keys in the car. So now I’m stuck. At work. Until things settle down enough for one of my coworkers to give me a ride home. So I can try and find my AWOL spare keys last seen 2 months ago.
I hate Mondays.
At least my office is the tissue storage office, so I have adequate tear suppression material!
Hugs to Blot and Contrapangloss. Losing a pet is so hard. Do people think that an open thread for memorializing pets – whether they died yesterday or twenty years ago – would be a good idea? If so I can email David and request it.
Just a little update about Tiger: he’s lived beyond the 24 hours that I predicted in my post above, but we don’t know when he’s going to pass on. He’s grown weaker every day, but he’s gone out to our screen porch to watch birds and rest in the sun. He had to be carried outside in his (badly stretched) shoebox that he’s claimed as a bed today because he was too weak, though.
In other news, my sister rescued a large monarch caterpillar from our backyard–the only one out of five eggs we found to survive–and has it in a mesh-topped jar with a liberal amount of milkweed leaves inside. Little Guy, as I’ve taken to calling it, is about two inches long, as thick as a #2 pencil, and a noisy eater; I can hear it demolishing another leaf as I type this. It won’t be long before it turns into a chrysalis, but I wonder if it’ll wait through the winter before it becomes a monarch or if it’ll try to fly down to Mexico ahead of the oncoming chill.
Well, it’s time to put an end to my talk about Tiger. I went home last night, spent some time comforting him, and said my goodbyes. He died peacefully before my parents went to bed. Everyone in my immediate family managed to see him yesterday before he drifted off this mortal coil; I don’t know if he was waiting for all of us to see him one last time, but it eases my mind to believe that.
God, I’ll miss him so.
Hugs if you want them. =(
Rest in peace, Tiger.
All my hugs, Biot. Losing a beloved cat can be hard; I’ve been there before. For all that we joke about cats being evil and malicious, they are genuinely very loving animals and mean a lot to us. It’s really good that the whole family could be there with him to see him go.
Aw, thanks guys…
Hi everyone! I read the site regularly, but don’t post often. However, here I am with a personal rant that I need to get off my chest.
I’m back in a town I used to live in for many years at a bar I used to frequent with my boyfriend. Bartender is a friend of my boyfriend’s and always lets us drink cheap. Tonight we’re paying our ridiculously low tab and he says to my boyfriend “so, are you paying for just you, or are you paying for the girl, too?”
The girl. Because I clearly don’t deserve a name. We’re all the same after all. Even though we’ve known each other for years, I’m just “the girl” that comes with my boyfriend, who is an actual human being with a name and identity.
I get visibly annoyed at my ostensible friend referring to me thusly and he gets offended at my annoyance. Because I clearly should know better than to think he’s sexist (new flash, bro, we’re all sexist until proven otherwise…and even then….).
Gaaaaaaaah! I know that this is so infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, but that guy’s dickishness + booze make feminist hulk angry!
Also, he was the one letting me drink for basically free, so he was really just asking for the angry feminist to be unleashed. We SJWs can’t control ourselves when we’re tempted like that 😉
So feel free to ignore this. I just feel better knowing someone *might* read it.
I hear you. At my work, they were congratulating a coworker for being the most productive on a particular project. It’s by far the most challenging of our products, so it was something she deserved to be commended for. They also announced the second and third places. The first two spots were black women and the third place spot was a white man. Well of course, he piped up and let everyone know that he wasn’t on the project as often as they are.
Idk, maybe he was just being competitive in general. But it very much seemed to me like he thought of himself as the best and was angry at being beaten by women. Particular women of color. I just really think a lot less of him and don’t even like him at all since then. I’m just glad I don’t sit by him most days.
Oh, he also seemed surprised that I’ve been doing well at our new project that’s the same client as the one I mentioned above and is also a really difficult job. So a double fuck you, to him!