This is the opposite of trolling your own blog, isn't it?
In that … it's an instance of … being trolled by another blog?
Or is that, like, mentioned in the movie? I'm not sure I'd know.
Posting messages designed to discourage replies--with a mustache.
Or: postings messages that won't get many replies--without the intention of not getting replies.
Readers could share their own shitty epiphanies.
Readers could share their own shitty epiphanies.
I did.
I have those kinds of epiphanies about popular culture all the time. I can't recall the most recent one, but one of the stand-outs was the local queer zine "Three Dollar Bill" which took me about 2 years to catch on to. There must be some relationship between this phenomenon and the amount of time and analytical energy I put into looking at popular culture, but I haven't been able to figure it out yet.
I've mentioned my own shitty epiphany long ago. I was way too far into my studies when I learned that the Weber I was reading about and the Veber people mentioned were the same person.
Sorta relatedly, there was a queer zine an acquaintance of mine did called "Your Face + My Ass", which I thought was just a bit of confrontational naughtiness for years, until I read the original expression in some period crime story.
9: That was a joke on that sitcom where the tall, gay comedian goes to work at a college where his sister is a student. And they're both working class.
9: I had a similar shitty epiphany with "bona fides" and this word the pundits on TV kept using, "bone ah FEE days".
On the Shitty Epiphany, three unwise man brought the baby Jesus gifts of Mold, Stankincense, and Grrrapesoda.
OT: Can TSA ban cell phones from municipal buses? Except for web surfing.
It wasn't until I saw Ghostbusters as an adult that I understood the names gatekeeper and keymaster, and what exactly those two did on top of that building.
ELO brought out "Electric Light Orchestra" in 1971: I finally got the joke, subtle as it is, in 2007-ish. I just always read it as being declaring itself to be "light orchestra" -- ie for playing "light classics -- that had electric instruments.
THERE IS A HUGE BULB ON THE COVER OF THE LP. It took nearly 40 years for a similar one to wink on over my head. (OK a much smaller one.)
Similar to the Weber/Veber thing. When I was a kid I knew the word pronounced 'kay-oss', and what it meant. And there was another word I'd read, spelled 'chaos', which in my head I pronounced 'tcha-oss', which I knew had basically the same meaning as 'kay-oss'. All without making the connection.
I had exactly the same deal with ELO as 16 for many, many years.
12: Wait, how is that pronounced? I supposed I've only heard it in the context of "bona fide [something or other]" which could be different than "bona fides."
14: Maybe not them but the Federal Transit Administration?
As a child (of the second sex) I forever spelled the word "peanus" in my mind, like peanut, because that was how you wrote those phonemes, right? (I must even have trained myself to hear or say a short u in the last syllable.) It took until I was about nine years old to see it in writing, and I was amazed that the copy editors had let such a weird misspelling past. It wasn't even plausible -- what else is spelled -enis?
Whether this caused subconscious associations with the "Peanuts" comic... jeez, I don't even know.
One more. The [academic/MD] couple down the block when I was growing up had a cat who wandered the neighborhood and was known to me by name. Many, many years later, I realized that the familiar word "telos" was the name of that cat, whose apparently whimsical name I had always spelled "Tilos" in my mind. The bizarre thing is that I tended to win spelling bees.
I didn't connect the novel on my parents' bookshelf titled Don Quixote (I mentally pronounced it don quickzoat) with the guy who tilted at windmills and had a well known musical adaptation, until several weeks into the college class where that book was on the syllabus. And it was a while after that before before I connected them to the Mister Rogers puppet character known as Donkey Hotey.
|| NMM to Wislawa Szymborska. Her poems lend themselves to translation quite well, so it's worth checking them out.>|
23: That's so sad! Thanks for passing it along.
I think I've mentioned my ann-hill-iation of matter and antimatter before. I still cringe.
19: That's the exact difference I (thought I) was pointing out: "bona fide" [adj.] where "fide" rhymes with "hide" and "bona fides" [noun] where "fides" rhymes with "fee days", which I'd never heard till I started hearing it on political TV shows all the time.
And baseball-related, it took me forever of puzzling through what the hell the letters e-l-b stood for on the Expos logo before I realized it's an M for Montreal.
Mine was "segue," which I believed to be only part of the phrase I often heard, but somehow never saw written in full, "segue way."
23: oh man, that's a shame. I have especially fond memories of her poetry because I met the great love of my life right after his return from a trip to Poland, which he had spent immersing himself in Polish poetry while his family did touristy things. But it's good even without the love affair -- i.e. if you were masturbating to it, I suppose.
So people actually say "fee days"? I guess I've never noticed. Some lazy dictionary checking suggests it might go either way, but I'm truly terrible at reading phonetic spellings.*
* Yes, I know it should be easy to spot the extra syllable.
A translation I once did of one of my favorite Szymborska poems:
To die - you can't do that to a cat.
'Cause what's a cat to do
in an empty apartment.
Climb the walls.
Slink among the furniture
Seemingly nothing's changed,
but yet all transformed.
Seemingly nothing moved,
but yet all spread out.
And in the evening the lamp doesn't shine.
Steps on the stairs,
but not those.
The hand which places the fish on the saucer,
not the one as before.
Something isn't beginning here
at the normal time.
Something isn't happening here
as it should.
Somebody was and was,
and then suddenly disappeared
and is stubbornly not here.
Looked in all the closets
Ran through the shelves
Snuck under the carpet and checked
Even broke the rule
and scattered the papers.
What else is there to do.
Sleep and wait.
Just let him return,
yes, let him show himself.
He'll learn
that you can't do this to a cat
Walk towards him
oh so reluctantly,
slowly
on very offended paws.
And no jumps or squeals, not at first.
And the official English version
Ok, perhaps better, but translating is a wonderful way to sink yourself into a poem.
I had exactly the same issue with "chaos" as ttaM.
Interesting.
Wait, how was your Crossfit date, neb?
31: I actually like some of your version better. The slight clunkiness (no offense, I swear!) seems to suit the metaphor better than the more polished official version. My relative who learned Polish and studied in Poland for years did it to be able to read Zbigniew Herbert in the original. I haven't followed suit, but I definitely sympathize with the impulse. Oh my goodness there's some amazing Polish poetry.
Mine was that there is no alphabet that goes Ace, Beece, Ceece, Deece, Eecs, that you use when reading numbers with subscripts, ie "Ace of 1, Beece of 2, Emce of M, etc." I think I posted about it here when I figured it out.
eball-related, it took me forever of puzzling through what the hell the letters e-l-b stood for on the Expos logo before I realized it's an M for Montreal.
Same here. I never came close to seeing the M, even after the first time someone told me it was supposed to be an M.
It is an E for Expos and a B for baseball, though. The L is negative space.
33: I think it went well; we're supposed to see each other again though each of us is quite busy so it's not scheduled yet.
Does your hair need washing so often?
37: Did you tell her about your imaginary Internet friends?
I wouldn't.
23 et seq: My two favorite Rob Delaney tweets today were
Wisława Szymborska has died. One of my favorite poets. Read her: books.google.com/books/about/Vi...
followed by
Really the only time you should slap someone in the face with your penis is if they ask you to.
I had an epiphany that David Cross was becoming the Fred Willard of his generation. I'm going to work my way from that to complete understanding of the universe.
Teraz, I like your version quite a bit. Your penultimate stanza is obviously superior.
Neb, what is her Fran time? Does she know about home curing bacon? I am envisioning a kind of Cyrano de Bergerac role for myself here.
Also, the poem in 31 is beautiful, and I will confess to never even having heard of Szymborska before.
I've always loved Szymborska's "A Contribution to Statistics."
I love the poem in 31 and I like teraz's translation better.
My shitty epiphany was realizing that the band name "Doobie Brothers" was a joking reference to marijuana cigarettes, and not the actual legal name of two brothers performing together. I had this epiphany around age 27 or 28.
Thorn is right about there being a lot of very good Polish poetry out there. And a surprising amount of it is both readily translatable and easily available in English. Zbigniew Herbert, who Thorn mentioned has two very different comprehensive translations (the second giving rise to a lot of controversy, I prefer the first). Czeslaw Milosz's stuff is more difficult to translate, but the ones done by him in collaboration with various American poets are excellent, as is the relatively recent version of Tractate on Poetry (which I've been trying to render with mixed success for my own pleasure on and off for a couple years now). Adam Zagajewski, the other widely translated Polish postwar poet is more of a mixed bag imo but there's some lovely stuff there. Also lots of great pre WWII poets, but mostly untranslated and they'd be quite difficult to do well in English.
And thanks for the kind words everyone.
Mentioned before I think, but a late realization on the names "kanga" and "roo" (humiliatingly* announced triumphantly to my mother who responded with rather withering sarcasm).
*But not as bad as some years earlier when I informed her that you could tell "horror" houses by the red lights in their windows.
"horror" houses
The ones where you pay to see boo!bs.
For practical stuff, e-mail. For chatting, phone.
I feel like I've heard the name Szymborska, but I'm probably just trying to cover up my literary insecurities. I had never read the poem in 31; I've now read both versions; I also think teraz's is the better.
As for segue, I think I learned how it was spelled when I read this thread.
It's as though this guy died in vain.
If DS is around....thanks for all your work on the CT atheism thread.
I was 19 when I realized what band groupies were actually supposed to be doing. I was also wearing a red tour shirt and a leather miniskirt...
... at an Uncle Bonsai concert, so nothing even vaguely creepy happened, but how on earth was I?... never mind.
Among the sexier things that happened between me and the Polish girl the summer we were both camps counselors was her teaching me how to properly pronounce Czeslaw Milosz. (IIRC it's like "Zetchwuv Meewosh.")
despite being good with words generally I have a weird blind spot that makes me unable to notice puns. like I only figured "sweet-tarts" was a pun on "sweethearts" or that "sunkist" meant the oranges had been kissed by the sun when I was in my late teens.
62: Thanks for explaining the sweet-tarts one.
31 is vastly superior to the linked version.
My mum invariably misread and mispronounced brand-names that were bad puns: Spud-U-Like she frenchified to spuhDOOlikay, which is more fancy than this outlet for fast-food roast potatoes ever deserved. Obviously once she had done it once, the rest of us always did it.
||
Last night, Jammies and I fought, and I'm fuzzy-headed about the whole thing. I can't tell if there's anything that warrants a Serious Conversation. Jammies generally does not enjoy Serious Conversations About Feelings, so I'd like to be clear-headed if I'm going to request one.
I got irrationally upset last night that we had too much food defrosted, and things were going to spoil. (My mom is coming into town tomorrow, and I really want to seem like a competent adult around meal-planning.) So I went to Jammies and said "I need to vent." and then ranted about all the food that was defrosted. In response, he roared back "YOU'RE ALWAYS SO STRESSED OUT! I'm barely keeping everything together myself, and I'm super stressed out, and I can't sit here and comfort you!" (Abbreviated, obv.) We were very frosty for the rest of the evening.
Possible things to discuss:
1. I see myself as *not* stressed out, and basically able to shake things off and say "Oh well, you break eggs when you're raising small children while working, etc. And hey! Healthy children and loving household!" Is it a problem that Jammies' image of me and my image of myself are so different? It kind of bothers me that he thinks I'm stressed out. (Secret fear: what if I am really stressed out, but kidding myself?) More importantly, I don't get to control how other people see me.
Contributing factors: he sees me at the very worst part of the day - right after we put the kids down, and I'm super exhausted, and have to pull out grading and prep work and get down to business. I *hate* that part of the day more than anything.
2. That Jammies isn't keeping me informed when his stress gets intolerable. This has always been a feature.
Additional info: he would say "You should know that I'm stressed out, and why I'm stressed out." And I do, because it's consistent: his to-do list is four times as long as he can possibly get done any time soon, and he wants the house and life to stay extremely organized and clean, and that takes massive amounts of work. So is there anything really to discuss?
3. That I should cut back at work:
I haven't had time to exercise regularly, and my muscles get itchy and I get really cranky. I genuinely do not know how to cut back at work. I already design my classes to involve minimal grading. I've got two new preps this semester, one course without a grader, and an administrative program that I run. I literally don't understand which trade-offs to make.
Right now I'm working all day, doing kid stuff/dinner/bedtime routine, and then working again most evenings. Plus grading on the weekends. It really does suck.
None of this really warrants a *discussion* but I'm not sure what to change, either. But maybe nothing needs to change, because it's basically working fine. But then, like last night, it seemed like maybe it's not working fine at all, and I'm a delusional Pollyanna.
Anyway, I feel better after Serious Discussions, so I'd kind of like to have one, but Jammies finds them stressful.
|>
When I was in Chicago for a few weeks, I noticed that UBS had a huge presence there. But I wondered why their logo was so different than back home. I was used to three red letters and to the left three black keys on a white background.
But in Chicago, "UBS" was written in a blockier font, still red on a white background, and in place of the keys was an incomplete circle, in the same shade of red, that nearly surrounded the letters. Around the whole thing was a blue circle.
Anyone who knows much at all about Chicago should be able to guess what I was really seeing.
SOFM, I find Validation discussions much more stressful that Help Find Solutions discussions. Which kind do you want to invite? Your list suggests elements of both.
...I don't know. I don't know if there's a validation discussion to be had, ie "Please validate how I think I'm generally chill but occasionally stressed"?
But I also don't really think there are solutions to be found. This is just what life looks like?
I was thinking more in terms of 'hear me out and (a) understand what I'm going through and (b) tell me I'm not overreacting.'
As to each topic, what is J's action item?
I'm not sure. I think he just wants to keep his head down and keep trying to whittle down his (ever-expanding) to-do list.
'hear me out and (a) understand what I'm going through and (b) tell me I'm not overreacting.'
This does sound nice, I'll admit.
Anyway, I feel better after Serious Discussions, so I'd kind of like to have one, but Jammies finds them stressful.
Any way to check in with him without it being a Serious Discussion? Sounds like you have a way of sorting through things that feels to him like more on his plate. If you're really concerned that he's more stressed than you realized, or that you putting off more stress than you realize, can you put the Discussion on hold and just try to find out what he's thinking about?
You don't come across as generally stressed, Heebs. I think your lighthearted bullshitting banter would be nearly impossible from someone who's genuinely stressed.
74 should not be taken to imply that lighthearted bullshitting banter is the only thing Heebie does, just that it's a fairly regular thing, and symptomatic of a non-stressed mind.
Sounds like you have a way of sorting through things that feels to him like more on his plate.
This is definitely true. It's one reason me blogging and him reading at his leisure actually works really well for us. He's informed and doesn't feel like it's his job to solve it.
You don't come across as generally stressed, Heebs. I think your lighthearted bullshitting banter would be nearly impossible from someone who's genuinely stressed.
This is good to hear. Because I do wonder if I'm hopelessly kidding myself and Jammies is seeing me clearly, or if he's projecting his stress onto me.
You can't really say to someone "You need to see me differently. That's not who I am." But I'd really like to say that.
heebie, I don't know what the hell you should do, but just bear in mind that anything around parents/in-laws visiting will tend toward the unreasonable on both fronts for most people and that he may be projecting stuff onto you or thinking you're more fragile than you are right now or something.
True. My mom visiting is probably additionally stressful for both of us, and then Jammies is going out of town on Tuesday for five days.
67: I was reading the first part of this comment and thinking "Huh, I didn't realize that UBS had different logo in other places. He must mean they have a whole different business line in Europe. The logo on 1 North Wacker is the only one I'm familiar with." Over-thinking: Ur doin' it rite.
Anyway, I'm off to go to boring meetings and teach classes, but I'll check in, after, and still happy to hear what anyone thinks.
Oh, I saw the Montreal Expos logo today and would never have guessed what it was without having read this thread. Obviously the thing that looks like a lowercase L is the e holding a bat, right? What a weird logo!
78: The Hallmark store might have that on a card.
79 seems right to me, but in general I assume stressed people can banter; I was much funnier and more seductive in my unhappiest years.
Otoh, the only good thing about domestic stress is that it allows some of the cunning and heroism I miss from the romantic hunt. I like figuring out what the beloved needs beforehand; and an inspiration to be what I would seem to ne never goes amiss.
In the short term, and back to Heebie.... Make it a joke with the in-laws? No guest shall go hungry, clean your platel?
[A]nything around parents/in-laws visiting will tend toward the unreasonable . . . for most people and cause them to regress. You will inevitably forget this when you visit your adult children.
You are relatively newly wed. You have young babies. You are starting careers.
I cannot understand why you and Jammies have stress.
The key is not communicate at all! Oh wait, that is
my advice for people I dont like.
Sometimes expressing and understanding how each of you handles stress and what each of you feels your needs are can be extremely helpful.
Even the simple act of discussing how each of you makes decisions can be helpful.
We get lulled into complacent behavor and stop having good communication due to our busy lives. Suddenly, we are assuming we know what the other is thinking. Trouble, trouble, trouble.
True. (in a meeting, but my item is over and I'm not really part of this group.) Solve my problems, gang!
I think there's a validation discussion to be had around something like "I'm sorry my venting about the food stressed you more. But really, all I wanted from you was an ear -- I was pissed about the food and was literally venting, not telling you to fix anything. We're both working hard right now, and all I needed right then was to be able to express how I felt, rather than having to put on a face and conceal it. If I say 'I need to vent', and it's really no big thing, what you can do to help me is just let it wash on by without getting upset about it. I'm not feeling particularly stressy, despite the fact that work's heavy this semester, but I do need to be able to say stuff that's bothering me out loud."
Then maybe segue to "You're really under a lot of pressure now. So am I this term, what with [everything you listed]. But is there anything we can rearrange how we do things that would make life easier for us both?" My guess is that this might be a good time for some short-term throwing money at chores: eating takeout, hiring a cleaning service, whatever, if that's compatible with your finances right now.
You can't really say to someone "You need to see me differently. That's not who I am." But I'd really like to say that.
You don't want to say, "STOP THINKING LIKE THAT!!1" but I think you absolutely can say, "The way you seem to see me doesn't jibe with how I see myself and that upsets me." In other words, I endorse the therapy cliché of using "I feel" statements.
I'm guessing Jammies grew up around much less emotionally open people, so what seems to you to be a normal expression of mild stress makes him think you're freaking out.
Why assume that he understands how you feel?
He sees you one way. You see yourself another.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
This doesnt mean that you have to have an in depth discussion with candles and chanting and a week long intense bonding session.
Just, better understanding about how you each handle stress, make decisions, and see each other.
Kids are great for making marriages hard!
89: to be devil's advocate, aren't I adding more crap to the list he's juggling? For the first point.
91: actually, around shouty people and he took it as his job to get all the ducks in a row, so that there wouldn't be anything to shout over.
Aren't 90 & 89 advising the conversation Heebie specifically thinks Jammies doesn't want to have? It's not clear to me that she needs to override that, if she doesn't actually feel wigged out.
Heebie, do friends & coworkers think you're stressed? Do you vent to them?
I vent to friends, but a lot to jammies, I suppose. I could rein that in. I do like to complain, but I don't think it swamps general silliness and becomes unbearable. But maybe it does. I don't think my friends think I'm too stressed out?
Spud-U-Like she frenchified to spuhDOOlikay
I've never heard it said any other way.
97: if it were me, I think I'd try to be funnier venting - I do opera & interpretive dance & adapt Wyatt poems, very cathartic. If *Jammies* is wigged, you can maybe save him the cognitive load of deciding if he needs to fix.
Is there a simple thing you could do w/the defrosted food? ("Eat it. Just eat it.")
If I'm being funny, I don't get empathy. Which is what I want, i guess. I want to change jammies. I want him to give support without internalizing my problems. I get to tell him to change, right?
95: In 90, I'm not suggesting a Serious Discussion has to happen. If it does, the "I feel" thing can make it less stressful; it's something heebie could just say, with an explicit "you don't have to respond but here's a thing I realized about myself"; for me, even framing it in a different way in my head can help lessen my focus on the other person iz doin it rong.
The 'e' and the 'b' in the Expos logo really do stand for something ('Expo' and 'baseball'). Apparently there is no 'l' between them - according to Wikipedia anyway. I thought it stood for 'ligue' as in 'Expos, Ligue de Baseball' but I guess that doesn't really make sense
My mum invariably misread and mispronounced brand-names that were bad puns: Spud-U-Like she frenchified to spuhDOOlikay
There is a replacement window company in the Boston area called NU Window, which is not, as one might expect, pronounced "New Window", but rather "Innuendo".
In practice I don't think it's possible to get to zero bitching to an intimate partner because your guard tends to be down so unfiltered thoughts leak out all the time. One thing to try is increased bitching to other people, another is to try to take the edge off with explicit reminders that you are not looking for a solution.
101 -- I don't find 'I feel' discussions less stressful, not at all. Obviously one shouldn't generalize from out on the fringe where I'm at.
I literally don't understand which trade-offs to make.
Have you, ermmm, considered cutting back on blogging?
91: This is also one of those gendered things (not universally, but it's a pattern that shows up at least sometimes): that men tend to interpret anything negative as an action item, meaning "I'm telling you to fix this now." And that's what it sounds like Jammies hears when you complain about anything.
Thing is, though "Don't complain about anything unless (a) you have a solution ready to go and (b) the solution wouldn't be burdensome on anyone else," is a tough position to be in: heebie's 97, just stop complaining, is a pretty significant burden for her. I think communicating "I'm really feeling generally okay about things. But I'm going to complain sometimes. And that doesn't mean you have to take anything more on; if I'm asking you to do something, I'll be explicit about it." is kind of important.
I'm with 105, all the way. When I hear about a problem I want to find a solution, and to be told that a solution is not what is sought just adds the additional burden of making me surprise my Fix-It urge, on top of the new problem that's now sitting, unsolved, in front of me.
I try, because "I feel" discussions are important to my wife, but it is not easy. I also accept LB's point that this is gendered behavior. But still, there it is.
Well, if you want empathy, you are giving jammies work, heebie. Could you do with sympathy, where he knows how you feel but doesn't have to feel it?
Arias. Bugs-Bunny style.
I am Biohazard and I approve of 87 and 89.
Also, telling someone they're perceiving you wrongly might be helpful depending on how it's presented. We used to tell each other "I'm not L*" on occasion when the other person seemed to be reacting to old baggage, not the present me or her.
And lastly, are the assorted known stressors resonably temporary or are you figuring on living like this until the kids leave home? Escape plans, even flexible and vague ones, can make current life bearable.
I am Biohazard and I approve of 87 and 89.
Also, telling someone they're perceiving you wrongly might be helpful depending on how it's presented. We used to tell each other "I'm not L*" on occasion when the other person seemed to be reacting to old baggage, not the present me or her.
And lastly, are the assorted known stressors resonably temporary or are you figuring on living like this until the kids leave home? Escape plans, even flexible and vague ones, can make current life bearable.
108 (and probably 105): I'm trying not to be all 'men suck' here. But IME the "Don't complain unless (a) you expect me to fix it and (b) it's reasonable of you to burden me with fixing it," isn't just gendered, it's doublestandardy. Men who get all wrecked and upset about having to listen to venting from a woman if the venting isn't framed as a reasonable-fix-it are perfectly happy to vent at the same woman: Heebie isn't surprised that Jammies is stressed. She knows he's stressed because he's venting at her about his problems, which she's not in a position to fix.
Buck and I have some of this going on. He's volatile and I'm more even-keeled, so I listen to a lot of shouting and crabbing: not negative about me, generally, but he needs an ear to soak up a lot of negativity. OTOH, he gets very disturbed, very fast, if I say anything that makes him aware I'm not completely, placidly happy. We've worked through this pretty well, and it's not a big problem, but the initial dynamic wasn't balanced.
WTF? Make up your damned mind, software! Prevent double posts or do not, there's too fucking much try.
112.last is also good. Some problems can't be fixed, so you vent. But if there's stuff that can be fixed, or that will be fixable in the future, then planning out the fix, even if it's not immediate, is going to help. And seriously about sorting through problems to see if there's spare money and a problem that money can be thrown at.
The opening lines of Sigfried (tr.): "Wearisome labor! Work till I drop!" bang bang bang...
Also, as someone who is an inveterate Problem Solver and has historically been freaked out by Serious Discussions but is slowly evolving, what I found stressful was 1) feeling like I was getting in trouble; 2) thinking I was going to fix the problem by changing my behavior; 3) worrying that I was going to be put on the spot and made to talk about things/feelings I didn't want to; 4) furiously thinking ahead to keep the conversation from going near 1, 2, or 3.
One of the things that was/is really hard for me is being able to talk about what was happening right then.
Enlightened person: I feel like I'm not getting the sympathy I want when I vent.
Former Kraab: [Panicking.]
Evolving Kraab: I feel stressed right now just hearing you say that and that I'm going to have to do something I don't want to.
It is, I swear, a *gigantic* leap forward in my ability to tolerate the discomfort of Serious Discussions.
103: Okay, I just need to vent: You know when people have a small business, and the only thing they can think to name it is the initials of the partners? Like "K & R Autoglass" or "B & V Catering" or whatever? That just seems like such a cop out to me. Why not "Peerless Drywall Experts" or "Metro Holografix" or something with a little pizzazz? Would it kill you to have some pizzazz? Would people think you were a fruit? What's up with that, small businesspeople?
Because people want to feel a sense of pride and ownership and that's ok?
Oh, shit, you just wanted to vent. Possible explanation retracted.
118: Because someone starting up a new business has a billion things on their mind and the name is just one of them.
Also, most people? Not actually much with the pizzazz. Often actively anti-pizzazz. They want to look reputable, not interesting.
Metro Holografix
This made me think of Hogwarts which made me wonder if there's ever any explanation of the name.
Honestly, I feel (nudge nudge) this discussion about gendered responses to complaining is misplaced. Venting about the defrosting sounds more like veiled criticism - as in I'm pissed you defrosted too much meat. That's pretty different than I'm bummed about something someone else did at work, etc. And much more likely to evoke defensive anger.
Someone should name their kid Pizzazz.
I really like Kraab's 117 and will maybe try to paraphrase it for Lee, who is also evolving. I really like to talk about things a lot and I recognize that she doesn't so much and do try to moderate it accordingly while still pushing a little. For us, one bad thing is that if I want to cry I'd like to be comforted and it makes her want to run away. We've gotten pretty good at working around that one and I've been too busy to cry lately anyhow.
Because I've said lots of negative things about Lee, today I want to commend her for spending two hours at the doctor's office with Val today. It seems like what might have been wrong with Val was indeed just an excuse to try to get out of going to school and not any sort of sickness. And even better, at 4:30 this morning when Mara was awake and kicking me and itchy and annoyed, Lee took her downstairs to fall asleep in front of ESPN or something so I was able to sleep for a whole hour and a half without a break, which hasn't happened in days. (Tonight I'm going to have Benadryl beside the bed so I can just dose her if she gets needy, bless her itchy heart.)
We've managed to get snippy about two different fostering-related subjects in the past two weeks, but are in general doing very well.
124: I dunno: was it his fault? Heebie wasn't clear. It could have been either something she did, or something that happened as a result of miscommunication between them.
But honestly, if it was criticism about a domestic screwup, that kind of has to be okay to say: that's fixable and should be fixed. Possibly the real problem was that Heebie was being disproportionately abusive about something that wasn't a big deal, but if that's not what's going on, she has to be able to communicate that something went wrong.
Venting about the defrosting sounds more like veiled criticism
It doesn't sound remotely veiled.
Ditto to apo. I get in trouble a lot for criticizing too much which usually gets expressed as "Why are you taking my head off?" I am quite sure that I am more volatile and critical than heebie is, but I'm evolving, and that thing about the food is just the sort of thing I would say. Only last week I said something about not having taken out the chicken to defrost, and it was definitely experienced as criticism.
127 was tendentiously phrased. I've been arguing that Heebie's being reasonable, because it seems not all that unlikely that she is, and I know her but not Jammies. There is certainly a possible version of this story where the reasonable solution is that she should put a sock in it more often, and work on keeping things happy and pleasant through a rough patch. It's just not my first guess for what the problem is here.
OT: I'm having withdrawal symptoms from stopping one of my anti-crazy meds which are themselves making me crazy. Besides intermittent nausea and headaches, I keep getting these weird sensations that other people on the interwebs talk about as "brain zaps."
I just want to get through tomorrow and then spend the weekend asleep.
113: I'm pretty sure you're the only person who has used any formulation of "don't complain unless" in this discussion. In fact, if you read to the end of 108 you'll see that I work on this because I acknowledge that it's important to my wife. To impute to me the position that she's not allowed to complain seems like a pretty blatant misreading.
My inclination would be to avoid any discussions (serious or otherwise) on this matter until after his trip is done. It may be that once your mom is gone there's just not a problem anymore, but even if you upon reflection want to bring it up it'll be easier for both of you at a less stressful time.
131: Cymbalta? That's what did that for me.
Weirdly, I just got an email back from someone at another organization, to whom I had made some similar criticisms of a planned event. She basically quoted me the party line on "we want to be taken seriously". I would argue, though, that there's a difference between "serious" and "boring". Or at least there can be. Malcolm X was pretty serious, but not boring, but he did use an initial, so that kind of undercuts my point.
I guess the thing is, sure, most people aren't so creative, and don't have the money to hire creative people, but even so, just naming a business a couple of letters seems sad and dumpy. And not everyone does it, either. Lots of regular small businesspeople figure out an evocative, interesting name for their business. There's a small timber framing business here that's named after the common name for the aurora borealis. That's great! It speaks to a sense of place, and age, and beauty. It's euphonious and easy to remember. I get the thing about a sense of ownership, but if you're really a bunch of megalomaniacs, wouldn't it be better just to go with "McGillicutty and Cholmondeley Custom Cabinets" or whatever?
127.last to 129: If you're being nasty about minor things, you should stop. But if you're trying to communicate about getting shared tasks done in a reasonable way, and you're not allowed to identify problems, that's unreasonable in the other direction.
131: Some of the drugs with short half-lives do that. Effexor is notorious for it. It was even worse before the extended release version when people had to take it 4 times a day. People were really jonesing. Sometimes they'll prescribe a dose of prozac to get you over the hump, since the half-life is so long.
One thing that has worked well for us is to say, "Here is the thing that I am feeling. Can you help me figure out how to tell you about it in language that will cue the right response in you?" It does entail a Serious Discussion, but the nice thing is that you're launched on some joint problem-solving (so no one needs to stifle that impulse), and talking about the language gives everyone a little distance from the feelings themselves, even as the feelings get hashed out. "Would it work if I said X?" "No, I think that going to make me feel Y." "OHHHH. Well that's no good. I think what I really care about is being able to express aspect Z." Etc., and probably starting much earlier in the alphabet, because it does take several rounds if revision. But you get there, and then the next time whatever it is comes up, you have the language, and you're all set.
So I went to Jammies and said "I need to vent."
If this was properly conveyed and understood by Jammies, then he's outta line and needs to behave better.
A few years ago, The Missus and I were going through a period of difficult transitions - a move, a new job, relatively new kids getting old enough to be obnoxious, stuff like that.
The Missus would frequently hit me with complaints about things that were intolerable and would ruin our lives and those of our children if they were not fixed.
My natural response was to either a.) propose alternative courses of action or b.) suggest that maybe things weren't all that bad.
Mind you, I did plenty of complaining of my own, but the thrust of my complaints were: I'm dealing with a lot of bad stuff that is completely beyond my control, and I'm going to put my head down and get through it.
I was venting. The Missus was freaking out. If Jammies mistook your venting for freaking out, then I can empathize with him.
If he's saying you're not allowed to complain, even about minor stuff, that's unreasonable. But, of course, we are all sometimes unreasonable when we are, ourselves, under a lot of stress.
Stepping back, there's an unfortunate phenomenon that people can be very compatible under most moods, and have trouble under particular moods. Obviously part of that needs to be that you work on improving your compatibility in all circumstances, but I think there's also some value in just identifying the circumstances that go poorly so that you can know deep down that this will pass. For example, my ex from way back and I were completely incompatible if either she was stressed or I was hurt (or worst of all both). I think just knowing that would have been valuable knowledge, even in the absence of solutions.
Can food be refrosted?
I totally solved her problem, didn't I.
There's a lot of wisdom in 117.
100 is a real problem (I don't mean OMG YOU R SCREWED, just that this is a very real and common problem in human relationships with no easy solution). About the only thing you can do is talk about it.
As a suggestion, one thing you could do is emphasize that he really really doesn't need to and can't fix everything, and that's not what you're asking. Like, he really really doesn't need to fix things. But (speaking as a fix-it person) it can be hard to make fix-it people believe this, because they just assume that deep down they can and need to and are being asked to solve problems.
Why not "Peerless Drywall Experts" or "Metro Holografix" or something with a little pizzazz?
Finn reference duly noted.
I was venting. The Missus was freaking out.
I constructively criticize. You vent. She freaks the fuck out.
132: Clearly I failed not to be all "men suck" about it. And I don't know you, or your wife, or how you interact; I'm generalizing from me and Buck and other people I know, which may not apply to you and your relationship at all, and probably doesn't. And you did say that this is something you work on.
But to restate 113 in a way that maybe will make the point I was trying to make more successfully: IM(own, limited, specific)E, it is not uncommon for men to say and believe that they are comfortable with conversations about problems so long as they are fixable problems for which a solution is desired and available, and uncomfortable and unhappy with conversations about problems that are either unfixable or that they're not expected to or being asked to fix. This can be expressed as either "So it's obnoxious of women to vent about problems if they don't want solutions" (which is kind of jerky) or "I recognize that this is necessary for you, but it's alien to me and hard for me to cope with. I'll work on it, but it's an effort" (which sounds more like where you are).
The doublestandardy bit (again, taken from my own limited and individual experience) is where the same men engage in non-solution-oriented venting themselves. Possibly you don't, I don't know you. But for those men that do, it might help them manage the stress they feel when they listen to non-solution-oriented venting, if they understood that it's no more importantly negative than the sort of non-solution-oriented venting they do themselves.
133: avoid any discussions (serious or otherwise) on this matter until after his trip is done.
Heh. My ex would time "We need to talk about something serious...." for my driving through complex interchanges on unfamiliar roads on rainy late nights. Yes, it gave her an advantage during the immediate conversation if my CPU was over-loaded. It also hastened the end of the marriage.
Timing is important, almost anything except arterial blood loss or the like can wait for a propitious moment.
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Why is it that measly little colds can get you so bad? I have one now and took the day off from work. I have paperwork that I can do and need to get done before I leave on vacation. Tomorrow is my last day until the 17th.
I've already slept a lot and am stuffing myself with Cold FX (which I don't believe in but my BF does because it's approved by Health Canada). I should probably take some of my Kirkland version of Tylenol Cold, but right now I'm feeling so stupid that reading unfogged is taxing my brain, but staring up at the ceiling seems intolerable Thank God, I'm not a single Mom. I'm not even facing alameida-levels of pain. I'm such a wimp.
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146: Pristiq is just gussied up Effexor.
141: Can food be refrosted?
No, but it can be dethawed.
92.last: Least appropriate coloring book ever.
I constructively criticize. You vent. She freaks the fuck out.
Yeah, yeah, I knew how that sounded even as I wrote it. But my point is, acknowledging her feelings and being sympathetic were unavailable options for me. Her point was that our situation was UNIMAGINABLY BAD.
If I suggested to her that she was understandably stressed, and that I sympathized - well, that was patronizing and a failure to confront the problem, which was that WE'RE DOOMED!
Without our circumstances changing meaningfully, she's largely gotten over it. She vents, of course, but that's entirely okay with me. I sympathize.
149: Is there an average time that the withdrawal effects last?
145: I guess I see a gulf of difference between your two ways of expressing discomfort with this kind of discussion, to the point where I think lumping them together obscures more than it illuminates. I mean, really--I'm uncomfortable with something that is important to you, which I can express as either "so you can't do it," or "so I should try to adapt"? You see these as comparable?
I'm sure I do vent without immediately looking for solutions sometimes, and if I took the obnoxious of your two positions that would be hypocritical and further obnoxiousness on my part. But I think my venting is kind of a negative thing, too: I don't like it when I have problems I can't solve, either, and I don't see how it's hypocritical to say that the existence of, and my attention to, such problems is an uncomfortable thing.
It seems like I got more defensive about this than I needed to, and I'm sorry about that. Communication is hard, so I get touchy about it sometimes. (because while there are solutions, sometimes, they're not easy ones, and I don't like problems that stay unsolved. see?)
- Good lord, this thread moved on quite a bit while I considered and typed this. Posting anyway.
104 speaks truth.
For what it's worth, I don't find the dynamic in question particularly gendered, and it's not always about a burdened Fix-it urge on one partner's part. It's just as often a function of what 91 describes: some people are less tolerant of complainy talk (even if it's just descriptive of a situation and doesn't mean "Please fix it"), while others are just talkers. A mismatch isn't fatal, but it can lead to the talker being told, effectively, to shut up.
Again for what it's worth, I had a past relationship that suffered from this problem; what we landed on eventually, through trial and error, was a sort of designated "Let's each talk now about what's bothering us in our lives" period, usually after work, during the decompression time when you segue to evening. We'd get things off our chests, courteously asking the other "So how's [that thing] going, with you?", then sort of sigh and square our shoulders, then carry on with a hopefully irritation-free evening.
It was better than stoically suppressing things, anyway.
I don't think LB's read of my 105 is remotely fair: and is terribly double-standardy itself. Obviously one should take the foreseeable effect of a Discussion on the other person into account before (and after) launching it. Some discussions cause stress. That doesn't mean they should never take place, but it does impose an obligation on he who would initiate one to consider time, manner, and place.
By 'action item' I don't just mean solutions. This could include nodding, verbally validating, shutting up about something, gaining an insight, whatever. Isn't it therapy 101 to consider something along the lines of 'what were you hoping would happen when you did X?'
154: The only thing I have to go off of is the internet where you're going to find outliers. Somebody on one forum just said 7 days.
Crazy Meds: the Good, the Bad and the Funny of Neuropsychopharmacology is surprisingly good.
But I think my venting is kind of a negative thing, too: I don't like it when I have problems I can't solve, either, and I don't see how it's hypocritical to say that the existence of, and my attention to, such problems is an uncomfortable thing.
Well, no one likes it when they, or people they care about, have problems they can't solve -- that's why they're problems. I guess I'm arguing for the position that being willing to absorb some (reasonable amount of, this is certainly an area where people can be unreasonable) non-solution-oriented venting is something that should come standard, both ways, in a relationship.
And that those people who feel it's seriously burdensome to have to listen to non-solution-oriented venting might feel better about it if they recognized that (IM own, limited, specific, personalE) they did a fair amount of the same kind of venting themselves, and didn't expect anything more from their partner than a sympathetic ear.
Yeah, yeah, I knew how that sounded even as I wrote it.
Actually, I found myself nodding in sympathy with your original comment. I posted the response entirely in jest.
157: 113 was primarily directed at 108, and I think OY and I are hashing that out pretty well. I certainly agree that everyone should consider the effect their words are going to have on the people they talk to -- other than that, I'm not clear on how I've been unfair to you.
159 is fair enough, but some people's venting has strong overtones of 'and this is your fault', which, when one asks 'how? why? what can I do?' gets walked back to 'I'm just venting, I don't expect you do to do anything [other than just take the shit I'm handing out]'. That can get awful tiring after a while.
162: Certainly. I'm a big fan of stoicism, keeping an even keel, and putting a good face on things in general, and endless pointless bitching, or passive-aggressive attacks that turn into "no, I was just venting", can be maddening.
I was mostly pushing back against the idea (which I largely imported from outside the thread, no one here said it in so many words) that there's a clean dichotomy between people who vent and people who seek solutions, and that venters stress out solution-seekers because they're doing something alien. Pretty much everyone I know vents.
162 -- agree. 159 is fair, but there are better and worse ways of "venting," as well. "Here, let me dump all my fears and anxieties on you at once, without concern as to whether or not you think it's your fault or that I have an interlocutor" is not a good way. "Here's something I'm going through, that's tough for me, and I know you can't fix it, but I need to talk about it" is a good way.
And I think we need to understand that venting -- describing problems without asking for a solution -- is both (a) necessary and (b) often hard for the person to hear. That's what makes it a genuine problem. I mean, of course describing your problems to someone who is (at least partially) inclined to take responsibility for them will be stressful for that person, and, equally, of course, people need empathy, not just advice and solutions.
Actually, I don't like the "venting" metaphor. I don't think that "blowing off steam" without regard to the other person is really OK, even if we all accept that sometimes it's going to happen. Asking for empathy is, of course, OK. Like everything else, timing is important and IMO asking for empathy is also best done in a calm moment.
I realise I am basically an intrinsically offensive cunt, but actually I give quite practical advice and have a degree of empathy which makes it surprising that I'm so cruel. Here goes.
Reading 66, it sounds like "I don't see myself as stressed. But [I'm stressedI'm stressed I'mstressed]. At this point in the work year and with two small children, even people who don't have "Stressed" as one of the "major attributes" on their character card, are often temporarily and situationally stressed. I would say a) own it, you're stressed, b) ask for some sympathy about the stress thing c) you will presumably get some d) it will be better, until the next time you get stressed as you inevitably will because work, baby etc.
If that doesn't work ask someone else. Alameida probably.
162 is good. I am distressed; how does it help if you are distressed too?
I take a firm position against venting. I don't say I never do it, but I try not to and I think less of myself to the extent that I do. If there is a problem I can't immediately resolve, then one of three outcomes will happen: somebody or something else will resolve it for better or for worse; or I will be able to resolve it later; or I will eventually die of old age. Giving out at innocent bystanders doesn't affect the likelihood of any of these outcomes, and should therefore be avoided.
LB:
You should just listen to Carp and stop trying to solve his problem. He just wants to be heard.
And also extract an apology over the defrosted food thing. You are right to be annoyed about that, wasting food is really irritating.
and have a degree of empathy which makes it surprising that I'm so cruel.
That actually makes perfect sense -- you need empathy to be really successfully cruel. I had a boss once who was a miracle of emotional sensitivity and empathy who used his powers for evil. I got off without much damage because I get very boring when under attack, but he managed to beat the woman in the next office to me up badly enough that she left the country and abandoned the legal profession.
HG:
Make Weds nights the night to whine about stuff. Offcial Whine Night. Stomping of Feet. Gnashing of Teeth. Wild Swinging of Arms. Tears Optional.
Maybe get some t-shirts printed up for everyone to wear.
I only ever use my powers to destroy people who are objectively speaking enemies of all humanity, or who have annoyed me in some way.
venting -- describing problems without asking for a solution -- is both (a) necessary and (b) often hard for the person to hear
This is quite true. And what some people would describe as venting may strike others as ranting, which can be that much harder to hear.
166: What? You've never needed to put holes in walls, move large amounts of dirt from one place to another, or heave impossibly heavy objects into a too-high dumpster? Venting can too solve problems.
O.T: Anyone know off-hand about the best way to see the Churchill bunker and other WW2 sites/museums? Are there specialized tours that avoid displays such as every ball gown worn by every royal since whathername? I'm planning for the end of February, hopefully in really lousy weather.
Heebie -- I do think dsquared is right that you're stressed. You might mean that you don't think you're letting it get to you; that you're not unusually touchy or tense or unhappy. But from what you've described, you've at the very least got a bunch less time and energy than you're used to. And with Jammies stressed too, that's a stressed household. Owning that openly with him might lighten things up a bit.
(I've been lurking but have students in my office. Lots to think about from this thread, though.)
venting -- describing problems without asking for a solution -- is both (a) necessary
Stop right there. Why is this necessary? Especially if:
(b) often hard for the person to hear.
I too give good advice despite being intractable.
(It's really hard to say anything in the knowledge that both Heebie and Jammies (probably) are reading this, and without sounding preachy.)
Good things to come of this: be more planful about how much to defrost, and discuss the plan in advance. Know that parents coming to visit, and/or one party going out of town, are stress points that tend to make both parties emotional. (I myself wouldn't have a Serious Discussion then, until both parties can relax a bit more.)
Start walking around announcing from time to time, as circumstances warrant, "Stress point! Stress point! Gah!"
176: Because it's easier thinking about problems when you talk about them out loud? Because unless you're a Zen master, it's hard to completely conceal that you're feeling negative emotions, and walking around with an unexplained thundercloud over your head can be lousier for the partner than talking about what the problem is, and explaining that it's neither their fault nor anything they need to work on?
(It's really hard to say anything in the knowledge that both Heebie and Jammies (probably) are reading this, and without sounding preachy.)
It's fine, at least wrt speculating that I'm behaving badly. I asked for it, and I know I'm golden deep down.
176 -- you've never felt better (or felt a need for) explaining that you're having a problem to someone, and seeking empathy, without asking the other person to solve the problem?
As an RPS (recovering* problem-solver), I often try to keep separate internal layers as I listen to someone vent/rant. One is for listening and reminding myself that I don't have to do anything more, so that I can avoid the "I have to fix this!" stress; the other is for tucking away the solutions that do occur to me. Maybe I'll offer them at some point, maybe I won't. But trying to quash the impulse entirely makes it harder for me to do the sympathetic listening part.
*I don't want to recover entirely. I'm a pretty good problem solver.
169: Sure. A good predator or sadist knows his victims better than those know themselves.
165 is best read while remembering that being stressed is NOT the same thing as being, on balance, unhappy with how things are working out.
It just means you're stressed. Under some pressure. Juggling several balls in the air. Experiencing cognitive and physical strain.
This in 66 sounds like HG is conflating being stressed out with being unhappy:
I see myself as *not* stressed out, and basically able to shake things off and say "Oh well, you break eggs when you're raising small children while working, etc. And hey! Healthy children and loving household!"
You have to give yourself permission to be stressed out even if you're perfectly satisfied with your life (or think you ought to be).
More of 178: I mean, again, importing things from my own relationship. But I get quiet and withdrawn when I'm unhappy about something (I describe this as dignified stoicism, someone else might call it sulking). Buck is really quick to pick up on that, but tends to interpret it as my being mad at him. If I didn't vent about work stuff, he'd be panicky about whether I'd suddenly decided I hate him all the time.
Also, honestly, someone who never asks for empathy is super hard to deal with. "I am keeping all my problems inside and will only tell you about specific problems I believe you can solve" is really an invulnerable robot, not someone who you can enter into a real relationship with.
178/180. Yes, but 'venting', as I understand it is not a calm admission of need for sympathy. It's an untargeted rant about the injustice of the universe as made manifest in whatever issue is bugging you.
Will's 167 states more pithily than I could've my reaction to 159. For some reason when Carp and I say that listening to venting is difficult, LB sees it as a problem that needs solving. Why can't we just be expressing what we're going through?
I can also sign on with LB's 163, so if that's all you've been trying to say, well, then, comity.
Finally, I also agree that it sounds like heebie's stressed at the moment. I, too, see myself as generally a non-stressed kind of person, which made it all the harder for me to accept in the last few months that I have really been under a lot of stress myself (demanding job, trivially-but-constantly sick toddler, terminally ill father). My failure to acknowledge how hard all of that has been on my was also putting pressure on my marriage. To her great credit my wife managed to point that out to me in a way that I could hear, and since then I've been trying to take better care of myself, which is good for our relationship in many and varied ways.
182: This guy was really impressive. Brilliant, funny, charming, and got all his fun in life out of seeing people writhe. Closest thing to a Bond villain I've ever met.
This is also one of those gendered things (not universally, but it's a pattern that shows up at least sometimes): that men tend to interpret anything negative as an action item, meaning "I'm telling you to fix this now."
God I hate that shit. Precisely that dynamic destroyed one of my friendships; I was going through a rough patch and wanted validation, and my (female) friend insisted on trying to solve my problems whenever I tried to talk to her about it. So frustrating.
186 -- ah, we have a definitional issue, not a disagreement. This is why I dislike the "venting" metaphor.
I agree that one should try hard to keep an "untargeted rant about the injustice of the universe as made manifest in whatever issue is bugging you" away from your partner.
I think there's a difference between the sort of venting where the listener can be under no misapprehension that there's a role for them (either as object of blame or as provider of solution) and where there's some ambiguity. The sort of unstructured rant at the world, or one's boss can be annoying if it happens a lot, but (for me at least) basically tolerable. The other kind eventually grinds you down.
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Holy crap is (infant) daycare expensive here in Large Metro Area. $2500 a month? Dear lord. Still about a year before it's necessary, but wow.
(Is this unproductive venting? I'm not sure.)
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Shorter thread: You should just listen to Carping.
Have another baby, sell it for organs on the black market, use the profits to pay for day care for the first baby. See, I'm a problem solver!
192: My friend was just pointing out that the federal poverty level for 2 adults and a kid is $2,000 or so, twice what they were clearing when she thought they were doing "pretty good". Sigh.
Also, I just got hung up on by someone's professional voicemail after about 7.3 seconds of message time.
No need to get Kraaby about it.
192: Wow, that's a lot of money. I just looked and it would be about $850 to have an infant in Mara's program. That's still more than our old house payment.
I know that I have repeated this before, but I have a vivid memory of Jammies telling me that "I want her genes in my kids! My kids really need to have her genes in them because she is awesome."
|| Still hoping someone will respond to my request for solutions in 67 in the Choral Rift thread.|>
I endorse 185.
This is a good thread, however difficult. 187 resonated for me: I, too, see myself as generally a non-stressed kind of person, which made it all the harder for me to accept in the last few months that I have really been under a lot of stress myself (demanding job, trivially-but-constantly sick toddler, terminally ill father). My failure to acknowledge how hard all of that has been on my was also putting pressure on my marriage.
Yeah. When my mom died all of a sudden (at only age 70, my father having also died suddenly at only age 60), I sort of freaked out. My brother remarked at some point in a very mild and relaxed tone of voice that I was really tense. Actually, yes, I was. For some reason it took a while to acknowledge that.
195: My friend was just pointing out that the federal poverty level for 2 adults and a kid is $2,000 or so, twice what they were clearing when she thought they were doing "pretty good"
Is that $2,000 per month?
188: A sociopath, then. I've come to believe that killing such people isn't really murder. They are outside the sphere of the golden rule because they lack empathy so they are in the same class as the things we kill for food. Like lions.
I tend towards 203, as well. I'm never quite sure if that's just a glib thing I say or something I really believe.
I don't like the 'lack empathy' formulation, because it sounds to me like 'people like that don't really understand that other people feel pain.' This guy vividly understood that other people feel pain, he just fed on it like some kind of monster from Star Trek.
204 - I think in my case if push came to shove I'd balk. I'm not really the murdering type.
Closest thing to a Bond villain I've ever met.
Ooh, I worked for one of those, too. Genuinely vile, genuinely brilliant, totally insane.
He hit on almost every woman on staff, and finally was forced to resign after (according to rumor) a bunch of women went to his boss to complain about him making calls to them at 3 in the morning.
But he worked there for about five years before he finally crossed the line.
He's still very respected in the industry, and has become a college professor. On the Rate My Professors web site, there's a wide divergence in opinion about him that seems to be more-or-less entirely attributable to gender.
re: 206
Oh, yeah. Ditto. Doesn't stop me thinking of them as somehow non-human.
205: Unfortunately I'm about to run off into the lab so I can't get into it in detail, but I think the key issue with empathy is actually feeling some echo of what the other person is feeling, which precludes enjoying the infliction of suffering.
This is a good thread, however difficult.
This is a great thread. It's really helpful hearing smart people talk about common problems.
When my mom died all of a sudden (at only age 70, my father having also died suddenly at only age 60), I sort of freaked out. . . .
One of my strong memories of when my grandmother who had been living in town died, two and a half years ago, was spending several months just feeling cranky all the time.
I didn't feel sad, particularly, the last several years of her life were about as good as one could ask for, but dealing with all of the end of life issues (and not even for a parent) just used up all of the emotional energy I would normally use to ride out little day-to-day bumps so I ended up being on edge and cranky about almost everything.
I did find it helpful to own that, however. I would tell people, "sorry, I'm just short tempered right now."
If what I see as light-hearted bitching, Jammies sees as endless kvetching, then I should rein it in. I can easily ask him that.
It makes me a little sad, because I like to bitch. It's fun.
Whether or not the defrosted food was veiled criticism (possibly), generally I'm bitching about work, and I don't think he takes that as any sort of criticism. It's generally "I'm tired and just want to sit here but have so much shit to get done for tomorrow."
Also, Jammies really doesn't vent much. He just gets more and more tense. I try to stay connected without getting tense myself, but I really wish he'd chat about it occasionally, (which would assuage my needs but not his, so.)
Whether or not the defrosted food was veiled criticism (possibly)
That would annoy me a lot if I were already edgy. Criticism (or identifying a problem) is cool if reasonable: "You defrosted the pheasant? We've already got a whole wild boar in the fridge -- how are we going to eat pheasant before the boar spoils? Don't defrost stuff unless we're out of thawed stuff to eat, dude." Non-critical griping also cool: "Argh, you defrosted the pheasant? I defrosted the boar! I hate when that happens! Nothing to be done about it, but it drives me nuts."
Veiled criticism is irritating as all get out, though. If you're going to criticize, don't veil. (I'm sort of chewing myself out here -- I spend a fair amount of time catching myself before I do that short of thing.)
212 -- My view: As about what was making him so tense, but only in a calm moment when the tension seems to have subsided.
Asking about it in the heat of the moment can feel like a burden ("I'm already so tense! And now I have to worry about talking about it, and worry about giving the burden to someone else! Just let me deal with it! Aggh!"). It's when everyone's out of panic mode that you can actually talk meaningfully about the issues and prepare better for the next time.
Take with a heaping grain of salt.
It was more "My meal planning went all to hell this week" but I knew he'd taken soup out of the freezer without checking with me, (along with a bunch of other factors), but in hindsight it's easy to predict that it would land like criticism.
how are we going to eat pheasant before the boar spoils
This is where it's my time to shine.
Got to run again. Jammies, if you're lurking, um, I love you and don't be annoyed that I'm spilling our dirty laundry to a bunch of strangers on the internet? I feel a little weird about this.
Jammies, if you're lurking, the strangers on the internet don't think ill of you at all. Parents visiting is stressful on top of everything.
Actually, I am also a stoic defroster with low tolerance for listening to gripes, and I'd buy J a beer. Having a kid who gripes is making me reevaluate how I respond both emotionally and practically to complaints.
Oh, meal planning is itself a source of stress, especially if the partners in a couple have different cooking styles-- either the correct one (ooh, lots of ingredients-- what do I feel like spontaneously making right now?) or something else.
I've got nothing helpful to say at a deeper level, don't handle this common conflict source well.
At this point, I have to concede that the original post was not the opposite of trolling your own blog. (Which is not to say that Ben was trolling his own blog.)
God, sometimes Heavy Conversations are just so easy over IM. I feel a hundred times better. In about two minutes, we connected, Jammies clarified what was bothering him, and we half-assed some solutions, but are basically fine again.
Not that I would abuse that construction.
Really late saying that 31 is indeed fantastic (the very first poem of hers that I ever read, way back when!) and I'm saddened by the NMM news.
Jammies clarified what was bothering him
You can't just leave us with this cliffhanger.
232: Yeah, that'd be really mean, leaving us in suspense like that. Listen to Plumbing Boy.
I gave you all the information I have!
That attitude would have ended the scientific revolution in about five minutes, you non-inquisitive person.
me: Also do you have a few minutes?
J: Yeah.
me: (I'll start dinner then.)
Hey, do you want me to work on complaining less, in general?
Sent at 3:54 PM on Thursday
J: Not necessarily. I mostly want you to have to spend less time at home doing work.
And I "think" you need to carve out more time in your day for running. Less office hours or something.
me: Yeah.
J: There's just lots of little stuff that I want to get around the house, but it requires your input. And your input sometimes takes forever.
me: It does.
J: Or yous just need to learn to say, hey, thanks for doing that. But you did it wrong. And then I'll FIX it when you decided how you want it done.
But at least it's "done" in my view.
So I don't care about it anymore.
me: I think on most things I'd be okay with that. Hanging things on the walls is a tough one.
J: Yeah, well, thats the specific one.
Cause we still have lots of shit laying around.
I think my current plan is to "file" some of that stuff in guest bedroom in that empty filing cabinet.
me: I know. I'm really nervous about doing it, for some reason.
Sent at 3:58 PM on Thursday
J: Yeah, it's easy to move stuff that gets hung up, and not that hard to fix holes in the wall if they are annoying.
Hey, I want to head out. So, I'll see you at home in a bit.
I'll text when I leave the grocery store to get kids.
me: See, it's the type of thing that I'd never ever do, so it's hard to remember that you'd do it.
Ok, xoxox.
J: xoxoxoxoxo
Listen to Plumbing Boy.
Wait, what?
I'll text when I leave the grocery store to get kids.
[joke omitted]
It's just such a wholesome conversation. I figured Jammies came off looking great.
I feel like Doc Brown, wondering in what sense this is a "heavy" conversation.
It wasn't, whatsoever. That's what I meant about IM being great. It was really easy to broach and talk freely about the issues.
I just realized that I misread the sentence quoted for the non-joke in 238. I thought it sounded like the grocery store was selling kids.
Anyway, glad the more serious conversation topics seem to have been resolved.
Late, but if you have a partner who is like Sir Kraab, and he or she either freezes into silence or gets ultra defensive, hitting them is not a good idea regardless of how frustrated you get. It won't make them less likely to freeze up and fear 'serious conversations', and you might find yourself finding it easier and easier to punch them, and eventually you won't need any reason at all. This sucks for the partner, and will not help the relationship. This remains true even if the partner is significantly stronger than you and the physical damage is minor.
That's what I meant about IM being great. It was really easy to broach and talk freely about the issues.
And you can't get punched. Win win!
That hitting out of frustration never works no matter how right it feels is one of the great tragedies of human nature. Stupid evolution.
