I am a little grumpy because I thought I'd have a childfree night next weekend and had been really looking forward to it but instead it turns out Girl Scout camp ends on Friday rather than Saturday, so I both don't get a night to myself and have to take a half-day off work to drive down to the camp for pickup.
There's also a huge terrible storm going on right now and I'm supposed to have a yard sale tomorrow, but boy would I love to have an excuse to not participate in that. I don't care about getting money for the furniture I don't want, but I guess selling it is easier than paying someone to take it somewhere or whatever the alternative is. Ugh.
I could go on with the venting, but I'll leave room for others.
Stupid net nanny blocked this thread already!
I'm on vacation this week. I've been using it to purge a whole lot of clutter, and I've gotten rid of two shelving units and am hoping for a third, if I can just ditch enough books. (Which would leave me with four seven-foot bookshelves in the living room. I'm not doing anything rash.)
As a result of all of this work, the apartment looks terrible. Much worse than before I started decluttering.
The kids are both off productively internshipping, in their various labs.
I got good news on daycare within the past half-hour. Background: our regular daycare closed at the end of May due to new management, and since then Atossa has been cared for in three different places. (Only two different caregivers, but still, the disruption of where she was and the problems that caused the change seem worth mentioning.) The current one will be unavailable next week. For the past couple weeks we've hoped that the regular daycare would reopen in time, but couldn't get a definite answer because it depends on the licensing agency. If not, my mother offered to fly down here to nanny her while Cassandane and I were at work. Nice of her and we'd enjoy her company and all, but still, it's a bad place to be when that is the best option.
But I just talked to the new owner of the daycare, and she said that if the place still wasn't open by Monday, she offered to have staff to work in our house, at the usual rate. That completely solves this problem as far as I'm concerned.
Now all I have to do is prepare for a 50-guest party in 24 hours, get a warranty honored despite three fruitless phone calls so far, figure out how to set up teleworking over the weekend, sell several huge pieces of junk taking up space around the house, and finish several goals in World of Warcraft before they vanish forever. (I feel guilty including a game on that list, but, hell with it a goal I'm behind on is a goal I'm behind on.) But at least I don't have to do that with a 1-year-old crawling on me.
I'm a bit grumpy because some projects at work have wrapped up and now is when I told myself that I would start sending out resumes and such. I thought my mid-life realization that I don't want to be stuck in my local university town forever would help, but that only gets me about halfway there.
I still can't figure out whether I need a LinkedIn profile. Should I? People have told me they've gotten side jobs that way, but I'm afraid of getting locked into one job history channel. I applied for a job with some lecturing duties last year where I had to rework my entire resume.
I've been admonished by people who seem to know this sort of thing for job-hunting with an insufficient LinkedIn presence. But considering I have no idea how to get back into my account to beef it up, I'm not acting on that.
Fair enough. I now have a definite todo for Saturday morning. Can't hurt, I suppose.
I've decided to renew my contract here for another year. Work is ok, not great, but pays. Still utterly lacking a plan, direction, general life satisfaction, and Linkedin profile.
I got 99 problems but books ain't one.* Most immediately, I stupidly agreed to sing at a friend's wedding tomorrow, and the song, which was intended to be included quasi-ironically at the end of the ceremony, is irremediably shitty**, and the obligation has spawned a host of sub-problems involving rehearsals with the bride's stressed-out out-of-town sister-in-law. I'm going to need to listen to death metal and Wagner for like a week to purge this experience from my head.
*Well, a minor problem; I'm reading Robert Middlekauff's American Revolution history and finding it frustrating. It's not as well written as it might be.
**If you want to make this the Friday quiz, here's you're first hint: it's an early-90s pretty duet about sexual coercion.
11.*: The Glorious Cause? Massive disappointment compared to the other books in the Oxford series I read, Battle Cry of Freedom and What Hath God Wrought. Around the same time I read Ron Chernow's biography of Washington, which was excellent and is highly recommended.
3: The NYT magazine has a big article about Marie Kondo this weekend, if that helps.
11: I'm pretty rusty on my early 90s duets about sexual coercion. Any other hints?
12: Yep. Not terrible, but could be so much better. It pales in comparison to BCoF. I have Chernow's biography of Hamilton on the way, incidentally, because we're all Hamilton all the time now.
14: A couple of skeezy dudes from a popular band I didn't even know existed, an easily-mocked black-and-white video.
15: Maybe 15 should have been signed "Opinionated Neoliberal" but who am I fooling?
16. Extreme? Are you going to do the whole setup, with the two chairs and the acoustic guitars and the long hair? That's pretty hot.
19: Nailed it. And no. I hate this fucking song so much, I want to hijack the sound system at the reception and play Anal Cunt.
Bizarrely, Extreme had one of the great bass players of the hair metal era in it.
What I'm saying is, maybe they could be persuaded to try a deep cut from the Extreme catalogue instead.
Oh my God. I just realized I mentally merged Extreme and Mr. Big.
I mean "More than Words" and "To Be with You" are similar, but still, what a humiliating error. Shame, shame, shame.
23 See? "Attorney". It was bound to happen.
I haven't updated my LinkedIn in years. I need to now that I have a different job, but I have so many other things to do that are either more important or more fun. So I have a dozen unanswered requests to connect, but I'm slightly embarrassed that my job is not the one they know me from. Oops.
Dedicated lurkers should know by now that taking Unfogged's advice on dating is reliably successful, particularly when liveblogged.
See, better to know nothing of Extreme in the first place. Anyway, in retaliation and as a surprise we're going to commemorate the couple's tortured relationship with the Gram/Emmylou "Love Hurts" at the reception.
You sure you don't want to play Mr. Big's "Addicted To That Rush" or "The Drill Song (Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy)"?
26.last It's true! Helped hook me up with my current gf.
Please keep your LinkedIn pages current! That makes my job so much simpler!
29: I was being tongue-in-cheek, but hey, yours did work out and you have been quite dutiful about updates! Says more about you than us, though, I think.
31: No, it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with Unfogged. Even Flippanter (!) hooked up due to Unfogged's expert advice!
Whereas I just informed people after things were in process, and clearly that was my doom.
I was sure you were singing "girl I'm gonna make you sweat". What's rapey about more than words?
34: Well, it's obvious he's demanding anal, right?
31 I know you were, nevertheless it's true.
Unfogged's s expert advice!
34: The message is, babe, your words are meaningless to me; shut the fuck up and put the fuck out.
Need some double posting advice too
Need some double posting advice too
38: Or maybe he wants her to pay his rent. It's ambiguous.
38: Or maybe he wants her to pay his rent. It's ambiguous.
"Love Hurts" at the reception
ooh, Nazareth! It's gonna be a 100% corny hair metal party.
It fairness, it's probably more accurate to describe it as "date-rapey" than "rapey."
The message is, babe, your words are meaningless to me; shut the fuck up and put the fuck out.
Is it? It's actually stunning how incomprehensible the lyrics are:
What would you do if my heart was torn in two?
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away?
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you
What are you talking about? Do you want me to say I love you or not? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS
"Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer" seem to be a staple (Oldies for the older generation! What could go wrong!) at wedding receptions I've been to recently. I cringe every time, and the boyfriend finds my cringe hilarious.
My sister and her husband had his sisters sing an acapella version of "Everlong" at their wedding. Attendees came up and congratulated them on their "unique" ceremony, which "suited them to a T." I think that comment was very true but less flattering than it was meant to be.
Not really in the spirit of griping, and my sympathies on being stuck playing that... song.
but less apalling music:
Liz Phair's "Fuck and Run"
Saccharine but pleasant cover of last year's big hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOKuAigsrec
Surprise:
https://youtu.be/P71lXJBqJtc
Yeah, I call that the "Shut up and open your legs" ballad.
I have a date tonight off Bumble. We're going to a wine bar on a Friday night, so I suspect it will be noisy and crowded and awful. Any advice appreciated. I know she's an attorney and likes red wine. Apart from that I know next to nothing.
Also I have a coffee date on Sunday afternoon. That one is more promising since it's off OKC and I actually have some information about her. Of course it coalesced right after I bitched about my response rate going to zero. Maybe there's something causal there.
Roberto, he wants HER to quit using words to say "I love you"... it's just tearing him in two that she won't back it up with proof. Naked, silent proof.
I'll de-lurk to vent:
I've given two weeks notice at my current job and am counting down the hours until I can leave. There's nothing for me to do, and it would be extra, pointless work for them to find me something to do. But I still need to present a timesheet for them to sign with a straight face, and there's no job code for 'browsing the unfogged archives'. I'm ambivalent about quitting - I like the people and commute, but the money and opportunities were limited. The new job may or may not have better opportunities, but the commute will be much longer, and on a public transit system that often on fire.
Also, it's a contract position and a full-time offer is contingent on my obtaining a security clearance. I'm worried about the more-or-less nightly pot smoking habit I quit five years ago.
Jesus, that's actually an easy problem to solve: sing Nelson's "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" instead of the Extreme song. Turn the volume up LOUD. Afterwards, if necessary you can apologize and claim you were just confused, which is a totally understandable mistake (both quasi-metal pop songs from 1990 sung by two long-haired dudes). But, of course the apology won't be necessary, because the Nelson song is so much more thematically appropriate for a wedding, and plus just overall more fun and a better choice for any possible occasion, that everyone including your friend the bride will thank you for your decision. They may demand a repeat performance again at the reception, but I assume you can oblige.
I thought wine bars were hushed and sophisticated.
That sounds stressful, msw. I have no particular advice except that it seems like their job to give you work to do and if they're choosing not to do that, there's not much you can do about it.
48. East Side Story, by Bob Seger. Actually great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPxwWnJD_Uo
"Runaround Sue" and "The Wanderer" seem to be a staple (Oldies for the older generation! What could go wrong!) at wedding receptions I've been to recently. I cringe every time, and the boyfriend finds my cringe hilarious.
OK, but seriously, great, great songs. Not thematically appropriate, but really great.
My stupid body is stuck in what feels like a permanent, never-ending loop of assorted kinds of pain and suffering. I don't like it.
And also I started making eggplant parmesan without checking to see if we had all the ingredients, which I think we don't, quite.
If what you're missing is the eggplant, that's a plus.
I'm still looking for work, and have no idea if I'm ever going to find something that works for me! Blah.
The eggplant is all ready. Not enough cheese or breadcrumbs, though, I suspect. (I haven't actually looked in all the places yet. There might be extra hiding)
53: anti-venting, but on topic:
For 3 summers, my job was grounds crew at the local public golf course. Right before I started, they hired a new greenskeeper, whose job it was to undo years of neglect from his drunkard predecessor. The first summer or two was a ton of work, and he was bit of a hardass, but by the third, everything was humming along smoothly. One day, hours before quitting time, my coworker (a Boxer type, good guy) and I ride up to him in the Cushman cart and ask what to do for the rest of the day. He asked if some task was complete, and when we told him it was, he just rode off. We couldn't leave, but it was essentially carte blanche to just go relax in the woods until 2:30. He was also 100% decent about taking it easy on super-hot days.
I guess what I need advice about may not be a problem with a solution. In theory, during a breakup you're supposed to limit your interaction to just being about parental logistics that need to be shared. Lee seems unable to do this or to have any triage about what constitutes an emergency, and so I'm expected to respond immediately to questions about whether Fun Home is appropriate for a second grader and so on because it's an emergency question. We've tried to go over this in mediation, but with limited success. I am losing whatever very tiny amount of cool I might possess in the world because of this, because it's unending and seems just as bad as it was a year ago. I can't get her to change and so I'm open to suggestions about how to calm myself enough that I can just deal with it rather than expecting my head to explode. It's not even always that she's abusive or intrusive, though both still happen, but that I get maybe 24 hours without contact in a month. Maybe. And I am turning into a bad Hulk because of it, like maybe the smart aleck Joe Fix-It version.
(We are supposed to do coparenting therapy soon, but I'm holding off on making that appointment because she's supposedly dragging us back into mediation because she wants to have more control over my life and so I'm not making the call until I have to, within five days of the judge's acceptance of the mediation order.)
54 to 53, clearly.
Also, hey, if they're paying you to only stand and wait there's no reason not to multitask and, I have no real idea here, bring a sixpack and some DVDs to the office or something. Well, there may be a reason, I guess, but is it a good one? A really good one?
51.1: Order red wine and offer to let her try yours as well. When friends and I order miltiple glasses or have multiple course meals, we usually keep a friendly tally as to whose choice "wins" each iteration. It's at least something to talk about that's easy and not work.
53: Ooh, I know something about clearances. Low-level doesn't usually require an interview, but if it's at a level where you are interviewed, past drug use is not disqualifying unless you lie. Just say you did (I'd avoid saying how often or at least underplay it) and don't anymore. My former coworkers all and I had to go through them, and I've been a reference for a friend for a more extensive process. Every time one of us asks about what is disqualifying, they say it's pretty much lying and the most other things are OK. Most interviewers are pretty chill, but some tend to be antagonistic or pushy to try to make you uncomfortable and encourage dishonesty.
Messily, cut the eggplant into thick rounds, fry those in olive oil, temp a little lower than will scorch the eggplant. It'll soak up oil and then release it.
Dice an inon, fry that in a separate saucepan with one arbol pepper or a shot of cayenne if you haven't got that. When the onion's fried, turn down the heat, add crushed tomatoes, wone , oregano, pinch of basil and some bay leaf. SImmer.
Now boil pasta, cover with your excellent marinara, serve the eggplant on the side.
63: Did you get to hang out with Bill Murray?
On the wedding music subthread: I believe it was someone here at unfogged who recalled a wedding where the song for the first dance was "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".
63. I caddied for a while. When presented with a request for a 5 min cooldown after the first 4 hours, the caddymaster ("Cactus") would reply "Rest fast, boy!"
Totally minor aggravations here. Kid (now 4) melted down this morning because he wanted to be the first one to get to school* and he wasn't; the resulting meltdown took 45 minutes and eliminated any benefit to me of getting out of the house early. It also kind of drained me of any energy to get work done today. (* for uncomfortably antisocial reasons; he wanted to be able to play with everything without having to share or wait for a turn.)
Relatives (family of 4) visiting for the weekend, with somewhat difficult dietary requirements and completely unsettled weather, making planning excursions and meals hard.
So that's venting but seems weak.
53: Five years is enough that they won't care. Be honest and maybe suggest that you've learned your lesson about the demon weed.
66.1 is good advice. I think I will follow it. I'm also hoping 55 is accurate. I've never been to a dedicated wine bar, so I'm going by expectations of a regular bar. It turns out this place takes reservations so it's probably not going to be horribly crowded. I went ahead and made a reservation just to be on the safe side.
64: is there any way you could treat her constant intrusions as a recurrent source of hilarity? You'd have to convince yourself *just enough* that one adult posing these questions to another is ludicrous in a comedic sense and then convey to her how hilarious this is. My sense is that her robust amour propre would cut down on the frequency. Only works if you can purge all evidence of (wholly justifiable) rage from your reactions.
72: I have not shown emotion since... oh, actually, just a few weeks ago when she called while I was working from home to say she'd given a real estate agent permission to walk someone through the house. Other than that, she has no idea she's driving me up the wall. Sometimes she's specifically pushing buttons to try, but mostly she's just flailing and being pitiful and horrible. If I'm too curt or if she thinks I'm mocking her, she'll call me crying and asking for clarification.
It's definitely amusingly bad and I make fun of her to other people (oh man, the voicemail about "Selah just had several temper tantrums and so I took her to buy a doll, which might not have been the best choice. And now she wants to go to McDonald's but I don't know what you think about McDonald's. Could you call me as soon as you get this to let me know what I should do?") but it's at the point where my laugh/cry meter is just broken and I find it all horrible and overwhelming, even the funny bits.
The eggplant's been sliced and salted, and the marinara is simmering. I think I found enough frozen bread to suffice. (Jammies is always hiding my bags of frozen bread in the back freezer where I forget it exists.) And there are string cheeses if I run out of actual mozzarella.
I already have a separate pasta dish: no more pasta in the eggplant. and the children scream if there are hot peppers so the flavor has to come from other things. Like a lot of salt and butter. Otherwise the plan in 67 looks lovely. Next time!
The eggplant has been:
- sliced and salted
- trimmed and burnt
Just ignore her calls. Seriously. If it's a true emergency, she'll figure out a way to get to you. Respond once every 2 days or so by email.
In current work, I have a massive vent, which I'll condense:
It took 8 freaking months to finally get approval for this project that involves taking a building that used to have light manufacturing and offices under a single ownership, and converting it into a building that has light manufacturing and offices under a single ownership. The new use is artsy, so it's not quite as straightforward as that, but almost all of the 8 months has been getting approval for existing conditions that we won't be changing.
So today the field inspector shows up for the first time, and shits on the approved drawings, as if those 8 months meant nothing. WTF? I just sent off a letter to the head of zoning, the head of building inspection, and the mayor's chief of staff (whom I've discussed this sort of thing with before).
76: Since I won't give her daily email updates on the kids, I've agreed to check our communication app every morning. But I should probably be more rigid about keeping it to that and giving my first quick response and stepping away. I can try to renegotiate this next mediation and have plenty of evidence of how she immediately way overstepped the last boundaries we agreed on, but I suspect no one will care.
65
54 to 53, clearly.
53.1 or 53.2? Seems like a strategy guaranteed to prevent my from getting cleared.
Thanks for the support and advice, togolosh and ydnew. It's what my anxious googling had led me to believe (or I wouldn't have taken the job), but it's better to hear it from people with experience.
63: Did you get to hang out with Bill Murray?
I've never thought of it before, but one of the old guys had a little bit of Carl Spackler to him. Because it was a County course, there were a half dozen full-time, union employees, and then about ten (?) college kids, 1/3 on a white collar track, 1/3 on a middle track, and 1/3 possibly on track to work there forever (despite going to college). Anyway, Billy Ball was an old, bald guy with about 2/3 of his teeth, cranky as hell, muttering under his breath, but also occasionally hilarious. Most memorably, he described really hot, humid weather as "good pussy-eating weather!" Which A. I didn't (and don't) agree with, and B. was impossibly incongruous coming from this guy who essentially looked one step away from homelessness.
Now of course I realize he was younger than I am now (not really).
64: Do you have mediation-based agreed communication expectations in writing that you could copy and paste as a deliberately robotic reply? "Parties will limit communication to that strictly necessary to..." - etc. Or if not, could you get that in a future session to have to fall back on?
And sorry, Tigre. 78 was combative rather than grateful. Yes, that's probably what I should do. But am I ready to live with the repercussions? Maybe once I have my own house where she doesn't have a key.
81 is definitely what I want. I had it in the prior mediation agreement but she wouldn't agree to it this time around and I was more concerned about covering the custody stuff to get that in front of the judge. Now that that hasn't happened, though, I might as well push. Most of the time what happens now is I answer her question succinctly and then she responds with a long harangue telling me not to fucking contact her but also asking more questions. I'm getting a little worked up just thinking about it, honestly!
Though last time I tried that, she was willing to say in writing that she doesn't care what a judge says or what our mediation agreement says because we should be sorting this out for ourselves. So it really is both amusing and maddening.
Books /= clutter!
This is one of those things where I differ with the kind of people I generally associate with. If you're not going to read it again, it is totally clutter. I guess I don't live by this because the internet has robbed me of the power of reading books and I haven't gotten rid of mine, but at various points in the past I have gotten rid of a lot of books and it's been fine.
I like having enough books around that if I want to read something, there's a pretty big selection to pull off the shelves, or to look something up in. But we were way way past that. Not to call Buck a hoarder or anything, but he had a pretty strong "Never get rid of anything" principle.
I'm constitutionally unsuited to consistent commenting but this seems like the place to pop in and say I asked for job advice from you all a while ago and ran with some of it and as a pretty direct result I have a new job that I love--I didn't even believe loving jobs was a thing. I shared the thread with another miserable loyeler who ALSO took it to heart and instantly got a new great job, so witchcraft, probably. Our shot at earth is over and we should cede it to the insects, but in the meantime I'm still surprised and pleased and grateful that even as a relative outsider I got such thoughtful, generous, useful feedback from an internet weblog I started reading because Iraq.
85 is my way of thinking. I have a bunch of books but they are all either things I haven't read yet, or things you can dip into and out of (coffee table books, humor collections, weird old books). After I read a novel or a book by Mary Roach or Bill Bryson, I get rid of it.
87 is awesome.
I would complain about my job, but actually detailing the complaints feels too tedious, so I'll just say that it's really fucking hot here. 107° heat index (which I always think is a little bogus, but it's 98° and humid, so).
87 I (mostly) love my job and I recall that thread but I've forgotten it. Link for future need?
78: IANAParent, but daily communication about children between separated parents strikes me as an unreasonable expectation in most instances. In cases where there is a history of controlling, emotional abuse, it seems like a pretty clear instance of abuse, regardless of whether that's her express intent.
Either way, if your only mediation agreement-enforced responsibility is to check the app, then it sounds like you should ignore her calls. It's not your job to be her parenting coach. I know you worry about the girls, but it seems like she's going to screw up with or without your input.
86: "but he had a pretty strong 'Never get rid of anything' principle."
With at least one significant exception.
93: Right, that's why the mediator wouldn't agree to it. And she sees what I put up on facebook, which is basically a "look, the children are alive!" message to extended family of all sorts.
I do ignore her calls unless the timing makes it look like an actual emergency. I should just be clearer that I'll check the app in the morning and won't respond now. Maybe after several hundred iterations she'll get it or something. Definitely I'm doing more than I should, which I hate, because you're right that I hate the alternative too.
Yay, though, for Clytaemnestra Stabby!
96: Hah! Although I think he stuck with his principle -- he didn't get rid of me so much as flee the scene himself.
Most of the time what happens now is I answer her question succinctly and then she responds with a long harangue telling me not to fucking contact her but also asking more questions. I'm getting a little worked up just thinking about it, honestly!
"You may ask me not to contact you further. You may ask me questions when necessary. I would ask that you refrain from doing both within 24 hours of each other."
Seriously, I think you would be well within your rights to black-hole any emails that aren't about logistics or other essentials. It sounds like getting some reaction out of you is one of her main goals.
In the terminology of Achewood, 96 would be called, I believe, a "rough chuckle".
I mean, part of this is that she is genuinely not doing well and probably in some ways legitimately not capable of doing what she's supposed to do in leaving me alone and being a parent when she's supposed to be a parent. Yet that's not my problem, which is wonderful! I just need to manage the spillover, or manage my response to it.
Running off to work, but having been through this -- Thorn, Tigre is right. Yes, it will be better when she doesn't have a key to your house. (She should not have a key to your house, but you know that, and I understand why, for the moment, she does.) I know it's hard, but really, stop engaging. Your giving Lee succinct timely answers is encouraging her to keep pestering you because she's getting what she wants out of it -- daily engagement. You may have to adopt the persona of a flaky person who doesn't get back to people and doesn't answer emails, and I'm guessing this is opposite to who you are -- but your responsible nature is allowing Lee to play you. Sorry for fast note, hope you can hear I'm on your side and rooting for you.
that hot inside?
No, freezing inside my stupid office. I actually like going outside in the heat at the end of the day, but that doesn't last long. Summertime in Austin = always carry both a sweater and a fan.
Yes, you're definitely right about that. And things go better when I don't reply for a while. (The house thing is complicated. It's still in her name even though she doesn't live here. And right now she's abiding by the agreement not to go in until I'm gone, but that she could freaks me out considerably. But all resolved soon, and that will help and even though she thinks she deserves to, she will not go in the new house at all.)
My aunt has the extremely difficult habit of only responding to emails once a day around 5AM. (To be fair, my uncle, who is the blood relation, did her a lot of wrong.) Maybe something similar would help you here, if you have difficulty appearing flaky.
99: Fair enough. I think that one gets the Schrödinger emoji.
:):
Congrats to Stabby and encouragement to msw, and Thorn, I love you, man. Every update makes me think, boy is that sucky and complicated, but also so much better than before, so, you know, onward and upward.
85ff: I have way more books than I'll get around to finishing, but they're kind of a security blanket, and now that I've lined most of the downstairs walls with them, when I walk in I feel like I'm in that one library everyone keeps posting on facebook. Plus they're not bad as insulation.
Thanks, Jesus. I appreciate the people for whom it's gotten better. I really can hardly see things getting worse, which is one thing. And I'm simultaneously whining about all this stuff and wanting to curl up and cry (while of course putting on a facade of total normalcy and supportive co-parenting for the kids) while being so thrilled that at least we're separated and I don't have any of that awfulness. Just different ones.
Thorn, this is kind of a long game strategy, but I'd suggest waiting just a bit on non-emergency parenting questions and drawing the interval out slowly. Like, maybe 5-10 minutes at first, to try to get her used to a lag. Then, longer, 10-20 minutes first with an apology like, "Sorry, was in the shower/letting the dog out/ whatever." Cultivate some reasons not to have your phone. Swimming with remaining kids? Movies? It sounds like a lot of this is just sort of shitty parenting skills when she doesn't have you to do everything. If you get it up to 30-45 min, she'll start solving her own problems because delaying a meal for 45 min while waiting for you is less convenient than just making the damned decision. Emergencies get rapid responses, of course.
You could just jump to long delays, but I bet you'll get a pile of texts in intervening time.
Congrats, Clytemnestra! So glad it worked out!
||
The family that just moved in next door apparently has EVEN MORE CHILDREN than Heebie & Jammies. Hawaii interviewed them on her way in last night- she ran up to me and said "They have eight kids. There's an eight-year-old, a seven-year-old, a six-year-old, a five-year-old, a four-year-old, a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a one-year-old.
That's a lot of kids.
|>
Oh, and togolosh, there's a range on wine bars and noise. Conversational hum, but not usually too bad.
Man, if they're even vaguely compatible friends-wise, you guys have a street-gang now.
Pretty sure most street gangs can take out one led by an eight year old.
IME shitty exes reliably improve once they find a new partner whose problem they can become. Maybe someone here has an enemy in the area we can set Lee up with.
I think 110 is too accommodating, and an apology legitimates the expectation of a speedy response. I would stick to the letter of mediation-mandated communication, and nothing more. In a real emergency, Lee would call 911. If you can't trust her not to let a child seriously harm herself, then she shouldn't be having custody at all. For everything else, Lee will have to learn on her own. Grievous emotional and psychological harm would be a problem too, but it doesn't seem like Lee is emotionally abusive to the girls, and they don't spend that much time with her.
My usual purge-the-procrastination work half the night just before going on holidays is currently in swing. I am panicking / convinced of disaster even more than usual because I am taking a fortnight off which I haven't done in years.
I am getting too old for this shit i.e. I used to get away with it but now I will be exhausted. Also even with this gun to my head I have to take breaks and stare at the internet.
Also I never did get back to lurid k about sister house hunting in Dublin - comment got eaten and I never retyped. Basically last week in August might be v. late, students start looking mid August if not before. For a family sized unit, letting agencies are probably the main way to go (noticeboards I previously was thinking of are more for room in shared house). She should look at http://www.daft.ie/lettings/ and see what's available in her price range.
I'm sorry that I have caused the non-word "ppl" to appear on the front page.
I am in weird (and not really bad) job limbo at work with possible internal transfer on the table, which may drive me to make new career plans sooner rather than later, i.e. as alternative to lyjng about my deep abiding interest in the new role. I have no idea at all what I want to do with myself. It is so much easier to shoot down suggestions than to think constructively. But my current job can't really be the personal optimum, nor the only thing in the world I am qualified and competent to do. Sadly childcare duties today will prevent me from posting more than this one thing for a while.
Oh hey thank you emir. She found a place! Very lucky break apparently, even if sight unseen.
And I just got through a similar work cycle and the only way to break it I think is not to succumb immediately to the rebound lethargy, but to sustain six or more months of suffering until you establish a habit of consistent time allocation. I will see if it is worthwhile to do this six months from now.
Pretty sure most street gangs can take out one led by an eight year old.
Ageist.
117.1 is so true, but it means that BOGF is not available (nor in the area).
117 is what every professional involved has told me to expect and the shared calendar app shows she has two or three dates this weekend. But she was alone for a few years before entrapping me, so I don't want to be too optimistic on that front.
I already reply way less often than 110 suggests, typically only once a day. But her responses hang over me emotionally and that's the bigger problem.
121: Cool. Dublin is a pretty good city IMO. Transport poor because of low rise sprawl and bad decisions but plenty of amenities.
No real venting but . . . I'm just exhausted these days, and it's boring. I've finally gotten to a point where I can relax a little bit after ~3 years of steady grind at work*. There's still work to do, but it's at least getting to the point that I can schedule some time off based on my preferences rather than looking at calendar and saying, "I'll take those 3 days off next month because that's the only time in the near future when it would be practical for me to be out of the office."
I would both like to take the opportunity to have some fun and also to catch up on some of the many things I've been steadily putting off (including decluttering . . . which sounds wonderful in theory, and which I find absolutely painful in practice), but right now I just don't want to do anything.
It's a familiar feeling; I knew this was coming, so I'm not annoyed at myself, just worn out.
* In that period there were only a few months when work was genuinely annoying, but there was just never a break -- 3 years of knowing that work was going to back up** if I didn't keep up a consistent steady pace was tiring even if the pace itself wasn't unreasonable.
** with no real option to hand work off to anybody else.
125 wait wait wait though, what? Is it just blocks of time you see blocked out on the weekend or has she labeled them dates?
At the bar. Wsiting for my date to arrive. It is not awful and crowded. Neb was right.
It's marathon weekend here, so we're hosting an old friend in town to run the half. IHNMAAB Bad News Girl, with whom my son is traveling in California. Maybe I'll ask later for advice on that later.
IME, wine bars suck because the customers tend to be yammering on about wine. I hope that's not happening where you are.
I Have Not Mentioned Anything About or Behooving?
If you remember/liked that "comedians feeding lines to porn performers" thing, here's a new one with Kristen Schaal.
128: Tonoght she's with Demise, whoever that is, at some bar I've never heard of. Yesterday was R at the bar around the corner from me, tomorrow Zig at a party. A few months ago she saw S four or five times before S wised up. She thinks it would be too stressful to manage more than one calendar, so I see it all. I'm not sure she's really figured out that she and I aren't still dating, really.
If your ex-lover meets her Demise at a bar you've never heard of, you might be in a Tom Waits song.
Is it normal for a team to have a co-worker who drives everyone else mad? I can't tell if I was just really lucky for the first decade of my career or if I've been really unlucky (or bad at selecting teams) for the past few years.
I spent almost ten years in a series of roles that, at the time, I considered unexceptional. The pay was fine, management was good, co-workers were good, etc.
In each of my last four roles (across two companies), there's been one person that pretty much everyone else on the team can't stand. One team mostly disintegrated as a result (more than half the team left before they fired the guy who was causing problems), and other teams have had or are having attrition issues as people leave to get away from the problems.
On the one hand, this strikes me as pretty weird. Given normal attrition rates across the companies I've worked at (5%-20% per year), having a significant fraction of a team quit or be in the process of quitting because of one individual seems like it can't be normal. On the other hand, most people I know have at least one person at work they don't really like, and I'm not sure I even know anyone who had a ten year run where they liked basically all of their co-workers, which makes me wonder if I was just spoiled by the first decade of my career.
I swear I checked that it said Denise, but I wouldn't particularly complain.
I guess my main thing to vent about right now is work, where things have been very difficult lately but seem to be getting better at this point. With the state fiscal crisis still unresolved and a lot of uncertainty about where things are going, my agency has seen a lot of people leave without being replaced due to a hiring freeze. Most importantly for me, my own supervisor left rather suddenly toward the end of June, and the executive director left at the very beginning of July. With all the major changes at the higher levels of management, the new management team put together a reorganization that makes sense overall, and should ultimately lead to a better way of operating the agency, but for some reason the small team making these decisions was made to work in totally secrecy before the official roll-out of the new org chart at a staff meeting last Tuesday. For most people the new chart isn't a huge change, but for me personally the original version would have been a disaster; it had me reporting to someone I absolutely cannot work with productively, and took away my own supervisory role, making me the only person in the agency to move from supervisory to non-supervisory. I talked to the HR director immediately and threatened to quit if I wasn't moved somewhere else. She was sympathetic and I've since met with both the person I'll be reporting to instead and the person who was mostly responsible for the org chart, and in all cases they've been supportive and have emphasized that they didn't mean to do me harm and that they just didn't know that where they put me would be such a problem. I believe them, but the whole thing just reinforces the sense I have that all the people who understood and valued my work, and served as advocates for me at the higher levels of management, have left, and I now have to advocate for myself, which I'm not good at and don't like to do.
All that said, the new place they are going to put me on the org chart instead is actually a good fit and a logical next step for me, and I'm pretty excited about it. A lot of my current work is on projects that are drawing to a close and I've been unsure about where I go next; I've been applying for other jobs but without success. So like I said, I think this outcome is actually a net positive ultimately. They're also moving my physical location in the building back to where I was before my latest move, which was to a space that is just awful and has been terrible for my productivity. So that's good too.
In other good news, I took today off work and accomplished a lot of things I've been meaning to do for a long time but hadn't gotten around to, particularly going to the dentist and the eye doctor and making an appointment to take my car in for service. So that's nice too.
Welp, I just re-enabled my OKCupid account, 4 months after getting my heart truly broken for the first time via tragic life circumstances and her not being ready etc, and the first thing I saw when I logged back in was my ex's also re-enabled account (now advertising herself as a unicorn, to boot). Which, yes, I know I'm not really allowed to be upset about that, but it was still a pretty sharp kick to the fork.
So that...wasn't great.
Is there still a NYC meet up happening sometime soon?
Oh, donaq, the unicorn thing! That (and to my mind a lack of self-awareness about implications) was a weird dynamic for me that led to the failures in this last relationship.
Literally s unicorn, or using the word unicorn as a term of art, or what?
The kid and I finally got out of the time-dilation well in Furr's Fresh Buffet and rode its gravitational slingshot out of Albuquerque. I've had the whole week off work and got to spend a couple days noodling around my own metropolis, which was awfully nice. Like teo, I consummated a long-delayed appointment with the eye doctor (this one made more urgent because my last pair of contact lenses had ripped rather badly in the right eye). I also went to the reopened SFMOMA and dallied a while on the wonderful sixth floor (Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, William Kentridge).
On the venting side, the time off drove home how much I've become a passing tourist in the place where I ostensibly live and work. The amenities have always been rich, are in some ways getting richer because of all the money now sloshing around, and between work and childcare it seems like all I can do is wave at them going by. (The comparison is to all the idle time I had in grad school, which is probably indefensible but still feels like a norm.) I got to the end of my novel and can't yet do anything with it because lurid pointed out some problems that would probably take a week of concentrated effort to fix; and that week isn't available because the time I just took off work was filled up with parenthood. I like my job but right now am trying to decide whether I should fake a extended illness.
I told lurid to tell Camus that if he wanted to make Sisyphus unhappy, he should try giving him one vacation day a month.
teo, I hate advocating for myself too but I'm really glad you were able to get the needle moved from "disaster" to "net positive ultimately."
141: urban dictionary is your friend.
Dona Q! I hope you're doing well, lo these many years.
Dona! Yes, meetup Sunday at 6:30 at Dive Bar on 96th and Amsterdam.
141: A bisexual woman who is willing to date a couple. Rare as unicorns. The equivalent term for men is, I learned today, "puppy." Nice to have around, but common as dirt.
Second 144.
My date sucked. No chemistry. Ok conversation, and she smelled really nice, but other than that there was nothing.
We'll see how Sunday goes.
146: Probably more common than a bisexual woman with a billion dollar market valuation.
Hi! Lots of changes, but now I'm back at a job where I'm in front of a computer again, so I can be on a blog, which...might prove dangerous, productivity-wise. The broken heart thing sucks, but mostly things are great. :)
I'm going to try really hard for Sunday! I'm hoping I can move something.
Thorn! This is probably a weird thing to say, but I'm happy to see you moving on and upward with the girls. I'm sorry she's still being such a shit, but shittiness that is mostly not your problem seems like such a step up.
...oh christ is that why there's a unicorn emoji
I am still cackling about "Demise." She's had such a tough dating life because of all the cheating!
"Unicorn" seems like a completely inappropriate mythological beast for the role, although, you know, transgressive and hot etc.
I was thinking of otherkin, more common than billion dollar valuations but possibly less annoying.
BUT joy I referred the other day to three people waltzing together as dancing unicorn, and got one totally puzzled look, one matter-of-fact nod from someone else who either likes horse teams or reads Heyer, and one Look that I didn't understand until 146. Excellent.
You can imagine she's on an accidental yet fitting date with one of the furies or something.
There's one for everyone.
teo, I hate advocating for myself too but I'm really glad you were able to get the needle moved from "disaster" to "net positive ultimately."
Thanks! It's a relief, but the stress hasn't totally dissipated and probably won't for a while.
Thanks, dona q! It's definitely a million times better not to live with the shittiness. I'm grumpy because it would be a million times better than that not to have to deal with it at all, but I'll take what I can get.
I am maybe a little shitty myself in that I haven't broken up with my girlfriend yet. But it seems unkind to do it via text while she's overseas with family. (If nothing else, it sets a bad precedent to end two consecutive relationships by transatlantic text message.) But it's going to be forever until I see her again and I feel bad that she's still thinking of me fondly and may have bought me a present, though I actually still have a present I'll send on to her too. So stupid.
Just think of them as breakup presents! A new tradition is born.
I suspect we'd actually both be fine with that! I don't think it's going to be a big deal. I hope not. I've certainly been dropping a lot of hints about how I'm wiped out and can't handle anything more in my life right now and need to pare down, and in the past she's said she'd understand if I needed to take a break to focus on my daily life. She's certainly got other people to keep her occupied, though of course none as wonderful and amazing as I apparently am. I think it'll be fine, just one more thing on the list.
The present I got her is, in fact, a unicorn. It shoots rainbow balls out of its mouth. I was ambivalent about the message but knew she'd love it, and it seems like the kind of distraction a person writing a dissertation deserves.
So my Sunday date has answered more questions (she'd only answered a handful previously) and our match percentage has dropped from 79% to 36%. Yay. Also she answered the open relationship question wrong, which is odd since she'd read my profile and she was the one who contacted me. Also she hates pot and I'm high as a kite right now. I think I'm calling it off tomorrow.
On the plus side I just got a positive response to what was frankly one of my crappier opening messages, so all is not doom and gloom in dating land. She's a 91% match with several hundred questions in common, which is nice.
Also she answered the open relationship question wrong, which is odd since she'd read my profile and she was the one who contacted me.
I've found that people who have looked at a profile have not necessarily read it.
I'm still conflicted about whether to pursue only people who look attractive or if I should ignore that and stick to match percentages or writing style or something else. I feel a lot less guilty about grading people down for ostentatious septum piercings. Last time around there were a ton of chest tattoos but either this is the in thing now or I'm just having bad luck.
Good kind of update: Mara has three siblings who were living with an aunt when she moved in with us (almost 6 years ago now!) and then about 3.5 years ago went to a cousin instead after some fuss about whether they'd need to go into non-relative foster care, which would have meant me. The cousin hadn't been big on family contact and blew me off for a while and then changed her number, though I had facebook contact with the oldest of the group, Mara's favorite sister, now 14. Today I was driving down the street to an artistic taxidermy presentation at the house where my brother lives with our taxidermist friend and I saw a girl who sure looked like that sister walking some little kids down the street. I pulled over and swung around, only to have her recognize Mara or me through the window and run over shrieking with excitement. They hugged each other and walked arm-in-arm chatting and I got to go talk to the cousin, who's much more mellow now that the kids are settled in and doing well with her and who'd like to start getting them together. The sister asked if she could come spend the night like the three of them had for a spring break four+ years ago now and I'm glad I'd already made plans for a bunk bed in the playroom of the new place. There's not really reasonable room for me to have more children, which is a good barrier to have now anyway, but there's space for visitors.
Have any of y'all ever had, or know of anyone who's ever had, a job where you can read and it's not much of an issue? I don't care about pay and am mostly uninterested in what the nominal work of the job is. Also, I'd prefer there be no drug testing, as I plan to smoke a few times a week, indefinitely.
So far my list of potential positions consists of: night hotel/motel clerk, night gas station cashier, parking lot attendant, used bookstore cashier, and night security guard (though I assume these go to ex-cop/military types or big dudes). I know the post office has evening positions, but I assume it's pretty hectic work.
Thanks in advance!
Security guard is probably going to mean drug testing, but there are also the sit-in-the-lobby-and-make-people-sign-in jobs that probably wouldn't. How about: toll booth operator; dispatcher for taxi or delivery service; movie theater box office.
(If Homer Simpson is any guide, working at a nuclear power plant is also a great option.)
164: Thorn, that's excellent, but:
an artistic taxidermy presentation at the house where my brother lives with our taxidermist friend
??!
I am turning into a bad Hulk
Now I'm imagining Thorn-Hulk. HULK SMASH ABUSIVE LIFE PARTNER! HULK SMASH HOMOPHOBIC LEGISLATORS! HULK SMASH PRIVATIZED MENTAL HEALTHCARE! HULK SMASH INADEQUATE FOSTER-CARE FUNDING! A superhero to get behind.
Quit ogling Thorn-Hulk's ass, Mossy!
169: So I guess you're, like, a vegetarian or something?
HULK SMASH DIRTY-MINDED COMMENTERS!
I hear fire-watching in Canada is good for not doing much, but only seasonal.
172:Yes, but not the issue so much as being unaware that one might go to an "artistic taxidermy presentation." (Doubly odd for going to one's brother's house for such an event.) Also, I don't think I knew that Thorn's brother was local.
What? I seriously don't see the issue. Taxidermy is certainly an art, if not necessarily a SWPL-approved one, and I believe Thorn has two brothers, one of whom is local.
169: Also, Thorn is in a Tom Waits song just now. It fits completely.
178: THREE brothers, the vegetarian one of whom used to live a few blocks away until he moved to the taxidermy house the next town over. Partly the event was mentioned because it was ridiculous and partly because that way if I ended up tagged in photos at the other place where I'm in the background of an explanation on the difference between skinning a constructor and a regular snake, people here would be unsurprised. My taxidermist friend only works with animals who've died a natural death, including a fair bit of roadkill. His work has ended up on book covers and in NYC department store windows at Christmas and as movie props but mostly gets sold for personal display.
Internet-famous taxidermist friend!
I have nothing to vent about, other than C and Kid B being away, following the entire Tour de France for three and a half weeks, and thus I'm having to make more cups of tea and do more washing up than I'm used to. Also Kid A is home for three and a half MONTHS and has had a week away on holiday and is now bored with no money and no job, but no sign of getting a job. And I'm paying rent on a house in Oxford for her that she's not living in.
Apart from those minor irritations, all's well. I'm two months from qualifying and have a job to go to when I do. And my parents are visiting tonight.
AirBnB the place in Oxford. Her housemates will understand.
I wonder if venting would help. Probably not. Plus, I'm very tired and should try to get to sleep. This comment should be cast in bronze.
The only thing I have to vent about is Brexit-related anxiety (turns out existential dread is as much of a pain to deal with when things *are* completely fucked up as when they're not). On a more immediately selfish note, we've already had one Italian client cancel a contract (trying not to think about this too hard for aforementioned anxiety reasons) and the plunging pound means Abelard & I have shelved our Narnia holiday plans.
As you can tell, it is the holiday part that I am currently most upset about - I was really looking forward to the food. Sob.
182 could be a great idea. Housemates are probably equally absent, although the letting agency/landlords would disapprove I suppose. Does it matter if it's a bit of a shithole? Anyway, will look into that.
What? I seriously don't see the issue. Taxidermy is certainly an art, if not necessarily a SWPL-approved one
Chill, dude. I don't disapprove; I didn't know about it. Turns out I am not aware of all non-internet traditions, be they SWPL or otherwise.
180: I assume you meant constrictor vs. regular snake, but I briefly had the image of some poor stuffed ironworker.
186: I do mean constrictor. I'm too likely to be typing on my phone these days and it gets hard to see.
The new job is challenging and interesting, but I am just not clicking with my boss. Her interpersonal style grates and our sense of what the job entails is different. Plus I think she is a mediocre writer and has a poor sense of brand both from consistency and asthetic standpoints, which in a marketer isn't a good thing.
I desperately need this job. I was hired on a 6 month contract with the understanding that I would transition to W2 employment at the end of the year if everyone still likes each other. So I have 4-5 months to fix things well enough to get permanently hired. It's panic-inducing if I think about it.
One good thing and partially how I'm comforting myself is that since she entered the industry after getting her PhD a decade ago (she has no formal training in Marketing), she's never held a job longer than 18 months and her average tenure is around a year. In this job she's commuting from California and living out of a hotel every other week. So I'm hoping that maybe I can just outlast her and they'll hire somebody in her place I can get along with.
188.last does sound likely, but wow that must be stressful!
It's a fabulous time to get in on Canadian fire-watching.
Chopper, that sounds like something you can white knuckle through with a little bit of luck. I'm sorry you have to white knuckle at all though.
Thorn, I'm finding a wide net on OKC is...necessary-ish, but only works as long as I don't get invested in anyone. Took some getting used to.
I am finding some comfort in the fact that dating is terrible for everyone. Sorry, everyone!
Random place to vent random first-world-ish nonsense. In-laws visiting our house, two adults and two kids, so four adults and three kids under seven. Food was ordered, took an hour and a half to show up, and then was substantially wrong when it arrived. At least the kids have their food and it's the adults who are being screwed.
Food was ordered, took an hour and a half to show up, and then was substantially wrong when it arrived.
It was people?