Nice doctors gave me antidepressants and I am actually feeling quite lot better, nearly a month in. But I'm ridiculously tired, despite sleeping significantly more.
I'm a lurker, but maybe Unfogged will be happy to hear that after 10 years of grad school and 4 years of VAPping (at two different places) I'm starting a tenure-track job this week. In the humanities/arts, no less. This new school is a regional university, not very much like the hoity-toity places where I went to school or taught previously, but it seems nice here. And I've come around to see the bright side of being somewhere so different, both so I can take on a much more challenging teaching job and just generally to expand my horizons beyond the ultra-privileged worlds I've spent my whole adult/academic life in so far. After I didn't get hired on the TT at my last job, I spent 6 months or so wishing I was dead (and somehow being on the job market through that whole time), but I'm kinda proud that I made it through that misery, somehow won the job lottery nonetheless, and am cautiously optimistic about being in this new place.
I guess it's safer than cigarettes, but why can nobody who vapes not mention it?
More power to you, Brodysattva!
3: I had the same stupid thought, but at least I had the good judgment not to try to make a joke about it.
2: Congratulations!
1: That's great!
My new apartment is literally right across the street from a vape shop, a thing that now apparently exists for some reason. Thank god it's not a VAP shop or I'd have trauma flashbacks every time I left the house.
I wonder about the vape shops because some of them are clearly head shops also. The last time we had a Republican president, the U.S. attorney for this area sent Tommy Chong to prison for selling bongs. Also, there are like four of them near my house, plus all the places that sell tobacco sell it. How can all that stay in business?
9: And it's not like it's a cheap area to rent a storefront, either. I don't get it; I would think they'd be more evenly distributed throughout the city.
I'm at the cheaper end of the street.
I wonder about all the microbreweries that have popped up in my neighborhood. I suppose people like how these beers taste, but they are expensive and so filling. How much of it would you want to, or even be able to, drink?
I have a resident lizard. I tried to catch it under a glass for removal, but it scuttled too fast.
11: There's one in the Forbes business district, though. It's conveniently right next to the Italian ice shop that always has kids at it.
12: One or two beers is usually sufficient. And they do often have beers in the 4.5-5.5% range, too.
AIMHSHB, I've developed a new tradition of taking my sobrinos on field trips to celebrate their birthdays. Last year it was supposed to be day trips, but the final one turned into an overnight and that was really fun. So now I'm planning that this year's round will include overnights for the older kids.
It's a joy for me to do it, mostly because they are each so different (I have six sobrinos) and I get to plan trips to places that I wouldn't ordinarily go myself, but that are in line with their interests and passions.
I'm also cognizant of all of the research that says kids remember gifts of experiences more than things. As someone who would be classified by marketers as a PANK (Professional Auntie, No Kids) I like the idea of being able to take the kids on fun outings that provide special time for the two of us and offer something that they wouldn't get from their parents. I mostly take them to free or very low-cost events, so it's more about the time and the focus than the cost per se.
Don't know if it's in the spirit of the OP, but how about something both good and bad, in a Schrodinger's Cat kind of way*:
Come October, something stupendously good either will or will not happen, in the form of grant funding for an independent research program that I have been struggling to start for ~10 years. Not a tenure-track job, but better in a way (except for the ££ and security) because I will have all the independence and none of the responsibility of a PI, and at the end of the funding period I will have a bunch of data guaranteed to flummox the luminaries in my field. And there is a better-than-hopeless** chance that it will happen.
So if this thread suddenly pops up on the side again in October, it could be me instead of a spambot. If you notice skyward beams of white light and a triumphant Queen soundtrack emanating from the direction of London, they're both coming from my head and you'll know the news was good.
*In the popularly understood way, not the scientifically accurate way please no physics scolding.
**Which is the best you can ever ask for with these things
I just paid $60 to gate check a bag on a budget European airline because it was 58 cm and the max cut off was 56 cm. It feels like every year they shave a cm or two and then you either have to buy a new bag or get dinged. It's not the world's biggest problem but I'm pretty pissed right now.
The job is a puppy or a wolf, but not a cat. We have conventions.
1: I'm so glad you're feeling better!
2: That is great! Congratulations on some longterm security!
13: I'm sorry to hear that, or maybe glad. I'm having a neutral response.
15: That sounds so lovely and joyous. What a good contribution to their lives.
16: The anticipation must be intense. I hope for positive resolution, and if not, that there's some silver lining lined up to benefit you from all this work you've poured into it.
The nonprofit I work with just got multiple contracts renewed/expanded, and a non-sense-making seismic retrofit order rescinded.
13: Have you considered getting a cat to chase it?
Congratulations, Brodysattva.
15: I want to be a Witt nephew.
As far as telling something good, being so close to all these events in Charlottesville has reminded me how glad I am to have gotten to know people here. My world is richer for it.
18: That's annoying AF. Getting nickeled and dimed is such an aggravation.
My kid hates the Rolling Stones (that is, their music, no personal animus), and has a hilarious-to-me and unkind Mick Jagger impression. Warmed my heart to have a shared joke like that with him.
9: And it's not like it's a cheap area to rent a storefront, either. I don't get it; I would think they'd be more evenly distributed throughout the city.
Vape shops seem to be the new marginal tenant (in the way that pound shops were in the depths of the financial crisis). Of the seven or so shops on Deptford High Street that have been renovated and relet in the last year, two of them are vape shops and three are estate agents.
Many of my students are ridiculously cute. Like they would be exiled from Plato's republic.
Others of course are assholes, who would be exiled from my republic.
On the good side:
An NIH grant that I'm co-PI on just got funded. Found out this morning.
I'm this close to finally getting my place in Cleveland sold. The buyer's inspection has hit me with one last pile of expenses for things to fix, but once that's done we can hopefully close next week. This place has been a tiresome fucking burden and expense ever since I moved (even renting it out, it never paid for itself), and I'll be super happy to finally be rid of it.
On the bad side:
I feel like I'm going to punch someone if I hear any more of this Both Sides garbage re: Charlottesville.
I had no idea Plato wanted to exile the cute people. I guess I've forgotten the important bits of philosophy.
I imagine there's extra willingness for banks and the likes to invest in vaping stores, at least relative to other retail enterprises, because it's a new market and they're more interested in discovering the maximum level the market can be saturated than in being sure all the stores will succeed. Plus all the animal spirits among enthusiasts.
On the marijuana side, it seems like in a decade where federal law enforcement has not been and is still not sure where it will go on enforcement against medical and recreational industry, the paraphernalia trade is super on the back burner as far as enforcement priorities go, as long as it keeps up the plausible deniability that it's for tobacco.
With Plato everything was just a reaction to what the Athenians did to Socrates. He was butt ugly, they executed him, no cute people in the Republic.
Congrats AL and FM (hopefully).
My mother is visiting! That's good. But she's starting to lose her memory - nearly every conversation while she's here has happened more than once, as if the previous conversations didn't happen. And after asking me what she could do to help around the house while she's here, she forgot the two small things I did ask her to do. So I'm kind of worried.
My good friend (whom some of you met in D.C.) has a job interview on Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed.
I've recently begun another round of attempting to get in shape from a starting point of total sedentariness (bordering on sedentarianism). As with all past attempts over the last decade, I'm doing it very early in the morning, and as a result, I hate it. But maybe I can make it stick this time. Here's hoping. Anyway, the immediate issue I wanted to report is that I currently can't straighten my arms. Too sore. So I look pretty silly today.
Congrats to all above, I love lurkers delurking.
I finally got my alcohol permit here instead of relying on a friend's and proceeded to drop close to $1,000 on booze.
I have been lifting weights for similar reasons, and am impressing the heck out of myself. Deadlifted 175 lbs five times on Monday.
43: That's scary. I may be overly sensitive on this point, but getting her to a doctor seems in order.
I have a thing which is both good and bad, and then another great thing! the good thing is that I have tapered completely off amitriptyline, a psychiatric med prescribed to me totally irresponsibly, at such a high dose that it put me at risk of a heart attack, and along with other meds that interact badly with it. this is after getting off oxycontin and also switching out wellbutrin for special meds for my previously undiagnosed bipolar 2 that work about a million times better, so that I am mentally healthier than ever. (how my doctor failed to notice I might be bipolar after threatening to forcibly institutionalize me during a manic episode is a little difficult to comprehend.)
however, the withdrawal has sucked more than I hoped, inducing vomiting, dizziness, actual falling the fuck over (I rung my bell yesterday just collapsing and it didn't help with the headache, plus I have brutal rug burn on my elbow and knee after the previous fall), migraines, the usual panicky withdrawing from drugs feelings, etc. but they are getting better and I am keeping food down. I have to travel for 30 hours tomorrow to get back to narnia and am experiencing trepidation as I don't want to fall down in the seoul airport under the singularly unsympathetic eyes of the staff there. so I may ask for wheelchair assistance just to be safe.
the super good thing which I haven't really told you guys yet is that my narnian doctors completely diagnosed me wrongly with a degenerative nerve disease (?!), and after going to the mayo I learned that although I have fibromyalgia I'm otherwise pretty fine. getting off pain meds, having a new diet and getting a ton of exercise I actually feel great and am also way physically healthier than any time since maybe my late 20s. finally, it turns out one of the 50 bad side effects of amitriptyline is making your boobs hurt, which they are doing less now, so, titties, hooray!
also yay tt job and good thoughts for swope fm. and sorry about the bag buttercup; that's a bunch of bullshit.
Great news. It cheers me to hear it.
Well, my positive thing is that I am travelling to Narnia and Calormene in a few days, during which visit I will attempt to see, possibly in this order, Small God-Daughter, the ocean sunfish Mola mola, and alameida if she's around and relatively uninjured.
And I've just paid about £90 to have a chap fix all the ways in which my flat, unknown to me, was trying to kill me. Cheap at the price, I think.
47 to 46. LB is preparing herself to drink ENORMOUS drinks.
Small God-Daughter must have achieved a decent size by now. Teenage or approaching it?
I feel that I should even lift (dude), but it's a much bigger production than running because I have to go to a gym.
Deadlifted 175 lbs five times on Monday.
At this rate you'll be in good shape for street fighting if the Nazis march in your neighborhood.
Calormene?
I'm preparing to be stuck here over the Eid (we'll get a whole week off) but hopefully I will be able to meet up with Chani in Oman. Also exploring the possibility of being able to get to the UAE despite my Arrakis residency. I'll call our consulate on Monday.
$1000 of liquor is a lot even for a whole week off.
This is the best thread! I am no longer technically on bed rest, though Selah is recovering from her tonsillectomy and so I do in fact write this from bed while cajoling her to eat her blasted popsicle before it drips on the pillow and she chuckles at Peppa Pig. I was worried recently that I was getting seriously depressed, but I think (as does my therapist) that it was a combination of being dulled by rest and oxycodone/steroids I hate. I've gotten to my out-of-pocket limit for the year, so I'll find out in the next few weeks about the free ankle surgery I'll probably be getting. (Those probably don't read as good things, but I mean them that way.) I'm so much more relaxed now that I'm managing regular life and not holding down a full-time job and I'm still not particularly stressed out about finding one, though that will come in time.
Oh and outing myself a tiny bit, Selah and I saw hippo baby Fiona yesterday. Unalloyed good!
I went to the first session of Learn to Row this morning. Like, crew rowing. I am also starting from three years of being sedentary, so the lack of mobility would be humiliating, if I were willing to be humiliated by it. But I am kinda not, because I gotta start somewhere and this is where for me.
I have a resident lizard. I tried to catch it under a glass for removal, but it scuttled too fast.
I don't even know what this means. It's not a mammal, so maybe not an academic job, but a job vaguely like an academic job? Oh, a medical residency?
65: Science will be utterly transformed when essear clicks on the link in 63 and discovers the existence of actual non-human animals.
When they talk about an animal being "unknown to science," I can't be the only one to take that in the Biblical sense.
I'm approaching one year from when the puppy gets submitted for judgment on its capacity for doghood, so I'm full of anxiety. On the bright side a year ago they decided they liked the puppy enough to give it a name.
I quit my job 3 months ago, and am currently unemployed other than doing contract work procuring organs a few times a month. I went to baking school for a week (I built a brick oven in my backyard a few years ago) and now am learning how to bake larger batches of bread. I am giving almost all of it to a local food pantry, and they are very kind to me about the fact that I am giving them this drop of a drop in the bucket.
I am not sure what the heck I am going to do with my life now - I have been looking for work and have had a couple of interviews, but I am starting to get the sneaking suspicion that my previous chairman is badmouthing me all over the place. We did not get along, and I was labelled a troublemaker. I also happened to be by far both more productive and with better outcomes than anyone else in the division, but that kind of stuff doesn't get talked about.
And I dyed my hair blue! I started to go grey very early, so the salt and pepper thing with dark teal over it comes out pretty cool, and definitely confuses people (and no, I did not have blue hair during my interviews, so that wasn't the problem.)
Yay rowing! The better you get at it, the closer you can get to the nirvana of synchronized mindless pain. That doesn't sound like an unalloyed good, but it is an incredible experience.
contract work procuring organs
I'm assuming that's less sinister than it sounds.
56: she's just 9.
57: it works out at £15 per means of death.
69: I don't know the people who need organs here, but our local monopoly certainly needs more people who make trouble.
I'm also seeing more blue hair on the bus.
74: For certain? The news I see isn't so definitive.
nirvana of
Buddhism/Rawls was yesterday, but this is a good point;
Are there contemporary philosophers off exercise? Jim Fixx, maybe philospohers of mind who stress the importance of the physical owrld, Jaegwon Kim.
77 to 76 suggests a problem that needs looked at.
If 74 is to 79, agreed, he's a terrible writer.
78: NYT reports they decided to fire him and are just discussing how to tell him; meanwhile he tells a reporter he already quit two weeks ago (or so Twitter says).
That would explain the interview he gave earlier in the week. It would also mean the that most extreme racism is coming from inside Trump's head. Which isn't at all surprising.
30: I'm so glad that the human connection is present.
32: heh. You should post a video to flickr.
34: Awww. Keep it platonic with them.
36: Hooray for grants and shedding baggage-property! Fuck both sides!
43: I'm glad you get to share some time with her, but that is worrisome. My mom's not there yet, but that would make me anxious.
45: I would think that that doesn't preclude a fist pump, am I right?
47: Holy shit. I can only deadlift 145 lbs or so.
49: That is wonderful news! I'd go for the wheelchair.
52: Post some photos! That sounds like fun.
60: That sounds nice. How often do you and Chani get to see each other?
63: I'm so glad you've got the time off to properly care for all the different people you're tending, and I'm glad about your improving health. Hopefully the popsicle drips got more on the sheets than on your clothes, or at least that's how I'd be calculating the situation.
64: What a good beginning. That seems complementary to your strength training of yore. Maybe you and LB are exercise twinsies.
68: I look forward to your increased procrastination here.
69: That sounds rejuvenating. Fuck your supervisor, he is probably a sexist asshole, but maybe just an asshole. You should take one of his organs. But not his asshole.
Estate stuff is almost done! The house is sold, the car is sold, stocks are sold, the lawsuit is settled. Whew! Now we just wind things down and prep final tax returns.
96 I used to get to Dubai abotu once a month, sometimes more. That's in addition to travelling together. But since the crisis here I can't go over there (not that I was going to till late August anyway, what with my spending most of July in the US and the shingles and whatnot). It's going to be a lot less with this GCC crisis going on. We may meet in Oman (Muscat love) but it's not going to be with the same frequency.
70 - I don't know, is gutting humans for fun and profit sinister? I feel like I can't be a good judge, but I enjoy the work and it pays the bills.
73 - My first job was at your local monopoly, and I lasted for almost 4 years there. As far as troublemaking goes, there was no way I could hold a candle to the whack-job that ran transplant - slept his way through the hospital, beat women in public, and finally was disappeared overnight after a PA complained about him interfering with her job. Mind you, he had probably dropped over 100G maintaining her in the style to which she had become accustomed, but she wasn't the one married to a highly respected anesthesiologist, and she (the PA) was actually pretty good at her job. I went to his house once and got to see two portraits of him painted by a grateful patient, both larger than life and in fancy dress (priest and knight, maybe?). One of the most egregious examples of surgical egomania I have ever seen, and the profession is not exactly teeming with self-effacing types.
both larger than life and in fancy dress (priest and knight, maybe?)
Assuming it's the same guy (and, surgeons, maybe it's another one) you told me one of the portraits was as a Spanish conquistador. I'm figuring with the shiny helmet with the hat-brim and the crest down the middle.
102: Hooray! That must be a load off your mind.
103: That matches my memory, that you had been able to get together more and then had been recently stuck by the situation. I'm glad you'll get to see her.
100 - Actually, a woman, but that does not rule out sexism. I am not an adherent of the belief that women are worse to other women in general, although the dynamic is certainly different, but I think there is a modicum of truth in the idea that in particularly high-powered, male dominated fields (like transplant surgery) women in leadership positions can judge women more harshly, because they still believe that women need to perform to a higher standard than men in order to succeed. Particularly ironic in this case, as she is an unstable, overly-emotional person whose favorite form of bonding was over malicious gossip about colleagues and staff, and she did this with people at all levels of the hierarchy including residents. Truly the epitome of unprofessionalism.
On preview, yes, one of them was definitely a conquistador. Also on preview, maybe I just don't like people who run transplant divisions. There is a strong streak of megalomania running through the group.
I replaced the pots* on my guitar with super fancy ones. Did a full rewire. OCD**** level attention to detail. Yay!
Then broke the pots putting the knobs back on. Boo!
Then I got new ones and fitted those. Yay!
The guitar sound audibly better with all the knobs turned up. Yay!
But I don't actually like the audio taper on the new ones. Boo!
* potentiometers.**
** the internally bits that sit under the twiddly knobs.***
*** there's a loud-quiet one, and a bright-woolly one.
**** I didn't quite go as far as buying $$$ 'audiophile' vintage capacitors, which insane people buy for guitars. But I did everything else.
111: I always liked those kids books about, "Then he fell from the plane! Boo! But there was a haystack under him. Yay! But there was a pitchfork in it! Fortunately, he missed the pitchfork! Unfortunately, he missed the haystack! Oh, here's the exact book - we have the "Fortunately" version and it's charming. Oh, here's the text of it.
This thread was a great idea. Reading other people's good news is quite restorative.
17: I think you mean MAY you physics mansplain, hmm?
26: Thank you! In fact, the anticipation IS so intense that aside from bringing it up here I am trying not to think about it (impossible) esp. because I do not have much of a Plan B for what happens if I don't get it. Not thinking about it, lalalalala!
64: Yay, rowing! As a fellow adult learner, please do not do what I did, i.e., the dumb middle-aged-guy trick of getting all excited about New Sport and overtraining until you have repeatedly wrecked your hamstring(s). Hamstring tendons take a long time to heal, turns out.
Congrats to all good news havers and poor dear to all bad news havers.
"Mother, may I mansplain physics with danger?"
I've gotten in the habit of practicing guitar for like an hour a day and am finally wrapping my head/fingers around how to do that gorgeous slidey riff that Elliott Smith does in Angeles.
Important weekend coming up: if I do well enough in this Magic: the Gathering tournament I'm playing in, I'll achieve my dream of qualifying for the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour and earning a free flight to Albuquerque.
One of the most egregious examples of surgical egomania I have ever seen, and the profession is not exactly teeming with self-effacing types.
It wasn't a surgeon who poisoned his wife with poison he ordered through university purchasing.
Graduate students don't even have a union yet. Let them purchase the cyanide.
Neither good nor bad, really -- a year after Tim moved out, life is pretty much fine. Dating hasn't been dramatically successful, but on the other hand neither has it been as horrific as I was sort of expecting from various things I've seen written about it. (I.e., in about a year of off and on online dating, I have been sent no pictures of anyone's junk. I'm very happy about this. Men are somewhat less pigs than I had been led to believe.)
If none of the men are serial killers, statistically analysis will show that you must be one.
Hah! I was literally just making Newt insane with statistically-well-educated rage by making that argument last night. (That is, given that the last four or five last-minute teacher hires his school has made have been incompetent disasters, whoever they hire at the last minute to teach him AP Bio this fall will probably be excellent. The school is due.)
I'm well into some bourbon here and I just gotta say (sorry heebie) that fuck Trump and fuck everyone who voted for that defective fuckshit of a human being and you can start with my father fuck him and everyone who voted for that worthless irredeemable piece of shit.
117. Congratulations-- regaining equilibrium is pretty fraught in even optimal circumstances.
Nothing like making a teenager foam at the mouth with the realization that all the correctness in the world can't make his middle-aged parents stop saying dumb shit.
Anyway, could you just murder two people, but not at the same time? I don't like science to be shown wrong at this juncture.
The KKK accidentally prompted Durham to host a really fun street party downtown this afternoon. That was nice.
I don't think you need to actually date the guys before you murder them, but maybe having coffee would help the theory fit better.
125: See! I told you they aren't all bad!
Work has been unusually productive for the past two weeks. I often struggle to look busy and hit some milestone, however meaningless, at the last minute before some check-in. No struggling now, and I hit two or three genuine milestones on various projects or at least made meaningful progress. It makes me feel a bit better about my job security and my personal capacity for work and organization.
For the past couple weeks I've been reading the news for fun. It's weird, especially these days. Every day, there's a new freak-out at the White House, some former conservative or centrist figure is distancing themselves from Trump, some other central figure of the administration has just been appointed or fired. Update: Monday will be one month since Sean Spicer left. Scaramucci started on July 25. Reince Preibus left and John Kelly started on July 31, the same day Scaramucci started. Since then we've had talk about nuclear war, Charlottesville, the dissolution of the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum (which AFAICT only existed to make Trump look good to begin with), and Bannon leaving. A clusterfuck of governance but entertaining, and it's not our side's fault or problem, except insofar as it's the whole country's problem.
Also, apparently Six Flags took down the Confederate Flag. My first thought was surprise that they ever flew it. I just learned that the name comes from the number of nations that claimed Texas at one point (Spain, France, Mexico, USA, Republic of Texas, and CSA), so in hindsight it actually makes more sense than most places that were flying it.
Right, that's an excuse that I would accept as legit in any context where the Confederate Flag wasn't immediately fraught. (Come to think, did Six Flags fly the literal Stars and Bars, or whatever you call the one that was painted on the General Lee? Because while taking it down is still the right decision, I'd take that as also exculpatory -- that looks much more like history and much less like anti-Civil Rights activism.)
I need to change jobs, everyone I talk to not currently at my current job (including three former bosses, multiple former coworkers who are still friends, and a career coach) says so, I'm stagnating here for the last 2-3 years. I've reached the point where if I'm here much longer it makes moving harder because people wonder why I didn't take initiative sooner. But leaving means serious bridge burning because people here who have supported my career would take it badly, as they say they're excited about keeping me here, they're just not following it up with opportunities for advancement. I have a high-level connection elsewhere I can talk to but I keep putting it off.
ajay, email me! I recover from head injuries quickly because I do all my own stunts.
I think maybe I could offer advice if I understood what "advancement" meant. Also, "initiative." And coworkers who are friends.
I sometimes get unsolicited emails from recruiters asking me to apply for jobs. I should maybe consider, but they don't seem like my kind of people. The recruiters that is. I don't know what the people hiring the recruiters are like.
Maybe I'm supposed to send a picture of my junk? I get confused between LinkedIn and OKCupid.
This thread was a great idea. Reading other people's good news is quite restorative.
Seconded, it's always nice to get a sense of what other people are wrestling with (for good and bad).
Wait, Swope, could you go into more detail about overtraining hamstrings, pls?
I am unlikely to overtrain, because I purely don't have the free hours. But I sure don't need more injuries.
I often wonder about the relationship between injuries and fitness as you get older. Particularly, where is the line between exercise that helps you delay the effects of aging by keeping you fit and exercise that actually makes things worse because of injuries. I really don't want to miss a justified reason to be lazy.
138: I think about this a lot also. A week ago, I scraped a knee pretty badly in a basketball game with guys probably 30 years younger than me, and I remember a couple of decades ago watching guys younger than I am now get significant dislocations, strains and tears and thinking: "They really are too old for this."
I'm thinking I'm going to treat my skinned knee as a word to the wise.
130: According to the USA Today article I read, it was the Stars and Bars, not the battle flag used by the KKK and their fans.
131: If it helps, I say go for it. I faced something similar when I left my previous job. It's hard to compare it exactly but if you're stuck in a rut, there's only one thing you can do about it. Your real friends at your current job will be happy for you or at least understand, if you'll pardon the earnestness. Another piece of advice - don't bother trouble. Don't think like "I'd be an asshole if I gave my two week's notice tomorrow" before you even have sent out resumes, let alone got interviews or a job offer. You could easily wind up looking for work for months while at your current job. I realize that's what you don't want to hear but the longer you're there, the less you'll owe anyone and the more time you'll have to get them ready for it.
I am stupidly sanguine about this sort of thing -- neither of my parents ever got hurt doing anything athletic until their seventies. So I figure I'm bulletproof. Watch me blow my back out next week, now that I've said that.
"bother" should be "borrow", of course.
I was wondering if that was an interestingly different regionalism or a typo.
I got my first follower on Instagram!
Also, we successfully moved my stepdaughter to an assisted living facility. I guess it's going fine.
Now, with our dog dead, and stepdaughter out of the house, there's no one I have to take care of. Not sure whether that's good or bad.
And I'm meeting a friend for coffee this weekend that I haven't seen in almost 20 years. Where did the time go? Probably most of it was spent sitting at my desk at work wondering if I should post something like this on Unfogged.
I'm the mostly-lurker who got hired and fired on fraudulent terms about two and a half months ago. Drawing UI bennies for the second time in a year has felt great! I'm in a competitive field and while not all of my grad school cohort has jobs in it, most do. I'm coming to think that trying to enter it at all was a mistake. I'm occupying myself by working as a volunteer policy analyst at an unfunded "startup" that may go someplace and may not, and of course applying for more work.
I haven't had so little confidence in myself and my abilities since I was a teenager. I'm coming to think that even though I'm smart, competent, and socially confident I just don't have the savvy or canniness or whatever that gives people an idea of which opportunities will work out for them and which won't. I don't want much, just a new start and the knowledge of where I'll be living and working in a month. On top of that, my sex life with my girlfriend is dead through no fault of my own, only her issues, and I'm thinking of breaking it off.
Currently taking a break from all that and spending eclipse weekend in Oregon, which is nice.
114: That's great! Hobbies genuinely make life more lovely.
121: It's allowed because it builds on your earlier Good Thing.
125: I love the photos of everyone lining up to turn themselves in so much.
129: That's great to hit your stride like that. Also I stared at the six listed flags for too long trying to figure out the community supported agriculture flag.
It is worth turning on the sound for the videos of the Durham statue tear-downers going into court. I am still tearing up over it.
131: Ugh, I hate hurting people's feelings with rejection like that, even if it's clearly what needs to be done.
144: That sounds like a poignant crossroads. Take comfort that on the internet, no one thinks you're an old dog.
145: That's a doozy. I remember your pseud but not the exact details of your hiring/firing. I hope the eclipse vacation is a nice break and that some stability comes your way.
The older boy is starting high school on Monday. As peep says, where has the time gone? The younger boy has been enjoying relatively good health, which is an unalloyed good thing. The wife has a new job that she likes a lot and that will allow her to help people in a very direct way -- but that will be very hard, seems like, and consume lots of time. I have a new job (at my old job) too that I'm so far at least finding terrifically interesting, and I'm very pleased to be working for people that I don't believe are morally repugnant. I'm having a hard time getting much writing done, but that was, when I took this new job, obviously going to be an issue, so I'm not blindsided by it and have recently been in touch with my editor, who'd rather give me an extension on my book than have me return my advance (which was my preference, but that's fine, really; I signed a contract and took the publisher's money, which means that my preference isn't as important as my editor's preference). My mom is becoming more and more demented, and that's very difficult and sad, not only because I feel like I'm witnessing Holocaust memory literally evaporate at exactly the wrong time, but also because she's the only mom I have. The dog, like my mother, is growing old and forgetful. He thinks that I don't notice when he sneaks out of the back yard. But I do notice and choose to humor him, because I think it's nice for him to feel wily and adventurous. Other than national politics, I have the sense that things are going pretty well, or at least as well as can be expected. And the play wasn't bad either.
I'm very pleased to be working for people that I don't believe are morally repugnant.
Was Penn State that bad after they fired the people who covered up the thing?
Anyway, don't disappoint Bill Emblom.
I was thinking about people here, actually. The two years I spent at Penn State don't feel real for a bunch of different reasons. It was like I took a vacation from my career or something.
You should have tried to live in Altoona and commuted.
If only I had put you on retainer as a life coach!
I like that my only Amazon review comment contains the word "anus".
137: Oh sure. Just remember, you asked.
Running steep hills, deep squats/deadlifts, and rowing, especially if you take the old "exploding off the catch" coaching tip too seriously, share the feature of loading up the contracted hamstring when the glutes are maximally extended, so more of the stress is put on the tendon attaching the upper hamstring to the ischium than usual, and so if you're overdoing it like a dumbass, this is the part that's going to be injured.
And if you injure tendons repeatedly, they don't heal right, and they're kind of like kevlar where it's not just the material but the weave that makes them work. If the weave is too loose, your body might grow some new blood vessels through the gaps, which might in turn drag some sciatic nerve branches off to places they don't belong, in which case the whole affected leg and lower back on that side will hurt like crazy and you will start paying a lot of attention to the style/cost tradeoffs of walking canes.
My mistake was starting to train too hard again immediately after any pain was gone/manageable. Unfortunately, I am not at all confident I'll ever row again a year after the tendonopathy set in and for the first six months just walking to the tube was iffy. So don't do what I did.
My advice is that if you wind up with a seriously sore hamstring (as in, not the good kind of exercise-sore) after rowing/erging, don't freak out but do seriously let it heal and take it easy at the catch for a while after that. (And if all you're after is recreational rowing w/o racing then you probably have no worries anyway).
I just didn't get recognized as an exemplary day camp parent because I didn't volunteer to go on any field trips or do anything to improve the classrooms. My plan to not do more than I actually need to is paying off AND I didn't have to stand up and get some giant orange t-shirt and can sit here messing around on my phone and waiting for the talent show to start. (The grand finale is a kindness-themed cover of Ice Ice Baby. But there's plenty we have to get through before that.)
a kindness-themed cover of Ice Ice Baby
As sung by Steve Bannon.
155: I'm really sorry to hear about your mom. That sounds so hard. For the rest of your clan, though, I'm glad everyone is in a pretty good place. Especially your schodinger's dog.
The process of placing your mother in assisted living is weird and stressful. It involves talking to lots of extremely perky middle aged women while one elderly one is disappointed in you.
And blaming everything on your sisters might work, but it doesn't feel right or fair.
If the weave is too loose, your body might grow some new blood vessels through the gaps, which might in turn drag some sciatic nerve branches off to places they don't belong, in which case the whole affected leg and lower back on that side will hurt like crazy and you will start paying a lot of attention to the style/cost tradeoffs of walking canes.
WTeverloving.
Frankly, even if I wanted to, I doubt I'll have enough spare time to overtrain. But I do get obsessed! We shall see!
If you want to injure a tendon without that much effort, I recommend the Achilles tendon.
We just signed a lease on a small place in the nearest big town to here. The plan is to split time between the lakeside cottage and the place in town, at least until the cottage becomes intolerably cold. Which will be soon, I guess, because New England.
There have been a couple small consulting gigs and prospects for more are looking good. Rent is cheap, plus I've got a nice "repatriation grant" from my former employer on the way, so there is decent breathing room while I get bidness established.
I wish it was about to become intolerably cold here. Fall is such an injustice here, because by all rights it's the best season but we actually literally compress it - the summer heat lag is about a month larger than the winter cold lag, compared to the relative solstices - and what remains is inevitably disappointing.
The eclipse should provide some cooling shade.
It's so crazy to picture what everything would be like outside without the sun!
We have very nice south-facing windows and some skylights over the dining room. They're all useless when the sun is out. Fortunately, lots and lots of clouds.
My dad is visiting, and we're going to the local folk festival tomorrow.
Nothing good to say about the fires. Sorry.
My son is about to move up from a special needs middle school to the public high school! college track, minimal accomodations like sitting near the front of the room. Great for his life and for our budget.
Mixed professional news: on the one hand neither Trump nor Ryan have been nearly as bad for the class action business as we expected, so far. It's safest being a low priority in a year they can't even handle the high priorities. On the other hand my contribution to the bottom line this year will be negative 100,000, no wins and a leftover bill on one I lost last year.
Best of all-- a new puppy! from the local shelter, looks like Spuds McKenzie, probably a beagle/terrier mix.
179: It is good that you are keeping your smoke out of Oregon today.
178: That sounds like a good time!
I like son's education plan like I like my hotels, with minimal accommodation.
180: That's promising news about your son! And other people seem to enjoy the concept of dogs and puppies! The legal stuff sounds demoralizing, though.
I made somebody on the internet correct me for saying, "If you don't have the glasses, you have to wait for the eclipse to end before you stare at the sun." This amuses me way more than it is supposed to.
BUT MOMMA
THAT'S WHERE THE FUN IS
O.K. Now I replied to his correction with that.
My friend who cares about celestial happenings left me a pair of eclipse glasses to watch the 80 percent event in DC while he headed off to Oregon to experience "total totality." We had watched the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun in 2012 using eclipse glasses that he smuggled along on a camping trip. Another friend has plans to watch the eclipse using a colander?? Which could be funny if she wears it on her head.
OK, it's not all bad. High winds spreading the nearby fire towards homes in a couple of different valley, but also blowing the smoke away from me. And the fire to my west seems not to be producing as much smoke -- so the sky is actually kind of blue here. Fading to dark, now, but it wasn't so bad.
We went south into the thing, hoping for some pictures. Well away from danger, just under the smoke cloud. Temp dropped immediately from 91 to 85F.
The reason I haven't commented or kept up with the blog the past few weeks is that I've been spending an inordinate amount of time with a certain lady. I suppose that's good news. I'm certainly having fun.
I'm the opposite of 2: left academia recently for a technical writing job. So far, it's been a huge relief: my tasks are difficult, but when I accomplish them, there's a concrete outcome that helps people, and my effort is recognized. In academia (analytic philosophy if you're curious), there was an inverse correlation between accolades (publications, awards) and number/quality of interviews. This is known as the 'stale phd effect' among us philosophy veterans: the more I published and got accolades during the postdoc, the fewer interviews I got relative to ABDs. It's a huge relief to just have a normal job with normal hours doing stuff that maybe isn't as interesting as philosophy but is actually rewarded.
I screwed a peroneal tendon up mostly by waltzing and polking in 1800s style. Also by doing stretching exercises when I was overstretching it, which I did not know was wrong until the third PT, one who works with real dancers and could actually identify the problem. Previous PTs didn't think social dancing was exercise.
(Nothing like seeing professional dancers' feet in passing to remind you that it isn't safe.)
Main solution: rest, plus a zillion pliés that are unlike the way I naturally do them by about one very difficult centimeter. But last night I waltzed on a rough crowded floor and today I'm okay!
tl;dr -- keep your tendons rested.
I'm glad you're happy with the move ponder; philosophy can be demoralizing in a wide variety of ways.
also clew--that's kind of a badass way to hurt your tendon actually. but I'm glad it's feeling better.
Spoke too soon: the wind has shifted and the stars are blotted out of the sky.
We've spent the last two weeks (well, two weeks tomorrow) in hospital with Kid D (nearly 15 now) getting diagnosed with ulcerative colitis - she's now onto a new drug because steroids weren't helping, and we're all trying to be ultra-casual about looking for signs of improvement with this one. That's been a good distraction from all the fucking horrendous shit that's been going on in the outside world, and, looking on the bright side, can probably distract us for years to come.
I took a desk job a year ago and have totally gotten chubbier in that time, but weirdly I feel better about my body than I have in years.
I've also been doing pilates semi-regularly for six months (my boss organised it for us at work, but because it's on work time every once in a while I have to skip if I'm too busy) and have discovered that I'm not actually as inflexible as I've always thought I was. I can touch my toes now!
Speaking of the job, it turns out that I'm super productive and can work really really hard ..... so long as I have concrete, clear goals that MUST be met, and I'm not left to my own devices. Graduate school really was all wrong for my type of motivation, and I've learned that I don't think I should ever work where I'm my own boss, as much as I love the idea. Kinda sad to realise I'm a cog in the wheel, not a leader, but also happy in it, because I'm a really GOOD cog.
My grandpa turned 98 last weekend and is still my shining beacon of goodness in the world, along with the rest of my immediate family.
And, in less than a month, I'm going to sit on a beach in St. Lucia for a week and a half in the type of holiday I never ever thought I'd like (all inclusive resort), but I'm very much looking forward to it.
(I'm trying to focus on all the good stuff. Bad stuff: world events have me stressed and down, of course; I had a weird mental episode for a couple of weeks of extreme anxiety and feelings of mania which has fortunately gone away but I'm not sure what triggered it; I'm still bummed by a friend's suicide; my mother-in-law is horribly, chronically ill and there's just nothing we can do about it but try and make her happy and comfortable for however long she has left. I hate how hard it is on my husband.)
191: You always seem to have delicious romps, and I always enjoy hearing about them.
192: that sounds excellent for peace of mind. Having some stability is huge.
197: Oh, I'm sorry. That's so hard when your kid is ailing. I hope they are able to treat it well.
so long as I have concrete, clear goals that MUST be met, and I'm not left to my own devices. Graduate school really was all wrong for my type of motivation, and I've learned that I don't think I should ever work where I'm my own boss,
This is also me.
The pilates and vacation and grandfather all sound wonderful! I'm sorry to hear about your mother-in-law and mental health episode.
166: Avoid any for-profit ones! In most states, you have so much more recourse with non-profits because the attorney general gets certain powers over them due to their charitable status. You have more rights with nursing homes - though outcomes are better at non-profits - but in most places ALFs are not medical facilities but apartments with services. There are weird hybrid rest home things. Worth doing but be careful.
Thanks, heebie! Lots of good things going on and this thread is a great place to try and remember them.
205: We did avoid for-profit. We needed a memory care facility, so I think it counts as medical.
Mobes, you might not have ever answered the question posed in the OP, but I nevertheless enjoyed your contributions to this thread. And the rest of the threads.
I had read that. The problem is I'm also glum over national events and feeling sorry for myself.
I am slowly climbing out of a hole and back to normal.
Then I'm going to redo the kitchen. Because that's what white people my age do when they get some breathing space.
Or maybe finish up part of the basement.
The problem is I'm also glum over national events and feeling sorry for myself.
You're not even trying. I'm quivering in terror at *world* events.
Also, I got up on my birthday and was walking to the shower when my right knee suddenly gave out and dumped me on the floor. Mrs y have gone out and it took me 40 minutes to get up. I was confined to my room for the rest of the day, and it's still painful to walk.
I'm not really an expert in that kind of knee problem, but I'm going to go out on a limb. That's not good.
212: Why, I just finished redoing my kitchen.
Ouch chris y, hopes for a speedy recovery.
This thread was a good idea heebie.
We missed you Moby! Good luck Asilon, chris and everyone else who needs it.
cosign 218, and particularly sorry asilon; watching your child be sick is the literal worst.
also ajay I can't find your email; mine is realfirstname.reallastname@google.com
I will take you to eat black pepper crab.
Ditto on best wishes for those with sick children. I remember thinking while waiting for my breast biopsy how it was so much easier emotionally to deal with my own health problems than my children's, at which point I realized that oh yeah that's why my mom had been totally melting down.
Nia has a cool physical therapist though I'm annoyed they haven't made her orthotics yet and she's going to wear through the side of these shoes before they do. Mara has switched to aquatic physical therapy and it looks like things are finally falling into place for her rheumatology problems to have an actual diagnosis and game plan from here. It's really nice not to have anyone in any sort of acute crisis. We haven't had a lot of time like that this year.
http://mtpr.org/post/no-homes-or-structures-lost-lolo-peak-fire-friday-night
207: Not here, it doesn't. There is a huge difference between the regulation of a locked dementia unit at an ALF and a nursing home. Some of them here got in trouble for advertising as memory units and not providing much more than a locked door.
Motherfucking southwest lost one of my bags, thinks it may be coming on the next flight from PHX, and now I'm nervously waiting to see if it comes down in time for me to make it to my fly got to narnia. so nerve-wracking.
on the plane... it's totally full unfortunately and I am not looking forward to the next 23 hours
I've never flown that far in my life.
I did not list to this video because I still hate Grease but I feel it is something people should enjoy.
Did not listen. Stupid 70s musicals.
Good thing: we successfully purchased a charming house that probably doesn't have dead bodies in its garage and does not involve massive renovations.
Not-as-fun thing: it is moving weekend, and as usual when we move (this is move #4, two of those long distance), we have very different timetables for when to do what.
Good thing: the cats are starting to settle in and are not too terrified.
My family continues to be good, but all my friends moved away, and I can't justify more time away from family than my job already takes--so hobbies are tough. Work, I do analysis and give advise and am ignored way too often.
It all leaves me lonely.
Maybe if you didn't analyze in blank verse they'd get it? I hear millenials are lazy that way.
||
NMM to comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory. We've lost a giant.
|>
Exciting times for me - in a week, I'll be making a 12 hour shift in timezones to start a new life in a country I've visited for all of two weeks. I get married a week after the move and we're expecting six weeks or so after the wedding. It's all rather sudden and it feels like a huge inflection point in my life, during the brief moments when I can get my brain to process that it's actually going to happen.
Congratulations Seeds, I don't want to add to the pressure you must be feeling right now but it's customary to come up with appropriate pseudonyms for the new country, spouse, and child.
Cheers! Partly because of the move and saying goodbye to a large number of old friends, and partly because of an unrelated multi-day visit to an important boat, I'm now on Day 5 of a hangover and attendant lack of sleep*, which I think made my 240 sound rather snide - in fact I'm really excited about it all, although it is all suffused with a strong sense of unreality. Which I'm expecting to shatter in almost exactly seven days, around the time that the plane touches down.
*Choosing to see this as practice for dealing with a newborn.
242: about to arrive at a meal (and unfortunately even more drinking) but I will give it some thought. It's also possible that there's already a name for my soon-to-be adopted home in TFA - hope I don't tread on anyone's toes by choosing...
I'm leaving my tech support job at Iberian Fury's institute in 2 weeks (I took a semi-voluntary demotion from web development because I had found myself in another anxiety/paralysis spiral), and starting as a native (English) assistant teacher for various subjects at a public vocational high school immediately after. I'm excited, but also anxious, and worried I've made a big mistake in terms of long-term finances: it pays almost nothing, and for teaching to be viable I'll need to get certified, but the normal route takes 6 years and it's not clear there's a shorter path. Meanwhile, IF's job--puppy?--continues to be absurdly stressful, with no guarantee it will last (and if it doesn't, it will have been stupid to have spent any time getting teacher certification in this small country). My main priorities for the year are just figuring out if I like teaching, improving my German, and learning some Portuguese, but I'm worried that almost-37 is too old to be changing careers without careful thought to the consequences.
245: Would this country (not sure where you are) recognize US teaching certification instead? That would at least give you more portability in terms of TEFL teaching, and I'm guessing would take a lot less than 6 years.
Have been inexplicably cheered by reading the excellent autobiographical novel that that a friend wrote about her time as a transsexual prostitute in Chicago in the late 80s.
Not a close friend, but someone I admire and like, while being unnerved by in various ways.
Recent things to be grateful for: friends, lovely times in Edinburgh. Discovering Ada Palmer at the ed book fest. long term gratitude: love life (slight violation of the sanctity etc)
Work good in the short term, deeply miserable in the medium term; absence of daughter like a broken thigh, grating with every step. Struggling against depression, but -- you know -- actively struggling: aware that futile horror is a condition not to be in, rather than the actual state of the world when the veil is ripped away.
Mother's decline fairly awful but currently enlivened by trying to dig up details of her wartime service in currently glamorous place, then super top secret, so she never told us and a lot of the details are classified. But it turns out she was actually quite senior until she had a breakdown ~1943
247.last is finding a wonderful way to make something extra of a sad time. Do you think what you find will eventually be visible to others or is it just for you? I'm sorry the hard parts are so hard but glad to hear that love has stayed a solace.
245.last I'm already 37 and trying to figure out what I want to do in life and also okay with that. My next job will probably be something short-term while the figuring-out happens and then I'll find a way to go from there.
245: Would it be possible to live on IF's salary alone? Puppies are not really one job for one person; they're kind of a team effort. Most partners I know have one spouse who does the vast majority of the domestic labor, and the rest pay for it. The few singles I know basically eat take-out every night and live in sad conditions. It might be that while she's still training her puppy, you could either work at something not stressful with good hours or just not work but take all the domestic work off her plate. I'm sure she'll get to keep her puppy rather than having it ?rehomed? sent to live on a farm? Perhaps you can take a true break, like Thorn is, to sort of recover and regroup while still being useful and productive as far as your household is concerned.
At any rate, take care. It sounds very difficult to be overseas with a spouse who can't be around as much as I'm sure you'd both like.
The few singles I know basically eat take-out every night and live in sad conditions.
Ouch.
It'll be Thai tonight just so you know.
And take it from me, 37 is definitely not too old for a career change.
245: Possibly too old, yes. Are you getting help with the anxiety? You might find you like whatever you're doing better than you think if you were less anxious.
In my personal experience, 38 was peak anxiety. Every year I've gotten older than that, I've been better at not giving a shit.
234: Hooray! Is it dilapidated and charming? Ever since I looked at your crazy house, my Trulia app thinks I'm interested in real estate in your city, so I have possibly actually seen your house.
It was like a switch from "I'm slowly but surely advancing toward death so I'd better do something" to "Maybe I shouldn't bother with that since I'm slowly but surely advancing toward death anyway."
235: That does sound lonely. Am I right that you spent the bulk of the summer on your own as well? Did that contribute?
240: What! Congratulations! Isn't this the premise of Catastrophe?
Rage, rage against the dying of the light, but not after 5.
travel live-blogging: seoul has not been consumed by a nuclear conflagration but is instead packed by a boisterous indonesian tour group of super-observant muslims alternately praying and eating crullers from dunkin donuts
why does this lady have so many napkins in her shoes (cloth flats, kicked off on the ground). they were getting stretched out and too big I guess? if you could afford to fly to seoul couldn't you get new shoes? maybe the mosque tour group price was super good? but usually they're going to somewhere offering more obvious opportunities for devotion? I guess this is a layover. the contrast between the women in two-layer batik outfits and scarves (some black and huge, some bright and full of cool pins) and dudes in jeans, lacoste polos and throwback adidas is, as always, humorous. also: medical face masks as mprovised niqab; asian fusion. or regular asian germophobia, I guess.
baskin robbins new iced coffee here is called cafe bris. hmmm
What else were they going to do with all that foreskin?
246, 8, 9: Yes, we can live on IF's salary alone, which is the only reason I'm considering doing this (rather than looking for a programming job that would involve teamwork and feedback, and hence be less paralysis-inducing). But the worry remains: what if she has to give away the puppy in 3 years (or gets to keep it, but decides that even with job security she still hates it)? Anyway, I'll know more about the specific possibilities for accelerated certification in a few weeks.
It's officially the worst smoke, in town, of the summer. Just in time to go to Idaho. With part of US12 closed, Google maps is sending me around the fire on forest backroads. At this point, the whole thing is less about the moon blocking the sun than participating in the mass insanity of x people travelling to see the moon block the sun.
Not too old for a career change but at an age where you need to think through the inancial consequences - at least a bit more than at 22.
Maybe puppy-keeping is more likely than you think, though? I guess it varies pretty widely in Europe. At my institution, which has the reputation that no one gets to keep the puppy, the actual statistic is that somewhere between 70% and 80% of puppies given out in the last 15 years that attempted to become dogs succeeded. (Slightly misleading because some give up early and leave because they're given signals that doghood is unlikely, but still, it's well above 50% when if you asked the community what they think, the reputation would be like 10%.)
Apparently Alexandria, Va has voted to rename Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway and is asking for suggestions.
I'm guessing that Freeway McRoadface has already been mentioned.
Wry Cooter Highway is still available.
Just "Cooter Highway" might work because the Trump voters will think of The Dukes of Hazzard.
Hey, mobes, I also had that peak-at-38 anxiety thing. Or maybe it was 39. Either way, I, too, have aged into senescence not giving a shit.
266: it's legitimately hard to know, because her institute 1- has fantasies about playing at the same level as yours, and 2- is new enough that no one in her discipline has gotten puppy-promotion yet.
Why is that country starting so many new, private universities? I don't see that in the rest of Europe, not that I'm paying attention.
To 273? Or because of Jerry Lewis?
Jerry.
I don't even have the heart to make the joke.
I think al may make it to Narnia before I do. I'm still in Knifecrime Island, at least for another 28 minutes.
Top travel tip: it is possible to change one's booking to a different day but not change one's ticket. I didn't know that!
So, your tip is that people should do that?
Only if they are incompetent travel agents. I would have thought that you would automatically change both at the same time.
By default, if you change a ticket, they route your baggage to Cleveland.
It's fine. If ajay doesn't get there during al's lifespan he can report on her historiographical reputation.
273: IF's isn't private (nor is it a university, for that matter). I think the private Unis are largely serving people who can't get in to limited-enrollment majors, but maybe I'm wrong there.
273: looking into this a bit -- the private universities are hoping to grow 50% in the next few years, but that would just bring them to 15k students, vs 330k public. So it's still a very marginal sector, and one that's has some serious structural disadvantages due to the public universities being basically free and having better (I think) reputations. Still, there weren't any until 2000, 8 unis in 2009, 12 now--definitely growing. I assume (because of the timeframe) that the initial push to allow them was a symptom of the generally crony-capitalist conservative/extreme-right government of the time, and it's hard to stuff that genie back in the bottle.
256: I don't really think so, but I'm quite sure that didn't help much. But I advised them to do the epic summer break--we can currently manage it, and one never knows when that state of grace will pass.
The departure of my friends from my timezone is probably closer to the problem.
in the cab home so I think I beat ajay...hope his travel agent didn't screw him too bad.
Jefferson Davis Sucks the Ass of All Who Drive This Hooray
Why did Darth Vader live on a dam on a river of lava?
Jefferson Starship, because both space and sequels are big now.
The Starship USS Jefferson Superhighway, Motherfuckers
I bought lemonade from small neighborhood children. I think I caught diabetes.
What if they didn't wash their hands?
I think we should just keep falling back on the obvious mainstays like harriet tubman highway, nat turner highway, denmark vesey hwy, frederick douglass hwy, sherman hwy or maybe branch out to the rest of the hemisphere and have like dutty boukman highway or toussaint l'ouverture or something.
Mildred and Richard Loving Highway.
My siblings are less amused by my drunk texting than you'd expect.
267: how bout "Minnesota Still Has Your Battle Flag, Fuckers, And You Can't Have It Back Memorial Freeway"
The deep fryer is back at my usual bar. Fries so good.
250: Single puppy-owners! I have no problem with takeout. Or singles. But single puppy owners tend to be slaves to their puppy's demands in such a way that "I'm leaving work at 9 and have to be back at 7. If I want a meal, I need to grab somehing on the way home, eat it as I work, and then fall asleep at my desk" sounds normal. Married to the job doesn't even begin to cover it.
254: You might have. We bought it very quickly, though, so I'm not sure it would have shown up. We made the offer (and were accepted) two days before the scheduled open house. It does not appear to be dilapidated. It has features I think are charming (a Tudor with lovely gardens, cut glass doorknobs and original windows that work nicely!) and features everyone else seems to think are charming (concrete lions flanking the front steps, a decorative hitching post and a copper awning).
As near as I can tell, I make more (per hour) than puppy owners. I have less of a potential upside but I'm drunk texting my siblings while eating fries, so fuck the upside.
I can be fired if I email "Kill Whitey" to the whole department, but honestly I think that's probably a bad idea regardless.
Both emailing that to the whole department and killing all white people.
298: I would be amused. maybe you should text me instead.
You probably can't hire somebody to fix the damage from the tree that fell on my mom's house.
Just "Cooter Highway" might work because the Trump voters will think of The Dukes of Hazzard.
Cooter Congressmen Ben Jones Highway would work. I think he lives in Virginia these days.
303
Email "Kill Whitey" to your entire department. Get fired. Then go on Fox and claim that the Black Panthers who run all American universities forced you to do it, a la Patty Hearst. Tell them you were scared for your life because you had to be in vicinity of an uppity black man, and white men are the real victims here. Milk wingnut welfare for as long as you can. I want a 10% cut for coming up with the plan, and you can use some of the remainder to fund left wing causes on the sly.
Mrs nattarGcM is away for a week, so I'm on solo childcare duties. First time that xelA has beem without his mum for a week, so interesting to see how that goes. I do a lot of childcare. It's about 50/50, although I've done more than usual the last few weeks to make up for some work time Mrs M lost while I was in a work-crisis, so by the time she's back, I'll have done 13 out of the past 14 days. But ... he's not used to completely not seeing or speaking to her for that long, so I'm waiting for the tearful meltdown. So far, so good.
Good things. I'm continuing to learn a ton of things at my new job (nearly 1 year in now). Bad things. The workload is insane, and I suspect I'm about to fuck up through no fault of my own. Turns out, you can't deliver multiple major projects if someone keeps taking your staff off you.
Good things. I'm actually liking my own guitar playing these days, and feel like I'm making progress. I've played for [counts on fingers and toes] 30 years, and am pretty competent in a lot of genres. But ... guitar playing is really really hard,* and getting to the sort of place I really want to be is interminable.
* I expect that's a controversial thing to say, but ... it's true.
Al has indeed beaten me, I have only just got to Narnia and am in a cab (sleigh?) right now on my way to, I dunno, Mr and Mrs Beaver's house or whatever the metaphor requires the Westin to be
I expect that's a controversial thing to say, but ... it's true.
Depends what you demand of yourself, innit. Strumming a few chords: easy. Playing like Julian Bream or Paco de Lucia or Jeff Beck: hard as fuck.
re: 311
Yeah, you can learn to do the strumming a few chords thing really quickly. But really knowing the guitar -- because of stupid things about how the instrument is tuned for a start -- in the way that someone would know the piano, say, is really hard.
E.g. being able to say, take a scale, and play it anywhere on the neck; then take the same scale, and play it anywhere on the neck, but say, harmonise it in 10ths, or play it as close voiced triads, or whatever. Or know all of the inversions of all of the primary chord types, different groups of strings: 6,4,3; 5 3 2; etc
"Play the second inversion of Gm7, with the root on the 4th string"
"Now play C7, using voice leading, to connect it to that Gm7 with minimal fingering changes."
things that'd be more or less beginner, or early intermediate things on the piano, are really really hard on guitar.
Before you even get into the kind of specifically guitaristic things that, say Beck can do (incredibly accurate use of bends, microtonal slurs, etc) or de Lucia (really really fast picado, plus really tightly played, aggressive rhythm playing following very complicated non-regular beat patterns, etc).
With special reference to 193, I just finished a week-long dance intensive in which I did like thirty hours of studio time, so the good thing? RAD Intermediate level ballet went down like a letter in the post, and at least physically I kept up in Inter-level contemporary. I've literally lugged a bag of new technique stuff back with me.
Bad thing? In six months off from modern I've forgotten how to floorwork, so Inter Contemporary was just torture until I started getting rolls and safety-releases back. If you don't floorwork efficiently you lose time and have to hurry like a bastard when you get back up, plus the pain is worse. Further, I've taken my lifetime "falling on your arse in the studio" score from zero to 2, both in improv class.
Also, speaking of torture, Indian Kathak technique exercises are startlingly similar to various stress positions that are illegal to use as interrogation techniques, an insight I owe to the opinionated academic and which makes her a special woman.
One of the things that really stands out about really good country, RnB or jazz rhythm players is how much they just have those basics down. Someone like Reggie Young, say, isn't doing anything harmonically out there, but he's effortlessly linking together chords using triads, linking using little sliding thirds, octaves, pentatonic or diatonic scale fragments, using inversions to keep the harmonic movement interesting. The end result of which sounds simple, but only works because of a deep understanding of the rudiments of playing.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnBQUwFyIVBCMpD0pNBkdfeQpTxMLaacK
One of the things that really stands out about really good country, RnB or jazz rhythm players is how much they just have those basics down
This is a great truth of wide application.
What the fuck is wrong with the navy?
316: Maybe they don't have the basics down.
"Don't crash the ship into another ship" is pretty basic, yes.
I guess it's not quite the same thing, but I better finally fix the vent fan.
Wow. An oil tanker this time.
There's probably a metaphor in this somewhere.
There's probably a metaphor in this somewhere.
Well, it was the USS John S. McCain. And you have to admit it's pretty darn maverick to crash into an oil tanker like that.
"I like ships that don't crash into oil tankers"
Goddamit. My region 1 DVD/Bluray player broke with one of the box set of Twin Peaks still inside. Shorted out. I'm not sure I'll be able to get it fixed in this country and you can't get region free players here.
Fuck the industry for this DVD region bullshit.
193, 309 and 313 have all cheered me up no end - not injuries, spills or anticipated meltdowns, rather dancing and music making. I commend to guitar lovers and parents of small children Alice Artz, get whatever you can by her and enjoy enjoy enjoy, our kid used to request the guitar album with the lady in the red dress, there are several but on quizzing he plumped for https://www.discogs.com/Alice-Artzt-Johann-Kaspar-Mertz-Mauro-Giuliani-2-Dionisio-Aguado-Romantic-Virtuoso-Guitar-Music/release/6695555
And a couple of nights ago the kid played the pants off La Paloma and an arrangement of Le Grand tunes from Les Parapluies de Cbourg, was delightful.
I sold my guitar before moving here (and I shouldn't VSOOBC but it went to someone on this very blog) but lately I've been eyeing some cheap electric guitars whenever I go to one of the Virgin Megastores here.
I'll go out in about five minutes to see the start.
I sort of want to buy some cake before I go back in.
So, it turns out that staring at the sun isn't very pleasant even with special staring-at-the-sun glasses. Also, the early phase of an eclipse is really not much to look at.
Thin clouds moving in outside Boston, but you can definitely see a dragon took a bit out of the cookie. Someone here pointed out you can take a picture of it with your phone if you put the eclipse glasses over the lens. Worked for me! (If you fry your phone I didn't tell you this.)
I missed this entire thread while in the homeland. ttaM, congrats on playing more and soldering more (IIRC). Barry, your SG gets a lot of love around here. I have been writing more and playing less, but I might have time to shift the ratios a bit today.
Best of luck to all of you in your various trials. Solely on a personal level, this year has been better than most for me. My kid went off to first grade today dressed entirely in black: black dress, black tights, black leather boots. She stopped briefly to pose for a photo with her beloved toy archery set (not taken to school, but there were several shots down the stairs this morning, which seems to have improved her morale).
re: 326
Good stuff. I'm a big fan of Mertz and Giuliani as composers for guitar.
ew: 327
Cheap guitars are amazing these days. Maybe not the cheapest cheapest, but you could happily play a $300-400 guitar, forever. You could put together a serious rig for home practice for $500 that would be absolutely no compromise in terms of sound or playability.*
* I say that is if I own some amazing expensive gear. My main guitar is Korean made, cost less than £500, and although I could afford something more expensive, and could arguably justify the expense, I've not felt the need.**
** or, rather, I'd need £1500-2000 to really justify the step up, and that's not 'whim' money.
I have been stewing all day about this, don't really have people to talk to about it, apologize if posting a bummer is the wrong thing to do.
My ex sent me a series of spiteful texts at 5AM. I'm planning a short stay at the beach with my kid, my mom, and my GF. It's a beach town where my ex, our kid, and I would go as a family. She is resentful that I have chosen this place (cheaper than others, slightly farther, more laid-back), writes that I am erasing her, segues into blaming me for marriage failure (I moved out after she told me about her affair and lack of interest in me a few years back). It is true that I had given up on the marriage; I was afraid to end it fear of damage to then-young kid. In hindsight, possibly ending a year sooner would have been OK.
I haven't really been able to work today, feel empty inside. I hate feeling responsible for her misery, don't like thinking about her warped worldview.
btw, she kept the house by mutual agreement, locus of family memories, both good and bad.
If you think that's sad, don't look at what they've done to the political party you founded.
I'm sorry. I suppose your (one's) brain processes that sort of thing as an attempt at communication rather than an attack, while also defending against and containing the attack: those two mental/ emotional processes fight against one another. If it helps to think of it this way: it's an attack, not a sincere attempt at communication, so defend and contain and just try to feel disengaged compassion. Let the cognitive part of it go. Be on the lookout for stray patches of sorrow on the beach, among the seashells and seaweed. They are usually harmless but occasionally sting.
Which is probably neither here nor there, but it's probably not a good idea to blame yourself for other people's misery unless you voted for Trump or something.
On a lighter note:
Cheap guitars are amazing these days. Maybe not the cheapest cheapest, but you could happily play a $300-400 guitar, forever. You could put together a serious rig for home practice for $500 that would be absolutely no compromise in terms of sound or playability.
Okay, today I really want to be convinced of this. Build me a fantasy perfect cheap rig. (Budget a nut replacement because they always need one.)
Disengaged compassion and letting go are great ideas. But they also sound really hard to do. So, if you can't pull that off, you can forward the texts to mutual friends and saying things like "Can you believe this shit?"
Helps to be reminded that compassion is a good ideal, thanks.
343 is funny, but I'd really rather not have that blow up. I basically want her to stay afloat emotionally, do not want kid to have to watch/experience his mom failing, also I genuinely have no hard feelings besides disliking her ongoing/past viciousness.
Opinions about my relationship advice vary, but not by very far from "bad".
But OK, can you believe this shit: part of her current rage is that some friends are going to be there as well, and we might see them. They used to be mutual friends. My ex and Mrs Friend went on vacation, post-divorce. Ex blew her stack, as only she can, that is complete character assassination rather than yelling about whatever just happened (I think Mrs Friend socialized loudly with other people on their vacation or something).
Now Mrs Friend avoids ex, so I am clearly erasing her memory or some shit by maybe having dinner with the Friends. Our kids are kind of buddies, btw, and I think unbeknown to ex, the idea to share time at the beach with the Friends came from my kid. Of course, since my main goal is good environment emotionally for kid, I'm not going to say that.
Ex is having a rough patch with her boyfriend, probably just had a bad day. She used a phrase about me that she's used derisively about him.
353 is what I'd do, more or less. It's not your job to fix her and it doesn't sound like there much you can do to help. If responding that you're sorry she's upset and have good memories of your time there with her would help you could say that but it might well just set her off. I don't generally respond to messages about what an awful person I am except to forward to lawyers if they're bad enough, but no one should be like me.
It is nice being reminded that as exes go, Tim's not that bad. Other than the most minimal of logistics around the kids, I mostly haven't heard from him since he left the state. Which definitely simplifies things.
My ex and Mrs Friend went on vacation, post-divorce. Ex blew her stack, as only she can, that is complete character assassination rather than yelling about whatever just happened
I'm not sure I'm parsing this right. The ex character-assassinated the friend following a falling-out between them?
349. While on vacation, ex character-assassinated the friend to her face at high volume as a consequence of (what seemed to me from the description) minor disagreement.
Anyone have suggestions for a keyboard to buy that would go well with an acoustic guitar for jam sessions? @Sr. NattargCm
Your ex sounds like a terrific pain in the ass.
If you do enough stairmaster, you can have a terrific pain in a terrific ass.
re: 342
I can't pretend to have tried everything on the market, but the Squier Classic Vibe series are amazing. I (personally) much prefer single coils to humbuckers, unless you can afford something that has really good low-ish output PAF style pickups.
So ... Classic Vibe 50s telecaster or CV telecaster custom. Yamaha THR amp. OK, over $500 new, but you'd get pretty close second hand (or even under), or if you got a good deal.* Or the CV 60s Strat, if you prefer Strats. Those Squiers are really amazing value, and the THRs have the most amp-like tone of any small modelling amp I've tried. The Squier Vintage Modified Mustang is also really good, surprisingly chunky neck, but, I don't think I especially rate the pickups, so cheaper for the guitar, but you might need to budget more for upgrades.
I also really like the G&Ls, and the Indonesian made Tributes are amazing value. I have the earlier Korean made version, and would easily put it above the Mexican made Fenders (but not the US). Pricier than the Squier, though.
re: 351
I know literally nothing about keyboards.
* $600 USD new, for them both, so I think under $500 second hand should be easily achievable.
I looked it up in the universal karma calculator (Missouri Synod edition) and a series of rage-filled, late-night texts from your ex entitles you to a pass on texting unsolicited pictures of your crotch to a stranger.
I have definitely passed on choosing to do that. That counts, right?
There's no bonus for not taking what your karma offers.
There's no bonus for not taking what your karma offers.
Ooh, next week I get the ultrasounds from right before my ablation. That has promise! (False promise in that most of it isn't there anymore, but I'm pretty sure poetic license is assumed in these endeavors.)
Unrelated to anything else, this children's book by the guy from the Decemberists is a deadly slog. It's about as long as War and Peace but with talking animals, and it's lousy with redundancies: he can't ever resist typing out a full "tree branches" or "branches of the trees," when anyone else would have gotten over the ineluctable dependency of branch upon tree and started writing.
355: Thanks for the de-poseurification remedy. I've probably mentioned my unusual situation of working in a sterile office next to a high end guitar shop, which provides the only pleasure and solace within a 4-block radius. I've certainly learned a lot about things that are not worth the money. The old Martins do tend to live up to the hype, though (up to about $3000 of hype, maybe?). They had one like this that sounded ridiculously great, but at a price like that, I have to decline on the grounds that it's just too small to live in.
362: oh my fucking god I know. it could have been 15% as long.
ah, god. My ex instituted a policy that no one was to talk to both of us. Everyone had to choose. She has been pretty successful in this. A lot of people I thought were friends have disappeared and I really don't want to discover what she told them to make this happen. I mean, fuck'em if they'd believe it, but it's still sad. The last voice conversation I had with her she rang up to demand that I not speak to her mother ever again. When I explained that this was really not a decision for her to make, but for her mother, there was another meltdown. What Lurid said about the strain of parsing attacks as attempts at communication (and, in her case, vice versa) really resonated. Thanks.
I wish I had made people choose, especially because even her friends kept surprising me at first by saying they were on my side, but I didn't and they help her because they're afraid she can't handle life on her own and they party with her because that's how she pays people back and I have lost trust and respect for people I wanted to like and wanted to like me. This has been such an isolating, horrible process for me and I hate that it's like this. But that's not everybody's story and it shouldn't be. I didn't realize things would go so badly but they've still been so much better for the children, who matter most. But both the attacks and the attempts at communication from her when she doesn't understand me or want to are exhausting. I hate that it's so hard for me and feel like I should manage it all better, but I'm trying to cut myself slack and figure no one is all that great at impossible tasks.
And all that is needlessly glum. I'm fine too, just sad and worn down sometimes. Selah, who's falling asleep again as I write this, will go back to her last day of day camp in a few hours and then tomorrow kindergarten. They've gotten me out of bed nine times tonight between them, but school will start and it will all be real instead of just scary potential and it will be easier for all of us. It won't be long.
Thorn- you deserve the best. Of course you need to look out for your children, but you deserve to be happy as loved too.
Oh, I am. I finally asked for help on Facebook before my surgeries and the people who responded immediately were single moms, foster parents, some of them both. It's just a different world and I shouldn't try to compare to other ones.
re; 364
I played one of these a while back:
https://reverb.com/item/6280617-vintage-1961-fender-musicmaster-electric-guitar?
And completely and immediately got the whole pre-CBS Fender hype.
I mean, it's a somewhat dumb guitar aimed at kids and beginners, scale length is all wrong for someone with my size of hands. But ... it sounded utterly amazing, and the neck (50 year old aged nitrocellulose finish) felt great. I didn't buy one, but it did make me think that either a vintage Fender* or a modern but similar guitar (maybe torrefied wood, nitro finish, etc.) is in my future. But, there's no point in me going out and buying, say, a current production non-Custom Shop USA Telecaster or Strat because it just isn't enough of an improvement over what I already have.
* pre-CBS Jazzmasters and Jaguars are still relatively affordable, as in they don't cost more than a new Fender Custom Shop guitar, or a an ugly PRS marketed at dentists.
There's a guitar marketed specifically to dentists?
Aldiss is someone I kind of want to like but can't. It took me 3 tries over maybe 15 years to finish Helliconia Spring, 2 tries on The Dark Light Years and still haven't succeeded.
HTML also still has me beat.
re: 372
Not sure if this is a question, or a joke.
But no, it's just that there tend to be expensive guitars made with lots of heavily figured wood, etc that are, in some people's eyes,* basically vulgar status symbols marketed at people with a lot of disposable income.
* judgemental people without much money, like me.
Todays installment is over the top, allows for detachment by now overreaching and being off-target. I am responsible for all that's wrong in her life, detailed list including imagined events.
Slavery was your idea, and now you act all holier-than-thou about it!
Sadly the Jazzmasters do now cost a mint too. Fwiw I have come around on Nash guitars. I rolled my eyes for a long time, but they're fascinatingly hit-or-miss because of the idiosyncrasies of the relic process: some are blah, others are instantly appealing and you feel like you could play them for hours. One day the shop handed me a blindingly hideous Nash Telecaster copy with Lollar gold foil pickups and I figured I would humor them (this one employee amuses himself by trying to sell me weird shit). But it sounded and felt amazing; I very reluctantly put it down and did a brief hopeless calculation of potential funding. Don't know if they show up in London, let alone used, but worth a look.
I've probably mentioned my unusual situation of working in a sterile office next to a high end guitar shop, which provides the only pleasure and solace within a 4-block radius.
Is it the shop whose product page you linked to? I recently listened to this CD again, really enjoyed it, and it reminded me that I've enjoyed meeting Eric Schoenberg.
373: alas. I met him at a music festival a few years back; somewhat deaf but still very on the ball.
I didn't realize things would go so badly but they've still been so much better for the children, who matter most. But both the attacks and the attempts at communication from her when she doesn't understand me or want to are exhausting.
That sounds awful. I always say that it's remarkable how much chronic (physical) pain is exhausting and changes one's entire outlook on life. I feel like the same thing is true of constantly having interactions which are undermining, and chip away at one's sense of self -- all manageable in any given moment but unbelievably tiring in the long term.
376: I was curious about the phrasing. Thanks. I guess because of no NIH, dentists here typically have great big bunches of money.
others are instantly appealing and you feel like you could play them for hours.
You might enjoy Hammel On Trial's song about his guitar -- it's a love story.
380: no, but Schoenberg is wonderful. Don't think I could drive to Marin every day, though, and there's no other transit option.