Re: Weekend Longread

1

This is not a recommendation, but I'm Denmark they just leave babies sitting outside stores while they shop.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 9:08 AM
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2

Stupid phone.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 9:08 AM
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3

Imagine being Dunham's child? Only being a child of Trump could be worse.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 9:12 AM
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4

Girls was a very good TV show, and in its best episodes truly great. And she gave Adam Driver his big break. I don't know why everyone has to be so bent out of shape about Lena Dunham all the time.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: “Pause endlessly, then go in.” (9) | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 9:16 AM
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5

Darth Emo wasn't my favorite. I like Finn and Rey better.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 10:05 AM
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6

I haven't gotten through it, but she doesn't do herself any favors. She's so much crueler to herself than she is to others in her same position.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 10:13 AM
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Still reading. She's really accurately describing the single-focus drive and (in retrospect) insanity of needing to make a kid. Really, the main thing that distinguished me from the people she's describing was that I was too cheap to spend the big money on low odds. If money'd meant less to me, I'd have done more batshit things. I knew they were batshit at the time and that my perspective was disordered, but the potential payoff was worth nearly anything. I only barely held on to an intellectual understanding of priorities.

Also, I cannot imagine how much I'd still be wrecked if I hadn't had a live kid. I wanted another, which didn't happen. But if Steadfast hadn't worked out and I'd had to come to grips with infertility, I don't know who I'd be now.

So far, Dunham's essay is clear-eyed and accurate, but she doesn't have to put the worst possible interpretation on everything she does, except that's her whole method.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 10:27 AM
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8

Done. Poor thing. She went through it. I didn't act exactly like her, but I was mostly parallel. She has my compassion, which, boy-howdy she sure tries to push away.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 10:32 AM
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3 I don't follow this woman at all, and don't know any more about her than is in the piece and in this thread, but I am confident that there are millions, probably tens of millions of people in this country who'd be (and are) worse. Hell, there are worse parents than the Trumps.

[close earnestness tag]


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 10:47 AM
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8: I have such vivid memories of your anonymous comments during that time.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 11:40 AM
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It is hard to identify with them now. I remember being that messed up, but now that I'm not in the same circumstances, they feel would feel foreign if I went back to them which I won't.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 12:51 PM
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12

I have a lot more issues with Dunham's father than with her. At my last job we had to borrow one of his works from him and it was just really puerile and gross.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 2:25 PM
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(We also had to borrow a painting from Stephen Mnuchin. Guess what, he's a total dick!)


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 2:27 PM
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14

12:. Big butt? Or big butts?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 3:54 PM
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I wanted another, which didn't happen.

This was us. It was trouble enough having the first one, that ultimately we did not get our hoped-for number two. For a while it was tough having to manage the "so when are you having another?" questions, but we have passed the point where anyone asks that anymore.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 3:54 PM
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14: a guy whipping out his dick, if I remember correctly


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 5:00 PM
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17

Dunham's all right by me. I enjoyed her memoir.


Posted by: torque | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 5:08 PM
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I never had a strong drive to be a mother but once pregnancy didn't come easily and I started tracking, I drove myself crazy. It was like a horrible gamification of my life with a failure every month. I ended up totally stopping tracking and trying and deleted the app. Anyway, as another cheap person and one without a huge 'mother' drove, yeah, it made me insane. It just is a horrible feeling. I'm not sure what, if anything, would have made it better - therapy to address my feelings about my body's failure and what it means to fail at something you weren't sure you even wanted? Or treatment for my perfectionism?

Anyway, I had a baby. Which was a surprise, having mostly come to terms with my infertility. And the whole process was easy and straightforward which is sad or makes me mad? I don't examine my feelings too much now but yeah, all that time and effort and waste. And then it was easy? That's bullshit.


Posted by: hydrobatidae | Link to this comment | 11-29-20 6:53 PM
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