no boys allowed in the room!!!!

we also got one of the carved wooden bride/groom figurines too - so cheap and ugly-looking.

but the best surprise gift we got was this antique bookend contraption; i can't reallly explain it better than that, but it's really beautiful, and i thought it was a really thoughtful gift from ppl we don't even know that well.

god i wish my mum would buy me something as useful as socks or dishtowels!

speaking of gifts: i just ordered some bulgari perfume from strawberrynet on a whim, bc it was on sale and i love the bulgari white. however i have no idea what this one is like, so if i don't like i'll send it to anyone (in the US) who would like it.

Yeah, don't get me wrong. My mom is generally A+ but she tries to make every Christmas Very Special and so on 12/23 when she realizes she hasn't done any shopping, she pays exorbitant overnight shipping rates for the first thing she spies in a random catalog.

xp this thread makes me really look forward to the holiday season.

I am too impatient to keep gifts in my closet until Christmas or whatever. I'll buy something that seems just right, and then I'll give it as a gift—happy March! Or something. I would rather give gifts because they seem well suited to the recipient rather than out of obligation. Last time I did that, I gave my mother a piece of jewelry that made her cry, because it was beautiful, and because it was personal and sentimental to her. I was so delighted when I found it that I knew I couldn't save it till Christmas. (http://www.etsy.com/transaction/8780267—Ihad it made into a lapel pin for her–Cala lilies were her wedding bouquet)

But then my mother gets butt hurt when I don't get her Christmas presents, so I end up getting an extra present for the actual holiday. I should just stash things away and be patient when it comes to my mother.

And then every holiday I have to dance around which gifts I hate the most, because I can't have her return everything. So I have a lot of pastel colored shirts that look like maternity wear, and various pullovers that are reminiscent of Muppets. (“It is… so soft! And what a color!”)

I'm sure when you can look up butthurt in the dictionary there will be a small Daguerrotype image of my mother, chain-smoking, as an illustration.

Jenny's word “momguilt” is a great mom–specific synonym.

My mum always buys me practical gifts, especially these days, as she knows I'm always broke and that I appreciate practical things. Also, her taste in clothes and understanding of my tastes is abysmal, even after all this time. I love her and I feel terrible when she picks out something that I know she put time into buying but is just so off-base.

Parents are pretty broke now too (close to retirement, mum not working) so I dont really expect anything - most fam just give me gift vouchers these days.

suzy, as a mom, you're scaring the hell out of me right now

lol omg suzy

a trio of socks: three socks that are all related in prints/style but not exactly the same. I guess if you're a manic pixie dream girl, you're supposed to SWITCH IT UP and wear two of the three socks at a time in various color/pattern combinations

I have some sets of socks in different patterns of the same 2 colours, and one morning I was having trouble finding a pair in the overstuffed sock drawer, so I thought, hey, I will be a manic pixie dream girl and switch them up! Then mr spacecadet asked why I was wearing odd socks and I went "uhh" and decided it was safer to feign surprise and go and change them.

And so ended my life as a manic pixie dream girl.

OK I have no idea what a manic pixie dream girl is but I rarely wear matching socks. I have so many single ones that if they're close enough I just don't care. It's probably rarer to find me wearing socks that go together. My pants are all long enough so that you don't really see my socks even when I'm sitting so I figure it's not that important.

^ and I don't wear socks very often.

Spotters' guide to the manic pixie dream girl: Defend the Indefensible: films in which gorgeous, independent, "edgy" women have nothing better to do than break uptight whiny squares out of their bubbles

I still think Laurel's pack of THREE unmatching socks is kinda nutty but then I am a square I guess

(though since it is the rule of packs of different, paired socks that one sock will instantly go missing I guess it doesn't make any less sense than a regular pack)

http://img.timeinc.net/people/i/2006/specials/sma06/sma_international/james_mcavoy.jpg

OMG! heh

welcome my friend kat to the 'no boys allowed' thread. she is my best gal friend that ain't my sister. that is her posting a hot guy above...

i <3 him

mesmerizing

and welcome!

Hi Kat!

Who is that guy?

i had a dream about that guy once and after this dream, i liked him more

in my class today one of my students broke down crying while talking about all of the (genuinely) horrible things she has been through. during this episode her eye makeup (rather elaborate) stayed perfectly in tact. she's a very aggressive mary kay saleswoman and after we had comforted her a little, i told her that her makeup still looked perfect, and it did.

in sum, mary kay cosmetics: good for crying, will not let you down

ps hi kat :)

hi.

james mcavoy

I'm venting to the lay-deez because I am hoping for a sympathetic audience here, I will admit.

Blarg. Okay, so I'm listening to NPR (National Public Radio for those of you not in the USA) this morning and they do two stories w/in five minutes of each other. The first was a story about how it is good for baby boys to gain weight in the first six months of their lives because they will grow up to, get this, be tall, reach puberty sooner, and having more sex partners than baby boys who don't gain weight in the first six months. Okay, okay, so seriously, I know that we're all supposed to be losing sleep at night because we're SO FAT but is there really any debate that babies need to put on weight? And how fucked up is it that like, three weeks ago I caught the tail end of a fear mongering news segment about how girls are reaching puberty sooner (and one of the reasons posited was because of childhood obesity) and how that is going to RUIN EVERYTHING, and don't get me started about slut shaming. FTR, this segment was narrated by a man, and the study was done on babies and then men in the Phillipines, and the science experts they interviewed were men.

Then, five minutes later, there's a segment about the dreaded "freshman 15" (the so-called 15 pounds that women gain their freshman year of college) that started with the information that it's really the freshman five, and then went on to go into great length about how important it is to avoid gaining this five pounds (even though freshman in college are 17 or 18 and arguably not done growing yet), suggesting that students restrict their portions and engage in stress-relieving activities like, as one freshman interviewed suggested, taking an exercise class every day. The narrator, the experts, and all of the freshmen they interviewed were women.

So, to recap:
Boys should gain weight so they can grow up to reach puberty and have lots of sex partners.
Girls should restrict their food and exercise every day so they can avoid gaining five pounds. Also they are sluts (implied).

Maybe this just struck a nerve because I restricted my food intake and exercised every day and subsequently lost a freshman 20 due to, as it turns out, an eating disorder but way to piss me off first thing in the morning, NPR. Assholes.

You make me feel so Not Crazy, Jenny, because otherwise it's just me getting all het up about one unfairly manipulative thing after another in my world.

I don't listen to NPR so I didn't hear either segment. I'm sure you're right about every inference made on both shows -- even on "lefty" (lefty-ish?) radio. But also the people who made the programs didn't know about each other, and didn't plan an overarching moral message, both sides just happen to both be so goddamn NORMATIVE that it works out that way.

Also everyone involved are idiots -- yes, pre-natal and post-natal care and feeding are (so I've read) strongly related to health and height later in life. You think they could do a story about how much WORSE people turn out if their mothers don't have adequate health care and/or nutrition??

hi kat. you have excellent taste. <3 mcavoy

Jenny, that kind of thing would infuriate me, as well.

ugh, Jenny. glad i missed that segment. to be honest whenever i hear "weight" or "obesity" or "fat" on tv/radio news i turn it off.

ditto. I can't believe the "Freshman 15" is still a thing (I don't know what would lead me to believe that it would ever stop being a thing, wishful thinking?). That would have pissed me right off. I did almost exclusively feast on totinos pizza and white cheddar cheezits during my first semester which wasn't too healthy but if someone had said to me "watch out for that freshman 15, girly" I would have eaten 2 boxes of cheez its that night instead of the 1.

Also can I tell you, I hate the Taco Bell ad where the two douchey office drones tell the HILARIOUSLY non-English-speaking Hispanic "sandwich lady" that Taco Bell's chicken something-or-other is one-fifth the price of her home-made sandwich and tastes better, too! And then she gets all ANGRY at them for BREAKING UP WITH HER SANDWICHES like SHE is somehow OPPRESSING these sympathetic young white men in blue shirts and ties.

Oh yeah, god forbid we spend our office drone wages on a home-made sandwich made of actual FOOD ITEMS, that supports a real person who started with nothing and (humor my dramatic tone for a second) could be struggling day-to-day to lift her family out of poverty. No, a mega-corporation that puts seaweed fillers in their "meat", they DEFINITELY have your best interests at heart and besides, it's WAY better for your cool dude image.

How weird, back in the dawn before time when I went to college, the "Freshmen 15" was considered something that boys got, not girls. At least that was my memory of it.

I hate this ad even more because it's on during Family Guy and I HATE Family Guy.

I've never seen that taco bell ad but I'm pretty sure I hate it. I also hate Family Guy.

The Freshman 15 was def a girl thing in Delaware in 1990.

Maybe I misunderstood what it was about. I guess it was more of a unisex thing back then? Or did I just go to too "PC" a school for it to have much impact on my surroundings? I kind of miss how naive I used to be back then, in some ways. With regards to this stuff, or being aware of it. These days the anger over any disproportionate pressure for women with regards to weight makes me so angry it's almost hard to view anything with any degree of objectivity.

actually, I did have a really bad male friend (who I'm still sort of friends with and who still gives terrible advice) who told me one of our female friends from high school was eating only peanut butter and losing a bunch of weight (she had been chubbs in h.s.) and that I could try that. I thought about it.

*should

*should*?!??!?

Christ, that's the kind of friendly suggestion that would end up with me swinging a hammer at someone's head.

Back then, that is. These days I'm a lot more reasonable and a lot less violent and provokable.

It's really amazing the amount of vicious woman-hating that just gets dressed up as concern trolling over weight. Like, if someone is talking about girls "needing" to lose weight, it doesn't matter what actual words are coming out of their actual mouth, all I hear is "I hate women, I really hate women, I despise women and their inconvenient bodies and I want them to be as nothing as humanly possible, in fact, inhumanly possible would be better."

It's amazing how deep an anger it still provokes in me. And actually quite sad, because I'm totally unable to hear any other message, even if the person giving it is actually trying to be helpful or suggesting something that would be healthy. There's just this hammer-swinging teenager inside that gets engaged - and yeah, I know there are a lot of people trying to trigger that kind of irrationality because it makes it easier to upset or control you.

I can swing a good hammer but usually on other people's behalf and not as much for my own benefit or defense.

I think it's a good thing to keep the hammer on the inside, while on the outside, you just smile and nod, with that expression that makes it very clear that hammer swinging is happening on the inside.

I advocate swinging an actual hammer. Okay maybe not but I'm tired of being polite to jerks.

I advocate swinging an actual hammer.

It does build shoulder and upper arm muscles which make you look better in strapless or sleeveless dresses or tops! </semi-sarcasm>

On the other hand, if you develop those muscles, you end up having clothes-fitting issues, and other issues - always issues

Major SMH moment at work - D4vid B4il3y has photographed a lot of men w/clothes on and women w/clothes off plus really crap abstracts which our founder says is 'a meditation on life, death and the ages of man' so why is it necessary to Veruschka-paint one model's tits to be eyes, one open, the other shut?

Answers on a postcard please. Editor and art director are also creped out by this.

i heard that first npr story and it was boring/stupid enough for me to turn off the radio and listen to music on my commute to work. instead i relaxed to the sounds of the incredible string band, and this turns out to have been a wise decision. nothing like being told "hey there ho-chunk, stop eating!"

Actually, according to my kid's pediatrician (who is head of pediatrics at our hospital), height and weight under the age of two are determined by nutritional factors. After 2y/o its about genetics (assuming diet is average). He cited as an example a fellow Dr in his clinic who is very short and rotund and married to a woman of similar stature. Their baby between 0-2 was in the 95% percentile for height but once she reached 2 the genetics kicked in and she ended up being a short kid. Beats was sort of the same. PP and I come from families of average to short heights. Beats between 0-2 was literally off the chart with regards to height and weight (v tall) but once she hit two she stopped growing at the same rate. I think in the last 1 1/2 years she's put on no weight at all and has grown a few inches. Her diet hasn't changed except maybe she eats more at night time now and she actually seems to get hungry, which she didn't ever do as recently as 6 months ago. She also about the same activity-wise. She is now in the 65 percentile for both which genetically makes a lot more sense. Anyway, I haven't bothered to look for any studies supporting this.

Also freshman 15 has always been about girls.

i wonder how much of it (this freshman 15 thing) is based on students that live in dorms on a central campus - vs. students that live at home and go to a commuter school, or go to commuter schools in general

a lot i think. in australia none lives in dorms and most college freshmen still live with their parents. i think its a moving out of home thing more than a college thing

none = noone

yeah, that is 100% all it is

lol all-nighters, pizza, nonstop stress eating at the caf, watching romcoms with yr nasty girlfriends after a mighty pillowfight

(i lived at home during my freshman year)

It's about having a dining hall that serves a multitudes of foods, all the time, with no limits on how much a student eats once he/she has checked in at the door. Not sure how many schools have exactly that kind of set-up anymore, where every dining hall item is basically bottomless? Anyway. No one makes you eat your vegetables, and Mom isn't there to say, "Dear, don't you think you should skip breakfast today?" if you retain a little water.

Kind of outdated I'd say, but not likely to go out of the general lexicon anytime soon when we can still imply that girls, left to their own devices, are all naturally secret porkers.

i didn't eat very much, got plenty of sleep, and walked around a lot because it was a new place, and going for long walks is a thing to do when you don't have friends.