no boys allowed in the room!!!!

This thread is the best, thank you for all the thoughtful answers! Getting my drama out there helped me calm it, plus was in a good circle of women last night and got my head right a little bit. Maybe I needed to be so sad yesterday for var reasons but it seems to have passed over.

Hello no googling someone isn't creepy! If you're going to go somewhere with someone when you might be alone or remote, you should do whatever makes you feel safe! The internet IS a public space. I wouldn't normally do it because I think the process of ppl choosing to reveal things to each other in a certain order is part of intimacy and I don't like to co-opt it, and actually the dv thing isn't my greatest concern w/r/t whether to date this guy, but if you find something serious enough to possibly affect your safety, then hell yes.

Or as one of the women from last night would say, "Putting all your stuff out on Front Street." <3 <3 <3

Let's all agree to clutch our beneficial delusions close to our chests and LIVE.

been working for me so far
(on and off, but mostly on)

I love the saying about putting your business out on the street. I use that one a lot.

Trayce that is good news! :D

I routinely do background checks on people I am dating. I am excessively paranoid, perhaps.

I feel bad I may have seemed to imply anyone doing it is creepy. I dont think they are! I just dont get why you hear people always say "what, thats invasive and WEIRD" if you bring it up in conversation.

But, that then brings me to mind of the "women aren't crazy" article HomoII posted on FB this mornign (which was AWESOME).

someone i know googled a man who seemed perfect after one date and found that he beat a woman nearly to death with a tire iron

OK yeah I'd wanna know about shit like that.

in the last two trips to a certain grocery store, my cashier has
1) told me i was "perky"
2) looked at the wine i was buying (2 bottles) and asked if i was having a party

different cashiers btw

meanwhile, over at the aveda website (which i was forced to visit bc they did not have the 1 product i buy at the store i visited)

hair concern
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3830/11172826135_f5ca4b1622.jpg

pure privilege club
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3685/11173016323_2afef0c401.jpg

"How can we make you feel terrible about yourself? Let us count the ways (and also give you new and approved vocabulary for all your self-criticism needs)."

i went there for perfume (there's one i like, i think it smells good on me, i can keep it in my purse, i have neutral/good associations with it) and came out feeling like i was covered in focus grouping insects

If you weren't you, you would have to be the William Gibson character who's so sensitive to branding and aesthetic signifiers that she can only wear one kind of plain pants and tshirts and one kind of jacket and removes the tags and logos from all her possessions.

thank goodness that's not my most outstanding characteristic! good lord.

i have been kinda hungry for girltalk lately
what's going on with y'all?

All baby all the time.

She's still in the hospital (nothing wring with her, just had to learn to eat) but should be released soon. Then I can move from this exhausting frustrating liminal state of having but not having a baby to being an actual parent.

ugh i can imagine that being a v frustrating state
glad it's on the horizon though!

me: i lived through one holiday and it was very pleasant, now i have two more holidays + 10 yr wedding anniversary coming up
have been trying not to feel shitty about a number of things, and mostly succeeding
lots of drumming

I'm going to kill my roommate because all I ever do is wash his dishes and replace the foods he uses, since he still can't use one hand and barely leaves the house. I can't wait until he goes home for almost a month over the holidays. The other day he put potatoes on the stove and left them boiling until they boiled dry and covered the bottom of my pot in potato soot, which sat in the sink for 2 days until I scrubbed it. This morning I washed all the dishes in the sink and then vacuumed the floor of all the crumbs he drops when he stands in front of the fridge breaking off chunks of bread.

I've always struggled with how to talk to him about his not cleaning and not being thoughtful but it's reaching new lows b/c I've tried to be patient of his injuries and now I feel like his housekeeper.

It's particularly galling to me that he has never learned to "see" his own messes because he's never (apparently??) been responsible for cleaning them up. I wrote a piece on this phenom actually (since he's not the first guy I've heard that excuse from), maybe I'll post it and link to here.

people who can't see their own messes are astounding to me

i've lived with a guy like that, and there's a guy in our friend group who is so frustratingly messy that even the grossest people can't live with him. he even junked up a campsite on a camping trip and didn't realize he had done it. who does that! obv an extreme case. i think some of these people need cognitive therapy, but most probably just need to live with someone who bosses them to clean up their junk. it's uncomfortable and makes them feel like a child (and you like a parent), but someone has to have that talk with them or they will be 100 and throwing vitamin water bottles into a heap on the carpet, alone

Such mindless entitlement. That shit drives me nuts.

Ooh can I steal "mindless entitlement"?

God yes. Freely given to the world.

Bless you.

you should ask him for his pure privilege member number the next time he boils something to death in one of your pots

ahahaha

Or I'll just email him this.
http://limitedliabilitygirl.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/nature-also-hates-doing-the-dishes-or-so-i-hear/

^^^ really excellent!

Yay ty!

Why are some physical indicators of aging easier to stomach than others? I'm fine with my wrinkles, more or less OK with my sun spots, I bought bigger pants rather than try to stay at the (under)weight I was in my 20s, but I am rather not liking my softening jaw. It's like the flesh of my face moved down a fraction of an inch over the past month or so, just in time for my upcoming 40th b'day.

I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes I look at my jawline and think "ugh, I'm going to look like my mother." But I love my mother! And I love that she never opted for the knife for anything cosmetic! It's like I'm OK with looking older as long as it is Angelica-Huston older, but not older like normal-people older.

Anyway, I'm back in DC for a week to take care of various errands before the next phase of the Year of the Midlife Crisis, and am remembering how much I love this city and city life in general. I used to think I could do city or rural but nowhere in between; now I know that rural does not suit me for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Good stuff to figure out before you buy a farmhouse in Iowa or whatever.

god yes

the daughter of a family friend had been living in the city for about 10 years, prior to that she had grown up in a small farming town - but had lived in the town part rather than the farm part.
she met a guy and fell in love and moved to a sheep station in the Northern Territory. ie The Outback, captial T capital O.

after about 2 months she was completely miserable. but she stayed there for a couple of years (!) and even had a kid with me which...she's moved back home and is up to her neck in custody insanity and all kinds of mess. extreme example, I mean what she did was beyond rural, that's full on isolation, but to your point, rural life is not for everyone. but it's hard to explain when the scenery is so nice and the people seem so easy going. but if you've grown up in suburban or relatively populated areas, you take all the convenience for granted that you have to forgo for bucolic pastoral loveliness

lol she did not have a kid with me. she had a kid with HIM
O_o

feeling you, quincie - idc about wrinkles etc either, but all the women on my mum's side have turkey necks and/or loose jowls and my jawline has def started loosing definition over the last couple of years (and i'm only - almost - 34!)

Yeah I'm totally cool with some aspects of aging and freaked about others.

I grew up in places ranging from rural as hell to small town and NEVER AGAIN. I'm so happy to be raising a kid in the city.

I'm fat so I never had a jawline to begin with

Lady you have great facial bone structure so stfu (<said lovingly).

you too!

Why are some physical indicators of aging easier to stomach than others? I'm fine with my wrinkles, more or less OK with my sun spots, I bought bigger pants rather than try to stay at the (under)weight I was in my 20s, but I am rather not liking my softening jaw. It's like the flesh of my face moved down a fraction of an inch over the past month or so, just in time for my upcoming 40th b'day.

I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes I look at my jawline and think "ugh, I'm going to look like my mother."

OMG I have thought these exact words repeatedly over the past years only I'm still early 30s :(

http://the-toast.net/2013/12/04/invisible-signs-of-aging/

Haha yes Ive started to do that "pull the skin up at the jawline in the mirror" thing a lot :(

Looking forward to Sudden-Onset Cronery tbh.

I've suffered from occasional early-morning haggery for years.

i have had strong feelings in recent times of truly loving getting older, it's such an excellent surprise. this is not a grim acceptance of an inevitability, it's a cheerful powerful not giving a fuckery. i'm of established middle age now though, the early days of not being young any more had a bit of a twilight feeling of gloom about them.

Hearing but not understanding the language of the stars

I don't know who writes for The Toast but they've snuck some threads of remarkable beauty into their jokey lists.

I believe you, estela! I feel like being on the brink of middle age is a bit more challenging for me bc I'm close to youthfulness still. As in, if only it weren't for that one wrinkle/grey hair/baggy part, I could still be mistaken for 28! Never mind BEING 28, I wouldn't go back there for all the tea found on a large continental mass where they grow a lot of tea, but at some point I know I'll have to relax and stop clutching at whatever I'm still clutching at in a few years' time. (A tube of eyeliner, probably.)

i think when the day finally arrives you of all people will manage the transition very well.

I don't think of myself as someone with wrinkles but I'm sure I have them. It's sad to think that someone would see "wrinkles" before they see ME but I guess it probably happens. Regardless, that's on the viewer, not on me.

I don't know who writes for The Toast but they've snuck some threads of remarkable beauty into their jokey lists.

Most of the ethereal, creepy, weird stuff is Malory Ortberg. She did a parody of "Oh The Places You'll Go" yesterday that was pretty great.

:) :) My plan is too be too busy talking to people to notice until it's already over.

One of the unexpected (to me) pleasures of getting older is the thing that many women lament: becoming "invisible" to men. Once I was clearly no longer a nubile young thang, my interactions with the opposite sex became more comfortable. I no longer have the insecurity that men are acting interested and appreciative of me with ulterior motives; I feel that they are acting interested and appreciative of me because I am (hopefully) and interesting and decent human being. Getting older has meant that I feel less conscious of being female and just feel like a regular ole person most of the time.