no boys allowed in the room!!!!

You know, there are times when I'm really lonely and would love to have a partner more than anything in the world.

Then there are times when I think "some wanker is gonna live in my house and complain when I don't do the dishes? FUCK THAT!"

Second shift, right there, y'all.

i have been enjoying a lot of irl girl talk these last few days with my visiting friends
having my words come out of my mouth and then vanish is so much better than typing that i wish there were a better way to describe it

I get kind of overwhelmed when I read about the things that some of the women on this thread do (especially Roxy, Carl, LL, In Orbit) in terms of community work and getting involved in things. Like, I have so much respect for people who get off their encounter-suited butts and do something because I feel like a failure and a fraud for not doing it. (And it's not through lack of time at the moment, it is fear, social anxiety, terror of having to deal with people.)

I dunno, I'm kind of wondering: how do you do this? Not how do you find the time, but how do you find the people? How do you find the courage?

For me, don't give me any credit for going out and talking to people and looking for opportunities to connect to them, because by and large, that's not work, that's ESSENTIAL to me. It's fun, it's energizing. Plus you know how I love a cause and a good, defensible set of convictions (and I'm happiest when I'm suffering--I blame religious upbringing).

I feel like I have the absolute most luxurious life right now that I can almost possibly imagine: I wake up when I want and watch the news (stimulation), cook and do correspondence and make appointments, and then I go to events & workshops where I cram my brain full of things (stimulation) and watch and listen to people and get my emotions involved (stimulation), and talk and socialize and interact (stimulation) and then I go home when I want and have almost total solitude when I get there and I am never bored, EVER. It's amazing. The only bad part will be figuring out how to make all this amazing stuff PAY ME MONEY in a way that I really really hope won't require tolerating too much boredom.

omg you and me both sis re: figuring out how to make fun stimulating life lucrative!

Seriously! I had a 2-hr mtg today with a campaign manager for a social justice non-profit and got offered the chance to head up/innovate some initiatives with an eye to running for an advisory board seat later this year. All volunteer, though. On one hand, fuck you pay me, but on the other hand I need their organizational legitimacy and A SEAT ON THE BOARD OMG. That is BOMB on a resume (and I believe deeply in their causes and would be able to direct their budding policy development so it's not just an authority perk).

The real payoff though was 2 solid hours of deep connection and agreement about movement work and connecting to ppl and developing them as leaders. If I could do that all the time FOR MONEY? Died and gone to heaven.

Some days I think, "Yeah, every millennial with a conscience wants a job that 'does good' and THEY have advanced degrees in law and public policy and experience as field organizers. YOU waited until age 37 to try to jump into this world that 25-year-olds are better at than you, and you think you're going to find someone to pay you in this market? Get real, idiot." And then some days I think, everyone just needs one connection that works out, and from there you can work with what you've got.

Today is one of the better days.

I dunno; my best friend (who lives in NYC) got a job working for her dream company (working in the field of reproductive health, in capacities she hugely believes in) and IIRC, she was on the other side of 40, and had been unemployed a long time when she finally got it. OTOH, she started in a support role and worked her way up, but has proved her value to the place over and over again, compared to the millennials whose parents buy them internships or whatever. So those jobs do exist, and regular people I personally know do get them.

But, personally, I just feel such a disconnect from everything you are saying. Like, the idea of a fun, stimulating life is so far from my experience right now I don't even know how to get back there. I'm coming up to a year unemployed now, and running out of hope faster than I'm running out of money. The idea of finding *any* kind of job, let alone a ~meaningful~ or stimulating one just seems so remote. Gonna try (probably unsuccessfully) not to be a downer and shut up about this. I am starting to feel the whole "what if I never actually work again?" the way that I started to feel "what if I really am never in a relationship again?" about 10 years ago, and the latter turned out to be a correct prediction, so, uh, *panic*. Because life is much harder to live without a job than without a partner. But I guess I just have to try to think about all of the women (and there are lots in my family) who went on to interesting and stimulating careers in the second half of their lives, when they were in their 50s or even 60s (my Mum got her lifelong dream job in her late 60s!)

I kinda have to keep stepping back and reminding myself, no matter how useless I feel at the moment, like, all of the things I have managed to do with this year off. Even if none of them was "saving the world" or whatever, I still did a lot of necessary travelling and reconnecting with distant loved ones, I wrote a Proper Novel, I did a whole column plus illustrations for a magazine I really love. I have not just lain in bed the whole year with a pillow over my head, which is what it sometimes feels like I've done. But none of those things are lucrative, either.

It's just hard, because IO, when I see you describing "going out and talking to people and looking for opportunities to connect" as essential fun, rather than work, it just makes me feel like a space alien. But then I just have to remind myself, no, you are just an extrovert, and extroverts derive energy and happiness from contact with other people. And I am just an extreme introvert, and we're all different and we're all allowed to be.

roxymuzak just wanted to pipe up in here that I hope you are feeling better, and much love and warmth to you, and that if I were in Knoxville I'd definitely come clean your house. <3

I had a dream last night that the trendy thing to do was for gal pals to make youtube clips of them taking turns washing each other's hair in the sink in a really caring, charismatic way.

Aw thanks homo2

Well this is fucking sickening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/us/how-one-college-handled-a-sexual-assault-complaint.html?_r=1

http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/hobart-william-smith-sexual-assault

I went to this school for my freshman and sophomore years of college before transferring out because I couldn't handle the atmosphere. A couple weeks int my freshman year I was raped by a dude I'd met during orientation. I didn't say anything or report it because I was 17 and really naive and I thought that because I was incredibly drunk and told him to use a condom that it was my fault even though I said "no". Later I found out that this person had been accused of assault by several women but that nothing ever happened to him. Ugh. I feel sick.

Ugh! I'm sorry, I don't really have the mental stability to read something like the linked pieces today.

But E, I am so sorry this thing happened to you, And so *angry* that is happened, and that nothing ever happened to this guy. That is not right! (Though I understand being naive and afraid and not wanting to report anything.) It was fucking wrong for him to do it!

Oh E I'm so sorry. I'm sorry it happened to you and that it happened again and that you feel sick.

I tried to read the articles and can't do it either (and I've just been to therapy AND a psychiatrist appointment so I feel like I am about as mentally fine-tuned as I ever get). I got four paragraphs into the NYT piece and my vision actually got red with rage. I will come back to it, though.

Oh thank you so much, guys. It was nearly 20 years ago at this point but I just saw this article and identified with it quite strongly in some ways it was like OMG this bullshit is STILL going on?! It's not really that surprising at all(sadly)but it's still rage-inducing.

this bullshit is STILL going on

Yes, yes this. And how many times does it have to happen before the people putatively responsible do something? Probably the better question is how to we get better people in positions of responsibility.

Love and support to you, E, while you process yr reactions.

To the article, I mean. And to having to be reminded of sexual violence all the time because it's everywhere.

<3 Thanks, L.

I'm so sorry ENBB. this stuff is so, so awful. & infuriating, & sad.

im so sorry E.

E, love to you, and carl agatha absolutely OTM re: getting people with their capacity for moral thought and action still intact into positions of responsibility.

Someone posted this on twitter yesterday, seems salient to earlier discussion that was had here:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/20/mood-swings-more-than-pms-contraceptive-pill-alice-roberts

I have never, ever been able to take the contraceptive pill because I found it fucks with my mood disorder. I always wish there were a way to explore these experiences without degenerating into "periods make women be crazzzeeeeee" tropes. :-/ There were a couple of sentences in that piece that really hit me hard.

I turned down the offer of hormonal treatment for fibroids, for many of the same reasons. Surgeon consultant merely looked bemused when I suggested there ~might~ be a problem with his recommendation. GRRRR.

I will never, ever, ever, EVER take the BCP again. I took it for like 9 months in 2003 and it made me feel... terrible. I am "estrogen dominant" as it is without the help of synthetic hormones.

Bcp and all hormonal bc makes me into an emotionless zombie. Not good. Then there's always a weird fallout when I come off them.

I am currently 5 days late for my period and freaking out. I've felt like I was in lupus flare for a month - pregnancy might explain that?! :/

Eeep!

Pee on a stick, rox. It's been long enough and not knowing won't do you any good.

^^^

Agree, also whoa!!

I peed on a stick shortly after posting. Lol at that sentence. It was negative and I'm super relieved but also worried it's just too early. BUT there are also a milli reasons it might be late (stress and weird diet and sleep)

Most HPTs are pretty sensitive these days and if you're five days late I think it's probably not too early. You can get another just to make sure but it should show by this point afaik.

also yay not pregnant

And thank you for your kind words the other day. I don't think I ever got around to saying that.

Yeah, agreed that five days should do the trick. Also pregnancy symptoms don't usually start until after you miss your period (says the woman who spent three years googling every sniffle, abdominal twinge, and zit experienced between Doing It Day and Period Expectation Day for "signs of very early pregnancy") so the lupus flare is more likely to be a lupus flare than a baby on board.

And yes, congratulations!

everybody out!! that's me to my uterus

jk there is no current tenant

*fist bump re: empty utes*

Yeah!

http://www.moparts.org/moparts/picture/ute/66ute.jpg

no boys or girls allowed in the womb
(sorry)

Out of context my post is like "Congratulations on your lupus flare!"

Phew! (But also sucks to yr lupus flare)

[x] days babby free!

this is weird... but eveytime I have a pregnancy scare, I am sorta bummed when it's negative. Whiich is... ODD. Because I would be FREAKING THE FUCK OUT if it were positive.

Same. I think mine is always that I'm bummed that an easy explanation for my weird symptoms is escaping me and I have to persue another line of questioning. Lol. And I too would be freaking the fuck out if it were pos!

Apols for typos

I've had an IUD for so long I can't remember the last time I had a pregnancy scare. I was probably like 10 years ago!

Sometimes I worry that the fact that I've never gotten accidentally knocked up is some kind of indicator that I'm infertile or that I will be by the time (if) I get around to having kids. :(

That said, while I'd be a little disappointed I've never been one of those people who wanted to be a mom their whole life or who saw that as their most important achievement. I think I'd be pretty happy fostering or adopting or even not having kids at all and doing something awesome like traveling a lot or living in a beach town on some island cause why the hell not.

I do wonder if there is such a potential fertility test and if I would've taken it. I kind of had the same attitude as you re kids not being everything. Btw I never really had a preg scare but it was no indicator of having any trouble in my case...

I always thought I was infertile (I mean, how could someone as anaemic as me ever get pregnant?) until I got knocked up. Boy, was that not fun. Don't ever take fertility or infertility for granted without ... I dunno, some kind of proof.

No, I know. It's just something I worry/think about because worrying is sorta what I do.

Kinder - there is a test that you can have done that measures Ovarian Reserve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovarian_reserve) but whether or not it's clinically useful is debatable as it measures the cpacity of the ovary to provide egg cells that are capable of fertilization but there are other factors that can throw off the results complicate the whole business in a lot of other ways.

http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/08/16/humrep.der271.full

"There is only one study exploring AMH for natural fecundability in women of reproductive age (Steiner et al., 2011) and concluded that early follicular phase AMH appears to be associated with natural fertility in general population. However, this study was based only on 100 women and had a short follow up of 6 months. They have not even tested if there was any evidence of tubal or male factor infertility. Moreover, odds of pregnancy had very wide CI (0.08–0.91) to be convinced about the results.

A normal AMH level may be reassuring at the time but we do not know how long will it take for AMH to decline in an individual. Moreover, normal AMH does not guarantee conception even in an IVF setting, let alone general population. It is also unclear as to how frequently AMH levels should be tested and at what level should one be worried about rushing for interventions for fertility treatment. Unless these questions are answered and we have a validated long-term data on a general population for prediction of conception, it is premature to use AMH as a measure of long-term fertility (Broekmans et al., 2006)."

Still, I've read that some people/docs do recommend having it done if you're interesting in having kids and over 35 just to get a vague idea of where you're at in terms of your egg sitch. Idk - I might mention it to my GP the next time I see her and asks what she thinks.